An article headline by Cheryl K. Chumley of The Washington Times, is headlined: “Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Sequester nearly starving staffers
At a recent House Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee hearing, Schultz said “Automatic federal cuts are bringing staffers to the brink of starvation.”
She complained to Fox News that, “Restaurants on the House side of Congress are increasing in cost so much that aides are being “priced out” of a good meal.” Her comments came by way of a discussion about the impacts of the sequester on lawmakers’ office budgets. When Rep. Jim Moran said “he may be forced to lay off a staffer — Ms.. Wasserman Schultz weighed in with her tale of hard times.”
Now, as regular readers know I’ve spent most of my career in the finance business and over that time I’ve been through many good economic cycles and bad, and if nothing else, as a lender I’ve learned how income, expenses and debt really work under varying circumstances.
And in that regard, to stay in business, do you have to know something about finance in order to make sound lending decisions? Yes, certainly. Do you also have to know how debt and repayment really work in order to determine actual financial risk? Of course. And lastly: Is the most important aspect of deciding on lending risk too complex for most folks to grasp? Absolutely and unequivocally not.
In fact, the most important aspect of lending and debt is so basic that almost anyone with an ounce of common sense can grasp the idea in less than a minute. Because the first, foremost and most critical question to a borrower is: Can you afford to pay the debt back? And if the answer is yes, then show me how you’re going to do it. Because if you can’t, and I lend you funds, we’re both going to go broke.
So, in the government's case, be it local, state or federal, the current problems are pretty much the same: Spending far outweighs income. But it seems that politicians either have a hard time coming to grips with the financial disasters they’ve caused at almost all levels, or simply don’t care and want to keep going down the same nonsensical fiscal path.
Consequently, in order to deal with rising cots and reducing income what Ms. Schultz really ought to be doing is trying to figure out how to operate more effectively within her means instead of crying about the cost of eating increasingly expensive meals. But even more than that, lay some folks off like a business would be forced to.
However, the worst part of it all, which is something I frequently mention, is that these folks in politics tend to be ill-informed, undereducated, poorly prepared for their posts, maximally selfish and/or flat-out stupid. And what that means is, everybody else pays the price of their misguidance, greed and ineptitude.
That’s it for today folks.
Adios
No comments:
Post a Comment