So apparently Barack Obama is a deficit hawk. The White House just released their 2012 budget which includes a ten year plan to cut the deficit by $1.1 trillion. Never mind that the federal government can’t forecast its expenses even 12 months into the future (how far off were they on the 2011 budget? A trillion? A little less, maybe?). No, never mind that.

But over the course of ten years the federal government will trim $1.1 trillion off of the budget, and they are setting out to do this now. Of course, it all rests on the following assumptions about the underlying economy.

1. GDP growth over those ten years will average 3.2% annually. Here is a fun fact: GDP growth from 1998 to 2008 (i.e. before the housing and financial collapse) averaged 2.1% annually. So Obama unveils his amazing plan to cut $1.1 trillion over ten years, but that assumes GDP growth during that time will be 50% greater than it was from 1998-2008. Ok.

2. Unemployment over those ten years will average 5% on an annual basis. Ok.

3. The CPI (the rate of inflation) over those ten years will be a measly 2%. And the fun fact for this one: the CPI since 1981, after the inflation of the 70s was tamed, averaged out at 4.91% annually. So we will have record low levels of inflation for the next ten years even as the Fed is dropping dollar bills from a helicopters. Ok.

These are the forecasts which rest on Obama’s meager budget cuts. You can’t make this stuff up.

What a circus.

A survey says that American workers work the first three hours every day just to pay their taxes. So that’s why we can’t get anything done in the morning: We’re government workers!–Jay Leno

Nevermind that federal employees, especially lawmakers and the paper-pushing peons who occupy their office-space can’t cut it in the private sector.

Nevermind that federal bureaucracies are a complete drain on resources.

Nevermind that it takes no real ability to write tax laws and no real ability to drive an economy off a cliff.

Yeah, I can let all that go for now; They are topics for another day. What concerns me right now is the revelation from The Washington Post that these losers–who make double what private sector workers make–are writing tax laws that they think don’t apply to them.

Capitol Hill employees owed $9.3 million in overdue taxes at the end of last year…The debt among Hill employees has risen at a faster rate than the overall tax debt on the government’s books.

The average unpaid tax bill is $12,787 among the Senate’s delinquent taxpayers and $15,498 among those working in the House.

Only those who are arrogant enough to think that they can manage such a complex society would also be arrogant enough to think that they do not need to abide by their own immoral code that they force the rest of us to accept.

History repeats itself, it has to, no-one listens
-Steven Turner

The fed lowered interest rates to near zero.
This encouraged banks to make risky loans.
The loans got sold.
The loan buyers packaged the loans into derivatives.
The derivatives got sold.
Big banks and brokers bought the derivatives.
The fed raised interest rates for years.
People began to default on mortgages.
The leveraged derivatives began to collapse.
Banks now held toxic assets.
Banks could not loan money.
Businesses could not borrow.
The economy ground to a halt.
Banks said they needed to pay down “toxic assets.”
Congress gave them your money.
Banks paid bonuses and consolidated.
No “toxic assets” paid.
The fed lowered interest rates.

In the programming world, we call this an iterative statement. It can be a for-loop (for this many of times, do this action) or a while-loop (while this statement is true, do this action).

A never-ending iterative statement is considered a bug. It leaves the application thread in a repeating loop and compromises resources indefinitely. More importantly, a “never-ending loop” is always considered a bug because it is not conducive to a software experience that properly mimics reality–which is what all software ultimately aims for.

All loops that dwell in the realm of reality must end.

This is true of the Western world’s current expansion-monetization loop–and all such loops that preceded it.

I read some good news from CNN this morning.

…The layoff ax has hit public sector payrolls with force as states wrestle with massive budget shortfalls. Since August 2008, some 231,000 state and local government jobs have disappeared — 22,000 last month alone, according to federal data.

…

And more pain is coming down the pike. Some 19 states say they plan to implement layoffs to narrow budget gaps, according to a recent survey.

Finally, governments are doing what the rest of us have been doing all along: facing up to reality, realizing they have overspent, and proceeding to cut that spending. What a refreshing change that governments are joining the rest of us in the real world.

…wait, what’s this?!?

Even President Obama is voicing concerns about the impending wave of job cuts. He wrote a letter to the leaders of both parties in the House and Senate on Saturday urging them to increase federal aid to the states. Otherwise, the country faces “a mounting employment crisis at the state and local level that could set back the pace of our economic recovery.”

Oh Barack, when will you get it?