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To understand the U.S. federal budget, divide by 100,000,000
Philip Greenspun divided the U.S. 2011 federal budget by 100,000,000 and wrote a little parable: We have a family that is spending $38,200 per year. The family's income is $21,700 per year. The family adds $16,500 in credit card debt every year in order to pay its bills. After a long and difficult debate among family members, keeping in mind that it was not going to be possible to borrow $16,500 every year forever, the parents and children agreed that a $380/year premium cable subscription could be terminated. So now the family will have to borrow only $16,120 per year. Understanding Congress's solution to the federal deficit problem
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#1 • 12:07 PM, Apr 13 • Reply AnonThat is brilliant. Plus, they would probably stop participating in the quarterly PBS fundraiser.
#2 • 12:12 PM, Apr 13 • Reply phisrowThey left out the part of the story where one parent insisted that they would refuse to cash any more paychecks until the fiscally ruinous habits of giving a nickel to the homeless guy and buying a condom were abolished...
#3 • 12:21 PM, Apr 13 • Reply AnonNice. But forgot to add that one of the family's primary breadwinners, we'll call him Gerald Ebenezer, is funneling 90 percent of his paycheck to Swiss bank accounts and his secret Argentinean family.
#4 • 12:22 PM, Apr 13 • Reply sgt_doomHere's a far more reality-based way to understand the REAL American economy, which has been dismantled over the past 35 years, FYI:
FORENSIC ECONOMICS 101 Private equity firms/leveraged buyout firms manage and oversee the bulk of the largest pension funds (superannuation funds) out there, including most union funds. They leverage these funds to destroy unions and future union employment, while structuring them with credit derivatives which profit themselves but end up destroying those funds. With the destruction of those funds, which must either be bailed out or allowed to default, comes the further destruction of local governments as they are usually heavily invested (through their bond issues) in those pension funds. Thus allowing the super-rich to go in and pick up new assets at bargain basement values. This would be considered the optimal asset stripping. U.S. foreign aid (US taxpayer assisted) is well known to be directed to countries which will then purchase weapons systems from defense contractors, but what is less known is what the greater slice of that foreign aid goes to. The bulk of it is managed and manipulated by American-based multinationals to build foreign factories, production facilities, R&D labs, worker training, etc., to which the multinationals then offshore American jobs to, and create new jobs at. Extreme examples of this were the two "free trade agreements" supported and passed during the Bush administration, lobbied on behalf of by former president, Bill Clinton (in the pay of the jobs offshoring industry), involving Jordan and Oman. Foreign aid established factories in those two countries, which then imported the cheapest labor they could from Bangladesh and the Philippines, chiefly benefitting the American-based multinationals who exported those jobs to the factories, and the small number of wealthy and connected managers and owners in Jordan and Oman who managed those factories. The co-opting of the conservation lobby (Nature Conservancy, League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Club, etc.) and the environmental lobby (those entities duped into supporting cap-and-trade) by Wall Street (corporate and individual land monopolists and oil/energy corporations). For example, when a volunteer group works to set aside a tract of land for conservation purposes, etc., and they don't continuously track the final result, they are unaware that some, or all, of the tract is eventually sold for pennies on the dollar to foreign corporations, either in a quid pro quo deal, or which is owned through circuitously laddered holding companies by an American-based multinational. Also, various conservation groups will lobby on behalf of tax cuts and benefits for set aside lands, unaware they are working "“ for free "“ on behalf of those super-rich land monopolists. The controlled, compromised and highly manipulated tax code which chiefly exists to benefit the one percent, the speculator class. A traditionally popular example of this is the "Louis B. Mayer clause" dating back to 1954, where Mayer's tax attorneys bribed the usual congressmen to insert a special clause in the tax section to allow Mayer to avoid paying taxes on his fortune when he retired. This clause specified that only the special pre-existing tax situation (i.e., exactly targeting only Mayer's situation) existing prior to the date of that clause was allowed "“ the complete antithesis of all legal foundation, i.e., a law is normally passed to be in effect which affects everyone after the passage of said law! A recent example is the "Blackstone Group clause" "“ essentially the Blackstone Group bought some congress critters to allow them to continue paying the same capital gains tax rate after they went public, when by law they should have begun paying the higher corporate tax rate. Some law professors (Davidoff comes readily to mind) would claim this was "deft tax law." No, it is simply absolute corruption. "All money is hierarchically controlled as an asset to private sector institutions and elite capital holders who have the ability to call in their chips, i.e., your bank digits, where as it's an interest-bearing debt to governments and the people." --- Damon Vrabel "A good investment is to own a senator, but a great investment is to own the US Treasury." --- Anon
#5 • 12:24 PM, Apr 13 • Reply Read Full Article »