Here are some things I've been thinking about and some of my favorite quotes. Lately I've been busy with school and spending time with family.
- Obama did not write his inaugural address like everyone is saying he did. "Why?" you ask? There was at least one mistake in the first minute of it. The 44th POTUS was not the 44th American to take the oath of office ("Oaf of office" if you ask Diane Feinstein) like he said in his speech. He was the 43rd American to take the oaf. Grover Cleveland was President #22 and #24. Maybe his speech writer should stop posing with cut outs of the SOS and take a history lesson or five. The POTUS is too perfect to have written this speech. It would have been flawless had he written it himself.
- We ought to thank God that government isn't efficient in doing its job.
- There are four ways to spend money according to the great economist Milton Friedman;
(Category 1) You can spend your money on yourself. You care about how much you spend and what you get for that amount.
(Category 2) You can spend your money on someone else. You care about how much you spend but you don't care as much about what you get for what you spend since you're going to give it to someone else. Of course, you want to get the recipient something he/she will like and appreciate. If you really care about the giving the recipient something they will value, you give the recipient cash (turning your category 2 spending into category 1 for him/her).
(Category 3) You can spend someone else's money on yourself. You don't care about price but you care about value or what you get for the money. For example, you go to lunch paid for by the company. You don't care how much the lunch costs but you care about getting "bang for your buck".
(Category 4) You can spend someone else's money on yet another person. You don't care about how much you spend nor what you get for the money you spend.
The last two categories are the least desirable (as far as efficiency is concerned) and are the two ways government spends money.
- Are the people who work and are who are not earning a "living wage" still living?
- If we disagree with the Dalai Bama's policy and administration, we are told by many of his water carriers in the news that we are unpatriotic, racist and that we should give him a chance. I hope for nothing but the personal best for him and his family. I do not hope he succeeds in implementing his policies. In other words, I support the President, I just don't support the mission.
- "I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration, somehow you're not patriotic and we should stand up and say, "WE ARE AMERICANS AND WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO DEBATE AND DISAGREE WITH ANY ADMINISTRATION!!"" Hillary Clinton in 2005
- Speaking of her, when she runs into a diplomatic problem, will she seek the advice of the POTUS 44 or the former POTUS 42?
- In a recent news story I read, someone said that a few searches on Google causes the same amount of CO2 "as boiling a kettle" and is harmful to our environment. Maybe we should blame the inventor of the internet?
- I don't know what took 43 so long to commute the sentences of Campean and Ramos. I believe he should have pardoned them long ago.
- Why isn't it a big deal for Geithner not paying his income tax? He says it was an oversight and that his accountant caught it and brought it to his attention. This is coming from the only man the administration believes that understands TARP (their words, not mine)? Maybe the Senate should confirm Geithner's accountant to head the Treasury Dept. Seems to me like he knows more about taxes than the guy Obama is nominating to be in charge of the IRS.
- Why is it A's business what B pays C?
- "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country" JFK. "A free man and woman doesn't HAVE to ask either but will likely and VOLUNTARILY ask and answer the latter if the country is great enough and worth serving." SGG
- I spoke to a Democrat friend today and he told me that the world will open its doors back to us now that we have a new Democrat POTUS and POTUS himself says we can't sacrifice our ideals for safety. I asked him "Who's doors were open to us when we were being bombed at the WTC in '93? Kobar Towers in '96? Embassies in '98? Cole in '00?. I'll take safety any day of the week."
- If you ask me what is the one thing that gets the most and best things done for a society as a whole, I say it is "greed". Adam Smith says "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages." In other words, New Yorkers have steaks in the stores during the winter not because some cattle farmer in Texas loves New Yorkers but rather he loves himself and those depending on him/her. If the New Yorker depended on the Texan loving him instead, I'm afraid he wouldn't have steaks in the winter, spring, summer and fall.
- I call for a timetable and exit strategy on the Wars on Drugs, Poverty and Hunger.
- "We've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?" Ronald Reagan on Jan 20 1981
