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Your arguing for something that I actually think is a good idea. Clean nuclear fuel would be ideal (see the link I posted above), but the technology isn't quite ready yet.

We already have cleaner nuclear fuel through the ability to reprocess the waste. The problem is that we have antiquated laws from the 1970s prevents us from being able to do so. Hell, we have to import our medicinal isotopes from Canada because we are not allowed to refine them here. Good read here.

That, and the problem of waste that's hazardous for 10,000 years....

You mean waste that is mostly because of stupid regulations from the late 1970s?

From the article:

France, which completely reprocesses its recyclable material, stores all the unused remains -- from 30 years of generating 75% of its electricity from nuclear energy -- beneath the floor of a single room at La Hague.

If we could actually reprocess the spent nuclear material we would end up with very little real waste.

Not sure that Cisco is such a lone cash giant as suggested. Apple has $28 billion in reserves as of Jan 22, 2009. With the recent economic fiasco, both Cisco and Apple might be in different positions.

It has more than $30 billion in cash, more than any other tech company.

Seth

I gave ten bucks to a homeless guy and he was begging again later that day. Obviously giving money to the poor doesn't help them significantly. See the logical fallacy? An example does not make something a truism.

Bad example, did you expect your $10 would get the homeless guy off the street? If someone tells you they know how to end recessions but constantly fails would you still believe them the third, forth, or fifth time?

Yeah, if only there were countries with higher standards of living an more stable economies and higher median wealth than the US. We could do what they do. Oh, wait there are such countries and they almost all implement socialist programs you are claiming don't work.

You seem to think that everyone needs to be pretty much equal which guarantees that a precious few will be spectacular.

Tax cuts haven't worked in practice and credible economist will tell you there isn't even a viable theory as to how that would work. Trickle down economics has failed. The biggest proponents among economist, even die hards like Greenspan, have abandoned it. The wealth has consolidated at the top and it isn't trickling back down. The only people still advocating that nonsense are paid publications trying to provide PR materials for policies no reputable economist will touch.

Hyperbole, any Austrian or Chicago School economist would bristle at your claims. These are the guys who actually predicted this bubble popping. Something the Keynesians didn't see coming until the train had already run over us.

Yeah, reducing regulations has helped a lot too. It results in businesses that pass on a lot of the costs of their doing business to the rest of society.

Government grew by 50% during the past eight years. Tell me again where this gigantic retreat of government was?

Our tax dollars funded the research and equipment that was the internet. Our tax dollars funded the universities who expanded it and built the software to make it useful.

The Internet was funded by DARPA. I think few people will say that defense is not a legitimate function of government.

Government spending can and does create more jobs and bring more growth to the economy than the same money spent by the private sector. It doesn't always. The spending has to be carefully picked for that purpose, but it certainly can and has done so in the past.

If this were true Germany and socialist command and control economies would be the largest economic powerhouse in the world. Relatively free Switzerland runs rings around Germany. How do you explain this contradiction?

That's the problem. The playing field is not fair.

I think what the GP meant by "fair" was that government should prevent injustice (i.e. violence), promote liberty, and precious little else.

We'd like to think our economy is a meritocracy, but it isn't. Wealth is mostly transferred by inheritance and with our current tax policies pretty much every economic model predicts wealth will continue to consolidate into fewer hands, the middle class will shrink, and the lower class will grow.

I assume you're quoting Krugman.
http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2008/01/14/the-decline-of-inherited-money/

I can go on and go into detail, but I think a lot of people here don't have much of a grasp on economics.

Slashdot is all about learning new stuff. You should have considered going into a lot more detail. :-)

The problem is the money is too inequitably distributed (just like during the great depression) and this leads to a volatile stock market and overall loss of wealth as it is lost during the transfer process (e.g. empty houses lo

http://www.whywork.org/

See especially:
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html
"Work is the source of nearly all the misery in the world. Almost any evil you'd care to name comes from working or from living in a world designed for work. In order to stop suffering, we have to stop working. That doesn't mean we have to stop doing things. It does mean creating a new way of life based on play; in other words, a ludic revolution. By "play" I mean also festivity, creativity, conviviality, commensality, and maybe even art. There is more to play than child's play, as worthy as that is. I call for a collective adventure in generalized joy and freely interdependent exuberance. Play isn't passive. Doubtless we all need a lot more time for sheer sloth and slack than we ever enjoy now, regardless of income or occupation, but once recovered from employment-induced exhaustion nearly all of us want to act."

See also:
http://www.smallisbeautiful.org/buddhist_economics/english.html
"The Buddhist point of view takes the function of work to be at least threefold: to give man a chance to utilise and develop his faculties; to enable him to overcome his ego-centredness by joining with other people in a common task; and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming existence. Again, the consequences that flow from this view are endless. To organise work in such a manner that it becomes meaningless, boring, stultifying, or nerve-racking for the worker would be little short of criminal; it would indicate a greater concern with goods than with people, an evil lack of compassion and a soul-destroying degree of attachment to the most primitive side of this worldly existence. Equally, to strive for leisure as an alternative to work would be considered a complete misunderstanding of one of the basic truths of human existence, namely that work and leisure are complementary parts of the same living process and cannot be separated without destroying the joy of work and the bliss of leisure."

On the other hand:
"Blame It on Mr. Rogers: Why Young Adults Feel So Entitled"
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118358476840657463.html
And, extending that theme:
"Blame the Bailouts on Mister Rogers?"
http://emac.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2008/12/12/blame-the-crisis-on-mister-rogers/

Maybe there are deeper issues here on all sides? From:
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/72330a22bcae8928?

Consider who could pay for food or water (or copyrighted content or patented
processes) in thirty years, if robotics continues to develop just at the
current rate over the last thirty years.

Check out clerks?
"Your supermarket cashier may not know a kiwano from a tamarillo, but
Veggie Vision does."
http://domino.watson.ibm.com/comm/wwwr_thinkresearch.nsf/pages/machin...

Cab drivers?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge

Heart Surgeons?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuitive_Surgical

Airline pilots?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopilot

Nurses?
"Robot nurse escorts and schmoozes the elderly"

Go fuck yourself, you deliberately ignorant mouth-breathing moron. Bush didn't "allow it", Bush TRIED TO STOP IT.

Here's the problem, reported by the Washington Post in 2004:

Report Slams Fannie Mae
Fannie Mae, the giant mortgage finance company, has used improper accounting methods that raise serious questions about the quality of its management and the validity of its financial reports, government regulators reported yesterday.

Though it didn't quantify the effect of what it called pervasive misapplication of accounting rules on the company's books, the report by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight cited one instance in 1998 where the company inappropriately deferred $200 million of estimated expenses, which enabled management to receive full annual bonuses. Had Fannie recorded the expenses in 1998, no bonus would have been paid, the report said.

The report also detailed numerous transactions over several years where it said Fannie Mae management intentionally smoothed out gyrations in its earnings to show investors it was a low-risk company. Fannie "maintained a corporate culture that emphasized stable earnings at the expense of accurate financial disclosures," regulators said in a letter to the company.

Here's who put a stop to the stopping:

Video of DEMOCRATS covering for those problems reported above.

Here's a list of some of those DEMOCRATS:

Maxine Waters: Through nearly a dozen hearings, we were frankly trying to fix something that wasnâ(TM)t broke. Mr. Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and particularly at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Franklin Raines.

Gregory Meeks: ⦠I'm just pissed off at OFHEO [the regulators trying to warn Congress of insolvency at the GSEs], because if it wasn't for you, I don't think we'd be here in the first place. ... There's been nothing that indicated that's wrong with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac has come up on its own ... The question that then comes up is the competence that your agency has with reference to deciding and regulating these GSEs.

Lacy Clay: This hearing is about the political lynching of Franklin Raines.

Barney Frank: I don't see anything in this report that raises safety and soundness problems.

Maxine Waters? Hmmm, could she be a CROOK?

Waters Helped Bank Whose Stock She Once Owned

WASHINGTON -- When Rep. Barney Frank was looking to aid a Boston-based lender last fall, the Massachusetts Democrat urged Maxine Waters, a colleague on the House Financial Services Committee, to "stay out of it," he says.

The reason: Ms. Waters, a longtime congresswoman from California, had close ties to the minority-owned institution, OneUnited Bank.

Ms. Waters and her husband have both held financial stakes in the bank. Until recently, her husband was a director. At the same time, Ms. Waters has publicly boosted OneUnited's executives and criticized its government regulators during congressional hearings. Last fall, she helped secure the bank a meeting with Treasury officials.

Barney Frank?

Media Mum on Barney Frank's Fannie Mae Love Connection

Prominent Democrats ran Fannie Mae, the same government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) that donated campaign cash to top Democrats. And one of Fannie Mae's main defenders in the House - Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., a recipient of more than $40,000 in campaign donations from Fan

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/02/13/pennsylvania-judges-plead-guilty-in-juvenile-center-kickback-scheme/

"Once in a while, a story comes along that defies intellectual discussion or debate and just sort of slugs you right in the solar-plexus.

Such is the case with this story that broke yesterday out in Scranton, Pa., where two judges pleaded guilty to operating a kickback scheme involving juvenile offenders. The allegations: the judges, Mark Ciavarella Jr. and Michael Conahan, took more than $2.6 million in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers. "

I'm sure someone will get paid big bucks to make a solution, but it sure sounds like space debris is quickly becoming a problem. Maybe it's just coincidence, though.

Just clean it up with water. What could be easier?

TechDirt stole the story from the Wall Street Journal, which provided a much lengthier discussion and analysis.

Breaking Apple's Grip on the iPhone

Just a day or so ago, Cydia (the awesome package manager for jailbroken iPhones used by reportedly more than 2million iPhones) launched a new app store of its own.

There have always been paid apps for jailbroken phones, but usually they would require you to go to the developer's or another web site to purchase the app. Now however, it appears that not only can you write apps that have full access to the device and without censorship, you can also use the Cydia store for a seamless shopping experience.

The Wall Street Journal and others have more information.

Granted, this doesn't give you exposure in the App store and there are issues with dealing with jailbreaking your phone, but it does provide iPhone developers and users with a choice.

Cydia's appstore makes a rather well timed appearance.
That, having a special product with a high utility for customers, an excellent manager and a high rate of innovation almost puts it on par with the Worlds top business outlets.
My admiration for Saurik's work. Respect!

I wouldn't be surprised if the cable/satellite companies and local broadcasters are pressuring the national networks, as they have the most to lose from Internet-streaming set top boxes.

Local broadcasters don't have enormous profit margins. They're hurting right now, and if ten percent of their market decide to stream Hulu to their TV, it could mean bankruptcy for many smaller providers. NBC and Fox have done the math; they don't want to lose the majority of their audience (who still watch whatever's on the tube) just to make a minority (who've learned about this whiz-bang Internet thingy) happy.

Cable and satellite companies, of course, have tremendous influence over the networks as well, as they provide the majority of the audience these days. They also have a history of doing whatever it takes to prevent competition and sweeten their contracts with the networks. If NBC has to choose between Comcast and Hulu, they'll pick the one that has 25 million paying subscribers. Hint: It's not Hulu...

Honestly, I don't think this is really about Boxee at all. I think it's just an attempt to set precedent. Lots of people are scared to death of a box that lets people watch whatever they want, whenever they want, with no monthly fee (beyond their broadband service). End distributors (local networks, cable companies) are afraid of the competition. Networks are afraid of losing their position as the gatekeepers of content, as the Internet makes it far easier for content creators (the individual production companies) to deal directly with the "distributors" (YouTube, etc).

So the networks have to walk a very fine line here. On the one hand, they can't afford to anger (or bankrupt) their current distributors. On the other, they can't afford to lose their dominance, even as people start switching to Internet-based services.

As a result, the networks seem to be taking a cautious approach: They work to popularize their own online services, like Hulu, in hopes of transferring their content oligopoly to the online world, but they avoid direct competition with their major distribution methods.

I'd wager that if streaming ever reaches a "saturation point", where everybody is watching TV on their computer and the market seems ready to switch, the networks will release some ordained "magic box" which streams their content (and maintains their control over the content market), and happily give their old distributors the metaphoric finger.

Or, if one large content owner makes a big push for streaming set top boxes, expect the rest to follow suit fairly quickly.

Until one of those occurs, though, expect more of the status quo. To use an analogy that describes technology adoption by most large industries: Nobody wants to be the only one in the pool, but they definitely don't want to be the only one out of the pool. They may all decide to jump in together, but if one decides to jump in now, the rest will follow.

There was no debate. As the Wall Street Journal (and numerous other publications) points out, a group of beurocrats with their own and their party's interests in mind sat down and negotiated the bill.

"The final terms of a stimulus plan will be hammered out by a conference among House and Senate leaders, who will bargain over how to reconcile competing Senate and House versions of the plan."

They chose a very appropriate word there. "Bargain." We no longer debate. We bargain.

As for the rest of congress -- Like I said, there was not a final draft of the bill available until less than 24 hours before the voting took place. And I didn't say this was limited to Republicans. I said "the whole of the house."

Regardless, even if every representative could have gotten a copy of the bill to review, you're being quite unrealistic to state that simply having staffers is enough to read, research and comprehend 1100 pages of law and all of the associated bills referenced within in less than 24 hours. Let alone debate it in any publicly visible forum.

The only so-called "debate" that you could possibly be inferring is the media's vague talking points on the bill. But even then the media spent most of it's time on biased opinion-presented-as-journalism nonsense. The leftist media praising the bill and calling the right idiots for questioning anything about it, and the right media playing along, focusing on the name calling and "those evil Democrats."

The reality is that the last thing any of the House and Senate leaders want is debate. Debate just gets in the way of "bypartisianship" laws chock full of goodies that can bragged about on the pulpit next election cycle. The economic downturn was simply a great opportunity to use FUD as an excuse to rush through billions in spending without review.

Cynical? Sure. But that is the state of things and anyone not blinded by party bias can see that.

And for what it's worth, stop playing and feeding the damn blame game. This isn't about Democrats vs Republicans. It's about our government out of control, government involvement being largely responsible for the mess we're in, and more government being far, far from an appropriate or effective solution.

Read the bill in its final form here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/ARRA_public_review/

While I like the idea of reinforcing what works and discouraging what doesn't, the fact is, this is a federal study, and likely the well-intentioned results will be some government panel or body controlling what doctors can and cannot do, regardless of the patient's circumstances, all in the name of "science" and "efficiency".

I think you're confusing "federal studies" with "federally funded studies".
The reality is that most trials are done by pharmaceutical companies and not impartial non-government organizations.

You can call the status quo a success, if you want the winners to be big pharma's profit margin. Unfortunately, big pharma has one goal: to get the next blockbuster drug (or variation of a previous one) approved by the FDA. Personally, I can't help but observe that the 'free' market has obviously failed "we the people" because there is no incentive for private companies to transparently share their negative results or to conduct tests showing the relative merits of new (expensive) treatements vs out-of-patent (generic, cheap) treatments.

Here's two articles, which just happen to have been written today, that highlight exactly what I'm talking about:
http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2009/03/01/Seroquel_maker_denies_hiding_side_effects/UPI-17851235928556/
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/02/26/another-drug-company-accused-of-hiding-negative-study-results/

Just because an article was written to refute my points doesn't invalidate them. And the article was about what one person said or didn't say, and what one journalist did, or didn't, interpret those comments to be. Sorry if being a bit more broad in my analysis than the dick waving between a journalist and a self-styled expert has irritated you in some fashion. The iPhone's market share in Japan supports my assertion better than all the articles thus far submitted -- and my source is a bit less biased than "Apple Insider"... citation.

Well, for starters, autoworkers union != bank executives. The two situations aren't even similar. On one hand, you have a union that's doing nothing more than bleeding a corporation dry. On the other, you have a situation where the free market should really be determining things like salaries and bonuses*.

The auto workers negotiated in just as much a free market as those bank executives did. SO they are the same in that regard.

Truth be told, it would be better for the US Automakers if they went bankrupt. That would dissolve all union contracts, forcing them to restructure. While there are certainly other factors like demand and quality, the benefits alone received by members of the UAW make it almost impossible for American car companies to compete with non-union car manufacturers in the US.

While it may be better if US auto manufacturers did go bankrupt, you're either discounting, ignoring, or don't know something. Even foreign auto makers what Detroit bailed out, "Why Toyota wants GM to be saved". This is because of the reason mentioned above, they all depend on the same suppliers. If Chrysler goes bankrupt it's suppliers, who also supply Japanese makers in the US may go bankrupt as well. Secondly those foreign owned factories received a lot of government subsidies. State governments have given out billions in subsidies. "Alabama offered a stunning $253 million incentive package to Mercedes ." And one of Alabama's senators, Sen. Richard Shelby was one of those who opposed bailing out US auto companies.

Its great when a company can afford to treat their people well, but when they can't, something's gotta give. Unfortunately, the UAW doesn't see it that way.

Neither do company executives. Even Carl Icahn says executive pay needs to change.

Falcon

Yeah, damn that "Slashdot culture" and it's culture-specific bias.

If the courts have good evidence that the defendant has hidden funds, there are ways to pressure disclosure. I imagine this would particularly be the case for a habitual offender. Here's an article about some of the more severe uses of such power: civil contempt

The hallmark of a mercantile nation is hoarding.

You're using "mercantile nation" differently than others do. For instance Dictionary.com says "2. engaged in trade or commerce: a mercantile nation."

if China were really trading fairly

China doesn't trade fairly, that I admit. If China wanted to trade fairly then they'd have to let the market set the price of yuan or the Chinese Renminbi. But instead the government does.

she would be spending that money around the globe and those dollars would ultimately work their way back to the US economy.

China does spend, er invest, that money throughout the world. For instance "China to invest in Brazil oil". China is one of the biggest investors in Africa. It's because of China that there hasn't been a solution in the Sudan before, but the Chinese are pushing for peace now.

those "New Deal" era reforms made by Roosevelt that were successful

Some economists believe FDRs reforms prolonged the Great Depression as I've said elsewhere. Here's what the Wall Street Journal has to say about "How Government Prolonged the Depression". The protectionist Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, enacted in 1930, may of made it worse.

Obviously, all taxes are bad in some theoretical sense, but if you were going to tax -effectively-, and raise revenue to do what it is that governments do, then, the things to tax would be hoards. Capital Gains taxes are the -worst- form of taxes because they encourage hoarding. On the other hand, sales taxes are pretty terrible too because they discourage spending, and that ultimately lowers the velocity of money.

Depending on how you look at it taxing something but not another may be bad, or visa versa. Taxing investments drives money away from investments, and taxing spending drives money away from spending. However not enough people in the US invest enough, too many people have been living beyond their means since at least the 1990s. That stimulus package passed in early 2008, where rebates were mailed out to tax payers, failed because many people used it to pay off debt instead of spending it. If they had spent it though then they would of had more debt. Damn if I do and damn if I don't. About the only thing I can see working is to reduce government spending so taxes can be lowered if not eliminated. Reduce the size of government and use user fees for those things government does mean to provide, like roads.

Falcon

Oh wow, guess I should have kept reading. The previous articles are from: LA times, Reuters, Christian Science Monitor, the fucking Voice of America. This is in order, motherfucker! Wall Street Journal, and Newsweek! Not one fucking article that wasn't written by an old school media outlet!

Independent journalism my ass.

LinkedIn shows to potential employers the professionals you know, which is valuable information to them.

This is proving particularly valuable for employers looking at former Bush administration officials. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123518630430139343.html

News organizations need to differentiate themselves and then people will be willing to pay. The Wall Street Journal web site has thrived a a for pay site. But it provides value to people. So much free news isn't particularly well written or investigative. An article about this was just posted at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123534987719744781.html which sums up the argument for paying for quality information.

You get 75 irony points for linking to a non-pay WSJ article.

News organizations need to differentiate themselves and then people will be willing to pay. The Wall Street Journal web site has thrived a a for pay site. But it provides value to people. So much free news isn't particularly well written or investigative. An article about this was just posted at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123534987719744781.html which sums up the argument for paying for quality information.

You can find a picture here.

You can find the entire email here.

Ever heard of the New Deal? It, not World War II, brought us out of the Great Depression.

Citation needed to back this statement up. Some economists have concluded the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression, and I'll back that up with some citations:

• "How Government Prolonged the Depression"
• "New Deal or Raw Deal?: How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America"
• "New Deal or raw deal?"
• "FDR's policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate"

There's more from where those came from.

Falcon

I had thought that Starter was only going to be for undeveloped markets, but after that post I did a quick google and found this.

I'm going to research this a little more when I have time, but either the "Starter Edition" is actually going to be used in developed countries as an upsell opportunity, or there's a hell of a lot of confusion about this. Right now though, I'm thinking maybe the idea of using it for upsells seems plausible though....

Few hundred dollars? Doing it all yourself? Yes, absolutely, it is possible, but nobody would want to listen that crap which you put out. I can absolutely guarantee that to you with 100% of probability.

I like 100% probability...it's so easy to refute. - Although I don't know for sure, I expect that this setup was around the price tag I'm talking about:
In late 2006, Justin Vernon, a musician in Eau Claire, Wis., recorded nine songs while staying at his parents' hunting cabin in northern Wisconsin after a breakup with a girlfriend and his long-time band. He used just a desktop computer with recording software, a three-piece drum set and a guitar.
...and he went on to play sold-out shows within a couple of years, selling over 87,000 copies* (source)

*Now before you panic, I'm going to guess that when he signed with a record company they probably went back to the studio. But that's not the point. The point is that it is quite possible to do initial runs on a very limited budget. Grow your audience and fan base, and if the fans are there, you'll make money and then you can afford to spend more on recording.
The point I was trying to make was that once upon a time it took a multimillion dollar studio to get anything at all ... now you can record for a few hundred or a few thousand, and this puts the recording price-tag into the realm of feasible for new artists. Logically therefore, it removes this need for the recording industry to exist.

Are Radiohead and NineInchNails big enough?
Oh wait, I know your response: the recording industry made them famous first, so now they don't need them, so they're not valid examples.
Ok, what about this guy or this guy or these guys or the $4.2million guy.

Don't confuse the record labels mass market hits which you've heard of with bands and artists that are doing quite well without them.
Just to be clear, I'd never heard of Blake Shelton but that doesn't mean he isn't making gobs of money for the record companies, so don't presume that just because you've never heard of these people that they are not popular, and more importantly that they can't make a living without the recording industry.

And that the states each use different voting machine setups, each with their own error rates.

And the sheer logistics of trying to do a "national" recount - look at the amount of vote fraud pulled by the Franken camp in Minnesota - 25 counties that now show more votes than voters, selective recounting of Dem-heavy districts, fraud trying to "certify" the election even while significant challenges existed and some counties hadn't even finished their processes yet... now imagine trying to nationally recount the "national popular vote" while dealing with the fact that every state (and in some states, even different counties) have different counting standards, different voting machinery with higher or lower error rates...

And before some moron screams that I'm "lying" about the Franken thing: Wall Street Journal article on it.

I smell a rat. Its name is Franken.

Even if it does have more oversight then the bank bailout it will not stimulate anything, because most of the spending will likely take place after the economy has recovered. However, if you take it on face value that it will stimulate it will not stimulate the correct sectors of the economy. A large amount of the money will go to industries that currently have an unemployment of around 3%. Quote from WSJ:

"The December unemployment rate was only 2.3% for government workers
and 3.8% in education and health. Unemployment rates in manufacturing
and construction, by contrast, were 8.3% and 15.2% respectively. Yet
39% of the $550 billion in the bill would go to state and local
governments. Another 17.3% would go to health and education -- sectors
where relatively secure government jobs are also prevalent. If the
intent of the plan is to alleviate unemployment, why spend over half
of the money on sectors where unemployment is lowest?"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123310498020322323.html
(don't take the guy's math about the cost of job creation too seriously though it's faulty logic).

The way I see it is we already have more employees working for the government then in the manufacturing sector we don't need more government spending and we sure don't need any more government employees. By the way here's a couple of more good articles on the stimulus bill:

This one is from when they were only talking about $350 million in spending: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123292987008414041.html

This one is on government spending in general:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123258618204604599.html

Even if it does have more oversight then the bank bailout it will not stimulate anything, because most of the spending will likely take place after the economy has recovered. However, if you take it on face value that it will stimulate it will not stimulate the correct sectors of the economy. A large amount of the money will go to industries that currently have an unemployment of around 3%. Quote from WSJ:

"The December unemployment rate was only 2.3% for government workers
and 3.8% in education and health. Unemployment rates in manufacturing
and construction, by contrast, were 8.3% and 15.2% respectively. Yet
39% of the $550 billion in the bill would go to state and local
governments. Another 17.3% would go to health and education -- sectors
where relatively secure government jobs are also prevalent. If the
intent of the plan is to alleviate unemployment, why spend over half
of the money on sectors where unemployment is lowest?"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123310498020322323.html
(don't take the guy's math about the cost of job creation too seriously though it's faulty logic).

The way I see it is we already have more employees working for the government then in the manufacturing sector we don't need more government spending and we sure don't need any more government employees. By the way here's a couple of more good articles on the stimulus bill:

This one is from when they were only talking about $350 million in spending: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123292987008414041.html

This one is on government spending in general:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123258618204604599.html

Even if it does have more oversight then the bank bailout it will not stimulate anything, because most of the spending will likely take place after the economy has recovered. However, if you take it on face value that it will stimulate it will not stimulate the correct sectors of the economy. A large amount of the money will go to industries that currently have an unemployment of around 3%. Quote from WSJ:

"The December unemployment rate was only 2.3% for government workers
and 3.8% in education and health. Unemployment rates in manufacturing
and construction, by contrast, were 8.3% and 15.2% respectively. Yet
39% of the $550 billion in the bill would go to state and local
governments. Another 17.3% would go to health and education -- sectors
where relatively secure government jobs are also prevalent. If the
intent of the plan is to alleviate unemployment, why spend over half
of the money on sectors where unemployment is lowest?"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123310498020322323.html
(don't take the guy's math about the cost of job creation too seriously though it's faulty logic).

The way I see it is we already have more employees working for the government then in the manufacturing sector we don't need more government spending and we sure don't need any more government employees. By the way here's a couple of more good articles on the stimulus bill:

This one is from when they were only talking about $350 million in spending: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123292987008414041.html

This one is on government spending in general:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123258618204604599.html

I'm at work and a bit lazy..just went for the first hits I could get when googling the topics, which I heard on various tv news stations last night and this morning.

But indeed....a mandated electronic medical record system, that is accessible and controlled by the feds? Well, I think anyone can see the possibilities for abuse. Heck, I'm not thrilled with their other databases they have on people, like the no fly lists, and the soon to come RealID databases. Add that all in with total medical history, and govt. healthcare and voila....

Look into the writings of the guy they wanted to BE in charge of health care, Tom Daschle. He's made statements "In my book, Critical: What We Can Do About the American Health-Care Crisis, I have proposed a Federal Health Board that would be a foundation from which we could address all three problems. In many ways, the Federal Health Board would resemble our current Federal Reserve Board for the banking industry."

Yeah, I think we've ALL see the great work the Fed has done with banking and all today, eh?

Again, from the guy that was to design the new healthcare system said "The decisions made by the Federal Health Board would be tough." but would be better than what we have. What are these TOUGH decisions they're gonna have to make? Rationing? Well according to this blurb "Perhaps most importantly, the Board would assess the effectiveness and costs of various treatments. He stops short of saying the U.S. should have a U.K.-style, hard-and-fast rule on cost-effectiveness. But he does say the U.S. "won't be able to make a significant dent in health-care spending without getting into the nitty-gritty of which treatments are the most clinically valuable and cost effective." his plan certainly sounds like the decisions of this board can overrule a local Dr's treatment decisions. We humans,despite looking a great deal alike, are VERY different, and a one size fits all tx regiment kinda scares me.

I"m also not thrilled with a committee deciding if I'm too old to get a particular treatment.

Sure, the medical record and collections thing looks pretty innocent as is stated in the bill, but, if you look at him wanting Tom in there to reform medical care, his beliefs, and all...no, I don't think it is much of a stretch to see what this might be laying the groundwork for...

Way to make it personal, asshole. I'm a college student so I can get away with charging 20 bucks an hour undercutting everyone else (high gas prices and an outdated website, you see; the website does no selling for me) and it's still a reasonable amount of money considering my expenses -- and I'm really good at what I do, if my continued referrals mean anything.

Discarding the politics of personal destruction and returning to the issues, it's silly of you to assert that only Democrats have dissonance within their ranks. There are many varied viewpoints in the Republican party, from the wacky (and IMO quite stupid) Creationists to the pro-abortion, pro-gay-marriage Giuliani conservatives to the corrupt idiots like Ted Stevens who I'm happy to see go. People like me consider the Ted Stevenses and the Arlen Specters and the Olympia Snowes (the latter two of which supported this pork-laden stimulus package in the Senate) to be, as you say, wolves in sheeps' clothing.

And unfortunately, Barack was pitched to us as a messenger from fairy land sent to save us all, that he would magically make everything better. He can't even instill his own purported values of transparency, freedom of information and clean government in his own party members despite his sweeping election. There is no hope for them; indeed, I think they've started to rub off on him -- there are no pork or earmarks in the stimulus bill, but there are special spending projects and shovel-ready construction projects and countless other Democrat special projects that just can't wait to garner Democrat votes with government dollars.

Democrats NEVER hide unnecessary spending or unrelated projects in omnibus spending bills. They're for responsible government, remember?

Change! Transparency!

"The Chicago School say that Gov't Won't Help"

Please also make the distinction between the editorial and the reporting parts of the WSJ - they're entirely separate operations and sometimes disagree fundamentally, e.g. on climate change.

Unfortunately I don't have such a choice now, I rent an apartment.

Do the research, if you can make it make financial sense(remember, it'd be a deductible expense!), talk with your landlord. They might do it.

If carbon emissions were taxed alternative energy wouldn't look as expensive. And there are no clean coal plants in commercial production, what plants there are are for research.

Pretty much my point. Except that, in the sense of a 'carbon tax', nuclear power is lumped in right along with wind, solar, tidal, etc... Oh, and when have I expressed anything but disdain for coal power? I want to get rid of it! Mountaintop mining is another form of nasty pollution in my mind.

Even then though I doubt nuclear power would be profitable without subsidies.

I'm trying to remember, did you ever post a link showing just how much nuclear power is subsidized? Bonus points if it shows coal or nuclear above wind/solar per kwh.

All I have is a Wall street journal article:

$29.91 'clean coal' per mwh (megawatt hour)
$24.34 solar
$23.37 wind
$1.59 nuclear .67 hydroelectric .44 normal coal .25 Natural Gas

Yes, engineering always needs to be done but they are not being subsidized at the same amount as coal or nuclear. They may have but I doubt either First Solar or Nanosolar received subsidies directly. You could say Germany's Nanosolar order is one, and it might be, but I don't think of it so much as a subsidy anymore than first adopters subsidize research and development.

Germany forces the electric companies to pay something like 10X what they normally pay for every kwh of solar energy sold on the grid; I'd tend to say that's a subsidy. And it doesn't matter if the company making the solar panel doesn't get the subsidy if every customer who buys their product gets one. BTW, your first solar and nanosolar links go to the same spot.

Still - Nanosolar gets government subsidies - "Nanosolar in 2006 announced a $75 million Series C round, which it claimed amounted to $100 million when combined with government subsidies." and "Nanosolar already has secured a subsidy for 50 percent of the capital expenses of building the German facility." 50% capex subsidy

First solar? Well, the first page of google reveals less, but they still seem dependent upon german subsidies.

Again, I'm not opposed to wind/solar/whatever where they make the most sense. I just think we should put some money down on actually building a few plants. Odds are they'll prove their worth over an estimated 60+ year lifespan, even if wind/solar end up being a bigger chunk of the final answer.

According to WSJ, "thereâ(TM)s a three-application limit on the starter edition of Windows Vista, Microsoftâ(TM)s current installment of Windows, but that product is only sold in emerging markets".

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/02/06/microsofts-plan-to-upsell-windows-7/

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2009/feb09/02-03Win7SKU-QA.mspx

If MS really does this, they might as ship windows with a big icon on the middle of the screen that take people to apple Switch site. Perhaps they can demo the multimedia functions with a "I'm a Mac" commercial in Quicktime. People just need one more reason to switch.

Really as if the proliferation of windows versions weren't bad enough. This makes the major desktop versions of linux look easier to decipher.

Are you trying to claim that those 7.6%...are so important we should spend a trillion dollars we don't have to make them happy?

First of all, a better measure of unemployment puts it at 13.9%. Yes, that is 14 out of 100 people who are recently unemployed, long unemployed, or for all intents and purposes unemployed.

Second, read a little about a deflationary cycle. There are good reasons why economists who looked at the current situation have universally shit their pants.

Third, stop thinking you are doing other people a favor. You are doing yourself a favor. There are a hundred ways that this situation can bite your ass if it isn't brought under control. And I guarantee you will be singing a different tune then.

But it *did* work for us in the 40's.

No, it didn't. Each dollar spent on the war returned $0.80 in GDP.

apparently magic pixies will simply drop the new schools out of the sky in exchange for our money.

And apparently, magic pixies will simply open up their checkbooks and give you trillions of dollars in taxes, too.

Maybe I'm different than the rest of you, but if I worked for it, I would like to keep it. I'm sick of being taxed out of 50% of everything I earn, so that it can be given to someone who doesn't deserve it.

Don't believe me?

Remember: Your taxes are more than income tax.

Here are some other things you are taxed on: Gasoline. Food. Clothing. Property. Investments. Cigarettes. Beer and Wine. TVs. Cars. Telecom taxes.

An interesting exercise is to take all of your spending for a month, and break it all down into taxes and non-taxes. You'll crap yourself, I promise.

We're getting raped enough with the taxes. Much like the schools, the government has more than enough money. The problem is a lack of accountability and wasteful spending - neither of which you are getting with the new administration.

Oh, don't get me wrong. You didn't have it with the last administration either. I'm not playing sides here, I'm just pointing it out.

More spending is going to help in any case. Neither will socialism - and make no mistake about it, America is no longer a capitalist nation. That era is now over, thanks to Congress.

From the article:
How Sony inadvertently helped a competitor and lost position in the videogame market.

Read here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123069467545545011.html

Enjoy,

You can add that people are also paying attention to the excuses that the new head of the IRS gave about his inability to pay taxes.

Add Daschel to the list.

Seems to me, we should let Obama keep choosing his cabinet ... we'll have that nasty debt paid off in no time.

Thanks, congress.

Now, go RTFA...

This is neat technology, and may some day be practical. But, i don't think that day is coming for 50-100 years.

Here's why : solar is getting cheap very rapidly. Today, you can pick up panels at $2.85 a watt off the shelf. Below $1 a watt, and it will be cheaper to put panels up than it will be to burn coal.

A fusion-fission hybrid system will cost a LOT. According to the wall street journal, nuclear fission plants are already deal-breaker expensive. It would be cheaper per watt to build more wind farms than new fission reactors. http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/05/12/its-the-economics-stupid-nuclear-powers-bogeyman/

Another way to look at it :

                To operate a fusion-fission hybrid system, as well as dozens of large gigawatt fission reactors takes a lot of well trained and educated people working round the clock to make all of the technology work. There are very real dangers, and very expensive regulations that have to be followed.

              To build more solar panels? You print some more off the reel and slap them on to glass. You park the panels in the desert and leave them alone for 25 years. Maybe a simple robot wipes them off occasionally.

              There's no liability, or need for exhaustive quality control. If a panel fails prematurely, you pay a warranty claim.

            Inherently, solar is going to always be cheaper for the foreseeable future.

They're just waiting for the new and improved telco bailout 2009. The latest offering is a 6 billion high speed Internet grant program. Why should comcast, or any big telco for that matter, spend money when the government will just give them handouts.

These companies have experience with this. They have already gotten away with a 200 billion broadband scandal without penalty for failure to deliver on their promises. Give crappy service and they get handed free money - what a great idea.