Fueled By Randomness

Japan Parallels Are Too Close for Comfort

Y, despite the assurances of policy makers that they learned from Japan's mistakes, it's obvious they did no such thing. It's analagous to the mother of the teenager who repeatedly tells her son, "Don't get hooked on heroin like your brother!" He assures her he won't but ends up in trouble anyway. She confronts him as to why he has a drug problem after all his assurances and he replies, "Ma, you told me not to get hooked on heroin, and I'm not; I'm hooked on meth!" Talk about missing the big picture.

A look over at least a small part of China's 8% growth: a modern city, made of glass walls and clean streets, built by the government and entirely devoid of people.

Gee, central planning works like a charm, doesn't it?

Doesn't sound like a good sign. When the government's supply of fire water is tapped out, the party ends. But we in the West are sort of depending on that party going on for awhile to help cure us of our own hangovers. If the engine we're hoping could, can't, to whom do we look next to pull the world out of recession? How is the economy on Mars doing?

What if U.S. Social Fabric Tears?

OK, but what do we do about it? Manufacturing jobs have been going overseas for years. The standard media blather is that it's due to "corporate greed" but is that all there is to it? In many states, it is just about impossible to open any kind of factory, what with environmental regulations, zoning permits, union requirements and other official mumbo-jumbo. When the jobs first stared leaving the high-tax high-regulation rust belt, the first place they went was the low-tax, low-regulation sunbelt. Now, cheap transportation has made it possible for them to go anywhere. So why would someone rip their hair out battling bureaucrats to manufacture something here when there is a foreign country somewhere waiting for them with open arms?

We have a recession/depression here. We have scads of roads, bridges, tunnels, water pipelines and other infrastructure that needs rebuilt. We still have a lot of oil and natural gas that could be extracted and used. Washed-up DC spends almost a trillion dollars on a "stimulus" and what does it decide to do? Pass it out as toilet paper for their cronies back home. Blocks domestic energy production so we can instead employ people producing energy in Brazil and our pals Iran. And now they want to pile on more taxes and mandates (cap and trade, card check, health "reform") to ensure ever fewer jobs will be created in the next few years.

Whatever you think about him otherwise, Jim Cramer has a good thought... why don't they spend that stimulus money on creating natural gas infrastructure (pipelines, filling stations, etc) for the US? Gas is a relatively clean fuel we have in abundance. Building this out would both create jobs and and help solve the country's energy problem, two things we desperately need! Perhaps if we could find politicians who thought along these lines instead of "how can I pad my and my cronies pockets" there would be some REAL hope and change.

Today's Employment Report: Focus on the Long Term Trends

Lagging indicator or not, employment will not pick up until the situtation in Washington gets sorted out. Few employers wish to hire as long as there are new mandates (healthcare "reform") and taxes (cap and trade, VATs, repeal of 2003 tax cuts) hanging over their heads like the sword of Damocles. It's only logical; why take a risk and expand your business when the Congress might soon greatly increase your cost per employee and then crush demand with new taxes? Logical indeed, except if you're a politician.

Barney Frank: Name Names

The line between good and evil is not the same as the line between government and private interest. There are saints and sinners on each side of the latter line. Good intentions matter only in court. If a neighborhood is blown up by a gas leak, regardless of whether it was due to a greedy contractor cutting corners or an incompetent group of amateurs trying to renovate a homeless shelter, the result is the same. Barney Frank and the rest of the Congressclowns can bellow all they want about how the mess is the fault of other people, but when they go home and look in the mirror the person they see there is a big part of the problem.

Michael Moore declares all-out war on capitalism with the debut of his new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, in Venice today. It's clear the time has never been riper for an anti-capitalist rant; what's less clear is whether horrified movie-goers will be aroused to revolt, or return home to watch the cat-flushing-a-toilet video.

The irony is that only a system like free market capitalism would let a Micheal Moore exist. If he tried to make a movie entitled "Communism is Evil" in Cuba or North Korea, he would be in a forced labor camp before you could say "stupid useless tub of lard."

The Pope Condemns Capitalism (Let's Pray G8 Ignores Him)

>The Pope’s decree for “forms of redistribution of wealth” is exactly the kind of language used by every communist and socialist leader in history who has used an economic crisis as a means to gain populist support for their regimes and to implement policies that are specifically designed to take from the rich and give to the poor.

Actually, communism and socialism is a system by which politicians take from everybody and give to themselves. Look back at all the communist and socialist societies thru history and see who was living in mansions and riding in limos; it wasn't the proletariat, no matter what the Marxist boilerplate would have you believe. Socialized medicine? The politicians don't have to wait a year for an operation, either. And while we're on the subject of the Pope, how's that more equal distribution stuff working out for him? I guess all of his worker bees live in palaces like him, eh? Show me a successful politician and I'll show you a wealthy man or woman. If you want to help the less fortunate, become Mother Teresa. If you want to be rich, become a politician and talk about it.

California: The Haves and Have-Nots

Odd how this worked out..... A couple of reasons come to mind:
1) The pols want to be able to go to the voters who rejected tax increases and say "See, we told you that you were screwing the poor, the blind and the sick." The fact that it was the pols who decided who gets cash and who doesn't is an inconvenient truth that won't have a book written on it.
2) The folks on the right side of the list are important; the folks on the left.... ain't. That's not my perspective, that's what the list says to me. But I'm sure that it was really important that the legislature gets paid in real money. After all, if they didn't they might get mad and do a lousy job.... er, a lousier job than they've been doing. If that were possible.

Is Cap-and-Trade Legislation Really Bait-and-Switch?

When the hell has a government prediction been right about anything? They said in 1971 that AMTRAK would be profitable in 5 years.... we're still waiting. And for real fun, go back and see what they projected Medicare would cost back in 1965. If you believe the projections on cap and trade, you are going against the odds.

Favorable Coal Conditions Now Moving In

Reality sucks, but the alternative is.... politics?

Cognitive Dissonance and the Financial Crisis

Unfortunately, doing these things would require more wisdom and foresight than the world in aggregate possesses, offers no one a political advantage they can use for their self-aggrandizing purpose and is of no use to a media committed to generating more heat than light. For these reasons, your suggestions will likely be ignored. Outside of that, they're good ideas.

Looking to Buy BRIC? The 'ABC's Are Better (Part I)

Someone once said that the biggest reason investors make or lose money in a stock is whether or not company management gives a damn about the public shareholders. This article adds another layer to that observation. Thanks!

The Market Outlook? Depends Which Business Channel You Watch

" I also object to cities that obviously spend more on machine-gun toting police warriors than on social services, which might reduce crime more effectively."

NYC tried that in the 60s and 70s and almost went bankrupt. And it didn't reduce crime any.

Why Are There So Many More Energy Experts than Energy Billionaires?

Predictions often do not come true because they are effective in warning people. Example: a hurricane is predicted to hit the coast in the next 72 hours and kill thousands of people. So, what does the rational person do? He prepares for this by leaving the coast and moving inland. If the hurricane does indeed hit with the force predicted, there are a lot fewer people left on the coast available to be killed. Trivial example, but makes the point. However, it is the disaster no one sees coming that is the most devastating. Using the hurricane example, if many of the coastal people fled to higher ground, not anticipating that heavy rains would trigger a massive mud slide that no one predicted....

Helaine Olen's The End of Personal Finance is a worthwhile read, though it kind of leaves you wondering, "Ok, so what now?"

"Personal finance has come to substitute for the role government should play for people," observes Nan Mooney, author of (Not) Keeping Up with Our Parents.

Take a look at the fools and crooks in DC and ask yourself how well that's going to work out for you.