Rebane's Ruminations

About

November 2026
S M T W T F S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930  

ARCHIVES

OUR LINKS

YubaNet
White House Blog
Watts Up With That?
The Union
Sierra Thread
RL “Bob” Crabb
Barry Pruett Blog

  • Unions here and there, and everywhere

    George Rebane

    Speculator – one who engages “in business transactions involving considerable risk but offering the chance of large gains, esp. trading in commodities, stocks, etc., in the hope of profit from changes in the market price.”

    Greece’s public employee unions have almost bankrupted that country; everyone in the EU knows that and is demanding that they be reined in.  A natural place to start is to remove the country’s constitutional guarantee for lifelong jobs in the state sector.  They can then work on their union pension formulas.  Instead, their public sector unions are urging state employees to walk off their jobs to further paralyze the country.

    In the meantime, their prime minister Papandreou is in Washington visiting a fellow socialist, and publicly bashing the only people left who will loan money to his fiscally floundering country.  Apparently they are being railed against as “speculators” for insuring their loans.  Anybody these days who lends money to Greece is rightly a speculator and should wear that moniker proudly, even if she is the hesitant chancellor of Germany.  It is only the dim-witted and the elite progressives – a remarkable cohort – who do not understand the salutary role speculators have played to advance humanity.

    Unionbutton Speaking of today’s pre-educated, did you notice the tenor of the ‘pro-education’ demonstrations last week?  These socialists-in-training were demanding that their tuition fees be kept sacrosanct while the rest of the state has to tighten its belt.  They offered no solutions for lowering/containing the cost of education beyond raising taxes on businesses (which don’t pay taxes) and the rich.  I wonder how they would digest this little piece of California public service union history reported in the 10mar10 WSJ.

    In 1999, the Democratic legislature ran a reckless gamble that makes Wall Street’s bankers look cautious. At the top of a bull market, they assumed their investment returns would grow at a 8.25% rate in perpetuity—equivalent to assuming that the Dow would reach 25,000 by 2009—and enacted a huge pension boon for public-safety and industrial unions.
     

    (more…)

    Posted at

    in

    , ,
    3 comments on Unions here and there, and everywhere

  • A functional idiot at work

    George Rebane

    Pelosi “We have to pass this (healthcare) bill so that you can find out what is in it.”  said a sober looking Nancy Pelosi (here), Speaker of the House of Representatives, United States Congress in session on 9 March 2010 in Washington, District of Columbia, US of A speaking to the American electorate.  At this point further words fail.

    Posted at

    in

    , ,
    7 comments on A functional idiot at work

  • Sustaining Sustainability

    George Rebane

    Chickensandveggies Sustainability season is upon us, and it will probably beat spring this year in all the blooming proposals that will be written to attract other people’s money to Nevada County.  Nevada City is leading the way with consultant facilitated public workshops that will identify the sustainable projects which the city will undertake once the money comes rolling in.  Well, some of the projects actually don’t need OPM, and can be launched with new ordnances designed to nudge us to behave properly or else.

    I briefly observed this effort being launched and gain steam last Monday (8 March) in city hall.  The gathering definitely looked enthusiastic, with lots of high energy evident at each of the breakout tables.  It looked like attendance was a bit north of sixty, all under the able hand of Mayor Reinette Senum and consultant.  So I asked a fellow observer and colleague how they had cleared the first hurdle, namely defining ‘sustainable’.  He informed me that they decided to bypass that hurdle and get right down to business.  After all, everyone knows what sustainable means – don’t they?

    Actually, here’s a little test you can do yourself.  Ask ten people to define sustainable, and see if you don’t get twelve distinct but perfectly good answers.  It turns out that sustainable is one of the more slippery words in the English language.  Sort of like, depends what your definition of ‘is’ is.

    (more…)

    Posted at

    in

    , , ,
    4 comments on Sustaining Sustainability

  • Water + Sunlight = Energy

    George Rebane

    I’ve been an open critic of ARRA ever since it started a year ago.  But I do want to report on a possible benefit that may derive out of ARRA funds that are being channeled through the Advanced Research Projects Agency(Energy branch) to Sun Catalytix, a start-up in Massachusetts.   Physorg.com reports –

    With one bottle of drinking water and four hours of sunlight, MIT chemist Dan Nocera claims that he can produce 30 KWh of electricity, which is enough to power an entire household in the developing world. With about three gallons of river water, he could satisfy the daily energy needs of a large American home.

    Using the electricity generated from a 30-square-meter photovoltaic array, Nocera's cobalt-phosphate catalyst converts water and carbon dioxide into hydrogen and oxygen. The process is similar to organic photosynthesis, except that in nature, plants create energy in the form of sugars instead of hydrogen.

    The hydrogen produced through artificial photosynthesis can be stored in a tank and later used to produce electricity by being recombined with oxygen in a fuel cell, even when the sun isn't shining. Alternatively, the hydrogen can be converted into a liquid fuel.

    With his start-up company, Sun Catalytix, which was awarded $4 million in government funding through the new ARPA-E agency, Nocera hopes to make the system affordable enough to allow individual homes to generate their own fuel and electricity on-site.

    There’s an old Estonian saying that even a blind chicken pecking will sooner or later find a seed.  If this works, it may be one helluva seed.  Here’s an unabashed promo video that’s a little disappointing.  If the technology is real, some other stuff could have been shown.  But this looks like a government sponsored show n’ tell, and we can all hope for the best.

     

     

    Posted at

    in

    , ,
    8 comments on Water + Sunlight = Energy

  • Census Fraud

    George Rebane

    County CEO Rick Haffey sent out this warning in his usual ‘Friday memo’ to the Supes yesterday.  Good stuff to know as we prepare to answer the 2010 census.
     
    Beware of Fraudulent Census Questionnaires: You may have seen the all county e-mail that was sent out yesterday concerning fraudulent census questionnaires. As the 2010 Census count has begun, with it comes the opportunity for identity thieves and crooks to take advantage of unsuspecting victims. The Planning Department received a call from a constituent from Alta Sierra yesterday who thinks she filled out a fraudulent Census questionnaire that she received in the mail.  The questionnaire asked for her social security number, creditor and bank information. She stated that the return mailing address was somewhere in Nevada City. She also stated that the form looked official and said that she would be violating federal law if she did not return it. It is possible that during the 2010 Census Count potential identity thieves may contact you via mail, e-mail or in person.  It is important to note that the 2010 Census does not ask for personal information, such as social security, bank account, or credit account numbers. Official 2010 Census takers should also never solicit for donations or contact you by e-mail. It is recommended that if you feel someone is falsely representing the Census Bureau, that you contact your local law enforcement agency. For additional information on the 2010 Census, such as What the Census Does Not Ask and How to Identify a Census Taker, please refer to the County’s “2010 Census is Coming” webpage or the U.S. Census Bureau’s Website.

    http://mynevadacounty.com/cda/index.cfm?ccs=772&cs=4326
    www.2010census.gov

    Posted at

    in

    , , ,
    No comments on Census Fraud

  • Dismal Science is not Science

    George Rebane

    Economics RR readers are familiar with the two pillars on which science stands – Occam’s razor and falsifiability.  I have for years railed against the economics on which know-nothing public policy makers rely.  Almost all of them are innocent of any training in math-science, and most of them are innumerate to boot.  The gaps in their education and knowledge are firmly patched with hubris, and the belief that we are dumber than they are.

    After Dr Russ Roberts wrote his 27feb10 WSJ piece, I started unlimbering my pen for a dissertation on reinforcing Roberts’ points and filling in some gaps he left.  This morning’s WSJ contained a letter from a reader, Theodore A. Gebhard, that covers almost everything I wanted to say, and covers it well.  The only notion I want to re-emphasize from past RR postings is that it is the collectivist economists (e.g. Paul Krugman of Princeton) and their political funders who continue to believe and convince us that their mathematical models are science which should inform new public policies and how we organize our governance.  In this, these people are worse than the scam artists in climate science who claim verity in their general circulation models and have now made that ‘science’ a fraudulent enterprise.  But I digress.

    The sequel contains Mr/Dr? Gebhard’s letter in its entirety, and I throw in one from Mr Roy Carriker for good measure.  Enjoy.

    ===
    Russ Roberts is spot on in questioning whether economics can legitimately be called a science (“Is the Dismal Science Really a Science?,” op-ed, Feb. 27). The great 20th-century philosopher of science, Karl Popper, famously defined a scientific question as one that can be framed as a falsifiable hypothesis. Economics cannot satisfy that criterion. No matter the mathematical rigor and internal logic of any theoretical proposition in economics, empirically testing it by means of econometrics necessarily requires that the regression equations contain stochastic elements to account for the complexity that characterizes the real-world economy. Specifically, the stochastic component accounts for all of the innumerable unknown and unmeasurable factors that cannot be precisely identified but nonetheless influence the economic variable being studied or forecasted.
     
    What this means is that economists need never concede that a theory is wrong when their predictions fail to materialize.

    (more…)

    Posted at

    in

    , ,
    1 comment on Dismal Science is not Science

  • Social Security Lockbox – KVMR commentary

    George Rebane

    [I recorded this commentary for its scheduled 5mar10 run on KVMR FM89.5.  The topic was a continuation of ‘The Sad Tale of Patricia Black’ post that exposed a surprising ignorance that a large number on the left profess about the status of Social Security funding.  I consider this to be a serious problem in the intellectual make-up of our electorate, at least equivalent to persistent beliefs that the Apollo 11 moon landing was staged in a restricted area hangar somewhere.  Such beliefs, when taken into the voting booth, also burden the rest of us.]

    What comes after trillions, gazillions?  Today all government dollar figures describing debt, deficits, budgets, unfunded liabilities, … all have become denominated in trillions of dollars.  What happened to the billions that were huge only yesterday?   And no one even mentions millions anymore – have those become governmental chump change?

    Hi, I’m George Rebane trying to make sense out of these numbers.  First, let’s get one thing settled from the gitgo, any Washington politicians, who tell you that they know how to pay off our nation’s financial obligations, are lying in their socks.  And you can tell them that I said so.

    The US government’s unfunded liabilities are today somewhere north of $106 trillion, of which our national debt is but a small part.  This amount is owed in many ways to many different people, but don’t ever think that it does not have to be made good.  In one way or another it all must be paid, and paid out of our pockets.  But no one has provided for these payments, and that’s why no one wants to talk about it.

    (more…)

    Posted at

    in

    , , ,
    No comments on Social Security Lockbox – KVMR commentary

  • Love that ‘Pivot to Jobs’

    George Rebane

    NCARRA100305

    Posted at

    in

    ,
    16 comments on Love that ‘Pivot to Jobs’

  • FIREARMS REFRESHER COURSE (updated 11mar2010)

    George Rebane

    18thCenturyArmy The Supreme Court is hearing a landmark gun rights case (here).  I have lived when and where citizens were denied the right to bear arms – it was not a good time or place for humanity.  Therefore, I have little patience for people espousing restrictive gun control theories.  A measure of a person’s civilized behavior is when he can harm you yet he will not, and not his behavior when he has been constrained to harm no one, not even in the defense of family or self.  Throughout history, and especially in the twentieth century, the state has been and remains the greatest killer of its own people.  Our founders knew this, many of our recent leaders do not.

    • The American Revolution would never have happened with gun control.
    • “Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not.”  ~Thomas Jefferson
    • “Those who trade liberty for security have neither.” ~John Adams
    • Free men do not ask permission to bear arms.
    • An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject.
    • Gun control is not about guns; it’s about control.
    • Only a government that is afraid of its citizens tries to control them.
    • Know guns, know peace, know safety.  No guns, no peace, no safety.
    • You don’t shoot to kill; you shoot to stay alive.
    • Assault is a behavior, not a device.
    • The Second Amendment is in place in case the politicians ignore the others.
    • Guns have only two enemies; rust and politicians.   
    • When you remove the people’s right to bear arms, you create slaves.
    • You only have the rights you are willing to fight for.
    • What part of ‘shall not be infringed’ do you NOT understand?
    • The United States Constitution (c) 1791. All Rights Reserved. 

    [For the record – I am a lifelong NRA member, a member of the Nevada County Sportsmen’s Club, a former combat arms officer (US Army), avid shooter, and gun owner.  I support the concept of par force and extending our firearm laws to include those of Switzerland.  H/T to an RR reader who sent some of the above material that I have edited for this post.]

    [11mar2010 update] Thanks to RR reader Anna Emery (see comments) we can now see the video that I originally wanted to include with this post.

     

    Posted at

    in

    12 comments on FIREARMS REFRESHER COURSE (updated 11mar2010)

  • The Sad Tale of Patricia Black

    George Rebane

    Ms Patricia Black is one of probably millions across the country who has been taken in by the progressive media and pundits debunking America’s Social Security crisis.  In a letter to the newspaper, she lambasts my 13feb10 Union column for “perpetuating the mistaken idea that Social Security is broke.”  She firmly believes that there is an “amassed surplus of $2.7 trillion” ready to be doled out “with no changes” to beneficiaries “for at least 30 years.”

    Lockbox What that poor woman, along with her similarly persuaded cohort, does not understand is that the famous Social Security ‘lock box’, so proudly displayed by Al Gore many years ago, is full of nothing but Treasury bonds.  These are IOUs of the US government that must first be cashed in before the SS recipients can spend it.  As such, they must be paid for by future taxes or future borrowing or future printing.  There simply is no spendable money there, and as fungible Treasuries, the SS recipients have to get in line with all the other holders of Treasuries here and around the world.  And since the Congressional Budget Office projects that our federal government will run in the red to the tune of about $1 trillion a year, literally forever, there is no money set aside to pay for SS or, for that matter, anything else that the government is obligated for.  It will all have to come out of the general fund one way or another.

    Ms Black and her ilk join the similarly disadvantaged yet joyful women in Detroit, who when interviewed about where all the economic stimulus money was coming from, said they thought it came from a “stash” that President Obama had access to somewhere.  Does that sound familiar?

    The sad tale of this ignorance grows when we consider that it is these millions of duped people who give comfort to the spendthrifts in Congress to continue their spending, while smoke-screening this and about another $100 trillion of unfunded government liabilities from public view.  One could argue that these beliefs are a charming aspect of our backwoods isolation up here, but that would be an oversimplification.  In spite of a legion of articles, analyses, and media interviews with responsible leaders, analysts, and economists (more here and here), the myth of the ‘stash’ or ‘lock box’ survives, and shows itself in letters like the one written by Ms Black.

    Posted at

    in

    , ,
    24 comments on The Sad Tale of Patricia Black

RR FUNDAMENTALS

About the Bastiat Triangle

Glossary & Semantics

A Conservetarian Credo

Commenting Rules

RECENT POSTS

RECENT COMMENTS

CATEGORIES

3 comments on Unions here and there, and everywhere