Collection of Comments
This post is a collection of comments on recent events. There wasn’t enough in any comment to make much of a post, but there’s enough comments together to make a new type of post for me: a collection of comments.
All 117 House GOP members vote against the stimulus package
If you have a Representative in your district who’s a republican, he (I think all the GOP Representatives are white men) voted against you last week. And, he considers it a victory too.
For background, there are only a few types of things that the Federal Reserve and the government can do to manage the economy on any significant scale. The Fed can adjust interest rates and loan money to banks. The government can spend money, or change taxes.
Right now, interest rates are so low that the Fed can’t do anything useful with rates anymore. They’re already loaning money to banks and other financial institutions and that’s not helping either. So fiscal policy has no legs now. Changing taxes won’t affect much either. After all if you have no income, you pay no taxes. And with the increasing layoffs, more and more of us have no income
The only thing to do to get money circulating is for the US government to spend money. They can spend money fixing things that need to be fixed anyway: roads, schools, bridges, public buildings. They can spend money by investing in research and development we need to do to stop using foreign oil. And, funding on research always pays off in the long term. They can spend money to directly help people losing their houses or businesses.
The GOP is against spending money to help the bulk of Americans, apparently they just want to spend money to help the CEOs. It’s interesting that the various GOP governors - who have to run a budget for their states - are supporting the stimulus package.
All right, so this item could have been a post. But the next time your Representative comes up for election, check their vote before you make yours.
Michael Steele becomes the GOP chairman
Steele is touted as the most moderate of the GOP chair candidates. He’s also a guy who won an election using dirty tricks like putting prominent democrats pictures on a republican flyer - implying they were on Steele’s side. Here’s the new boss, same as the old. Same where it counts apparently.
President Obama should drop Tom Dashle’s nomination
Doing so would show that he’s serious about ethics. Dashle knew about this problem since last June. A job at this level is as much about appearance as it is about substance. No matter the knowledge that Dashle has, few people are that irreplaceable.
“Fomer Bush Chief of Staff says Obama Disrespecting While House”
Andrew Card said,
“…I’m disappointed to see the casual, laissez faire, short sleeves, no shirt and tie, no jacket, kind of locker room experience that seems to be taking place in this White House and the Oval Office.”
Well, personally I would rather have President Obama respect the Constitution, the rule of law, the principles of our country, and strive for integrity and morality than wear a jacket and tie every minute. But I guess that’s just me and the majority of citizens that voted Barack Obama into office.
Brickbats to the Bank of England for requiring female employees wear heels and makeup
In this time of financial meltdown and crisis, this is what they’re worried about? I had the impression that most reasonable adults had gotten past having to specify a dress code. (Granted, that puts Andy Card out of either the “reasonable” category.) I should think the BoE management has better things to do.
A belated happy birthday to Molly Ivins
She was born on Jan 31. She is one of the growing number of people I miss from the world.
Last, I’ve decide what I want on my next business card
Obama had a great line in his inauguration speech that spoke to me as an engineer. So, I’ve decided that I am one of “the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things”. That seems as good a definition of an engineer as anything else. (Full text is at http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/inaugural-address/)