Happy Thanksgiving

If something cannot go on forever

it must stop -- Herb Stein



According to the U.S. national debt clock the outstanding public debt as of 24 Nov. 2008 at 10:43:09 PM GMT is:

$10,667,356,322,960.55

(when flocke checked on Nov. 19 it was about $6,938,468,488 less )

Squanderville and Thriftville

-- Warren Buffett explains the trade deficit

Warren Buffett

The third richest man in the world, Warren Buffett believes he pays too LITTLE in taxes.

A survey in his own office showed that he paid on average 17% whereas his secretaries paid more than 30%.

The classic rebuttal is that the people who make a lot of money, in the process end up supplying jobs to others. Warren Buffett says -- that is true of many people in the world. They work hard and make money for others. But does that entitle them to a tax break? And would they stop working if they paid higher taxes. Buffet says he doesn't think so.

Neither does flocke.

Flocke is shocked by IOUSA

"To the U.S. economy what 'An Inconvenient Truth' was to the environment" -- Reuters



USA National Debt Clock

Bush when asked in 2007 about the possibility of recession says:
'You know, you need to talk to economists. I think I got a B in Econ 101. I got an A, however, in keeping taxes low and being fiscally responsible with the people’s money."

(in fact Michael Rosten claims his transcripts show a C-)

(canadian debt is less per capita despite universal health care)

Times have changed

As of 11/18/2008 American public debt is $10,660,417,854,472.29

There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.

Richard Feynman
US educator & physicist (1918 - 1988)

They should have left the jets at home

GM and Ford and Chrsyler head to Washington to ask for $25Bn

Another comment from Alaska

My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars.

Rail'n about Palin when the party starts trail'n and the strategy starts fail'n and the government is bail'n [out wall street]

Palin was not knowledgeable about world affairs, economics, geography, history, and so on, and many democrats, republicans, Canadians (and even bears) felt that makes someone unqualified for the job of vice president of America.

But is it fair that the republicans now tear her apart and leak all the sordid details of the campaign - out of context - and blame her for the failed election? This is bad. What about the mistake they made in picking someone who was not qualified for the job, and considering how and why those mistakes happened.

(now flocke cannot make fun...the frivolity is over...)

Frivolity

Election Night in America

flocke can sleep tonight... and even consider frivolity...

Flocke sees Capitol Steps

Flocke went to see Capitol Steps to learn about Campaign and Suffering, American Pie, Huckabee and Haris Pilton and the Bort of Spaceball

Look at some old Lirty Dies such as Gush and Bore

Ishmael Beah talks at UNCG

Ishmael Beah, the author of a A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier spoke at UNCG on Oct 3, 2008

He read a passage from his book - about the day he realized war had begun and the world changed. He talked about his exasperation when he realized that this terrible violence was occurring and many people in the world did not even know where the country of Sierra Leone was ( his perspective several years later, in New York where he lived when he left Africa) People should know, should educate themselves and others about what is happening there and elsewhere. This was the thread I saw throughout his talk and the questions afterwards.

Musee des Beaux Arts W.H. Auden 1940

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

Fall of Icarus Pieter Breughel