It’s called Adventures in Desperation. It’s an account of my busking experiment. (Don’t worry, I haven’t given up on finding more secure employment, but I still have some time on my hands and I might as well spend it outside.)
Archive for the ‘Community’ Category
I made a new blog-
Posted in Arts, Commerce, Community, Culture, Humor, Lifestyle, Media, Mind, Moro, Public, Self, World on November 16, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Free vs Competitive Markets
Posted in Commerce, Community, Culture, Nation, Politics, Public, Steve S., tagged Regulation, rent seeking on November 13, 2009 | 1 Comment »
John Kay at the Financial Times has a short but very good piece up on markets and rent seeking. He first very ably defines and describes rent seeking. If you only occasionally dabble in reading economics, this is good stuff.
You can become wealthy by creating wealth or by appropriating wealth created [...]
Banker’s Prayer
Posted in Commerce, Community, Ethics, Humor, Public, Steve S., tagged Goldman on November 12, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Via Ritholtz. He calls it the Lloyd’s prayer.
THE LLOYD’s Prayer
Our Chairman,
Who Art At Goldman,
Blankfein Be Thy Name.
The Rally’s Come. God’s Work Be Done
On Earth As There’s No Fear Of Correction.
Give Us This Day Our Daily Gains,
And Bankrupt Our Competitors
As You Taught Lehman and Bear Their Lessons.
And Bring Us Not Under Indictment.
For Thine Is The Treasury,
The [...]
Gas at $300 a gallon, Maybe only $45
Posted in Commerce, Community, Nation, Politics, Public, Steve S., War, World, tagged Gas in Afghanistan, war costs on November 12, 2009 | 2 Comments »
From Noah Shachtman at Danger Room, I learned that gas in Afghanistan costs at least $45, maybe $300, per gallon. Most of this comes from shipping costs. We use an average of 22 gallons per soldier per day. Key quotes…
Wanna know why the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are so expensive? Here’s [...]
Spend More, Pay Less
Posted in Community, Culture, Media, Nation, Public, Steve S., tagged spending, taxes on November 12, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Spend more but pay less, that has become the conflict which dominates our public policy debates. Doug Elmendorf from the CBO, via Klein sums it up well.
The country faces a fundamental disconnect between the services the people expect the government to provide, particularly in the form of benefits for older Americans, [...]
Healthy Food Improves School Performance
Posted in Community, Culture, Education, Health Care, Nation, Public, Science, Steve S., tagged food, school performance on November 12, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Via Yglesias, Tim Harford notes a study showing that eating healthier foods improves the performance of students in primary schools. Key quotes..
What caught the attention of Michele Belot and Jonathan James, though, was the way Oliver’s project had been implemented. Belot and James – economists at Nuffield College, Oxford, and at the University [...]
Government Improving Health Care
Posted in Commerce, Community, Health Care, Nation, Public, Science, Steve S., Technology on November 12, 2009 | 2 Comments »
David Leonhardt has been writing some of the best articles out there on health care. His article on Intermountain Healthcare was superb. The Intermountain system is one of those low cost high quality organizations, maybe the best. Like the Mayo Clinic and Kaiser, it has salaried physicians. The biggest difference [...]
Aiding Terrorism
Posted in Community, Culture, Ethics, Nation, Politics, Public, Steve S., War, World, tagged Asymmetrical war, Overreacting on November 10, 2009 | 1 Comment »
I have held off writing about the Fort Hood incident as I do not see that much is gained by speculation. I would prefer to discuss causes and prevention after we know all the facts. However, Marc Lynch has a piece up at Foreign Policy that is too good to pass up. [...]
The Cost of No Health Care Reform
Posted in Commerce, Community, Health Care, Nation, Politics, Public, Science, Steve S., tagged Deaths from lack of health care, health care costs on November 9, 2009 | 5 Comments »
There were two very interesting articles out on health care this weekend. One of very high quality that everyone interested in reform should know about. The other has some flaws but brings up interesting thoughts.
First, Wilper, et. al. have published in the American Journal of Public Health the best, recent study [...]
WalMart and Health Care
Posted in Commerce, Community, Health Care, Public, Steve S., tagged health care costs, signaling on November 7, 2009 | 8 Comments »
Did you ever wonder why there is no WalMart equivalent in health care? I have. While the current emphasis in the health care reform effort has been on expanded coverage, it is health care costs which need to be addressed in the long run before only the most well to do [...]
Troop Levels: Reality Hits Home
Posted in Community, Nation, Politics, Public, Steve S., War, World, tagged Afghanistan, Troop numbers on November 6, 2009 | 1 Comment »
David Wood at Politics Daily answers the question I have been pondering in the debate about troop levels for Afghanistan. Do we have enough troops? Key quotes…..
Here’s what worries the planners: The Army has 44 brigade combat teams (BCTs), its basic deploying unit of between 3,500 and 4,500 soldiers. Of those, [...]
History and Tax Cuts
Posted in Community, Culture, Nation, Politics, Public, Steve S., tagged fiscal responsibility, taxes on November 5, 2009 | 4 Comments »
Thoma had too good of an article up yesterday for me to pass it up on tax cuts and recoveries. Key quotes…..
In 1982, with the economy in the second part of its double-dip recession, Reagan signed a tax increase, meant to reduce the deficit. Here’s Bruce Bartlett, writing at Forbes.com:
According to a recent Treasury [...]
Frame Ups Are Legal
Posted in Community, Law, Nation, Politics, Public, Steve S., tagged Illegal prosecution on November 4, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Driving to work this morning I heard on the radio that the Supreme Court will be hearing a case that deals with prosecutorial immunity. Outside the Beltway has a short piece on this case also.
In brief, a policeman was killed. The only witness was a 16 y/o with a [...]
Final Plans
Posted in Community, Gods, Lynn Gazis-Sax, Self on November 2, 2009 | 4 Comments »
One of my Quaker meeting’s recurrent topics, brought up in Ministry and Oversight every couple of years or so, is a set of final plan documents that are filed with the meeting’s Recorder, to be referenced only if someone dies. We’re now discussing a revision of the document (but if you’ve already filed it, [...]
U.K. Breaking Up Big Banks
Posted in Commerce, Community, Nation, Public, Steve S., World, tagged Splitting up banks, United Kingdom on November 2, 2009 | 1 Comment »
I forgot to reset the alarm clock, so I was up early and scanning the news. Via Baseline Scenario I learned from the WSJ that the UK is breaking up its big banks. Key quotes….
The U.K.’s top treasury official Sunday said the government is starting a process to rebuild the country’s banking [...]
Solving the Peanut Allergy Problem on Halloween
Posted in Community, Culture, Humor, Steve S., tagged Clever spouse, Peanut allergy on October 30, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Early in the evening while passing out candy, one of the children announced he had peanut allergies. I gave him some Dots and Starburst and off he went. I passed this on to my wife and she, being the brilliant woman she has always been, immediately solved the peanut allergy problem. She [...]
Assessing the Economy: What We Need To Do
Posted in Commerce, Community, Nation, Politics, Public, Steve S., World, tagged Japan's lost decade, breaking up banks on October 30, 2009 | 1 Comment »
The Baseline Scenario people have redone their assessment and forward looking policy recommendations here. Simon Johnson was past head of the IMF and has a lot of insight into international economics. There is a little bit to like and dislike in his recommendations for everyone. His comparisons with our economy and Japan’s during [...]
Did the Great Society Fail?
Posted in Community, Culture, Nation, Public, Steve S., tagged Charity for the elderly, poverty on October 29, 2009 | 7 Comments »
In many ways, yes. However, the graph of the day indicates that one group has benefitted from the programs which came from that era, the elderly. Looking back to a time before Medicare, when families were bigger, when government was perceived as smaller, we see that the elderly really did suffer quite a bit. We [...]
Moral Hazard as the Goal
Posted in Commerce, Community, Nation, Politics, Public, Steve S., World, tagged central banking, Justice, moral hazard on October 29, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Steve Waldman at Interfluidity has a (via Cowen) great piece up on central banking. Key quotes……
The Greenspan/Bernanke doctrine can be summed up by three familiar words, “Yes We Can!” Greenspan famously concluded that we can “mop up” asset price bubbles after they burst, rather than interfering with the dynamic whereby asset [...]
Links: Moral Murkiness, Destigmatizing Bipolar Disorder, Same-Sex Marriage in Schools, and Black Influence on American Culture
Posted in Community, Culture, Family, Gods, Lynn Gazis-Sax on October 27, 2009 | 2 Comments »
I met Jim Burklo back around the time he had the idea for Urban Ministry of Palo Alto. He was the driving force in organizing the group, pulling together the churches that supplied the board of directors and the volunteers, and for a time was our second Urban Minister. I was on the [...]
Unemployment Graph of the Day
Posted in Commerce, Community, Nation, Politics, Public, Steve S., tagged ideology, lagging indicator, unemployment on October 27, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Via Thoma , the following graph of unemployment should be kept in mind when assessing the economy. Two points:
1) No matter what we are promised by the Obama administration, unemployment is most likely going to continue and probably worsen. We should expect this to be worse than in our usual bubble deflating recession.
2) This is [...]
Drugs and Red Light Districts
Posted in Community, Culture, Ethics, Nation, Politics, Public, Steve S., World on October 27, 2009 | 7 Comments »
Peter Moskos, whose book Cop In The Hood I reviewed a bit ago, has a great piece up on decriminalizing drugs. Key quotes….
In Amsterdam, the red-light district is the oldest and most notorious neighborhood. Two picturesque canals frame countless small pedestrian alleyways lined with legal prostitutes, bars, porn stores and coffee shops. [...]
Taliban Copy Petraeus
Posted in Community, Ethics, Nation, Public, Steve S., War, World, tagged Afghanistan, hearts and minds, Insurgency on October 26, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Steve Coll reports that the Taliban are now following many of the tenets of COIN developed in FM 3-24. Key quotes…
Over the summer, the Afghan Taliban’s military committee distributed “A Book of Rules,” in Pashto, to its fighters. The book’s eleven chapters seem to draw from the population-centric principles of F.M. 3-24, the [...]
The New Economics
Posted in Commerce, Community, Culture, Nation, Public, Steve S., tagged Changing economic theory, simplify on October 26, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Joseph Stiglitz, via Thoma, has a nice piece up on the future of economics. Key quotes…..
But there is, in fact, a much greater diversity of ideas within the economics profession than is often realized. This year’s Nobel laureates in economics are two scholars whose life work explored alternative approaches. Economics has generated a wealth of [...]
The Taj Mahal of Medicine
Posted in Commerce, Community, Culture, Health Care, Nation, Public, Steve S., tagged Health care spending, lavish facilities on October 25, 2009 | 1 Comment »
As I noted in an earlier post, I have been reading more on international health care, starting with T.R. Reid’s The Healing Of America. One of the things which has struck me in my readings has been the emphasis on keeping down costs in the rest of the world. Words [...]
