Author: Willem

Here’s another screen shot from MSNBC.    The US debt ceiling deal ended up containing ONLY cuts.  (Note that Pres. Obama wanted 25% revenue and the Republicans at one point was OK with 15% !).

Now check out the individual federal income tax tables I posted (source www.taxfoundation.org).  A person earning $100,000 in 1962 had a marginal tax rate of 89% (!), in 1979 it was 68%, in 1985 it was 50%, and in 2011 it is 28%.    Corporations?  Supposed to pay 35% taxes (granted, one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world).   But take General Electric.  Reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion in 2010, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States.   Its American tax bill?  Zero.    Google, Microsoft, Cisco Systems and many other companies pay very little if any corporate taxes.

So now a supercomittee of 12 members has 5 months to come up with a proposal that will close the budget gap by $1.5 trillion over the next decade.   If they fail, across-the-board cuts kick in automatically (from what I can tell in discretionary spending only, not in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security).   But those automatic cuts include education, the environment, food safety, research, infrastructure projects and : the military.   So the defense budget already gets cut right now by $350 billion and could get cut by another $500 billion over the next 10 years.  (Time to stop making war?).     A dispute between House Republicans and Senate Democrats has already forced the Federal Aviation Administration to suspend construction projects at airports around the country, idling 70,000 workers.   Does all of this make any sense?

The first picture is from Saturday Night Live’s skit of a press conference about the debt ceiling negotiations  (featuring a very fresh-faced ‘Harry Reid’ and ‘president Obama’).   And today I watched CNN and MSNBC on and off.    MSNBC finally presented the best information they had about the deal at the end of the day.   Two notes – 1. the deal still has to be ratified by Congress on Monday (just say yes!) and 2. amounts of money measured in trillions of US dollar ($1,000,000,000,000) is surreal.    Several versions of a $1T note are floating on-line; I liked the one with Ben Bernanke best.

My new washing machine and dryer were delivered today and my friend Bryan was on hand to capture the inaugural wash !  The machines are made by the Korean company LG.  The washing machine uses ‘high efficiency’ detergent : low-sudsing and quick dispersing for use in low water volume machines.   It also holds the dirt in suspension so that it does not go back into the fabric; too much foam from regular detergent will interfere with this process.    So after I selected fabric and water temperature, the machine tumbles the load back and forth to figure out how much water to use (and it seems to use very little), and displays how long it will take.   The machine can also be programmed to start the wash at a later time.   Then it goes into the classic sequence of washing,  rinsing and spinning.   The spinning cycle is very smooth, and at the end a happy little tune comes forth to indicate it’s done.

For me, it’s time for a new washing machine and clothes dryer, and so I ran out to Sears to buy a pair of front-loading machines (color : wild cherry red!) with round windows.  Sears will deliver it on Saturday.    So this little article in Wednesday’s Frankfurter Allgemeiner newspaper asks : why are all dishwashers then windowless?   The writer notes that when the first electric washing machines were sold in 1901, people were anxious to know what’s going on inside.  Is it working? Is it mangling my clothes?  And so it was not long before washing machines and dryers were fitted with windows.  Dishwashers only caught on as a mass market appliance in the 1950s, by which time consumers trusted that it can do its job.   Besides, the article notes : it’s more fun to watch one’s clothes tumble in a washer or dryer, than it is to watch those dirty knives, forks and plates sitting in one place, and getting cleaned !

This building in Stellenbosch in the Dutch neo-Renaissance style used to be a girls’ school, but since 1991 has housed the one of the University of Stellenbosch’s art collections.     (Sasol is a large South African oil-from-coal and chemical products company and gave a substantial grant to start the museum).     I took a few pictures the anthropology section.  I did not write down anything about the – jackals (?), but the African masks are from Zambia and the plate is porcelain.

Monday marks the 93rd birthday of Nelson Mandela.    The United Nations today marked the second annual Nelson Mandela International Day with a series of public service events, exhibitions and film screenings in recognition of the former South African president’s contributions as a human rights defender, freedom fighter and peacemaker.    The Nelson Mandela Foundation decided last year to ask well-wishers and gift-givers from around the world not to send gifts, but instead, to take action in their local communities and do something to help someone in need, so that the world is changed for the better.

This cute picture is from Die Burger newspaper.    The dachshund is Dodger, and he (yes, he) takes care of Absalom the six-weeks old lion cub.    The lion cub was bullied and badly bitten by his litter mates at a lion breeding center and brought to this animal rescue farm in Potchefstroom.    The  cub will not stay too long, so that it can still go back and be returned to the wild with other lions.