Mixed bag

Oil - I see the speculators are coming back into the markets as oil is at over $43. It's been said that there's no gouging going on. I say bull. There so much oil out there that we're swimming in it and the price isn't going down? Give me a break. They're taking old oil tankers and using them to store oil until the price goes up. Isn't that called hoarding?
More people are backing out of Obama nominations. Can you blame them? Looking at this mess I'm sure it's going to take 16 hour days to turn things around. Then there's all theose guys who still need to do their taxes.
The obstructionist (er republican) party has stalled the spending bill and a temporary bill to keep things going was passed. I wonder if they wanted to sneak more pork in it for the red states before a final vote comes next week.
Health care - That's another mess. We spend $2 trillion per year on it as a nation. That cost will go up as the population ages and more of us hit retirement. Which brings us to the 800 lb. gorilla that nobody wants to talk about social security. The peak for baby boomers will be between 2016 to 2020. After that things only get worse. There was a point where 5 workers were paying into the fund (actually it went into the general fund and was never set aside) for every retired worker. By 2016 it will be down to 2 to 1 or less. This was a Ponzi scheme that lasted for what 70 years? It might have worked if they had kept the original concept of providing a small supplimental income to help in retirement. It was never ment to be the only source of retirement funds. Problems came when it was expanded to include extensive disability payments and dependent payments. At this point I'd be glad just to get out of it what I paid into it with a little interest. I think the last I checked my statement I'm worth more dead than I am alive. I wonder if they still give a $255 death benefit? Just about enough to put me in a body bag and cart me out to the dumpster.