Was a nice 4th of July. While my "date" for the fireworks party flaked, I had fun anyway.
- Ben Bernake is responsible for more than half of the currency currently in circulation. Yup, after 234 years of U.S. history, more than half the dollars in circulation were created in the past decade.
- And worth noting that serial criminal Casey Serin has spent yet another independence day still at large.
- Is this a sign of the end of prohibition? When governments start considering that taxing something is preferable to spending money on banning it, we're likely at an endgame. Considering that about 20% of the accumulated Federal deficit is related to the 40-year "war on drugs" and that the "war" has absolutely nothing to show for itself, maybe that's a good thing?
- Not that I'm in favor of drug use. Never used the stuff and don't plan on changing my stance anytime soon, but historically such bans -- whether on alcohol or anything else -- have never been anything other than a gift to organized criminals who are happy to step in and supply the market. We've shown that we know how to reduce smoking and drinking in much cheaper ways, so why insist on continuing down failed path of dealing with drug abuse through criminalization rather than trying something that has a history of working?
- Not that the morons at the L.A. County Commission don't have anything better to do. Like maybe deal with the broken county hospitals, the overcrowded jails (mostly overcrowded with low-level drug offenders), and the perpetually broken budget?
- On the other hand, the never-ending war on drugs is certainly good for a few laughs now and then, courtesy of the dumbest criminals.
- I tweeted this outrage from the Federal Reserve a few days ago but didn't comment on it here, as it sort of speaks for itself. As usual, Barry gets the last word.
- "Remember that all models are wrong; the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful" - George Box
- Andy Grove hits things right on the head, as he always did during the few opportunities I had to meet him during my short years at Intel (NasdaqGS: INTC). Industries are like ecosystems. You can't outsource the dirty pieces that we think somebody else should do cheaper and still expect to hang on to the "good" pieces. In the end the "high value" work tends to be a lot easier to do when you're right down the street from the factory or the call center or any of the other places where the rubber meets the road.
- Andy also is willing to break some taboo and remind us of times when things got bad enough that troops had to be called in to keep the peace. He doesn't remind us (but somebody should!) that one of the more common depression-era crimes was kidnapping and that violence against the well-off tends to increase when people decide they have no better options. I think a lot of people at the upper end of society are fooling themselves about how the current state of affairs will affect them.
- From my Facebook wall: "Facebook thinks I should become a fan of Barack Obama and Fox News, apparently because my real-world friends include a guy who had a show on Fox Business, and a former campaigner for Obama, among others. And isn't it grand that on this 4th of July weekend, I can still be friends with both of them and many others, and put the political BS aside."
- And for the record, I am not a "fan" of any politician or large corporation. When they pay me and/or bail me out to the tune of billions of dollars, I'll consider it.
- But please do hit the button above and become a fan of this blog! I can't pay, but I'll be really, really, really grateful.
