Alex wrote of the fear she had of American Capitalists growing up and they had an underground shelter at her school in case we bombed them.  There was concern about survival and the Middle East. It looks like your leaders cared a bit more than ours.  We had no underground shelters.  We were told to get under our desks : )))  As for books, my favorite post apocalypse novel is "Alas Babylon" by Pat Frank.  It ...

The problem of unemployment here is a bit more complex about outsourcing.  If it cost $30,000 to make a car here and it can be made somewhere else for $3,000, then it makes sense to make it there.  It means that that country has a greater economic advantage for making cars. Countries that have a lower cost of living, e.g. they live on say $1,000 a year, it will be economically advantageous to move labor-int ...

Thanks to GW, the people making $250K a year have been paying lower taxes now for the last decade.  Meanwhile our unemployment rate has soared.  Boehner would have us believe that raising the taxes on the rich would kill job growth.  Really?  What job growth? When Clinton left office it appeared that we were near to reaching a Middle East peace accord.  We were even talking to the North Koreans.  With the h ...

The average monthly Social Security benefit for a retired worker was about $1,177 at the beginning of 2011. The poverty line for a single person, living in the continental U S in 2001 is $10,890 There are three problems with Social Security according to a lot of people.  They take too much out of my check.  They don't pay out enough.  They won't have any $$$ when I get there. We can solve the last problem b ...

It is like I was watching a different game.    "... so when Williams ripped a forehand to Stosur’s backhand for an apparent winner to stave off another break, she could not contain her glee. “Come on!” she screamed. But Stosur stuck out her racket and got a piece of the ball, and when she made contact, it brought into play the hindrance rule," wrote Karen Crouse of the N Y Times. The sound that I heard Sere ...

Years ago I suggested that ALL foreclosures be stopped.  All properties should have been revalued at pre-bubble level, and then all loans renegotiated to keep people IN their homes.  The banks can only get out of the properties what they can get.  That is not much in a declining economy with unstable housing prices. Well, Duh!  If they had done all that, the economy may not have declined so much, the real e ...

The media will not explain, through interviews with people who actually understand the economy, what is needed to fix it.  Before even beginning to touch on what is needed, we need to know what the “economy” is.  One dictionary touches on it, but doesn’t quite get it right.  It says, “the wealth and resources of a country or region, esp. in terms of the production and consumption of goods and services.”   I ...

On or Off the Grid, buy Organic, Free range.  There was a program to help poor people buy fresh fruits and vegetables by using their EBT card at Farmer’s markets.  Big Oil is using ALL of the water destined for Kern County from the water project that was supposed to deliver drinking water from northern California to the central valley/LA basin.  Big oil is turning 8 barrels of fresh, potable water into stea ...

U.S. Can No Longer Afford To Be World's Policemen : NPR www.npr.org Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, the senior Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, talks to Steve Inskeep about his opinion on the S&P credit downgrade. Frank says the U.S. spends too much money being the military policemen of the world. Steve Inskeep pounds Barney Frank for not admitting that Social Security is responsible ...

"AM I A Socialist Like Bernie Saunders?" was a question someone, who friended me on FB, asked.  I think my answer to her is worth publishing here... Thank you Jennifer.  I am not a socialist, per se.  I do believe, however, that the government "could be" better able to provide us with certain services.  Neither individuals, communities, nor even states should be responsible for putting together a plan for a ...