Musings from the Peanut Gallery

Seth Godin has an excellent post discussing the natural limits of a business, and how we need to think about those limits as we work to grow it.
One side comment in that post relates to the carrying capacity of the planet, along with a comment on population limits.
The earth has a carrying capacity, certainly. It [...]

[Read more →]

This graph shows the profligate spending of an out of control government:

The Republicans didn’t do too well, but this level of spending by the Democrats (starting with the 08 budget year by the way) is beyond irresponsible.
(via Instapundit and Transterrestrial Musings)

Technorati Tags:
democrats, Economics, politics

[Read more →]

Megan McArdle has a great article showing the moral bankruptcy of the logic that our leaders seem to be using today.
But second of all, just as there is no way to tax a corporation, there is no way to default on a corporation. Whenever you default, you are taking money from some person: [...]

[Read more →]

I’m not generally an apologist for Bush or the latest incarnation of Republicrats, but this certainly proves who was unwilling to deal with the problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac when they could have been dealt with.

Technorati Tags:
politics, democrats

[Read more →]

Apparently many people like to say that the current economic situation is the worst since the great depression. While that makes for great headlines, and plays to the Democrats story, it’s not the truth.
Small Business Labs has a blog post that compares the current conditions with the 80’s, with graphs.
Unemployment was very high in the [...]

[Read more →]

Stanley Schmidt had another interesting editorial in the November 2008 Analog magazine. he discusses disruptive technologies and ideas that seem to have a life of their own without any rational for their continued existence. Overall, the article was good and thought provoking.
What I found interesting was his assertion that the marketplace sometimes makes bad decisions [...]

[Read more →]

Via Phil Platt at the Bad Astronomy blog, I saw this smack down of Creationist Andy Schlafly by Richard Lenski of Michigan State University.
I have in the past been squarely in the Creationist camp. I’ve seen more and more evidence that evolution really works, and I’ve seen more evidence that the “Creation Scientists” play loose [...]

[Read more →]

In recent issues, Analog editor Stanley Schmidt has been on a witch-hunt over overpopulation. Not sure what touched this off in his mind, but it seems that he’s bought into the Malthusian view that we are in immanent danger of exceeding the “carrying capacity” of the planet. Of course, Thomas Malthus was wrong. And so [...]

[Read more →]

Or maybe it’s all blowhard.
Seems that wind isn’t that great energy savior that the politicians promise. But then, why should that surprise us? They are, after all, politicians.

Technorati Tags:
Global Warming, Weather, Energy

[Read more →]

TCS Daily had an article on November 16 by Bartley J. Madden discussing the what role presidents should play in wealth creation. We know that wealth is created by businesses that provide goods and services that people want and/or need.

Certain presidential candidates seem to think that somehow the whole process would work better if government [...]

[Read more →]