Absorbing My Life...
No fancy post today, found this and it is pretty much going to absorb my life for a bit whilst I play with it.
Also, I finally set up google reader, so I will be changing the blogroll link format. Amongst other things, the whole left/right classification was getting a bit weak. Hah! No more ribbing me about calling you a lefty, Tao.
(Edit : Revised the colors slightly to try and make it easier to read - let me know if this helps, Anon)
7 comments:
I can't really read your blog anymore. The text is black on dark green.
You are going to read the US budget....
Thats a first!
Tao - Well, you know, is someone says they are going to spend $500 or $5000 on something, I can evaluate that based on experience as a good idea or a bad idea.
But a trillion dollars? That's just a number. I need a context to put it into. Already I find that many things I believed to be true are not.
Anon - It's a light green on my monitor... I will try something else out. Thanks for letting me know.
Just drop the zeros and then ask yourself..is this an expense or an investment?
I think we focus too much on the numbers and not enough on the concept of 'what' and 'how'
I am starting to wonder if maybe what is wrong with our school systems is that parents don't pay anything. Maybe if they paid something they would expect a return on their investment.
I realize that I look at everything I do from a perspective of 'what is my return?" and that seems to be at odds with most folks that I run into.
Then you get bogged down in the idea of 'there has to be a better way?"
I switched from the White House historical data to the FRED data, much easier to work with.
Initial thoughts -
1.Bush did not spend nearly as much as people say. He just collected less.
2.Contrary to populat belief, federal expenses have been pretty well flat since the late 70's.
3. Personal debt has gone friggin nuts!
4. Is is too late to put Clinton back in charge of the budget? And I ain't talkin' about Hillary.
First, you need to make sure that you have the total for government expenditures...nowadays it seems that everyone wants to use 'off budget' tricks.
Bush never budgeted one dime for the war on terror through the traditional budget process.
Your comment is interesting about Clinton...one of the key principles of supply side economics is that lower taxes spur economic growth and they do but not when government spending is out of control inregards to taxes collected.
Remember Clinton raised taxes and cut spending....thats about what you are going to have to do if you truly want to reign in an out of control government.
I think I am looking at total federal expenditures. As you say, they do like to hide stuff.
Actually, I can't find the war anywhere in the budget really.
But the number I see claimed (650 billion) would actually be pretty easy to hide over the course of seven years.
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