Fortis laughed. “Since when does my readiness have anything to do with it?”
George put on his comical pained look. “My dear Doctor Plimick, you are the ultimate VIP Guest on the entire planet! No one would dare to tell you what to do.”
Fortis joined the charade. “No, of course not!” Then with a fake growl, “No one tells me anything. I’m just expected to jump through whatever hoops are held before me.”
They both laughed out loud. Coming around the edge of one hill, they were in sight of the forest. Fortis turned to ask, “Why are we coming here….” His voice trailed off because George, still grinning hugely, had already pointed to a small awning at the edge of the trees.
Two figures rose at their approach. To his utter delight, Fortis recognized the Farrell twins. Fortis noticed first the off-white waistbands. Behind the right shoulder of each was the handle of a sword. Were all the good guys lefties on Misty? They wore something which was a cross between cape and cloak, with the familiar forest pattern, but lined in a dark shade of purple. No headbands, but Fortis spotted behind them droopy brimmed forest hats perched atop longbows, slightly larger and heavier than the one George typically carried, leaning against the trees. Their tunics were a shade of brown well matched to the trunks of the trees.
There were hearty greetings, hugs and handshakes. As usual, the boys said little, but glowed like the sun. Fortis grinned widely. “What a joy to see you two! What brings you here?”
George answered for them. “They must have enjoyed escorting us before, because when I mentioned in a message we were taking another journey, they came right away, even hiring coursers.” Fortis glanced around behind them. Sure enough, a pair of the beasts stood tied at the edge of the forest road. The saddlebags indicated preparations for a long journey.
I just spent a week in Playa Del Carmen along the Mexican Caribbean cost, east of the country.
The resort was an all-inclusive and an outstanding one, in many aspects. It featured very clean facilities, a very well designed landscape, a number of swimming pools for both adults and children and most importantly, the owners managed to provide an abundance of food and drinks, which after a day of wondering whether the supply will last, you will realize that the supply is steady and there to stay. That in itself may be source of cost containment for the resort owners. Because instead of eating like it is going out of style, you no longer worry, therefore you pace yourself. Less scared, less wasteful.
Mexico's Caribbean nature
The resort I had the pleasure to visit was one of the dozens of similar world-class resorts that stretch all over the area north and south of Cancun International Airport (CUN). The resort, which I will not name for legal purposes and who wants to advertise for free, anyway, has over 700 rooms. In all cases, the rooms are built to accommodate at least a couple. Because it was a very family-friendly place, it was targeted toward couples with kids. In fact, the resort ran a promo where a couple could book with two kids free. Unless you are a journalist or an analyst they try to lobby, the resort marketing folks will try to get as many people per room as possible. This is because the cost of the room is there whether it is one person or four, and even the food, the cost may not expand so much given the scale. However, revenues would increase substantially around entertainment and leisure services offered upon arrival and during the stay. Things like scuba diving, horseback riding, jet ski rentals, spa and messages, can end up generating substantial income for the resorts. And so “bring your kids, it’s on us” is not mere generosity but a carefully calculated business plan.It turned out that at this end of December 2009, the resort was at least 90% full capacity. So let’s say on a 700 room count, 630 rooms had guests, and if half of the rooms were earmarked for couples and the other half to 4 member-families, the total number of guests reaches almost 1,900 people. Averaging the cost per guest to $900 per visit, say one week to exaggerate, the resort earns some $1.7 million per week.
I heard this last Sunday in bible class. I don’t know when this was written, probably in the 1940’s or 50’s, but WOW, how applicable is it today? It’s an excerpt is from God in the Dock by C.S. Lewis.
Three things go by the name of Christmas. One is a religious festival. This is important and obligatory for Christians; but as it can be of no interest to anyone else, I shall naturally say no more about it here. The second (it has complex historical connections with the first, but we needn’t go into them) is a popular holiday, an occasion for merrymaking and hospitality. If it were my business to have a “view” on this, I should say that I much approve of merrymaking. But what I approve of much more is everybody minding his own business. I see no reason why I should volunteer views as to how other people should spend their own money in their own leisure among their own friends. It is highly probable that they want my advice on such matters as little as I want theirs. But the third thing called Christmas is unfortunately everyone’s business.
I mean of course the commercial racket. The interchange of presents was a very small ingredient in the older English festivity. Mr. Pickwick took a cod with him to Dingley Dell; the reformed Scrooge ordered a turkey for his clerk; lovers sent love gifts; toys and fruit were given to children. But the idea that not only all friends but even all acquaintances should give one another presents, or at least send one another cards, is quite modern and has been forced upon us by the shopkeepers. Neither of these circumstances is in itself a reason for condemning it. I condemn it on the following grounds.
1. It gives on the whole much more pain than pleasure. You have only to stay over Christmas with a family who seriously try to “keep” it (in its third, or commercial, aspect) in order to see that the thing is a nightmare. Long before December 25th everyone is worn out – physically worn out by weeks of daily struggle in overcrowded shops, mentally worn out by the effort to remember all the right recipients and to think out suitable gifts for them. They are in no trim for merrymaking; much less (if they should want to) to take part in a religious act. They look far more as if there had been a long illness in the house.
2. Most of it is involuntary. The modern rule is that anyone can force you to give him a present by sending you a quite unprovoked present of his own. It is almost a blackmail. Who has not heard the wail of despair, and indeed of resentment, when, at the last movement, just as everyone hoped that the nuisance was over for one more year, the unwanted gift from Mrs. Busy (whom we hardly remember) flops unwelcomed through the letter-box, and back to the dreadful shops one has to go to?
3. Things are given as presents which no mortal ever bought for himself – gaudy and useless gadgets, “novelties” because no one was ever fool enough to make their like before. Have we really no better use for materials and for human skill and time than to spend them on all this rubbish?
4. The nuisance. For after all, during the racket we still have all our ordinary and necessary shopping to do, and the racket trebles the labor of it.
We are told that the whole dreary business must go on because it is good for trade. It is in fact merely one annual symptom of that lunatic condition of our country, and indeed of the world, in which everyone lives by persuading everyone else to buy things. I don’t know the way out. But can it really be my duty to buy and receive masses of junk every winter just to help the shopkeepers? If the worst comes to the worst I’d sooner give them money for nothing and write it off as a charity. For nothing? Why, better for nothing than for a nuisance.
(FYI, I found this using Google at this site.)
The following excerpt is from God in the Dock by C.S. Lewis.
Three things go by the name of Christmas. One is a religious festival. This is important and obligatory for Christians; but as it can be of no interest to anyone else, I shall naturally say no more about it here. The second (it has complex historical connections with the first, but we needn’t go into them) is a popular holiday, an occasion for merrymaking and hospitality. If it were my business to have a “view” on this, I should say that I much approve of merrymaking. But what I approve of much more is everybody minding his own business. I see no reason why I should volunteer views as to how other people should spend their own money in their own leisure among their own friends. It is highly probable that they want my advice on such matters as little as I want theirs. But the third thing called Christmas is unfortunately everyone’s business.
I mean of course the commercial racket. The interchange of presents was a very small ingredient in the older English festivity. Mr. Pickwick took a cod with him to Dingley Dell; the reformed Scrooge ordered a turkey for his clerk; lovers sent love gifts; toys and fruit were given to children. But the idea that not only all friends but even all acquaintances should give one another presents, or at least send one another cards, is quite modern and has been forced upon us by the shopkeepers. Neither of these circumstances is in itself a reason for condemning it. I condemn it on the following grounds.
1. It gives on the whole much more pain than pleasure. You have only to stay over Christmas with a family who seriously try to “keep” it (in its third, or commercial, aspect) in order to see that the thing is a nightmare. Long before December 25th everyone is worn out – physically worn out by weeks of daily struggle in overcrowded shops, mentally worn out by the effort to remember all the right recipients and to think out suitable gifts for them. They are in no trim for merrymaking; much less (if they should want to) to take part in a religious act. They look far more as if there had been a long illness in the house.
2. Most of it is involuntary. The modern rule is that anyone can force you to give him a present by sending you a quite unprovoked present of his own. It is almost a blackmail. Who has not heard the wail of despair, and indeed of resentment, when, at the last movement, just as everyone hoped that the nuisance was over for one more year, the unwanted gift from Mrs. Busy (whom we hardly remember) flops unwelcomed through the letter-box, and back to the dreadful shops one has to go to?
3. Things are given as presents which no mortal ever bought for himself – gaudy and useless gadgets, “novelties” because no one was ever fool enough to make their like before. Have we really no better use for materials and for human skill and time than to spend them on all this rubbish?
4. The nuisance. For after all, during the racket we still have all our ordinary and necessary shopping to do, and the racket trebles the labor of it.
We are told that the whole dreary business must go on because it is good for trade. It is in fact merely one annual symptom of that lunatic condition of our country, and indeed of the world, in which everyone lives by persuading everyone else to buy things. I don’t know the way out. But can it really be my duty to buy and receive masses of junk every winter just to help the shopkeepers? If the worst comes to the worst I’d sooner give them money for nothing and write it off as a charity. For nothing? Why, better for nothing than for a nuisance.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 30% of voters nationwide believe the $787-billion economic stimulus plan has helped the economy. However, 38% believe that the stimulus plan has hurt the economy. This is the first time since the legislation passed that a plurality has held a negative view of its impact.
The number who believe that the stimulus plan has hurt the economy rose from 28% in September, to 31% in October, and 34% in November before jumping to 38% this month. The week after the president signed the bill, 34% said it would help the economy, while 32% said it would hurt.
The Political Class has a much different view than the rest of the county. Ninety percent (90%) of the Political Class believes the stimulus plan helped the economy and not a single Political Class respondent says it has hurt. (See more on the Political Class).
The underlying reason for skepticism about the stimulus plan is that 50% of voters believe increasing government spending is bad for the economy. Just 28% believe that increased government spending helps the economy.
National Survey of 1,000 Likely Voters
December 20-21, 2009
Earlier this year, Congress and the president enacted a $787 billion economic stimulus plan. So far, has the economic stimulus plan helped the economy, hurt the economy or had no impact on the economy?
Helped
30%
Hurt
38%
No Impact
28%
Not Sure
5%
Quick link and comment today. Please see this post at Calculated Risk (which links to a Denver Post article).
My capsule summary:
Sympathetic elderly couple in their 70s and 80s had a pretty nice interest rate on a credit card for years, then it nearly tripled to 16.9% (which still isn’t bad for a credit card). Now the elderly couple’s payment for the coming month has doubled from ~$500 to over $1,000 (the rate change shouldn’t effect the minimum payment for the cards I’m familiar with, so I imagine this has to do with increased amount of interest accrued over the past month under the new interest rate that wasn’t covered by the previous payment). Sadly, as is the case with all these “how can you not feel bad for [old people/single mothers/apple pies] getting charged lots of money by Evil Bailed Out Bank X” stories, the details are sparse so I am left to make these assumptions.
As most cards require something along the lines of a 2.3% minimum payment per month, and assuming his ~$500 payment per month was the minimum (seems likely, considering the increase of his payment), that would mean Mr. Rickman was carrying a $21,000+ balance on the credit card. He indicates he has no salary coming in, so I will assume he’s left with pension and/or retirement investment income. Mr. Rickman also indicates he and his wife “reverse-mortgaged” their home, so it would appear he may have no substantial assets either.
Now no one wants old people to go broke and hungry, even heartless internet bloggers like myself, but to make this a news story is absurd.
Any bank can see the situation clear as day: The client has a growing credit card balance that can never be paid off. They are choosing to keep the balance on this card in particular because it has a very low interest rate. At some point, this client will default and the debt will have to be written off (remember? No liquid assets to recover any of these debts from and its highly unlikely Mr. Rickman would qualify to consolidate with his income and the potential damage his high revolving balance may have caused his credit rating). If Evil Bailed Out Bank X jacks up the interest rate, maybe they can provide incentive for Mr. Rickman to transfer this balance over to another lower interest credit card he might have, or pursue a solution with another bank to take this ticking time bomb off Evil Bailed Out Bank X’s hands. Or, in a worst case scenario, maybe Evil Bailed Out Bank X will cause a default sooner and have to write off a smaller amount of unrecoverable debt than it would be a year or two down the road (when certainly it is unlikely that anything will improve for Mr. Rickman in terms of income or assets).
Shockingly, Calculated Risk actually seems to see things similar to the way I do!
“The interest rate increase is outrageous, but also notice that Mr. Rickman was apparently not paying off his credit card balance every month. I suspect he has been running a fairly large balance compared to his income (only Social Security at this time according to the article), and just making the minimum payment on his credit card. Although the 5.9% interest rate was somewhat reasonable, it is still far more than Rickman could earn on any conservative investment.”
I actually would argue the increase isn’t outrageous (remember, Mr. Rickman’s credit rating may be significantly effected by his high revolving balances, as utilization is the second most important factor effecting his credit score, second only to making/missing payments) and appears to me the logical thing to do from the bank’s end.
And as much turmoil as this may cause Mr. Rickman, the fact of the matter is that Evil Bailed Out Bank X, for better or for worse, allowed Mr. Rickman to live well beyond his means for years now, it would appear if my assumptions on Mr. Rickman’s balances are correct, and it would appear the big loser will be EBOB-X as they’ll be looking at $22,000 of unrecoverable balances, probably far more than EBOB-X would have collected in profit at 5.9% interest over the past 20 years, plus the cost of collections and that last tank of gas it sounds like Mr. Rickman will charge to the card with no intention of paying (I believe the spirit of the law would call that stealing, but hey, the guy’s old).
So whenever it was that Mr. Rickman started accruing large balances on his credit card, he should have been faced with the ultimatum of adjusting his spending or his income to match his lifestyle but EBOB-X allowed him to defer that conundrum. For years, and perhaps decades. Now he is finally forced to face that ultimatum, plus interest compounded, and all he has to do is declare bankruptcy and be debt-free without having much of an impact on his life, if he is able to live without new credit cards.
So what’s the big fucking problem? Mr. Rickman is able to walk away from $22k of debt with minimal consequences. The only source of discomfort noted in the article is that his wife will “miss having the card”.
Boo-fucking-hoo. EBOB-X will miss having $22,000 too. Where’s there tear-jerking article?
[There's a much larger issue of addiction, taking advantage of the innumerate, and financial education... independence... responsibility... and the whole assumption that adults of sound-mind can be trusted to make their own decisions and be responsible for them... but I'm not going to address that here. Like everyone else (see the last paragraph of CR's post), I'm happy to just swing at and not smash open that hornet's nest. Really, I just have to wonder why a family or social group doesn't have one person who is consulted about financial matters when that credit card balance is breaking five-figures. Really. No son, daughter-in-law, good-friend-that-used-to-be-an-accountant that would be happy to provide some free advice? Or do we leave our credit card balances to grow silently in the dark, ashamed to reveal to those around us that we spend 50% more than what we make? Furthermore, is this a problem that exists throughout the world? From what I've read and seen firsthand, the Western world seems to be populated by profligate spenders with comfortable lifestyles and no savings, while the Eastern hemisphere doesn't pay credit card interest.]
One might be tempted to think there’s no comparison between Democrats’ health care overhaul and Hugo Chavez’s orgy of class warfare on Venezuela’s private sector. But consider Chavez’s new public eateries.
Last week, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez announced he would start a chain of government-run “areperas” to sell arepas — filled white-corn patties, similar to tacos — at state prices.
Slinging hash at a grand opening in Caracas, Chavez announced his new firm would be called Comerso, the “Socialist Corporation of Markets,” to counter the private restaurants he claims are charging too much. With arepas selling for 20 bolivars at private eateries, Chavez was going to dish his out at five — to keep eateries “honest.”
It’s no different from the public option House Democrats are proposing in their 2,074-page bill now being reconciled in Congress.
Unlike the Democrats however, Chavez makes no bones about what he’s up to: driving the private sector out of business with his “public option” for these taco stands.
“We’ll show them what a real market is all about, not those speculative, money-grubbing markets, but a market for the people,” the caudillo claimed. “Private individuals in sales can still sell, but they’ll have to compete with us and with a people who are now fully aware.”
It’s remarkably similar to what Democrats have argued in their insistence on a “public option” of state-run health insurance for their health care overhaul bill now being reconciled in the Congress.
“One of the best ways to bring down costs, provide more choices and assure quality is a public option that will force the insurance companies to compete and keep them honest,” President Obama said just last October.
“If a vigorous public option is not included, it would be a major victory for the health insurance industry,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this December.
“I think it’s the fairest way to go,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in October.
To both Chavez and Democrats, prices charged by private firms, whether health insurance companies or areperas, are too high and need government intervention. What’s more, they aren’t high because of conditions of supply and demand, but out of pure malice.
That obscures the reasons why health care costs are high in the U.S. and arepa prices are soaring in Chavez’s Venezuela.
Three factors stick out in Venezuela: Chavez has instituted price and capital controls to “discourage speculation” on foreign currency, which makes hard cash a lot scarcer than it should be.
Because of this, importers can no longer buy as much imported food for a nation that has always imported food. White corn, a staple of Venezuelan cuisine, must be imported from Argentina or South Africa because it doesn’t grow well in the local climate. Net result: Store shelves go bare and prices rise.
Chavez also has been confiscating private farms in the name of “the people” and has added more food shortages, as well as driven up prices even further.
Lastly, he’s already set up a network of government-run stores in the shantytowns, called Mercal, which quickly runs out of goods every time it’s stocked because of its artificially low prices. This is unfair competition with the established private sector, which has suffered.
“Buhoneros” (poor street vendors) buy up the goods in bulk and sell them on the street or at fairs at higher prices consistent with Venezuela’s inflation rate — which runs around 30%. That’s the highest in Latin America.
In that atmosphere, inflation, food shortages and the withered private sector are tightly linked to government intervention. It is little different from the kinds of controls that have hurt the U.S. insurance industry, which has been battered by Congress’ controls against companies selling policies across state lines and hundreds of capricious mandates.
There may not be much that can be done for Venezuela, but in light of these results, we can pretty well tell what Democrats are up to with their “public option.” And it’s going to have the same result.(IBD)
NYT: “This was supposed to be a bill that reformed health care in America,” said the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. “Instead, we’re left with party-line votes in the middle of the night, a couple of sweetheart deals to get it over the finish line and a truly outraged public.”
Merry Christmas from the post-partisan,unifying, compassionate,drain the swamp of corruption Democrats.
But the Last Word goes to an idol of mine, Charles M. Schulz:
There is a lot of griping about material contained in your standard introductory economics textbook. For instance, Krugman’s textbook says all sorts of mean things about unions and the minimum wage; namely, that they are responsible for structural unemployment because they push wages past their equilibrium level. Of course, the empirical evidence for both propositions is quite murky and Krugman, in his blog and columns, obviously doesn’t think the minimum wage is such a bad thing.
On one point, however, introductory textbooks are unified and plainly correct: real-life socialism, where the government expropriates private industry, seizes the means of production and tries to direct the production of goods is really, really dumb.
Look, for example, at the Venezuelan auto industry and what Hugo Chavez wants to do with a Toyota plant:
CARACAS—Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has threatened to expropriate Toyota MotorCorp.’s local assembly plant if it doesn’t produce more vehicles designed for rural areas and increase technology transfer.
Mr. Chavez said late Wednesday the Japanese auto maker needs to transfer more new technologies and manufacturing methods from headquarters to its local unit in Venezuela.
While Mr. Chavez directed most of his criticism at Toyota, he said other auto assemblers, including Fiat SpA and General Motors, are also guilty of not sharing technology from abroad with their Venezuelan units.
Mr. Chavez said his socialist government is going to apply strict quotas regarding the number and types of vehicles auto makers can produce. The president also ordered his trade minister, Eduardo Saman, to inspect the Toyota plant, saying it may not be making enough “rustic vehicles,” a style of all-terrain vehicle that is much-needed in Venezuela’s countryside, where they are often converted into minibuses.
So, we have one element of socialist stupidity: not giving deference to market outcomes of what goods are being produced and thinking that a better way to maximize consumer surplus and welfare is to have the government take over the commanding heights of an industry and make the production decisions.
But it gets even better (or worse):
As a result of low productivity, demand for automobiles far outstrips supply in Venezuela. Demand is also enhanced by subsidized gasoline in this oil-rich nation that makes a gallon of gasoline cost about seven cents.
Eduardo Blanco, who manages a Toyota dealership in the Los Palos Grandes neighborhood of Caracas, said last week that he has 600 people on a waiting list for vehicles, and that only a half a dozen cars arrive at his lot each month.
A classic case of the result of a price ceiling, a shortage! Sometimes Economics 101 (or in my case, Economics 201 taught by the esteemed and very liberal Robert Gordon) is just right.
To get this beyond just making fun of Hugo Chavez’s incompetent economic management, I think it’s important to locate and criticize real examples of command-and-control socialism, just so that when conservatives gripe and moan about mild industrial policy, bank bailouts in crisis or government subsidies to purchase health insurance, we can see how silly they’re being.
From the Bubbleconomics point of view, the U.S. government’s efforts over the past year can be seen as an attempt to keep the Big Bubble pumped up. The current economic design requires a strong and powerful system of banking and investment, which is why the government has focused so much on propping up the banking system. The hope is that the banking bubble can stay inflated long enough for the real sectors of the economy to recover.
With that background in mind, we thought it was interesting to see this comment on Monday from RiverFront Investment Group (see “2010 Outlook — Reflation and Beyond: A Delicate Balancing Act“):
The Great Reflation experiment has achieved its objective of engineering an economic recovery through government spending, credit creation, and lower interest rates for both corporations and mortgage buyers. As the Federal Reserve contemplates removing monetary accommodation, it faces a delicate balancing act: We think the Fed will continue to err on the side of reigniting inflation rather than risking a return of deflation and will not hesitate to extend its program of purchasing government debt beyond its scheduled termation in March if it deems necessary.
To clarify what is meant by “reflation,” here is how it is defined on Wikipedia:
Reflation is the act of stimulating the economy by increasing the money supply or by reducing taxes. It is the opposite of disinflation. It can refer to an economic policy whereby a government uses fiscal or monetary stimulus in order to expand a country’s output. This can possibly be achieved by methods that include reducing tax, changing the money supply, or even adjusting interest rates. Just as disinflation is considered an acceptable antidote to high inflation, reflation is considered to be an antidote to deflation (which, unlike inflation, is considered bad regardless how high it is).
Yesterday we detailed Arizona’s educational funding excesses for K-12. It may seem hard to believe but today we discovered that the problems go deeper than overpaid personnel. An example? Deer Valley Unified School District superintendent Virginia McElyea.
She has convinced the Governing Board to call a March 9, 2010 override election to provide an additional $24 million for the district’s already bloated $334 million budget. Her excuse is that the money is needed to pay salaries and support programs for students. Already inflated salaries will, by historical evidence, be the primary beneficiary of this ill-gotten lucre.
But while calling for additional taxpayer funding, the district is concurrently paying hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to win an award from the Malcolm Baldrige program that will pad the resume for the superintendent. The effort has been underway for more than two years, but now McElyea has compounded the situation, wasting even more money. She recently hired yet another highly paid administrator to help her win this “crown jewel” for her career.
McElyea, who lives in a $ million+ home, defends this new hire based on the fact that his salary is coming from federal “stimulus money.” Is she kidding? The superintendent is actually using stimulus money to win an award? What is she stimulating, other than her own ego? Money that should be going into our classrooms, into the programs that teach our students, is being used to support a personal award effort for the superintendent?
Since she doesn’t live in Deer Valley, she is exempt from the property taxes of this override. Interestingly, the district where she does reside just voted down an override for the second year in a row.
The time has come to tell her “no more.” No more personal awards, no more overpaid administrators, no more failing our students, no more bond overrides and no more tax increases.
As much as this characterizes our government, it is also becoming a universal sentiment of an entitled society.
Last week, President Obama lashed out at the financial institutions on Wall Street.
When the President of the United States flippantly refers to private citizens and their businesses as ‘fat cat bankers on Wall Street’ there is a problem with the president. When the public sees nothing wrong with this, there is a larger problem with the public at large.
The irony of this particular instance of class warfare populism exhibited by Barack Obama, is that as he delivers these remarks, we learn that government employees are much better paid than private workers. This may seem unrelated at first glance, however, the president petulantly proclaimed these so called ‘fat-cats’ the architects of our current recession, seemingly excusing the federal government of any and all responsibility in the matter. I won’t get into all the intricacies and arguments here, but suffice it to say this is a more than generous revision on the president’s part. So the age old question ‘cui bono?’ does not reflect well on those ‘fat cats’ in D.C. if we understand their role in the unraveling of our economy compared to their ever increasing compensation.
The cycle is a vicious yet convenient one: Support and push policies that loudly proclaim help for the helpless while quietly destroying the free market, which action directly creates more ‘helpless’ to promise more for while also creating the circumstances in which people will more likely cede power to ‘the only people’ who can fix things. Oh, and they need to be better compensated for all the extra work of saving us.
In fact, USA Today reported the following:
On average, federal employees earned $71,206 per year, compared to $40,331 in the private sector.
From December 2007 through June 2009, average federal employee salaries increased by 6.6 percent, while average private-sector salaries increased by 3.9 percent. Federal employees at the top of the pay scale received pay increases of 8.6 percent during that period.
Federal employment is getting top-heavy. Federal employees making more than $100,000 increased from 14 percent to 19 percent of total government employment. In fact, the number of federal employees making more than $100,000 has more than doubled in less than two years. There are now more federal employees making more than $100,000 per year than $40,000 per year.
How could anyone say no to this face?
In light of these facts, how can any government employee begrudge any private citizen their salary? The fact is that these ‘fat cats’ on Wall Street are creating something. They are creating jobs and wealth for millions. The ‘fat cats’ on Washington are best known for creating hurdles for those that would create jobs and wealth.
Worse still, Obama warns that the ‘fat cats’ had better stop opposing government control of their pay and strict oversight of their day-to-day operations because, basically, they owe him for the bailout, which coincidentally many of them have paid back and others have been deterred from paying back.
Obama’s ignorance seems only matched and perhaps exceeded by his unmitigated arrogance. These comments were made just before the president was to meet with said ‘fat cats’ to persuade them to comply with his wishes.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is investing in the development of renewable energy in Mongolia. About 60 wind turbines with a total capacity of 50MW are planned to be installed on the Salkhit Mountain, 70km outside the capital Ulaanbaatar, in what is the country’s first wind farm project. EBRD will be involved in the project with a $700,000 equity investment.
EBRD will purchase 25 per cent stake in Clean Energy, a local company wholly-owned by the Mongolian Newcom group, and will fund 25 per cent of development costs as the project progresses.
The Salkhit Mountain wind farm will be the first private power generator in a sector dominated by state-owned companies.
As a result of economic growth and increased urbanization, Mongolia is facing growing demand for electricity, currently met by coal-fired combined heat and power plants. This has long been leading to poor air quality in Ulaanbaatar, especially in winter.
In order to solve the environmental and health issue, the Mongolian Parliament has endorsed a renewable energy program aiming at rising wind power contribution to the country’s power grid from today’s mere 1 percent to 25 percent in 2020.
The governments of Japan and Luxembourg are providing an additional €366,000 in grant funds, to support the development of the regulatory framework for renewable energy in Mongolia and the assessment of the environmental and social impacts of the project.
‘The current discussions on climate change in Copenhagen have drawn the world’s attention to the critical issue of supporting developing nations in their transition to a low carbon power sector. As part of that effort supporting green energy is one of the key priorities of the EBRD and we are pleased to play a part, working with Newcom, on the first such project in Mongolia. The EBRD investment will help address the country’s increasing need for energy and at the same time support the liberalisation and diversification of Mongolia’s energy sector,’ said Nandita Parshad, director of EBRD’s power and energy team.
Andrew Gelman peers into the land of economists from the land of statisticians and wonders why everyone is arguing over a policy that will never ever happen. It probably looks a little like listening to two cancer doctors argue over whether we could cure a poisonous bite from an alien. “What?!? Why are you arguing about that? Don’t you have cancers to cure?”
I think I can help explain some of the underlying impulsion going on here. I apologize in advance for the gross generalizations that follow.
Libertarian economists who are arguing that decreasing the minimum wage would increase unemployment want a cudgel with which to bash liberal economists who are arguing for a variety of fiscal stimulus. This puts liberals into the position of either accepting that the minimum wage should be cut -and ooh that stings to a liberal!- or admitting that their primary goal isn’t really creating jobs, but rather promoting progressive policies (this is the secret suspicion of libertarians everywhere). This would be a bitter pill to swallow for liberals, and they would hate to give libertarians that satisfaction, so they are fighting back tooth-and-nail, declaring “when you’re in a liquidity trap if prices go down quantity goes down too, and then the sun turns into a supernova!”
Let me put the phenomenon in a general framework: it’s gratifying to believe that your own group has the solution to a problem, but the ideology of the other group is getting in the way, especially when the other group is promoting their own solutions to the problem that conform with their ideology but are aggravating to your ideology.
This is why libertarian economists LOVE arguing about carbon taxes with environmentalists; to economists the solution to global warming is simple, and it does not involve micromanagement, moralizing, and making a lifestyle out of environmentalism- things the libertarian minded economist does not like. So environmentalists must either accept that economists have a solution that is better than all of the other policies and behaviors environmentalists spend so much of their time arguing for, or admit the environment really isn’t their primary concern. That is satisfying to the economist.
Paul Krugman once did a good job of explaining why economists overemphasize some issues that I think is in a similar vein to my theory:
But there’s also something going on with economists, a phenomenon I recognize wearing my other hat: the tendency to place excessive weight on issues where professional judgment differs from lay opinion.
The classic example is free trade versus protectionism. Economists are justly proud of the close reasoning that produced the classical case for free trade, and love to skewer dumb protectionist arguments. I’ve done it myself.
But all too often, economists then become like the little boy with a hammer, to whom everything looks like a nail. Because protectionism is an issue on which they believe they have some special insight, they inflate its importance, and make free trade versus protectionism THE crucial issue in economic policy — which it isn’t.
So I think that’s part of the motivation. The other part is that it is fun to argue about these things, and flex your fundamental economic-theory-muscles. Notice none of the tools being used are very complicated; it’s elementary partial or general equilibrium analysis. Nor is the policy being debated something abstract or complicated to intuit; “what are the effects of the minimum wage in a recession?” is a fundamental topic. There’s a beauty in the simplicity of an argument as pure and fundamental as this when so much of what economists do and are trained to do is complex, abstract, and in pursuit of unintuitive goals like maximizing the utility of an infinitely lived representative agent. In a way that I can’t really explain, it’s a little like watching a lightsaber fight. Jedis spend their lives learning to be one with the universe, see the future, and becoming masters at piloting complicated flying machines, but in the end, all those deep and complex skills all get boiled down to a sword fight.
SAN FRANCISCO — Standard & Poor’s said Wednesday that it revised its rating outlook on Weyerhaeuser Co. to negative from stable because of the timing of the timber company’s conversion to a real estate investment trust. S&P has a BBB- corporate credit rating on Weyerhaeuser. While the switch to a REIT is unlikely to harm the company’s satisfactory business risk, S&P said in a statement that the lowered outlook regarded “the actual timing of conversion, the size and financing of the cash portion of the required earnings & profit distribution, the level of post-REIT dividends, and the strength of the housing recovery over the next several quarters.”
Despite all the stress existing policies are putting on energy efficiency and alternative fuels, together with higher energy prices – which combine to curb energy consumption growth and shift the energy mix toward renewable fuels – fossil fuels will still provide 78 percent of all energy used in 2035.
The forecast, somewhat negative, comes from the comments made by U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) Administrator Richard Newell as the US agency released its Annual Energy Outlook 2010 (AEO2010 ).
These reference case projections do not include the effects of potential future policies that have not yet become law, and only include technologies that are commercially available or can reasonably be expected to become commercially available over roughly the next decade.
The agency sees the U.S. crude oil production increase from 5 million barrels per day in 2008 to over 6 million barrels per day in 2027, level it will keep through 2035. Growth in crude oil production results from increases in offshore production and in onshore production using enhanced oil recovery techniques.
Natural gas and renewable power plants account for the majority of electricity generating capacity additions. The natural gas share falls slightly due to the completion of coal plants under construction, and the addition of new renewable capacity. However, by 2035 the share of generation from natural gas again increases to 21 percent. Renewable generation shows the strongest growth between now and 2035, spurred by incentive programs in more than half the States. The renewable share of generation grows from 9 percent of generation in 2008 to 17 percent of generation in 2035.
Total electricity consumption, including both purchases from electric power producers and on-site generation, grows by 1 percent per year over the projection period, from 3,873 billion kilowatthours in 2008 to 5,021 billion kilowatthours in 2035.
Some key findings from the report:
Moderate Energy Consumption Growth and Greater Use of Renewables: Total primary energy consumption grows by 14 percent between 2008 and 2035, as the fossil fuel share of total U.S. energy consumption falls from 84 percent to 78 percent
Declining Reliance on Imported Liquid Fuels : Total U.S. consumption of liquid fuels, including both fossil liquids and biofuels, grows from 19 million barrels per day in 2008 to 22 million barrels per day in 2035. Biofuels account for all of the growth, as consumption of petroleum-based liquids is essentially flat. As a result, reliance on imported oil declines significantly over the next 25 years.
Shale Gas Drives Growth in Natural Gas Production and Reduces Reliance on Imported Gas : Total domestic natural gas production grows from 20.6 trillion cubic feet in 2008 to 23.3 trillion cubic feet in 2035. With technology improvements and rising natural gas prices, natural gas production from shale grows to 6 trillion cubic feet in 2035, more than offsetting declines in conventional production3 .
Energy-Related Carbon Dioxide (CO2 ) Emissions Continue to Grow, Assuming No New Policies : CO2 emissions from energy grow at 0.3 percent per year, assuming no new policies to reduce energy-related CO2 emissions. Total energy-related CO2 emissions grow from 5,814 million metric tons in 2008 to 6,320 million metric tons in 2035, although per capita emissions fall by 0.6 percent per year. Most of the CO2 growth in the AEO2010 reference case is accounted for by the electric power and transportation sectors.
… a huge cast earnestly discussing what there is no chance of agreeing, to reach compromises everyone will then ignore, promising to avoid doing what all decry and then will continue to do, suspecting that it is not really damaging anyway.
… Only the countries that mistakenly expect to receive compensation for their impoverished inability to generate carbon emissions, or for the falsely-pledged reduction of them, will pay any attention to the pious frauds the posturing busybodies of Copenhagen may claim to agree to implement.
Arizona Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyl are pressuring Homeland INsecurity Secretary Janet Napolitano for further constraints on Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s immigration-enforcement authority. The two have been exchanging letters with Napolitano on the topic since October, the daily reports.
Under Napolitano, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) priorities have diverted from enforcement of immigration laws to targeting only “serious criminal aliens.”
Apparently the sanctioned practice is to wait until the illegals murder, participate in armed robberies, rape, drive-by shootings or commit other major felonies before they are worthy of notice.
For a refresher on the topic, we invite you to read Immigration reform? Trusting our leaders has been a fool’s mission.
In March of this year, McCain momentarily assumed a new posture from his long-sought efforts to grant amnesty to the millions of illegals in the United States. His slippery pledge of support to Gov. Jan Brewer to send additional troops to the border to hinder the flow of illegal aliens raised suspicions.
It was McCain, partnering with Sen. Jon Kyl and the late liberal icon Ted Kennedy, who crafted the amnesty scheme that enraged American citizens to the point of shutting down the congressional switchboard, jamming fax machines and filling email boxes with their ire. We wrote at the time that although that bill was ultimately ditched, we should not be lulled into complacency. Prepare for round two. It’s coming.
Trusting this deceptive duo on this issue, brings to mind the old adage: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
The latest report from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), Paving the Road to Amnesty, assesses what has occurred on the immigration front during Obama’s first year in office and what we can expect in the coming months. We urge you to read it.
The question is, why are Arizona’s two senators aiding and abetting this plan to legalize the illegal alien population? Give them a call and ask them.
From the NYT obituary (via Cafe Hayek) of one of the greatest statist economists of the twentieth century-
Mr. Samuelson attracted a brilliant roster of economists to teach or study at the university, among them…Paul Krugman…Joseph E. Stiglitz.
Mr. Samuelson wrote one of the most widely used college textbooks in the history of American education. The book, “Economics,” first published in 1948, was the nation’s best-selling textbook for nearly 30 years….
“I don’t care who writes a nation’s laws — or crafts its advanced treatises — if I can write its economics textbooks,” Mr. Samuelson said.
His textbook taught college students how to think about economics….
The textbook introduced generations of students to the revolutionary ideas of John Maynard Keynes… No student would ever again rest comfortably with the 19th-century nostrum that private markets would cure unemployment without need of government intervention.
[...]
Mr. Samuelson also formulated a theory of public goods — that is, goods that can be provided effectively only through collective, or government, action….Public goods, he concluded, cannot be sold in private markets because individuals have no incentive to pay for them voluntarily.
[...]
…President Herbert Hoover, he noted, had never referred to Keynes other than as “the Marxist Keynes.”
“I never quite understood that venom, Mr. Samuelson said.
[...]
Mr. Samuelson said he had never regarded Keynesianism as a religion, and he criticized some of his liberal colleagues for seeming to do so, earning himself, late in life, the label l’enfant terrible, emeritus. The experience of nations in the second half of the century, he said, had diminished his optimism about the ability of government to perform miracles.
If government gets too big, and too great a portion of the nation’s income passes through it, he said, government becomes inefficient and unresponsive to the human needs “we do-gooders extol,” and thus risks infringing on freedoms.
But, he said, no serious political or economic thinker would reject the fundamental Keynesian idea that a benevolent democratic government must do what it can to avert economic trouble in areas the free markets cannot. Neither government alone nor the markets alone, he said, could serve the public welfare without help from the other.
“Benevolent democratic government.” And then there was the tooth fairy.
Shouldn’t be news to anyone sympathetic to the Austrians, or anyone who’s read him, but this is what the late great Samuelson said about the Soviet Union, right before it collapsed-
The Soviet Union is proof that, contrary to what many skeptics had earlier believed, the socialist command economy can function and even thrive.
One of his critics (he has been attacked both from the left and the right, which is the mark of a pragmatist), Mark Skousen, writes-
Samuelson spent whole chapters in serious discussion of the socialist economics of the Soviet Union and China, while writing little or nothing on the success stories of West Germany, Japan, the East Asian Tigers or Chile…. He had numerous sections on ‘market failure,’ while offering little on ‘government failure.’ He criticized laissez-faire, favored progressive taxation and endorsed the pay as you go Social Security program.
Unfortunately, he’s not the first and surely won’t be the last…statist.
Skousen also quotes conservative economist Wallich who despite arguing that, in Skousen’s words, “freedom leads to lower economic growth, greater income inequality, and less competition” concluded-
The ultimate value of a free economy is not production, but freedom, and freedom comes not as a profit, but at a cost.
One small but important correction to Jim Roger’s criticisms of Geithner and Bernanke, both are either intentionally incompetent or clueless tools of Obama’s crisis creating Cloward-Piven strategy, in wrecking the United States economy with massive government interventionism.
These people know exactly what they are doing and in my opinion both are intentionally incompetent.
Both should be fired today.
Will this happen?
As long a President Obama is leading this economy wrecking crew–no.
Only the American people can stop the progressive radical socialists massive fiscal and monetary government interventionism the result in a long and deep depression–The Obama Depression.
Stop the bailouts, stimulus bills, huge tax increases and deficit spending and reckless money and credit expansion.
These government intervention actions will only prolong the duration of the Obama Depression.
Expect double digit unemployment rates throughout 2010.
Expect double digit inflation rates throughout 2012.
Only the American people by direct action can derail these policies that will destroy jobs, wreck the US economy, and kill the American Dream.
Background Articles and Videos
Tim Geithner
Secretary of the Treasury
Tim Geithner
“…Timothy Franz Geithner (pronounced /ˈɡaɪtnər/; born August 18, 1961) is the 75th and current United States Secretary of the Treasury, serving under President Barack Obama. He was previously the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Geithner’s position includes a large role in directing the Federal Government’s economic response to the financial crisis which began after December 2007. Specific tasks include directing the allocation of the $350 billion of Wall Street bailout funds. He is currently dealing with multiple high visibility issues, including the survival of the automobile industry, the restructuring of banks, financial institutions and insurance companies, recovery of the mortgage market, demands for protectionism, President Obama’s tax changes, and relations with foreign governments that are dealing with similar crises.[1]
Geithner was born in Brooklyn, New York City and spent most of his childhood outside the United States, including present-day Zimbabwe, Zambia, India and Thailand where he completed high school at the International School Bangkok.[2] He attended Dartmouth College, graduating with an A.B. in government and Asian studies in 1983.[3] In the process he studied Mandarin at Peking University in 1981 and at Beijing Normal University in 1982.[4] He earned an M.A. in international economics and East Asian studies from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in 1985.[3][5] He has studied Chinese[3] and Japanese.[6]
Geithner’s paternal grandfather, Paul Herman Geithner (1902–1972), emigrated with his parents from the German town of Zeulenroda-Triebes to Philadelphia in 1908.[7] His father, Peter F. Geithner, was the director of the Asia program at the Ford Foundation in New York in the 1990s. During the early 1980s, Peter Geithner oversaw the Ford Foundation’s microfinance programs in Indonesia being developed by Ann Dunham, President Barack Obama’s mother, and they met in person at least once.[8] Timothy Geithner’s mother, Deborah Moore Geithner, is a pianist and piano teacher in Larchmont, New York where his parents currently reside. Geithner’s maternal grandfather, Charles F. Moore, was an adviser to President Dwight D. Eisenhower and served as Vice President of Public Relations from 1952-1964 for Ford Motor Company.[9]
Geithner worked for Kissinger Associates in Washington for three years and then joined the International Affairs division of the U.S. Treasury Department in 1988. He went on to serve as an attaché at the Embassy of the United States in Tokyo. He was deputy assistant secretary for international monetary and financial policy (1995–1996), senior deputy assistant secretary for international affairs (1996-1997), assistant secretary for international affairs (1997–1998).[5]
He was Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs (1998–2001) under Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers.[5] Summers was his mentor,[10][11] but other sources call him a Rubin protégé.[11][12][13]
In 2002 he left the Treasury to join the Council on Foreign Relations as a Senior Fellow in the International Economics department.[14] He was director of the Policy Development and Review Department (2001-2003) at the International Monetary Fund.[5]
In October 2003 at age 42,[15] he was named president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.[16] His salary in 2007 was $398,200.[17] Once at the New York Fed, he became Vice Chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee component. In 2006, he also became a member of the Washington-based financial advisory body, the Group of Thirty.[18] In May 2007 he worked to reduce the capital required to run a bank.[15] In November he rejected Sanford Weill’s offer to take over as Citigroup’s chief executive.[15]
In March 2008, he arranged the rescue and sale of Bear Stearns;[10][19] in the same year, he played a pivotal role in both the decision to bail out AIG as well as the government decision not to save Lehman Brothers from bankruptcy, though claims were made after Geithner’s nomination that distanced him from both AIG and Lehman Brothers.[20] As a Treasury official, he helped manage multiple international crises of the 1990s[12] in Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea and Thailand.[13]
Geithner believes, along with Henry Paulson, that the United States Department of the Treasury needs new authority to experiment with responses to the financial crisis of 2007–2009.[10] Paulson has described Geithner as “[a] very unusually talented young man…[who] understands government and understands markets.”[19]
On 10/27/09 it was reported by Bloomberg news[21] that while acting as president of the New York Federal Reserve Tim Geithner arranged for Goldman Sachs, Société Générale, and Deutsche Bank to receive full payment on credit default swaps they had purchased rather than 40 cents on the dollar insurance giant AIG proposed. A Fed-run entity called Maiden Lane III was used to shunt these CDOs, which cost American tax payers at least $13 billion dollars at the time. It is currently estimated that due to a decline in value, the total costs for this bank favoritism case cost the American tax payers $35.6 billion total. To quote Bloomberg: “the deal contributed to the more than $14 billion that over 18 months was handed to Goldman Sachs, whose former chairman, Stephen Friedman, was chairman of the board of directors of the New York Fed when the decision was made. …”
“…Bank bailout
Geithner has the authority to decide what to do with the second tranche of $350 billion from the $700 billion banking bailout bill passed by Congress in October 2008. He does not need Congressional approval, but went to Congress on February 10-11 to explain his plans. He proposes to create one or more “bad banks” to buy and hold toxic assets, using a mix of taxpayer and private money. He also proposes to expand a lending program that would spend as much as $1 trillion to cover the decline in the issuance of securities backed by consumer loans. He further proposes to give banks new infusions of capital with which to lend. In exchange, banks would have to cut the salaries and perks of their executives and sharply limit dividends and corporate acquisitions.[40][41] The plan has been criticized by Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Krugman[42] as well as fellow Nobel laureate and former World Bank Chief Economist Joseph Stiglitz.[43]
Timothy Geithner along with President Obama proposed a new bureaucratic committee to oversee operations by the FDIC, Federal reserve, and the SEC. The committee would serve to consolidate governmental control over financials. Geithner, states “with new laws in place government will be able to take control of troubled institutions before it’s too late.”[44]
]AIG bonuses
Main article: AIG bonus payments controversy
Although President Obama expressed strong support for Geithner, the outrage over the AIG bonuses has undermined public support. AIG paid bonuses to executives in its Financial Services division after receiving more than $170 billion in federal bailout aid.[45] Even prior to the election, senior aides to Timothy Geithner have closely dealt with American International Group Inc. on compensation issues including bonuses, both from his time as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and as Treasury secretary. In early November, 2008, a committee concluded that the bonuses, which were in contracts signed before the government takeover, couldn’t be legally blocked. On March 3, 2009, appearing at a hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee Rep. Joseph Crowley, a New York Democrat, asked him about the bonuses that AIG would be paying to financial-products employees “in the coming weeks.” On March 11, Geithner called Mr. Edward Liddy, AIG chief, to protest the bonus payouts. Mr. Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke attended a hearing by Congress on March 24, 2009.[46]…”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_F._Geithner
Ben Bernanke
Chairman of The Federal Reserve System
Ben Bernanke
“…Ben Shalom Bernanke[1] (pronounced /bərˈnænki/ bər-NAN-kee;[2] born December 13, 1953) is an American economist, and the current Chairman of the United States Federal Reserve. Bernanke succeeded Alan Greenspan on February 1, 2006. He was nominated for a second term by President Barack Obama in 2009 as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Born in Augusta, Georgia, Bernanke was raised in a ranch house on East Jefferson Street in Dillon, South Carolina.[3] His father Philip was a pharmacist and part-time theater manager, and his mother Edna was originally a schoolteacher. He is the eldest of three children, having a brother and sister. His younger brother, Seth, is a lawyer in Charlotte, North Carolina, and his younger sister, Sharon, is a longtime administrator at Berklee College of Music in Boston.
The Bernankes were one of the few Jewish families in the area, attending a local synagogue called Ohav Shalom;[4] as a child, Bernanke learned Hebrew from his maternal grandfather Harold Friedman, who was a professional hazzan and Hebrew teacher.[5] His father and uncle co-owned and managed a drugstore that they bought from his paternal grandfather, Jonas Bernanke.[3] Jonas was born in Boryslav, Austria-Hungary (today part of Ukraine), on January 23, 1891, and immigrated to the United States from Przemyśl, Poland (part of Austria-Hungary until 1919). He arrived at Ellis Island, age 30, Thursday, June 30, 1921, with his wife Pauline, age 25. On the ship’s manifest, Jonas’ occupation is listed as “clerk” and Pauline’s as “doctor med.”[6][7][8][9] They moved to Dillon, South Carolina, from New York in the 1940s.[10] Bernanke’s mother often worked there as well, having given up her job as a school teacher when he was born, and Bernanke also assisted from time to time.[11]
Bernanke was educated at East Elementary, J. V. Martin Junior High, and Dillon High School, where he was class valedictorian. Bernanke achieved a near-perfect SAT score of 1590 out of 1600.[13] He was also an All-State saxophonist, playing in the school’s marching band.[14] Bernanke spent his undergraduate years at Harvard University where he lived in Winthrop House and graduated with a B.A. in economics summa cum laude in 1975. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1979. His thesis was named “Long-term commitments, dynamic optimization, and the business cycle” and his thesis adviser was Stanley Fischer.[15]
A notable contemporary at Harvard University was Lloyd Blankfein (A.B. 1975, also Winthrop House), Chairman & CEO at Goldman Sachs. …”
“…Bernanke taught at the Stanford Graduate School of Business from 1979 until 1985, was a visiting professor at New York University and went on to become a tenured professor at Princeton University in the Department of Economics. He chaired that department from 1996 until September 2002, when he went on public service leave. He resigned his position at Princeton July 1, 2005. Dr. Bernanke served as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from 2002 to 2005, and was Chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, from June 2005 to January 2006. On February 1, 2006, he was appointed as a member of the Board for a fourteen-year term and to a four-year term as Chairman.[18]
In one of his first speeches, entitled “Deflation: Making Sure It Doesn’t Happen Here,” he outlined what has been referred to as the Bernanke Doctrine.[19]
In view of his current position as Fed chair, Bernanke also sits on the newly established Financial Stability Oversight Board that oversees the Troubled Assets Relief Program.
Bernanke’s future as Federal Reserve chairman became uncertain on November 21, 2008, when it was announced that President-elect Barack Obama would name Tim Geithner as Treasury Secretary over Larry Summers, leading to speculation that Obama was positioning Summers as Bernanke’s successor. Summers was picked to run the National Economic Council. Two Obama advisers said that Summers would be the leading candidate to become the next Federal Reserve chairman should President Obama choose not to reappoint Bernanke when his term ends January 31, 2010.[20][21] White House sources announced on August 24, 2009 that President Obama would nominate Bernanke for another term in 2010.[22] During Bernanke’s first term as Chairman, he oversaw the Federal Reserve’s largest increase of power since the bank’s creation in 1913.[23] …”
Merrill Lynch merger with Bank of America
In a letter to Congress from New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo dated April 23, 2009, Bernanke was mentioned along with former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in allegations of fraud concerning the acquisition of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America. The letter alleged that the extent of the losses at Merrill Lynch were not disclosed to Bank of America by Bernanke and Paulson. When Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis informed Paulson that Bank of America was exiting the merger by invoking the “Materially Adverse Change” clause Paulson immediately called Lewis to a meeting in Washington. At the meeting, which allegedly took place on December 21, 2008, Paulson told Lewis that he and the board would be replaced if they invoked the MAC clause and additionally not to reveal the extent of the losses to shareholders. Paulson stated to Cuomo’s office that he was directed by Bernanke to threaten Lewis in this manner.[24] Congressional hearings into these allegations were conducted on June 25, 2009, with Bernanke testifying that he did not bully Ken Lewis. Under intense questioning by members of Congress, Bernanke said, “I never said anything about firing the board and the management [of Bank of America].” In further testimony, Bernanke said the Fed did nothing illegal or unethical in its efforts to convince Bank of America not to end the merger. Lewis told the panel that authorities expressed “strong views” but said he would not characterize their stance as improper.[25]
[edit] Renominated for Fed Chief
On 25th Aug 2009, President Obama announced that he would nominate Ben Bernanke to a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve. In a short statement in Martha’s Vineyard, with Bernanke standing at his side, Obama said Bernanke’s background, temperament, courage and creativity helped to prevent another Great Depression in 2008. “Ben approached a financial system on the verge of collapse with calm and wisdom, with bold action and out-of-the-box thinking that has helped put the brakes on our economic free fall”, the President said.[26]
Senate Banking Committee hearings on his nomination begin December 3, 2009. …”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Bernanke
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Thomas E. Woods, Jr.–Videos
For the better part of the last century we’ve been trapped by two economic ideological forces and much like the political factions that govern our society, these forces have often served to polarize, even radicalize our beliefs, rather than help to find any common ground. Until the late 1990’s you were either a capitalist or a communist, you either believed in the individual or the state, you either trusted in the market or you were naive.
It has only been in the last decade or so that the true multidisciplinary nature of economics has finally woken up the contributions made by anthropologists, sociologists and political scientists. Oliver Williamson and Elinor Ostrom, the two Nobel prize winners for economics this year, were recognised largely because of this growing trend in more creative economic thinking. Ostrom’s work focuses on the study of common pool resources–in particular, how humans interact with ecosystems to maintain long-term sustainable resource yields (common pool resources include many forests, fisheries, oil fields, grazing lands, and irrigation systems). Both Williamson and Ostrom consider the effects of institutional arrangements—(while Williamson focuses on the transaction costs that arise from these institutional arrangements, Ostrom focuses on social-ecological impact of such arrangements). Institutional arrangements include a combination of the formal rules (laws, regulations, contracts) and the informal rules (culture, values, traditions, social norms and pressures) that encapsulate our society. Incorporating greater understanding of the role of these institutional arrangements provides a more holistic and nuanced application of economic analysis on the role of incentives, institutions and behaviour, as well as a common link in understanding between traditional economists and other social scientists.
What does all this mean for us as mothers, especially those of us with no background in economics, political science or sociology? As mothers we have access to a great deal of critical information and material—cognitive data based on what we observe in the behaviour of our children (and perhaps our partners too), household consumption patterns, resource access and productivity, as well as a closer understanding of the ways formal and informal institutions operate and the community level (local neighbourhood, schools, health care facilities and our social networks). As mothers, we are at the forefront of understanding first hand that people’s choices and behaviours are conditioned not only by their own preferences and budget constraints, but also by social and cultural forces, moral influences, information asymmetry, media bias, manipulation by pressure groups and hierarchical perceptions of power.
You don’t have to be an economist to have something to say about economics. Running a household, especially households filled with children, makes you a practice the art of economics every day. Data from your average everydayness, can provide additional information regarding those core elements that make us human, as well as those core elements that make us happy: what makes us tick, what motivates us, what influences us, what drives us, what are our true preferences and exactly how volatile do they seem to be? We can learn through our children what our intrinsic human needs are—we can unravel the ways in which our raw (state of nature) interests and incentives develop—which are innate and which are learned—how we compete for affection—how we compete for survival? As mothers we are aware of the fact that our children can often act irrationally. Well, behavioural economists for example, incorporate the ways in which we are often influenced by irrational tendencies. Irrational behaviours of individuals include taking offense or becoming angry about a situation that has not yet occurred, expressing emotions exaggeratedly (such as crying hysterically), maintaining unrealistic expectations, engaging in irresponsible conduct such as problem intoxication, disorganization, or extravagance, and falling victim to confidence tricks.
Try to explore the influences that informal institutions (values, customs, traditions, norms) and formal institutions (rules, regulations, laws) have on the choices you and your children make every day. And if you haven’t done so already, begin to interpret the behaviour of your children in the context of improving upon the economic system that cradles the society in which we live. Through this collective act and through our writing, questioning, debating, we will surely come up with the creative insights and out of the box thinking that our children are entitled to.
After a brief falling out with investors and analysts alike, it appears smart-phone maker Research In Motion Ltd. is set to soar based on call options, which suggest a 31% upside in five weeks…
Bullish contracts on Research In Motion Ltd. shares are twice the level of bearish ones, the highest ratio since March 2006, according to Bloomberg.
The last time these call options outnumbered puts by that amount, the stock quadrupled in 19 months.
Traders are betting that RIM shares will rise 31% in five weeks via contracts to acquire the stock for US$80 through Jan. 15.
RIM hasn’t closed above that level since September.
The Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change comes with a side order of green fashion.
Today, more than 350 fashion experts, politicians, NGO’s, academics and celebrities will come together at the Copenhagen Opera House to discuss sustainable business practices in the fashion industry.
The Fashion Summit, organized by the Nordic Initiative Clean and Ethical (NICE), will include an exhibit showcasing materials and textiles made out of organic, recycled and renewable resources.
The summit will end with a sustainable runway show celebrating pieces by twenty Nordic fashion designers. Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Mary of Denmark will present a prize to the winning designer.
Looks like this is where to find all of the fun and (recycled) glitter at COP15.
-Otiena Ellwand
One-armed LBD from Norway brand, FIN. Image: treehugger.com
President Obama keeps talking about the jobs his administration is “creating” but there are more people unemployed now than before he took office. How can there be more unemployment after so many jobs have been “created”?
Let’s go back to square one. What does it take to create a job? It takes wealth to pay someone who is hired, not to mention additional wealth to buy the material that person will use.
But government creates no wealth. Ignoring that plain and simple fact enables politicians to claim to be able to do all sorts of miraculous things that they cannot do in fact. Without creating wealth, how can they create jobs? By taking wealth from others, whether by taxation, selling bonds or imposing mandates.
However it is done, transferring wealth is not creating wealth. When government uses transferred wealth to hire people, it is essentially transferring jobs from the private sector, not adding to the net number of jobs in the economy.
If that was all that was involved, it would be a simple verbal fraud, with no gain of jobs and no net loss. In reality, many other things that politicians do reduce the number of jobs.
Politicians who mandate various benefits that employers must provide for workers gain politically by seeming to give people something for nothing. But making workers more expensive means that fewer are likely to be hired.
During an economic recovery, employers can respond to an increased demand for their companies’ products by hiring more workers– creating more jobs– or they can work their existing employees overtime. Since workers have to be paid time-and-a-half for overtime, it might seem as if it would always be cheaper to hire more workers. But that was before politicians began mandating more benefits per worker.
When you get more hours of work from the existing employees, you don’t need to pay for additional mandates, as you would have to when you get more hours of work by hiring new people. For many employers, that makes it cheaper to pay for overtime. The data show that overtime hours have been increasing in the economy while more people have been laid off.
There is another way of reducing the cost of government-imposed mandates. That is by hiring temporary workers, to whom the mandates do not apply.
The number of temporary workers hired has increased for the fourth consecutive month, even though there are millions of unemployed people who could be hired for regular jobs, if it were not for the mandates that politicians have imposed.
Economists have long been saying that there is no free lunch, but politicians get elected by seeming to give free lunches, in one form or another. Yet there are no magic wands in Washington to make costs disappear, whether with workers or with medical care. We just pay in a different way, often a more costly way.
Nor can these costs all be simply dumped on “the rich,” because there are just not enough of them. Often people who are far from rich pay the biggest price in lost opportunities. A classic example is the minimum wage law.
Minimum wage laws appear to give low-income workers something for nothing– and appearances are what count in politics. Realities can be left to others, so long as appearances get votes.
People with low skills or little experience usually get paid low wages. Passing a minimum wage law does not make them any more valuable. At a higher wage, it can just make them expendable. Raising the minimum wage in the midst of a recession was guaranteed to increase unemployment among the young– and it has.
None of this is peculiar to the current administration. The Roosevelt administration created huge numbers of government jobs during the 1930s– and yet unemployment remained in double digits throughout FDR’s first two terms.
Constant government experiments with new bright ideas is another common feature of Obama’s “change” and FDR’s New Deal. The uncertainty that this unpredictable experimentation generates makes employers reluctant to hire. Destroying some jobs while creating other jobs does not get you very far, except politically. But politically is what matters to politicians, even if their policies needlessly prolong a recession or depression.
People on phones in front of an empty store on E. 33rd near Park Ave.
A view inside the empty store. The high ceilings and open floor space make it ideal for multiple ping pong tables. Reflected in the window, the ghostly images of two pedestrians and two phones, unaware of the ping pong possibility a few feet away. But it might as well be continents.
A woman and a man, mere yearning strangers, pass a closed eatery on E. 34th. Too small for proper ping pong, but perhaps once the perfect place for an after-match slice. I don’t know why the two passersby are not wielding phones. One can only speculate but perhaps shouldn’t.
“The terrorists today have the will to destroy us, but they don’t have the power. We have the power to eradicate them, but we must now show that we have the will.” – Benjamin Netanyahu – Sept. 14th, 2001
The United States has often been referred to as the world’s only super-power, but what does it really mean? The potential of a nation is only that. More often than not, the destiny of a nation is determined by will power and unity rather than potential or physical power. Potential will be realized only to the extent of the will and unity that exists among the people.
History shows that great nations often begin with a small group of determined people. Certainly in the case of America this is true. Many of the people who came to America’s shores were the poor persecuted and despised rejects of Europe. Still, what drove many of these these individuals was self-determination which in the end proved to be the greatest resource they brought ashore with them.
When the War of Independence broke out, approximately one third of colonists supported the revolution while the remaining two thirds were divided between those who were indifferent and those whose loyalties remained with the British crown. In the end the resolved minority not only prevailed over the other two thirds of their fellow countrymen but also against the world’s super power of the time.
There is more than one important lesson in this: first, a determined minority, although small, like a rudder on a ship can decide the course; second, a great power can be defeated by an inferior power under certain circumstances if a minority is unified and has the greater strength of will. America presently faces the fate of one or the other. If America prevails it will again be by strength of a minority within.
Rarely has it been the majority of a nation that initiated the greatness of that nation, even if the majority later enjoyed the benefits of that greatness. The inspiration for movements leading to greatness has always been initiated by a minority who persevered while enduring the vehement opposition of their antagonists, while the remainder of society largely in self absorption existed in a stupor of apathy.
Presently not only are there international threats posed by terrorist and state sponsors of terrorism, but there is also a resurgence of communistic socialism world wide—fascism to be more precise. Authoritarian governments and quasi-democracies through international treaties and organizations are seeking to consolidate the power of many to compete against a few by creating a global monopoly of power. However, for the United States threats are not limited to external elements, for the greatest threats today come from within our own system.
We grew from being a poor nation to a wealthy one, but we are still reviled, despised, and rejected by many other nations of the world. Because of this, there are some among us who willingly accept collective guilt on our behalf for everything that is wrong with the world today. They do this believing that because America is a super-power, not only is she responsible for all problems and their respective solutions, but she also holds an unfair advantage in terms of wealth and power.
Proponents of these views work to weaken America in every aspect and bring her under submission to prevailing world views in an attempt to create equality among nations. They hold that the road to world peace is only possible through capitulation by effectively surrendering our status as a super-power among the nations.
At the same time, the moral minority who reject capitulation are categorized and labeled among other things as: bigots, warmongers, dividers, unilateralists, fanatics, extremists, and cowboys. Even so, if this group will not only endure but be proactive, they will join in the greatness of those who came before them.
Because more than half of the nation is uninvolved and would rather exist in a stupor, battles are decided by the minority groups who do engage. During the next decade not only will the course of America be decided; but the course of the world. If America were to fail, virtually all of humanity will also fail for America is the stability of the world. She is the shinning city on a hill, the last best hope for mankind. Over forty years have past since the following words were spoken, but never have they been any truer than they are today:
“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.“ – Ronald Reagan, 1964
Will a minority rise to the occasion as in the past? I believe a minority will, and at the very least, they will retain their honor.
R.A. Sprinkle“When you know the truth, the truth will set you free.” But likewise, when you believe a lie, the lie will hold you captive.
You are in the water. Swim over to that loaded oil tanker. Push with all your might. Can you deflect it’s path? Not enough so anyone would notice. Would a hundred of you make a difference? A thousand? A million? A hundred million? Perhaps, but what would it accomplish? Sooner or later, you will tire and the ship’s pilot will eventually move through your hundred million.
Now, about those Tea Parties, and voting, and marching, and pink slips…
It’s not selfish if you refuse to join the delusions of millions. It’s not lazy if your work is hard for them to measure. You are not a loser if you don’t want what they seek to win.
Greece is having serious unrest. The ruling oligarchy wants the money from ruling. But there is a very large community of communists, socialists, etc. They’ve been legal as political parties for a long time, and the political culture makes lots of room for rowdiness. Their unrest is the natural result of the oligarchs refusing to share in the current economic troubles.
France has historical communists, and a culture of political rowdiness, too. Worse, they have invited a jillion refugees who never intended to become French. So what the society usually does for the French in need isn’t what the refugees want; they want something they can’t have. France’s unrest is also fairly easy to understand.
Iraq’s unrest is phony. While there has always been some tension between the various nations inside that country, it is simply the official excuse to cover up the activity of the CIA and friends. So we have clandestine services masquerading as local agitators destroying things and even attacking the troops, all to justify continuing to occupy their country.
Iran’s unrest is a similar story. As far as honest accounting is possible, the current government did win the election. But the CIA and friends are stirring up the minority who are willing to be stirred. Similar story in Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan. We are doing it.
You can talk all you want about the various parties who are pleased by this activity — massive destruction and death without any real reason — but the point is it boils down to wealth. To understand, you only have to follow the money, because that’s what it’s all about.
So, supposing they eventually get every last dime the world has. They take ownership of every thing of value on the earth. Then what? What will they have? Oh, wait — they plan to kill most of the human life, right? And then? They plan to enslave the few left. And then?
I make no apology for taking an entirely mystical view of things. Not just a passively mystical withdrawal into cloud land, but a very pragmatic intrusion into this materialistic fearful world. If this world and this life is all you have, you don’t have anything at all. Give it up; you might as well, because someone is going to take it. Probably very soon in real and literal terms. You may succeed in holding onto some part of it if you fight hard enough and have enough others with you doing the same. But then, what will you have accomplished? The next round of fighting will see you probably dead. Or the next. You can’t hold out forever.
If you take little interest in things tangible, because you know it really is no more than a shadow of a higher reality, then you may have some hope of sanity, a moment when the clarity of truth begins to shine in your soul. Then, even if they pump you full of stuff which deranges your brain cells, you still had the one thing they can never take from you. You will know beyond all doubt all they can take won’t matter. Once you get that clarity, you’ll understand why it matters more than anything else.
Until then, I’m just a raving lunatic. Care to join me?
The latest unemployment numbers from the U.S. Department of Labor, show the national unemployment rate fell to 10.0 percent in November. In the prior 3 months, they report, job losses had averaged 135,000 a month.
Averaging job losses over a three month period makes the 135,000, as bad as it is, appear less harsh. But October’s 190,000 job losses exceeded administration projections of 175,000 — alarming enough. Nearly 15.4 million people remain unable to find jobs in the worst recession since the Great Depression. At the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons was 7.5 million, and the jobless rate was 4.9 percent
The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) rose by 293,000 to 5.9 million – exceeding last month’s all-time record 5.6 million.
Arizona’s unemployment numbers are available here.
About 2.3 million persons were “marginally attached to the labor force” in November, an increase of 376,000 from a year earlier. These individuals were not in the labor force, but wanted to be, were available for work, and had sought a job within the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.
These staggering numbers represent families without income and the inability to pay rent, insurance, put gas in their cars, make basic purchases and put food on the table. Yet such harsh realities have not deterred the Democrats pushing Obama’s $1 trillion federalized takeover of health care.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has been implementing strategic changes to their news releases, aiming for” tighter analytical focus.” They write: “The textual changes for some of the releases will be fairly modest, while for others the analytical content may be more noticeably different.” The changes, they report, result from elicited “feedback of focus groups with journalists; an evaluation by BLS cognitive psychologists who assist the Bureau in assessing the clarity of its public offerings.”
Huh?
In plain English we read that to mean that the Obama administration is dismayed with the continued plummeting unemployment numbers and is working overtime to conceal from the American people how dire the situation actually is.
Statement: Forward this article eyes of the beholder, does not mean that I view
Everyone familiar in this country. . .
Pedestrians and vehicles in this country do not comply with traffic regulations, traffic lights are for reference only, so the number of traffic fatalities over the world.
People of this country is very hospitable for foreigners than its own citizens to enjoy more dignity, benefits and privileges.
The vast majority of people in this country live on less than 2 dollars a day, but there are tens of thousands of corrupt officials, corruption and an average of nearly 20 million U.S. dollars.
Polarization in this country the world’s largest gap between rich and poor, less than 20% of the population holds more than 80% of the social wealth.
Majority of the population in this country do not have unemployment insurance, medical insurance and all other social benefits. Sickness and death all fatalistic.
The country’s securities market Banded style enclosing money, management shady constantly, and now the vast majority of shareholders only half of the original capital.
In many parts of the country’s officials have for some is actually set up the financing of private sector cut-off color, but the department’s boss Xiekuan flight, the government departments would claim that this is illegal financial institutions, therefore, the people’s money down the drain , such as: cigarettes, well-known that the city “banks and enterprises.”
The existence of this country does not allow red-light district, but the overwhelming beauty, hair salons, etc. has become a police career.
Lives and property of people of this country are not protected under the broad daylight robbery and other violent nobody, devoid of humanity.
Poor sectors of the country’s people, to make a living doing small business, we will have to face the inspectors came, inevitably another meal storm hit.
The city’s remote mountain people, with little guarantee of survival, they are in order to survive, they are willing to advance the health of blood, even their lives.
Local government buildings in this country quite a luxury, local government, or misappropriation of public funds apportioned to the people to build luxurious office buildings, and even the national-level poor counties and townships, too, one short of the province of Henan has a place called the city smoke, this place municipal building energy to catch up with a five-star hotels, but also a large city in the land and dozens of large-scale low-rise office building of villas (Why do not the land-saving high-rise buildings), facilities, luxurious five-star management.
Some of the country and invited foreigners to advertise on TV, damn guilty *!
The country’s news media report only the good, the media did not dare to tell the truth, × × network which are all reported a big happy event in this country.
In this country, whether groups or individuals to borrow money are generally not also, or even living in the lowest strata of society owed wages of migrant workers, the town government a burden on the hotel thing not uncommon.
The people of this country hate the little Japanese, because the small blood debt owed to Japan, but the people of this country but like the Japanese products.
Farmers in this country to enter the city must pay their own costs, are often arrested and detained for no reason, or forced labor, coercion, or their families and friends to bring the ransom money, after their own labor can only regain their freedom. Slight rebels are often beaten to death.
The country’s GDP growth rate of the world’s highest, but the vast majority of people’s living standards have not significantly improved the poor has actually increased.
This country is the world’s factory, the world’s goods, where processing and transported to the world, to refuse to stay behind and even from abroad, to refuse to domestic, thus bringing the country into the world’s largest garbage dump . Most of its major river systems is four, five Grade (not suitable for drinking); one third of the territory of acid rain erosion; 340 cities in 60% of the contamination.
In this country while introducing foreign investment, while corrupt officials Queba capital flight abroad. Since 1985, the corrupt capital flight reached 400 billion U.S. dollars! The exodus of funds are also transformed into the enjoyment of foreign capital in the domestic super-national treatment – tax reductions, exemptions and other investment privileges.
Workers in this country, especially from rural to urban workers in the past long time-out, super-strength, non-security conditions of labor, low wages to the company can not afford to buy a ticket back home. They often died in the mine, the factory burst into flames, or occupational lung diseases such as silicon as well as the tortured life of the disabled.
In this country attaches great importance to education, allef — The world has such a country! ! — published from insurance information www.autoinsurancequotes3.com
But the Last Word goes to an idol of mine, Charles M. Schulz:
Merry Christmas to All, and to All a Good Night.
One-on One With Jim Rogers- CNBC-12.10.09
