amount of money
About a hundred years ago, our nation was engaged in World War I, and needed to simplify how the government funded its responsibilities. For the Treasury to be able to fund debts incurred from obligations already legislated by Congress without additional votes from Congress every time money was to be released, the debt ceiling was created.
The government website describes the debt ceiling best: “Indeed, the debt limit does not authorize new spending commitments; it simply allows the government to finance existing legal obligations that Congresses and presidents of both parties have approved in the past.” (http://www.treasury.gov/)
The debt ceiling has been raised dozens of times, and typically with no fanfare, until… Read more
A week or so ago, lots of people were linking to this New York Review of Books article by Steven Weinberg on "The Crisis of Big Science," looking back over the last few decades of, well, big science. It's somewhat dejected survey of whopping huge experiments, and the increasing difficulty of getting them funded, including a good deal of bitterness over the cancellation of the Superconducting Supercollider almost twenty years ago. This isn't particularly new for Weinberg-- back at the APS's Centennial Meeting in Atlanta in 1999, he gave a big lecture where he spent a bunch of time fulminating about what idiots politicians were for cancelling the project. Read more
Maybe I was just confused.
Then; over time; I began to realise that far from being confused; I had a very good hold on what I thought and think about the various pieces of insanity that surround us; but…………………………………..
……………………………………….I did find; over the years that most of the folks who made the most noise about politics and were supposed to be the smart ones who knew the direction we should take and how to get to where we want to be turned out to be Very confused.
Either they don’t know what the American people want or they don’t care; I thought.
Then it came to me.
Politicians don’t run Governments. Read more
December 7, 1764, 245 years ago, the Empress Catherine II ordered to open for inspection by it acquired from the Berlin merchant Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky collection of paintings by Flemish and Dutch Read more
As we’re about to say goodbye to 2011, let’s have a look at the most painful chapters in the US economy, that may have its after-effects even in 2012. Read more
A recent question about Richard Blumenthal’s Vietnam service has practically imploded the Connecticut Senate race. Richard Blumenthal has been the front-runner of the race for the last few months. Blumenthal’s opponent has given her campaign a 14 million no fax cash advance from her personal accounts, including income from the previous World Wresting Entertainment C.E.O position. Read more
Where the Money Isn’t
Making Sense, by Michael Reagan
Willie Sutton is wrongly believed to have said he robbed banks because “that’s where the money is.” He never said that, and anybody who says it now would also be wrong.
A bank’s principal function is twofold -- to be a depository for their customers’ money and to make profits by lending money and charging interest on the loans.
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