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Diaries

Moral High Horses and North Carolina

My biggest pet peeve is people who get on their moral high horses and act like they are so superior to everyone else. I cut my youngest brother Jerry out of my life when I couldn't put up with his right wing garbage any longer. I was a caregiver to our Mom until she died. I tried to help my PTSD Vietnam Vet brother Mike until drink overcame him and he died. My younger brother Reid is with me and will be for the rest of his life.

Sanders' Banking Breakup Plan

Recently Bernie Sanders has been accused of not having a plan for breaking up "Too Big To Fail" financial institutions.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Bernie has a plan. A complete plan. Part of it requires action under the existing Dodd-Frank legislation, the other part is laid out in detail in a pending bill he is sponsoring.

Anything else is a gross distortion.

Juan González: Clinton Has "Really Distorted" What Happened When NY Daily News Interviewed Sanders

So Simple Even The Washington Post Gets It

Time Magazine Front Covers this ignorant screed from James Grant, noted Inflation Hawk and Gold Bug, that contends that at $42,998.12 per person the United States National Debt is insupportable and a grave threat to our economy.

As everyone should know, the only problem with a National Debt of any amount is not it's sheer magnitude, but the relationship of its size to the National Economy. Not that household metaphors are appropriate (and they really aren't), nobody would think twice about signing a mortgage that represented 3 - 5 years of total income payable in installments over 30 years. How many people do you know that are pulling down $100K annually who don't live in $300K+ houses?

In fact the only negative effect from a debt that is too large is that people (lenders) are less willing to give you loans and charge you more money (interest) to offset the risk that you will default and refuse to pay them back anything at all. A side effect is that higher interest rates can fuel inflation because it raises the cost of capital (which is also measured in interest).

So what do we see?

Bernie picks up extra delegates in Colorado at the State and CD conventions.

My mom is a Bernie delegate at the Colorado state convention today. The election day results on March 1st were 58.98% Bernie, 40.31% Hillary. She texted me to say that today's results were 1915 delegates for Bernie and 1129 delegates for Hillary. That's 62% for Bernie! I guess there were a lot a Hillary no-shows who didn't want to drive to Loveland in the spring snowstorm we're having. The delegate allocation to the national convention is 6 for Bernie and 3 for Hillary.

An offer they couldn't refuse

 photo cirque_zpsto2jnwxo.jpgI had to send some of my guys with the cauliflower ears and bent noses over to Cirque du Soleil yesterday to put the kibosh on their plans to present Ovo in Greensboro, NC from April 20 to April 24 and Charlotte July-6-10 and Turok in Raleigh in June.

But let's face it, such highbrow entertainment was too gay for North Carolina anyway.

In Settlement’s Fine Print, Goldman May Save $1 Billion

State and federal officials said on Monday that Goldman Sachs would pay $5.1 billion to settle accusations of wrongdoing before the financial crisis.

But that is just on paper. Buried in the fine print are provisions that allow Goldman to pay hundreds of millions of dollars less — perhaps as much as $1 billion less — than that headline figure. And that is before the tax benefits of the deal are included.

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