History Repeats Itself, example 14,954,769,152.76

H/T Doug

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

OMG! Did you hear? The top 20% have more money than the bottom 20%!!!
Well, duh. And if the top 20% had the same amount of money as the bottom 20%, they wouldn't be on top, would they?
Let's say you have $100 and you are in the bottom 1/5.
Let's say the next 1/5 has 20% (1/5) more and so on.
Top 1/5   $207
2nd 1/5   $173
3rd 1/5   $144
4th 1/5   $120
You       $100
That top bastich has twice as much as you!
Remember, the top 1% already pay 36% of the tax burden.
And nearly 50% don't pay income tax at all.

Bad banks, or bad attitude?

I remain astounded that a groundswell of public angst would arise because BoA decided to add a $5 fee for using your debit card. I mean, you DO use it, and it is a cost to the bank, duh. Every transaction requires a series of actions from crediting the merchant to debiting your account and all of the banks changing money in between. You don't work for free, why should they? So, why do people think that it should be free? It wasn't free before, someone else was paying for it -- merchants.
This is the essential problem with entitlement society. It isn't what people do or don't do that leads them to some expectation. It is what everyone else does or doesn't do that is viewed through the lens of personal desire. I want it, you aren't giving it to me, therefore you are a bad actor.
When did this change-up occur? More importantly, how do we undo it?

Maybe it's just me, but is there a family resemblance?

There has been discussion about entitlement society and how government leads to dependence - that individuals learn to rely on government to solve their personal problems. Personal benefits such as food stamps, seemingly endless unemployment insurance, healthcare and retirement income actually do allow (in some cases enforce) dependence on state and federal government on a month to month basis. It's like you can't get away from it, and many/most people can't afford to pay for both the entitlement and an alternative that doesn't manage and control their day-to-day lives.

But wait, there's more. States are in the same pickle. The stimulus gave states untold billions to shore up unemployment, supposedly. And like others, I asked what happens when this faucet/firehose of funds get's shut off?

Well the answer is that states cry woe, we will have to lay off teachers, police and emergency responders because the mean old government didn't send us their paychecks. Forget we spent all our money on their benefits. And not like states are hiring most of these people anyway, local government is.

But why is local government relying on the federal government to cough up the money for their employees? Isn't that kind of careless? Did they really think the gravy train has no caboose? Look people, as long as the teachers and the county sheriffs are working for federal programs, they aren't working for you. Do you really want to give up control like that? Because the federal government will come calling with those "conditions." The money is never free.

Putting the National Debt in Perspective - another analogy

These numbers change pretty quickly, but they are close enough for government work, anyway.

• U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
• Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000
• New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
• National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
• Recent budget cut: $ 38,500,000,000
.............
Now, remove 8 zeros and pretend it's a household budget.
• Annual family income: $21,700
• Money the family spent: $38,200
• New debt on the credit card: $16,500
• Outstanding balance on credit card: $142,710
• Total budget cuts: $385

Sorta brings the issue "home" doesn't it ?

Let's talk energy

Climate change is a close relative, I don't want to go there. I just want to lay out some thoughts on energy.

According to Pickens, in 2009, the US imported 63% of our oil at a cost of $265 billion. And that was fairly cheap oil. Let's assume in 5 years, we could decrease our imported oil costs by 20%. That is a potential value of $53 billion, assuming oil in constant dollars. That is $53 billion more circulating in our own economy. Over 10 years, we should be able to bring nuclear power stations online, reducing dependence on oil and natural gas for electricity. Is another 30% reduction in oil imports reasonable in a second five year period? That's another $80 billion for a total of $186 billion over 10 years. That's money circulating in our economy instead of Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, etc.

If I am missing something please correct me.
We have a lot of natural gas reserves - 100 years if you believe Pickens.
Compressed natural gas vehicles have been around for years. I have seen them in Wash DC for at least the last 6 years, passenger cars, taxis and buses.
Many people have natural gas to their house.
Delivering CNG to main highways wouldn't be any more costly than replacing all the existing gas storage tanks (that has been going on for years because the tanks leak).

We should be able to turn over 20% of the passenger vehicles, municipal buses, taxis and light delivery trucks in 5-7 years, about the time we will need to ramp up CNG delivery infrastructure.

It seems like a reasonable goal then to reduce our dependence on foreign oil imports by both increasing our own output, converting to CNG and at least in the short term rely on coal.

How many jobs would that $186 billion create?