Brian Gongol
Show notes from the "WHO Radio Wise Guys" - January 19, 2008
GM plans to pay tens of thousands of workers to retire
It's apparently going to offer retirement incentives to 46,000 workers, and analysts think about 20,000 might take the bait. And yet it was only a few days ago that a bunch of Presidential candidates were crawling all over Michigan talking about "keeping good manufacturing jobs in America." The truth of the matter, as apparently at least Sen. John McCain had the honesty to say, is that manufacturing is still alive and well in America, but for those jobs that have gone away, it's naive to talk about bringing them back.
Tax money being used to keep nuclear scientists from going rogue is being poorly used
A GAO report says lots of the money that was supposed to be used to keep former Soviet nuclear scientists from going to work for terrorists is being put to poor use. That's bad...maybe the money should be used to keep the huge number of British physicists who might lose their jobs from turning to the dark side.
American Museum of Finance re-opens in New York
Who's responsible for chemical security?
Plane crash at Heathrow apparently caused by failure of power systems
The pilot of the Boeing 777 says that they called for more thrust but the engines didn't deliver. The plane made what you might call a semi-controlled landing just shy of the runway, but most importantly, everyone on board survived. The pilot spoke to the media and is undoubtedly doing British Airways immeasurable good by thanking everyone around for their professionalism, including the passengers. Here's how important the airline's brand is: When asked whether the crash could have been caused by pilot error, a safety consultant said "BA pilots don't make mistakes like that." How few companies have such bulletproof brands? Ironically, the incident happened to coincide with a story on ABCNews.com about the new BA terminal at Heathrow.
Just say "No" to more spending
The President says he's going to ask Congress for an economic booster shot to the tune of 1% of GDP -- or about $130 billion, based on our 2006 GDP of $13 trillion. Among the requests: Tax relief and more Federal backing for mortgage refinancing. Where, though, is the money for this package supposed to come from? Where in the world is the magical pot of money from which we're supposed to pull $130 billion? That's a colossal sum of money: More than the entire GDP of New Zealand or the entire gross state product of Iowa. Unfortunately, even more than just being a needless Keynesian effort to tweak the economy, such a package punishes the those who have been paying higher rates of mortgage interest on 15-year and 30-year fixed loans in order to bail out those who borrowed more than they could repay on lower-interest adjustable-rate mortgages that are now moving to higher interest rates. You cannot punish people for responsible fiscal behavior forever without sending the wrong message. Fix the real problems: Accounting abuses, stock-option scandals, and under-capitalized lending institutions. Then stop behaving as though every rough patch in the business cycle calls for a huge (and ultimately punitive) "economic stimulus package." Lower taxes will be great to enjoy sometime in the future, but first we have to stop spending so much. Sadly, the Federal Reserve chair seems to be on the spending bandwagon, too.
The phrase is "For all intents and purposes"
The erroneous "for all intensive purposes" happens far too often -- 67,900 times so far on the Internet, according to Google
Backdoor trick allows anyone to see MySpace photos in private accounts
Just one more reminder that anything that goes online could be used against you...even if you think it's protected by passwords and other secrecy.
Even better than the regular "White and Nerdy" video
(Video) The green-screen version -- apparently the first take -- in which Al Yankovic lip-synchs and Donny Osmond dances. How this has escaped notice before is completely without explanation or excuse.
Iowa's 2008 "Condition of the State"
Somebody is either lying to the governor about the state's fiscal condition, or he's just willfully ignorant. He touts a $600 million cash reserve as a sign that the state is better-off than ever, while apparently taking no notice that the budget for Fiscal Year 2008 overspends expected tax income by $300 million. The state's cash reserves are purely the result of dishonest accounting, which the state auditor has taken great pains to try to warn us about. A $600 million cash reserve doesn't mean much when the state's reckless politicians have borrowed $1.6 billion from trust funds and special accounts. And beyond what we've already over-spent, the governor now wants to pass a whole slew of new regulatory mandates regarding health care. Iowa, unfortunately, is distinctly at the mercy of what the Federal government decides to spend here or not -- to wit, the USDA claims it was responsible for $371 million in spending here in 2007. That's one agency (albeit a high-spending one) that in a single year is involved in a volume of spending on a scale that's close to the amount the governor is so proud to have in our phantom "cash reserves."
Monsanto and Pioneer try to turn persistent drought into a moneymaker
Severe droughts have hit places near (Nebraska) and far (Australia) quite hard in recent years, and both companies are trying to breed (or, rather, genetically engineer) plants that can handle dry periods that would kill their lesser cousins. The good news is that, if successful, they could prevent considerable human suffering by ensuring that people don't starve. The bad news is that there are a lot of neo-Luddites and anti-technologists who either think we can't take any risks at all to try to solve these problems -- or who think that science itself is bunk and ought to be abandoned in favor of more theology and pseudoscience.
Chief strategist at Charles Schwab says we're already in a recession
Iowa DNR still eager to control hog odors
What matters in Election 2008
(Video: A little bit coarse) The Onion identifies what many voters really care about in 2008. And it's not the candidates' platforms on economics or whether they're going to address the pending collapse of Medicare. No, no. If only we were so lucky. Related: Will the Chinese stock-market bubble last until the Olympics? Hard to tell.
Graphic of the day: Just Say No
Lower reaches of Platte River escape new use restrictions
Essential viewing: Tom Cruise on his...er..."beliefs"
(Video)
Pulse pressure may tell more about health than blood pressure alone
The air-powered car
The first are to be built in India, by the same firm that's building the new $3,000 car
Citigroup writes off $18.1 billion in loan losses
That's a single-quarter loss that's three times what the State of Iowa spends in an entire year. Oh, to have been able to time the downturn as well as John Paulson, whose funds made $15 billion betting that it would happen right about now. (Let him have it...derivatives are a zero-sum game for suckers anyway.)
"Half of all Japan's quoted companies trade at less than book value"
That may be a good reason to buy into the Japanese investment market. Oh, and Japan is still the world's third-largest economy. Related: For all of the things that the Internet allows people to do with their money, why in the world would anyone put their personal net worth on display for all the world to see? Anything that's "anonymous" on the Internet today is most likely not to remain anonymous indefinitely...and it certainly won't if anyone has sufficient incentive to investigate. Transparency is great in the public sector, but why let people into your private world?
Iowa still may face much higher costs for water cleanup
New sunspot cycle begins: Here come 11 years of solar storms and disruptions
Former Soviet states in central Asia are running dangerously low on energy
First, there's the humanitarian cost. But it's a problem for other reasons, too: Shortages and crises create fertile ground for extremism, and that's not a good thing when it's happening in Tajikistan, conveniently located on the border with Afghanistan, just a few miles north of Pakistan, and on the western edge of China. Tajikistan is trying to join NATO, but it's still the poorest part of the former USSR.
How to figure out what's in a secret project by reading logos
What makes the Christmas season feel like living in North Korea?
Food prices set to rise for the next ten years
A larger population is increasing demand. The crops needed for biofuels are competing for land. Prices for the fertilizers used to raise the crops are rising at a serious clip. All together, those factors are set to push food prices higher for at least the next decade, says the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute at ISU.
Return of the train?
They're talking seriously about bringing passenger rail service back to Dubuque
Edison's forecasts of the future
His future, of course, is now the present. One sublime observation: "Communication with other worlds has been suggested. I think we had better stick to this world and find out something about it before we call up our neighbors."
GM buys into company making ethanol from waste
Coskata claims that its use of microorganisms and proprietary designs allows it to make ethanol for less than $1.00 per gallon
Nebraska NRDs resist calls for irrigation changes
Chimps learn by emulating; kids learn by imitating
The difference means that human kids end up as better learners
Statins might help reduce cancer risk
Drugs like Lipitor, which are used to lower cholesterol in the blood, might also have an anti-cancer effect. A study of Massachusetts residents getting treatment for high blood pressure indicated a lower rate of cancers among patients using statins than among those who didn't use them, but the data available and the patient base were both considered incomplete to draw a conclusive relationship between statins and cancer.
Show notes from the Brian Gongol Show on WHO Radio - January 13, 2008
