Don't Be Duped by CONgress

"Congress’s own budget has risen 55 percent over the past 10 years, from $1.2 billion in 2000 to $2.3 billion in 2010 . . . [and] Senate staffs swelled 'by nearly 25 percent . . . On the House side, staff was up 11 percent." Read the Washington Post, Coburn’s cuts: Congress should 'lead by example'.

Do I Look Fat Responses Before the Divorce

From an email:

Not to Stevie Wonder.

Big time! That's why I'm sleeping with your best friend.

No way! You look least fat in that outfit!

I guess there's not much point in asking if you mean fat with an 'f' or phat with a 'ph.'

No hablo ingles.

Yes, but it also makes you look like a pricey hooker, so things balance out.

No, but taking it off sure does.

Okay, listen: What's important is that you not focus in a negative way on the comparison I am about to make.

Not if you were travelling at the speed of light.

Yes, but in my country obesity suggests prosperity.

Let me jog around to your front and take a look.

Whoa! A talking couch!!

May I consult the Iraqi Minister of Information before answering that?

Republi-CON Polly Wants a Tax Cut

UPDATE III: Why can't the fat lady get a job? Globalization. Read The New York Times, Is There Hope for the Unemployed?, which compares employment growth in "those sectors whose output is traded across international borders (the tradable sectors) and is thus subject to competition from foreign producers, and those sectors whose output is not traded across international borders (the nontradable sectors)."


UPDATE II: "Our failure to create jobs is a choice rationalized by an ever-shifting set of excuses." Read The New York Times, No, We Can’t? Or Won’t?, which notes:

"The economy isn’t fixing itself. Nor are there real obstacles to government action: both the bond vigilantes and structural unemployment exist only in the imaginations of pundits. And if stimulus seems to have failed, it’s because it was never actually tried."

UPDATE: "The nation’s economic woes boil down to this. Compared with a healthy economy, about 7 million working-age people and 5 percent of the nation’s industrial capacity are sitting idle, not producing what they could. The economy is growing again, but at a rate — less than 2 percent in recent months — that’s too slow to keep up with a population that keeps increasing and workers who keep getting more efficient." Read the Washington Post, Why it doesn't feel like a recovery, which includes a great interactive graph showing the the output gap.

Ask any Republi-con politician for his/her solution for the economic downturn and inevitably s/he will parrot the Republi-con economic elixir: tax cuts, tax cuts. But supply-side economics isn't the answer this time, the system is awash in cheap money. Read The New York Times, Cheap Debt for Corporations Fails to Spur Economy.

As I said in February 2009, tax cuts are not the answer, this downturn won't be over 'til the fat lady gets a job.