My first market day of the new year morning reads:
• The year of dollar danger for the world (Telegraph)
• 2015 Will Be The True Test Of The Economic Recovery (fivethirtyeight) see also Government Spending, Edging Up, Is a Stimulus (NYT)
• You can put the next stock-market crash on your 2016 calendar now (MarketWatch)
• Billionaires Chasing Warhols Fuel $16 Billion Art Sales (Bloomberg)
• Happy Money And The Science Of Spending – How Money Really Can (Sometimes) Buy Happiness (Kitces)
• What If North Korea Wasn’t Behind the Sony Hack? (Re/code) see also Behind the Scenes at Sony as Hacking Crisis Unfolded (WSJ)
• Shifting clout: Economists’ academic rankings and media influence vary wildly (The Economist)
• Anchorage, Alaska never saw a day below zero in 2014 (WonkBlog)
• United and Orbitz take aim at 22-year-old’s ‘hidden city’ airline ticketing startup (MarketWatch) see also United Airlines suing 22-year-old computer whiz (NY Post)
• Luxury Wine Cellars Rise Up (WSJ)
What’s up for the weekend ?
How Late Does the World Stay Up on New Year’s Eve?
Source: Jawbone
James Fallows
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/12/the-tragedy-of-the-american-military/383516/
Long hard slog but well worth it. SB read twice for full impact.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/31/new-u-s-stealth-jet-can-t-fire-its-gun-until-2019.html
A little salt into that wound.
Our tax dollars at work.
The US Military – defending Congressional Representatives, 1 job at a time.
You don’t need to fire bullets if you can garner votes.
BTW – I am reading “The Second Amendment” which is an interesting history of the Second Amendment from its inclusion in the Constitution to today. So far, it appears that strong believers in the right to bear arms need to pay attention to the “well-regulated militia” clause. The people pushing for the amendment wanted to ban a standing peacetime army and rly on militias raised by the states. So the “Original Intenters” in the states that are pushing hard for a lack of gun regulation should also be pushing to implode the size of the US Military (which would also look after that pesky balancing the budget thing).
I presume this is Waldman’s book “The Second Amendment: a biography.” It’s childish drivel, as one would expect from the title. (Anthropomorphizing the 2nd amendment, really?) There is a need for an accessible book on the history of 2nd amendment interpretation, but Waldman’s isn’t it.
In any event, the constitutional amendment to prohibit a standing peacetime army failed. Therefore, there is nothing “anti-Original Intent” in not agreeing to abolish a peacetime standing army.
Of course the amendment to protect state power over the militia also failed – but that doesn’t appear to have stopped “2nd Amendment Deniers” from trying to shoe-horn it into the 2nd amendment as a substitute for an accurate history. The gross spectacle of modern liberals screaming “Yeehaw! Jefferson Davis, you was right!” and projecting states rights ideology backwards onto the Constitution has done more damage to the cause of reasonable gun control than any other.
It is interesting that Canada had a similar focus on militia systems in the 1800s that the US had in the late 1700s and early 1800s. It seemed to be a North American thing realted to an antipathy to strong central government to have a reticence towards standing armies until forced by events. In Canada’s case, it was the Fenian raids in the late 1800s where Irish-Americans staged large raids in Eastern Canada in order to apply pressure on the British regarding their polices in Ireland. WW I smashed the Canadian militia system for good just like the Civil War pretty much ended the US militia system.
One major difference between the two militia systems was that the US had large areas where the whites made sure they were armed and the black slaves were not, while in Canada both the French-Canadians and the English-Canadians had militia units.
L’est we forget.
4 Things That Were Supposed To Happen By 2015 Because Obama Was Reelected
1. Gas was supposed to cost $5.45 per gallon.
2. Unemployment was supposed to be stuck at over 8%
3. The stock market was supposed to crash
4. The entire U.S. economy was supposed to collapse
NB: Listening to assclowns who predict this kind of stuff can be bad for your portfolio. Just say’n.
If you don’t like who’s in office, then throw the bums out !” the slogan says .. Sure, we voted the bums out, and then we voted them back in in 2014 ! …
You just haven’t been looking at the right states:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/01/whats-wrong-with-georgia/384101/
January/February 2015
The Benefits of Being Cold
Year-round warmth is a modern luxury, and one that could be affecting body weight and health.
James Hamblin
Dec 28 2014
When you first put on the ice vest, you will feel cold. Not intolerably cold, but cold enough to make you think, What am I doing with my life? Or, at least, as numbness spreads across your shoulders and down your back, There must be better ways to lose weight. And there are. But as an adjunct to those better ways, the vest carries some unlikely promise.
The sturdy Han Solo–style garment is loaded with ice packs, and it’s inspired by a theory gathering momentum among scientists: namely, that environmental thermodynamics can be harnessed in pursuit of weight loss. The basic idea is that because your body uses energy to maintain a normal body temperature, exposure to cold expends calories. The vest’s inventor, Wayne B. Hayes, an associate professor at the University of California at Irvine, claims that wearing it for an hour burns up to 250 calories, though his data are very rough. A little more than a year ago, he began selling the vest, which he calls the Cold Shoulder, out of his Pasadena apartment. Name notwithstanding, people won’t ignore you when you wear it.
…
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/does-global-warming-make-me-look-fat/383509/?single_page=true
Still tired of this meme, Why workers won’t get a raise, when answer is always in article: “That leaves Bosworth, and us, with one last explanation: The changing global economy, with its massive pool of labor, increasing emphasis on intellectual property, and PERMISSIIVE RULES FOR CAPITAL SLOSHING AROUND THE WORLD(MY CAPS), has resulted what Bosworth calls a “new phenomenon … the decline in labor’s share of income for which we have no satisfactory explanation.”
Economies need a certain level of stability for people to adapt. Capital’s ability to float w/o regard to consequences is the cause of much of the instability. when capital flees for tax havens but relies on the home country for protection it is treason; we see you APPLE, Let all ye who value your money over liberty go home for you lack the fortitude for liberty. (Looking for correct atribution believe it was Jefferson)
source for quoted article: http://qz.com/320493/why-us-workers-wont-get-a-real-raise-in-2015/
@RobertM
Try Samuel Adams – Philadelphia 1776.
Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say “what should be the reward of such sacrifices?” Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth?
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom — go home from us in peace.
We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!
It was Samuel Adams.
Great speaker. A great founding father. Thank you.
Philadelphia 1776.
Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say “what should be the reward of such sacrifices?” Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth?
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom — go home from us in peace.
We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!
Why you cannot keep secrets in an internet world?
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/01/a-hackers-hit-list-of-american-infrastructure/384166/
Maybe Anchorade Alaska never saw a below zero day in 2914, but you sure can’t say that for Chicago Illinois.
> You can put the next stock-market crash on your 2016 calendar now (MarketWatch)
Paul Farrell? I think he’s had it on the calendar for each of the last five years . . . he’s nothing if not consistent . . .
In some states you can end up in jail if you can’t pay the court costs for being found not guilty of a traffic violation:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/return-debtors-prison/
More of the criminalization of America.