George Rebane
The situation in Europe is coming to a head, and Angela's got the whole world in her hand. Now it’s definitely Spain’s and Italy’s turn in the barrel. The remarkable news is that most likely there will be another €100B thrown at Spain’s banks intended to bail them out of bad sovereign debts that Spain’s government doesn’t have the money to repay. But this money can serve no other purpose than to delay the inevitable; there is nothing Spain is doing to kick-start its economy and stop its descent.
From the prices of Spain’s government bonds today, the markets are saying that there is one chance in 23 that Spain will default within a year. For Italy that likelihood is one out of 25 in the same period. Tomorrow these odds will be less favorable. What’s in your portfolio? (Put in other numbers here.)
“It is not clear whether the expanded testing regimen boosted student learning.” So opines a Reuters journalist reporting on the backlash to standardized testing that appears to be increasing across the country. Parents of poorly scoring students are chanting that their “kids are not a test score”, and are demanding “more teaching and less testing.” Apparently all these anti-testing factions – from teachers, unions, parents, … – are not concerned about assessing how their little darlins are doing in school as the test scores are heading south. The journalist’s wonderment is probably shared by the multitudes who don’t know that learning and testing are necessarily independent efforts. The clear conclusion is that the best way to address junior’s poor performance in reading and math, and all the subjects that require proficiency in reading and math, is to turn a blind eye to the matter by eliminating or dumbing down standardized tests. (more here)
Many pundits are telling us that this or that faction will sit out the November election because their candidate is not exactly on the mark with certain facets of ideology or promises made. Most of the discontents and vexed seem to be on the left side of the aisle. I think they are flat wrong.
But no one who has been paying attention is going to sit out this election. We are a nation too vehemently polarized to let others decide which of the two ‘evils’ facing us will prevail. The only ones who won’t vote are the usual double dummies who don’t recognize the fork in the road and keep running into the road sign. Unfortunately, too many of them are smug conservatives who tell you that it doesn’t really matter who wins, the whole thing is corrupt and rigged, they’re too busy working to pay taxes for those who don’t, …, or they just mumble ‘smurglemurf’ (for you of appropriate vintage, that’s how you pronounce the Lil’ Abner eternal jinx Joe Btsfplk’s name.)
[update] Jo Ann forwarded a piece from Senator LaMalfa wherein he alerts us that the Democrats audacity to rape the taxpayer is going up another notch. Gov Moonbeam has a bill in the state legislature that would penalize you 20% of any tax overpayment refund you would request that the Franchise Tax Board considers “excessive”. Many of us overpay during the year so as not to incur and underpayment penalty when taxes are due. Now the sumbich wants to dunn us for giving the state the use of our excess payment until refund time comes around. I think these people know no shame. Now they want you to pay them for restocking your wallet with your own money. If you want to bitch and moan about this one – and you should – then here is some contact info.
Office of the Governor (voice mail): (916) 445–2841
Assembly Member Bob Blumenfield, Chair, Assembly Budget Committee (916) 319–2040
Senator Mark Leno, Chair, Senate Budget and Fiscal Review (916) 651–4003
[13jun12 update] Now we hear that the total of unfunded pension liabilities across all jurisdictions in the country has exceeded $4,000,000,000,000 – yes, that four TRILLION dollars. And no one has a clue on how to make good on those obligations. The only solution still is to stiff the retired public service workers. I hope everyone has pictures and videos of the celebrations that took place after the unions got the members of NASP (National Association of Scumbag Politicians) to authorize all those contracts. That's about the most that they'll have to look at besides very tiny retirement checks in their mailboxes.
Mark Meckler of tea party fame reported today that people who track what the media – including the lamestream – cover, now tell us that it was only four days ago that NBC first reported on 'Fast and Furious', the months old gun walking fiasco that the Dept of Justice authorized along the Mexican border. This aspect of liberal journalism at work goes a long way to explain why progressives have little clue on what's happening in the world, and respond in outrage to presentations of blatant and well-aged facts. On RR we do what we can.
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