Saturday, December 1, 2012

Cab Thoughts 12/1/12

"There is nothing permanent except change." - Heraclitus 

Taxes and rising commodity prices are curtailing real income and spending. This is important as economists have estimated that for every dollar of gained real income, consumption will rise by about 70 cents. Conversely, the Fed actions and taxation are causing real incomes to decline, which has a 70-cent negative impact on spending for every dollar loss.
Compare that with the 0.004 positive impact on spending for every one-dollar increase in wealth. But that is where the "I" for investment in the GDP equation comes from. Don't tell anyone; they'll start taxing wealth too. (Another way of looking at this is that investment does not come from the "C", "Consumption," it comes from surplus. Many of the equality enthusiasts essentially oppose the development of surplus. Subsistence crusaders like Wendell Berry; Distributionists have a tinge of it. The unequal income people. But surplus is the difference between stagnation and growth. And the unproductive cannot get by without someone else having a surplus.)

The Arab Spring, hope springs eternal. Egypt has two institutions, a military and an ancient religion--and a great museum. So, unless a great and charismatic archaeologist emerges.....

In one evaluation of convicted inmates it was found that 35.6% were under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of their criminal act.

The Secret Service that protects political figures is a branch of the Treasury Department. It has over 5000 agents, the majority fighting counterfeiting.

The donor in a one-half liver transplant has a 1 to 2 percent mortality rate.

Golden Oldie: http://steeleydock.blogspot.com/2010/11/mapping-future.html

Scurvy was solved as a practical problem by the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars in 1795, when the physician Sir Gilbert Blane persuaded the admiralty to issue lemon or lime juice daily, mixed with sailors' rum ration, giving rise to the term 'Limeys' to describe British sailors. This was after Rear Admiral Alan Gardner in 1794  had lemon juice issued on board the Suffolk on a twenty-three week, non-stop voyage to India. The cause, however, was not discovered until the Twentieth Century. James Lind, a Scottish physician, did the first studies to show the value of citrus fruits (but not specifically) and in 1753 he published A treatise of the scurvy which was ignored. The real understanding of scurvy did not appear until the explorers of the late 1800s and early 1900s began to stress their inherent vitamin C stores on their long trips.

Question of the day: Who is Claudia Procula?
 
In 1648 the Dutch gained independence from Spain after an eighty year war of independence, sparked by the hatred between Protestants and Catholics and the atrocities and the economic heavy handedness of Spain, including the hated "Tenth Penny" tax on revenues and income. Despite the drain of the war, the loss of men and the emigration of the successful, the Dutch by their own determination created one of the great trading nations in history. They were estimated to have 10,000 ships at sea.

Women's Health Initiative, in one of the largest studies ever performed, found that hormone replacement therapy was dangerous. Recent re-evaluation showed the stats to be weak and the caution about hormone replacement "a false alarm."

One aspect of the history of LSD use has been its acceptance by a small but influential group of people willing to see their own limited personal experience as a valid indicator of a broader, more general good. Huxley, a significant mind, Cary Grant, certainly an influential guy, and numerous scientists--particularly psychiatrists--and governmental officials all endorsed or accepted as reasonable personal experimentation with a completely unknown chemical. Some mysterious combination of our demands for freedom and some peculiar need for this artificial experience allowed many people to run serious risk with bravado and righteousness. The use of the drug in government experiments is similarly stupid but creepier. (After all, these government people are the same geniuses who put units of young soldiers near atomic explosions to see how they would react emotionally. What they could not see could not hurt them, right?) The value of a personal experience. One Man's Vision. The arrogance of leadership.

AAAAAAnnnnnnnddddd a graph:

Estimated number of first-time LSD users has fluctuated between 200,000 and 1,000,000.

No comments: