Once lipstick and lying no longer work, maybe they'll try truth.
Cart Before Horse? Some claim Geithner will have the details of the bank bailout ready next week, while others think the Fed will order in pizzas this weekend as they prepare emergency measures to take the big banks over come Monday.
Penny Saved: JC Penney's 4Q08 profit fell 51% from the prior year.
Looks Like Rain: The Philadelphia Fed's Business Outlook Index plunged to -41.3 in February from -24.3 in January as manufacturing continued to deteriorate and employment losses grew. More bailouts? More nationalizations? A new Five Year Plan?
The Gilded Age: The Good Old Days weren't, no matter what conservatives tell you.
Yes, But: According to Obama, "The plan ... focuses on rescuing families that played by the rules and acted responsibly…” They may have "played by the rules", but the rules at that time were not encouraging anyone to act responsibly. Most didn't.
Tree Huggers: Peasants in the tropics who chop down forests to grow crops to make biofuels will do far more damage to the ecosystem than the marginal good done by using the biofuel.
Oil Wars: Oil is the sine qua non of industrial civilization. Without oil there is no transport, no mechanized agriculture, no mechanized war. China is investing now in long term contracts for oil and other commodities. The US is investing in Citibank.
Morning Line: Jared Diamond, describing himself as "cautiously optimistic", says western civilization has a 51:49 chance of surviving.
Wired, or Not: As we get ready to cover the Southwest with hundreds if not thousands of acres of solar panels and stick windmill farms all over the place, someone noticed that it will require an awful lot of new transmission lines to make this useful.
Time Ravel: In 2005 the IEA predicted oil production would reach 130 mbd. Now it's saying 100 mbd by 2030. Total's CEO says that the world will never produce more than 89 mbd.
Turnover: With the loss of $8 trillion in house values, $10 trillion more from the market losses, and the impact of consumer debts and increasing unemployment, consumerism will be replaced by a generation of 'getting by.'
Dry: Texas is in the midst of the worst drought in a century. The soil is too dry for seeds to sprout, and many are thinking about not planting this spring. The USGS says the entire southwest will enter a "permanent state of drought" in twenty years or so.
Quoted: "There's not much room for common sense and logical thinking in the world of economics."
Suckers Wanted: How long will it take for the young folks of today, those in their 20's and 30's, who have seen their parents' retirement funds confiscated by Wall Street, to put their own money into stocks? Or houses?
3 comments:
Morning Line: Jared Diamond, describing himself as "cautiously optimistic", says western civilization has a 51:49 chance of surviving.
You call AMERICA civilization? We are worried about preserving this? Television, GM, McDonald's, Google, Entertainment, State to State Casinos, Evangelists, Wall Street, etc.
1. An advanced state of intellectual, cultural, and material development in human society, marked by progress in the arts and sciences, the extensive use of record-keeping, including writing, and the appearance of complex political and social institutions.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/civilization
I think it says "advanced state". At best we are in a retarded state and retrogressing not progressing. Back to the drawing board, Jared!
Wired, or Not: As we get ready to cover the Southwest with hundreds if not thousands of acres of solar panels and stick windmill farms all over the place, someone noticed that it will require an awful lot of new transmission lines to make this useful.
Just like the Bank Bailouts, Energy needs a Bailout and that means being able to continually feed their already established Transmission Lines and Energy Infrastructure. What the citizen needs is her own, independent energy source on location at her residence. Thus, all the twaddle about which kind of Energy ignores how it is transmitted. It should all be about decentralization rather than maintaining the current centralizaion with all its attendant conglomerates and heavy capitalization, debt.
Neither Big Bank or Big Energy serve the needs of consumers.
No one mentions it but in addition to sunshine, these solar farms need water - they have to wash-off the dust to keep the collectors operating efficiently. Water in the desert, no problem, just take it away from places like Phoenix, Las Vegas, and LA. Right, that'll work. And, speaking of bailouts, the playerz in the mega solar energy farms want US to bankroll the new transmission lines. . . and then probably charge us a fee for use of the transmission lines!
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