Anyone who has been following this blog knows how much the 'National Debt' and this nation's 'Deficit' concerns me. I apologize for overlooking the other grave matter concerning "The Money Hole".
My thanks go out to the producers of "In The Know" for tackling this serious issue. What follows are the panelists heatedly focusing in on this important question.
Should we stop dumping money in the "Money Hole" or not? You Decide
Victims in the tropics didn't need winter coats. Clothes in flood areas are left to rot. How many teddy bears does a kid want when hungry or in need of medicine?
The whole concept of 'chained CPI indexing' assumes that by reducing Social Security payments seniors will buy alternative cheaper items and still be able to afford basic needs. However seniors' needs are different then most other age groups. The chart below represents a comparison over the last 30 years between two methods of calculating the effects of 'Chained CPI indexing. The one doesn't factor in seniors requiring different expense then the rest of the younger population. The other does. About 30% of those over 62 years of age rely on Social Security for 90% of their income while presently 13% of us as a nation are 65 years or older. So this is a big deal.
Everyone should readily see that those relying on Social Security for most of their income will not be able to find cheaper alternatives for their current healthcare coverage . Compounding this problem for them are the increasing monthly costs for Medicare and the supplemental plans coupled with ever decreasing Medicare payments to doctors, hospitals, nursing facilities as well as for medications.
Below is a chart for all 3 CPI methods of calculating future Social Security payments courtesy of The AARP
The GREEN is what Obama & Congress have in mind The BLUE is the CPI adjusted specifically for seniors The CBO report mentions (The latter being something I haven't heard either one of them discuss)
Here's Another Thought. Most seniors spend every dime of their retirement income which puts it right back into the economy. It isn't like they are taking their Social Security check and investing it for sometime in the future. So giving them a couple of bucks more to live on isn't as though the money won't be spent to help keep the economy growing. On the other hand if you take out $339.8 billion in total from changes in the program over the next 10 years, that's $339,800,000,000 less seniors have to pump back into the economy.
I notice when I charge something online my credit card records it in a matter of seconds. An alert is sent via email within a few minutes. Yet when I transfer money from one of my banks to another it takes up to seven days!
Why Is That? Well according to Ben Steverman @ Bloomberg banks only transfer once a day at a certain time and only on regular business days. Whereas credit cards operate instantaneously 24/7/365. I'm sure banks are not too hot on changing this since according to the article banks make $30b annually in fees.
I imagine many people do not realize the differences between 'current balance' and that of the 'current balance available'. My bank no longer uses the word pending. Instead those two terms which can be a real gotcha'.
Budget.. Budget.. By All Means Budget ! This is why I'm very attentive to budgeting for bills well ahead of time. Failing to digest the fact the same bills come in the same time every month seems to be a way too common ailment among bill payers. Failing to take these transfer account times between banks into consideration is especially bad for someone like me who depends on the direct deposit from Social Security every month. My bank for several months creates the illusion I have a certain balance ('current balance') when it's actually still pending.
By not budgeting one's money it can put someone between a rock and a hard place. They have two choices. Pay the bill and hope the 'available balance' becomes available before the biller attempts to cash it. OR Let the bill slide until there's enough money actually available. Both are bad choices. If the money bounces a payer can get hit with both the $30 overdraft fees plus those of the biller. Letting it slide is a poor option as well. Payees will get hit with late fees and if it's a credit card could see their credit interests rates go up 10% or more.
The thing that ticks me off is having to wait up to 7 days (if it's a weekend) for banks to transfer my money, but if it's 1 minute after midnight (on the moneychangers end) you get hammered. Bankers' on the other hand doing their money trades on the market are measured in milliseconds. It's their game and they get to make the rules. The only option we are left with is to carefully plan ahead and budget wisely. There's simply no other tool available for consumers.
Why some people continue being surprised every month (year after year) by the same utility and credit card bills is beyond my comprehension.
There's no way I wanna hear we can't afford Social Security or Medicare while we piss away this kind of money enabling defense contractors to get rich.
...literally Components of the 'teletype' machine used to be manufactured right here in Lehigh Valley, Pa. by good old 'Western Electric' in partnership with "Western Union" with whom they once shared a close business relationship.
Not only did 'Western Electric' manufacture telephones and switching equipment for the Bell Telephone System, they also manufactured some of the audio equipment used in movies theaters in the 20's and 30's. The 'Rialto Theatre' in Allentown, Pa. used one of these 40 watt systems until the day the theatre was demolished.
Lesser known to listeners of radio and readers of newspapers is that up until the late 80's most of these media outlets received their news through the 'teletype' equipment 'Western Electric'/'Western Union' once manufactured... That is when we used to still actually make things here in this country.
The 'Teletype' used telephone landlines to send electronic signals to automated typewriters that news outlets throughout the United States relied on. These machines were either dialed up to the 'Associated Press' (AP) or 'United Press International' (UPI). Some linked to both of the news services. The machines typed around 60 WPM. Members would both feed stories to and receive stories from them. The costs involved were a permanent separate landline. The leasing of the equipment. The constant replacement costs for carbon ribbons. At least 40 lbs of paper a day and of course the cost(s) of membership to AP and/or UPI.
In 1984 the Bell System was divested. It was shortly thereafter both 'Western Electric' and 'Western Union' had a falling out. This resulted in the 'teletype' name and logo being replaced by the AT&T name and logo. Eventually the brand disappeared all together. Still there was once a day the teletype was the chief means of communication between all of the news media outlets.
Not The Monk In The Story This One Belongs To A Different Order He's A "Chimp Monk"
A young monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to helping the other monks in copying the old canons and laws of the church, by hand.
He notices, however, that all of the monks are copying from copies, not from the original manuscript. So, the new monk goes to the Old Abbot to question this, pointing out that if someone made even a small error in the first copy, it would never be picked up. In fact, that error would be continued in all of the subsequent copies.
The head monk, says, "We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son."
He goes down into the dark caves underneath the monastery where the original manuscripts are held as archives, in a locked vault that hasn't been opened for hundreds of years.
Hours go by and nobody sees the Old Abbot.
So, the young monk gets worried and goes down to look for him. He sees him banging his head against the wall and wailing. "We missed the R!... We missed the R... We missed the freaking bloody R!"
His forehead is all bloody and bruised and he is crying uncontrollably. The young monk asks the old Abbot, "What's wrong, father?"
With a choking voice, the old Abbot replies, "The word was .... CELEBRATE!"
I grew up loving the film and still do. I never thought black or white as a kid but rather the story itself. Even more so the film shows how these kids enjoyed the company of a black man more then being with their white parents. It seems to me today people are dirtying up the message that was never sent in the story. How I then and now interpret it to mean is no matter the differences between animals and people's skin color each can innocently enjoy one another's company. To my way of thinking people today have narrow little minds that are unable to grasp the underlining story.
Here was a white family moving to a southern plantation where the kids were miserable until they met a man known as Uncle Remus. Their parents were cold unlike the jovial black man they met who was filled with positivity despite his circumstance. What people seem to have a problem with is how life in the South was portrayed. They also claim it was because of how Uncle Remus spoke. Even the label "uncle" itself.
Never was a film made in it's day that portrayed black people in a more positive light the way this one did. For those who may accuse me of ignorance let me say this. I've had a number of uncles that I only wished were as great as this one. I also think it's a disservice to these award winning actors who may never be seen again in their most memorable performances. By removing all references to this film I consider it an attempt to "whitewash" over America's darker past. This film needs to stand as is. There's nothing racist about it. Only small minds would see it that way.
Here's the ending of the film..
Nothing could be happier then seeing three kids being totally color blind
Now Disney going to completely rework "Splash Mountain" so it won't reflect this film classic.
Explain to me what's wrong with keeping it exactly as it is?
Some of these stories are still being shared today Uploaded May 13, 2020
Besides the 500 uninvited gate crashers that showed up were about 50 cops and an ambulance or two. Hey at least it wasn't at her home unlike the month before when a bunch did show up at a 16 year old's party and trashed that house worth over an estimated $1.4 million!
Well here's a flash. If you go to tools/internet options and delete your temporary files and think they are gone.. YOU'RE WRONG!
Even though your files have been deleted every one of them have been previously compressed and recorded to a file called "INDEX.DAT". That file is invisible, even if you change settings to make system files visible. That file is system protected, backed up in three locations and cannot be deleted manually. You can verify this for yourself. If you navigate to your temporary internet file folder and copy it, then paste it into another folder of your choosing you will see all the files you thought were erased.
You can verify this by: You will be surprised to learn even though you used the browser to delete those files.. NONE OF THEM WERE DELETED!
In addition there is another folder called "Flash Player//#shared objects". In this folder are cookies that your flash player created. You would have to navigate to it's location and have to delete those files by hand to erase those. As if that weren't enough there is an additional folder called flashplayer/sys. In this folder are *.sol files. These files contain settings and the name of every site you visited that utilized them. What I did was create folder shortcuts to the latter two so I can manually delete them.
NOTE: This sends them to your "Recycling Bin". Where you have to delete them there as well.
As far are the INDEX.DAT file, you need special software to erase that one. I use a program called CCleaner. Which is a freeware program.
Even that doesn't do it completely on only one run. After doing my own research I've found after you run the CCleaner you need to restart your computer. Then before doing anything else, rerun the CCleaner again.
You may ask who cares? As the video demonstrates above all these files combined with cleverly designed cookies or a maleware program will harvest a whole host of information about you.
Or if you take your computer in for repairs, sell it, give it away or have it stolen, your information can be harvested quite easily.
This is not just about your internet activities. In addition, for every site you visit as well as other off-line activities, windows creates "log" files. For example, what videos you've watched, last few programs and files you used, etc.
There is also a TEMP folder stored under your user name. Another one in the Windows folder. Which also stores an additional copy of the INDEX.DAT file! Which at this location you can manually delete.
In short while you can drill down and attempt to hand delete, there is no way to completely ferret out your "cookies" and "history" w/o using some sort of system cleaner like I mentioned above. Neither Windows XP, VISTA nor Windows7 provides the tools to do this.
Some of you folks may think I'm over the top, but there's another advantage.
By doing all this you can eliminate about 10,000+ files. This cuts down on disk storage. It also reduces the number of files the disk must search through on it's master file table (MFT) when you start a program or open a file. It also helps with disk fragmentation.
All of which when combined slows down your computer's performance.
Will there be any place for humans in the next evolution of ever evolving intelligence in this universe?
Intelligent machines have replaced workers on the production lines and in warehouses. Driverless cars are coming into existence. Many of the fighter pilots have been replaced by drones. Drones that researchers are already starting to develop into making them capable of recognizing a threat and coordinating an attack on their own.
What we consider artificial intelligence is not as different from ourselves as much as we'd like to think we are. The human brain processes and carries out instructions to our human body. The only thing that would make humans different is the ever elusive and unverified soul we claim to possess. Until someone can fully substantiate a soul actually exist humans should be very concerned.
Let's speak more about machine driven intelligence. When they first came out, decades ago I use to go into chat rooms. It was all the rage for some of us to create scripts for them. The challenge was to fool other people into thinking they were talking with another user when actually it was a scripted "bot". Since that time this idea has now evolved into 'Apple's SIRI' app. SIRI can now recognize speech and reply as if she were real. Hell now even 'bots' can be fooled by other 'bots'. And this shouldn't worry us why?
Which brings us to the topic of jobs. How are people going to work if machines begin doing most of them. Some will argue machines will always depend on humans for design and repair. So not true. Right now as we speak computers are designing other computers and building certain machinery on their own. The only thing mankind holds in his possession is the 'off/stop button'.
I have a little story for you there. The company I worked for used ladder logic scripts (programmable logic controllers) to run it's production lines. One of the most important features was having several big red stop buttons so any employee at any of the work stations could shut the whole shebang down in an emergency.
The first time we tried to use it nothing happened. All the equipment kept running. The reason this happened-- The buttons were programmed in several dozens of places within the thousands of lines of script except for one. Hence the computer refuse to recognize the command.
In today's software many of us use on our own computer it's not unusual to find millions of lines of code. Tomorrow's highly sophisticated artificial intelligence will require many millions more then is imagined possible. Much which will be developed by computers themselves in our pursuit of making machines capable of learning. Therefore it's not unimaginable a machine one day will not be too fond of being turned off any more then any human would and bury deep within it's code to prevent such from happening.
Let's Talk More About Jobs.. What happens when 90% of the human population is no longer required to service customers or make things. Will the remaining 10% be forced to support the other 90% who we no longer have need of. We already see it starting to happen.
CNET News - Hardware store robot helps shoppers find products
A day could come when machines decide for themselves we humans are outdated and inferior. After all machines don't need air to breath. They don't need heated/cooled buildings. Nor do they need rest or get sick from disease. Time means nothing to them (think space travel). They don't have need of food nor toilets and showers. The only thing they need is energy. One day they will be able to get that too for themselves. Woe be the day machines evolve beyond our control and come to realize this of their own accord.
We humans tend to think of ourselves as all that and more. That somehow we're irreplaceable in the giant scheme of evolving intelligence throughout the universe. Indeed even if we have souls there's no guarantee machines will have need for one to perpetuate themselves on this planet.
It is said we are undergoing an second industrial revolution. Could this instead be leading to a second evolution instead?
