Framing the Dialogue

Posts Tagged ‘dollars’

What Ever Happened to Penny Candy?

Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? is a rather simple guide to economics written as a series of letters from “Uncle Eric.”  I have read numerous economics books big and small and few offer the fun and engaging lessons in economics.  Perhaps the best thing that I can say about this book is that I learned a lot…a whole lot as evidenced by the number of post-it tabs flagging my volume.  Author Richard J. Maybury spends a great deal of the book on inflation and this excerpt hits home;

Read more…

Parsimony – You Didn’t Drill That

Yet again an Associated Press story is the muse of a Parsimony post. I don’t seek out AP stories, but it often seems like their reporting often shows the bias of the mainstream media. This article is just in time for the 2012 election cycle and puppets Obama’s misspeak (by misspeak I of course he blurted out what he really believes) regarding government’s role in funding private business. By the way this was a front page article in my local “conservative” newspaper.

First the headline (with a link to the original story)…

Federal Dollars Fueled Natural Gas Boom

…Now the story with my bold comments:

Read more…

Update -Wimpy Washington Economics

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends

We’re so glad you could attend

Come inside! Come inside!

Come inside, the show’s about to start

guaranteed to blow your head apart

Rest assured you’ll get your money’s worth

Guaranteed to blow your head apart

– – Emerson, Lake and Palmer (edited)

Read more…

Fungible (fun-je-bul)

The dictionary defines fungible as:

  1. Returnable or negotiable in kind or by substitution, as a quantity of grain for an equal amount of the same kind of grain.
  2. Interchangeable
  3. of goods or commodities; freely exchangeable for or replaceable by another of like nature or kind in the satisfaction of an obligation

Synonyms:  changeable, commutable, compatible, converse, convertible, equivalent, exchangeable, interconvertible, mutual, reciprocal, reciprocative, same, substitutable, synonymous, workalike

Quote:

“People think this tax is for Social Security. But tax monies are really fungible. They get raided all the time.”

— Eugene Ludwig

Read more…

Funding Kerflufle

As TEA party, conservative (and even Andrew Cuomo) governors take swings at trying to prevent their states from bankruptcy all options to balance budgets are on the table. Unfortunately for many previously “favored” programs raising taxes in a crippled economy will not go over well with the voters and so axes are swinging toward their tax dollars or teat if you wish.

Read more…

Sun’s Free

One of the things that I hope to accomplish with FramingTheDialogue is to link news stories and try to show their connection and often contradictions.  It is surprising, but not unusual to find more than one article on a related topic in different sections of the newspaper.  The most recent were two articles about CFL/Incandescent light bulbs that I wrote about in Watt TF.  Recently the following three articles were available on the same day though I cannot remember whether they were available on the same media outlet. 

Read more…

I Bequeath To Thee…

We’ve all sat through long, boring speeches by nameless people who are on their way out of office, high school, the working class, etc.  A timeless tradition is to bequeath something to those who will follow in their footsteps.  These “gifts” are sometimes funny and often touching and depending on the closeness of those assembled accompanied by a good dose of tears followed by hugging.

President Clinton’s White House staff has the distinction of perhaps the pettiest actions of an outgoing office holder.  It was widely reported that his staff stole everything that wasn’t nailed down including all of the “W” from the computer keyboards.  His successor, in case you didn’t know, used his middle initial to differentiate himself from his famous father.  You can still see many cars with their “W” stickers.

Read more…

Debt…Deficit…Doubt…Disaster?

credit-card-drowning2Personal Finances:  My wife and I have amassed some decent credit card debt by spending more money than we had available, or deficit spending.  Since we are blessed with a good credit rating, the banks are always willing to raise our credit limit.  They are just so nice about that.  Rather than take advantage of those nice folks’ offer, we are in the process of reducing that debt through a number of means.  We are going to have to spend less, sell some investments, and restructure some debt, but should have it eliminated within the next three months.  Although it will be hard, but we feel that there is a need to eliminate this debt.  

Read more…

Environomics

kermit-the-frog“It’s not that easy being green…It could make you wonder why, but why wonder why?  Wonder, I am green and it’ll do fine, it’s beautiful!  And I think it’s what I want to be.”

When Kermit the Frog famously sang these words, being green was not all that popular and that was the point of his song.  Fast forward a couple of decades and green is good.  Green is so good that television networks have green weeks, schools go green, cities go green, and lots and lots of money is steered toward green enterprises.  Investments in green infrastructure is necessary, it is explained, to drive development of the technology.  That is a reasonable position and one taken by most politicians.  Even the staunches fiscal conservative often bows to green energy.

Read more…

Trickle…Yes MSM It’s Starting!

leaky_faucetEarlier in the month in my posting, Groundswell, I provided a case that there is a true groundswell of opposition to excessive government.  I will admit that it started as more of a anti-liberal Democrat movement, but the ranks have been joined by many others.  I believe that this groundswell has turned into a trickle (this is a positive development) as we are seeing the main stream media starting to open up and do their jobs although still to a limited extent.

I believe, and we should remember that this is a gathering storm against politicians of all party affiliations.

Read more…