(A)

(B)

Can you tell which skeleton it came from?  If I’d done more work to clean up the text on the images, you might not have known that (A) is the real skeletal structure of this incredibly detailed artist rendering.

Am I the only one who feels 1) insulted that scientists think I should believe this bogus archeological find and completely arbitrary artistic rendering, and 2) who feels completely numbed by each successive so-called missing link?

We have a phrase at work that we’re supposed to say when we’re raising concerns and no one is listening.  It goes like this:

THIS IS STUPID.

That’s supposed to get people’s attention.  Except for certain evolutionists who are apparently wearing blinders and earplugs.

It’s worked real well so far (see video).

I will say this – it worked for Reagan.  We out-spent Russia to end the Cold War.  However, Obama says we should spend our way out of a spending problem.   That is ridiculous.

Maybe it’s that they feel obligated to step in and help, or maybe it’s an unbridled desire to spend money that isn’t theirs, but as the American public is slowly discovering, the government doesn’t do it better.  The government certainly doesn’t do it cheaper.  In fact, there’s so much overhead in any government program, I’d be surprised if $0.50 on the dollar actually made it to the intended destination.  I can see how it might translate into fast dollars now, but we’ll be paying the consequences for years after the recession is over.

Why don’t we elect people that can think past the next election?  Heck, Obama doesn’t even do that.  He’s going to double our national debt by the time he’s through.

Congratulations, bankers, and thanks…for everything.  Congratulations, Congress, and thanks…for nothing.

Law Number IV: If you can afford to advertise, you don’t need to.

Law Number V: One-tenth of the participants produce over one-third of the output. Increasing the number of participants merely reduces the average output.

Law Number VI: A hungry dog hunts best. A hungrier dog hunts even better.

Law Number VIII: The most unsuccessful four years in the education of a cost-estimator is fifth grade arithmetic.

Law Number IX: Acronyms and abbreviations should be used to the maximum extent possible to make trivial ideas profound…Q.E.D.

Law Number X: Bulls do not win bullfights; people do. People do not win people fights; lawyers do.

Law Number XV: The last 10 percent of performance generates one-third of the cost and two-thirds of the problems.

Law Number XXI: It’s easy to get a loan unless you need it.

Law Number XXII: If stock market experts were so expert, they would be buying stock, not selling advice.

Law Number XXIII: Any task can be completed in only one-third more time than is currently estimated.

Law Number XXIV: The only thing more costly than stretching the schedule of an established project is accelerating it, which is itself the most costly action known to man.

Law Number XXXI: The optimum committee has no members.

Law Number XXXVII: Ninety percent of the time things will turn out worse than you expect. The other 10 percent of the time you had no right to expect so much.

Law Number XLV: One should expect that the expected can be prevented, but the unexpected should have been expected.

Law Number XLVIII: The more time you spend talking about what you have been doing, the less time you have to spend doing what you have been talking about. Eventually, you spend more and more time talking about less and less until finally you spend all your time talking about nothing.

Law Number L: The average regulation has a life span one-fifth as long as a chimpanzee’s and one-tenth as long as a human’s, but four times as long as the official’s who created it.

You can see the rest here:

http://members.fortunecity.com/peggyr/Jokes/Business_Humor/Augustines_Laws.html

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government.  It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the Public Treasury.

From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the Public Treasury with a result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy always followed by dictatorship.

The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.
These nations have progressed through the following sequence:

From Bondage to Spiritual Faith
From Spiritual Faith to Great Courage
From Courage to Liberty
From Liberty to Abundance
From Abundance to Selfishness
From Selfishness to Complacency
From Complacency to Apathy
From Apathy to Dependency
From Dependency back into Bondage”

Alexander Tytler, 18th century Scottish historian, Decline and Fall of
the Athenian Republic

You can judge yourself where the United States lies on the timeline.  Test the theory by asking how many people ages 15-25 know the names of their government officials.  The ones they’ve seen plastered all over the TV and Internet are easy.

Better yet, ask people *why* they voted for the candidates they chose.  The majority will have no idea why, or will have some shallow answer like “he dresses nice” or “she speaks well” or “I liked the way their name looked on the ballot.”

Start the countdown…and let’s get to work.

Now, I’m not a fan of most journalists, but Ben seems to have his head on straight.  If you’ve seen the film, you know what I mean.  Well, Ben writes a column on Yahoo Finance called “How Not to Ruin Your Life”.  His most recent article is quite fitting to all the drama lately concerning nationalized healthcare.  You can read it by clicking on the picture.

These Rights Don’t Come for Free

Ben asks a great question: Why should everyone be guaranteed [fill in the blank]? And if we guaranteed to people goods and services they could not afford, where would it ever end?

But if we, as a nation, decide to recognize healthcare as a right, we’d better be prepared to pay for it.  But why can’t the government just hand it out for free?  If they did that, they would 1) drive us even further into debt, or 2) decimate the healthcare industry by forcing cheap or free care.  Lets face it, it costs money to receive healthcare.  Doctors want to be paid well for going to school for 12 years or more.  Pharmaceutical companies charge a lot for medications because it costs them a lot in research and development, and to manufacture the product.

Our gracious government is ever so willing to provide us this “free” service, but who are they going to stick with the bill?  Are the “rich” obligated to pay more just because they have a higher income?  Most people with high incomes worked hard to get there.  Our socialist President seems to think that’s cause for extra tax.  Whether or not he says so, he’s obsessed with the redistribution of wealth.  The funny thing is, if you just leave capitalism alone, the wealth redistributes itself.  What a concept!  If you let the so-called “rich” keep more money, they hire more people and/or pay them higher salaries, letting people afford the healthcare they need.

As for healthcare, the best solution I’ve heard thus far is some kind of non-profit healthcare co-op program.  One that leverages the buying power of thousands, perhaps offering various “levels” of healthcare so that no one is left without an *opportunity* to obtain the care they need, but society i.e. the taxpayer is not left to foot a bill that is not theirs.

I think that might be my favorite word (and that of any capitalist): opportunity.  This country provides great opportunity for many, and has for generations.  But lets not confuse opportunities with rights.

Your thoughts?

Granted, no one knew it at the time that housing prices were about to crash.  In fact, in 2006, with prices still rising, especially in high-dollar areas like the Silicon Valley, people were scared they weren’t going to be able to get into the market if they didn’t “strike while the iron’s hot.”

I just find it odd that people are so surprised at how far prices have fallen.  What did they expect?  Compared to the last 100 years, house prices in the last decade have gotten grossly out of hand:

It’s no surprise things have levelled out a bit.  If you compare prices to themselves over the years (table here), and the price of a home as compared to the price of gold (article here), all the numbers say we’re now back to “normal”.  We haven’t crashed and burned, we’ve come back to normal.  Imagine that, the market corrected itself.  All on it’s own.

That said, no one knows whether the market will keep on falling; only time can tell.  But to be surprised at prices now is absurd; history dictated the bubble would pop, it was only a question of when.

Rome VS Washington DC

You decide if this statement should apply.

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED IN 2,064 YEARS?

“The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled,
public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should
be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands
should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to
work,  instead of living on public assistance.”

-   Cicero   – 55 BC

APPARENTLY NOTHING

It really makes you wonder. The way I see it, there are two obvious reactions to this.

One, you can take Rep. Kanjorski at his word, and believe him when he says the US and world economies came withing 24hrs of crashing.  It’s possible.

On the other hand, can we trust anything politicians say?  They’ll say anything to get a little money pushed their way.

Personally, I think our financial system *is* very sick.  But it’s more than just our financial system, it’s our mindset toward money to begin with.  Citizenship of the United States does not guarrantee you a rich lifestyle.  It’s the guarrantee of opportunity to work hard and become rich.  It’s capitalism; some make it, some don’t.  But don’t we like the opportunity to work hard and advance, instead of just work hard and stay put?  Part of working hard is knowing what you want and saving to get it.  A loan (or credit of any kind) gives one the option of getting what you want now, and paying for it over time (for a fee).  Debt is fine if managed correctly.  Binge spending on credit has historically never worked.

Yes, banks were wrong to let people get nose-deep in loans they couldn’t repay, but the people were equally wrong in pushing their budgets to the limit and beyond, just so they could keep up with the Joneses.  I’ve spoken to many a frugal person who controlled spending and saved judiciously…only to see that savings (in many cases) crash.

But here’s the thing: economies go in cycles.  Politicians that tell you otherwise, or promise an ever-increasing profit, are liars.  So is the crash recoverable?  Slowly, yes.  I figure only those who need their retirement money in the next 5-10 years will be affected (including those already taking distributions), and only drastically affected if money was non-diversified and/or in risky investments.

However, these massive bailouts make me nervous.  The Federal Reserve, while arguably the most powerful financial entity in the world, is not endless.

1) Citizens fund the government with taxes.

2) What doesn’t come from us is borrowed from our citizens or other countries.  All citizens pay the interest in the form of increased taxes or reduced services.

3) What isn’t debt to other countries is printed money, which makes every dollar we have worth less.  This costs taxpayers by reducing buying power.

The money has to come from somewhere.  Nobody seems to realize that all of these options make the citizens pay.

So what is the solution?  What is the fix, and who must take the action?  It’s all up to us citizens. We need to get real, and learn that we can’t have everything just because we want it.  Loans are sometimes necessary for big-ticket items, which are too large to save for if the necessity rises before we can save for it.  The biggest ones that come to my mind are:

1) Housing.  People need a place to live.  However, renting is a viable option while saving to own.  Therefore, a mortgage is not a necessity.

2) Cars.  You likely use it to get to work, and therefore your income.  If you crash yours, you may need another.  But there are viable alternatives such as public transportation, biking, walking, carpooling, etc.  Glamorous options?  No, but it does prove cars unnecessary.

So really, there should be no problem with debt in this country.  However, the people need to make the change.  We must be thrifty to build wealth.  We must save for what we want, including retirement (whoever said it was a right?).  We must weigh risks when investing, and above all, live within our means.  This includes forcing our government to do the same!

“But that hurts my feelings!”

Tough.  If you want the lifestyle, you must work for it.  End of story.  Any other method will run you into the ground eventually, and cost the rest of us more of our hard-earned and frugally-saved money.

This is insane.  Click the image to check the original story, but basically…the Space Shuttle runs on an Intel 8088 (the IBM 5150 referenced in the article has one).  Yes, that’s right, every Digital Electrical Engineer’s favorite chip.  One of the early pioneers to the Pentium series.

Of course, it’s likely not an off-the-shelf,  $0.50 chip.  Likely constructed to be radiation-hardened and perhaps run some custom instructions.

But that means the entire on-board launch sequence is run by a chip operating no faster than 10MHz, with an 8-bit data bus and instruction width, and max memory of 1MB.

That’s about the equivalent to my graphing calculator.  INSANE.