Right Shop

Jan. 8th, 2009 09:42 pm
mortonfox: (create a fursona)
A geocache just two towns away in Hillsdale showed up in the listings this afternoon so I went for it at lunchtime. It was The Right Shop, located by the ShopRite supermarket. I wasn't at the top of my game this afternoon because I looked at the correct spot but didn't see the cache right away. That's okay. What matters is I found it soon enough anyway. Then I went to KFC to use another coupon from the KFC coupon book on a famous bowl.

I was a pre-beta invitee to WebNotes. The embargo has long since been lifted and I can blog about it but I was waiting for a bug fix from them. Since that fix doesn't seem to be ready, I'm mentioning it now and offering beta invites if you are interested. It is a web highlighting and annotation service that runs in a Firefox extension or from a bookmarklet.

Porn Bailout: Larry Flynt, Joe Francis Seeking Government Money

The only surprise here is in who's seeking the bailout. That there is yet another industry with hat in hand seeking bailout money is no surprise. Why? Because every bailout is a precedent for more bailouts. If you're an industry sector that hasn't received a bailout, it is in your interest to ask. What's the downside? At worst, you'll be refused. The upside is you get the money, enough to pay yourself a bonus perhaps and ride out the rest of the recession. This quote is rather telling: "Congress seems willing to help shore up our nation's most important businesses; we feel we deserve the same consideration." By that logic, why shouldn't any business head over to Washington to find its place at the public trough? Who's next? Retail? Restaurants? Travel? Utterly ridiculous.

The larger problem, in my view, is when the public starts adding up all those billions and billions of dollars in bailout money and starts questioning where it all came from. It's easy to cover up small increments in the money supply but when you see the Federal Reserve conjure up trillions of dollars out of thin air, that's when you wonder how much the money in your wallet really is worth. If confidence in the monetary system goes away, well, let's just say 2008 will look like a picnic in comparison.

Failout

Sep. 23rd, 2008 10:03 pm
mortonfox: (create a fursona)
Demonstrator holds up "Fail" sign behind Paulson and Bernanke

Fail sign behind Paulson and Bernanke


Haha! That totally made my day. Thanks to Jesse Baer for the link.

I've been hearing a lot about the $700 billion bailout today and I'm glad people are waking up to the enormity of the cost, which is about $8,000 per taxpayer. For a very long time, I've lamented that Americans appeared to be sleepwalking into oblivion as bad credit and economic distortions piled up and that the few who did talk about it were dismissed as kooks. Now I have hope that even though we'll still be on the hook for potentially $trillions in toxic mortgage paper, we'll let our legislators know how mad we are every step of the way!

People are Asking the Wrong Question (Got this link from [livejournal.com profile] the_recession)

That blog article explains why bailouts are ineffective and throw good money after bad by examining two periods in history, Hoover's 1931-1932 bailout and Japan's lost decade. It's hard to tell what will happen at the moment, but I'll go along with the Daily Reckoning folks in guessing that we're in for a Japan-style prolonged soft depression. However, there is a small chance we'll enter a hyperinflationary period if Paulson and Bernanke don't come to their senses and continue pushing for more and more monetary juice.

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Morton Fox

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