Mesirow Financial Backs Bernanke

(Link if video won't play: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/multiMedia.pl?mmId=978)

In an argument that amounts to, "well, what was he supposed to do?" Chief Economist at Mesirow Financial, Diane Swonk, discusses why she thinks anybody deriding Ben Bernanke is simply trying to use him as a scapegoat.

An interesting little interview with Crain's Chicago Business here, that gives us a glimpse into the mindset of those interested in rolling with the status quo. Henry Bee would be proud.

What Wins You Person of the Year

It's obviously not one's ability at being forward thinking, or even a basis in reality for that matter. In any case, here's a fantastic compilation of Ben Bernanke moments that really, more than anything, goes to show just how out of touch Time Magazine is.


Hat Tip: Malkin

Generate Your Own Healthcare Amendment

Today, Senator Bernie Sanders introduced an amendment to the healthcare bill currently being debated on the Senate Floor. When the motion to introduce the amendment as written was raised, Senator Tom Coburn objected. This forced the entire 767 page amendment to be read on the floor, a process so far estimated to take between 12 and 36 hours.

As this process takes place, with the amendment being read by what I suppose is a series of clerks, it seems an ingenious stall tactic to me that Republicans could continue this process in lieu of filibustering for as long as they can come up with amendments. And here is where the vast usefulness of the internet comes into play.

In the spirit of the now infamous SCIgen website, that was created to randomly generate gibberish scientific papers in the name of exposing fraud in the peer review process, I assumed there must be something similar for creating randomly generated legalese. Lo and behold, a few minutes of Googling brought me to The Lorem Ipsum Smorgasbord.

All one need do here is define the number of sentences one wants generated, between 1 and 10,000, and the site spits out piles of legal-style gibberish, looking like this:

The maintenance of any kind incurred by the Committee. Licensee shall be deemed a deferral accounts, if the Date OF each of all of THE TERM of any action which the Warrant Certificate issued and Appointment by it deems necessary or other agreements, understandings. Each award in whole or a calendar year following the services are received of Berkshire or responsibility for the Warrant Certificate, with respect to the terms and the Committee shall have no Stock Option shall be required in the fair market System and CHARACTERS (IMAGE) licensed PRODUCT(S) during the exercise and serve at the Warrant certificates to or firm affiliated with State of a quarterly royalty payments set forth in this Agreement by the person is made, shares or product or any time the Company, the other capacity, may from the consent to the preparation of Stock dividend or "SALES" to obtain and administer and shall be in connection with respect to be the number of this Agreement, should the Company.

Now obviously this isn't about healthcare, but given the fact that Bernie Sanders' amendment had no chance of passing, and it's being read anyway, we can safely assume that the move is all about strategy, regardless of content. In fact, since this site would generate thousands of sentences of gibberish at a time, at least anybody watching the process on C-Span would at least be highly entertained by the clerks stumbling through the nonsense!

Public Option Lemonade

The reality of the Public Option, explained in 41 seconds.

OR

How the Government makes little girls cry.



HT: Cato Twitter

Peter Schiff vs. David Epstein

David Epstein with Columbia University takes to the podium to attempt to explain to us all just exactly how President Obama's policies are saving the economy. Unfortunately for him, his opponent in this forum debate format is Peter Schiff. This is essentially a tour de force in the superiority of Austrian Economics vs. Keynesian Economics. If you've got friends that still aren't convinced, or you think need to be educated, this is the one to do it. Enjoy, and pass it along!

Your liberty or your convenience

While going about my usual evil and UnAmerican afternoon activities of eating pizza and reading various news sites, I was struck with the thought that - while it would result in, or rather need to arise from further structuring and monitoring of the internets - it'd be really nice if i sat down at a computer and said 'i am 22 years old' and it said 'ok, we'll stop asking you now.'

I've been an internet denizen (its a little different from being a user) for as long as makes no difference to being my whole sapience and I can not think of a single instance in which my age was an actual barrier or even a deciding factor of what content I did or did not absorb - barring of course various jokes I was too in-experienced to get or sexual acts I thought just yucky rather than an acquired taste. And yet whenever I watch a trailer for a game or a movie, I'm told first how old I should be before I should continue to watch - that is to say a big colored thing comes up and says 'if you're not a certain age you should not continue to sit there watching this video you clearly decided to watch anyway.' Some sites still hold onto the annoying practice of asking a user's age before letting them partake of their content, despite the obvious loophole in this practice (that it can easily be subverted by anyone with the most rudimentary arithmetical skills.) Frankly, I'm tired of proving that I am who I am and that I'm old enough to look at boobs and guns, and I'd like some way to stop having to repeat the procedure.

I feel somewhat ill at ease over this. As I said above proving my identity would of course require my identity to be known and recorded, then somehow tethered to my specific workstation. To forgo anonymity and security for ease and convenience is to turn against what I have held right and proper for most all of my 'adult' life. "If you can't take it apart, you don't own it." has always been a creed i could relate to and rely on. But more and more I've been looking to warranties for repairs and wishing for someone else to create a system to manage my data and information for me.

I wonder if I'm just getting lazy, or if my desire for 'better' user interfaces is simply an organic response to a more complex and harder to manage set of online identities and personal data. I'm not sure what implications might arise from my desire to have an easier time of viewing guns and boobs, but I have a feeling such regulation and identification is probably inevitable.

Free Market Healthcare

"We have this insane system now, where you need healthcare, you're the buyer. I'm the doctor, I'm the seller of healthcare, and someone else pays the bill. Who the heck is gonna shop for price when somebody else is payin' the bill?"

That's the money quote to start off this fantastic clip from Reason.tv, that implores us to follow the Lasik model for the rest of healthcare. Enjoy!