Brian Gongol
In half a decade, interest payment on the debt will consume a third of all Federal income taxes
And when the news is being covered by people who don't fully grasp the scale of the problem -- like the CNN/Money reporter who writes, "On the bright side - such as it is - the record levels of debt issued lately have paid for stimulus and other rescue programs that prevented the economy from falling off a cliff. And the money was borrowed at very low rates" -- the problem is even worse. First, there's no convincing evidence that the huge government spending on programs like Cash for Clunkers or the $8000 new homebuyers' tax credit are doing anything to "prevent the economy from falling off a cliff." Moreover, the money may be borrowed at nominally low interest rates, but it's being borrowed in a way that threatens the long-term health of the US dollar. And if the dollar takes a beating because our creditors question our willingness or capacity to pay them back, then those "low" interest rates are going to become meaningless as we lose our purchasing power. The more we borrow, the worse the situation becomes. Period.
Obstetrics group says cervical-cancer screenings can be put off longer than previously thought
There is lots of good to be done by finding out when tests are best performed and balancing the value of treatment versus the costs involved. But there are at least two fallacies that emerge when, as in this case, doctors recommend putting off screenings for life-threatening diseases like cancer. First, they're balancing the costs and benefits of treatment using only today's treatments; what accountability is there to change the recommendations later when treatments change, becoming more effective or less risky? Perhaps it's better to be in the habit of looking when problems are most likely to emerge and then evaluating the treatment options on a case-by-case basis, instead of rejecting the notion altogether. Second, they overlook the fact that, to the individual, a life-threatening illness like cancer is a binary proposition: After all, you only get to live once. And if you miss signs that could have been caught early enough to have led to life-saving intervention, then you as the patient really don't care at all whether other people experience false alarms.
Omaha man accuses ex-girlfriend of posting nude photos of him on Facebook
These are modern problems, to be sure.
Chicago gets a community Christmas tree for less than $100,000
Remarkable because that's how much the city government thought it would cost. Radio station WGN-AM managed to get the job done at a fraction of the cost.
Heroic water workers in Nebraska
Charles Schwab research director delivers a steaming hot pile of bad advice
Using lies, damned lies, and statistics, he claims that an investor buying stocks at 52-week highs will do better than a comparable investor buying at 52-week lows. Any investor using that kind of stupid advice to guide an investment strategy is going to end up impoverished as a result. Either the market is efficient or it is not. The success of a batch of individual investors -- the "Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville", who have followed a set of value-investing rules with profound success over a very long time horizon -- proves that the market is, in fact, not efficient. But their common strategy, based partly upon the price of the stocks they've bought, would be a colossal failure if it relied solely upon share prices. It's really quite reckless to tell investors they can get strong stock returns just by sorting stocks for 52-week highs and lows.
Fewer than a third of American young adults know anything useful about personal finance
That's horrifying news. And there's probably some connection there to the fact that we're overpaying by $9.6 billion for mutual fund administration. Sickening all around.
Whose work is remotely worth $133 million a year?
That some executives are paid absurdly large sums -- undoubtedly far more than the actual economic value of their work -- is not a reason for government to regulate the compensation of those executives. Overpaid executives at some of the newly-regulated banks are quitting their jobs, probably to avoid falling under those regulations.
See the International Space Station get assembled
An excellent use of visualization through the Internet
New signs arrive in the New York City subway system
Life-cycle equipment costs matter
Crisis? A waffle shortage strikes.
Today is self-exam day
Take a minute or two and conduct some basic self-screenings for cancer. Early detection saves lives. There's lots of misinformation about cancer that finds its way around the Internet, largely because we've been trained to wait expectantly for some sort of magic-bullet solution to cancer. But cancer risks can be significantly reduced through a balanced diet, exercise, and early detection and treatment. Meanwhile, science is making great progress towards improving genetic detection, which holds great promise for some types of cancer. Instead of forwarding hoax-ridden e-mails about "cancer cures" and false threats, people should instead remind their friends and family to assess their health once a month.
A bullet can't do much damage until it's been fired
Major water-plant security bill passes US House
Transparency, schmansparency: Government "stimulus" figures make up Congressional districts
It's quite impossible to "create" jobs in Congressional districts that don't exist. Of course, the government doesn't "create" jobs anyway. They shuffle money from taxes collected from people and companies that are doing work and use that money to subsidize work elsewhere and by others -- and not especially well. The government claims that 123 jobs in the Virgin Islands have been "created or saved" at a price of $93.2 million, or $757,700 per job. If that's not obscene inefficiency, it's hard to tell what is.
Near-anarchy in parts of Mexico
Episodes of violence there are starting to reach into the United States. Among other things, drug prohibition makes the drug trade very lucrative for criminal organizations.
Guantanamo on the Mississippi
A mostly-empty prison just outside the Mississippi River in Illinois is being considered as a location for detainees being moved out of Guantanamo Bay
The President's teleprompter problem at home
(Video) Another excellent piece of work by The Onion
"I don't know how Hannity, Beck, and Olbermann look at themselves in the mirror"
Podcast: You are "You, Inc." -- even if you don't know it
Leaks and losses form an "invisible river"
Pandering of the worst sort: Buying the votes of senior citizens
The President wants to send $250 to everyone on Social Security. It's supposedly a "stimulus" package. But it's really just shameless pandering and vote-buying. And it's going to cost $14 billion in money that the (very, very broke) Federal government doesn't have. And it comes at a time when the government is sitting on a growing liability for the Federal Housing Administration, which is just shy of being insolvent while it guarantees about a fifth of all single-family mortgages in this country. And a time when many taxpayers are still furious (with good reason) that General Motors is a $50 billion albatross around the neck of the Federal taxpayer, too.
Should a large portion of Kansas be turned into a national park?
That's what the Kansas City Star thinks. And the editorial board says a million-acre national park could be bought for less than a billion dollars. Strange things are happening all over the country, so it's not impossible to imagine taking a big piece of the prairie and turning it into a preserve -- not when the city of Pontiac, Michigan, just sold the Silverdome for $583,000.
Netbooks aren't "dead". Designers just need to learn flexibility.
A columnist suggests that netbooks -- the stripped-down miniature laptops that gained a lot of traction over this past year or two -- are destined to fail in the marketplace, since their screens are "so small that they didn't work well with many applications and Web sites." But the problem here isn't the netbook's fault -- it's the fault of people who design websites to require far more screen space than they really need. As more people browse the Internet via mobile devices than ever before, smart designers should be accommodating small screens, and thinking about how best to deliver content flexibly across different media. There's no reason a site should be useful only to someone under the terms of "Best viewed with [some browser] at [some resolution] on [some kind of connection]." That's 1996 thinking.
A review of nuclear safety in America
Witness the passing of another institution
The company that bought the ABC radio networks and inexplicably blew up the network's name back in April has now ensured that the network is destined to fail. The company pulled programming from its satellite feeds to lots of radio stations all over the US, ensuring that nobody inside the business will ever really trust the company again. What a sad decision.
Podcast: Fun with fonts
Podcast: Tips for computer backups
Water towers as community landmarks