Bald eagles can swim?

Yes, yes they can.

Inherited deficits - An instructive primer

Our fearless leader was once fond of saying that he would cut in half, by the end of his first term, the deficit that he had "inherited" from his predecessor.  This was a stupid statement on a number of levels, but many in the news media were willing to accept the "inherited" number at face value.  So it's mildly amusing to see that, even using the bullshit "inherited" number as a starting point, the president's economic approach has been a laughable failure.

But what about this "inherited" business?  I've maintained from very early on that the president didn't inherit anything close to the mind-blowing deficits that he has dumped upon you fine folks and your children (and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and their grandchildren...).  I knew this as a matter of common sense, given that I apparently have more common sense than a lot of folks.  But I never really dug into the numbers. I knew (from specific numbers that I don't recall right now) that deficits had exploded under Bush after 9/11 and that they had slowly receded until the financial meltdown of 2008.  I knew that the media assessment of Bush's legacy saddled him with the full cost of the TARP legislation (that Obama promoted on the campaign trail and half of which was actually spent on Obama's watch).  I also knew that most of the TARP money was repaid by the banks and that its actual impact on the deficit wasn't all that terrible.

So we had a deficit somewhere below half a trillion before The One™ took over.  Then we had a deficit well over a full trillion after The One™ took over.  Yet The One™ inherited a crazy deficit and he was going to fix it, by golly.  This is how stories are written in the modern age.  If you repeat a lie often enough... well shit, I think that's Lenin.  I'm not allowed to refer to socialism in the modern climate.  Whatever though.  The myth of the inherited trillion+ dollar deficit was pathetic.

Pathetic according to me.  But far from pathetic according to this MarketWatch article.  Just let that one sink in for a minute.  According to the article, spending EXPLODED under Bush and then SLOWED down under Obama.  You know what we say about people who are dumb enough to believe this shit, right?  If so, then yeah.  We say it all the time.  If not, then don't worry.  We're saying it about you.

People don't much care for dissertations about the 2009 fiscal year and the fact that Pelosi and Reid controlled Congress back when this shit was relevant.  What they care about is ready-for-consumption pop culture that a third grader could follow.  Well, we have plenty of that around here.  We at Fenian Godfather Research are not terribly creative though.  So we've hired another firm to do our local advertising.  You really might want to take a look at these numbers.

[Infographic and underlying analysis provided by Political Math Blog.  One of the finest sources on the internet for those of us who understand that math is a bitch when you're a big spender.]

Read it and... I don't know... weep?  Chuckle?

I watched until the end.

I can't tell if this ad is awesome or awful. I really can't. When I saw that it was almost five minutes long, I figured that I would check out the first thirty seconds. Once I got the point I would just shut it down and move along. But then I couldn't click away. I watched the whole thing. That means it's awesome, right? 

But... it seemed pretty awful. I was even a little concerned for the fella when he started breathing heavily.  As a not-so-proud member of the fat bastard club I can relate.  Hiking down a trail at a brisk pace with a big belly ain't always an easy thing to do.  When you're talking as you go, the breathing gets even tougher.  He made it though.

Maybe it's the whole 'train wreck' thing that people talk about. Sometimes you just have to see what comes next. I don't know, man. I watched until the end.  Take it for a spin and see what you think.

I can't decide...

On occasion, back in my days as a nationwide freight relocation specialist, I would pass through an area where I knew one of the local residents. Some of them I had known for years. Some of them I had met in person on the road. Some of them I had met through message board conversations. And some of them I had met, in one way or another, through this blog. Our man Rick down in Florida falls into the last category. On the rare occasion that I was headed to Miami, I would make it a point to stop in Pompano and give Rick a call. Nowadays he's a lean and trim studmuffin, but there was a time when ole Rick and I could both destroy some seafood.  He would pick me up at the farmer's market where I parked my truck and we would hit Catfish Dewey's for the all-you-can-eat extravaganza.  It was good stuff.

So, given that I'm a pretty fat fella who likes to eat a lot of fish every now and then, I initially viewed the following video with a sympathetic frame of mind.  "All you can eat" means, well, all you can eat. Just like "all you can drink" means all you can drink.  Oy.  I don't think I ever told you folks about that bar in D.C., given how pissed I was after the football game.  It relates directly to the video that I'm going to post in a minute, and I haven't told a lot of stories here lately, so I'm going to tell you now.  You'll have to bear with me for a brief trip down memory lane.

When we arrived at our hotel in Maryland on the Friday before the pro-racism and anti-decency rally (or whatever MSNBC called it), we settled in and tried to formulate a game plan for Saturday.  I pulled up a Notre Dame message board on my computer and checked to see if there were any game watches scheduled for D.C. that weekend.  Oh, there was a game watch scheduled all right.  It was at a bar right down the street from the White House.  The deal was fifteen bucks for all-you-can-drink Bud Light during the Notre Dame game, starting thirty minutes before kickoff.  I'm not partial to Budweiser products (another story for another time) but this was a deal that nobody could refuse.

So we started drinking.  The beer was dyed green, in a moronic nod to the "Irish" fans who had packed the bar.  The two kegs of green beer were gone by the time the game started.  So they moved on to their regular kegs of Bud Light.  Then that was gone by the end of the first quarter.  End of the deal?  Hardly.  They said that the deal would now cover any domestic draft beer that the patrons desired.  That lasted until halfway through the third quarter. 

Deal over now?  Nope.  Next it was any draft beer in the building.  Gone halfway through the fourth.  Surely they would shut it down at this point, right?  Not even close.  Those bastards started pouring mixed drinks from whatever they had in the well.  And we're not talking skimpy cheap mixed drinks either.  We're talking two shots of bourbon with a splash of Coke.  We're talking half a glass of vodka with a few ice cubes and a touch of orange juice.  They just kept the drinks flowing, doing whatever they had to do, right up until the point that Michigan won the game and we all wanted to punch each other in the face.  Fifteen bucks.  All you can drink.  No asterisk.

I've never seen anything like that D.C. bar in my life, and I've seen a lot.  So I don't know how other establishments would handle such a situation.  Likewise, I never ate enough catfish to deplete the storeroom at Catfish Dewey's.  I can't say for sure, but I'm inclined to think that my friend Rick never ate enough crab legs to force Catfish Dewey's to shut down.  All you can eat.  No asterisk.

But what if we actually had cleaned out an establishment somewhere along the way?  Beer, liquor, or seafood - no matter.  What if we were at an all-you-can-burn bonfire and we ran out of wood?  How would we behave?  How would I behave?  How would you behave?  Would you be pissed?  Maybe, but I doubt that you would go to the extreme of picketing the business in question with a poorly constructed sign and an asinine message.  I might be giving you internet strangers a little too much credit here, but I don't think so.  I think you would act respectably.

At the same time though - "all you can eat" is supposed to mean all you can eat.

So I can't decide.  Who's the bigger douche here?  The restaurant for failing to honor a commitment or the fat bastard with the sign for acting like an asshole and trying to squeeze everything he can out of other people?  I don't know.  I really can't decide.

(If you missed the metaphor embedded within this post, you haven't been reading this blog long enough. Hang in there though. You'll get it sooner or later.)