Read this staggeringly FOS missive on economics and politics courtesy of the folks at San Fran Bay Guardian.
No wonder the American Body Politic is lying prone, anemically coming in and out of consciousness... it seems that every special interest group/political wing has a pre-determined point-of-view/outcome and then proceeds to promote anything/everything that supports their positions while discarding everything else... they must have learned this from the U.S. Department of Justice.
Mind you... these are the same people that claim to be the champion of the environment... but they want the economy to grow (burn MORE OIL, COAL, and NAT GAS) ostensibly via expansion of government spending to employ more people so that they can live alone in 2000 sqft homes and drive 6000 lbs cars back and forth to work while consuming massive amounts of industrially produced food during the weekend football games that will be viewed on 70" flat screens that burn 40 lbs of coal per hour.
California is on the verge of anarchy... but that's not good enough... now they want the rest of the U.S. to join them. And don't confuse them with facts, analysis, or the numbers thank you. These folks are all highly educated in the humanities... they have no need of a calculator... all of life's questions have already been answered... sounds like a religion to me...
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The Rail Data is not supportive of the view of an economy growing "organically" (whatever the hell that means). The data (charts)clearly shows rail cargo transport rates have been declining steadily since the end of the 2nd quarter, and are well below the levels of 2008.
Not sure how to reconcile this with the steepening of the yield curve and the increase in stock prices... yes, markets are forward looking discounting mechanisms... but these data trends don't support that...
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The "Price of everything and the Value of Nothing"?
Propaganda is EVERYWHERE. It issues forth from the University/Industrial complex, Politics, the Military/Industrial Complex, Feminists/and other Victims...
Left-leaning political sites/groups parading as non-partisan are among my favorites... with politifact.com taking the cake with its "Lie of the Year" BULL SH#!.... Still, the University/Industrial Complex is makes every other group PALE by comparison... YES! You, too, can dig yourself out of excessive debt incurred to fund the lifestyles of the Left/Liberal Intellectual Elite that hardly work, refuse to be measured (else they might actually be managed), yet cause all manner of mischief from their titled positions! But WAIT! There's MORE! Change a bed pans for an hour and you will be credited with $15 worth of student loans (never mind that you paid $375 per hour for a 3 hour class that was taught by an Adjunct who was working for a pittance)! AAAANNND!! You'll gain a degree that will qualify you to work at Wal-Mart!
The irony here is that the people supporting this system for their own personal interests have enslaved a generation of people to their peculiar University Plantation System.
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I speak about the price mechanism for Oil.... I should mention it should apply for Nat Gas, too. A barrel of Oil has about 6X the energy content (BTU's) as 1 mmf of Nat Gas. At today's price a Nat Gas BTU is about 28% of the cost of an Oil BTU.
That is simply so far out of bounds that, one way or another, that gap will close (but that is not to say that it can't get even wider in the short term). The problem is that markets can remain irrational far longer than you can remain solvent.
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Someone once said that a fool can put on his coat better than a wise man can put it on for him. The implications of that undermine most of the agenda of the political left.
Thomas Sowell quotes
"WHAT YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW" -Newsweek
That quote is from the top of Newsweak's choosing a school web page. I wonder what percentage of that rag realize that Newsweak won't tell them "WHAT YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW" or even tell them that it won't tell them... Such as it is a hack of the American Education cartel.
I notice that the web page has no information on foreign universities and colleges. I guess those schools don't see the need to pay Newsweak big bucks to advertise for them directly or indirectly.
I think the really smart and disciplined students can figure ways of escaping the clutches of the American education cartel.
What I saw on “Black Friday” looked nothing like that. I went out that evening to pick up some dishes and at TV. All the shops I went to were almost fully stocked, there were a few spots were one or two items were pulled off the shelf, but nothing was blown out. When I told the salesman at Best Buy I was just browsing he asked me if he could walk around with me so it would look like he was working. It just doesn’t get any worse than that.
I don’t know when or where that video was shot but it wasn’t here, at least not this year.
Speaking of universities have you seen this? Methinks the traditional university is about to have the same problem as the MSM vis-à-vis the web.
The Chinese have been building up a stockpile of oil reserves, similar to the US strategic petroleum reserves. This may put a floor under oil prices during 2011. Its not likely that they would chase it higher at these levels, however. The folks in charge in China are pretty smart about these things, they have a meritocracy over there so you don't get retarded or Alzheimer's stricken leaders.
The real elephant in the room however is the Fed's program of quantitative easing, and the real issue going into 2011 is whether or not they can wind down this program without crashing the bubbles they have created in the stock, bond and commodity markets.
And California will not necessarily default on its muni bonds because they may just tell their pensioneers that they cannot pay the lavish 100k pensions for life which they are expecting. If the pensioneers sue the state and a federal judge rules in favor of the state of California then the state can legally screw its retired civil servants. And the federal judges in this country are highly conservative, so this is a likely outcome. This means that if you are expecting a pension from the state of California you might want to start making other plans. But it does not mean that the muni bond market is going to go haywire.
Dan:
OMG!!!!!!!!!!
I am thrilled to see sites like Kahn Academy!
How many time do we have to pay someone to repeat a lecture? Or explain a technical outcome? With current technology ANYONE can become educated... Now to make things fair... perhaps a series of standardized tests to prevent employer from claiming "well, this school is BETTER than that school.... that's why we hired this individual."
Holy smokes.... I am going to be all over that site for a while.
Yeah, that educational website is amazing.
America's colleges and universities are done, done, DONE just as we've discussed at this blog over the past year or two. The only reason that they haven't completely collapsed yet is due to the social inertia and reluctance of America's parents and prospective students to abandon the 4 year college model out of total fear that by walking away from the ultra expensive 4 year model, they might still be losing a supposed career advantage. Now as soon as it becomes clear how useless and expensive that diploma is, there will be a massive collapse of America's private college system in a matter of a few years at most. It's only a matter of when, not if.
Dude: I'm not talking about growing the economy with more oil. In fact, I agree with Sim Van Der Ryn: Why on earth do we need a perpetually adolescent economy?
I am, however, talking about putting people back to work -- doing projects that will get us off our oil addiction. Replace the interstate highway system with high-speed rail. That's a start.
And guess what? A sustainable economy requires more social equality. That means the very rich (not you, Greg, you're not in the top 5,000 yet) are going to have to pay more taxes.
That the view from the San Francisco liberals who are (happily) destroying American values.
What ever happen to the press covering wars. This whole thing is like the government trying to pull the wool over everybodies eyes.
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