6.) Therefore, funding solar and wind deprives future winners of resources, and therefore, funding these technologies should be discouraged.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Sunday, July 12, 2009
The REAL Causes of the Housing Crisis
Some food for thought that Thomas' Sowell's new book The Housing Crisis points out:
1.) Affordable housing initiatives. Sowell points out that housing does not directly correlate to social outcomes. Indeed, when people moved out of slums into new housing projects in the 60's, they turned those slums into cesspools of crime.
2.) The idea that minorities need special affordability measures: Sowell points out a Fed study that actually shows that 2/3's or all African Americans who apply for gov't backed mortgages actually receive them while 3/4 of white do (10% difference), and
that some of the discrepancy is b/c African Americans carry more debt relative to income and that housing cost is a greater share of their income.
3.) The book makes light of the fact that the bubble was largest, and thus caused the most retraction in prices, in communities with strict zoning regulations and other "open space" laws to restrict building. cont>
2.) The idea that minorities need special affordability measures: Sowell points out a Fed study that actually shows that 2/3's or all African Americans who apply for gov't backed mortgages actually receive them while 3/4 of white do (10% difference), and
that some of the discrepancy is b/c African Americans carry more debt relative to income and that housing cost is a greater share of their income.
3.) The book makes light of the fact that the bubble was largest, and thus caused the most retraction in prices, in communities with strict zoning regulations and other "open space" laws to restrict building. cont>
The last point is important and gets overlooked. The focus on federal measures has overlooked the fact that neighborhoods in which there was the most local gov't regulation suffered the worst in the housing crisis.
2nd important cause:
Bubbles could not occur in this magnitude w/o Greenspans inflationary monetary policy, the stated goal of which was to create debt for the Chinese to buy so that they do not overheat their own economy. We are too dependent on them, a Chinese bust would create a global depression
Evidence: Southeast Asian economic crisis which just involved 5 Asian Tigers, but took them 10 years to recover from. Too much of the worlds manufacturing output comes from Asia to risk their collapse; it's a catch 22, inflation here or deflation there
Bubbles could not occur in this magnitude w/o Greenspans inflationary monetary policy, the stated goal of which was to create debt for the Chinese to buy so that they do not overheat their own economy. We are too dependent on them, a Chinese bust would create a global depression
Evidence: Southeast Asian economic crisis which just involved 5 Asian Tigers, but took them 10 years to recover from. Too much of the worlds manufacturing output comes from Asia to risk their collapse; it's a catch 22, inflation here or deflation there
The markets hit hardest by the housing crisis were those with the most gov't intervention / regulation. so why do we want more?
You're not realizing the potential of social media if you don't respond to tweets / @ messages. vast majority of tweets go un-replied, start!
people consistently show they'll take a lower quality service if it's cheaper, like blogs vs TIME. you can't compete with free.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Pandora.com: infinite music for $1... the music distribution business will soon won't be a business, only performance will, and that's shrinking too
Friday, July 10, 2009
Why did San Diego see a 28% home price decline in one year whereas Houston saw 3%? B/c Houston doesn't have zoning laws that limit the supply of housing, thus driving up the bubble
Everyone should lift weights. Loss of mobility due to decreased muscle mass is the prime cause of injury when old. Muscle mass loss can be counteracted
Thursday, July 09, 2009
SECURITY: "Norton Internet Security 2010 is already our new anti-malware champion" PCMAG http://ping.fm/KiwTL
The United States of broadband: All of the speed is on the east coast http://ping.fm/LkVkn
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Congress considers second stimulus bill; 90% of first $900 billion not yet spent.. http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jul2009/db2009077_697070.htm
Facebook Releases New “Fan Box” Widget to Turn Website Visitors into Facebook Fans http://ping.fm/FQD69
Pay the teachers, not the College administrators: http://ping.fm/SHhdc Personnel doubles rate of enrollment growth at US colleges
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
HTML isn't supposed to define content codecs, and even if it were, Ogg Theora, abandoned a decade ago, doesn't have what it takes to deliver video on the web. http://ping.fm/cEySE
HOW does Pandora know that I like that? it always finds obscure music that's already in my collection!
21st Cent new rule: if you can't run your business from your home, you haven't started a business. you've built a trap.
Michael Arrington, founder of the influential tech blog TechCrunch, to deliver CrunchPad, $300 touch-screen tablet for Web surfing.http://ping.fm/V8xou
Monday, July 06, 2009
Free is Not a Business Model: http://ping.fm/KdoeI
Programmers & tech people: people with a lot of ideals, little business sense.
Please, let's stop the hippy idealism and talk real economics.
Two years into his company's lifespan, Twitter founder Biz Stone famously told the NYT a few months ago, direct quote: "We haven't looked at a business development model yet. There are literally NO business people in Twitter."
Sounds like a recipe for success!
(Maybe for him, but not the shareholders).
Please, let's stop the hippy idealism and talk real economics.
Two years into his company's lifespan, Twitter founder Biz Stone famously told the NYT a few months ago, direct quote: "We haven't looked at a business development model yet. There are literally NO business people in Twitter."
Sounds like a recipe for success!
(Maybe for him, but not the shareholders).
And indeed, most startups fail, and in my opinion, that is often b/c the developers typically have no frame of reference for analyzing a business model.
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Download YouTube and other Flash movies for free, automatically & instantly: http://ping.fm/DVpu5
I believe that Facebook will replace MS Outlook / Exchange. You will run your life out of it. Maybe tack on a Google Wave API for frontend
Friday, July 03, 2009
I need a browser-based version of Convert & a smartphone so I can service clients from the movies, or bed, or wherever!
Stop tweeting me videos, they're less time efficient than articles, and there's so much in this world to learn!
Advice for an iPhone app? Pick ONE feature. People should get your app in one sentence; charge for more features/content later.
Thursday, July 02, 2009
As America hemorrhages jobs, city halls everywhere veto them by veto developments for political, not rational, reasons. #economy #jobs
Report: Work is Reinvented, so reinvent yourself in the new economy: http://ping.fm/Cfksc
Cloud further erodes software license market after Google Apps and open-source built the coffin: http://ping.fm/NDunA
my experiment in quitting Coffee suggests a new, safe interrogation practice: coffee depravation. alternatively, coffee boarding
A great way to retain your capacity to learn as you age is to force yourself to learn new software! Learn to do new things! Don't delegate everything.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
People like gangster movies not b/c gangsters are evil, but b/c they are desperate. And all men secretly lead lives of quiet desperation-Thoreau
having the nice speakers at the office makes me want to pay for Pandora premium to get the better 192kbit files and the Adobe AIR client
From TechCrunch article on why Joost failed: Startups need to focus on their core market to succeed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
1.) You have to create more supply, or create more efficient processes, i.e. drilling and innovation.
2.) To spur innovation, you have to apply free market economics, ie, profit incentive, to incentivize innovators.
3.) Therefore, gov't subsidization should be discouraged, since it picks winners and losers based on political, not economic reasons, reducing incentives. Ex: when funding goes to ethanol, a horribly efficient technology, investment does not flow to a potential successor.
4.) Gov't subsidization reduces the need for change, ie creative destruction. Creative destruction is where you allow fierce competition by not propping up losers, thus not depriving the winners of resources.
5.) Solar and wind are losers. They are both very old technologies, horribly ineffiecient, and cost 5 & 10 times that of carbon-based energy, respectively.