The Henry George Blog

Answering the Water Question in the Middle East

2007-04-28T18:31:00.000-07:00

I finally finished my senior project earlier today. I still have some work to do tomorrow, like add the appendix and table of contents, but as of right now, I am finished. I am going to read it through one more time and just make sure everything is a-ok, but I think this is it. Projects are Wednesday. I am going to print on Sunday night and bind on Monday. My board is a week from this Monday. The full title is below:

Answering the Water Question in the Middle East: An Equitable and Efficient Solution to the Water Allocation Crisis Between Israel and Palestine

On the internets

2007-04-06T08:49:00.000-07:00

On a typical day I'll read about 10 blogs. I have a list of approximately 4 or 5 that I cycle through every day based mostly on political affiliations and hobbies. One of these blogs is A VC. Generally, I think everyone should have at least one tech oriented blog that is updated every day. I used to read Feld Thoughts, but he is a bit too wonky for even my self admitted nerdness. I like to be kept up to date about the cutting edge. Can this new product or service help me? Can I think up some new idea to build on this? About a year or two ago, innovators were in the heyday of web 2.0 stuff. I am fairly certain that we are well into the diminishing returns of web 2.0

Of of the things that made web 2.0 stuff interesting was its simplicity and how robust these tools were. Take del.ico.us, blogger, dig, or feedburner for example. These tools have a lot functionality for very little time invested and are incredibly simply to use. This trend seems to either be slowing down or working in reverse.

One of Fred's newer posts is about this service called Twitter. I honestly don't get it. I like Fred's tenacity and how he will revisit something he originally didn't like... but I still don't understand Twitter. What is it supposed to that I can't do with 100 other services? Why is it important that I send a blog update in 150 characters or less what I am eating, who I am eating with, my daily schedule. I don't see why it is important to anyone other then the person updating and there is a ton of personal organizer type software / hardware stuff already out there. Based on his post he doesn't seem to fully understand it either, and he is just trying it out until he can find a use for it.

This is the point where I diverge and why a lot of these new services are useless. If you seek long enough and hard enough you can find a nitch and use for anything. But these nitches are just that, nitches. They are not all encompassing, easy to use, something that anyone can understand, and usable in nearly every application. Aggregating information doesn't matter if it is not efficient. I can come up with a million different ways of putting information together and if it is not efficient, who cares about my new collection? Take social networks. Since the Youtube and Myspace deals everyone and their brother wants to make a new company with a social network. They are coming every which way and it is annoying. Having a new network defeats the purpose of networking to begin with. The more fragmented these networks become the less purpose they have.

I haven't seen anything that is really interesting in a long time. Every time I see a new service, such as Twitter, I think to myself: Underwear gnomes

1.) Build a new webservice based on a widget
2.) ???????
3.) Profit.

I am certain there are new ideas floating out there. It's all about risk. Now that the risk of web 2.0 has been lessened, the really good, although risky, ideas are getting ignored. I personally don't think we will see an entire wave of new innovations for a while. Not until we have a market correction and the strongest and best ideas will survive.

Taking this idea to the next step in a Georgist direction, technological innovation comes in waves, just like real estate booms and busts come in waves. What we want is for capital to find its way to those who are the most efficient idea generators. It seems that capital finds its way towards the most efficient generators of ideas just after the trough. Markets can't efficiently allocate this funding efficiently at all times because of asymmetric information. VCs don't know who has the best idea. All innovators want capital. Innovators who have the best idea might not be able to make the best sale, or because of the inherent high risk are at a disadvantage; moreover, innovators will not reveal if they are a poor generator of ideas. VCs and investors try to mitigate this gap of information by performing "due dilligence", but this process can only take the venture capitalist so far.

How can VCs direct capital more efficiently? In land markets, taxing land will cause a more efficient use of the land. Land is the scarce, common resource. In venture capital, the VCs time is the scarce, common resource. Not all ideas / firms / businesses (just call them firms for short) require an equal amount of time. Furthermore, firm that only require a short time investment may require a large capital investment and vice versa.

What the VCs want is for the idea generators to reveal how valuable they feel their ideas really are. What the firms want is capital and consulting. I wonder if a different investing strategy could work like this, given thata a VC firm has a fixed number of hours to dedicate to portfolio companies every day and a fixed amount of capital to distribute. Call this fixed number of hours, time slots.

Firms bid on a time slot or many time slots. Because VC firms are made up of people, different timeslots assigned to VCs will have varying quality. The method of bidding is a multiplier on the amount of capital loaned now. So, one firm desires a 2x multiplier, the next 2.1 and so on, the bidding will continue depending on how valuable the firms feel their ideas are. Firms have an incentive to perform at their very best and most efficiently. VCs have an incentive to spend their time as effectively as possible.

There is still a moral hazard problem and there is still the wingnut problem. I don't see the above model as being as simple as laid out here. I actually see a system of screening similar to the one already used. This auction system would only be used as a last round of screening. There are other issues as well. But, as this blog post is getting wicked long (and I doubt anyone would actually try this anyway) I'm going to cut this short as simply food for thought.

Georgist Sentiments

2007-02-17T12:49:00.000-08:00

I was looking around the internet today and found an interesting discussion found here. The author who replied to the anti-georgist did a good job, but I’ve seen that sort of stuff before. When it comes to land, for some reason, people simply abandon all of their economic principles or they will simply make up things about Georgism and usually the opposite of what George asserted (in this case both), such as the entire idea of private property. I hear this one more often then any other: that George wanted to confiscate all lands, make them public and it would be one giant common park. Of course, George asserted the exact opposite and talked about this at great length. Tideman talks about this, that George should have chosen some better words. He was a pioneer of the Tragedy of the Commons long before Hardin wrote his now famous article. The other is this entire notion of Free Trade. Of course, George was remembered for lots of things, after his main contribution of Georgism he is also well remembered for his ideas of free trade, whom libertarian authors still cite to this day. Keep in mind, he was writing during a period of time when free trade was extremely unpopular.

This entire idea notion of a community hiring out explorers to “find” new land is new to me though... probably because the argument is a little (ok a lot) silly. The replier was right not only historically, but even in the modern sense. Citizens do not leave the urban area because fellow urbanites are paying them go forth and suburbanize, the suburbanites are instead rent seeking. Indeed, as Gaffney pointed out these suburbs tend to be leaches on the urban community. The urban community pays for the majority cost of waste and sanitation, roads tunnels and bridges, but the suburban areas only need to pay for marginal roads, pipes and dump trucks.

Anyway, that site is a serious forum warrior site. Tread at your own peril.

Grass farming

2007-02-12T14:42:00.000-08:00

So, I’ve been thinking about what I’ve been wanting to do with my life and I thought to myself, hey, why not be a dairy farmer?

Now, most of you probably just thought to yourself – yes, sure, let’s just suddenly go out and milk cows. But, I am also a former tie stall dairy farmer from NY.

I’ve been thinking more and more about it and I’ve pretty much decided if I can get a loan, this is what I am going to do. I’ll lay out the very general idea here, though I am working on a more depth (and professional) business plan on my hard drive.

I do not want to do conventional dairy farming. I’ve done that. Honestly, it isn’t all that much fun. In many ways it reminds of the Navy, where 95% of my job wasn’t my job. I liked working with the animals. I liked milking. I liked calves. I liked watching the fields grow in the spring. I hated manure handling in below 0 weather. I hated silage in below 0 weather. I hated water pipes bursting on Christmas. I really disliked doing mechanical repairs on machinery. It seemed like I was spending way more time doing things that 100 years ago no one would have even considered. Who on earth would have climbed up a 50 foot harder silo to sledge out frozen corn silage?

A couple years ago I had to do some research about subsidies and I used New Zealand as an example of an area that eliminated subsidies. New Zealand today is one of the largest dairy exporters in the world. I didn’t really put much thought into it at the time.

I was doing some research about cheese, for my own enjoyment, and I happened to stumble across an article of this guy in New Jersey who runs his herd on grass only milk. He milks one time per day, outwinters, and does nothing but grass. This got the old grease machine that is my brain working.

I thought to myself, gee… if cows can produce milk on grass you wouldn’t need a big tractor to pull the plow. You wouldn’t need a bunker. You wouldn’t need a harrow. You wouldn’t need a corn chopper, corn planter, or corn seed. I thought about this and I thought about it some more and then I remembered back about milk fever and bloat and I thought all the cows would be dead in a matter of days fed on a high quality grass ration. Everyone knows that cows can’t eat grass (what they ate before the 50’s must have been magical essence).

So, I did some googling. I then found this guy by the Fred Owen who runs a grass only dairy in Ohio. Now Fred, it seems, did the whole 300+ dairy cow thing with freestalls and all that jazz. He says he now makes more money on 30 cows grazing. I figured he was an extreme case, or possibly a superb manager of grass and not representative of all dairies. The production hit you take from grass it seems is negligible and the total milk / acre it seems, actually goes up since you need fewer acres / cow to feed each when on grass only.

I thought about this some more. I’ve always wanted to have a cheese farm at some point in the future. I did some more research about cheese farmers and only some are on grass. Most are still doing conventional dairying and some buy their milk off the open market. It occurred to me then there was a serious opportunity for me.

At the same time, and by total coincidence, I was reading the book called “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” by Michael Pollen. In that book he interviews Joe Salatin and I ended up in a conversation with some people in Brattleboro about this very subject. The more I read about it, the more intrigued I was. Not only is something I could do, but this was something I could do an enjoy doing at the same time.

It then occurred to me that if I wanted to make cheese all the animals should be in a similar state of lactation so the cheese components are all the same. This way I could make a higher quality cheese from specific seasonal milk. Cows milk for 305 days and are dry for 60. Usually. Why can’t they all freshen in the same time period and dry them off in the winter months? This would avoid the costly electric and fuel bills of the winter months. I looked up seasonal dairying and lots of graziers are doing it to synchronize their herd with the spring grass, an added bonus as far as I’m concerned.

I decided everything on the farm should maximize profits. What if I outwintered? I want to dairy in the far North East, in Vermont. This is a question I haven’t had answered yet. I think it is possible. I wouldn’t want to experiment on my own animals though. Calves. It occurred to me that seasonal calving would mean a serious amount of time feeding calves, maybe too much to make it worth while. I found an article HERE that explains how to do it. Boy, do I wish I knew about that back in the day.

I have been trying to find people who have negative things to say about grazing and I can’t find any, other then the nutritionalists. I would really like to hear about failed enterprises to see what happened there.

One of the first problems I’ve thought up is milk times. I did some research about that and it seems some graziers go for the swing over parlor due to it’s low cost and fast throughput. If I had to build a new parlor, this is what I would build: The Waikato swing over system. For a grazier, cows don’t eat big meals, lay down, and loaf. They are always doing one of three things, when not being milked. Ruminating, grazing, resting. Cows don’t rest that often. You want your cows off the cement and in the field in as little a time as possible. I thought this might ruin my idea, since I know how expensive a nice double herringbone Delaval will cost. In order to milk 50 cows in an hour or so, you would need a much larger parlor then one for a standard 50 cow. The swing over solves this problem. I could build a swing 7 at a very reasonable price and milk with one person in about an hour and 15 minutes on the high end.

I don’t think this is plug and play. Conventional dairying is mostly plug and play. You just mix the TMR milk and away you go.

For right now, I want to start a dairy running about 50 cows. I want to build a cheese house and storage facility to store the cheese to market. I’ve been trying to read more about direct marketing cheese and how much I focus on fluid / cheese in the beginning and how to shift away from fluid.

Another thing I've been thinking about is what sort of breed? I've been leaning towards Ayrshire, but I really like the Normende, they are just hard to get in my neck of the woods.

Even if nothing ever comes from it, it is an interesting exercise none the less. Not to mention the Georgist implications of more milk / acre. There is still a ton more to think about and research before I can even think about it.

Zork Corks

2007-02-08T17:06:00.000-08:00

I'm not much of a traditionalist in the way of corking bottles of wine. Frankly, I've never really understand the apprehension around screw off corks. It's more wine snobbery then an actual desire to see perfection in wine. Anyway, I was in my local wine shop today trying to decide what to buy and I was asking the owner what was new. Nothing in particular interested me and I realized I hadn't tried anything from Australia/NZ in some time. He pointed me towards three or four different Shiraz that I might like and he asked if I had tried Woop Woop. I hadn't. This is a 2005 vintage. What sold me was the cork. It is a new cork called a "zork".

My only real concerns with the Zork are 1.) Long term storage. 2.) Plastic breakdown due to the the chemical composition of the wine. Mostly, I would worry about the plastic becoming more brittle with time.

I own a rabbit so decorking for me is a simple process consisting of at most 20 seconds, including removing the 1/4" foil ring. I don't have any problems with the cork normally, but occasionally I'll get a corky wine. For those who don't own a rabbit, a cork is simply a nuisance and yet another obstruction between the consumer and good wine.

I've never taken a side on the cork debate and I'm not going to now, simply because the cork is age tested and the screwcaps and now Zorks aren't. Call me back in 25 years and tell me how the 2007 vintages faired with those corks.

Update from the comments:

Dave Pahl, VP Sales & Marketing of ZORK answers both of my concerns above.

1. Australian Wine Research Institute tests confirm ZORK is as good a wine closure for storage as any readily available wine bottle closure.
Results are posted on our website.

2. Polyethelyne is one of the most common food grade materials avialble world wide. It will last in perfect condition certainly for the life of the wine!

Thanks for the feedback Dave.

Had they only asked me

2007-02-07T07:24:00.000-08:00

Exurbs hit hardest in housing slump

"I think it was easy for builders to think that there were real users in these fringe areas far from jobs and entertainment," he said. "In fact, we found that purchases in those areas over the last three years or so ... were speculators and not users."

Fascinating. But, do you think they will learn any lessons from this? Probably not.

Upton Sinclair

2007-02-06T17:43:00.000-08:00

Interesting post at the Southern California Real Estate Bubble Blog. Catchy title.

Most of his rhetorical points can be found in the archives of this blog, if you were looking for answers.

The author hits on a number of points that I agree with. Namely, how this (and other laws like it) are mere instruments used by the landowning class to consolidate their power. That the landowning classes convince, with relative ease, the poorer classes that it is in their best interests to go along with such a scheme. That any tax on land will cause land to be used more efficiently and cause land to be distributed more equitably.

There are a few minor points that I disagree with Sinclare on, but the major premise of his witting I agree with.

Little Mosque on the Prairie

2007-02-01T19:19:00.000-08:00

I've watched the first three of these out there. I must say, this is possibly the most over-hyped thing to happen since the debacle that was Phantom Menace. I am not a big TV watcher, in fact I need to download anything I want to watch. But, after having listened to an interview on Fresh Air, I decided to give it a go. I watched the original - not so hot, a few laughs, all predictable, but might be cute for middle America. Ok, second show. More cliche. More flat jokes. One scene did make me laugh towards the end. Third show... definitely the worst yet. All the jokes fell flat. All of it was predictable. It wasn't even remotely funny at any point.

This is too bad because the actors all seem to be fairly good for a sit-com, the chemistry of the show works, the setting has the potential to be one of the funniest shows since Seinfeld... and yet, not so much.

For one, the show is too egger to introduce all of the characters in 22 minutes. This is a big cast. It just isn't possible. They should take a less ambitious approach. They should concentrate on slower, more in depth character development and explore some of the issues that arise from that. Keep the subplots down to 1 or 2 per show and a few overlapping ones in the tradition of "Great Expectations."

Classes

2007-01-30T16:12:00.000-08:00

Classes started for me today. Hebrew II, a couple writing classes and of course senior project II.

Friday Wine Blogging (cont)

2007-01-27T17:56:00.000-08:00

Been a while since I made one of these

Marietta Cellars. Lot Number Forty One.

I normally tend to steer clear of table wines. However, this one is particularly refreshing in ways I wouldn't have expected. For one, it's bouquet of blackberries is pleasing and the taste launches into an immediate garden fresh fruity berry taste. When people say they like "sweet" wine, but not "sugary" wine, they usually mean wine that taste fruity. This is their wine. The

It cost me around 12 dollars. For similar wine, I would expect to pay up to 15 dollars.

It does have some tannins and other acidic overtones and as such, you might want to consider eating cheese just before, or while drinking this wine. It may help balance the tannins out a little and bring out even more flavor. Alas, I have no crackers and don't feel like opening my St. Albray without crackers.

On Approaching Wine

2007-01-27T17:50:00.000-08:00

Often, when I go out to dinner with my friends, they will ask me to pick out a bottle of wine for us. I actually enjoy picking out wine, so I don’t mind doing this. However, it is not that my friends don’t enjoy picking out wine, but that usually, the lists and the language are simply too cumbersome and often times the ratings are far too subjective to be of any use.

I had a similar conversation today with my local wine retailer. I’ve tried most of the 15 and under bottles of wine and I’ve had a few in the 15-20 range of the domestics, as well as most of the South Americans, Australasia, and a couple Italians. Today, I simply walked in and asked for a recommendation – something I rarely do. By now he, Michael Lovice of the White Horse in Red Hook, NY, should be somewhat familiar with my tastes. He asked me if there was anything I’m in the mood for and I told him I wasn’t. He asked if I had this new Marietta Cellars blend and before he finished I told him I usually didn’t drink from display case wine. I’ve found at most stores display case wine tends to be overpriced and at times the quality is lacking. He explained that his display case wines were simply new wines or wine he ordered a lot of, furthermore he said he uses the display case wine barrels to break up some empty floor space.

I told him how I came to the conclusion that all display case wine is to be avoided, and I went off on some tangent about Robert Parker. This lead to another tangent about rating systems in general and why he doesn’t use them. I agree with him, personally. Stores that use a rating system are selling their customers short; even if the customers don’t realize it, they tend to gravitate towards a very subjective rating system.

Most people don’t drink as much variety of wine as I do. They either find a couple they like and stick to them, or they drink other things in between bottles of wine, which is fine. Personally, I like the adventure of it all. It’s like a small mystery. Even if I find a wine that simply blows me away for twelve dollars, I might only buy it once or twice more and then only to entertain. The ratings systems hurts this sense of adventure and it does not mean you will never buy a bad bottle of wine. More then once have I bought a Wine Spectator 88 or 90 and it had aromas reminiscent of turpentine, texture that of sandpaper and a flavor which can only be described as a subtle mixture of cow urine, stale beer and slight overtones of motor oil.

When I first started to drink wine it was more of an academic exercise. I wanted to know how I should appreciate wine and not the why. It took me several years to realize that the why is far more important the how. I can summarize how to appreciate good wine in these few points:

-Drink wine – make a rule to only buy wine over twenty dollars a bottle once a month.
-Drink one bottle per week
-Eat a large variety of good food. Not expensive food. Just good food. To appreciate good wine you need a large variety of what I call “palate flavors”, that is, how many flavors your tongue (and nose) can tell the difference of.
-If you are in a bad mood do not open the cork. Seriously. This will highly affect how you experience the wine and probably for the worse. Save it for another day. Besides, you should never be drinking to make yourself feel better.

By the bye, I bought that display case wine and I am not regretting my decision.

Handicapping The Oscars

2007-01-23T06:45:00.000-08:00

Always a fun office pool exercise. Here is what I have seen so far, of the nominated films:

Blood Diamond
The Pursuit of Happyness
The Departed
The Queen
The Devil Wears Prada
The Good Shepherd
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
Children of Men
Marie Antoinette
An Inconvenient Truth
Apocalypto
Flags of Our Fathers
Borat

Edit:

Pan's Labyrinth
Babel
The Last King of Scotland - Forest is awesome. He'll win best actor. Adjust accordingly.

I’ll probably go to the theatre today to see Babel, I also want to see Volver and Pan’s Labyrinth, and a few of the other ones nominated. The key to good handicapping is remembering what the academy is. It is an invitation only club type membership. From my understanding, they are people who work in the film or have influence in the film industry. They aren’t academics (though some may be) and they aren’t studio executives (though some may be). Since the membership list is private, it is more likely that people will vote with their feel good side of their brain rather then their analytical side of their brain. This has an affect on certain nominations who otherwise wouldn’t have won (Judi Dench, for example). This year we have Peter O’Toole and Martin Scorsese, both have never won, both are extremely good at what they do. Both have been nominated many times and have lost out (Scorsese lost to Costner, for God’s sake).

Another thing to keep in mind is the “token” aspect of the awards as well as "splitting". We’ve seen this before in 1998 when Shakespeare in Love won the award. In that year The Thin Red Line, Saving Private Brian, and Elizabeth were all nominated (also Life is Beautiful). I personally think The Thin Red Line split with Saving. If the academy used a different voting mechanism, we would have to think about this differently, of course, but I believe they use “first past the post” type voting. Keep this in mind every time you see Blood Diamond and the Last King of Scotland up against each other (I would also have said To Catch a fire, however, it wasn’t nominated for anything, I don’t believe).

By token, I mean sometimes the awards like to make a token award. In a year that sees a lot of films from one background or genre this becomes important, in this case one becomes a token for the rest of them.

Another thing to keep in mind is the ongoing politics of the world. The academy likes to send a message, but it doesn’t want to send an overt message. Many important films have lost out due to this, in my opinion. They usually reserve this for the nominations and not the actual award, however. The Killing fields (lost to Amadeus) , for example, did not win, neither did All the President’s Men (lost to Rocky, was also up against Taxi driver in that year).

The Academy tends not to like violence, especially blood violence. The made-for-tee-vee type violence that Lukas and Spielberg do is OK. The type of violence that Scorsese does, generally is not. This isn’t always true, however. For example, Braveheart won and is both violent and bloody. Keep in mind, there is a difference between someone getting shot and dieing with no blood and seeing someone getting shot, dieing, and watching their blood pulse out as they watch themselves slowly bleed to death. Films like Blood Diamond and The Departed, which show people getting shot and maimed, both extremely violent movies, are competing against The Queen and Little Miss Sunshine. However, this is a violent year for movies. Babel, as I understand, is also violent, as well as “Letters”.

The “only one musical every twenty years” rule. Well, I made that up, but it’s the truth. The Academy is not Broadway. To the academy, Broadway is for those NYU type actors who majored in dance to “find their craft”, until they move away from soho to California. The Academy can only stomach a musical every twenty years. We’ve had two recently, Moulin Rouge and Chicago (and Chicago won). The last big Oscar musical before that was “All that Jazz”, a Fosse film. There were a few in the early 60’s as well (West Side Story won).

Another way movies can split is if there are two “NYU type” art films done in the same and both were nominated. The NYU types have a loyalty to their film makers (Scorsese, De Niro, and Lee {both Spike and Ang are of NYU fame and made movies together} for example). Where someone went to school is less important then the “school of thought” they belong to. Someone may have graduated from UCLA and be seen as part of the NYU school (De Caprio, for example, is certainly moving in this direction). This probably the least important of the criteria.

Another thing to keep in mind is the hierarchy of the awards. Best Picture, director, Actor, Actress, supporting actor, supporting actress, screenplays, and cinematography is the general hierarchy of awards. This is not my opinion, but rather how important “the industry” thinks each award is. I could be wrong of course.

Last but not least, occasionally, the academy will pick the best film / actor / actress of the year. This may or may not be coincidence. Soderbergh won in 2000 for Traffic. He was also nominated for Erin Brockovich. That was the year of Crouching Tiger, Gladiator and Billy Elliot.

I write the above so people in office pools can make good guesses without having seen every film.

So here are my thoughts. I reserve the right to change these as I catch up on the last of the films.

Edit: interesting, I lost everything past this point. I'll try this again

Best motion picture of the year
“Babel” #2
“The Departed” #3
“Letters from Iwo Jima” #5
“Little Miss Sunshine” #4
“The Queen” #1

All Clint Eastwood stuff goes to the bottom of my handicapping. Why? There is an unofficial cooling off period after winning a bunch of awards. He very recently won for Million Dollar Baby. Both picture and director went to him. It is common for these two awards to be shared.

The Queen is a British production and this goes against it. The Departed is too violent. I would hedge my bets with the guys in the IT department against Babel, personally.

Performance by an actor in a leading role
Leonardo DiCaprio in “Blood Diamond” #2
Ryan Gosling in “Half Nelson” #5
Peter O’Toole in “Venus” #1
Will Smith in “The Pursuit of Happyness” #4
Forest Whitaker in “The Last King of Scotland” #3

Tough year for male leads. Sucks for Will Smith. The legacy award will go to O’Toole. He may deserve it, he may not. It doesn’t matter. The hedge is DiCaprio.

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Alan Arkin in “Little Miss Sunshine” #4
Jackie Earle Haley in “Little Children” #5
Djimon Hounsou in “Blood Diamond” #1
Eddie Murphy in “Dreamgirls” #2
Mark Wahlberg in “The Departed” #3

When the voters are going down their voting card and they vote for legacy in acting, they are going to vote for Hounsou in Diamond as a conciliation prize. In any other year, I would say he wouldn’t have a prayers chance in hell. The snub factor goes to Eddie Murphy. I liked Wahlberg this year, personally. Your millage may vary. If you feel O’Toole will not get the legacy award and a real award, or if you feel he won’t get an award at all, you should move Hounsou towards the bottom.

Performance by an actress in a leading role
Penélope Cruz in “Volver” #3
Judi Dench in “Notes on a Scandal” #2
Helen Mirren in “The Queen” #1
Meryl Streep in “The Devil Wears Prada” #5
Kate Winslet in “Little Children” #4

Judi got her prize in 1998, as you will remember. She was also nominated in 2005, however and there could be a residual vote for her. This makes her a good hedge bet for that reason. Cruz is both foreign and a comedy. The Devil Wears Prada is simply not possible. Remember the Academy is a “very serious” organization with “very serious” people. Even if she was good, it doesn’t matter. Mirren was actually good and deserves the award.

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Adriana Barraza in “Babel” #3
Cate Blanchett in “Notes on a Scandal” #5
Abigail Breslin in “Little Miss Sunshine” #2
Jennifer Hudson in “Dreamgirls” #1
Rinko Kikuchi in “Babel” #4

I haven’t seen any of these. Sorry Cate but it’s too soon. Babel nom’s will split. This leaves smooth sailing for Hudson to win. This could end up being the only major award for, what is possibly, the best movie of the year (and I haven’t seen in yet!).

Achievement in directing
“Babel” - Alejandro González Iñárritu #2
“The Departed” - Martin Scorsese #1
“Letters from Iwo Jima” - Clint Eastwood #4
“The Queen” - Stephen Frears #3
“United 93” - Paul Greengrass #5

Scorsese will get the lifetime achievement award here. If he does, Babel will get best picture. If voters vote for his actual directing, and they should, The Departed may win both. I doubt it though.

The Guardian Nails It

2007-01-09T13:19:00.000-08:00

A land tax is 200 years overdue.

One Giant Leap Backwards for Plattsburgh

2007-01-05T16:09:00.000-08:00

The area I was born in and the city I was raised in has seen many changes in the past few years. Old roads have been repaved. Buildings have been revitalized. When the Governor and political pundits talk of the problems and deep depression in the “upstate community”, citizens of Plattsburgh have always been able to say: not in our town. Plattsburgh, an isolated pocket of industry, commerce, education, culture and fine dining surrounded by an area of long term economic depression, is in danger of losing part of what makes it unique and becoming yet another mill town north of Albany that time forgot.

The city should ask itself, not only what are the short benefits of these proposed budget cuts, but as well as some of the short and long term costs associated with these cuts. Of the many line items listed in the Plattsburgh Press-Republican, most are a step backwards for the city and will have serious long term consequences for the city, for children who are growing up in the city, for the elderly who call Plattsburgh home and for the people commuting in to the city from surrounding communities. The goal of the city should be efficiency, not absence of service; a return to slalom like driving conditions on the roads, a return to a deserted downtown and the general run down nature of Plattsburgh pre-Stewart.

The Mayors Cup festival, which in recent years has devolved into more of a carnival then a festival, is still a major tourist attraction and something that, quit literally, puts Plattsburgh on the map for racing enthusiasts all over the North Eastern area. The city should seek to improve The Mayors Cup festival, not eliminate it. If the carnival atmosphere was not what people intended, the efficient thing to do would be take the established brand for The Mayors Cup and develop it. At one time there were games for children and during the day times the festival was populated with families going from restaurant to restaurant and staying for the music at night. According to the latest census, there are 18,800 people in Plattsburgh. The city seeks to gain 75,000 dollars by eliminating the festival. Or put in another way the cost savings equate to 4 dollars for every man, woman, and child in the city per year. How much does it cost to go to the fair for a day? How much does it cost to go to the movies for a day? How many part time laborers will no longer be hired by private firms? How many fewer dollars will flow to this city from the outer regions, other states, and other countries? Is all of that worth 4 dollars a day? The city will also loose something far more important. For one week every year, people get out of their little hovels and come together as one community. I remember the Fred Phelps tribe of hatred and how Plattsburgh came together in unity and with one loud, clear, succinct voice the community said: not in our town.

Some of the items listed for cuts are equally as short sighted. The JCEO is a program that keeps young adults out of trouble. Instead of spending their summer months wandering the streets, these young adults are instead working, learning what it means to save and being a productive member of society. I challenge any of the councilors to go to the High School and ask the teachers how they feel the JCEO has affected some of those students. This program frees parents from investing time at home, to investing time in the work place. It frees the police from picking up young adults. When these young people graduate and go on to college or get a job they are in the position to be leaders in their field and they are already here in this community.

Everything from new fire equipment, police cell phones, Fire Hose 5, and Police retirement, et al, are not bloated city expenditures. They are important services to the health and vitality of every citizen as well as to the long term growth of the city. If the police are slow to respond or the fire trucks are broken down peoples are in danger, capital investment is threatened, and time is wasted. If other competing communities are taking these steps to lower their risk of disaster, firms and industry will move to those communities before they move to Plattsburgh. If a young person looking at becoming a police officer sees that part of their retirement is threatened, they will chose another line of work, or more likely, move to another community which does provide these benefits. The mayor, mayor pro tem and the common council must not forget that Plattsburgh is competing for citizens with all of the other communities as well as industry, commerce, and culture.

Not all of the cuts are bad cuts; however, I question the wisdom and foresight of the leadership who seem more interested in saving a few dollars then on bringing the city forward into the competitive twenty first century. I ask all of you to write your local councilor and the mayor and tell them to vote no on this budget. Tell them you want a better Plattsburgh, not a barren Plattsburgh. Tell them not in our town.

Me in Philly a few days ago

2006-08-19T12:32:00.000-07:00

and another

Streaming Music (cont)

2006-08-14T08:57:00.000-07:00

Psapp - Tricycle

Home and heat

2006-08-01T18:38:00.000-07:00

If you've been reading my posts for the past few weeks you know I can't stand the heat. Well, after all the complaining I did, it turns out the heat wave from a few weeks ago was a mere primer for what we are in store for this week. Hooray for 100 degree temps!

I finished up the last of my trip this morning returning from an NYC visit. I suspect I will need to go back soon for... personal reasons.

So, right now I'm leaching some free wi-fi at a bar called the Black Swan in Tivoli, NY. There is a band playing, I have a Guiness, so life is good. Sort of.

Streaming Music (cont)

2006-07-31T06:03:00.000-07:00

Halou - Wholeness and Seperation

At home, almost

2006-07-28T09:31:00.000-07:00

My HS reunion is today. Four more hours to drive. A dinner in NYC tommorow. Then, finally, some peace.

Live from NYC

2006-07-27T14:50:00.000-07:00

I'm at the Rockefeller center leaching some free wi-fi and waiting on a friend to show up. I have to say, I am pretty darn tired and this trip isn't even over yet. I still need to get home and go to my high school reunion here shortly. But, it was all very much worth it. Abi was beautiful, as you might expect for a 6 month old. I learned a good deal in Chicago and it was productive for me. Hopefully tommorow I can get around to tying up some of those loose ends from the CGO.

Updates

2006-07-25T09:36:00.000-07:00

I'm in S Carolina at the moment. Updates are much more difficult to do here then I thought they would be. If anyone is interested in guest blogging for a few days until I get back to New York, that would be wonderful, otherwise you'll just have to wait a few days for updates and to wrap up some of the CGO stuff ;)

Saturday Wrap up

2006-07-22T15:57:00.000-07:00

No Friday wine blogging yesterday, as I am here at this conference. My friend, who lives here in Chicago, came and picked me up and before going dowtown I did have one glass of Ravenswood Zin (which I've had before) at a Cheesecake Factory (which is depresing). We then went down to Division street in Chicago and had a few beers.

Later tonight I will be going to the banquet, which I will not be bringing my computer to.

So far the conference has been fun and informative.

I'm still thinking about some of the topics which I've already posted about, such as the PTV and the monetary reform I posted earlier today. There is another section coming soon about what the Bible has to say in regards to land reform - I missed that talk actually, because I was out with my friend.

Tommorow is the last day at the conference then I head on over to South Carolina for some fun with my brother and my niece.

Myth of corporate efficiency

2006-07-22T12:18:00.001-07:00

I'm at a talk right now with Dan Sullivan who is giving a talk on corporate efficiency. I've actually blogged about this in the past under my "saving the family farm" post and other similar ones.

One of the major things to take away, which I didn't blog about already, is these huge firms like Wal-Mart aren't evil. They are simply rational actors in our system. The important thing to note here, in my opinion, is not to demonize the wal-marts of this world, but rather to concentrate efforts on land tax reforms.

Myth of corporate efficiency

2006-07-22T12:18:00.000-07:00

Monetary reform

2006-07-22T11:58:00.000-07:00

This was a talk given on one of the monetary Georgist reform proposals by Steve Zarlenga

Henry George and Monetary Reform

The American Monetary Institute was formed in 1996

Some certain themes
The fight to control the money power is a 3000 year old battle
The dividing line is always private vs. public control
The definition of money determines who wins
Public control of money has been far better than bank control.

We are living on "borrowed time"
Robert McNamara: 1962Cuban Missile Crisis: "Only one thing saved us - dumb luck".
1983 Russian Colonel Stanislav Petrov, disobeys orders. refuses to launch nuclear retaliatory strike on the united States.

What's the essential difference between:
Copper coin money
Federal Reserve money
Checkbook money
They are all fiat moneys.
Why is only one of them moral?
and the other two immoral; even evil?

How fractional reserve banking allows private creation of money.
The private creation of fiat money is the problem.
The promotion of Market as God
The economists (market priests) warn us:
Don't try to legislate on the market; it is stronger than our puny laws. It's omnipotent
Don't try to regulate outcomes, the market with input from all of its participants always knows best. It's omniscient.
Do the right things and the market will reward you. Do the wrong things and the market will punish you. It is benefiicient.

Economics has never adequately defined money. It is still argued whether it's a concrete power in a commonodity like gold or an abstract legal power that gains it's value because of its sponsorship by govenment. This is not a new development; it's a centeries old problem. Why?

Alexander Del Mar: "As a rule political economists... do not take the trouble to study the history of money; it is much easier to imagine it and to deduce the principles of this imaginary knowledge."

Aristotle: "money exists not by nature but by law."

Adam Smith holded erect a mythology of money ignoring its legal basis (1776)
Never forget that if the monetary ideas of Adam Smith, or in now the Austrian school, had been followed in our early years, there would never have been a USA.

Marx echoed Adam Smith's materialistic definition of Money as Gold

But, on the other hand Henry George made excellent monetary distinctions.

Over decades his monetary views were consistently accurate.

So the essence of money is not a comodity but an abstract social power to obtain wealth.

George distinguised between money and credit. "There is a quality attaching to money... which clearly distinguishes it from all forms of credit."

Third, George strongly distinguished privatly created credit used in place of money for private profit, and Government or publicly created money for the common good: writing on money and government, at age 44, in social problems (1884) he had an advanced concept of how a money system should operate.

Because the private money creation process is so clearly immoral. It is not rocket science. It requires mainly An Honest of purpose to evaluate the facts within a structure of fairness.

George never allowed economists to substitute a questionable utilitarianism in place of morality.

A powerful class whose incomes could not fail to be edangered by a recognition... that what makes them... wealthy is... only robbery....

We find that the modern 250 year attack on government originated largley in Adam Smith's efforts to keep the monetary pwer within the Bank of England. Smith glorified the Bank and obscured its private ownership calling it as a great engine of state. He attacked government issued money.

"A revenue of this kind has even by some people been thought not below the attention of so great an Empire as that of Great Britain... But whether such a government as that of England - which, whatever may be its virtues, has never been famous for good economy; which, in time of peace, has generally conducted itself with the slothful and negligent profusion that is perhapes natural to monarchies; and in time of war has constantly acted...."

The force of forces:
It is not selfishness thta enrihes the annals of every people with heroes and saints.. that on every page of the wrolds history bursts out in splendor.... that turned Buddhas back to his royal home or bade (Joan of Arc) lift the sword from the altar; that held the three hundred (spartans) in the pass of thermoplylae, or gathered into Winkelreid's bosom

Lets look at the four major groupings advocating reform:
The gold standard faction
They have been unable to comprehend the abstract nature of money
Anything which makes something a good investment makes it a bad source of money (IE gold)

The local currency groups

Reforms indicated by the science of money, by Henry George
1.) Nationalize the Federal Reserve System into the US treasury. Save teh knowledge. All US money to be government. A nine member monetary control board follow a stable money policy.
2.) Banks no longer allowed to create money. Eliminate fractional reserves.Full reserves are reached not by calling in loans but by lending money to the banks at interest, bringing them to full reserves. A very gentle and elegant move that converts all the previously issued bank credit money into real American money.
3.) Automatic infrastructure programs have new money spent into the circulation interest free by the government on a per capita basis throughout the nation. Health Care and Education are the most important part of the infrastructure making the rest possible.

See the draft and join the discussions of the American Monetary Act soon to be posted at THIS.