Things to ponder......

-Col. Qadaffi, Libya's ruler, has been in power for 41 years. Why is he still a Colonel?

You'd think that dictators can promote themselves to any position that they want. Does he not think his performance has been promotion worthy in 41 years?

Thought of the day:

“It’s nice to elect the right people, but that isn’t the way you solve things. The way you solve things is by making it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right things.” - Milton Friedman.

Amazing fact of the day.....

Heard this on a podcast I was listening to as I was getting ready this morning and thought it was worth repeating:

No U.S. President has ever been born, and died under the same US flag.

(Fact mentioned by futurist Paul Saffo, though I think he was repeating someone else's research.)

In other words, pick a President. when he was born the US flag had X stars. When that President died, the US flag had X+1 (or more) stars.

Saffo made this point to reinforce the notion that the US is always changing and growing.

This fact will hold at least thru Bill Clinton, as Alaska was added to the Union in 1959, while Clinton was born in 1946. In case you're wondering, Obama was born in 1961, so if he wins this fall, we'll need to add a state for this fact to hold true.

Great idea: immigration to solve housing/credit crisis.

Alan Greenspan is blamed by some for instigating the current credit crisis. (See the BBC article compiling all of the possible targets of blame.)

Personally, I think blaming the Fed Chairman for a loose money supply is off-target - he helped write the rules (i.e. the monetary policy), but he sure wasn't the primary actor (i.e. making loans, buying more house than you should, etc.)

Anyway, Greenspan - who has a libertarian mindset - has a novel idea to help turn the negative momentum of the housing market: increase the number of H-1B visas granted every year.

(H1-B visas are granted to highly skilled non-immigrants - think Ph.Ds. Currently limited to 65,000 annually, almost everyone agrees on 2 things: 1) there aren't enough of visas authorized, and 2) they make a tremendously positive economic contribution.)

As Greenspan suggests, these highly-skilled workers - in addition to turbocharging the economy - are likely to buy houses. As Greenspans says "A double or tripling (of skilled immigrants) would markedly accelerate the absorption of unsold housing inventory for sale-and hence stabilize prices."

(Also, the skilled immigrants are likely to gravitate towards some of the locations most affected by the housing slump. Wouldn't the Bay Area real estate market improve with 5,000 more software programmers seeking new homes?)

Alas, this is such a good idea, that it stands very little chance of ever happening. Immigration is a topic that neither party wants to address, nor does this idea "sell" well - politicians would much rather suggest solutions that let people think they're getting something for nothing. (Example: Obama's $1,000 energy rebate.)

Reflecting some of the ineffectiveness of political solutions, Greenspan also gave his opinion of the housing bill passed by Congress last month. His verdict on the bill: "Bad."

Wanna be like olympic swimmer Michael Phelp? Eat 12,000 calories/day

The WSJ Health Blog reports that Phelps has a monstrous appetite to support 5 hours per day of training in the pool.

Here one Phelps meal:

"Three fried-egg sandwiches loaded with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise. Two cups of coffee. One five-egg omelet. One bowl of grits. Three slices of French toast topped with powdered sugar. Three chocolate-chip pancakes."

And, as the WSJ points out, "he doesn’t choose among these options. He eats them all."

In all, he eats 12,000 calories per day. The USDA recommends 2,000 calories per day for an average America. Can you imagine eating 6X as much per day to catch up to Phelps?

Another interesting podcast quote:

"No two democracies have ever gone to war against each other." - Swedish writer Johan Norberg in a podcast titled "Globalization is Good."

I don't think this justifies nation-building or neocon-driven intervention, but it certainly is a good point to remember as we consider foreign policy choices, defense spending as the world becomes more free and democratic, and who REALLY is (or can be) America's friends.

Based on the premise that democracies are inherently allied, why not form a free-trade zone across all democracies, not only to boost trade among friends, but to add an incentive to non-democracies to change their form of government?

Amazing economic fact:

"In the last 25 years, we've had only 3 down quarters." - Former Secretary of State George Schultz,in an interview on Bloomberg, promoting his new book "Putting Our House in Order: A Guide to Social Security and Health Care Reform."

We sure don't hear messages like this often enough. Our economy has been in decline only 3% of the time over the last quarter century. I'd certainly say that I hear bear arguments or outright doom and gloom way more than 3% of the time.

And while the current view of our economic future may be dominated by the current financial crisis, there's still every reason to believe that global growth, opening economies, and IT and communication revolutions will continue to propel the world and US ecomies upward, as best outlined by Peter Schwartz in the classic Wired article The Long Boom.

Biofuels: a political boondoggle

Everyone outside of the beltway and the farm belt could see that subsidizing biofuels to 1) reduce oil imports, and 2) reduce greenhouse gas emissions was value-destructive. Some astute analysts were also vocal in stating the the law of unintended consequences would further tip the calculations against this policy.

There's since been plenty of anecdotal evidence about biofuels leading to food price increases (demand for corn to make ethanol has pushed up the prices of corn tortillas in Mexico, for example.)

It seems that politicians have begun to figure this out, though it would appear that they won't be correcting their mistake anytime soon, if this Congressman is any indication.

from the New York Times, via the Paul Ibrahim blog:

"Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts, said he had come to realize that Congress made a mistake in backing biofuels, not anticipating the impact on food costs. He said Congress needed to reconsider its policy, though he acknowledged that would be difficult.

“If there was a secret vote, there is a pretty large number of people who would like to reassess what we are doing,” he said."


Basically, the political class has whipped up such a panic and frenzy about global warming and alt fuels that reflexive policies born from the frenzy won't be corrected because no politician is willing to take well-meaning public action that might appear contrary to the frenzy. Great. Tell me again why anyone believes that solutions come from politicians!?!

(btw: among the '08 presidential candidates, only McCain has taken an intelligent position on this issue. I may not like McCain's position on Iraq, and I'm scared of his combination of populism and economic ignorance, but I like a guy who campaigns in Iowa and argues AGAINST corn subsidies.)

Hat tip: Club for Growth blog.

Something to think about: Jefferson on religion

Thomas Jefferson: “I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. ”