When You Hear Someone Say, “Easy As Pie”, Ask Them, “Is That Pie or Pi?”

Apple Pie is easy to eat.

Pi, the Algebraic Formula, is not so easy to digest. Here is a little taste of Pi not Pie...

There are many formulas of Pi of many types. Among others, these include series, products, geometric constructions, limits, special values, and pi iterations.

Are you not relieved to know I am now going to go Algebraicless (yes, I know that is not a word).

Let’s get back to Pie (the easy one)...

The Governor of New York Has Proposed To Give Free Tuition To Middle-Class Students Attending The State’s Public Colleges.

What could be simpler?...

Ø Free Tuition...We all love Free.

Ø Middle-Class Students...Those are the folks that politicians always make speeches about during political campaigns.

Ø State’s Public Colleges...Not Private.

In New York, Pie is like Pi.

I will not take a position about Free Public College Tuition Proposal in this Blog Posting. What I will do is bullet point the complications my newspaper laid out to me about this “Easy As Pie” Proposal...

Ø The plan for tuition-free college merely redistributes income while giving the middle class little actual help.

Ø Many of the putative beneficiaries may be harmed. (You know your ability to understand is headed south when they start throwing around words like “putative”.)

Ø To qualify, students must come from families earning less than $100,000 ($125,000 by 2019).

Ø Students must attend school full-time.

Ø Students must graduate on time.

Ø Only a fifth of its undergraduates would be eligible.

Ø A mere 2% of students at the City University of New York would qualify—in part because of low graduation rates.

Ø At the end of each year, scholarship recipients who don’t complete 30 credits—a full course load for two semesters—could lose their grant award for that second semester and get stuck taking out loans to pay back the state.

Ø Students also have to commit to living and working in New York after they graduate for as many years as they receive the scholarship.

Ø If they leave the state, again the grant turns into a loan.

Ø This kind of indentured servitude could keep young graduates from pursuing higher-paying employment elsewhere.

Pause for a Thought Provoking Thought...How are all these proposed requirements and stipulations going to be policed?

There’s more. Now the Complicated gets Confusing, or is it, the Confusing gets Complicated?...

Ø Scholarship recipients also won’t save as much money as they might think. Annual Tuition for in-state students at SUNY community colleges is roughly $4,370. The figure for the state’s public four-year schools is about $6,470.

Ø Low-income students can get federal Pell grants of up to $5,920 a year.

Ø New York’s Tuition Assistance Program, which covers students whose families earn less than $80,000, can further reduce tuition by $500 up to $5,000 each year.

Ø In other words, many middle-class students already are paying little to nothing for tuition.

Ø Students who receive scholarships, however, would still have to pay for room and board, which SUNY estimates will run between $10,000 and $13,000 a year.

Ø The plan will cost state taxpayers a mere $163 million by 2019 (they put the “a mere” in there, not me).

Ø Hundreds of millions more in federal student aid may flow to public colleges because of increased enrollment, which may be one of the plan’s unstated goals.

Ø Promising free tuition could steer more students to public schools from private ones.

Ø According to the commission’s analysis, the plan would shift $1.4 billion away from nonprofit colleges, resulting in 45,000 job losses.

Ø Compensating jobs would be created at public schools, but dislocations would invariably occur.

Ø Once this is out there and implemented, possibly some of the more precarious institutions will go under.

Ø What that will do is cause millions of dollars of lost economic impact on the local community where the colleges are/were located.

Ø This means the plan could cause thousands of job losses in the Upstate Areas of New York.

Ø The State has already spent $25 billion trying to resuscitate Upstate New York.

Ø Yet the State’s economic stimulus has so far produced little bang for taxpayers’ bucks. According to a March report by InvestigativePost.org, upstate employment has grown by only 2.7% compared with 13.1% downstate and 11% nationally.

In order to add Inspiration to all this Consternation, the State says... The people of New York have to believe it’s going to work if it’s actually going to work...Or does it?

The Fella might ask... If they believe that it will work, does that guarantee that it will work?

I apologize for how complicated this Pi really is. If the Devil is truly in the Details, it is easy to see that this is a Devilish Pie.

If you want to show The Fella how gullible you really are, you can now text me this rebuttal... “It’s all going to be OK. My elected representative looked me straight in my eye and said to my eye, ‘Trust Me’”.

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

Droves Of People Are Leaving Our State Because We Tax Them Way Too Much. If We Give Them A Little Bitty Bonus To Stay, They Will Not Leave. Then We Can Continue Taxing Them Way To Much.

I apologize for this Blog Posting being so long but there is a lot of Silliness in Connecticut.

Somewhere in Connecticut’s past this bullet-pointed conversation happened in their State House...

Ø We need more money.

Ø I have an idea. Let’s tax the other 49 States.

Ø We don’t have the power to do that.

Ø Are you sure we don’t?

Ø I’m not certain and I will check on it but, for the sake of this discussion, let’s assume that we don’t have that power. Let’s continue to kick around some ideas about how we can increase revenue.

Silence...

Ø What about cutting spending?

Ø Come on now! We were not sent up here to not spend money. We were sent here to spend money and we have done an excellent job of that, if I do say so myself.

Silence...

Ø I guess we will have to tax the people here in Connecticut.

Ø Do you think they will stand for that? We have started to hear rumblings that they have started to take note of what we have been doing to them.

Ø They have rumbled before. We have not pushed them to the breaking point. Besides, Football Season starts this weekend and they will not pay any attention to us till early February and, we all know what follows February, March (Basketball) Madness. Trust me.

Ø OK, I’ll defer to your political savvy. You were right about the last 12 tax increases.

Ø Let’s go to Happy Hour.

Ø You know you said the same thing after we decided to enact the last 12 tax increases.

 

What caused The Fella to start pecking out a Foolishness...Or Is It? about little ole Connecticut? To find the answer, read on and learn about Connecticut’s Tale of Taxation Woe...

Ø Connecticut’s progressive tax experiment has hit a wall.

Ø Tens of thousands of residents are leaving for lower tax states.

Ø 25 years ago Connecticut was a low-tax haven for Northeasterners.

Ø In 1991 the state enacted an income tax and it was later made steeply progressive.

Ø The Slippery Slope started doing its slippery thing but, as is usually the case with taxes, it was upward slippery.

Ø In a fine example of Taxpayer Trickery, the top rate on individuals earning $500,000 or more has been lifted to 6.99%.

Ø The beleaguered taxpayers of Connecticut breathed a huge sigh of relief because they had feared that the rate was going to go up to 7%.

Ø Many taxpayers were heard to say, “I’m going to find out if my representative voted to keep the rate below 7%, and if he did, I’m going to be sure to vote for him again”.

Ø In 2012 the Tax Foundation ranked Connecticut’s state and local tax burden second highest in the country behind New York.

Ø Due to recent Property and Income Tax Hikes, Connecticut may now be in the lead.

Ø You don’t need a Yale degree to figure out that the tax hikes have been a disaster.

Ø A net 30,000 residents moved to other states last year.

Ø Since 2010 seven of Connecticut’s eight counties have lost population.

Ø In the last five years, 27,400 Connecticut residents have moved to Florida.

Ø More than 3,000 Connecticut residents have moved to zero income-tax New Hampshire in the last two years.

Ø In a fine example of the Blind Leading the Stupid, many Legislators are denying that tax policies influence personal or business decisions.

Ø After losing General Electric last year, the Governor bribed the hedge funds Bridgewater and AQR Capital with $57 million in taxpayer subsidies not to leave the state.

Ø Other beneficiaries of the Governor’s corporate welfare include Cigna, NBC Sports, ESPN and Charter Communications. (If these giveaways continue, Connecticut is going to have to raise taxes.)

Ø Legislators have now taken the subsidy idea one step further by proposing a tax credit averaging $1,200 for grads of Connecticut colleges who live in the state to stay in the state after graduation.

Ø It is estimated this tax credit would cost the state $6 million each year assuming only 10% of eligible college grads sign on.

Ø They better pray that more than 10% don’t decide to take the State up on this silly offer. (If these giveaways continue, Connecticut is going to have to raise taxes.)

Ø The elephant in the room is a main reason young people are escaping is the lack of job opportunities because businesses are leaving because of high taxes.

Ø Since 2010 employment in Connecticut has grown at half the rate of Massachusetts and more slowly than in Rhode Island or New Jersey.

Ø Meanwhile, Legislators are worried about a projected $1.7 billion budget deficit next year because tax revenues keep trailing projections. (No Chit Sherlock!)

Ø To make matters worse, the state’s teacher pension bill is projected to grow by a third over the next two years.

Ø The Legislators who are causing all this mess have a solution. Some of these mental midgets want to impose a 19% tax on hedge funds’ carried interest.

 

By now you are thinking I made all this up.

 

It looks like many of the $1,200 We’re Gonna Stay Here (Wink Wink) Graduates will use the money to spend on Graduation Parties and then they will move out of state to get a job.

 

I have an idea! They ought to do is build a Wall around Connecticut!

 

Did I just hear you say a Wall is a silly idea? Do you want to read something sillier? If so, scroll back up this Foolishness and read Connecticut’s Tale of Taxation Woe again.

 

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

The Biggest Reason Why We Should Admire North Koreans

It must be a great relief to the rest of the world that it does not have to worry about Noticing Anything. Since there is me, the Burden of Noticing can be completely disregarded and everyone else can concentrate on the other important things in life like Tweeting, Liking, Following and Keeping Up With Celebrities.

 

Please look at the 5 Images below and take note of what you notice.

 

I must warn you, if you do not see what I see, you may become disillusioned with your own Ability to Notice. Please don’t do that! It’s not your fault! Your Ability to Notice is probably a skill that has diminished because of disuse as you became more and more dependent on me. When my heart attacks me, I am sure your Noticing Skill will return as you start having to Notice Things All Over Again...Or will it?

 

Did you see it?...

They are all the same height!

To make everyone in an entire country grow to the exact same height is a very difficult thing to do!

 

It looks like the Supreme Leaders have had skills that go well beyond Posing for Pictures, Clapping Their Hands and Eating Hamburgers

 

I mention Hamburgers because North Koreans are told to believe that, in 2009, the Second Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, invented the Hamburger. Certainly, they all believe that...Or do they certainly not?

 

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

All Politics Is Local...Or Is It? ... And ... Sometimes A Little Stupid...You Bet Ya!

What I am about to talk about in this Blog Posting is Perfectly Legal but it just does not Smell Right.

 

In Georgia’s 6^th Congressional District we are about to have an election to replace Congressman Tom Price who left the seat vacant to join President Trump’s Cabinet. The District has been Republican since the 1970s but has been targeted by Democrats as a District to flip to Democrat in 2017.

 

As of March 29, the Democrat Candidate had raised $8.3 million (3.4 times what Price spent in his most recent election) and spent $6.1 million (2.5 times what Price spent in his most recent election). Price’s most recent election was the most he has spent in any of his 7 campaigns.

 

I have not pecked out anything yet about anyone doing anything Illegal and, as I stated in the first paragraph above, nothing illegal is afoot in this race.

 

Oh, I did make a comment about something being Smelly and here is the Smelly Part...

The 30 Year-Old Democrat in this race has more money to spend than he can shake a stick at and 95% of his Donors are from outside the State of Georgia.

The underlined part is the Smelly But Legal Part.

 

The Republican Stupid Part is there are 11 Republicans in the race (out of 18 total candidates) who are busy tearing each other apart and they are doing a fine job of tearing.

 

If any candidate gets 50% of the vote on the first ballot there will be no second ballot. Mr. Out Of State Money Candidate is polling above 40% presently.

 

Looks like there a pretty good chance there will be 11 Bloodied Republican Candidates standing around on election night saying to themselves, “What happened?” while Mr. Out Of State Money Representative-Elect and his Out Of State Donors are toasting each other with glasses of Out Of State Champaign.

 

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

 

 

We Used To Be Able To Put A Man on The Moon

Every time I watch one of our Wide-Eyed and Hysterical Question and Answer Secessions (they seem to happen every 20 minutes) I am amazed. For a country that used to be able to put a man on the moon, we still can’t figure out how to make the Questions spoken to the Question and Answer Victim able to be heard by the Television Audience.

 

Half the time this is perfectly fine with the Question and Answer Victim because he has no intention of answering the question that was asked anyway.

 

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

Seems Obvious To Me

 

The headline to another one of my newspaper’s Must Read Articles is...

Smartphones May Be To Blame for Big Spike in Pedestrian Deaths

As we used to say in Grammar School, “No Chit Sherlock”. The predicament our Walking People find themselves in is part of an Evolutionary Process...

Ø The car was invented.

Ø In the beginning, drivers of cars in the Good Ole USofA stared intensively at the road in front of them with both hands on the wheel.

Ø Crosswalks were invented and the Walking People used them to cross streets.

Ø When a Two Hands on the Wheel Driver approached a Walking Person walking outside of a crosswalk, they either put on their brakes and/or swerved around the Jaywalking Person.

Ø The Two Hands on the Wheel Drivers who were most concerned for the Jaywalking Person’s well-being blew their horn as they put on the brakes and/or swerved around the Jaywalking Person.

Ø The use of the horn was appreciated by the Jaywalker and made him say to himself, “Self, that was a stupid thing to do. Next time I am going to use the crosswalk when I cross a street. I sure thank that kind driver with his two hands on the wheel for using his brakes and/or swerving around me while blowing his horn.”

All was well in the Good Ole USofA.

------------------------

The first sign that this Driving/Walking Bliss was coming to an end was when someone invented The Finger. As if on cue, drivers and walkers started giving each other The Finger and our world was never that same again.

------------------------

As if the invention of The Finger was not bad enough, other inventors got into the act...

Ø The Colonel invented his Finger Licking Good Chicken Bucket and drivers started eating, driving, fingering and licking their fingers as they drove.

Ø Then the Cup Holder was invented. No one foresaw that the holder could also accommodate a bottle of beer. Once this error was uncovered, concern for the error was set aside because no one thought that anyone would be stupid enough to drive while drinking beer...Or would they?

Ø Then the Little White Dog was invented and these cute little fellas started jumping all over the finger licking finger giving driver’s lap causing him to spill his beer as he tried to swerve around the Jaywalkers.

Ø This caused the Former Two Hands on the Wheel Drivers to shout cuss words out of the car window (cuss words had been invented long ago) and throw his Buggy Whip at the Jaywalking Person (he no longer needed his Buggy Whip anyway).

While all of this consternation was swirling around in the Hand Basket of the Good Ole USofA, Steve Jobs was invented and he invented the Smartphone.

That, my dear readers, was The Tipping Point, the Straw that Broke the Camel’s Back, the Point Of No Return and/or All She Wrote.

Now we find ourselves reading Must Read Articles in our newspapers about increasing pedestrian deaths and asking, “How Did We Get Here?”

Is it not obvious?

It is to me.

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

Lagniappe: Yes, I heard you ask yourself, “Self, where does the term ‘Jaywalking’ come from?” (Yes, I am always listening.)

Jaywalking comes from the fact that “Jay” used to be a generic term for someone who was an idiot, dull, rube, unsophisticated, poor, or simpleton.

More precisely, it was once a common term for “country bumpkins” or “hicks”, usually seen as inherently stupid by “city” folk.

In Politically Correct America they are now called, “Mentally Challenged Walkers”.

 

Should You Buy Their Drugs Because They Are Good For You Or Because Of The Letters They Put In Their Drug Names?

I have posted before about Drug Commercials on TV spending most of the ad telling us how their drug can harm us but still selling hard that we should buy them.

 

There is another interesting thing about drug ads on TV and that’s the names of the drugs especially the letters that are contained in the drug names.

 

For some reason, drug manufacturers have decided that if their drugs contain the letters X and/or J and/or Z and/or Y and/or Q and/or V, we will buy that drug.

 

There is actually one out now called “Xyzal” (I did not make this one up.)

 

Start paying attention to TV Drug Ads and see how often these letters appear.

 

However, don’t forget that, no matter how many of these important letters are in the drug name, that drug could ruin your day or worse.

 

Watch out for these words...”Serious side effects, including death, have happened”.

 

This sounds really bad but it does not stop the Folks Back Home from going to their doctors and demanding a prescription for that drug they saw on TV last night. Many times they can’t remember how to spell or pronounce it so they just say, “You know the one I’m talking about. It’s the one with the letters X and/or J and/or Z and/or Y and/or Q and/or V in its name”.

 

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

Congress Should Not Have Allowed Milton Friedman To Die

A Short But Impactful Story...

The story happened while Milton Friedman was traveling aboard. (If you don’t know who Milton Friedman was, Google Him!)

After being picked up from the airport, he was being driven to the venue where he was to make his presentation. A government official was accompanying him.

Milton took note that at a construction site workers were furiously digging with shovels.

Since power digging equipment had long ago been invented, he asked the government official, why they were not using modern heavy digging equipment.

The answer he received was that shovels were used to keep employment high in the construction industry. If they used modern equipment, fewer people would have jobs.

Dr. Friedman replied, “Why don’t you give them spoons and create even more jobs?”

Would Milton kid u?

Smartfella

At Least One Of My Dear Readers Wants To Be Me But, Since Only I Can Be Me, He Has Asked Me To Say What He Would Say If He Were Me And Not He

This Blog Posting is the result of a recommendation that was sent to me by one of my Dear Readers. He appeared to have a valid point. So I looked into the validity of his valid point and henceforth (“henceforth” is Senate Talk) I pecking out this Silliness about the Everyday Foolishness in the U.S. Senate.

 

Here is what was sent to me by Dear Reader...

“The problem with passing legislation is not in the Constitution. All day every day I keep hearing why this or that cannot be done in the Congress. They all have the same reasons... SENATE RULES WILL NOT ALLOW.”

 

He is right. Often we do hear there is no need to go to the Senate with this or that because the Rules of the Senate Will Not Allow or the Rules of the Senate Make This or That Impossible.

 

I researched Standing Rules of the United States Senate and Mr. Wikipedia tells me that there are 44 Standing Rules at the present time. After reading through a bunch of them my logical mind tells me that these 44 Rules are extremely confusing but the Senate likes them that way.

 

I will go out on a limb here and say that it is quite possible that often times when there is a discussion about whether or not to bring up for deliberation something or other on the floor of the Senate and the Standing Rules of the United States Senate are consulted for guidance and the person who is designated to consult the Standing Rules becomes so confused after consulting the Standing Rules that he nixes the whole idea by simply saying “The Rules of the Senate Will Not Allow” because he could not understand what he read, so he coped out by saying Will Not Allow and that shuts everyone up and they are really delighted about being shut up because they can now just go straight to Happy Hour.

 

Yes, I know the prior sentence is too long but I bet many members of the Senate would not allow it to be recorded in the Congressional Record because it is too short.

 

Here are four excerpts out of the Standing Rules of the United States Senate. Do not be discouraged if you can’t understand what you are about to read. You are not supposed to be able to understandable what you are about to read. If they wanted you to understand what you are about to read they would not have written the Standing Rules of the United States Senate.

 

First:

“The Constitution provides that a majority of the Senate constitutes a quorum to do business. Under the rules and customs of the Senate, a quorum is always assumed to be present unless a quorum call explicitly demonstrates otherwise. Any senator may request a quorum call by "suggesting the absence of a quorum"; a clerk then calls the roll of the Senate and notes which members are present. In practice, senators almost always request quorum calls not to establish the presence of a quorum, but to temporarily delay proceedings without having to adjourn the session. Such a delay may serve one of many purposes; often, it allows Senate leaders to negotiate compromises off the floor or to allow Senators time to come to the Senate floor to make speeches without having to constantly be present in the chamber while waiting for the opportunity. Once the need for a delay has ended, any senator may request unanimous consent to rescind the quorum call.”

(Note: Senators only are present when they are the Senator that is speaking. If they were present when others are speaking, they might change their minds about what they heard spoken by another Senator while they were waiting to say what they wanted to say. Changing your mind after hearing what another Senator has spoken is unconscionable in the Senate.)

 

Second:

“There are very few restrictions on the content of speeches; there is no requirement that speeches be germane to the matter before the Senate.”

(Note: There is no requirement to speak about what is being spoken about. If one spoke in response to what had been spoken by another Senator that would indicate that they had been paying attention to what the other Senator had said and paying attention to what is said in the Senate is frowned upon.)

 

Third:

“Any motion under this paragraph may specify the portion or portions of proposed legislation to be considered by the committees, or any of them, to which such proposed legislation is referred, and such committees or committee shall be limited, in the consideration of such proposed legislation, to the portion or portions so specified.”

(Note: Huh?)

 

Last:

“Whenever any committee (except the Committee on Appropriations) has reported any measure, by action taken in conformity with the requirements of paragraph 7 of rule XXVI, no point of order shall lie with respect to that measure on the ground that hearings upon that measure by the committee were not conducted in accordance with the provisions of paragraph 4 of rule XXVI.”

(Note: If you are not confused enough after reading this, you must now go to two other rules which will ensure that you remain confused right up until Happy Hour starts.)

------------------------

Have you ever heard of a BuzzPhrase Generator? I have one. I have always thought that I was one of the few that had such a thing but it appears that the U.S. Senate knows of which I speak. (“Of which I speak”...I’m beginning to talk like the Senate.)

 

Using my BuzzPhrase Generator I have come up with a single paragraph for possible inclusion in the Congressional Record. Members of the Senate will not be able to understand what the heck I am talking about either but they will be comfortable with such words and they will be very supportive of my right to have this Foolishness included into the Congressional Record because the Congressional Record is full of paragraphs like this...

“We do understand your need to do a total linguistic time phase, however, we are in a serious parallel strategic bind which results in our having need for a compatible organizational mobility analysis. We cannot continue to vacillate on the precipice of an optional monitored concept unless we see some relief in the foreseeable future.”

 

Would I kid u?

Smartfella