Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

A true statement for fiscal responsibility…

lifted from comments cactus style by reader FA What IS relevant, is add up ALL social spending, HHS, Medicaid, Medicare, Welfare, SS… and then subtract it from the budget. Compare that to all tax revenues. You will find that when it is subtracted from the budget, there will be a surplus. Now THAT is a […]

Winning in Iraq news

by cactus Newmark’s Door comments on news and Iraq: More than a few people are noticing that we may be winning the war in Iraq, and that the consequences of victory will be large and far-reaching. Michael Yon, who’s observed Iraq, first-hand, a lot more closely than most U.S. journalists and politicians, believes that “We […]

Follow up on B-2 crash

by reader ilsm More on the B-2 crash. In July 2006 the B-2 program office put itself in the an award for applying Performance Based Logistics (PBL). Seems in Fall 2006 they planned to hire Northrop to perform the B-2 PBL. On page 5 of the award justification the program office touts innovations in support […]

Clever math, clever reasoning

by coberly Math and Math I was looking at a book called “The Standard and Poor’s guide for the New Investor,” by Nilus Mattive. In it I found offered the following counterintuitive argument (page 9): Suppose you inherit 40,000 dollars and you want to buy a 40,000 dollar car. You can get the car for […]

Revolving door employment going global

The Nation carried an op-ed on the expansion of both privatizing government functions, de-fanging regulations, and creating a global network capable of sidestepping most nations.This is part of the story as company loyalties supplant love of country. It is partisan and so below the fold. Total Intelligence, which opened for business in February 2007, is […]

Defining "uprooted"

It rained and stormed a bit yesterday. After speaking with my insurance company, I am told the following: This is considered an “Act of G-d” (clearly, the OT version of same) Since the damage is almost all on my neighbor’s property (their fence, their swing set, their garage), it’s not covered under my policy. Since […]

Soc Sec XIX: Narratology of ‘Crisis’

I have said a number of times in posts and comments here that the numbers on Social Security are all extremely important, because paradoxically little of the debate about ‘crisis’ is number driven at all. Instead I want to argue that it is fundamentally an attempt to tell a story to sell a particular set […]

Who is minding this store?

by reader ilsm GAO 08-572T Testimony has an interesting observation which needs thinking about. There are good reasons that this testimony and the testimony in 621T are not supported by released GAO studies. Those being the investigators would likely need to call in the guys with gold badges, and government officers would go to jail. […]

Squashing news or interference in NASA reporting

OIG of NASA found a preponderance of evidence demonstrating Accordingly, the NASA Office of Inspector General conducted an administrative investigation to examine reports of alleged “political interference,” predominantly by senior NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs officials, with the work of NASA scientists pertaining to climate change—to include whether NASA inappropriately prevented one of its […]