THIS WEEK IN THE FUTURE.
Archive for 2010
January 25, 2010
IN DEFENSE OF the electric car.
SILICON GRAFFITI: Barack to the Future!
CHANGE: December home sales down nearly 17 percent: Home sales plunge nearly 17 percent in December after tax credit deadline extended. “Sales of previously occupied homes took the largest monthly drop in more than 40 years last month, sinking more dramatically than expected after lawmakers gave buyers additional time to use a tax credit.” More dramatically than expected, eh? That keeps happening . . . . Plus this: “Many experts project home prices, which started to rise last summer, will fall again over the winter. That’s because foreclosures make up a larger proportion of sales during the winter months, when fewer sellers choose to put their homes on the market.”
UPDATE: Bill Gates Says Recovery Will Take Years: “Although there have been signs of economic improvement in recent months, as well as a collective sense of optimism in the IT industry that spending could rebound this year, there’s little concrete evidence to indicate that this is anything more than wishful thinking. And if unemployment remains high, the dreaded ‘S’ word — stagflation — could begin to creep into discussions about the economy. Gates said even when the economy does improve the government will have to institute systemic changes in order for any real rebound to take root. “The budget’s very, very out of balance and even as the economy comes back, without changes in tax and entitlement policies, it won’t get back into balance.”
MORE REPORTING FROM Team Rubicon in Haiti.
FROM THE ANCHORESS, some praise for The Little Black Book of Violence. Helen’s interview on the subject is here.
NICK GILLESPIE ON THE HALLUCINATING RIK HERTZBERG. “It is always great to see folks such as Hertzberg elevating the level of discourse.”
CALIFORNIA’S public employee pension problem. This won’t be news to regular InstaPundit readers. Plus, from the comments: “It seems pretty straightforward to me: what can’t go on will stop. The only question is how messy the stopping will be.”
UPDATE: Reader Carl Stritter writes: “The answer is simple, California should tax all state pensions at 100% of the amount greater than what SS would be. Hey when the taxpayers bail out bankers we need to get every penny back , so when the taxpayers pay pensions that none of them can even dream of we should get every penny back.”
SIX INDUSTRIES Apple’s Tablet could shake up.
A LOOK AT Neuroscience in the justice system.
NEW YORK WOULD BE BIGGER THAN INDIA, AND HOUSTON WOULD BE BIGGER THAN TAIWAN; If America’s urban economies were national ones.
ON WEDNESDAY, a Tea Party rally in Jersey City.
VERONIQUE DE RUGY: So How Is the Stimulus Working Out? Part II. Devastating employment-vs.-stimulus chart, plus this: “Two things are sure. First, if it weren’t for workers’ mass exit from the labor force (600,000 workers exited in December alone), the unemployment numbers would look even worse that they already do. Second, government spending cannot create jobs.”
ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST: Beau Biden won’t run for Senate after all. What’s next? Bye, bye Bayh? Or a Boxer past her prime? “The fact that Boxer’s support is frozen at 46 percent against all GOP challengers suggests that the race, for now, is about her rather than those running against her. Boxer is viewed very favorably by 25 percent of California voters but very unfavorably by 34 percent.”
UPDATE: The Browning of America.
Plus: Berry: Obama said “big difference” between ’10 and ’94 is “me.” Apparently, Berry found that insufficiently persuasive. Perhaps Obama should be reading a more diverse assortment of blogs.
IN THE MAIL: From Rich Cohen, Israel Is Real.
POLITICAL WIRE: An Edwards Sex Tape? Remember, the press corps covered for this guy for ages, knowing what was going on.
ASK DR. HELEN: The Insta-Wife interviews Lawrence Kane about his book, The Little Black Book of Violence: What Every Young Man Needs To Know About Fighting.
FOR TOM FRIEDMAN, some questions about China.