Economists Question Sustainability of QEII
Here is an interesting article regarding U.S. monetary policy published by the Sydney Morning Herald: Economists Question Sustainability of QEII
Bankrupt US to spend $200 MILLION a DAY on Obama’s Mumbai Trip
Despite the voters of America voting loud and clear that they do not want the federal government to waste tax dollars, President Obama intends to take his entourage to Mumbai despite the fact his trip will be the single most expensive trip in the history of mankind. A reasonable person would cancel the trip because there is no way that any perceived benefit could ever out weight the cost of the trip.
NDTV: “The US would be spending a whopping $200 million . . . per day on President Barack Obama’s visit to the city
[Mumbai]. ‘The huge amount of around $200 million would be spent on security, stay and other aspects of the Presidential visit,’ a top official of the Maharashtra Government privy to the arrangements for the high-profile visit said. About 3,000 people including Secret Service agents, US government officials and journalists would accompany the President.
Investors Business Daily: “Yes, a traveling president deserves security. But the 3,000-person entourage accompanying Barack Obama to Mumbai, India, this week reeks of pashalike decadence. . . . Five fully loaded jet aircraft will fly Obama and his party of 3,000 caravan-style in luxury that would make a sultan blush. The entire Taj hotel — 570 rooms — plus other space next door are the sort of accommodations only a khan might have arranged until now.”
See “34 warships sent from US for Obama visit” and “Obama visit criticised for ‘over-the-top’ spending.”
Obama visit criticised for ‘over-the-top’ spending
A Visual History of U.S. Government Deficits
See the interesting spnding vs. revenue charts in Megan McArdle’s article in the Atlantic: “A number of my readers are claiming that the only reason Obama is running such a big deficit is that revenue has collapsed. I don’t see that in the data:”
San Francisco’s Retirement Spending Goes Up 66,733% (Yes – Sixty Six Thousand Seven Hundred Thirty-three) from 1999 – 2010
From from the we can spend other people’s money like there is no tomorrow department. SF Weekly News: “In fiscal year 1999-2000, the city spent about $300,000 on its retirement system. In fiscal year 2009-10, it was $200.5 million. Benefits alone — not salaries, just benefits — for current and retired employees this year are budgeted at $993 million. Spending on retirees’ health care and pensions is conservatively projected to triple within five years.”
San Francisco has 2,384 retired employees with pensions over $75,000 a year. The top annual payment is $265,000. See the Highest Pensions in S.F. Government. The city is cutting services and laying off employees to pay pensions of people many of whom don’t even live in the city. In five years the city predicts its all pension cost will exceed $500 million a year – money the city does not have.
US Took 214 Years to Accumlate 1st $3 Trillion Debt, Obama Adds $3 Trillion in 2 Years
CNS News: “It’s official: The Obama administration has now borrowed $3 trillion, according to the U.S. Treasury Department. It took from 1776, when the United States became an independent country, until 1990, the year after the Berlin Wall fell signaling victory in the Cold War, for the federal government to accumulate a total of $3 trillion in debt, according to the Treasury Department. It only took from Jan. 20, 2009, the day President Barack Obama was inaugurated, until Oct. 15, 2010, for the Obama administration to add $3 trillion to the federal debt.”