1/2 trillion and counting...

Well, I can't say it's time for me to give an update on the national debt because I never specified how frequently I would give one exactly. But I was just thinking about it so here it is:

$11,051,312,364,183.90 [source]

So far since President Obama's inauguration the national debt has gone up nearly 1/2 of a trillion dollars.

I can't hold this administration directly accountable of this, granted. They have inherited a significant amount of legislation, and spending momentum that cannot be quickly reversed, however I am just concerned that I haven't heard much about fiscal responsibility since the campaign.

In the speeches I have heard recently I am hearing 3 themes, "invest" in healthcare reform, better education, and energy. Spending, spending and more spending.

And I quote:
"We've also made the largest investment in basic research funding in American history, an investment that will spur not only new discoveries in energy, but breakthroughs in medicine, in science and technology"

Is now really the time to be spending our taxpayer money in new and interesting ways?

I'll leave you with one final quote:
"This time -- this time, CEOs won't be able to use taxpayer money to pad their paychecks, or buy fancy drapes, or disappear on a private jet. Those days are over."

The president makes $400,000/year, the white house has very, very nice drapes, and last I checked he is zooming around to all these speeches in a posh 747 which costs tens of thousands of dollars per hour to operate.

By the way, he will make $150,000/year in today's money after he leaves the presidency, for life. ...And I'm sure that's something we can all relate to.

The Dawn of a new Era....

You gotta love American optimism. Today is inauguration day for President Barack Obama. It's funny how you have so many people being so optimistic about how things are going to change, and how you have the new administration trying to manage their expectations, rightfully so.

They have created a monster during this campaign, and that monster is masses of Americans who are clinging to hope that President Obama is going to be able to make their lives better. I hope they are right, but expectations are a funny thing, especially when the bar is set as high as it is.

For my part, all other political leanings to the side, I am going to focus on National Debt over the next few years as I mentioned in a previous post.

I don't expect it to turn around immediately, or even within the first year, but if this administration can deliver on the promise of lowering the national debt, I will have a reason to respect their platform.

Now, there are rules. There are a few ways to "artificially" fix the problem. And by that I mean basically 2 things.

1) They can raise taxes
2) They can raid retirement plans (like 401k)

These are not fixing the problem, well at least not from the point of view of someone who actually pays taxes and actually has a 401k.

One reason I think this will be tough is because when I think Democrat, I think "government programs". "Government programs" do not have a reputation of being lean and efficient.

One reason that I think they have a shot at lowering the debt is the gradual withdrawl of our armed forces from the various middle east areas. Having these military units deployed is VERY expensive. I just hope the spending we save on bringing them back is not re-allocated to other government based endeavors.

That being said, if this administration can lower the national debt by making government leaner and more efficient, then I will say "job well done". This will be nearly impossible to quantify, but I'll do my best.

The one measure that is easy to find is the current U.S. National Debt.

Here is the number: $10,643,590,783,459.17 [source]

We'll take another look in 6 months to a year and see how it's going.

FYI, here is a link to President Obama's stance and plan for fiscal responsibility.

Expectations

Here is our tree this year, the picture below doesn't do it justice. You have to click and look at the large version to get a better feel for what it looks like. It's a little smaller than usual. Maybe symbolic of the current economic situation.



When you have children, at least in my experience with Annelise, you never know just how they are going to react to any situation. Sometimes you are certain they are going to throw a fit, and they end up being sweet as pie. And sometimes you expect that by all conceivable measures, they should be content, but they end up in a foul mood. The same applies to the level of exitement they exhibit.

More to the point, today I finally put up some lights outside our house.


After Annelise woke up from her nap I was so exicted to take her out and see them. I mean, from my perspective this should be a very exciting thing for a 3 year old, lights hanging from our house! So I told her I had a surprise for her. I told her to close her eyes and I carried her out in the street in front of our house. Then I told her to open them...

She looked at the house and said "Wow... Daddy... I love it!... Now take me inside before we get hit by a car."

Political Accountability

I think it's pretty common for political candidates to make lots of promises that they cannot keep. Sometimes it's just a matter of them being idealistic, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, idealism and optimism were probably motives behind many of the great movements in America's past. Part of the problem, as I see it, is the inability for the common man, like me, to hold any politician accountable for what they promise.

The raw data may be out there, but at the present time, it's kind of hard to aggregate it all together into a meaningful report. So I've decided to take just one of the major campaign points for this year's presidential campaign and keep track each year of whether or not it was fulfilled.

National Debt.....

As of December 1st, 2008, the national debt is 10.7 trillion dollars (rounded up). Just to let you know what that looks like, here is the actual number: $10,673,524,907,182.21

If you're interested, here is my source.

I don't expect president-elect Obama to be able to get rid of this debt within the first year of his term, or even during his whole term, but if the number is significantly lower at the end of his term, we must give him some credit.

Now there is of course a caveat, there are certain parameters he must work within in order to reduce this debt. I already know he is going to raise taxes on "Big Business" and the upper level of income earners to raise money for the government, I know that, he has said that, no use debating the point. The question in my mind is whether he will actually use this new money stream to reduce the national debt, or whether he will create new government programs to help us Americans with our apparent ineptitude at life.

Black Friday

It's ironic how last night I was just thinking about how ridiculous Black Friday has become. It has turned into kind of a self fulfilling prophesy, really a retailer generated phenomenon like most holidays have become. At some point the accountants realized that their books would magically rise to "the black" on the day after Thanksgiving because so many people kick off their Christmas shopping.

I came to the conclusion that I guess it really isn't hurting anybody, retailers offer huge discounts, consumers get to buy stuff for cheap. Then you see this news of a Wal-Mart worker getting stampeded by 200 people trying to save a few bucks on who knows what. They literally broke the door trying to get in. Unbelievable.

This is truly shameful, I'm sure there are lots of reasons this incident happened, and I'm sure Wal-Mart will ultimately pay the price for this because they have lots of money. It won't be hard to win a legal battle showing that Wal-Mart was negligent in it's pre-opening line forming procedure. I think the reality is that the people who trampled this poor man to death are to blame, but there is no way they can practially be caught and proven guilty of this killing.

I hope those involved feel terrible and at least lose a few night's sleep over this. As for the rest of us, I would really like to see this madness come to an end. I personally don't contribute to Black Friday as I hung out at home in my pajamas all day today, oh, and I took Cooper for a walk. Maybe one good thing that would come out of another Great Depression would be and end to this type of idiocy all over the purchase of the latest gadgets or the high-end trendy fashion garments that one finds in a Wal-Mart.

Instead, be back to killing each other over more basic necessities like food or money, at least that makes sense in some kind of way.

It's Cold...

Wow, I am one of the worst bloggers on the internet... nuff said.

It's very cold out, seems a bit colder than the typical October/November time frame. Hopefully we'll get some snow this year.

So how about that election? I'm interested in seeing what comes of it all and how Obama will do as president. The only thing I've been thinking on that front recently is about how ridiculously uninformed our nation is. I'm not bashing Obama here, and those who know me know that I am as non-Liberal as they come. But I think he won for the wrong reasons.

I think it's great that so many people were energized to come out and vote, but the statistics don't lie.

I don't think it is only a democrat issue, I've seen uninformed people on the right just toeing the line as well, and I have just as little respect for their views even though I agree with their conclusion.

I want to blame the media like everybody else does, but I just don't think it's the media's fault. The media is doing what the media does, selling advertising and selling subscriptions. In order to sell these things they have to publish content that will draw people, lots of people. And what are people interested in? Trash.

They don't want to hear about issues that actually matter, they want to hear about wardrobe budgets, illegitimate grandchildren, how many houses does the candidate have?, what does France think about them?, what does his pastor say at the church he attends? It's all ridiculous. I honestly believe that if "The Media" believed that people were interested in the actual issues, being the opportunistic lot they are, they would be all over it. I don't expect to change any of this, but I just wanted to vent my thoughts on this issue in the hopes that I re-enforce and convictions you have about it.

By the way, I've gotten to where I can't stand to listen to Sean Hannity anymore, he is constantly harping on the same kind of rhetoric against Obama. Again, I am no fan of Obama's policies, but Hannity is pandering to what his listeners want to hear, and who can blame him, he is after all doing what?.... selling advertising.

Enough of this, nobody cares what I have to say about it. Thanks for reading.

Brenton Cameron Tabor...

... But you can call him Brent. The newest addition to our family was born on Wednesday, May 14th at 2:20PM. He was 7 lbs 13 oz.

Jen was great and she didn't take any pain medication at all! Unbelievable!

He was born on my birthday, what a gift!

It's nice to have a little boy and a girl, now we can experience both aspects of parenting. People are saying this one looks a lot like me. I can't wait to see how his personality is similar and how it is different from Annelise's.

Here he is:


Brent and proud big sister Annelise:


In the car seat getting ready to go home!

Who's reading?

For those of you who still venture to my little coner of the internets, Jen and I are expecting a new TaborTot in mid May of this year!

So, congratulations to us.

I hope it's as cute as Annelise but less opinionated.

VMI vs. Citadel game

Jen and I took a nice trip out to Lexington/Staunton/Bridgewater this weekend. The main attraction was the VMI vs. Citadel game at VMI. No need to go into details, but suffice it to say we did not win. It was still a lot of fun. And we had great seats, practically on the 50 yard line.

..And by that I mean the 30 yard line in a row numbered "BBB". By my calculations, that's a mere 54 rows up. It was funny, we were all so winded by the time we had walked up there. We were a little tardy to the game and paid the price I guess. We walked to the stadium about 5 minutes into the game and we were already down by 7, it was a little disheartening.

We still had a great time though, I had planned on meeting 5 of my classmates out there, but we ended up running into at least 10 people we had graduated with. We tailgated out on the parade deck in front of VMI before and after the game.

We thought all the leaves would have fallen already, but it was still beautiful up there. You'll have to take my word for it because I didn't snap any good foliage shots.

We stayed in Staunton Friday and Saturday night. Jen went to college in Staunton at Mary Baldwin College so we thought it would be a good spot between our two destinations of Lexington and Bridgewater (Up near Harrisonburg).


So that night we went and watched Jen's brother Robby fight in his MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) fight up in Bridgewater. It was the first of those I had been to. Pretty crazy stuff. He lost his fight because he fought a dude that outweighed him by 30 pounds because his scheduled fight cancelled.

Fun weekend all in all, but I was wore out today for sure.

After being there, I thought I would check YouTube and see if anybody has ever posted video from within VMI during ratline activities. I did find a recent video of when the rats met cadre, aka one of the worst days of their lives. This is basically when things go down hill for a few months after you arrive there in late summer. This pretty much the same as when I was there, minus the women. Truly one of the most anxious feelings I have ever experienced.

Conversely, I was one of the "Cadre" for the next 3 years. If it looks like the Cadre hate the rats, it's because they do.

It's November

I sometimes wish I never started blogging to begin with. I really didn't need something else to feel guilty about not doing, I have plenty of those. Clean the garage (every few months this one comes back), fix the gate out back, pull weeds out of the back yard, clean my office closet, the list goes on.

But I do find it a good way to:

a) Brag about Annelise and other things without having to work them into daily conversation.
b) Keep a kind of journal for historical purposes.

So the bragging begins... Annelise is cuter than ever, she was a ladybug for Halloween.

It's really getting fun around holidays with her now because she understands what's going on.

She was a lot of fun at her birthday this year also (she's 2).

So other than that I'm just working, playing some racquetball, and working a little more. I'm looking forward to the holiday season, Thanksgiving is fast approaching. I'm also enjoying the cooler weather, this summer was getting brutal there for a while.

This concludes my generic catch up blog post. Hopefully (for my multitudes of readers) I will have more frequent and pointed updates. But all I can promise you at this point is that I have every intention to do so.