nathaniel
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Can anyone actually defend this complete load of horse shit?
It's their million bucks, they can spend it how they want.
Where did all the libertarians go?My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski? -
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Microfinance, for example.
So-called microfinance is often conducted at rates that would be usurious to those of us accustomed to liquid credit markets, generally because these are very high risk instruments for creditors.
20% - 50% APR, for instance.
The alternative is no loan; praying for charity and its market distorting effects.
Who can make a living farming rice or digging pit latrines when the NGOs will do it free?My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski? -
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Even if you support legalization of drugs, do you really think conditions, such as those found in Mexico, would clear up? Those cartels aren't killing 6000 civilians each year because of government attempts to impede their trafficking.
Yeah, just look at how many lives were lost when InBev took over Anheuser last year. They made Al Capone look like an elementary school psychologist.My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski? -
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Blago. does seem to take the record for stupidity, though. It's not as though he was unaware that he was under investigation by the feds. I mean, at least he should try to get away with it.
I'd pay him $5 to pull the trigger and appoint himself to the Senate now, before the state legislature can strip him of the power to do so.
He's still governor. Who says pay to play is a bad thing? It'd be hilarious.
edit for syntaxMy advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski? -
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Deuteronomy 23:10 (New International Version)
New International Version (NIV)
10 If one of your men is unclean because of a nocturnal emission, he is to go outside the camp and stay there.My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski? -
As Gas Prices Go Down, Driving Goes Up
All you big-oil haters / conspiracy theorists better come out in support of Europe style gas taxes in the US now.
No more of this gas tax holiday bullshit, plzkthx.My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski? -
The Lake McDonald and Many Glacier lodges are fantastic. Huge, but great views. Seemed to attract an older crowd. Restaurants at the lodges are decent.
The road accessible campgrounds are hit and miss, some of them are just in the woods with no attractions other than nearby day hikes. The ones near lakes / streams are very nice though, and worth camping at.
There are basically no showers inside the park except for the lodges (which have them in every room like any hotel), so if you plan to do extensive camping you might want to factor that in.My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski? -
While we're at it, let's ban options. You don't want to have someone issue a put at today's price and a call on the same ticker below the put. That'd be like a short.
What'll we do about people going long on negatively correlated securities?
...
Hmm...Henceforth all securities shall be positively correlated. You know, to prevent some people from making money while others are losing. And besides, not everything will lose value at once, that's never happened before, right?My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski? -
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They're all just a bunch of whiners; the fundamentals of the economy are strong. Haven't you been paying attention?
I'm no fan of the current administration (nor particularly impressed with the nominees) but TBH I'm having a hard time disagreeing with this sentiment.
The financial sector is taking it pretty hard right now but the failures are largely of their own making. A few dozen execs and a few tens of thousands of 9-5ers out of work. Interest rates getting volatile and prices dancing a little. Throw in a dubious bailout and stimulus plan or two.
In other words not too different from your average slowdown, just some of the losers were higher profile than usual.
On the upside, the oil shock is subsiding and the hurricane season has largely spared us so far (knock on wood, eh).My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski? -
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isolationism
Our economy is going to depend on China for the next several decades no matter where we get our energy from. And vice versa.Quote
More like foresight. We invest in the present to provide a desired result in the future.
You're begging the question here...it's a good investment because ?
Because Denmark makes windmills? Come on.
Creating jobs nets us nothing when they're made on subsidized dollars. It's a redistribution. You may as well increase unemployment insurance and let people find jobs at market rates. Or issue more stimulus checks (which is not to say that would be a good idea...).
Besides, if we started cranking out 100x as many windmills on the backs of millions of suddenly trained subsidized laborers, what would happen to the price of windmills? Could we stockpile them and build up a strategic windmill reserve? It's a fairy tale. All that capital would be mothballed and wasted as the market glutted.
Which is not to say that the market needs windmills to begin with; the wind industry is famous for sputtering to a halt when the tax dollars dry up. If anything what the wind industry needs is higher energy prices to be competitive.My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski? -
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level of effort, multiplied by our larger population, larger resource base and larger GDP.
TBH I'm a bit struck by this. The whole reason we import energy now is that it's cheaper than making it at home. IOW, we would have a smaller GDP today if we had spent more resources on energy production than we did.
When I see this kind of blather (ie the Forbes article) it strikes me as performance chasing, same as leads the naive to buy high and sell low. Yes plenty of people are chafing at energy prices today, but it's a big step to get from high prices today to sound investments for tomorrow. The market is already hard at work on this problem, and it has got plenty of subsidized dollars behind it to boot.
Why do we need to do more in order to be like Denmark? Why all this doomsaying about the economy disappearing? What good is self-sufficiency if China or Saudia Arabia can supply us for less via coal and oil even after we have enough capacity to produce at home?
Likely answers:
1- nationalism / xenophobia
2- influencing the market toward particular outcomes -- viz reduced marginal costs
3- environmentalism of some sort
#1 is straightforward and I'm sold on it
#2 in particular strikes me as somewhat populist, and this doesn't seem out of order considering Riddler's rant just above.
#3 I'm not (presently) convinced that energy independence has anything to do with the environment...
Would you agree then that driving toward energy independence is underwritten by nationalist and populist sentiment? Or is there another motivation behind it...My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski? -
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Products that "contain" energy both come and go as well.
Well then it must be a wash, right?
Or another reason to discount analogies on patterns of energy use.My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski? -
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Denmark simply proved that it can be done withfewer resourcesa smaller economy than we have.
FTFY
I wonder how much of their energy independence has just been outsourced to other countries in Forbes' assessment.
Does it count against Denmark's energy tally when they import steel?My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski? -
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Or just make efficient cars and trucks. One works, one doesn't.
Both analogies are inappropriate for the stated purpose.
Denmark doesn't grow much corn. Planting, growing, and harvesting corn takes energy. Ergo we should stop growing corn to be like Denmark, amirite?
It's meaningless to extrapolate from Denmark's economy to United States' and it would be wasteful to adopt their strategies wholesale. "At what cost?" is half of the equation, though it seems to have eluded the discussion so far.My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski? -
Great.
Now we'll just "conserve" the distances between our cities and coasts until our country is the size of Denmark and let the transportation savings begin!My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski? -
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In scientific terms, evolution is the only game in town; there is no other side to the story.
Blasphemy!My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski? -
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My question is what effect does that have on an economy?
Not much. It makes life easier for merchants who are less prone to mistaking a $10000000000 bill for a $1000000000 bill, or getting tricked by a $10000000000 wrapped around a roll of $100000000s. Means a little more legwork for accountants and banks, but honestly are there any of those left in Zimbabwe?
Also it makes life easier on the currency printing presses...istr they just lost one of their last sources of paper for currency.
It doesn't do anything about the 800 lb gorilla in the room.
edit: more zerosMy advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski? -
You could follow in Medusa's footsteps. YMMV, let us know if it works for you.My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski? -
Where's the option for Ricardian equivalence?My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski? -
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Then you have Administrators with no real medical background or understanding deciding what patients need.
That's already happening with managed care as it is.
On the flip side of that, asking your doctor / nurse about what treatment you need runs you into the same issues as asking your mechanic what kind of work needs to be done on your car. Doctors & nurses face incentives to recommend care above and beyond what is appropriate because it means more pay & prestige for them.
Case in point, extreme measures for the terminally ill are famously overprescribed in the US resulting in significant expense at little patient benefit. Rising incidence of C-sections instead of vaginal delivery, etc.
In terms of optimizing cost/benefit we're better off not putting decisions in the hands of doctors.My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski? -
While we're at it, let's revoke the right to vote from people who don't own land and have negative net worth.
You don't really have a stake to begin with if you don't own a piece of it amirite?My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski? -
Africa has substantial mineral deposits, including niobium and tantalum. These are used for steel production and making electronics, respectively. And blood diamonds, of course, even though those are out of style.My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski? -
I wonder what a piece of aluminum foil or a grounding strap would do to the shock function.
Could 5 terrorists line up in serial to kill an onboard air marshal?My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski? -
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Countries with looser drug laws have lower rates of abuse, the researchers report in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Medicine.
Well, you could read that correlation either way.
Don't agree with drug laws or drugs myself. Just sayin.My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?
Another brilliant John Stewart piece
in Speakers Corner
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States -> Hawaii is 5th best in median income
http://poverty.suite101.com/article.cfm/poverty_in_hawaii -> Hawaii had 5th lowest poverty rate (article dated 2008).
If we're going to be fudging demographic factors, quit pulling your punches and let's go straight for Luxembourg or Lichtenstein. We'll just be more like them and the numbers will work themselves out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29_per_capita