MooPig Evolving Budget Department :: "Wisdom in the Do Not's"

Putting it all in Perspective?
Retrieved by Pat Darnell  |  Jan 9, 2014  |  Bryan TX

[Picture LINK]

How to live like a king for very little By THOR HARRIS « Monofonus Press: EXCERPT  |  

1.  Don’t smoke cigarettes.
2.  Drive old Japanese cars.  Easy and cheap to fix and they run for fucking ever.
3.  Buy most of your groceries from the produce section.  Most of that other shit is not actually food. You don’t need it.
4.  Ride your bike instead of driving as much as you can. You need the exercise and gas is expensive.
5.  Don’t have kids.  They’re not miracles, they’re people.  7 billion is too fucking many. Find some other way to give your dull existence some meaning. BTW they’re expensive."
*
*
*
*
16. Preventable expenses - STD’s, abortions, DWI’s, lung cancer, head injuries, speeding tickets, cirrhosis of the liver.
17. Don’t go on fancy dates if you’re not fancy. Most people kind of despise the rich anyway.
18. When you go see shows, bring a flask in. That way you can afford to buy a record.
19. If you had told me 15 years ago that Coca Cola would put tap water in plastic bottles and motherfuckers would BUY IT …… No fuckin way.
20. Don’t get cable. Asshole. There is nothing on. I promise. $100 a month ? Fuck no!

This list was edited by Stacey Yates with contributions from Jherek Bishoff, Chad Raines and Amanda Palmer. We live in a wasteful society. Live well. It don’t take much. Really.



'via Blog this'
 And those are priceless suggestions for keeping costs down... but we have a few ourselves.

21. Don't buy electronics when they come out. But them when they are only pennies on the dollar 30 months after they appear on the market.

22. Don't Christmas shop before Christmas ... do all your shopping after December, just give your kids vouchers of what they can expect for say, le Befana Day, on January 6th.

23. It's okay to have kids, as long as you raise them as if they are poor.

24. Never join a pyramid marketing scam unless you are the first person to start it.

25. Never declare bankruptcy, just work for cash for eleven years and use cash for all your purchases, at the end of which you will have good credit.

26. The payback on buying land or real estate is around twelve years.

27. Invest in shoe leather.

28. Don't give money to cults.

_____________________Reference
http://monofonuspress.com/how-to-live-like-a-king-for-very-little-by-thor-harris

MooPig Evolving Budget Department :: "The Military Budget Deal"

How to Spend a Couple of Hundred Billion in an Afternoon
Mashed MoJo articles by Pat Darnell  |  Dec 15, 2013  |  Bryan TX

[Picture LINK] Awase Meadows Golf Course was built in 1948 by the U.S. Army and was most recently operated by Marine Corps Community Services. It was closed in February and turned over to Japanese control in June as part of a 1996 agreement to return 21 percent of the U.S. military property on the island.



Mother Jones Magazine has been around for about 40 years. I was on Trinity University campus "on its inception in 1970-1973, Mother Jones operated with an editorial board, and members of the board took turns serving as managing editor for one-year terms." They had a unique way of marketing; they gave free monthly copies away the first year to all us students in the dorms. Mother Jones would show up in my mail box each month. It also littered the mailroom floor as many students just threw their free copies there. Since then I have subscribed to Mother Jones once. But now I can read it online, HERE. MoJo tells me it is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and we rely on YOU to support our fiercely independent reporting.

TIME and NEWSWEEK were also pushed on the student body during my years at college. I also subscribed to them at the student rate, 19 cents a copy. I also subscribed to Mother Earth News during that time.

As MoJo is reporting military spending, Young Turks network also reports "the pentagon has apparently misplaced or can't account for 8.5 trillion dollars in the last decade and a half ..." in this youTube HERE.

The Budget Deal Is a Big Win for the Pentagon | Mother Jones: "Until Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) rode to the rescue this week, Pentagon brass and their allies had been issuing dire warnings about the nation's military readiness: The armed services were being decimated, they said, by sequestration—the automatic budget cuts that were set to trim $1 trillion from the Pentagon budget over the next decade. "It's one thing for the Pentagon to go on a diet. It's another for the Pentagon to wear a straitjacket while dieting," grumbled Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.). The message got through: The House overwhelmingly approved the Ryan-Murray plan just two days after it was introduced."

'via Blog this'

Like everything else, if I think too hard about this subject, I will get dizzy and feel old. The Pentagon has re-framed the military budget again just recently with a unanimous YES vote in Congress. Both parties saved military budget cutbacks with emergency legislation, right before they go for their own month and a half holiday break. Said MoJo: "... The House overwhelmingly approved the Ryan-Murray plan just two days after it was introduced ..."

" ... The Department of Defense expects its total 2014 budget, including supplemental war funding, to be more than $600 billion. (MoJo. 12/2013. HERE)..."

Recently, the government had resorted to the action of taking legal possession of assets until a debt has been paid or other claims have been met. This is called sequestration. The entire legislature is run by lawyers. Every Senate and Congress Person and every intern has a law degree. And they also therefore are officers of the courts. [Even Michelle Bachmann has a law degree]. So, every thing those government types do is always "lawyerly." There is no bigger cock blocker in the world than a high powered lawyer politician, believe you me. There are no beekeepers, pharmacists, MBA's, nor doctors in government. If there are other non-lawyer types in government by popular election, they end up being labeled "whack jobs."

" ... According to Lawrence J. Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, the Pentagon could reduce its budget by $100 billion a year without undermining its readiness. The sequestration cuts for 2013 amounted to $37 billion. (MoJo. 12/2013. ibid) ..."

[Graphic LINK]

Our military can not abide a "sequestration" so they are let off the hook again this year by our lawyer leaders of the Legislature, Courts, and Executive Branch ... no audit, no accountability, just systems normal: all fouled up, SNAFU.

" ... David Vine who teaches at American University in Washington D.C. who has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Guardian, attempted to find out himself the cost of the more than 1,000 U.S. military bases outside of the United States and is currently completing a book on the subject.

Vine talked to budget experts, and both current and former Pentagon officials, among many others in his attempt to gather relevant data. Many interviewed said that Vine's task was hopeless because of the huge number of bases involved, the secrecy of Pentagon budgets and the often fictional nature of Pentagon figures. The Department of Defence Vine notes is the only federal budget yet to pass a financial audit. (Ken Hanly. Dec 16, 2012. HERE)..."

"The 2009 U.S. military budget accounts for approximately 40% of global arms spending. The 2012 budget is 6-7 times larger than the $106 billion of the military budget of China, and is more than the next twenty largest military spenders combined.(Ken Hanly. Dec 16, 2012. ibid.)..."

CONCLUSION

• The Pentagon employs 3 million people, 800,000 more than Walmart.
• The Pentagon's 2012 budget was 47 percent bigger than Walmart's.
• Serving 9.6 million people, the Pentagon and Veterans Administration together constitute the nation's largest healthcare provider.
• 70 percent of the value of the federal government's $1.8 trillion in property, land, and equipment belongs to the Pentagon.
• Los Angeles could fit into the land managed by the Pentagon 93 times. The Army uses more than twice as much building space as all the offices in New York City.
• The Pentagon holds more than 80 percent of the federal government's inventories, including $6.8 billion of excess, obsolete, or unserviceable stuff.
• The Pentagon operates more than 170 golf courses worldwide.

NEXT WEEK: ...Now if the US military is SNAFU, what is the condition of all the other nations' military?




__________________________Reference
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/12/pentagon-budget-deal-charts-cuts
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/26/exclusive_fired_army_whistleblower_receives_970k?fb_action_ids=606208336081746&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_ref=.UqzVMTsFDmg.like
http://youtu.be/68A_HPYGdlk
http://youtu.be/kUIrSAznMbM
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/14249/malaise-over-syria
http://youtu.be/fjOG_huEY70
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_deployments
http://digitaljournal.com/article/339184
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/12/20121213122226666895.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1nd0z8/eli5_why_dont_other_countries_have_military_bases/
http://moopigwisdom.blogspot.com/2013/12/moopig-budget-department-how-many-us.html

MooPig Good Questions Department :: "Keep those Hard Questions Coming In"

Questions with No Answers
Collected by Pat Darnell  |  Nov 30, 2013  |  Bryan TX

[Picture LINK]

God love me, I ask a lot of questions. MooPig Good Questions Department is not the first link to making a list of good questions. There are about 260,000 hits on Google for "tough questions to answer." I can't count how many times people have gotten away from me by saying just that: "That's a good question..." and walking away; their strategic retreat.

For instance referenced below are some sites that ask a lot of good questions. But some questions still cannot be answered by searching the Internet, which after all, is a detailed compendium of 12,000 years of human written history ... right? The real key to asking good questions is when you turn a statement into a query.

Here is our first ever set of good questions:

• If there are 1077 overseas US military bases, why is it so hard to find out how much is spent on maintaining all our bases?
• 
  
• When I am so tired why do I feel sick to my stomach, and unable to talk?
• 
  
• Why do ferrets shit and piss always in the corners?
• 
  
• When you have a tumor in your head do you bleed from your ear?
• 
  
• Why hasn't the Federal Reserve Bank ever been audited?
• 
  
• Why do workers embezzle money from their employers?
• 
  
• Have you been the kind of friend you want as a friend?
• 
  
• Why is it not possible to know the truth without challenging it first?
• 
  
• Would you be willing to reduce your life expectancy by 10 years to become extremely attractive or famous?
• 
  
• Why does my husband sneak off and eat all my ice cream?
• 
  
• If we learn from our mistakes, why are we always so afraid to make a mistake?
• 
  
• Is reaching our highest potential directly related to our willingness to act in the face of imperfection?
• 
  
• Why does Nature hate a vacuum?
• 
  
• Why can't a man or woman serve two masters?
• 
  
• Could a war breakout over a typo?
• 
  
• Why is a grudge a heavy thing to carry?
• 
  
• Does the Pope really have a catholic case for shitting in the woods?
• 
  
• And, why do I love to hear my wife singing while she makes the coffee?
• 
  

______________________Reference
http://www.marcandangel.com/2009/07/13/50-questions-that-will-free-your-mind/
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070320143829AADnJR9
http://www.josh.org/resources/study-research/answers-to-skeptics-questions/
http://www.businessinsider.com/30-smart-answers-to-tough-interview-questions-2013-8
http://www.theblogmocracy.com/2010/04/15/the-longest-sentence-ever-written/
http://www.ask.com/question/what-is-the-longest-sentence-in-literature
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Aq7q4ipW41AE9hk9UrkzQk3sy6IX?qid=20060907180003AAdCvDY
http://askducky.dowacter.com/2013/04/05/longest-question-ever/
http://www.businessinsider.com/30-smart-answers-to-tough-interview-questions-2013-8

MooPig Financial Trends :: "Budget Surplus June 2013"

Blended by Pat Darnell  |  July 13, 2013  |  Bryan TX

Major Events from 1940 to 2012

Great Depression - 1929 to 1938
WWII - 1939 to 1945
Korean War - 1950 to 1953
Vietnam War - 1955 to 1975 (US combat units deployed in 1965)
Oil Embargo - 1973
Soviet Union Collapses - 1991
Gulf War - 1990-1991
9/11 - September 11th, 2001
Iraq War - 2003 to 2011
Global Financial Meltdown - 2007 to ???


In the last 69 years, the U.S. government has managed to post 12 surpluses, with the most recent coming in 2001.

The largest uninterrupted stretch of surpluses came between 1920 and 1930. This eventually came to an end after the government spent billions of dollars combating the Great Depression.

The largest uninterrupted stretch of deficits came between 1970 and 1997.


President Running A Budget Surplus - GOP In A Panic As They Witness Election Hopes Evaporate -: "Here comes the fiscal cliff fight again, with the GOP ready to take the nation hostage in order to hurt the middle class for their corporate overseas masters…. but wait a second, instead of running a budget deficit, the federal government is running… a surplus!! Queue up the horrified GOP leadership, who just lost their one trump card. Rather than facing the debt crisis with the next election over a year away, thanks to these budget surpluses, now the GOP is faced with the real problem of having the debt ceiling fight turned into a midterm election issue."

'via Blog this'

1* - Presidential control
2* - Senate control
3* - House control

D = Democrat R = Republican

Year

Nominal Dollars

Inflation Adjusted

1*

2*

3*

1940

$2.9 Billion Deficit

$48.33 Billion Deficit

D

D

D

1941

$4.9 Billion Deficit

$77.78 Billion Deficit

D

D

D

1942

$20.5 Billion Deficit

$292.86 Billion Deficit

D

D

D

1943

$54.6 Billion Deficit

$737.84 Billion Deficit

D

D

D

1944

$47.6 Billion Deficit

$634.67 Billion Deficit

D

D

D

1945

$47.6 Billion Deficit

$618.18 Billion Deficit

D

D

D

1946

$15.9 Billion Deficit

$191.57 Billion Deficit

D

D

D

1947

$4 Billion Surplus

$42.11 Billion Surplus

D

R

R

1948

$11.8 Billion Surplus

$114.56 Billion Surplus

D

R

R

1949

$0.6 Billion Surplus

$5.88 Billion Surplus

D

D

D

1950

$3.1 Billion Deficit

$30.1 Billion Deficit

D

D

D

1951

$6.1 Billion Surplus

$54.95 Billion Surplus

D

D

D

1952

$1.5 Billion Deficit

$13.27 Billion Deficit

D

D

D

1953

$6.5 Billion Deficit

$57.02 Billion Deficit

R

R

D

1954

$1.2 Billion Deficit

$10.43 Billion Deficit

R

R

D

1955

$3 Billion Deficit

$26.09 Billion Deficit

R

D

D

1956

$3.9 Billion Surplus

$33.62 Billion Surplus

R

D

D

1957

$3.4 Billion Surplus

$28.33 Billion Surplus

R

D

D

1958

$2.8 Billion Deficit

$22.58 Billion Deficit

R

D

D

1959

$12.8 Billion Deficit

$103.23 Billion Deficit

R

D

D

1960

$0.3 Billion Surplus

$2.36 Billion Surplus

R

D

D

1961

$3.3 Billion Deficit

$25.78 Billion Deficit

D

D

D

1962

$7.1 Billion Deficit

$55.04 Billion Deficit

D

D

D

1963

$4.8 Billion Deficit

$36.64 Billion Deficit

D

D

D

1964

$5.9 Billion Deficit

$44.36 Billion Deficit

D

D

D

1965

$1.4 Billion Deficit

$10.37 Billion Deficit

D

D

D

1966

$3.7 Billion Deficit

$26.62 Billion Deficit

D

D

D

1967

$8.6 Billion Deficit

$60.14 Billion Deficit

D

D

D

1968

$25.2 Billion Deficit

$169.13 Billion Deficit

D

D

D

1969

$3.2 Billion Surplus

$20.38 Billion Surplus

R

D

D

1970

$2.8 Billion Deficit

$16.87 Billion Deficit

R

D

D

1971

$23 Billion Deficit

$132.95 Billion Deficit

R

D

D

1972

$23.4 Billion Deficit

$130.73 Billion Deficit

R

D

D

1973

$14.9 Billion Deficit

$78.42 Billion Deficit

R

D

D

1974

$6.1 Billion Deficit

$28.91 Billion Deficit

R

D

D

1975

$53.2 Billion Deficit

$231.3 Billion Deficit

R

D

D

1976

$73.7 Billion Deficit

$303.29 Billion Deficit

R

D

D

1977

$53.7 Billion Deficit

$207.34 Billion Deficit

D

D

D

1978

$59.2 Billion Deficit

$212.19 Billion Deficit

D

D

D

1979

$40.7 Billion Deficit

$130.87 Billion Deficit

D

D

D

1980

$73.8 Billion Deficit

$209.66 Billion Deficit

D

D

D

1981

$79 Billion Deficit

$203.08 Billion Deficit

R

R

D

1982

$128 Billion Deficit

$309.93 Billion Deficit

R

R

D

1983

$207.8 Billion Deficit

$487.79 Billion Deficit

R

R

D

1984

$185.4 Billion Deficit

$417.57 Billion Deficit

R

R

D

1985

$212.3 Billion Deficit

$461.52 Billion Deficit

R

R

D

1986

$221.2 Billion Deficit

$471.64 Billion Deficit

R

R

D

1987

$149.7 Billion Deficit

$308.02 Billion Deficit

R

D

D

1988

$155.2 Billion Deficit

$306.72 Billion Deficit

R

D

D

1989

$152.5 Billion Deficit

$287.74 Billion Deficit

R

D

D

1990

$221.2 Billion Deficit

$395.71 Billion Deficit

R

D

D

1991

$269.3 Billion Deficit

$461.92 Billion Deficit

R

D

D

1992

$290.4 Billion Deficit

$484 Billion Deficit

R

D

D

1993

$255.1 Billion Deficit

$412.78 Billion Deficit

D

D

D

1994

$203.2 Billion Deficit

$320.5 Billion Deficit

D

D

D

1995

$164 Billion Deficit

$251.53 Billion Deficit

D

R

R

1996

$107.5 Billion Deficit

$160.21 Billion Deficit

D

R

R

1997

$22 Billion Deficit

$32.07 Billion Deficit

D

R

R

1998

$69.2 Billion Surplus

$99.28 Billion Surplus

D

R

R

1999

$125.6 Billion Surplus

$176.16 Billion Surplus

D

R

R

2000

$236.4 Billion Surplus

$320.76 Billion Surplus

D

R

R

2001

$127.3 Billion Surplus

$168.16 Billion Surplus

R

D

R

2002

$157.8 Billion Deficit

$205.2 Billion Deficit

R

D

R

2003

$377.6 Billion Deficit

$479.8 Billion Deficit

R

R

R

2004

$413 Billion Deficit

$511.14 Billion Deficit

R

R

R

2005

$318 Billion Deficit

$380.84 Billion Deficit

R

R

R

2006

$248 Billion Deficit

$287.7 Billion Deficit

R

R

R

2007

$161 Billion Deficit

$181.51 Billion Deficit

R

D

D

2008

$459 Billion Deficit

$498.37 Billion Deficit

R

D

D

2009

$1413 Billion Deficit

$1539.22 Billion Deficit

D

D

D

2010

$1294 Billion Deficit

$1386.92 Billion Deficit

D

D

D

2011

$1299 Billion Deficit

$1350.31 Billion Deficit

D

D

R

2012

$1100 Billion Deficit

$1120.16 Billion Deficit

D

D

R

2013

$900 Billion Deficit

$900 Billion Deficit

D

D

R

__________________Reference
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/07/12/president-running-a-budget-surplus-gop-in-a-panic-as-they-witness-election-hopes-evaporate/
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100880536
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/us-posts-budget-surplus-after-cuts.aspx?pageID=238&nID=50578&NewsCatID=344
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/us-posts-surprisingly-big-budget-surplus-6C10607875
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323740804578599842994555384.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-11/u-s-posts-widest-budget-surplus-since-2008-on-stronger-receipts.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/us-budget-surplus-2013-7
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23280737
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/11/us-usa-economy-budget-idUSBRE96A0TU20130711
http://www.davemanuel.com/history-of-deficits-and-surpluses-in-the-united-states.php