a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_7ZckZ-8naz0/SeoR7M1ERHI/AAAAAAAACiE/K8qb29LcEho/s1600-h/Cusick.jpg"img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_7ZckZ-8naz0/SeoR7M1ERHI/AAAAAAAACiE/K8qb29LcEho/s400/Cusick.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5326089218072790130" border="0" //aThe second portion of the a href="http://online.barrons.com/article/SB124000828983730469.html"Barron's editorial commentary/a contained this little nugget;br /br /span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"The Congressional Budget Office reported that payroll-tax receipts will barely cover Social Security benefits next fiscal year./spanbr /br /To repeat a href="http://twitter.com/randomroger"my tweet/a from yesterday about this; uh-oh.br /br /Entitlements loom as a $50 trillion problem. The estimates about when it starts to run into trouble starts, I believe, in 2018 with some estimates call for it going under in 2042, if memory serves. Of course there are other folks who come up with much rosier scenarios. I don't know what is right all I can tell you is that I am not planning on having it--if I am wrong then all the better.br /br /I write about this ...

The press and blogosphere are of course having a field day with the news that executives from Gazprom are enjoying a road show in Alaska this week to woo local representatives and meet with ConocoPhillips, possibly discussing participation in natural gas pipeline down to the lower 48 states. Given that Gov. Sarah Palin, the eminent "Kremlinologist," has placed so much emphasis on her foreign policy expertise with Russia, the Gazprom invasion is embarrassing to say the least. Some think that the timing of the Alaska visit carries a message: "The timing is as interesting as the visit itself," said Chris Weafer, chief strategist at UralSib Financial in Moscow. "Gazprom's entire senior management goes into Sarah Palin's backyard during a contentious election. There's a message there." However let's not lose the plot completely. Gazprom has had a business ...