The "One in 10 Jobs Tied to Autos" Lie

This has been soundly discredited, but people keep using it.

It proves the old saying that if you keep saying a lie enough times, people will start to believe it.


ABC News: One in 10 Jobs Tied to Autos? Not so Fast [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Distributism and Socialism:

Distributism and Socialism: Part Two:

"Why must there be institutions so large that they cannot be permitted to fail, and must be rescued by the common purse?"

This has been my point all alone. I don't think we need much detailed oriented regulation. Big we do need "size" regulation. Not just size limits on monopolies like Standard Oil or AT&T but size limits on single companies within a sector. If a company gets "Too Big" to be "allowed to fail" then it must be broken up into smaller companies at CAN be allowed to fail. If it's a bank or investment firm, there needs to be some protection to the money in the accounts, but the organization that runs the company should be allowed to totally fail.

The real fear of that real possibility of failure will do more to control the market and the risk the company takes than any regulation could hope to do. [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Trillions Disappear - But Where Did Money Go?

If the company is still in business, then their stock still has some "real" value. But if the company goes bust, then their stock is indeed worthless and the money is really gone.

The whole stock market could be trading "baseball" cards and I think people would understand the risk they are taking by buying stock. It's only worth what the company pays in dividends (if anything) or what someone else is willing to pay for it. Like a baseball card is only worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it, it has not real value itself.

Stocks do have some real values, and I think ALL stocks should pay dividends. If owning stock is ownership in the company, then you should get a part of the profits the company makes. But I don't think it really works like that anymore, if it ever did.

FOXNews.com - Trillions Disappear in Stock Market, but Where Did Money Go? - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News [This Post Continues after the jump...]

FDR's Policies Prolonged Depression by 7 Years

I hope someone is Washington is reading this...

FDR's Policies Prolonged Depression by 7 Years, UCLA Economists Calculate / UCLA Newsroom:

"In an article in the August issue of the Journal of Political Economy, Ohanian and Cole blame specific anti-competition and pro-labor measures that Roosevelt promoted and signed into law June 16, 1933." [This Post Continues after the jump...]

David Walker - Big Numbers and they're all Bad.

Some great videos from David Walker - Until last month, he was the Comptroller General of the US.

This guy knows (or should know) his stuff and he's concerned about our financial future. We simply CANNOT keep going at this. Social security and Medicare are going to swamp us if we don't change something.

By something, I mean ANYTHING but what we are doing. If we want socicial security and social health insurance, that's an option, but we have to actually PAY for it. We must stop borrowing and deficit spending. If it's the "right thing to do" as some claim, then they must support raising the taxes to pay for it. You can't have it both ways like we've been doing.





Here's a 60-Minutes video of Mr. Walker
[This Post Continues after the jump...]

Our Mounting Credit Card Debt

I thought this gave some numbers on the total Credit Card Debt but it only says 2.2 TRILLION was spent on credit cards last year. I assume a lot or most of that was paid off, but maybe this is the portion that was not paid off. Either way, we owe a lot of money.

And the US is a consumer driven economy, but we're consuming more than we can pay for. Add this to the government total debt and it looks more and more like everything is based on AIR. How long can this go on?

I really fear the whole system is going to stumble and fall one day. And just because I don't have any debt other than my mortgage, I doubt I will be any better off. We have a tendency of bailing people out -- which might make people with lots of debt that vanishes actually better off then me. But I'm hardly going to run up a huge debt and count on everything crashing and being bailed out by the government. With my luck, the crash would happen the day after I paid everything back or defaulted and they took everything away.

When credit cards put you in jeopardy - CNN.com [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Illegal Immigrants will get Stimulus Cash

This is just dandy...
This whole economic stimulus package gets worse and worse

Lou Dobbs alert: Illegal immigrants may get rebates - The Crypt's Blog - Politico.com [This Post Continues after the jump...]

A Deal 'In Principle' - Economic Stimulus Plan

Congress is close to approving giving away $100 BILLION. I don't see how any conservative republican could say this deal has any "principles" they share.
It's a 100% free money give away.

Instead of giving it away, the government should DO something with the money. Such as...

• Hire more people to study global warming,
• Hire more people to clean up toxic waste sites (the only useful thing in this list)
• Hire people to build a bridge to no where
• Hire more private mercenaries for Iraq (and bring some troops home)
• Build public housing in 10 foot deep flood zones in New Orleans
• Accelerate the building of NASA's next rocket (not delay it like Obama wants to do)

I don't agree with spending money on most of these ideas, but I list them because even "wasting" money and getting something of dubious value in return is better than just "giving it away"...

FOXNews.com - House, White House Reach Deal 'In Principle' on Economic Stimulus - Politics | Republican Party | Democratic Party | Political Spectrum

PS for my NASA co-workers: NASA's next rocket is not a waste of money in itself, but throwing more money at it to accelerate it's development probably would be.


** UPDATE **
Apparently Carter tried this in 1980... From the The Volokh Conspiracy

*** More Updates ***
House Approves Economic Stimulus Plan

How can Democrats support this, saying how important it is to simulate the economy by giving money to people to spend, without also realizing how harmful it is to the economy when they TAX us and take the money to begin with? It just doesn't add up. Doing this is essentially admitting that we are OVERTAXED and that as a result the economy is in trouble. How can anybody that voted for this vote to raise taxes later (directly or by not extending the current tax cuts).

I still say it would be more stimulating for the government to DO something with the money instead of just giving it away. Giving it away is just a tax refund and PROVES we are over taxed.

***** Supporting Ideas *****
Here's similar thought The government has no money of its own [This Post Continues after the jump...]

The Problem with -The Story of Stuff

OK, I ran across this a few weeks ago and I'm finally posting it. Not because I agree with it all, but because it does make one think.

http://www.storyofstuff.com/index.html


The sad thing is that they don't think their ideas are good enough to make anyone that disagreed with them to actually re-think the issue. So they have to be insulting, and take cheap shots, and over generalize just about everything. But if you can get past that, it is interesting.

But here is my problem with it. I really wish the people who really cared about this (and similar issues) would stop the rhetoric and offer REAL solutions. They don't offer any real solution, and after watching this you'll think the problem is so BIG and so endemic that only "radical" change will do any good. And that's the problem. Like the climate change doomsayers, they are preparing people for radical extreme action by super-exaggerating of the problem. They are not really concerned with fixing the real problems, but one day they just might get enough people to follow them on their radical fixes, and I don't want to be around when they do, or afterwards.javascript:void(0)
Publish Post [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Pat Robertson Tries Again

FOXNews.com - Pat Robertson Predicts Worldwide Violence, U.S. Recession in 2008 - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News

Last year's prediction (Terrorist attack with mass killing and maybe a nuclear weapon) didn't come true, so this year's is a little bit less dramatic. [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Cut Greenhouse Gases AND Save Money

What?? You can save the planet AND save money??

Where have these guys been for the past 10 years !!

Study: U.S. could cut 28 percent of greenhouse gases | CNET News.com [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Are mobile phones wiping out our bees and with them the Human Race?

Interesting situation.. I've heard other things about bees dying off, but this (if accurate) seems significant.

Are mobile phones wiping out our bees? - Independent Online Edition > Wildlife

Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, "man would have only four years of life left".

UPDATE ---- Instapundit has some better info...

For instance, there was this claim: "Most of the world's crops depend on pollination by bees."

That's wrong. Corn, wheat, rice, rye, barley, and all the other grain crops do not rely on insects for pollination, and they make up the majority of the calories consumed by the human race.

It's true that there are a very large number of crops which do rely on insects, but many of those do not rely on honey bees, or at least do not have to. In many areas, they use a different kind of bee that looks a lot like a honey bee but is much different in life cycle. These bees don't produce honey, and all the females are fertile, with each producing 5-10 grubs. They work collective laying sites with the grubs being placed in holes in wood.

Is this another case of MASS HYSTERIA that mankind is somehow going to kill the planet?

UPDATE #2
Besides, Einstein may never have said anything about BEES [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Richest 2% hold half the world’s assets

“many people in high-income countries have negative net worth and, somewhat paradoxically, are among the poorest people in the world in terms of household wealth.”

So in the US some people are actually POORER than people that have almost NOTHING because we're in so much debt... but is that a real picture of wealth?

FT.com / World / International economy - Richest 2% hold half the world’s assets [This Post Continues after the jump...]