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  1. They have garbage police who go through bags in public trash that look like household trash. Sometimes, I’ll dump some stuff in the corner baskets but need to make sure that all names are off magazines etc.

  2. hey folks,

    Just catching up here,

    Ishtar asked for some economists who believe the tax cuts will spur the economy:

    http://www.moneynews.com/Headline/Tax-Cuts-May-Fuel/2010/12/07/id/379244

    As I stated yesterday, however, the entire debate ignores the larger picture of government’s role in our society.
    Why should we reward government for being profligate?

    14 trillion in national debt with 1.4 trillion dollar deficits the norm now. Unsustainable Debt/GDP ratios.
    The dems like to paint the picture that we are losing a trillion in revenue by extending the tax cuts.
    That’s not the government’s money to lose, that’s the people’s money to gain back!

    It appears far too many Americans are glad to sit back and feed the government bureaucracy without regard for the consequences.

    Government is necessary, but only to the extent that it works for us efficiently, not to the extent where we are now forced to become indentured servants to politicians.
    Don’t believe me? Why is Sheldon Silver still in the NY State Assembly?

    This is a troubling trend as the founding fathers deliberately formulated the Constitution as a document describing the LIMITS of what the federal government could do. President Obama is on record as stating that he believes this is a false view, he sees the Constitution as a document that should be mined for additional and more expansive powers, as a document outlining the starting point of governmental power.
    Ergo, the daily gropings that go on in the Airports by the TSA with a complacent public only too willing to allow these federal employees to feel up their wives and children.

    And again, look at California if you think tax and spend is the way to continue.
    Next year: The States go looking for bailouts.

  3. My housekeeper once forgot to drop a rubbish bag in the apt. bin of a client so she put it in one at Grand Central. Sanit fined the apt. owner $75 by tracing a piece of mail. Client then charged my cleaning lady.

  4. “DIBS, 1-child rule still in effect in China. Penalties are pretty stiff.”

    I have a friend who told me this is why her parents came to the US. They weren’t poor in China, not rich either, but they couldn’t afford the penalty beyond the second child. I don’t recall the exact details, but I believe she said her parents got free education and medical care for their oldest child and had to pay for the second. My friend, the youngest child, was born shortly after her parents and sibblings came to the US.

  5. Thank you for explaining that to me M4L.

    Actually, I really appreciate your perspective. I may have consumed too much Cultural Revolution literature and was operating on incorrect information. I also knew that some people had more than 1 child, in the countryside.

    But it is true that these measures carry some serious consequences for society going forward. I just pointed out the corn example because in terms of feeding populations, human intelligence and technology has proven consistently able to find creative solutions to dealing with population growth.

  6. Yeah Arkady. I did UWS to Stamford for 18 months on public transport, which meant leaving apartment 6-6.15am. When I moved to the UES I got a heavenly extra half hour in bed.
    I don’t envy benson or m4l their commutes.

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