Grexit

Financial world shorthand for "Greek exit from the Euro".  The Economist was doing a long piece about this, listing pros and cons.  They point out that the Greek have borrowed hundreds of billions of Euros and in the event of Grexit, the lenders won't get paid back. And so it might be worth giving the Greeks another 100 billion Euro's or so to keep them running a while longer, and prevent (or stave off for a while) realizing those hefty losses.  True enough.
    What the Economist fails to talk about is the simple fact that the Greeks cannot and will not pay off those loans.  They just don't have the money, and no way they can they get the money,  not before Hell freezes over.
   So we are really talking about when the lenders to Greece have to admit how much money they lost (how stupid they have been).  Surely the lenders (banks mostly)  would like to put off that day of reckoning as long as possible, but aside from some bank officials having to reveal their stupidity in public, it doesn't make much difference.  The money is gone and won't be coming back.  

Water

I received a two page spread from the Mittersill water dept about the purity of my tap water.  There are ten different contaminants listed, levels thereof, limits, and "goals".   Goals are apparently an opening gambit to lower the limits.  My tap water meets all the limits, and in fact, all the goals.  Lotta fancy lab work measuring a few micrograms per liter, or parts per billion.  Paid for with my water bill.  Welfare for somebody or other.
   Then some things, copper and lead, are "calculated" by NHDES whatever that means.  I believe in measurements made using properly calibrated instruments. I don't believe calculations and computer models. They tell you what ever the calculator or modeler wants them to say.  Apparently NHDES thinks we don't have a problem with lead or copper.  I wonder why they think that way.
   My tap water comes from the same place it has for the last fifty years.  Wells, located up the side of a mountain, in uninhabited national forest.  They haven't changed much since the house was built fifty years ago.  Only real change in water quality is the water dept is now adding enough chlorine to make the coffee taste bad.  But money is spent every year for lab work to confirm what we have known for fifty years.
    Dunno how the Pilgrims survived over here, drinking plain old water without all these fancy tests. 

The Coop is so hippy dippy I can hardly stand it

I had to cycle around the veggie section twice to find plain old carrots, as opposed to organic carrots for $5 a bag.  Plain old Molson's Canadian beer is $8 a sixpack, as opposed to $5.50 at Mac's market. Aisles filled with groovy products I've never heard of, all making health claims I have trouble believing. 

Brits fighting above their weight

The Olympics are over, and the scorekeepers are counting medals won, and which nations are ahead.  Seems like us Americans came away with the most medals, followed by the Chinese, then the Russians.  The superpowers.  Britain came in number four, right behind the Russians.  Damn good.  Britain is much smaller than the three biggies, giving it a smaller talent pool to draw upon. Granted they did have a home field advantage, but still, coming in ahead of nearly every other country in the whole world is a damn good show. Rule Britannia. 

Sunday Pundit

We had David Axelrod, Obama's adviser, on Meet the Press with David Gregory this morning.  Axelrod said "We need policies that help the middle class."   I beg to disagree, we need policies that help the economy as a whole.  And the citizens as a whole, not just special classes of the citizens.
  Then Axelrod waxed indignant about Romney ads accusing Obama of cutting the work requirements from welfare. Claimed that Obama had done no such thing.  Trouble is, it was widely reported in both sides of media  that Obama had done exactly that. 
   The Clinton welfare reform had fairly stiff work requirements.  That was passed 20 odd years ago, and worked wonderfully well, number of people on welfare dropped a lot, and the entire divisive welfare issue solved itself and dropped out of normal political discourse.  Obama is messing with success, and given his reverse Midas touch, that's a bad thing.
  Anyhow, Axelrod was saying it never happened, when we all know it did.  Gregory let  him get  away with it, too.

Are Yard Sales over?

Did my usual Saturday morning circuit looking for yard sales.  Up US 3 to to US 302, take a left thru Bethlehem, down the Brooks Road, into Littleton on Union St, and back thru Franconia.  One, just one yard sale, way back off the main road and very small.  Used to be I'd hit a round dozen yard sales on the circuit, at least any day it wasn't pouring down rain. 
   One thing that slowed yard sales down.  The local paper (Littleton Courier) used to run free classified ads for local yard sales.  Then they started charging $35 and people stopped advertising in the Courier.  And I stopped buying it regular. 
   Any how the yard sales are getting scarcer.

Picking Ryan sends us a message

Romney's pick of Paul Ryan for VP tells us something good.  Ryan stands for balancing the budget by cutting spending.  He even has a plan to cut Medicare spending.  By picking Ryan, Romney is telling us that he wants to cut spending and balance the budget.  Which is a good thing, that up until now, Romney had not been really clear about.  Romney is a nice guy, and his election will be 100% better for the country than Obama, but he hasn't been very clear about just what a  Romney administration will do if elected.  Now we have a better idea.  With Paul Ryan in the administration, there will be spending cuts, medicare reform, and budget balancing.   I'm all in favor.  We cannot get the economy growing again until we get the federal budget balanced.  Right now Uncle borrows 40 cents of every dollar spent.  Our yearly deficit is better than 10% of GNP.  We may not truly balance the budget (get the deficit down to zero) but getting it down to 1% of GNP would be a tremendous improvement.