As you know, we sell garden seed of all types — great American hobby and food supplement when not eating at Chick-fil-a.
And I got to thinking and got out my scientific calculator and started punching numbers.
Figuring my 75-foot x100-foot building fill 12 feet high with a seed about as small as the head of a pin will only get you 1/16 of 16 trillion.
That’s right. If that tiny mustard seed was $1, you would have to filled up Lavender Mountain Hardware 16 times to equal the national debt.
That’s a lot of greens!
Neither political party is addressing the fact that big government costs big bucks, and the citizens are not willing to pay the price.
I am sure there will always be delusional individuals who cannot read reports of what causes the deficit and understand the real cause...
I am sure these same geniuses can be duped into supporting politicians who vote against their best interests. All by simply invoking god, "those people" guns and american hating rhetoric.
I am sure that Romney is a terrible candidate who hates the poor. Yet those same poor and Christian right wingers will vote for someone they privately consider a cultist because they hate the black dude in the oval office.
I do so enjoy your continuing and increasingly frantic rants.
I am cheered that you will be so hurt when President Obama is reelected.
Sweet irony...
Rhuidean
It is a snowball effect....Problem is, the snowball has increased in size and is picking up speed as it's crashing downhill at an unsustainable pace.
Onlookers stand to the side, say "Oh me! Oh my!," but stay out of it's way. No one wants to meet the problem head on.
All onlookers like to point fingers at one another and pass the blame. "This wouldn't have happened if it hadn't snowed!" says some. "If he just hadn't tried to roll a ball and make a snowman!" says a few more.
"Snowman!" yells another. "It was those first snowballs that were thrown in the fight!"
"Fight? What fight? It was just good natured fun," says the last onlooker.
Truth is, this mess is just like the illegal alien situation. People should have seen it coming, but all sides refused to do something about it. What started out as a trickle, soon became a flood. Only 5% of the illegal aliens in the USA work in farming today...That's just 5%...Guess where the rest of them are?
Political posturing. Lies and lying, over and over again, no matter which party is in the White House. I'm sick and tired of it, and so are most decent, average American citizens.
Some things are basic, as far as "coverage" goes, and we need to as well as have to pay for them. Where the rub comes in is with the idiots who try to "upgrade" everything beyond our financial means. "Spending Gone Wild!" ought to be a best selling infomercial video sold on TV after midnight. It's obscene...it's vulgar....and it's appealing to those of low intelligence. Too many people out there don't have a "brain-one" in their heads, and are too easily led by their lying politicians.
To listen to the Democrats, you'd think that Barrack Obama is truly The Chosen One, that He, Obama Almighty, knows what's best for us, and that he's so knowledgeable and understanding that we ought to bow down to His Magnificence. Anyone who dares to question The King surely must be a heretic and ought to be burned at the stake for daring to speak heresy!
To listen to the Republicans, you'd think that all Democrats are Godless, atheistic, baby killing, sexual deviants intent on destroying the common family, ridding us of our moral standards, and intent on tearing down the uniqueness of the American experience and replacing it with the European Socialistic Model.
Dang it, I was trying to be impartial, but it looks like the sensible and rational part of me won out! Looks like I convinced MYSELF after writing the above!
If Obama is the ANSWER, I don't want to hear the QUESTION!
Great post....Clear and factual.
CrawfishCreek,
I constantly hear all the conservatives screech and wail about the deficit.
The Bush tax cuts are the single largest contributor to the deficit.
If Congress does nothing the deficit is hugely decreased.
But hey...If you trust the rich to leave you their crumbs.....good for you.
Rhuidean
It is accurate to call the US government an insurance company with an army.
Before President Obama, the annual deficit was running at 3 to 3.5% of GDP from 2000-2009, a typical, sustainable amount. It was the Wall Street scam and the bursting of the $8 trillion housing bubble in the Bush administration that caused the explosion in the deficit, not out of control spending on 'social programs.'
The huge loss of tax revenue and the automatic stabilizers of federal aid to the states, unemployment insurance, increased Medicaid enrollment, SNAP, and bank bailouts comprise the debt. All are the result of the greed and fraud of a small group working within a deregulated financial sector. Their wealth came at the expense of American workers.
A country IS NOT like a family. "Tightening our belt" to reduce the debt will further slow the economy, decrease tax revenues, increase unemployment, and create more excess capacity. Why would businesses hire when teachers and police are being laid off? Just look at the impact of austerity on the European countries. Austerity does not reduce debt or stimulate economic activity.
If consumers, businesses, and the government stop spending at once, nothing is sold, nothing is made, no one is hired; a downward death spiral gathers momentum. It use to be called Hooverism.
But what about our children? The larger burden on future generations is to leave them a crumbling out-dated infrastructure, poor productivity gains, a less educated population, and the existing cannibalistic financial system.
The majority of US debt is owed to ourselves, held in pension funds, college endowments, 401Ks, government trust funds. Your interest payment is income to another; the debt does not decrease our collective wealth.
Our policy makers should be concerned with economic growth and jobs. In this predicament that means hefty government spending.
We can borrow at 1.2%! Let's put people to work building roads, bridges, communication infrastructure, sponsor basic scientific research, relieve our college graduates of the unconscionable debt dragging them down, offer older workers full Social Security and Medicare to retire now letting young people have jobs, and most importantly, break up the five to big to fail banks that are the largest liability the US government has.
Now, is not the time to cut spending or raise taxes lest we cause another great recession. But, an agreement to let current law stand, with all tax cuts expiring would-when implemented-level the debt at 60% of GDP without cuts to Medicare or Social Security.
But, we have to pay for it; that includes the job creators. By the way, where are those jobs?
Mike L. Reynolds
Rome, Ga
Sorry, Mike. I definitely see some fallacies in your post. When government 'puts people to work', it doesn't build the economy. Where did that money come from? Actually, with the debt, the government is borrowing it! You can't borrow your way out of debt. But even if we describe it as "from taxes", the government is taking money from the working, filters off a piece of the pie for administration, often pays higher costs for materials (no balance of cost vs. profit) and then hires some people, temporarily, as those jobs won't last forever. Every dollar taken out of the economy for these "projects" means less money in the private sector to create additional income and growth which is what REALLY stimulates the economy. Keynesian economics doesn't work, never has and never will but this administration hasn't figured it out yet.. They keep printing money and weakens the dollar and reduces purchasing power.
GT