Sunday Morning Coming Down

In restrospect I'm sure that Phil Mickelson wishes he would not have been so public in his bitching about his tax situation.  I've watched him play golf and he has been a credit to the game and his personal life has been better than Tiger Wood's in many ways.  He is handsomely compensated not only for winning golf tournaments, but also for just showing up, and his brand as currently practiced until this tax rant, has given him opportunities to be a spokesman for more than a few companies and the clothes he wears are even cash cows. I'm sure he can afford a tax attorney and an accountant to shield his wealth from the tax man and if he is so pissed off at the left coast where he lives he can always move to Florida where there is no state income tax.  The state is similarly cheap when it comes to funding education but the weather is good, not perfect like San Diego and we have owners of professional sports franchises that might need partners to help finance their st...

Randy claimed a new horse for his barn immediately after a race a couple of weeks ago at Hialeah Park.  He also had a horse running in the same race so he needed some help taking the horses back to his barn after the race.  Seems there is always somebody that will do you a favor for a double sawbuck at the track. Both horses finished off the board.  The claim stumbled badly out of the gate but the jockey was able to hold on.  Did I Zoom who won his last race did not realize how fast you need to run to win a race if he was going to win today. Ditto came back ok and was eating almost like normal the next day.  The red filly really scraped up her knees, but otherwise seemed ok after the race.  Just about every horse seems a little hung over after a race but they don't talk very well so you just watch them closely until they sort of tell you this is boring let's go for a run. Last Sunday Randy said he wanted to take the red filly out to the...

Not raising the debt ceiling will end up causing a 40% reduction in expenditures by the federal government.  This will impact many areas of economic activity and people's lives. According to an article in Money, bond holders will continue to get paid but a lot of other folks will have to wait in line until the mess gets cleaned up. For example tax refunds, salaries of federal employees, military salaries for active duty personnel, medicare and medicaid payments, food stamps, unemployment insurance payments and other federal payments will be deferred.  The deferral of paying most bills will begin mid February and most certainly by March 1, 2013 according to the article. Cliches like too big to fail, don't begin to describe the problems that will be caused if Congress fails to act on this issue in a responsible way.  Playing "Chicken" is not my idea of being responsible.

I am a little bit conflicted over the idea that a girl called Blaer by her family and Stulka by the government is going to court in Iceland for official approval of her name. I was not aware that 1,853 approved names for girls and 1,712 approved names for boys.  There is a committee that approves names that are not on the list.  Denmark, and Germany have similar committees and rules regarding names given to children. Iceland should be able to do as it wishes.  I'm sure that the committee will either add the name to the list, reject the new name or make some other compromise.  After all, Halldor Laxness used  Blaer as the name for a female character and it would seem possible that other girls or boys might have been named Blaer also even though the country is relatively small.  The Icelandic language police might be confused by using a masculine noun as a female name but that should be trumped by the last name of dottir or son suffix on the l...

It's been reported that the hockey lockout is over.  I say that is good news.  In a previous life I enjoyed Blackhawk games on Saturday Night TV.  If I was lucky I even went to a few games at the old Chicago Stadium and watched games from the 2nd Balcony.  That was a long hike back then.  Tickets seem cheap in today's money, less than a movie ticket.  Standing room was $2.00. The games will restart in two weeks and people in the upper U.S. will have another option other than curling to fill cold evenings and the Panther venue in sunny South Florida will have fans in hockey sweaters.  Thankfully they try to keep the AC on full blast so the ice doesn't melt.  Football fans painted up and bare chested is over done everywhere,, thankfully that practice has not spread to the BB&T Center or whatever they call that public venue built for billionaires to house professional sports franchises. I promise to watch at least one hockey game on TV this y...

Why is restoring the cut the payroll tax for social security benefits a tax increase if the money is eventually paid back to beneficiaries, and in many cases in amounts more than what is paid in.  I'm sure the argument is that you could make more money if it were invested differently.  The assumptions made about this and many other long term investments are really oppen for discussion. I don't want to get snarky with anyone but for many, this is their retirement money and their only retirement money.  Until they means test people regarding paying people benefits, I'm in favor of as much money going into the trust fund for as long as possible, so that benefits can be paid for as long as possible.  Many people are unable to self fund their retirement and the alternatives are not pretty.