Archive for December, 2008
Their lips are moving
Saturday, December 27th, 2008Here at home at my parents' house, I pay much more attention (i.e., a non-zero amount) to newspapers than I do back home in my apartment. A couple days ago, I noticed on the front page of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution two items about the nascent Obama administration. First, Joe Biden ...
Water shortages and water-trading between states
Saturday, December 27th, 2008My former state of residence, Georgia, is in a severe drought. It has been for years. It has gotten worse and worse over the last couple of years. Naturally, only government intervention in the water market can cause a true shortage. As far as I understand it, governments in the ...
Of course, Rahm Emanuel secretly negotiated with Blagojevich
Wednesday, December 17th, 2008The fact that Rahm Emanuel is a belligerent warmonger hasn't noticeably stirred up very much unrest among Obama maniacs. Neither has his...shall we say, vicious and vindictive personality. In fact, a lot of people lauded Obama's choice for his chief of staff precisely because of Emanuel's uncompromising and dictatorial attitude ...
Lew copies John
Monday, December 15th, 2008In his recent column against the imminent automaker bailout, Lew Rockwell raised an objection that I raised a month ago. Lew wrote: What Americans have chosen not to buy, the government is now effectively forcing them to buy. You want a Toyota and paid for it with your money but your ...
Bernard Madoff arrested for running Ponzi scheme
Friday, December 12th, 2008Apparently the irony is completely lost on the professional criminals in the FBI and SEC. According to a Bloomberg article, Bernard Madoff, founder and president of a New York firm that invested funds for wealthy individuals, hedge funds and other institutions, was charged with operating what he told employees was a long-running ...
Jim Rogers calls most large U.S. banks “bankrupt”
Friday, December 12th, 2008Jim Rogers spoke at the Reuters Investment Outlook 2009 Summit: Without giving specific names, most of the significant American banks, the larger banks, are bankrupt, totally bankrupt. [...] What is outrageous economically and is outrageous morally is that normally in times like this, people who are competent and who saw it coming ...
Scarcity is not shortage
Thursday, December 11th, 2008The 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. —Thomas Sowell I might only be an amateur student of economics, and a lazy one at that (I have totally ...
The Kel Weaver Political Bit
Monday, December 8th, 2008My brother, whom I would describe as a Christian Fundamentalist Republican, once made a comment that I was "more right" than he was, simply because I wanted even less government than him. This seems odd to me, considering that I'm opposed to laws against gay marriage, drugs, or many other ...
Barack Obama: window breaker extraordinaire 2
Sunday, December 7th, 2008From an Associated Press article: President-elect Barack Obama said Saturday that he wants to revive the economy and create jobs by upgrading roads, schools and energy efficiency in a public-works program whose scale has been unseen since construction of the interstate highway system in the 1950s. He offered no price estimate for ...
Science needs an economics revolution
Saturday, December 6th, 2008Here in the scientific research world, there is considered to be a vast dichotomy between the atmospheres and work environments in academic (university) research labs and private (big pharma and biotech) research labs. Whether it's true or not, I don't know. The impression is that in academia, you are free ...
Quote of the day
Friday, December 5th, 2008Bailout-related quote of the day: "The worst crime against working people is a company which fails to operate at a profit." —Samuel Gompers
Stabenow and Gettelfinger plead for bailout
Friday, December 5th, 2008On the radio this morning I heard a clip of Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow, presumably in Washington, talking about the desperate need for a bailout of the automotive industry. I can't find an article or video with her dialogue, but this is very close to an exact quote from Stabenow's ...
Question about Peter Schiff’s advice
Thursday, December 4th, 2008In one of Peter Schiff's recent commentaries, he repeats a recommendation he's made many times over the last few years: Like GM, our economy is in desperate need of a restructuring. Spending must be replaced with savings, and consumption with production. The service sector must shrink and manufacturing must expand to ...
Chrysler exec makes a visit from Bizarro World
Thursday, December 4th, 2008Chrysler Vice Chairman Jim Press said something that was unintentionally hilarious, in a dark way. "If we have a catastrophic failure of one of these car companies, in this tender environment for the economy, it's a huge blow. It could trigger a depression." He is exactly wrong. Malinvestment in automobiles ...
Plaxidental shooting
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008Last Friday, New York football Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress took a gun into a New York City nightclub and accidentally shot himself in the leg while he was fumbling with his gun in one hand and holding a glass of wine in the other. He went to the hospital ...
Unlawful imprisonment on airplanes
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008Passengers aboard a TACA International Airlines flight were kept on board the plane for nearly 14 hours on November 30. It was supposed to be 4.5 hours. Radley Balko asks, "How is holding someone in an enclosed airplaine on a tarmac with no circulating air and little food or water ...
November market anarchist blag carnival
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008I enjoyed each of the posts submitted to the November edition of the market anarchist blag carnival. I tried to submit my post on early English law, but my internet was down for a couple days, and then I forgot, and then I was incommunicado down in the land of ...
More thoughts on the auto bailout
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008All I hear about in the news segments of morning radio here in Michigan is how "we" desperately need a government bailout of the Big Three automakers, and how letting them go bankrupt will be a disaster for many industries other than Detroit automakers, and how it isn't fair for ...