"Years ago my mother used to say to me, she'd say, 'In
this world, Elwood, you must be' - she always called me Elwood - 'In
this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.' Well,
for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me."--Elwood
P. Dowd
I am ignorant
of the debate over the Import-Export Bank. The strict economists
generally oppose it. Here is a quote from Paul Ryan that makes me
suspicious: "Are we going to reward good work or good connections? I
think there are plenty other ways to expand opportunity in this country,
and corporate welfare is not one of them. The biggest beneficiaries of
this bank, two-thirds of their money go to 10 companies. Forty percent
goes to one company."
Everyone is excited about Trudeau's election. Aside from legalizing marijuana, Trudeau’s other concrete proposal is to intentionally run a deficit
by raising taxes (on the rich) and spending even more money on
infrastructure. Classic Keynesian stuff,
countercyclical fiscal policy. Should be interesting to watch.
U.S.
government debt now stands at 103% of GDP. If private debt is included,
the ratio climbs to about 370% of GDP. Scholarly studies indicate that
real per capita GDP growth should slow by about one-quarter to one-third
from the long-run trend when the total debt-to-GDP ratio rises into the
range between 250% and 275%. Since surpassing this level in the late
1990s, real per capita GDP has grown just 1% per annum, much less than
the 1.9% pace from 1790 to 1999.
These results indicate that
the relationship between debt and economic growth is non-linear, or
progressively negative, as debt advances to higher levels, a pattern
confirmed by academic research.
Who is....Charles M. Schulz?
John
Glenn had flown nearly 150 combat missions during World War II and the
Korean War. In 1957, he made the first nonstop supersonic flight across
the United States, flying from Los Angeles to New York in three hours
and 23 minutes. On February 20, 1962, Glenn made the first American
multiorbital flight in Friendship 7, a spacecraft that made three
orbits of the Earth in five hours. In 1998, Glenn returned into space
again as a payload specialist aboard the space shuttle Discovery.
At 77 years of age, Glenn was the oldest human ever to travel in space.
During the nine-day mission, he served as part of a NASA study on
health problems associated with aging.
Data never
speak for themselves. Interpretation is essential. Without thoughtful,
unprejudiced analysis reading numbers is no different than reading bones
or Tarot cards.
Charles
Schultz' son and grandson are creating an new "Peanuts" movie. The
comic strip has received intense analysis. “A cartoonist,” Schulz once
said, “is someone who has to draw the same thing every day without
repeating himself.” It was this “infinitely shifting repetition of the
patterns,” Umberto Eco wrote in
The New York Review of Books in
1985, that gave the strip its epic quality. Watching the permutations of
every character working out how to get along with every other character
demanded “from the reader a continuous act of empathy.” Eco!
The New York Review of Books! Here is one summary analysis:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/11/the-exemplary-narcissism-of-snoopy/407827/ The Atlantic!
Anyone
looking for an example of Rube-publican ineptness need look no further
than the esteemed Benghazi Committee who, in spite of the astonishing
circumstances they are investigating, are on the defensive.
Illinois
State officials announced that winners who are due to receive more than
$600 won’t get their money until the state’s ongoing budget impasse is
resolved. Players who win up to $600 can still collect their winnings at
local retailers. More than $288 million is waiting to be paid out. For
now the winners just have an IOU and no interest on their money. The
state delayed a $560 million payment to its pension funds for November
and may have to delay or reduce another contribution due in December.
Wolves
have about 200 million scent cells. Humans have only about 5 million.
Wolves can smell other animals more than one mile (1.6 kilometers) away.
Perhaps the
fundamental political fact – one characterized by inexpedient and
untimely consequences – is the separation of cost and benefit
considerations. The fact that few persons are forced to weight them
against one another before making policy choices enables and encourages
people to seek additional gains at collective expense.--William Mitchell
Golden oldie:
When
the state of Maryland raised its tax rate on people with incomes of a
million dollars a year or more, the number of such people living in
Maryland fell from nearly 8,000 to fewer than 6,000. Although it had
been projected that the tax revenue collected from such people in
Maryland would rise by $106 million, instead these revenues fell by $257
million.
Bromide: 1. a platitude or trite saying. 2. Chemistry.
a. a salt of hydrobromic acid consisting of two elements, one of which
is bromine, as sodium bromide, NaBr. b. a compound containing bromine,
as methyl bromide. ety: Bromide is a combination of bromo- (a combining form used in the names of chemical compounds that contain bromine) and -ide,
a suffix used in chemical compounds. Some bromides were used as
sediatives, giving rise to the metaphorical extension of the term in the
early 1900s.
Financial
planning is tough on people. Governments too. Pension managers used to
think they could average 8% after inflation over two decades or more.
At that rate, a million dollars invested today turns into $4.7 million
in 20 years. If $4.7 million is exactly the amount you need to fund that
year’s obligations, you’re in good shape. What happens if you average
only 7% over that 20-year period? You’ll have $3.9 million. That is only
83% of the amount you counted on. At 6% returns you will be only 68%
funded. At 5%, you have only 57% of what you need. At 4%, you will be
only 47% of the way there.
There
has been criticism of the post 2008 recovery with many saying that the
monetary easing and the resulting buybacks have artificially raised
stock prices. The decrease in available stock might increase prices but
should not raise earnings, which also has happened.
The
latest Producer Price Index (PPI) numbers from the Labor Department
said that prices at the wholesale level actually declined by 0.5% in
September. Over the last 12 months through September, the PPI has
dropped by 1.1%... that’s the eighth consecutive 12-month decrease in
the index. But the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation Index, which tracks
the prices of key agricultural commodities that most American households
use every day is up. The newest semi-annual survey of the 16 items rose
to $53.37, up $1.41 or 2.7% compared with one year ago.
It
is perfectly legal for some advisers to steer customers into complex
financial products that will earn the highest rewards, perks and prizes
for the advisers – even if they are bad options for their customers.
Research suggests that this loophole costs Americans an estimated $17
billion every year. That’s $17 billion taken out of the pockets of
retirees by unscrupulous advisers who are more interested in collecting
fees and prizes for themselves than helping families build real
security. (From a recent Senate report)Thirteen of the 15 major annuity
providers investigated acknowledged providing these incentives.
During
US Military actions in southeastern Vietnam in February 1968 AP
correspondent Peter Arnett quoted an unidentified Army major regarding
the town of Ben Tre, "It became necessary to destroy the town to save
it."
In
May of 1957, an American bomber accidentally dropped an American 42,000
pound, 10-megaton hydrogen bomb on Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Mark 17
had a yield of approximately 10-megatons. For comparison's sake, the
bomb dropped on Hiroshima was a relatively small 16 kiloton weapon.
10
megatons = 10,000 kilotons, meaning that it would take about 625
"little boys" (the code word for the bomb dropped on Hiroshima) to make
only one Mark 17.
According
to the investigation, Field Command, a division of the Armed Forces
Special Weapons Project, conducted recovery and clean-up operations at
the site shortly after the nonevent. What they found was a crater 12
feet deep and 25 feet in diameter, blown, fortunately, in uninhabited
land owned by the University of New Mexico.
Only the bomb's
conventional explosives - those necessary, but not sufficient to start
the nuclear chain reaction - were triggered by the fall, and, according
to the experts, no radioactivity was detected beyond the lip of the
crater. Traces of a luckless cow, reportedly, were scattered over a much
wider area
Texas is the largest petroleum-producing state in
the U.S. and if it were an independent nation, it would rank as the
world’s 5th largest petroleum-producing nation. Only 34 of Texas’ 254
counties have no known natural gas within their boundaries. However, no
major wells have been discovered for a half-century or more.
AAAAAaaaaannnnnnddddd......a graph. The direction is startling but so is the history of recovery:
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