I.O.U.S.A.

HBF, I just watched a documentary called I.O.U.S.A. and it outlines very clearly one of the biggest problems facing our country: DEBT. It doesn't discuss individual level debt very much, but rather addresses 4 key deficits contributing to our national debt. Those deficits are: 1. budget, 2. trade, 3. savings, and 4. leadership. It goes through in terms that non-economists can understand and tells people quantitatively and qualitatively what each of these deficits are, why they are important, and what can be done about them in the short term as well as the long term.

I RECOMMEND THAT YOU WATCH THIS DOCUMENTARY. It didn't infuriate me as much as Who Killed the Electric Car, partially because there's not just one concentrated beam of blame. I guess if I had to pin down one person to blame for our current situation it would be GHWB. Actually, when I say current situation I mean the deficit as of mid-2008. The current bailout has put us further in the hole. There's some crazy amount we owe, averaging out to around $184,000 PER AMERICAN!!! There's no way that could be paid back in a generation.

I know that we can inflate away much of our real debt. However, there are problems with inflation too. There are a lot of costs involved in adapting to new price levels. Also inflation punishes the people who have been saving. That seems like a bad way to start building a new culture of fiscal responsibility at the micro level.

Personally, I've thought that running trade deficits was a good thing. We give pieces of paper to other countries and they give us goods and services. I guess that I was right in the short term. It's pretty awesome to get real goods in exchange for nominal money. What I didn't think too much about in the past is how sustainable such behavior is. Since America is a pretty rich country, we can afford to just keep sending out pieces of paper overseas for quite a while before we run out of paper to send. However, once we get to the point where we don't have any more paper, we don't have any more real goods to sell to get more paper, we're SOL. Warren Buffet wrote an article titled Squanderville versus Thriftville. Admittedly, I watched the animated version but it's a nice and simple way to explain why we can't keep doing what we're doing.

Just like watching Kilowatt Ours moved me to start buying renewable energy credits (I get about 450KWh/month from Sterling Planet), this documentary has moved me to contact my elected officials and demand that they take positions to attenuate this pending crisis. I know that my generation is set up to pay into the social security system and not receive nearly that same level of benefits back. In a few decades, we'll be forced to be way more productive or the government will think that it wants to raise the tax rate to pay for even just the service on our debt (although maybe they should take a look at where we are on the Laffer curve first). If you think that our situation is bad, imagine what life will be like for my children and grandchildren. We can't keep spending this much without making enough to cover our standard of living and start paying down what we owe. This is true on a personal level and a national one too.

Theme Parties as Signaling Devices

So, I had an interesting experience late in the spring semester. I was invited to a party at this guy John's house where I'd never been. He's invited me plenty of times & I've always had other stuff to do. This time I was making sure to go. As an added bonus, I knew about 15 other people who had RSVP'd yes on facebook. As luck would have it, none of those 15 people ended up going.

Lucky for me there was a theme to this party. Something about army guys/GI Joes, something. The idea was to come dressed in camouflage attire. I don't have any camo shirts that fit anymore, but I still have some shorts (and a hat). I showed up to a house where I only knew one of the people who lived there and nobody else. I made my way to the keg and grabbed a beer without incident. I mingled for a while then inquired if anyone had seen John. I tracked him down after a while and said hi. A little more random mingling, then headed home (on my bike people...I don't drink & drive).

I'm pretty sure that people would have started asking questions of me if it hadn't been a themed party. Nobody else knew who I was (OK, a few other people had seen me at other parties and we recognized each other's faces but didn't know names or anything). Even though nobody knew me, everyone knew that I belonged. I must have been invited and got the memo that it was a camo party because I was dressed the part.

One of my friends used this themed party signaling device after some people had crashed her parties in Orlando. She started telling people to dress according to the theme and that way they were able to identify the party crashers and get rid of them. It's a brilliant and simple idea. You can identify any interlopers (or bums who don't dress up). At that point, enforcement becomes pretty easy.

That's why your next party should be themed.

Trendy Ts

This is a post from a while ago, but I've been adding sites to it as I've found them, so there's probably something good on here that you haven't seen before.

I love checking out funny Tshirts on websites. They're normally so expensive, especially after shipping that I never feel willing to shell out the dough for them. Anyway, here's some links to fun T sites, all sure to waste at least a little bit of your time:

Tshirt Hell
Busted Ts
RoadKill
SnorgTees
Crack Smokin' T Shirts
URShirts
Crazy Dog
DamnFunnyTshirts
LoserTshirts
UnratedShirts
Tastee Tees
Thread Pit
TorsoPants
The Big Rooster
T-shirt Bordello
Cotton Factory
Shirt Woot
6 Dollar Shirts
NoiseBot

Headline Shirts

Hopefully there's at least one you haven't seen before.

Pick #149

Ludo - "Please" from You're Awful, I Love You

Lending (a Hand)

I started subscribing to my church's newsletter electronically. This month's is available here. The cover page has a nice quote: "Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and will be repaid in full." -Proverbs 19:17.

Obviously this isn't just talking about money. Time spent helping or even conversing and treating people like they're not beneath you is valued. It's nice to hear an assurance that time, money, and effort spent helping those less fortunate will be repaid in full (with interest!...that means that young people should really get on the help train!). However, does that knowledge crowd out some intrinsic value of helping? It's like back in high school where you were required to do volunteer hours...kinda defeats the point of volunteering....however, it's good because it increases volunteerism.

I guess it doesn't atter what someone's motives are for helping those less fortunate. If it's making a spiritual investment to be repaid later or feeling good about yourself or just that you enjoy giving pleasure to other people, who cares. The same good outcome results regardless of the motive. I don't care if people volunteer because they're in NHS or Key Club or need the hours for a scholarship, they're out there volunteering. (Assuming a constant quality of volunteer hours because some people might put more effort into the volunteerism if they believe in the cause).

Anyway, it never hurts to build your bank account a little bit with the Big Guy.

Bear Paw B.O.

I went "tubing" at Bear Paw for Jamie's birthday today. I didn't bring my own tube this time so I rented one from the Bear Paw people. I'm sure they don't wash those things off after people use them because they smell like body odor. HBF, everyone's raft was stinky. I would recommend using your own raft and launching yourself with your group of friends instead of using Bear Paw.

Jones Storage