KIndle: Slayer of...

J K Rowling will have a new book in September. I saw the pre-order tab on Amazon and then it struck me. The reason I pre-order a book is to be certain I get it as soon as possible. That being said, I very rarely pre-order a book.

The Kindle removes any need to pre-order. I pre-order out of a mixture of impatience and concern about availability.

An ebook is effectively available in infinite quantities and is available immediately upon release.

That means the only reason to ever pre-order an ebook is to lock in a good price.

Hidden Meaning

The National Cathedral needs gobs of money to even undertake restoration. Thatere's a hidden metaphor in there somewhere.

Business Mystery

My laser printer is nearly end of life for its belt and drum. Replacing both would cost slightly less than $200. Currently Office Depot is selling a very nice duplexing wireless laser printer for $100. The belt for the printer on sale is $120.

I'm used to this sort of pricing for inkjet printers. When did the manufacturers start doing this for laser printers?

Pretty much, this

Pwnage

Stimulus, Explained

The Curmudgeon has a post up at his place about the latest G20 conference. It's full of excellent stuff, check it out.

The current administration tried a Keynesian stimulus this year and the consensus is that it mostly fizzled. Some in Washington are arguing that it just wasn't enough given the size of the US economy and what's needed is a lot more stimulus. The rest of the Keynesians seem to be arguing that the amount wasn't the issue, the stimulus funds were misapplied (not targeted properly) and so nothing of consequence happened. The non-Keynesians think the idea of a stimulus in this context is absurd.

What might be helpful for those among my readers who were English majors is to explain what a Keynesian stimulus is and what it isn't. Generally reporters use the medical analogy of a 'shot in the arm' which is entirely accurate from a non-Keynesian perspective, but falls short of what Keynes proposed.

Imagine if you will, that the US government wants to give you one billion dollars. They do. The Treasury borrows the money at a bond sale and delivers to you one billion dollars in bills of various denominations. It's a pretty stack of mostly green paper. And it's sitting in your front yard. What do you do with it?

What they want you to do with it is to spend it. Buy yourself a mansion and a yacht. Palliate your greedy conscience by buying a hybrid SUV. Put solar panels on your new mansion. Travel. The money you spend will create materials and jobs. The workers at the solar cell factory go forth and spend their wages on more goods and services and the economy restarts.

What they don't want you to do is call your your broker and buy Treasuries. The only stimulus the economy gets from that is the broker's commission and then only if he is a spendthrift.

The Keynesian nightmare is if you have a weenie roast with all the pretty money. You blow one dollar on lighter fluid, another nine dollars on hot dogs and roast frankfurters over your new bonfire. One billion dollars up in flames to cook ten dollars of groceries. And more to the point, one billion dollars in new liabilities with no assets accrued to pay it off.

The bottom line: Even assuming a stimulus could work, the stimulus as it was done only increased our national debt without increasing wealth to pay it off.

As for why 'shot in the arm' is not the best descriptor? It's only apt if you think borrowing more money to spend is analogous to shooting up with methamphetamines. The drugs will indeed get you going, but you're going to be needing more of them for a smaller effect in the near future.

Were I a Keynesian, I'd be saying 'push start' the economy. The idea being that you borrow the money to spend it on stuff that will have the maximum impact on restarting economic activity. Hopping out to push a stick shift car is a better analogy for that sort of thing. If it works, you travel in safety and comfort to a gas station and buy a new battery. Which means you won't be doing it all over again in the near future.

Fueling the Recovery

No one can accuse the U S Supreme Court of ducking their responsibilities. As expected, McDonald vs City of Chicago came out today. The opinion and dissents weigh in at 216 pages, give or take.

I ran out of paper. I ran out of toner. Office Max now has some of my hard earned money. I'm sure the economy is better for it.

What do I think of the case? I dunno. I haven't read it for myself. The news articles don't have any real surprises, although the Justice Thomas concurrence sounds interesting and Steven's dissent sounds like he's retiring a little later than he should have.

Looters Gotta Loot

But what happens when you run out of prey?

On a side note, Venezuela has plenteous oil and great hydroelectric capability and they suffer from recurrent, serious and crippling power shortages.

Wager Update

Back in June of last year I offered two pounds of applewood bacon as stakes in a two year wager. The wager is that I believe that inflation plus unemployment will exceed 11.4% in June of 2012.

The current inflation rate is 2% with the Treasury having some difficulty selling its bonds and Social Security going negative. The official unemployment rate is 9.7%.

I'm not preheating the oven yet. But I really like bacon.

I hope for our country that I lose. But if I don't, I get bacon! There's always a bright side.

Book Story

Recently a friend recommended to me the book 'The Loser Letters" by Mary Eberstadt. apparently they originally appeared in National Review. My mother used to subscribe to NR back in the day, but I gave up political magazines a while back. In the late 80's I used to read NR, Mother Jones and the New Republic just to have some idea of what was going on. It's an approach I follow to this day with websites, but the magazines have gone by the wayside (except for Garden and Gun). Anyway, I digress.

I very much want this book. It sounds like a good read and I'm starved for good reads right now. My first thought was the public library. I'm a member of a very large county system. No joy. They do not have the book. My next thought was an independent bookstore near me that carries a decent selection of religious books. Again, no joy. I then tried the big box retailers, Borders and Barnes & Noble. The book is available online, but not in a shop. as you might expect, I've ordered it through Amazon.

The publisher is a religious press. But all of the bookstores mentioned carry books in their shops published by Ignatius. The library was less of a disappointment as they almost never have any book that isn't a bestseller these days. I think it's a function of a limited budget and playing it safe with the book buying budget.

My point is this. I was willing to purchase the book for the cover price, $13.95. I bought the book for $10.04 through an online retailer. I have free shipping with Amazon and I did not pay sales tax. Someone locally could have sold me that book and pocketed $13.95 less costs.

This has happened more often than not recently. Multiply this by the number of book readers in the country and I think you can see why the local booksellers are hurting. I'm not complaining. as a book buyer, while I prefer to buy local, I will not prop up a local establishment that guesses wrong. I have absolutely no qualms buying online.

It's a pity that the library can't configure itself into gratifying long tail demand rather than the popular items. Of course if they did that, they'd likely ignore my interests of history, economics and Christianity in favour of knitting, hockey and Buddhism.

Addendum: Finished the book. It was well worth reading. Ten letters written from the viewpoint of a young atheist to the leading lights of atheism. Very funny and very sad with a neat twist at the end. I especially enjoyed the mystery of the German lessons.

Best Fisking Ever

Please view the other three on Youtube.

Millions for Lawsuits, Not One Penny for Jesus

The recent General Convention of the Episcopal Church did many things. Bottled water is now officially a Bad Thing, for example. One of the more important things it did was eliminate, completely, evangelism from the national budget. Now it's quite possible to argue that was a good thing, given the current nature of Episcopal theology. But, were I a member of the Episcopal Church I would be worried. Evangelism is how churches grow. The money, effort and staffing spent evangelising is an investment in the future.

Certainly, individual dioceses and parishes will spend money on evangelism. Some of them even have officially designated evangelists on staff. But where an organization spends money is clear sign of what its priorities are. What are the Episcopal Church's priorities? Well the only items to see increases in funds were those included under the heading of Presiding Bishop's office. This includes $3 million for litigation and $1 million for disciplining bishops (and possibly other clergy). That's a staggering sum.

Currently, the official position of the Episcopal Church is that only individuals may leave. Diocese, parishes and such may not leave. Also, all property belongs to the national church. The national church has resolutely resisted any attempts by churches to exit with their property.

The problem is, that even if you happen to agree with 815, what argument can be made against allowing a church to buy its own property? In the vast majority of cases of a congregational split, the remnant congregation has been folded. Selling vacant churches is almost always problematic. I'm told St James, Newport is on the waterfront, which makes it extremely valuable, but most of the dissident churches have not been so blessed.

The litigation has been justified as a 'stewardship issue'. I'm just not buying it. Then again neither are the churches in question. A good and wise steward would seek to extract the maximum value for the property. Disregarding any prohibitions against litigation and being totally worldly, the good steward would assess each case on its facts, and litigate when the cast of the suit was well below the value of the property. He would also negotiate whenever possible to get the greatest value for property.

Outside of Central Florida, we haven't seen this. And again, I have to ask: Why?

What, exactly are the priorities of the Episcopal Church?

All signs point to an organization that is trying to stay on an even keel while the ship sinks. The officers and crew seem to just want to stay afloat until they retire. Any thoughts of repairing the damage have been officially cast aside.

Headline O' the Week

Impatience Builds Over Slow Moving Stimulus.

Given the direction the economy has moved since passage, I'm rather glad it's been slow moving.

Economics Made Very Simple

What I Am Reading

A novel by Russell Roberts: The Invisible Heart: An Economic Romance. I've just finished another novel by him, The Price of Everything: A Parable of Possibility and Prosperity. If I had my druthers, the latter book would be required reading of every high school student in the land. Certainly if more people knew more about economics, there would be less tolerance for the political manipulation of the economy.

In any event, both books are well worth reading.

Rage Against the Machine

At this point the only reason I would ever vote Democrat is if the Republicans do something catastrophically stupid. Which is well within the bounds of likelihood.

I have two hot button issues: The Bill of Rights together with the 13th and 14th Amendments and space exploration. The jackasses have pressed both buttons. They have been jabbing at the first since January and now they've gone for the second.

I'll give them this much, this is the worst federal government we've had since Carter. Sky-rocketing debt, a desire to expand the ever so well managed Medicare and Medicaid programs to cover all Americans (and just how exactly will that control costs?), endless bailouts for the politically well connected, active suppression of free speech, an amoral commitment to the retention of power, a desire to destroy our national economy in the name of pseudo science and a total lack of an optimistic vision for the future.

We have a hollow man for President, a gang of thieves and thugs in Congress, and a love of failed ideologies on the part of our intellectual classes.

And don't try any 'moral equivalency' on this. The Republicans were stupid. The current crop of Democrats are flat out evil.

We're going to be paying for this fat headed exercise in 'Hope and Change' for a very long time. And unfortunately the burden of this folly will fall mostly on those who are silly enough to try to be adults. The overaged children, spawns of the 60's 'me generation' will likely skate as usual.

To put my money where my mouth is, I'll bet anyone who wishes that, if the Democrats retain control of Congress through the next election, that the inflation rate plus the unemployment rate (expressed as percentages) will be as high or higher than they are today in 2012. The stakes are, fittingly enough, two pounds of Nueske's applewood bacon.

My good friend who blogs over at S S Pequod has accepted the challenge. Inflation (2%) plus unemployment (9.4%) = 11.4 as of today.

I like bacon....

Free Money!

Lose Weight at Wal-Mart

Instapundit links to a Forbes article that discusses a study linking access to Wally World with weight loss. Areas that have access to Wal-Mart have populations that weigh less than areas without such access, in brief. They discuss many reasons for such a correlation.

I can think of two more. First, with the poor, who are the focus of the study, most poverty stricken areas do not have what the rest of us would consider to be 'real grocery stores'. Because of the increased risk of loss due to theft, vandalism or other factors, merchants in such areas charge more per item. They also have much smaller inventories. They therefore tend to stock junk foods, which have longer shelf lives than fresh meats, fresh fruits or fresh vegetables.

The second, less serious, reason is that Wal-Marts are frickin' huge. If you go there to buy a gallon of milk, a loaf of bread, some socks and some touch up paint, you're going to walk all over the planet to get those items. Whereas if there is no Wal-Mart, you're going to drive to A&P for the milk and bread (typically A & P's are fairly small), then to Belks (also small), then to Ace Hardware (ditto). That's a lot of driving, but very little walking.

Does the second reason mean that in addition to helping us lose weight, Wal-Mart is reducing greenhouse gases?

The World, Explained

Peter Schiff explains what's going on with the world, at least the economics of it all.

{Hat tip to Samizdata}

The Federal Budget

From here. That site is going on my blogroll right now.