Talk about positive externalities...

World of Warcraft sucks...as much as real life due to economic realities existing EVERYWHERE!

http://greedygoblin.blogspot.com/2009/06/fall-of-goblinism-2.html  

Vikings...not friendly people.

Poverty, Christians and Capitalism

Please read the article "Free Market Generosity" starting on page 24.  The one consistent factor in eliminating poverty is the individual's private property rights.  Let's not forget that John Locke and Thomas Jefferson both claimed that God gave us unalienable rights, and among them is the right to property (the Declaration of Independence had that instead of 'happiness' until the final draft).  Even Milton Friedman made the point that capitalism (individual/private property rights) is a necessary (but not sufficient) factor to have a free society where people are free to choose for themselves.

http://www.cedarville.edu/~/media/Files/PDF/Publications/Torch/torch_f2010.pdf

Public school performance...

If public high schools were to charge a modest tuition (please, don't get hung up on what that might be), what would the impact be on the quality of education?

Thomas Sowell's word of wisdom

“The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.”

Tech and YOU!

Funny thing...we always suspected it, but now...hmmm.....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1320187/Technophobia-decided-womb.html?printingPage=true

Sovereign Subjects: Ask Not Whether Governments Will Default, but How - John Mauldin's Outside the Box

This one's a keeper for the Macroeconomics fan.

Environmental Fascism and YOU

This is a graphic video.  It is made in 'sincerity' by green freaks.  Green Freaks are those who would do whatever to limit the liberties and choice of others.  Live-and-let-live is not in their vocabulary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSTLDel-G9k

Facebook Use Lowers Test Scores!!!!!!

This article in the UK cites a study that demonstrates students involved in FB will be distracted to the point of not learning the material for the upcoming test.  Subjectively, the users reported it wasn't too much of an issue for them.  But objectively, study showed a negative impact.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1309612/Using-Facebook-lower-exam-results-20.html?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=notd&utm_content=2010-09-07-article&utm_campaign=title-h

Exactly WHAT is money?

Currency has a phrase printed on it, "In God We Trust".  Because God help us if we stop trusting that money will get us what we want in a transaction.  Barter sucks.  And we're not on any kind of Gold Standard.  In other words, ONLY faith, trust and confidence that our electronic digits in a bank account can allow us to buy what we want keeps it going.  NOTHING backs up our US Dollar other than that intangible, ephemeral concept.    http://www.theonion.com/articles/us-economy-grinds-to-halt-as-nation-realizes-money,2912/

Double dip...not talking ice cream cones here.

A double-dip is bad.  It refers to the manner of economic decline occurring almost immediately after a short recovery from a preceding decline of real GDP.  As occurred in the 1930s (which is where the spin term 'recession' comes from, not wanting to 'panic' the people as the Great Depression seemed to ameliorate, only to fall into almost as deep a pit) a decline so soon after the original fall is exemplary of not fundamental economic weakness (in that supply and demand markets of consumers and producers) as much as a third party foisting policies and perverse incentives that divert sincere efforts at economic activity.  Rent seeking, moral hazards, all these and more are increasingly ours, causing effort to be wasted in avoiding gov't regulations and penalties, instead of creative effort to enhance and innovate products and services.                
Read on: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/08/27/economic-growth-rate-downgraded-anemic-percent-second-quarter/

Clash of Civilizations, it's a war of ideas here, people!

Great essay, thought provoking for sure.  Unless and until we as a people realize the exceptional nature of our culture/civilization (Western), to remain or return to becoming that 'shining city on the hill' (love Reagan), we're doomed.  Moral equivalence is a cultural cancer.  Tolerance (NOT advocating aggression) is a one way street, and the tolerant one is probably directed against traffic and shall soon be run over.    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703426004575338471355710184.html

Arizona, who do they think they are?

Americans?  We salute you!
---------------------------------

 I'm a legal American citizen and I must show my ID when: 
     1.  Pulled over by the police.

    2.  Making purchases on my department store credit card.  

   3.  When I show up for a doctor's appointment. 
   4.  When filling out a credit card or loan application. 
   5.  When applying for or renewing a driver's license or passport.
    6.  When applying for any kind of insurance. 
    7.  When filling out college applications. 
  8.  When donating blood.
  9.  When obtaining certain prescription drugs.

 

  10.  When making some debit purchases, especially

            if I'm out of state.

  11. When collecting a boarding pass for airline or train travel. 
I'm sure there are more instances, but the point is that we citizens of the USA are required to prove who we are nearly every day! 

Why should people in this country illegally, be exempt!!!!!

Why shouldn't we guard our borders as closely as every other country in the world does? 

                               Go ARIZONA !!!

 

                

The Media's Bias illustrated best via a 'parable'

A Harley biker is riding by the zoo in Washington, DC when he sees a little girl leaning into the lion's cage. Suddenly, the lion grabs her by the collar of her jacket and tries to pull her inside to slaughter her, under the eyes of her screaming parents.   The biker jumps off his Harley, runs to the cage and hits the lion square on the nose with a powerful punch. 
 Whimpering from the pain the lion jumps back letting go of the girl, and the biker brings her to her terrified parents, who thank him endlessly. A reporter has watched the whole event.

The reporter addressing the Harley rider says, 'Sir, this was the most gallant and brave thing I've seen a man do in my whole life.'

The Harley rider replies, 'Why, it was nothing, really, the lion was behind bars. I just saw this little kid in danger and acted as I felt right.'

The reporter says, 'Well, I'll make sure this won't go unnoticed. I'm a journalist, you know, and tomorrow's paper will have this story on the front page...  So, what do you do for a living and what political affiliation do you have?'

The biker replies, 'I'm a U.S. Marine and a Republican.'

The journalist leaves.  The following morning the biker buys the paper to see if it indeed brings news of his actions, and reads, on the front page: 

U.S. MARINE ASSAULTS AFRICAN IMMIGRANT

AND STEALS HIS LUNCH

That pretty much sums up the media's approach to the news these days

Ruling Class v Country Class Conflict

Here is the opening segment of one of the most apropos essays to come out in some time.  Political Science 101, Basic Economics, Human Psychology, American Sociology, it is all here....
"As over-leveraged investment houses began to fail in September 2008, the leaders of the Republican and Democratic parties, of major corporations, and opinion leaders stretching from the National Reviewmagazine (and the Wall Street Journal) on the right to the Nationmagazine on the left, agreed that spending some $700 billion to buy the investors' "toxic assets" was the only alternative to the U.S. economy's "systemic collapse." In this, President George W. Bush and his would-be Republican successor John McCain agreed with the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama. Many, if not most, people around them also agreed upon the eventual commitment of some 10 trillion nonexistent dollars in ways unprecedented in America. They explained neither the difference between the assets' nominal and real values, nor precisely why letting the market find the latter would collapse America. The public objected immediately, by margins of three or four to one.

When this majority discovered that virtually no one in a position of power in either party or with a national voice would take their objections seriously, that decisions about their money were being made in bipartisan backroom deals with interested parties, and that the laws on these matters were being voted by people who had not read them, the term "political class" came into use. Then, after those in power changed their plans from buying toxic assets to buying up equity in banks and major industries but refused to explain why, when they reasserted their right to decide ad hoc on these and so many other matters, supposing them to be beyond the general public's understanding, the American people started referring to those in and around government as the "ruling class." And in fact Republican and Democratic office holders and their retinues show a similar presumption to dominate and fewer differences in tastes, habits, opinions, and sources of income among one another than between both and the rest of the country. They think, look, and act as a class..."

Click the title above for the link to the American Spectator complete essay.

Yummmmmy macro!

So, is the garbage in our textbooks just 'pie-in-the-sky' or are the theories and models close to reality in the economy?  This puppy from 'Da Fed' (Boston, yeah, I know, but they make a great lager, even though it is actually brewed in Ohio and Pennsylvania) discusses the accuracy of expectations impacting inflation, or to give us the 'expected rate of inflation' (from which any deviation is seen in a very negative light, especially unanticipated increases in the rate).  This article explains that it may not be so, that the two models basically may be begging the question, working in such parallel tracks as to have inefficacious explanatory power.   You let me know what you think.  Click on the title above, or go here... http://www.bos.frb.org/economic/ppb/2010/ppb102.pdf

Thomas Sowell, he does it again... genius!

Is U.S. Now On Slippery Slope To Tyranny?

By THOMAS SOWELL
Posted 06/21/2010 06:13 PM ET

 View Enlarged Image

When Adolf Hitler was building up the Nazi movement in the 1920s, leading up to his taking power in the 1930s, he deliberately sought to activate people who did not normally pay much attention to politics.

Such people were a valuable addition to his political base, since they were particularly susceptible to Hitler's rhetoric and had far less basis for questioning his assumptions or his conclusions.

"Useful idiots" was the term supposedly coined by V.I. Lenin to describe similarly unthinking supporters of his dictatorship in the Soviet Union.

Put differently, a democracy needs informed citizens if it is to thrive, or ultimately even survive.

In our times, American democracy is being dismantled, piece by piece, before our very eyes by the current administration in Washington, and few people seem to be concerned about it.

The president's poll numbers are going down because increasing numbers of people disagree with particular policies of his, but the damage being done to the fundamental structure of this nation goes far beyond particular counterproductive policies.

Just where in the Constitution of the United States does it say that a president has the authority to extract vast sums of money from a private enterprise and distribute it as he sees fit to whomever he deems worthy of compensation? Nowhere.

And yet that is precisely what is happening with a $20 billion fund to be provided by BP to compensate people harmed by their oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Many among the public and in the media may think that the issue is simply whether BP's oil spill has damaged many people, who ought to be compensated.

But our government is supposed to be "a government of laws and not of men."

If our laws and our institutions determine that BP ought to pay $20 billion — or $50 billion or $100 billion — then so be it.

But the Constitution says that private property is not to be confiscated by the government without "due process of law."

Technically, it has not been confiscated by Barack Obama, but that is a distinction without a difference.

With vastly expanded powers of government available at the discretion of politicians and bureaucrats, private individuals and organizations can be forced into accepting the imposition of powers that were never granted to the government by the Constitution.

If you believe that the end justifies the means, then you don't believe in constitutional government.

And, without constitutional government, freedom cannot endure. There will always be a "crisis" — which, as the president's chief of staff has said, cannot be allowed to "go to waste" as an opportunity to expand the government's power.

That power will of course not be confined to BP or to the particular period of crisis that gave rise to the use of that power, much less to the particular issues.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt arbitrarily took the United States off the gold standard, he cited a law passed during the First World War to prevent trading with the country's wartime enemies. But there was no war when FDR ended the gold standard's restrictions on the printing of money.

At about the same time, during the worldwide Great Depression, the German Reichstag passed a law "for the relief of the German people."

That law gave Hitler dictatorial powers that were used for things going far beyond the relief of the German people — indeed, powers that ultimately brought a rain of destruction down on the German people and on others.

If the agreement with BP was an isolated event, perhaps we might hope that it would not be a precedent. But there is nothing isolated about it.

The man appointed by President Obama to dispense BP's money as the administration sees fit, to whomever it sees fit, is only the latest in a long line of presidentially appointed "czars" controlling different parts of the economy, without even having to be confirmed by the Senate, as Cabinet members are.

Those who cannot see beyond the immediate events to the issues of arbitrary power — vs. the rule of law and the preservation of freedom — are the "useful idiots" of our time. But useful to whom?

Saudi Arabia gives Israel clear skies to attack Iranian nuclear sites - Times Online

Saudi Arabia gives Israel clear skies to attack Iranian nuclear sites - Times Online

Oil, Gulf and the Media

It is good to know the news media is a fact based outfit.  This cartoon exemplifies their undaunted, pervasive seeking of 'just the facts' to be conveyed to the public in an unimpassioned, objective manner...right...

STAR WARS - The DEATHSTAR BATTLE re-edited pt. 1

Wow.  Now if I could only recollect the feelings of a High School freshman boy exposed to this wonderment for the first time back in '77...

Drug are BAD!

Usually...unless prescribed by a good, licensed doctor.

Pulling the wagon, or riding it? Hmmmmm...

"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out
of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person
must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody
anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work
because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other
half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is
going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of
any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."
~~~~ Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931

James Joyce was really ADHD?

With eyes turning to Irish things, James Joyce comes to mind.  His stream-of-consciousness prose brings to one's attention the amber hued liquid so 'enjoyed' by that ethnic demographic...like the amber hued orb on the walking stick of John Hammond.  And then the Brundle Fly arises connected by Jeff Goldblum, and Scarface because of her.  Yet the female connection is lost when Yeti the long haired denizen of the Himalayas, yet the Yeti, who would hardly speak English.  That's the class that no one in America seems to take anymore, all the 'language arts' supplanting that designation that brought dread and a feeling of melancholy so great to the students trodding the hallways, so slowly like sloths in the jungle.  The Jungle...mmm...steak, hamburgers, chops, warm grilling weather and the sounds of pool water splashed out by giggling, squealing children leaping into the humid air.  But what of the chemistry to keep the water so pure?  Once the field of mysticism, Alchemy...gold from lead, and the European proscriptions that led to Jews having names alluding to gold.  The foil that covers six first stage LEMs on the lunar surface today, and one that burned up spraying gold molecules over such a vast area of the Earth so many years ago, the decade of the sixties ending in that year of the unlucky 13th mission to the Moon.  1970, April, a month of nastiness given Columbine, Hitler, Waco, Lincoln, Titanic, Tax Day and such.  Months derived in etymologist's dreams from Rome and Greece, then usurped by Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus.

Economic Development and US

From Thomas Sowell's book "Applied Economics", "All the numerous interacting factors behind economic development make it virtually impossible that different parts of the world would all have equal development, and therefore equal standards of living, at any given time. Yet the puzzlement, unease and dissatisfaction caused by seeing large economic disparities between societies have created demands for explanations - usually without creating an equal demand for years of study of the historical, geographical and economic factors behind these disparities. Instead, there has been a demand for simple and emotionally satisfying explanations, especially melodramatic explanations with ideological overtones...to solutions favored by those inclined toward controlling other people's lives."

Teachers - Unions - Budgets and US

I am a teacher in a public school in Michigan.  I teach students about economics.  This is a story about teachers, and economics.  Very interesting...  Just click the title (above).     Long story shorter, I am an over-paid teacher.  There is no debating this from an empirical stand point.  If some want to demagogue the issue, this is a free country.  However, they are wrong.  My principal woud have hundreds of resumes from qualified teachers on his desk in a week should I be hit by a bus.  Don't mistake my actions, I am very happy and thankful to be cashing those checks.  (Like today, payday.)  Lastly, the salaries and compensation packages of all public 'servants', of those who are paid with tax dollars, are available in your school district's administrative offices.  Becareful, you'll be stonewalled by the staff asking inane and obstructive questions about your motivation and reason for this inquiry.  Just say, "FOIA".  (Freedom Of Information Act)

Recession Over? Or are we still...

This is one for the ages. Literally! Here is an economic report that provides a good background and interesting perspective on the challenges involved in making the call. IS it or is it NOT? http://www.investorsinsight.com/blogs/john_mauldins_outside_the_box/archive/2010/02/15/is-the-recession-over.aspx

Unemployment in the US graphically

Check out the map.  And just sit back and cry...

Haiti, Why?

OP-ED COLUMNIST


The Underlying Haitian Tragedy

By DAVID BROOKS

Published: January 14, 2010

On Oct. 17, 1989, a major earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 struck the Bay Area in Northern California. Sixty-three people were killed. This week, a major earthquake, also measuring a magnitude of 7.0, struck near Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The Red Cross estimates that between 45,000 and 50,000 people have died.

This is not a natural disaster story. This is a poverty story. It’s a story about poorly constructed buildings, bad infrastructure and terrible public services. On Thursday, President Obama told the people of Haiti: “You will not be forsaken; you will not be forgotten.” If he is going to remain faithful to that vow then he is going to have to use this tragedy as an occasion to rethink our approach to global poverty. He’s going to have to acknowledge a few difficult truths.

The first of those truths is that we don’t know how to use aid to reduce poverty. Over the past few decades, the world has spent trillions of dollars to generate growth in the developing world. The countries that have not received much aid, like China, have seen tremendous growth and tremendous poverty reductions. The countries that have received aid, like Haiti, have not.

In the recent anthology “What Works in Development?,” a group of economists try to sort out what we’ve learned. The picture is grim. There are no policy levers that consistently correlate to increased growth. There is nearly zero correlation between how a developing economy does one decade and how it does the next. There is no consistently proven way to reduce corruption. Even improving governing institutions doesn’t seem to produce the expected results.

The chastened tone of these essays is captured by the economist Abhijit Banerjee: “It is not clear to us that the best way to get growth is to do growth policy of any form. Perhaps making growth happen is ultimately beyond our control.”

The second hard truth is that micro-aid is vital but insufficient. Given the failures of macrodevelopment, aid organizations often focus on microprojects. More than 10,000 organizations perform missions of this sort in Haiti. By some estimates, Haiti has more nongovernmental organizations per capita than any other place on earth. They are doing the Lord’s work, especially these days, but even a blizzard of these efforts does not seem to add up to comprehensive change.

Third, it is time to put the thorny issue of culture at the center of efforts to tackle global poverty. Why is Haiti so poor? Well, it has a history of oppression, slavery and colonialism. But so does Barbados, and Barbados is doing pretty well. Haiti has endured ruthless dictators, corruption and foreign invasions. But so has the Dominican Republic, and the D.R. is in much better shape. Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the same island and the same basic environment, yet the border between the two societies offers one of the starkest contrasts on earth — with trees and progress on one side, and deforestation and poverty and early death on the other.

As Lawrence E. Harrison explained in his book “The Central Liberal Truth,” Haiti, like most of the world’s poorest nations, suffers from a complex web of progress-resistant cultural influences. There is the influence of the voodoo religion, which spreads the message that life is capricious and planning futile. There are high levels of social mistrust. Responsibility is often not internalized. Child-rearing practices often involve neglect in the early years and harsh retribution when kids hit 9 or 10.

We’re all supposed to politely respect each other’s cultures. But some cultures are more progress-resistant than others, and a horrible tragedy was just exacerbated by one of them.

Fourth, it’s time to promote locally led paternalism. In this country, we first tried to tackle poverty by throwing money at it, just as we did abroad. Then we tried microcommunity efforts, just as we did abroad. But the programs that really work involve intrusive paternalism.

These programs, like the Harlem Children’s Zone and the No Excuses schools, are led by people who figure they don’t understand all the factors that have contributed to poverty, but they don’t care. They are going to replace parts of the local culture with a highly demanding, highly intensive culture of achievement — involving everything from new child-rearing practices to stricter schools to better job performance.

It’s time to take that approach abroad, too. It’s time to find self-confident local leaders who will create No Excuses countercultures in places like Haiti, surrounding people — maybe just in a neighborhood or a school — with middle-class assumptions, an achievement ethos and tough, measurable demands.

The late political scientist Samuel P. Huntington used to acknowledge that cultural change is hard, but cultures do change after major traumas. This earthquake is certainly a trauma. The only question is whether the outside world continues with the same old, same old.

Privitization

So now the big stink in the Wayland Union Schools is whether to privatize the custodial services. In other words, to put a wanted service into the hands of 'greedy, money grubbing capitalists who are just out to make a profit'. The profit motive is the best of a bad situation in this world. It forces all to acknowledge the facts of Scarcity and Competition. Very likely we would find that the custodial services will be as effectively provided at a lower cost given that several companies are vying for our business. If one firm isn't providing the quality expected, then move on to the next one. Status Quo is a morass of stagnation and union hegemony.