There are some things that one just didn’t do. That’s the way I was brought up. It’s not gray; it was black and white. Now the ethical standard seems to be if everybody else is doing it, I can do it too. Carry that over into the banking. Everybody else is doing these funny loans and having earnings grow faster, building up their margins, leveraging those margins. The more leverage A gets, the more leverage B feels inclined to get. So the system fed on itself and drove bankers to making decisions that they, presumably, should have known better than to make. I don’t blame government for this. I was at a meeting of CEOs, even though I haven’t been to one for quite a while, and someone asked me to sum up the morning. This was a bunch of bankers and other CEOs. They said, what do you think… Read more →
July 2009
Explain That, Galileo!
Obama Drops Faster than Bush or Carter — RealClearPolitics [HT: Best of the Web Today] Read more →
Silicon Valley Jobless Quit Tech
SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Jobless workers in Silicon Valley are giving up on the region’s dominant technology industry and trying to switch to other fields, as the area’s unemployment rate spikes above the national and state average. Silicon Valley’s unemployment rate — which was below California’s average and largely tracked the national average last year — has soared, surpassing the state average in May. By June, the area’s unadjusted unemployment rate was 11.8%, worse than California’s 11.6% and the national rate of 9.7%, according to the latest figures from California’s Employment Development Department. Many of the jobless techies are targeting new gigs in the clean-energy or health-care industries . . . Some are shifting even further afield, looking for jobs in teaching or financial consulting. People are leaving tech as “more tech companies are offshoring and some are shrinking, plus people are burned out and tired from having been there and… Read more →
Twitter: 2009-07-30
Kardashian to fans: I'm 'OK' after split #bottomstoriesoftheday # RT @Lileks: Breaking: Gates pulled over on Penn Av; suspicion of DUI # Read more →
Income Tax Fact of the Day
IRS data shows that in 2007 — the most recent data available — the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 40.4 percent of the total income taxes collected by the federal government. This is the highest percentage in modern history. By contrast, the top 1 percent paid 24.8 percent of the income tax burden in 1987, the year following the 1986 tax reform act. Remarkably, the share of the tax burden borne by the top 1 percent now exceeds the share paid by the bottom 95 percent of taxpayers combined. — The Tax Foundation Read more →
Stick a Fork In It
As reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition yesterday, the British-commissioned survey, which took its findings from 55 studies made in the past 50 years, claims that eating organic food “will make no important difference to a persons overall health.” — OC Weekly This will come as a blow to the idiots standing in line at Whole Foods to pay 10 dollars for a slice of cheese . . . Read more →
Twitter: 2009-07-29
Judgmental people suck # My 16yo son's visiting cousins in Australia. He tells his mom to stop calling every day. “People will think I’m a baby.” # Read more →
I’m Killing It on Amazon
I’m explaining to my wife how being an Amazon.com associate works . . . “If I mention a book on my web site, I link it to the book’s page on Amazon. Then if someone clicks through on the link and buys something, I get a small commission.” She loves money-making enterprises. “How much do you make?” she asks excitedly. “It’s around four percent, which usually amounts to around 5 or 10 bucks a year.” “Oh,” she says, rapidly losing interest. “But look,” I say, showing her my online associate report. “Last month, someone clicked through on one of my links and while they were on Amazon, they bought a very expensive camera lens and I got the commission on it: 18 dollars and 48 cents! We could dine out on burritos and beer with that kind of money!” “That’s wonderful!” she says. “Can you print that out so I… Read more →
Twitter: 2009-07-28
A Lesson in Mystique: http://bit.ly/p0zCr # Called my boy to say Happy Birthday. It's not till tomorrow but he's in Australia, where it's already tomorrow. # Read more →
My Son Turned 16 Abroad
I called my son to wish him a Happy 16th Birthday. His birthday is actually tomorrow but he’s in Australia visiting his cousins for a couple of weeks and in Australia, it’s tomorrow already. When I called, he was at a train station with his cousin Lizzie — well, I’ve always called her Lizzie but she’s 19 now and may prefer Liz. They were waiting for the train to go to Bondi Beach for the day. Happy birthday kid. Miss you . . . Read more →
A Lesson in Mystique
Before I go, lemme give you a lesson in mystique. (Holds out a cigarette lighter in one hand and closes his other fist.) You can only have one. Which one do you want? As long as you can’t see what’s in this hand (shows closed fist), you’ll always want it more. — Almost Famous Read more →
Unicorn Dust and Pixie Wings
Donald Marron points out that another one of those great cost-saving ideas in the healthcare debate (the Independent Medicare Advisory Council) has taken a hit: CBO estimates that the proposed legislation would save a paltry $2 billion over the next ten years, less than 1/500 of the 10-year cost of health reform. Damn that CBO! They keep killing all these great ideas with, like, analysis and numbers and all that stuff. Everything would work out just fine if only they would close their eyes, click their heels together three times, and say, “There is no policy like reform…there is no policy like reform….” — Greg Mankiw Read more →
Trust
I tend to distrust power unchecked by competition. This makes me particularly suspicious of federal policies that take a strong role in directing private decisions. I am much more willing to have state and local governments exercise power in a variety of ways than for the federal government to undertake similar actions. I can more easily move to another state or town than to another nation. (I am not good with languages.) — Greg Mankiw Read more →
Twitter: 2009-07-26
Party host is serving 7&7s. I drink two. Nothing. "Make the next one a double." Nothing. Worst drink ever. # @penelopetrunk oh that is not true. see http://kicklikeagirlmovie.com in reply to penelopetrunk # Read more →
Buying Dog Food
At Trader Joe’s, buying a bag of Holistic Natural Canine Formula, whatever that is. The dog seems to like it. The checker asks me, “Do you want a bag for the cat food?” I say, “Yes, but it’s actually dog food.” “Oh sorry,” he says. “I saw ‘canine’ and I guess I thought ‘feline.’” “There’s a picture of a dog right on the bag,” I say. Read more →
Profiling??? PRO-filing?!??!
It took less than a day for the arrest of Henry Louis Gates to become racial lore. When one of America’s most prominent black intellectuals winds up in handcuffs, it’s not just another episode of profiling — it’s a signpost on the nation’s bumpy road to equality. If this man can be taken away by police officers from the porch of his own home, what does it say about the treatment that average blacks can expect in 2009? — Jesse Washington, AP National Writer [In Jim Mora voice]: Profiling??? You kidding me? PRO-filing?!??! “Profiling” implies an absence of facts or evidence. It means “I’m targeting you for suspicion simply because you’re black and therefore more likely to be engaged in criminal activity.” That’s not what happened here. A police officer responded to a 911 call reporting two black males breaking into a house. When he arrived, he found a black… Read more →
Twitter: 2009-07-23
RT @KathySierra: Don't learn PPT/Keynote, learn how the brain works. Learn storytelling. Study filmmaking. Apply learning theory. Inspire. # RT @OCWeekly: A very special OC Weekly farewell to Gidget the Taco Bell chihuahua http://tinyurl.com/n6k4mq # Thank God it's Friday! Wait — what? # Read more →
A Different Person
Our son’s flying to Australia for a couple weeks to visit his cousins . . . I’m talking to people at LAX in a fake Australian accent. My Australian accent is not all that tight except on words with a long “a” sound, which I replace with a long “i” sound, e.g., “mate” becomes “mite.” “Sorry, mite,” I say, as I roll a suitcase over a gentleman’s foot. “Did you just say what I thought you said?” my son asks. “When you travel,” I explain, “you can be a whole different person.” We take the bags over to the baggage scanner. I know we don’t have to wait for them but since “wait” has a long “a” sound, I ask the woman, “Do I ‘ave to white?” “No,” she says. “Jus’ drope i’ oaf then?” I ask. “Yes,” she says. Read more →
International Cuisine
We’re dropping our 15-year-old son off at LAX. He’s flying to Australia for a couple weeks to visit his cousins. He’s explaining his theory of international cuisine, which is that there’s not going to be any Mexican food in Australia because there are no Mexicans in Australia. On the other hand, they probably have New Zealand food that those of us in the States have never heard about. “That’s why it’s important to travel,” I say, “so you can learn about things like that. Or you could just stay home and watch the Travel Channel.” Read more →
California Fiscal Crisis
The median wage of a California state employee is $66,000 (source). The median wage among all Californians (including those state workers) is just over $36,000. The state employee can retire with a full pension in his or her late 40s or early 50s, which essentially means that the taxpayers have to pay for double the number of state workers that are required to provide current services. In addition to salaries that are much higher than private sector equivalents, the state employee has health care and other benefits that by themselves may exceed the total compensation of a full-time private sector employee. The reasonable question to ask is not “How did they run out of cash?” but “How was this ever supposed to work?” — Philip Greenspun Read more →