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POPSWhatever happened to our virtues? A well-written summary of what is wrong with America today: we've lost our "moral compass". Any "fixes" to our economy will remain short-term unless we re-cultivate the underlying virtues of thrift, integrity, self-reliance, and modesty which originally motivated our past American work ethic. I believe it possible, but won't happen quickly. It may require an entire generation or two to cultivate these virtues again, starting with our children and grandchildren.
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POPSTeachers' Unions Are Not Helping Your Kids An excellent review of an article by a self-avowed liberal who was shocked to learn how bad the school system actually was, and how much money was being spent on "teachers" who weren't actually teaching -- all promoted by the Teachers' Union. Finally, a brief review of the voucher program in Wash. DC, and a suggestion, by that same liberal journalist, that it be given a chance to work because otherwise the outcomes for some kids was "too bleak".
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POPSUS Debt Clock This is interesting, but, I don't know how accurate it is because it doesn't reflect the relationships between some of the debtors nor the relative interest rates nor the effects of compounding. For example, the US Treasure borrows money from the Federal Reserve at 2%, then, in turn, loans the money to the banks at 3%, accruing 1% at some compounding rate. In other words, the US Treasuring is making money, just as the banks are making money. Of course, the banks only make money by loaning it out at a higher percent than they paid for it. So, consumers and businesses end up paying for all that interest when they pay the interest on their loans from the banks. You would think that with all that debt spinning, credit availability would have been improving, but it does not yet appear to be doing so. I suspect the banks are trying to pile up their cash reserves.
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POPSMS Stumbles In The iPhone Market Microsoft seems to be stumbling in the market created by the iPhone: it's putting out two different versions of WinME: one against Android and one designed against iPhone.
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POPSUnbelievable Health Care Proposals A retired soldier has carefully reviewed the proposed Health Care Bill and produced line items in an easy-to-read bullet point format. I lack the right words to properly express my feelings about this bill. Some kind of blend of: astounding, unbelievable, audacious, outrageous, WTF!?? Reading through these bullet points reminds me of the "Two Year Old's Manifesto", which goes something like this: What's mine is mine. What's yours is mine. If it looks like it could be mine, it's mine. It's mine even if it looks like it could be yours. If it's not mine, it will soon be mine. ... The Health Care Proposal was written by someone with the morals of a two-year old, with an utter disregard for personal choice, privacy, and respect for individual responsibility.
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POPSiLike's Valuation Roller Coaster The social media player, iLike, has had a roller coaster ride in its valuation. Perhaps it has been a fun time for the customers (like me), listening and sharing their music tastes. And, perhaps it was an exciting ride for the staff, as they counted their paper money stock options. However, for the investors (e.g., Ticketmaster), who appear to be losing at least half their value, it must have felt like tossing your lunch after the worst ride at the fair.
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POPSApple iPhone Subsidies Too High The European telco carriers have apparently paid too high a price in subsidizing the sales of Apple's iPhones. Not one of them has observed a positive ROI (Return On Investment) with iPhone sales.
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POPSGood Thoughts For Fractious Times With our increasingly tumultuous times, it is easy to be dismayed and lose faith. I find that recalling these thoughtful and stirring words from days gone by helps me understand that not only were there just as many contentious issues back then, but that we too will overcome them if we are diligent and persevere.
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POPSGoldman Sachs Starts Up Their PR Engine Because of their current position in the market, Goldman Sach (GS) have reaped huge profits, and this has caused many people to start paying much closer attention to how they have done it. An interesting, well-written article.
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POPSGoldman Sachs Pumping and Dumping Our Economy An excellent article and video by Matt Taibbi, from Rolling Stone Magazine, about how Goldman Sachs has been systematically, repeatedly, "pumping and dumping" the American economy, creating bubbles, then positioning themselves to profit from the popped bubbles, then being in good position to help "fix" the inevitable recession.
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POPSThe Spleen: A Standing Army of Monocytes Apparently the spleen is more important than we realized: it holds a "standing army" of monocytes that swarm damaged and infected tissue, and increases our body's healing capacity.
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POPSEvidence Of Death In the middle ages, famous people who die were often placed on an altar or bier for viewing. In these situations, (e.g., Thomas Becket), chroniclers would note that parasites and other insect vermin could be seen crawling off the dead body. We have our modern technological equivalents: when patent attorneys start crawling out from a company looking to "protect" intellectual property, it's a sure sign of impending doom for the company.
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POPSJapanese Cellphones Have Galapagos Syndrome A review of the issues surrounding the comparative lack of penetration into the American and European cellphone markets by the Japanese handset companies, even though the Japanese phones are far more advanced.
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POPSiPhone hackery with SMS!! This is a pretty serious security hole in the iPhone OS. The article also describes similar security flaws in the Google Android and Windows ME phones, so it's not exclusively an Apple oversight. At the time of the writing, Apple had not responded yet -- but with increased exposure, I'll bet an OS updated is forthcoming.
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POPSCA is finally showing fiscal responsibility! Finally, some good news for our local economy: it seems that California is at long last curtailing some of its social spending, without also increasing taxes as it struggles to balance its budget. Yay! It almost makes me want to go out and celebrate! But.. I'll wait until there is some real, positive cash flow!
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POPSThe Ascent Of Money An excellent, four-part PBS series on the history of money. Can be viewed in full online, for free.
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POPSMisplaced Anger Megan McArdle, writing in the Atlantic Journal, correctly points out that Jon Stewart's, and those of his frothing fanboys', attentions on Jim Cramer and CNBC are misplaced anger about the current economic crisis. Be sure to read the entire article at the Atlantic Journal .
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POPSAnother $140B for the banks!!?? Our Sec. Treasury Paulson has quietly set aside a tax law affecting banks, with the estimated net of an additional $140B!! Guess who is footing the bill? We are!
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