Don’t you hate it when…
…you call a business and the answering machine tells you to call back during normal business hours, which include the time at which you’re hearing the message?
I also get mad when the self-checkout stations at the grocery store boss me around. (“Please put the item in the bag.”) Like I’m trying to steal a Valu Pak of paper towels. Yeah I’ll just put that under my shirt, heh heh. Doh! Foiled again by the clever machine!
Scratch Brad DeLong Off the List
This is all I’m looking for, no big requirements on my end. Brad DeLong quotes Robert Lucas who argued that nobody saw this train wreck coming, and then comments:
some economists did indeed forecast the financial crisis of 2008–or, rather, forecast that Alan Greenspan’s low interest rate policies of 2002-2004 (policies I approved of and endorsed, by the way) ran an unacceptable risk of getting the economy wedged into a position like the one it now is. All praise and honor to Dean Baker, Richard Thaler, Robert Shiller, Michael Mussa, and their posse. Here’s Michael Mussa, writing in 2004…
Then after quoting from Mussa who nailed it, DeLong continues:
The disappointment with economists is not because there were none of us who forecast the possibility of the crisis we are in, but rather that economists like Robert Lucas and myself did not listen with sufficient care and attention to [the] Michael Mussa posse. (Indeed, I have a half-finished paper that will now never, ever be finished on how Mussa was wrong.)
OK so DeLong admitted he got it wrong, and that the people warning about Greenspan’s low interest rates were correct. That’s all I hope for from critics of Austrian economics. Obviously we’re not going to make everyone a Misesian overnight, but as long as we admit when “our side” loses on a particular point, then it’s worthwhile to continue debating.
(This is incidentally why I’m putting so much effort in cultivating good relations with the monetary crank Scott Sumner. When he sees the CPI over the next 12 months, I think he will have some serious ‘splainin to do on his blog, and I think he will do it honestly.)
Glenn Greenwald the Most Dangerous Blogger in the World for Keith Olbermann
Uh oh GG is stirring up more trouble. For months, Olbermann and Bill O’Reilly had been sniping at each other (on their respective shows). But then on June 1, Olbermann announced that he would no longer crack jokes about the creator of the No Spin Zone, because (he claimed) O’Reilly had endorsed the murder of Dr. Tiller and so it was no longer a joking matter.
Wow, isn’t that refreshing, to see someone drop the childish stunts when people start getting hurt?
Hmm, GG reported that Olbermann’s newfound civility was the result of an explicit deal cut between GE (which owns MSNBC) and News Corp (which owns Fox). The parent companies decided that a ceasefire would be better for business, all things considered. So they told their top “journalists” to stop poking into each other’s business.
Since it’s mostly liberals who read GG, Olbermann was in hot water. He explicitly denied on air that he had been a party to any deal. But oddly, he also confirmed that GG had reported accurately on the matter.
If you want objective measures, some prof emailed GG facts about the frequency of attacks by O’Reilly and Olbermann before and after the alleged deal. It’s posted as an update at the second link above.
There Oughta Be a Video…
Tell me this wouldn’t go viral on YouTube: You show a brief clip from CNN or some other official news network, announcing the release of the two journalists from North Korea, and how they flew back to the United States with Bill Clinton.
Then the screen changes showing a Bill Clinton impersonator with two Korean women on a plane. Clinton’s in the middle seat. They’re all holding cocktail glasses and Clinton says, “So did they tell you girls who got you released from prison? Do you want another drink? It’s OK–I used to be president.”
The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From the Tree
Aristos posted a video of his six-year-old’s teeball game. If you are a father, watch the first 1:45 of the video. It is hilarious.
(BTW Aristos and I were very competitive in college. [He was better in pickup football, I was better in chess.] So that’s partly why I was laughing out loud. But even strangers will appreciate it.)
Waiting on the IRS
Argh… I am working on a payment plan with the IRS. (For a while my business wasn’t incorporated, and so I just got checks made out to me personally. You’re supposed to file quarterly tax payments as that income rolls in. Well, I was always going to do it, next month. And then it was April 15.) As soon as I navigated through the automated menu to where I needed to be, the computer voice said, “Your estimated wait time is greater than 15 minutes.”
Having said that, I must admit the IRS was–believe it or not–pretty “fair” in dealing with my delinquency. They told me how much I owed them, assessed penalties that actually weren’t all that bad, and then started the thing rolling over at interest. But the rate wasn’t outrageous by any stretch; I don’t remember off the top of my head but it was nothing compared to credit cards if you let your balance start rolling.
Don’t get me wrong, there is still a huge difference in that I signed up for the credit card. But dealing with back taxes isn’t nearly as awful as I would have thought, from watching movies and listening to talk radio.
P.S. If you want to call me a sellout for paying taxes even when there’s an unjust war going on, etc. etc., that’s fine. But please don’t discuss anything illegal in the comments, because then I’ll have to take it out, you’ll be even more convinced I’m a stooge for the feds, etc. No fun for anyone.
Something New to Fret About: The U.S.’ "Green Trade Deficit"
Just when you thought the “green recovery” plans couldn’t get more inefficient:
Green investment is a major pillar of the president’s economic recovery plan. Yet, America’s dependence on foreign countries to produce green technologies may undermine this recovery strategy. Using a list of green goods derived from the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), we have determined that the United States ran an overall green trade deficit of -$8.9 billion in 2008, including a deficit of -$6.4 billion in the critical category of renewable energy, one of the main targets of the Obama administration’s green agenda. The U.S. economy also suffered a significant deficit in the pollution management category. On the positive side, the United States ran modest surpluses in two categories–energy efficiency and a grouping of other environmental goods related to water purification and sustainable agriculture.
If current trends continue, the green trade deficit can be expected to widen further as the administration’s agenda increases domestic demand but without sufficient measures to increase domestic production. If the deficit continues to grow, the United States will forego the creation of millions of high-wage, high-skill green manufacturing jobs and lose its potential to be a global producer as well as a consumer of green technologies.
And liberals love to guffaw at General Turgidson when he says, “Mr. President, we cannot afford to let the Soviets create a mineshaft gap!”
It’s For a Good Cause…
Recently I discovered this great public radio station. (It’s 98.9 FM in the Nashville area; I don’t know the call letters.) The first time I stopped on it, there was a guy who didn’t sound insane, talking about how all the Osama bin Laden videos after a certain date were obvious fabrications.
Then a few days later I heard some woman reading a lengthy treatise on why the charging of interest was a harmful social practice. This isn’t “Go Obama!” programming like NPR; this is seriously hardcore stuff.
Anyway, today I was on the way to my office and I was listening to some activist fighting rhino hunting in Africa. She explained to the radio show host that the hunters sell the ivory horns to be used for dagger handles and to be ground into aphrodesiacs in China. The host was horrified.
Then the activist said, “Yes, we actually started a rumor that it would give you AIDS.”
The host immediately approved: “Oh that’s a good idea.”
Isn’t that rather shocking? I thought two, fairly important, official progressive goals were to (1) tell the truth and (2) dispel rumors about how you can catch AIDS. But I guess they were trumped by (3) save the rhinos.
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