Check it out!

Alan Street wrote:
> € >
> € > € "Greg Mossman" wrote
> € > €
> € > € > You're much better off
> € > € > clearing customs and slipping your Frankfurter to a drunk fraulein
> € > in a € > Biergarten, then sleeping it off on the flight. That's what
> € > Clinton would € > do.
> € > €
> € > € Somehow, I think Alan has a little more class.
> € > €
> € >
> € >
> € > Thank you.
> € >
> € > Actually, Greg wasn't too far off except for:
> € >
> € > A - She's Dutch, not German
> € > B - She wasn't drunk
> € > C - I didn't have to clear customs
> € > D - It was more of a long goodby than anything quite so carnal
> € > E - It feels really empty watching your wife get on a plane back to
> € > Los Angeles while you continue on the other way around the world
> € >
> € > But I suspect I'll agree with Greg's synopsis of the article
> € >
> € > Alan
> €
> € Wait a minute...are you saying that you were on my side of the ocean
> € without warning me (as in: why didn't we have at least a drink together)???
>
> Sorry about that, Michael. I was in Zurich at a conference
> (<http://www.iis.ee.ethz.ch/esref/ > for the curious nerd types) and
> didn't really have time to take a train to Belgium (for some reason, my
> collegues from IMEC in Leuven flew in . I was in Frankfurt for a 10
> hour layover (note to self - avoid long layovers at Main unless I take
> up smoking).
>
> I promise the next time I'm anywhere near Belgium I will get in touch
> with you first.
>
> Alan

You better...

Frankfurt is only about a 4 hours drive away from here (OK, I like
living in the fast lane...so what?).

--
Michael Wolf

-----

Cthulhu For President.
Why settle for the lesser evil?

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"Eric Maschke" <emaschke@houston.rr.com> wrote:
>
> If anything I believe Bush is too far to the center but it is clear that
> anything less in this day and age would be political suicide.

I agree that the far left of center is currently inappropriate. But
then again, the current rhetoric is to promote stark fear so as to
garner votes: the lesson that "the only thing we have to fear, is fear
itself" has been lost.

Now I'm not saying that a threat doesn't exist...it always will. Its
just that no level of extremist paranoia will ever save us from the
assymmetric warfare equivalent of the 'Golden BB' lucky shot.

And the reality is that on November 2nd, we only change the top, not the
true professionals in the trenches who protect the public day-to-day.


> As far as the Democrats being more fiscally conservative in recent
> time I'm assuming that you are referring to Clintons hat trick and
> supposed budget surplus.

I was actually referring to the period of Reagan to present:

Reagan:
12/31/1980 0.930 Trillion
12/31/1985 1.946 Trillion +109%
09/29/1989 2.857 Trillion + 47% overall: + 207%

Bush Sr:
09/29/1989 2.857 Trillion
09/30/1993 4.411 Trillion + 54% overall: + 54%

Clinton:
09/30/1993 4.411 Trillion
09/30/1997 5.413 Trillion + 23%
09/30/2001 5.807 Trillion + 7% overall: + 32%

Bush Jr:
09/30/2001 5.807 Trillion
10/15/2004* 7.430 Trillion + 28% overall: + 37% **

* http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/cgi-...www/opdpen.cgi

** 4-year estimate via 4/3rds linearization.

The bigger-picture bad news here is that last week's "mutiny" of a
Quartermaster unit is only the tip of a very big, ugly iceberg of
inadequate fiscal support to our Military, which includes refusing to
delay BRAC05 (closing bases to save money is a higher priority than
winning the war), spares, base cleanups, and equipment recapitalization
costs ignored or pushed into the outyears; http://tinyurl.com/4xln2


> Lets not forget that Clintons first two years in office showed
> he was so far left it scared the American voting public and the
> congress was voted out and for the first time in decades we had
> a Republican congress.

That's one interpretation. Another is that the "Contract With America"
was an October Surprise gambit by alleging accountability and term
limits. Did all of those Republicans who were elected on that term
limits platform actually voluntarily left office as they had promised?



> > Social Security was originally intended to be the thinnest of societal
> > safety nets. It has suffered from decades of scope creep....
>
> It was never meant to be a retirement plan but merely a supplement to
> our own savings.

Exactly.


> Iraq was a problem as were our supposed allies who were shipping arms to
> Saddam in violation of sanctions and various resolutions and scamming
> the UN oil for food program...kind of hard to get Germany, France and
> Russia onboard when they would have been fighting against weapons they
> had just shipped and sold to Saddam..........illegally.

I've been slightly out of the loop on the news, but I do believe that I
heard recently that the biggest "UN Oil Scammer" was Great Britain.
Not France, not Germany, not Russia.



> We didn't go it alone. We just were not going to wait for scandal ridden
> countries in Europe to give us the O.K.

> Lets take a look at the EU unemployment rate, specifically Germany
> which has nearly twice our unemployment rate.

The price of fiscal discipline.


> > Personally, I fully expect taxes and interest rates to soar within the
> > next 10-15 years...for the median American, their real income will be
> > cut in half. It will be ugly.
>
> It may be what is needed.

Yes, you can let the system run ahead until it does a crash and burn, or
you can take smaller, less catastrophically painful steps today, such as
Germany's actions you criticized above. Thanks, but I'd prefer to avoid
the catastrophic train wreck, even if that means some pain today.


> Spending however will have to get under control.

Its not merely spending: its the balance between spending and revenue.
You simply can't spend more while bringing home less pay without
expecting an ugly fiscal train wreck to occur. Since so little of the
budget today is discretionary, the only choice is on the revenue side.


> The national debt did not acrue overnight or in the last 3.75 years.

From 1980 to present, it has grown from .9 Trillion to 7.4 Trillion.

Of this +$6.5T growth, $1.4T occurred under Clinton; the other $5T was
due to the (cough) "fiscally responsible" (cough) Republican Party.


> Somehow after pissing away trillions on all sorts of useless garbage
> and programs that never work we are complaining during a time of war...

Such as the ~$.1 Trillion National Missile Defense (NMD) corporate
welfare program instead of adequate spares in the actual shooting war
from a CiC who claims to have never made any mistakes, ever, anywhere.

Yup, we are all so sure that the big nuclear Terrorist attack is going
to be delivered by a big, expensive Intercontinental Missile instead of
cheaply, covertly and reliably (lower tech) in a Shipping Container.

Just because its "High Tech" doesn't mean its any better. If that were
the case, we would all be using rebreathers instead of simple compressed
air tanks for our scuba diving.


-hh