Archive for July, 2012

On Uncertainty, Certainment (July 30, 2012)

Posted in Economics, Politics, Society on July 30, 2012 by e-commentary.org

. . .

N          “Planning is impossible.  I don’t know what is happening with taxes.  I don’t know what is happening with government spending.  I don’t know what is happening with health care.  I don’t know what is happening at the office, but someone is going and no one is coming.  The gas station proclaimed that I don’t have to pay as much for the fuel that allows me to sit in a traffic jam and destroy the environment and drive up my health care costs even when I am not getting anywhere.  I remain confident that I will pay more for gas in the near future.  And I will pay more for health care in the near future to maintain health that is devastated by the fuel I am burning.  Europe is ready to implode; the Middle East is ready to explode.  O’Bama has not delivered on his promises; Romney cannot deliver on his promises.  Everyone in power is making promises, but the situation is not promising.”      

. . .

[N = Neighbor]                         

Bumper sticker of the week:

Teacher Driver

The LIBOR / LieBOR / LieMore (July 23, 2012)

Posted in Banks and Banking System, Economics, Perjury, Perjury/Dishonesty on July 23, 2012 by e-commentary.org

. . .

C1          “Scandal in the financial and banking arenas has become so common place that it is now more akin to daily car crashes rather than to the occasional and always well-publicized plane crash.  Who cares any longer.”

C2          “We as a society have become so inured to scandal that scandal is now the norm.”

C1          “No one at the top in economics or politics or law is not corrupt.”

C2          “And derivatives are now estimated to increase about a gazillion dollars a day.”

C1          “Be patient.  Give it a little more time.  You won’t be disappointed.  Rome did not collapse in a day, but we may be able to set a new Olympic record.” 

. . .

[See http://theautomaticearth.com/Finance/libor-was-a-criminal-conspiracy-from-the-start.html.]

Bumper stickers of the week:

 Another day, another gazillion in derivatives.

“A gazillion in derivatives here, a gazillion in derivatives there, and pretty soon you’re talking real economic devastation.”        

On Prejudice And Monotypes (July 16, 2012)

Posted in Society on July 16, 2012 by e-commentary.org

. . .

_          “What if the Vandals actually participated in the ‘adopt-a-highway’ program and picked up trash along the road every Thursday afternoon?”

_          “What if the Philistines quietly supported the arts and often underwrote the entire table at the fund raiser?”

_          “What if the Visigoths were really a gentle, quiet people who nurtured their neighbors?”

_          “What if the Byzantines actually developed a streamlined administrative process?”

_          “What if the Samaritans were really, really bad, churlish and ill-mannered?”

_          “What if Barbara is not a distant foreigner, but rather the girl next door?”

_          “What if Satan is a SNAG (Sensitive New Age Guy)?”

_          “What if God . . . .”

. . .

Bumper sticker of the week:

An Englishman, a Scotsman, an Irishman, a Welshman, a Latvian, a Turk, a German, an Indian, several Americans (including a Hawaiian and an Alaskan), an Argentinean, a  Dane, an Australian, a Slovak, an Egyptian, a Japanese, a Moroccan, a Frenchman, a New Zealander, a Spaniard, a Russian, a Guatemalan, a Colombian, a Pakistani, a Malaysian, a Croatian, an Uzbek, a Cypriot, a Pole, a Lithuanian, a Chinese, a Sri Lankan, a Lebanese, a Cayman Islander, a Ugandan, a Vietnamese, a Korean, a Uruguayan, a Czech, an Icelander, a Mexican, a Finn, a Honduran, a Panamanian, an Andorran, an Israeli, a Venezuelan, an Iranian, a Fijian, a Peruvian, an Estonian, a Syrian, a Brazilian, a Portuguese, a Liechtensteiner, a Mongolian, a Hungarian, a Canadian, a Moldovan, a Haitian, a Norfolk Islander, a Macedonian, a Bolivian, a Cook Islander, a Tajikistani, a Samoan, an Armenian, an Aruban, an Albanian, a Greenlander, a Micronesian, a  Virgin Islander, a Georgian, a Bahaman, a Belarusian, a Cuban, a Tongan, a Cambodian, a Canadian, a Qatari, an Azerbaijani, a Romanian, a Chilean, a Jamaican, a Filipino, a Ukrainian, a Dutchman, an Ecuadorian, a Costa Rican, a Swede, a Bulgarian, a Serb, a Swiss, a Greek, a Belgian, a Singaporean, an Italian, a Norwegian and 2 Africans … 
… walk into a very fine restaurant.
“I’m sorry,” says the maître d’, after scrutinizing the group …
 
“You can’t come in here without a Thai.”

Mitt’s “Destructive Destruction”: The Bane of Capitalism (July 9, 2012)

Posted in Economics, Economics Nobel, Newspapers, Presidency, Press/Media, Romney on July 9, 2012 by e-commentary.org

 

 

. . .

J1          “Facts are facts.  Mitt never created jobs in America.  He destroyed jobs in America.  Mitt never created wealth.  He expropriated wealth.  Some call it ‘creative destruction.’  It is not ‘creative destruction.’  It is ‘destructive destruction.’  Let’s call it what it is.”

J2          “Seems to me that if you acquire a company with one thousand employees with borrowed money you do not intend to pay back and fire four hundred employees, you have not created six hundred jobs.  The risk-taking entrepreneur who worked late and on weekends thirty years ago to build the business and expand to one thousand employees created one thousand jobs.  Mitt is part of the problem, not part of the solution.  But journalists can’t say that.”

J1          “I know.  I understand.”

J2          “Then you are not a journalist.”

J1          “I can live with that.  But I still maintain there should be a decennial Pulitzer awarded for Truth.  And an occasional Nobel in economics awarded to someone who knows something about economics.”

. . .

Bumper stickers of the week:

Bain Capital – the bane of capitalism

Eviscerating America is not building America

“Romney – O’Bama Care” Wins 4 – 4 (July 2, 2012)

Posted in Health Care, Judges, Supreme Court, Taxation on July 2, 2012 by e-commentary.org

. . .

C1          “To no one’s surprise, as head umpire, Justice Roberts called 78 strikes and retired 26 batters.  Then, in the bottom of the ninth inning, he came out of left field, called four balls, and allowed the runner to advance home and win the game.  Some vocal fans of the winning team who might have stormed the field were left non plussed because the decision did not add up.  Roberts knows how to call a game.  He knows that the season is young, the All Star game remains and the Division playoffs and World Series await.  The game is not over.  The game is just starting.”

C2          “Justices Kennedy, Thomas, Alito, and Scalia could have joined in Robert’s early calls and advanced their agenda.  Should we laud him for protecting the integrity of the court, whatever that is today.”

C1          “Whatever that is.  A generation ago, critics said that the Commerce Clause allowed anything not patently insane to pass constitutional muster.  Just about everything that Congress does is a tax in some fashion.  Thus, now is everything done by Congress that is not patently insane constitutionally copacetic.”

C2          “There should be some limits.”

C1          “Who cares about legal nuance.  Laws are concocted on an Etch A Sketch®; the provisions are as pliable as Play-Doh®.”

C2          “Something isn’t right.”

. . .

Bumper sticker of the week:

I seem to recall entering law school already thinking like a lawyer and exiting law school still thinking like a human being.