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NIGHT WATCHMAN
Once upon a time the government had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert. Congress said, "Someone may steal from it at night." So they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job. Then Congress said, "How does the watchman do his job without instruction?" So they created a planning department and hired two people, one person to write the instructions, and one person to do time studies. Then Congress said, "How will we know the night watchman is doing the tasks correctly?" So they created a Quality Control department and hired two people. One was to do the studies and one was to write the reports. Then Congress said, "How are these people going to get paid?" So they created two positions: a time keeper and a payroll officer then hired two people. Then Congress said, "Who will be accountable for all of these people?" So they created an administrative section and hired three people, an Administrative Officer, Assistant Administrative Officer, and a Legal Secretary. Then Congress said, "We have had this command in operation for one year and we are $918,000 over budget, we must cut back." So they laid-off the night watchman. NOW slowly, let it sink in. Quietly, we go like sheep to slaughter. Does anybody remember the reason given for the establishment of the DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY during the Carter administration? Anybody? Anything? No? Didn't think so! Bottom line is, we've spent several hundred billion dollars in support of an agency, the reason for which very few people who read this can remember! Ready?? It was very simple... and at the time, everybody thought it very appropriate. The Department of Energy was instituted on 8/04/1977, TO LESSEN OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL. Hey, pretty efficient, huh??? AND NOW IT'S 2015 – 38 YEARS LATER -- AND THE BUDGET FOR THIS "NECESSARY" DEPARTMENT IS AT $24.2 BILLION A YEAR. IT HAS 16,000 FEDERAL EMPLOYEES AND APPROXIMATELY 100,000 CONTRACT EMPLOYEES; AND LOOK AT THE JOB IT HAS DONE! (THIS IS WHERE YOU SLAP YOUR FOREHEAD AND SAY,
"WHAT
WERE
THEY THINKING?")
38 years ago 30% of our oil consumption was foreign imports. Today 70% of our oil consumption is foreign imports. Ah, yes -- good old Federal bureaucracy. NOW, WE HAVE TURNED OVER THE BANKING SYSTEM,
HEALTH
CARE,
AND THE AUTO
INDUSTRY TO THE
SAME
GOVERNMENT? Hello!! Anybody Home? Signed....The Night Watchman |
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
The Night Watchman
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Ha ha again you tell only a small sliver of the story that small sliver that makes it bad. First most of what the dept of energy does was already being done through various federal agencies, The Atomic energy commission/ Nuclear regulatory agency, the Federal Energy Administration, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Federal Power Commission. Beginning in 1977 all these scattered agencies and many lesser ones were combined under the umbrella of the Dept of energy. Oil dependency is/was just a fraction of the depts. responsibility. It is the controlling agency of the nations nuclear weapons program (ah you thought the military did that didn't you) , Nope it was turned over to the civilian government after WW2 for many obvious reasons. It controls use of peaceful nuclear assets, it controls the purchase and manufacture of nuclear power plants for the navy's warships, It controls the disposal of radio active waste, It oversees renewable energy, it oversees domestic energy production of all kinds, it oversees energy conservation. And William did you know that it also oversees the human genome project so it is also involved in pharmaceuticals. Did you know William that the DOE also sponsors more R&D in physics then any other entity in the world.
ReplyDeleteit's nuclear weapons responsibilities include design of parts and systems (Los Alamos National Labs / Lawrence- Livermore Labs)
Engineering of the weapons systems (Sandia National Labs)
Manufacturing of key components (Los Alamos, Y12, Kansas City Plant ( manufacturer of 85% of non nuclear components)
Testing (Nevada Test Site)
Ah William you war hawks need these guys you just didn't know it cause you hate them for blocking your god damn fracking.
Dis assembly and final disposition of aged warheads (Pantex)
And we will spend over 100 Billion dollars over the next four years for these people to sit on their asses. We have a defense department that should be in charge of atomic weapons and we spend about half a trillion dollars a year on defense.
DeleteWe need to stop spending money out of our asses ric.
Perhaps a better one is do we really need Radio Free Europe a product of the cold war.
ReplyDeleteYes Dorthy we still have it as once a government program starts it rarely goes away.
The Federal Government spent over 104 billion last year on 18 different food programs run by different agencies. With this booming economy do we really need to spend 104 billion a year?
Category Number of programs.
Child Care/Child Support 70
Counsel/Counseling 26
Disability Assistance 50
Disaster Relief 25
Education/Training 77
Employment/Career Development Assistance 119
Energy Assistance 104
Environmental Sustainability/Conservation 8
Food/Nutrition 265
Grants/Scholarships/Fellowships 66
HIV/AIDS 35
Healthcare 96
Housing 53
Insurance 86
Living Assistance 66
Loan/Loan Repayment 53
Medicaid/Medicare 53
Military: Active Duty and Veterans 76
Social Security/Retirement 19
Tax Assistance 19
Volunteer Opportunities 3
Benefit programs for everyone.
The point, why not 1 program for each or 2 or 3? Why 265 food programs?
DeleteThat is government waste at it's finest.
Pretty soon we will have one food program for each day of the year. This way we can expand our food stamp program to another fifty million or so people who do not care to provide for their own families.
DeleteWE NEED TO STOP SPENDING OUT OF OUR ASSES. 18 TRILLION IN DEBT NOW, 20 TRILLION BY THE TIME OBAMA LEAVES OFFICE.
20 TRILLION FUCKING DOLLARS IN DEBT.
WELCOME TO THE USA GRANDCHILDREN!
Maybe we SHOULD elect Donald Trump, he's pretty good at telling creditors they aren't going to get paid back.
DeleteI'm not without sympathy or a sense of agreement about our debt. Yet, the relentless screeching is not going to fix it. Nearly everyday, somebody here will find another link, to another story, that tells a new horror about some wasteful spending. If people didn't adopt a hair on fire attitude after the millionth story, do you believe that if you just keep screaming this from the mountain everyday that it will change. It's pure cynicism and while cynicism will produce some clever punchlines and allow the spreader of cynicism to vent their anger, it won't change anything.
The debt, IMO, is not the biggest problem this country faces, and in fact, I think some of the screaming the Republicans do about it is to make sure that we aren't looking at other issues. At one time in life, I got myself into about 15k of debt when I was making less than 30k a year. I didn't get out of that hole by just stopping my spending. I got better jobs and made more money. Our economy is not growing in a manner wherein more people make more money and pay more taxes. I think this is a far bigger problem than the sheer amount of debt that we have.
I didn't get out of that hole by just stopping my spending. I got better jobs and made more money. Our economy is not growing in a manner wherein more people make more money and pay more taxes. I think this is a far bigger problem than the sheer amount of debt that we have.
DeleteAnd then you paid off the debt. You didn't continue spending far more than you made. We have yet to get to that point. Every year the GDP increases, every year government spending increases. Where is the point of no return? The point where we cannot balance the budget begin the payback process?
And no, our economy is no longer robust. Can we attribute it to our free trade agreements where money is made, people buy goods and the money is sent overseas instead of being recycled through the US economy?
Could it be the US government pays over half of the budget in entitlements? It would be interesting to remove all government spending from the GDP numbers which includes borrowed money and see what the real GDP is.
Some say 24 Trillion is the point of no return. Up until then we can pawn ourselves to China, and inflate our dollars on the backs of retirees. Once past 24T the game of catch up becomes impossible no matter what gimmicks are used by the government.
DeleteWe're going from 10 to 20T in eight years. 24T is a blink away with base line budgeting and thousands of programs that are milking the cow dry. We're worrying about trade deals with Asians while we should be keeping our eye on the ball here at home. Smoke and mirrors by the big spenders, get myself re-elected crowd of charlatans in DC.
They can easily erase the SS trust fund, medicare trust fund, the assets held at the fed reserve by declaring entitlement while the Fed uses a magic eraser to erase the debt.
DeleteInstant solvency for a few more years.
Instant dog food for retirees.
DeleteWilliam.
DeleteSS and Medicare have always been pay as you go entitlements.
There is no magic account with money it, just IOU's the current taxpayers must redeem or not when it comes time when out flows exceed inflows.
So what difference does it make, just call it what it is.
Lou,
DeleteBy the end of the Clinton administration, the government had accomplished basically what I did. We had a gameplan in place where new spending had to be offset by cuts elsewhere, and we had also had a budget surplus at a time when we still had debt, which means we were actually paying down debt. I don't give either party full credit, but my point is that during that period, we had tax increases, welfare reduction, balanced budgets (sorta), pay go,AND last but not least, we were starting to pay down debt.
We both frequently say both parties are just as bad, but the bottom line is that both of us continue to believe that one party is worse than the other, and my gut feeling is that most of America feels the same way. I believe Clinton's administration, sort of like Bush Sr.s administration, marked a turning point in the wrong direction. The torch was definitely handed to a younger generation, and the political tantrums have gotten worse ever since. The focus on the spending increases of W and Obama miss the point by a wide margin.
Obama signs Pay-Go law but also raises federal debt ceiling
Delete02/13/10 11:00 AM EST
President Barack Obama on Saturday congratulated Congress for restoring a requirement that the federal government spend only what it can afford — a day after authorizing $1.9 trillion more federal debt.
Obama used his weekly radio address to report that he signed into law on Friday night the legislation commonly known on Capitol Hill as “Pay-Go,” which has been used sporadically over the past 20 years by congressional budget-writers. Obama also repeated his call for $20 billion in budget cuts, a freeze in certain government spending, and the creation of a fiscal commission.
Just kidding he said.
The torch was definitely handed to a younger generation, and the political tantrums have gotten worse ever since.
Perhaps this is the source of our divided country today. Never really gave that much thought but it is pretty much correct.
2010 pay/go was what was needed after the spendfest then we continue down the same path. A question, why is it that the media has ignored the fact, the president has ignored the fact and certainly congress gives the prez what he wants ignoring the fact of pay/go?
Why doesn't the news hammer this point? I don't know. In all honesty, what does it matter to me if our debt is 10 till, 15 trill or 20 trill? I get what it means, and why it is important. But by the same token, why keep reporting on it when no realistic solution is on the horizon. Ultimately, no generation is going to want to pay down that debt and I think that is the bottom line. From time to time, some generation may do some of what is needed, like raise taxes and cut the military and institute means testing for SS, but by and large, no single generation is going to say to themselves, "Hey, how bout we make massive sacrifices to pay for selfish assholes who came before us?" Here an there, progress will be made, but we will never get out of debt.
DeleteMy guess is that we will not do anything seriously constructive until interest rates rise. We are no longer allowed to think for the future when it comes to government. Everything has no more vision than the next election.
As long as people say, it's not my problem nothing changes as you know.
DeleteAnd it really doesn't matter until you reach the status of Greece today, then all of a sudden it matters. Greece doesn't matter to us but it does to the citizens of Greece.
Just like when we reach the breaking point where the investors of the world say no thanks to the US treasury debt and all of a sudden to sell the debt interest in the 10 year treasury is 7%. Will it matter then?
And you are correct the past generation handed us their debt. We are borrowing to finance their debt and our own debt. Nothing changes until it's forced on us.
Greece is one example, but the bottom line is that countries like the United States do not have to adhere to the standard that a small country without a reserve currency does. Donald Trump actually highlights the issue well. He can borrow to the hilt, claim bankruptcy and keep his business. People will continue to deal with him because they believe he will typically make money in the long run for investors. If I had never gotten better jobs and gotten myself out of debt, I would forever be beholden to banks who make damn sure they take a pound of flesh any time I wanted to borrow money.
DeleteWhen I worked at the Board of Trade, it astounded me that the government could issue millions and millions and eventually billions of dollars of new securities every single month. I kinda don't get it either, but on another level I get it completely. As long as we continue to have the military that we do, along with the consumer demand we continue to have despite a crappy economy, people will continue to buy our debt. Personally, I think the market should have long ago driven rates higher in spite of the Fed. But this is another flaw in market thinking. Markets will follow trends that make money whether it is where true value lies or not.