Winter Blues

And other news.

Monday - February 7, 2011
A new beginning. For the next few days I intend to write brief articles on some subject which is pertinent at the time. For us, here on the hill, it has already been a long, hard winter with several more weeks to go regardless of what that "Groundhog", who didn't see his shadow, said. The most of the news over the weekend either had to do with Egypt, O'Reilley's interview with the President or the Super Bowl. I don't know which one was most exciting, I didn't watch much of either one. I did read an article in the newspaper about how gasoline mixed with ethanol was really bad for lawn mowers and weed trimmers. It appears that ethanol and gasoline will "seperate in moist enough conditions -- leaving fuel tanks and carburetor bodies on mowers and weed trimmers susceptible to corrosion due to typical, sparing usage. Most people don't leave a car sitting a month or two months before they run it. That's why they are getting away with it in automobiles." (Daily Corinthian, January 6, 2011) I guess you could say that we have had a fairly damp winter so far. It snowed again this morning but it was too damp for any accumulation. Maybe Wednesday.

Tuesday - February 8, 2011
On Wednesday November 24, 2010, in my blog posting titled "Wake up America (and smell the manure)" I wrote about the "Social Security Trust Fund" and the way it is being maligned by both politicians and news people alike which, to me, was beginning to cause a bad smell to waft out of Washington and New York. Today that stench is growing even stronger. Bill O'Reilly, in his much bally-hooed interview of President Obama during the Super Bowl game kept silent and let Obama get away with telling the world that our Federal Budget deficit could not be reduced without cutting Social Security and Medicare. Never mind that those programs are paid out of the "Social Security Trust Fund" which, in turn, is funded by the FICA (payroll) tax and by a law passed, by a government completely controlled by democrats, in 1990 are, emphatically, not to be counted as part of the United States Budget, neither surplus nor deficit. Up until this time the payroll tax had fully funded, with money left over to go into IOUs to go into the Social Security Trust Fund. After President Obama asked for and received a two percentage points cut in the payroll tax for this year, there probably won't be enough to pay all benefits therefore the Treasury will have to borrow more money to buy back some of those IOUs. Isn't that really what Washington is worried about? Like the saying goes, "You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. Come on America, WAKE UP.

Wednesday - February 9, 2011
I guess you could say that the latest fad in Washington, i.e., the Federal Government, is the bailing out of states for one reason or another. It doesn't seem to make much difference what it is. Today it just happens to be for money already owed to the Federal Government by some states to cover their share of the unemployment checks already sent out or soon will be. It appears that those states will have to raise taxes on businesses to cover their shortfall if the Feds don't act quickly. I have heard two different stories as to how this bailout would work and everyone knows that we need, at least, three or more versions before we can make an informed decision on the merits of the case. I heard that the President wanted money included in the budget to bail out certain states but another story claims he is only asking that payment on money owed be deferred until a more convenient time. My opinion is, why not give the states an extension on the deadline for repayment? Maybe we'll know more in a few days.

I'll try this format for a while and see how it works out. This way I don't have to work on the computer so long at one time. Thanks for your time and input. Stay tuned.- William