Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Some items worth reading

Political SitRep suspended
My declining health due to pulmonary fibrosis, thus declining energy and more time issues, has forced me to suspend publishing the Daily Political SitRep. I’m sorry, but life marches on. This getting old isn’t all the fun they said it would be. I will still post a few issues, as below. Thanks for reading. ~Bob

Medicare by the Scary Numbers
Excerpt: When the latest Medicare trustees report came out at the end of May, the White House spin masters told us Medicare's finances have improved and one of the reasons is ObamaCare, say John C. Goodman, president and CEO of the National Center for Policy Analysis, and Laurence J. Kotlikoff, a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis and an economist at Boston University. Here's the real story: In their report, the trustees acknowledge that current law envisages dramatic reductions in future Medicare outlays which may be "difficult to sustain." The unfunded liability in Medicare, the trustees tell us, is $34 trillion over the next 75 years. Looking indefinitely into the future, the unfunded liability is $43 trillion -- almost three times the size of today's economy. Based on more plausible assumptions, such as those reflected in the "alternative" scenario for Medicare produced by the Congressional Budget Office in June 2012, the long-term shortfall is more than $100 trillion.

Women, and the Unequal Pay Myth. By Diana Furchtgott-Roth
Excerpt: The 77 percent figure is bogus because it averages all full-time women, no matter what education and profession, with all full-time men. Even with such averaging, the latest Labor Department figures show that women working full-time make 81 percent of full-time men's wages. For men and women who work 40 hours weekly, the ratio is 88 percent. Unmarried childless women's salaries, however, often exceed men's. In a comparison of unmarried and childless men and women between the ages of 35 and 43, women earn more: 108 cents on a man's dollar.

Relieved of Duties. By Andy Weddington
Excerpt: It is what our red, white, and blue - stitched together in a striking, unmistakable banner - represents that is so moving. The sacrifices necessary to establish and ever protect our Republic, America, and the bold courage and casks of blood spilled to preserve freedom, spurn thought - deep thought. And respect. And reverence.

Random Thoughts. By Thomas Sowell
Always good. ~Bob

The End of the World. By Daniel Greenfield
Excerpt: Now media outlets from The New York Times to The New Republic to The Economist are wrestling with the question of why their own ideology’s doomsday predictions are not coming to pass. “If scientific models can’t project the last 15 years, what does that mean for their projections of the next 100?,” the New Republic asks. It means that the world isn’t going to end. Even as Obama exploits Global Warming to launch a War on Affordable Energy, the doomsday environmentalists look as foolish as any other group that set a date for the end of the world, only for the world to stubbornly go on existing.



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