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Will the Stimulus Work?

Will the Stimulus Work? | The FactCheck Wire:

“In the meantime, if you want to keep up with the experts and their (sometimes quite technical) arguments for and against the stimulus plan, we suggest Krugman and former Clinton Treasury official Brad DeLong on the pro side and Becker and George Mason’s Tyler Cowen on the con side. The Atlantic’s new Atlantic Business page helpfully breaks down the experts’ arguments for the layperson.”

(Via FactCheck Wire.)

Check out both sides before arriving at an opinion.

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Stimulate the Economy

Obama stimulus plan faces changes in Senate – Yahoo! News:

“WASHINGTON – A top Republican called for more mortgage relief and additional tax cuts in President Barack Obama’s massive economic stimulus package as Democrats conceded privately they will drop items that have drawn bipartisan criticism.”

(Via Yahoo! News.)

Finally, some sense from the Congress. I’ve been suspicious of them since the TARP fiasco. Whatever happened to good governance? Apparently, once you are in power, it fades into the background. I’ve seen tortured logic trying to justify “pork” projects that don’t stimulate the economy. These projects are to vary degrees laudable and worthy of legislation all on their own, but let’s get real here. Tax cuts and government spending that creates jobs is what is needed. Condoms are not stimulative in the proper sense!

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My Webhosting Service Killed Some Spammers

Major Source of Online Scams and Spams Knocked Offline – Security Fix:

“Two hours later, I heard from Benny Ng, director of marketing for Hurricane Electric, the Fremont, Calif., company that was the other major Internet provider for McColo.
Hurricane Electric took a much stronger public stance: ‘We shut them down,’ Ng said.”

(Via Security Fix.)

Hurricane Electric is a great service provider. Plenty of power. No frills. The dark side I guess is this is a spammer’s dream.

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Op-Ed Columnist – How to Fix a Flat – NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist – How to Fix a Flat – NYTimes.com:

“‘In return for any direct government aid,’ he wrote, ‘the board and the management [of G.M.] should go. Shareholders should lose their paltry remaining equity. And a government-appointed receiver — someone hard-nosed and nonpolitical — should have broad power to revamp G.M. with a viable business plan and return it to a private operation as soon as possible.”

(Via NY Times.)

Amen. Been saying this for all government bailouts. Incompetence should not be rewarded and put in charge of fixing itself.

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Increasing the Minimum Wage Doesn’t Kill Jobs

Minimum Wage Impacts on Employment: A Look at Indiana, Illinois, and Surrounding Midwestern States:

“These patterns in job growth between 2003 and 2005 indicate that Illinois’ increasing minimum wage rates did not reduce overall employment growth for private employers and preliminary statistical analyses confirm this lack of an impact”

(Via Indiana University.)

Once again we see how ideology is soft-think. This is has been proven over and over, yet we see no public discussion on this at the pragmatic level. Just ideological back and forth. “Fairness” vs. “Jobs.” Whatever. Try “reality.”

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MacDailyNews – Apple surpasses goal of 10 million iPhones sold in 2008; outsells RIM in September quarter

MacDailyNews – Apple surpasses goal of 10 million iPhones sold in 2008; outsells RIM in September quarter:

“‘I can’t believe the hype being given to iPhone… I just have to wonder who will want one of these things (other than the religious faithful)… So please mark this post and come back in two years to see the results of my prediction: I predict they will not sell anywhere near the 10M Jobs predicts for 2008.’ – Richard Sprague, Microsoft Senior Marketing Director, January 18, 2007”

(Via MacDailyNews.)

Absolute comedy.

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What Will Wall Street Look Like in the Fall of 2009? — New York Magazine

What Will Wall Street Look Like in the Fall of 2009? — New York Magazine:

“And while any president will be an improvement over the current one, there is a growing belief on Wall Street that Barack Obama has the capacity to lead us out of this wilderness while John McCain does not. I’ll go a step further: Obama is a recession. McCain is a depression.
Wall Street usually favors Republicans when it comes to managing the economy, but this time around the financial community is skeptical. John McCain has done everything he can to avoid talking about the economy, lest he be tarred with the brush of George Bush’s ineptitude. And when McCain has attempted to step into the fray, he’s been far from reassuring. First, he insisted that the fundamentals of the economy were sound; then he turned around and told us it was the end of the economic world as we know it, and suspended his campaign to scramble back to Washington and save the day on the bailout bill—only to have little visible effect. For all his talk of being a maverick, McCain looks an awful lot like President Bush on the credit crisis: He doesn’t seem to understand Wall Street or Main Street, he is dogmatically anti-regulation, and his economic team is a joke. “

(Via New York Magazine.)

Boo yah!!!