U.S. Soldiers and Shoppers Hit the Wall - New York Times

I usually agree with Cohen's analysis and that's true for most of this piece, but I don't agree with the highlighted conclusion. Universal health care will in no way substitute for the profligate spending patterns of many Americans, particularly the ones who have fallen for the consumption mentality rather than embrace savings habits. And where will the dollars come from to pay for universal health care?

The new President and Congress will need the cohones to reform Medicare and Social Security and the entitlement thinking of the American people that underlies them.

But as Benn Steil, an economist at the Council on Foreign Relations, suggested: "We could be seeing a secular shift in confidence in the dollar as a store of value as the impression grows that the United States, to some degree, is losing control of its destiny."

I expect the United States to bounce back, but not quickly. The central fact confronting the next president will be the new limits on U.S. power, both military and economic.

The central challenge will be the provision of needed reforms, primarily universal health care, that begin to alleviate the financial strains on median American families and allow them to get back to saving rather than leveraging assets in a phony consumption boom.

U.S. Soldiers and Shoppers Hit the Wall - New York Times

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Nerdy Names

This came around in an email. I thought I'd capture it because I like trivia.

Do You Know... How These Names Came About!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Adobe - came from name of the river Adobe Creek that ran behind the house of founder John Warnock.


Apache - It got its name because its founders got started by applying patches to code written for NCSA's httpd daemon. The result was 'A PAtCHy' server -- thus, the name Apache


Apple Computers - favourite fruit of founder Steve Jobs. He was three months late in filing a name for the business, and he threatened to call his company Apple Computers if the other colleagues didn't suggest a better name by 5 o'clock.


C - Dennis Ritchie improved on the B programming language and called it 'New B'. He later called it C. Earlier B was created by Ken Thompson as a revision of the Bon programming language (named after his wife Bonnie)


CISCO - its not an acronymn but the short for San Francisco.

Compaq - using COMp, for computer, and PAQ to denote a small integral object.


GNU - a species of African antelope. Founder of the GNU project Richard Stallman liked the name because of the humour associated with its pronuniciation and was also influenced by the children's song 'The Gnu Song' which is a song sung by a gnu. Also it fitted into the recursive acronym culture with 'GNU's Not Unix'.


Google - the name started as a jokey boast about the amount of information the search-engine would be able to search. It was originally named 'Googol', a word for the number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros. After founders - Stanford grad students Sergey Brin and Larry Page presented their project to an angel investor, they received a cheque made out to 'Google'!


Hotmail - Founder Jack Smith got the idea of accessing e-mail via the web from a computer anywhere in the world. When Sabeer Bhatia came up with the business plan for the mail service, he tried all kinds of names ending in 'mail' and finally settled for hotmail as it included the letters "HTML" - the programming language used to write web pages. It was initially referred to as HoTMaiL with selective upper casing.


HP - Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard tossed a coin to decide whether the company they founded would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett.


Intel - Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore wanted to name their new company 'Moore Noyce' but that was already trademarked by a hotel chain, so they had to settle for an acronym of INTegrated ELectronics.


Java - Originally called Oak by creator James Gosling, from the tree that stood outside his window, the programming team had to look for a substitute as there was another language with the same name. Java was selected from a list of suggestions. It came from the name of the coffee that the programmers drank.

Overseas Investors Buy U.S. Holdings at a Record Pace - New York Times

Are you comfortable with the long-term consequences of globalization? More of America is owned by non-Americans, and this has increased recently as the big banks have sought overseas investments to shore up their balance sheets and increase their cash available after writing down so much bad debt.

Current new U.S. government debt is 75% owned by foreigners. Within 20 years America will be an 'also ran' country, economically. What will that mean for the radical Islamic terrorist fanatics who hate us so much? Will they also hate and attack other non-Islamic countries who have prospered and are secular as well?

If it's Western style secularism they hate, China, Korea, Singapore and Japan should be among their targets. Perhaps it's our financial strength and our military prowess they are eager to diminish by causing us to spend so much on security and securing our economy.

From the NY Times:

Graphic

A Flood of Investment

"For much of the world, the United States is now on sale at discount prices. With credit tight, unemployment growing and worries mounting about a potential recession, American business and government leaders are courting foreign money to keep the economy growing. Foreign investors are buying aggressively, taking advantage of American duress and a weak dollar to snap up what many see as bargains, while making inroads to the world’s largest market.

Last year, foreign investors poured a record $414 billion into securing stakes in American companies, factories and other properties through private deals and purchases of publicly traded stock, according to Thomson Financial, a research firm. That was up 90 percent from the previous year and more than double the average for the last decade. It amounted to more than one-fourth of all announced deals for the year, Thomson said."

Overseas Investors Buy U.S. Holdings at a Record Pace - New York Times

Oil Demand, the Climate and the Energy Ladder - New York Times

The quote below is from an interview with Jeroen van der Veer, the head of Royal Dutch Shell. Note that we do not lack sources of petroleum, despite the common mis-belief that is often promulgated by some media.

People say we have passed the time of 'peak oil,' and that the world's petroleum production is declining. I don't think that's true...yet, but the cost of future oil will continue to rise as the costs of extraction increase.

Q. Fossil fuels are still going to represent the lion’s share of the energy mix in the next century?

A. First, there is no lack in itself of oil or gas, or coal for that matter. But the problem is that the easy-to-produce oil or easy-to-produce gas will be depleted or with difficult access. But if you look at difficult oil or difficult gas, which we in the industry call the unconventionals, such as oil sands or shales, they may be exploitable. But per barrel, you need a lot more technology and a lot more investments, and per barrel you need a lot more brain to produce it. It’s much more expensive.

For me, the most sensible strategy for long term energy efficiency that will minimize any climate change effect is to maximize the uses of electricity, particularly for transportation, and to generate it using nuclear facilities, absent some breakthrough with renewables (solar in particular). Burning fossil fuels seems to be less costly now, but that's because the cost of extraction and distribution is low relative to other options.

Oil Demand, the Climate and the Energy Ladder - New York Times

An Oil Quandary: Costly Fuel Means Costly Calories - New York Times

Are we faced with the law of unintended consequences as the demand for vegetable oils for fuel confronts the food uses of oil, thus raising prices for both? When the world's thirst for liquid energy sources competes with food uses, we have the makings of a catastrophe.

This is a fascinating analysis of the dilemma faced by poorer countries when prices of, in this instance palm oil, rise very rapidly because of demand for it to make biofuels.

The pressure on poor people will have disastrous consequences, not to mention the trauma to the land as more forests are cleared to plant palm oil trees. Food seems more important than energy, but at what price to we have conflict or starvation?

I expect to hear/read more environmental hand wringing spawned by this situation. The world's insatiable demand for energy is running headlong into an even more basic necessity, food. There are no obvious good solutions here.

Perhaps the world's gurus will have this on their agenda in Davos, Switzerland later this month. I doubt they have a solution.

An Oil Quandary: Costly Fuel Means Costly Calories - New York Times

Glenn Beck - Current Events & Politics - David Walker interview about the economy

I caught only the last few minutes of this interview of David Walker this morning. David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, earned my respect a couple of years ago when I happened to see him on C-SPAN testifying before some Congressional committee.

I don't know if he's Republican or Democrat and it doesn't matter. He speaks about the harsh fiscal realities this country faces in the next two decades brought on mostly by the out-of-control entitlement programs of Social Security and Medicare.

Take the time to read or listen to what he has to say. He talks sense from a position of long-time authority within government. (You can ignore the blather from Beck).

Unless our politicians sober up and listen to him and have the courage to act on what he recommends, they will all fall short of my reality test.

Glenn Beck - Current Events & Politics - David Walker interview about the economy

Bush Calls for Up to $150 Billion In Stimulus to Boost Economy - WSJ.com

(subscription required)

As I write this, I note the stock market is down yet again, so it's not very pleased with the Bush proposal. Perhaps that will change once the details surface in Congress.

Now, it'll be amusing to watch how the Presidential candidates will spin this.

I find it very interesting that Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Nancy Pelosi are relatively quiet about the economy and whether their policies and lack of accomplishment have helped or hindered the situation. In fact the media seems to be not paying much attention to them, now that primary season is upon us.

 

I find it fascinating that the Democrat candidates are not running on the accomplishments of this 'Democrat Congress.'

 

Bush Calls for Up to $150 Billion In Stimulus to Boost Economy - WSJ.com

Report predicts $203M shortfall for transportation: Rutland Herald Online

Here's a decent summary of the transportation and infrastructure funding dilemma facing Vermont. Of course, there's never enough money to fund all the wants, but now we're in a time where the needs go wanting.

For starters, the Legislature should demand that all transportation revenue go toward transportation costs, otherwise the notion of even having a Transportation Fund is diminished. That would mean $50 Million or so would not go to education. It should never have gone there in the first place. That $50 Million should not be replaced and state funding for education should be reduced by that amount.

I fear that's about as likely as climate change coming off the table in Montpelier.

 

Rutland Herald Transportation Story

Manipulated Mankind

What sort of creatures are we anyway? I always knew that high priced wines were mostly a marketing shenanigan. Think of the huge profits all along the supply chain for $30-$50 per bottle vino. Psychological marketing for all sorts of luxury goods has tremendous potential for profit margins. Paying more has many connotations from personal satisfaction that one can afford to spend the money somewhat frivolously to showing off by demonstrating 'good taste' to others. Ahh, vanity...

"Researchers from the California Institute of Technology and Stanford's business school have directly seen that the sensation of pleasantness that people experience when tasting wine is linked directly to its price. And that's true even when, unbeknownst to the test subjects, it's exactly the same Cabernet Sauvignon with a dramatically different price tag."

Being the cheapster that I am, I enjoy finding good wines at less than $10./bottle. Also, I have found many good wines under $10./1.5 liter. If you like whites, try Beringer Chenin Blanc, usually $6.00/.75 liter; I think Gallo's Livingston Burgandy is a very nice table red for under $10./1.5 liter.