wasteful spending

Chris Knight's avatar

As I do every year, at the moment I am watching the Presidential State of the Union Address. And by “watching” I mean that, per my usual custom, I have my back turned to the television so that I’m not tuned in to the imagery at all. Stripped of the visual component, my brain is more keenly listening to what Barack Obama is really saying.

So what do I think? He is definitely far more articulate and presidential-sounding than George W. Bush. Unfortunately he’s talking about wasting money just as bad as Bush ever did.

(And as an aside, I miss tuning in to this without the live and uncommonly wise commentary of young master Kyle Williams. Hey Kyle, I know you’re reading this: it’s way past time for you to start a blog or something ‘cuz I still get lots of e-mail from people asking how you’re doing and ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

The $787 BILLION package is now enacted legislation, as President Barack Obama signed the bill at a ceremony in Denver.

There might be another “stimulus” coming soon, believe it or not.

And on the day of this esteemed occasion, the Dow dropped 297.81 points, -3.79%, to close at 7,552.60.

And on a somewhat related note, I’ve been hearing some curious rumblings about stuff going down in the Eastern Europe markets, that might bear watching for the time being....

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Jerome Corsi has published a wallopin’ eye-opener of an essay. According to his figures, the United States federal government’s runaway spending (like the “stimulus”) combined with its already existing financial obligations, is more than the gross domestic product of the entire world.

There is no way we are going to be able to pay for all of this in our lifetime, the lifetime of our children, and quite possibly the lifetime of their grandchildren. Not if our politicians keep adhering to this insanity....

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Chris Knight's avatar

ReadTheStimulus.org is reporting that the final language of the “stimulus” bill has been posted on the U.S. House website. But if you think you’re going to get to exercise your right to easily pore over the legislation, think again. From ReadTheStimulus.org…

Final Language Posted
Posted at 11:00 pm on Thursday, February 12, 2009

The final language has been posted; you can find links to the various docs at the Speaker’s website. Update: The speaker’s website is apparently down. Imagine that. Docs are also available here.

The total size of the four major files is over 100MB, and consists of 1419 pages. Three of the four files are huge “scanned” PDFs, meaning they were created by printing the original document and then scanning it in again — and therefore contain no real “text” that can be easily searched. This will make our parsing process difficult and more time consuming, so we

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Chris Knight's avatar

At this point, I am only left to seriously wonder if the people who are supposed to be running the country, have any functional grasp at all of the value of numbers.

According to a story on Bloomberg.com, the total cost of all the bailouts that the U.S. House and Senate are pursuing with this “stimulus” package, is going to come out to, at least, $9.7 trillion.

Here it is for people who like to look at lots of zeroes…

$9,700,000,000,000

It’s said to be enough to pay off 90% of all the homeowner mortgages in this country.

I’m going to paraphrase a line that I heard from a movie several years ago…

“The country is headed for trouble. The country is headed for grief.”...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Awright, I’m prepared to go ahead and say it: the Obama Presidency is already a disaster. And this legislation is gonna be about as successful as the Smoot-Hawley Act.

Word out of D.C. tonight is that a tentative agreement on the “stimulus” package has been reached in the Senate. It’s probably going to be enacted law over the weekend or soon afterward.

Said “stimulus” is going to cost me and you, Fellow Taxpayer…

$780,000,000,000

According to one senator, James Inhofe out of Oklahoma, the bill is only 7% stimulating and the rest of it is just more spending.

I remember the big budget battle in 1993. It’s what really started opening my eyes on all the waste that goes on in the federal government. And I never thought that I would see anything that outrageous again.

If the phone lines to Washington D.C. don’t burn up with ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

How bad are things when paying for the swearing in of a new President of the United States requires bailing out by the United States government?

George W. Bush has declared an emergency in and around Washington D.C. in anticipation of what is expected to be the record number of people who will be coming to town over the next several days to witness the inauguration of his successor, Barack Obama. Doing so “frees up” contingency funds that usually go toward hurricane relief or for other natural disasters. In this case that same money is going toward the inaugural celebrations. Providing for facilities is expected to cost the city $75 million and the state of Maryland, $12 million.

Quite a few things that could be observed about what this says regarding the American people and their government…

Admittedly, presidential inaugurations have always been a bit festive. Probably none on record ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

I don’t mind saying this: I’ve never liked or trusted Mike Easley, before or after he became Governor of North Carolina.

When I was a reporter in Asheville, I saw how Easley, who was then the state’s Attorney General, practically stole land from a private owner. Easley’s claim was that the land needed to be environmentally protected, as if it were pristine wilderness. Then an aerial photograph showed that there were already not only housing developments nearby but a chemical plant also. I saw the plans that the guy had for the land and there’s no question in my mind that he was going to responsibly manage the land and make it into something that everyone could enjoy. He was certainly going to do a much better job at it than the state government ever would.

Easley had the state take it anyway.

So now Mike Easley is on his ...

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Among other things, the battery in the iPhone is non-replaceable. The thing is built into the iPhone, just as the battery is sealed inside Apple’s iPod and cannot be replaced by the user (or at least not without voiding the warranty).

That’s plenty enough reason to not desire an iPhone. The mark of a truly useful gizmo is how hassle-free it is. And after a year of use, I do not want to have to send off my iPhone for a new battery (if Apple will even allow for that, considering how this seems to be intended to force you to buy the latest iPhone at that point) when I am more than perfectly capable of swapping out a battery myself. There’s no need to handicap the user’s ability to do something that is routine practice.

Besides, six hundred bucks for a telephone seems more than a bit… extravagant....

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