Thursday, August 27, 2009

The Power of Elephants

Deficit: The elephant in room growing

The elephant in the room in the major public policy debates in Congress is not the GOP, but the growing federal deficit and it is getting harder and harder for both parties to ignore.

New projections released Monday show that elephant is getting bigger and bigger.


Elephant in the Room

It is based on the idea that an elephant in a room would be impossible to overlook; thus, people in the room who pretend the elephant is not there might be concerning themselves with relatively small and even irrelevant matters, compared to the looming big one.

Elephant Joke

Q: How do you know there are two elephants in your refrigerator?
A: You can hear giggling when the light goes out.


Blind men and an elephant

O how they cling and wrangle, some who claim
For preacher and monk the honored name!
For, quarreling, each to his view they cling.
Such folk see only one side of a thing.


Elefant

In terms of kills per loss, the Ferdinand/Elefant might well have been the most successful tank destroyer employed during the war, reaching an average ratio of approximately 10:1.

Perhaps the Elefant could stop some of the "tanking"? It wouldn't be the first time that a country turned to war once their economy fell apart.

Iraq, Afghan war costing US whopping $3 Trillion

When U.S. troops invaded Iraq in March 2003, the Bush administration predicted that the war would be self-financing and that rebuilding the nation would cost less than $2 billion.

Coming up on the fifth anniversary of the invasion, a Nobel laureate now estimates that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are costing America more than $3 trillion.

2 comments:

EconomicDisconnect said...

Hey Mark!
Hope all is well and you are enjoying the summertime.

Stagflationary Mark said...

GYSC,

Hi there!

Other than being denied healthcare coverage (I'm now one of the 40+ million uninsured) even though I currently have no medical conditions requiring treatment, I'm doing fairly well.

Spent yesterday cleaning an old fish aquarium. Our "zoo" (dog, cat, bird, horses) isn't quite complete without at least one fish it seems!

Based on where I think our economy is headed long-term, I should proably be doing a plant "zoo" equivalent! You know, raising tomatoes, lettuce, and what not! ;)