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Monday June 22, 2009 07:55 A CDT
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TFH Monday
"So," you're thinking to yourself as the first hit of caffeine causes the first twitch of the week in your left ventricle, "What does this TFH stuff mean?"
Tin Foil Hat Monday. Yessir, those darned time monks and their warning that by summer, or so, things would begin to feel, well, surreal to the point that people would be pinching themselves asking "Is this real?" turns out pretty much right. I've taken to wearing ViceGrips on both arms lately, such is my state of disbelief at some of the headlines crossing.
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Goldman Sachs, for example, is about to make a record bonus payout to its employees because they had such a spectacular first half of the year. What's more, Warren Buffet who put five billion dollars into Goldman in January of this year is already up a billion on his investment, reports the UK's Guardian.
Not to sound grumpy here, but don't I recall that...
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You read in the prestigious Columbia Journalism Review about "Goldman's Backdoor bailout" which gets to how bailing out AIG helped Goldman.
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Am I the only one that remembers that "Goldman's share of AIG bailout draw fire" since they pulled $12.9 billion out of AIG?
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And has everyone forgotten the Digg notes last October about how "Goldman Sachs takes $12-billion bailout, hands out $14B bonuses"?
Nice that Goldman paid back $10-billion in TARP money last week before word of the bonuses leaked out. That's a good thing - nice that they made money. But the core problem - banks that are too big to fail is still present and CONgress sits on its duff. Structural reform has been a talking point, not an action plan.
Want to hear a great joke? "Transparency." (I can sure tell, 'em, can't I?)
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Let's play George the Broken Record: "I want our taxpayer money back for AIG - with interest. And it would be refreshing to have people in Washington who would at least vote on behalf of their constituents."
A patriot might hold that the American Revolution back in 1776 (and before) was based on "No taxation without representation."
Fast-forward to these past couple of years: I'd propose that we have done sufficient back-sliding that we are in that same position again, since not a single human I know here in East Texas swallowed that "too big to fail" spin that was shoveled out of Washington's spin mills. Those supposedly representing the people overlooked 99 to 1 calls against handing over what remained of America's financial resources to the bankers, and got stampeded into the group-think of "too big to fail". Which they will pass on as the yoke of taxes onto the next generation.
Is there an answer? Of course! As I pointed out in a column last week, there is a fine model for how to handle companies when they get uppity to the point of 'wagging the dog" or is that 'wagging the Congress'.
Bust 'em up. Just like AT&T was busted up. Phones still work - and I'd bet the farm that if these 'too big to fail' banks were busted up, there'd still be community banks doing what they've done forever - serving their local communities. Local money, local loans.
Network computing has leveled the org charts of all kinds of companies. Yet that 'leveling' hasn't taken place in the banks, which continue to concentrate more and more money in the hands of the few. Concentration of wealth is a sure-fire spark for revolution, as any student of French history knows. Just like tea taxes sparked a revolution once upon a time here.
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With Goldman out from under government restrictions, they seem likely to take the position that government has no business deciding on bonus levels for private companies. True.
But when banks tell government what to do, and government tells people what to do, the America of the Founders is toast. So we're clear on this: People tell government what to do, government tells banks how to operate, and any variance from that is simply anti-American.
The lone nut-job in East Texas sees it this way: Any bank that took TARP money qualified in my book as 'too big to fail." Bust 'em up and put 'em back in their place. We did it to the phone company and I notice phone rates have become incredibly cheap. Why not with banks?
I expect busting up super-banks would lead to the same kinds of improvement in service and consumer choice we see in telecommunications.
As long as Big Banks (and the handful of credit card companies) can 'wag the Congress' the middle class will be stuck doing what it has done best. Making the rich richer.
Bombing the Moon
Our second TFH story comes out of that radical, conspiracy rag "Scientific American" well-known for it's fringe political viewpoints and aliens among us coverage. NOT.
Nevertheless, the story that "NASA's Mission to bomb the moon" has me reaching for the Harbor Freight catalog to see if they have more ViceGrips on sale. I need to start pinching more than my arms nowadays.
The story goes that by hitting the moon with a kinetic device, enough junk will be blasted off the surface to get a better sense of whether there is water on the moon.
Has anyone besides me stopped to run a cost/benefit calculation on this? Just how important is the answer to that question? I mean, think about it: Of all the questions that we could be asking and spending taxpayer money on, where does this one fit?
Just going out on a limb here, I'd say that answering questions like "How can we help the e-billion people who living on less than $2 a day globally might be worth considering. Or, since the oceans are dying, how do we fix that? Or, "UN report shows oceans are choking under pollution."
Nope. Bomb the moon is the best NASA seems to be able to come up with is we desperately need to answer that 'water on the moon' question that it's worth the expense.
Of course, since everyone knows the rumors of ancient relics from a prior civilization on the moon - and the NASA codeword for 'Santa Claus' refers to things on the dark side of the moon" this 'bombing missions' sounds more than a little bit surreal.
Fortunately, in the predictive linguistics work, we should only have a month or two to go before an 'insider' comes out with some huge 'secrets revealed' stuff which may shed light into areas beyond what's in Richard C. Hoagland's book Dark Mission: The Secret History of NASA
We'll let you know when that takes place, since the 'safe' window for that is about to open.
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You see where ground has been broken for "Spaceport America" in New Mexico?" Must already be on the intergalactic maps since the 1947 Roswell Crash, huh?
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Ponder of the day: So we bomb the moon in October. How long before the intergalactic police show up responding to the moon-dweller's "Help! We're under attack" call? I figure a year, maybe two at the most. As one writer notes "NASA moon bombing violates space law & may cause conflict with lunar ET/UFO civilizations..." More tin foil?
Meantime, The Second Depression Continues
No, it's not on the MainStreamMedia, but Depression Two continues to unfold in its own sweet time, avoiding the bale of Depression most places, since that's not what the PTB want you to realize. "States turning to last resorts in budget crisis" reported the NY Times on Sunday.
Meanwhile, the "Numbers on Welfare see Sharp Increase" says another report.
And, just in case you were still holding out hopes that things would bounce back quickly, the World Bank has cut its forecast for developed economies. That used to include the US but haven't checked lately, LOL.
So here we are in the Second Depression and banks run politics and we're bombing the moon. Got a coupon for tin foil?
How This All Ends
China rules the world. My assertion? Nope. My friend Michael Panzner, who wrote When Giants Fall: An Economic Roadmap for the End of the American Era
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Gives me a great idea for a TV series: We get some NYC/Wall Street refugee and chronicle his wanderings through China whipping up on bad guys with swift moves in derivatives, and beating them to death with high interest rates. Skills learned at the ancient temple of New York. A sort of flipped-over version of Kung Fu. Maybe call it Bank Fu or something.
Un-Pronounceable Trouble
Yep, there are days that I fall to my knees thankful I made the decision to leave being a news anchor on radio. Here's one of those stories I wouldn't want to trip into in morning drive time:
"Troubles in the Russian republic of Ingushetia as president Yunus-Bek Yevkurov escaped an assassination attempt according to spokesman Kaloi Akhigov."
Try reading that aloud - cold read, no rehearsal - especially if you're not a student of Russian...and before the coffee sinks in.
Whipping Up Iran
Quiet in Tehran this morning according to VOA reports. But with reports of hundreds arrested, I have to wonder how long before tweeting becomes a terrorist act...
Bounced
Severe turbulence injured 7 people on a Hong Kong to Peter Australia Quantas flight. You see why I walk?
Grin Tin Tin
In keeping with the tin foil hat Monday theme, here's a dandy headline: "Obama: Can't let U.S. be "foil" for Tehran." Is he talking Reynolds, or Alcoa?
Grin Tin Two
Supermodel Heidi "Klum dresses in tin foil for New York Fashion Awards." Earlier: "Jennifer Aniston's Tin Foil dress made her look slinky?"
Next time someone says "Curses...foiled again!" It's a compliment, at least on TFH Monday.
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Coping: Going Off Grid
No, it's not cheap, but word is that a new small wind turbine from EarthTronics/Honeywell will be hitting Ace hardware stores this October, or so. The price point is not cheap: About $4,500 according to reports.
Still, for those who live in windy areas, wind power is a dandy way to reduce the monthly power bills.
A number of people have asked me "Why did you opt for solar power instead of wind?" The answer is that the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (www.nrel.gov) has done a dandy job of researching average wind speeds and has come up with a national map that shows where wind power makes the most sense.
If you click here to the map, you'll see that anywhere that's blue - and the darker the blue, the more power you can get from wind - you'll see that East Texas is pretty much a 'wind free' area. Now, of course, that doesn't mean we don't get wind here, as all of us who remember Hurricane Ike will recall. It's just that most days - like yesterday - we get sunshine and 95 degrees and hardly a breath of wind.'
Even though the EarthTronics machine may start producing some power at as little as 2-miles per hour, it's not enough to run my 'cold-enough-to-hang-meat in here' air conditioning in the summer. But, there's enough solar now that I can run a/c to a comfortably level (76) and not buy power to do it. And that's on top of running the multiple computers, satellite and microwave gear and the wireless routers, etc. I'm in a terrible spot for wind power.
But the EarthTronics machine is really cool from a design standpoint. What makes it different is that the energy is 'harvested' from the fast-moving blade tips rather than transferring the energy via a slowly rotating shaft at the middle of the turbine. Like I said, cool design insight, which is why it produces power at lower wind speeds.
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I keep plugging away at my 'how to go off grid book' (keeps getting longer) but its something to be aware of: The idea isn't necessarily to just make a decision to jump into solar willy-nilly. A little common sense and some comparisons of cost per watt-hour based on where you live should go into the equation. Live on the shores of Lake Michigan? I'd be first in line to get one of these goodies...at 2000 k/whrs/year they make sense.
Personal Computing: Firefox 3.5 RC 2
Maybe you haven't been around computing long enough to know what RC2 means. It's softwarese for 'release candidate'. Faster than previous versions and some review notes here.
If you want to download the release candidate, it's here.
Around The Ranch: Deer Us
When last we checked on farmer George, the (23) goats were doing fine, but the garden was a mess, having been destroyed by fire ants and now I'm waiting for the heat of summer to pass so I can put in my Garden 2.0 which will include diatomaceous earth and other ant-foilers.
So in the meantime, Princess Elaine, having a greener thumb than I (we gotta have it looked at one of these days) planted a whole bunch of tomatoes in both regular pots and hanging baskets.
Guess what we now have? Deer coming up on the deck to eat tomatoes. They like them somewhat green...and Elaine is not too happy about it.
Me? I blame the cougar which is still wandering about, for getting the deer to come closer to the house (on the north deck is plenty close in my book).
Zeus the Cat has shown himself totally worthless at keeping deer at bay. I'm trying to work a deal with the cougar. He gets the deer and in return, I'll stop thinking Yosemite Sam thoughts...
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