Month: June 2009

Comment Thread for Private Stock Exchanges

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Background is at Facebook, Twitter and peers for sale – privately.

My initial impression is that this could be an ingenious adaptation to an obnoxiously overregulated environment. Or it could be crushed by regulators and their enablers; given that a Republican Congress and President were willing to saddle us with Sarbanes-Oxley seven years ago, it is not easy to imagine our current complement of parasites reacting dispassionately to private stock exchanges.

Note that I do not meet the minimum qualifications (net worth $1M, annual income $200k for past 2 years); this is just to elicit discussion by knowledgeable people (the minimum qualifications for which I also do not meet).

Michael Jackson’s Death: A Media-Driven National Disaster

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The hysterical, unrelenting media coverage of Jackson crowded out almost all news reports of the Iranian massacres, of the terrible Congressional carbon-tax bill (which might not have passed the House or even been brought to a vote had it received more public attention), of North Korea and of who-knows-what other important issues at the end of the past week. Our corrupt, agenda-driven political leaders, not to mention this country’s enemies, are no doubt taking full advantage of the windfall.

The people who wallow in Jackson’s death are foolish and self-indulgent and lack grown-up perspective. Even worse are the mass-media who cater to the wallowers. Since most of the media are already covering Jackson one might think an enterprising network would see competitive advantage in covering, for at least part of the day, some of the important things that are going on in the world. But no, they are lemmings, and the result is 24/7 Jackson. (And here let me send a special fuck you to Fox News. The self-proclaimed antidote to biased big media confirms itself to be just another bunch of ratings whores whose supposed patriotism and interest in serious news vanish at the first notice of a missing white child or a celebrity scandal.)

Political bias is a big cause of the decline of the legacy media, but the inherent weaknesses of advertising-driven broadcasting shouldn’t be discounted. Broadcasters make money by generating traffic, which means they try to generate as much traffic as possible, typically by emphasizing the tawdry and the salacious and by ginning up controversy. On the Internet this is known as trolling and is derided. In the broadcast world this is known as the dominant business model. Our media status quo is better than having a government-controlled press (Fox is still superior to NPR), and the Internet now provides important alternative sources of information. Nevertheless, our broadcast media’s insane focus on Jackson’s death is an infuriating reminder of how much those media’s limitations may be costing us in the long run as a society.

Have a Nice Day

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The underlying fundamentals are toxic: US gross debt as a percentage of GDP (currently at 375%) is still climbing, housing prices are still falling (wealth destruction as far as the eye can see), un/underemployment is still rising (an inability to service debt), the financial industry is back to its old tricks (bonuses are shooting through the roof again, etc.), China is still manipulating its currency (dashing prospects of future jobs), commodities (higher costs for daily life) are shooting up again, etc. Worse, what action has been taken is largely short term masking of symptoms and not a cure. Our government “brain-trust” is using all of its financial powder on deprecated 20th Century economic measures to prop up the industries that got us into this crisis: like the greasing of palms in the bloated construction industry (what relation that industry has to our future prosperity is a big mystery) and the flooding of a failing oligopoly (the financial industry) with free money.

So where is it heading?

“… a post-Westphalian century replete with neo-feudalism and global guerrillas is on an inexorable march.”

John Robb.

The Farrah Fawcett – Ayn Rand Connection

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No, really.

Ayn Rand reached out to Farrah, and wanted her to play Dagny Taggart in a TV miniseries version of Atlas Shrugged, sounds like circa 1980.

I can see it. Done in retro-40s costume, maybe? Or hypermoderne science fiction style?

Either way would have been cool. A big budget, big-name miniseries would have been the best way to film the (very long) novel.

Farrah would have been a very interesting casting choice, though not looking anything like the Dagny in the book.

(I don’t think Angelina Jolie, does either, but she is going to play Dagny in the upcoming movie, apparently, if that ever actually happens. Now is the time for the movie, though. At the beginning of the Reagan Era, we did not need it as badly as we need it now.)

Who would have played Hank Reardon, Francisco D’Anconia, John Galt, Midas Morgan and Ragnar Danneskjöld, circa 1980? Who should play them now?

Those are just the names I remember without looking them up. And I last opened the book in High School. The book does have a way of sticking with you.

I benefitted from exposure to Ayn Rand, but I never became a Randian. So it all worked out OK.

Link via Dr. Frank

Demonizing Energy Producers

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In a statement intended to help justify the proposed “cap and trade” energy tax, Barack Obama said:

At a time of great fiscal challenges, this legislation is paid for by the polluters who currently emit the dangerous carbon emissions that contaminate the water we drink and pollute the air we breathe.

There are so many things wrong with this that one scarcely knows where to begin.

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