- Herb Stein’s Unfamiliar Quotations – By Herbert Stein – Slate Magazine
- If you meet a madman who says that he is a fish and that we are all fishes, do you take off your clothes to show him that you do not have fins?
–Milan Kundera, Risibles Amours, 1984Three percent exceeds 2 percent by 50 percent, not by 1 percent.
–Edward Denison, in conversation, about 1960Thus, prediction of whether or not the capitalist order will survive is, in part, a matter of terminology.
–Joseph Shumpeter, Encyclopedia Britannica, 1945Capitalism survived its crisis and went on to great successes. But the capitalism that survived and succeeded was not the capitalism of 1929.
–Herbert Stein, The Triumph of the Adaptive Society, 1989none
- FRBSF Economic Letter: Fiscal Crises of the States: Causes and Consequences (2010-20, 6/28/2010)
- 6/28/2010
The recession that began in late 2007 severely reduced state tax revenue and increased demand for many public services. In the near term, institutional and political factors limit the options states have for cutting spending and raising taxes. Aid to states in the federal economic program is winding down next year and the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better. Painful budgetary choices lie ahead for many states, though the drag on the national economy should be modest.
- Study challenges conventional wisdom of global food crisis | Management content from Western Farm Press
- 11/19/2010
"Future food price crises can be prevented," said Shenggen Fan, director general of IFPRI and report co-author.
To avert a recurrence, the report recommends:
• making trade in agricultural commodities more free yet more secure
• addressing climate change, resource degradation, and other long-term threats to agricultural productivity
• scaling up social safety nets in potentially food-insecure countries
• encouraging agricultural production in at least some of the countries now heavily dependent on food imports.
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- There is no US federal debt crisis | Economists’ Forum | Economics blog from the Financial Times – FT.com
- With all that spare capacity, why are businesses not hiring more workers and increasing production? Because their sales people are telling them that there would be no buyers…
[Austerity is] nonsense. Reduced sales to government and lower transfer payments from government, therefore less spendable private income, and more jobless workers and idle factories, will be more likely to cause both households and businesses to reduce their spending.
…we do need a credible multi-year budget plan soon that would over time hold the debt/GDP ratio in check. For the near term, the plan should allow for a one-time fiscal boost in case the recovery remains anemic. For the longer term, it should forswear spending-is-bad/taxes-are-bad dogma…
- Non-Hispanic Whites Now a Minority in New York Area – NYTimes.com
- New York is the first major metropolitan area in the country outside the South or West in which non-Hispanic whites have become a minority of the population.
[Um...I think the South and West are too large to wave away for the rhetorical joy of declaring a "first". It suggests the real story is that this demographic shift is NOT remarkable. -L]
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- Rick Scott, Panhandle King | Crooks and Liars
- "A move to restructure the Florida court system, giving more power in choosing judges to Gov. Rick Scott, moved forward in the state House Thursday despite objections that the bills are an attempt to take control of the state judiciary."
…Don't be fooled by the GOP claim that it increases efficiency. This move is retaliatory, in response to the Florida court upholding the November redistricting initiative that takes control out of the hands of the politicians and puts it in the hands of a citizen panel.
- Artificial Leaf Could Be More Efficient Than the Real Thing | Wired Science | Wired.com
- MIT professor Daniel Nocera claims to have created an artificial leaf made from stable and inexpensive materials that mimics nature’s photosynthesis process.
The device is an advanced solar cell, no bigger than a typical playing card, which is left floating in a pool of water. Then, much like a natural leaf, it uses sunlight to split the water into its two core components, oxygen and hydrogen, which are stored in a fuel cell to be used when producing electricity.
Nocera’s leaf is stable — operating continuously for at least 45 hours without a drop in activity in preliminary tests — and made of widely available, inexpensive materials — like silicon, electronics and chemical catalysts.
- Losing Our Way – NYTimes.com – Bob Herbert
- The U.S. has not just misplaced its priorities. When the most powerful country ever to inhabit the earth finds it so easy to plunge into the horror of warfare but almost impossible to find adequate work for its people or to properly educate its young, it has lost its way entirely.
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- Million-year-old stone tools push back India’s prehistory | A Blog About History – History News
- Archaeologists have discovered India’s most ancient stone tools: a whopping 1.5 million years old.
- BBC News – Bronx Zoo’s missing cobra ‘speaks out’ on Twitter
- Listing location as "Not at the Bronx Zoo", it has "visited" tourist attractions including the High Line, the museum of Natural History and Ray's Pizza.
- White Celebs Announce That They’re African – The Root
- The angle that the organization has chosen to bring attention to this important issue is nothing short of bizarre. The strongest critics will likely call it disrespectful of African culture. But our only issue is that it seems to require a lot of unnecessary mental gymnastics to connect "We all have African DNA. Even white people. Check out my facepaint!" to "So we have a good reason to care about AIDS in Africa" to "So, let's help people there get the medication they need."
How about skipping all that and giving people credit for caring about other human beings — no other genetic link required? "I am human" would have worked just fine.
But guess what? The campaign is getting attention …
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- Where Could Qaddafi Seek Exile? – The Root
- …a list of the countries whose histories and interests suggest that they might consider issuing an invitation.
- Brown Halts Budget Negotiations – Pulse of the Bay – The Bay Citizen
- "Each and every Republican legislator I’ve spoken to" has asked the governor to "agree to an ever changing list of collateral demands," he wrote.
Brown went on to assail Republican legislators for pushing a "billion dollar tax break" for out-of-state corporations that would "worsen the state’s problem by creating a $4 billion hole in the budget."
In a reference to the tax extensions that Brown hopes to place on the June ballot using a majority vote, Brown said he plans on "speaking directly to Californians and coming up with honest and real solutions to our budget crisis."
- GOP Rep: I’m ‘Struggling’ On My $174K Salary (VIDEO) | TPMDC
- The median household income there was $50,520 in 2008, according to Census data.
- GOP Stumbles Explaining Double Standard On Tax Cuts | TPMDC
- Reducing the tax burden on businesses means reducing the amount of money the Treasury collects, and thus a big hole in the budget.
But wait! Don't Republicans all believe that tax cuts (or 'tax relief,' as they prefer) don't need to be offset with spending cuts or tax hikes elsewhere in the budget? Yes indeed they do. Just not in this case, where it pertains to the health care law…
- Judge Blocks Wisconsin Anti-Union Law (Again) | TPMDC
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wisconsin union-busting unlawful_government 2011_protests asshattery
[My bookmarks live at delicious.com/camryl. In case it needs to be said: I don't agree with every word of everything I link to. Also, signal boosts are awesome! --L.]
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