Sea Of Deficits

bfwebster on August 3rd, 2011

[Original song above -- I lack the talent and mad skillz to do a parody recording myself] Well I don’t know how I’ll keep my career I got the feeling that I’m out on my rear I’m so scared that my pension is gone And my furniture is out on the lawn Europe to the [...]

Continue reading about Europe to the left of me, China to the right….

bfwebster on March 3rd, 2011

Honestly: our defense spending is high. We’re still embroiled in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and while we’re withdrawing from Iraq, it really is unclear (President Obama’s various pronouncements notwithstanding) when and under what circumstances we’ll actually leave. So, yes, if we weren’t spending the money we’re spending on defense, we’d have a lower deficit. Maybe. [...]

Continue reading about The Myth of the Defense Deficit

bfwebster on March 2nd, 2011

The Kleiner-Perkins “USA, Inc.” report offers possible solutions to the financial nightmare that the US Federal Government — and all of us taxpayers — are facing. I don’t agree with some of these — I think the empty results of the “Stimulus” pretty much negate the first item in #4 — but it’s telling how [...]

Continue reading about USA, Inc.: some solutions

bfwebster on February 28th, 2011

I’m going to continue to post graphs and slides from Kleiner Perkin’s “USA, Inc.” report for some time. Here’s some of their text that accompanies this graph: Take a step back, and imagine what the founding fathers would think if they saw how our country’s finances have changed. From 1790 to 1930, government spending on [...]

Continue reading about US Federal spending vs. GDP (“USA, Inc.”)

bfwebster on February 24th, 2011

Most anyone in the IT industry for any length of time knows about Kleiner Perkins, one of the most successful venture capital firms in modern times. Well, as it turns out, Kleiner Perkins put its own people to work analyzing the US Federal Government as if it were a business, one that Kleiner Perkins might [...]

Continue reading about Would you invest in this enterprise?

bfwebster on February 23rd, 2011

Despite occasional efforts by progressives to assure us that the deficit doesn’t matter, or doesn’t matter that much, it does. Our country is bankrupt. It’s not bankrupt in 30 years or five years. It’s bankrupt today. Want proof? Look at President Barack Obama’s 2010 budget. It showed a massive fiscal gap over the next 75 [...]

Continue reading about Heads in the sand

bfwebster on February 2nd, 2011

Earlier today, a good friend of mine cited the Federal budget surpluses at the end of the Clinton Administration as an argument for higher taxes. I pointed out that if we had the same Federal budget as Clinton did, we’ve have a surplus, too. Then I put together this chart from a spreadsheet downloaded directly [...]

Continue reading about The Clinton budget fallacy

bfwebster on January 27th, 2011

Yes, Dennis Kusinich is suing the House of Representatives Cafeteria for $150,000 because he bit into an unpitted olive: The Cleveland Democratic congressman’s lawsuit seeks $150,000 in damages from companies that operate the Longworth House Office Building’s cafeteria. It says he bought the suspicious sandwich wrap “on or about April 17, 2008,” and eating it caused ”permanent [...]

Continue reading about It’s the pits

bfwebster on July 13th, 2010

As I’ve posted here before, I have a background in emergency preparedness, as well having been through my own experiences with both natural disasters and economic hard times (and, by the way, I’ve used food storage far more during the latter than the former). Some years back, I prepared a one-page checklist for getting started [...]

Continue reading about Updated one-page emergency prep checklist

bfwebster on June 1st, 2010

…ponder the state we’re in, and what’s likely to hit the fan over the remaining seven months of 2010. Then start working on your emergency preparedness.  ..bruce w..

Continue reading about As a new month starts…