Vt homeowners work to help Lake Champlain - WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-

Vt homeowners work to help Lake Champlain - WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-

Our neighbor, Craig, and LCI folks discussing the of control stormwater runoff to keep pollutants out of the lake. Also includes a quick shot of our house.

Found this chart on Barry Ritholz's blog who reprinted analysis work done by Chris Turner to rebut some opinions and statements in April by Paul Krugman, who favors yet more government deficit spending. Turner's full analysis is here at the Ritholz blog.

My bottom line: Government spending has been out of control since 1978 and Congress is to blame. It's easier to target Presidents, but Congress is the real culprit. They refuse to make the hard choices and persuade the American people of their necessity. Instead, they do everything possible to retain/gain political power rather than address the problems.

Is it any wonder the American public's approval rating of the job Congress is doing is at an all time low of ~18%?

The record of the last 4 years is crystal clear to me. The massive stimulus spending triggered by the near meltdown of the economy in 2008 caused by a combination of extraordinary risky behavior by Wall Street and failed government policies and regulation has failed to resolve the economic doldrums while at the same time creating massive and unsustainable debt. This debt will likely be resolved by devaluing the currency in the future with massive consequences.  It cannot possibly be paid off even by our great-great grandchildren.

Many Competing Paths on the Road to a Phone Wallet - NYTimes.com

With the rapid uptake of smartphones I'm surprised their use as payment devices has not been quicker. The price of new merchant terminals is higher so retailers have little incentive to upgrade. The credit card companies are now accelerating the switch by  off-loading fraud responsibilities to the merchants not using the new terminals.

Android in advanced smartphones such as Samsung's Galaxy Nexus line support NFC (Near Field Communications),  now it seems merchant terminals will be NFC capable in the next 5 years according to this NY times story.  This method of payment makes a lot of sense rather than carrying a bunch of plastic in your wallet.

The interim competition will be from Square and PayPal who furnish their own smartphone card reader devices free to individuals and small businesses. I use Square infrequently for business and non-profit use. I find it easy, and convenient.

 "Merchants are facing heavy pressure to upgrade their payment terminals to accept smart cards. Over the last several months, Visa, Discover and MasterCard have said that merchants that cannot accept these cards will be liable for any losses owing to fraud.

“Everybody is going to be upgrading,” said Jennifer Miles, an executive vice president at VeriFone, which provides payment terminals to most merchants in the United States.
While updating the terminals for smart cards, VeriFone also plans to upgrade for smartphone wallets, providing the capability for near-field communication, the technology used by the Google and Isis wallets, the two biggest smartphone wallet projects."

April 2012 Employment Information - Grim News

[Hat tip to John Mauldin/Barry Ritholz for this information quoting yet another source,  Philippa Dunne & Doug Henwood of The Liscio Report (www.theliscioreport.com)]

Jobs, the fodder for much political rhetoric in this campaign season, are not growing and we have little evidence of a sustained economic recovery.  Too many people are not in the labor force.

I believe that we are a long way from creating enough good paying jobs with a supply of people qualified to take them. Capital investments in technology will continue to substitute for labor for the foreseeable future, IMHO.

"* The longer-term picture of labor force withdrawal is kind of shocking. Total household employment is down by 4.4 million since the Great Recession began in December 2007, and the number of unemployed is up by 4.9 million. The civilian population is up 9.6 million – but the labor force is up just 447,000. The number classed as not in the labor force is up by 9.2 million – and those not in the labor force and wanting a job is up 1.7 million. In other words, just 5% of the increase in the adult population over the last 4 1/3 years has found its way into employment; the other 95% are not in the labor force.

* The unemployment rate fell by 0.1 point to 8.1%, its lowest level in more than three years. The number of unemployed fell by 173,000 – but the labor force shrank by almost the same amount, 169,000.

Without the labor force shrinkage, the unemployment rate probably would have been unchanged. Within the unemployed, the number of job losers fell – but so did the number of re-entrants and voluntary leavers, suggesting that the increased confidence we saw through those indicators in recent months may be dissipating. With the quit rate down, and the long-term unemployed dropping out of the labor force, the mid-ranges of unemployment duration (from 5-26 weeks) saw an increase, as the extreme short- and long-term durations fell."

Barnes & Noble, Microsoft ink $300M deal on e-reading | Microsoft - CNET News

First, Microsoft made a big investment in a failing Nokia in order to create a hardware platform for its new Windows mobile operating system. Now, $300 Million invested in the Nook business of a shaky Barnes and Noble, while its book business flounders in the wake of ebooks and digital content. All this to fuel an ecosystem for Windows 8. This new operating system/content consumption platform is Microsoft's big bet to counter Apple, Google and Amazon. Microsoft needs a hardware and content play in order to be competitive.

The next shoe to drop may well be some advanced hardware from Google via its recent purchase of Motorola. I presume that Microsoft has acquired or is obtaining the licensing it needs for video form Hollwood.

With these four titans rumbling in the digital forest, the battle will be huge and all the competition will be good for consumers. The days of dead-tree books are inevitably winding down

 "The companies announced today that Microsoft has invested $300 million into a new Barnes & Noble subsidiary, known as Newco until the company can come up with a name. The $300 million investment will give Microsoft a 17.6 percent equity stake in the firm. Barnes and Noble, which assumed a $1.7 billion valuation on the subsidiary, will retain 82.4 percent ownership."

Will the Trend Continue?

An interesting factoid chart showing life expectancy and death rates over time from two major diseases, cancer and heart problems.

Capitalizing on the sequencing of the human genome and the rapid development of biotechnology and gene therapy may lead to effective personalized medicine which can be used to prolong life.

(Hat tip to Fidelity Investments for the chart)

A fundamental question arises as to whether we have an economy, a society and a culture that can afford the luxury of long life. Need to ponder this one some more.

Carol's latest Wooliedale

I liked this Lion and Lamb so much, I decided to post it here as well as at Wooliedales.com and on the Wooliedales Etc. Facebook page.

www.wooliedales.com

Google's Gdrive Cloud Storage is Here

I have been using Google Docs 'forever' and am a big fan.  I t meets almost all my cloud drive needs.  I occasionally use dropbox with non-Google users. For me Google Drive is merely frosting on the cake because it is built around Docs and does not mess with the basic Docs functions.

Thanks to PCWorld for the following comparison chart for the primary cloud drive providers.

The FED has Few Tools to Fight Inflation or Stimulate the Economy

Thanks to Steven Hansen at Seeking Alpha for this straightforward analysis of The Fed's policy and what seems a long future of near-zero interest rates. Disturbingly, the FED has few tools in the kit to control inflation or stimulate growth.

Meanwhile, Congress dithers as their unsustainable spending binge creates huge deficits and debt that will bury the country. What a sad commentary on our government and society. We need to turn this around, not for the benefit of the "1%," but for the future of the Republic.

A vote for Obama and his policies in November is a vote against the country's prosperous future and a general reduction in our standard of living.

"...Reading between the lines - the Fed is not seeing economic traction anytime soon. Consider that USA monetary policy is based on gold standard conventions which becomes less and less effective as government debt grows. Further modern day monetary policy for a major currency is effected[sic] by leakage and actions by other currencies.
The Fed cannot allow interest rates to raise when:

• the servicing costs of government debt would strangle the economy; or,

• if the government goes on an austerity program, which will contract the economy, and loose monetary policy must prevail to try to mitigate a shrinking economy; or,

• the stalemate in Washington is not allowing long term solutions as the debt continues to grow. Under this circumstance, the Fed must accommodate the lack of leadership for fiscal policy.

In short, the USA is between a rock and a hard place - as it is almost certain that rising interest rates would apply abnormally large brakes on the economy. Realistically, there is little difference between 0% and 0.5%, so politically based monetary policy movements are possible.
Yet, there are too many parallels with Japan (mainly debt plus demographics) to believe the USA can escape economic doldrums without a major shift to a less of a gold standard approach to monetary policy.
In the meantime, unless you are in the 1% - prepare for a less affluent future. In the olden days (pre-New Normal), your plan for retirement was based on less risky bonds for income and cashing out the old hacienda so that one could make lifestyle decisions. For those already retired, and the boomers - time to look for Plan B as shown on the below chart which shows real return on 10 year treasuries."
(click to enlarge)

America's Crisis of Character - WSJ.com

Noonan has put her finger on it: America's character is changing in lots of ways and news about episodes of degradation is spread widely by the media and the internet only accelerates the overall decline. Crass and wrong behavior is feeding our perception and the reality that America is on the wrong track.

When political and other 'leaders' pander to voting blocs rather than set high standards of behavior and character, we have the evidence that america is losing the high ground.

"People in politics talk about the right track/wrong track numbers as an indicator of public mood. This week Gallup had a poll showing only 24% of Americans feel we're on the right track as a nation. That's a historic low. Political professionals tend, understandably, to think it's all about the economy—unemployment, foreclosures, we're going in the wrong direction. I've long thought that public dissatisfaction is about more than the economy, that it's also about our culture, or rather the flat, brute, highly sexualized thing we call our culture..."