Posts Made By: James C Chandler Jr

I'm too cynical on anyone's political promises.

When I hear solar energy development, it brings to mind illegal aliens installing Chinese solar panels and inverters. Ditto with wind.

Federal Energy Efficient buildings, brings to mind illegal aliens installing VERY OVERPRICED insulation and windows. Though this increased demand for insulation and triple pane windows will also vastly increase what civilians have to pay for those items at Home Depot. And in future years it will be revealed that the overpriced insulation and windows are substandard/faulty, purchased from heavy contributors to the democrat party.

USA is currently installing solar street lights in Iraq. They have an 80-watt panel, a lead-acid battery and 18-watt fluorescent light. As best I can determine, our govt is paying about $4000 apiece for them, though have seen different numbers.

I think I could fulfill that contract using Home Depot materials for maybe a thousand percent profit. Maybe two thousand percent profit if you go direct to china for the parts. Our tax money at work in an efficient govt.

Eyeballing the last two day's charts on metals (not precise, just an eyeball estimation of the charts)... Calculated the percent change on Gold, Platinum, Silver and Palladium, and averaged the four percentages.

It appears that the average jump in precious metals is about 3.2 percent. All the gain in each metal is a step-function in the vicinity of 4 to 8 AM EST (the step function of one metal might be off an hour or two from the step function of another metal).

Of course the metals are always drifting one way or t'other. Just like stocks and bonds. Maybe tomorrow Metals could be down 20 percent? No way to know.

One might propose that SOMETHING has caused the simultaneous step-function on all 4 metals? Could it be an increased mass expectation of incipient inflation? That is only a wild guess which may have no basis in reality.

By golly yer right. That Leonard Doyle feller just nailed it.

Now that grownups are in charge, the stock market can't possibly sink lower. We should immediately scrape up every penny we have and invest in stocks. Next year we will be rich and make the conservatives look like fools!

Would occasionally enjoy Joe when he was on evenings, but I never remember to watch in the morning, assuming am up early enough. Working at home, ain't exactly in the habit of waking at 7 and putting on a suit.

The most expendable talking heads continue to be Olbermann and O'Reilly. Tis eternally puzzling how anyone watches either of those pompous self-righteous stuffed shirts. Wish they would replace O'Reilly with Michelle Malkin. She would be a treat to WATCH even if the dialog demands muted speakers.

If up late coding, perhaps my favorite is Fox News Red Eye. Occasionally hilarious. Wonder how those guys survive Fox News. Red Eye must get fundamentalist hate mail delivered in box cars.

Hi Sterling

In the current Meade 5000 UW line, some reviews have rated the 14mm weaker than some of the shorter and longer EP's in the 5000 UW line. That is hearsay of course. The 5000 14mm UW is physically smaller than the 4000 UWA anyway.

The 5000 18mm UW is longer than what you want, but the 5000 18mm UW has received favorable reviews, and mine works GREAT.

Celestron Axiom LX EP's give 'equivalent performance' to Nagler T6 for me. I'm not an expert and perhaps an expert would dislike Axiom LX. Axiom LX are a little less expensive than the Meade 5000 UW's.

The Axiom LX 15mm is in your target range. I have Axiom LX 7mm, 10mm, 15mm, Nagler T6 13mm, Meade 5000 UW 18mm. I like the 13T6 fine, but actually like the Axiom and Meade a little better. Because the Axiom and Meade have slightly better eye relief. Just a couple mm more eye relief than the 13T6, but enough to make viewing more comfortable.

George Andrew said:

Jim, as an American, if you are one, you should hope it works. For the sake of our country, and not the republican party.

Whatever else it will succeed in doing, it is a sure bet that this bill will accelerate inflation and raise taxes in the future.

The inflation alone-- When fixed income folk like retirees, disabled, and the poor get squeezed by the inflation, there will be irresistible political pressure to raise govt payments in the future. Which will further exacerbate budgetary problems. By 'fixing' a problem now, we simultaneously create a new problem down the road. And I'm unconvinced that this stimulus will even fix any problems right now.

Jack Day said:

Was just reading about the "Stimulus" bill on CNN's website. So back during the campaign Obama told us to check out his tax calculator and see how much better his plan was for us middle class folks than was McCain's. According to that calculator, which I used again TODAY under McCain's plan I would get a $1000.00 tax cut. Under Obama it would be $1,800.00.

Okay so lets see what that change looks like now:

In the Stimulus bill My wife and I get a total of $800.00. Suddenly less than half of what was promised, and less than McCain's plan. But it gets better.. Instead of giving us a lump sum that we could use to help with remodeling our home, we will get $15.00 every two weeks for a year. This is like getting a "Big Mac Meal once a week" dimulus plan.

Strangely enough I don't see this making ANY difference in the long run, short run or any other run what so ever...

Looks like change is all this is, as in pocket change. Have fun spending that whoppin' $7.50 a week guys & gals!

As Michelle Obama said about last year's (bigger) rebate, what can you do with that, buy a set of earrings?

George Andrew said:

The republicans need a good slap. The country, as I see it, has voted for a democratic president that was given a mandate to change things. The republicans keep sticking their 2 cents in whether we want to hear it or not. Their platform is so far right now its unbelievable. I don’t know how much further right they can go, as they’re on the edge now. Maybe some of them will start to fall off, Limbaugh and Hannity first I hope. Even Pat Robertson said Limbaugh was silly for hoping Obama failed as president.

Somewhere I heard the mandate was something like 53-47. Does that mean 47 percent of folks have to shut up until next election? The corollary question-- If republicans win next time, would it be a promise that the democrats would only 'do whats right' and shut up for the subsequent 4 years?

Charles Cunningham said:

"Obama's plans will do more harm than doing nothing."

I think that's just about what Herbert Hoover said. Apparently a few people still believe him.

Hi Charles

There is variance of opinion. One can find plenty of academic ammo for "New Deal was better than sliced bread", so here is a sampling of alternate opinions. Am not claiming that this is the only way to look at it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal

Something which has been quoted a lot lately:

"Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, angry at the Keynesian spenders, confided to his diary May 1939: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and now if I am wrong somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosper. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started.[49] And enormous debt to boot.""

Other tidbits:

"
Public opinion polls in March and May 1939 asked whether the attitude of the Roosevelt administration toward business was delaying recovery, and 54 and 53 percent, respectively, said yes while 26 and 31 percent said no. Fifty-six percent believed that in ten years there would be more government control of business while only 22 percent thought there would be less. Sixty-five percent of executives surveyed thought that the Roosevelt administration policies had so affected business confidence that the recovery had been seriously held back.

According to Gene Smiley, "a number of economists" believe the New Deal delayed economic recovery.[55] A 1995 survey of economic historians asked whether "Taken as a whole, government policies of the New Deal served to lengthen and deepen the Great Depression." Of those in economics departments 27% agreed, 22% agreed 'with provisos' (what provisos the survey does not state) and 51% disagreed. Of those in history departments, only 27% agreed and 73% disagreed.

UCLA economists Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian are among those who believe the New Deal caused the Depression to persist longer than it would otherwise have, concluding in a study that the "New Deal labor and industrial policies did not lift the economy out of the Depression as President Roosevelt and his economic planners had hoped," but that the "New Deal policies are an important contributing factor to the persistence of the Great Depression." They claim that the New Deal "cartelization policies are a key factor behind the weak recovery." They say that the "abandonment of these policies coincided with the strong economic recovery of the 1940s."[57] Cole and Ohanian claimed that FDR's policies prolonged the Depression by 7 years.

Lowell E. Gallaway and Richard K. Vedder argue that the "Great Depression was very significantly prolonged in both its duration and its magnitude by the impact of New Deal programs." They suggest that without Social Security, work relief, unemployment insurance, mandatory minimum wages, and without special government-granted privileges for labor unions, business would have hired more workers and the unemployment rate during the New Deal years would have been 6.7% instead of 17.2%.

Charles Cunningham said:

"Obama's plans will do more harm than doing nothing."

I think that's just about what Herbert Hoover said. Apparently a few people still believe him.

I don't pretend to be a historian, but apparently Herbert Hoover HARDLY did nothing. He did quite a lot of meddling to try to fix the problem. The meddling was simply ineffective. He had been advised to do little-or-nothing, but he did not take the advice.

His programs were new-deal-like, and were grandfathered into the New Deal. The Hoover-written bank reform legislation was adopted and passed by the new Roosevelt admin.

Ain't defending Hoover. Am ignorant of history and I do not care whether he was a saint or criminal. It is just an 'accuracy check'. Hoover did not persue a 'hands off' policy. He was a can-do feller convinced he could roll up his sleeves and fix about anything. A technocrat perhaps somewhat similar to a Michael Dukakis, except with a set of balls .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_great_depression

"Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon advised President Hoover that shock treatment would be the best response: "Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate.... That will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people." Hoover rejected this advice, and started numerous programs, all of which failed to reverse the downturn."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Hoover

"Franklin D. Roosevelt blasted the Republican incumbent for spending and taxing too much, increasing national debt, raising tariffs and blocking trade, as well as placing millions on the dole of the government. Roosevelt attacked Hoover for "reckless and extravagant" spending, of thinking "that we ought to center control of everything in Washington as rapidly as possible," and of leading "the greatest spending administration in peacetime in all of history." Roosevelt's running mate, John Nance Garner, accused the Republican of "leading the country down the path of socialism".

These policies pale beside the more drastic steps taken later as part of the New Deal. Hoover's opponents charge that his policies came too little, and too late, and did not work. Even as he asked Congress for legislation, he reiterated his view that while people must not suffer from hunger and cold, caring for them must be primarily a local and voluntary responsibility.

Even so, New Dealer Rexford Tugwell later remarked that although no one would say so at the time, "practically the whole New Deal was extrapolated from programs that Hoover started."