The Fount of Useless Information
Your place for useless information that just might possibly be interesting.
Comments about politics
The Benefits of the Safety Net, Part 2
http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/the-benefits-of-the-safety-net-part-2/
I have talked about the “greatest good for the greatest number” before (that blog entry is more or less a link to here). It is my firm belief …
The Last Mystery of the Financial Crisis
It’s long been suspected that ratings agencies like Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s helped trigger the meltdown. A new trove of embarrassing documents shows how they did it
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-last-mystery-of-the-financial-crisis-20130619
In this case, the …
U.S. top court bars patents on human genes unless synthetic
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/13/us-usa-court-genes-idUSBRE95C0PW20130613
It has always stuck in my craw that the simple act of sequencing a gene could possibly be considered ‘novel, useful and non-obvious’, yet we have (had) thousands of …
Employment is still near a 30-year low
http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/06/news/economy/employment-rate/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
Using the most generous measurement of employment in the article (for workers ages 25 to 54 — those who should be in the prime of their careers) there is an employment rate …
TSA drops effort to allow small knives on planes
http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/2013/06/05/tsa-knives/2393139/
As if more proof were needed of the anti-science attitude of the US population, the TSA, in a laudable effort to reduce (however slightly) the security theater that it is …
Why Didn’t the SEC Catch Madoff? It Might Have Been Policy Not To
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/why-didnt-the-sec-catch-madoff-it-might-have-been-policy-not-to-20130531
For those non-financial types amongst my reader(s) this article might be a bit hard to follow. The gist is the SEC is basically in place to …
Potemkin Stimulus: One Way to Offset Austerity
http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/potemkin-stimulus-one-way-to-offset-austerity/
How far away are we from doing this? I doubt it is very. At the moment we rush around and spend huge dollars replacing broken things (like bridges, cities; generally with borrowed …
Biometric Database of All Adult Americans Hidden in Immigration Reform
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/05/immigration-reform-dossiers/
I think what bothers many people is that 1984 was in the past and they expected it to stay that way. However, Big Brother just needed some more time …
Washington gets explicit: its ‘war on terror’ is permanent
Senior Obama officials tell the US Senate: the ‘war’, in limitless form, will continue for ‘at least’ another decade – or two
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/17/endless-war-on-terror-obama
I almost didn’t blog on this, it is …
Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever
The Illuminati were amateurs. The second huge financial scandal of the year reveals the real international conspiracy: There’s no price the big banks can’t fix
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/everything-is-rigged-the-biggest-financial-scandal-yet-20130425
Somehow I missed this article and …