OldSouth Attempts To Understand The Math: This Week's Federal Budget Resolution Negotiations

The coverage has been breathless and constant--the pitched battle over whether Congress will reduce 2011 Federal budget spending by 60 billion dollars, or 30 billion dollars, or some number in between, or perhaps not at all, if DaPrez, Mr. Harry and Mizzzz Nancy had their way.

OS has been busy this week, trying to keep the plates of several unrelated projects spinning, enjoying the opening week of baseball season (Boston's zip-4-six??), and the opening day of the Masters. He has high hopes for young Mr. McIlroy, and Mrs. OS is a fan of Mr. Choi.

But, he has attempted to understand the math in the context of the emotionally charged language that is flooding the culture--e.g., 'If'n yuh don't agree wif me, yew is a scalawag of the worst kind.' As always, the Left is more practiced at spewing the poison, but there's lots of it going 'round this week. The Religious Right seems to want to score points as well. Somehow, a bankrupt United States, and the chaos, poverty and despair that would cause, is not an ethical issue in their minds. Sheeeeut.

So, with a bit of time off this evening, he began to review numbers, to see what is being talked about. After all, 60 billion dollars sounds like a boatload-o-money-hunney to a normal drudge like OS.

He decided to look up the amount of money intended to be spent by The Gubb'mint in FY 2011. The Budget that Our Beloved Leader proposed to Congress back in February of 2010, when the Dems controlled both houses, calls for spending $3.83 trillion and the federal deficit is forecast to be $1.56 trillion in 2010 and $1.27 trillion in 2011. Total debt is budgeted to increase from $11.9 trillion in FY2009, to $13.8 trillion in FY2010, and $15.1 trillion in FY2011.

That's a lot-o-munney, hunney!

OS had to call up a spreadsheet, and start attempting to type in that figure. He had to format cells for lots of digits and decimal points to make this exercise work.

So, sez-he/he-sez:

383, three hundred eighty three.

383,000 three hundred eighty three thousand. Let's add three zeros, multiplying it by a thousand. Sort of like using the spreadsheet as an abacus...know-whudd-ah-mean?

383,000,000. Three hundred eighty-three million. Let's add another three zeros...

383,000,000,000 Three hundred eighty-three billion. Let's multiply by 10, one zero.

3,830,000,000,000 Three trillion, eight hundred thirty billion. That's so many zeros, OS had to dink with the spreadsheet's cell formatting. (His laptop is beginning to smoke, by the way.)

Let's go back to the proposed reductions in spending of, say, $60 billion, which our friends at the NEA call 'right-wing lawmakers insisting on draconian cuts to critical services'. Dem Waskawy Repubwikans!

That figure looks like this: 60,000,000,000.

OS's poor head hurts looking at all those zeros, so he decided to begin removing equal numbers of zeros from both numbers, which would keep the relationship between the values of those two numbers constant.

So, if we remove, say, six zeros from each number, we end up with--

3,830,000 and 60,000. Looks like a small business now. Hmmm, subtract another zero on each side.

383,000 and 6000--looks like a mom-n-pop gas station numbers.

38,300 and 600, looks like a single person's numbers.

3830 and 60 -- a month's take-home and one tank of gas in the age of Obama.

So, what percentage of 3830 is 60?

60 divided by 3830 gives us: 0.015665796

Excel tells OS to multiply this by 100 to arrive at a percentage: 1.5665796345 percent.

Round to two decimals: 1.57 percent.

Now, in reality, they're only talking about cutting about 30 billion dollars, so let's divide 1.57 by 2: 0.785 percent. It appears Mr. Harry, Miz Nancy, Our Beloved Leader and the NEA consider a reduction in spending by 0.785 percent to be unthinkably draconian.

0.785 percent. That is what is being fought over. Or perhaps, what is being fought over is the idea that spending should be restrained at all. Somehow, it will all be paid for, by the rich perhaps. Or we'll just borrow the difference, and leave it for the grandchildren to pay.

Now, let's look at another ratio: If we are running a 1.56 trillion deficit on a 3.83 trillion budget, that means we're borrowing 1.56 trillion a year. What's that percentage?

1.56/3.83=40.73%

The Treasury is borrowing (in our name) almost 41 cents on every dollar Duh Gubbermint is spending on the Federal level. We owe upwards of 15 trillion dollars, after decades of this behavior.

Lessee, OS has to reset his spreadsheet again. If we cut spending by 30 billion, what percentage of the national debt have we potentially shaved off?

Pull as many zeros as we can from both numbers and it looks like 1500 and 3.

3 divided by 1500=.002

Multiply by 100 to determine percentage: .2 percent. Two-tenths of one percent shaved from a debt of 15 trillion dollars.

Now, if we owe 15 trillion dollars, what's our interest payment obligation? Right now, interest rates are at an unhistorical low. Everything reverts to the mean, so let's say the day comes when the market decides it wants us to pay a nice round number, say 5% on our borrowed money, per annum.

15,000,000,000,000 times .05=750,000,000 Seven hundred fifty billion, which must be paid, lest we default. If we default, the dollar soon ceases to be recognized as a medium of exchange anywhere. Think Argentina...

What if we end up having to pay 750 billion dollars of interest on an annual budget of 3.8 trillion? That would mean 19.6% percent of the annual expenditure would be on interest payments alone. Not principal paydown, just interest. Wonder how long it would be until the market decides they'd like 8% on their money to compensate for the level of risk that 19.6% represents. Hmmm...that could get ugly, quickly.

Think Greece, Portugal, Spain, Argentina....

Gotta go, OS's laptop is smoking again!

Besides, it's bottom of the 7th, the Orioles are beating up on the Tigers 9-5. Two on, two outs, count is 1 and 2. Those are manageable, understandable numbers.

Seven Billion Dollars Now The Issue: The Impasse Between House and Senate

OS is heading out for the day, brewing the coffee, and overhearing that the difference between Boehner and Reid is only seven billion dollars.

Seven billion dollars represents our interest obligation for ten days.

Does anyone sitting behind those desks understand the depth of the insanity represented by that statistic?

A Moment Of Inspiration, Courtesy Of Our Connected Age: Eric Whitacre's Newest Virtual Choir

One of OS's friends sent this along, and it is worth a view. It will take a few minutes, but it will be a worthwhile few minutes.

It not just that the music is attractive, it's that in the creation of the music, some real community was created in the process. That's what music does, when done well, and for the right reasons.

No limits to what might be achieved, when we forget about ourselves, and concentrate our energies on a worthy undertaking.

Enjoy.

The Mexican Documentary That Is Packing The Theaters: The Uglier Face Of Justice | The Economist

One must remember, in the orthodoxy of the Left, it's US baaaaadddd, and Mexico gooooood!

It matters not a whit if reality does not line up with orthodoxy.

This from The Economist, detailing the story of a gross miscarriage of justice, and the attempts to quash the public viewing of a documentary about the misery of what passes for a system of justice in a lawless society.

Why doesn't this get covered here, by the US press corps? Perhaps orthodoxy?

That country is in chaos, and has been ruled by the ruthless, corrupt and blood-stained for a century now.

And we're just supposed to open our southern border and look the other way while they export it all north to us.

Really?

Memo To Future Presidents And Prime Ministers: The Libyan Civil War

If'n yer gunna start a war with a nutter blood-stained dictator, check to see how deep his pockets are.

Gadhafi has over seven billion dollars in gold to turn to, sitting in his own private vaults, according to Bloomberg.

That'll buy yew a whole slew of Malian mercenaries, tanks to replace the ones the French blew up, and trainloads of munitions, which can be bought with cash and trucked in across the southern border. He's just begun the killing, raping and maiming.

So, next time, give a thought before you 'go kinetic' on someone. You might not call it a war, but he sure does, and people like Gadhafi stay in power by playing to win. Public opinion pollsters don't do a good trade in places like Libya, know-whud-i-mean?

To Miss With Love: Katherine Birbalsingh's Book A True 'Must-Read'

Outside of a circle of friends and colleagues in the UK, OS suspects very few people had ever heard of Ms. Birbalsingh before last October.

Boy-oh-boy, did that circumstance ever change overnight. This mid-30's black inner-city London school teacher, with her Oxford degree, her wild wild hairdo, and a devastating command of the English language addressed the Conservative Party Conference for eight minutes one fine day, and set an existential bomb off in the education establishment of the UK. Not surprisingly, when she returned to work, she was promptly canned for having the temerity to speak the obvious truth. The Left hates people who wander off the plantation, and in the tradition of all who hate freedom and truth, take pains to make a public example of anyone who dares attempt an escape.

(By the way, the school that fired her for criticizing the failures of the education system, was itself shut down, for...well...failure to perform....but never mind...we'll just not talk about that bit....)

If you haven't seen The Speech yet, here it is. Eight memorable minutes, and a career changed forever. (Booooom!)



The week following was a bloody awful mess. Archbishop Cranmer, Heaven bless him, jumped to her defense, as did a number of others, but to no avail. She was fired, pure and simple, and her former bosses, compassionate types they are, attempted to blacken her name and make her radioactive and unemployable on the way out the door.

Sweet, huh? (Don't-chew evah wander off the fahm! Look-whut we did to that Birbalsingh person, and remembuh!)

After the shock of it all, she landed on her feet. Penguin Books UK picked up on her story, and she was offered the opportunity to tell her story, via the work she had already invested in her blog. The result was To Miss, With Love.

It was published in the UK, but OS had no problem ordering his copy via Amazon in the US.

He began reading, couldn't put it down, had to put it down 'cuz it made him weep and cuss, had to pick it back up 'cuz he couldn't put it down, had to put it down 'cuz...

Miss Birbalsingh knows how to write! And, in telling her story, she fictionalizes herself and her colleagues and students into composite characters. She's Miss Snuffy, her husband is Liberal, her friends are Banker and Compassionate, colleagues Mr. Hadenough, Headmaster Mr. Goodheart, and students with names like Furious, Beautiful, Dreamer, Excluded, Cavalier. Ya'll get the drift.

The book follows an academic year at her school (Ordinary School), a year with a lot more losses than wins, including breaking up violent bloody brawls, trying to keep kids off the path to prison, and working with a handful that really are (or could be) Oxbridge material. It's madness she's describing, a Kafka-esque world where all common sense and logic has been tossed aside, but the stakes could not be higher for the children she teaches.

If you have kids, or even if you don't, this book must be read. For US readers, there will be some unfamiliar elements, such as the different exam and university admissions system, but nothing insurmountable in that. It's the stories of the lives of the kids and the faculty that will nail you to your seat, until you have to take a break and recover a bit.

Miss Birbalsingh has been teaching for about twelve years now, in these conditions, which she admits are better than those endured by many of her colleagues. The Almighty did her a favor last October, although it didn't feel like it at the time. No one can keep up that life and not completely burn out, physically and mentally. It is good to see that she is out of there, and working to set up her own Free School (our equivalent of a charter school, more or less), with a board of like-minded parents. It was time to leave, and all in all, perhaps better to leave the way she did, although it certainly must have been devastating at the time. To be forcibly separated from the students she loved, without even the chance to say 'farewell' is wrenching. OS has seen it happen before, and it leaves a real scar on a teacher's soul.

So, ya'll. Buy the book, and read. The parallels between the two school systems are chilling. It's all happening here as well. Tell your friends. If you live in the US, thank Heaven every day that most states are friendly to private schools and home schools.

And make sure your state representative knows how you feel.

Here's hoping this book sells by the trainload, and that Miss Birbalsingh will make time to keep writing.

OK, Let's Go Over This Question Again, Slowly, So Even Fundamentalists Can Understand It

Burning books is a reprehensible thing to do, even if you are convinced the books you are burning are reprehensible. OldSouth has been over this with ya'll once already.

OS, like so many, was cradle-born Southern Baptist (No longer, but still a conservative Protestant. Another story, another day perhaps.) What that meant was, that every child learned his Bible, front to back. We had Sword Drill on Sunday nights, when the teacher would call a chapter and verse and we little ones would scurry to find the passage first in our copies of the King James Bible (which, of course, was the one written by the Almighty Himself, for the benefit of all English-speaking and right-thinking people everywhere). We knew that book cold, and OS is forever grateful to all those adults who gave so much of their time and energy to make certain that happened.

Never, not once, does the Good Book ever endorse burning books. Golden calves, yes. The Prophets of Baal fared pretty badly at the hands of Elijah on Mount Horeb if memory serves. Our Lord, in his days upon earth, did have his words eventually recorded by his followers. There's a good bit of overlap in the three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew/Mark/Luke), and nope, not one endorsement of burning books one takes offense at. The Master directed his most acid words at bankers, lawyers, and fundamentalist legalistic nutter clergy types--the type who prey upon the emotions, hopes and finances of humble people. In the end, they got together to perform judicial murder upon Him, proving His point in the process.

This last week, against all sane advice, it appears a nutter preacher in Florida staged a Koran barbecue. In America, that's protected Free Speech. Black-letter law, no argument about it. In Afghanistan, some other nutter decided the response to that should be to stage a suicide bombing, and kill a bunch of UN aid workers. That's murder, and unspeakable tragedy.

And there is no excuse for it. Period. Even if the Florida nutter incinerates a thousand Korans. It's ink on paper, just like those KJV's we used in Sword Drill in that Breeko-block little church. The content matters, not the newsprint.

But what OS wishes to repeat, for all who might read, is this: The Florida nutter is exercising his American right to Free Speech. That doesn't make him a Christian, and what he did was not a Christian act, in any possible definition of the word. It was done to draw attention to himself, to piss people off, to create headlines and controversy. Our Lord did not behave that way, except on one occasion, for very specific reason, and never out of malice. He did not endorse that method of operating in the world, nor did any of his immediate circle, when it came time for them to write down their accounts.

The nutter set a tragic chain of events into motion, giving another nutter an insane pretext to commit a foul act of mass murder. Florida Nutter did not 'cause' Afghan Nutter to commit murder, but he certainly helped set the stage.

Whatever this nutter in Florida is, he is not Christian. This is not the practice of Christianity. He is a heretic, plain and simple.

And a nutter. (Did OS mention that already?)

And heresy always, in the end, breeds tragedy.

Kucinich Statement March 30, 2011: The Libyan Intervention Is Unconstitutional

This is yesterday's opening salvo, recorded on C-SPAN.

Dennis Kucinich Complete Statement on Libyan Civil War, 31 March 2011

As promised, OS posts the entire presentation for his hordes of readers to view.

Kucinich, a Lion of the Left, and one of the more colorful characters in Congress, presented a well-written, documented, sober, well-thought-out case.

This is trouble for Obama, no doubt about it.

Now, as a conservative, and as a citizen, OS has one question: Where are the Republicans? Why are they not lining up behind him? Will they leave him hung out to dry? At least Speaker Boehner cleared the way for him to have his hour on the floor.
Can you imagine a Speaker Pelosi allowing this? Elections have consequences.

He details the secret order signed by Obama weeks before the bombing began, authorizing the CIA to support the Libyan opposition.

He takes the whole enterprise apart, piece by piece by piece by piece...

Ya'll--if you are an American citizen, left/right/center/neutral, this is something that cannot be ignored. If Obama is allowed to get away with this, we drift toward a world where any future President of the United States can start wars in our name, with our resources, and our children, and never even glance at the Constitution. Unless it is honored and enforced, that document becomes just another historical document, supplanted by something else much more sinister.

Obama and Hilary cannot be allowed to simply ignore this--and they will attempt to pretend today never happened, that Kucinich is just some nutter (wait for it, the stories about him will be floated far-and-wide), that opposition is unpatriotic (an old chestnut tactic), that the Founders could never have anticipated such a situation (thus the Constitution doesn't apply, except that bit about the President as Commander-in-Chief...).

Listen in, pay attention. So many lives are on the line. This sort of thing can set tragic sequences of events into motion.

The Irish Banks Report Is Released

OS is no economist, but even his feeble brain knows that this is ugly.

From today's Irish Times:

Ireland’s beleaguered banking sector will require a further €24 billion recapitalisation, pushing the total cost of bailing out the banks to €70 billion.

The figure was determined by the Central Bank’s long-awaited stress tests on Bank of Ireland, Allied Irish Banks, Irish Life and Permanent and the EBS.

This will be the fifth attempt to draw a line under the banking crisis, which have so far cost the State €46 billion, and will bring the entire banking sector under Government control.

It also means the State will require substantially more of the €35 billion earmarked for the banks under the EU/IMF bailout deal than previously envisaged.

The recapitalisation will coincide with a major restructuring of the sector, the details of which are being outlined by Minister for Finance Michael Noonan in the Dail.

For a simple soul like OS, the figures, breathtaking as they are, matter less than the opening line of the third paragraph above--'This will be the fifth attempt...'

Remember, ya'll? The Irish electorate said 'NO' to entry into the Eurozone in '08, so the Utopians kept at it, essentially saying 'We're just keep holding referendums until you dumb Irish get it right, and surrender your hard-won independence to Brussels'. So in 2009...they did. After all that struggle and blood spilled, they voted for life in the EU.

Wonder if they want their sovereignty back yet? And their currency? And their culture? And their freedom?

More than the bank balance sheets eroded here, ya'll. There has been an erosion of the essential trust that holds things together...which is why the balance sheets melted down.

It can happen here, in the US. It doesn't have to, but it can. We are not out of the woods, by a long shot.