Credit: a collective loss of self-control

The Great Shopping Spree, R.I.P.

Excerpts:

Transfixed by turmoil in the financial markets, we may be missing the year's biggest economic story: the end of the Great American Shopping Spree. For the past quarter century, Americans have gone on an unprecedented consumption binge—for cars, TVs, longer vacations and just about anything. The consequences have been profound for both the United States and the rest of the world, and the passage to something different and unknown may not be an improvement.

It was the ever-expanding stream of consumer spending that pulled the U.S. economy forward and, to a lesser extent, did the same for the global economy (the reason: imports satisfied much of Americans' frenzied buying). How big was the consumption shove? Consider. In 1980, Americans spent 63 percent of national income (gross domestic product) on consumer goods and services. For the past five years, consumer spending equaled 70 percent of GDP. At today's income levels, the difference amounts to an extra $1 trillion annually of higher spending.

...
In a new book, "Going Broke," psychologist Stuart Vyse of Connecticut College argues that there has been a collective loss of self-control, abetted by new technologies and business practices that make it easier to indulge our impulses. Virtually ubiquitous credit cards (1.4 billion at last count) separate the pleasure of buying from the pain of paying. Toll-free catalog buying, cable shopping channels and Internet purchases don't even require a trip to the store. Pervasive "discounting" creates the impression of perpetual bargains.

There's something to this. In 1976, L.L. Bean began accepting credit cards over its toll-free lines; in a few years, sales soared. But the recent consumption binge probably has more immediate causes. One was the "wealth effect." Declining inflation in the early 1980s (in 1979, prices rose 13 percent) led to lower interest rates—and they led to higher stock prices and, later, higher home values. More Americans got into stocks; the number of customer accounts at brokers went from 9.7 million in 1980 to 97.6 million in 2000. People regarded their newfound wealth as a substitute for annual savings, so they spent more of their annual income or borrowed more, especially against higher home values.


Reminder: Luke 12:15, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.”

Thabiti Anyabwile: Many Ethnicities, One Race

Many Ethnicities, One Race


Comment: Excellent read!

Grace Church: Interracial Marriage

Grace Church: Interracial Marriage


Comment: Scriptural position. Bob Jones University should offer such a statement!

Hamas through rose colored glasses

Carter: Hamas would accept Israel as neighbor

Excerpts:

Former President Jimmy Carter said Monday that Hamas is prepared to accept the right of Israel to “live as a neighbor next door in peace.”

Carter said the group promised it wouldn’t undermine Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ efforts to reach a peace deal with Israel, as long as the Palestinian people approved it in a referendum. In such a scenario, he said Hamas would not oppose a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.

Hamas, a militant Islamic group that both the United States and Israel consider a terrorist organization, calls in its charter for Israel’s destruction. It has also traditionally opposed peace negotiations with the Jewish state.

Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, later said Carter’s comments “do not mean that Hamas is going to accept the result of the referendum.”


Comments:

What Jimmy 'heard':

“There’s no doubt that both the Arab world and Hamas will accept Israel’s right to exist in peace within 1967 borders,”

Hamas statement:

Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, later said Carter’s comments “do not mean that Hamas is going to accept the result of the referendum.”

“e-mail bankruptcy”

Struggling to Evade the E-Mail Tsunami

Excerpt:

.... start-up companies were mentioned favorably, like ClearContext (sorts Outlook inbox messages by imputed importance), Xobni (offers a full communications history within Outlook for every sender, as well as very fast searching), Boxbe (restricts incoming e-mail if the sender is not known), and RapidReader (displays e-mail messages, a single word at a time, for accelerated reading speeds that can reach up to 950 words a minute).

But none of these services really eliminates the problem of e-mail overload because none helps us prepare replies. And a recurring theme in many comments was that Mr. Arrington was blind to the simplest solution: a secretary.

This was the solution Thomas Edison used in pre-electronic times to handle a mismatch between 100,000-plus unsolicited letters and a single human addressee. Not all correspondents would receive a reply — a number were filed in what Edison called his “nut file.” But most did get a written letter from Edison’s office, prepared by men who were full-time secretaries. They became skilled in creating the impression that Edison had taken a personal interest in whatever topic had prompted the correspondent to write.


Comment: Re “e-mail bankruptcy”: We call it "email jail" at work.

Kathee's birthday

Our exciting celebration of Kathee's birthday:

Kathee and I took her birthday off (yesterday) and basically ran errands and connected with people.

1. We went downtown to the Wells Fargo tower and met with a financial adviser.
   
2. I took Kathee out to Latuff's in Plymouth for lunch.
   
3. We dropped by our church to connect up with Pastor Levy and some of the young adults
   
4. We had the car washed (mistake .... it rained later)
   
5. And then had dinner with Kathee's brother and sister in law at the Crossroads Deli in Minnetonka. We haven't seen them since January as they have been in Florida
   

Kathee is 39 in hex!

The Florida housing market: Kathee's brother just bought a condo in Naples for 68% of he original asking price.

I surprised Kathee with an amethyst (on a chain). She was pleased but reminded me that a diamond is her birthstone. I told her than when she is 50 in hex that she will get one!

Between Hitler And Darwin

Think About The Connection Between Hitler And Darwin

Excerpt:

Hitler understood something about Judaism that even many Jews today don’t grasp.

I mention this because you’re soon going to be hearing a lot about a new movie, Expelled, which understands something about Hitler that, in turn, many Jews and non-Jews don’t or don’t want to understand.

Starring comic actor Ben Stein, Expelled is a snarky theatrical documentary about the suppression of American scientists who dissent from Darwinist evolutionary orthodoxy. Controversial stuff. What’s really turning critics apoplectic, though, is the case made in the film that Darwinism inspired the Nazis.

Which, in fact, it did. In Mein Kampf, Hitler used Darwinian language to make hisIs it time to reconsider Darwin?Is it time to reconsider Darwin? case for racial war against the Jews. He rallied the millions of Germans who bought his bestselling book with an appeal to biology, which, as he argued, revealed certain iron laws of Nature – principally the struggle for supremacy pitting the superior races against the inferior.

Defy Nature, he wrote, and then “whole work of higher breeding, over perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, might be ruined with one blow.” The major Hitler biographers – Toland, Fest, Kershaw, Bullock -- all agree on Hitler’s debt to Darwinism.

A gentle soul, Darwin himself never advocated genocide. But in The Descent of Man, he predicted that the logic of natural selection made inevitable something like what Hitler attempted against the Jews:

“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races.”

What you would not readily foresee from reading Darwin’s writings is that the race requiring extermination would turn out to be us Jews. But Hitler perceived an inner logic in Darwinism that even Charles Darwin didn’t.


Comment: Must see: Expelled (film). See also Ota Benga: The Pygmy put on display in a zoo and Ota Benga (Wiki)

TurboTax online

Three Certain Things: Death, Taxes and the Shift to the Web

Excerpt:

For the first time this year, more people filled out their tax forms using TurboTax’s online product than the version that comes in a box.

You might think people would be queasy about doing their taxes online, but that is certainly a passé notion judging from the numbers from Intuit, the maker of TurboTax. The company said it sold 7 million TurboTax federal tax preparation packages, about the same as last year, but it sold 8.3 million units of the online version, a 37 percent increase.

Comment: This was our first year using the on-line version of TurboTax. I like it because I can work on my taxes from any PC.

---

Three day weekend ahead. Tomorrow is Kathee's birthday.

Global "warming" sacrilege

Iwo Jima Veterans Blast Time's 'Special Environmental Issue' Cover

For only the second time in 85 years, Time magazine abandoned the traditional red border it uses on its cover. The occasion – to push more global warming alarmism.

The cover of the April 21 issue of Time took the famous Iwo Jima photograph by Joe Rosenthal of the Marines raising the American flag and replaced the flag with a tree. The cover story by Bryan Walsh calls green “the new red, white and blue.”

Donald Mates, an Iwo Jima veteran, told the Business & Media Institute April 17 that using that photograph for that cause was a “disgrace.”

“It’s an absolute disgrace,” Mates said. “Whoever did it is going to hell. That’s a mortal sin. God forbid he runs into a Marine that was an Iwo Jima survivor.”

Mates also said making the comparison of World War II to global warming was erroneous and disrespectful.

“The second world war we knew was there,” Mates said. “There’s a big discussion. Some say there is global warming, some say there isn’t. And to stick a tree in place of a flag on the Iwo Jima picture is just sacrilegious.”

According to the American Veterans Center (AVC), Mates served in the 3rd Marine Division and fought in the battle of Iwo Jima, landing on Feb. 24, 1945.

“A few days later, Mates’ eight-man patrol came under heavy assault from Japanese forces,” Tim Holbert, a spokesman for the AVC, said. “During fierce-hand-to-hand combat, Mates watched as his friend and fellow Marine, Jimmy Trimble, was killed in front of his eyes. Mates was severely wounded, and underwent repeated operations for shrapnel removal for over 30 years.”



Time Tramples Iwo Jima Image to Push 'War on Global Warming'

First hand reporting ... what it was really like (from Time's archive):
On Iwo Jima


The 4th Marine Division hospital was built low into the bulldozed hillside to afford maximum protection from Jap mortar and artillery fire. It consisted of two long dark green tents plus two operating rooms about 10 by 20 ft. which the Japs had built as concrete rainwater cisterns. The air inside was stuffy with stale cigaret smoke mingled with the smells of dirt and blood and sweat. But the rawboned Division surgeon, Commander Richard Silvis, was very proud of his operating rooms.

Shortly after 8 o'clock on the evening of Dog Day-plus-15, Dr. Silvis and I crawled through the blacked-out entrance into one of these cistern operating rooms. Beneath the big non-shadow electric lamps lay a Marine captain who had been a Jap machine gunner's target about three hours earlier. Dr. John A. Harper held up the wounded man's slashed, liver-colored spleen: "We also took out a piece of kidney," he said, "and he has a bullet through his diaphragm and lung. He asked for a priest right away." Silvis pulled back the wounded man's eyelid and said: "He looks pretty good, though."

Some Would Die. We crossed to one of the long tents—the receiving ward where patients are brought first. At one end were eight operating tables where the wounded were examined immediately. The simpler operations were performed right there. The complex cases went to the cistern operating rooms.


Comment: The title says it all! Sacrilege

Credit crunch for student loans

Sallie boss warns of student loan ‘train wreck’

Excerpt:

Experts said that, unless the government intervenes or market conditions rapidly improve, Sallie Mae could have no choice but to stop writing new federally backed loans.

House lawmakers on Thursday approved a measure to boost the availability of credit for Sallie Mae and other student lenders, and analysts believe the Treasury department could act as soon as next week.

Sallie Mae lost $104 million in the first quarter as it grappled with higher borrowing costs, restructuring charges and other factors, though Lord said in a conference call with analysts that the company would not lower its full-year earnings target.

Shares of the Reston, Va.-based company climbed almost 6 percent Thursday, but remained 70 percent from last summer.

Even though the majority of student loans are highly rated and carry a federal guarantee, investor demand for securities backed by these assets has plummeted — a sign of just how nervous investors are about securities backed by mortgages, student loans and other debt.

Bank of America Corp. said Thursday it would stop private student loans, but continue offering government-backed loans. On Wednesday, Citigroup Inc. said its Student Loan Corp. subsidiary will temporarily stop issuing loans to students at schools where profits have not been satisfactory.


Comments: Could be good for students ... avoid those loans (I have 1 kid who graduated with no-student loans. Another nearing an Associates with no student loans!).

Saying one thing in Pennsylvania, voting another

The Democrats and Gun Control

Excerpt:

Mr. Obama's campaign Web site touts his belief in the Second Amendment rights to have guns "for the purposes of hunting and target shooting." Conspicuously absent is the right to have firearms to defend one's self, home and family. In 2001, as a state senator, Mr. Obama voted against allowing the beneficiaries of domestic violence protective orders to carry handguns for protection.

Yet, as Mr. Obama has mockingly pointed out, Mrs. Clinton is not exactly a modern-day Annie Oakley wiling away weekends in a duck blind. As first lady, she helped organize the Million Mom March for "sensible gun laws" in 2000. It was led by the shrill gun prohibitionist Rosie O'Donnell.

Mrs. Clinton has repeatedly voted for antigun proposals, and co-sponsored many of them. After Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans and St. Tammany police confiscated guns from law-abiding citizens, violating an explicit Louisiana law. In some cases, the confiscation was carried out with the assistance of federal agents, and was perpetrated via warrantless break-ins into homes.

The next year, the U.S. Senate voted 84-16 for a homeland security appropriations rider stating: "None of the funds appropriated by this Act shall be used for the seizure of a firearm based on the existence of a declaration or state of emergency." Mrs. Clinton was one of the 16 who voted "no." Mr. Obama commendably voted with the majority.

Forty states currently allow most law-abiding adult citizens to carry concealed handguns for lawful protection, after a background check and (in almost all such states) a safety class. Of course those laws only apply to carrying within the relevant state. Mr. Obama told the Chicago Tribune in 2004 that he favored a national ban on concealed carry, to "prevent other states' laws from threatening the safety of Illinois residents." Mrs. Clinton campaigned against a licensed carry referendum in Missouri.

Thabiti Anyabwile on Race (Challies)

Thabiti Anyabwile on Race

Comment: Not excerpted ... please read all. A helpful article on race is AIG: One Blood

Straight talk on trade: "lightning rods for myriad grievances"

The Wrong Trade Wars: NAFTA and globalization aren't totally to blame.

Excerpt:

The latest evidence of the gap between political rhetoric and economic reality is the Democratic-controlled House's decision to set aside, indefinitely, the free-trade agreement negotiated with Colombia by the Bush administration. On economic grounds there's no reason to reject the agreement. Colombia's exports already enter the U.S. market duty-free under the 1991 Andean Trade Preference Act. Meanwhile, many U.S. exports to Colombia face stiff tariffs—up to 35 percent on autos, 15 percent on tractors and 10 percent on computers—most of which would ultimately go to zero under the agreement.

The tariffs dampen demand for U.S. exports by raising their price and putting them at a competitive disadvantage. Whirlpool annually exports about $50 million worth of refrigerators, washer-dryers and dishwashers to Colombia from plants in Ohio, Arkansas and Iowa. On a $1,000 refrigerator, a 20 percent tariff raises the retail price $200 in a fiercely competitive market with appliances also supplied by local firms and imports from Korea and elsewhere. (Why does Colombia want the agreement? Answer: Congress has to renew Colombia's present duty-free status periodically. The agreement would make it permanent.)

Yet, it's politically convenient to oppose the trade agreement, because the popular imagery is that trade destroys U.S. jobs. The loss of almost 4 million U.S. manufacturing jobs since 1998 seems easy to explain by cheap imports or the flight of plants to Mexico, China and other poorer countries. The truth is murkier. Although this has occurred, job losses also stem from greater efficiency (fewer workers producing more goods) and slumping domestic demand (for communications equipment and computers after the dot-com bust and for housing materials and vehicles now). Nor has falling factory employment crippled overall U.S. job creation.

Look at the numbers. From 1998 to 2007, total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 12 million, and unemployment averaged only 4.9 percent—despite the 4 million lost factory jobs. In that period, U.S. manufacturing output rose 22 percent.

No matter. Globalization and trade have become lightning rods for myriad grievances (job insecurity, wage inequality, eroding fringe benefits).


Comment: Robert J. Samuelson is a contributing editor of Newsweek and Washington Post where he has written about business and economic issues since 1977.

WFC: Better than expected

Wells Fargo's Q1 profit drops

Wells Fargo net tops views

Profits at Regional Banks Bolster Shares

Comment: Analysts expected 57 cents a share ... Wells reported 60! Banks that are doing OK: US Bank; Wells Fargo, JP Morgan. Sad earnings: WaMu, Wachovia, Citi Bank, NCC.

In a recession, prices should be falling

An Inflation Indicator Leaves the Fed in a Tough Spot

Excerpt:

A gauge of prices paid by American producers jumped 1.1 percent in March, the Labor Department said on Tuesday, sharply accelerating from a 0.3 percent increase in February.

The increase, led by a surge in gasoline and home heating oil prices, was twice what economists had expected.

The higher prices put pressure on businesses to pass on costs to consumers, though some economists said the housing slump and weakening job market could discourage businesses from raising their prices.

“Given the weak nature of domestic demand now and going forward, it is unlikely that businesses will have as much success raising prices at the consumer level as they did in the not too distant past,” Joshua Shapiro, an economist at the research firm MFR, wrote in a note to clients.

The increases did not spread to popular products like automobiles and clothing. The closely watched core measure of the Producer Price Index, which excludes volatile costs of food and energy, rose 0.2 percent in March, falling back from an unexpected 0.5 percent rise in February.

The low core rate could take some pressure off the Fed as it tries to balance rising inflation with the overall slowdown in growth. Fed officials have acknowledged that inflation remains a serious concern, but they have signaled they will continue to focus on staving off a prolonged recession.


Comment: Prices are going up because the dollar is going down! Thus all that we import goes up.

The Delta - Northwest merger ... what it means

Where Airline Mergers Would Hurt Travelers Most

Intro (view chart for details):

If several of the nation's big airlines merge, as industry executives have been advocating for months, airfares would probably rise, some cities might get a bit of additional service, and other cities would see flights scaled back significantly. With help from the trade publication Airline Weekly, we've examined the top 50 airports to determine the likely effects of two possible megamergers: a Delta-Northwest alliance and a United-Continental hookup. Here are the cities that would be most deeply affected:


Comment: You basically have 2 failed airlines that will become one failed airline. Flying will be less fun (is that even possible?) and more costly.

Avid Modjtabai

Avid Modjtabai: Executive Vice President & CIO, Wells Fargo


Comment: Somewhere way way up there, I report to this woman.

Erik Paulsen (R) vs. Ashwin Madia (D)

Minn. district's voters could turn right or left

Excerpts:

In the race to succeed retiring Rep. Jim Ramstad (R-Minn.), voters in the affluent Minneapolis suburbs will have a clear choice between two starkly different candidates.

On the one side, there is Republican state Rep. Erik Paulsen, a 13-year legislative veteran and former majority leader who has served in the Minnesota House since he was 30 years old.

On the other is Democrat Ashwin Madia, a political newcomer whose officeholding experience is limited to his service as student body president at the University of Minnesota.

A 30-year-old lawyer, Madia served in Iraq for six months as a Marine Corps attorney.
...
“I’m a moderate Democrat who’s got a military background, who wants to end the war in Iraq responsibly and balance the budget,” said Madia. “I think that’s going to appeal to a lot of the fiscally responsible and socially moderate people that form the bedrock of my district.”


Comment: My congressional district. Madia's statement (last sentence) accurately portrays this district.

White Gold

White Gold ad campaign

Excerpt:

If you've never heard of White Gold, that's probably because he doesn't really exist. But he does star in the new multiplatform advertising campaign from the California Milk Processor Board (the "Got Milk?" people). Think Tenacious D shilling for Big Dairy. It's an obvious bid to hit the ad-cynical teenage demographic where they're most vulnerable: the funny bone. And the campaign is genuinely hilarious. But will that be enough? U.S. consumption of milk slumped 14 percent between 1981 and 2006, according to the Department of Agriculture. In California, which is getting the brunt of the campaign, the price of whole milk has climbed 44 percent since 2003. A gallon of milk costs even more than a gallon of unleaded, with a nationwide average price of $3.87. Sen. Barack Obama reminded voters from the stump in Pennsylvania at the end of March that "you've never paid more for a dozen eggs, a gallon of milk."


Comment: Check out YouTube for White Gold videos. Below is sample:

Obama's "snobgate"

Rasmussen Confirms Damage From Snobgate

Excerpt:

Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters nationwide disagree with Barack Obama’s statement that people in small towns “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 25% agree with the Democratic frontrunner while 19% are not sure.

Partisan and ideological differences suggest that the comments are more likely to be a factor in the General Election than in the Primaries. A plurality of politically liberal voters—46%–agree with Obama’s statement while 33% disagree. Moderate voters take the opposite view and disagree by a 51% to 27% margin. Seventy-four percent (74%) of conservatives disagree with Obama’s statement, only 12% agree.



Comment: Audio (YouTube) is a murkey. This will be used against him in the general election!

McCain responds:

A few days ago, at a San Francisco fundraiser, Barack Obama described Americans who live in small towns or other areas that have experienced a loss of jobs as "bitter" people, adding that it didn't surprise him that they, "..cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

These words are revealing on a number of levels, and expose the out-of-touch beliefs to which John McCain offers stark contrast. Today, John McCain offered a different account of small town America:

"During the Great Depression, with many millions of Americans out of work and the country suffering the worst economic crisis in our history, there rose from small towns, rural communities, inner cities, a generation of Americans who fought to save the world from despotism and mass murder, and came home to build the wealthiest, strongest and most generous nation on earth.

"They suffered the worst during the Depression, but it did not shake their faith in, and fidelity to, America. They did not turn to their religious faith and cultural traditions out of resentment and a feeling of powerlessness to affect the course of government or pursue prosperity. On the contrary, their faith had given generations of their families' purpose and meaning, as it does today."

These hard working men and women aren't "bitter". They love their country, their faith, their family and their traditions. They are the heart and soul of this country, the foundation of our strength and the primary authors of its essential goodness - Barack Obama should get to know them.