Sunday, February 15, 2009

More Stimulating Obamanomics

The Beer: Pale Ale using Amarillo and Chinook hops. In the fermenter, in the bathtub, with the door shut. It's a little chilly for fermentation in the basement, but the second bath gets plenty warm. I figure 2 weeks to bottle. I have bottles for about 6 batches of beer. Maybe I'll do it all.

The Bicycle: A lot of people don't care for Lance Armstrong. After all, how can anyone be that good without doping? Emotionally, I question. Intellectually, he hasn't been caught so maybe he is that good. Or maybe he's that good, if you know what I mean. Either way, there's no evidence other than his performance. Not enough. I tried to embed the video, but apparently, I'm not real good at it. Go to www.socalcycling.com and locate the Lance Press Conference video. It's pretty good.

The VRWC: In the hoopla of all the pork in the stimulus bill, many of us have lost sight of the real problem. Congressman Paul Ryan puts it in perspective.

According to the CIA World Factbook, the national debt is about 61% of GDP, or about $8.7 trillion. One can argue that "it's Bush's fault" because we are at war. OK, whatever. It is what it is. The United States is the 23rd highest debtor nation in the world. Adding roughly $2 trillion to the debt between TARP and the porkulus bill, we are raising the debt to nearly 74% of GDP. That makes us the 16th largest debtor, just behind Sri Lanka (assuming, of course others aren't borrowing at the same rate). Now add in all the "bad paper" the Feds will absorb and this gets ugly.

If there were no other option, I'd be fine with the increase in debt. But this all could have been done for much less. Now we've saddled future generations with a debt that may never be repaid. Especially if Ryan's predicitons come true.