RobertL

dgordon. When you grow from nothing to something 13 times doesn't mean too much. That argument is totally irrelevant.

There is no way we could have had the kind of growth we experienced post WWII if we had stayed on the gold or silver standard. The monetary system we use now is not perfect, it's just the best we have available.

But it's definitely broken. We need to fire some of the people who should have warned us about the crisis we are now in but didn't and then move on.

I feel very badly for those who have suffered unfairly, and this includes millions of innocents, but these things happen.

Anyone with any knowledge of our monetary systems will readily acknowledge that it works like a big ponzi scheme.

This is really the only way to manage a monetary system so it allows for economic growth.

We could say. "Let's go back to the Gold or Silver standard" but they have their own problems. United States was on a gold standard in the 1980s and I don't think we want to go there.

Anyone who has studied the history of Andrew Jackson should recall that the ongoing conflict between himself and Henry Clay during his three terms as president was about "Money Supply".

I don't get the connection between the article and global warming but have heard that Mr. O's transition team is discussing the possibility of starting a policy initiative that makes it against the law to be a "Global Warming Denier".

So here we are. It's 2010 and it's OK to make porn movie because that activity is protected by the first amendment.

But, boy, if you don't believe in "Human Caused Global Warming" and you haven't bought any of those Carbon Offsets..

Well, the constitution isn't going to be able to help you there. You just went too far over the line.

Actually he gets the "engineering" thing right.

I'm a chemical engineer (MS) and after 17 years on the job I ultimately came to the conclusion that earning a degree in engineering is the functional equivalent of buying your way into slavery. Didn't meet any practicing engineers who disagreed with the analysis either.

Whenever I meet a bright young teenager who expresses an interest in entering the profession I do everything in my power to talk him or her out of it.

Zed actually says intelligent stuff but in a very obnoxious way.

This makes him a "half-way Reddit". Because Reddit is a place where most posters say stupid stuff in a very obnoxious way.

So, in a way, he was made for the environment. Sorry to see him leave.

I think Chile is a better option. Much more capitalist oriented government. Income tax is at just over 40% though but there are lots of jobs, lots of activity, and the government is pro-immigration. Especially if you have technical skills.

Also Chile has huge Lithium deposits and could become Saudi Arabia of Lithium if these new electric cars work out. Get your citizenship early. Before everyone starts moving there.

After a year of Mr. O this country's entrepreneurs are probably going to be bailing out and the place could get real crowded.

Wow. Just in time. I think the Greek Government needs a couple dozen of these things and it needs them right now.

AP says this is just more evidence of Human Caused Global Warming. Just more reason to increase the price of those carbon offsets.

Great link. Paul is right on. I was wondering when someone was going to figure this out.

Anyone who doesn't take credit cards is "nuts". This is total nonsense.

Better idea might be to just fire all the koolaid drinking college professors.

I can't believe that anyone still believes anything they read in the NY Times.

Not to worry mf.... The problem isn't that French Cafe's are dying. The problem is that the New York Times is dying. They just don't like to talk about that subject in first person singular. Replace "French Cafe" with NYT and you are starting to understand what the article is really about.

I definitely agree.

Good idea... maybe all the gays will move to NE.

Good points sahaj. I stopped watching the business shows a long time ago because all the guests are just trying to sell the kinds of investments they profit from.

What we're going through is a "liquidity crisis" more than a "recession" and that's why gold isn't doing much and commodities are going down. There simply isn't any money anywhere.

Good article p. And congrats on your success.

Well that should have a lot less impact on the economy than GM laying off 25% of it's staff.

Right on timr. I have an MS in engineering and it took me 17 years on the job to figure out what a joke my degree was.

Earning a degree in engineering is the functional equivalent of buying your way into slavery.

It looks like these things are going to be a lot easier on the Environment. Not as visually disruptive and I don't think they'll be killing many eagles.

What's so "exclusive" about being 1 of 50,000?

I think the best way to save the planet is to buy more carbon offsets.

And, by the way, I happen to have a few for sale.

It's too bad they couldn't have taken about half the population of northern pakistan with.

Good points peakok. The Bretton Woods and Federal Reserve thing are huge.

In 1873 there was no option for the government to simply deflate the dollar by 50% which is essentially what congress is voting on this week.

The relevant press release being the one saying that FDIC insurance will now cover bank deposits up to a maximum of $250,000 instead of $100,000.

What that means is that in a year or two all wages and prices will be about twice what they are today except for real estate. Real estate values will just sort of hold steady.

Bottom line here is. Figure out some way to start your own company and work for yourself. Boom or recession it's the only way to go.

Agreed Prrometheus. More regulation is just going to push more of the business overseas. If Congress screws this one up they could create a situation where there will be no investment capital industry in the United States in the near future.

Netcan, if this exercise does anything it should prove to most that free markets do work and one of the reasons they work is that they always have lots of "silver bullets" to spare. What we are watching now is silver bullets riddling companies and company execs who probably need to be riddled with silver bullets.

Unfortunately some innocents will end up going down with the ship but this has always been the case. Events like we are watching right now are caused by human weakness and human failings not by free markets.

To take it one step further the problem is that everyone keeps talking around the fact that the entire argument is centered on "money" not "piracy". Before the internet and before personal computers artists had mechanical control of who had access to their products. That just isn't true anymore and what it means is that artists need to find some new business models. Once they do that the whole issue is going to go away. And that's a good thing, because I've been debating it since the internet was born and that's more than 15 years and I'm getting tired of going round and round and round on the same old arguments. Time to move on.

Ruby and Python are definitely different languages. May want to check with the creators on this one.

I kind of agree here aristus. Most college professors are kind of stuck in the past. Just look at all the really creative development stuff that's come out in the last coule of decades....

Linux.... 16 year old Finnish kid with nothing to do during those long cold finnish winters.

MySql.... bunch of swedes with the same problem.

PHP... a few hackers with credentials I'm not familiar with but I don't think they came from academia....

Ruby... Japanese kid obsessed with unix and C.

Rails... Danish kid going to a business school in denmark and hacking on the side......

True, the code that runs the internet was written by a bunch of UC Berkley grad students but that was back in the days when you had to be tied to some kind of entity like that in order to have access to the hardware that was needed to run your code. Since the mid 90s this hardware has been very cheap and available to anyone with the passion to purchase and develop.

Many have and they have left traditional venues for new and creative functionality in the dust.