Tag: bankruptcy
Another California city, San Bernardino, has decided to declare bankruptcy.
The day of reckoning looms: Another California city, San Bernardino, has decided to declare bankruptcy.
A report released on Monday states that U.S. state and local governments have more than $2 trillion in unfunded pension liabilities.
The day of reckoning looms: A report released on Monday states that U.S. state and local governments have more than $2 trillion in unfunded pension liabilities.
Worse, the report notes that this number is three times higher than the number reported by those same state and local governments.
Stockton, California, has filed for bankruptcy, making it the largest bankruptcy of any U.S. city in history.
We’ve only just begun: Stockton, California, has filed for bankruptcy, making it the largest bankruptcy of any U.S. city in history.
The Social Security Trust Fund will start losing value in 2013.
The day of reckoning looms: The Social Security Trust Fund will start losing value in 2013, not 2020 as claimed.
In 2010, Social Security’s Office of the Chief Actuary projected that this interest income would keep the trust fund growing in real value through 2020. The 2011 projections moved this date to 2018, and the recently released 2012 projections pushed the date to 2012, meaning that the trust fund will start declining in real value next year. After 2013, the trust fund is projected to decline by greater amounts each year until becoming exhausted in 2033.
The Senate has passed that pork-filled farm bill, with 16 Republicans and 46 Democrats voting for it.
The Senate has passed that pork-filled farm bill, with 16 Republicans and 46 Democrats voting for it.
The link above provides a list of Republican porkers.
Hopefully, this bill will die in the House.
The Obama administration spent $10 billion dollars to create 355 renewable energy jobs, according to testimony to Congress on Tuesday.
Your tax dollars at work: The Obama administration spent $10 billion dollars to create 355 renewable energy jobs, according to testimony to Congress on Tuesday.
Thank you Obama. That’s $28.17 million spent per job created.
The House yesterday proposed a spending bill that would cut the EPA’s budget to $7 billion, 17% less than what it received in 2012.
Progress: The House yesterday proposed a spending bill that would cut the EPA’s budget to $7 billion, 17% less than what it received in 2012.
Considering the federal debt, this is a reasonable cut, as a $7 billion budget would be comparable to the EPA’s budget numbers in the early 2000s, and would hardly cripple that agency.
On a more depressing note, the Senate is moving forward on a bi-partisan deal to pass a massive farm bill, loaded with pork that would spend almost a trillion dollars over the next decade.
The number of available job openings in April showed biggest drop in nearly 4 years.
Not good: The number of available job openings in April showed the biggest drop in nearly 4 years.
The IRS’s budget has grown by almost a billion dollars due to Obamacare.
And you thought Obamacare was about healthcare: The IRS’s budget has grown by almost a billion dollars due to Obamacare.
The debt of the federal government is projected to be nearly twice the size of the U.S. economy by 2037, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) announced Tuesday.
The day of reckoning looms: The debt of the federal government is projected to be nearly twice the size of the U.S. economy by 2037, the Congressional Budget Office announced Tuesday.
This CBO report actually supposed to be encouraging, as it indicates that the day of doom has been pushed back a whopping two years! Yowza! Let’s pop the corks on the champagne bottles and start celebrating!
Sadly, the article also has this ridiculous quote:
CBO’s latest prediction is similar to its 2011 report despite the $2.1 trillion in budget cuts enacted in last August’s debt-ceiling deal between the White House and Congress.
Nothing was cut by that deal. All they did was trim the rate of growth. For any journalist to continue to participate in this fraud is sickening.
The day of reckoning looms:
The day of reckoning looms. Two stories:
“If you’re anxious, you sit on your hands.”
“The bad jobs report is just a very small taste of the nightmare that is coming.”
The head of the World Bank warned that Europe is heading for an economic “danger zone” as bad as 2008.
The day of reckoning looms: The head of the World Bank yesterday warned that Europe is heading for an economic “danger zone” as bad as 2008.
The number of searches on Google for the phrase “bank run” has just hit an all-time high.
Are people getting nervous? The number of searches on Google for the phrase “bank run” has just hit an all-time high.
Using the budget balancing rules Congress imposed on private companies, the federal deficit turns out to be five times greater than the official but fake numbers Congress normally publishes.
The day of reckoning looms: Using the budget balancing rules Congress imposed on private companies, the annual federal deficit turns out to be five times greater than the official but fake numbers Congress normally publishes.
The big difference between the official deficit and standard accounting: Congress exempts itself from including the cost of promised retirement benefits. Yet companies, states and local governments must include retirement commitments in financial statements, as required by federal law and private boards that set accounting rules.
The deficit was $5 trillion last year under those rules. The official number was $1.3 trillion. Liabilities for Social Security, Medicare and other retirement programs rose by $3.7 trillion in 2011, according to government actuaries, but the amount was not registered on the government’s books.
Four Princeton physicists received over $1.5 million in lodging subsidies from the Department of Energy while on “temporary” assignment to other labs, even after living at that assigment for as much as 14 years.
The work is good if you can get it: Four Princeton physicists received over $1.5 million in lodging subsidies from the Department of Energy while on “temporary” assignment to other labs, even after living at that assignment for as much as 14 years.
The above story, from Science, takes a more sympathic view of this misuse of government funds. The Washington Post is more blunt:
Four high-ranking federal lab workers found a way to turn “per diem” funds for a temporary assignment into a steady flow of extra income — at taxpayers’ expense. The overpayments, discovered in an inspector general’s audit, boosted the annual pay of some of the employees by as much as $64,000.
The Department of Energy paid the four scientists roughly $1.8 million for daily lodging and “inconvenience” during assignments away from home. But these scientists were paid as if they were on temporary duty for up to 14 years — long after most had permanently relocated to job sites.
The problem with this story is that it isn’t an exception but the rule. Right now the wolves are guarding the chicken house, and they are raiding it routinely for as much cash as they can get. Consider for example last week’s story about the NIH study that has spent a billion dollars without even getting off the ground.
You give someone the equivalent of a blank check, and they will make no effort to do things efficiently, or even to do what you hired them for.
“I think it was a missed opportunity of tremendous proportions that the Republicans didn’t embrace what they said they believed in during those times.”
The speaker is a Republican, and he is talking correctly about the first four years of the Bush Jr. presidency.
Only 65% of the political class and only 61% of Democrats are aware that federal spending has gone up in the past ten years.
Pitiful: Only 65% of the political class and only 61% of Democrats are aware that federal spending has gone up in the past ten years.
Interestingly, 85% of the general public knows this basic fact, which might explain why the intellectual elites of our country — from both parties — are continually being blindsided by the rise of the tea party movement and its continued success in elections.
The Senate today rejected President Obama’s proposed budget 99-0.
Fiddling away: The Senate today rejected President Obama’s proposed budget 99-0.
Too bad Harry Reid won’t offer up a budget of his own. The only reason this got voted on at all was that the Republicans forced a vote.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government fell another several billion dollars into debt even as the vote was being taken.
LightSquared has filed for bankruptcy
Another Obama tech wonder company dies: LightSquared has filed for bankruptcy.
From the beginning engineers were saying that LightSquared’s system would interfere with GPS. The only reason the company lasted as long as it did was because it had the political backing of the Obama administration. And the reason it had that backing is because the company’s CEO was a big supporter of Obama.