Friday Questions, Opinions, Thoughts, and Observations

• Greece is the battered wife in its Eurozone marriage.  Everybody will be better off in the long run if they separate sooner rather than later.
• The GOP presidential candidates tried to outdo each other in describing how tall and wide they wanted their border wall with Mexico while simultaneously talking about tearing down Jefferson’ and the other Founding Fathers’ wall between church and state.
• Why do I think in the coming months we will be hearing about the failure of Spanish and Italian banks severely impacting US banks?  Perhaps because I have seen this move before.
• Speaking of movies, when will Hollywood learn to leave classic cult favorite TV shows like ‘Dark Shadows’ alone?  Tim Burton failed miserably with his flat reboot.
• Mitt Romney and his economic team believe we have a spending problem, not a revenue problem.  Not sure how you can say that when corporate tax revenues were $188,677,000 in 1998, $370,243,000 in 2007, and $181,085,000 in 2011.  Yet corporate profits are at record highs.
• The above notwithstanding, the escalating cost of Medicare cannot be offset simply by increasing taxes on the rich.  Long term spending and revenue reform is necessary.
• Why are so many freaking people so lazy that they can’t put their shopping carts in the collection bins?  It’s a 20 foot walk for Pete’s sake.
• I’m all for the First Lady’s wellness and nutrition program but when cities ban fund raising bake sales, I have to ask what the heck?
• Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu has himself a new unity government after the opposition Kadima Party joined his Likud led coalition that includes several far right parties as well.  Many in Israel think this new unity government resembles the 1967 consolidation of opposing parties that lead up to the Six Day War.  Let’s hope this is not a precursor to an attack on Iran.
• I’m no economist, but if the dollar is appreciating against the Euro and Pound and commodities are priced in dollars, wouldn’t that be a reason why prices of oil and gold are dropping?  And once it starts dropping, the speculators and hedge fund managers jump in with their short positions.  Just a theory.
• An advanced society does not spend more money on prisons than higher education. 
• What is up with sports fanatics?  After missing a potential game winning shot for the Lakers Wednesday night, Laker guard Steve Blake’s wife Kristen received this tweet "I hope your family gets murdered."  I guess booing is so pre-social media.
• GOP pundits and operators love to claim that President Obama is waging class war by pitting the rich as the enemy against the rest of America.  Funny that those same GOP pundits and operators love to pit public sector workers against private sector workers.
• If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly the teachings of the New, he would be insane. – Robert Green Ingersoll