In 2017 my Website was migrated to
the clouds and reduced in size.
Hence some links below are broken.
One thing to try if a “www” link is broken is to substitute “faculty” for “www”
For example a broken link
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm
can be changed to corrected link
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm
However in some cases files had to be removed to reduce the size of my Website
Contact me at rjensen@trinity.edu if
you really need to file that is missing
Tidbits
Political Quotations
To Accompany the May 31, 2018 edition of Tidbits
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2018/Tidbits053118
Bob Jensen at
Trinity University
USA Debt Clock --- http://www.usdebtclock.org/ ubl
In September 2017 the USA National Debt exceeded $20 trillion for the first time
---
http://www.statedatalab.org/news/detail/national-debt-surpasses-20-trillion-for-the-first-time-in-us-history
Human Population Over Time on Earth ---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUwmA3Q0_OE
State Income Taxes Ranked From Highest to Lowest
http://www.businessinsider.com/state-income-tax-rate-rankings-by-state-2018-2
The Federal budget for 2017 ---
http://ritholtz.com/2018/04/federal-budget-2017/
Jensen Comment
Note that even before the 2018 corporate tax cuts the corporate income tax has
been a shrinking part of the Federal budget of the most recent decades. I've
long been an advocate of replacing it with a VAT tax but liberals and
conservatives alike hate that idea.
Medicare and Medicaid are the least sustainable entitlements predicted for the future.
Interest on government debt is a huge worry since foreign interests (think China and the oil-rich nations of the Middle East) own so much of it with the threat that one day these large investors will stop rolling over their investments in USA debt.
To Whom Does the USA Federal Government Owe Money (the booked
obligation of $20+ trillion) ---
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/politicalcalculations/2016/05/25/spring-2016-to-whom-does-the-us-government-owe-money-n2168161?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl
The US Debt Clock in Real Time ---
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
In 2018 Foreigners (think Asia and the
Middle East) May Be Losing Interest in USA Treasuries ---
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-12/lackluster-u-s-bond-auctions-add-to-worries-of-foreign-pullback
Remember the Jane Fonda Movie called "Rollover" ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollover_(film)
One worry is that nations holding trillions of dollars invested in USA debt are
dependent upon sales of oil and gas to sustain those investments.
To Whom Does the USA Federal Government Owe Money (the
unbooked obligation of $100+ trillion and unknown more in contracted
entitlements) ---
http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/15/news/economy/entitlement-benefits/
The biggest worry of the entitlements obligations is enormous obligation for the
future under the Medicare and Medicaid programs that are now deemed totally
unsustainable ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Entitlements.htm
How Americans Get Health Insurance ---
http://ritholtz.com/2017/08/americans-get-health-insurance/
Here are the Ten Best Pieces of Advice from
2018 Commencement Speakers ---
Click Here
The Best Advice from 2018's Celebrity
Commencement Speakers ---
https://moneyish.com/heart/the-best-advice-from-2018s-celebrity-commencement-speakers/
Eight Science Quotations from Commencement
Speeches
https://todayinsci.com/QuotationsCategories/C_Cat/Commencement-Quotations.htm
Sometimes the grass is greener on
the other side because it's been fertilized with more bullshit.
Anonomous
The Lucretius Problem is a mental defect where
we assume the worst case event that has happened is the worst case event that
can happen ---
https://www.fs.blog/2015/04/lucretius-problem/
The worst form of inequality is to try to make
unequal things equal.
Aristotle
How many times have we heard ‘free
tuition,’ ‘free health care,’ and free you-name-it? If a particular good or
service is truly free, we can have as much of it as we want without the
sacrifice of other goods or services. Take a ‘free’ library; is it really free?
The answer is no. Had the library not been built, that $50 million could have
purchased something else. That something else sacrificed is the cost of the
library. While users of the library might pay a zero price, zero price and free
are not one and the same. So when politicians talk about providing something
free, ask them to identify the beneficent Santa Claus or tooth fairy.
Walter Williams
Every great cause begins as a movement,
becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.
Eric Hoffer.
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal
sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of
miseries.
Winston Churchill
Shoot for the space in between,
because that's where the real mystery lies.
Vera Rubin
https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/12/28/remebering-vera-rubin/?utm_source=Brain+Pickings&utm_campaign=f053a9c4e2-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_01_07&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_179ffa2629-f053a9c4e2-234390133
Only those who
will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
T.S. Eliot
There
is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.
Leonard Cohen
In honor of his centennial, the Top 10 Feynman
quotations ---
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/top-10-richard-feynman-quotations
Be brave enough to start a conversation that matters.
Margaret Wheatley
Even conversations
that are not politically correct.
I have lots of ideas . . . I always have more
ideas than I can possibly write about.” So he prays for discernment about what
ideas to pursue and what ideas to let die. And increasingly, over the last three
or four years, I pray more and more that God would teach me when it’s time to
shut up. That’s the thing that I’m least good at. Just shutting up.
Alan Jacobs
https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2018/04/23/alan-jacobs-christian-intellectual-internet-age
Magazines haven’t raised their rates since the
1950s. Even New Yorker staff writers typically don’t get health insurance ...
https://medium.com/s/story/how-much-is-a-word-worth-7fcd131a341c
The
enemy is fear
We think it's hate
But, it's fear
Gandhi
That government is best which governs the least,
because its people discipline themselves.
Thomas Jefferson
Why, we grow rusty and you
catch us at the very point of decadence --- by this time tomorrow we may have
forgotten everything we ever knew. That's a thought isn't it? We'd be back to
where we started --- improvising.
Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Act I)
It's hard to beat a person who never gives up.
Babe Ruth,
Historic Home Run Hitter
What's sad is to witness what Syria has become because nobody will give up.
And "because they're
nonstate actors, it's hard for us to get the satisfaction of [Gen.] MacArthur
and the [Japanese] Emperor [Hirohito] meeting and the war officially being
over," Obama observed, referencing the end of World War II.
We must be willing to get rid of the
life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
Joseph Campbell
If everyone is thinking alike, then
somebody isn't thinking.
George S. Patton
And many writers have imagined for themselves
republics and principalities that have never been seen or known to exist in
reality; for there is such a gap between how one lives and how one ought to live
that anyone who abandons what is done for what ought to be done learns his ruin
rather than his preservation: for a man who wishes to profess goodness at all
times will come to ruin among so many who are not good.
Niccolo Machiavelli
If you don't know where you're going, you might
not get there.
Yogi
Berra
Happiness is like a butterfly: the
more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to
other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.
Henry David
Thoreau
You can get a lot farther with a smile and a
gun than you can with just a smile.
Al Capone
Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you
will go far.
Teddy Roosevelt
The Atlantic: Justin Trudeau’s
government has started rejecting more refugee claims from migrants who cross the
U.S.-Canada border on foot ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/05/theres-a-perception-that-canada-is-being-invaded/561032/
The fact that Canada still has overall rates
higher than those in the U.S., then, lies squarely at the feet of the provincial
governments ---
http://business.financialpost.com/legal-post/you-can-thank-provincial-taxes-for-canadas-higher-overall-tax-rate
Jensen Comment
It's virtually impossible to compare international tax rates, and this article
highlights the major reason. The reason is that government outlays differ so
much in terms of what is funded by those taxes. In the Canada the provincial
taxes fund most of the national health care plan. In the USA income taxes fund
very little in the way of health care except for Medicaid, although payroll
taxes fund a lot of Medicare. To be more comparable, we would at least have to
add medical insurance
HOT N COLD North Korea’s sudden
“unpredictable” frostiness was entirely predictable ---
https://qz.com/1279066/north-koreas-sudden-unpredictable-frostiness-was-entirely-predictable/
MIT: California is throttling back
record levels of solar—and that’s bad news for climate goals ---
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611188/california-is-throttling-back-record-levels-of-solarand-thats-bad-news-for-climate-goals/
North Korea has already reportedly canceled
talks with South Korea.---
http://www.newsweek.com/north-korea-cancel-trump-meeting-over-us-south-korea-military-drills-927480
Michigan State and Nassar Victims Reach $500M
Settlement ---
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/05/16/us/ap-us-gym-doctor-sexual-assault.html
Brazil election is anyone’s guess as
presidential frontrunner campaigns from jail ---
https://theconversation.com/brazil-election-is-anyones-guess-as-presidential-frontrunner-campaigns-from-jail-95634
Climate: The Deep Time of Walden Pond ---
http://nautil.us/issue/60/searches/the-deep-time-of-walden-pond
Low-Income Students: More Going to College, But Few Earning Degrees -
--
Pennsylvania’s looming pension crisis ---
https://www.statedatalab.org/news/detail/pennsylvanias-looming-pension-crisis
When President Trump tweeted in March 2017
that the Obama administration "had his wires tapped" during the 2016
presidential campaign, he wasn't entirely wrong ---
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2018/05/18/confirmed-the-fbi-was-spying-on-the-trump-campaign-and-used-wiretaps-n2481575?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=
The backlash that never happened: New
data shows people actually increased their Facebook usage after the Cambridge
Analytica scandal ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/people-increased-facebook-usage-after-cambridge-analytica-scandal-2018-5
Russian information troops, disinformation, and democracy ---
Vermont Voted to Buy Its Prescription Drugs
from Canada, and the Pharmaceutical Industry Is Not Pleased ---
http://reason.com/blog/2018/05/16/vermont-voted-to-buy-its-prescription-dr
Russian programmers have built up an outsize
presence in the world of blockchain, crypto currencies, and other virtual assets
---
https://qz.com/1267356/why-are-there-so-many-russians-involved-in-crypto-and-icos/
The U.S. Post Office saw a shipping and
package income of $19.5 billion last year, which is up 11.8 percent compared to
the previous year.---
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-personally-pushed-postmaster-general-to-double-rates-on-amazon-other-firms/2018/05/18/2b6438d2-5931-11e8-858f-12becb4d6067_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8fa239501249
States With a Population Smaller Than Los
Angeles County ---
https://twitter.com/NinjaEconomics/status/998518773417238528
Socialist
Seattle to mom and pop landlords: Criminals are welcome! Your rights not so much
---
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/05/21/smug-seattle-to-mom-and-pop-landlords-criminals-are-welcome-your-rights-not-so-much.html
Congress quietly passed the largest rollback
of Wall Street regulations since the financial crisis ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/wall-street-bank-deregulation-crapo-bill-house-vote-details-2018-5
Congress Sends Trump Bill With Senior
Financial Abuse Reporting Section ---
https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2018/05/23/congress-sends-trump-bill-with-senior-financial-ab/?slreturn=20180424092034
NYT: The for-profit-college industry
continues to cheat students while the Trump administration and Republicans in
Congress do nothing ---
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/22/opinion/predatory-colleges-students-devos.html?elqTrackId=5dc95869b80045dc96a6648f05c9c2bd&elq=8199fd0e47494950a55cdf9dbcbbfc9a&elqaid=19193&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=8711
NYT: Can 30,000 Cameras Solve Chicago's
Crime Problem ---
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/26/us/chicago-police-surveillance.html
Jensen Comment
They might help prevent or solve murders on the streets but they won't prevent
the unending corruption in City Hall and School Boards.
U.S. high school dropout rate reaches record
low, driven by improvements among Hispanics, blacks ---
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/02/u-s-high-school-dropout-rate-reaches-record-low-driven-by-improvements-among-hispanics-blacks/
Stormy Daniels' lawyer Michael Avenatti has
become a 'hero' on the left — and he has an aggressive fan base ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/stormy-daniels-lawyer-michael-avenatti-fans-2018-5
Jensen Comment
Avenatti is popular only because he is aggressively trying to embarrass and
punish Donald Trump. Otherwise he's just someone sharing earnings of a
prostitute. There's another word for guys who do that. Those guys are not
admired on the right or left.
Everything you need to know about the Italian
political crisis — which is 9 years in the making and could bring about the
demise of the eurozone ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/italy-politics-crisis-what-you-need-to-known-2018-5
Jensen Comment
In the good old days before the Euro European nations like Italy and Greece just
devalued their currencies in times of financial crises. It did not take an act
of the EU parliament to screw debt investors and pensioners. Something similar
may happen in the USA if some states (think California, Illinois, Connecticut,
New Jersey, and Kentucky) don't get more fiscally responsible.
China is now producing more steel than the
rest of the world combined ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/china-is-now-producing-more-steel-than-the-rest-of-the-world-combined-2018-5
Everything you need to know about the Italian
political crisis — which is 9 years in the making and could bring about the
demise of the eurozone ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/italy-politics-crisis-what-you-need-to-known-2018-5
Jensen Comment
In the good old days before the Euro European nations like Italy and Greece just
devalued their currencies in times of financial crises. It did not take an act
of the EU parliament to screw debt investors and pensioners. Something similar
may happen in the USA if some states (think California, Illinois, Connecticut,
New Jersey, and Kentucky) don't get more fiscally responsible.
George Soros warns the European Union is on
the brink of collapse — and Trump is partly to blame ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/george-soros-president-trump-eu-collapse-2018-5
How Seattle's Economic Illiteracy Kills Jobs (and creates
homelessness) ---
http://reason.com/archives/2018/05/16/how-seattles-economic-illiteracy-hurts-b
Seattle Scales Back Tax in Face of Amazon’s Revolt, but Tensions Linger
---
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/technology/seattle-amazon-headquarters-tax.html
SEATTLE — After intense lobbying by local businesses and a bold threat by Amazon to curtail development in its hometown, the Seattle City Council on Monday approved a smaller and more limited tax on big companies than originally envisioned.
The new tax — dubbed the “Amazon Tax” by locals — will fund affordable housing and homeless services in a city whose economic boom, driven in no small part by Amazon, has priced many residents out of the area and forced some onto the streets.
Amazon, which halted two major expansion projects in Seattle in protest over the larger tax increase, said it was disappointed even with the smaller tax package, although the company said it would restart the planning process for one of its new buildings. It was still exploring the possibility of subleasing a second building that a developer is currently building.
The council had originally considered an annual “head” tax of $500 per full-time employee for Amazon and other large employers, but the amended measure that passed reduced that figure to $275. Instead of the $75 million a year the tax was originally expected to raise, it will bring in less than $50 million. The council also included a sunset provision that would require the tax to be reauthorized in five years.
The compromise failed to defuse tensions between Amazon and the city it has called home for the last 24 years.
Even though the company decided to resume one of its building projects, Drew Herdener, an Amazon vice president, said in a statement, “We remain very apprehensive about the future created by the council’s hostile approach and rhetoric toward larger businesses, which forces us to question our growth here.”
But the company’s tactics in Seattle has also garnered concern among other cities bidding to bring Amazon’s second headquarters to town.
Twenty finalist locations across North America have been aggressively wooing Amazon to win up to 50,000 high-paying jobs that its second headquarters would bring. In some of those places, there is opposition growing over the tax incentives that some city and state governments have agreed to give Amazon in return for being selected. And Amazon’s hardball politics in Seattle has further soured some local leaders.
“I absolutely find it unacceptable to see politically threatening behavior as is occurring there,” said Robin Kniech, a member of the City Council in Denver, one of the finalists for Amazon’s second headquarters. “It certainly doesn’t send a message that you expect to be a part of the community.”
Continued in article
How to Mislead With Statistics
Who pays the most tax in Europe?
http://www.euronews.com/2018/04/26/who-pays-the-most-tax-in-europe-
Jensen Comment
You've probably heard me warn repeatedly that when taxes are compared it can be
misleading unless you also compare what those taxes are paying for in family
living. Income tax rates in the USA are relatively low and highly progressive
with nearly half of the taxpayers paying zero income taxes. But this is
misleading since things like health care and public education are paid out of
other taxes and/or personal savings. Even when comparing nations with national
health care plans funded heavily out of income taxes, comparing tax rates can be
misleading. Firstly there are taxes other than income taxes such as VAT taxes
and sales taxes. Secondly, not all national health care programs are equivalent
in terms of how certain coverages are paid for. In Germany, for example, the
public health plan is rather minimal and most Germans that can afford it have
private supplemental medical insurance. My neighbors from England at the moment
are back in the U.K. arranging to sell a parent's home for nursing home care
expenses. Nursing home care in the U.K. is covered in the national health plan
but revenues from home sales must be applied to this care --- so I'm told by my
neigbors.
In Europe taxes supposedly pay for college education and/or job training, but
less than half the young people are admitted to programs funded by tax dollars
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#Tertiary
Other people depend upon companies to fund on-the-job training, and many people
are not allowed into college unless they study in other countries or take
distance education courses such as MOOCs..
States Where Teachers Are Paid the Most and Least ---
https://247wallst.com/special-report/2018/05/15/states-paying-teachers-most-and-least/2/
Jensen Comment
Higher pay does not necessarily translate to higher graduation rates. New York
pays the highest salaries and is mired down in down in low graduation rates.
South Dakota has low teacher pay and high graduation rates.
Also note the cost of living ranking reported with each state. This matters a lot where pay buys a whole lot more (think housing) in South Dakota versus New York and Connecticut.
Bob Jensen's health care messaging --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm
World Wealth & Income Database --- http://wid.world/
OECD Health Statistics 2016 --- http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm
Facts and statistics (Fast Facts) --- http://gwu.edu/~gprice/handbook.htm
Bob Jensen's health care messaging --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm
Bob Jensen's links to data and statistics ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#EconStatistics
Bob Jensen's World Library ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on health coverage are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm
Vermont Voted to Buy Its Prescription Drugs from Canada, and the Pharmaceutical
Industry Is Not Pleased ---
http://reason.com/blog/2018/05/16/vermont-voted-to-buy-its-prescription-dr
Not-so-great GASB: Accounting rule pushes hospitals near default ---
https://www.statedatalab.org/news/detail/not-so-great-gasb-accounting-rule-pushes-hospitals-near-default
Harvard: The costs of health care are now the greatest financial
concern for most Americans—more than the costs for housing, food or
retirement ---
https://hms.harvard.edu/news/hidden-savings
The
HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) has found that, by exploiting Obamacare’s
expansion of the program, California has enrolled hundreds of thousands of
ineligible adults in Medicaid. Consequently, the state has bilked the federal
government out of more than $1 billion in funding to which the state was not
entitled.
https://spectator.org/california-commits-massive-medicaid-fraud/
Jensen Comment
Nearly half of the Medicaid recipients in Illinois were found to be not elgible
for Medicaid due to their income levels.
Vermont Voted to Buy Its Prescription Drugs from Canada, and the Pharmaceutical
Industry Is Not Pleased ---
http://reason.com/blog/2018/05/16/vermont-voted-to-buy-its-prescription-dr
Bob Jensen's
Tidbits Archives ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbitsdirectory.htm
Bob
Jensen's Pictures and Stories
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm
Summary of Major Accounting Scandals --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accounting_scandals
Bob Jensen's threads on such scandals:
Bob Jensen's threads on audit firm litigation and negligence ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm
Current and past editions of my
newsletter called Fraud Updates ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
Enron --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnron.htm
Rotten to the Core --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm
American History of Fraud --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudAmericanHistory.htm
Bob Jensen's fraud
conclusions ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on
auditor professionalism and independence are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001c.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on
corporate governance are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm#Governance
Shielding
Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
· With a Rejoinder from the 2010 Senior Editor of The Accounting Review (TAR), Steven J. Kachelmeier
· With Replies in Appendix 4 to Professor Kachemeier by Professors Jagdish Gangolly and Paul Williams
· With Added Conjectures in Appendix 1 as to Why the Profession of Accountancy Ignores TAR
· With Suggestions in Appendix 2 for Incorporating Accounting Research into Undergraduate Accounting Courses
Shielding
Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
By Bob Jensen
What went
wrong in accounting/accountics research? ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong
The Sad State of Accountancy Doctoral Programs That Do Not Appeal to Most
Accountants ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms
AN ANALYSIS OF THE EVOLUTION OF RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS BY THE ACCOUNTING REVIEW:
1926-2005 ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htm#_msocom_1
Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm
Systemic problems of accountancy (especially the vegetable nutrition paradox)
that probably will never be solved
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#BadNews
Bob Jensen's economic crisis messaging http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm
Bob Jensen's threads --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm
Bob Jensen's Home Page --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/