@Lookout

Gonna be 84 here and I'm a bit worn out from overdoing it yestidday, so we'll see what the day brings. Glad you get SS, enjoy, support and defend it. As ex-fed under old csrs system I don't get any, but I get a real pension, so it was a trade.

be well and have a good one

I'm glad to have SS to supplement my pension. One of the few gov't programs which does help us, IMO.
So happy SS day!

Rained again last night, about 0.5". It's yard work day here, and if I've got the energy and it's not too hot, I hope to touch up the road. So, I'm off to an early start while it is still 71F.

Have a good day and thanks for the OT and music.

@usefewersyllables

liked it.

be well and have a good one

very much for keeping Tom Lehrer right up there in people's minds!

@TheOtherMaven

Willy Shakes was stone cold propagandist. Wonder if he could have been otherwise with anywhere near as much success.

be well and have a good one

is purely coincidental. Old Will was drawing on 500 years of anti-Macbeth and pro-Stewart propaganda, so naturally his depiction is completely distorted.

At least he had the nads to depict Mac as a man with good intentions Gone Horribly Wrong through excess ambition, making him a tragic figure instead of the cardboard villain he propped up in Henry VI part 3 and Richard III.

@jakkalbessie

You did a very good thing by teaching that bit of history.
Hope the weather helps, but does no damage and destruction.

Good to hear that you get "double income". though I doubt it is really enough.

be well and have a good one

Imagine our surprise when we stopped at a Burger King outside Kayenta Arizona for bathroom break and found inside the walls covered with objects from some of the Code Talkers. There were letters, pictures and stories from these men. Spent a lot longer there than had been planned but well worth it!
While I was still teaching covered the Code Talkers in my coverage of World War II. Made a dictionary from words I had found in reading about the Code Talkers and had my students send a message to another student and see if they could decipher what was being written. The dictionaries managed to go missing on a regular basis.

Had a rain shower early this morning and we are predicted to be getting rain all this week. Hope the predictions are correct.

I am also a recipient of Social Security and Texas Teacher Retirement. When still teaching complained that both were being taken out of my monthly checks. Now that I am retired glad to have this “double” income. But since I paid in, I feel I should be getting these checks and they are not an “entitlement” as people that want to cut Social Security often say.

Hope you have a good week.

@Enchantress

to the best of my knowledge, never kept up with the cost of living, and the computed rise in the cost of living has always understated the actual increase in the cost of living, a double whammy.

be well and have a good one

Social Security is the most successful government program ever. It changed the whole demographic of aging. Before Social Security, 90% of people retired into poverty. After S.S. it was as low as 7%. Recently though it has been going up because the COLA's are not keeping up with inflation. This year's is only supposed to be 3%. What a laugh.

@soryang

At it's creation, it was intended that SS would be invested in securities and the return on those investments would be re-invested and the fund would grow through the classic compounding phenomenon. This was in fact done, they are and always were invested in US Treasury securities. The ones they are invested in are special securities, not available to anybody else (and ergo lacking a market value.) It seems to me that they re generally low-yield. And, of course de-dollarization is string us in the face so ...

be well and have a good one

Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian Knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter

— Shakespeare, Henry V, Act 1 Scene 1. 45–47

Got that from wikipedia, because I'm not an ancient history scholar nor well versed in Shakespeare. The expression came to mind when I was thinking about Social Security, which we depend on. I know it has been prefunded by our contributions over a lifetime but it's in jeopardy not only from political attacks, but also by the financial situation. We can't survive without it.

I'm anticipating some kind of devaluation of currency as the major means of resolving the government debt issues, bank insolvency, etc., undermining Social Security and other government financial obligations. In could just be an inflationary process which obviously is currently ongoing. The COLAs are not keeping up. I'm in an absurd situation where my mortgage is paid, but I can't leave my home to move to a safer place because of inflated housing costs. I just learned that a couple of houses nearby are renting for a price that would take all of our SS payments to pay. Trying to maintain a sound currency with relatively high interest rates (higher than 2 percent) runs up against the insolvency issue both for government and banking institutions. The housing costs here in FL are still accelerating despite some experts advising not to buy here because of hurricane and flooding risks, insurance expense and availabilty, real estate taxes based on inflated valuations, etc.

EL, Thanks for the wonderful oldies and the reminder of VJ day. Koreans wonder why they weren't liberated on VJ day. Silly, it was the cold war, and now it's cold war 2.0.

President Yoon Suk-yeol, who is commonly known at chin il mae gukno (pro-Japanese traitor) will be here in the US soon for the "history making Camp David summit" as it is hyped, to flesh out the new so called Tri-lateral Alliance, that the US blob has been dreaming of for years. Hopefully he'll remain sober. He's not bringing the wife, it's too much of a risk. At least once every two days for the past couple of weeks, another mainstream media headline has to remind everyone how history making it's going to be so we all get that. But you just can't call it an alliance anymore. Somebody in the propaganda department, finally got it, that although Yoon and his clique of subservient western policy lackeys in the South Korean administration think the trilateral alliance against China is a great idea, the majority of Korean people don't like it. They don't like Japan's government. They basically think an alliance with the US primarily focused on the North Korean threat is sufficient, and that apparently interminable problem needs diplomatic focus and a plan, rather than continued outside interference and obstruction. They know Japan is basically ruled by the same families of war criminals and imperial aristocrats from the early 20th Century, who prosecuted Japan's conquests long before Pearl Harbor.

Interestingly, I saw a poll that indicated that a majority of Japanese don't like Koreans which is another reason the trilateral "relationship" probably won't last beyond Yoon's administration. Presiding over one disaster after another it's a question how long Yoon's corrupt and incompetent administration can persist. Smart conservatives would get him out of there, to have a chance at holding power beyond 2026. Unfortunately, his cronies have taken over the entire conservative (PPP) party apparatus.

An unnamed senior South Korean official wanted to get South Korea in the Quad as well. I'm guessing this was "Principal Deputy National Security Advisor Kim Tae-hyo" who basically runs South Korea's national security policies (on behalf of the US and Japan). Since Yoon's government is looking like it may be a temporary affair, might as well lock it into as many unwanted anti-China commitments and obligations as possible, because this propitious situation is not going to last. Calling any of these international arrangements "alliances" just elicits further unpopularity in South Korea. Whenever the opposition takes control of the government again, some, if not all of these arrangements concerning Japan will be dismantled or simply implode because of mutual resentment between the two states.

Posting this for Kim Tae-hyo's picture. This John Bolton like character is the key foreign policy figure in South Korea-

"S. Korea-U.S.-Japan summit to lead to security cooperation framework: official." https://t.co/Q5qvysuZOz

— Tim Shorrock (@TimothyS) August 13, 2023

No plan to expand Quad despite interest from Seoul: US official
Mainichi Aug 14

Her remarks came after a senior South Korean official in March expressed willingness to take part in the working group of the U.S.-led club, widely seen as a counter to China's growing military and economic influence in the Indo-Pacific region.

Dawson said she is "not aware of any country" that has asked for or suggested full membership while underscoring that the Quad aims to promote collaboration with other nations in each field to address issues related to Beijing.

She also said the Quad will not be "a major topic of discussion" at the trilateral summit between the United States, Japan, and South Korea at Camp David near Washington this Friday.

Since taking office in May last year, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol's government has prioritized trilateral security cooperation with the United States and Japan in response to North Korea's nuclear and missile threats.

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20230814/p2g/00m/0na/049000c

Camille Dawson "public engagement and communications strategies"

She assumed the role of Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs in September 2021 with responsibility for public affairs, public diplomacy, and regional and security policy.

https://www.state.gov/biographies/camille-p-dawson/

[Editorial] Yoon’s blatant attempts to tighten grip on media
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_editorial/1103845.html

2022 saw biggest dip in Korea’s GDP since 2008 financial crisis
The country also lost its spot among the top 10 economies, ranking No. 13 as of 2022
https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_business/1103666.html

Korea sinks further into trade deficit with China amid inaction from government
https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_business/1099489.html

@Cassiodorus

"thoughts and prayers" is not available to the buffoon in chief because it is widely known that he is incapable of thinking.

be well and have a good one

Briahna Joy Gray has noticed:

@humphrey

autocratic, but what do I know.

be well and have a good one

becoming more Ukrainian???

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/20/ukraine-suspends-11-politi...

Ukraine suspends 11 political parties with links to Russia

Zelenskiy says parties such as Viktor Medvedchuk’s Opposition Platform for Life are ‘aimed at division or collusion’

Eleven Ukrainian political parties have been suspended because of their links with Russia, according to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

The country’s national security and defence council took the decision to ban the parties from any political activity. Most of the parties affected were small, but one of them, the Opposition Platform for Life, has 44 seats in the 450-seat Ukrainian parliament.

“The activities of those politicians aimed at division or collusion will not succeed, but will receive a harsh response,” Zelenskiy said, in a video address on Sunday.

“Therefore, the national security and defence council decided, given the full-scale war unleashed by Russia, and the political ties that a number of political structures have with this state, to suspend any activity of a number of political parties for the period of martial law,” the Ukrainian leader added.

The Opposition Platform for Life, Ukraine’s biggest opposition party, is led by Viktor Medvedchuk, a pro-Moscow oligarch with close ties to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. Party officials later said the suspension “had no legal basis”.

Meanwhile in Germany.

As Germany debates banning its second largest party (AfD), der Spiegel writes:
- "Once the invasion was launched, the AfD called for peace with Vladimir Putin – showing no regard whatsoever for the survival of Ukrainians".https://t.co/s6gXJFtKUr

— Glenn Diesen (@Glenn_Diesen) August 14, 2023