Conservatives deal with facts and reach conclusions; liberals have conclusions and sell them as facts.
We have an odd family friend. Fundamentally, she is a nice person and sports a very unconventional view of the world that occasionally emotes great insights into the human condition. She has a major flaw, however, one that she admits as a character flaw: she is an unabashed hater. Despite
Continue readingGiven this blog’s recent flogging of the China versus U.S. (“us”) question, here is a primary example of how China may surpass the U.S. by becoming more business friendly as it decentralizes while the U.S. risks having to learn the lessons of socialist history all over again as our over-regulated
Continue readingHere is a financial report on USA, Inc., presented as a slide show, as developed by financial analysts. Most of us Bookworm Room aficionados know that the economic state of health of our country is not good and getting worse. It is critical, actually. Unfortunately, there are many still wedded
Continue readingToday, I told my children, who are 11 and 12, about pyramid schemes. Since it’s always easiest for me to focus on people, I started my story with the first famous American pyramid schemer: Charles Ponzi, who gave his name to the whole racket. I explained the Ponzi scheme to
Continue reading“Logic! Why don’t they teach logic at these schools?” — C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Neither Data nor Mr. Spock, two relentlessly logical creations, could ever be liberals or Democrats or Progressives, or whatever the Hell else they’re calling themselves nowadays. (For convenience, I’ll just lump
Continue readingI’ve noted before that San Francisco (consistent with Democratic-run cities and states everywhere) is terribly cash-strapped. But politics will always trump practicality. Exactly one month ago, despite the fact that the school district is pretty much broke, the Board of Education voted, not just to cut education programs quite drastically,
Continue readingIf you were wondering what Obama and the maniacal Democrats were doing, James Lewis finally puts a name to it. It’s the Great Leap Forward: Even the Europeans are resisting hyper-deficits, because Europe always has that memory of the 1920s and 30s: hyperinflation, unemployment, crushing poverty and despair, followed by
Continue readingMary Katharine Ham caught John Kerry finally admitting what Democrats fear most of all: that people will take control over their own destinies, without the elite in government dictating how their hard earned money should be spent. Perhaps if Kerry had ever held a real job and earned the money
Continue readingI’m not an economist and I don’t even play one on TV. I am a one-time history major, though, and someone with the kind of knowledge-base that’s built up over years of being an autodidact, an employee and a small business owner. While I don’t understand economics at a complex
Continue readingThe other day I was speaking with a man who commented that the proliferation of Obama bumperstickers on luxury cars (not to mention the fact that the very rich in blue communities had flocked to the Obama banner) comforted him that Obama would not destroy the US economy by trying
Continue readingI’m no economist, but I can do basic math, and I’ve watched European countries over the last 40 years. I figured out that taxing 50% of the country so that it supports the other 50% is a mistake. Adam Lerrick uses intelligent language to explain why.
Continue readingThe worst may be yet to come, but before the panic reaches an altitude from which there is no recovery, keep the following in mind (with thanks to Mike Devx, who gave me the idea). Re 1997, from Wikipedia: In financial markets, Black Monday is the name given to Monday,
Continue readingI’ve watched almost all of the debate, but it’s bedtime now, and I’ll have to save the rest for later. Three comments: 1. The first, the most obvious, and the most pressing question: How many botoxes did they kill to create that abnormally smooth, completely motionless forehead Biden was sporting?
Continue readingNormally, I’m entirely on board with the theory that “that government is best which governs least.” Normally, I fear last minute bail-outs, especially those from a Democratically-dominated Congress. But the world economy is a different animal. When thinking of it, it’s worth thinking also of Roosevelt’s warning that “the only
Continue readingI’m no Sondheim fan, but he did get the psychology of blame down well in a song from Into The Woods that has the constant refrain “It’s all your/his/her fault.” It’s human to assign blame. Sometimes, though, assigning blame is easy, and with the current economic crisis, history shows us
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