Wednesday, January 11th, 2006
OK, I am not yet hitting the panic button on this
weight issue, but I fully expect things to start happening in the next couple of weeks.
I understand that I need to expend 3500 more calories than I eat in a week in order to lose 1 pound. That means I would be down by 15 pounds or so by race day. That sounds good.
I am
burning about 16,800 calories per week just doing my normal routine. Plus I am burning another 6000 calories per week riding the rollers. So that is 22,800 calories.
That means that I can only eat 19,300 calories per week which is 2757 calories per day. That’s a lot, right?
Hummmm….You know, I never paid much attention to my diet. I am going to keep track of my food intake for the next 24 hours and see what it looks like.
I started taking Metamucil this week too so if I do happen to over eat I will just crap it all out anyway. That’s how it works, right?
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Wednesday, January 11th, 2006
Today’s Anti-Strib question for Liberals: What is poor? How do you define that? In a global context, do we really have any poor people in the United States today?
Do we really have any poor people in the United States today? Only someone who has never been poor can ask a question like that. Sure, the poor in some countries live in a ditch and eat off garbage piles. But is that the standard that we want to use as a baseline in this country. I don’t believe so.
What is poor? My definition of poor is not having sufficient income in order to afford the basic necessities of life: food, housing, clothing, health care, transportation.
The US Department of Health an Human Services sets their poverty thresholds each year in order to qualify US citizens for eligibility for certain federal programs. In 2003 these income levels were as follows:
Family Size Poverty Level
- $8980
- $12,120
- $15,260
- $18,400
- $21,540
Do any families really live below these income levels? In 2004 nearly 36 million Americans lived below these defined poverty levels. That’s 12.5% of the population. The poverty rate among families with children is at its highest level in a decade. 45 million citizens in this country are living without health insurance.
Do we really have poor people in the US? Imagine yourself living below the US poverty level and tell me how great your life would be.
There is a real disconnect among the middle and upper class regarding the actual financial health of the citizens of this country. We keep hearing about how great the economy is but, as the old adage says, you need to have money to make money. With 12.5% of the population living in poverty, with 50% of the population making less than $28,000 a year, with consumer savings rates now moving into negative numbers I would contend that, not only are there real poor people in this country, but we are going to be facing a serious economic crisis within the next few years that is going to drag even more citizens below the poverty level.
I hope you have enough in the bank.
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Wednesday, January 11th, 2006
President Bush:
“Now, there’s a lot of people in Washington that don’t believe in tax cuts. As a matter of fact, they didn’t believe the tax cuts would work. Critics said our economy was the worst since the Great Depression. The truth of the matter is by cutting taxes when we did, we’ve had the fastest growing economy of any major industrialized nation. Critics said that tax cuts are ruining the economy. They’re just wrong. The facts say otherwise.”
San Francisco Chronicle:
Kevin Lansing, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco, tracks the personal savings rate — the Commerce Department’s measure of how much consumers have left after spending is subtracted from income. In November the savings rate was a negative 0.2 percent.
Given how much red ink households racked up in the first 11 months of last year, Lansing said the nation’s personal savings rate could well be negative for all of 2005.
That, he added, would be “the first such occurrence since the Great Depression.”
…
But many experts say that in the months ahead, savings-starved, debt-burdened households will slow their spending and, with it, the economy. “You’re seeing a situation where the consumers are spending every penny they possibly can and borrowing on top of that,” said Joel Naroff, a Pennsylvania economic consultant, who expects growth to cool in the near future.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, will be President Bush’s legacy. A flat economy, massive national debt, and citizens mortgaged to the hilt.
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