Prepare for Change

http://www.niallferguson.com/site/FERG/Templates/ArticleItem.aspx?pageid=203 Niall Ferguson makes sense to me: " There is something desperate about the way people on both sides of the Atlantic are clinging to their dog-eared copies of John Maynard Keynes’s General Theory . Uneasily aware that their discipline almost entirely failed to anticipate the current crisis, economists seemed to be regressing to macroeconomic childhood, clutching the multiplier like an old teddy bear. The harsh reality that is being repressed is this: the Western world is suffering a crisis of excessive indebtedness. Many governments are too highly leveraged, as are many corporations. More importantly, households are groaning under unprecedented debt burdens. Average household sector debt has reached 141 per cent of disposable income in the United States and 177 per cent in the United Kingdom . Worst of all are the banks. Some of the best-known names in American and European finance have bala...

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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/US_incarceration_timeline-clean.gif Reagan started the war on drugs and look at the incarceration rate zoom up. Intense probation is cheaper and has a lower recidivism rate than incarceration. But politicians want to appear to be "tough on crime" by making punishment more harsh. This is the result. Let's save money and get better results by switching from incarceration to intense probation for nonviolent drug abusers.

http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/outofwork/2009/02/200921712329491425.html This is one of the clearest explanations I've seen on why the economic system collapsed.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090315/ap_on_bi_ge/recession_gardening Home gardening is the cheapest way to get food other than stealing. It's a good skill to have and isn't that difficult. But note that it's becoming so popular, some seed companies can't keep up with the demand!

http://www.slowmoneyalliance.org/ A sustainable economy makes more sense in a growth economy, don't you think? I mean, there IS a limit to growth, as cyclic economic downturns should be showing us if we'd just listen. Plus, you can't grow forever (ignore google). Interesting ideas here.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/open-letter-to-the-republ_b_172822.html This is a very powerful article, not just from what it says but from who wrote it. Frank Shaeffer was deep inside the shaping of the current Republican party. "You Republicans are the arsonists who burned down our national home. You combined the failed ideologies of the Religious Right, so-called free market deregulation and the Neoconservative love of war to light a fire that has consumed America. Now you have the nerve to criticize the "architect" America just hired -- President Obama -- to rebuild from the ashes. You do nothing constructive, just try to hinder the one person willing and able to fix the mess you created. "

http://www.upi.com/Energy_Resources/2009/03/03/Easy_Money_Five_simple_ways_to_save_taxpayers_100_billion/UPI-45871236118850/ Some wise ideas on how to save hundreds of billions of dollars from the federal tab. Why isn't SAVING money a bigger disussion point?

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2798&u_sid=10577283 Here's one place to save money and get people productive instead of a drain. What happened to talking about the government spending less? I heard Obama once talk about cutting back on defense spending (Yay!). But come on. There's a lot of waste and dumb spending going on. Certainly we can do better by spending less than bailing out more?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/28/warren-buffett-admits-mis_n_170729.html Warren Buffet, who's Berkshire Hathaway stocks have tumbled dramatically, tried to put a brave face on his missteps in not seeing the recession that has now hit us. I bought one share of Berkshire Hathaway and have seen it's value drop by about 1/3. I was trying to decide whether to keep the money as cash or put it in some solid investment. Oops. So, everywhere you turn, you can find financial experts like Buffet who completely missed what's going on now. Even the experts don't know what's going on. And if that's the case then I think the prudent thing to do is to quickly move to simplicity, security, and oversight. Keep the system simple enough that humans can understand what's going on (no inventive crap like derivatives). Be convervative with investments and don't run after the Bernie Madoffs promising grand returns. And make sure there is government oversight of t...