Tutti Frutti

Here is an absolutely nutty video. Leave it to the religious crazies to put out idiotic propaganda like this.



I can't complain about the production values, but give me a break on the "surprising similarities" between foods and human organs. I was rolling on the ground watching them pull, tug, and stretch their imagination to come up with these "resemblances". Funny!

Et Tu, Brute?

Here is an interesting clip out of a conversation between Robert Reich, former Bill Clinton Secretary of Labor, and Glenn Loury, an economist. Reich explains why he was "driven" to come out publicly and support Barack Obama by his disgust at the smear campaign the Hillary Clinton was using.



What amazes me is how the American public doesn't see how the back room "handlers" turn the election into a circus with all the razzle dazzle over "he can't be patriotic because he won't wear a flag pin" and not over "just how does his health care plan differ from the other candidates", or the infamous "swiftboating" of John Kerry that turned an authentic wartime soldier into a patsy boy while the "true grit" macho image was highlighted for men like Bush and Cheney (who couldn't be bothered with actually getting near a war).

Even worse was the way these spinmeisters destroyed Max Cleland, the triple amputee war vet who magically became unpatriotic and unwilling to "defend" America. Funny how a the guy who won used these spin techniques to win the election on "patriotism", Saxby Chambliss, never found the time or the will to go to Vietnam like Max Cleland. Instead he defended America from Law School: Chambliss was given a student deferment so he could attend law school. After that, he received a medical deferment (4-F) because of a bad knee.

So... this long tradition of patriotic chest-beating Republican "warriors" (who are eager to lead a nation to war but not actually do any frontline fighting) are busy destroying Barack Obama. And a guy like Robert Reich has had enough of these dirty tactics. He is aghast that Hillary Clinton, a victim of the Republican slime machine, has decided to use these same tactics against Obama. So he has stepped forward -- been forced to step forward -- and line up with Obama.

Sherry Cooper's "The New Retirment"

I like to read retirement planning books even though I'm already retired. Sherry Cooper's book The New Retirement is a nice "how to" book without all the silly paraphernalia of forms to fill out and overly precise "rules" to guide you. Her simple rule -- the real heart of this book -- is found in Chapter 9 and says:

Rule of Thumb: You will need a retirement nest egg of between 20 and 25 times the level of additional desired pre-tax income (over and above government and employment pensions) to generate the extra income you need.

There! I saved you from needing to read the other 200 pages.

Well, there is some fun in the other stuff. She has some wonderful demographic data in Chapter 2 showing why Canada has a bigger problem than the U.S: we had a bigger boom and a bigger baby bust than the US. But, if you compare Canada to the rest of the world, we are in pretty good shape demographically because of our large immigration.

Chapter 5 talks about the problems of government funding for pensions and health. Here's where I get to see just how bad a problem the U.S. has. They offer up a larger government pension -- US$25,392 -- but they only collect 12.4% on the worker's income (split between worker & employer) to pay for it. Compare that to the Canadian pension of $10,365 paid by collecting 9.9% on the worker's income. You can see quickly that the Canadian funding is on a sounder basis. That's why we actually have a CPP Investment Board with money invested at a good rate building up to handle the boomer flood. The US doesn't. It lets the money it collect flow into general revenue and -- as the Republicans point out -- they just have pieces of paper in the Social Security Trust Fund. (OK, these are government bonds, but the Republicans make it pretty clear that when push comes to shove, they will default on those bonds because they are "only pieces of paper".)

Her chapter 7 is fascinating because it looks at the different composition of wealth when comparing Canada to the U.S. We have a lot more of our wealth in our homes. This is a bit odd when you think that the US just went through a housing bubble. But it makes sense when you realize that the "mortgage deductability" in the US encourages people there to not pay off their homes in order to get the deduction off their income taxes. She gets into something unusual in this chapter, a discussion of income disparity. She notes that the "average" wealth of a household in the US is 5.7 times their disposable income while the "median" wealth is only 2.3 times. In Canada, we have a much more egalitarian society, so our "average" wealth is 5.4 times disposable income and the "median" is 3.5 times.

In Chapter 8 she has a discussion of the fall of DB plans (Defined Benefit) and the rise of DC plans (Defined Contribution). How this is creating a two-tier society since government workers get the gold-plated DB plans while private industry has moved to DC or even gotten rid of its pensions. This discussion of pensions and fairness is unusual in a "retirement" book, but I love it. Fascinating stuff that makes you think about the role of government and how the ground under your feet can change between different segments of society quietly move in different directions.

The book is full of wonderful graphs. I love graphs. They distill so much into a picture.

So, this is an excellent book. As I said above, the essential "retirement" message is the one little quote I inserted above. The rest of it is a wonderful discussion of demographics, economics, government policy, wealth effects, etc. In short, a wonderful romp through a lot of interesting material. It is well worth the read!

Pigs and Global Warming, What's the Connection?

Sometimes the world is just too ridiculous. You have to fall down laughing.

On the one hand we have riots around the world from food shortages. On the other hand, the Canadian government is going to spend money to destroy pigs in order to create a shortage.

In what is being called an unprecedented move, the federal government will pay Canadian pork producers $50 million to kill off 150,000 of their pigs by the fall as the industry teeters on the brink of economic collapse.

The animals are being destroyed at slaughter plants and on pig farms in a bid to cull the swine breeding herd by 10 per cent.

Most of the meat is to be used for pet food or otherwise disposed of, but up to 25 per cent of it will be made available to Canadian food banks.

Great! So the pets get a cheap meal. The poor and homeless will get free food. But the working stiff is expected to suck it up and watch while the government spends tax dollars to make sure that the price of meat stays high. Why not let the pork producers send the pigs off to slaughter and let the retailers lower the price to clear the market and give the population to enjoy cheap meat?

By the way, why are the pig producers having to kill their pigs in such a rush? Here's the official government reason:

Producers are weighed down by the cumulative impact of low prices, increasing feeds costs and the high value of the loonie. They are also facing new country-of-origin labelling rules for meat products in the United States that are to go into effect later this year.

There's a lot of hogwash in there. The real reason is hidden in the middle: "increasing feed costs". Because of the worldwide food shortage, prices of all agricultural foods have doubled and tripled. So a pig farmer can't afford to pay big bucks for food for his pigs. So farmers need to rush the pigs to slaughter to reduce costs. Of course that means we'll all pay a whole bunch more for meat next year. In the interim, the Canadian government is going to short circuit the whole thing by using tax dollars to remove the meat from the human consumption market to "raise" prices. Thanks Mr. Bureaucrat. I elected you to make my food costs higher! Yeah, sure.

If you want to see an economist get hyperbolic about the coming crisis, watch Don Coxe, an economist with Bank of Montreal be interviewed about the global food shortage. He paints a very grim picture. He's more worried about the food crisis than he is about the financial crisis. He foresees governments falling and the rise of "Hitler-style autarky" as the crisis leads beyond riots to crowds overthrowing governments.

Meanwhile, the Canadian government is not looking past its nose. It is fixated on the short term, the "need" to clear the market of excess pork, and not seeing the longer term problem: higher costs for feedstocks will cause pig farmers decimate their herds by selling off animals at whatever price they can get to the cut their costs which means that meat prices will go sky high next year because the herds have been decimated and the costs of feedstocks are double, triple, or quadruple the traditional costs. With government bureaucrats "solving" a non-existant problem (short term drop in prices as pig farmers panic to clear stocks) while ignoring the real problem coming down the track: sky high prices as all agriculture products a rising astronomically. (This kind of government shooting itself in the foot reminds me of the Nixon government doing a secret deal to sell large amounts of food to Russia and thereby causing food costs in the US to go sky high right in the middle of the "stagflation" of the 1970s.)

Step back for a second:

Is there any reason why we've run into this agricultural problem at this time? As Don Coxe points out, for 50 years the governments in the developed world have been busy running programs to pay farmers to not grow crops. But now that the warehouses are empty, nobody has noticed and changed policy. The trigger has been drought in a few areas (Australia). And it can get worse. As Don Coxe points out, the corn crop is already two weeks late in being planted in North America. Why? Oh, because last year was the coldest in a long time, a full 0.7 degrees below normal, so the growing season is shorter. He traces this to the low sunspot activity. (He doesn't mention La Nina, but that is also playing a role.)

I laugh myself silly because we have governments running around trying to set up programs to deal with Global Warming when in fact the weather (at least short term) has gone cold and crops are failing and we will have mass starvation. So again, bureaucrats are firmly dealing with the wrong problem.

This is all so ludicrous you wonder, could anyone create this story and be believed? No! It is just too crazy. Just too silly. Just too much incompetence. But, sadly, this is the real world.

How to Buy an Election without Spending a Penny

It is pathetic to watch the US presidential campaign. The candidates don't get to talk about the issues. Instead "debates" are run as if it were pin the tail on the donkey with the best "gotcha" pulled by a so-called moderator. And now we have McCain and Clinton breathing fire about a complete non-issue and getting loads of press about it. They want to drop a gasoline tax this summer. They haven't won the presidency, they have no power, but they are on the stump proposing "actions" which have nothing to do with their candidacy. Worse, what they propose is plain foolish. It is a blatant pandering to the audience and buying voters with their own money! Lowering a gasoline tax won't lower the prices unless they plan to hire a mob of "inspectors" to check pumps and prices and an army of accountants to go through books to make sure that removing a tax is "passed through" to the customer. And, even if this works, all it does is encourages people to drive more and when the "tax holiday" ends, assuming prices went down -- which every economist tells you won't when supply is constrained -- the prices go back up and all those supposedly "happy" voters will be outraged about "higher prices" all over again. What an idiotic "plan". If this ability to "solve" a serious energy problem is evidence of their leadership, the voters should shun them, refuse to give them any votes, and flock to whoever is left on the ballot (Obama!) to show their disdain for this idiocy.

Here's what Barry Ritholz says is the problem with McCain & Clinton's "plan" for dealing with an energy crisis:

We have no energy policy, and none on the horizon. Candidates serious about the issue of high energy prices should be discussing increased CAFE standards, capital gains tax waivers for alternative energy investments, greater offshore drilling, Pigou taxes, rapid nuclear plant approvals, a huge increase in the basic R&D the government does on energy -- a Manhattan project for energy and transportation science.

Instead, we hear proposals about waiving an 18 cent tax.

Back in 1976-1978 I taught high school with materials talking about the "energy crisis". You had U.S. politicians promising a "Manhattan-type effort" to achieve energy independence. But nothing was done. That was 30 years ago. The U.S. has had 30 years to deal with this problem and no politician has had the guts to stand up and tell the American people to "get real" and deal with the problem. Oh, wait a second, you have one. You have Barack Obama saying he won't play these silly games of lying to the electorate. And what has happened to him? Oh, well he's not electable because he went to a church where the preacher is a little nutty. Now that's a reason to say "no" to him and go for the candidates who are willing to bribe you with your own money!

How to Settle an Argument

Here is a nice discussion paper by the Pacific Institute that takes on an issue and presents its viewpoint via facts rather than just claims and hot air:

Could walking be worse for the planet than driving? This startling idea has recently received coverage in New York Times blogs and beyond. ...
In his book, How to Live a Low-Carbon Life,6 Chris Goodall answers the question this way: “It makes more sense to drive than walk, if walking means you need to eat more to replace the energy lost.”7 Goodall—a proponent of reducing GHG emissions—comments that his intent is not to encourage driving, but rather, “to draw attention to the carbon intensity of modern food production, particularly of meat.” ...
However, it is misleading to suggest “it makes more sense to drive than walk, if walking means you need to eat more to replace the energy lost.” ... as shown by the estimated GHG emissions of the typical U.S. diet, walking—even for a group of four people—makes more sense than driving a given distance.

What I find interesting is that this corrective analysis results in a surprise for me, i.e. driving isn't that shockingly worse in terms of carbon footprint than such supposedly earth-friendly actions as walking in lieu of driving.

T. C. Boyle's "Drop City"

I like T. C. Boyle's writing. He's got a solid story teller's art, he loves words, he's got a knack for descriptive narrative. Drop City attracted me as a boomer to "re-live" my past. I lived through the era, but did not participate meaningfully in the iconic events of the era and certainly didn't get involved in the more manic elements of "the times".


This novel paints the tale of the outrageous fringe elements. Actually it is two tales woven together and brought together to close off the tale. As is typical with modern novels there is no closure, but the lead characters come together and there is a bit of an accounting that gives you a sense that the book can be closed on the tale.

There are a few anachronisms that caught my attention. But I recognize how hard it is to describe the past given our lexicon of the present. Mine is a minor complaint. I loved the recreation of the past. He's got the emotional details right. His colourful vocabulary paints the right kind of picture. And the story is solid. Not a classic tale that will be studied centuries from now, but be honest, 99% of the current writers are forgetable. So Boyle is in the top 10%. He will linger a while. But with the filtering of time he will disappear. We all disappear. But he gets our attention for now.

He uses the tricks of the trade a number of times to pull me into the tale and uses plot twists and turns to turbo-charge my emotions. OK, I'm a sucker for that. I love novels as an escape. But I especially appreciate novels with historical detail because they let me "be there" even if I wasn't there. Here you get to ride the wave of idealism of 1970 (at the tag end of the hippie "boom" just as it was going bust) to see the bitter end of the "back to the land" era of hippiedom. And this novel takes that tale to dead serious end. It takes you from halcyon California to the bitter realities of frigid Alaska. Living at the fringes of the frozen north, I can appreciate all too well the life-and-death struggle against the cold. This is a tale of flower children who come up against the grim reality of a "struggle for existence".

This isn't the glitzy over-the-top ride that Tom Wolfe's non-fiction essays gave you of the 1960's culture: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Pump House Gang, or The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby. But Wolfe's observations were of the disintegration during the early 1960s while Boyle's book deals with the aftermath of the smash-up with the people who were the loose-ends of the hippie crash. They were crazy times full of hope, but like Drop City, gravity takes over and the dreams come crashing to earth. Reality has a nasty way of pulling you back to earth.

So... mark this up as yet another fine bit of writing by T. C. Boyle.

Over the years I'm slowly working my way through his body of work. I can't complain about anything he has written it is all quite good. And the historically based works "The Inner Circle" and "Drop City" are an excellent way to be a fly on the wall of a past historical era. (To prove I'm not a sycophant, I must admit that I found the novel "Talk, Talk" to be a bit below standard, but I finished it and didn't begrudge the time spent, but looking back it wasn't as much fun as other things he has written.)