Something To Think About Archive

With the Presidential race now essentially down to two, both candidates need to promise to take action on the nation’s $34 trillion of debt, a staggering sum equal to one hundred and forty percent of our Gross Domestic Product. Both of these candidates contributed to the problem with Trump adding $8 trillion during his term and Biden piling on another $6 trillion, so far. Meanwhile, Social Security is essentially broke with benefits set to be cut by 23% in ten years. And neither Trump nor Biden nor either party in power is willing to address the issue by simply increasing the retirement age a year or two for those still 30 years away from retirement.

Queen Victoria’s Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli once observed that “The fool wonders; the wise man asks.”

Software entrepreneur Charles Wang said: “I don’t think success is a place or a definition. I think it’s a direction.”

Earnest Hemmingway said: “Think of what you can do with what there is.”

According to columnist Doug Larson, “Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you’d have preferred to talk.”

Second up in spurious lawsuits is the one brought against Tesla for Elon Musk’s outsized pay package, one any of us would like to receive to be sure, but this plaintiff owns a whopping 100 shares that he paid $200 for and are now worth ten times that and yet he claims that Mr. Musk is not worth what he’s being paid.

Last month’s court ruling against Donald Trump for supposedly inflating the collateral value of his properties is another example of partisan over-reach and one step closer to our status as a Banana Republic. There is no victim here bringing a complaint, just a New York State Attorney General fulfilling a campaign promise to get Trump. Even Duetsche Bank, the lender, said they had no complaints, that they were paid back the loan with interest and were not harmed in any way, shape or form.

Writer James Thurber claimed that “It’s better to know some of the questions than to know all the answers.”

We should be able to think for ourselves as well as we can think for others.

Columnist Sydney J. Harris said that “It’s a toss-up as to which are finally the exasperating – the dull people who never talk, or the bright people who never listen.”

California’s budget woes continue despite Gavin Newsome’s claims to the contrary. The Legislative Analyst’s Office now projects the shortfall at $73 billion twice that of the Governor’s estimate. And with the top 1%, or at least those that are left, paying 50% of the state’s income tax, future revenues to cover the shortfall are looking doubtful. Given his thinly disguised presidential aspirations it looks like he’ll fit right in with deficit happy Washington.

Author Louis E. Boone advised us to “(not) fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have.”

As the debate over funding goes on, the war in Ukraine looks eerily like the 1930’s when Hitler annexed Austria under the guise of political unification, much like Vladimir Putin is doing with Ukraine has he tries to fulfill his announced reunification of his concept of Russia. Like Hitler, who went on to invade Czechoslovakia and Poland not to mention France, Putin started with the Crimean Peninsula and then moved on to Ukraine. What’s next if he is not stopped here and now?

Motivational author Stephen Covey believed that “Trust is the highest form of human motivation. It brings out the very best in people.”

Scientist Booker T. Washington said: “Character is power.”

Mae West claimed that “You’re never too old to become younger.”

The first Prime Minister of India, Nehru, could have been talking about our times when he noted that “On the whole, I think we shall survive. The outlook is as bad as it has ever been, but thinking people realize that – and therein lies the hope of its getting better.”

Writer Washington Irving believed that “Great minds have purposes, others have wishes.”

Argentina’s new president represents big change for that beleaguered country. He recently spoke at the notably liberal World Economic Conference in Davos claiming that “far from being the cause of our problems, free-trade capitalism as an economic system is the only instrument we have to end hunger, poverty and extreme poverty across our planet.”

According to actress Ethel Barrymore, “The best time to make friends is before you need them.”