Look in the Mirror

For all the China bashers out there about how it's China's fault we have this huge trade deficit, please refer to the actual data before letting your emotions trump your intellect. Hmmm. approaching $1 trillion.

From The Economist

Pity the Man Who Lives in Portland

Mercy.

Portland.

What a crappy city.

10% unemployment. Homeless wandering around. And that free bike program where they tried to emulate Holland I think it was. Yeah, that worked out in stars.

I mean with New York, Los Angeles and Chicago you at least have a megalopolis that provides you with the best the world has to offer.

But Portland? You have all the draw backs of a large city and none of the benefits.

Now, just imagine being a capitalist and living in this socialist enclave.

Such is the sad situation for Captain Arbyte.

Visit him and send him an e-mail some time. I'd hate to see the Oregon weather get to him and have him go into a funk.

Oh, and be sure to mention how much you like his new Babe-Magnet Buick LaCrosse.

Fodder for Socialists

I know why this chart is irrelevant, but it is interesting and when you hear the socialists use their sound byte "evil rich corporate executives" blah blah blah, now you'll know what they're talking about.

Although, I seriously question whether they know what they're talking about.

Private Pension Funding

OK, as much as I complain about the inevitable crash of the US pension system (government and private), it would really suck to be Italy, Germany or France. And they're all bucking Government debt as a % of GDP of 100%+.



Yeah, go socialism.

Go Ahead, Make My Day

from The Economist again.

I would love to see disgruntled North African and Muslim youth just try to pull this schtick here. Heck, I'd love to see disgurntled youth in general try to pull off this stuff here. Because something tells me that despite attempts to have femininity brow beaten into the American Male and to have us brainwashed into sensitive 90's type pansies, I still think we'd just start shooting these scum bags.

Revised Empirical Proof

Many years ago I had taken the 5, 10 and 15 year averages of government spending and receipts as a percent of GDP for all the OECD countries and correlated against their corresponding 5, 10 and 15 year average RGDP growth rates.

It confirmed something that everybody knew;

Countries with lower taxes grow faster than countries with higher taxes.

Correlations came in around -.3.

What got me about this data is that very few Republicans, Libertarians and other varied sorts of capitalists knew of this data and would largely rely on anecdotal evidence to support capitalism as the optimal economic system. Sure, they'd use logic. Or cite the utter and dismal record of communism in the glory days of Stalin, Chairman Mao, or modern day Kim Small Jong Il. But never really went out to see, "well, what tends to happen when countries are taxed at a higher rate."

Anyway, so I updated the figures with the most recent OECD data and, well, yeah, communism still sucks. Sorry dems and libs. When you argue against the truth, well, it's uhh...kind of hard to win.

Conflicted Socialists

OK, so everytime you get into it with a liberal or a socialist, they always, ALWAYS without skipping a beat go running to the Scandinavian countries as proof positive socialism can work.

Now, the vast majority of them (and actually by definition) have never gone to independently confirm this. They only regurgitate what they heard from their professor or the college friends who are being supported by Daddy. Alas, they don't really know why the Scandinavian countries do so well.

Now, out of all of them, Norway does the best, and by large margin. Norway is a rather successful socialist country (although it is not the one I was asking about in a previous post, there is another). And it has made gains against the US recently in the past 4 years to have an identical income per capita.

There's just one problem;

The source of this newfound wealth and economic success is oil.

How conflicted and hypocritical you liberals must feel.

Inquiring Capitalists Want to Know

OK, so I think maybe 1 or 2 liberals or socialists read this blog only to get pissed off because I'm starting to believe more and more liberals just want to be unhappy in their lives.

Regardless, because of the low leftist readership of this blog, this post might need to be forwarded to your leftist friends so I can get a leftist response.

Will somebody on the left tell me which socialist country does better than the US?

I already know the answer, I just want to see if the advocates of socialism do.

PS- Doinkicarus won the best chart competition. I will send the $25 and the sign picture of Captain Capitalism. E-mail me Doink.

For All the Collegiate Capitalists Out There

Far as I can tell right behind Canadians, the second biggest group of readers I have is college students. And being Captain Capitalism I know how important it is to recognize that the market is always right and you should pander to it.

So for all those collegiate aspiring economists out there an interesting post I got from Young Miriam (Young Miriam is a chemistry student (if I remember correctly) and is a Muslim that I wish more Muslims and women would emulate). Anyway, her post below;

http://www.phds.org/rankings/
(If you choose a hard science and input in a 5 for Scholarly quality and then ask it to display things like %female or the like, the red-green corellations are most amusing.)

Diagnose a Blogger

Good Ol' JMPP.

Seems I am now the subject of a psychological study in a crafty idea created by Jacqueline's Ma.

Anyway, for those of you familiar with JMPP, she's back from Costa Rica, has herself a boyfriend and lord knows what else. The girl moves.

So aspiring psychologists and psychiatrists, even though your field is complete BS and if it were up to me we'd tax you guys at 100% and fund social security with it, try your hand at diagnosing bloggers!

My Fondness for Real Majors

As you know I am an avid supporter of people who major in subjects that will get them jobs. And I largely attribute the majority of world's problems to lazy effers that opt to major in sociology, communications and other crap where inevitably they only find employment in the public sector and political life and largely live off of us and ruin our lives.

Thus, I found this chart from The Economist particularly interesting;

Inventory of Houses that Just Don't Want to Sell

Sing along with me now;

"OHHHH the correction is coming.
Your home equity ain't strumming.
All you idiots that took out second home equity loans to buy SUV's
Will have the repo man take that your home and your TV's
Ohhhhhh you stupid Americans."

New Kid on the Block

And he's been taking his vitamins and eating his vegetables...he's also been cutting taxes and transforming a backwater 3rd world nation into what will soon be the world's largest economy.

Based on the past 20 years of economic growth, I estimate in another 6 years or so China will have the world's largest economy.

But we'll have sociology majors and peace study majors and American Idol and Desperate Housewives and the Jenny Craig Point System? Right? I mean at least we'll still have all that!

Then again, that's if you believe the economic figures China is releasing.

The Idiots of Argentina

To reiterate the stupidity of those Argentinian protestors.

And to add to that, I must put in the original a post made regarding this. "Eagle Eye" Seanchile noticed the signs were in Portugese, indicating this is actually Brazil. Good catch. He also pointed out something I forgot about Argentina. His post in below.

I think those are actually Brazilians (the signs are in Portuguese). However, very similar or even identical (Spanish) signs were being hoisted by protestors in Argentina (it's pretty ironic calling Bush a Nazi when YOUR country welcomed a large number of Nazi fugitives after WWII). I definitely agree (with you).

Can Buy Me Love

Ultimately if you push a leftist far enough in their thought, there are several T-intersections their mind will come to;

1. Happiness isn't all about money.
2. GDP or Income per capita isn't an effective measure of standards of living.
3. I just don't believe the data.
4. George Bush sucks.

Well, at least you can knock out two of these 4 mainstay arguments of the left. Many thanks to Sunrunner 4 for this spiffy chart;

The research was done by professor Richard Easterlin of southern California. He seems pretty happy, but that's because he's an economist and we economists always have chicks chasing us.

Two Charts from the U of Berkeley

My Sister is a communist at the U of Berkeley in California where she is pursuing her doctorate in Bio Chemistry and her lab wanted me to throw these two charts up there;
I suppose I am to take from this graph that all Republicans today want slavery as there must be a correlation between voting patterns in 2004 and slave legality in 1862. I guess I'm supposed to also forget the fact that it was the Republican party that waged a civil war to free slaves. But that's just what I'm guessing.

The irony here is that no doubt the majority of Berkeley academians voted down the California proposition last week to require teachers work 5 years before they get tenure. Last I recall California was ranked 46th in the country in terms of education and accounts for a plurality of our population.

Big Oil, Time for a Review

Seems I need to remind some folks again.

Sometimes I wonder if there’s enough bullets to slay all the idiots in the world. And then I wonder even if I had enough bullets, do I have enough life expectancy left to deliver a bullet into each idiot’s skull? I mean think about that, that’s a serious undertaking requiring at least some consideration of the logistics behind an operation like that. Slaying all the idiots in the world.

Oh well, guess I’ll just blog about it instead.

OK, last time here people. I don’t know about you, but I’m getting mighty sick and tired of the suburbanite kids too lazy to major in something worthwhile, whose only skill it seems is to regurgitate the talking points that were spoon fed to them in their indoctrination at the local university whilst they pursue a degree that shields them from any real work and responsibility whilst their Daddy dimes their education for them.

Ran into one of their numbers at a local bar last night complaining about (who other than…)

BIG OIL!

“Yeah, man, like it’s the US oil companies that are keeping the prices high and making us pay for it!” said the skinny, goatee wearing wimp who can only attract women who could beat him at his table. Of course he says it loud enough so that those of us who aren’t as ignorant as he is knows what he thinks. And what person isn’t concerned about what a 20 year old college student thinks. I mean, come on, they’re our future.

So I’m going to do everybody a favor. I’m going to put it to rest where the power lies in terms of “big oil.”

It’s not Exxon Mobil.

It’s not Chevron Texaco.

It’s not even our British big oil rival, BP.

It’s the multitude of (take note leftists) STATE OWNED ENTERPRISES of the OPEC nations and Russia that wield the most control over oil prices.

Now to make a pretty picture for you and to make it all nice and clear I’ve taken the top 20 oil producing firms in the world and made this pretty little chart for you;

Notice your much hated US big oil firms each have a whopping one percent of the total oil reserves in the world.

Now, I know this may be confusing for you to add up 1 and 1 because you went to the public schools and were taught by idiots like this goatee wearing wimp who no doubt majored in education because he thought everybody should share in his wisdom, so what I did is I simplified the chart so that it is broken down between US and Non-US oil firms.

Notice “BIG US OIL” controls all of 2% the oil in the world (and this is not including the bevy of minor players not included in the top 20).

Now, let’s put on our thinking caps and let’s try really, really hard. Almost as hard as the kids in the special education programs in the public schools try to drool on their own along with members of the teacher’s union (sorry, budget battle going on in the Minnesota legislature this week, guess whose asking for more money).

Who is most likely to have control over the price of oil and who is most likely to really just be a transportation, refining and distribution company?

You see with 98% control of the world's oil reserves...ah, heck. Forget it. The left is going to believe what it wants.

There's Nothing Special About Our Dirt

Real quick here, then I must go.

Went out with what amounted to the most interesting person I've meet in about 8 years.

She was a Vietnamese immigrant who escaped the communists in 1975. Among MANY other things, what I was particularly impressed with was how quickly she adapted and pursued the American dream.

Now 30 years later she is a doctor in optometry providing one heck of an upbringing for her children. By the end of our conversation I literally could not be more impressed.

Anyway, long story short, she complained about how immigrants come to this country not wanting to pursue the American dream, but basically just for the money. I was a bit shocked, knowing that SOME of the immigrants do that, but didn't think it was that widespread. I said, "Are you sure."

Oh yes, she was.

And it reminded me of something that I thought of when running one time.

There's nothing special about our dirt.

You see aspiring or current immigrants, in America, our dirt is the exact same as the dirt in your home country. There's nothing special about it.

What makes America special and great is freedom. What makes America great is democracy. What makes America great is the mix of laws, people, society, history and culture that is "American."

It other words, it's the people that make a country great, not the dirt.

This is why we're great.

The question is why did your home country suck?

And while some of you were escaping communists and dictators and the suckiness of your country was out of your control, there is no denying that a country is only as great as its people. And if you insist on bringing your bad habits to this country (say like female genital mutilation) and continue pursing the aspects of your culture that made your home country suck (wanting around for handouts from the government), you will never escape what you were running away from.

Thus, as a service to all aspiring immigrants I am going to provide you some advice. THis is advice you're not going to like to hear, but in the long run you'll appreciate it because then you will not suffer the same fate as the Arabs living in public housing in France.

1. NO COUNTRY BECAME GREAT WITH ITS PEOPLE LIVING OFF OF WELFARE. If you're here for the free ride, go to hell. Matter of fact, you'll already be there and you will also condemn your children to such a hellish lifestyle too.

2. Find out why America is great. Don't just believe that it is great and move your whole damn family here. Find out why first so that you may become part of that greatness.

3. The Democrats are not your friends. They want your votes so they can stay in power and will bribe you will benefits and welfare and free health care and housing. If this sounds too good to be true, it is, because this inevitably will turn into communism and you can talk to my Vietnamese friend about that.

4. The Republicans will let you fend for yourself and don't much care if you make it or not, but at least they're honest about it.

5. For God's sake, go to college and major in the sciences. Engineering. Math. Computers. This will make you more successful than your average white American counterpart because the majority of them major in crap (sociology, women's studies, philosophy).

6. Don't have more than 3 children. I don't care what your culutre says.

7. Rap and the ghetto hip-hop lifestyle is a farse. Make sure your kids don't fall into it in school. Matter of fact, if you can afford it, send your kids to private school.

Women of the World Unite...If You're Not Sick

Found this chart whilst doing research to see if oil is the main reason Norway has been doing so well (it is). It shows days of work lost to inactivity (health, sickness, PTO, etc.) for various OECD countries and they break it down by age and sex.

Now, I have an anal retentive socialist friend who in his many feeble and failed attempts to debate me always reverts to his last ditch, desperate argument that socialists always resort to when they're getting their asses handed to them by a capitalist machine gunning them down with empirical data;

I don't believe. You didn't source the data.

Now, most people would accept what I've posted here as true as I cited the OECD. Most people would say, "Oh, the OECD. Reputable organization. And given he was looking for oil information in Norway the context of this research wasn't biased to find out why women make less than men."

But no, this SOB wants the exact URL and then should that URL change over the years, he wants it changed too.

So here it is you anal rententive putz;

http://www.oecd.org/document/46/0,2340,en_33873108_33873681_35190766_1_1_1_1,00.html

Now, as I was saying, this argument that women make less because of sexism and blah blah blah, is largely one to benefit women unfairly painting them as a victim (which seems to be a popular tactic by the left nowadays). Just some more information to show you why I don't bother listening to those idiots.

Also, note Ireland (IRL).

Again people, economics is not that hard. The harder and smarter you work, the more wealth you have. And damn could I go for a redheaded Irish girl with a doctorate in economics and an aptitude in playing Halo.

DAMN!

Save France...Again

Just wondering if the MSM in the US is going to cover the riots in France anytime soon here.

I'm also wondering if we're going to have to go in their and save their asses for the 3rd TIME IN A CENTURY!

Come on guys, haven't we paid back our debts for your help in the Revolutionary War?

Oh, and is this yet ANOTHER instance of muslims not getting along with their neighbors?

Hypocrisy Served in Under 5 Minutes

And only a 20 something chick can do that.

This post is for two groups of people;

1. College age youths, because the economic lesson is worth listening to.
2. Twenty something chicks that wish NOT to become like their pissed-off, psycho 30-something predecessors.

I had gone into my day time gig early one morn because I had some work I needed to do. This more or less gave me my choosing of the best parking spot in the entire parking lot.

3 hours later a friend of mine comes upstairs to chat with me and my other co-workers.

She says, "What's that rollerskate doing in my parking spot?"

"Rollerskate?" I asked.

She said, "Yeah, that Volkswagen piece of crap you have." referring to my 1996 Volkswagen.

I was previously under the impression she did not have a car because she commuted. So I asked her, "I thought you didn't even have a car. I thought you commuted."

"HELLO??? I have a 2003 Monte Carlo SS!"

I said, "So why do you commute?"

"HELLO??? GAS PRICES???"

Now, contextual knowledge you do not have to this story is that my friend commutes 1 hours 15 minutes a day ONE WAY. So, being a an economist, or heck, just being a logical normal thinking human being, I asked,

"Why don't you move closer to work?"

"HELLO??? Property prices are too high?"

Now, being a property owner in Minneapolis and a landlord as well, I know that there is a glut of rental property in the Twin Cities market. And while prices may be high, we are in a property bubble because the plausible rents of those properties would not warrant such lofty valuations. Thus with the over supply of rental property in the Twin Cities I said,

"Well, there's a glut of rental units in the Twin Cities. Certainly you should be able to find yourself an affordable apartment."

"HELLOOOO??? I don't want my kid being raised in an apartment building."

Now, contextual knowledge you do not have to this story is that my friend just had herself a child. And children in this office are considered holy because not only do the women have pictures of their children up, but pictures of the other womens' children up at their desks. And I am literally considered by many in this group to have mental problems because I do not want children.

Also, contextual knowledge you do not have to this story is that my friend is approaching her 30th birthday.

Thus, when the "mother hen" of our group (who is this sweetheart of a woman) asked her, "So, you're approaching the big 3-0. Are you where you'd like to be in life by now?"

My friend said, "No, I was thinking that I'd have more kids by now, but I'm just married with 1."

So here's my question, and tell me if I'm wrong. But why the hell is my car a piece of crap and why the hell is there something wrong with me for not wanting to have children?

If I am not mistaken, here in front of me is a woman who is proud of not only her car, but her son as well, and wishes to have more.

But at the same time, wanting these THINGS (yes, the child I am categorizing now as a "thing") hampers her lifestyle and forces a lower standard of living upon her.

And I'm supposed to believe that this is the life she wants? Or that she is happy?

Thus, I speculate (as I have before) that the majority of women who have children do so only for biological and instinctual reasons. They don't THINK. And therefore when the economic realities of having children dawn on them, they have a choice;

Realize the mistake I've made

or

RATIONALIZE the "choice" I've made.

This results in what I think constitutes the majority of women. Whereas previously they were independent minded, individuals with dreams and goals and desires and plans. Now they are beholden women to children (and cars or material items they can't afford). And rather than face up to their mistake and suffer a blow from reality, they deny reality and ACT like they're happy. And not only that, they go so far as to constantly pummel me with pro-child propaganda and some even berated me for not fawning over their children and saying nice things to them whenst in the office (even though this would be pointless as most of the children at the age of 1 ARE NOT FLUENT IN ENGLISH!!!) Worse still, I get the impression some of them hate me, for on Monday morning when we recap what we did on the weekend I say,

"Well, I went dancing, had some martini's, had a spectacular dinner at my favorite Italian joint, slept in till noon each day, had a date, got a little play, played video games, worked on the house, and had 100% of my time to me"

and they say,

"Little Johnny puked and we took him to the hospital at 3AM. Then I had to get back and make a crappy dinner because we can't afford to go out and eat at good restaurants. We stayed in and watched the game but we wanted to go to a movie, but we couldn't find a baby sitter, and then we had to get up this morning at 5AM to get here today."

So here's the economic lesson of the day for all you college youths. You have a choice when it comes to cars;

1. Buy a cheap, but reliable used car and then live where you want, eat where you want, have a short commute, have no car payment, have minimal car insurance and have money left over to invest in property or stocks or something or...

2. Buy a brand new car fresh out of college and be a slave to the car payments until you're 30 and be forced to live far away from any sort of metropolitain culture.

And for you 20 something women who think your life is meaningless unless you have a child;

Do not have children just because everydody else does. Go and live your life and figure out what YOU want to do. Do you like animals? Well become a vet first, then have children. Do you like hiking? Well become a forest ranger first and then become a mother. Whatever it is you like to do, please do it before you become like everybody else. For I cannot tell you how drab and boring and common and how quick-lived a date is with a girl that says, "well, I have 2 children and I love them, they're the best children in the world. Ooops! I have to leave, the baby sitter is only paid till 10PM."

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to live my horrible life. I have to go to dinner at a nice Italian restaurant where I'll meet some students before we go dancing at one of my favorite jazz venues. No doubt I'll have a martini, and might even meet a cute girl tonight. Either way I'll be getting home around 1AM to drift off for 10 hours of uninterrupted sleep with no particular responsibilities tomorrow. Although I might play some video games before I go to bed and finish off that great pasta I got last night that's in the fridge.

I just need to find a baby sitter...OH! Wait, that's right. I don't have children. I can "just go."

Tigger was an Economist

So I have the nick name "Pooh Bear" at work, which was not my doing but the doing of two sweethearts in the office. Nice kids, thus, when one of them was down today I forwarded her a link to a website full of economist jokes and listed on the subject line "Tigger would find these funny" playing off of the inside joke of Winnie the Pooh.

She doubted Tigger was an economist and thus I posed my theory, which turned out better than I had anticipated;

Well, it’s a well-kept secret that in the evening Tigger would moonlight on the side as an economist.

You ever wonder how all those animals could just go about looking for honey or bouncin’ without ever having jobs? And Roo, the single mother, how she got by without alimony or child support? And Eeyore! The donkey is so depressed all the time, you know he ain’t holding down a job. Kind of seems like “Friends” where nobody’s working, but they all don’t seem to be missing a meal.

Well Tigger was the financial engine behind that. You see, he was a savvy investor and established a Winnie the Pooh Mutual Fund with a loan from Christopher Robin’s dad who was an investment banker. Well Tigger knew about indexed P/E ratios and market inference pricing techniques, so he was able to sell out of his tech positions before the crash in 2000.

But what was Tigger’s real stroke of genius was that he was able to see that a slowing economy would lower long term interest rates, which would then lead to a housing boom. He gambled that despite the terrorist attacks and stock market crash, the economy would have endured these temporary hurdles in the long run due to massive restructurings in the early to mid 90’s and the investment in technology infrastructure.

So what did he do? He swapped out all his holdings in technology and invested in REIT’s based here in America.

I think now, Tigger is slowly moving his position from property into developing markets, namely China. I think he’s betting on an inevitable free float of the Yuan.

Whatever the case, with such wise investments, Pooh, Piglet, Rabbit and the whole gang life off of the dividend income from the Winnie the Pooh Mutual Fund.

But that’s just what I’ve heard