Major Mike's Musings

Mrs. Major and I had a great weekend (Thursday – Saturday) in St. Augustine celebrating our 44th wedding anniversary. We walked on the beach, ate lavishly, shopped in Old Town, toured the fort, drove around, and visited the World Golf Hall of Fame. All-in-all a relaxing, romantic get-away.

At 5am – 7am we had thunderstorms, a tornado,  and rain totaling 1/2 inch and and hour and a half later we were out playing golf. Gotta love Florida.

President Obama announced another bailout. It’s not likely to work, but he has to do something besides blame the “previous administration” for the economy.

Here’s why government spending won’t fix the economy: Government money has to come from somewhere.

1. Taxes. Taxes come from the economy in the first place, so the net effect of government spending from taxes is zero.
2. Borrowing. Sure that puts extra money in the economy, but because of the interest, each dollar spent is worth less than a dollar.
3. Printing. Each extra dollar printed reduces the value of all the dollars already in circulation. Thus, each dollar spent is worth less than a dollar.

Government spending doesn’t create new wealth or extra jobs, it just redistributes money from those who pay taxes (or loan the government money) to those who help politicians get elected.¹

1. I had a little help here from Glenn Beck’s Arguing With Idiots. [↩]

Of course you do. With Medicare Advantage out of the way, you can sell more of your AARP health insurance. Let’s quit pretending you’ve got seniors’ best interests at heart, OK?

The 1.8 year old TiVo HD finally started to look like it was recording, but actually dropping programs around the 1 minute to 11 minute recorded mark. I wasn’t sure whether it was the hard disk in the TiVo, the external hard disk, or Comcast signals. Not wanting to spend a bunch of money to find out, we switched from Comcast to Dish. Since the DVR service with Dish is less than the TiVo service, and the actual Dish service is cheaper than Comcast, we’ll be saving the big bucks.

I also switched our high-speed Internet service from Comcast to CenturyLink. It’s no longer required that  you subscribe to local phone service in order to get DSL. Good deal. The DSL will be about the same as cable after the discounted price expires after a year.

So far things are working superbly and we’re learning the new system.

I’m officially retiring the static page titled “Comcast Saga” effective immediately.

Obama Salutes

Congratulations, Mr. President. You’re the first President that I can remember who could render a proper military salute.

If you’re going to honor the fallen, you might as well do it right.

Way to go!

USA Today reports that the contractors who spent 16 billion dollars of the stimulus package created 30,383 jobs!

Incredible, the stimulus package is working. It only cost $528,610 per job. If the rest of the package is as successful, the stimulus should create just over one million new jobs.

Let’s turn over more stuff for the government to run.

Scene: A senior couple reading the newspaper over a morning cup of coffee.

She: So every year we get a C.O.L.A. to offset inflation…what happens if there’s no inflation?

He: We gat a C.O.R.A.

She: What’s that?

He: Cost of Re-election Adjustment.

I just went through my many boxes of electronic stuff to organize and throw out. I don’t know how I did it, but among the yards of phone lines, miles of coaxial cable, and plethora of plugs, I found 15, count ‘em, 15 AC adapters of various sizes and voltages. These do not include all the cell phone chargers, of which we have many. I must have kept them in spite of tossing the equipment to which they supply the juice.

I’m also getting real tired of this Halloween theme I’ve got going here. I’m glad October is almost over so I can change it. Maybe I’ll change it anyway.