Friday, August 13, 2010

SAR #10225

You cannot feed 10 billion people using organic farming.

Two Scoops: Yale's Robert Shiller has joined those who see a better than even chance (“a significant likelihood”) that the economy will decline back into recession, with the root cause being our apparently incurable unemployment woes.  He also sees the Fed as “running out of bullets.”

Bare Bones:  Initial unemployment claims edged up 2,000 to 484,000 last week and the 4-week average is up 14,250 at 459,250.  Enough people fell off the far end of the benefit table to lower total insured unemployment by 118,000 to 4.5 million. In other words, no news is bad news.

Rich/Different:  Most of us, were we ever so lucky as to get a signing bonus, would undoubtedly agree to a morals clause and a term of employment clause and a good faith clause.  But most of us don't work on Wall Street, where you can lie about your past, be found to have defrauded your last employer, quit your new employer in less than a year, and keep the whole $4.5 million signing bonus.  Because most of those acts are what qualified folks to work on Wall Street in the first place.

Memorization:  Turns out that building muscle does not require heavy lifting, just lots of it.  Repetition.  Just like the multiplication tables.

Papers, Please:  Under a proposed immigration law, Florida police would be required to investigate the immigration status of all those they suspect of being illegally in the country.  If you do not produce your identity papers you will be taken to an internment camp, held 20 days and shipped off somewhere.  Identity papers?  Remember when this used to be the United States?

Another Thing:  Remember those claims that the world has 400 years of coal left?  A  re-evaluation says global coal production will peak next year and decline by 50% before 2050.  The only way we'll ever cut CO2 emissions is by running out of fossil fuels, so while this is bad for the energy producers, it may be good news for the atmosphere.

Redefined:  Remember when an intern was a college kid who worked someplace during the summer to see if he like the place while giving the employer a chance to see if the kid had potential?  These days about a quarter of those seeking intern jobs have more than 10 years experience, and many are over 50. Go team.

Sauces:   “Liberal critics (Like Rachel Maddow) have an audience because they’re reflecting real concerns of real people.”   So too, the Glen Becks of the world.

Hot & Bothered:  In 20 years we'll have nuclear reactors with interchangeable parts, small mini-reactors to power the home, ship-board reactors supplying electricity and fresh water to the poor everywhere...  Or maybe not.

Our Gang:  What if this whole WikiLeaks brouhaha is actually some sort of clever Trojan Horse deception by the Pentagon to get out of war they cannot win?

Zombies:   The “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico – now about the size of Massachusetts – grows ever larger.  No, not from BP's failed well, but from the runoff of chemical fertilizers and herbicides from farms in the mid-west. If BP must pay for its damage, why don't agribusinesses have to pay for theirs?

Final Exam:  Look around – see any reason to believe that things are getting better?  Or do the declines in this, declines in that, collapse of this, collapse of that mean this is the big one?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

"If you do not produce your identity papers you will be taken to an internment camp, held 20 days and shipped off somewhere."

Federal Law is that as a legal immigrant I must carry my proof of status (ie Green Card) at ALL times. It is a Federal offense not to do so. So legal immigrants must carry their papers and show them on request but illegal ones need not. Something wrong about that.

Just sayin.

Charles Kingsley Michaelson, III said...

Anony 8.22 Yes, you already have and must carry 'proof of status'. My interest is not in the immigration situation but this: I am not required to carry 'proof of status', having derived my citizenship from a bunch of Brits who showed up in the late 1640's. And I'm afraid we will all end up having to carry, at all times, an internal passport specifying where we can be, when we can be there and what we can do while we are there. And we will be required to show our 'papers' to any number of minor bureaucrats any number of times a day for nearly any reason - under penalty of being whisked off to some holding cell.

Anonymous said...

RE: Sauces

True, true... Good one

RBM

Dink said...

"The only way we'll ever cut CO2 emissions is by running out of fossil fuels, so while this is bad for the energy producers, it may be good news for the atmosphere."


The windfall of stored energy enabled the world population to grow beyond its natural sustainability (along with harming the atmosphere). Whenever I ponder the scale of the potential consequences of a drastic decline in fossil fuels I come to the conclusion "OMFG".

Anonymous said...

"Remember when this used to be the United States?"

If Obama would actually enforce the immigration laws already on the books we wouldn't need to ask anyone
for their papers.

But I guess you'd have to close down some sweat shops that donate to his bottom line. Those who support the illegal obviously do not have to work.

fajensen said...

an internal passport specifying where we can be, when we can be there and what we can do while we are there.
That's just one of the problems with open borders and territorial critters like humans: The checks and the gating sifting "them" from "us" then becomes distributed all over society instead of only in one place - where one can chose not to visit.