MyATMPinIs1234

Says this guy...

"I have faith that Obama's [stimulus] plans will ultimately bolster the economy in some way, shape, or form."

As a reminder, faith is what's required to believe in something in the absence of any logical or reasonable basis for doing so. It's usually used in the context of believing in a supernatural power that controls human destiny, so I guess it's apt, since that is what we will need to avoid economic calamity.

Because you can't remove $850 Billion from the productive economy, throw it at a bevy of politically motivated but highly unproductive uses, and call that a stimulus. It's actually almost exactly the opposite of that.

By contrast, think about what else we could do with that money. In 2007 the IRS collected a total of $1,117,599,983,000 from personal income taxes (xls). Obama could forego the current plan and give back 76% of all income tax and capital gains tax dollars paid by Americans next year. That would be one HELL of a stimulus.

Google helpfully provides phrase completion when typing in search terms. Most people apparently use Google to find out information about drugs. Should I know what "implantation bleeding" is? I was too afraid to click on the search...

If the only thing you knew about me was the list of books Amazon thinks I might be interested in, you would think that I was a king-sized douche bag.

Everyone knows that additional carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a terrible thing. For example, at concentrations of 7%, which is only 6.97% higher than the current level, people experience "dizziness, headache, visual and hearing dysfunction, and unconsciousness within a few minutes to an hour (reference)." So clearly we need to do something about the problem now, before unconsciousness happens.

The question is what to do. The internal combustion engine in most cars today runs at about 20% efficiency. That means for every 10 energies that are produced, 8 of them are wasted. 8 of them!

In contrast, consider electric cars. Most electric power in the U.S. is produced by coal fired power plants, the turbines of which run at about 35% efficiency. This is higher than 20%, and in this context higher is better. Of course, your car isn't plugged in to the turbine, so when the power is transmitted it loses another 7% along the way. Oh yeah, and then batteries are only 80% efficient, so then it loses another 20%. And I almost forgot, coal produces way more CO2 per pound of energy than gasoline.

Wait a second, actually now that I think about battery powered cars don't seem to be that great of an idea.

There has been much in the news lately about the piracy epidemic off the coast of Somalia, affecting the important shipping lanes to the suez canal.

Many people point out that it is a very large area to patrol, and even when pirates are captured it is a confusing legal problem of what to do with them. This has prevented the Navies of the world from stamping out the problem.

I would like to propose a solution.

We should give each cargo and cruise ship a satellite phone and an AN/PED-1 Lightweight Laser Designator Rangefinder. When a pirate ship begins to attack, they would simply call up the US Navy and use the LLDR to act as their own personal forward air controller.

After the first few times a pirate ship got hit by a Hellfire missle from a predator drone circling the area, I imagine piracy would become a lot less appealing.

Economics

If a pharmaceutical company invented a hangover cure pill, what would they be able to charge for it?

If you are really hungover, you would pay pretty much anything for it, but unfortunately you would probably be too hungover to go out and buy it.

If you are not [yet] hungover, you would be able to go buy it, but probably wouldn't be willing to spend too much for it.

People who have defaulted on their mortgage and still go to Starbucks should be sent to debtors' prison.