The World, Just Like Your Special Someone, Just Keeps Getting Better With Age!
Hey Democrats and other losers (cough, Sharron Angle, cough, Joe Miller, the Texas Rangers): Cheer up already! Don't be down in the dumps. Things might be in the shitter for you right now, but check it out:
By Anita Snow, Associated Press
People around the globe are healthier, richer and better educated than ever before, with most developing countries registering huge gains over the last 40 years, a U.N. report released Thursday shows.
Asia was the region that progressed fastest in terms of human development since 1970, with China and Indonesia leading the way. Some Arab countries, especially Oman, and many Latin American nations showed marked progress as well, it said.
In its annual report on the quality of life worldwide, the United Nations Development Program said such strides often go unnoticed because development traditionally has been measured only by income. Its study looked at education and health as well.
Hat Tip: Alan Sunshine Vanneman, world's greatest everything.
You know who else loved the modern world? Not the Nazis! The Modern Lovers, who were dropping out of college decades before Peter Thiel was paying good money for the kids to ditch the textbooks and start high-tech outfits. Listen and then put down the cigarette already…
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I love traveling the world! In fact, I am just about to publish my newest travel book entitled, India on $200 Million a Day. Look for it at all your favorite bookstores.
Win
Can I get a government voucher to pay for it?
+ 7
You're spelling the first name wrong.
Best endorsement I've gotten all day! Thanks, Kochtopus!
But, but, but...
Free Trade is destroying these poor exotic peoples! We are exploiting them as slave labor, how could their lives be getting better?!?!?!
I'm a fan of Vanneman's, despite the ideological differences, but it doesn't surprise me that he's lookin' hard for a silver lining right about now.
Yeah, the last 40 years have been great. But they were great in large part due to our abandoning the failed strategies Barack Obama and others are trying to inflict on us again.
And realistic optimism isn't about looking at the past--it's looking ahead to the future...
And on the future front? The Fed unveiled a new plan today to buy $600 billion of U.S. Treasurys over the next eight months--in the hope that devaluing our currency will spur inflation.
They want a weak dollar and inflation.
I wish I was just makin' it up.
"The Fed left open the possibility of doing more if growth and inflation don't perk up in the months ahead."
http://online.wsj.com/article/.....74194.html
Have a nice day.
"The Fed left open the possibility of doing more if growth and inflation don't perk up in the months ahead."
The beatings will continue until morale improves.
"Stocks surged in the United States, following financial markets in Europe and Asia, while the dollar weakened Thursday as investors absorbed the impact of the Federal Reserve's decision to buy more government securities to stimulate the economy."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/05/business/05market.html?hp
Noted right-winger Greg Mankiw suggested a year or two ago that a little inflation might not be a bad thing, though he's carefully kept his mouth shut since.
A "weak" dollar makes our exports cheaper and thus more competitive in other countries. Having a strong currency isn't like having big muscles.
Reasonable people often disagree over economic policy. The "only a complete idiot could disagree with me" line that one gets from big-shots like Mankiw and Krugman, as well as the pajama crew at H&R, is tres banal, IMHFO.
You forgot to put the word "Reasonable" in scare quotes.
Punish those saving ants!
It's not fair they don't suffer too.
Growing economies beget inflation.
Inflicting inflation to make the economy grow is going about it all backwards.
I don't think the Obama Administration has any idea what makes economies grow. From a monetary policy perspective, that makes Bernanke's job harder, but IMHO he's using the "let's pee in our pants" solution. ...which may address some immediate concerns, but ultimately it just leads to whole new set of problems.
The solution is economic growth. Barack Obama has done all sorts of things to make economic growth harder. Growth comes from investment, technology gains, expansion of trade making new resources available... Inflation won't tie us over until those things happen.
It'll just make those solutions take longer.
If this was a banking led recession, then how does reducing people's incentive to save help the banking industry? How does circumscribing what banks can do with international regulatory schemes make banks more proactive?
The answers to those questions aren't a difference of opinion.
A weaker dollar helps unionized workers in industries that manufacture for export--to the detriment of all American consumers.
That isn't a matter of opinion either. That's a fact.
You know who else loved the modern world? Not the Nazis!
*snicker*
Thanks for that.
Who is this Vanneman person and why do Reason writers all seem to love him and commenters all hate him?
Speak for yourself.
Who are these commenters that come into Gillespie's house and insult his friends?
I don't have any reason to like or dislike him. It just seems that a lot of the regulars (not all, evidently) don't think to highly of him.
We don't hate him. We love him like the back-room sprog you don't let the neighbors ever see.
We hate him for his freedom.
It's not that we hate Vanneman, it's more that we hate a world that could produce him. Fucking Vanneman.
Produce? Stupid Warty, Vanneman has existed from time immemorial.
He has existed from the morning of the world and he shall exist until the last star falls from the night. Although he has taken the form of Vanneman, he is all men as he is no man.
Vanneman is the Eternal Champion? Man, he doesn't sound like Elric or Corum.
He is one of the Great Old Ones I thought...
Vanneman looks like this? So much makes sense now...
Hence the nickname "Herpes".
I took a shit in Vannemann's pantry once.
Vanneman screwed my wife once.
It was the most beautiful thing I ever saw.
Nothing says "high school" to me like Jonathan singing Roadrunner. In a good way, of course, since my high school years involved ample amounts of both driving up and down Route 128 in the dark when it was cold outside and sitting in someone's basement getting high while listening to the Modern Lovers.
Just saying.
Jonathan still tours prolificly with a strapless acoustic guitar, the greatest dance moves I've ever seen a man in his fifties perform, and his emotionless drummer Tommy. I've seen him three or four times and I always feel deep happiness afterward.
YAY FOR JONATHAN!!
I had a chance to interview him once, and I wish I had thought to ask him how he felt (this being years later) about the defiant traditionalism of some of his early songs.
A new report shows most developing countries registering huge gains over the last 40 years...
And then came along the man from whom the Obama Administration inherited the worst economic downturn since the last one, and all those gains were reversed due to lack of adequate U.N. regulation.
I think a big shout-out to the race-to-the-bottom is in order.
This despite TEH SPREADING SOCIALISM?
Unpossible. Hayek said so.
Come on MNG, you've been learning so much lately. You can't have regressed so far to believe that TEH SOCIALISM is the reason for this prosperity, do you?
I had such high hopes you'd finally get it.
No, I'm just funning. I actually think the relationship of government intervention/size and propserity to be somewhat curvilinear, too much or too little is a bad thing. I just like poking at fundamentalist on both sides of the issue. The world is a complex place, nothing is a perfect correlation (to keep with the math speak).
The world is a complex place, nothing is a perfect correlation
Indeed it is. The reality is that when faced with a choice between which direction to lean (socialism/centralized government/ free markets/capitalism) the evidence is pretty obvious as to which is the best choice for promoting a prosperous people.
I'd agree that fundamentalists could use some poking, but please don't regress back to the wrong side of that argument as you poke the fun. I have so much more respect for you than the Chony and Max brigade of the left because you are much more honest and you argue in good faith. That's why I was so surprised to see such an immediate knee jerk response.
The world is a complex place, nothing is a perfect correlation (to keep with the math speak).
I beg to differ.
link 1 = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.....rve_of_CMB
Link 2 = http://store.xkcd.com/xkcd/#Science
"The world is a complex place"
It needn't be.
If you think that socialism is increasing in the world you are beyond fucking help.
But I hear everday here about the ever creeping socialism J sub! And on Glenn Beck!
That's what I'm getting at...
without creeping socialism, you'd have a flying Prius.
Spreading socialism?
Sure, it tastes and spreads just like butter, but it's high in calories.
It gives me the shits.
"with China and Indonesia leading the way"
Communist China? Man, this gets worse and worse for the fundies around here...
Re: MNG,
China is communist? I thought only its government is communist and not the people, and only a lefty statist fuck would dare fancy the government being the whole people...
I heard the other day that China (the government!) prohibits capital investment outside China. Wow.
It's Chomsky's dream come true. One would think that this would make Chomsky re-think his dream a bit...
"Chomsky" and "rethink" apparently only belong together when discussing linguistic theory. I say this as someone who has actually spent a fair amount of time in his company; I used to drive him to the airport pretty frequently-- a few times a week for several years. He's pleasant and mild mannered when discussing mundane shit (friends his daughter and I had I'm common back in high school, for instance). Then again, Pol Pot was probably a real peach in social situations, maybe even a good tipper, too.
Re: MNG,
I heard the other day that pigs fly. Wow!
Yes, China's economic prosperity has increased as the country's economy has become more liberal. That totally contradicts everything libertarians believe.
Hey wait a minute, all the countries doing great aren't beneficiaries of the UN Millennium Development Goals funds? What about the countries who are beneficiaries?
Oh, I guess the modern world is not so bad.
Drink!
The World, Just Like Your Special Someone, Just Keeps Getting Better With Age!
If by my "special someone" you mean Bell's Third Coast Old Ale, you're absolutely correct. Best beer I've ever pulled out of my cellar.
And all despite the U.N.'s best efforts. Hat tip to the people of the developing world.
As I sit here in my Texas Rangers jersey am I down in the dumps? Hell no, we beat the hated Yankees.
I also prefer the more prestigious Halas trophy to the Lombardi, which is actually more of an exhibiton trophy, unless I'm talking to an Eagles fan.
As a Bills fan, I take solace in the Lamar Hunt trophy myself. Sob.
At least the Rangers won a pennant. How'd the Nationals do this year?
The Nats don't have to deal with Nolan Ryan when they fail. I see the first week of pitchers/catchers camp in the spring just being endless loops of Ryan/Ventura with Chuck Norris making it clear that he would never charge Ryan's mound.
Yeah, I read the news this morning.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com
I love traveling the world!
men