Table or Booth?

No thanks, God

I'll trust that it was well intended, but President Obama's letter to his followers this Thanksgiving completely omits any mention of the one thing that still holds our country together: God. 

Earnings-Based Consumption

We cannot spend our way to good economic health, even in the short run.  We have to produce.

John Stiglitz, Chief Economist of the World Bank from 1997 - 2002 took callers on CSPAN this morning, one of which was a democrat who suggested (paraphrasing), "With the economic downturn and the tax payers being the problem, with the bad mortgages and such, why not just give every American one million dollars? Then people would spend money, helping businesses, and letting people keep their houses and jobs."

Why stop at one million?? Why not 10? How about 100 million? We'd all be set for life.

I'm all for consumption as a important part of market health. However, the problem with consumption based on money given versus money earned is that, when given, you have no skin in the game. No risk taken. This changes everything. If you lose it all because of a bad decision, oh well. 

With money earned, you have a vested interest in not seeing it disappear. With money earned, you do your best to get the maximum value you can for every penny. This kind of incentive works.  Money-given based consumption eventually reduces productivity to point of total dependency.  This is socialism and, as history shows, has a strong track record for destroying markets.

230 Years of Service and Sacrifice

Happy Birthday, Marines!

Hurricane of Hope

If you haven't seen Robert Tracinski's controversial piece about the New Orleans disaster, check it out.  Whether or not you agree with his position, it's atypical, intelligent commentary on the matter.

On Career Choices...

"One of the most valuable things my father taught me is an old Yorkshire saying: where there's muck, there's brass.  Meaning that unpleasant work pays."

- Paul Graham, Why Smart People Have Bad Ideas

A few other useful programming career-oriented links:

• How to Keep Your Job
• Discussion with Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt
• Advice from Monster.com
• Paul Graham: Hackers and Painters
• Keep Offshoring From Taking You

New Math

The bizarre world may be the most interesting when explained by its witty rationalists.  Regarding procrasination, this had me chuckling: http://jamie.ideasasylum.com/2005/03/distraction-operator_02.php. 

It may have been intended only in jest but, if taken seriously, perhaps it would be useful in measuring how tasking and the work environment affect productivity?  Making this supposition ¬ Doing actual research to make something useful out it :^)

On Short Posts

Are my posts too long?  What say you, squirrel?