This is a copy of an email I received this AM. While our elected officials in Washington fiddle the weekend away watching the republic burn, here’s a little tidbit that helps to put things in perspective for those of us that still deal with real numbers when the bills come due each month.
[b]* U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
- Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000
- New debt: $1,650,000,000,000
- National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
- Recent budget cuts: $38,500,000,000
Let’s now remove 8 zeros and pretend it’s a household budget:
- Annual family income: $21,700
- Money the family spent: $38,200
- New debt on the credit card: $16,500
- Balance owing on the credit card: $142,710
- Total budget cuts so far: $385
[/b]
Three hundred and eighty five bucks! You, the old lady, and your rugrats are going into the hole to the tune of about $45 a day and your solution is to cut back about a dollar a day. Well, shit, that should work out OK, right?
Arithmetic, like physics, matters. And this shit don’t add up!
This is a good article that puts a family in the place of the Federal government. It is long winded, but helarious when you get to the more complicated parts.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/04/24/1085996/-Comparing-the-Federal-Government-s-budget-to-a-Household
So, here’s what they do: Whenever they see one of the kids paying another one with FBs for something, they come in and take a couple of the FBs they were trading and stick 'em in a jar. They also start holding back a bit from the bid to do chores, so that if you won the bid to do the dishes for 10 FB, you’ll get 9 at the end of the week, and the other one goes in the jar. The parents then use the FBs that are in that jar to put in a bid on the cash, that they then save and use to buy the computer and movie trip and toys. Perhaps more importantly, the parents start to borrow FBs from their kids to help finance their bids on the cash. The parents write out an IOU for FBs, then give that to one of the kids in exchange for on of their IOUs for FBs or for real FBs, then stick that IOU or real FB in the jar.
Now, the eldest kid starts to throw a big hissy fit at this. He doesn’t want the parents to buy a new family computer, as that would hamper his ability to sell time on his computer, which allows him to buy most of the allowance cash and not have to do any chores. He doesn’t like that his parents are now competing with him for the allowance cash, because he knows in his greedy little black banker’s heart that they could always outbid him for that cash. He also doesn’t like the idea of his parents just randomly coming in and taking some of his FBs when he’s selling something to his brothers, or not paying in full for the chores who’s bids he won. It is in this latter bit that he gains the alliance of his brothers, who are also somewhat resentful that their FBs are getting randomly taken back by the parents and that chores are no longer being paid in full. And even the youngest, who thinks it’d be a good thing to use some of the allowance money to help everybody out, or at least break the eldest’s monopoly on computer games, doesn’t like the idea of the parents being able to put in a bid for some of the cash; it amounts to a cut in the real allowance of the kids for doing chores.
So the eldest kid rallies his political support in his siblings, and confronts his parents about this newest modification to the system. Careful to express his concerns in terms of issues like fairness and choices, he extracts a couple of concessions from them. First, they agree that the things they were gonna spend the money they won from the cash-bid using the FBs stored in the jar should be things the kids actually want and that should benefit all the kids. To that end, any kid can propose something for the parents to buy using that cash, but at least two of the three kids have to agree with it in order to go ahead and buy that thing, and any one kid can veto purchasing that thing.
With the threat of a family computer out of the way, the eldest proceeds to extract a further concession. The completion of chores, he argues, isn’t really much different than buying toys for everybody; everybody benefits when the chores are done well, as nobody likes living in a messy house, just like everybody benefits when toys are bought for everybody. Therefore, the FB payment for doing chores should come from the jar first, and if there’s not enough FB in the jar to pay for all the chores and/or put in a bid on some of the cash, then the parents should borrow the FB they need to do that from the kids. That way, the parents aren’t completely unconstrained in their ability to outbid the kids for all that allowance cash. The kids want some assurance that they’ll be able to purchase some of the allowance cash for their own use, even though the parents would rather use that cash to purchase something else for the kids.
Hey, we’re all tin-foil hat douche bags for pointing out that they already know all this in Washington and are doing it on purpose. Because they couldn’t be smart enough to do the math and figure out how horrible the truth is, right? It can only be tin-foil hat douche baggery, just ask the really, really smart guys here.
bc
Nothing we can do about it. I asked my rep on FB why spending went up under Boehner and the comment was deleted.
Fuck em.