No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for January 24th, 2011

A Preview

by @ 18:53. Filed under Budget Chop, Politics - National.

Tomorrow evening, President Obama will address a joint session of Congress and present the annual State of the Union Address.  We here at NRE will be joining the festivities and Drunkblog the event live, or as close to “live” as several Tanqueray martinis will allow me to be.

You can watch the SOTU address and determine for yourself, whether Obama has become the centrist that the MSM claims he has been reincarnated as or whether he remains the hard leftist that brought us Placebocare, stimulus and bail outs for all of his leftist friends.

As a public service, NRE brings you the following preview of the SOTU address:

Do you remember the Godzilla movies? Do you remember how the sound tracks were never in sync with the video?

Exactly two weeks prior to the SOTU address, President Obama went to Arizona to address the memorial for those killed in the assassination attempt on Representative Giffords. In that address, Obama lectured us about civility. He did so even though he himself, and those advisers like Rahm Emanuel, who have been closest to him, have rarely had a second thought about using graphic, violent language to describe a political opponent or policy they don’t agree with.

It was as I watched the Arizona address that the visual of the old Godzilla films hit me. Like them, the words that come from Obama’s mouth rarely match the actions of his administration or himself.

Tuesday night you will hear Obama talk about our need for fiscal responsibility. You’ll hear Obama give a nod to things like smart and efficient oversight that is somehow intended to be different than the ever increasing excesses that all administration agencies have lorded over their subjects. You may also hear Obama talk about corporate tax reform but don’t be fooled. Regardless of what you hear from his lips that may have you saying “Clintonesque,” ignore it. There is no “center” or “movement to the center” with Obama.

The Godzilla movies were fairly formulaic: monster arrives, monster destroys everything in sight, monster is subdued by a resilient people. Our national Godzilla movie has seen the first two acts. Will we see the resilient people subdue Godzilla?

Revisions/extensions (6:54 am 1/25/2011, steveegg) – I’m just adding a little reminder widget from Cover It Live so you guys will know where to head tonight.

Monday Hot Read – John Hawkins interviews Thomas Sowell

by @ 11:52. Filed under Economy, Politics - National.

John Hawkins posted an interview he did with Thomas Sowell recently on basic economics. Well, it’s not exactly “basic”, as the Q&As I’m teasing so you read the whole thing are items that wouldn’t be covered in a 100-level course:

…There’s a worry that China could essentially engage in economic warfare against the United States because they hold so much of our debt. Should we be greatly concerned about that?

Yes. For years, the Keynesians loved to downplay the importance of debt by saying we owe it to ourselves. There are problems with that which I go into in Basic Economics. But there are even bigger problems when in fact, we don’t owe it to ourselves, and something like 40 something percent of American debt is owed to foreigners. That means that at some point in the future, all those trillions of dollars worth of real goods and services in output of the American people will have to be shipped overseas to pay back the debt that we borrowed.

Well, speaking of trade issues, the United States has a rather sizable trade deficit. But you say in Basic Economics that the way it’s measured is very misleading and it’s really not that big of a problem. Tell us why that is.

Well, a product or trade is defined as the movement of physical goods across a national frontier, international trade that is, across national frontiers. But of course, that’s just one aspect of international economic relations. If the Japanese send us more cars than we send them and, therefore, they have a trade surplus, they’re not going to just put the money in the bank and let it gather dust. They’re more likely to buy assets in the United States, including such assets as automobile manufacturing plants — so they can build their Toyotas here instead of shipping across the Pacific. So the bigger picture, of course, is the financial picture.

But in general, I think the crucial evidence against the importance of international trade is during the Great Depression in the 1930s. For that entire decade, we had an export surplus. That didn’t seem to do the economy any good. I’m not saying it did any harm either. By the same token, during the 1990s when we had great prosperity, we had a trade deficit. So those things have to be looked at in terms of the specifics of the time and place. They’re not good things or bad things, just in general.

Ready to say I was (almost) completely wrong about Thompson

by @ 11:27. Filed under Sports.

The only reason why the “almost” is there is because the Lombardi Trophy isn’t home yet, but as ESPN’s Kevin Seifert points out (H/T – Kevin), it was the guys, and especially the role players, Ted Thompson brought in that got the Pack this far. I think I lost track of how many times I “borrowed” Mr. Fastbucks’ “Shields UP!” Tweet because Sam Shields’ play allowed Charles Woodson to play the “roving safety” role much like he did before Al Harris got hurt a couple seasons back. All the “role players” Thompson stockpiled came in very handy, as I think this is the first MASH Unit to make The Championship Game That Cannot Be Named™.

I have but three words to say on the way to the Baker’s Dozen vs. Seventh Heaven game…

GO PACK GO!!!

Number of the day – well under 400

by @ 7:37. Filed under Choo-choos.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, that would be the total number of people who decided to take the train to Chicago from Milwaukee on Sunday. The record-setting number was a bit over triple the usual 100 people who make the trip on a typical Sunday.

Yep; we really needed that Milwaukee-to-Madison Lobbyist HO train </sarcasm>

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