Scary Chart...

I've published this chart before; but it was time for an update.  The basic message here is that we're in the mother of all recessions, no matter what kind of blather you're hearing from politicians, economists, or “settled science”.  Read it and be afraid, especially of that almost-flat bottom.  Where's the steep upturn that we see in nearly all the other recessions?  It ain't here yet, that's for sure...

Cell Phone Karma...

Very funny ad:

Torn...

So the Democrats are split – some are ok with Obama's tax cut compromise; others are angry that he compromised at all, and are threatening to scuttle the compromise.  And I'm not sure which side to root for...

On the one hand the compromise is very good for me personally; my taxes would be thousands of dollars lower next year if it passes.  On the other hand, continuing the deficit spending is clearly a bad thing for the country, and will come back to bite us one of these days – in ways that will probably be bad for me personally.

This tax compromise is really just more politics-as-usual.  While it solves a problem about to smack us all upside the head in a few weeks, it does absolutely nothing to address the fundamental problem (federal spending exceeding federal taxes), and in fact makes it worse (reducing taxes while not changing spending).  So I'm having a hard time getting excited by this.

It sure would be nice to have a problem-solver go to work over there in D.C...

Who Knew?

The easy way to peel a banana:




Yes, I tried it.  Yes, it works.