Calvin and Hobbes; prophetic economists

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/imagescalvin-20and-20hobbs.jpg

I miss Calvin and Hobbes.

I know where to find a lot of money!

We spend $522 billion per year on defense (http://www.borgenproject.org/Defense_Spending.html). China, our biggest threat, spends $63 billion. Who the hell are we protecting ourselves from? Chop that down to $200 billion per year so the hawks don't freak out, and you've got $322 billion right there.
We have almost 2.5 million Americans in prison (http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1020/p08s01-comv.html). It costs on average $24,000 per year per inmate. That's $60 billion. Cut that 1/3 by using alternative sentencing and treatment for dug offenders, and there's $20 billion.
So in about 10 minutes I've found $340 billion to be used toward our deficit. Of course, Wall Street and the banking system are eating up twice that much just to cover up their mistakes, so maybe it's a losing battle. But there's a start anyway.

is it time for a Luddite revival?

Maybe Luddites have it right in a way. At least then you can't get ripped off by ONE GUY who steals $50 BILLION!!! And the whole economy won't crash because some dork thought up some kind of worthless paper to sell that the smartest guys in the room actually BUY even when they don't understand it.
Let's go back to at LEAST conservative banking, huh? Force them to just use pencils and paper, and deal only in things that 3rd graders can understand.

we're not the world economic leader anymore

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aPCz.TWS8j.Q&refer=home

So our ecomic system is so lax we can allow one guy to rip off people for $50 billion (yes that's a b). Our economic system is so lax we allow the entire system to go belly up because we don't want "government restrictions" on our financial institutions. Do you think after such collosal blunders were allowed that foreign countries will still look up to the US as an economic template? Nope.

time for an economic system revamp

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/business/12scheme.html?ref=business

So this guy can run a $50 billion scam and nobody notices. AIG goes hugely into debt and nobody notices. Ratings firms give crap AAA ratings. When one person and one company can cause this much damage, that means the system is broken. Time for a revamp. Go back to the solid economic conservative rules that provide security and stability. Let individuals play with their money, but don't let so few control so much. The results of that we're going to have to live with for a long time.

$50 Billion scammer?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/business/12scheme.html?ref=business

How could a financial system allow such a thing to go on? I do believe our economic system is broken. To many thieves, not enough oversight, or something.

Let's get rid of corporations

Corporations are psychotic. They only want profit. They are in fact not allowed legally to think about anything other than profit. You may have nice people working in a corporation, but they cannot steer the corporation to be anything but a money grubbing psychopath.
Joel Bakan's book and movie "The Corporation" is a must. Get it. Study it. And let's get rid of corporations for a sunnier tomorrow.

make it yourself!

Ok, so things have changed now. Less work, less money, uncertain future. How to save and still have what you need, or to give presents for the holiday? Make it yourself!

http://www.instructables.com/

Also check out youtube.com for instructional videos. You can fix things yourself too instead of having to hire a professional. Make things yourself, grow things yourself, fix things yourself. Barter for the things you can't do on your own.

recommended books

The Corporation, by Joel Bakan. Wanna see why the world economy is flipping out? It's run by psychotic corporations.

Creating a World Without Poverty, by Muhammad Yunus. Wanna see what to replace psychotic corporations with? Read this.

how about a cultural health index instead of Dow Jones Industrials?

Pretty much after every radio news broadcast, on every media web site, and in the daily papers, you can easily find the statistics for the Dow Jones Industials. Why would most people care so much about this to check it every day? Isn't this actually an index for the more elites in society? Shouldn't there be an index of the health of our society that is applicable to the average American? How about some combination of the percentage of the population with health care, the unemployment rate, median wage, and some kind of health index? That way we could see at a glance something that actually applies to all of us.

things to do just in case

There are things that can be done to prepare for an economically difficult future that are probably smart to do anyway. Grow a garden, learn to fix things, conserve, harvest rain water, buy used, barter when you can, learn to live with less. It was uncomfortable, but the U.S. survived the Depression.

lessons for us from the Soviet Union collapse

http://madconomist.com/what-if-us-collapses-soviet-collapse-lessons-every-american-needs-to-know

200 tools for surviving an economic crisis

http://mashable.com/2008/10/16/economic-crisis/

McCain and the Keating 5

http://www.keatingeconomics.com/

Check it out.

Say... I thought the $700 billion was supposed to stop the slide on Wall Street? It's gone down 800 points today... can we get our $700 billion back?

Peter Schiff, a name to watch for

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfascZSTU4o

Peter Schiff predicted the economic collapse that just happened, in 2006. He's a guy who appears to understand what's going on and can explain it simply. He's predicting more gloom ahead, unfortunately. Do a search for him on youtube.com

So how does this work...

I'm puzzling over how the Republicans work this out. If you cut taxes, it will actually raise the revenue of the federal government. That's the theory. So I can see that if you cut taxes, that means more money in the pockets of people, and thus more spending might go on. That would mean more sales tax income for the government. Right?

But see, if the government gets more income later, then that means it got more in taxes, right? So it's a circular argument; cutting taxes means more sales, which means more tax income.

Am I missing something?

great summary article on how the economy is right now

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2008-03-04-local-differences_N.htm

and here's a scary CNN video about our soon-to-be depression:


http://www.spikedhumor.com/articles/144747/US-Depression-Coming.html

Why Greenspan, Congress, the President, economists and others blissfully drove us here, I'll never understand. Since we're in deb a gajillion dollars instead of having a surplus to fall back on, we're screwed.

cellulosic ethanol plant up and running!

http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2008/01/29/news/top/doc479f33ff2dd14661593082.txt

And in my beloved Black Hills! Ethanol is made from waste wood rather than corn. A much better idea, since corn is a FOOD and wood waste is, well, waste.

The housing collapse clearly explained!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7164898.stm

This is a very well written article where even I could understand how the banking industry fudged the rules and caused the housing collapse.
The author says that since the actual value of the collapse is about $200 billion, the effect will be equivalent to a $2 trillion loss in the marketplace. That's quite a wallop.

Happy New Year!