BREAKING [APRIL 1, 2011 01:30EST]: President Obama and Congress balance the federal budget

Washington D.C. - It was only yesterday that we heard from the White House spokesman that President Obama had sufferred a minor heart attack after which the president appeared at the podium confirming his good health. Despite some rumours from the fringes like Oliver Stone claiming that the president didn't look like himself, the president took off like a new man unburdened by the problems of the last two years. In an unprecedented move, President Obama and congressional leaders worked all night in the White House to balance the federal budget. When Obama was asked how he was able to bring both parties together so quickly, he half joked that he enticed them with bratwurst. Meanwhile, Vice President Biden was on a goodwill tour in Africa. Although the details are forthcoming on how such a historic agreement was reached, the president outlined the basis of bringing the country back from the economic edge by stating "We've got so many problems, we don't even want to look at them anymore. They just blend together into this great big noise, and pretty soon we can't hear ourselves think. But that's not even the worst part. The worst part is that we think we can't do anything about it, and that's a tragedy because we can. We don't know where to start maybe. Maybe that's what it is, but I have an idea about where we can start. From today, I'm going to make it the responsibility of this government to find a job for every American who wants one."

Breakdown of Texas State Budget

Just a note to myself where the important breakdown of the Texas State Budget is located:
http://www.texasbudgetsource.com/state/where-the-money-is-spent/budget-by-area/

You will see education takes the largest chunk of the state budget, health care takes second, and effectively transportation takes third. The reason why education operating costs are so high is because of the dramatic increase in operating costs from the 2006-2007 to the 2008-2009 budget of over $15 billion attributed mainly to higher education. The reason why health care is so large is because it's operating cost has been increasing at an alarming rate of $5 to $7 billion per budget cycle far higher than the inflation rate. The reason why transportation costs are so high was because of a spike in operating costs of about $3 to $4 billion between the 2004-2005 and 2006-2007 budgets.

Pet health care industry - what our health care would look like if Congress mostly stayed out

Health insurance for pets has never really gotten off the ground, although it has been tried, because of the relatively lack of congressional interference with pet health care compared to human health care. Market forces unskewed by congressional attempts to "help" have made pet health care relatively affordable and quick to get. You will always have the extremes, but because congress isn't forcing broad strokes over all pets to address the extremes, even the cost at the extremes is on average significantly less comparably to us humans. So what we see in general is greater affordability and availability overall with pet heath care whereas with us humans, congress' injection of increasing amounts of money through health insurance to subsidize the health industry has only pushed prices and affordable health care farther away and has abnormally affected market forces so that supply isn't where the demand needs it to be. This isn't even addressing the incredible amount of complexity all the laws have introduced which are the main reason for high overhead to manage health insurance.

The 100,000 year climate cycle

For all those global warming alarmists, one thing you probably should check out is the long term ice core data from Vostok Research Station in Antarctica: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vostok_420ky_4curves_insolation.jpg

While global warming data has been concentrating on the relatively recent time period, what the ice core data shows is a repeated cycle approximately every 100,000 years where temperature rapidly rises and then gradually falls. We are near the peak of one such cycle. What does this mean? It means that we may be attributing human influence as having far more effect on global temperature than it actually does, and there are factors like the eccentricity, axial tilt and precession of the earth orbit which overshadow anything humans could do to either change global temperature or attempt to keep the same. Because we are near the peak of a cycle, global temperature trend will either continue to rise for a couple thousand years on average no matter what we do or it could start the gradual cooling down for the next 100,000 years. What this means is that we need to put our egos in check and instead of wasting time and resources trying to keep the climate from changing, we need to prepare for when it changes, and it will change.

Foreign purchase of US debt hid the money supply increase

What is missed is the reason why the current economic crisis was hidden from us until it was on top of us. This is because foreign purchase of the US debt masked the normal increase in inflation that usually indicates that the money supply was too high. This fooled the market into complacency instead of panic until it was too late. The continued purchase of US debt by foreign countries is continuing to mask the warning signs that would normally indicate that the deficit is too high. This also dangerously keeps inflation down giving a false sense that deflation is more a concern than inflation. As soon as foreign countries run out of money to purchase US debt, inflation will snap back like a rubber band from hell.

Calorie density

It is the calories which are the issue. We tend to eat calorie dense foods, and we tend to get more calories than we need eating calorie dense foods before we feel full. Controlling calories is what is needed, but is often hard to do. What may be more successful is doing the things which make us feel full longer. There is a huge list of things that can make you feel less hungry. Exercise is probably at the top of the list. Making your body burn calories causes the body to compensate by filling your bloodstream with glycogen which in turn tells your brain that you are less hungry. There are other measures like drinking more water, eating more foods that are calorie sparse (e.g., vegetables, etc.), etc. For some people, eating fat or certain nuts can actually make them feel more full than the actual calories ingested would normally make them feel otherwise.

How much the president and congress should be paid

I advocate that the president, vice president, and every member of congress should be paid the mean salary of the country of the previous year. This way the only way they would get a raise is if they improved the economy of the country, and they would understand what the average American feels financially.