“It’s time to let the sun shine in on this mess.” via Scott Loftesness: The AIG Firestorm Spreads.
Hear hear.
Tag: USA
Captain Asphalt
Quotation of the Day: “I’m Captain Asphalt.” TIMOTHY J. GILCHRIST, newly appointed stimulus czar for New York State.
via Today’s Paper – New York Times.
Love this. Is civil engineering going to become cool again?
Recovery.gov
Home | Recovery.gov. — should check this on at least a weekly basis.
Suit Names 2 Judges Accused in a Kickback Case – NYTimes.com
Suit Names 2 Judges Accused in a Kickback Case – NYTimes.com. This case just stuns me. The plea agreement is way too lenient. And every kid who passed thru these judge’s courts should be freed immediately and have any judgement stricken from their record.
The best argument I've read *for* the stimulus
Warren Buffett: “We don’t know the perfect answers on it. What we do know is to stand by and do nothing is a terrible mistake…” via Marginal Revolution: The best argument I’ve read *for* the stimulus.
Interesting econ data via Ritzholtz
Force Structure FY09 Beyond. — the armed forces wrestling with massive budget cuts. And the global manufacturing collapse — not a pretty picture. It is hard to see how we are not going to have significant unemployment issues for years.
Marginal Revolution: GM fact of the day
Marginal Revolution: GM fact of the day. Wow. Market cap 1/3 of bed bath and beyond. Worth 10% of apple’s cash. 96K employees but paying benefits for 1M people. Some of the numbers are a little misleading but still.
$10,000 worth of iPhone farting apps sold (so far)
You disappoint me, America: $10,000 worth of iPhone farting apps sold (so far). We are off investing in high concept, deep science startups that have to do all kinds of heavy lifting to close sales. Sometimes I think we try too hard.
Madoff Story Smells Funny | The Big Picture
Madoff Story Smells Funny | The Big Picture. The WSJ and NYTimes seem to be hinting at this today too, investigators seem to feel that the sheer amount of work required more than one person working on the fraud. Fascinating.
Election thoughts
Rich, with his reflections on the recent election, has inspired me to share a few of my own personal thoughts.
Like many commentators, I am inspired by the actions of the electorate, overcoming a history of bias and bigotry to overwhelmingly support a minority American. And I found McCain’s concession speech to also be very inspiring, his support of the President-elect and his call to all of us to work together on the challenges ahead was gracious and high-integrity.
I am saddened tho by the passage of gay marriage bans in California, Arizona, and elsewhere. I just don’t understand the bias and hatred that we demonstrate towards a set of our fellow citizens. Allowing loving adults to have the full legal benefits and status of a marriage certainly does nothing to threaten or compromise the quality of my marriage. I hope we continue the dialog on this point as a nation.
A SWOT Analysis On America
A SWOT Analysis On America. Don’t agree with many of the detailed points but the core idea of looking at our situation with a SWOT analysis is a good idea. Too often as I read the papers these days, I don’t really understand the goals and strategies of some of our government actions. A reasoned discussion with a clear decision framework would be nice.
House Rejects Bailout Package, 228-205; Stocks Plunge
House Rejects Bailout Package, 228-205; Stocks Plunge – NYTimes.com — wow. going to get uglier. i think main street wants to see people going to jail, i don’t think constituents are going to turn around and support this until some of the folks who got incredibly wealthy are brought down.
Your share of the bailouts
On the today show, the figure $900B was thrown around as the total cost of bailouts so far (Bear, Fannie and Freddie, AIG). That is about $3,000 for every citizen of the US. Congratulations!
We entrusted the financial services sector with a big and important aspect of our economy, and we let them run it with less oversight than historically provided. And they made a hash of it, borrowing money like mad men from overseas borrowers and pouring it into ill-considered and ill-managed investments. And now we have to make the overseas borrowers whole, and it is going to fall on the backs of each of us. Many of the senior people in the financial services sector have escaped the carnage and have extracted millions from all of us.
Comparing McCain and Obama’s tax cuts: trillions in new debt, small salary impact » Bogle’s Blog
Nice post from Phil pointing out the huge debt incurred by either Obama or McCain plans.
The critical thing to consider is the trillions of dollars being added to the national debt ($4.5 trillion over ten years for McCain, $3.2 trillion for Obama) at a time when we are already running deficits and fighting a war. — Comparing McCain and Obama’s tax cuts: trillions in new debt, small salary impact » Bogle’s Blog.
And don’t forget to add the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac bailouts on top of that, plus any other future bailouts.
Whoever wins this election has an economic mess to work with.
obama v mccain Tax Plans
chartjunk » Blog Archive » Tax Plans (that’s one for you, nineteen for me) — nice charting. i’ve done no research to understand the veracity but nice chart.
Technology Review: Does the U.S. Need a CTO?
Technology Review: Does the U.S. Need a CTO?. Interesting proposition. What is the reason not to have one? You can debate how active the CTO should be and how much the CTO should leave to market mechanisms, but wouldn’t it be reasonable to at least have someone leading the discussion of strategy?
Marginal Revolution: The Return of the Zombie
Marginal Revolution: The Return of the Zombie: “The Congressional Budget Office estimates that there is only a 7% probability that someone born in 2000 will receive their Social Security benefits as promised today”
I don’t think anyone in the family is confused about this but in case you are…
Energy links — IT leaders, Tesla, Nuclear, Duke Energy, Construction
* HP working on solar PV, IBM putting a billion dollars into green datacenters, Intel spinning out a PV firm — nice to see the IT leaders getting behind alternate energy
* DOE funds electric vehicle projects — not sure why GM, GE, Ford need DOE money — give it to startups! More interesting is the note about Tesla’s deal with Daimler, very smart.
* Nuclear option gets more public support — thank goodness. The public is more rational than the politicians about energy strategy
* Duke Energy jumping into residential and commercial solar installs — the wave of the future?
* Green construction materials — I wonder about the 50 year life of these. I think I will let others be the beta testers.
Energy reads
* bcurtisBLOG » People are talking about water… — nice chart on where all our water goes. Only 13% for household use. A huge amount to thermoelectric power generation.
* Tom Evslin on energy policy. Great points — we need a country-wide BHAG with respect to energy — an Apollo-type program. And the government can lead through its own purchasing policies.
* Small scalable wind turbines — pretty cool looking.
* One man’s experience with solar thermal here in Seattle — the numbers look good.
* Ten fastest green cars on the planet — Karl’s car looks awesome
* REI trialing solar — I wonder if Fat Spaniel is part of the setup
* Solar shingles — love this idea, embedding green technology right into structural materials
Brad DeLong on trade and wages
blog.pmarca.com: Brad DeLong on trade and wages — excellent articulation of the China strategy that makes sense to me — basically, lets be great friends with them. (I guess this should be our strategy in dealing with almost every nation in the world, excepting a very very very few)