Brian Gongol
Just like we talked about last week, politicians and government officials have been hiding the huge amount of money this country has borrowed for a really long time. That's been confirmed by a great investigative story in USA Today, which points out the huge liabilities and puts them in terms of your household share of the liabilities. Perhaps Iowans can use our political clout to get the 2008 Presidential candidates to get serious about our money.
Some people will naturally suggest that we can solve the budget problem by taxing the rich. But who counts as "rich"? The high-income couple that spends more than they save? The land-rich (but cash-poor) farmer? One guy who certainly qualifies as "rich" is Charlie Munger, the #2 individual at Berkshire Hathaway. He gave a fantastic commencement address to the law-school grads at USC recently, and some of his best nuggets of wisdom are certainly worth your time.
Here's an interesting case study in unintended consequences: High oil prices are making milk more expensive. That's because some of the corn that used to go to dairy cattle is being used to make ethanol instead.
Here's an interesting idea: "DVD diplomacy," or the free distribution of American films through our embassies and consulates around the world, in an effort to give other people around the world good reasons to think good things about America. On a related note, the 5th-hottest search on Google right now is for "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," according to Google Trends. That's probably because it was just aired on American Movie Classics. We'll let that one settle in for a minute: Judge Reinhold and Phoebe Cates are now "classic" actors.
Life keeps getting better all the time: Now Target offers a $200 wedding gown. It's certainly not for everyone, but there's no doubt that having access to a lower-priced wedding gowns could make some people's lives better.
If you enjoy talk about making money and having fun, you may also enjoy the EconDirectory, my effort to keep track of the most popular Internet sites related to business and economics.
Keywords in this show:
actors •
Berkshire Hathaway •
Cates, Phoebe •
classic movies •
commencement addresses •
corn •
debt •
DVD diplomacy •
economics •
ethanol •
Federal debt •
food prices •
Google •
Google Trends •
milk •
Munger, Charlie •
Presidential candidates •
public diplomacy •
Reinhold, Judge •
Target •
taxes •
weblogs •
weddings