Miscellany
I guess the Vatican is (justifiably) disturbed by the message behind James Cameron's Avatar. The newspaper said it "gets bogged down by a spiritualism linked to the worship of nature." I saw the movie, but the nature-loving message didn't bother me. I just thought, "Okay, Cameron is a druid-wannabe leftist. So what else is new in Hollywood?" I still enjoyed the movie. * * * Mangan thinks the Washington Party may be lining up to force retirement plans to buy Treasury Bonds. Could be. Until I saw Mangan's post, I'd never even heard such a thing. I'll keep my surfing eyes open for more. * * * Two raging economic debates that interest me: (1) Will 2010 be inflationary or deflationary? (2) Is China in a bubble? I'm sufficiently befuddled by arguments on both sides that I'm officially going into a "freeze." If I get any extra cash, I'm holding it in a safe bank. Metals and commodities and foreign stocks (including my Chinese ETF) might be ready for a clobbering, but I'm not liquidating them. I hope, however, to have low enough debt levels and high enough cash levels to weather any deflationary storm that hits so I don't have to liquidate these assets at low prices. If deflation hits hard, many think inflation will roar in behind it so those asset classes will bounce back up--dramatically. * * * If you ever see anything by Robert Higgs, pull yourself up to monitor and read. He puts out great stuff, like this recent observation that the job losses have been almost exclusively in the private sector and that public sector employment is booming: the "loss of employment has occurred entirely in the private sector: employment fell from 115.4 million persons in 2007 to 109.5 million persons in 2009, a decline that took private employment back to its level at the end of the 1990s. As private employment has collapsed since 2007, however, the government payroll has actually grown slightly from 22.2 million persons in 2007 to 22.5 million persons in 2009, which puts this class of employment roughly 1.7 million persons above its magnitude in 2000." If that doesn't send a chill down your socialist-hating spine, nothing will. * * * Call me "Amos," don't take my picture, and keep razors away from my face. I'm joining up: "The Amish, as well as some other religious sects, are covered by a 'religious conscience' exemption, which allows people with religious objections to insurance to opt out of the mandate. It is in both the House and Senate versions of the [health care] bill, making its appearance in the final version routine unless there are last-minute objections." Link.
What'd you think of this post? You like the quick-hitting style? It mimics the opening column featured by many magazines. I'd to hear what you think. This kind of thing takes a little longer to put together than a regular post, but I think the pithy approach is more efficient and enjoyable for readers. Comments or email are welcome.
