The Deficit Is Worse Than We Think

Once again I must credit the following to someone much smarter than myself. Therefore, I would like to acknowledge the author, Lawrence Lindsey, and The Wall Street Journal where the column was originally published. All I did was cut and paste.

The Deficit Is Worse Than We Think

Normal interest rates would raise debt-service costs by $4.9 trillion over 10 years, dwarfing the savings from any currently contemplated budget deal.

By LAWRENCE B. LINDSEY

Washington is struggling to make a deal that will couple an increase in the debt ceiling with a long-term reduction in spending. There is no reason for the players to make their task seem even more Herculean than it already is. But we should be prepared for upward revisions in official deficit projections in the years ahead—even if a deal is struck. There are at least three major reasons for concern.

First, a normalization of interest rates would upend any budgetary deal if and when one should occur. At present, the average cost of Treasury borrowing is 2.5%. The average over the last two decades was 5.7%. Should we ramp up to the higher number, annual interest expenses would be roughly $420 billion higher in 2014 and $700 billion higher in 2020.

The 10-year rise in interest expense would be $4.9 trillion higher under "normalized" rates than under the current cost of borrowing. Compare that to the $2 trillion estimate of what the current talks about long-term deficit reduction may produce, and it becomes obvious that the gains from the current deficit-reduction efforts could be wiped out by normalization in the bond market.

To some extent this is a controllable risk. The Federal Reserve could act aggressively by purchasing even more bonds, or targeting rates further out on the yield curve, to slow any rise in the cost of Treasury borrowing. Of course, this carries its own set of risks, not the least among them an adverse reaction by our lenders. Suffice it to say, though, that given all that is at stake, Fed interest-rate policy will increasingly have to factor in the effects of any rate hike on the fiscal position of the Treasury.

The second reason for concern is that official growth forecasts are much higher than what the academic consensus believes we should expect after a financial crisis. That consensus holds that economies tend to return to trend growth of about 2.5%, without ever recapturing what was lost in the downturn.

But the president's budget of February 2011 projects economic growth of 4% in 2012, 4.5% in 2013, and 4.2% in 2014. That budget also estimates that the 10-year budget cost of missing the growth estimate by just one point for one year is $750 billion. So, if we just grow at trend those three years, we will miss the president's forecast by a cumulative 5.2 percentage points and—using the numbers provided in his budget—incur additional debt of $4 trillion. That is the equivalent of all of the 10-year savings in Congressman Paul Ryan's budget, passed by the House in April, or in the Bowles-Simpson budget plan.

Third, it is increasingly clear that the long-run cost estimates of ObamaCare were well short of the mark because of the incentive that employers will have under that plan to end private coverage and put employees on the public system. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has already issued 1,400 waivers from the act's regulations for employers as large as McDonald's to stop them from dumping their employees' coverage.

But a recent McKinsey survey, for example, found that 30% of employers with plans will likely take advantage of the system, with half of the more knowledgeable ones planning to do so. If this survey proves correct, the extra bill for taxpayers would be roughly $74 billion in 2014 rising to $85 billion in 2019, thanks to the subsidies provided to individuals and families purchasing coverage in the government's insurance exchanges.

Underestimating the long-term budget situation is an old game in Washington. But never have the numbers been this large.

There is no way to raise taxes enough to cover these problems. The tax-the-rich proposals of the Obama administration raise about $700 billion, less than a fifth of the budgetary consequences of the excess economic growth projected in their forecast. The whole $700 billion collected over 10 years would not even cover the difference in interest costs in any one year at the end of the decade between current rates and the average cost of Treasury borrowing over the last 20 years.

Only serious long-term spending reduction in the entitlement area can begin to address the nation's deficit and debt problems. It should no longer be credible for our elected officials to hide the need for entitlement reforms behind rosy economic and budgetary assumptions. And while we should all hope for a deal that cuts spending and raises the debt ceiling to avoid a possible default, bondholders should be under no illusions.

Under current government policies and economic projections, they should be far more concerned about a return of their principal in 10 years than about any short-term delay in a coupon payment in August.

Mr. Lindsey, a former Federal Reserve governor and assistant to President George W. Bush for economic policy, is president and CEO of the Lindsey Group.

No more Mr. Nice Guy...

".. this is war!"  (Mark Levin on his radio broadcast, Monday, June 27, 2001)

Mark is right.  To hell with all the 'play nice' rhetoric.  We - the conservative voters - need to pull the stops out and crush the opposition.  That pretty much covers the definition of war.

There are enough conservative Representatives in the House to keep the debt ceiling where it is.  It is time to play hardball - no compromises.  I live on a specific amount of income with which I am 'forced' to pay off my debts (mortgage, credit cards, car payment) first .. even before I get to go shopping for groceries.  It is time for the federal government to learn the meaning of the word budget.

from Econterms:  budget:  A budget is a description of a financial plan. It is a list of estimates of revenues to and expenditures by an agent for a stated period of time. Normally a budget describes a period in the future not the past.

Since we cannot pass a balanced budget amendment in time, the option of 'cutting up the credit card' will have to do.  It is time the government lived within its means.

The (sad) truth is…

Budgets do not come from the White House, they come from Congress.  The party that has controlled Congress since January 2007 is the Democrat Party.  That means they controlled the budget process for FY 2008 and FY 2009, as well as FY 2010 and FY 2011.  In that first year they had to contend with George Bush who, somewhat belatedly, got tough on spending increases and which caused them to compromise on spending.  However, for FY 2009 Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid bypassed George Bush entirely by passing continuing resolutions to keep government running until Barack Obama could take office.  Once that had happened they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the FY 2009 budgets.  Where was Barack Obama during this time?  Why he was a member of that very Congress, the one that passed all of these spending bills and, as President, he signed the massive omnibus bill to complete FY 2009.  Let's remember what the deficits looked like for the past 10 years:

If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the FY 2007 deficit, the last of the Republican budgets.  That deficit was the lowest in five years, and the fourth straight decline in deficit spending.  After that, Democrats in Congress took control of spending, and that includes (then Senator) Barack Obama, who voted for those budgets.  If Obama inherited anything in the way of a deficit, he inherited it from himself.  In a nutshell, what Obama is saying is “I inherited a deficit that I voted for and then, since becoming President, I voted to expand that deficit four-fold.”

One perspective on the Deepwater Horizon

I want to start off by acknowledging The Oil Drum and TOD reader dougr who wrote the following ‘comment’ which I have taken whole and posted below.  I have made no changes to dougr’s original text other than to connect a couple links and replace a linefeed or two with carriage returns.

While I am not an engineer and am not in any way associated with the oil industry (other than as a consumer), I come from a family of engineers (some of whom are directly associated with the oil industry) and I have worked with engineers for enough of my professional life to recognize dougr‘s comment as concise, intelligent and very well thought out.

Basically, it scares the hell out of me.  I am reposting it because it is important.

dougr on June 13, 2010 - 3:17am

Editors' note for first-time visitors: What follows is a comment from a The Oil Drum reader. To read what The Oil Drum staff members are saying about the Deepwater Horizon Spill, please visit the front page. (Were the US government and BP more forthcoming with information and details, the situation would not be giving rise to so much speculation about what is actually going on in the Gulf. This should be run more like Mission Control at NASA than an exclusive country club function--it is a public matter--transparency, now!) OK let's get real about the GOM oil flow. There doesn't really seem to be much info on TOD that furthers more complete understanding of what's really happening in the GOM. As you have probably seen and maybe feel yourselves, there are several things that do not appear to make sense regarding the actions of attack against the well. Don't feel bad, there is much that doesn't make sense even to professionals unless you take into account some important variables that we are not being told about. There seems to me to be a reluctance to face what cannot be termed anything less than grim circumstances in my opinion. There certainly is a reluctance to inform us regular people and all we have really gotten is a few dots here and there... First of all...set aside all your thoughts of plugging the well and stopping it from blowing out oil using any method from the top down. Plugs, big valves to just shut it off, pinching the pipe closed, installing a new bop or lmrp, shooting any epoxy in it, top kills with mud etc etc etc....forget that, it won't be happening..it's done and over. In fact actually opening up the well at the subsea source and allowing it to gush more is not only exactly what has happened, it was probably necessary, or so they think anyway. So you have to ask WHY? Why make it worse?...there really can only be one answer and that answer does not bode well for all of us. It's really an inescapable conclusion at this point, unless you want to believe that every Oil and Gas professional involved suddenly just forgot everything they know or woke up one morning and drank a few big cups of stupid and got assigned to directing the response to this catastrophe. Nothing makes sense unless you take this into account, but after you do...you will see the "sense" behind what has happened and what is happening. That conclusion is this: The well bore structure is compromised "Down hole". That is something which is a "Worst nightmare" conclusion to reach. While many have been saying this for some time as with any complex disaster of this proportion many have "said" a lot of things with no real sound reasons or evidence for jumping to such conclusions, well this time it appears that they may have jumped into the right place... TOP KILL - FAILS: This was probably our best and only chance to kill this well from the top down. This "kill mud" is a tried and true method of killing wells and usually has a very good chance of success. The depth of this well presented some logistical challenges, but it really should not of presented any functional obstructions. The pumping capacity was there and it would have worked, should have worked, but it didn't. It didn't work, but it did create evidence of what is really happening. First of all the method used in this particular top kill made no sense, did not follow the standard operating procedure used to kill many other wells and in fact for the most part was completely contrary to the procedure which would have given it any real chance of working. When a well is "Killed" using this method heavy drill fluid "Mud" is pumped at high volume and pressure into a leaking well. The leaks are "behind" the point of access where the mud is fired in, in this case the "choke and Kill lines" which are at the very bottom of the BOP (Blow Out Preventer) The heavy fluid gathers in the "behind" portion of the leaking well assembly, while some will leak out, it very quickly overtakes the flow of oil and only the heavier mud will leak out. Once that "solid" flow of mud is established at the leak "behind" the well, the mud pumps increase pressure and begin to overtake the pressure of the oil deposit. The mud is established in a solid column that is driven downward by the now stronger pumps. The heavy mud will create a solid column that is so heavy that the oil deposit can no longer push it up, shut off the pumps...the well is killed...it can no longer flow. Usually this will happen fairly quickly, in fact for it to work at all...it must happen quickly. There is no "trickle some mud in" because that is not how a top kill works. The flowing oil will just flush out the trickle and a solid column will never be established. Yet what we were told was "It will take days to know whether it worked"...."Top kill might take 48 hours to complete"...the only way it could take days is if BP intended to do some "test fires" to test integrity of the entire system. The actual "kill" can only take hours by nature because it must happen fairly rapidly. It also increases strain on the "behind" portion and in this instance we all know that what remained was fragile at best. Early that afternoon we saw a massive flow burst out of the riser "plume" area. This was the first test fire of high pressure mud injection. Later on same day we saw a greatly increased flow out of the kink leaks, this was mostly mud at that time as the kill mud is tanish color due to the high amount of Barite which is added to it to weight it and Barite is a white powder. We later learned the pumping was shut down at midnight, we weren't told about that until almost 16 hours later, but by then...I'm sure BP had learned the worst. The mud they were pumping in was not only leaking out the "behind" leaks...it was leaking out of someplace forward...and since they were not even near being able to pump mud into the deposit itself, because the well would be dead long before...and the oil was still coming up, there could only be one conclusion...the wells casings were ruptured and it was leaking "down hole" They tried the "Junk shot"...the "bridging materials" which also failed and likely made things worse in regards to the ruptured well casings. "Despite successfully pumping a total of over 30,000 barrels of heavy mud, in three attempts at rates of up to 80 barrels a minute, and deploying a wide range of different bridging materials, the operation did not overcome the flow from the well." http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=2012968&contentId=7062487 80 Barrels per minute is over 200,000 gallons per hour, over 115,000 barrels per day...did we seen an increase over and above what was already leaking out of 115k bpd?....we did not...it would have been a massive increase in order of multiples and this did not happen. "The whole purpose is to get the kill mud down,” said Wells. “We'll have 50,000 barrels of mud on hand to kill this well. It's far more than necessary, but we always like to have backup." Try finding THAT quote around...it's been scrubbed...here's a cached copy of a quote... http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:WDj-HORTmIoJ:www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/deepwaterhorizon/7006870.html+%E2%809CThe+whole+purpose+is+to+get+the+kill+mud+down,%E2%80%9D+said+Wells.+%E2%80%9CWe'll+have+50,000+barrels+of+mud+on+hand+to+kill+this+well.+It's+far+more+than+necessary,+but+we+always+like+to+have+backup.%E2%80%9D&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us "The "top kill" effort, launched Wednesday afternoon by industry and government engineers, had pumped enough drilling fluid to block oil and gas spewing from the well, Allen said. The pressure from the well was very low, he said, but persisting." "Allen said one ship that was pumping fluid into the well had run out of the fluid, or "mud," and that a second ship was on the way. He said he was encouraged by the progress." http://www.houmatoday.com/article/20100527/ARTICLES/100529348 Later we found out that Allen had no idea what was really going on and had been "Unavailable all day" http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/05/27/interview_with_coas... So what we had was BP running out of 50,000 barrels of mud in a very short period of time. An amount far and above what they deemed necessary to kill the well. Shutting down pumping 16 hours before telling anyone, including the president. We were never really given a clear reason why "Top Kill" failed, just that it couldn't overcome the well. There is only one article anywhere that says anything else about it at this time of writing...and it's a relatively obscure article from the wall street journal "online" citing an unnamed source. "WASHINGTON—BP PLC has concluded that its "top-kill" attempt last week to seal its broken well in the Gulf of Mexico may have failed due to a malfunctioning disk inside the well about 1,000 feet below the ocean floor. The disk, part of the subsea safety infrastructure, may have ruptured during the surge of oil and gas up the well on April 20 that led to the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig, BP officials said. The rig sank two days later, triggering a leak that has since become the worst in U.S. history. The broken disk may have prevented the heavy drilling mud injected into the well last week from getting far enough down the well to overcome the pressure from the escaping oil and gas, people familiar with BP's findings said. They said much of the drilling mud may also have escaped from the well into the rock formation outside the wellbore. As a result, BP wasn't able to get sufficient pressure to keep the oil and gas at bay. If they had been able to build up sufficient pressure, the company had hoped to pump in cement and seal off the well. The effort was deemed a failure on Saturday. BP started the top-kill effort Wednesday afternoon, shooting heavy drilling fluids into the broken valve known as a blowout preventer. The mud was driven by a 30,000 horsepower pump installed on a ship at the surface. But it was clear from the start that a lot of the "kill mud" was leaking out instead of going down into the well." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870487560457528013357716426... There are some inconsistencies with this article. There are no "Disks" or "Subsea safety structure" 1,000 feet below the sea floor, all that is there is well bore. There is nothing that can allow the mud or oil to "escape" into the rock formation outside the well bore except the well, because it is the only thing there. All the actions and few tid bits of information all lead to one inescapable conclusion. The well pipes below the sea floor are broken and leaking. Now you have some real data of how BP's actions are evidence of that, as well as some murky statement from "BP officials" confirming the same. I took some time to go into a bit of detail concerning the failure of Top Kill because this was a significant event. To those of us outside the real inside loop, yet still fairly knowledgeable, it was a major confirmation of what many feared. That the system below the sea floor has serious failures of varying magnitude in the complicated chain, and it is breaking down and it will continue to. What does this mean? It means they will never cap the gusher after the wellhead. They cannot...the more they try and restrict the oil gushing out the bop?...the more it will transfer to the leaks below. Just like a leaky garden hose with a nozzle on it. When you open up the nozzle?...it doesn't leak so bad, you close the nozzle?...it leaks real bad, same dynamics. It is why they sawed the riser off...or tried to anyway...but they clipped it off, to relieve pressure on the leaks "down hole". I'm sure there was a bit of panic time after they crimp/pinched off the large riser pipe and the Diamond wire saw got stuck and failed...because that crimp diverted pressure and flow to the rupture down below. Contrary to what most of us would think as logical to stop the oil mess, actually opening up the gushing well and making it gush more became direction BP took after confirming that there was a leak. In fact if you note their actions, that should become clear. They have shifted from stopping or restricting the gusher to opening it up and catching it. This only makes sense if they want to relieve pressure at the leak hidden down below the seabed.....and that sort of leak is one of the most dangerous and potentially damaging kind of leak there could be. It is also inaccessible which compounds our problems. There is no way to stop that leak from above, all they can do is relieve the pressure on it and the only way to do that right now is to open up the nozzle above and gush more oil into the gulf and hopefully catch it, which they have done, they just neglected to tell us why, gee thanks. A down hole leak is dangerous and damaging for several reasons. There will be erosion throughout the entire beat up, beat on and beat down remainder of the "system" including that inaccessible leak. The same erosion I spoke about in the first post is still present and has never stopped, cannot be stopped, is impossible to stop and will always be present in and acting on anything that is left which has crude oil "Product" rushing through it. There are abrasives still present, swirling flow will create hot spots of wear and this erosion is relentless and will always be present until eventually it wears away enough material to break it's way out. It will slowly eat the bop away especially at the now pinched off riser head and it will flow more and more. Perhaps BP can outrun or keep up with that out flow with various suckage methods for a period of time, but eventually the well will win that race, just how long that race will be?...no one really knows....However now?...there are other problems that a down hole leak will and must produce that will compound this already bad situation. This down hole leak will undermine the foundation of the seabed in and around the well area. It also weakens the only thing holding up the massive Blow Out Preventer's immense bulk of 450 tons. In fact?...we are beginning to the results of the well's total integrity beginning to fail due to the undermining being caused by the leaking well bore. The first layer of the sea floor in the gulf is mostly lose material of sand and silt. It doesn't hold up anything and isn't meant to, what holds the entire subsea system of the Bop in place is the well itself. The very large steel connectors of the initial well head "spud" stabbed in to the sea floor. The Bop literally sits on top of the pipe and never touches the sea bed, it wouldn't do anything in way of support if it did. After several tens of feet the seabed does begin to support the well connection laterally (side to side) you couldn't put a 450 ton piece of machinery on top of a 100' tall pipe "in the air" and subject it to the side loads caused by the ocean currents and expect it not to bend over...unless that pipe was very much larger than the machine itself, which you all can see it is not. The well's piping in comparison is actually very much smaller than the Blow Out Preventer and strong as it may be, it relies on some support from the seabed to function and not literally fall over...and it is now showing signs of doing just that....falling over. If you have been watching the live feed cams you may have noticed that some of the ROVs are using an inclinometer...and inclinometer is an instrument that measures "Incline" or tilt. The BOP is not supposed to be tilting...and after the riser clip off operation it has begun to... This is not the only problem that occurs due to erosion of the outer area of the well casings. The way a well casing assembly functions it that it is an assembly of different sized "tubes" that decrease in size as they go down. These tubes have a connection to each other that is not unlike a click or snap together locking action. After a certain length is assembled they are cemented around the ouside to the earth that the more rough drill hole is bored through in the well making process. A very well put together and simply explained process of "How to drill a deep water oil well" is available here: http://www.treesfullofmoney.com/?p=1610 The well bore casings rely on the support that is created by the cementing phase of well construction. Just like if you have many hands holding a pipe up you could put some weight on the top and the many hands could hold the pipe and the weight on top easily...but if there were no hands gripping and holding the pipe?...all the weight must be held up by the pipe alone. The series of connections between the sections of casings are not designed to hold up the immense weight of the BOP without all the "hands" that the cementing provides and they will eventually buckle and fail when stressed beyond their design limits. These are clear and present dangers to the battered subsea safety structure (bop and lmrp) which is the only loose cork on this well we have left. The immediate (first 1,000 feet) of well structure that remains is now also undoubtedly compromised. However.....as bad as that is?...it is far from the only possible problems with this very problematic well. There were ongoing troubles with the entire process during the drilling of this well. There were also many comprises made by BP IMO which may have resulted in an overall weakened structure of the entire well system all the way to the bottom plug which is over 12,000 feet deep. Problems with the cementing procedure which was done by Haliburton and was deemed as “was against our best practices.” by a Haliburton employee on April 1st weeks before the well blew out. There is much more and I won't go into detail right now concerning the lower end of the well and the troubles encountered during the whole creation of this well and earlier "Well control" situations that were revieled in various internal BP e-mails. I will add several links to those documents and quotes from them below and for now, address the issues concerning the upper portion of the well and the region of the sea floor. What is likely to happen now? Well...none of what is likely to happen is good, in fact...it's about as bad as it gets. I am convinced the erosion and compromising of the entire system is accelerating and attacking more key structural areas of the well, the blow out preventer and surrounding strata holding it all up and together. This is evidenced by the tilt of the blow out preventer and the erosion which has exposed the well head connection. What eventually will happen is that the blow out preventer will literally tip over if they do not run supports to it as the currents push on it. I suspect they will run those supports as cables tied to anchors very soon, if they don't, they are inviting disaster that much sooner. Eventually even that will be futile as the well casings cannot support the weight of the massive system above with out the cement bond to the earth and that bond is being eroded away. When enough is eroded away the casings will buckle and the BOP will collapse the well. If and when you begin to see oil and gas coming up around the well area from under the BOP? or the area around the well head connection and casing sinking more and more rapidly? ...it won't be too long after that the entire system fails. BP must be aware of this, they are mapping the sea floor sonically and that is not a mere exercise. Our Gov't must be well aware too, they just are not telling us. All of these things lead to only one place, a fully wide open well bore directly to the oil deposit...after that, it goes into the realm of "the worst things you can think of" The well may come completely apart as the inner liners fail. There is still a very long drill string in the well, that could literally come flying out...as I said...all the worst things you can think of are a possibility, but the very least damaging outcome as bad as it is, is that we are stuck with a wide open gusher blowing out 150,000 barrels a day of raw oil or more. There isn't any "cap dome" or any other suck fixer device on earth that exists or could be built that will stop it from gushing out and doing more and more damage to the gulf. While at the same time also doing more damage to the well, making the chance of halting it with a kill from the bottom up less and less likely to work, which as it stands now?....is the only real chance we have left to stop it all. It's a race now...a race to drill the relief wells and take our last chance at killing this monster before the whole weakened, wore out, blown out, leaking and failing system gives up it's last gasp in a horrific crescendo. We are not even 2 months into it, barely half way by even optimistic estimates. The damage done by the leaked oil now is virtually immeasurable already and it will not get better, it can only get worse. No matter how much they can collect, there will still be thousands and thousands of gallons leaking out every minute, every hour of every day. We have 2 months left before the relief wells are even near in position and set up to take a kill shot and that is being optimistic as I said. Over the next 2 months the mechanical situation also cannot improve, it can only get worse, getting better is an impossibility. While they may make some gains on collecting the leaked oil, the structural situation cannot heal itself. It will continue to erode and flow out more oil and eventually the inevitable collapse which cannot be stopped will happen. It is only a simple matter of who can "get there first"...us or the well. We can only hope the race against that eventuality is one we can win, but my assessment I am sad to say is that we will not. The system will collapse or fail substantially before we reach the finish line ahead of the well and the worst is yet to come. Sorry to bring you that news, I know it is grim, but that is the way I see it....I sincerely hope I am wrong. We need to prepare for the possibility of this blow out sending more oil into the gulf per week then what we already have now, because that is what a collapse of the system will cause. All the collection efforts that have captured oil will be erased in short order. The magnitude of this disaster will increase exponentially by the time we can do anything to halt it and our odds of actually even being able to halt it will go down. The magnitude and impact of this disaster will eclipse anything we have known in our life times if the worst or even near worst happens... We are seeing the puny forces of man vs the awesome forces of nature. We are going to need some luck and a lot of effort to win... and if nature decides we ought to lose, we will.... Reference materials: On April 1, a job log written by a Halliburton employee, Marvin Volek, warns that BP’s use of cement “was against our best practices.” An April 18 internal Halliburton memorandum indicates that Halliburton again warned BP about its practices, this time saying that a “severe” gas flow problem would occur if the casings were not centered more carefully. Around that same time, a BP document shows, company officials chose a type of casing with a greater risk of collapsing. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/us/06rig.html?pagewanted=1&sq=at_issue... Mark Hafle, the BP drilling engineer who wrote plans for well casings and cement seals on the Deepwater Horizon's well, testified that the well had lost thousands of barrels of mud at the bottom. But he said models run onshore showed alterations to the cement program would resolve the issues, and when asked if a cement failure allowed the well to "flow" gas and oil, he wouldn't capitulate. Hafle said he made several changes to casing designs in the last few days before the well blew, including the addition of the two casing liners that weren't part of the original well design because of problems where the earthen sides of the well were "ballooning." He also worked with Halliburton engineers to design a plan for sealing the well casings with cement. http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/hearings_bp_ce... graphic of fail http://media.nola.com/news_impact/other/oil-cause-050710.pdf Casing joint http://www.glossary.oilfield.slb.com/files/OGL00001.gif Casing http://www.glossary.oilfield.slb.com/files/OGL00003.gif Kill may take until Christmas http://preview.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-02/bp-gulf-of-mexico-oil-leak-... BP Used Riskier Method to Seal Well Before Blast http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/us/27rig.html BP memo test results http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20100512/Internal.BP.Email.Reg... Investigation results The information from BP identifies several new warning signs of problems. According to BP there were three flow indicators from the well before the explosion. http://energycommerce.house.gov/documents/20100525/Memo.BP.Internal.Inve... BP, what we know http://energycommerce.house.gov/documents/20100512/BP-What.We.Know.pdf What could have happened: Before or during the cement job, an influx of hydrocarbon enters the wellbore. Influx is circulated during cement job to wellhead and BOP. 9-7/8” casing hanger packoff set and positively tested to 6500 psi. After 16.5 hours waiting on cement, a negative test performed on wellbore below BOP. (~ 1400 psi differential pressure on 9-7/8” casing hanger packoff and ~ 2350 psi on double valve float collar) Packoff leaks allowing hydrocarbon to enter wellbore below BOP. 1400 psi shut in pressure observed on drill pipe (no flow or pressure observed on kill line) Hydrocarbon below BOP is unknowingly circulated to surface while finishing displacing the riser. As hydrocarbon rises to surface, gas break out of solution further reduces hydrostatic pressure in well. Well begin to flow, BOPs and Emergency Disconnect System (EDS) activated but failed. Packoff continues to leak allowing further influx from bottom. Confidential http://energycommerce.house.gov/documents/20100512/BP-What.Could.Have.Ha... T/A daily log 4-20 http://energycommerce.house.gov/documents/20100512/TRO-Daily.Drilling.Re... Cement plug 12,150 ft SCMT logging tool SCMT (Slim Cement Mapping Tool) Schlumberger Partial CBL done. http://energycommerce.house.gov/documents/20100530/BP-HZN-CEC018441.pdf Schlum CBL tools http://www.slb.com/~/media/Files/production/product_sheets/well_integrit... Major concerns, well control, bop test. http://energycommerce.house.gov/documents/20100530/BP-HZN-CEC018375.pdf Energy & commerce links to docs. http://energycommerce.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=articl... well head on sea floor http://nca-group.com/bilder//Trolla/A.%20GVI%20of%20Trolla%20prior%20to%20WHP002%20(2).jpg Well head on deck of ship http://nca-group.com/bilder//Trolla/DSC_0189.JPG BP's youtube propoganda page, a lot of rarely seen vids here....FWIW http://www.youtube.com/user/DeepwaterHorizonJIC http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1097505/pg1

I used to cover the energy business (oil, gas and alternative) here in Texas, and the few experts in the oil field -- including geologists, chemists, etc. -- able or willing to even speak of this BP event told me early on that it is likely the entire reserve will bleed out. Unfortunately none of them could say with any certainty just how much oil is in the reserve in question because, for one thing, the oil industry and secrecy have always been synonymous. According to BP data from about five years ago, there are four separate reservoirs containing a total of 2.5 billion barrels (barrels not gallons). One of the reservoirs has 1.5 billion barrels. I saw an earlier post here quoting an Anadarko Petroleum report which set the total amount at 2.3 billion barrels. One New York Times article put it at 2 billion barrels. If the BP data correctly or honestly identified four separate reservoirs then a bleed-out might gush less than 2 to 2.5 billion barrels unless the walls -- as it were -- fracture or partially collapse. I am hearing the same dark rumors which suggest fracturing and a complete bleed-out are already underway. Rumors also suggest a massive collapse of the Gulf floor itself is in the making. They are just rumors but it is time for geologists or related experts to end their deafening silence and speak to these possibilities. All oilmen lie about everything. The stories one hears about the extent to which they will protect themselves are all understatements. BP employees are already taking The Fifth before grand juries, and attorneys are laying a path for company executives to make a run for it.

a violent response?

While violence is never funny, I have to say that I am bemused by the media’s overhyped coverage of the ‘violent’ response to the passage in the House of H.R. 3490, the Patient  Protection and Affordable Care Act.

As a quick example, the Huffington Post apparently believes it is okay to portray Sunday's protesters as racist.  As we well know, the best way to diminish a group is to tar it with the actions of an individual.  However, while Representative Cleaver said someone spit on him (as far as I know, nobody actually filmed this and Rep. Cleaver himself was unable to identify the offender to the police) and both Representative Lewis and Senator Frank were offended by slurs shouted at them not a single act of physical violence occurred and there were no arrests.

Now, if it had been the left protesting capitalism…

Pittsburgh, September 24th, 2009 .. “A police report said at least 19 shops and banks, including many fast food restaurants, bagel shops and diners near the university, had their glass windows or doors smashed in.

Sixty-six people were arrested following the clashes on Thursday -- 24 during the disturbances in the afternoon and 42 overnight, police said.”

In fact, that was the results of the first day of protest and involved approximately 1000 protesters.  Contrast that with the “Tea Party” protesters outside the Capitol Building.  What was that saying?  Sticks and stones…

As I understand it, there was even less violence on Sunday than there was after the 2004 ALCS Red Sox win.  Go figure.

Altruism, the most noble of intentions

Have you ever watched someone who is reading a really good book? I mean really observed them. Perhaps you were in a library when you heard someone exclaim and looked up (obviously your book wasn’t as good as it could have been) to see a reader, oblivious to anyone else in the room, with an intense expression on their face. Maybe you sat down in an airport gate area and noticed a reader who didn’t look up when the flight was called for the second or third time. Whatever the case may have been, I know the next thing you did was try to see the title of their book. With any luck, you found a good book to read.

I know I’ve been that reader, lost in the story, literally woven into the fabric the author has crafted. Really good books are like that, sucking you in until it is almost irritating to return to the real world around you. Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series comes to mind, as do Anne McCaffery’s The Dragonriders of Pern series and Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan stories. I can remember befriending the local bookstore proprietor so that I could be on the list of people for whom he reserved one of his limited copies of upcoming releases. The good old days of the corner bookstore. But I digress…

Over the past several years I have found myself reading less entertaining books such as Mark Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny, Niall Ferguson’s The Ascent of Money and Peter Schiff’s Crash Proof. However, I remain the reader who runs down to Barnes and Noble and picks up a book that has been turned into a movie so I can read it as the author intended before seeing a script writer’s perversion of the story. That is sort of how I discovered Terry Goodkind’s The Sword of Truth series.

In looking for something to watch on TV, I stumbled upon ABC’s Legend of the Seeker. I missed season one, but went back and caught up online after the first couple installments of season two. Then I saw an interview with the author, Terry Goodkind, and made it a point to pick up the first book in the series (Wizard’s First Rule). I was hooked. The next trip to the bookstore involved picking up book two and ordering books three through six. I just finished book six, Faith of the Fallen, and it is so relevant to today’s politics that I found myself reading paragraph sized excerpts of it to my wife and having to explain the back-story in the the process. She smiled indulgently through the whole exercise, bless her heart.

I understand that Goodkind describes himself as an objectivist and I will not pretend to know diddly about objectivism (perhaps that shall be my next path of inquiry). What struck me about the storyline in Faith of the Fallen was the socially destructive force of altruism. Goodkind seems to have taken the proverb ‘Hell is full of good intentions or desires’ and, quite literally, played it out in his story.

Now I find myself looking at the Obama administration's use of altruism to destroy the very fabric of the United States of America and constructing parallels to Goodkind's storyline in Faith of the Fallen. What scares me is that The Order was successful for hundreds of years and I see no reason why today's 'altruists' should fail in their efforts.

Toyota in the hot seat

I've been watching the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearings and I'm afraid Toyota is in more than the hot seat.

Before I excoriate Toyota, let me say that I have owned a Toyota vehicle for personal use since 1983. I don't lease, I buy .. in fact, I buy and hold. I have had my current vehicle for almost 12 years and have absolutely no regrets. That said, Toyota blew it - BIG TIME!

My background is computers and programming control systems. Suffice it to say I've been working with computers since the late '70s and I programmed control systems for 13 years. Based on the testimonies I heard this morning, Toyota has had a problem with their Electronic Control System (ECS) for years.

We used to call them AFEs (another f'ing engineer); kids who just graduated from college and knew everything there is to know about their (brand new) profession. They were tasked with the unenviable job of writing code for or designing systems that they truly didn't understand. This isn't really a problem in and of itself in, say, an accounting system, but when you are interfacing with the real world... oh boy.

Think of airplanes. For years, when 'fly by wire' first arrived on the scene, experienced pilots bemoaned not having "control" of the new planes. There were no "real" control systems; everything went through a computer. If you wanted to bank right, you turned the yoke to the right, the computer control system received the signal and then the computer sent the proper commands to the related physical systems to accomplish the turn. The yoke wasn't physically attached to anything but the computer. If the computer failed the whole thing would be nothing but a flying stone. That is why there are backup systems (3 in the Shuttles as I recall).

There are (probably) no backup systems in (Toyota) cars. I don't know this for sure since I am not into cars, but it makes sense since cars are a consumer item and the idea is to cut production costs so as to maximize profit. No, I am not saying that is a bad thing, that is just the way it works.

Anyway, my bet is that some AFE somewhere back up the line (if I understood the testimony I heard this morning, somewhere back as far as 2000) wrote at least part of the code that is currently used in the ECS. Because of it's age this code was and has been considered 'mature' and 'functional.' Oops. It probably has an intermittent bug. Happens all the time.

Since reverse engineering is costly and problematic, nobody ever bothered to test and verify the old code. Worse, since it was considered 'functional,' nobody ever rewrote it. (At least not until recently- ergo the 'flashing' of the ECS.)

Now, I know none of this for sure; I am speculating. It is, however, an 'educated' guess based on years of experience crafting, writing and troubleshooting control systems. If it was me, and I was working for Toyota and hearing about these problems for the first time it would come down to this:
1. Can I reliably reproduce the problem mechanically?

2. What is the common denominator between the various vehicles?

In the final analysis Toyota made a series of assumptions and you know what that means.

CPAC Keynote speech

If you haven't watched this then you should. If you have watched this then you need to watch it again. It speaks for itself.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/4881432

L'enfer est plein de bonnes volontés

"Hell is full of good intentions"

By now you know I can't pass up the chance to take a deeper look at our English and its evolution. (Why 'our' English? Because a British friend of mine would publicly crucify me on my own blog if I tried to get away with assuming that British English and American English were the same thing. I would find myself on the "defence" for the indefensible.) You shouldn't be surprised then to learn the familiar proverb 'the road to hell is full of good intentions' has a simpler beginning; or that it is French in origin. History is replete with these adaptations.

So why the proverb? Because I believe that many Americans today are operating on the basis of good intentions gone bad. I know that isn't the case when it comes to the leadership, but my 'good intention' is to give the many the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps I will avoid that trip.

The anecdote goes that Benjamin Franklin, upon leaving Independence Hall at the close of the 1787 Constitutional Convention, was asked what form of government he had given us. His reply was "A Republic, if you can keep it." Those words ring truer today than at any time in our history.

I hear a lot about compromise these days. Every time I hear how the Republicans lost so they should compromise it reminds me of the time I stood alone on a vote. I argued my position as best I could but, in the end, I was the lone vote in opposition. Everyone else was upset with me for not agreeing with them and, truth be told, I was floored by their response. Somehow my business partners (it was a vote on the direction the company was to take) were of the opinion that, because they were in the majority, I should compromise my position so that the vote could be unanimous. It was an enlightening experience.

My point is this: some things you just can't compromise on no matter what. Worse, compromise just for the sake of compromise is just plain ignorant.

This country was founded as a representative Republic (a representative democracy in the form of a constitutional republic) not a direct democracy. The answer to why is straightforward: to prevent a tyranny of the majority. The powers of the federal government were enumerated. The federal government itself was broken into a triumvirate and specific checks and balances were put in place. The point of all this was to protect individual liberty and the rights of property. The United States of America is supposed to be a nation of laws, not of men.

Glenn Beck / FOX News under attack

It has been brought to my attention that a group called ColorOfChange.org has decided that Glenn Beck is using his platform on the FOX News channel to 'race bait'. Having decided this, they are asking the denizens of their website to petition companies advertising on the Glenn Beck show to withdraw their sponsorship.

Below is the letter ColorOfChange.org is sending to companies advertising on Glenn's show.

To President/CEO & Board:

I want to alert you to the fact that Glenn Beck--whose show you sponsor on FOX--is using his platform to make outlandish accusations about the President and to advance baseless theories that prey on race-based fears.

He is claiming that President Obama is a "racist," that he has a "deep-seated hatred for white people," and that he is attempting to use our government to deliver "Obama-brand reparations." The claims are ludicrous, and the rhetoric is racially divisive and pollutes our public discourse.

I presume your company does not want to enable such rhetoric, nor have your products or services associated with the kind of views and tactics espoused by Beck. I urge you to immediately cease all advertising on the Glenn Beck Program on the FOX News Channel.

Sincerely,

[Your name]

I propose that we counter this campaign with one of our own. Below is the letter that I am sending to the companies advertising on the Glenn Beck show.

To Whom It May Concern:

My name is [your name]. I am a loyal fan of the Glenn Beck show on the FOX News channel and I want to thank you for your company's ongoing sponsorship.

I am sending this letter of support because it has recently come to my attention that an organization called ColorOfChange.org has mounted a personal attack on Glenn Beck. It is my understanding that they have contacted your company in an effort to have you withdraw your company's sponsorship of Glenn Beck, his show and the FOX News channel in general.

As any regular viewer of the Glenn Beck show knows, the host is irreverent, entertaining, informative, and makes every attempt to be factual in his presentation. It is also my understanding that the Glenn Beck show is number one in viewership in its time slot and that that viewership is growing by the day.

Again, I want to thank you for your company's sponsorship of the Glenn Beck show.

Respectfully,

[your name]
[city, state]

Please add your voice to the list. Copy the letter (or write your own!) and email it to the companies that advertise on the FOX News channel during the Glenn Beck show. Oh, and don't forget to add your name, city and state in the proper places!

Letter to the White House

To Whom It May Concern:

I, [your name], am fervently against Health Care Reform as currently proposed by both President Obama and the Leadership in the Congress of these United States.

While many of the Legislators in Congress profess to finding it too difficult or onerous to read legislation before voting on it, I have read the bill known as "America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009" and find it objectionable to say the least.

With that in mind, I want to declare that I have expressed my position both privately and publicly. I shall continue to express my position at every opportunity - public and private - in person, on the telephone, in letters and emails, on my blog and in any other way I damn well please. This is my right as a citizen of the United States of America.

At every opportunity I shall quote from "America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009" and any other unscrupulous Legislation in an effort to show it for what it truly is - garbage. I shall always endeavor to use facts in my prosecution both of this battle and the overall war against the socialization of these United States. This is my duty to the Constitution of the United States of America.

I shall work against any elected representative who supports or votes for this or any other similarly offensive Legislation – Health Care related or not. I shall do this in the interest of my community, my state, and the nation at large. This is my responsibility as a citizen of the United States of America

Finally, I remind you that, as an elected representative, you are there to serve The People, not the other way around. You work for us. Don't ever forget that.

[your name]
[city, state]

open letter to Greta Van Susteren

to OnTheRecord@foxnews.com
date Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 10:41 AM
subject Secretary Clinton Interview

I am, to say the least, disappointed. Greta allowed Secretary Clinton say her piece and never once challenged what she said. In fact, Greta tossed more than one softball. First she said "and then the guns come back across the border" and later allowed how her ATF 'sources' have "told us these weapons, these automatic weapons that go right through these -- you know, right through police officers here, are coming from the United States." I wouldn't have believed Greta would allow herself to be used as a propaganda outlet.


To keep it simple: (1) automatic weapons are not available "over-the-counter" in the United States (National Firearms Act, 1934); (2) so forget the possibility of purchasing more than one for transfer to Mexico. As completely regulated Title II weapons, FBI background checks are necessary if you even dream of a "machine gun". Check the law.

If you think the alphabet soup of government agencies (ATF, FBI, whatever) would fail to arrest any purchaser or seller who was identified in connection with a single verified serial number (let alone any number greater than one) connected to a Title II weapon, you are dreaming. If this administration could connect even one illegal automatic weapon found in Mexico to a licensed gun dealer here in the United States we would be hearing about it loudly and continuously.

Greta, as a lawyer, you know full well that words matter. That means blatant propaganda must be challenged outright, not let slip by (as if, perhaps, the interviewer wasn't prepared for the answer - or worse, was prompting for one?). When I hear someone say that automatic weapons are being purchased over-the-counter and smuggled into Mexico then I know that person is lying ex facie. What galls me most is your is apparent willingness to accept such statements as fact without verifying them.

It is apparent that nothing has changed where certain liberal policies are concerned and what this administration's position on gun control will be in the long run.

Respectfully,

Ne Plus (**********)
El Paso, TX
915-***-****

Leaders of Black Community infer President Obama is a monkey

Considering the controversy and who is pushing it to the forefront, there is no other logical conclusion.

As I pointed out the other day, Sean Delonas was obviously making reference to the adage that, given a typewriter and enough time, even a monkey will produce the Encyclopaedia Britannica. That being the case (I have seen nothing that would convince me otherwise), it is apparent that the so-called leaders of the Black Community are grasping at straws.

From all that I have read and heard, it is obvious the individuals who believe they are the true leaders of the Black Community are in a pitched battle with President Obama for control of that community.

• The Rev. Al Sharpton apparently believes that all references to monkeys are references to "african-americans" and, as such, are racist. I guess that makes a, ummm, clown out of him.
• Benjamin Jealous, President of the NAACP, apparently thinks the cartoon is a call to arms; a call to assasinate President Obama. While I can sympathize with any disappointment in the segment of the electorate that did not vote for Barack Obama, I certainly don't think any police officers are going to run down to D.C. with their guns blazing because of this cartoon.
• Director Spike Lee apparently believes that his call for a boycott of the NY Post will somehow impact the right-of-center paper. Yeah, right. My guess would be that the Post's circulation will, at a minimum, take a temporary "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" jump.

My guess (well, it has to be a guess since I am certainly not an insider when it comes to the Black Community) is that President Obama isn't 'left' enough for those who have heretofore been considered the leaders of the Black Community and this is their attempt to make themselves relevant. In the past they have always screamed "Racism!" to sieze the spotlight, but that is a little more difficult since our president is not white.

somehow I missed the controversy

Apparently a number of people are upset about Sean Delonas' cartoon (at right). They seem to believe that his intention was to depict President Obama as the chimp.

In investigating this allegation, I printed this cartoon on an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper and hung it on my wall. Even at that size and using a magnifying glass, I have been unable to find any indication of this alleged reference. No subtext, no overt reference, no nothing.

Without any direct reference, I guess I missed the controversy. To the best of my knowledge, the authors of the 'stimulus' bill (ya gotta love the pompous new name - American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) are Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Senator Harry Reid and their minions. In fact, President Obama did not take credit for the bill, even when he had an opportunity to do so, in his op-ed piece on February 5th.

If anyone has a right to be upset with Mr. Delonas' cartoon, it is obviously the 28 Democrats who authored / sponsored the stimulus bill (11 in the House and 17 in the Senate; the 29th sponsor was an Independent). I believe that Mr. Delonas' statement was quite simple and straightforward: it only takes 29 monkeys playing with a computer to write a bill that can pass the 111th Congress.

rotation in office

This morning I was listening to Brian Sullivan and Dagen McDowell argue about President Obama's guidelines for executive compensation and the billions in bonuses paid in the various firms that received TARP funds. During the course of his tirade Brian mentioned term limits. His remark was in passing, but it reminded me of the issue – a frequent subject of debate in my family.

While I have always been in favor of term limits, I have also inevitably succumbed to the "people deserve to elect whomever they want to represent them" argument. No longer. It has reached the point where the logic of "they are all bad; other than my representative" is hurting us all. In fact, we passed that point years ago.

In 1947 the United States Congress passed the 22^nd Amendment which sets a term limit for the President. It was ratified by the requisite number of states in 1951. The text of the Amendment reads as follows:

Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

In essence, the Amendment prohibits anyone from serving as President for more than 10 years (two elected four-year terms after succeeding to the Presidency for two years). Historically speaking, this Amendment only codifies what had been accepted convention, although some presidents did seek a third term.

In 1880 President Grant was the first to seek a third term, eschewing the two-term principle. Then, in 1912, Teddy Roosevelt sought election to a third term (although it would have been his second elected term and those two terms would have been non-consecutive). Finally, Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to a third term in 1940 and then a fourth term in 1944.

Although the practice of rotation in office, what we now call term limits, dates back to ancient Greece and was addressed in the Articles of Confederation, it was omitted from the U.S. Constitution. American culture of the day, however, perceived political power as corrupting and believed in civic duty. Essentially, these cultural beliefs proscribed returning incumbent representatives to office.

It seems American culture has changed since 1776, especially in the last 100 years.

a home on the range

I believe I have a viable solution to the terrorism detainee issue. Since Guantánamo Bay is no longer an acceptable venue and no other country wants them, I have concluded that we should bring the detainees here - to El Paso. Well, to Fort Bliss at any rate. Why Fort Bliss? Well, there are several good reasons. Follow me on this.

I realize nobody really wants the detainees nearby, what with them being (alleged) terrorists and all, but they are still people and Fort Bliss makes perfect sense just on location alone. You see, Fort Bliss is in the high desert. This means the terrain and climate are similar to Iraq and Afghanistan and should help the detainees feel welcome and more at home. The second location related advantage is size. What most of you probably don't know is that Fort Bliss is at the tail end of the largest military reservation in the United States. Yup, that's right; the Fort Bliss part of that military reservation is bigger than the state of Rhode Island - something like 1 million acres of open high desert. That doesn't count White Sands Missile Range, Holloman Air Force Base or any of the myriad of smaller installations stretching from El Paso, Texas, up to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Let's just settle on saying it is really, Really, REALLY big.

While location alone is an excellent reason, when you consider the other advantages to housing the detainees (t)here, the move becomes a no-brainer.

First, Fort Bliss is home to the 978th Military Police Company. What more can you ask for? Built in guards with the training to do the job! Then there is the fact that the government is building a wall nearby. That's right, the border with Mexico is just a few miles away.

For facilities we can build what amounts to a village. Most of the world should view this as a most humane way to house the detainees. No prison walls, no cages, just regular Afghan style housing. Of course, we will need someplace to interview the detainees so I propose a "glass house" built in the middle of the village. Why glass? So that the dozens of human rights groups can watch the interviews! I suspect the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, the Center for American Progress, Amnesty International, Cage Prisoners, the United Nations, … and the ASPCA will all want to see all the interviews taking place and this would facilitate that supervision. No chance for torture there!

Now, we all know that it would be way too expensive to build a physical wall - a new prison as it were. It costs something like $425,500 per mile of standard 10-foot prison chain link fence topped by razor wire and that is when you are buying 2000 miles of it. Hardly worth the expense considering these enemy combatants will be abiding by the Geneva Convention. On the other hand, regardless of the cost of a virtual fence (know as an integrated surveillance system by those in the industry), when you are done with it you simply pick up the parts and take them away (Put them on the border with Mexico!). This truly minimizes the overall cost. As for effectiveness, proponents maintain the virtual fence is good enough to keep 95% of the illegal border crossers out, so it should be good enough to keep 95% of the captured enemy combatants in. The other 5% shouldn't be much of a problem. See, if we use the same system both to incarcerate the detainees and protect our southern border, (alleged) terrorists will have the same access to the U.S. whether they escape from Fort Bliss or come in from Mexico. Six of one, half dozen of the other.

Obviously we aren't locking these people up and it would be silly to make them sit around all day doing nothing. No, these people are doers just like our middle class. Also, television and radio are out of the question since they don't believe there is anything good that comes from our culture. (Can't you just see them clustered around a radio listening to Rush Limbaugh or a TV watching Rachael Ray? No, that just doesn't fit.) So, I propose we use them and their village to train the troops headed overseas. Don't laugh! Right now we are using El Pasoans to play the role of villagers and these folks would be, well, more authentic. Come to think of it, it would be even more authentic if we gave them weapons. Hmmm .. yes, I like that idea. Fair play; the American way.

"..duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly.."

I must admit I am somewhat disappointed. Though I have waited patiently for the past few days, I have yet to hear from the government about my new green job. However, in the spirit of the day I have decided to "seize gladly" my duty to help the economy. I will lay out my plan and I hope that many of you, as Americans, will understand "that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world" and follow suit.

First, let me say that my investment portfolio has suffered the same fate as the stock market - down around 40% in the past year. That's a significant hit and it is all ex-President Bush's fault. That being said, I believe I still have enough to make a significant difference to this economy.

What I propose is the following:

1. Withdraw all of the money in my (now reduced) IRAs and 401K. The logic behind this move is indisputable. For one thing, though I am presently unemployed, I fully expect to be working for the government as soon as Congress approves the new bailout plan. (I can only imagine that is the reason I haven’t heard about my new government job just yet. No money honey!) In the meantime, I will have cash on hand to pay the bills and, more importantly, spend.
   
2. Pay the 10% penalty on the withdrawal amounts. Now we all know that, as a member of the middle class, we don’t pay enough taxes. If we did, we wouldn’t be in this pickle in the first place! Look at how robust the Federal Income was at the end of the Clinton presidency. I mean, we had a surplus!!! So, it is my responsibility – my duty to the nation – to pay more taxes. Since I don’t have a current income the only way I know how to accomplish this is to withdraw my retirement savings and pay the 10% penalty. Note: for those of you with a job, I suggest you not only withdraw all your retirement savings, but also ask your employer to double the amount of withholding from your paycheck. Next year, when you file your tax return, you can just tell the government to keep the extra as your contribution to the federal deficit. (I believe it is somewhere around $140K per individual right now. It should go up considerably by then. You owe!)
   
3. Now, as for the remaining money. I suggest you run out and buy a car. Remember, nothing foreign. We need to support Detroit and the unions. Our fellow Americans are depending upon us! Oh, and no trade-ins! If you don’t have room for the new car, then advertise the old one in your local paper. This is another critical step. Our newspapers are going broke due to lack of advertising so it is our patriotic duty to help them and the union employees who work there.
   
4. I bet you are still wondering why you can’t trade in your vehicle. Here is the deal: there are people out there who cannot get credit from the Big Banks. So, to get the credit market moving again, we are going to extend credit on all those who buy our used cars!!! Just think about it. It makes perfect sense. We can all take the part of a mini Freddie Mac – no credit check, no nothing. Trust. Trust in your fellow American. Hey, if you’re really lucky, you will be helping an undocumented immigrant get started.

Well, that’s it for now. I’m going to try really hard to think up some other ways we can help jump-start the economy. Remember, “..there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.”

the morning after

Okay, so here’s the thing…

I woke up this morning with joy in my heart and feeling all kinds of cheerful. I mean, the Anointed One {Hallelujah!!! Amen! (Insert choral music here.) Happy days are here again!} was sworn in yesterday and I just knew that, despite His {Hallelujah!!! Amen! (Insert choral music here.) Happy days are here again!} admonition to the contrary, all would be right with the world sometime around noon.

Sitting here, drinking my coffee, waiting for the phone to ring (I’ve had my resume out there for months now and I know I must be near the top of the call list.), I couldn’t help but be enthused by the image of the country working together (again? now?). Like oxen in yoke, my mind’s eye could see us pulling in the same direction under the watchful benevolence of our now harmonious government. Even those uninformed Republicans must see the light of a new day this morning. I bet they’ll compromise their positions and join in.

And there is so much to be done! So much neglect to undo. Windmills to build, an electrical grid to restructure, roads to asphalt (Oops, my mistake; I mean rubberize – or whatever they call it when you rip up old tires and cover a road with them.), bridges to repair, trees to plant, guns to confiscate and destroy and recycle into .. ummm .. bridges, rivers and lakes to clean and stock, a terrible dividing wall to tear down (and recycle into bridges) so our neighbors to the south can join us… The list is endless!

I wonder what kind of government job is being created for me. The idea of receiving a living wage; the promise of government healthcare; access to the Congressional retirement plan; they just make me want to be a productive member of this great experiment once again!

Everyone will have government healthcare and a living wage will be the standard from now on. (Hmmm... I’ll bet they stop calling it a living wage. I mean, why bother when everyone will be getting it – no need to differentiate! Yeah!!!) As for retirement, well, even if I find myself in the private sector there is always Social Security. At least President Obama {Hallelujah!!! Amen! (Insert choral music here.) Happy days are here again!} will see to it that Social Security doesn’t collapse like Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.

Oh, I can’t wait until noon!