Just for an “economics lesson”, watch an old “Let’s Make A Deal” on Game Show Network. Pick any episode. They’re all from the Sixities. Watch for the final prize giveaway. It’s usually a car. Guess the price?
A beautiful Buick LeSabre. Base price 3,000 dollars.
Different dollars!
It makes you laugh!
But, it should make us all cry.
Some store of value.
In 40 years, will people be looking back wistfully about what a dollar could buy!
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Leave a Comment » | 
MONEY | Tagged: economic, economic freedom, Economics, Education, Inflation, Revolt | 
Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
FACEBOOK is a free service. As such, I give them a lot of latitude about what they choose to do.
BUT, (there is always a big butt),
The keep changing the their human interface.
Without apparent rhyme or reason. And, without consideration of their users.
I liked the old “FRIEND GROUP” page. Why not have an option to use the new or the old?
It’s a small thing but groups in the left column are displayed sort of by last use. I’m an alpha guy. You try finding a specific group in a jumble of groups.
Argh!
FACEBOOK maybe the “only game in town”, but heaven help them if they aren’t. I think they are at risk of competition.
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Leave a Comment » | SERVICE | Tagged: cloud computing | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
Cultural Differences
On a chain of beautiful deserted islands in the middle of South Pacific, the following people are stranded:
* Two Italian men and one Italian woman.
* Two French men and one French woman.
* Two German men and one German woman.
* Two Greek men and one Greek woman.
* Two British men and one British woman.
* Two Bulgarian men and one Bulgarian woman.
* Two Japanese men and one Japanese woman.
* Two Chinese men and one Chinese woman.
* Two Irish men and one Irish woman.
* Two American men and one American woman.
One month later, on these absolutely stunning deserted islands in the middle of nowhere, the following things have occurred:
* One Italian man killed the other Italian man for the Italian woman.
* The two French men and the French woman are living happily together in a ménage à trois.
* The two German men have a strict weekly schedule of alternating visits with the German woman.
* The two Greek men are sleeping together and the Greek woman is cooking and cleaning for them.
* The two British men are waiting for someone to introduce them to the British woman.
* The two Bulgarian men took one look at the Bulgarian woman and started swimming to another island.
* The two Japanese have faxed Tokyo and are awaiting instructions.
* The two Chinese men have set up a pharmacy, liquor store, restaurant, and laundry, and have gotten the woman pregnant in order to supply more employees for their stores.
* The two Irish men divided the island into north and south and set up a distillery. They do not remember if sex is in the picture because it gets somewhat foggy after a few pints of coconut whisky. However, they’re satisfied because the British aren’t having any fun..
* The two American men are contemplating suicide, because the American woman will not shut up and complains relentlessly about her body, the true nature of feminism, what the sun is doing to her skin, how she can do anything they can do, the necessity of fulfillment, the equal division of household chores, how sand and palm trees make her look fat, how her last boyfriend respected her opinion and treated her nicer than they do, and how her relationship with her mother is the root cause of all her problems, and why didn’t they bring a damn cell phone so they could call 911 and get them all rescued off this forsaken deserted island in the middle of freaking nowhere so she can get her nails done and go shopping.
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ROFL
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Leave a Comment » | FUN | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
“Four or five people have made a career. Out of the 4 million people that have auditioned for American Idol. I don’t see how telling some one, who is terrible, that they are good is helpful.”
— Simon Cowell on the Mark Simone radio show
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Leave a Comment » | Quotes | Tagged: honesty, Quotes | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://www.garynorth.com/public/4879.cfm
The Emperor’s New Tools
Gary North
April 25, 2009
*** begin quote ***
Bernanke assured his listeners that the FED has lots of ways to deal with this threat — painless, politically acceptable ways, he implied.
We have a number of tools we can use to reduce bank reserves or increase short-term interest rates when that becomes necessary. First, many of our lending programs extend credit primarily on a short-term basis and thus could be wound down relatively quickly. In addition, since the lending rates in these programs are typically set above the rates that prevail in normal market conditions, borrower demand for these facilities should wane as conditions improve.
Translation: “The money we have created to bail out the financial system will return to the FED and be mopped up. It will not be lent out again.” The word “many” means “we aren’t saying how much, and we will not tell you if you ask.”
*** end quote ***
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They have no tools. Only the ability to pull the wool over the sheep’s eyes using their own wool.
I don’t understand: (1) Why the Chinese will hold more dollars? (2) Who’s going to buy Obama’s trillion dollar deficits? (3) What’s going to become of those on fixed income when inflation takes off? (4) What’s going to happen to the American economy when foreigners what to get paid with real money for the stuff they are sending us?
Argh!
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Leave a Comment » | MONEY | Tagged: FED, Inflation, Obama | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=59
The Fed and the Golden Fleece
By William Anderson
Published 04/22/09
*** begin quote ***
When I teach my economics classes about money, I pass around a $10 gold coin that is a replica of those that were in circulation around 1913, the year Congress created the Federal Reserve System. The coin is made from one-half of an ounce of gold, dating from the time when the dollar was based upon a standard of $20 an ounce.
If I were to value that coin today, according to current gold prices, it would sell for more than $400, which means that according to this way of measuring the value of money, the dollar is worth about 1/40 of what it was when the Fed came into being. Now, this is not necessarily the best or most accurate measure of the decline of the dollar, but it is good enough for the purposes of this article.
*** end quote ***
Regardless of how you calculate it or the timeframe you use, the dollar is NOT a store of value.
In my book Church (page 113), “Money is a matter of functions four, a medium, a measure, a standard, a store.”
The dollar, after the 1913 creation of the Fed, was no longer a measure, standard, or store.
As a youth, reading the Count of Monte Cristo, I dreamt of someday finding a pirate’s treasure. (Hard to imagine anyone not dreaming to find that chest, win the lotto, or such.)
Imagine instead of a chest of gold, finding a chest of dollars. When they were put in, they were valuable. Now they’re worth a fraction.
I often remember my now deceased father-in-law carrying a fifty dollar bill in his wallet ever since he was a young man. He always said: “With that, I’m never poor!” Sad to say, that each year, the value that fifty represented was inflated away. Stolen by the govenrment!
Gold is the only defense.
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Leave a Comment » | MONEY | Tagged: Economics, Inflation, Moral Hazard | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/67283.html
Posted on Thursday, April 30, 2009
Company warned officials of flu 18 days before alert was issued
By Les Blumenthal | McClatchy Newspapers
*** begin quote ***
WASHINGTON — A Washington state biosurveillance firm raised the first warning about a possible outbreak of swine flu in Mexico more than two weeks before the World Health Organization offered its initial alert about a public health emergency of international concern.
*** end quote ***
Anyone care to argue that gooferment is useless!
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Leave a Comment » | GOVEROTRAGEOUS | Tagged: Gooferment | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/21/mivitals-cant-find-pulse-for-online-health-records/
Can’t Find Pulse For Online Health Records
by Leena Rao on April 21, 2009
*** begin quote ***
Online health records is a rapidly growing segment of the health 2.0 world—Google Health, Microsoft’s HealthVault, WebMD, Aetna’s SmartSource (via a partnership with Healthline), and Revolution Health (now part of Waterfront Media), are just a few of the many online platforms that let consumers organize their health records online in a secure portal.
*** end quote ***
Leave a Comment » | Technology | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
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FJohn Reinke
Consultant at Technology Legacies LLC
Advisor, Computer Governance Committee at Manhattan College
Editor / Publisher at Jasper Jottings
Greater New York City Area
JJ Positraction JJ Endnotes Downsize DC
Philosophy of Liberty
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