MONEY: The reality of the doldrums

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/business/near-the-ceiling-1.306854

Near the ceiling
Solutions in a world where bonds have nowhere to go but down
By Eytan Avriel
Published 02:35 09.08.10
Latest update 02:35 09.08.10

*** begin quote ***

3. The third solution may sound weird, but it’s the most practical of the three: Accept the reality.

Yields are going to stay low for a long time. That’s how it is. It may change one day, but until then, keep a stiff upper lip. Grasp the reality with both hands and figure out how to live in a world of low returns.

*** end quote ***

Get ready for the “Lost Decades”. Like Japan, the USA is stuck in a morass of Gooferment disasters. At least a natural disaster comes and goes relatively quickly. This one, of our own making, is goign to be here for a long time.

1. End the personal and corporate dole; 2. Dismiss gooferment public education; 3. Stop the various wars — foreign and domestic; 4. Repatriate the troops home; 5. End the drug war; pardon all non-violent drug offenders; 6. Downsize ALL gooferments; 7. Eliminate all taxes but tariffs and excise.

And, we’ll be back on track in no time.

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INTERESTING: Question about the SCOTUS terms

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

How about the idea of a single 18 year term for justices on the Supreme Court.

I’m adverse with tinkering with the wisdom of the Dead Old White Guys like was done with the direct election of senators.

BUTT (there’s always a big but) this proposal appears to have merit.

* each prez gets a pick; prevents “popular packing” by judges timing their “retirement”.

* doddering old “scholars” will be respectfully booted off.

* it presents a problem if one of them dies prematurely.

* probably should be accompanied by an age qualification (i.e. 65, 70,75?) to ensure that post-SCOTUS employment opportunities don’t enter into judicial decisions.

Your thoughts?

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POLITICAL: Separation of Marriage and Gooferment

Monday, August 16, 2010

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/08/06/time_for_a_divorce_106646.html

August 6, 2010
Time For a Divorce
By David Harsanyi

*** begin quote ***

In the 1500s, a pestering theologian instituted something called the Marriage Ordinance in Geneva, which made “state registration and church consecration” a dual requirement of matrimony.

We have yet to get over this mistake. But isn’t it about time we freed marriage from the state?

Imagine if government had no interest in the definition of marriage. Individuals could commit to each other, head to the local priest or rabbi or shaman — or no one at all — and enter into contractual agreements, call their blissful union whatever they felt it should be called and go about the business of their lives.

*** end quote ***

Time for the Separation of Marriage and Gooferment!

There’s no reason for the State to be involved in it. They’ve demonstrated it’s all about control and money.

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LIBERTY: The Gooferment can’t do anything right!

Monday, August 16, 2010

http://reason.com/archives/2010/08/05/private-enterprise-does-it-bet

Private Enterprise Does It Better
Why freedom and responsibility triumph over regulation and central planning
John Stossel | August 5, 2010

*** begin quote ***

In Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity, I bet my readers $1,000 that they couldn’t name one thing that government does better than the private sector.

I am yet to pay.

Free enterprise does everything better.

Why? Because if private companies don’t do things efficiently, they lose money and die. Unlike government, they cannot compel payment through the power to tax.

Even when a private company operates a public facility under contract to government, it must perform. If it doesn’t, it will be “fired”—its contract won’t be renewed. Government is never fired.

*** end quote ***

I can’t think of a single thing it does well?

Even if I could think of something it accomplishes, then we have to examine that “accomplishment” under the dual lens of effectiveness and efficiency.

I think the Gooferment is sadly lacking. Whatever it attempt to do, it screws it up.

It’s all rooted in the concept that it can initiate force in our name on others. Once that mistake is made, all it’s efforts are poisoned.

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TECHNOLGY: Norelco Replacement Heads and Amazon

Sunday, August 15, 2010

My razor desperately needed new heads.

So I googled: “Philips Norelco HQ9 SpeedXL Replacement Heads” on Amazon

But, I can’t wait for the pony express to deliver it.

So, I bought it at Tar-jeee (Sounds better than bulls eye!) where I paid 7$ more in price but minus the Amazon shipping.

Funny thing is that I can’t put in an Amazon review.

The product comes from Norelco with no directions. I got it in. I R a fat old white guy injineer. It was hard to install. And, the replacement part not as good as original.

Interesting that one Amazon commenter called the heads “planned obsolescence”.

Sounds like they try to lock people into their products. Argh!

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QUOTE: Sit in confinement (like prison) – John Taylor Gatto

Sunday, August 15, 2010

“It’s absurd and anti-life to be part of a system that compels you to sit in confinement with people of exactly the same age and social class. That system effectively cuts you off from the immense diversity of life and the synergy of variety; indeed it cuts you off from your own past and future, sealing you in a continuous present much the same way television does…” – John Taylor Gatto

http://www.preservenet.com/theory/Gatto.html

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HARDWARE: Cheap microscopes for developing world

Saturday, August 14, 2010

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/08/cheap-300-fluorescent-microscopes-for-developing-world.ars

Cheap ($300) fluorescent microscopes for developing world
By Chris Lee | Last updated about 18 hours ago

*** begin quote ***

So, how much would you pay for such a microscope? $500? $750? To build your own using optics out of catalogs will cost you $490. However, given the mark-up on equipment out of optical catalogs, the researchers estimate that a manufacturer could get this out the door for under $300.

Even at $500, this is all right. You can buy three of these for the cost of something from Nikon, and you can put them in traveling clinics to provide point-of-care diagnostics to a much larger number of people compared to a single microscope at a fixed facility. So, even if the researchers are a bit optimistic on the price, it is still a net win for overburdened healthcare systems in developing world countries.

*** end quote ***

You have to admire the ingenuity that can make something that’s good enough to get the job done at a price that get to the people who can use it.

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LIBERTY: The Gooferment is the new plantation owner for all of us

Saturday, August 14, 2010

http://dumpdc.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/abolishing-slavery/

Abolishing Slavery by Patrick Samuels, author of: “Memories of a Former American”

*** begin quote ***

Our society no longer operates under a system of economic liberty. We live under a system of collectivism in which all property is owned by the society as a whole, the collective, the state. Call it socialism, call it communism, but don’t call it capitalism. Consider all your significant property. You don’t own your house even if the mortgage is paid. If you don’t pay your property taxes, your house reverts to the ownership of the state. You merely rent it. You only have use of your car at the behest of the state. If you don’t pay the necessary fees, that car cannot leave the driveway. The paycheck your receive is the property of the state first and after they have “deducted” their portion, your receive your allowance. The harder you work, the smaller, percentage wise, is your allowance. Even your allowance is spent according to the dictates of the “master”. He now requires you to buy health insurance and scolds or prohibits you from buying things he deems dangerous or risky. You have little privacy as all medical records and financial transactions are now at his fingertips. We have been fooled into thinking we are free because we have a thousand channels on our televisions and a hundred different cell phone plans; just bread and circuses. How different are we than the black slave working at Jefferson’s Monticello? He lived in a hut not his own, couldn’t travel without permission, ate what he was told, was dependent on his master for any health care and until he died, never received anything close to the value of his labor.

Today, our masters are not the aristocracy, the plantation owners, the rich. In our republic, our masters are the mob and the politicians who manipulate them for power.

*** end quote ***

Gooferment steals our wealth for services, that we may or may not want, performed badly and at prices we can’t afford or don’t want to pay.

How is that “liberty”?

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MONEY: The Congress reneges on Coverdales

Friday, August 13, 2010

http://www.ricedelman.com/cs/pressroom/pressroom_detail?pressrelease.id=1498

Yet Another Reason Not to Make Tax Avoidance Your Top Goal
For Immediate Release
August 06, 2010

*** begin quote ***

Congress cuts a tax break retroactively – again!

Congress creates a program that offers tax benefits. Taxpayers participate in the program. Congress then eliminates the program’s tax benefits, retroactively denying the benefits to the taxpayers who had participated in good faith.

If you think you can trust Congress to honor its obligations, think again. Congress has changed tax rules retroactively several times before — and it just did it again.

*** and ***

By the way, Congress currently says that money placed into a Roth IRA can be withdrawn tax-free in the future.

Do you really believe that?

*** end quote ***

One of my initial reluctances to get involved with IRAs was the “political risk”.

We’ve seen several trial balloons about the Gooferment seizing the IRA / 401Ks in exchanged for an enhanced social security benefit. Where else are the politicians and bureaucrats going to find the amounts of money they need to keep the merry-go-round turning. And, all they have to do is issue diktats to the relatively small finite number of “custodians” to turn it over. It’ll be easier than FDR’s gold confiscation.

Does this start the NEXT american revolution?

Do the Sheeple have to see the boxcars destined for the camps waiting to be loaded before they wake up?

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SERVICE: Google Voice for ICE

Friday, August 13, 2010

http://lifehacker.com/5603492/create-a-better-emergency-contact-number-with-google-voice

Create a Better Emergency Contact Number with Google Voice

*** begin quote ***

A lot of us have more than one Google account (in fact, Google just launched a new feature specifically for multiple account owners), so the idea would be that you set up one of your non-primary accounts with Google Voice, then make that number, when called, ring everyone you’d consider an emergency contact—maybe your significant other, your parents, your sister.

*** end quote ***

I’ll try it.

My samsung phone displays “ice calling” when any of the three people I have listed call or texts me. It’s confusing.

We’ll see it it works.

I have a “spare” GV#. So what I’ll have to do is to schedule the authentication with my four ice (f,p,m,w) contacts and my four home (mc, ec, h, s). So, when some one call ICE it’ll ring all of them. That’s a real E!

First limit. You can only forward to six phones. And, each of the numbers has to be validated.

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