Aw, man:

Higher oil prices =
Higher transportation costs =
Less foreign competition!

Which means you'll pay more for damn near everything, but isn't that what you wanted? Higher prices, less efficiency, and all the other "benefits" of decreased international trade. And, hey, we didn't even have to increase tariffs to get it! Who says markets don't work?

Well, any phenomenon that keeps the darkest pockets of the developing world trapped in the bitterest of poverty can't be all bad now, can it?

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:14 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 99 words, total size 1 kb.

1 Cool site, u tube , =(,

Posted by: Zojodudv at August 04, 2008 01:32 PM (zl5oF)

2 Cool site, boob tube , PP,

Posted by: Drgbyuze at August 05, 2008 04:37 AM (0izGi)

3 comment6, woman having sex video, 27272, older sex video woman, djhtd, gay sex video xxx, ropl, wife cheating sex video, 575272, straight gay sex video, 779,

Posted by: clip free having movie sex woman at August 06, 2008 11:10 PM (Csj6M)

4 comment2, hot gay mexican sex video, =[[, movie rated sex xxx, %-[[, free bt sex movie download, uzvw, free fucking mpeg sex video, , free black sex movie post, 8OOO,

Posted by: free movie sex world at August 07, 2008 02:31 AM (0N9TJ)

5 comment1, sex movie gallery, 60643, sex home video porn, :-((, clip free movie sex teen, mlsgt, asia movie sex toon, aijtt, free fat sex movie, 319,

Posted by: best sex scene in movie at August 07, 2008 03:36 AM (MjV3H)

6 comment4, free hardcore sex movie trailer, millj, india sex movie, baptp, black free movie sex woman, 7136, free public sex video, szilp, download free long sex video, >:-[[,

Posted by: amateur download free sex video at August 07, 2008 03:36 AM (MjV3H)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

Via a link at The! New! Ace of Spades! (posted by one of his "morons" as an "open blog" dealio), I got turned on to a series of PM articles about this rather amazing woman, MIT's Amy Smith, who works with people in the developing world to figure out ways to make life easier, healthier, and more productive.

It seems to go along with a lot of what I've been reading in Zubrin's book, about how if we switch from petroleum-based products to (phased-in) alcohol-based energy sources (ethanol and methanol), we could really transform life in some of the most poverty-stricken areas of the world. Ethanol, especially, can be made from so many kinds of biomass that it might really level the playing field between farmers in rich nations and farmers in the Third World, without throwing the former out of work. Creating a market for ethanol would be, in effect, to make a bigger agricultural pie for the entire world.

And then we might see "free trade" and "fair trade" co-exist. Which means that the libertarians and the progressives would have to fight about other issues. Fortunately, we're unlikely to run out of 'em any time soon.

Which is why I've come to believe that (at least in the short term) there's nothing wrong with making biofuels out of edible materials like corn and soybeans: the higher the prices for these materials, the more of 'em will get planted. And the more ethanol becomes a standard fuel, the more of it will get made out of nonedible material, or material that is otherwise a waste-product from producing food (stalks and leaves from corn; bananas that do not make it to market before they become overripe).

If we build cars that can run on ethanol, it will come.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 08:39 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
Post contains 308 words, total size 2 kb.

I was intrigued by this article in The Atlantic that discussed the housing bubble, and in a sort of Malcolm Gladwell-esque way, suggested that economic "bubbles" might be treated like viruses, and prevented in analogous ways to how we work to contain the spread of diseases.

I was of two minds about the premise: on the one hand, I suspect we will be able to eliminate bubbles easily once we eliminate human nature. But another part of me feels that—as Professor Sowell himself has suggested—a certain level of economic literacy is required for any citizen to function effectively in society, and that teaching our kids a bit more about the dangers of "over-exuberant" speculation might really work to take the edge off of economic highs and lows.

Thoughts? Can bubbles be avoided? Will the housing collapse have far-reaching effects over the next several years? And given how ingrained this sort of behavior is into human nature, is there something we should be teaching the youngsters that might do them any good? (Or will they, as young people are wont to do, insist on learning the hard way?)

(X-posted at Right Wing News.)

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:06 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
Post contains 204 words, total size 2 kb.

Friend Rin is back in the country, and would like to know how, exactly, the lives of people in developing countries have been improved by capitalism and trade.

Please don't giggle; just break it down in the most logical fashion you can, because I don't have the heart to assign her Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat as summer reading—particularly given how each revision of that book seems to make it longer and longer. It's like the Gravity's Rainbow of popular economics.

Better, perhaps, to give her the juicy Thomas Sowell Econ primer I started right before we moved. Unfortunately, it hasn't shown up just yet: I definitely outwitted myself when I packed it.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 02:17 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 118 words, total size 1 kb.

. . . of futures trading, with a lesson from the past in case Congress decides to blame them for the current energy crisis.

They will anyway, of course. What else are they going to do?—look in the mirror?

Via Insty.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 05:55 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 45 words, total size 1 kb.

Dr. Helen asks her readers what the effects would be on the economy if Obama were elected President, and if he were to enact his economic policies.

Tax shelters? Municipal bonds? Moving to a part of the country with a lower cost of living? Making a conscious effort to earn less, to avoid being taxed at a higher rate?

What's your survival strategy, should worse come to worst?

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:35 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 76 words, total size 1 kb.

Price supports; corporate welfare. It's got it all.

Take it, WSJ.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 09:25 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 21 words, total size 1 kb.

Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics. (No, not the third edition. I got the second edition because it was cheaper. And I wanted to own a copy so I could dog-ear the pages. Pricing helps us to determine how to efficiently manage resources; did you know that?)

Sowell is a fucking God. He just is—dorky-looking quasi-afro and all.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 09:54 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 62 words, total size 1 kb.

Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.:

I'm sure that you have had this experience before, or something similar to it. You are sitting at lunch in a nice restaurant or perhaps a hotel. Waiters are coming and going. The food is fantastic. The conversation about all things is going well. You talk about the weather, music, movies, health, trivialities in the news, kids, and so on. But then the topic turns to economics, and things change.

You are not the aggressive type so you don't proclaim the merits of the free market immediately. You wait and let the others talk. Their biases against business appear right away in the repetition of the media's latest calumny against the market, such as that gas station owners are causing inflation by jacking up prices to pad their pockets at our expense, or that Wal-Mart is, of course, the worst possible thing that can ever happen to a community.

You begin to offer a corrective, pointing out the other side. Then the truth emerges in the form of a naïve if definitive announcement from one person: "Well, I suppose I'm really a socialist at heart." Others nod in agreement.

On one hand there is nothing to say, really. You are surrounded by the blessings of capitalism. The buffet table, which you and your lunch partners only had to walk into a building to find, has a greater variety of food at a cheaper price than that which was available to any living person — king, lord, duke, plutocrat, or pope — in almost all of the history of the world. Not even fifty years ago would this have been imaginable.

All of history has been defined by the struggle for food. And yet that struggle has been abolished, not just for the rich but for everyone living in developed economies. The ancients, peering into this scene, might have assumed it to be Elysium. Medieval man conjured up such scenes only in visions of Utopia. Even in the late 19th century, the most gilded palace of the richest industrialist required a vast staff and immense trouble to come anywhere near approximating it.

We owe this scene to capitalism. To put it differently, we owe this scene to centuries of capital accumulation at the hands of free people who have put capital to work on behalf of economic innovations, at once competing with others for profit and cooperating with millions upon millions of people in an ever-expanding global network of the division of labor. The savings, investments, risks, and work of hundreds of years and uncountable numbers of free people have gone into making this scene possible, thanks to the ever-remarkable capacity for a society developing under conditions of liberty to achieve the highest aspirations of the society's members.

And yet, sitting on the other side of the table are well-educated people who imagine that the way to end the world's woes is through socialism.

. . . . . . . . . .

Whatever the specifics of the case in question, socialism always means overriding the free decisions of individuals and replacing that capacity for decision making with an overarching plan by the state. Taken far enough, this mode of thought won't just spell an end to opulent lunches. It will mean the end of what we all know as civilization itself. It would plunge us back to a primitive state of existence, living off hunting and gathering in a world with little art, music, leisure, or charity. Nor is any form of socialism capable of providing for the needs of the world's six billion people, so the population would shrink dramatically and quickly and in a manner that would make every human horror ever known seem mild by comparison. Nor is it possible to divorce socialism from totalitarianism, because if you are serious about ending private ownership of the means of production, you have to be serious about ending freedom and creativity too. You will have to make the whole of society, or what is left of it, into a prison.

But other than that, socialism is a fine idea.

h/t: Hackbarth, who loves the idea of a buffet table as a symbol of capitalism's success. This was part of today's economics linkfest, and those are always fun: one-stop shopping for the brain.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 02:29 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 736 words, total size 4 kb.

I know I'm supposed to be even more pissed off at the Republicans than at the Democrats, here, but I'm pretty fucking pissed off at the entire House right now. There are a lot of people who are struggling to pay their bills right now, and this fucked-up farm bill is what our congresspigs come up with? Unbelievable.

The subsidy program exists far beyond its intended purpose. Like many New Deal programs, FDR didnÂ’t intend on making subsidies permanent, and he certainly didnÂ’t intend on turning them into corporate welfare programs. Today, thatÂ’s exactly what these programs are. The majority of subsidies go to commercial farms, not family farms, and the average income from a subsidy-receiving farm is $200,000—an income which Barack Obama considers “wealthy” for tax purposes.

Price supports make some sense for food security when prices are low, but thatÂ’s hardly the case now. Thanks in large part to subsidies for ethanol production, food prices have skyrocketed over the last few years. The market distortion has created hunger worldwide while robbing American taxpayers. Thanks to subsidies, Americans pay twice for foolish policy—once with the IRS, and a second time at the store with higher food prices. Small wonder, then, that the average household income for farmers has risen to almost $90,000 and that land values have doubled in the last eight years.

Do subsidies have any place at all at the federal level? IÂ’d argue no, but at the least, we should stop subsidizing commercial farms and let the marketplace dictate prices, using subsidies sparingly to support independent farmers. We have to stop using corn and other foods for ethanol. We should use food to feed people and animals and not our cars. Our inability to deal maturely with our energy requirements has created food shortages and inflation where we can least afford it.

My emphasis.

The really charming part is that unless we can transform some more legislative piggies into rational human beings, they can override Bush's veto on this nonsense.

Call your congressasshole, and tell 'em corporate welfare sucks, especially when it distorts markets in such a way as to increase hunger.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 09:29 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 364 words, total size 2 kb.

She sure has been making all three candidates her bitches lately, particularly WRT short-term manipulations of the tax code:

It is true that the gas tax is fairly trivial. It is also theoretically true that a windfall tax could claw back the lost revenue, though I have my doubts. So why does it matter? Because when it comes to regulations, one should never arbitrarily increase the complexity or uncertainty of the law.

Complexity is bad because it ups compliance costs, often makes evasion easier, and because complexity itself increases uncertainty: as tax laws proliferate, it becomes harder to know whether you are in compliance. It also makes the government's administrative overhead multiply like those bacteria that can kill you in five minutes after first contact.

Uncertainty is bad because it reduces the ability of people and corporations to plan for the future. It's hard to estimate your ROI if the tax laws that govern your investment change every year.

Change is bad in general because every time the tax law changes, your nation experiences a sudden loss of human capital: all the understanding of how the old law becomes useless, and people have to spend valuable hours learning to understand the new law. This is often time that could have been better spent doing new deals, or regrouting the bathtub. Mold doesn't take care of itself, you know.

Obama's plan is bad because windfall taxes increase complexity and uncertainty. They also reduce the incentive for investment by lowering the return on it.

McCain's plan is bad because the gas tax holiday complicates tax administration and compliance, and because the revenue has to be made up somewhere else. That somewhere else is almost certain to be one more complicated tax of some sort.

Clinton's plan is doubly bad because it combines the uncertainty of a windfall tax with the complexity of both the Obama and McCain plans.

That's why she's Megan McArdle, and I'm not. RTWT.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 02:08 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 339 words, total size 2 kb.

Hackbarth on the way bookstores cope with a changing economy, and why some industries (or segments thereof) are more resistant to the effects of a recession than others.

In late 2001/early 2002 I was working at The Food Magazine, and one of the insights its editor had was that when times get tough (a terrorist attack, the beginnings of a recession) it was good to be in an industry that was considered an affordable luxury. "People still have to eat," I was told. "And if they can't afford to go clubbing or go out to fancy restaurants, they'll entertain at home, or have dinner at home."

We started running a lot of "comfort food" on the covers of the magazines and cookbooks, and emphasizing a "back to basics" approach. Simple elegance. Less caviar, more chicken pot pies. Fewer celebrity chefs, more on the visceral pleasures of food.

Of course, for the upper crust (yeah; I meant that) cooking is an affordable hobby.

So what's that thing the you can do at a level that is perceived by those around you to be a special value? What is, to put it in Hackbarthian terms, the equivalent to stocking up on Young Adult paperbacks, and relying less on YA hardcover sales?

How do we survive? How do we thrive?

What in your life—emotionally, financially, temporally—is the equivalent of a blue-chip stock?

I have some ideas, but it's taken me a while because I happen to be a bit dimwitted.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 08:29 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 253 words, total size 2 kb.

Hackbarth is on the case; just keep scrolling.

I'm also reading McArdle, in an attempt to make sense of it all.

(For the record, Sean seems more deeply concerned than Megan, but it's early in the day. A lot may happen over the next few news cycles.)

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:38 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 59 words, total size 1 kb.

. . . on the Bear Stearns bailout:

There's an argument, of course, that successive Fed interventions, starting with the Russian bond crisis, have turned bankers into ever-greater risk takers, making each crisis bigger and more expensive than the last. The thinking goes that we need to draw the line here, whatever the cost, because if we let the financiers go on their merry way, eventually they'll create a wave that will swamp the Fed's power to intervene. Possibly so, but from what I hear, the people on Wall Street are pretty much scared right down to the tips of their Gordon Gekko underoos.

In some sense, right now it's the Fed's job to manage that fear--to scare them enough to ratchet back their risk profile, without scaring them so badly that they hunker down inside their weekend house and refuse to buy or sell anything. That's very tricky, and since in the long run we'll all be dead, I'd rather the Fed err slightly on the side of cheering them up. Perhaps Helicopter Ben should start pumping anti-depressants into the Wall Street water supply.

Or we could simply provide each Wall Street trader with the stuffed animal of his or her choice.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 04:19 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
Post contains 207 words, total size 1 kb.

1 from what I hear, the people on Wall Street are pretty much scared right down to the tips of their Gordon Gekko underoos. And rightly so. This fear hasn't quite made it's way into the general population yet. Perhaps we should send Darrell to Wall Street with a couple crates of Norman Vincent Peale books.

Posted by: Desert Cat at March 17, 2008 07:03 AM (B2X7i)

2 Ahem . . . everyone has to play footsie with the boundaries, huh?

Posted by: Attila Girl at March 17, 2008 07:21 AM (Hgnbj)

3 Skating the edge of the abyss, yep. That's a hobby of mine.

Posted by: Desert Cat at March 17, 2008 07:57 AM (B2X7i)

4 Trust the MSM, go with the flow, and you'll always buy high and always sell low.

Posted by: Darrell at March 17, 2008 09:23 AM (7w5Lr)

5 Hey I agree that there are going to be some *fantastic* buy opportunities coming up in the next 24-36 months. In the mean time, any dead cat bounces will make good opportunities to ditch the last of any dollar-denominated equities you might be holding. In fact, getting into commodities about 6 months to a year ago (when I first started making nervous noises) would already have paid off handsomely. The time to start buying again may be about a year into the next administration when everyone is wringing their hands over what a horrendous mess the *previous* administration left. But I don't expect real estate to recover for at least 3-5 years. There's still a lot of downside yet to wash out of that market. And I'm running myself ragged trying to get my houses ready to put on the market. So far Tucson has not suffered the same deep losses as elsewhere, but I'm not counting it out before the end. Again, there will be bargains to be had later.

Posted by: Desert Cat at March 17, 2008 05:05 PM (B2X7i)

6 Not to dissuade you Darrell, mind you. We need people like you to be buyers in the market at this time. Trust me, we desperately do.

Posted by: Desert Cat at March 17, 2008 05:06 PM (B2X7i)

7 I've got a nice little 2 bedroom bungalow going on the market at the end of the month. Recently updated, located in a neighborhood with a lot of renovations and new infill construction. Great starter home, or investment property. $140k. E-mail me for details.

Posted by: Desert Cat at March 17, 2008 05:10 PM (B2X7i)

8 Torture me, why don't you, DC? You know I'd rather be buying than selling right now.

Posted by: Attila Girl at March 17, 2008 07:12 PM (Hgnbj)

9 The world market is making an adjustment based on the prospect of a real Socialist sitting in the White House come January 2009. This is only a start. Their mouths say "It's about time!" Their eyes and heart say "Oh shit! What are we going to do now?" I wouldn't be surprised if McCain starts seeing campaign contributions with lots of funny looking stamps on the envelopes.

Posted by: Darrell at March 17, 2008 08:16 PM (FwqGj)

10 Not in California you wouldn't. You're doing the right thing by going rental for now.

Posted by: Desert Cat at March 17, 2008 09:41 PM (DIr0W)

11 Actually, we are going to get a little condo, but the net effect is to divest somewhat from the R.E. market.

Posted by: Attila Girl at March 17, 2008 09:47 PM (Hgnbj)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

The answer isn't surprising: it's a Democrat in the White House:

The fourth-quarter edition of the Brinker Barometer, which polled 236 advisers in December, found that 22% indicated that a "Democrat in the White House" worried them more than all other economic or geopolitical concerns.

Rounding out the list of concerns was "global unrest" (15%), "U.S. economic growth" (15%), "a terrorist attack" (13%) and "a recession" (13%).

When asked what their greatest tax concern would be under a Democratic administration, 81% of advisers cited a potential increase in the capital gains tax, an income tax increase and heavier taxes on dividends.

I am impressed, however, that the fear of a Democratic President beat out the fear of a recession or a terrorist attack.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 01:34 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 139 words, total size 1 kb.

. . . on Ron Paul's exchange with Ben Bernake:

What Dr. Paul is saying doesn't make any particular sense: American consumers are not particularly suffering because of the decline of the dollar, the dollar is not declining because of Fed policy, and the Federal Reserve has nothing to do with a relative scarcity of oil and food, which is what is driving the CPI increases he complains about. If we were on the gold standard, oil and food would still be getting more expensive, and people on fixed incomes would still be feeling the pinch.

h/t to Insty, and special thanks to The Atlantic for having McArdle blog for them. It's good to see her writing showcased in the way it deserves.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 08:21 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 127 words, total size 1 kb.

. . . together at last:

>

Via Insty, who's running the Hazard lament about Hedge funds.

Laffer's star just rose in the Little Miss Attila galaxy; how many economists are appearing on YouTube these days? What a stud.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:50 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 49 words, total size 1 kb.

And Lou Dobbs slouches nearer, his moment come 'round at last . . . .

Nice. This is in reference to a mention of "Joel Kotkin and Fred Siegel on the Gentry Liberals: 'Over the last half a century, liberals have moved from strong support for basic middle-class concerns—epitomized by the New Deal and the G.I. Bill—to policies that reflect the concerns and prejudices of ever more elite interests.'"

Yup. They sure have.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 12:11 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 77 words, total size 1 kb.

"The middle class is getting squeezed, and the glass is half empty. La la la la la! I can't hear you!"

Apologies all around. But, food for thought, no?

Posted by: Attila Girl at 10:52 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 41 words, total size 1 kb.

No, I'm not tackling her fiction: call it enlightened self-interest on my part. Have you seen the size of those things?

But I enjoyed Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. It's a great sort of libertarian primer.

I'm also getting a kick out of The Virtue of Selfishness, but naturally I don't think Rand was as good an ethicist as she was an economist: living under Communism scarred her too deeply.

When man unfocuses his mind, he may be said to be conscioius in a subhuman sense of the word, since he experiences sensations and perceptions. But in the sense of the word applicable to man—in the sense of a consciousness which is aware of reality and able to deal with it, a consciousness able to direct the actions and provide for the survival of a human being—an unfocused mind is not conscious.

Psychologically, the choice "to think or not" is the choice "to focus or not." Existentially, the choice "to focus or not" is the choice "to be conscious or not." Metaphysically, the choice "to be conscious or not" is the choice of life or death.

You know, I tried that continual-focus thing; it made it awfully hard to sleep.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:34 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 205 words, total size 2 kb.

1 Attila, If you read books like that it will turn you on to Hillary in 08. Do not read the Fountainhead or Atlas shrugged, it will require you to wake up for long hours of the night. And that focus, well I don't think you want to become consious yet.

Posted by: azmat Hussain at September 22, 2007 11:58 PM (mdszq)

2 Someone who reads (and agrees with) Ayn Rand supporting Hillary? You've got to be smoking the wrong stuff, Azmat. Stick with the Kool-Ayd. Mandy spells it "conscious." You need to be more like Mandy, Azmat.

Posted by: Darrell at September 23, 2007 03:12 PM (Gq8GB)

3 Someone who reads (and agrees with) Ayn Rand supporting Hillary? You've got to be smoking the wrong stuff, Azmat. Stick with the Kool-Ayd. Mandy spells it "conscious." You need to be more like Mandy, Azmat.

Posted by: Darrell at September 23, 2007 03:12 PM (Gq8GB)

4 Someone who reads (and agrees with) Ayn Rand supporting Hillary? You've got to be smoking the wrong stuff, Azmat. Stick with the Kool-Ayd. Mandy spells it "conscious." You need to be more like Mandy, Azmat.

Posted by: Darrell at September 23, 2007 03:12 PM (Gq8GB)

5

Posted by: Attila Girl at September 23, 2007 09:06 PM (REMb7)

Hide Comments | Add Comment