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Friedman and Zakaria are two of my favorite journalists/authors and they have written a pair of editorials that are definitely worth sharing.

Both editorials focus on the challenges we face as a nation and what we may see in the future. If you don’t read anything else today you should read these - and if you feel so inclined, let me know what you think.

The Rise of the Rest - Fareed Zakaria via Newsweek

Who Will Tell the People - Thomas Friedman via NY Times

In an influential 1932 essay, Lionel Robbins defined economics as “the science which studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses.” (from Wikipedia)

I read a fascinating article about our current economic “woes” and it turns out fear is more of a factor than short supply. Simply because we desire them more they become more “scarce” causing the price to rise exponentially.

Congress and the White House have tried to help out our economy by giving creating an economic stimulus package that should hit most of our bank accounts within the next week. This was hardly the correct solution as our problems were created, in part at least,.by an economy that went from a traditional supply and demand model to one of scarcity. There has been quite a bit of fighting between the parties and the branches in an attempt to play the blame game. This year is charged with politics and I can see both sides using any fodder available to put their party into a more favorable light.

Gas prices have risen greatly in the past year because we have placed an increasing amount of desire for the fuel to keep our lives normal. We have placed a priority on fuel and as such we’ve seen the prices rise through the roof. Supply has dropped by a small amount but speculation has lead to dramatic price increases. I wrote about somebody talking about the futures market a few months ago talking about the rising price of oil - he couldn’t see the logic in the market. I don’t think there was any logic - we’re seeing a market that is being driven by fear. Fear is anything but rational. It is a reactionary impulse that causes us to hoard and make quick judgments. We fail to completely think through the problem.

The media fails to help our situation as they feed us with line after line of diatribe causing us to grow increasingly more paranoid about the situation. Its a shame that there little wrong to begin with. A state news organization is not the correct direction to head but we should ask more from the media. Sure, they’re in a business and they’re going to try and drive a profitable and addictive story that will keep readers and listeners coming back, but, they’ve got to show a little more responsibility.

Yes, there are more factors involved than a scarcity economy and yes - this is part socialism and economics but its probably the root of current ill. It’s a shame there isn’t much we can do about it.

read more | digg story

If you’ve been paying attention - we’re paying more for many of the things that we use daily. The rising cost of oil impacts the cost of transportation, consumer goods, and food. Companies are trying to cut costs wherever possible while trying to retain the most talented and hardworking individuals. Some would blame the war for our economy that is in a downturn. Everything is linked - I read a few articles and found myself hitting CTRL-B five times and I thought it was worth sharing. Each is tied to the other; lets hope that I can explain what I mean.

According to recent polls many Americans have stated that they have felt that it has been much harder to “get ahead.” Our standards of “ahead” have changed since the days when my father was growing up in the 60’s. I’m going to guess that getting an education, having shelter, a good family life, and something (anything except mustard greens) to eat. Times were tough but if you were to persevere you could make a better life for the next generation and hopefully yourself in the process. Now we demand consumer goods as a measure of how well we are doing. Measures of American success include an car (or two), a house, high speed internet, and cable TV. Without these things many believe that they are failing in the race to get ahead. We’re demanding more than ever while overlooking the basics. I’m going to go out on a limb but maybe we should be looking for a little less - check out the full text at the Washington Post.

Some who claim they are having trouble would point the finger at the ever rising costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the increasing price of gasoline. While the cost of the war far exceeds most if not all of the original estimates we’ve paid for most of it with credit. Its been added to our national debt and will probably remain for years to come - the price of oil is increasing rapidly due to increased consumption in America and in south east Asia in places like China and India. Companies outside of OPEC control have made few if any significant discoveries in recent years. It takes a considerable amount of time to find a sizable cache of carbon deposits, negotiate drilling rights, and remove them for refining and delivery. Simply put, even if there are reserves available we may not find them before demand outstrips supply. We have plenty of oil to last for the next 20 years but there has been rampant speculation of what will happen if consumption continues to increase at the current rates. If we cannot find additional reserves we might have a problem - we might find ourselves in a global energy crisis. (I hate the word crisis because I feel as if I am on a cable news network where EVERYTHING is a crisis). The futures market has seen this and that is why we are experiencing the recent increase in oil prices - sure - they could have seen this years ago but its happening now. I wonder if they took off their rose colored glasses at some point in the last two years and saw the error of their ways - the end result of their revelation is that we’re paying for it.

We can do our part to consume less but its going to take a concentrated effort. If we were to determine car insurance premiums based upon the number of miles that we drive we could leverage our savings against those who drive everywhere. They would be forced to consume less simply because they would be unable to afford all of the driving. Enacting immediate changes in MPG requirements and subsidizing companies that reduce consumption while taxing those that use heavily could help. The economic impact of such a decision can hardly be measured by me, but, it’s on the table.

Everything is tied together - change is going to impact our ability to “get by” and may impact our quality of life. We cannot continue to increase consumption at current rates or we are going to see a bubble - a big bubble - and only the those with the most resources in the end will be able to survive.

The US economy has been quite turbulent of late and not one of us is sure how things are going to turn out. Speculation runs rampant that we are headed for a depression or at best a recession. Either way, we need to do something to turn the tide against the “bubbles” that we keep on finding that cause pain to our economy. Investor Eric Janszen believes that a long term green strategy will help us become more energy dependent and help to break us of the bubble cycle. He believes that we should phase out petroleum use through high tariffs in favor of green energy. It will require a long term plan and dedication to the cause. Check out the entire interview at wired.com

I just finished reading the book The World is Flat and I’ve got to say that I’m extremely excited about globalization and all of the challenges that we are going to face in the future. The more I dig into books about economics, business, sociology, and trade the more intrigued I become by the subject. I am unable to stop thinking about some of the points and conclusions he has drawn that affect us today and tomorrow. I’ve got to get my hand on some more books in this vein - maybe this is what I should have studied in college from the get-go. Oh well, I’m still young and the military is paying for my tuition so I’m free to study what I want.

I’m also excited because of what is in store for Jessica. We had an intense conversation about her education and from we discussed she is planning on continuing her education. I couldn’t be more proud of her at the moment. Too many of us are happy with being vanilla - to keep ourselves viable as employees we need to be a banana split with a cherry on top. She won’t start until she gets settled in a job but I think its a fantastic idea. We all need to keep expanding our knowledge throughout our lives and she is making the first steps towards doing it. The only thing that separates us from the people above us is education and experience - education is easy to acquire and experience goes along with it hand in hand - there is some short term pain but its well worth it for the long term gain.

Pt 2.

I rarely see any of my family members because I’m a bit of a recluse. Well, thats a flat out lie - I am a complete and total recluse. Its not that I don’t wish to see my extended or nuclear family, I seldom have the opportunity to do so. I tend to use this blog as a one way form of communication - if you wish to know what I’m doing in whatever part of the world that I might be in all that you need to do is to visit this website. Others don’t like to share themselves in the same way - and I don’t blame them. So… I’ve got to get back to the point of the story.

I have two cousins that serve in the Army National Guard. One is from the King side and the other from the Harvey side. As luck would have it (if you could call it luck), one of them is stationed at Balad. We tried to meet a week ago but we probably looked right at each other and failed to draw a mental connection. So, after a volley of emails back and forth we got to meet a few nights ago. I haven’t seen my cousin in years and I’ve got to say - I remember him being at least a foot shorter than he is now. He’s got an interesting job - to say the least - but he’s doing well and he thinks his job is rather boring. The world seems so much smaller when you can meet a cousin you haven’t seen in 3-4 years on the other side of the planet.

So the govt. wants to give me money - sure, I’ll take it. But, the one thing I can’t figure out is where they expect the money to come from and what good they actually expect it to do to the economy.

I’ve done a little reading and found out some interesting tidbits - the first is a quote from Bernanke, Head of the Federal Reserve, who said “Stimulus that comes too late will not help support economic activity in the short term, and it could be actively destabilizing”. Others have said that in order to avert a recession the stimulus must arrive before we actually start the recession. Unfortunately, we don’t know if its too late. They plan to get us the funds by May - thats almost 100 days from now. I have a feeling that this is nothing more than a political move.

No politician in their right mind would openly come out and denounce the plan because their constituents want that money. They would effectively be taking it out of their hands. Its a smart political move to fight for the money - only time will tell if its good for the economy.

The other thing I don’t understand is where the money is coming from. Last time I checked we had a Federal deficit and an unbalanced budget. Unless we found 1 trillion tons of gold under the capital building in the past few days I don’t think we’ve even begun to pay it off. The money simply isn’t there - the government needs to budget like the rest of us do. When the money runs out - you have nothing else to spend. Sure we have credit - but paying it off is a PITA - trust me, I know.

Here is a link to another editorial from a like minded person

Free thought and liberty

All Americans are afforded the same protections under the constitution and the bill of rights regardless of what background they might come from. Our nation is great because we are a melting pot of people from many different nations with different backgrounds, opinions, and religions. Many Americans believe that no matter what, we should all be treated the same. Some people think that if I converted to Islam that I should have my security clearance revoked and that I should be put under a terror watch list. Americans are watching other Americans solely based upon the color of their skin and their religion.

In the mid-1800’s the United States was a divided nation as we fought in a brutal struggle for the rights of everyone despite their background or skin color. Hundreds of thousands died in this struggle in an effort to treat everyone equally. Despite the great loss of life America still did not treat everyone equally. America went through a large civil rights struggle for the equality of African Americans during the early to mid 20th century in an effort to even everything out. They wanted the right to be treated as an equal irregardless of how they might look. Today I think that we are still fighting the same battle but the participants are different. In the past month the president signed a law that allowed him and the secretary of defense to indefinitely hold anyone if they are suspected of terrorism. In a nutshell, they suspended the right of habeas corpus. The American civil liberties union immediately began to fight this new legislation as it was in violation of the rights spelled out in one of our nations greatest documents, the bill of rights.

Today I received an email from… someone that advocated the idea of spamming the ACLU with mail to adversely affect their mission: to protect the freedom of all Americans. First off, this is an illegal act. Second, this is one of the most foolish ideas I have heard of in a long time. Why in the world would we want to fight an organization that is fighting for all of our rights. Sure, the status quo in America is that we don’t care who we jail or whose rights we violate to stop terrorism but I know that I wouldn’t want to be one of those individuals who was illegally detained.

I mentioned this to someone yesterday and they mentioned that the ACLU is notorious for fighting only certain things and not all rights violations. In particular, they often fight not for the right to have religion but to remove it from a particular venue. In some cases, I can agree with this rational because we need to separate church from state. Why? Islam is nearly inseparable from most of the nations where the majority of people are of the Islamic faith. When this happens, only the faith of the majority is promoted and the others.. well, a Christian in Indonesia could get murdered and nobody would care. If the shoe was on the other foot and it was an individual of the Islamic faith the matter would be rigorously investigated.

Now that I’ve beat this to death… lets move on to the next topic today

Voting along party lines is foolish

Most politicians in America campaign on the party policy alone rather than their individual beliefs and ideas. We, as Americans, who live in greatest nation on earth, should elect people who think for themselves. When was the last time we voted on abortion in America? Do you think that the legislative body would subject themselves to a vote that would splinter the voting population in half. Lets face it, if there was a political climate change, as there is now, these people wouldn’t be elected the next time around. To make a campaign on polarizing material would be dangerous… the republican party joined together and supported GW’s decision to send Americans into Iraq. It will take years to figure out if the loss of life was worth setting them free. The crazy part is that they don’t care about what we’ve done over there… they just want us dead and gone.

Ok… whats the deal with this? well, I got an email yesterday telling people to vote on party lines citing the following reasons… time to tear them all apart

1. The economy. More than 6.6 million jobs have been created since 8/03. 4.1 annual growth is superior to all major industrialized nations. Dow hits new records. Productivity is up. Real after tax income has grown by 15% since 2001. Like VP Chaney would say…”What more do you want?” The tax cuts proposed by Bush and the R-Congress can take a bow.

More than anything else, the federal interest rates affect how our economy grows or shrinks. One man, who was put into that office by GW (and reagan before that), is responsible for that. Were you aware that 720,000 of the jobs created were government jobs? Creating a bigger government is not an effective way to reduce taxes and lower costs. Smaller governments are more efficient and cost less money.

Oh yeah, my data from Sept 06 says only 3 million jobs were created…. hmmm… fudging numbers somewhere?

Clinton took the jobless rate from 7.5% to 4% during his two terms in office. The GW took the jobless rate from 4% to 6.6% to 4.4%…. we’re almost back to where we started. He didn’t do anything legendary… he just got us back to where we started out in the first place.

You’ve also got to take into account that our nation now has over 300 million people… more people means more jobs.

want to know more check it out at senate.gov

2. The Patriot act. The much discussed civil liberty abuses have just not materialized. It has permitted the CIA and FBI to cooperate.

There has been no mention of civil rights abuses because all of the cases are handled in a seperate court that is out of the publics view. I am not aware of any… nor could I find any but the potential is just too great. Rewrite the legislation and give us something better. There IS a way to do it without infringing on citizens rights. The CIA and FBI have continually proven that although they can communicate they often do not communicate.

3. The ABM Treaty has been cancelled permitting us to work on missile defense. Is anyone but Nancy Pelosi sorry?

The fear mongers want us to spend billions on a missile defense system that does not work. They’ve already spent billions on the system and it doesn’t work… hey, I’ve got an idea. Give me your money and I’ll flush it down the toilet for you.

4. Immigration. The Republican Congress has gotten the first serious immigration restriction law passed in years.

If I was to look at the voting record I found that democrats and republicans worked on the reform together… you can’t take the credit for everything. Whats next? taking the credit for the sun rising every morning?

5. There has not been another terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11. Who would have predicted that on 9/12?

You got me here… there also haven’t been any more flying spaghetti monsters attacking our cities…. this is the most asinine statement out of all of them… yes, voting republican stopped the terrorists… oh wait 2819 americans died on 9/11 and 2828 american soldiers have died so far in Iraq… yep, we really showed them (I just want out troops back… soon)

6. Libya has surrendered its nuclear program.

Hmm… years of economic pressure or they saw republicans and gave up…. duh!

7. A. Q. Khan’s nuclear smuggling network has been rolled up.

Can you really attribute this to one party alone? No

8. John Roberts and Sam Alito sit on the Supreme Court.

I’ll give you this one…

9. The Demos that do not want to close Gitmo altogether want to give all its inmates the full panoply of rights Americans enjoy in criminal procedures.

Thats right, we don’t want to lock people up and throw away the key without trial because other nations watch what we do. If we abuse human rights why shouldn’t everyone else do it. We should at least give these guys and chance and if they are innocent… let em go, they didn’t do anything. It also doesn’t help that negativity is associated with the prison in the international community. One of the only reasons we have it is because its not located in America and we can pretty much do whatever we want to the prisoners.

10. Demos believe in immediate withdrawal from Iraq. If this happens the US will face a stinging defeat on the war against terror. According to Osama bin Laden, and those who share his views, we are militarily strong but psychologically and spiritually weak. Like it or not - and no one likes it - we cannot leave Iraq now without utterly and decisively validating this analysis.

Or maybe he says things like this to keep is embroiled in a war that we might not be able to win. He’s taunting us, this is what he does. I don’t want to loose either but if they outlook predicts no chance of winning… why stay? Lets get some guys together and find out what we need to win it… and win it. If we don’t change anything we don’t have a chance.

11. Demos would like to eliminate the terrorist surveillance program.

I can’t verify this one

12. If Demos achieve the majority in the House, Barney Frank will chair the Financial Services Committee, Henry Waxman the Government Reform Committee and Alcee Hastings the Intelligence Committee.

The three individuals are tools… but, we should get rid of them instead of voting for a republican… there have quite a few people in the past year that are involved in scandals, this time around most of them are republican…. lets keep the good people and get rid of the bad ones regardless of political party affiliation…

13. Demos believe the proper response to Kim Jong Il’s nuclear test isface-to-face talks. That’s what the Clinton Administration did for years.

For six years the bush administration has done no better… neither made any progress

What I’m trying to say is this, give me a list of facts and I can counter almost all of them as I’ve done here. Vote for the right person, don’t vote for someone based on party affiliation alone… its a bad idea.

Comments? please let me know your opinion

My friends are punks. I tell them about something and they seem all into it but when it comes down to it they punk out. There is a festival in June. Three days of music of some of the greatest hard rock bands ever. Sabbath, Slayer, Slipknot, System of a Down, and many others will be there. I want to go but I don’t have that much money… at this point a good mind for marketing could be my salvation. There are many people out there that are camping for the weekend and supplies at a place like this are going to be ridiculously overpriced. Here is where I get some water and sell it for rock bottom prices (on their economy) but double what I paid out. The gross margin is going to be insane on some of that stuff. I’m darn sure that I’ll go for at least one day but I’d be much happier of one of those punks would show up with me.