dakine01

Enjoy the music

The Chicago Archdiocese must have a printing press or mint somewhere that allows them to continue to pay million dollar settlements or buy survivors of victims who have committed suicide a car and a house. Even after the Vatican substantiates the abuse and the perpetrator is allowed to flaunt the Vatican rulings against contact with children.

They. Just. Don’t. Get. It.

Most everyone knows the most common use of welfare as helping those in danger of being left behind by society. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP although often still referred to as Food Stamps, and Medicaid are the most well known programs available to people. And no, Social Security and Medicare are not welfare programs.

The first Earth day was declared by the UN for March 21, 1970 but for the US, the date of April 22 was established by then Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson. I do not really recall anything from either of the “Earth Days” from 1970.

What. A. Week.

I had to laugh yesterday morning. I saw a tweet that someone had sent or re-tweeted (it was in my feed anyway) and the gist of it was “You know it’s been a weird week when an Elvis impersonator tries to poison the President and it is only the third most important story for the week.”

A couple of years ago, you might remember that McDonalds got a lot of publicity out of a one day hiring binge. I wrote about it here with a follow-up about the Washington Post noticing that it was a “McJobs” economic recovery a couple of weeks later. So here we are, two years later and where exactly are we?

At best, we are treading water. At best.

Word leaked last Friday (April 5) that Chained CPI was going to be part of President Obama’s budget, prompting me to point out a simple truth, “A Bad Idea Is a Bad Idea, No Matter Who Proposes It.” Of course, starting Monday, all the usual suspects and even a few somewhat surprising suspects started pushing the idea as a wonderful thing, maybe even as good as sliced bread.

Let me state this right up front – Chained CPI is a bad idea. A very bad idea.

A couple of things that always struck me about the writings of Asimov et al is the inherent optimism each of these authors showed in their writings. It seems, in their “future histories” that there is/will be a dystopian interlude that humanity has to struggle through, maybe even more than one. I have always found these to be optimistic that we will reach the stars and do so before we kill ourselves and all living creatures.

I think these nations are going to be competing with the World Bank and IMF very shortly and may well offer an alternative to the forced austerity. I think the situation on Cyprus could play out much differently if the Cypriots had an alternative to the Euro Finance Ministers requirements for a bailout.