Send In the Clowns

 

But Do We Deserve The Title?

 

As a young newly married couple living in Washington, D.C., my wife and I read in the Washington Post that $1,000,000 disappeared from the Maryland state treasury while Spiro Agnew was governor.  The money was mysteriously returned in a few months.  Another $1,000,000 disappeared under Spiro Agnew a year later.  It also was mysteriously returned in a few months.  Spiro Agnew was investigated for fraud and corruption regarding the awarding of state contracts.

 

I want the reader to imagine our surprise when Nixon and Agnew ran for President and Vice President.  We thought that the American voter wouldn't elect them in a million years.  We were wrong, obviously.

 

When I ran my article about Eleanor Clift's comments about the "Debt Ceiling Distraction/Fake" I received some good analysis from several of you.  Some missed the mark because of people thinking it is popular to blame the president.

One person pointed out: Obama has raised the debt ceiling three times already since he took office.  Unfortunately, the game playing with the debt ceiling has resulted in a lowering of the U.S. credit rating from AAA to AA+.  Is this another Pyrrhic victory?

Another person stated: Ronald Reagan was a popular president.  What most people don't know is that he tripled the National Debt during his term, and raised the Debt Ceiling 18 times.

My contention is that no one wants to accept responsibility for their own actions.  Is too easy to blame others for our own problems.  As Rev. Schuler said: "If you can't solve the problem, manage it."  According to one author, there are two wide spread mental illnesses that need treatment now.

 

1) The first mental illness blames the world for all our personal problems.  Anyone with this illness is running as fast as they can to escape reality.

 

2) The second mental illness blames themselves for creating all the problems of the world.  Anyone with this illness has an epic size ego that is still expanding.

 

In reality it is a case of leaders and sheep.  The sheep would rather that someone do their thinking so they can remain sheep. Guess what the percentage of leaders is and what the percentage of sheep is among the American voters.

 

Scott

P.S. One positive comment by other countries is that the U.S. Government illnesses are limited to terms of office, but the voters have illnesses that are wide spread and harder to correct.

 

As an ending comment from a viewer to sum up our debacle of deficit spending:  I recently read a good book on the history of money and banking from the founding of our country to the current times.  It is called "Inflated", by Christopher Whalen.  It tells how we got to where we are.

Since the Civil War, and the use of "greenbacks" by President Lincoln, our country's growth and prosperity has been funded on borrowed money and inflation.  When interest rates exceeded 20% during President Carter's term, the country elected Ronald Reagan.  He was a popular president.  What most people don't know is that he tripled the National Debt during his term, and raised the Debt Ceiling 18 times.  Reagan appointed Greenspan to Chair the Federal Reserve.  Reagan spent more money than any previous President, while at the same time growing the Government.  He often made comments that people loved to hear like: "Government is the problem!".  Each President since Reagan has dramatically increased the National Debt.

Both political parties are to blame for the financial problems of our country.  In new figures released by the Congressional Budget Office, at the current spending rate the National Debt will be $22.845T by 2015.  This political theater that is going on in Washington D.C. is a joke.  A measure to reduce the Debt by $240B a year over the next ten years will reduce the increase of the 2015 Debt to about $21.9T.  What we need is a balanced budget, and a plan to start paying down the Debt.  The nation has maybe 15 years before the interest on the debt will be too large to pay.

The U.S. is going the same way as other great societies.  Persia, Greece, Rome, France, Spain, and Great Britain are all examples of nations that at one time ruled the Earth and then fallen to the wayside.  We need some young people in Congress that can restore the financial integrity of our Nation.

What We Elect Is Beginning to Look A Lot Like This

A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in California when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced toward him out of a cloud of dust.

The driver, a young man in a Brioni® suit, Gucci® shoes, RayBan® sunglasses and YSL® tie, leaned out the window and asked the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?"



Bud looks at the man, who obviously is a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, why not?"



The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell® notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3® cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop® and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany.  Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot® that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an MS-SQL® database through an ODBC connected Excel® spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry® and, after a few minutes, receives a response.  Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet® printer, turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves." "That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says Bud.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on with amusement as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then Bud says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"  "You're a Congressman for the U.S. Government,” says Bud.

"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"



"No guessing required." answered the cowboy.  "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked.  You used millions of dollars worth of equipment trying to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about how working people make a living - or about cows, for that matter.  This is a flock of sheep.  Now give me back my dog."