In a coincidence of events today, I came across the issue of "Quantitative Easing." This fancy term was a hot topic for awhile, but now apparently plays second fiddle to the chaos in Egypt. Is anyone following what is going on in Egypt? I personally find it rather uninteresting, and as the name of this blog references two fine cities in the great Midwest, I find it more interesting to talk about stuff that affects us more directly.
The mainstream media is a constant dismay for me. I know, I know, that's now an overused and cliched term, but upon finding this article on the NYT website, not only was I saddened by the level of reporting on a really important topic, I was further dismayed to view the home page and find it listed in the second row, behind Egyptanistan. I revisited the NYT Home page just moments ago to reference it, however it is not a static link. Now the reference to Bernanke is totally gone (as is the Egypt story) and there's just a picture of a shirtless doofus politician from NY.
A good friend of mine is a highly accomplished and respected journalist, and he has mentioned to me in conversation how he is not happy with the attacks on "mainstream media" and that bloggers are not professional journalists. This is true, and the attacks are indeed sad. But when videos like the one below contain more information (and are more entertaining) than a NYT reporter can scrap together, I am not surprised to see the Super Bowl ad for TheDaily.com, the first tablet-oriented, virtual news"paper" I know of. Happy viewing, dear Reader.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
Exit Michael Steele... Enter Reince Priebus
Here he is ladies and gentlemen!
OK... haha... but really - it's not that far a stretch:
And the secret word of the day? 'Blood libel' of course!!
OK... haha... but really - it's not that far a stretch:
And the secret word of the day? 'Blood libel' of course!!
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
State of the Nation
Merry Christmas everyone.
As we approach a new year, I thought it might be worthwhile to post some thoughts that have been churning around in my head regarding the state of our nation. I'm afraid this post is going to pose a number of questions and not a lot of answers. But nonetheless I wanted to at least put these thoughts out here to see what others think.
I've been thinking of this post for a while, but was prompted to actually do it today after listening to the NY Times Front Page podcast, and hearing that "retail spending rose 5.5 percent in the 50 days before Christmas." This seemed to fit with what I saw in the past couple months - malls and retail outlets were packed with shoppers. But the story doesn't add up to me. Isn't the unemployment rate still almost 10 percent? How is it that people can afford to spend as much as they did in the same period of 2005?
The Times article quotes Craig R. Johnson, president of the consulting firm Customer Growth Partners saying "In the face of 10 percent unemployment and persistent housing woes, the American consumer has single-handedly picked himself off the mat, brushed his troubles off and strapped the U.S. economy on his back." Let's see, unemployment still high, housing prices still low... maybe if we spend more that will fix it? The economy is slow, let's extend a lot of credit to people who don't really understand (or don't want to understand) the risk of credit card debt? It worked in 2005, maybe it will work again? Am I the only one who finds it strange that this man is applauding the American Consumer for what I can only see as the same pattern of reckless lifestyle that helped get us into this mess?
So that got me to wondering exactly how much money Americans are saving. A couple months ago I listened to the episode "Is America Ready for a 'No-Lose Lottery'?" on Freakonomics Radio. The episode presents an idea worthy of its own discussion - can a lottery be used to encourage people to save? But the story used to setup the episode was what stuck with me. In a survey last year, 2100 Americans were asked if they could come up with $2,000 cash in thirty days. 46% of Americans said they could not. The survey consisted of people from all income brackets, and the result I found most alarming was that of people making between $100,000 and $150,000 a year, 25% responded that they could not come up with $2,000 in thirty days. Now, the sample size is a bit small. So I won't dwell on this too long. But still.
OK, so back to how much Americans are saving. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysts, as of November 2010, Americans are saving about 5.3% of their disposable income. If you look back through the years in that link, you'll see that this is about as good as it has been for the past decade, about the same as the 90's, worse than the 80's, much worse than the 70's and worse than the 60's.
So Americans are saving a smaller portion of their disposable income than they saved in the past.
Is that a bad thing? Taken at face value, one would say yes. But there are other factors to consider. Perhaps Americans don't need to save as much because they're getting more for their dollar. Compared to the rise in inflation, healthcare and education costs are increasing much more rapidly. So, I'd say no, we're not getting more for our money, and yes, the decrease in percentage of disposable income saved is a bad thing.
Why is it such a bad thing? Because all Ponzi schemes eventually collapse. Social Security will, too, and probably before the readers of this blog retire. (OK, there is a lot of debate over when/if Social Security will dry up, but I'll contend that if your retirement plans depend upon collecting Social Security checks, that is a risky plan at best). We all know the story. The magical age at which one qualifies for Social Security is not rising fast enough to keep up with the rising cost of living and average life span. But here's something you may not have known that is pretty frightening: The money that funds Social Security is not sitting in a trust somewhere, safely invested and earning modest interest. The money in the fund is invested in government treasuries. In other words, the the money in the Social Security trust fund has been lent to the government. No kidding. And the kicker? The debt the government owes to the Social Security trust fund is NOT counted in the national deficit. So tack on another $2.4 trillion to the current national deficit. Check out the episode "In Search Of The Social Security Trust Funds" from the excellent Planet Money podcast series on NPR for more info.
All this leads me back to my original complaint: Americans are spending the money they should be saving. If you agree that this is a problem, how is that fixed? Previously in this post I linked to an article co-authored by Peter Tufano, who was also partly responsible for the "$2,000 in 30 days" survey. Tufano suggests that perhaps people should be educated about compound interest and credit card debt, rather than educated about retirement savings. Seems like a good idea to me. I'm all for education on both topics. There is also the option of legislation to "protect consumers against predatory lenders". My knee-jerk reaction is usually to not involve the government and/or that people should be wary enough to know what they're getting into, but I think I'm in favor of this idea, too.
So what say all of you? Do you agree/disagree with what I've said? Like to argue points or add more? Have ideas for a fix or just need to vent a little like I did? I am eager to hear thoughts on this.
Happy New Year.
As we approach a new year, I thought it might be worthwhile to post some thoughts that have been churning around in my head regarding the state of our nation. I'm afraid this post is going to pose a number of questions and not a lot of answers. But nonetheless I wanted to at least put these thoughts out here to see what others think.
I've been thinking of this post for a while, but was prompted to actually do it today after listening to the NY Times Front Page podcast, and hearing that "retail spending rose 5.5 percent in the 50 days before Christmas." This seemed to fit with what I saw in the past couple months - malls and retail outlets were packed with shoppers. But the story doesn't add up to me. Isn't the unemployment rate still almost 10 percent? How is it that people can afford to spend as much as they did in the same period of 2005?The Times article quotes Craig R. Johnson, president of the consulting firm Customer Growth Partners saying "In the face of 10 percent unemployment and persistent housing woes, the American consumer has single-handedly picked himself off the mat, brushed his troubles off and strapped the U.S. economy on his back." Let's see, unemployment still high, housing prices still low... maybe if we spend more that will fix it? The economy is slow, let's extend a lot of credit to people who don't really understand (or don't want to understand) the risk of credit card debt? It worked in 2005, maybe it will work again? Am I the only one who finds it strange that this man is applauding the American Consumer for what I can only see as the same pattern of reckless lifestyle that helped get us into this mess?
So that got me to wondering exactly how much money Americans are saving. A couple months ago I listened to the episode "Is America Ready for a 'No-Lose Lottery'?" on Freakonomics Radio. The episode presents an idea worthy of its own discussion - can a lottery be used to encourage people to save? But the story used to setup the episode was what stuck with me. In a survey last year, 2100 Americans were asked if they could come up with $2,000 cash in thirty days. 46% of Americans said they could not. The survey consisted of people from all income brackets, and the result I found most alarming was that of people making between $100,000 and $150,000 a year, 25% responded that they could not come up with $2,000 in thirty days. Now, the sample size is a bit small. So I won't dwell on this too long. But still.
OK, so back to how much Americans are saving. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysts, as of November 2010, Americans are saving about 5.3% of their disposable income. If you look back through the years in that link, you'll see that this is about as good as it has been for the past decade, about the same as the 90's, worse than the 80's, much worse than the 70's and worse than the 60's.So Americans are saving a smaller portion of their disposable income than they saved in the past.
Is that a bad thing? Taken at face value, one would say yes. But there are other factors to consider. Perhaps Americans don't need to save as much because they're getting more for their dollar. Compared to the rise in inflation, healthcare and education costs are increasing much more rapidly. So, I'd say no, we're not getting more for our money, and yes, the decrease in percentage of disposable income saved is a bad thing.
Why is it such a bad thing? Because all Ponzi schemes eventually collapse. Social Security will, too, and probably before the readers of this blog retire. (OK, there is a lot of debate over when/if Social Security will dry up, but I'll contend that if your retirement plans depend upon collecting Social Security checks, that is a risky plan at best). We all know the story. The magical age at which one qualifies for Social Security is not rising fast enough to keep up with the rising cost of living and average life span. But here's something you may not have known that is pretty frightening: The money that funds Social Security is not sitting in a trust somewhere, safely invested and earning modest interest. The money in the fund is invested in government treasuries. In other words, the the money in the Social Security trust fund has been lent to the government. No kidding. And the kicker? The debt the government owes to the Social Security trust fund is NOT counted in the national deficit. So tack on another $2.4 trillion to the current national deficit. Check out the episode "In Search Of The Social Security Trust Funds" from the excellent Planet Money podcast series on NPR for more info.All this leads me back to my original complaint: Americans are spending the money they should be saving. If you agree that this is a problem, how is that fixed? Previously in this post I linked to an article co-authored by Peter Tufano, who was also partly responsible for the "$2,000 in 30 days" survey. Tufano suggests that perhaps people should be educated about compound interest and credit card debt, rather than educated about retirement savings. Seems like a good idea to me. I'm all for education on both topics. There is also the option of legislation to "protect consumers against predatory lenders". My knee-jerk reaction is usually to not involve the government and/or that people should be wary enough to know what they're getting into, but I think I'm in favor of this idea, too.
So what say all of you? Do you agree/disagree with what I've said? Like to argue points or add more? Have ideas for a fix or just need to vent a little like I did? I am eager to hear thoughts on this.
Happy New Year.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Hack and Sack
You may have heard recently that a computer worm infiltrated and seriously debilitated two Iranian nuclear facilities. I'll admit that when I first heard about this, my reaction was one of awe. The more details that come out, though, the more it becomes clear (yet again) that the real battlefields are in a virtual world; that the largest military in the world can't necessarily keep a nation from being brought to its knees.
When word first spread of the worm, the popular belief was that the creators of the worm - the "Stuxnet worm" - were those most likely to be harmed by the production of those facilities, the Israelis. This theory was based on a word found in the worm ("Myrtus"), which may have been an intentional reference to a biblical figure who saved Israelis from the Persians. Couple this with the wide smiles sported by Israeli officials when asked about Stuxnet, and the theory didn't seem that wild. "Oh, those Jews and Persians. They'll never get along, will they?"
I actually had my own conspiracy theory. It wasn't the Israelis. It was the U.S., or the Chinese, or the Russians, and they were merely practicing on the Iranians for a bigger target.
As the worm has been studied, some new information has emerged. Check out this FoxNews article for the details (if you read one linked article in this post, read that one). I don't know about you, but that article blew me away. (By the way, yet another blow to Microsoft's security credibility. And was anyone else surprised to see a nation using Windows as the OS to control their nuclear facility?).
Now, as coordinated and precise as the attack was, I suppose it actually shouldn't be that surprising. I think it's generally understood that governments, militaries and even large corporations have divisions whose sole purpose is to poke holes in the defense of their opposition and infiltrate or destroy. Wikileaks recently let it out that it was the Chinese government that hacked Google in early 2009. There are reports of China and Russia hacking into U.S. electrical grids. Heck, in 2002 the U.S. tried to sell the Chinese a bug-ridden plane for the Chinese President. We even have our own cyber-intelligence division here at TLATL, but it mostly consists of Coovo calling up the authors of our rival blog The Lou and The Loop and pretending to be their mom and asking if they remember her maiden name because she forgot it again.
I actually had my own conspiracy theory. It wasn't the Israelis. It was the U.S., or the Chinese, or the Russians, and they were merely practicing on the Iranians for a bigger target.
As the worm has been studied, some new information has emerged. Check out this FoxNews article for the details (if you read one linked article in this post, read that one). I don't know about you, but that article blew me away. (By the way, yet another blow to Microsoft's security credibility. And was anyone else surprised to see a nation using Windows as the OS to control their nuclear facility?).
Now, as coordinated and precise as the attack was, I suppose it actually shouldn't be that surprising. I think it's generally understood that governments, militaries and even large corporations have divisions whose sole purpose is to poke holes in the defense of their opposition and infiltrate or destroy. Wikileaks recently let it out that it was the Chinese government that hacked Google in early 2009. There are reports of China and Russia hacking into U.S. electrical grids. Heck, in 2002 the U.S. tried to sell the Chinese a bug-ridden plane for the Chinese President. We even have our own cyber-intelligence division here at TLATL, but it mostly consists of Coovo calling up the authors of our rival blog The Lou and The Loop and pretending to be their mom and asking if they remember her maiden name because she forgot it again.
If our governments and national infrastructure aren't safe, neither are the big banks. So my question to everyone is, how scared should we be? Is it pointless to be paranoid about things out of our control, or are there any, even small, steps we can take to protect ourselves? Friend of TLATL Joel once wrote to me "Paranoia will destroy ya." True, but stories like these still make me feel a little helpless.
Hope that cheered everyone up! And if you get any calls from your mom asking for her maiden name, just tell her it's "passw0rd".
Monday, October 25, 2010
Tea Time?
How about these Brits? I can't pretend to have deep knowledge about the UK budget or politics, but I find it refreshing to see a nation tightening their belts for the good of future generations. Across the Channel, though, more than a million people went on strike in protest of Sarkozy's bid to raise retirement age from 60 to 62.
What do you all make of this? We face the same problems here, but do we have the nerve to tackle them? If nothing else, it will be interesting to see how the UK handles its spending cuts in the next 5 years.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Making Your Own Fun
.....And We're Back!
Google just came out with Google Instant, and it's awesome. I use Google multiple times a day. If Google Instant saves you 2-5 seconds for each search, it probably saves me 30-60 seconds a day. Which is.... not a lot. But I can't help it - there is something so satisfying about seeing the results for your search appear before you even finish typing in your search criteria.
Another search engine feature that has been out for quite some time but also brings me happiness is type-ahead search.
How do you enter search criteria? Do you enter keywords, or just ask a question? For years, I was a keyword searcher. If I wanted info on a topic, I used 2-3 related words in my search. Seeing suggested results in type-ahead search showed me that a lot of people just type their questions into the search box.
For some cheap amusement, type the beginning of a question into Google to see what the most popular endings are to that question. Try "why is my" or "what would happen if" or "how many times can a". Or just start with "why" or "how". Keep adding words and see where it goes.
And just to be fair... I'm pretty sure the George Bush search results are part of some incredibly stupid fight between his detractors and supporters. I recall hearing something about how some group of people were trying to game search results so that if you typed George Bush into a search engine, the first type-ahead response would be "an idiot". His supporters must have come to his cyber-aid and tried to game the system the other way.
Gaming search results for George Bush
Gaming search results for George Bush is funny
Gaming search results for George Bush is a sign you should get a job
I promise to try to be better about posting, if you promise to try to be better about listening.
Hasta pronto,
el rollo
Google just came out with Google Instant, and it's awesome. I use Google multiple times a day. If Google Instant saves you 2-5 seconds for each search, it probably saves me 30-60 seconds a day. Which is.... not a lot. But I can't help it - there is something so satisfying about seeing the results for your search appear before you even finish typing in your search criteria.
How do you enter search criteria? Do you enter keywords, or just ask a question? For years, I was a keyword searcher. If I wanted info on a topic, I used 2-3 related words in my search. Seeing suggested results in type-ahead search showed me that a lot of people just type their questions into the search box.
For some cheap amusement, type the beginning of a question into Google to see what the most popular endings are to that question. Try "why is my" or "what would happen if" or "how many times can a". Or just start with "why" or "how". Keep adding words and see where it goes.
And just to be fair... I'm pretty sure the George Bush search results are part of some incredibly stupid fight between his detractors and supporters. I recall hearing something about how some group of people were trying to game search results so that if you typed George Bush into a search engine, the first type-ahead response would be "an idiot". His supporters must have come to his cyber-aid and tried to game the system the other way.
Gaming search results for George Bush
Gaming search results for George Bush is funny
Gaming search results for George Bush is a sign you should get a job
I promise to try to be better about posting, if you promise to try to be better about listening.
Hasta pronto,
el rollo
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