Paul Krugman

I had the privilege of going to a Q&A session with Paul Krugman who is a well known economist, s Nobel laureate and a syndicated columnist for the New York Times. Ten years ago he wrote a book called Depression Economics, that he has since updated and republished, predicting the current financial mess that we're in.

It was an informative session, with good questions being asked, and some good insight given throughout. The main thing that he was advocating was to increase the stimulus that the Obama administration is pushing through Congress, to at least 1.2 trillion dollars, claiming that what is needed is a full out remedy to fix these issues with the economy, rather than a half-hearted one. He said he's not "panicky" but is rather "uneasy."

I'm not sure if I agree with that. If anything, I am all for having the "free market" run its course, and have bad assets liquidated, which would give an opportunity to new entrepreneurs to come in and take a look at the market and perhaps eventually build new companies from those opportunities. Professor Krugman didn't agree with that, though. Spending is the way out of this mess, he says, and if there is no private spending, then the government should do that.

Professor Krugman was entertaining though. He had a couple of nice stories and some quips. Good wit, and very engaging. A nice close to the Q&A was a member of the audience asking him where his money is these days, and he answered "lots of cash," which was met with some laughter. But then the audience member came back and asked, "what currency?" And that brought the house down!

Like I said, interesting dialogue, and a very good event.

Super Bowl

The Super Bowl is upon us.

The two teams to meet in SB XLIII are the Arizona Cardinals and Pittsburgh Steelers. I can absolutely say: meh.

I cannot root for either team. The Steelers stole away the Lombardi Trophy from my beloved Seahawks in SB XL, with the help of the NFL and the referees.

The Arizona Cardinals are division rivals. I cannot even imagine rooting for them. When the Yankees fans start rooting for the Red Sox, because, you know, they are in the same division, then I’ll start rooting for the Cardinals.

I’ll be watching, it is the Super Bowl, after all. Hope the ads are entertaining!

Jon Stewart

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Obama Closing Gitmo

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Men: Ever Enterprising

This guy is onto something

Robin Williams in the UK

Just follow me on this, OK?

History will prove that George W. Bush is one of the most environmentally-friendly presidents ever.

How?

Now I'm not talking about his actual environmental policies, Lord knows he favors industry and even drilling and lower EPA guidelines around national parks. No. I'm talking about his economic policies! Here's how it goes:

• Bush favors pretty much no regulation whatsoever. Whatever the industry is. He's a real free-market kind of guy, letting the market do pretty much whatever it damn well pleases.
• As a result, lenders started letting people buy houses using this whole subprime mortgage deal, where the consumers bought houses that they obviously could not afford, that they simply had no business buying in the first place, by paying lower monthly mortgage payments. Of course, all along, lenders did almost no credit checks on those buyers. Why would they? Greed and the quick buck make you do stupid things.
• Little did those people know, that after a very short time, their interest rates would skyrocket, because that's how those subprime mortgages worked. They were adjustable after a short period of time, and not fixed over a long period of time. Besides, just like in the above point, they could not afford those houses in the first place.
• Lenders started packaging those subprime mortgages and selling them to banks as assets. Banks being greedy enough to buy them because they believed they would make a killing off of those mortgages when the interest rates rose.
• Here what they didn't think of, that people could no longer pay off the mortgages on those houses that they bought. The monthly payments skyrocketed. People started losing their houses. Banks started to foreclose on those same houses.
• Then all hell broke loose! The housing market crashed because there weren't enough buyers, and the market was saturated from all those foreclosed homes. The credit market crashed, because now lenders were starting to lose money because of all the foreclosures and loan defaults. Then Wall Street started its downward spiral because of the housing and credit market crises.
• What happened then was that the economy began its faceplant. People weren't spending their money because they were afraid they were going to get laid off and lose their jobs. Manufacturers and service providers started to lose money because there was no spending. Companies did start laying off thousands of workers. Household budgets got even tighter and tighter. Unemployment rose to their lowest marks in decades. It was chaos everywhere.
• So, as all this was happening, industry began to slow down, since demand was really, really down. With the industry slowing down, a lot of plants started to shut down.
• And since a lot of those plants were anyway in China and India, and since most of the pollution cam from countries like China and India where there are no environmental regulations to contend with, pollution should start easing up.

Here's what should happen next: more and more plants would shut down, in places like China and India and Taiwan and Mexico and so on. Pollution rates would start to decrease. The environment would start to recover, Global Warming would start to reverse course, the Ozone layer would start to patch itself up, and life on planet Earth would become more abundant, and Human Beings healthier, in the long run.

Ah, if only things were that simple!

So, Bush should get a couple of awards and maybe even a Nobel prize for what he did to the environment, because of his economic plans!

Don't you think?

Axis of Evil Comedy - Maz Jobrani

3 things I was thinking while watching TV last night..

1. "How I Met Your Mother" on CBS is a very funny show, and one of my favorite shows, hands down. But, last night's episode was creepy from the fact that the whole show is supposed to be the main character, Ted, telling his kids in the year 2053 about how he met their mother, yet last night's episode was all about the "naked man" technique for sleeping with women! Is that what people talk to their children about in the year 2053?

2. "Worst Week" on CBS is one of the funniest new comedies I've seen in a long, long time! My wife and I were cracking up last night. Seriously, how DO you set a pool on fire? LOL

3. As fantastically illogical and unbelievable the story behind "Chuck" on NBC is, I can't help but fall in love with that show more and more! I can't remember a show that makes me roll my eyes more than "Chuck," yet I find myself looking forward to watching each new episode!

Feedback?

The decline of the Republican Party | Ship of fools | The Economist

The decline of the Republican Party Ship of fools The Economist: "Ship of fools"

Great read!

Meet the Palestinian Seinfeld. Who knew?

(Clicking on the post header will take you to a different website where the article is)

Sounds funny. I will be looking for it.