Listen to the end: Don’t miss the commercial for my new book. The Alligator Wrestler’s 52-Week Devotional Guide. Available for order this coming Monday. Details after the News Roundup!
Number Four. CNBC. Treasury steps up size of bond sales to manage growing debt.
Who says our national debt is out of control? I was all set to begin this piece by saying our debt is crowding $40 trillion, but I was way wrong. As I write this, it is only $33 trillion. (Since I started typing that sentence it has grown by about $2 million.) So it’s not nearly as bad as I thought.
But I think we need a little primer on how this money thing really works. There is so much ignorance running around about it.
The national debt, like everything else, costs money. The U.S. pays interest on the debt, just like you do on your car loan. And, just like you, the U.S. has to use their income to pay that interest expense.
You may own a U.S. Government Savings Bond, which pays you that interest.
Here is how it happens: You go to work and your paycheck is direct deposited to your bank account, unless you don’t go to work, in which case your welfare payment is direct deposited to your bank account, so really, what’s the difference?
But whereas you go to work on your job, in the case of the United States, they go to work on you, and your paycheck is direct deposited to their account (which we call tax withholding, and which we also call Medicare). To pay the interest on the bond you bought, the U.S. makes the payment out of that tax money they withheld from you, so that when they direct deposit the interest they owe you on your government savings bonds, you get it all back, minus a nominal fee for processing.
So really, the national debt is a good thing because all the interest goes right back to you if you own a U.S. Government Savings bond.
If you do not own a U.S. Government Savings bond, you are an unpatriotic slob who does not deserve to be paid any U.S. government interest.
But back to the point.
When the government runs out of your money to pay you, they just loan more money to you, in the form of you buying more of their Savings bonds.
Sometimes they need a little bit more money to pay the interest back to you on the new bonds, and so they raise your taxes ever so slightly, but then they pay all of it back to you in interest payments anyway. Except for a nominal fee for processing.
So, the fact that the U.S. Treasury is going to borrow $700 billion before Christmas and another $800 billion after Christmas, to make their interest payments, just means that you, if you own a U.S. Government Savings Bond, will just get that much more interest coming back to you via direct deposit. Eventually, and after the nominal fee is deducted.
The only tiny little cloud in this whole, entire, CNBC article that looks the slightest bit of a downer is the phrase, “and possibly cause financial distress,” but that phrase follows a couple of long, complicated paragraphs of gobble-de-gook about billion-dollar notes and Treasury auctions and stock market futures that nobody understands anyway.
And besides that, I need to the read the clickbait about Taylor Swift. I think she has a new outfit or something.
Number Three. Yahoo News. In Ecuador, animal tattoos are dangerous.
A guy is just trying to make an honest living when suddenly he gets cross-wise of somebody he doesn’t even know and it’s a real big problem.
An anonymous young tattoo artist who didn’t give his name because for some reason he did not want to have his body parts physically chopped off by certain gang factions, complained to a reporter that making an honest living drawing pretty tigers on people’s arms has gotten really dangerous.
It’s dangerous because in Ecuador, birds and animals mean things. They usually mean drug things.
An eagle is the symbol of Las Aguilas, The Eagles, a drug dealing gang.
A wolf is the symbol of Los Lobos, The Wolves, a drug dealing gang.
A tiger is the symbol of Los Tiguerones, The Tigers, a drug dealing gang.
A lion is the symbol of Los Choneros, The Lions, a drug dealing gang.
It makes you think you should maybe stick to something simpler, like “Mom,” or “Keep on Truckin’,” or a happy face, or maybe just a simple AK-47 profile.
And what’s worse for the artist, who is just trying to make a living in one of the few growth industries in the country, removing someone’s animal gang symbol can be just as bad as drawing it on in the first place. Either your customer’s friends may kill you for removing the gang symbol of their gang, which shows that you disrespect his gang, or their enemies may kill you for removing the gang symbol of a rival gang, which shows that you disrespect their gang.
Either way, whether you draw the tattoo or remove the tattoo, you might find yourself joining a different sort of gang, Los perritos muertos, The Dead Dogs.
Number Two. The Guardian. Biden administration sued over mobile app.
In a sign of the times, the Biden administration decided to help those seeking asylum in the U.S. by making a mobile app available for them on smart phones they do not own, using internet connections they do not have.
The app called CBP One is offered to allow a refugee to book an appointment online with a Customs and Border Patrol agent who will arrange for basic necessities and protection from those who may be seeking to harm the immigrant. The immigrant is seeking asylum, after all.
All the refugee needs is a smart phone to access the app.
Which almost none of them has. So, to be as open and welcoming as possible, the administration has declared that anyone who does not have such a phone can approach a Border Agent station in person for actual help, especially if they are in an emergency situation.
All that is required to obtain such face-to-face emergency help is a smart phone, in order to book an emergency appointment with the person to whom they are presently speaking. During the emergency they are presently experiencing.
For those who do have access to a smart phone, users frequently find that CBP One is riddled with glitches. The app is thoughtfully presented to the user in both Spanish and Haitian Creole. The frequent error messages, however, are all in English.
Or as close to English as error messages ever tend to be. I hate to state the obvious, but even if you could read the words in the error message, it probably wouldn’t help much anyway.
In desperation, the smartphoneless refugees turn to non-governmental organizations who assist asylum-seekers. The NGOs then seek to offer protection while, in many cases, the immigrant is being actively hunted in connection with a cartel or a domestic abuse situation.
This all sounds very dangerous. Somebody ought to make an app for that.
Number One. Forbes. UN warns of tipping points that could spell disaster for humanity.
It’s a good thing the United Nations is watching out for us, because without their constant attention to Things That Could Easily Kill Us we would have to think up something to worry about, such as how to pay for groceries, or how to qualify for an extended line of credit at Quik Trip to fill the gas tank again next week.
Researchers from the UN University in Germany — who knew there was such a thing? — said we are all about to go off a global cliff, or rather, 6 different global cliffs, because we are facing problems that absolutely, positively cannot be solved no matter how many white papers we write about them or how many wine-tasting parties we host for private jet owners to discuss them.
Which makes one wonder why we are even talking about them. It probably has something to do with on-going grants.
Here they are:
Cascading extinctions. It sounds awful, and this is only the first one. It seems to have to do with about a million plants and animal species being wiped out for some reason or other, probably because of the gas guzzler you drive, and the more plants die, the more other plants, which feed on the first plants, die. Or maybe I’ve got some parts of that wrong.
Groundwater depletion. The aquifers are drying up. Still. Because the first I heard of the aquifers drying up I was in 5th grade and it was in an old history book. But apparently they’re still drying up, and that means… well, you can fill in the blank. More deserts, no water, no food, no beer with your pizza. Certain disaster.
Mountain glaciers melting. Which is a little counter-intuitive, because I thought if the glaciers melted the ice would turn to water, which should mean more water, not less. But I guess I’ve got that one wrong, too. Anyway, more disaster.
Space debris. Now this one really concerns me. Because I saw Gravity with Clooney and Bullock, and believe me, that can be really bad. You keep putting enough of that stuff up there and soon you won’t be able to launch anything without it getting knocked around and smashing some astronaut in the face. And like, probably nobody will ever come up with a way to vacuum it all up, or push it down into the atmosphere where it will burn up.
Unbearable heat. Deadly heat waves are going to be caused by something, like maybe that car you’re still driving, and soon, like any day now, it’s going to be so hot we’ll all die except for the ones with central air conditioning.
Uninsurable future. The worst problem, though, is we’ll never be able to buy insurance, because weather is so bad and getting so much worse that Geico won’t be able to pay off the claims. And then what will the gecco do for a living. Except that he’s a lizard, so he’ll probably be okay. But for the rest of us, disaster.
So I think the upshot is that we are supposed to contribute to somebody’s election campaign, because that’s the only way we can survive long enough to drink whatever water is left before we get smashed by the space junk.
And the one ray of hope to deliver us from the evil people who keep selling oil, is that the next UN climate conference is hosted by the United Arab Emirates, which can afford to host the conference because it is one of the places that keeps selling oil.
Okay, and now, as promised, the commercial.
Just in time for Christmas, the new book is coming out Monday, in three days.
The Alligator Wrestler’s 52-Week Devotional Guide: A Leukemia Survivor’s Reflections on Life, with Bittersweet Memories, Biblical Insight and a Healthy Dose of Dry Humor
You can order it next week at Amazon or wherever books are sold. The audio version is being finished now. It takes a few days for that to get reviewed and approved, to ensure I am not pushing any Communist propaganda — or maybe that would move it quicker — but it will be available at Audible, Barnes & Noble and about anyplace else pretty quickly.
As soon as I decipher the website interface, signed copies will also be available at www.alligatorpublishing.com.
The 52 Week Devotional Guide is a collection of short snippets (3-4 pages each) from life on the farm, career, family and vacations, usually highlighting things that didn’t work. Such as broken shock absorbers, blown transmissions, dead batteries and the like. Each story has a Scripture lesson wrapped around it and a few questions for reflection, to help you think through and write down your own challenges.
For those of you who get my annual Christmas letter, this is sort of in that vein.
If you have read or listened to the Monday Alligator, Briefly Said blog entries, you have already heard some of this material. The 52-Week Devotional Guide compiles those blog posts into a full-length book.
Use it as a devotional guide. Buy a dozen and gift them to family and friends. Think of it as one-stop shopping for Christmas!
Book Signing, November 28
And, don’t miss the book signing at the Friends University Library on Tuesday, November 28, 5:00-7:00pm. I look forward to seeing you there!
And that’s the commercial, and the Alligator News Roundup for Friday, November 3, 2023. Have a good weekend! Enjoy the cool weather while you can, before it turns deadly hot and starts raining space junk on your head!
Curt
The Alligator News Roundup