With kudos to the President and the Speaker, we now have a tentative deal to raise the debt ceiling. Of course, there is always something for each person to disagree with, and here is mine. The deal on the table merely postpones the expiration of the new debt ceiling for almost two years. We’ll have another opportunity to lose our AAA credit rating in January…
I yield to no person in my disdain and disgust with both the MAGA Republicans and the ANTIFA Democrats. However, because it has been so long, I sometimes worry about losing my appreciation of MODERATE Republicans and MODERATE Democrats. Thankfully, I have friends like Bob & Leslie, who sent me an birthday card saying: “The most important party today is not the Democratic Party or…
Most people see me as a big-bad-guy. What they don’t see is a big-bad-guy who cries . . . once a year, every year . . . on Memorial Day. On Veterans Day, above the hollow roar of “thank-you-for-your-service”, we pay respect to veterans who are still living. On Memorial Day, we honor the dead veterans who died in service. Unfortunately, the honor due to…
There’s an old Latin proverb that said “necessity is the mother of invention.” Unfortunately, that provided very little comfort during 2011, as politicians wrestled with increasing our maximum debt ceiling, just like they’re still doing today. The last time I lost sleep about our economy was July 30th of that year. The next day, President Obama announced that the debt ceiling would be raised and…
When I was in my early teen years, a new family moved two doors away. They had a daughter a few years younger than myself. Her name was Shirley, and she was challenged with Down Syndrome. Like most all victims of that terrible disease, she was invariably happy and friendly. My parents always insisted that I treat her normally. In fact, my father insisted I…
According to Greek mythology, Pandora opened a box that had been left in her husband’s care, releasing “sickness, death, and unspecified evils”. That was 700 B.C., which means the world has already survived some 2,723 years since the box was opened. In 1945, the phrase “black box” was first used to describe a electrical box that did things – even though people were “without knowledge…
My father will be 100 years old in four months and has been a deep red-blooded Republican all those years. Humorously, in 1981 when Barbara Mandrell sang her classic “I was county when country wasn’t cool,” my father joked that he hated the media before hating the media was cool. I remember that whenever I agree with him about the media . . . like…
I’ve never been in a movie theater when someone yelled “FIRE”, but I’m told that people completely overreact and panic, but I have been in an economy when someone yelled “INFLATION” and people do completely overreact. One more time — this is not your father’s inflation! He got burned by inflation decades ago! Full year inflation for both 1979 and 1980 was double-digit, 13.3% in…
Military officers should look and act dignified but not prissy. For myself, this indignity training consisted of “low-crawling” (on our belly) across a sewage-drying facility in Fort Benning, Georgia. It was probably only 50 yards across (4″-6″ deep), but it seemed like a 26-2 mile marathon. I suppose nobody could possibly be “prissy” after that? While awaiting deployment, some important person died, whose name I…
Halloween is a silly recurring event that scares children. The Debt Ceiling debate is a stupid recurring event that scares adults. At least Halloween adds a tiny bit to GDP with candy and costume sales. Because increased uncertainly is bad for business, the Debt Ceiling debate only subtracts from GDP in delayed capital expenditures, like factories. The Debt Ceiling debate has never reduced spending by…
