Thursday, October 23, 2008
Repeal Humphrey-Hawkins!
Friday, October 17, 2008
Engineers know that catastrophes are usually caused by a chain of cascading failures that eventually overwhelm the checks and margins of error.
For example, if the railroad company hadn't decided to save money by eliminating the backup conductor, and the conductor hadn't gone to a bachelor party the night before and stayed up all night, and the conductor's wife hadn't packed him a thermos of warm milk for his lunch, perhaps he wouldn't have fallen asleep at the wheel. But all that wouldn't have been so bad if they hadn't built the tracks leading into the side of the fireworks factory to begin with.
For example, if the railroad company hadn't decided to save money by eliminating the backup conductor, and the conductor hadn't gone to a bachelor party the night before and stayed up all night, and the conductor's wife hadn't packed him a thermos of warm milk for his lunch, perhaps he wouldn't have fallen asleep at the wheel. But all that wouldn't have been so bad if they hadn't built the tracks leading into the side of the fireworks factory to begin with.
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Schlep Gone Bad
Recently I was told about this interesting program called The Great Schlep, which aims to have Jewish grandchildren go down to Florida to inform their grandparents about Barak Obama to help swing the state in his favor.
Since I will basically do anything Sarah Silverman tells me to do, I accepted the challenge with alacrity, and booked my flight.
I sat down with my grandfather, and I was only a few minutes into my spiel about how we need change for the sake of change, and how the McBush cabal is terrible because they are stupid / old and frequently use malapropisms in their speeches, and how Bush is not legitimate anyway because he somehow tricked Gore into litigating his election loss and then tricked 7 of the 9 Supreme Court Justices into upholding the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment thereby “anointing” Bush as a false President.
My grandfather stopped me, and pointed out that having been born in 1917, and having nothing to do all day but read newspapers and watch news broadcasts, he was actually already aware of all the points I was making, and would like to point out a few things that perhaps I had not considered when all my favorite celebrities and I decided that Obama was right for America.
He asked me if I knew why he and Grandma always re-used the tin foil they stored leftover food in. I said I thought it was because they were old and batty. That’s when he told me the story of what happened to our economy when he was a teenager.
Apparently, starting in September 1929 the stock market took a steep dive because of some poor advice given by Joseph Kennedy’s shoe-shine boy. By April of the following year, the market was 30% below its previous peak. I was shocked by this, noting that now our stock market is about 30% below its peak from last year, just like in 1930!
He had me enthralled with this story, so I begged him to tell me what happened next. Apparently, some Congressmen named Reed Smoot and Willis Hawley wrote a crazy law that raised tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods. This caused a collapse in global trade and drove a stake into the heart of the American economy that lasted for years.
I asked Grandpa why they would do that, since over a hundred years prior, David Ricardo wrote Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, and taught the world how comparative advantage causes free trade to be highly beneficial to economic prosperity.
That’s when it dawned on me what grandpa was driving at. Obama and his party want to unilaterally renegotiate the NAFTA treaty, are against a similar pact, CAFTA, with Central America, and are stridently opposed to reducing barriers with our closest ally in South America, Colombia. It also occurred to me that since my beloved Democrats are a virtual subsidiary of the labor unions, they’re not likely to support any free trade.
Grandpa had me scrambling, but luckily I remembered what one of my friends was saying about those trade agreements after the Trotsky themed poetry slam we went to in Brooklyn. So I smugly asked him how he can support free trade without environmental and labor protections for those poor workers.
But again the old man had me outclassed. He patiently explained how environmental protection and workers’ rights rise mostly when a nation can afford it due to increasing prosperity and that by limiting trade with these developing countries we were actually working against the stated goal.
He had me. I finally agreed with Gramps that my man Obama was dead wrong on trade, but heck, at least his tax plan was way more fair, right?
Grandpa’s face turned a little red, his knuckles white, and he took a couple deep breaths, whispering faintly something about “serenity now.” “That discussion will have to wait until your next trip down here,” he said. I agreed, even though I really wanted to discuss it right then, because deep down I was panicked that when I got home and started to really look into the issues one by one, I would have to pull the lever for John Bush II McOldyOld.
Recently I was told about this interesting program called The Great Schlep, which aims to have Jewish grandchildren go down to Florida to inform their grandparents about Barak Obama to help swing the state in his favor.
Since I will basically do anything Sarah Silverman tells me to do, I accepted the challenge with alacrity, and booked my flight.
I sat down with my grandfather, and I was only a few minutes into my spiel about how we need change for the sake of change, and how the McBush cabal is terrible because they are stupid / old and frequently use malapropisms in their speeches, and how Bush is not legitimate anyway because he somehow tricked Gore into litigating his election loss and then tricked 7 of the 9 Supreme Court Justices into upholding the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment thereby “anointing” Bush as a false President.
My grandfather stopped me, and pointed out that having been born in 1917, and having nothing to do all day but read newspapers and watch news broadcasts, he was actually already aware of all the points I was making, and would like to point out a few things that perhaps I had not considered when all my favorite celebrities and I decided that Obama was right for America.
He asked me if I knew why he and Grandma always re-used the tin foil they stored leftover food in. I said I thought it was because they were old and batty. That’s when he told me the story of what happened to our economy when he was a teenager.
Apparently, starting in September 1929 the stock market took a steep dive because of some poor advice given by Joseph Kennedy’s shoe-shine boy. By April of the following year, the market was 30% below its previous peak. I was shocked by this, noting that now our stock market is about 30% below its peak from last year, just like in 1930!
He had me enthralled with this story, so I begged him to tell me what happened next. Apparently, some Congressmen named Reed Smoot and Willis Hawley wrote a crazy law that raised tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods. This caused a collapse in global trade and drove a stake into the heart of the American economy that lasted for years.
I asked Grandpa why they would do that, since over a hundred years prior, David Ricardo wrote Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, and taught the world how comparative advantage causes free trade to be highly beneficial to economic prosperity.
That’s when it dawned on me what grandpa was driving at. Obama and his party want to unilaterally renegotiate the NAFTA treaty, are against a similar pact, CAFTA, with Central America, and are stridently opposed to reducing barriers with our closest ally in South America, Colombia. It also occurred to me that since my beloved Democrats are a virtual subsidiary of the labor unions, they’re not likely to support any free trade.
Grandpa had me scrambling, but luckily I remembered what one of my friends was saying about those trade agreements after the Trotsky themed poetry slam we went to in Brooklyn. So I smugly asked him how he can support free trade without environmental and labor protections for those poor workers.
But again the old man had me outclassed. He patiently explained how environmental protection and workers’ rights rise mostly when a nation can afford it due to increasing prosperity and that by limiting trade with these developing countries we were actually working against the stated goal.
He had me. I finally agreed with Gramps that my man Obama was dead wrong on trade, but heck, at least his tax plan was way more fair, right?
Grandpa’s face turned a little red, his knuckles white, and he took a couple deep breaths, whispering faintly something about “serenity now.” “That discussion will have to wait until your next trip down here,” he said. I agreed, even though I really wanted to discuss it right then, because deep down I was panicked that when I got home and started to really look into the issues one by one, I would have to pull the lever for John Bush II McOldyOld.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Marcus Marketor, a Greek Tragedy
How much is your house worth? Even in normal times it’s a difficult question to answer, and people looking to sell pay hefty commissions to real estate professionals to help set the sale price. You bought yours a few years before the peak for $200k, so you figure it’s probably dropped 15%, to $170k. But the reality is, although it would be interesting to know, you don’t really care how much your house is worth, because you can afford the payments and plan on living there a long time raising a family.
Your neighbor, however, is in a different situation. He desperately needs to move out of state for personal reasons and must sell his house now. Unfortunately for him, everyone else is too scared to buy houses right now, and the best he can do is find a savvy investor to take it off his hands for $100k, even though it’s very similar to your house and probably will be worth a lot more when the market recovers.
The situation is lousy, but hardly the end of the world. Until the government got involved.
You see, a few years back some bad dude energy traders from Houston lied about some things. And instead of just punishing those guys, the government went bananas passing new rules on the entire world.
So now when your neighbor sells his house, his price automatically becomes the value of your own house. Not only that, but in order to “protect” your kids from being thrown out onto the street, the government says that you have to put up new collateral on your loan to make sure you have a reasonable cushion and aren’t over-extended.
Bottom line: you now have to raise $100k of cash money, and just keep it in your bank account, because the government is protecting your kids by making sure you don’t owe more than you have.
You argue that it’s ridiculous, because you have a good job and can afford to pay your bills, and the value of your house is not really important because you live there. But the helpful guy from Washington says “Too bad, so sad. Sell everything you have that isn’t bolted down to come up with the $100k.”
As if by magic, you’ve gone from being in pretty good financial shape to completely buggered.
But you stay up all night working out a plan, selling your cars and your stamp collection, and getting money from your aunt. You think you might just make it! You tell your kids that everything is going to be all right.
Unfortunately your neighbor on the other side doesn’t have a rich aunt, and now he has to sell his house. But this time, even the savvy investors are too scared, because the government has another plan to “help.” The government announced a plan to compete with savvy investors, buying the exact houses that they were in the process of scooping up.
So the government buys your neighbor’s house for $50k. And now guess what they want you to do?
[Six months later]
You have no house. Unfortunately, you told your kids everything would be OK - by EMAIL! You are the lowest of the low. Lying to your kids when you knew things were not going to be fine. You are informed that the government will provide you with a new house (a big one). It’s very secure, you have a nice roommate, and they provide you with three meals a day.
* This story is fictional. Any resemblance to real events and/or persons is purely coincidental.
How much is your house worth? Even in normal times it’s a difficult question to answer, and people looking to sell pay hefty commissions to real estate professionals to help set the sale price. You bought yours a few years before the peak for $200k, so you figure it’s probably dropped 15%, to $170k. But the reality is, although it would be interesting to know, you don’t really care how much your house is worth, because you can afford the payments and plan on living there a long time raising a family.
Your neighbor, however, is in a different situation. He desperately needs to move out of state for personal reasons and must sell his house now. Unfortunately for him, everyone else is too scared to buy houses right now, and the best he can do is find a savvy investor to take it off his hands for $100k, even though it’s very similar to your house and probably will be worth a lot more when the market recovers.
The situation is lousy, but hardly the end of the world. Until the government got involved.
You see, a few years back some bad dude energy traders from Houston lied about some things. And instead of just punishing those guys, the government went bananas passing new rules on the entire world.
So now when your neighbor sells his house, his price automatically becomes the value of your own house. Not only that, but in order to “protect” your kids from being thrown out onto the street, the government says that you have to put up new collateral on your loan to make sure you have a reasonable cushion and aren’t over-extended.
Bottom line: you now have to raise $100k of cash money, and just keep it in your bank account, because the government is protecting your kids by making sure you don’t owe more than you have.
You argue that it’s ridiculous, because you have a good job and can afford to pay your bills, and the value of your house is not really important because you live there. But the helpful guy from Washington says “Too bad, so sad. Sell everything you have that isn’t bolted down to come up with the $100k.”
As if by magic, you’ve gone from being in pretty good financial shape to completely buggered.
But you stay up all night working out a plan, selling your cars and your stamp collection, and getting money from your aunt. You think you might just make it! You tell your kids that everything is going to be all right.
Unfortunately your neighbor on the other side doesn’t have a rich aunt, and now he has to sell his house. But this time, even the savvy investors are too scared, because the government has another plan to “help.” The government announced a plan to compete with savvy investors, buying the exact houses that they were in the process of scooping up.
So the government buys your neighbor’s house for $50k. And now guess what they want you to do?
[Six months later]
You have no house. Unfortunately, you told your kids everything would be OK - by EMAIL! You are the lowest of the low. Lying to your kids when you knew things were not going to be fine. You are informed that the government will provide you with a new house (a big one). It’s very secure, you have a nice roommate, and they provide you with three meals a day.
* This story is fictional. Any resemblance to real events and/or persons is purely coincidental.
