08:59 – Happy New Year.
Today, I finish up Arthropoda and start the final group of lab sessions, on Chordata. I have 17 days budgeted for that, followed by three days on the Preface and Introduction. That leaves me 11 days for final cleanup and perhaps adding a lab session or two.
Here are my New Year’s Resolutions for 2012:
1. Continue smoking
2. Avoid exercise
3. Avoid losing weight
4. Eat more fatty foods
5. Ridicule irrationality and Political Correctness at every opportunity
6. Encourage kids to develop an interest in science
7. Speak my mind on political and social issues
8. Write a couple books and put together three or four science kits for sale to homeschoolers
9. Read a couple hundred books
10. Have fun.
Unlike some people, I never seem to have any trouble keeping my New Year’s Resolutions. I nailed all of my 2011 Resolutions except #3 (I did accidentally lose a bit of weight) and #8 (we actually have only one kit available for sale right now, but I do have two more in progress). A year from now, I’ll tell you how I did on these 2012 Resolutions.
13:20 – I just took a break and spent some time reading the New Years speeches of several of the EU leaders. The consensus is that 2012 will be a much more difficult year than 2011, during which the EU and the euro teetered on the brink of collapse. I’d say they got that right.
Apparently, the main goal of Greece for 2012 is to avoid collapse. Well, that and to avoid getting kicked out of the euro. The main goal of Ireland during 2012 is to avoid collapse. The main goal of Portugal during 2012 is to avoid collapse. The main goal of Spain during 2012 is to avoid collapse. The main goal of Italy during 2012 is to avoid collapse. The main goal of Belgium during 2012 is to avoid collapse. The main goal of France during 2012 is to avoid collapse. And the main goal of Germany during 2012 is to get the rest of the eurozone to do what it orders them to do and to avoid having to pay the rest of the eurozone’s bills. That, and get even with the UK.
I am with you on 3-7 and 9-10.
And our main goal here in North America will be the same as the Euros’ main goals in about 5-10 years. If that long.
Steady rain up here now as the temps rocketed from zero to 36 for the last three days. Then they will slump back down to single digits in a few more days. Not much snow here in Nova Anglia so far this winter. Algore must be streaming massive contrails behind his jets as he continues to swan around the world between all his mega-mansions and blowing his own volumes of hot air. While our gorgeous and brilliant SecState, beloved of certain parties down in Oz, also burns up the air miles fomenting more wars and death and suffering.
Day off tomorrow for OFD, who will probably spend the day reading, listening to the radio, maybe watching episodes of The Shield, The Wire, Boardwalk Empire, or maybe a movie, depending on what the womyn can bear watching, usually treacly stuff and comedies.
Good luck on them resolutions, Robert, and may we all have a healthy, happy and prosperous new year. Thanks also for your hosting of this board for so long; it clearly means a lot to a bunch of us poor slobs out here.
Ahh, the weather on this continent sucks! and most people living here don’t know that.
Just had a 5 hour power failure during 50mph continuous winds. Winds have died down to between 20 to 30mph now. My dad had a generator in the garage here, but never dreaming I would ever be back, I sold everything to the bare walls. Just realizing today that I don’t even have candles here. Temps have dropped to well below freezing, but at least it was warm enough that I did not freeze during the outage.
Looking at the statistics in Berlin, winds were between 1 and 3 mph today, although it is supposed to reach a whopping 10mph, tomorrow. Easy to see why the Pilgrims termed the US a “harsh climate”.
Heard a funny interview with the prime German financial adviser to Merkel. After a couple minutes of outlining what Germany should do — which was completely different than what Merkel has done — the program host asked him why it is that Merkel does not listen to him. He was floored by the question, and admitted, “I don’t really know.”
Next step that everyone EXCEPT Merkel agrees upon, is that some institution there needs to be appointed to guarantee member country loans. Once again this guy pointed out what Dean Baker has been saying for eons: the Germans in general misunderstand the whole situation, and believe they will be paying all the debts of all other countries. Guaranteeing a loan means you only pay if the country defaults, and the fact is that — like anyone with a good job and a reasonable mortgage — those countries are quite able to pay their debts. However, what Merkel has insisted upon, has reduced revenue in the troubled states, increased unemployment, slowed their economies and — if she keeps on the same track — will guarantee a European-wide recession and insure that Germany will eventually cause a collapse somewhere besides Greece, and thus will be bailing out everyone, like it or not.
What the EU needs is to eject Germany.
The Pilgrims, among whom were several of my ancestors, were woefully unprepared crybabies who only survived as much as they did through the help of the local natives, and this scenario was replicated at Madaket on the western tip of Nantucket in the winter of 1659, involving more of my ancestors, one of whom had fled Salisbury, Maffachufetts after being fined thirty shillings for sheltering Quakers from a rainstorm, as irony would have it today. Two of those Quakers were later hanged in Boston.
As for Europa, if there is any way at all that the situation can be a case of defeat snatched from the jaws of victory, Merkozy and the nabobs at Brussels will find a way to do it, and thus ensure misery and privation for many millions. While aggrandizing more power and wealth to themselves, of course. Our own nabobs will be doing exactly the same in the next few years, naturally.
Chuck, you gotta get prepped up a little better out there in the hinterlands; starting, it appears, with candles and blankets. De facto standard here in New England for generations, yea unto the aforementioned ancestors. Check out the Lehman’s catalog for all kinds of neat non-electric gizmos and gimcracks. Based out in your neck of the woods.
http://www.lehmans.com/
I made a New Years Resolution years ago to never make anymore New Years Resolutions. So far so good.
Hey Chuck, weather can be dreadful anywhere. Here in Switzerland, and certainly at least in Southern Germany, we had a huge windstorm a couple of weeks back. If you remember “Lothar”, this was “Joachim” and very much on the same scale. We discovered just how many of our shiny new windows are *not* watertight when pouring rain is driven into them for hours on end at 100mph. Of course, you do have a continental climate, which does make for very cold winters…
Re the Euro, I very much agree with Merkel. Many European countries are *not* able to pay their debts. Italy, being our neighbor, is much in the news here. While they did have the courage to appoint a competent and apparently non-corrupt new government, the country is simply not functional. Corruption is so deeply embedded, especially in the southern portions of the country, that it is nearly ungovernable. Reducing government services will simply free up space for criminal organizations to operate, unless one simulatanously attacks corruption and organized crime.
Maybe the new government can pull off a miracle, but the only hope of this is to make all the alternatives worse. Austerity and anti-corruption efforts absolutely require the support of the population. As soon as you give them an out, namely, knowing that someone else is on the hook for their debts, the reforms will have no chance at all. Setting up loan guarantees means exactly what Merkel says: Germans paying for Italian profligacy.
Yeah, weather can be bad anywhere, but over the long haul, my decade in Germany was like living in no-weather San Diego, compared to the stormy weather-plagued South Pole. So far, since I have been back, we have had 2 summer droughts — this past summer really severe; — no spring or fall either year — immediately from overly cold to overly hot and humid and vice-versa; — the longest, hottest summer on record — which, more than the drought, stunted corn growth everywhere; — more recorded twisters in my state than at any time in previous recent decades; — more recorded flooding than in any previous recent decades, although damage was modest. And we have had constant 20 to 30mph winds since early October, with only a day or two respite here and there, culminating in yesterday’s 50mph day. I will take mild, modest Berlin over this weather any time.
On the economic front, although really recent figures are hard to come by, as recently as 6 months ago, debts of all the countries but Greece were mere fractions of their GDP revenue. This idea that the debt of Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Ireland exceeds their income is just plain wrong. Unfortunately, the media talks about it as if debts were higher than revenue, but that is not even true in Greece (although it probably will be soon) — and I suspect most of that is because of their own work stoppage reactions to the situation.
What Germany has got to get through their head, is that they WILL be paying for these troubles one way or the other. This whole economic union was their idea. They are most certainly going to take the financial fall for its failure, if there is one. And the attitude they are taking — dictating what everybody else can and cannot do — is going to do them irreparable harm, if they keep at it. Germany has far better thinkers than Merkel. If there is a collapse in Europe, she is going to be the cause. I railed here against that now obvious clown, Alan Greenspan, who single-handedly caused more misery and death worldwide in the late ‘90’s than any dictator with military backing, by allowing terrific deflation from ’95 to ’02, and Merkel now gets my wrath. She is needlessly harming many, many thousands in Europe. She needs to go. But like Greenspan, that is not likely to occur until the damage is done and permanent.
There is no reliable economist I have heard — Keynesian or Austrian — who supports what Merkel is forcing on the troubled states. It is like doling out food, but not watching what they are eating, then when finding them overweight with no food left, and saying, ‘Okay, no more food for 18 months.’ By the end of 18 months, everyone will be dead.
The EU did not police those economies, and what’s more, Germany was one of the first to violate the rules. Calling for austerity afterwards as a punishment, when nobody did anything concurrent to stop the violations, will only cause severe contraction. And on that point, both reputable Keynesians and Austrians are agreed. Fix it for the next time, but don’t starve everyone now as punishment for past sins of what was a poorly executed system in the first place.
I don’t know any Austrian economists who take that position. Do you have examples?
The EU’s problem, as I have been saying for years, is that their socialist economies promise more than can be delivered. I’m not sure where you’re getting your figures, but there is not a single country in the EU, including Germany, whose revenue comes even close to its debt burden. Not remotely. In fact, there aren’t even any countries whose *GDPs* come close to their total debt burdens. Yes, Germany’s debt is nominally less than 100% of GDP, but that’s only sovereign debt. When all debt is taken into account, and particularly when you consider unfunded commitments (such as retirement and medical care for retirees), every country in the EU is not just bankrupt but so far beyond bankrupt that there’s not even a word for it.
Oh, yeah. Merkel is absolutely wrong in that she apparently believes that the euro and the EU can be salvaged. They can’t. But she is absolutely right that enforcing austerity programs is the only way to stop these other governments from digging themselves in even deeper.
Ultimately, none of it matters. The euro and the EU are both toast.
Oops, I meant to post only a portion of Bob’s comment and ask if he had been saying this since before Margaret Thatcher became famous for saying, “the problem with Socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people’s money.”
Yeah, actually I have. I have despised socialism and collectivism of any sort since I first read Ayn Rand. Not just The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, but the rest of her books as well.
My dad had socialist leanings originally, although I finally talked him over to my side by the time I was 20 or so. In later years, although he’d been registered Democrat since he was old enough to vote, he finally registered as a Libertarian.
I actually remember the first substantive conversation I had with him about politics. I was in first grade or thereabouts and there was a piece on the evening news about income tax rates. I said that it seemed unfair to me that some people should have to pay more than others, and he of course responded with some socialist crap about ability to pay. So I countered, asking him why everyone paid the same price for items at the grocery store and if some people were being compelled to pay more taxes than others, shouldn’t their votes be weighted proportionately more?
Come to think of it, I remember my argument word for word: “If one guy has to pay twice as much in taxes as someone else, shouldn’t he get twice as many votes?”
Robert Bruce Thompson says:
I don’t know any Austrian economists who take that position. Do you have examples?
A few weeks ago, BBC’s Business Daily said — as a matter of irony — that they polled Austrian school economists in Europe and found none who favored the austerity currently being imposed on the most seriously troubled EU member states. No economists were specifically named, but certainly I do not believe that the BBC made that up.
Unfunded social programs do not constitute the public debt nor are they included in figures of the deficit a country runs. They might become part of the deficit in the future, but not now. Neither does private debt constitute the public debt of EU countries. Nor does corporate debt. If you want to get down to it, every piece of currency in an economy is a debt instrument, so practically all figures in the whole economy represent debt.
But the issue in the EU is about government deficit alone, and clearly neither you nor most people seem to understand that. In most cases, that deficit is less than 1/3 of GDP in each of the troubled EU economies (excepting Greece, whose figures still are not clear). Any so-called bailout or guarantee that is being considered, references ONLY government deficit. Nobody at the EU or ECB is talking about bailing out the debt of every corporation plus the debts of every man, woman, child, dog, bank, and business in the country. The deficit rates of all the troubled countries — except Greece — are manageable, if the ECB will guarantee the loans. It ain’t rocket science to see this. A guarantee is not a bailout, unless the guarantee has to be paid off. Guarantees cost nothing otherwise. Greece is a guaranteed payout, but certainly doable given the EU’s huge combined revenue.
As to social welfare, Americans are so willing to take potshots at it, but social welfare is between governments and their constituents — and clearly, Europe wants it, whether Americans approve of that or not. Saying they cannot afford it defies observation. Sweden has been affording very high levels of social welfare for decades. Germany had far better unemployment compensation while I was there, than does the US. Repeating over and over that Europe cannot afford social welfare that Americans decry, does not mean Europeans are unwilling to pay the higher levels of taxes to get it. In fact, US politicians keep insisting that US Social Security is unaffordable, when the actual fact is that it is already fully funded by its own tax through 2035, and even then would provide 80% of current levels beyond that. Recent surveys have shown that Americans DO want Social Security, and they ARE willing to pay for it — regardless of what the lying politicians say — who falsely tell you that it is unaffordable, just so they can divert those taxes from a fully-funded program to their own pockets and purposes, while impoverishing you in your old age.
Again, this whole EU affair is the speed bump of moving to Federalism. It was predictable. The players accomplished what they could to get it rolling, and they will have a lot more to get done to see it through. Except for a small minority of citizens, they are all willing — certainly the decision-makers are willing.
And this is all no surprise. The globalization of the world puts pressure on every part of it to compete more effectively in the world marketplace. Federalism of the US is quite obviously more successful than what Europe has had, up to now. Europe MUST move away from what it was, to a better, more cooperative and competitive region, in order to progress. What it has had, is not competitive with Federalism, and you all should be flattered and rejoicing that we have shown them a superior way that they want to copy, instead of encouraging their former tribalism and the splitting apart into what clearly was a less effective method of regional government. Hopefully, they will be successful enough that they will force the US to get off its ass and quit giving away prosperity.
I actually remember the first substantive conversation I had with him about politics. I was in first grade or thereabouts and there was a piece on the evening news about income tax rates. I said that it seemed unfair to me that some people should have to pay more than others, and he of course responded with some socialist crap about ability to pay. So I countered, asking him why everyone paid the same price for items at the grocery store and if some people were being compelled to pay more taxes than others, shouldn’t their votes be weighted proportionately more?
I don’t see how the thing about grocery store prices is a counterargument.
It’s not; it’s irony. Everybody pays the same for the same product in a grocery store, but the same people pay different prices for receiving the same product from government.