A truth....

"Growing up is such barbarous business."

~Captain Hook

Vocabulary

ubiquitous - adj. - omnipresent; seeming to be everywhere at the same time.

My house is a realm of ubiquitous clutter.

Just a thought.....

We cannot cling to ALL of our ideals ALL the time.

We often have to pick and choose.

Alexander Hamilton

Barack Obama compared his new Secretary of the Treasury, Tim Geithner, to Alexander Hamilton yesterday. That's funny, I've never heard that Alexander Hamilton didn't pay his taxes.

ha ha ha

Ok, I read--on what I think was a conservative blog--that Alexander Hamilton was a 'good ole boy' crony--totally in it for the elitest rich. Until recently, the only thing I knew about Alexander Hamilton was that he was a prominent early American and he was shot by Aaron Burr. But here is what I have read in my history book--written by a man contesting liberal historical claims. I quote ;

"Hamilton was so suspicious of government that he thought the only way to keep it from spinning out of control was to tie it to the wealthy......'The only plan that can preserve the currency is one that will make it the immediate interest of the moneyed men to cooperate with the government.' Whether agreeing or not with his solutions, few could doubt that his reports constituted masterful assessments of the nation's economic condition."

The United States was in debt $102 million at the end of the revolution. It was bankrupt. Hamilton's challenge was to address all this debt (individual state debts, bonds, and Washington's IOUs to soldiers), establish credit and finance the nations upcoming expenses.

Hamilton's theory was that " A national debt, if not excessive, is a national blessing." He believed that owing people money bought some security--because debt is a lenders 'investment' in us and it's in their best interest to get a return on it. (So...if the debt does get 'excessive' and our lenders know we can never pay it back--what happens then?)

"Hamilton had no illusions about the dangers inherent in big government. He had rightly understood that over the long term, prices did not lie. Monetary values reflect real value in short order. While the will of the people might swing wildly, depending on emotions, news coverage, propaganda or other factors, markets generally are constrained by reality, and he wanted to let that reality enforce its discipline on American finances. It worked; when Hamilton's plan took effect in 1791, U.S. debt per capita, in real dollars, stood at $197 million, but within 20 years it had plummeted to $49 million." That's three-quarters of the national debt in 20 years--which, according to this author, is pretty good.

It may be worth noting that Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson were bitter political rivals. They had different ideas on things. For instance, Thomas Jefferson wanted no national debt, whatsoever. Each generation had to pay off their own debt and shouldn't accrue more than they could pay off. Ironically, Jefferson accrued one of the largest debts up to date (at the time)in a single transaction when he acquired the Louisiana Purchase. Apparently, even for Thomas Jefferson, debt was sometimes justifiable.

Anyway, it is this authors opinion that like it or not Alexander Hamilton was the right man for the job at the right time and he got this nation off to a good economic start while paying down the nations debt.

Though I do pity him a little, maybe we should wait to see if Tim Geithner's policies can pay off three-quarters of the new multi-trillion dollar debt in 20 years before we compare him to Alexander Hamilton--who as far as we know--paid his taxes.

Here is a good visual for understand how much a trillion is;

http://www.pagetutor.com/trillion/index.html

Vocabulary

Largesse -- n. 1. liberality in giving; 2. money or gifts bestowed

The United States of.....Columbia?

Have you ever wondered why we are named 'America' after the Florentine, Amerigo Vespucci instead of 'Columbia', after Columbus?

Columbus reached the American continent the first time in 1492. He returned to Europe but made 2 more voyages to the New World before 1501 when Amerigo Vespucci, a passenger on a Portuguese voyage, started writing letters to friends back home describing the New World. His letters circulated faster than any of Columbus' personal accounts so people started thinking of the New World as Amerigo's world. So, we are the United States of America.

There is an element of this tale that I find funny. This would happen to me. I don't know why Columbus' accounts didn't circulate well, but if by some miracle I made an amazing discovery I'd have to wait until I got home to email anyone. I'd procrastinate calling, I'd stop at the grocery store on the way home, and the next thing I'd know is my great discovery has been named for some organized wiz with a blackberry!!! ha ha ha! It's true.

Boston..I mean, Cincinnati Tea Party

Here is a news article done by Brett Baier at Fox News Political Grapevine...

Police in Cincinnati say at least 4,000 people showed up Sunday for a grassroots protest of wasteful government spending in general, and President Obama's stimulus package and budget in particular.
It was one of many tea party protests around the country — inspired by the Revolutionary War era Boston Tea Party protesting British taxation. Protesters had signs reading "Give us liberty, not debt" and "Where's my bailout?"
One report states there are more than 150 tea parties scheduled across the nation in the upcoming months. The events so far have been largely ignored by the mainstream media, but several blogs are tracking them.
Noel Sheppard, associate editor for the conservative NewsBusters.org writes on the coverage so far: "Compare that to how these networks practically fell all over themselves to report war protests after the public's opinion changed concerning Iraq in late 2003."

Interesting--the tea party thing and the news coverage thing.