(c) 2010 F. Bruce Abel
OK, times change. It is so easy to clip a paragraph from something I'm reading on the web, and then include it on this blog. Without comment.
It's lazy but it gives me a quick window into the article that I can later click on and read in full. And it's cloud computing which keeps track of pretty much every article I read. And I am hoping that dear relatives are secretly signing on to read my blog. Some aren't so secret and admit to doing it, which gives me immense pleasure.
The most hilarious web item read in the past month is "You Suck at Photoshop," which, as I said, is simply hilarious. http://www.mydamnchannel.com/You_Suck_at_Photoshop/Season_1/YouSuckAtPhotoshop1DistortWarpandLayerEffects_1373.aspx And it replicates itself with an enfolding story of Donnie Doyle's, the author's, ingeniously funny "life" and "marriage."
You can Google it quickly.
Showing posts with label How to Read This Blog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label How to Read This Blog. Show all posts
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Monday, June 14, 2010
We're All Adults Here
(c) 2010 F. Bruce Abel
OK, we're all adults here. So you will have noticed a certain "shorthand" made possible by Google, or somebody, which enables me to snip a paragraph and to include it on this blog with only two more clicks. So easy. And sometimes, for example, when I snip from an article within my Schwab account, it goes in without attribution. Suffice it to say, I didn't write it.
Also you will also note that there are certain photos created by world-class relatives (photographers). The latest was taken in Barcelona by Rebecca Worple, who happened to be sitting at a piazza when a nude walked across the square. She had her regular, not telephoto, lens, but what she got is considered immeasureable. Click on "Hot Air," which is a catch-all category of off-beat items I post. I think it's also catalogued under "Naked Shorts." Whatever -- and you can get it by typing "Barcelona" in the general search upper left.
OK, we're all adults here. So you will have noticed a certain "shorthand" made possible by Google, or somebody, which enables me to snip a paragraph and to include it on this blog with only two more clicks. So easy. And sometimes, for example, when I snip from an article within my Schwab account, it goes in without attribution. Suffice it to say, I didn't write it.
Also you will also note that there are certain photos created by world-class relatives (photographers). The latest was taken in Barcelona by Rebecca Worple, who happened to be sitting at a piazza when a nude walked across the square. She had her regular, not telephoto, lens, but what she got is considered immeasureable. Click on "Hot Air," which is a catch-all category of off-beat items I post. I think it's also catalogued under "Naked Shorts." Whatever -- and you can get it by typing "Barcelona" in the general search upper left.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
How to Read This Blog
(c) 2010 F. Bruce Abel
I have gotten, I think, only two comments of any substance, in my three-plus years of blogging. One was on my blog on David Muth's funeral. Type in "muth" and read it.
I have gotten, I think, only two comments of any substance, in my three-plus years of blogging. One was on my blog on David Muth's funeral. Type in "muth" and read it.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
How to Read This Blog
(c) 2010 F. Bruce Abel
For enjoyment press ctl+"+" four times to get a big picture of a part of your page;
then click on my label "hot air" and view the entries (pics) I've put on over the years and scroll down. Most are shots of Canada that I like, taken by world-renowned (or at least Worple-renowned) photographers.
For enjoyment press ctl+"+" four times to get a big picture of a part of your page;
then click on my label "hot air" and view the entries (pics) I've put on over the years and scroll down. Most are shots of Canada that I like, taken by world-renowned (or at least Worple-renowned) photographers.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
How to Read This Blog
(c) 2010 F. Bruce Abel
OK, you've noticed. I've stooped to pretty much just clipping segments from key articles and putting them on this blog without commentary or labeling. It's because of the new ease of doing this -- probably the work of Google, but I'm not sure! One clicks over about a paragraph and can transfer a link and the paragraph directly to this "Blogger" blog.
In the meantime European markets are extending their losses. Lowest levels since September. Geithner and Secretary Clinton talk from China. Cramer has saved me a lot by his call to basically get out of the market. At least for the past ten days.
OK, you've noticed. I've stooped to pretty much just clipping segments from key articles and putting them on this blog without commentary or labeling. It's because of the new ease of doing this -- probably the work of Google, but I'm not sure! One clicks over about a paragraph and can transfer a link and the paragraph directly to this "Blogger" blog.
In the meantime European markets are extending their losses. Lowest levels since September. Geithner and Secretary Clinton talk from China. Cramer has saved me a lot by his call to basically get out of the market. At least for the past ten days.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
How to Read My Blog
Type in this label and read How to Read This Blog. If you've done it before, do it again.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Rubin -- How to Read My Blog on Him
I will continue to build on my first recent blog, "Rubin -- Are You Nothing But a Sandwich?" So when you enter my blog today and the following week or so go back to that blog item.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Krugman -- Reaganism is Alive and Well
(c) F. Bruce Abel
Sometimes an Op Ed piece is so "spot-on" that I get the "shudders." Today it's Krugman.
I love you man!
The following by K. is wonkish but gives voice to all of us. The Government-is-Bad ghost still haunts the halls of Congress, in spite of the ample evidence that this mantra drove us to the edge of society's precipice. and we may still be there.
Op-Ed Columnist
All the President’s Zombies
comments (19)
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 23, 2009
The debate over the “public option” in health care has been dismaying in many ways. Perhaps the most depressing aspect for progressives, however, has been the extent to which opponents of greater choice in health care have gained traction — in Congress, if not with the broader public — simply by repeating, over and over again, that the public option would be, horrors, a government program.
A new blog from The New York Times that tracks the health care debate as it unfolds.
More Health Care Overhaul News
Post a Comment »
Read All Comments (19) »
Washington, it seems, is still ruled by Reaganism — by an ideology that says government intervention is always bad, and leaving the private sector to its own devices is always good.
Call me naïve, but I actually hoped that the failure of Reaganism in practice would kill it. It turns out, however, to be a zombie doctrine: even though it should be dead, it keeps on coming.
Let’s talk for a moment about why the age of Reagan should be over.
First of all, even before the current crisis Reaganomics had failed to deliver what it promised. Remember how lower taxes on high incomes and deregulation that unleashed the “magic of the marketplace” were supposed to lead to dramatically better outcomes for everyone? Well, it didn’t happen.
To be sure, the wealthy benefited enormously: the real incomes of the top .01 percent of Americans rose sevenfold between 1980 and 2007. But the real income of the median family rose only 22 percent, less than a third its growth over the previous 27 years.
Moreover, most of whatever gains ordinary Americans achieved came during the Clinton years. President George W. Bush, who had the distinction of being the first Reaganite president to also have a fully Republican Congress, also had the distinction of presiding over the first administration since Herbert Hoover in which the typical family failed to see any significant income gains.
And then there’s the small matter of the worst recession since the 1930s.
There’s a lot to be said about the financial disaster of the last two years, but the short version is simple: politicians in the thrall of Reaganite ideology dismantled the New Deal regulations that had prevented banking crises for half a century, believing that financial markets could take care of themselves. The effect was to make the financial system vulnerable to a 1930s-style crisis — and the crisis came.
“We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals,” said Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1937. “We know now that it is bad economics.” And last year we learned that lesson all over again.
Or did we? The astonishing thing about the current political scene is the extent to which nothing has changed.
The debate over the public option has, as I said, been depressing in its inanity. Opponents of the option — not just Republicans, but Democrats like Senator Kent Conrad and Senator Ben Nelson — have offered no coherent arguments against it. Mr. Nelson has warned ominously that if the option were available, Americans would choose it over private insurance — which he treats as a self-evidently bad thing, rather than as what should happen if the government plan was, in fact, better than what private insurers offer.
But it’s much the same on other fronts. Efforts to strengthen bank regulation appear to be losing steam, as opponents of reform declare that more regulation would lead to less financial innovation — this just months after the wonders of innovation brought our financial system to the edge of collapse, a collapse that was averted only with huge infusions of taxpayer funds.
So why won’t these zombie ideas die?
Part of the answer is that there’s a lot of money behind them. “It is difficult to get a man to understand something,” said Upton Sinclair, “when his salary” — or, I would add, his campaign contributions — “depend upon his not understanding it.” In particular, vast amounts of insurance industry money have been flowing to obstructionist Democrats like Mr. Nelson and Senator Max Baucus, whose Gang of Six negotiations have been a crucial roadblock to legislation.
But some of the blame also must rest with President Obama, who famously praised Reagan during the Democratic primary, and hasn’t used the bully pulpit to confront government-is-bad fundamentalism. That’s ironic, in a way, since a large part of what made Reagan so effective, for better or for worse, was the fact that he sought to change America’s thinking as well as its tax code.
How will this all work out? I don’t know. But it’s hard to avoid the sense that a crucial opportunity is being missed, that we’re at what should be a turning point but are failing to make the turn.
•
In my column last Monday, I made a joke about the Swiss that fell flat with some readers. Also, the Swiss don’t wear lederhosen.
Sign in to RecommendNext Article in Opinion (1 of 25) » A version of this article appeared in print on August 24, 2009, on page A19 of the New York edition.
comments (19)
Sometimes an Op Ed piece is so "spot-on" that I get the "shudders." Today it's Krugman.
I love you man!
The following by K. is wonkish but gives voice to all of us. The Government-is-Bad ghost still haunts the halls of Congress, in spite of the ample evidence that this mantra drove us to the edge of society's precipice. and we may still be there.
Op-Ed Columnist
All the President’s Zombies
comments (19)
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 23, 2009
The debate over the “public option” in health care has been dismaying in many ways. Perhaps the most depressing aspect for progressives, however, has been the extent to which opponents of greater choice in health care have gained traction — in Congress, if not with the broader public — simply by repeating, over and over again, that the public option would be, horrors, a government program.
A new blog from The New York Times that tracks the health care debate as it unfolds.
More Health Care Overhaul News
Post a Comment »
Read All Comments (19) »
Washington, it seems, is still ruled by Reaganism — by an ideology that says government intervention is always bad, and leaving the private sector to its own devices is always good.
Call me naïve, but I actually hoped that the failure of Reaganism in practice would kill it. It turns out, however, to be a zombie doctrine: even though it should be dead, it keeps on coming.
Let’s talk for a moment about why the age of Reagan should be over.
First of all, even before the current crisis Reaganomics had failed to deliver what it promised. Remember how lower taxes on high incomes and deregulation that unleashed the “magic of the marketplace” were supposed to lead to dramatically better outcomes for everyone? Well, it didn’t happen.
To be sure, the wealthy benefited enormously: the real incomes of the top .01 percent of Americans rose sevenfold between 1980 and 2007. But the real income of the median family rose only 22 percent, less than a third its growth over the previous 27 years.
Moreover, most of whatever gains ordinary Americans achieved came during the Clinton years. President George W. Bush, who had the distinction of being the first Reaganite president to also have a fully Republican Congress, also had the distinction of presiding over the first administration since Herbert Hoover in which the typical family failed to see any significant income gains.
And then there’s the small matter of the worst recession since the 1930s.
There’s a lot to be said about the financial disaster of the last two years, but the short version is simple: politicians in the thrall of Reaganite ideology dismantled the New Deal regulations that had prevented banking crises for half a century, believing that financial markets could take care of themselves. The effect was to make the financial system vulnerable to a 1930s-style crisis — and the crisis came.
“We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals,” said Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1937. “We know now that it is bad economics.” And last year we learned that lesson all over again.
Or did we? The astonishing thing about the current political scene is the extent to which nothing has changed.
The debate over the public option has, as I said, been depressing in its inanity. Opponents of the option — not just Republicans, but Democrats like Senator Kent Conrad and Senator Ben Nelson — have offered no coherent arguments against it. Mr. Nelson has warned ominously that if the option were available, Americans would choose it over private insurance — which he treats as a self-evidently bad thing, rather than as what should happen if the government plan was, in fact, better than what private insurers offer.
But it’s much the same on other fronts. Efforts to strengthen bank regulation appear to be losing steam, as opponents of reform declare that more regulation would lead to less financial innovation — this just months after the wonders of innovation brought our financial system to the edge of collapse, a collapse that was averted only with huge infusions of taxpayer funds.
So why won’t these zombie ideas die?
Part of the answer is that there’s a lot of money behind them. “It is difficult to get a man to understand something,” said Upton Sinclair, “when his salary” — or, I would add, his campaign contributions — “depend upon his not understanding it.” In particular, vast amounts of insurance industry money have been flowing to obstructionist Democrats like Mr. Nelson and Senator Max Baucus, whose Gang of Six negotiations have been a crucial roadblock to legislation.
But some of the blame also must rest with President Obama, who famously praised Reagan during the Democratic primary, and hasn’t used the bully pulpit to confront government-is-bad fundamentalism. That’s ironic, in a way, since a large part of what made Reagan so effective, for better or for worse, was the fact that he sought to change America’s thinking as well as its tax code.
How will this all work out? I don’t know. But it’s hard to avoid the sense that a crucial opportunity is being missed, that we’re at what should be a turning point but are failing to make the turn.
•
In my column last Monday, I made a joke about the Swiss that fell flat with some readers. Also, the Swiss don’t wear lederhosen.
Sign in to RecommendNext Article in Opinion (1 of 25) » A version of this article appeared in print on August 24, 2009, on page A19 of the New York edition.
comments (19)
Friday, July 10, 2009
How to Read This Blog
© 2009 F. Bruce Abel
How to Read This Blog:
Periodically I write a little background instructing my anonymous readers how to read this blog.
First, you should know that I read the New York Times first every day, especially the Op Ed page. I do not read the Wall Street Journal. I just don’t.
When at home I have CNBC on mute all day. I TIVO it. I watch Fast Money, Stop Trading, Mad Money, Charlie Rose, and TIVO same.
I watch Consuelo Mack every Saturday.
Since January 15 or so I have resumed being an active trader with a $25,000 Schwab account. If you must know I’m losing money so far and I’m in agreement that common stocks are in control of the hedge funds and others making them a casino as never before. Bonds might be too, although there are niches within the bond category that should be explored, a la Bill Gross interview just posted.
Right now we have been up on a family island in Canada for almost a full month, with access to wireless in our “rustic” cottage. My big observation about the Globe & Mail, which I get every Saturday up here fresh off the Toronto press, is how retail-oriented is their financial pages. Very good.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Displaying Ads -- Not!
For one day I allowed the placing of ads on this website. But I appear not to have any control over what is advertised. So an ad for investing in gold pops up. And similar distasteful ads.
So I turned this program off.
So I turned this program off.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
How to Read This Blog
"Personal Nut Free and Clear"
For the best, very best I mean, summary of where we are -- the despising of Wall Street -- type in and search for "Wolfe" within this blog. Read the first six or so pages.
Doing this myself reminds me why I post so many of my blogs with the title "Liar's Poker." Michael Lewis explained the phenomenon in this book for the first time in the early 1980's. For many years I collected as many copies of this book for my bookshelf, just to remind me of the greatness of this work. (As a friend of mine, Phil Ringo, once gave Dave Young, another friend, and an avid Woody Hayes and Ohio State fan, multiple copies of the book "Woody" for Christmas, a subtle hint that he felt David's worship was a little "over the top.")
It is worth a stroll down memory lane, so to speak, on this blog.
Doing this myself reminds me why I post so many of my blogs with the title "Liar's Poker." Michael Lewis explained the phenomenon in this book for the first time in the early 1980's. For many years I collected as many copies of this book for my bookshelf, just to remind me of the greatness of this work. (As a friend of mine, Phil Ringo, once gave Dave Young, another friend, and an avid Woody Hayes and Ohio State fan, multiple copies of the book "Woody" for Christmas, a subtle hint that he felt David's worship was a little "over the top.")
It is worth a stroll down memory lane, so to speak, on this blog.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Exceptionalism -- Read Beth Smith's Paper/Article
Type "Why I was too busy" in upper left to go to this article. Beth nailed it many years ago!
Monday, September 22, 2008
How to Read This Blog
During this week of crisis I am heading my posts simply with the names of the NYT writers. They are all excellent.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Weird Wind
This blog is written in part for myself. OK, mainly for myself.
I put articles that I love up here on the "cloud" so I can access them from any computer, whether it be in my office (30 feet away down in the barn-room), or my laptop, 20 feet away in the dining room), or in Canada when we are there. Genny can access my thoughts from Manila. Becca from Terrace Park.
As if anyone wanted to do that! But some do! Averaging 2:30 minutes per visit, except when I don't post due to an emergency such as no electricity.
Then the visits fall to a few seconds.
Following a mini-reunion at Hills & Dales Park in Dayton, and the Ohio State-USC game that night over the tube, from 1:30 pm Sunday until 9:14 pm last night (Tuesday) the electricity in our neighborhood of Cincinnati was out. Over 1,000,000 people in the Cincinnati area were without power.
It was caused by winds from "Ike" whirling for four hours and gusting to 74 mph on Sunday, all without any rain, on a hot day.
Over a very wide area of Ohio many trees were knocked over and power lines affected. This after the great drought last summer, making the root-system of the trees fragile.
What did I learn? Get the kids off the soccer field before they are blown over.
Get D batteries to run my portable radio. I had them in the radio but had cadged them for something else over time.
Having flashlights can be good.
Some people cook with gas which can be good when the electricity goes out.
Glendale has a very good Mayor Hubbard and City Manager Wally Cordes.
The US Bank on Springfield Pike operates without electricity if you know your account number and want $300.
Dry ice can be purchased nearby on bypass 50.
You can take a warm shower even when you don't have electricity.
You can sleep 12 hours at night without listening to BBC.
You can beg and wheedle all night and not get it, even when there's nothing else to do.
My wife can read in bed with incredibly little light.
My neighbor, the gadget-man, has a generator and he and his wife have nice block parties. Actually both side neighbors have a generator, the northern neighbor being the Cincinnati Bell tomb-like switching office.
My laptop computer does not take a charge, so requires a new battery.
Many Krogers's do not have back-up power.
Korean restaurants two shops down from Krogers lose about $400 per day of outage. Such restaurants are "safer" than the one in Hamilton, but the traffic to this mall isn't as much as hoped, even though bypass 50 dead-ends into this shopping center (and the beautiful Hamilton County walking path behind it).
The night sky on a clear night in a city without lights is beautiful.
One can spend three hours picking up debree.
WLW is stupid to continue broadcasting the Sunday Reds-Diamondbacks game while the City is in crisis and needs information. They have admitted as such.
The Bengals can lose a home game in a four-hour wind too. Are the players worrying about their families while the weird wind blows through Paul Brown Stadium? I would have.
Walgreen's is out of D batteries (first day) but Lowes has gobs of them (second day).
People who visit my blog during days when I don't write anything only stay a few seconds. Did I already say that?
When the power came back on it was as if the world started afresh, and I thought for an instant Mom was alive again and I was in high school and each minute would be like the last and would imply a better future.
I put articles that I love up here on the "cloud" so I can access them from any computer, whether it be in my office (30 feet away down in the barn-room), or my laptop, 20 feet away in the dining room), or in Canada when we are there. Genny can access my thoughts from Manila. Becca from Terrace Park.
As if anyone wanted to do that! But some do! Averaging 2:30 minutes per visit, except when I don't post due to an emergency such as no electricity.
Then the visits fall to a few seconds.
Following a mini-reunion at Hills & Dales Park in Dayton, and the Ohio State-USC game that night over the tube, from 1:30 pm Sunday until 9:14 pm last night (Tuesday) the electricity in our neighborhood of Cincinnati was out. Over 1,000,000 people in the Cincinnati area were without power.
It was caused by winds from "Ike" whirling for four hours and gusting to 74 mph on Sunday, all without any rain, on a hot day.
Over a very wide area of Ohio many trees were knocked over and power lines affected. This after the great drought last summer, making the root-system of the trees fragile.
What did I learn? Get the kids off the soccer field before they are blown over.
Get D batteries to run my portable radio. I had them in the radio but had cadged them for something else over time.
Having flashlights can be good.
Some people cook with gas which can be good when the electricity goes out.
Glendale has a very good Mayor Hubbard and City Manager Wally Cordes.
The US Bank on Springfield Pike operates without electricity if you know your account number and want $300.
Dry ice can be purchased nearby on bypass 50.
You can take a warm shower even when you don't have electricity.
You can sleep 12 hours at night without listening to BBC.
You can beg and wheedle all night and not get it, even when there's nothing else to do.
My wife can read in bed with incredibly little light.
My neighbor, the gadget-man, has a generator and he and his wife have nice block parties. Actually both side neighbors have a generator, the northern neighbor being the Cincinnati Bell tomb-like switching office.
My laptop computer does not take a charge, so requires a new battery.
Many Krogers's do not have back-up power.
Korean restaurants two shops down from Krogers lose about $400 per day of outage. Such restaurants are "safer" than the one in Hamilton, but the traffic to this mall isn't as much as hoped, even though bypass 50 dead-ends into this shopping center (and the beautiful Hamilton County walking path behind it).
The night sky on a clear night in a city without lights is beautiful.
One can spend three hours picking up debree.
WLW is stupid to continue broadcasting the Sunday Reds-Diamondbacks game while the City is in crisis and needs information. They have admitted as such.
The Bengals can lose a home game in a four-hour wind too. Are the players worrying about their families while the weird wind blows through Paul Brown Stadium? I would have.
Walgreen's is out of D batteries (first day) but Lowes has gobs of them (second day).
People who visit my blog during days when I don't write anything only stay a few seconds. Did I already say that?
When the power came back on it was as if the world started afresh, and I thought for an instant Mom was alive again and I was in high school and each minute would be like the last and would imply a better future.
Friday, August 15, 2008
How to Read This Blog
I will label a topic when it becomes hot. In the case of Georgia I label it "Saakashvilli." Then later blogs have that label even though S.'s name is never mentioned. "Civil Society" is another label that I use, often when I have a political viewpoint about the current administration or the candidates. "Liar's Poker" refers to the landmark book by Michael Lewis that tells how wall street investment banks screw the public and always will, with various schemes that produce billionaires with the fees involved. "Cudahy" refers to my favorite federal judge who has intersected my professional life twice, all without my ever meeting or seeing him. Various labels "Cramer" are self-explanatory. Back in the late 1980's I exchanged a few emails with him. He is the one trustworthy stock market analyst for the day-to-day trader who has a few million to trade with and therefore can keep his bearing while keeping some powder dry.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Miscellaneous
Being up in Canada with limited ability to "cut and paste" articles into this blog forces me to me creative at a different level.
Many pass the time of vacation restoration by doing jigsaw puzzles. I endlessly work on the repairs necessary to Microsoft Outlook, using only the internet for answers to what is probably a simple problem.
This blog itself can serve as a well of resources for more ideas. I have been doing the blog for over one year now.
Over at one island slowness of downloading caused a forced focus on headlines. Now on a second island this problem is not present.
Fishing -- what is it all about? Many things I see. Individual and various skills are needed. Plus fishing is the one way to entertain guests and to pass the hours away until they leave.
Canada is certainly a different place in this most-favored playground of the country -- now officially proclaimed: Georgian Bay. Replacing the movie-star studded Muskoka, nearby.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
How to Read This Blog
When I have CNBC on I will comment in a real-time basis.
Rick Santelli is good and worth listening to because he is standing on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Traders on this market do not care whether the market goes up or down and therefore do not pull their punches about what they think. Almost everybody in New York Wall Street has a bias to the upside and therefore use "cover" words that the unitiated do not "get." Or worse, they just are bullish forever.
Rick Santelli is good and worth listening to because he is standing on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Traders on this market do not care whether the market goes up or down and therefore do not pull their punches about what they think. Almost everybody in New York Wall Street has a bias to the upside and therefore use "cover" words that the unitiated do not "get." Or worse, they just are bullish forever.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Monday, March 3, 2008
My Best Blogs -- Check Out August
I guess I wasn't giving Labels for my posts in August, so a lot are under the radar. Click on August on the right and you will get them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)