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Friday,
July 31, 2009 The teachable moment, aka the Great Beer
Summit, is done. I don't know if Gates and Crowley were billed for the cost
of the peanuts, pretzels, and beer; it's my understanding that the
administration has taken to sending bills or collecting credit cards from
those attending "private" White House dinners. I'm not sure why. I
wonder what we were taught by this Presidential teachable moment? That the
Vice President likes Buckler, the Heineken non-alcoholic beer while the
President prefers Bud Light? Or that Professor Gates drinks Sam Adams Light?
One does wonder what Sam Adams would have made of this teachable moment at
the White House.
Meanwhile, about 5,000 people in the banking/financial products industry
got more than $1 million in bonuses from companies that took public bailout
money. There may be some acceptable explanation of all that, but I haven't
heard it. It would seem to me that if those people, whose average salaries
are over $100,000 a year to begin with, could have made do with a mere
$100,000 in bonuses, another 50,000 people could have got $100,000 to make
their mortgage payments (actually, I'd expect it to be more like 200,000).
With more people making mortgage payments there would be fewer defaults,
which would be stabilizing. I confess some confusion as to how this might be
accomplished -- the devil is in the details -- but surely those so
intelligent that they could create this mess and who are being paid bonuses
to do so might be able to suggest something?
I guess I am unclear on just what a bonus is. I had always thought it was
a payment over and above the guaranteed salary as a reward for success.
Given that the firms were headed for bankruptcy, it's not clear to me just
what was worth $1 million (and some much higher) bonuses to begin with. I'd
think that if a bank had extra money it might pay back the taxpayers rather
than distribute the money in bonuses. There's something wrong with the
banking system when it produces results like this, and it's not unrestrained
capitalism. Unrestrained capitalism would have produced bankruptcies, not
bonuses. These bonuses were made possible only by government transfers of
tax money to the banks. Perhaps Nancy Pelosi can explain to us how this
works out to the benefit of the taxpayers. I can't.
And the Cash for Klunkers program is out of money, and they're trying to
"find" more for the program. Surely it's obvious that a few spare billion
might be "found" in the great Stimulus Bill. After all, very little of that
has been spent, and the effect of what has been spent isn't obvious as
unemployment grows. Now precisely why those who own old klunks and want to
replace them with new cars should be given rewards paid by those who don't
isn't clear to me, but at least the program is getting money moving about in
the economy. It promotes particular cars, most prominently the Toyota Prius,
Honda Civic, Nissan Altima, various other Hondas and Toyotas, various
Volkswagons, more Hondas and Toyotas, four models of Chevrolet, one Pontiac
one Saturn, a lot more Hondas and Toyotas, and then some Fords. It's a
long list, and there are some Chryslers but they are way down the list.
I found that list by Googling [ cash for clunkers qualifying cars ] which
took me to
www.cashforclunkersfacts.com/qualifying-cars.
That ended me up with a list, but also a four page
URL. When I tried to visit this site again I got a message that the site was
banned and may have infected me. That sent me off to Norton to scan my
system in a bit of a panic. I've never seen a many-page URL (most of it
consisted of numbers like 23467,26743,etc.) I'm not really worried that
going to that URL actually compromised Firefox -- OneCare is still
active and I've heard nothing -- but I am wondering what happened to make
the site "banned" in the last half hour. Incidentally, it's banned on
Internet Explorer as well as Firefox if that matters. I suspect it's a
matter of overload from people trying to get in on the free money. Of course
it's free only if you want one of the approved cars.
[Much later: several external deep scans of my system tell me that there
is no malware aboard. But see below.]
I confess I no longer understand my government. I suppose I might say, I
am afraid I understand it all too well.
============
There is another
mixed bag of interesting mail including some insights into the future of
Japan.
==========
The July mailbag will be up tonight at
Chaos Manor Reviews. (Chaos
Manor Reviews, for those who don't know, is the continuation of my old BYTE
column, and is about technology per se with limited partisan political
commentary. Obviously I am pro-technology, and I expect my general
preference for freedom comes through often, but I try to keep narrow
politics out of that site.)
One discussion in the upcoming mailbag involved the TabletPC and OneNote,
which is a very powerful combination for those doing research. Indeed, I
have said in the past, the TabletPC and OneNote can change your life.
Peter Glaskowsky comments:
While we're on the subject,
this IBM ThinkPad X41 Tablet is one of the best convertible Tablet PC
designs of recent years. Actually, I suppose 2005 isn't that recent in the
computer market, but you get my point. Just $350 right now at eCost, well
below the usual price for these machines, which have held their value
exceptionally well over the years. The more recent Lenovo X-series tablets
are still $1,000 and up. If I were doing more research, I'd buy one of
these as a dedicated OneNote machine.
http://www.ecost.com/detail.aspx?edp=43021928
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