We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Norm begs to differ, says that social collectivities themselves have moral responsibilities.
Is an apology a request for forgiveness? Or is it just good manners? SC&A wonders whether the world needs more hate and less forgiveness and "tolerance."
The above are all reactions to essays in the periodical In Character, in their Forgiveness issue.
Yesterday, I posted a short article on opening Desktop icons in full-screen mode. This morning, commenter Ron House steered me toward a very cool program named AutoSizer that does a couple of nifty tricks:
For pesky programs like Internet Explorer that open Desktop icons and email links in half-screen mode, it forces them to always open in full-screen mode.
For pesky programs like the Calculator which tend to pop open anywhere on the Desktop, it'll 'center' them so they always open in the same place.
The program is free, home site is here. It's a quick install, and if you're running a sensitive program like ZoneAlarm, 'allow' it access to system files. If you don't like it putting an icon in the SysTray, remove it via Options.
In regards to Internet Explorer, it does have one little problem. It'll open every IE window full-screen size, whereas in some cases, like an online editor popping open a small window so you can select an option, it might be a bit annoying. But, compared to the general annoyance of it opening in half-size mode, it's still a big win.
Usage: First, open the program in question, then open AutoSizer, highlight the program's entry and click on the 'AutoSize' button. Make your selection from the drop-down menu and that should do it. For centering a small program, select 'Resize' then 'Center'.
Take a bow, Ron, and thanks!
Pic: In a blatant act of political partisanship, Doc plugs his own personal choice for president. (Or was that the wrong verb to use?)
This is Dylan's rousing version of Ledbelly's Duncan and Brady, in Dublin, 2000. I think Jerry Garcia brought the song to Dylan's attention. Some of the lyrics here. "Been on the job too long..."
The guy gets the job done. Listen to how you can rock a folk song, and make it new:
"When I look at the wealth I have lost over the past two months, what I think about is the hours of work I put in to build it. That money, to me, is now lost time that, in retrospect, I could have spent better with my wife, family, and friends because my work is just a good job to pay the bills, and not a mission. My family is my mission."
It's easy to forget that American financial markets are dominated by institutional investors, not by individuals. Institutional investors do not "panic" but, these days, institutional investors are puking assets for a variety of reasons: hedge funds to cover redemptions and to reduce their leverage, banks to reduce their leverage (what fraction of a trillion $ of assets, for example, does just Goldman alone need to dump to reduce their leverage?), and so forth. Sovereign wealth funds are, I am told, concerned about an Obama impact on American business growth and profits.
Of course, retail investors like me do get scared and begin puking our equities, for example, but this doesn't drive American markets. (Asian markets consist of a higher % of retail investors than do Western markets.)
So my question is this: Who will be the buyers of all these assets? What institutions are flush with the cash to run around buying up all of these presumably well-priced or bargain-priced assets? At some point, I suppose pension funds and insurance companies will do so, but do they have the loose cash to support the markets?
Well, I am assured that there is tons of cash out there, waiting for the right moment to commit. Nobody wants to jump in early, and few want to be the first to do it. Keeping their powder dry.
Additionally, a friend of mine in the financial business told me that the markets are the least of the problem. "Markets go up and they go down - that's normal and that's the deal," he said. "The real problem is the potential depth and duration of the global recession we are looking at, and the markets only reflect that. This will not be a normal, ordinary recession, and the politics could worsen it just as they did in the Depression. The markets are telling us that we have been spoiled, and that the candy is going away for a while. Six months or 5 years? I don't have a clue anymore."
"All I know for sure is that people in distressed assets will make money over the long haul - if they can last long enough."
He concluded "One of my friends is so worried that he is seriously considering selling his Citation and switching over to NetJets." Here's a nice Citation X - the best way to travel. Doesn't the Constitution give me the right to have one of these?
During the presidential debate Tuesday night, Barack Obama was asked if he thought health care was a “right.”He said he thought it was a right. Well, if you accept that premise, I think you can ask some logical follow-up questions:Food is more important than health care. You die pretty quickly without food. Do we have a “right” to food in America? What about shelter? Do we have a “right” to housing? And if we do have a right to housing, what standard of housing do we have a right to? And if it is a right, due to all Americans, wouldn’t that mean that no one should have to accept any housing, or health care, which is inferior to anyone else’s… since it’s a right? Do we have a right to be safe? Do we have a right to be comfortable? Do we have a right to wide-screen televisions? Where does this end?
Read the whole thing. This is a point we have all made many times on Maggie's Farm. American rights are the rights of freedom from the government. There are no rights "for" anything. Whenever the government provides something, it diminishes the rights and autonomy of somebody else because government produces nothing - no products and no wealth and no money and no capital. Only citizens do that. That's the problem: rights without responsibilities are are snare and a delusion.
Related to the above, it's time to repeat our earlier notion that the markets are anticipating an Obama victory, thus driving more money - and especially foreign money - from our markets. In support of that idea, Insty found this graph:
Is this election a referendum on Obama? Sad to say, it probably is. Obama offers HOPE, CHANGE, and socialism. McCain offers...what? Ordinary decent, honest, moderate-conservative governance, I guess - which is not too exciting but which is all I ask for.
In the past, people used to rely on bankers to guard themselves from their own worst financial instincts. They might have wanted to borrow 100 per cent (or 125 per cent) of the value of a home without the need to demonstrate thrift and reliability by making a down-payment. But they were shown the door.
Without bankers saying “no”, many people borrowed to the hilt, assuming that rising asset prices had eliminated all risk. Some confined themselves to buying bigger houses for themselves, while others bought second and third homes to rent them out while their capital appreciated.
...having as many people as possible voting is not a legitimate public interest. To maximize the chance that we elect the better candidate, we do not want people to vote if they are so ill-informed that by voting they will decrease this chance. And even if someone's vote would increase this chance, if the increase is infinitesimal the fact that voting is costly can make us prefer he or she just stay home.
The song came out on Dylan's 5th album, Bringing it all Back Home, in 1965. Wiki says that Dylan said that the title is meant to be a fraction: Love Minus Zero divided by No Limit. Simple math.
Dr. Bob has some quotes from the hip pomo writer David Foster Wallace, who commtted suicide in September. Here's one:
In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship — be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles — is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things — if they are where you tap real meaning in life — then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already — it’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power — you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart — you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.
Real Yankees don't do "nice." Indeed, we tend to be suspicious of it. We like to be cranky and difficult, too, along with zenophobic and intolerant - whenever possible. And when we're told what to do, we tend to rebel.
Obama campaign ignores press. McCain campaign indulges them. Press still loves Obama. Tell me this: How long has it been since it was fashionable to be a Lefty? How out-of-date are these people?
‘You’ve got only a couple thousand bucks in the bank. Your job pays you dog-food wages. Your credit history has been bent, stapled, and mutilated. You declared bankruptcy in 1989. Don’t despair: You can still buy a house.” So began an April 1995 article in the Chicago Sun-Times that went on to direct prospective home-buyers fitting this profile to a group of far-left “community organizers” called ACORN, for assistance. In retrospect, of course, encouraging customers like this to buy homes seems little short of madness.
Gerry wants you to watch this Iowahawk presentation, a revision of the (removed) original creepy Youtube:
Did you know that identical twins, whether they are separated at birth or raised together, are equally similar in personality, intelligence, interests, and habits? It's a stunning fact, I think.
I have been teaching the essentials of human nature and the related genetic foundations of human differences for years, partly because these things are true, and partly to counterbalance the "blank slate" bias in our society that says that we are all somehow equal until parents and our environment get their hands on us. This assumption lies behind the insidious mid- 20th century idea in psychology that Moms are the cause of everybody's problems. (No, I am not denying that events affect us, but only in the most extreme cases do they shape our basic architecture.)
The blank slate assumption, with its denial of human nature, has a lengthy history, but it was picked up most ardently by Marxists who wished very much to believe that social and psychological experts could shape children in such a way as to create "a new man," better suited to their vision of a utopian society (run by them, of course).
Steven Pinker's 2002 book The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature was one of the first non-technical books (along with books like The Bell Curve) to address the subject. Unlike Larry Summers, Pinker was not run out of town for saying the politically incorrect things he says.
David Thompson has a fine brief discussion of this topic, and posted the short and entertaining lecture below by Harvard's Pinker in which he also touches on the topics of the arts and of parenting:
What did not come up in the debate? "There was no mention of abortion, immigration, moral values, same sex marriage, guns, their role models, their view of the presidency, or their religious faith."
The premise of Obamian Socialism: "The center of his economic universe is the budget of the federal government."
These people are really green. And utterly insane, no doubt.
From his 2006 Grammy-winning album Modern Times. I like this smooth rocking song more each time I listen to it. "I got the pork chop, she got the pie, she ain't no angel and neither am I..."
Only Bob could write this song. Audio only, from the album, with distracting images:
The myth is that like magic, preventive medicine will simultaneously reduce costs and improve health.
Read the whole thing. Sadly, except at the margins, there is little we can to to prevent disease. The wishful thought that we can control fate and the gods never quits, though.
I don't care about the value of my house, because I am not going anywhere. I love where I am, especially as the air grows crisper, the leaves change, and hunting season begins.
My pension though, of which 75% in the various stock markets of the world (but mostly US), has taken a bad hit, which is discouraging to say the least. This is ouch.
And outside my pension - I could have had much more fun spending that money on toys and trips than watching it evaporate.
I asked my money manager pal what he's doing. He said that, for taxable, he is buying medium-term high grade corporates and GNMA pass-throughs. Otherwise, he likes munis at this point.
He (wisely) would not advise about holding or selling my stocks and equity mutual funds. Or buying now for the long haul, as Warren Buffet is doing. Thinking GE and American Express. Who knows? We're going into a global recession, so there will be time to think. But not to worry - America is strong and we barristers are always in demand. And, at Maggie's, we do not believe in retirement anyway. Who wants to be useless?
Washington should make laws that investments can only go up, and that prices for other things we buy only go down, don'tcha think?
Not impressed by either guy's knowledge or grasp of the issues. Obama seems to fake it, understanding little but covering it up with style like a used car dealer. I think he's a slick phony. (Bill Clinton was slick, but not a phony.) McCain knows about foreign affairs, but that's about it, and he lacks vigor it would seem. In sum, McCain helped himself a little, and Obama just showed, again, how little depth he has. I hate to admit it, but these guys make Hillary look good and McCain looks like Dole redux - which I was afraid of. Both of them clueless, in my humble opinion.
My family and I will suffer serious financial hardship over the next 4 years. Obama has no understanding of those of us who work 80 hour weeks, spend countless nights away from our families to provide a good life for them and aren’t some notorious CEO’s (could that guy from Lehman be a bigger idiot?). Gov. Romney’s speech at CPAC and Gov. Palin in this campaign are the only two people that I have seen that speak to us who bust our backsides to support our family, don’t want Government to give us anything and understand what we are all about.
I'm pretty good at this political prognostication stuff, so I'm feeling quite confident when I make this bold prediction regarding tonight's debate:
I predict the Republicans will claim McCain won and the Democrats will claim Obama won.
Pretty daring of me, don't you think? Well, when you have the keen political insight I'm gifted with, bold predictions like this just come naturally. 'Daring' is my middle name.
For more keen, indepthful, bold-like and daring insights into the foul, fetid, stinking morass we call modern politics, please...
Yesterday, I posted a short article on opening Desktop icons in full-screen mode. This morning, commenter Ron House steered me toward a very cool program named AutoSizer that does a couple of nifty tricks:
Old 
Is this election a referendum on Obama? Sad to say, it probably is. Obama offers HOPE, CHANGE, and socialism. McCain offers...what? Ordinary decent, honest, moderate-conservative governance, I guess - which is not too exciting but which is all I ask for. 
Something else that 
Did you know that identical twins, whether they are separated at birth or raised together, are equally similar in personality, intelligence, interests, and habits? It's a stunning fact, I think.
I don't care about the value of my house, because I am not going anywhere. I love where I am, especially as the air grows crisper, the leaves change, and hunting season begins.
neoneo: 
I'm pretty good at this political prognostication stuff, so I'm feeling quite confident when I make this bold prediction regarding tonight's debate: