All posts by Jack

Geek Stuff, General

Searching

blekko | spam free search.

I have gotten tired of all the nonsense hits I am getting on Google, so I am trying out another search engine -blekko. I made it my default Firefox search engine.

It seems on Google that if you inquire about a subject then you must want to be buying it. No, if I ask about “bookbinding” I want to learn about “bookbinding” not buy “bookbinding”equipment or books.

Economics, General

American Pie

I started thinking about this after hearing PJ O’Rourke on Marketplace. This was an essay answering the question about “If the 1% had less, would the 99% be better off?”

We have a pie that represents the wealth of America. The “1%” controls about 38% of that wealth (2011). The “20%” (that includes the 1%) controls 88% of the nation’s wealth.

If we use a net worth of $56T (2011) then 38% = $21.3T  and 88% = $49.3T.

Wealth is not zero-sum. In 2007 American wealth was over $65T and the control percentages were 1-2 percentage points lower. So while the overall net worth dropped  16% the top “20%” lost only  -3% of their share of the pie (going from 85% to 88%). I wonder where the rest of the loss came from?

Wealth is not zero-sum. But the pie is. It sums up to 100% whether the net worth is worth $65T or $56T. If the top “1%” keeps a lock on $20T and the net worth figures keep falling, their percentage of the pie keeps going up. and the “99%” keeps getting squeezed as their percentage goes down.

It isn’t a matter of declaring wealth is evil or that reward for success is bad. It is a matter of saying that using wealth to promote a playing field that favors your increasing your wealth is bad. Buying the influence to set the field in your favor is bad. Gaming the system with a disregard for intent is bad. (Fraud is fraud, unless you can do enough semantic acrobatics to rob everyone blind, legally.

I don’t disparage the 20% their wealth. No matter how you cut the pie, there will always be a 20%. But 88% of the wealth seems a bit much for 20% of the population.

 

General, Politics

Occupy America

First thing – DO NOT RE-ELECT any incumbents. It doesn’t matter if they are the best public servant you have ever had. Sweep the table clean and let a new mind-set in to office.  And don’t vote for an incumbent until the system rights itself.

  • If you are party-bound, do not re-nominate any incumbent in the primary.

Second thing – get another political party going. Enough of these Republican/Mini-Republican electoral choices. A choice between the greater and the lesser evil isn’t much of a choice.

 

We the People of the United States, in Order to

  • form a more perfect Union,
  • establish Justice,
  • insure domestic Tranquility,
  • provide for the common defence,
  • promote the general Welfare, and
  • secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,

do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

 

 

Economics, General, Politics

Occupy Stardel

There are a number of items I would like Congress to implement to start the economic justice pendulum heading back to sanity.

  • Restore Glass-Steagall at a minimum.  Keep Commercial and Investment Banks separate. Keep both of them out of the Insurance business. There may be some more regulatory restrictions that have a demonstrated need since the 1930’s but get us back to the 1990’s first.
  • Review and reset SEC regulations every 7 years. All those smart guys on Wall Street like to game the system and it would behoove us to reset the games parameters as they stretch the limits.
  • Prohibit Federal employees and contractors from working in the financial industry for at least 7 years after they leave their Federal job or contract.
  • Un-recognize all Nationally Recognized Statistical Reporting Organizations (NRSRO). Reinstate recognition only to those organizations that are not paid by the parties they are reporting on.
  • Pass a law that explicitly states that corporations are not “People”.
  • Pass a law that only citizens can contribute to political campaigns and that all donations must be made available to a readily search-able database, maintained by the FEC, within 48 hours. I would like to extend this even further and say that only registered voters can donate to political campaigns but I will settle for citizens to start with.  I don’t know that any contribution caps are needed  if there is transparency about who is buying the candidate but we should not preclude that option if needed.
  • Any corporate compensation in excess of the President’s annual salary shall be counted as corporate profit and taxed as such.  No deductions.

I believe this agenda falls under the mandate of the United States:

We the People of the United States, in Order to

  • form a more perfect Union,
  • establish Justice,
  • insure domestic Tranquility,
  • provide for the common defence,
  • promote the general Welfare, and
  • secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,

do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

 

 

 

 

Geek Stuff, General

Where will you go today

I just heard about ‘Shopping Walls‘. Basically, if you see something you want to buy, you take a smartphone picture of the code box next to a picture of item and you will be automatically routed to a web site where you can quickly seal the deal and get the item mailed to your home.

Now if I was of a nefarious bent of mind I would cover the little code box with a code box of my own and direct this person, who is about to  disseminate credit card/account information and who expects to provide this information, to a dummy website of my own design that will collect the sensitive information. I might even relay the information through to the store so that the buyer does not notice that anything untoward may have happened.

(I don’t have a smart phone so I have no idea what they are doing.)

 

Phone Number