Thursday, November 13, 2014

Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, November 13, 2014


OK... so last week (this past Saturday to be precise) I started to mix in (mix back in) a bit of dedicated cardio with my three days per week of BodyPump.

Last Saturday (and this coming Saturday)... ZUMBA...!!!

Today (later on)... the bike.

The diet is going well. Hopefully adding bike work one or two days a week on top of the existing workout regiment and "reformed eating habits" will lead to fairly rapid results.

(*SHRUG*)

Anyway... enough of my personal life... ON TO NEWSBITING...!!!


11 comments:

William R. Barker said...

* SIX-PARTER... (Part 1 of 6)

http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/black-tuesday-the-war-party-won/

The robots and day traders greeted last Tuesday’s Republican election sweep with another kneejerk rally because the GOP’s new Capitol Hill dominance will allegedly be good for investors.

(Would that there were any real investors left...)

But, in any event, what the election really did was populate the Imperial City with a huge new phalanx of neocons and hawks.

(*SIGH*)

In a word, the War Party won. This means that the Warfare State will prosper, the budget deficit will again soar, more government shutdowns will materialize and the day of fiscal reckoning will come that much sooner.

To be sure, once upon a time the prospect of escalating war and blood in the trenches caused markets to tank. Investors knew that cranking up the war machine meant higher taxes, currency inflation, capital market dislocations, economic regimentation, trade disruptions and productive asset destruction. They down-rated the value of current profits accordingly. But we are in a different world today - an unreal one where government debts are massively monetized and wars are fought on the far side of the earth with high altitude bombers, sea-launched cruise missiles and drones piloted from the Nevada desert.

When boots are needed on the ground, they are worn by mercenary soldiers who are hired from an underclass that has been discarded by a failing economy.

* NOT QUITE SURE WHETHER HE'S TALKING THE VOLUNTEER MILITARY... OR... PRIVATE "SECURITY"... "BLACKWATER" ET. AL.

And when it comes to funding such remote and antiseptic warfare, Washington extracts heavy payroll levies (income and social security taxes) from the diminishing share of citizens still employed, and places enormous liens on unborn taxpayers (i.e. borrowing) to cover the rest.

* TRUE!

* TO BE CONTINUED...

William R. Barker said...

* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 6)

The fast money traders sweat none of this, however. The blowback from aboard and the payback of public debt is about tomorrow. The stock averages are about today’s ECB leak to Reuters or the latest Hilsenramp missive from the Fed.

(*SIGH*)

* AGAIN... HE'S RIGHT. FUNDAMENTALS ARE BESIDE THE POINT!

Likewise, the hard-pressed main street masses take their tax-shrunken paychecks to the grocery store and the mall, hoping to get by for another week. So doing they remain utterly disconnected from the strum and drang of the beltway war rooms. They encounter Washington’s costly and destructive foreign excursions only as war game videos on CNN and as defense jobs and other military pork spread widely among the provinces.

(*NOD*)

The War Party thus has no political burden in making its case. Money politics, remote control warfare, and anti-Islamic hysteria have been more than enough to purge opposition from both the Left and the Right.

* YEP! AND ALL THE WHILE THE OLIGARCH COZY UP TO CHINA - OUR TRUE ENEMY! AND THEY OFFEND RUSSIA - WHICH COULD AND SHOULD BE OUR ALLY RATHER THAN CHINA'S! AND NORTH KOREA... FAGETABOUTIT! (BAIT AND SWITCH, FOLKS... BAIT AND SWITCH.)

The anti-war Left, which brought the folly of Vietnam to an end and sent the most power-hungry President in American history, Lyndon Johnson, to early retirement, is no more.

* YEP. (UNLESS THE PRESIDENT IS A REPUBLICAN!)

* EVEN THEN, THOUGH, THE OLD PRINCIPLED ANTI-WAR LEFT IS BASICALLY NO MORE.

Instead of courageous dissenters like Fulbright, Church and McGovern, the Senate Democrats are led by intellectually challenged war-mongers such as foreign affairs committee chairman Robert Menendez and intelligence committee chair Diane Feinstein. On the Republican side, instead of fearless doves like Mark Hatfield and George Aiken, we have AIPAC water boys like Senator Mark Kirk.

* ALL... TRUE...

And forget the anti-interventionist right. That died with Senator Robert Taft...

* I'M HERE! I'M HERE!

(*JUMPING UP AND DOWN WHILE WAVING MY ARMS*)

...and had been dormant for 50 years until Rand Paul showed up in the Senate.

* TO BE CONTINUED...

William R. Barker said...

* CONTINUING... (Part 3 of 6)

But thanks to Black Tuesday the GOP establishment and neocon mafia will surely launch a ferocious new campaign to isolate and destroy him as an “isolationist.”

* THEY'LL TRY. WE'LL SEE. IT'LL BE INTERESTING TO SEE WHETHER PAUL'S "DEAL WITH THE DEVIL" (HIS "RELATIONSHIP" WITH MITCH MCCONNELL) WILL PAY OFF FOR PAUL.

Senator Paul has already begun to trim his anti-interventionist sails, and has regrettably even endorsed the bombing campaign in Syria-Iraq.

* WELL... YES AND NO. HE'S FAVORED DOING WHAT WE CAN TO PROTECT OUR ALLIES... KURDS... CHRISTIANS... AGAINST ANIMALS. I'M WITH HIM!

* FOLKS... UNDERSTAND... PAUL WILL BE ATTACKED BOTH BY THE GOP ESTABLISHMENT AND UNCOMPROMISING LIBERTARIANS. FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH... I STILL MAINTAIN RESPECT FOR AND AN OPEN MIND TOWARDS RAND PAUL. (IF YOU TRUST MY INTEGRITY AND MY JUDGEMENT... BEAR MY SUPPORT IN MIND... WEIGH IT AGAINST MAINSTREAM CRITIQUES OF PAUL.)

The rule of the War Party is embedded within the beltway which encircles the Imperial City. The striking prosperity there has been fueled overwhelmingly by the vast expansion of the Warfare State and the homeland security and spying apparatus that has mushroomed since 9/11. It amounts to the epitome of Big Government, and the irony is that it has been ushered in by the neocon-dominated GOP.

* ABSOLUTELY!

* FOLKS... EISENHOWER. GENERAL. PRESIDENT. HE WASN'T A COMMIE. HE WARNED US OF THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX - THE FOUNDING SUPPORT BEAM OF CRONY CAPITALISM!

Needless to say, the big government of the Welfare State and the Warfare State share a common defect. Namely, an inexorable impulse to justify their existence and expand their missions and resources.

* THINK ABOUT IT, FOLKS... ISN'T IT TRUE? (RHETORICAL QUESTION; IT IS!)

* TO BE CONTINUED...

William R. Barker said...

* CONTINUING... (Part 4 of 6)

In the process, facts and objectivity are lost within the self-serving frameworks and narratives that emanate from the machinery. And in the case of the Warfare State, especially, this includes the massive network of military, intelligence and homeland security contractors which supply the system.

* CONTRACTORS...

The Warfare State has been around for decades, of course, and was presciently warned about by President Eisenhower in his farewell address on the dangers of the military-industrial complex. In fact, his original hand-written version had included reference to the dangers of a tripartite complex that included Congress, which he was persuaded to drop for reasons of comity between the branches. But Ike was right to include the capitol hill component - and not only because of its traditional function as a dispenser of military pork. In a manner which he could never have anticipated, Congress has become an integral component and leading edge of Washington’s global interventionism, not merely a secondary distributor of military pork. That has happened for two principle reasons:

The first is that wars don’t have to be financed with taxes anymore; the debt is simply monetized by the nation’s central bank.

* BUT...

But... that has removed a powerful legislative braking mechanism on the Warfare State bureaucracy.

* YEP! OUR "LEADERS" SIMPLY THROW THEIR SPENDING ON A "CREDIT CARD" THAT DAY BY DAY CLAIMS MORE AND MORE OF THE NATION'S RESOURCES AND THAT IS ULTIMATELY A DRAIN UPON OUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN. (BUT IN THE MEANTIME... OUT OF SIGHT OUT OF MIND! NO BLOWBACK! NO PUNISHING THE POLITICIANS WHO KEEP ADDING TO THE DEBT!)

The Korean War was shutdown in a ragged truce, for example, because of the vast unpopularity of the heavy war taxes which, to his credit, President Harry Truman had insisted upon at the war’s onset.

* GOD BLESS HARRY TRUMAN!

Likewise, what ultimately turned the mainstream democrats on Capitol Hill against Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam invasion was the 10% surtax on every individual and corporate income taxpayer in America that LBJ was forced into in 1968 in order to staunch the massive red ink emanating from his “guns and butter” budget.

* FOLKS... I'M ADMITTING RIGHT NOW... I WAS UNAWARE OF THIS! I SIMPLY DO NOT RECALL EVER COMING ACROSS THIS 1968 10% SURCHAGE!

Compare that to the George W. Bush wars. The latter were financed, on the margin, by Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke. Had Washington not been knee deep in the regime of central bank interest rate pegging, the huge Bush war deficits would have driven interest rates sky high in an honest free market.

Stated differently, Congress would have been dragooned into the unpleasant business of cutting domestic spending and raising taxes in order to finance the $2 trillion cost of the Bush wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan and numerous less places.

(And that’s to say nothing of also financing the massive ballooning of the spying apparatus and so-called homeland security budgets. The latter alone soared from less than $25 billion to more than $100 billion.)

* AND ARE WE SAFER? I SAY "NO." 9/11 WAS AN ABERRATION. NO MATTER HOW MUCH IS SPENT ABERRATIONS WILL OCCUR. JUST CONSIDER THE TWO FT. HOOD SHOOTINGS... OR THE BOSTON MARATHON BOMBING FOR THAT MATTER!

* TO BE CONTINUED...

William R. Barker said...

* CONTINUING... (Part 5 of 6)

Exempted from their constitutional duty to take the cost of war home to their voters, the Incumbents Club which resides on Capitol Hill had unlimited discretion to succumb to the anti-terrorist hysteria and Islamophobia that was cranked up after 9/11. And that suggests the second reason why the historical aversion to foreign wars which long resonated on Capitol Hill has been transformed into enthusiastic complicity.

Divorced from the voters back home, Washington has taken on the mindset and mores of an imperial capital.

The time has long passed since there was a real debate about how to define the “national interest” and how to determine among the unpleasantries, upheavals and out-cropping’s of evil which constantly arise around the world which ones truly jeopardize the safety and security of the citizens of Springfield, MA and Lincoln, NE.

* AND AGAIN... AT THE SAME TIME... OUR BIPARTISAN AMERICAN OLIGARCHY IS ALIGNED WITH CHINA'S OLIGARCHY!

There is not an event, development, conflict or situation anywhere on the globe that does not [supposedly] necessitate urgent assessment and raise the possibility of actions, orchestrations or interventions by one or another arm of Washington’s vast imperial machinery.

(*PURSED LIPS*)

Stated differently, the urge to meddle, manage and manipulate the affairs of the world is now so deeply embedded that it has become the preponderant business of Washington. The alternative regime of non-intervention which led even Woodrow Wilson’s democratic Speaker of the House to oppose his call for war in April 1917 has been thoroughly and decisively extinguished by a century of world wars, cold wars and wars on terror.

* WE'VE BECOME AN IMPERIALIST POWER.

(*SHRUG*)

Indeed, it is not far-fetched at all to compare today’s Washington with Imperial Rome. Crystallized in the following excerpt from the great Joseph Schumpeter’s astute observations about the plenary impulses which animated the latter is an apt descriptions of today’s atmosphere in our nation’s capital:

"Here is the classic example … of that policy which pretends to aspire to peace but unerringly generates war, the policy of continual preparation for war, the policy of meddlesome interventionism. There was no corner of the known world where some interest was not alleged to be in danger or under actual attack. If the interests were not Roman, they were those of Rome’s allies; and if Rome had no allies, then allies would be invented. When it was utterly impossible to contrive such an interest — why, then it was national honor that had been insulted. The fight was always invested with an aura of legality. Rome was always being attacked by evil minded neighbors, always fighting for a breathing space. The whole world was pervaded by a host of enemies, and it was manifestly Rome’s duty to guard against their indubitably aggressive designs."

So this is the context in which to understand Tuesday’s election results. They mean that the most eager and enthusiastic backers of Washington’s imperial enterprises will move front and center.

* SADLY... TRUE.

* TO BE CONTINUED...

William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 6 of 6)

Foremost among these is Senator John McCain, who will now become chairman of what used to be the Senate Armed Services Committee. From now on, however, it might as well be called the just plan “War Committee.”

* I TRULY BELIEVE JOHN MCCAIN IS A DEEPLY PSYCHOLOGICALLY DAMAGED INDIVIDUAL WHO REPRESENTS A CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER TO AMERICA VIA HIS POWER AND INFLUENCE WITHIN OUR GOVERNMENT.

And folks - don’t be confused. The Senator from Arizona has truly lost his marbles.

(*HUGE FRIGGIN' GRIN*)

* FOLKS... SEE! IT'S NOT JUST ME!

McCain has strutted around the Imperial City for so long that he fancies himself a Roman Emperor - commanding the legions and bringing swift and brutal justice to any tribe or nation that does not genuflect to Washington’s rule.

Wednesday morning’s missive from the neocon polemicist, Eli Lake, leaves nothing to the imagination as to what McCain and his War Party confederates have in mind:

The Republican victory in the 2014 midterms is less than 24 hours old. But already, the hawkish wing of the GOP is planning an ambitious battle plan to revamp American foreign policy: everything from arming Ukraine’s military to reviewing the ISIS war to investigating the U.S. intelligence community’s role in warming relations with Iran.

In an interview Wednesday, Sen. John McCain, the incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he has already discussed a new national-security agenda with fellow Republicans Bob Corker and Richard Burr, the likely incoming chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

“Burr and Corker and I will be working closely together on everything,” McCain said. “For example, arms for Ukraine’s [government], examination of our strategy in the Middle East, our assets with regard to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin in the region, China’s continued encroachment in the South China Sea.”

McCain said his first order of business as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee will be to end the budget rule known as sequestration, which requires the U.S. military to cut its budget across the board.

* AND ALLOW ME TO ADD... REAL THREATS... REAL INVASIONS... THOSE ARE FINE WITH THE LIKES OF JOHN S. MCCAIN! OUR SOUTHERN BORDER... THROW IT RIGHT OPEN! CITIZENSHIP... WE MUST MAKE A PATHWAY FOR THOSE WHO HAVE BROKEN OUR LAWS!

(*SPITTING ON THE GROUND*)

Not only is America not militarily threatened by the Islamic State, but neither are most of its neighbors. Certainly Turkey, which posses a modern military force of more than 400,000 professional soldiers, 1,000 war planes and helicopters and 3,000 tanks and armored vehicles, is not. Nor are the Iranians or even Saudi’s for that matter.

And the fact is, the nations of the so-called Shiite Crescent — consisting of Iran, the regions of Syria still controlled by Assad, the Shiite heartland of southern Iraq and Hezbollah Lebanon — can also take care of themselves. As can the incipient state of Kurdistan in northeast Iraq.

(And surely Israel can deal with any real threat that the Islamic State might be foolish enough to actually bring to bear on its citizens.)

In short, the only threat that ISIS posses to the citizens of America is the ultra-remote chance that terrorists operating from its territory might penetrate the considerable homeland security protections of one or more American cities. But there is absolutely nothing new about that remote possibility - it is an endemic condition of the modern world.

In any event, we have 20 years of proof that bombing and droning does not eliminate the generic terrorist threat that abides in today’s world; it just breeds more of them.

michellez said...

Just...wow. I wish, I really really wish, I could argue this. Unfortunately, I can't.

William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://www.nationaljournal.com/white-house/obamacare-s-foundation-of-lies-20141112

A lie is apolitical, or at least it should be. If there is one thing that unites clear-headed Americans, it's a belief that our leaders must be transparent and honest.

* OH, PLEEEASE... WHAT ABSOLUTE HOGWASH! MOST DEMOCRATS WILL EXCUSE ALMOST ANY DEMOCRAT LIE AND A STRONG PLURALITY - PERHAPS EVEN A MAJORITY - WILL DO THE SAME!

And yet, there seem to be two types of lies in our political discourse: Those that hurt "my party" and "my policies"; and those that don't. We condemn the former and forgive the latter - cheapening the bond of trust that enables a society to progress.

* AHH... SO THE AUTHOR AGREES WITH ME. CAPITAL!

This truism came to mind when I read a Washington Post story headlined, "Who Is Jonathan Gruber?" It was an important and workmanlike report on the ObamaCare adviser who bragged about the political advantages of deceiving voters, whom Gruber called stupid.

* WELL... THE AVERAGE AMERICAN IS PRETTY STUPID... OR PERHAPS MOST READERS WOULD PREFER "DELIBERATELY IGNORANT" WHEN IT COMES TO MOST ISSUES NOT CONNECTED TO ENTERTAINMENT (INCLUDING SPORTS... FASHION... "GUY STUFF"... "WOMEN STUFF"...), THEIR OWN JOBS, OR STUFF THEY HAVE ACTUAL EXPERIENCE IN AND THEREFORE KNOWLEDGE OF.

"Those comments have struck a nerve on the right," wrote Jose A. DelReal, "with some of the law's critics pointing to Gruber's comments as evidence that the administration intentionally deceived the American public on the costs of the programs."

* FOLKS... WE KNOW THE ADMINISTRATION DELIBERATELY LIED! WE KNOW THEY LITERALLY BRIBED MANY SENATORS... THINK "CORNHUSKER KICKBACK" AND "LOUISIANA PURCHASE."

* BUT, HEY... LET THE LIBERAL AUTHOR OF THIS PIECE CONTINUE...

My first reaction was, "No! No! Not just on the right!" I strongly support bipartisan efforts to expand the availability of health coverage to the working poor, and bending the cost curve that threatens federal budgets for years to come. While I think President Obama and congressional Democrats helped contribute to the 2009 standoff over what became the Affordable Care Act, I've openly rooted for ObamaCare's success. I've denounced the knee-jerk opposition from the GOP, a party that once embraced key elements of ObamaCare. My ideology is amorphous; I am not "on the right."

All of that, and yet: Gruber's remarks struck a nerve with me.

(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

* TO BE CONTINUED...

William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

Appearing on an academic panel a year ago, this key ObamaCare adviser argued that the law never would have passed if the administration had been honest about the fact that the so-called penalty for noncompliance with the mandate was actually a tax.

* QUOTING...

"And, basically, call it 'the stupidity of the American voter,' or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass," Gruber said.

He called you stupid. He admitted that the White House lied to you. Its officials lied to all of us — Republicans, Democrats, and independents; rich and poor; white and brown; men and women.

* YES...!!! WHY ARE YOU SURPRISED...?!?!

(AND FOLKS... THIS AUTHOR... FOURNIER... IS ONE OF THE MOST RESPECTED MAINSTREAM JOURNALISTS IN THE UNITED STATES!)

Liberals should be the angriest. Not only were they personally deceived, but the administration's dishonest approach to health care reform has helped make ObamaCare unpopular while undermining the public's faith in an activist government. A double blow to progressives.

On top of that, Gruber has helped make the legal case for anti-ObamaCare lawyers.

* HOW'BOUT... "PRO-CONSTITUTION" LAWYERS...

(*SMIRK*)

Back to The Post's story: Gruber's remarks are evidence that the administration intentionally deceived the American public on the costs of the programs.

Gruber's remarks may not be dispositive, but they certainly are evidence.

Last year, The Post helped document how Obama and his advisers knowingly misled the public during his 2012 re-election campaign by repeatedly saying that, under ObamaCare, people could keep their doctors and keep their health plans. To knowingly mislead is to lie.

* YEAH... FUNNY HOW YOU FOLKS IN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA KEEP ON "DISCOVERING" STUFF LIKE THIS AFTER... A*F*T*E*R... ELECTIONS AND NOT BEFORE THEM.

(*ANOTHER SMIRK*)

"It's hard to know what might have happened if the truth had won the day," writes Post columnist Kathleen Parker. "But we do know that truth squandered is trust lost."

And so even I have to admit, as a supporter, that ObamaCare was built and sold on a foundation of lies. No way around it, unless you're willing to accept a political system that colors its lies — the reds, the whites, and the blues.

* I WON'T HOLD MY BREATH TILL YOUR BENGHAZI EXPOSE COMES OUT...

(*LAST SMIRK*)

* AND FOLKS... THIS IS A FAIRLY HONORABLE LIBERAL!

William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/articles/americans-cellphones-targeted-in-secret-u-s-spy-program-1415917533

The Justice Department is scooping up data from thousands of mobile phones through devices deployed on airplanes that mimic cellphone towers, a high-tech hunt for criminal suspects that is snagging a large number of innocent Americans, according to people familiar with the operations.

* FUNNY HOW THE ABOVE PARAGRAPH DOESN'T START WITH THE WORDS, "IN DIRECT VIOLATION OF THE FOURTH AMENDMENT TO THE BILL OF RIGHTS OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION..."

The U.S. Marshals Service program, which became fully functional around 2007...

* THE AGE OF BUSH...

* ALSO THE AGE OF A DEMOCRATIC HOUSE AND A DEMOCRATIC SENATE.

* AND THE PROGRAM CONTINUES TODAY... INTO THE SECOND TERM OF THE AGE OF OBAMA...

Christopher Soghoian, chief technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union, called it “a dragnet surveillance program. It’s inexcusable and it’s likely—to the extent judges are authorizing it—[that] they have no idea of the scale of it.”

Within the Marshals Service, some have questioned the legality of such operations...

A Justice Department official would neither confirm nor deny the existence of such a program.

A Verizon spokesman said the company was unaware of the program. ... An AT&T Inc. spokeswoman declined to comment, as did a spokeswoman for Sprint Corp.

* AMERICA 2014. IMAGINE AMERICA 2016 FOLKS.

(*PURSED LIPS*)

William R. Barker said...

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/11/13/report-state-budgets-fudge-numbers-projected-debt-worse-than-reported/

America's red ink runs much deeper than you think.

Aside from the nearly $18 trillion national debt, many state governments are looking at future budgets that are trillions of dollars in the red. And they've hidden the numbers by dramatically under-reporting that debt, according to a new report by the think tank State Budget Solutions.

The group looked at what are known as "unfunded liabilities" - or debt states will owe down the road. It found a number of states are fudging their numbers - big-time - using tricks like assuming their stock investments will soar.

* OLD NEWS... (BUT WORTH REPEATING EVERY SO OFTEN - JUST SO PEOPLE KNOW... OR ARE REMINDED.)

The book-cooking could mean bad news for public pensions and other programs that rely on these budgets. The report finds that, nationwide, states have unfunded liabilities of nearly $5 trillion, or $15,000 per American (even though the states allegedly low-ball that number at $2.7 trillion).

“They’re making promises that they can’t keep,” Joe Luppino-Esposito of State Budget Solutions told FoxNews.com.

* DUH!

Illinois was one of the worst offenders, according to the report.

* YEP. I KNOW ALL ABOUT IT. MANY NEWSBITES ON THE ISSUE OVER THE YEARS!

It found that while the state says it has an “unfunded liability” of $8,133 per person, the true amount is three times higher at $25,740 per Illinois resident.

“Public pensions assume they will make 7-8 percent every year. Obviously, they don't. That, combined with states that aren’t putting as much money as they promised into pension plans causes many states to be in a huge liability hole,” Luppino-Esposito said.

Other states have similar problems. For instance, California says it has an unfunded liability of $4,909 per person, but according to the report it is nearly $20,000.

While the numbers may seem abstract, Luppino-Esposito warned they will affect people’s lives. “State governments are telling their employees that they are going to get paid a particular pension when they retire. But the numbers show that that’s not going to happen,” he said.

(While many states are in trouble, Luppino-Esposito said Illinois is in the worst fiscal shape.)

Many say the solution is for governments to switch to the more common private-sector model of 401k-style plans, in which the retirement money is invested up-front rather than based on projections of future investment performance.

* UMM... FINE... AND I AGREE... BUT HOW'BOUT THE SOLUTION TO THE LIES? (JAIL TIME PERHAPS...?!?!)

“The state governments seem to have the assumption that they will be able to just keep grabbing money for as long as they can,” Luppino-Esposito said. “But the reality is they can only tax so much before it stops bringing in more revenue.”

“It is not just Illinois. The only reason it is more here than in California and other states is we have more outstanding pension debts. But this concern would apply universally,” Pallasch said.

* THIS COUNTRY AND ITS PEOPLE REALLY DO DESERVE TO SELF-DESTRUCT. IT'S JUST A SHAME THAT THE INNOCENT WILL SUFFER ALONG WITH THE GUILTY.