Subtrafuge

Posted on 21/03/2009 by Grumpa Joe

Obama's Spending ChartIn my business, I was taught to look for places to cut costs. This is a graphic world. We can process information easier if we see it graphically. POTUS has been spending money like a drunken sailor, and it’s been bothering the heck out of me. The most recent dialog on the news concerns the massively huge bonus package being given to AIG out of the bailout money from the government.   I agree, one hundred sixty five million dollars is a huge amount of money. It is so large that most people can’t process the number. Most likely because many of us accumulate much less than a million dollars over fifty years of hard work.  Those who do amass that much can retire,  as long as they also receive Social Security. The population is angry that we donate our tax dollars to save a failed company, and then reward the men who caused it to fail with bonuses twenty times larger than a typical nest egg.

What I can’t understand is why the citizens of this good country aren’t upset with the antics of our elected  representatives. The chart above shows it clearly.  All I have done is graph the costs of the federal budget, and the various bailout bills next to the cost of the AIG bonuses. The left side of the chart is graduated in trillions of dollars. I ask you this; if  this chart represented your personal expenses, and you had to trim your spending, where would you look first? Which area would produce the most benefit if it were attacked looking for savings?  Do I have to explain further?  Lee Iaccoa, chairman of the Chrysler Corp wrote that he could cut ten percent out of any budget and no one would notice. Ten percent of the first bar on the chart amounts to three hundred and fifty billion dollars. Any one with a brain could trim that bar deeper than ten percent. If you have a job in manufacturing in the USA you are faced with making cuts of that nature everyday. There are many qualified people who could see where to make cuts. Most of these people are managers, accountants, and engineers. Do we have people from these disciplines sitting in the Capital ?  

Why then, are these morons in the White House and the Capital steering all the news toward the AIG bonuses. Do they think we are as stupid as they are? Do they think the people of the USA are so dumb as to not see through their subtrafuge. It is clear to me they are trying to deflect the news away from massive spending they call “Change You Can Believe In.”  

Here is something to think about; after spending all those dollars shown in the chart all we will have left is “change”  in our pocket.

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“$1,000,000,000,000.00 Like It’s Chump Change”

Posted on 20/03/2009 by Grumpa Joe
My Flag Flies Everyday

My Flag Flies Everyday

We hear an awful lot of commentary these days about the stimulus bill, the budget, the Porkulus Bill, on and on. Each time we hear the amount of money being spent, politicians and commentators alike bandy about the phrase “a trillion dollars,” like it is pocket change. The number, one trillion, continues to fascinate me. Probably, because  in my mind that number is so large, and unreal I cannot mentally process the information.  

It has taken me fifty five years to accumulate a nest egg large enough to feel comfortable with. In spite of the nest egg, I still have to rely on Social Security to make ends meet.  The egg became scrambled in three short months, and my fifty five years of hard work went down the drain. I must now consider returning to the working population.

My dilemma is this; I spent fifty five years working in a number oriented business, if I can’t process the number, one trillion, how in the world can a bunch of lawyers elected to congress do it? They can’t. They have no clue as to what is happening to their constituents. If they did, they would have done the right thing, and voted the  trillion dollar packages into the toilet where they belong. They would also impeach the president and his cabinet as being incompetent.

As an excercise to get an understanding of what a trillion dollars is, I made a spread sheet to calculate how long it will take to pay off a trillion dollar debt. The numbers are too large to show the entire spreadsheet on this page.

      years to pay off debt
           
debt in trillions   1 2 3 4
payback rate          
1 Million per day   2,740 5,479 8,219 10,959
1 Million per hour   114 228 342 457
100 Million per day   27 55 82 110
1 Billion per day   3 5 8 11
1 Billion per hour   0 0 0 0

My three year old  grandchild will be thirty years old if we pay back one trillion dollars of deficit at a rate of one billion dollars per day, and not spend another dime along the way. We don’t have one trillion dollars of deficit, we have ten,  and it continues to grow exponentially. Only the fat cats in congress will survive.  

 Send the tea bag, vote them out of office, do what it takes to get the lazy bastards out of office. Elect some people who are real citizens, and  who care about the country, and its people. If we don’t take radical action now to stop  “Change We Can Believe In,” only the fats cats will survive. The rest of us will spend the rest of our lives waiting in lines to get a roll of toilet paper.

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Dear Representative Halvorson:

Posted on 20/02/2009 by Grumpa Joe
This is my response to a letter received from State of Illinois Representative Deborah Halvorson.(Her letter is included below in it’s entirety.)
Dear Representative Halvorson.
The so called stimulus bill is nothing more than a gift to Obama to implement his campaign promises. It will not stimulate the economy. You are wrong in your decision. Time will tell. I don’t believe you or the Senate is responsible enough to spend the money wisely. You will spend the money to stay in office.
Here are my recommendations to you and your group:
1. Take a salary cut of 50% as a show of leadership and example.
2. Pass legislation to limit congressional and senate service to two terms maximum.
3. Pass legislation to make it mandatory to have one Democratic and one Republican Senator from each state.
4. Pass legislation to split the House of Representative to  fifty fifty between Republicans and Democrats. In states where there is an odd number of congressmen, give the odd man to the party of the majority.
5. Pass an ethics bill that is effective, and will fire Congressmen and  Senators who are found to violate any provision of the bill..
6. Reduce the size of all governrnent departments by 20%. The private sector is cutting jobs like crazy, but the government never cuts. This is totally unfair.
7. Instead of spending money, try paying off the deficit. Bill Clinton did that and according to him the economy flourished.
8. Cut out using the government aircraft for travel. Use only commercial carriers; the President included.
9. Balance the federal budget. When tax income does not cover expenses, cut spending to balance what we have.
10. Pass legislation to eliminate spending  federal money on abortion and contraception.
11. Do not pass any legislation unless there is a provision in it to find money to pay for it
You see Representative Halvorson, I don’t buy anything you stand for.
Please resign to minimize further embarrassment to the citizens of Illinois. 
Respectfully,
Grumpa Joe
*****************************************************************************************************************************************

Thank you for contacting me regarding your opposition to the economic recovery legislation recently passed by Congress. I appreciate hearing from you on this important matter. I understand many of your concerns regarding this legislation. Even supporters of the economic recovery plan acknowledge that it is not perfect, however, legislation resulting from compromise and negotiation rarely is. Like you, I am worried by the high price tag of the plan, but there are safeguards in the bill to ensure that the money will be spent wisely. The plan contains no earmarks and taxpayers will be able to track expenditures on a public website.

 

We are in the midst of the most severe economic crisis in decades. In some communities in our district, the unemployment rate has already reached double digits. I have heard from many constituents who are struggling to pay their bills and to feed their families. We need urgent action to start addressing the crisis. Economists across the ideological spectrum estimate that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will create or save over 3 million jobs. This goal will be reached by investing in our country’s urgent infrastructure and energy needs. Throughout the 11th Congressional District, there are aging schools that need renovation, crumbling roads and bridges that need repair and rural communities that lack access to modern high speed internet. By investing in infrastructure projects that will address these needs we will create new jobs in Illinois and throughout the country.

 

The economic recovery plan also includes one of the largest tax cuts in American history. By providing significant tax relief that will put money in the pockets of 95% of working Americans, the plan will once again start growing our economy. The road to economic recovery will not be easy. History has shown us that big problems often require big solutions. The recovery plan is expensive, but this is the price we will have to pay to turn our economy around.

 

Again, thank you for contacting me. I always appreciate receiving feedback from my constituents. Please feel free to contact me again in the future regarding any matter of concern to you. Also, please visit my website, http://www.house.gov/halvorson, for regular updates on what is happening in Congress.

 

 

Sincerely,

Z

Debbie Halvorson

MEMBER OF CONGRESS

My Flag Flies Everyday

My Flag Flies Everyday

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Stimulus and Spending; Are They Really the Same?

Posted on 06/02/2009 by Grumpa Joe
My Flag Flies Everyday

My Flag Flies Everyday

I watched the speech and waited for something that would make sense to me. It didn’t happen. Last night, President Barack Obama addressed the Democratic representatives at their posh retreat in Williamsburg, Virginia. I recall many times during my working life when the company was going through a recession our leader never sent us to a resort for a retreat. Instead, he put the screws to everyone in the company to shape up. That meant working harder, smarter, and with fewer resources. I survived the stress with some long term side effects that I carry to this day. It was never a fun time to let people go, and to work the ones, who remained, harder to get more done.  

I don’t see that happening in the government sector of the economy. The government never lets staff go, they do make it bigger though. Back to the speech. I saw PBO at his finest. His suave and flawless delivery reminded me of his campaign speeches that hypnotized the masses. He did it again last night. I saw something else this time. He definitely had the sound of a black preacher man in his timing and his delivery. The audience of democratic leaders shouting “amen,” to his points of emphasis. Maybe he did listen to the Rev. Jeremiah all those years. He certainly sounded like him.

PBO made a joking reference to the cable networks calling his stimulus bill a spending bill. He railed that spending is stimulus. I like to think there is a slight difference between the two words. A stimulus is a sharp prod to get things to move again. It could be money, and spending. Spending on the other hand is an exhaustion of money, energy, or resources. Over sixty percent of the bill presented by congress was spending that is not a jolt, but rather an ongoing drain. Sure, some of it might even create a job or two, but  not in the short term. If the economy is to be rallied to head off a depression, something more drastic needs to be done. 

PBO kept ranting that he didn’t want to be presented with tired old ideas that don’t work, with the expectation that something different will happen. I agree, “if you keep on doin’ what you been doin’  you’ll keep on gettin’ what you been gettin’.  I also believe that if you want to see a big effect occur, you need to make a big change.

Here is my proposal for big change. It is an old idea, but one that will provide stimulus and long term good health for the economy and the country.

1. Cut ten percent of the employees from every department of the Federal Government. The private sector does this all the  time to cut costs. The president, his cabinet, the house of representatives, the senate, and all employees of the Federal Government take a salary cut of 50% until the economy recovers. Most of us in the private sector will be asked to take reduced wages to save our jobs, why shouldn’t the federal government employees be asked to make the same sacrifice?

2. Balance the budget. Base the budget on twenty percent  less income.

3.  Can the entire SEC. It has a budget of $904 million. They are totally remiss to all of the thieving going on in Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, the banking system, Bernie Madoff, etc.

4. Can the entire Department of Education. It has a budget of $68.6 billion. It is money saved. As many as fifty percent of our kids don’t finish school so why continue to throw more money toward a system that is failing?

5. Can the entire Department of Health and Human Services. It’s budget is a whopping $737 billion dollars. We have a fabulous private health care system, but Medicare is going broke. Who can afford to go on as it is?

Need I go one further? I think I have given the President some bold ideas that he does not have the balls to act on. The tired old idea that does work is this: “Spend less on Government, and the consumer will regain confidence in the economy.”

The money saved by this plan will stimulate the economy because it will require less tax to run the government. The private sector will have more money to invest. “Joe the Citizen” will have more money to spend. All of the people who lose those fat government jobs can work in the private sector doing all the jobs that are currently filled by illegals. With fewer service jobs available to them the illegals will stay in their own countries: another problem solved.

Come on PBO, you can do better than “just words.”

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Wealthy Middle Class

Posted on 04/12/2008 by Grumpa Joe
My Flag Flies Everyday

My Flag Flies Everyday

What a joke to watch the Big Three CEO’s squirm on Capital Hill today. They gave the Senate an earful. Basically, we would have gotten off with a bargain had we accepted the 25 billion bailout the carmakers asked for in November. Of all the jokers who spoke before the Senate, I thought the guy from the UAW was most off base. After listening to a proposal from GM which could save an estimated eight billion dollars a year, he proceeded to argue about how he didn’t really believe the numbers of the proposal. Of course not. The proposal meant the UAW would lose some jobs. These are jobs that should be lost. GM, Ford, and Chrysler all carry dead wood because of the UAW contract. In the meantime, their Japanese and Korean competitors are hiring people in this country who are only happy to have a job. They work for considerably lower wages than a UAW greed monger will.  The typical UAW response was one which was adversarial to the management of GM. Even in a hearing which held the life of the company in it’s hands, the UAW forgot why they were there and began to argue against the management. They were there to support the company. They could not. They are the problem, have been the problem and will be the problem for as long as they are in existence.

It has been my experience that everytime a UAW worker goes up against GM he takes the attitude that “I’d sooner see you go down and look for another job than lose this contract negotiation to you bastards.” Over the years, GM has caved in, time and time again in order to please the stock holders. In the meantime, the UAW has become the strongest union on the world. At least it thought it was strong. All it was doing was looking at the immediate bottom line for its workers. Never did they imagine that the mighty GM could crumble. Never did they imagine that the Japanese and the Koreans would steal their lunch.

My opinion of the GM management is not much higher. They were arrogant enough in the seventies, eighties and nineties to believe that the Japanese could not unseat them as the number one carmaker in the world. In the meantime the Japanese continued to do everything right. Little by little they chipped away at the GM market share which went from forty-five percent in the seventies to twenty percent today. They are lucky to have that. The management of GM today is finally waking up and making some good cars. Their quality rivals the Japanese. They have a way to go with overall reliability, but their quality has improved. Their styling sucks. Their current hot car, the Cadillac STS is a winner, but the Chevy Malibu, their work horse, is a dog. I can’t believe that with all the design talent in the USA and within GM that they continue to make cars that look shitty. I can only blame it on the management. Their designers are better than that.

In the meantime, the Japanese continue to work their fifty year strategic plan. Their car companies are in union with the government. They work together in thier industries for the good of the country. The car company employees work under a job for life program. This program keeps them from organizing. These employess are also retrained to work in many different areas in order to reamain employed. They do so. In the meantime our wonderful UAW is protecting jobs even when they are no longer needed.

Another famous UAW contract point is the pay for no work. When a US car company sees a downturn in business, and needs to cut back to save money, the UAW workers continue to get paid eighty percent of their normal wages for up to eight months. What a sweet seal that is. Get paid for nothing, bring on the layoff.

Henry Ford created the middle class when he began building cars. Over the years the UAW has created the “wealthy middle class.”  Thier workers are so well paid they rival the wages of our most educated college students. A UAW worker does not have to give up four or more years of his life to study either. He works the line doing some mundane job better served by a robot.

In the meantime, GM does a profitable business in other parts of the world. Why? Ask yourself that? Why can they compete in other countries but not the USA? The Japs sell the same car against them in other countries, so why do they do so poorly in the USA. Two reasons: The first is perceived quality. GM has sold us such crap for so many years we don’t believe that it is improved to that of the Japs. Second, GM costs are too high compared to their competitors, and they cheeze the car to make profit. That second point only hurts the first one.

If Congress gives them the money it should be with the following caveat: eliminate the UAW, or get major concessions from them. Another option, let GM build cars in another country and import them to the USA.

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