Monthly Archives: June 2010

Chapel Hill Schools: In Debt or Cutting Edge?

Posted on June 7, 2010 | 1 comment

The headline to this story is impressive.

Chapel Hill school first in world to give students iPod Touch

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Posted in Education, Politics: North Carolina, Technology

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Perspective: China Style

Posted on June 7, 2010 | Leave a comment

I suspect we’re all guilty of it.  It being the practice of seeing things ONLY from where we sit.  Of seeing things in ways that are colored by the ways we have always seen things.

I’m guilty of it all the time.

I look at people, react to people and come to conclusions based on my past experiences.  This is my perspective.

Lot’s of times it works like it should; dark alleys get avoided.

Some times it doesn’t work like it should.

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Posted in Economics, Economy, Liberty, Politics: International

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Going Green: Free Market Style

Posted on June 6, 2010 | Leave a comment

Imagine a combination of Green Peace and Ayn Rand. A sort of free market approach to protest the free market.

Got it?  Great.  Cause it makes MY head hurt.

But it would seem that’s exactly what’s going on in a restaurant in Sydney.

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Posted in Economics, Fun, Global Warming, Liberty

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Where is Solar Energy?

Posted on June 6, 2010 | 1 comment

Last week Mark Perry posted an interesting factoiod on solar energy on his blog Carpe Diem:

In the December 1974 issue of Popular Science Magazine, there was an article titled “Solar Cells: When Will You Plug Into Electricity from Sunshine?” that discussed the future of solar energy. The article predicted that by 1986 the cost per watt at peak power would be down to $0.30 ($0.60 in today’s dollars) based on projections from the National Science Foundation.

…

By 2007, solar prices were actually about $3.66 per watt (about six times higher than predicted), and were predicted in this 2008 article to fall to $2.14 per watt in 2010.

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Posted in Energy

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June 6, 2010: Chance of Recession in the Next 12 Months — 00.041%

Posted on June 5, 2010 | 2 comments

If anything has changed in the last month it’s the fact that the chance of recession reduced by 20%.  We went from the ridiculously low chance of .055% all the way down to .041%.  The only times in the last 50 years it has been this low was in 1983 for 2 consecutive months; August and September.

As for the “current” recession, NBER takes an exceptionally long time to officially declare the end, up to 24 months.  As I have been on the record as saying, I think the recession ended late May 2009; NBER won’t score it until January 2011, longer if I am wrong.

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Posted in Economics, Economy, Politics: National

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Oil in the Water: Drilling for Oil

Posted on June 4, 2010 | Leave a comment

So, who woulda thought that oil would naturally seep into the ocean?  Not me.  Ever.  For some reason I always thought that oil was deep underground and very hard to get at.  Turns out that oil really does seep into the oceans naturally.  And, by humans drilling for off shore oil we actually prevent much of that oil from entering the water.

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Posted in Energy, Politics: International, Politics: National

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Wherein Offshore Drilling Reduces Oil in the Oceans

Posted on June 4, 2010 | 11 comments

The spill in the Gulf is horrible.  The damage done to the coast, to the wildlife, to the people living there and the economy as a whole will be devastating.  Generations of small business owners will have been impacted by this before it’s over.  It may be decades before the local fisheries produce again; if they ever do.

The lives of those people living in New Orleans, just now recovering from Katrina, will be facing the headwinds of the loss of economic drivers for years.

It’s sad; jaw droppingly depressing.

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Posted in Energy, Politics: International, Politics: National

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You Had Me at “Hardly”. UNTIL…..

Posted on June 2, 2010 | 12 comments

Well, until the last 14 words.

Then ya lost me.

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Posted in Energy, Politics: National

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Millions Yanked Out of Abject Poverty

Posted on June 2, 2010 | 2 comments

And the hits just keep on coming.

It turns out that as companies fear the market responding to stories of sweatshop labor and inhumane factories, they are now preemptively taking steps to improve the lot of overseas workers.

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Posted in Economics, Economy, Politics: International

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Health Care: Mandatory Fun

Posted on June 2, 2010 | Leave a comment

More and more we’re seeing what happens when health care “reform” is enacted. It removes signals, it gets in between patients and care causing them to make poorly incented decisions.  More and more government money is thrown down a well, not only failing to fill the well, but actually making it larger.

All the while, government officials continue to use the promise of “No more homework” to get themselves elected into power.  And we just go deeper and deeper into debt.

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Posted in Economics, Health Care, Politics: International

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