Comments on: Too Simple

By: Adam Daniel Mezei

Adam Daniel Mezei — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:34:21 +0000

I have one…and this of course, is color from my local community and where I live, here in Prague, in Europe.

“The radar portion of the US-financed Missile Defence (MD) shield for Central and Eastern Europe is a good protection against WMDs from rogue states.”

and it gets better…as Condi was in town yesterday, July 7th, 2008 to do up the deal…

“…and once we [ed. the Czech government] ink and ratify this agreement with the US authorities on the precise parameters regarding the establishment of this radar portion in the Czech Republic, we shall explain the functioning and organization to the citizenry, and they will find it matches up to all of their expectations and diminishes their fears.”

I kid you not. These were the paraphrased statements of Deputy PM for European Affairs, Alexandr Vondra.

Scary, scary stuff…

By: cooper

cooper — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 04:19:17 +0000

I’m slightly annoyed when I see speculation being cited as the cause of our oil crisis, with no mention of external factors – Iraq, Iran, Saudi decision on level of production, lack forever of a real energy plan here, consumption of not only the US, but India and China and so on.

I am not an economist, but if you are not going to include the issues ( which are the very thing the speculators are actually betting on), and mention that if we addressed the issues maybe things would change then you really shouldn’t be writing
about it.

By: Ike

Ike — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:42:42 +0000

@Mike - also, when the stock market drops, it’s usually great news for people investing through 401-K plans at work. You want low prices because you are buying more shares for the same money.

@Gary - Climate is a chimera anyway. Just as the snows in June are proof of nothing, so is the notion that the hurricane season of 2005 is positive evidence. Those trying to win the case for AGCC were dealt a blow by the zealots who glommed onto the Katrina imagery as proof they were right. Their forecasts of worse-to-come have been borne out as alarmism, and have provided easy targets.

By: Gary

Gary — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:15:58 +0000

The one that really gets on my nerves these days is this:

“It snowed during June! Global Warming is total crap!”

Climate is one of the poster children for complex, chaotic systems that can’t be predicted for long periods of time. And trends are more than yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

By: Mike Keliher

Mike Keliher — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:01:45 +0000

The oversimplification of the housing market situation bothers me. “It’s horrible! We’re all losing our homes! The market is terrible! We might as well all just burn ‘em down!”

That’s crap. It’s called a “buyer’s market,” people! If prices are dropping, it’s a *great* time for people like me who don’t yet own real estate but want to.

That’s how markets work. It’s not horrible. It’s natural.

Thanks, Ike, for prompting me to get that off my chest.