That, or it was the coded signal that he's given up racing and taken up peyote. He's kind of mystical that way.
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So A-Rod and 103 other Major League
But it's cycling that's got the doping problem, right? Riiiiiiight.
And NFL players get that big and fast just because of good genetics and how hard they train.
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Peter Schiff, the guy who predicted our current economic woes a few years ago, says you can't spend your way out of a collapsing economic bubble; that you gotta let the sucker pop, and then you can work your way out of the crater. He thinks what we're doing right now is a bad idea. I don't know whether he's right or not. I've studied economics a little bit. Economics, of course, is an alleged science, an empirical study frequently called "the dismal science," based on the major premise, "assume you had a million widgets." If you aren't familiar with them, widgets are just like unicorns; the only difference is that if you stand up at a cocktail party full of wonky people and say, "assume you operate a unicorn factory," it won't earn you instant respect approaching reverence from everybody in the room.
7 comments:
Hayek. Word.
are you familiar with Keynes?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Maynard_Keynes
This American Life just did a little story on his theories and how FDR used them and how Keynes' ideas fit in today with this stimulus package (or the one that passed the House.)
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1281
Economy is all theory. who knows?
Recessions suck. They hurt a lot of people in varying ways. Problem is, they are part of a cycle. They are the brush fires that destroy thousands of acres but then leave that land refreshed and fertile for new growth.
People look at the recession as the disease; but the disease was the over-spending, the lack of savings, the insane current account imbalance, the every spiraling cost of housing, health care, and education... the recession helps "cure" that.
This isn't the forum for it, but Keynes isn't necessarily right. It's hard to understand how you can spend your way out of your (over)spending problem.
And finally, what's going to happen when we come out of the recession? what are we going to do with the new ENOURMOUSLY bloated budgets? What's going to happen with all that cash that the Fed so liberally printed? Are we headed toward massive inflation?
Smarter people than me need to figure this out...
Womble - right on.
Wrob - nobody knows exactly what to do, but that doesn't stop people from telling us what to do.
>>>but Keynes isn't necessarily right. It's hard to understand how you can spend your way out of your (over)spending problem.
Spoken like a true Argentinian, Joaquin.
from what I understand about keynes is you can have your government bail you out, in a sense. BUT...don't overdo it! The radio program i linked had a fellow on there that said Keynes thought FDR was spending too much in the creation of the WPA, the CCC and other depression era programs. The one thing he didn't take into account was WW2 and the impact that made to actually boost the economy...from govt spending.
Whatever....it's a sick, mad world.let's go for a bike ride!
I'm no economist and rarely even bother to balance my checkbook (though i do pay my taxes which sadly qualifies me for a cabinet position), but I like to blame Gordon Moore. 40+ years of computer power doubling every 18 months cannot be sustainable. people argue that the breakdown of moore's law will be catastrophic to the economy, but i think the trend is a major part of the cause of the current woes in the first place, that and a lack of simple personal responsibility and common sense. if you buy into Moore's law, you would agree that productivity goes in lockstep with computing power and both escalate exponentially. So we can make more widgets faster with less human involvement, but someone has to buy the widgets. Usually, more humans. Eventually, we get saturated with widgets, and extending credit to morons can only extend the widget buying frenzy so long, the bubble bursts and we end up with growing unemployment and stagnant or negative growth, and people are surprised? wtf!! as far as I can tell, the whole economy is based on the unsustainable idea that there can be infinite growth, but good luck with that on a finite planet with finite resources (like food, fresh water and oxygen to name a few). most of the growth we've seen in the last few years, if not decades, was due to derivatives and was not even real. Am I the only one who is bothered by the fact that there are more mutual funds (with greater aggregate value)than there are underlying stocks in the market? and this is only the first order of derivative. our current situation was a long time in the making and we get what we deserve.
So htis brings me to what I really want to know is--should I go with compact cranks? Of course, I would have to withdraw some cash from my mattress...
Rob - how much Keynes to apply is the trick, and once the tests are graded, the answer usually amounts to "less." Growing the public sector strikes me as a bad move toward recover except as a very temporary fix; good luck on that "temporary" part. I was a little stunned to read on Bloomberg.com an article saying that the guarantees issued by the Treasury so far amount to over $9 trillion. How do you get that from the ~$400 billion already expended? I guess you get that the way Wall Street managed to get that kind of pile in the securitized mortgage market - buy purchasing derivatives. I can't evaluate the wisdom of this approach but instinctively recoil at the notion of investments where you pay X as the cost of buy-in, but the investment is capable of inflicting liabilities on you of (20 x X). I think I'll shut up and ride my bike now.
Jon - the solution to the crisis is that you should go for the compact cranks. Unless you're a big fat mashing sprinter type, you won't miss the 53-11. Get an 11-25 (or 11-27 if you're climbing a lot) cassette and you'll have sufficient gearing for any races around here. I do recommend a Third Eye chainwatcher or my favorite, a Deda Dog Fang. The drop from 50 to 34 teeth is right at the limit of what most front derailers can handle (16 teeth) and there is sometimes a little problem with the downshift. The dog fang costs about $6, which you should be able to raise easily by panhandling.
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