The Catholic Cricket

I heard some politician (I believe it was a House Democrat, but I could be mistaken) talking on some talk radio show (I think it was Michael Medved) as I was driving to or from some contract job or other.  As you can tell, the details are really sharp in my mind.

What is really sharp was his complaint that people who want to see some type of tax incentive for businesses to hire more people are clueless about the impact any such tax rebate (or however it would be handled) would really have.  His chief complaint: no business would hire a new employee, paying them $50,000 (including benefits) for a $10 tax break.  He went on to say something along the lines of ”it would have to be something like $1000, and that’s a lot of money” (very much paraphrased).

On another show at a different time (go figure….still no recollection of who or what show), an “expert” suggested a secondary problem to tax breaks for new employees: unfair competition.  If restaurant A is fully staffed, and brand new restaurant B opens up across the street, hiring an entirely new staff, B would get a huge tax break that A wouldn’t have access to.

So I thought “why not put the ideas together”.  Instead of giving a tax break for every new job, give a tax break for EVERY job.  Every single job gets a $2000 tax break.  Hows that for an incentive?

But wait, you say.  That’s a lot of money.  Is it?  The population of the US is roughly 308,841,458, give or take a little.  If every single man, woman, and child were employed…100% full employment and beyond, the tax incentive would cost $617.6 billion dollars.  That’s significantly less than the $787 billion stimulus plan from 2009. 

That would be a much better use of taxpayer dollars, keeping money in the hands of the businesses and giving them an incentive to unfreeze hiring.

Thank you.

There’s all this hoopla surrounding the faux Congressional outrage (and media-generated public outrage).  While I agree in essence with my brother’s take on it, I have a slightly different response.

I’m outraged.

I’m not outraged that public money was used to pay the $165 million in bonuses.  Those were contractually-required bonuses, from what I understand.  No, I’m outraged that public money was given to AIG in the first place.  I’m outraged that $170 Billion of taxpayer money was given to AIG with no strings attached, no oversight, no direction on how it was to be used, and seemingly no planning.

I’m further outraged that some Congressional Democrats are now calling for a retroactive tax on those bonuses (and bonuses paid out to people working at other companies that took bailout money).  Excuse me?  Who do you think you are, to change the rules in place after the event has taken place, and penalizing people for something that was fine at the time of the action?  The action is complete, the transaction finalized, the taxes taken out and paid (at current rates), the bonuses delivered.  If you want to change the rules now, then the new rules apply from here on out.

I’m trying to find a good analogy, but I just can’t.  Changing a golfer’s handicap after the round and declaring the loser a winner?  Not quite.

Ahh…I think I have it.  You go out to a restaurant for a meal.  You order the meal, eat the meal, pay for the meal, and go home.  Two weeks later you get a bill from the restaurant saying that they had raised prices on their entrees and you owed them another $20 for that meal from two weeks ago.

That’s still not quite right.  Let’s try another.

Robin Hood robs from the townsfolk and gives to the nobility, to help them out of a bind they got themselves into through bad decisions (shouldn’t have sunk all that money into new expensive villages where the villagers couldn’t afford to stay there).  The nobility then pay some townsfolk some extra money for being loyal workers.  Robin Hood gets pissed, gets a list of those so paid, and steals the money away from them again, even though he had originally required the nobility to give those townsfolk that extra money.

Man, Robin Hood is a jerk.

Well, that’s about the best I can do.  Maybe someone else out there can come up with a better analogy.

This is really well done:

The proposed stimulus package keeps growing and growing, and is now (if I recall correctly) over $900 billion.

$900,000,000,000, spent on what?  All sorts of weird things that won’t do diddly to stimulate the economy.  Well, here’s my own idea.  Since the government is going to go into debt by nearly another trillion dollars, they should just give it to the people.

According to the US POPClock Projection, there are currently 305,770,596 people in the US.  Giving each person $3000 would cost $917,311,788,000.  Mind you, that’s $3000 per person, so a family of four would get $12,000, while a family of 7 (mine) would get $21,000.

If that money is used responsibly (ha!), people would be able to get current with outstanding bills, and wipe out a significant amount of debt.  For example, I would pay off several medical bills, pay off the car, and wipe out most of my wife’s student loan.  My doctors and hospitals would have additional money, instead of receivables.  The loan holder for my car would have more money they could then turn around and loan out again.  My single credit card company would get a little bit of money which would help them as well.  Banks would get an influx of money as people (hopefully) wipe out unsecured debt.  For other people, they could catch up on mortgage payments, helping to stabilize the housing market.

On top of all of that, it would free up regular income that is currently going to feed these loans and outstanding bills.  I’d be able to spend money on other things, instead of paying for interest.  (I’d be smart about it, and much of it would go into savings so I can get a down-payment ready for the house we’re in now.)  I could buy some much-needed new shoes instead of dragging out the repayment of medical bills.  I could spend money on new things instead of still paying for things that were new a year ago.

Unemployed people would get an additional buffer to give them a little additional time to find a new job.

Sure, a bunch of people would be irresponsible with a sudden influx of money like that, but come on…would they really be doing worse than the heap of government pork currently in the bill?

Peter decided to draw a picture of a castle in Heaven.

The star on the top right is the one the wise men followed.  That’s Satan in the barred cell in the left-hand tower.  Obviously there are the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the castle walls, and a rainbow over the doors.  What I thought was an apple tree on the left is actually a tomato plant.

A quick and easy meme.  I’ve done the ones in bold.

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower 
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language 
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied 
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car 
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Read an entire book in one day

Consider yourself tagged if you have a blog and still bother reading this rarely-updated blog that’ll probably change again in 6 months.

On my way home from work today, I took note of the gas price.

$2.15 (I round that extra $0.009 up)

It seems to me that during the summer, there were times I paid twice that.  $4.30

So what caused the price of gas to drop by 50%?  It wasn’t any government program that I’m aware of.  For all the talking they did during the summer, for all of the concern they expressed, and even that time during the summer recess when Republicans stayed after Speaker Pelosi turned off the lights, our government did nothing that changed the price.

It seems that while the government is ineffectual, the market took care of things all on its own.

This post was created with a nice tool for Firefox…ScribeFire. If this works correctly, you’ll probably see a lot more posts from me.

I don’t have a link handy, but it should be easy enough to find if you go to the Firefox Add-ons page.
It’s easy to configure, connects to several different blog backends,
allows you to configure multiple blogs, add/edit posts, add
categories/tags, and a bunch more.

If you use a blog, check it out.

ETA: I’m quite impressed with this addon.