The Binary Circumstance

Ever since I read Trey Given’s post, A Pile of Money, I’ve had an earworm called “Fractional Reserve Banking.”

Imagine having that term dancing around in your head everywhere you go. I’d look at my house, or the cars on the street, or some business in town or the local Bank of America and think fractional reserve banking. I was dreaming about fractional reserve banking.

I remembered that it is the process by which banks loan out many more dollars than they actually have in deposits. But this article, written by Murray Rothbard, does into much more detail and describes the role that the Federal Reserve plays in the process.

If you wonder why the price of everything keeps going up, up up, which is the same thing as the value of your money going down, down, down, read the article. It’s good!
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The New York Times [reg. req.] has an interesting article about which states are “givers” (a.k.a. losers)and which are “takers” (a.k.a. winners) in the the wildly popular, shell game called taxation:

Republicans seem to have become the new welfare party — their constituents live off tax dollars paid by people who vote Democratic. Of course, not all federal spending is wasteful. But Republicans are having their pork and eating it too. Voters in red states like Idaho, Montana and Wyoming are some of the country’s fiercest critics of government, yet they’re also among the biggest recipients of federal largess. Meanwhile, Democratic voters in the coastal blue states — the ones who are often portrayed as shiftless moochers — are left to carry the load.

The Tax Foundation site has a summary of their study. I’ve known for a long time that residents of Washington, DC and the surrounding suburbs were living off the labor of all Americans, but have never seen an actual figure.

Though not comparable as a state, the District of Columbia is by far the biggest beneficiary of federal spending: In 2002 it received $6.44 in federal outlays for every dollar its taxpayers sent to the U.S. Treasury. The District’s share of federal largesse amounted to $58,347 for every man, woman and child. That is more than nine times the national average, and it includes over $8,000 per person in grants, over $19,000 per person in procurement, and over $24,000 per person in federal wages. These funds are rarely mentioned by District lawmakers in their assertions that being the site of the federal government is a major financial burden.

No wonder the White House looks like Tara.

The complete report, Federal Tax Burdens and Expenditures By State (PDF) includes maps and tables.

Trey Givens recommended his hosting service FatCow. I looked at their site and it looks like a really good deal. When I outgrow the abilities and bandwidth of TypePad, which is a great service, I’ll be looking for a hosting service like that.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch: You’ve been hearing a lot lately about mad cow disease. Here’s what a mad cow looks like (Warning: adult language).

UPDATE 08/5/04: See my post FatCow=Bad Cow, DomainPeople=Good People for a reason not to use FatCow.

The Amateur Gourmet has made me want to take up cobbler baking.

Since Martha’s busy right now trying to keep her buns out of the oven, and I don’t recall her ever baking a cobbler quite like that (maybe because her mother watches the show?), could we have the recipe please?