Wednesday, December 05, 2012
Sunday, December 02, 2012
Life in "Progress" City - San Bernardino edition
From the city of San Bernardino, where Interpol couldn't find a republican in city government..............
San Bernardino is so bankrupt that the city’s attorney is advising residents to “lock your doors and load your guns,” in the face of budgetary cuts that have downsized the police force by 80 officers.For the record, Obama took San Bernardino county 52-45
City Attorney Jim Penman made his comments to about 150 residents at a council meeting assembled to address the uptick in crime, including the recent murder of an elderly woman. Since 2011, the California city has seen a 50 percent increase in murders.
“Let’s be honest, we don’t have enough police officers. We have too many criminals living in this city,” Penman told KCBS-TV. “We have had 45 murders this year. That’s far too high for a city of this size.”
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Life "Progress" Country - Portugal edition
Obamacare here we come.................
Armando Costa, 73, is waiting for an outpatient’s appointment in one of the seemingly endless corridors of Hospital Santa Maria, a huge 1950s building on the edge of Lisbon, teeming with medical staff, orderlies, the sick and their families.
The retired business manager could afford private care, but prefers crowded, noisy Santa Maria because of the quality of treatment on the national health service. As well as social security contributions, patients typically pay a small amount. “I’ll be charged a few euros today, but I’d be happy to pay more,” he said.
How much the Portuguese are prepared to pay for public health, education and welfare services has become the focus of national debate after warnings from Pedro Passos Coelho, the prime minister, that the country’s economic future depends on root-and-branch reform of what the state provides.
But redefining the state’s responsibilities is highly contentious for many Portuguese, who see universal health care and education, free or subsidised at the point of delivery, as fundamental achievements of the 1974 revolution that overthrew 48 years of dictatorship. The government’s opponents fear it wants to destroy the welfare state.
The country has to choose between higher taxes or fewer state services, Vítor Gaspar, finance minister, said. “There appears to be an enormous divergence between what the Portuguese believe the state should deliver and the amount of taxes they are prepared to pay,” he told parliament recently.
More.........
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Life in "Progress" City - San Bernadino edition
Saying it had little choice, the San Bernardino City Council voted to cut $26 million in spending in an effort to keep the bankrupt city from dissolving and being governed by the county.
The city is already in bankruptcy proceedings and facing a $45.8-million budget shortfall. The $26 million in cuts will help the troubled city stay afloat.
The austerity plan is a required step in the federal bankruptcy process. It freezes vacancies in the Police Department even as the city deals with an increase in violent crime. The Fire Department’s overtime budget also was slashed by 35%.
The city already had stopped making payments to CalPERS, the state's public employee pension fund, since filing for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection Aug. 1, a move city officials estimate will save San Bernardino more than $12 million.
“This is a document that I’m holding my nose and voting yes on,’’ said Councilwoman Wendy McCammack.
The council voted 5-2 in favor of the plan, which both Mayor Patrick Morris and City Atty. James Penman said was a mandatory step in the city’s effort to restructure its debts and repair its finances under federal bankruptcy protection.
"Austerity"? What European county is San Bernadino in anyway?
So how many republicans were involved in this?
More.....
John Galt leaves France
You know a European country is in trouble when its business leaders complain about government spending and taxes. You know it’s seriously in trouble when it happens in France, whose business elites are more left-wing than the left.
Nearly 100 French CEOs, among them the heads of Accor, the hotel chain, Air France, Carrefour, L´Oréal, Peugot, Siemens, SociétéGénerale and Veolia, the giant waste and water utility, are urging socialist President Francois Hollande to reduce government spending by 60 billion euros (about $76 billion) over the next five years, and reduce payroll taxes by 30 billion euros over the next two years. The cost of government, they say, has reached “the limits of what is bearable.”
They also are asking Hollande to undo the suffocating regulations that have made research and development too costly, that unrealistically limit carbon emissions, and have curtailed development of shale gas in France.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/11/17/france-rebellion-ceos/#ixzz2DTlmcJhZ
Why I'm a conservative
Let's play a four letter word game.
You say corn, I say food...... a liberal calls it fuel.............
Are you freakin' kidding me? We're going to use all that food to fill our gas tanks when a couple of wells in Youngstown will do the job just fine.
Let me ask this question, what happens to the price of food when we take 42% of a corn crop and just waste it? Hint........ beef and chicken won't be getting cheaper anytime soon.
Now let's ask the important question. who pays the price for this travesty ?
a) Warren Buffett
b) A retired homemaker living on Social Security
c) Brett Favre
d) An auto mechanic
You say corn, I say food...... a liberal calls it fuel.............
President Barack Obama’s administration rejected a request from the governors of eight U.S. states to waive requirements for blending corn-based ethanol into gasoline, said a person familiar with the decision.
Market conditions don’t justify such a move, said the person, who declined to be identified because he isn’t authorized to speak for the Environmental Protection Agency. Gasoline refiners will be required to blend 13.2 billion gallons of the biofuel this year, the EPA said in rejecting petitions from the governors of Arkansas, North Carolina, Maryland, Delaware, Georgia, Virginia, New Mexico and Texas as well as members of Congress.
This year’s U.S. corn harvest is forecast at 10.725 billion bushels, the smallest in six years because of the drought. About 4.5 billion bushels will be used to make ethanol in the year starting Sept. 1, or about 42 percent of the 2012 crop, the USDA estimated on Nov. 9.
Are you freakin' kidding me? We're going to use all that food to fill our gas tanks when a couple of wells in Youngstown will do the job just fine.
Let me ask this question, what happens to the price of food when we take 42% of a corn crop and just waste it? Hint........ beef and chicken won't be getting cheaper anytime soon.
Now let's ask the important question. who pays the price for this travesty ?
a) Warren Buffett
b) A retired homemaker living on Social Security
c) Brett Favre
d) An auto mechanic
Life in "Progress" Country - Greek edition
Here's my question for any liberal/"progressive"/democrat.
When you watch this video, do you not think the US is heading on this collision course?
When you watch this video, do you not think the US is heading on this collision course?
Monday, November 26, 2012
Public Health
So a company fires 150 employees for failing to get their flu shots.
One hundred and fifty employees at Tri-Health received termination letters after not getting a mandatory flu shot.
According to a company official, employees were asked to get a flu shot which was offered on-site at the workplace and was free of charge. Employees that didn't get the required flu shot got termination letters this week.
Those employees who were terminated can go through an appeals process and get re-instated, but that process begins with verification of getting the flu shot.
For the record, my wife works for Tri Health. She told me that many of the people who have not received these shots are third shift employees who can't make it into employee health due to scheduling problems; it's not a rejection of the shots themselves.
None the less. This issue has been a big bone of contention for a number of the employees for the past couple of years.
In order to avoid the shots, some employees have gone to the extreme getting doctor's notes saying that they are allergic to egg products. Some were willing to work with a mask to avoid the shots.
Which begs the question. These are people in the health care industry. When given to their own device, most would reject getting the flu shots. Why?
It says something about the trust level people have with our public health system when even people closest to the system reject their recommendations.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Friday, November 16, 2012
Life in "Progress" State - California edition
Remember the good old days when Californian's made fun of Applachia (run by democrats at the time)?
Now that those hicks have seen the light and California has degraded into a Eurotopia, who's laughing now............
The Golden State has reached a poverty rate that is now twice as bad as West Virginia’s and substantially worse than the rates of poverty in Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and Texas, according to a new measure of poverty developed by the federal Census Bureau.
Democrat-run California earned its last-place rank under the federal government’s new measure of poverty, which incorporates more detailed analyses of welfare payments and the local costs of food, gasoline
and housing. (View the new census data report)
The state’s costs are boosted by its environmental and workplace regulations, and by 38 million residents’ competition for housing close to the sea.
The new measure, however, also incorporates a controversial calculation of relative equality that demotes states, including California, that have wide gaps between wealthy people and people with less than one-third of state residents’ average income.
Whoa Whoa Whoa............ I thought high taxes and more social programs brought income equality.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/16/golden-state-turns-to-lead-now-leads-poverty-rankings/#ixzz2CQBA4NnJ
Now that those hicks have seen the light and California has degraded into a Eurotopia, who's laughing now............
The Golden State has reached a poverty rate that is now twice as bad as West Virginia’s and substantially worse than the rates of poverty in Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and Texas, according to a new measure of poverty developed by the federal Census Bureau.
Democrat-run California earned its last-place rank under the federal government’s new measure of poverty, which incorporates more detailed analyses of welfare payments and the local costs of food, gasoline
and housing. (View the new census data report)The state’s costs
are boosted by its environmental and workplace regulations, and by 38 million residents’ competition for housing close to the sea.The new measure, however, also incorporates a controversial calculation of relative equality that demotes states, including California, that have wide gaps between wealthy people and people with less than one-third of state residents’ average income.
Whoa Whoa Whoa............ I thought high taxes and more social programs brought income equality.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/16/golden-state-turns-to-lead-now-leads-poverty-rankings/#ixzz2CQBA4NnJ
Thursday, November 15, 2012
How government works
During my time in continuing education, we had a big time discussion about tax preparer compliance audits.
To catch you up to speed. In recent years, the tax preparation business has become populated with various criminals and now the IRS is trying to clamp down.You may ask yourself, why?
Like any question in life, if you answer money, you'll be right about 90% of the time.
Over the years, every time the rich got some tax break the poor had to get something as well. Never mind that they paid no income tax to begin with.
So to throw the poor a bone, Congress expanded the Earned Income Credit.
Now you have poor people getting refunds of up to $7,500 and unscrupulous preparers more than willing to help these people scam the government.
If you were a normal thinking person, you might say. Wow there's a lot of fraud in here! Maybe this program shouldn't be so lucrative as to encourage fraud. And with that kind of thinking you'd never make above a GS 14 payscale.
How you move up the government totem pole is to suggest that the government sets up a whole new bureaucracy to regulate tax preparers.Never mind the people getting the dough.
And you wonder how the feds can't seem to cut a trillion or two.
Quit making education more affordable
For the past couple of days, I've been catching up on my continuing education requirements to keep my accounting license.
As we went through some of the tax provisions related to education, I noticed this chart with the various tax credits and/or deductions that are all centered around education.
Now outside of the the exclusionary provisions in the chart, all of these items have been implemented with the past 15 years. All in the vain of making education more affordable.
Now ask yourself this question. Is education more affordable or less affordable than it was 15 years ago?
Who gets hurt more from the escalating costs of education Warren Buffett or a middle class working stiff trying to make it work for their kid?
As we went through some of the tax provisions related to education, I noticed this chart with the various tax credits and/or deductions that are all centered around education.
Now outside of the the exclusionary provisions in the chart, all of these items have been implemented with the past 15 years. All in the vain of making education more affordable.
Now ask yourself this question. Is education more affordable or less affordable than it was 15 years ago?
Who gets hurt more from the escalating costs of education Warren Buffett or a middle class working stiff trying to make it work for their kid?
Friday, November 09, 2012
Life in "Progress" Country - Greece edition
Don't look now but here is our future............
Who bails out the bailoutor............
More.......
Greece is fast running out of cash while it awaits the next tranche of its 130-billion euro ($165.16 billion) international bailout that is keeping it afloat, a deputy finance minister said on Friday.
"The situation with the state's cash reserves is borderline," Deputy Finance Minister Christos Staikouras told a conference.
"This fact creates a condition of asphyxiation in the economy." Athens is considering rolling over 5 billion euros in treasury bills when they mature next week due to a likely delay in receiving the 31.5 billion euro tranche, finance ministry officials told Reuters earlier on Friday.
Who bails out the bailoutor............
More.......
Conservatism..... an attempt to save liberals from themselves
How's the job market looking right now?
Consider this............
Read the rest...........
Consider this............
- Energizer, which is restructuring its company, and as a result, announced it expects to lose about 1,500 jobs.
- Boeing, who expects to shrink their executive staff by roughly 30% at the Boeing Defense, Space & Security unit.
- US Cellular, who is moving manufacturing plants out of Chicago, and as a result will cut roughly 640 jobs in the area. Overall, the company estimates it will cut 980 jobs, about 12% of its workforce.
- Power tool giant Husqvarna, who is cutting around 600 jobs, a move that they expect will save them roughly $33 million per year.
- Darden Restaurants, which owns popular chains like the Olive Garden, Red Lobster and Longhorn Steakhouse. They are expected to cut back the hours their employees work to 28 hours per week. The Obamacare law defines full time employees as working 30 hours a week. The law requires full time employees to have employe-provided healthcare, or the company must pay a fine.
- Murray energy corp will layoff more than 120 employees to avoid expenses due to Obama regulations and taxes
- Welch Allen will layoff 275 employees (10% of their workforce) as a “pro-active response” to taxes in Obamacare
- Dana Holding Group – auto parts manufacturer will make numerous cuts in response to $24 million in costs due to Obamacare
- Stryker will be eliminating 5% of its workforce (1,170 jobs) due to additional taxes in Obamacare
- Boston Scientific will be dropping between 1,200 and 1,400 jobs and shifting operations to China to avoid Obamacare taxes
- Smith & Nephew will drop 770 jobs
- U.S. Cellular will eliminate 980 jobs
- UtahAmerican Energy will cut a huge number of jobs as “204 American coal-fired plants” are shut down by 2014 – basically maiming the coal-mining industry
- Lockheed Martin is expected to notify 123,000 employees of coming layoffs
- Consol Energy to layoff 145 employees
- much, much more coming…
Read the rest...........
Thursday, November 08, 2012
Life in "Progress" State - California edition
They called it Paradise.
The place to be
They watched the hazy sun
Sinking in the sea
Another wager? How about what the unemployment rate in California will be duiring the next presidential election.
I'll take higher.
The place to be
They watched the hazy sun
Sinking in the sea
Democrats gained a two-thirds majority in the California Senate following Tuesday’s election, bringing them close to the ability to pass tax increases without the need for Republican votes.
However, Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown quickly cautioned that he already has pledged to take any further tax hikes to voters, as he did with the temporary tax increases that voters approved on Tuesday. And Democrat leaders in both the Senate and Assembly downplayed the idea that they would seek to further ratchet up tax rates.
It is the first time since 1965 that Democrats controlled a Senate supermajority, and the only time since California voters passed Proposition 13 in 1978, raising the legislative vote threshold to pass tax increases to two-thirds.
Another wager? How about what the unemployment rate in California will be duiring the next presidential election.
I'll take higher.
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