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The future:
Modern Warfare 2 five-day sales hit $550 million
Half a billion in 5 days. Who would have thought that a ‘kids’ toy’ industry would become so important? Well, I did. BTW, my original point about Brazil’s backward approach on videogames continues to be valid: MW2 will be selling for the amazing amount of 250 Reais (aprox. 140 US$) compared to US$ 59.99 in the US.
The Past:
Fat cat pay – Then and now
Among all the stupid arguments and lies being sold during this recession, this whole controversy on CEO pay has to be the worst. Pure media garbage and political populism.
The clouds!
Chavez asking Cubans to ‘bomb clouds’ amid drought
What a clown.
In his little post titled “If a deficit falls in the forest …” Golden Boy again shows why we cannot trust him a bit. His argument is that Obama should not worry about reducing deficits because “the public won’t even hear about (it)”. As proof, he shows a poll from 1996 that shows a percentage of Republicans (and Democrats and Independents too, but he only cares about Republicans) who thought the deficit was not decreasing, but increasing at that time.
That is a great reasoning isn’t it? You shouldn’t do a thing about issues that are not immediately and completely translated as political advantage. Does he talk about acceptable levels of deficit? No. Does he talk about long term implications of large deficits? No! (He only did so when Bush was in power, of course). AND THE GUY IS A ‘WORLD-RENOWNED’ ECONOMIST!
Listen, I don’t like Obama and all of that but this guy is the kind of Liberal that truly scares me. He is a total farce, a political monster posing as an economist – a Nobel Prize winner economist if that matters at all nowadays.
You can mark my words – the only possible destiny for this guy is to become an actual politician some day. Be afraid.
One year ago the world was ending. Panic in Wall Street, americans losing their life savings, giants of banking asking for help and lefties were predicting the end of the Empire. Even Christmas was cancelled!
One year later and I am still here… same old thing.
Not that I am complaining… Many people did suffer (and many are still suffering) this downturn but… When we say ‘end of the world’ it sure sounds like something that would affect everyone in the world negatively (to say the least), right? 10% unemployment is really bad… but I would say the whole other 90% of workers are not a small part of society, are they?
But forget about it. I am just a crazy partisan who is trying to say these things to help the party in power, just like I was last year.
Ooops.
This is an amazing article from CNN Money about “Name discrimination”.
Ok, let me break this down for you:
- If your name sounds weird, people will assume you are not American
- Yes, American companies tend to try to hire Americans first
- If you have a thick accent it will be more difficult to land a job that values communication
- If your name is hard to pronounce it will be more difficult to land a job that values name recognition
- Do not, I repeat, DO NOT list ‘PartyDude@BeerU.Com’ as your email contact (on second thought… please do)
Now here comes the best advice anyone could ever give around this issue:
- It is totally legal (and easy, and cheap) to change your legal name in the USA
Phew!
This Rasmussen poll was out in April but I just read about it now:
Just 53% Say Capitalism Better Than Socialism
The headline is a bit misleading (shocker) since only 20% say Socialism is a better system; 27% say they are not sure which is better.
Who is to blame for this? As always, young people:
“Adults under 30 are essentially evenly divided: 37% prefer capitalism, 33% socialism, and 30% are undecided. Thirty-somethings are a bit more supportive of the free-enterprise approach with 49% for capitalism and 26% for socialism. Adults over 40 strongly favor capitalism, and just 13% of those older Americans believe socialism is better. “
And of course, Democrats:
“There is a partisan gap as well. Republicans – by an 11-to-1 margin – favor capitalism. Democrats are much more closely divided: Just 39% say capitalism is better while 30% prefer socialism. As for those not affiliated with either major political party, 48% say capitalism is best, and 21% opt for socialism.”
The article suggests that maybe the problem is the term Capitalism, because a similar poll found that 70% of U.S. voters say a free market is better than one managed by the government.
I just wish we could have a poll that verified how many people actually know the definition of Capitalism and Socialism. I am sure we could find some funny correlations with those results and the ones from the other two polls…
It looks like last week news of unemployment finally easing up a bit convinced Golden Boy that the world will not end after all.
Of course, he swears that this has only happened because SuperBama increased spending. Again, this is all really funny since he was still calling for much larger spending back in June, and was painting doom scenarios for September. Furthermore, if you actually look at the numbers provided by the government itself, it looks like we haven’t even got close of spending half of the allocated money yet. By the way, I am certain we won’t even be able to tell when and how all this money will be spent. Business as usual for Mommy Government.
But again, no one will remember that. We won’t even try to figure out how much all these billions we spent so far actually helped or not. This guy is all about ideology. He will let his end of the world fantasies aside if it is to help his superman in the White House. So much so as to say that deficit spending now is a good thing! (He must be really happy about that, since we just hit 1.3 trillion, with estimates that the deficit will top $1.8 billion by fiscal year’s end).
In any case, another chicken leader is gone. For now.
UPDATE
Newsweek is taking a big step into mea-culpa territory here:
Stimulus Overload
The economy is doing so well, the government may be able to cut the stimulus package next year.
I wonder how the Golden Boy will react to this. Maybe he will say that Obama is so great that his stimulus stimulated too much too fast! Ah, the joys of having a God leading us…
In the article linked below, Brink Lindsey explains in detail and refutes thoroughly all Krugman’s arguments around inequality and shows that not only the origins of our current system are much more intricate, but also that the so-called solutions being proposed by Krugman are not something that we can (or should) implement.
Really, a completely required read:
Nostalgianomics
Liberal economists pine for days no liberal should want to revisit.
Despite Promises, Elderly Evicted From Housing
Who does not get upset about old people being kicked out of their home, right? I feel bad even to write anything at all related to this. But I cannot help it.
Putting all the emotion aside, what was really the problem here? Is it that old people are being tricked by oral promises? How does anyone propose to solve this? Should we record every single conversation old people have when they sign contracts? Private contracts are essential to any financial operation, how are we supposed to teach people that if something is not in paper it is not enforceable?
Or is real problem here that this company serves old people and therefore needs to behave differently than other companies?
The real kicker is the part where they said that the Myers couple went through their savings during their 3 year stay at that facility, making this sound like a crime. Again, what is really the problem? Was the contract illegal? If we are saying that this is unfair because old people don’t understand money, how come the sons and daughters of the Myers were ok with the whole thing during 3 years? And how about the stock market mention? Are we saying that old people should not be able to lose money when stocks go down? We have to decide what is allowed or not, you can’t have it both ways.
This new fetish around regulation scares the crap out of me. This is becoming a codeword for big government doing very stupid things. What regulation could have changed this? Why do you think other assisted living companies have ‘stayed away’ from serving middle class? Would the Myers be better off if they had to spend those last 3 years in the nursing home they so clearly did not like?
I know with all these bailouts and deficits things get cloudy, but make no mistake: if we keeping eating our cakes and trying to keep them too, one day there will be no more cake.
Continuing with my maps obsession of late, here are two interesting ones (click on them for larger images):
According to the original article, “Only in the US and India do searches on Rand beat searches on Marx.”
It is interesting to see how countries on the top of Marx searches represent well the viability of his ideas. It is sad though, to see how much of the world still falls for it…
Hawaii Ending Universal Child Health Care After 7 Mos.
“Gov. Linda Lingle’s administration cited budget shortfalls and other available health care options for eliminating funding for the program. A state official said families were dropping private coverage so their children would be eligible for the subsidized plan.
“People who were already able to afford health care began to stop paying for it so they could get it for free,” said Dr. Kenny Fink, the administrator for Med-QUEST at the Department of Human Services. “I don’t believe that was the intent of the program.”
What? But i thought State run health care was supposed to be “good and cheap”!
Hey, but if it doesn’t work for Hawaii why not try it for the whole country right?
Obama is (was) the third highest recipient of Fannie Mae money in the Senate, after John Kerry and, of course, Chris Dodd. (via Instapundit)
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Budget Deficit Likely Doubled for Fiscal ‘08
Democrats pushing 2nd stimulus of $50 billion; GOP resisting
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“Mrs. Palin used her veto pen to slash more local projects than any other governor in the state’s history. She cut nearly 10% of Alaska’s budget this year, saving state residents $268 million. This included vetoing a $30,000 van for Campfire USA and $200,000 for a tennis court irrigation system. She succinctly justified these cuts by saying they were “not a state responsibility.”
Meanwhile in Washington, Mr. Obama voted for numerous wasteful earmarks last year, including: $12 million for bicycle paths, $450,000 for the International Peace Museum, $500,000 for a baseball stadium and $392,000 for a visitor’s center in Louisiana.
Mrs. Palin cut Alaska’s federal earmark requests in half last year, one of the strongest moves against earmarks by any governor. It took real leadership to buck Alaska’s decades-long earmark addiction.
Mr. Obama delivered over $100 million in earmarks to Illinois last year and has requested nearly a billion dollars in pet projects since 2005. His running mate, Joe Biden, is still indulging in earmarks, securing over $90 million worth this year.“
More here: Yes, Palin Did Stop That Bridge
How pain of rich may trickle down to you
“(AP) — The rich are sharing your financial pain — and contributing to it.
It may have taken longer and it may not be as acute, but there are early hints that the economic slump is crimping the lifestyles of the wealthy.
They are investing more conservatively, spending less on luxury goods and are being more thrifty with their credit cards. Many are asking their personal shoppers and private-jet travel providers to seek the best deals rather than over-the-top extravagances.
That news may produce a shrug from many people who have lost their jobs or homes in this economy. The problem is that when the wealthy get stingy, it trickles down to the rest of us.”
Several things here that I don’t understand…. First, when the lower classes stop spending their money because of “the slump” it is all the government’s fault. Now, when the rich stop spending money they are actually part of the problem!
Even worse: I thought that it was a widely known fact that supply side economics (which says, among other things, that tax cuts for the rich help the whole economy in a “trickle down” effect) has been disproven. Now, how can the pain felt by the rich affect regular citizens?
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Another thing that drives me nuts is the meaningless time reference these articles love to make. Like this one:
“On Friday, the Labor Department reported that the unemployment rate had jumped to the highest in four years.”
Oh yes, that is cause for huge concern! The big crisis of 2004 is really unforgettable!
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What irritates me the most about this kind of bash the rich piece is the complete lack of context.
Why would I hate that someone owns a yacht? Did the guy steal it? Did he make money exploiting sick old ladies? Maybe he is a very talented engineer that invented software I use every day? Could he be a genius who invented a medicine that saves sick kids?
All of that doesn’t matter. All that matters is that he has what the reporter assumes to be too much.
I am far from perfect, but envy is one stupid flaw that I am proud of not having.
Thomas Sowell says that “The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.”
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Tim Russert’s death sounded sadly familiar to me. Four years ago my dad died the same way. My dad was also 58. Just like Russert he had also went through a cardio physical exam a few months before his death and got good results. Both man died in an instant, without warning or anything that could be done about.
I think it is intriguing how the press, who loves to find something wrong about anything, kind of ignores the fact that our ‘modern’ medicine is still pretty medieval. You can only imagine the amount of money Russert spent on health insurance, medicine, health clubs, and still he died from a classic heart attack.
How many years all that investment actually got him? Did he make that choice consciously or was it imposed on him?
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I have another member of my family who has got cancer. A bad one.
I’ve talked quite a bit with a doctor about treatments and how they work, and I got to tell you: it is really brutal stuff… on your body and on your pocketbook.
I am pro-life, and I think suicide is something amazingly sad. But this idea that we can subject a person to all these “treatments” (that look pretty much like torture to me) just to prolong a life by a few months is sounding more and more like a crazy obsession than anything else.
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Look at what happened to AIDS for instance. Politicians almost unanimously framed the issue as a world disaster event, something that could affect anyone anywhere. Now, 25 years and some trillions of dollars later, the UN is forced to admit that AIDS is pretty much an issue for gay man and African countries.
I know, that doesn’t sound nice. But it is the truth. Maybe now we can start spending the money where is actually needed – buying TB medicine and targeting ads to gay man instead of spending millions testing low risk groups every year.
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Of course I am not proposing that people just stop going to the doctor. I just think that people should be aware of how exact or not some areas of science are.
We live in a world of uncertainty and scarcity. This idea that we can control everything around us and that we should provide all to everyone is just madness. We need to focus on what can be done. This could help us, for instance, on making our health plans, public and private, much more affordable.
U.S. Jobs Gained and Lost through Trade: A Net Measure
“We have two main findings. First, we determine that the offshoring of jobs has been a limited phenomenon: Our comprehensive estimate of the number of jobs embodied in U.S. net imports is small relative to total employment in the United States1—2.4 percent of the total, at the most—both historically and in recent years. Moreover, this estimate is sometimes positive and sometimes negative, suggesting that international trade does not necessarily mean a loss of jobs for the United States.
Second, we find no evidence to support the claims that a surge in offshoring played a large role in the jobless recovery. Jobs embodied in net imports did not grow at an accelerated pace after the 2001 recession. In fact, the increase in U.S. jobs sent abroad has averaged about 30,000 per month since 2001—a deceleration from the monthly average increase of 45,000 jobs during the period from 1997 to 2001.
More broadly, our results show no clear or necessary relationship between a pickup in jobs lost to trade and weakness in the U.S. labor market. A case in point is the 1997-2001 acceleration in offshoring, which occurred when U.S. payrolls were expanding steadily.”
Are We Underestimating the Gains from Globalization for the United States?
“In this edition of Current Issues, we examine how the availability of new goods and varieties through international trade has affected the welfare of U.S. citizens. While the benefits of free trade have traditionally been associated with declines in the price of existing products, recent trade theory suggests that the introduction of new imported goods constitutes another important gain from trade. Our task in this article is to provide a measure of this gain over the past three decades.
To do so, we first estimate the increase in global varieties from 1972 to 2001. We then estimate how the change in import prices over this period—a standard gauge of consumer welfare—would be affected if this increase in variety were taken into account. Using our results, we determine what consumers would be willing to pay to access the wider range of goods available in 2001 than in 1972.
Significantly, we find that global varieties grew more than threefold over the 1972-2001 period. When we adjust import price growth for the increased variety, we find that import prices in this period fell markedly faster—by about 1.2 percentage points per year—than the conventional, or unadjusted, import price index would suggest.1 Taking our calculations one step further, we conclude that consumers would be willing to pay $260 billion, or roughly 3 percent of GDP in 2001, to avail themselves of the expanded range of goods on the market. This sizable sum indicates that U.S. consumers see increased choice in goods as an important benefit of international trade.”
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