Tag: economy

A Couple Follow-Ups

Little Dogs in Big Trouble: Remember this post? The picture was taken in front of the Prince and Princess Puppy Boutique in Las Vegas. Well, there’s been some trouble in the Doggie Kingdom. The owner of the store and her companion are accused of trying to burn the place down with 27 dogs inside. Yeah, if you’re going to try and burn your own business down, you really ought to disable your security cameras first, ya know?

Mystery Solved: Last semester I was confused by this Crosswalk to Nowhere. I figured it was a vestige of some campus roadway plan that never came to pass, but I was very wrong! This week I saw it used for it’s actual purpose. It’s hard to tell in my picture that the “crosswalk” is probably as wide as a 6-lane road. However, remember that there’s no road? This crosswalk is for rehab: a (supervised) patient can learn or relearn to cross a street in the amount of time allowed by a typical crosswalk with no stress and no actual traffic.

Ok, now on to In Closing: NAFTA and TPP (pay attention to TPP and tell your friends!); NSA, DHS, privacy, and NSA; on logic; oh did He? Never heard Jefferson and his crew referred to as “God” before; unexpected; and where is the money coming from??; keep calm and ask a question; economy, CPI, and economy; Descartes; “to him, it was science possibility” (Ron McNair was also going to perform the first saxophone solo recorded in space); if Howard Hughes had his way, the west quarter or so of the Las Vegas Valley would be a giant aircraft plant; and I can’t help but notice that the world didn’t end today. I consider that a Good Thing.

Return to BloodShorties Lake

You can thank Drew for the title inspiration. It’s sometimes tough to keep thinking of Shorties titles!

Beating the same drum: so here’s today’s tab dump on the freaking mess that continues to be the NSA, DEA, FBI, and Edward Snowden.

And now for something completely different: a nice selection of  health, health insurance, and healthy diet links.

Armchair economist: yeah, still collecting choice bits on the economy and how it effects Joe Average for you. But hey, at least Congress gets plenty of vacation days. After all, they work so hard preventing legislation.

Oh Look: the Duhpartment of Research has been at it again.

I can’t bring myself to spend that: Average price of a new car is now over $31k.

Education Official has Moment of Sanity: Huh, maybe school should start later.

On Libertarianism and Property Rights: Seriously.

Don’t you think you should have read the book before writing about it?: I did read the book, thank you. I wasn’t required to. I wanted to as part of a research project. How about we stop focusing on the fact that there was a lot of racism years ago, and celebrate the improvements that have been made to medical care, medical privacy, and race relations since then? Not saying everything is perfect, just better. How about we temper praise for the author compiling primary source materials with the fact that it’s hard to find any scholarship on the subject not filtered by her findings and bias?

Speaking of medicine: Gin and Tonic and the British Empire.

Shhhhhhh: A judge has thrown out the right of the US to maintain an international no-fly list.

And Finally: a couple of nice videos to waste your time.

Financial Illiteracy

Dollars and Sense: How Wise Are We With Money?

Many thanks to Cara Delany for this terrific infographic.

Way back when I went to high school, I was required to take a trimester long class called Personal Finance. Among the topics were how to write a check and balance a checkbook, how to put together a family budget (this lesson might as well have been called “Don’t get pregnant unless you like poverty”), what color cars were safest, how to calculate cost per unit (with the bizarre aside that a longer cassette tape was cheaper per minute than a shorter one of the same cost, the quality of the music being irrelevant), and Why Capitalism Is Better Than Communism (it was during the Reagan Administration, I even remember the propaganda filmstrips). I think we might have spent a day or two on different kinds of insurance. Topics that in retrospect I would have liked to have seen but didn’t include how to decipher utility bills, how interest works, credit cards and other short term debt (pay it off ASAP!), secured debt such as car notes and mortgages, and basic investment vehicles (stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc).

Have a great weekend, folks!

ShortWoman’s Super Simplified Campaign Finance Plan

Over the years, I’ve talked about tax simplification and campaign season streamlining. Today I share my idea — singular — for simplifying campaign finance. Since it’s clear that we are unlikely to get to a place where campaigns are publicly funded and each candidate is sharply limited on what he (usually he, sometimes she) can do and since McCain-Feingold has been perverted beyond repair, it’s time to add my virtual two cents. It’s very simple:

To contribute to a candidate’s campaign, you should have to prove that you can legally vote for that candidate.

This can be easily done by attaching a photocopy of the donor’s voters registration card to the contribution voucher. This has several key benefits:

  • Neither corporations nor unions could contribute to campaigns. Neither one can legally vote. Conservatives and Liberals? This is detente.
  • It affirms that the results of an election are primarily the business of the constituents. I like Elizabeth Warren, but why should I be allowed to meddle in Massachusetts politics by sending money? Why should somebody from another state be able to manipulate my local elections by infusing capital?
  • It limits the influence of big donors. Sure, Sheldon Adelson will still have a lot of sway in Nevada — along with Steve Wynn and Irwin Molasky  (why not) — but except for Presidential campaigns, influence stops at Primm.
  • It would reduce fraud.

The powers that be clearly have a vested interest in keeping elections a giant slush fund. However, We The People deserve better.

In Closing: More on the NSA, the TSA, and wisdom from Bruce Schneier; what decade is this again?; making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got (and sometimes a bunch of credit to cover what you don’t got); duh; the real Lone Ranger?; and a giant virus.

The economy sucks so bad they have to add Seinfeld to the calculations.

No joke!

For the first time in four years, the Commerce Department will revise its estimates of U.S. gross domestic product — the value of U.S.-made goods and services — back to 1929. The biggest of the changes affect money spent on research and development and on artistic endeavors such as writing books or filming TV shows.

For the first time, R&D spending and money spent on the arts will count in GDP — if they’re intended to generate long-term streams of income, such as a decade or more of drug sales or profits from syndicated reruns of a hit TV show.

That led the government to decide that spending on TV comedies and dramas — such as Seinfeld — will count, but game shows and reality shows, such as Keeping Up With the Kardashians, will not, because they have a limited syndication market.

Fewer young adults are working full time. Politicians are arguing about whether it’s better to have millions employed at starvation wages or risk making them unemployed by giving them a living wage. Official unemployment might be down, but employment is not up. Toyota is giving logistics help to charity rather than actual money (clearly they needed it but still). And government safety nets — that RepubliCANTs want to cut, are the only thing keeping millions of people out of poverty.

Oh well, at least we don’t have to add the Kardashians to GDP.

In Closing: silly women clearly don’t know what men think is good for them; turns out that when you treat kids like criminals, they live up to your standards; anyone surprised?; and the Burka Avenger.

Music Monday: The Boss Has Spoken

Ladies and gentlemen, the unvarnished truth:

 

The economy is crap unless you are ridiculously wealthy. And even then, you might have the sense that something is amiss. It is no longer possible to just work a little harder and get out of this mess. Four out of five Americans “struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives.” An alarming number of families spend over half their income on housing, with many still paying far too much on property that will never be worth what is owed — property that traps them in places where jobs might not exist. And that’s before I get to 35 facts that should scare Baby Boomers.

Follow up: Be careful hiking in areas that have recently experienced forest fires.

In Closing: on human trafficking; seriously??; some more stuff on the NSA (contact your Congressmouse and Senatwhores and remind them that you vote); MSRA; don’t say stupid stuff in job interviews; and Farewell Lindy.

Being Angry at a Black Guy is Not a License to Kill

Maybe there wasn’t justice in Florida. However, Wisconsin is another story.

Last year, an angry old white man decided that the people who had broken into his house had to be the black boys that lived next door, despite the fact that his security cameras showed two different black men who had happened to come from that direction and the fact that the police didn’t have enough evidence to arrest anybody. So he did what seemed right to him. He went and killed the 13 year old boy:

Spooner’s surveillance video provides a clear view of what happened. Spooner emerges from his house and confronts the teen, who is retrieving his family’s garbage cart from the street. Spooner points a gun at Darius, who moves back a few steps. Spooner then exchanges words with Darius’ mother, who’s standing on her porch out of view of the camera, and Spooner briefly points the gun in her direction. Moments later, Spooner points the gun back at the boy standing a couple of feet in front of him. He fires, hitting Darius in the chest.

The teen stumbles and runs away, and Spooner fires a second shot that misses. He appears to attempt a third shot, but the gun jams.

Darius’ mother, Patricia Larry, testified that she chased her son to where he collapsed in the street. She cradled him in her arms as he died.

You are welcome to watch the snuff film surveillance video here. The angry old white man still considers this “justice,” and admitted on the witness stand that if he had a clear shot, he would have killed the boy’s 18 year old brother too!  Finally, when asked how he felt about it, his answer was “Not that bad.”

Seriously? Killed a human being who wasn’t threatening you, wasn’t threatening your family, who might have stolen something from you, and you feel “not that bad” about it? Wow. What a guy.

So the case in court came down to two things: did the angry old white man intend to kill the boy, and was he sane at the time?

I am not an expert in gun safety, but I do know that one of the top gun safety rules out there is “Never point a gun at something you don’t intend to destroy.” Anybody who didn’t grow up in a Warner Brother cartoon knows that if someone is shot in the chest from a few feet away, they will probably die. Therefore I am forced to assume that he meant to “destroy” that kid. So intent? Check!

As for sanity, it really only mattered here for what his final destination was: prison or mental hospital. Most of us don’t want gun-waving angry old men in our neighborhoods. Nevertheless, another one of those gun safety rules? “Be sure of your target and what is beyond it.” By golly, he followed that one! That would tend to support the idea that he was sane at the time. Sanity? Check!

You will not be surprised to find that a jury figured the same thing. Now, he will probably live the rest of his life in prison.

Of course none of this brings that boy back. Thoughts of peace for his family.

In Closing: Just an assortment of NSA, Snowden, spying on Americans, blah blah links (can somebody please explain how this stuff can possibly be legal under the 4th Amendment??); Her Majesty; jobless “recovery“; Antarctica; and oops, somebody accidentally said the truth out loud.

Music Monday: For Trayvon

 

After this I hope to shut up forever about Trayvon Martin and/or George Zimmerman. In the meantime, here’s some of the better things that I have recently read. I particularly like this one, since it supports my position that a hip carry law would be preferable to concealed carry (Trayvon and any normal person would have run from a man with a gun on his hip!). Oh, and if you don’t think race was a factor, get your head out of the ground.

In Closing: yet more about spying on Americans and others; on the economy; and top secret vacuum cleaner.

 

Another Month, Another Mediocre Jobs Report

Sadly, I’ve written on this topic many times over the last 10 years. This time it’s the June employment report. I’ll let Bill McBride summarize it for you:

The good news: This was the best first half for private employment gains since 1999.  Also hourly and weekly wages increased 0.4% in June, and hourly wages are now up 2.2% over the last year (weekly wages are up 2.5% year-over-year).

Some bad news: the employment-population ratio for the 25 to 54 year old group (prime working age) declined, the number of part time workers (for economic reasons) increased and U-6 (an alternative measure of labor underutilization) increased to 14.3%.

Be sure to scroll down for The Scary Chart showing that there are still 2% fewer jobs than there were at the beginning of the Great Recession. At least — theoretically — there may have been enough jobs created to absorb the new people in the workplace. Or rather, there would have been if it hadn’t been June, a month when both high school and college graduations occur.

So let’s dig into the bad news. A lot of people are working part time because that’s the best they can do right now. Some employers think they are getting around benefits such as health care costs doing this, but the fact is that if the economy ever really recovers, workers will demand little things like full time work at decent wages with benefits.

Many of those workers are also in low wage jobs — or worse yet, temporary jobs that might vanish next month. It’s dishonest to say a job was “created” if it’s not worth actually hiring someone to do it. These are the kind of jobs where they can get away with giving workers a debit card instead of a paycheck, because they know the worker has no choice but to suck it up.

Now, I’m hesitant to bring up this story, but it seems that some “Doctors” licensed in other countries are having a hard time getting licensed here. I’m finding it difficult to swallow the idea that our standards are just too high for typical FMGs (Foreign Medical Grads). If Depak Desai could get licensed in the states, it can’t be that hard. However, these “doctors” are taking jobs that could be done by someone with a fraction of the education. Maybe we could find them jobs as medical or nursing assistants pending their actually passing the exams, and free up those menial jobs for others? At least this story is another stake in the heart of the idea that we need H1B guest workers.

The good news today masks another sad truth: the percentage of us “in the workforce” has declined. That means that more of us are staying home with the kids, more of us have gone back to school, more of us have tried to get disability benefits, and more of us have just plain given up on the idea of finding gainful employment.

I will wrap up with two related stories. First, unemployment benefits don’t increase unemployment, no matter what some conservatives want you to think. Second, some advice for the kids: employers don’t want to hear from or about your parents. Be a grown-up.

In Closing: All the NSA and Snowden you can stand; follow up on the 4th.