Cab thoughts 12/3/11

I was looking for a house based telephone system off a land-line and a salesman told me to shop around, that such sales were rare and I could get a good price somewhere. No one is buying land-line phones.

Benjamin Franklin had a rule of conversation I have never heard: He would never, NEVER, start a topic of conversation. He would only follow the topic. It sounds like good advice. I certainly could learn from it.

Why does the literature on competition always tell us that we should redistribute capital gains or inheritances and never tell us that we should redistribute academic chairs or book contracts?

A serious rumor from Yannick Noah on tennis. Are we really to believe that all of a sudden from nowhere 3 or 4 tennis players from Spain are now the best in the world, some of the strongest players in the field and impervious to pain, fatigue and injury? He suggests Hans Selye would be proud.

More than 14 million mortgages are "underwater" in America, meaning the mortgage debt exceeds the value of the property mortgaged.

Barney Frank has decided not to run for reelection. This is a real surprise. Powerful arrogant people rarely give up their source of power and arrogance.

I care little about Cain but it is astonishing how locked in step the various sides are over the information of the sexual behavior of a candidate. It is as if a candidate's sexual behavior had a known correlation with his success as a leader. (Psychological Homogeneity!!) Cain has had several anonymous complaints that one could take as rude, perhaps, or boorish. His announcement of his retaining a lawyer to sue the women drove them underground. Then the affair/girl friend arose, although not much of a friend and, if this is an indicator of his judgment of people, it might disqualify him from any leadership position by itself. The Dems are wild with indignation, the Repubs. cautious and forgiving. But Clinton, whose girls showed up with tape recorders and one with a witness--she with a complaint that was a felony, A FELONY!--the Dems. are cautious and forgiving, the Repubs. wild with indignation.