Nice weather

I like a nice summer evening, just not in April.

That’s all I have to say today, I’m too tired for anything else.

Still here

If you were wondering, there will be more posts.

When the year began I intended to post more frequently than I had been, but that went the way of so many other resolutions and was overcome, once again, by life.  It’s been a hectic year, and one of those years where I needed a month or two just to recover from the previous year.

Well, now it’s April.  What could possibly interfere with blogging in April?  OK, a lot, but I’m going to try anyway.  Maybe I won’t go for a month between posts, but I make no guarantees.

One of the reasons I stopped for so long was that all I had to talk about was politics and health.  I didn’t want to keep doing that because it felt too negative.  So, I will try to limit the politics, though I am sure that it will pop up frequently.

Health issues will also be discussed here, but since that’s what I started this blog for in the first place I don’t see a problem with that.  I just don’t want it to be the only thing and I will try to be more positive.  That will depend on how much progress I make, so give me time on that one.  Still, sharing is important.  If anyone stumbles across this blog I want them to see that they are not alone, should they be dealing with similar problems.

As cheesy as it sounds, it helps to know that you aren’t the only one going through something. 

As often as I can I’ll write about things that I am doing that help deal with the problems.  And with any luck I’ll come up with some other topics.  I’ll probably start in with the posts about my health and condition, but I’ll work on the rest of it.

There’s no telling what I might come up with.

Things I do that make me go wtf

So I’m watching Jeopardy!.  I don’t remember the category but there was a picture of a woman shown as a clue with one answer.  Even before I read or heard the answer I knew it was Theda Bara.

I can’t remember what I did yesterday.  I probably wouldn’t recognize most of the people I’ve ever known, maybe even some relatives.  How the heck can I recognize Theda Bara?

I have trouble recognizing actors from the last 50 years and I pull the name of an actress from the 30s out of my head?

My brain is weird.

The Oscars

I don’t watch awards shows these days, not for any particular reason, but when I was a kid I used to enjoy watching the Academy Awards.  Recently I was wondering why I used to like it so much.  Sure, I liked going to movies, and there were only a handful of stations to watch back then.  (For you younger readers, growing up I lived in an area with a lot of TV stations – we had 7).  I considered that the show hadn’t changed that much over the years, except for the host and production elements and the opening routine and – OK, it’s changed, but the essence remains the same.  So does the length no matter how hard they try to speed things up.

But the question remained, why did I like it before but today I’m just kind of meh about it?  So I thought about it a bit and rather quickly came to a conclusion.

I think I used to like it so much because it was a celebration of creativity. 

Sure it’s an enormous self-congratulatory ego fest, but who cares.  The Oscars are all about every aspect of making movies.  OK, the technical awards always get short shrift; I guess they get almost as much time as one of the production numbers.  But the idea is to award excellence in creativity.

I like that.  Watching the Academy Awards was a common and acceptable way of celebrating Art and creativity.

I may not watch them tonight, but I used to really like them and I’m glad they’re still around and a big deal.

Medicare costs

With everyone talking about how to lower the deficit, has any pundit or network talking head mentioned that health care costs have stopped rising at twice the rate of other spending?

Which means that projected Medicare spending for the next 10 years has dropped by about $500 billion dollars.  Half a trillion in savings already and no cut to benefits needed.

Do you think they’ll stop insisting that cuts are the only way to go, and need to be done now?

Me neither; just like I don’t expect them to stop acting as if Social Security increases the deficit (it doesn’t).

The Chained CPI

Changing the way Social Security cost of living adjustments are calculated will reduce benefits but it will not help lower the debt.  Social Security has never added one cent to the debt.

But if you switch all government calculations to the chained CPI you will also lower VA benefits.  That will save the government money but screw over veterans.  And tax brackets will adjust more slowly so a small raise may push you into a higher tax bracket even if you only make $20k a year.

Talking about Social Security and COLAs and the debt is either just a disingenuous – or stupid – way to cut Social Security benefits without helping the debt at all, or it’s a smokescreen to cover cutting veterans’ benefits and increasing taxes on the poor and middle class.

Or it could be all of the above.

Medicare, the budget and funding

There seems to be a commonly held belief among media personalities, pundits and members of Congress that Medicare is in trouble.  They also seem to think that Medicare is the big problem we face with the budget.

Of course the major problem with the budget is unfunded wars and declining revenues due to tax cuts, but to take the second point first, Medicare costs have declined over the last 3 years.  Medicare costs have declined faster than any other measured medical cost and they have declined before the changes to reduce costs in the Affordable Care Act have taken effect.

As for the funding issue, the numbers show that with the current rate of funding Medicare will go broke in about 11 years.  That sounds ominous, except that the numbers have said that since Medicare started almost 40 years ago.  Medicare always seems to be on the edge but it won’t go over unless it is pushed.

Yes, reforms are needed because Medicare is not perfect.  But there is no crisis.  Like seemingly all of the recent economic crises this country has faced this one is manufactured.