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POPSLow Spending Is Taking Toll on Economy "Growth" is now clearly a meaningless concept. On the necessities side -- food, fuel etc. -- inflation is counted as "growth". (No more food or fuel is being produced or used.) This is balanced against deflation and recession in the discretionary economy, and is interpreted as positive growth. These are two different phenomena and cannot be added together in a meaningful way. Yet achieving this growth is what economics is supposed to be all about. Just another reason why the so-called science of economics is literally nonsense and innumerate to boot.
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POPSFood Riots Erupt Worldwide The real culprits are the economic ideologies of free trade and interest driven growth which, masquerading as science, drive disastrous policy decisions.
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POPSSewing machines make a comeback A definite sign of the times, as the new age of thrift arrives. Sewing machine manufacturers would be a good investment, too ... not to mention Adam Smith's favorite - pin manufacturers
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POPSLet them eat spuds: the world's new staple Anybody can grow them in their garden. They are much prettier than grass and the loosen up the soil for the next crop. And with 5,000 varieties, they should be out of reach of the biotech industry. Indeed, they are the perfect recession / depression crop. Also, once you start growing potatoes, you start growing other food, too.
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POPSWho Are We? Coming of Age on Antidepressants The reason has to do with the way drugs are tested and approved. To get F.D.A. approval, a drug has to beat a placebo in two randomized clinical trials that typically involve a few hundred subjects who are treated for relatively short periods, usually 4 to 12 weeks.So drugs are approved based on short-term studies for what turns out to be long-term — often lifelong — use in the world of clinical practice. What do I say to a depressed patient who is doing well after five years on such a drug but can’t stop without a depressive relapse and who wants reassurance that the drug has no long-term adverse effects?I usually say that we have no evidence that the drug poses a risk with long-term use; and since the risk of untreated depression is much greater than the hypothetical risk of the drug, it makes sense to stay on it.
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POPSThe U.S Is Heading Towards Water Crisis Yesterday, I clipped an article which said that companies are now racing to build a new generation of nuclear power plants which run hotter than the current plants and presumably need more water cooling. See http://clipmarks.com/clipmark/5B26C257-ADD3-4612-B223-68AD4FAF8A8A/
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POPSHow to Drop Out Not dropping out from school. "It's not like walking through a magic doorway -- it's like growing a fruit tree." Man do I love Ran Prieur
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POPSMarvelous Mysteries of Cartography As a huge fan of Martin Waldseemuller, I'm glad to see his work in the news. Cartography used to be a really cool job, requiering research and interviews, and a healthy dose of speculation. The great thing is that history is so much more complex than the writing of it, and this map is a perfect example of that. Maps were very cloak and dagger stuff back in their day. Although the story comes down that Columbus discovered America and Balboa discovered the Pacific Ocean. But a clever sleuth could have figured out that there must have been something dividing the eastern coast of China from the eastern coast of the new continent. Also, there is the very sexy possibility that other unknown explorers had already made forays into the Pacific before Balboa got the credit. I think its great when history starts to sound like an Arturo Perez Reverte novel!
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POPSCaral: The first city in the New World A brief article on a stunning archaeological discovery in South America. About six years ago, Peruvian/American archaeologist Ruth Shady , introduced the "oldest city in America" to the world. It was Caral; an ancient city on the Pacific coast of Peru, with trade centers, temples and a pyramid complex not less impressive than its counterparts in Mexico and Guatemala. The most exciting thing about Caral was its age: The city was carbon dated to ca. 3000 BCE, which strongly suggested a radical change in history textbooks. All evidence show Caral was not an exception in the region and there are many more ancient towns, waiting to be discovered. Another interesting thing about Caral is, its surprisingly peaceful social order. Archaeologists found no city walls, no forts, no signs of an army and even not a single weapon in Caral. Once again, thanks to Ruth Shady for this fantastic discovery.
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