Overconfidence among some of my friends is scaring the pee out of me. My friend Marty was sure Barack was going to win by a landslide months ago. Now Michael blogs that the election has been over for about a month, and since he lives in D.C., he's excited about the inauguration. Me, I'm thinking about leaving the country if McPalin wins, which I put at even money
I've been working on my Spanish and looking at tropical little socialist-heavens-on-earth, but going north is also a possibility. And I'm not the only one.
http://www.slatev.com/player.html?id=1842856410
Adios, eh?
Friday, October 31, 2008
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Don't know much about . . . . : Continued
Like most people, including most economists, I don’t know much about economics, and therefore I don’t understand at all why we’re facing an economic crisis right now, as opposed to a year ago or a year from now. Something about over-leveraged subprime derivatives, which goes a long way towards explaining why I'm not rich. That’s why I read with interest an article in today’s Washington Post which seems to suggest that whatever it was that went wrong, it was Alan Greenspan’s fault.
For a long time, I’ve thought of Greenspan as the J. Edgar Hoover of finance, although Greenspan only held his post at the Federal Reserve for nineteen years, as compared to Hoover’s 48 years at the FBI. Also, to my knowledge, Greenspan is not a cross dresser.
The Post documents that despite appearances to the contrary, a lot of people have seen the potential for our economic meltdown for a very long time, including some congressional testimony dating back as far as the early nineties. Greenspan, a self-avowed libertarian, always had faith in the corrective power of the capitalist marketplace, in part arguing that integrity was itself a commodity which promotes stability. But now he seems to have leveraged his opinion: “The problem is not that the contracts failed. Rather, the people using them got greedy.” A lack of integrity spawned the crisis, he argued in a speech a week ago at Georgetown University, intimating that those peddling derivatives were not as reliable as “the pharmacist who fills the prescription ordered by our physician.” So there’s nothing wrong with unregulated markets, only with greedy capitalists.
Apparently if Greenspan were a zookeeper, he would offer the lions a balanced diet, confident that they would choose to eat healthy, including lots of fruits and vegetables and not too much red meat. Pharmacists,apparently, are natural vegetarians, so they can serve as a kind of economic control group.
The full Post article, very worth reading, is available here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/economy/09greenspan.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&adxnnl=1&emc=th&adxnnlx=1223568417-x4WVFeRo10fLkP1ibrviig
In the meantime, I was pleased to learn yesterday that AIG, which holds all of Mary’s gone-yesterday, here-today, who-knows-tomorrow retirement savings, is so confident in its corporate future that they just held a four-hundred-thousand dollar, week-long retreat for top executives. This got those bad executives a stern lecture from Congress, which seems to think just because it bailed AIG out to the tune of $70 billion, it can tell them they should settle for take-out until further notice.
I'll have the leveraged pot stickers with a subprime pedicure on the side.
For a long time, I’ve thought of Greenspan as the J. Edgar Hoover of finance, although Greenspan only held his post at the Federal Reserve for nineteen years, as compared to Hoover’s 48 years at the FBI. Also, to my knowledge, Greenspan is not a cross dresser.
The Post documents that despite appearances to the contrary, a lot of people have seen the potential for our economic meltdown for a very long time, including some congressional testimony dating back as far as the early nineties. Greenspan, a self-avowed libertarian, always had faith in the corrective power of the capitalist marketplace, in part arguing that integrity was itself a commodity which promotes stability. But now he seems to have leveraged his opinion: “The problem is not that the contracts failed. Rather, the people using them got greedy.” A lack of integrity spawned the crisis, he argued in a speech a week ago at Georgetown University, intimating that those peddling derivatives were not as reliable as “the pharmacist who fills the prescription ordered by our physician.” So there’s nothing wrong with unregulated markets, only with greedy capitalists.
Apparently if Greenspan were a zookeeper, he would offer the lions a balanced diet, confident that they would choose to eat healthy, including lots of fruits and vegetables and not too much red meat. Pharmacists,apparently, are natural vegetarians, so they can serve as a kind of economic control group.
The full Post article, very worth reading, is available here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/economy/09greenspan.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&adxnnl=1&emc=th&adxnnlx=1223568417-x4WVFeRo10fLkP1ibrviig
In the meantime, I was pleased to learn yesterday that AIG, which holds all of Mary’s gone-yesterday, here-today, who-knows-tomorrow retirement savings, is so confident in its corporate future that they just held a four-hundred-thousand dollar, week-long retreat for top executives. This got those bad executives a stern lecture from Congress, which seems to think just because it bailed AIG out to the tune of $70 billion, it can tell them they should settle for take-out until further notice.
I'll have the leveraged pot stickers with a subprime pedicure on the side.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
The end of an era
As usual this morning, I was sitting at the computer having my third cup of coffee and waiting for the paper to arrive, lately sometime after 9:00 a.m. When it didn’t come, I remembered I had cancelled my subscription a few weeks ago, effective today, October 1st. Thus ends about forty years of uninterrupted daily delivery of a morning paper and a change in the habit of nearly a lifetime. I’m a little surprised it isn’t more painful
I love newspapers. I follow current events like some guys follow sports, with a passion and great attention to detail. I got my first subscription in 1969 when I shipped out (flew out, actually) to Vietnam and my thoughtful mother bought me a subscription to the San Francisco Chronicle. She knew I love to read the paper every morning, and receiving the Chron by mail about a week late kept me feeling connected to home. There was life going on back there and I knew I was going to get back to it sooner or later.
For the last twenty-seven years or so it’s been The Oregonian, which I consider to be a very good daily paper. It used to be delivered about 5 a.m., and I could wake up, have coffee and read most of the paper before leaving for work. Then it started coming about 7;30, so when I was still working I had to read it after I got home in the afternoon. Not as good.
Now, though, it comes sometime after nine, and the distributor explained to me that it had to do with changing routes to use gas more efficiently. By 9, I’ve already read most of the Washington Post and New York Times online and had too much coffee to even think about pouring another cup. At most, I’d scan the front section and read a couple of editorials.
And then they raised the subscription price from $30 a month to $40 a month. I just couldn’t justify the expense anymore.
There are a lot of reasons at least a few daily papers should stay in business, and a lot of reasons they probably won’t. Give them maybe twenty years. Fifty at the outside. So I guess it is a little painful to step back while they’re still available. I’ll probably still buy the Sunday paper in the newsstands and have breakfast or coffee in a café. Most days, though, I’ll get all my news and opinion online. With email updates from the Times and Post.
I’ll miss the funnies, though.
I love newspapers. I follow current events like some guys follow sports, with a passion and great attention to detail. I got my first subscription in 1969 when I shipped out (flew out, actually) to Vietnam and my thoughtful mother bought me a subscription to the San Francisco Chronicle. She knew I love to read the paper every morning, and receiving the Chron by mail about a week late kept me feeling connected to home. There was life going on back there and I knew I was going to get back to it sooner or later.
For the last twenty-seven years or so it’s been The Oregonian, which I consider to be a very good daily paper. It used to be delivered about 5 a.m., and I could wake up, have coffee and read most of the paper before leaving for work. Then it started coming about 7;30, so when I was still working I had to read it after I got home in the afternoon. Not as good.
Now, though, it comes sometime after nine, and the distributor explained to me that it had to do with changing routes to use gas more efficiently. By 9, I’ve already read most of the Washington Post and New York Times online and had too much coffee to even think about pouring another cup. At most, I’d scan the front section and read a couple of editorials.
And then they raised the subscription price from $30 a month to $40 a month. I just couldn’t justify the expense anymore.
There are a lot of reasons at least a few daily papers should stay in business, and a lot of reasons they probably won’t. Give them maybe twenty years. Fifty at the outside. So I guess it is a little painful to step back while they’re still available. I’ll probably still buy the Sunday paper in the newsstands and have breakfast or coffee in a café. Most days, though, I’ll get all my news and opinion online. With email updates from the Times and Post.
I’ll miss the funnies, though.
Huh?
After the vote in the House, I heard this guy on TV:
"During the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution," said Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) on the floor, "the slogan was 'Peace, land, and bread.' Today, you are being asked to choose between bread and freedom."
Huh?
"During the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution," said Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) on the floor, "the slogan was 'Peace, land, and bread.' Today, you are being asked to choose between bread and freedom."
Huh?
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