POLITICAL: Women in Combat

Friday, February 10, 2012

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/pentagon-to-lift-some-restrictions-on-women-in-combat/

Feb 8, 2012 10:23pm
Pentagon to Lift Some Restrictions on Women in Combat
By Luis Martinez

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The Pentagon on Thursday will propose rule changes that will allow more women to formally serve in jobs closer to the front lines. 
Defense officials say as many as 14,000 positions could be opened up, though the restrictions on women serving in infantry combat units will remain in place.

The rule change reflects the ongoing reality that in a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, women were already dying in combat with the blurring of the traditional definition of front lines.  Nearly 300,000 women have served in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and 144 of them have died in those conflicts.

The rule change is included in a report required by Congress as part of last year’s Defense Authorization Bill that has been overdue for months.  The new rules likely will not go into effect until the summer if Congress raises no objections to the change.

Women will still be barred from serving in infantry combat units, defense officials say, but the changes will  formally open up new positions at the combat battalion level that, until now, have been off limits.

*** end quote ***

Sorry, but I don’t see this as progress.

Men and women are not equal.

Now in Israel where there is no “front line”. I can understand the concept of women in combat. Where we have a choice, I don’t understand putting the women at risk.

Nature, the Universe, or the Creator — balances the male female balance at 1.07 to 1. So, men are slightly worth less than women. And, after doing their part in the creation of new life, men are pretty expendable. Women are OTOH are needed to nurture and raise the children.

Also, it reenforces the crassness of our society. Not, that we have to go back to the 1950’s of June Cleever, or the Sixth Century of Iran, or back when women were slaves. Equal but different.

Now as a little L libertarian, there’d be no foreign wars. We’d be like Switzerland. When the invaders hit the coastline, the militia (i.e., everybody capable of fighting) would be on the beach head fighting.

Then we can have this kind of “equality”!

imho

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MONEY: Mitt and his IRA

Friday, February 10, 2012

http://moneyland.time.com/2012/01/20/romneys-ira-big-and-possibly-misdirected/

Financial Planning
The Lessons of Mitt Romney’s IRA
By Dan Kadlec
January 20, 2012

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Mitt Romney’s IRA account is valued at tens of millions of dollars.

Mitt Romney may have made the classic IRA mistake: holding low-tax investments inside a tax-favored account. His IRA strategy isn’t clear, of course. Romney continues to guard his personal finances. But details are trickling out, and even if it turns out that Romney’s traditional IRA is built right for him, the securities he holds in it serve as a valuable reminder that not all investments belong in a tax-favored account.

Romney’s IRA is valued at between $20.7 million and $101.6 million, according to The Wall Street Journal. That’s an extremely wide range that the Journal found in Romney’s latest financial disclosure report, filed in August. His IRA produced income between $1.5 million and $8.5 million last year.

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He has a tax liability of 3½M$ when he turns 70.

This was a “mistake” made twenty years ago.

Interesting to know what was the thinking going on at that time.

When the Congress first created IRAs, I was skeptical of the whole idea on betting what future politicians and bureaucrats were going to do.

I went in on it, but I’m always concerned that the “rules” will change in the future.

Recently, I advised someone to FOREGO participating in their company’s 401k because of the restricted investment choices and the high fees of those choices. I recommended nickels, bullion silver, or other such commodities.

Remember that Social Security was NEVER supposed to be subject to taxation. Then Congress changed the rules.

Who knows what these criminals will do in the future?

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RANT: BHO44’s “settlement” is a payoff to the banks in disguise

Friday, February 10, 2012

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/02/the-top-twelve-reasons-why-you-should-hate-the-mortgage-settlement.html

Thursday, February 9, 2012
The Top Twelve Reasons Why You Should Hate the Mortgage Settlement

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Here are the top twelve reasons why this deal stinks:

1. We’ve now set a price for forgeries and fabricating documents. It’s $2000 per loan. This is a rounding error compared to the chain of title problem these systematic practices were designed to circumvent. The cost is also trivial in comparison to the average loan, which is roughly $180k, so the settlement represents about 1% of loan balances. It is less than the price of the title insurance that banks failed to get when they transferred the loans to the trust. It is a fraction of the cost of the legal expenses when foreclosures are challenged. It’s a great deal for the banks because no one is at any of the servicers going to jail for forgery and the banks have set the upper bound of the cost of riding roughshod over 300 years of real estate law.

2. That $26 billion is actually $5 billion of bank money and the rest is your money. The mortgage principal writedowns are guaranteed to come almost entirely from securitized loans, which means from investors, which in turn means taxpayers via Fannie and Freddie, pension funds, insurers, and 401 (k)s. Refis of performing loans also reduce income to those very same investors.

3. That $5 billion divided among the big banks wouldn’t even represent a significant quarterly hit. Freddie and Fannie putbacks to the major banks have been running at that level each quarter.

4. That $20 billion actually makes bank second liens sounder, so this deal is a stealth bailout that strengthens bank balance sheets at the expense of the broader public.

*** end quote ***

How do you know when a politician is lying?

Lips move.

Did you listen to BHO44 tout this as a great accomplishment?

Argh!

Read the other 8, this blogger nails it!

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Posted by reinkefj