I just watched McCain being interveiwed by Matt Lauer who asked him about the vetting of Palin. McCain’s response was so brainless, so evasive, so silly, so stupid one can thank God we didn’t get such a senile old moron as our leader. Obama has his faults, but they are as nothing compared to brainless McCain’s. PS McC said he was “happy” about everything, possiblly even happy about losing. He was hippy happy about everything.
Have the special elections been tell tales for the upcoming 2010 midterms? If you are at all interested in election politics the answer is obvious. One resounding defeat in a purple state, a close win against a last minute tea bag candidate, a Gubernatorial loss in democratic NJ, and finally Sen Teddy Kennedy’s seat is up for grabs a week before the election. If that Senate seat goes to the Republican candidate the answer will be blindingly obvious to all not in denial.
I suggest reading this. It has some important things to say about China. I myself have no doubt that China will supplant the US before too long as the world’s #1 power. The author laments that China will not respect individual “freedom” as much as we do. There I think he is mentally about forty years behind. Bush and his spy apparatus and his military courts and his gulag and his imprisonment without trial pretty much trashed our repulation for freedom. The mirage and illusion still persists but it is only illusion. I know my European friends when they come here and go through customs and drive around tell me I live in a “police state”. They are probably right.
I accuse you of doing a lousy job as a moderator (you do alright though in lining up columns). When are you going to tell our left leanding friends to knock it off when they take their abuse up a notch? Common. I could crush all these jockers but you threaten to terminate my account if I take care or them. It bugs me that many of them don’t understand that you’re protecting them from me and not the other way around.
Cantab, drop it! You just lost any chance to influence this discussion. You were/are mistaken on the SS issue, and blaming Dan for it is the wrong approach.
“The author laments that China will not respect individual “freedom” as much as we do. There I think he is mentally about forty years behind. …I know my European friends when they come here and go through customs and drive around tell me I live in a “police state”. They are probably right.”
Your ignorance and endless arrogance are something to behold.
Did anyone see Andrew Ross Sorkins piece on the New York Times about how Goldmans propietary traders may front run their clients or even trade the opposite way to the way the recommend? So its clear now that its really all about their profit and damn their customers! This of course it typical for Wall Street. It will IMHO lead to a generation that decides to boycott wall street, just like those that grew up in the 1930s did.
ddrew–I’m 64 and not gettin’ any younger. Miss Margery is describing the Senator correctly as “old” in a pejorative way. If John McCain were a mere whippersnapper of 21 he’d still be old if we judge by the quality of his gray matter. 😉
Speaking of Great Recessions, here’s an article discussing what is wrong with the Social Security “Reform” agenda. Social Security’s claims operation acts like a canary in a coal mine regarding the health of the labor market. Many people think that “fixing” it is simply a matter of raising the tax base or the full retirement age. Consider the state of the Disability Insurance program. Bruce Webb and Dale Coberly have already addressed the NW Plan and other aspects of the Crisis that Isn’t. However, the basic problem we now have is structural unemployment and the particular kind of permanent unemployment caused by permanent disabilities. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34381782/ns/us_news-the_elkhart_project/
More and more formerly productive workers are now unable to find jobs due to severe or multiple non-severe disabilities. Part of it has to do with the age of the workforce. But, Social Security is expecting to process more than 3 million initial claims for DIB this year while desperately trying to process a hearings backlog of 850,000 previously denied additional claims. This surge in DIB activity is unlike previous recession claims filing increases specifically because the population is aging and the exportation of so many jobs, both skilled and unskilled, has reduced the number of jobs available for the foreseeable future. FYI. I will be interested in hearing your comments on this article and the issue it raises.
Nancy, I spotted Margery for a troll last week. “mean well”? 🙂 It just now occurs to me that she sounds a little too rough edged even to be a genuine female. 🙂
Please note the full retirement age is already being raised and is now at about 65 and 6 months. And, of course, reducing benefits is a non-starter. Many argue that minimum benefit levels for the lowest earners and their survivors should be raised to conform with the Federal Poverty Level. The NASI site contains recent pieces published on the latter issue. I am suggesting to you that the US’s image of itself as a land of opportunity and prosperity for all is not quite what is going on.
What did you expect McCain to do? Tell the truth? Fact is that he was clearly losing the presidential race, so he took a huge gamble that worked out poorly and he lost even worse. That’s not irrational or stupid. Admiting it now however is not very productive for the Republican Party such as it is.
All is not roses…how should the US respond to ‘buy chinese’, mandatory state owned businesses, and heavy subsidies of new industrial ventures like green industries?
And for cantab, what does liberalization mean within the framework of a society that puts to death business malefactors as well as dissenters…I believe Rodrik is accurate when he depicts China having a very durable cultural history.
There’s a short article over at The Oil Drum re higher crude petroleum prices driven by Chinese demand. http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6122 I’m inclined to take individual items like this with a grain of salt. Crude prices are volatile and tend to jump around for no very clear reason.
But as a long term signal this should be taken seriously. As the rest of the world develops outside the EU, US, etc, petroleum based fuel prices in the US are very likely going to be driven increasingly by factors beyond our control. If/when we think about the future, we should plan on $4, $5, $6 and more a gallon for gasoline. For individuals, this means fuel efficient cars, avoiding long commutes and avoiding winter heating with home heating oil. For the nation, it really should mean making sure that the rail network (fuel efficient) gets the same attention and susidies that highways (not so fuel efficient) and air travel (mostly fuel intensive) do.
If you don’t like that, better start thinking in terms of synthetic fuels and electric/CNG cars.
most of the time i just feel sorry for you. i am happy enough to use you as a straw man, but it’s always a trap. the conversation degenerates and i end up losing my temper. if you are Brooks…i thought i could tell the difference… you need to get a life. even if you are not Brooks you need to get a life. you are using us as a kind of client directed therapy. and client directed never works (as opposed to client centered, which does). moreover you invite amateur diagnosis such as : you are the child of a father who was “intelligent” in some ways, but the only attention he ever paid to you was to call you stupid. so now you seek out intelligent people and annoy them until they call you stupid. there is evidence for punishment-seeking behavior in the operant literature, but any good neurotic is always hoping that “this time” daddy will say, “you’re not as stupid as i thought.”
well, stupid isn’t all that bad. you’d be surprised how many of us have had to learn to live with our own relative stupidity. you can too. and be happy. you may need help. this is not the place to get it.
raising the retirement age will just increase the number of disability claims as older people can’t keep up the pace. or can’t get jobs and “discover” a disability.
if as you are saying we are entering a time of permanent stuctural unemployment, trying to keep old peole at their jobs longer would seem to be counterproductive as well as cruel.
i don’t know how to predict the economic consequences of such a huge change in conditions, but so far based on the Trustees, who claim that they do. The financial fix to Social Security is still “raise the tax an average of 20 cents per week per year.”
It is very hard to explain this to people who have a “25 words or less” attention span, but we have to find a way to do it.
I am already thinking electric cars. What bothers me is that when Detroit, and even Japan, think of electric cars they think 90 mph and 200 mile range. we could do very well with 25 mph and 50 mile range for most driving. and even keep our fine old Detroit Iron for the big trips and the driveway status symbol.
And it is easier than you imagine to acclimate to home temperatures of 60 degrees in winter and 80 degrees in summer. Especially with a little intelligent use of spot heaters in winter, and open windows… or just better design… in summer.
You’re another person that I think needs to be bounced for a week. I think this because you’re too aggressive in your responses and you lose your temper too often. Losing one’s temper for you is a self-indulgence that you engage in too frequently because for you so far there has been no consequence for you doing so. Thus, to bounce you for a week you would suffer the consequences and this would probably lead to an improvement in your behavior (i.e. less losing of temper and overly aggressive writing).
You’re another person that I think needs to be bounced for a week. I think this because you’re too aggressive in your responses and you lose your temper too often. Losing one’s temper for you is a self-indulgence that you engage in too frequently because for you so far there has been no consequence for you doing so. Thus, to bounce you for a week you would suffer the consequences and this would probably lead to an improvement in your behavior (i.e. less losing of temper and overly aggressive writing).
China has liberalized business development which has led to their economic progress. Unfortunatly, many in China in return for new economic opportunity pretend that human rights and an open political system don’t matter as much as they actually do. So they like the economic opportunity but still lack self confidence to weather distrubances that would be more likely to happen if they liberalized their political system.
I had no idea that my contribution to fixing social security would only be giving up 1 bottle of wine per year. The hell with raising the retirement age by 2 years, that would cost me 4,800 bottles of wine.
By the way, if I give up 1 blueberry muffin this year can we win the war on terror.
if you could read and do arithmetic you would know that one bottle of wine per year per year is exactly the cost of “fixing” social security.
medicare is going to be more expensive. that will require giving up a second trip to vegas every year. please note, it is a second trip, because the income level of americans will be rising faster than the cost of medicare. no, not as a percent. in absolute dollars.
***And it is easier than you imagine to acclimate to home temperatures of 60 degrees in winter and 80 degrees in summer. Especially with a little intelligent use of spot heaters in winter, and open windows… or just better design… in summer.***
60 degrees is a bit cold. We usually keep the thermostates at 62-63 which is what I and my wife prefer. The kids hate it. But the one who is living rent free in the spare bedroom hasn’t threatened to move out. 80 degrees? I just got around to air conditioning the bedrooms last year. Wouldn’t have bothered, but the humidity here is pretty ferocious during our six or so weeks of Summer. The choice is air condition or veg out in the basement during the daytime
======
Well, yeah, I think most families will end up eventually with a hydrid/deisel/gas/CNG primary vehicle and a bunch of minimalist electric “citicars” with a range of maybe 50-100 miles and barely able to do 45 uphill with two passengers. But that’s a long while off I think.
coberly, For 25 mph and 50 mile range yuo don’t need electric cars. Very small displacement, 2 to 4 cyl IC engines would be just as good getting near to 100 mpg. Problem is that they would be saleable only i small numbers. For inner city you don’t really need cars. Public transport is fine. Bicycles are good too. But a good old Isetta or Messerschmidt three wheeler would be great and could even take you out of town on occassion. I once owned a Fiat 500. Could do 50mph with a good tail wind, going down hill. Great mpg with 2 cyls and 500 cc displacement. Such cars were available 60 years ago. The crazy car buyers want something else. But maybe there time will come again. The Mini has fallen off significantly and other micro cars aren’t really gaining speed, so to speek. Electric cars than don’t go zoom, zoom, zoom are not likely to gain wide acceptance.
Just came across this: “During several months of 2009, Moscow police looked at fake pictures displayed on their monitors instead of what was supposed to be video from the city surveillance cams. The subcontractor providing the cams was paid on the basis of ‘the number of working cams,’ so he delivered pre-cooked pictures stored on his servers. The camera company CEO has been arrested.”
unfortunately you are exactly right. i have owned an austin healy sprite and an austin america, so i know you can get good gas mileage with a gas car, and pretty decent performance if you don’t have to go vroom vroom while you are sitting in traffic.
the electrics would be still cheaper, and nicer neighbors, but as Sigrid Undset observed almost eighty years ago, modern man has run over himself with his own motorcar.
i’ll let you have 63 degrees, especially if you are not active. but a bigger sweater does wonders. not to mention ma in her kerchief and i in my hat. back in the old days we didn’t have a choice, and we managed just fine. my daughter said she didn’t want to look like the pillsbury doughboy, referring to my indoor wear. now that she lives in north dakota and pays her own heat bill, pillsbury looks fine to her.
as for veging out int the basement. those of us who grew up in the south understand mint juleps on the veranda. but to tell the truth i helped my uncles plaster houses in florida sunshine and humidity. i don’t know if they minded, but they did not complain. and they never bought air conditioning. but both of them knew how to build a house that didn’t need it. in Florida.
hell, yes. and we brought it to them. shock therapy we called it. cut the life expectancy by twenty years. now i understand Obama has the same advisors.
“Did anyone see Andrew Ross Sorkins piece on the New York Times about how Goldmans propietary traders may front run their clients or even trade the opposite way to the way the recommend?” Lyle
Yes, and a good bit of news analysis it is. Here’s a direct link for those who haven’t seen it or don’t surf over the the NY Times.
Sorkin’s questions are brief, simple and to the point. I’d throw in a question to Blankfien about his presence at the meeting of Treasury concerning what to do about AIG. No other private bankers were present and no bank had a bigger self interest than Goldman Sachs. A question or two about computerized trading with info feeds preceding all others would be appropriate. Blankfien claims that his traders are doing wonders and deserve huge bonuses. It seems more likely that a bank of computers is doing the wonder and all the bankers are cashing in.
Actually, yes, really bad times like we are experiencing now do drive up DIB claims receipts and so will structural unemployment in the long term. However, people are just as likely to put off filing at all until they reach 62 (or 60, for widow/ers) as file for benefits. Another frequent occurence is that people file for retirement or DIB and die before any benefits are payable. One clear result of poor or nonexistent health care is the rate at which people become unable to work. I think it is higher than it used to be, but need to check the numbers to confirm that guess.
Fact is we will be forced to accept China as it is warts and all. It will be too powerful to change or even to (our favorite activity) lecture in our nanny-ish manner. We have been #1 so long we have no idea what it is to be in a subordinate position, but we’ll be finding out before long. Most subordinates simply have to bear it and grin. PS to Cantab: China was the greatest power in the world for centuries when it was a dictatorship (through the 18th century). So predicting bad things if it doesn’t “liberalize” is mere wishful thinking.
Bicycles or scooters are fine. If you have the right climate and topography. I owned a motorscooter some of the time when I lived in Santa Monica and that was OK except for the occasional need to bring along dry clothes. I road a bicycle a lot when I lived in Detroit. Safe enough if you stay on the sidewalks (Getting onto a roadway with midwestern drivers is asking for a trip to the hospital/morgue). But I’m currently in Vermont. Nothing is remotely level around here and if it isn’t snowing, it’s probably either raining or going to rain. Temperature right now -6C/20F and snowing. There are people that will ride a bicycle here even in the snow, but I’m not one of them. And I don’t think anyone — certainly not me — can figure out the legal status of mopeds, small electric vehicles, etc in Vermont.
On the other hand, under capitalism the surveillance cameras don’t work. That’s a step in the right direction … I guess.
Of course we don’t have to worry about stuff like that because Americans would never tolerate the government spying on them or controlling their movements. …. Eh …. What was that about a secret No Fly list?
Taking the thought a bit further perphaps the whole financial crisis is an unintended consequence of the computer revolution. Just like the health insurance crisis is an unintended consequence because it allows more slicing and dicing of the panel. If we did not have silicon computers perhaps 2/3s of the poulation would be employeed as human computers (the definition of the term before WWII). Then we would have a situation like that that confronted the telephone industry in the early 1920s that 1/2 of the country would soon have to work as phone operators, but of course by the 1960s they had made all of us operators, for no pay.
if you could read and do arithmetic you would know that one bottle of wine per year per year is exactly the cost of “fixing” social security.
I did to the math and that’s exactly what I got and what I posted. I took what you said as a given without questioning if you were right or not. If your numbers are correct then we don’t really have a problem of any consequence.
1) 20 cents/week x 52 weeks = $10.40
You can buy a drinkable bottle of wine for $10.
2) Very rought estimate of social security earning (ignoring tax)
$24,000/year x 2 years = $48,000
$48,000 / $10/bottle = 4,800 bottles.
I mentioned above that you and jack need to work on your anger management issues. Maybe if you lost some of your anger you would not mistakenly jump to the conclusion that I got the numbers wrong.
if you could read and do arithmetic you would know that one bottle of wine per year per year is exactly the cost of “fixing” social security.
I did to the math and that’s exactly what I got and what I posted. I took what you said as a given without questioning if you were right or not. If your numbers are correct then we don’t really have a problem of any consequence.
1) 20 cents/week x 52 weeks = $10.40
You can buy a drinkable bottle of wine for $10.
2) A Very rough estimate of social security earning (ignoring tax)
$24,000/year x 2 years = $48,000
$48,000 / $10/bottle = 4,800 bottles.
I mentioned above that you and jack need to work on your anger management issues. Maybe if you lost some of your anger you would not mistakenly jump to the conclusion that I got the numbers wrong.
the arithmetic i was talking about was the arithmetic that concludes a tax raise of twenty cents per week per year will pay for the projected shortfall in social security funding all promised benefits for the rest of the century.
i am glad you agree with this. now can we stop playing games?
agree on all fronts. i would not recommend a bicycle for anyone not in peak condition in a town that has rational bike baths (not a lane between traffic and parked cars). but a small electric car could be fully enclosed. i drove a VW with no heater in Massachusetts winter. no problem. it would go 25 mph up hills and down, plenty fast enough for in town, which could include your two to five mile trip to town from your country estate. this will not let you commute fifty miles to new york, but it would solve about half of all driving needs.
Norbert Weiner called his book “The Human Use of Human Beings” for a reason.
I got into engineering just in time to take advantage of computers freeing engineers from sitting at a desk all day with a slide rule doing tedious calculations. I left it just after management found a way to use computers to destroy the creative aspect of engineering jobs and turn everyone into cubicle drones.
I don’t mind dialing my own phone. I get mad as hell when I have to talk to some idiots idea of a computerized message tree.
I think the Chinese are beating us right now because they are still catching up. People don’t care that much about political freedom if their lives are okay. The Chinese still need creative workers (some, not all) so they don’t yet have the dehumanization that we have. I think.
No Coberly, the number I took was yours. You said it was 20 cents a week and that came out to be around $10 a year — which is nothing. If you don’t want to spend the 10 dollars all you would have to do is extend the retirement age by 3 hours and 40 minutes.
These are your figures, they look ridiculous to me but I don’t have anything to replace them with. So for now according to our best minds we can fix social security by raising the average payroll tax by 10 dollars a year or by extending the retirement age by 3 hours and 40 minutes for each year in the system. Over a career you might even get up to having to wait an entire extra week for your retirement benefits.
Funny, funny, funny. You’d think they were doing china a favor by trying to sell into that market. Of course they don’t need to sell to what will be the biggest market in the world very soon. I mean who thinks companies need sales to make money? By leaving the Chinese market to the Chinese they sure are showing the Chinese who is who. LOL. Now when Microsoft fails to sell to China, and Walmart and others, China will obviously just collapse. Double LOL.
Stiglitz of course is simply describiing a nation owned by a plutocracy that serves itself and the rest be damned. One might add that the damned don’t seem bright enough to see what is happening and has happened to them. Too stupid to understand their own interest. Perfect sheep and dupes for the plutocrats.
And a great car that Sprite was. I had a “frog eyed” Sprite, I think a ’62, in BRG. A fun car that sipped gas when it was about $0.45 per gallon. Good cars with IC engines that use little gas are certainly plausible and can be totally functional and fun to use. The buyers are the issue.
Actually the Gini indices are similar. However I would add that China’s much greated growth rate probably permits more economic mobility than in the US and while China admits to being authoritarian the US pretends to be “democratic” when it is really not. Voting in the US won’t pry the plutocrats’ claws off the levers of power.
I might add that while the US likes to lecture the Chinese on how inferior their socio-economic system is to ours, they don’t return the favor since I suspect they are more in touch with reality. We have a fantasy image of ourselves that we try to use to put down others. It isn’t working so well anymore.
I just watched McCain being interveiwed by Matt Lauer who asked him about the vetting of Palin. McCain’s response was so brainless, so evasive, so silly, so stupid one can thank God we didn’t get such a senile old moron as our leader. Obama has his faults, but they are as nothing compared to brainless McCain’s. PS McC said he was “happy” about everything, possiblly even happy about losing. He was hippy happy about everything.
Have the special elections been tell tales for the upcoming 2010 midterms? If you are at all interested in election politics the answer is obvious. One resounding defeat in a purple state, a close win against a last minute tea bag candidate, a Gubernatorial loss in democratic NJ, and finally Sen Teddy Kennedy’s seat is up for grabs a week before the election. If that Senate seat goes to the Republican candidate the answer will be blindingly obvious to all not in denial.
Most here will not ever see the following video. I provide it to show Dems why the polling is going down. Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=662R2awSwPQ
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/rodrik39/English
I suggest reading this. It has some important things to say about China. I myself have no doubt that China will supplant the US before too long as the world’s #1 power. The author laments that China will not respect individual “freedom” as much as we do. There I think he is mentally about forty years behind. Bush and his spy apparatus and his military courts and his gulag and his imprisonment without trial pretty much trashed our repulation for freedom. The mirage and illusion still persists but it is only illusion. I know my European friends when they come here and go through customs and drive around tell me I live in a “police state”. They are probably right.
Dani Rodrik write: http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2010/01/rodrik-will-china-rule-the-world.html
Rdan,
I accuse you of doing a lousy job as a moderator (you do alright though in lining up columns). When are you going to tell our left leanding friends to knock it off when they take their abuse up a notch? Common. I could crush all these jockers but you threaten to terminate my account if I take care or them. It bugs me that many of them don’t understand that you’re protecting them from me and not the other way around.
Cantab, drop it! You just lost any chance to influence this discussion. You were/are mistaken on the SS issue, and blaming Dan for it is the wrong approach.
CoRev,
Ok Shirley.
“The author laments that China will not respect individual “freedom” as much as we do. There I think he is mentally about forty years behind. …I know my European friends when they come here and go through customs and drive around tell me I live in a “police state”. They are probably right.”
Your ignorance and endless arrogance are something to behold.
Unfortunately CoRev I think he might actually believe his prowess is real. Thanks for the comment.
Madness, sheer madness:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100113/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_obama_war_funding
Deeper and deeper into the quicksand.
Margery Whateveryournameis,
You immediately give yourself away as a pretend progressive by using the word “old” as a pejorative.
65 year “old” commenter here :-]–
Did anyone see Andrew Ross Sorkins piece on the New York Times about how Goldmans propietary traders may front run their clients or even trade the opposite way to the way the recommend? So its clear now that its really all about their profit and damn their customers! This of course it typical for Wall Street. It will IMHO lead to a generation that decides to boycott wall street, just like those that grew up in the 1930s did.
ddrew–I’m 64 and not gettin’ any younger. Miss Margery is describing the Senator correctly as “old” in a pejorative way. If John McCain were a mere whippersnapper of 21 he’d still be old if we judge by the quality of his gray matter. 😉
Speaking of Great Recessions, here’s an article discussing what is wrong with the Social Security “Reform” agenda. Social Security’s claims operation acts like a canary in a coal mine regarding the health of the labor market. Many people think that “fixing” it is simply a matter of raising the tax base or the full retirement age. Consider the state of the Disability Insurance program. Bruce Webb and Dale Coberly have already addressed the NW Plan and other aspects of the Crisis that Isn’t. However, the basic problem we now have is structural unemployment and the particular kind of permanent unemployment caused by permanent disabilities. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34381782/ns/us_news-the_elkhart_project/
More and more formerly productive workers are now unable to find jobs due to severe or multiple non-severe disabilities. Part of it has to do with the age of the workforce. But, Social Security is expecting to process more than 3 million initial claims for DIB this year while desperately trying to process a hearings backlog of 850,000 previously denied additional claims. This surge in DIB activity is unlike previous recession claims filing increases specifically because the population is aging and the exportation of so many jobs, both skilled and unskilled, has reduced the number of jobs available for the foreseeable future. FYI. I will be interested in hearing your comments on this article and the issue it raises.
Nancy,
I spotted Margery for a troll last week. “mean well”? 🙂 It just now occurs to me that she sounds a little too rough edged even to be a genuine female. 🙂
Please note the full retirement age is already being raised and is now at about 65 and 6 months. And, of course, reducing benefits is a non-starter. Many argue that minimum benefit levels for the lowest earners and their survivors should be raised to conform with the Federal Poverty Level. The NASI site contains recent pieces published on the latter issue. I am suggesting to you that the US’s image of itself as a land of opportunity and prosperity for all is not quite what is going on.
Nancy,
And, of course, reducing benefits is a non-starter.
Raising the retirement age is reducing benefits. I prefer this to cutting the cash payout but both are reductions in benefit.
What did you expect McCain to do? Tell the truth? Fact is that he was clearly losing the presidential race, so he took a huge gamble that worked out poorly and he lost even worse. That’s not irrational or stupid. Admiting it now however is not very productive for the Republican Party such as it is.
Maybe on his death bed …
Margery,
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/business/global/14western.html?ref=business
All is not roses…how should the US respond to ‘buy chinese’, mandatory state owned businesses, and heavy subsidies of new industrial ventures like green industries?
And for cantab, what does liberalization mean within the framework of a society that puts to death business malefactors as well as dissenters…I believe Rodrik is accurate when he depicts China having a very durable cultural history.
Correct, Cantab. That was the point of my remark.
There’s a short article over at The Oil Drum re higher crude petroleum prices driven by Chinese demand. http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6122 I’m inclined to take individual items like this with a grain of salt. Crude prices are volatile and tend to jump around for no very clear reason.
But as a long term signal this should be taken seriously. As the rest of the world develops outside the EU, US, etc, petroleum based fuel prices in the US are very likely going to be driven increasingly by factors beyond our control. If/when we think about the future, we should plan on $4, $5, $6 and more a gallon for gasoline. For individuals, this means fuel efficient cars, avoiding long commutes and avoiding winter heating with home heating oil. For the nation, it really should mean making sure that the rail network (fuel efficient) gets the same attention and susidies that highways (not so fuel efficient) and air travel (mostly fuel intensive) do.
If you don’t like that, better start thinking in terms of synthetic fuels and electric/CNG cars.
65 yr old commenter
actually margery said “senile old moron.” that is not the same as “old”.
Cantab
most of the time i just feel sorry for you. i am happy enough to use you as a straw man, but it’s always a trap. the conversation degenerates and i end up losing my temper. if you are Brooks…i thought i could tell the difference… you need to get a life. even if you are not Brooks you need to get a life. you are using us as a kind of client directed therapy. and client directed never works (as opposed to client centered, which does). moreover you invite amateur diagnosis such as : you are the child of a father who was “intelligent” in some ways, but the only attention he ever paid to you was to call you stupid. so now you seek out intelligent people and annoy them until they call you stupid. there is evidence for punishment-seeking behavior in the operant literature, but any good neurotic is always hoping that “this time” daddy will say, “you’re not as stupid as i thought.”
well, stupid isn’t all that bad. you’d be surprised how many of us have had to learn to live with our own relative stupidity. you can too. and be happy. you may need help. this is not the place to get it.
Nancy
not quite correct
raising the retirement age will just increase the number of disability claims as older people can’t keep up the pace. or can’t get jobs and “discover” a disability.
if as you are saying we are entering a time of permanent stuctural unemployment, trying to keep old peole at their jobs longer would seem to be counterproductive as well as cruel.
i don’t know how to predict the economic consequences of such a huge change in conditions, but so far based on the Trustees, who claim that they do. The financial fix to Social Security is still “raise the tax an average of 20 cents per week per year.”
It is very hard to explain this to people who have a “25 words or less” attention span, but we have to find a way to do it.
Codger
I am already thinking electric cars. What bothers me is that when Detroit, and even Japan, think of electric cars they think 90 mph and 200 mile range. we could do very well with 25 mph and 50 mile range for most driving. and even keep our fine old Detroit Iron for the big trips and the driveway status symbol.
And it is easier than you imagine to acclimate to home temperatures of 60 degrees in winter and 80 degrees in summer. Especially with a little intelligent use of spot heaters in winter, and open windows… or just better design… in summer.
Coberly,
You’re another person that I think needs to be bounced for a week. I think this because you’re too aggressive in your responses and you lose your temper too often. Losing one’s temper for you is a self-indulgence that you engage in too frequently because for you so far there has been no consequence for you doing so. Thus, to bounce you for a week you would suffer the consequences and this would probably lead to an improvement in your behavior (i.e. less losing of temper and overly aggressive writing).
So you and jack were the two that I had in mind.
Coberly,
You’re another person that I think needs to be bounced for a week. I think this because you’re too aggressive in your responses and you lose your temper too often. Losing one’s temper for you is a self-indulgence that you engage in too frequently because for you so far there has been no consequence for you doing so. Thus, to bounce you for a week you would suffer the consequences and this would probably lead to an improvement in your behavior (i.e. less losing of temper and overly aggressive writing).
So you and jack were the two that I had in mind.
Rdan,
China has liberalized business development which has led to their economic progress. Unfortunatly, many in China in return for new economic opportunity pretend that human rights and an open political system don’t matter as much as they actually do. So they like the economic opportunity but still lack self confidence to weather distrubances that would be more likely to happen if they liberalized their political system.
Coberly,
I had no idea that my contribution to fixing social security would only be giving up 1 bottle of wine per year. The hell with raising the retirement age by 2 years, that would cost me 4,800 bottles of wine.
By the way, if I give up 1 blueberry muffin this year can we win the war on terror.
Cantab
if you could read and do arithmetic you would know that one bottle of wine per year per year is exactly the cost of “fixing” social security.
medicare is going to be more expensive. that will require giving up a second trip to vegas every year. please note, it is a second trip, because the income level of americans will be rising faster than the cost of medicare. no, not as a percent. in absolute dollars.
coberly,
“picky, picky, picky” 🙂
***And it is easier than you imagine to acclimate to home temperatures of 60 degrees in winter and 80 degrees in summer. Especially with a little intelligent use of spot heaters in winter, and open windows… or just better design… in summer.***
60 degrees is a bit cold. We usually keep the thermostates at 62-63 which is what I and my wife prefer. The kids hate it. But the one who is living rent free in the spare bedroom hasn’t threatened to move out. 80 degrees? I just got around to air conditioning the bedrooms last year. Wouldn’t have bothered, but the humidity here is pretty ferocious during our six or so weeks of Summer. The choice is air condition or veg out in the basement during the daytime
======
Well, yeah, I think most families will end up eventually with a hydrid/deisel/gas/CNG primary vehicle and a bunch of minimalist electric “citicars” with a range of maybe 50-100 miles and barely able to do 45 uphill with two passengers. But that’s a long while off I think.
coberly,
For 25 mph and 50 mile range yuo don’t need electric cars. Very small displacement, 2 to 4 cyl IC engines would be just as good getting near to 100 mpg. Problem is that they would be saleable only i small numbers. For inner city you don’t really need cars. Public transport is fine. Bicycles are good too. But a good old Isetta or Messerschmidt three wheeler would be great and could even take you out of town on occassion. I once owned a Fiat 500. Could do 50mph with a good tail wind, going down hill. Great mpg with 2 cyls and 500 cc displacement. Such cars were available 60 years ago. The crazy car buyers want something else. But maybe there time will come again. The Mini has fallen off significantly and other micro cars aren’t really gaining speed, so to speek. Electric cars than don’t go zoom, zoom, zoom are not likely to gain wide acceptance.
Just came across this: “During several months of 2009, Moscow police looked at fake pictures displayed on their monitors instead of what was supposed to be video from the city surveillance cams. The subcontractor providing the cams was paid on the basis of ‘the number of working cams,’ so he delivered pre-cooked pictures stored on his servers. The camera company CEO has been arrested.”
Ah, capitalism comes to mother Russia.
http://idle.slashdot.org/story/10/01/13/152257/Moscow-Police-Watch-Pre-Recorded-Scenes-On-Surveillance-Cams
jack
unfortunately you are exactly right. i have owned an austin healy sprite and an austin america, so i know you can get good gas mileage with a gas car, and pretty decent performance if you don’t have to go vroom vroom while you are sitting in traffic.
the electrics would be still cheaper, and nicer neighbors, but as Sigrid Undset observed almost eighty years ago, modern man has run over himself with his own motorcar.
Codger
if it’s too long off it will be too late.
i’ll let you have 63 degrees, especially if you are not active. but a bigger sweater does wonders. not to mention ma in her kerchief and i in my hat. back in the old days we didn’t have a choice, and we managed just fine. my daughter said she didn’t want to look like the pillsbury doughboy, referring to my indoor wear. now that she lives in north dakota and pays her own heat bill, pillsbury looks fine to her.
as for veging out int the basement. those of us who grew up in the south understand mint juleps on the veranda. but to tell the truth i helped my uncles plaster houses in florida sunshine and humidity. i don’t know if they minded, but they did not complain. and they never bought air conditioning. but both of them knew how to build a house that didn’t need it. in Florida.
hell, yes. and we brought it to them. shock therapy we called it. cut the life expectancy by twenty years. now i understand Obama has the same advisors.
“Did anyone see Andrew Ross Sorkins piece on the New York Times about how Goldmans propietary traders may front run their clients or even trade the opposite way to the way the recommend?” Lyle
Yes, and a good bit of news analysis it is. Here’s a direct link for those who haven’t seen it or don’t surf over the the NY Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/business/12sorkin.html?dbk
Sorkin’s questions are brief, simple and to the point. I’d throw in a question to Blankfien about his presence at the meeting of Treasury concerning what to do about AIG. No other private bankers were present and no bank had a bigger self interest than Goldman Sachs.
A question or two about computerized trading with info feeds preceding all others would be appropriate. Blankfien claims that his traders are doing wonders and deserve huge bonuses.
It seems more likely that a bank of computers is doing the wonder and all the bankers are cashing in.
Actually, yes, really bad times like we are experiencing now do drive up DIB claims receipts and so will structural unemployment in the long term. However, people are just as likely to put off filing at all until they reach 62 (or 60, for widow/ers) as file for benefits. Another frequent occurence is that people file for retirement or DIB and die before any benefits are payable. One clear result of poor or nonexistent health care is the rate at which people become unable to work. I think it is higher than it used to be, but need to check the numbers to confirm that guess.
“old” was simply fact; “moron” was pejorative”. Or do you think I should have called him a “young moron”?
Fact is we will be forced to accept China as it is warts and all. It will be too powerful to change or even to (our favorite activity) lecture in our nanny-ish manner. We have been #1 so long we have no idea what it is to be in a subordinate position, but we’ll be finding out before long. Most subordinates simply have to bear it and grin. PS to Cantab: China was the greatest power in the world for centuries when it was a dictatorship (through the 18th century). So predicting bad things if it doesn’t “liberalize” is mere wishful thinking.
Bicycles or scooters are fine. If you have the right climate and topography. I owned a motorscooter some of the time when I lived in Santa Monica and that was OK except for the occasional need to bring along dry clothes. I road a bicycle a lot when I lived in Detroit. Safe enough if you stay on the sidewalks (Getting onto a roadway with midwestern drivers is asking for a trip to the hospital/morgue). But I’m currently in Vermont. Nothing is remotely level around here and if it isn’t snowing, it’s probably either raining or going to rain. Temperature right now -6C/20F and snowing. There are people that will ride a bicycle here even in the snow, but I’m not one of them. And I don’t think anyone — certainly not me — can figure out the legal status of mopeds, small electric vehicles, etc in Vermont.
On the other hand, under capitalism the surveillance cameras don’t work. That’s a step in the right direction … I guess.
Of course we don’t have to worry about stuff like that because Americans would never tolerate the government spying on them or controlling their movements. …. Eh …. What was that about a secret No Fly list?
Taking the thought a bit further perphaps the whole financial crisis is an unintended consequence of the computer revolution. Just like the health insurance crisis is an unintended consequence because it allows more slicing and dicing of the panel.
If we did not have silicon computers perhaps 2/3s of the poulation would be employeed as human computers (the definition of the term before WWII). Then we would have a situation like that that confronted the telephone industry in the early 1920s that 1/2 of the country would soon have to work as phone operators, but of course by the 1960s they had made all of us operators, for no pay.
Coberly,
if you could read and do arithmetic you would know that one bottle of wine per year per year is exactly the cost of “fixing” social security.
I did to the math and that’s exactly what I got and what I posted. I took what you said as a given without questioning if you were right or not. If your numbers are correct then we don’t really have a problem of any consequence.
1) 20 cents/week x 52 weeks = $10.40
You can buy a drinkable bottle of wine for $10.
2) Very rought estimate of social security earning (ignoring tax)
$24,000/year x 2 years = $48,000
$48,000 / $10/bottle = 4,800 bottles.
I mentioned above that you and jack need to work on your anger management issues. Maybe if you lost some of your anger you would not mistakenly jump to the conclusion that I got the numbers wrong.
Coberly,
if you could read and do arithmetic you would know that one bottle of wine per year per year is exactly the cost of “fixing” social security.
I did to the math and that’s exactly what I got and what I posted. I took what you said as a given without questioning if you were right or not. If your numbers are correct then we don’t really have a problem of any consequence.
1) 20 cents/week x 52 weeks = $10.40
You can buy a drinkable bottle of wine for $10.
2) A Very rough estimate of social security earning (ignoring tax)
$24,000/year x 2 years = $48,000
$48,000 / $10/bottle = 4,800 bottles.
I mentioned above that you and jack need to work on your anger management issues. Maybe if you lost some of your anger you would not mistakenly jump to the conclusion that I got the numbers wrong.
cantab
your numbers are your own.
the arithmetic i was talking about was the arithmetic that concludes a tax raise of twenty cents per week per year will pay for the projected shortfall in social security funding all promised benefits for the rest of the century.
i am glad you agree with this. now can we stop playing games?
Codger
agree on all fronts. i would not recommend a bicycle for anyone not in peak condition in a town that has rational bike baths (not a lane between traffic and parked cars). but a small electric car could be fully enclosed. i drove a VW with no heater in Massachusetts winter. no problem. it would go 25 mph up hills and down, plenty fast enough for in town, which could include your two to five mile trip to town from your country estate. this will not let you commute fifty miles to new york, but it would solve about half of all driving needs.
lyle
Norbert Weiner called his book “The Human Use of Human Beings” for a reason.
I got into engineering just in time to take advantage of computers freeing engineers from sitting at a desk all day with a slide rule doing tedious calculations. I left it just after management found a way to use computers to destroy the creative aspect of engineering jobs and turn everyone into cubicle drones.
I don’t mind dialing my own phone. I get mad as hell when I have to talk to some idiots idea of a computerized message tree.
I think the Chinese are beating us right now because they are still catching up. People don’t care that much about political freedom if their lives are okay. The Chinese still need creative workers (some, not all) so they don’t yet have the dehumanization that we have. I think.
No Coberly, the number I took was yours. You said it was 20 cents a week and that came out to be around $10 a year — which is nothing. If you don’t want to spend the 10 dollars all you would have to do is extend the retirement age by 3 hours and 40 minutes.
These are your figures, they look ridiculous to me but I don’t have anything to replace them with. So for now according to our best minds we can fix social security by raising the average payroll tax by 10 dollars a year or by extending the retirement age by 3 hours and 40 minutes for each year in the system. Over a career you might even get up to having to wait an entire extra week for your retirement benefits.
Patriots lost Sunday. About as likley as a republican winning a Mass senate seat. But it did happen.
The tears and recrimination!!
If the pentagon had bake sales and any management sense….
Maybe they would see there is no career in attacking a notion; among some militant, non persons often referred to as terrorists.
Who are not people by definition, because they have no rights.
If the US only had to give up something aside from social security to fight terrorism.
There was this guy who believed very much in true love and decided to take his time to wait for his right girl to appear.
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You may painfully regret, only to realise that it is too late.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=avHfo24ba994&pos=9
Funny, funny, funny. You’d think they were doing china a favor by trying to sell into that market. Of course they don’t need to sell to what will be the biggest market in the world very soon. I mean who thinks companies need sales to make money? By leaving the Chinese market to the Chinese they sure are showing the Chinese who is who. LOL. Now when Microsoft fails to sell to China, and Walmart and others, China will obviously just collapse. Double LOL.
http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/01/joseph-stiglitz-wall-street-morals
Stiglitz of course is simply describiing a nation owned by a plutocracy that serves itself and the rest be damned. One might add that the damned don’t seem bright enough to see what is happening and has happened to them. Too stupid to understand their own interest. Perfect sheep and dupes for the plutocrats.
If Google leaves China Baidu will simply move in and take over the whole market.
http://www.google.com/finance?q=goog
Margery,
Are you describing the Chinese of Americans? Either fits your comment.
And a great car that Sprite was. I had a “frog eyed” Sprite, I think a ’62, in BRG. A fun car that sipped gas when it was about $0.45 per gallon. Good cars with IC engines that use little gas are certainly plausible and can be totally functional and fun to use. The buyers are the issue.
Margery,
Are you describing the Chinese or Americans? Either fits your comment.
Actually the Gini indices are similar. However I would add that China’s much greated growth rate probably permits more economic mobility than in the US and while China admits to being authoritarian the US pretends to be “democratic” when it is really not. Voting in the US won’t pry the plutocrats’ claws off the levers of power.
I might add that while the US likes to lecture the Chinese on how inferior their socio-economic system is to ours, they don’t return the favor since I suspect they are more in touch with reality. We have a fantasy image of ourselves that we try to use to put down others. It isn’t working so well anymore.