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For example a broken link
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Contact me at rjensen@trinity.edu if
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Tidbits
Political Quotations
To Accompany the June 2018 edition of Tidbits
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2018/Tidbits061418.htm
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 Success Story Of Canadian School Choice
---
https://finance.townhall.com/columnists/danieljmitchell/2018/05/30/the-success-story-of-canadian-school-choice-n2485669?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl
Nearly half of the public school teachers are
happy with their salaries, data show
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2018/05/teacher_salary_job_satisfaction.html?cmp=eml-enl-eu-news2&M=58503139&U=2290378
Jensen Question
Is anybody happy with their health coverage and other benefits?
GASB Rule Sheds Light on Tax
Abatements (corporate tax breaks) ---
https://www.cjr.org/watchdog/corporate-tax-breaks.php
NYT: We Ran Out of Words to Describe How
Good the Jobs Numbers Are (e.g., black unemployment at a low 3.8%)
---
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/upshot/we-ran-out-of-words-to-describe-how-good-the-jobs-numbers-are.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
NYT: Plastics and papers from dozens of
American cities and towns are being dumped in landfills after China stopped
recycling most “foreign garbage.”
---
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/climate/recycling-landfills-plastic-papers.html?algo=als1&cmpid=73&module=newsletter-best-reads&nl=personalization&nlid=10527319&rank=2&recid=15QIjDlv9ojmbBkYJNL5Cu5Q2lc
Las Vegas casinos prepare to hemorrhage $10
million a day as their workers, fearing their jobs will be replaced by robots,
get ready to go on strike ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/las-vegas-casinos-strike-robot-fears-2018-6
LAPD solved only 8 percent of hit-and-runs
last year. Here’s why it’s so hard ---
https://www.dailynews.com/2018/05/29/lapd-solved-only-8-percent-of-hit-and-runs-last-year-heres-why-its-so-hard/
Socialism ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
Venezuelans Shrugged. Ayn Rand Was Right ---
https://townhall.com/columnists/marinamedvin/2018/06/04/venezuelans-shrugged-ayn-rand-was-right-n2487014?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=
Jensen Comment
Venezuela may not be a fair test case for socialism since there is so much oil
money and so much corruption in large part because of oil money. But current
conditions in Venezuela highlight the main problem socialists have in their
historical studies. There are no good role models.
Capitalism has some respectable role modes --- start with Switzerland, Canada,
and the Nordic countries like Finland and yes even the USA where there are
countless examples of success of the American Dream. Doubters may counter that
virtually all "capitalist" nations are hybrids that make them not fully
"capitalist." Where is there a good role model of an enduring socialist or
hybrid socialist country of more than a million citizens having high standards
of living for even the poorest citizens? Why is it that all the great
socialist experiments such as in Russia, China, Cuba, Viet Nam, etc. are
trending toward capitalism? Notice that Bernie Sanders never shares a trending
role model with us.
London Times: UN knew of sex-for-food
scandal at top charities ---
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/un-knew-of-sex-for-food-scandal-at-top-charities-xlkgkt0kb?utm_source=Silverpop&utm_campaign=articlerefreshnotification&utm_medium=email&utm_term=040618&utm_content=sexforfoodscandal?
Why Students Are Leaving Illinois in Droves —
and Why It Matters ---
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Why-Students-Are-Leaving/242436?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=ca1e51432aa84a1f85f865fca5741c15&elq=996b66a0e704498a8c5de34fd9a2c627&elqaid=19303&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=8816
Chicago State University: The low
graduation rate amounts to more than $2.5 million spent per year per graduate.
Most of that money is paid for by Illinois taxpayers. According to an audit of
the University by the Illinois Auditor General. Chicago State University also
owes $356.5 million in debt, the majority of which is owed to the state
university retirement system pension plan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_State_University
Jensen Comment
This is does not mean that the $2.5 million is literally spent on each graduate.
CSU's budget is a bit like the USA's military budget where an enormous amount of
money is paid out for pensions and a fraudulent history that won't go away. The
fact that three recent Illinois governors went to prison and the notorious
reputation of the City of Chicago for fraud tells a lot about the taxpayer
environment in Illinois.
How ‘Googling it’ can send conservatives down
secret rabbit holes of alternative facts ---
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2018/05/25/how-googling-it-can-send-conservatives-down-secret-rabbit-holes-of-alternative-facts/?utm_term=.31cdf5977285
Pollsters Are Still Cooking the Books, But The
Trump Surge Is Real ---
https://townhall.com/columnists/nicholaswaddy/2018/06/04/pollsters-are-still-cooking-the-books-but-the-trump-surge-is-real-n2487121?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=
Everybody has this idea that life is going to
be wonderful as an entrepreneur. But of course, most small businesses fail. And
it's very competitive ---
Stanford University professor Jeffrey Pfeffer in an
interview about how the gig economy is no healthier for workers than the 9-to-5.
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Both-Workplaces-and-Gig-Economy-Companies-Are-12936947.php
Jensen Comment
Is this like saying more than half the marriages fail such that being married is
no healthier than staying single?
Small businesses actually provide of the USA's GDP and more opportunities to
workers than large businesses when you factor in part-time and full-time workers
---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_business#Contribution_to_the_economy
Professor Pfeffer takes a much too narrow (socialist?) view of gig economy
benefits.
Iran Just Threatened, Again, to "Remove or
Eradicate" Nine Million Israelis ---
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2018/06/05/iran-is-saying-israel-should-be-wiped-off-the-map-again-n2487104?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=
New York Spent $15 Million in Taxes To
Build Upstate Film Studio. It Just Sold for $1 ---
http://reason.com/blog/2018/06/04/new-york-film-studio-built-with-15-milli
Why a Small New York Town Is Banning New
Restaurants ---
http://reason.com/archives/2018/06/02/why-a-small-new-york-town-is-banning-new
Why should taxpayers throughout
the state pay more in taxes—or tolerate fewer services or more debt—to help
those city governments that were fiscally irresponsible? They knew the risks,
ignored the warnings and retroactively
boosted pensions
by as much as 50 percent over the past 15 years, yet now city officials are
complaining about their tough fiscal position.
http://reason.com/archives/2018/06/01/california-gov-jerry-brown-a-lot-of-citi
Media Ignoring the Samantha Power bombshell
--- Why?
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/06/ignoring_the_samantha_power_bombshell.html
Italy’s New Government Goes Full Trump ---
https://www.thedailybeast.com/italys-new-government-goes-full-trump
A Gallup study from 2017 showed that
more teens identified as conservative than liberal. 25% of teens polled
identified as “conservative” and only 16% identified as “liberal ---
https://finance.townhall.com/columnists/charlesbowyer/2018/06/07/forget-millennials-the-generation-after-them-is-fed-up-with-pc-thinking-n2488403?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl
University of Denver
Crisis on the High Plains: The Loss of
America’s Largest Aquifer – the Ogallala
http://duwaterlawreview.com/crisis-on-the-high-plains-the-loss-of-americas-largest-aquifer-the-ogallala/
The Atlantic: A Harvard professor says
his company should be able to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, at
industrial scales, by 2021 ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/06/its-possible-to-reverse-climate-change-suggests-major-new-study/562289/
NYT: Feminists looked the other way when
Hillary hatchet men plotted to paint Lewinsky either as a malicious stalker or a
friendly fantasist — just as they looked the other way in 1992 when Betsey
Wright shot down what she called “bimbos” and “gold diggers” in Arkansas with
the help of intimidating private investigators poking around in the lives of
women who had been involved with Bill.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/09/opinion/sunday/bills-belated-metoo-moment.html
NYT: And Bill Clinton has learned that
his threadbare routine of maudlin self-pity and casting blame on everyone but
himself doesn’t work anymore. And that is a relief.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/09/opinion/sunday/bills-belated-metoo-moment.html
Money ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money
Swiss voters rejected a radical move to change the way money is created
---
http://www.businessinsider.com/swiss-voters-reject-vollgeld-2018-6
The EU's General Data Protection Regulation:
What Does It Mean for Libraries Worldwide?
http://www.arl.org/publications-resources/4543-the-general-data-protection-regulation-what-does-it-mean-for-libraries-worldwide
Compilation on Key Issues on Student Debt ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2018/06/12/compilation-key-issues-student-debt?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=5db6c1c025-DNU_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-5db6c1c025-197565045&mc_cid=5db6c1c025&mc_eid=1e78f7c952
Norway wants the US to send Marines, keep them
there longer, and base them closer to Russia . . . Oslo will ask Washington to
send 700 Marines from 2019, compared with 330 presently. The additional numbers
will be based closer to the border with Russia in the Inner Troms region in the
Norwegian Arctic, rather than in central Norway. ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-norway-to-invite-more-us-marines-for-longer-and-closer-to-russia-2018-6
James Clapper Concedes Obama’s Iran Deal
Gave Away ‘Too Much for What We’d Gotten’ ---
http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2018/06/11/james-clapper-concedes-obamas-iran-deal-gave-away-too-much-for-what-wed-gotten/
This story gets worse. Another
transgender student, Andraya Yearwood, came in second place in the 100-meter
dash. So, two girls lost their opportunities to compete in the New England
championships because two biological boys who "identify" as girls were allowed
to compete on their team, and won handily ---
https://pjmedia.com/trending/is-it-fair-for-boys-to-compete-on-girls-sports-teams/
Jensen Comment
"To compete as a transgender "woman" in the Olympics, "a trans woman athlete is
required only to declare her gender as “female” and have testosterone levels
comparable to or below those of cisgender women. (Cisgender refers to folks
whose biological sex matches their gender identity, the opposite of
transgender.)" There are fewer restrictions on trans male.
|https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/do-transgender-athletes-have-an-unfair-advantage-at-the-olympics/2016/08/05/08169676-5b50-11e6-9aee-8075993d73a2_story.html?utm_term=.38ce091c135d
NCAA Policy is more lenient and vague for trans women ---
https://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/Transgender_Handbook_2011_Final.pdf
Everything under the sun is partisan in Washington DC
Pelosi, Schumer Criticize North Korea Summit ---
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/laurettabrown/2018/06/12/pelosi-schumer-criticize-north-korea-summit-n2489952?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=
Jensen Comment
As if the Obama-Kerry concessions to Iran were not even greater
James Clapper Concedes Obama’s Iran Deal
Gave Away ‘Too Much for What We’d Gotten’ ---
http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2018/06/11/james-clapper-concedes-obamas-iran-deal-gave-away-too-much-for-what-wed-gotten/
The Decline of Scholarly Diversity
At Stanford Law School, no more than three of approximately 110 full-time
faculty publicly identify as conservative or libertarian. (By way of contrast,
Stanford Law School touts on its webpage 23 full-time faculty under the inartful
rubric of “minority.”) As a consequence, many of my classmates will graduate
having never engaged with a law professor whose worldview and convictions track
those of nearly half the voting public.
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2018/05/2018-grad-decries-political-correctness-at-stanford-law-school.html#more
Bob Jensen's threads on liberal bias in the media and in academe ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#LiberalBias
What makes people distrust science? Surprisingly, not politics ---
https://aeon.co/ideas/what-makes-people-distrust-science-surprisingly-not-politics?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=db8e52a95a-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_05_31_12_19&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-db8e52a95a-68951505
. . .
From these studies there are a couple of lessons to be learned about the current crisis of faith that plagues science. Science skepticism is quite diverse. Further, distrust of science is not really that much about political ideology, with the exception of climate-change skepticism, which is consistently found to be politically driven. Additionally, these results suggest that science skepticism cannot simply be remedied by increasing people’s knowledge about science. The impact of scientific literacy on science skepticism, trust in science, and willingness to support science was minor, save for the case of genetic modification. Some people are reluctant to accept particular scientific findings, for various reasons. When the aim is to combat skepticism and increase trust in science, a good starting point is to acknowledge that science skepticism comes in many forms.
Jensen Comment
One reason for doubt in my mind is that there is so much cheating and corruption
around the world. Asia comes to mind but the USA has its share of cheating from
a variety of causes. Exhibit A is the corrupt past of pharmaceutical research.
Exhibit B is pressure to publish on a short term horizon that leads to
fabrication of data. Another reason is that scientists are increasingly
dependent upon others to help collect data those assistants and collaborators
are increasingly prone to cheat ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#ProfessorsWhoPlagiarize
There are increasing pressures for replication, but replication is often costly and low prestige and mundane since replication may limit chances of discovery of something entirely new.
With a shrinking welfare budget Britain is becoming more like the USA than
the rest of Europe
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/28/world/europe/uk-austerity-poverty.html?algo=als1&cmpid=73&module=newsletter-best-reads&nl=personalization&nlid=10527319&rank=1&recid=15QIjDlv9ojmbBkYJNL5Cu5Q2lc
Jensen Comment
One key difference is that the U.K. has shrunk its military down to about 5% of
the budget whereas the USA is hanging in at around 16% of a much larger federal
budget ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States
Also see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_2017_United_Kingdom_budget
In both nations much of the military budget is nondiscretionary and continues to pay for old war pensions and other social services. The fighting force of the U.K. is shrinking much faster than that of the USA.
In both nations expenditures on social services (in the USA think Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Misc. Welfare) comprise well over half the expenditures.
Social Security Trust Fund --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Trust_Fund
. . .
The Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund (collectively, the Social Security Trust Fund or Trust Funds) are trust funds that provide for payment of Social Security (Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance; OASDI) benefits administered by the United States Social Security Administration.[1][2][3]
The Social Security Administration collects payroll taxes and uses the money collected to pay Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance benefits by way of trust funds. When the program runs a surplus, the excess funds increase the value of the Trust Fund. At the end of 2014, the Trust Fund contained (or alternatively, was owed) $2.79 trillion, up $25 billion from 2013.[4] The Trust Fund is required by law to be invested in non-marketable securities issued and guaranteed by the "full faith and credit" of the federal government. These securities earn a market rate of interest.[5]
Excess funds are used by the government for non-Social Security purposes, creating the obligations to the Social Security Administration and thus program recipients. However, Congress could cut these obligations by altering the law. Trust Fund obligations are considered "intra-governmental" debt, a component of the "public" or "national" debt. As of June 2015, the intragovernmental debt was $5.1 trillion of the $18.2 trillion national debt.[6]
Continued in article
From the CFO Journal's Morning Ledger on June 6, 2018
The U.S. Social Security program’s cost will exceed its income this year for the first time since 1982, forcing the program to dip into its nearly $3 trillion trust fund to cover benefits.
Jensen Comment
The media never mentions that most of the assets of the $3 trillion SS trust
fund are IOU notes from Congress. A naive public thinks that the $3 trillion SS
trust fund is comprised of gold bars in Ft. Knox or some other valuable assets
that can be sold off to meet annual deficits in spending versus revenue of the
SS system. In fact, the deficit must be made up with additional government
borrowing.
The analogy here is a setting where a loving husband and wife put away 10% of their mutual earnings for 20 years worth of gold coins in a bank's safe deposit box that's intended to fund their pensions when they retire. Then over the next 20 years the husband slyly commences to replace the gold coins with IOU notes promising to replace the coins before retirement. Then upon retirement the safe deposit box contains no gold coins. It only contains the husband's IOU notes, and the husband gambled away all the gold coins.
Of course every accountant knows that it violates GAAP accounting standards to list a note receivable IOU of $1 million from yourself as an asset on your balance sheet even if the offsetting $1 million note payable makes the balance sheet balance. This is a GAAP accounting violation for individual estates and business firms. But, gasp, it's not a violation in Federal governmental accounting that lives by its own deceitful accounting rules set by the U.S. Congress.
The only way the Federal government can meet most of those annual SS deficits after 2018 is by borrowing on top of the $21+ trillion amount of booked US debt as of June 2018.
To Whom Does the USA Federal
Government Owe Money (the booked obligation of $21+ 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/
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 and other commodities to sustain those
investments. Currently President Trump is playing chicken with trade policies
with our national debt holders like China.
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
Social Security is of less worry than Medicare and Medicaid.
Welcome to Ukraine’s Corruption Park ---
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/photo-essays/2018-06-12/bribes-and-bmws-are-on-display-at-ukraine-s-corruption-park?cmpid=BBD061218_BIZ&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=180612&utm_campaign=bloombergdaily
In Ukraine, graft has become so pervasive that only Russia, with its annexation of Crimea and the low-grade war in the east, seems to pose a greater threat to the nation’s security. Young Ukrainians have become so inured to corruption that it’s no longer seen as exceptional. The European Union’s Anti-Corruption Initiative in Ukraine, together with officials in Kiev, have decided to address the problem head-on this month by opening “Corruption Park” at the city’s botanical gardens, in an apparent effort to shed light on a typically invisible problem.
A series of domes resembling a space colony are hosting virtual reality, 3D and interactive installations to offer a historical overview of corruption, from ancient Sumeria to the present. Eka Tkeshelashvili, head of the initiative, told Interfax:
“Young people become more tolerant to corruption. They don’t want to read long texts about anti-corruption investigations and dig deep into this problem.
” Maybe a pop-up park—replete with such items as a 100-meter-long, golden loaf of bread, assorted confiscated riches of crooked politicians and the tools of the Sisyphean officials who combat corruption—is a better way to get the message out. “It describes corruption as a phenomenon that no one in the world was able to eradicate completely,” Tkeshelashvili said.
“However, the world knows examples of how the level of corruption has been reduced to a minimum, followed by economic growth.” Ukraine’s problem afflicts the world, too. Experts estimate that dirty money currently accounts for almost 2 percent of the global gross domestic product.
Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on health coverage are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm
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/