I don’t know of the origin, but this is hillarious. 

One morning, the husband returns the boat to their lakeside cottage after several hours of fishing and decides to take a nap.  Although not familiar with the lake, the wife decides to take the boat out.  She motors out a short distance, anchors, puts her feet up, and begins to read her book.  The peace and solitude are magnificent.  Along comes a Fish and Game Warden in his boat.  He pulls up alongside the woman and says, ‘Good morning, Ma’am.  What are you doing?’  

‘Reading a book,’ she replies (thinking, ‘Isn’t it obvious?’).

‘You’re in a restricted fishing area,’ he informs her.  

‘I’m sorry, officer, but I’m not fishing. I’m reading.’ 

‘Yes, but I see you have all the equipment.  For all I know you could start at any moment.  I’ll have to take you in and write you up.’  

‘If you do that, I’ll have to charge you with sexual assault,’ says the woman.  

‘But I haven’t even touched you,’ says the Game Warden.  

‘That’s true, but you have all the equipment.  For all I know you could start at any moment.’  

‘Have a nice day ma’am,’ and he left.  

Moral of the story: Never argue with a woman who reads.  It’s likely she can also think. 

Call me slow on the uptick but I’ve just found out that Microsoft will be introducing their new operating system, Microsoft 7, later this year.  As one who struggled mightily with their “improvements” from Office 2003 to Office 2007 programs , I’m in a quandary as to what I wish for Microsoft Corp.   It’s certainly my preference for Microsoft to get their collective act together and ditch the ribbon system (and thereby bring a potential customer (me!) ”back into the fold”.  However, I sense people who’re more knowledgeable about computers et al are in essence saying, “Buy an Apple.” 

http://mossblog.allthingsd.com/20090804/deciphering-windows-7-upgrades-the-official-chart/

A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him, “Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.”

The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, “You’re in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of 2,346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.

She rolled her eyes and said, “You must be a Republican.”

“I am,” replied the man. “How did you know?”

“Well,” answered the balloonist, “everything you told me is technically correct. But I have no idea what to do with your information, and I’m still lost. Frankly, you’ve not been much help to me.”

The man smiled and responded, “You must be an Obama Democrat.”

“I am,” replied the balloonist. “How did you know?”

“Well,” said the man, “you don’t know where you are or where you are going. You’ve risen to your current position due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. You’re exactly where you were before we met, but somehow, now it’s my fault.”

There was an article posted on FOX NEWS.com this morning about North Korea warning of a strike against South Korea and the USA.

The isolated communist regime said through its official news agency that it would respond with military action if South Korea tries to stop or search any of its ships as part of the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative.

“Those who provoke (North Korea) once will not be able to escape its unimaginable and merciless punishment,” the North’s official news agency said.

…”It is a laughable delusion for the United States to think that it can get us to kneel with sanctions,” it said. “We’ve been living under U.S. sanctions for decades, but have firmly safeguarded our ideology and system while moving our achievements forward. The U.S. sanctions policy toward North Korea is like striking a rock with a rotten egg.”

Unimaginable and merciless punishment?  I think the band R.E.M. was right with their 1987 song – “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”.

A possible business revival and growth opportunity: Bomb Shelters

You can read the full article here:  N. Korea Warns of Strike Against S. Korea, U.S.

Today I read an article by Larry Winget about the book “The Secret”.  I love this guy!  His article is called, “The Secret Is A Total Load Of Crap”.  So who is Larry Winget? He is a best-selling author, a speaker, and starred in an A&E television series called Big Spender.  Larry is the trademarked Pitbull of Personal Development. His latest New York Times best-seller is called “People Are Idiots And I Can Prove It”.

So what does Larry say about “The Secret”?  Here are some excerpts from his article, but be fore-warned – Larry is very blunt and open about his views and they may not be palatable for some:

People are scrambling to find some secret that will help them be more successful. There are thousands of books on the market claiming to have all of those secrets. In fact, the bestselling book on the planet for the past two years is a book called The Secret. Let me repeat my opening line when it comes to this book: The Secret is a total load of crap!

The Secret basically says, “What you think about and talk about comes about.” Really? Is that how it works? I believe, “What you think about, talk about and get off your ass and DO something about is what comes about!” Thinking is important, focus is important, self-talk plays a role, but alone they are a waste of time. In that way, The Secret is a half-truth, which in my book, makes it a lie. The Secret cheats people of the real gratification and success that comes from having put forth good old-fashioned hard work.

You can read the whole article here: http://larrywinget.net/blog/?p=153

According to Larry, work is The Secret.

I have recently become a fan of the social media application Twitter and lately I have been following Senator Tom Coburn, M.D.  from Oklahoma.  On March 31st he posted these remarks:

• Congress has spent $136.3 billion each week it has been in session.
• Congress has spent $26.7 billion each day it has been in session this year.
• Little Known Fact: Page 72 of the budget admits it increases the federal debt by $4.9 trillion, rising by “$16,200 on every U.S. citizen”

For three weeks Congress has spent somewhere around $408.9 billion.  What does that look like?  Let’s look at some of the top ten companies in the Fortune 500 list – looking at annual revenues as a point of reference.

So in three weeks congress has managed to spend more than Wal-Mart’s global revenues for an entire year.  That’s more than all the products sold in all the Wal-Marts and Sam’s Clubs in 14 countries.  In three weeks congress would spend  more than twice as much as General Motors revenue (there’s a certain amount of irony in that).

The top ten Fortune 500 companies revenues are $2.07 trillion -  less than half of the increase in federal debt of $4.9 billion.

No matter how you look at it, that’s a lot of money.

I guess AT&T is just going to have to sell more iPhones.

I enjoy a good debate as much as anyone does.  Three other guys who know nothing on this blog and, ah, yes dear – you too, might say that I’m in the fourth quartile when it comes to being argumentative.  Nevertheless, during the last eight years, a number of liberal friends and co-workers were quick to point out how President Bush “created” a huge deficit after inheriting a balanced budged from President Clinton.  Being a good conservative, I for the most part took the verbal barrages and listened to how western civilization would collapse if Mr. Bush and the Republicans didn’t eliminate the deficit. 

Well it didn’t take long but things have certainly changed.  Does anyone hear the silent scream from the left – the wailing and gnashing of teeth from Democrats and liberals given the deficits that President Obama and the democratically controlled House and Senate are racking up?  A quick look at the chart in the previous post and you’ll see that the deficit:

·         Peaked at ~$410B in 2004 following the 9/11 attack and the subsequent war in Iraq. 

·         Was reduced to around $200B in 2007 (and had been going down for three straight years).

·         Grew to ~485B in 2008 as the economy went south. 

Where is the outrage amongst my liberal protagonists (that would include you, Roland) that President Obama’s first year deficit will be ~$1.85T, which is about 3.8x higher than when Mr. Bush left office? 

By President Obama’s own calculations, around $10T of additional debt will be saddled onto America’s back by 2019.  Again, where is the outrage from the left?

In one of the presidential debates, candidate Obama excoriated John McCain and the Republican Party about the deficits.  Shortly thereafter I heard the question asked – what opposition did Mr. Obama provide to the uber-spending policies of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in 2007 and 2008?  As far as I know – absolutely nothing. 

What changed?  Why is President Obama so willingly tripling and potentially quadrupling the federal deficit?  Why are liberals who portended themselves as deficit hawks now utterly silent on current and projected deficits?  Well, that’s not entirely correct as Sen. Kent Conrad (D, ND) proposed reducing President Obama’s budget from $3.6T to $3.5T.  Big deal – but what’s $100B amongst friends?  Geez, I never thought I’d think that $100B was “small potatoes”. 

I was recently “taken to task” in the comments of a previous post by Roland for (his word) bleating out conservative propaganda related to deficit spending.  Fair enough.  I am fiscally conservative and am admittedly dismayed at the levels of proposed government spending by President Obama and the Democrat controlled congress.  Nevertheless, liberals won the election and as such get to set policy and spending levels.  That said, I came across a chart that compares actual deficits by the Bush administation over the last eight years versus proposed deficits by the Obama administration.  The chart also compares White House and Congressional Budget Office deficit forecasts through 2019.  As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words (or trillions of dollars)

 http://blog.heritage.org/2009/03/24/bush-deficit-vs-obama-deficit-in-pictures/

I had the chance to watch a couple of the Sunday morning news programs and it was fascinating to listen to the various arguments and points between those for and those against the economic stimulus package presently before congress. In principle, I’m probably more against the plan. However, I am sympathetic to those who say doing nothing is not an answer.

 I understand that the government can acquire revenue four ways:

• Levy taxes
• Sell bonds
• Print new money
• Reduce current expenditures and use the cost savings elsewhere

Nowhere do I see any meaningful discussion for the government to eliminate any expenditure. There may be some tax increases for certain individuals but that’s a small percentage of the total cost of the stimulus package. There’s no talk of printing the money. Therefore, that only leaves the selling of treasury bonds (and similar things) by the government to generate the revenue for the stimulus package.

That said, a fundamental question for me is; does it make sense to borrow the money? A commenter on my Economic Stimulus Package Analogy post said, “If everybody in a country decides to cut down on spending, then we have a recession or a depression in our hands. This is called the Paradox of Thrift.” Perhaps so – but the larger question for me is can the United States continue to afford buying on credit? At some point, there has to be a decision that it is no longer economically viable to continue borrowing because of the interest on the debt.

For an analogy, let’s consider an independent roofing contractor:

• Let’s say he charges $4,000 to replace a roof ($3,000 for materials and $1,000 for labor) and that it takes him five days to do the work. For simplicity, we’ll say he never takes a day off so over the course of a year, he’ll replace 73 roofs (365/5) and generate a total income of $73,000/yr.
• He can’t change the cost of materials, but with new tools and a special truck with a lift, he can cut the labor time to 4 days/roof.
• He buys the truck and tools at a cost of $54,000.
• He now can replace 91 (365/4) roofs per year and generates an annual income of $91,000/yr.
• The increased productivity generates $18,000 ($91,000-$73,000) more income per year. This allows the roofer to pay back the loan in three years ($54,000/$18,000).

Maybe this kind of borrowing makes sense. However, if the truck and tools wear out before they’re paid-off the roofer is back to the old income with increased debt. Not good! Will there be an increase in this country’s productivity from this stimulus package to pay off that debt? If not, then what is the point of having the stimulus package?

With the economic stimulus package estimated to cost around one trillion dollars, there have been numerous (and some humorous) ways to put that number in perspective. Here’s one that I particularly liked.

First – the math:

• 1 (one)
• 10 (ten)
• 100 (one hundred)
• 1,000 (one thousand)
• 10,000 (ten thousand)
• 100,000 (hundred thousand)
• 1,000,000 (one million)
• 10,000,000 (ten million)
• 100,000,000 (hundred million)
• 1,000,000,000 (one billion)
• 10,000,000,000 (ten billion)
• 100,000,000,000 (hundred billion)
• 1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion)

Now the analogy:

• If someone spent one million dollars per day each and every day since Jesus was born, it would take another 731 years (beyond today) before one trillion dollars was spent.
• $1,000,000,000,000 / $1,000,000 per day = one million days
• one million days / 365 = 2740 years
• 2740 – 2009 = 731 (years remaining)