Monday, November 23, 2009

Where Has All The Value Gone?

$53,000,000,000,000.00 (fifty-three trillion, the TOTAL US debt in the aggregate, all values taken into account) in 2009 has about the same buying power as $3,529,467,725,824.10 (three trillion, five hundred twenty-nine billion, four hundred sixty-seven million, seven hundred twenty-five thousand, eight hundred twenty-four dollars and ten cents) had in 1940.

Annual inflation (a compound amount) over this period was about 4%.

Don't you wish you had invested a hundred bucks in 1940? Or that someone in your family had, in your name?


Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Wow. Give Peace another chance.

Mr. Clinton is still a force to be reckoned with.

The world owes him much. This nation owes him much more.

Two young enterprising if foolish journalists owe him their lives and their freedom.

Thanks, Mr. Clinton, you done good.

Hey, all the rest of you good folks in high places.

Pay attention.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Twitter Me…Twitter Me

The more I Tweet, the Twittier I feel.

In reviewing the tweets of some of those whom I was formerly following, I discovered a vast dissimilarity in the topics being discussed or tweeted about. That seems inconsistent with the intent of the whole exercise, in my limited ability to comprehend such esoteric matters.

Seems to me, dontcha know, that the entire thing is devoted to the idea of aggregating thinkers of like interests, to the mutual benefit of all involved. Rather, I'm getting followed by numerous individuals who, for the lack of a better term, stultify.

Problem is, I found myself getting sucked into the morass, and following THEM just because they followed me first. Now THERE's an interesting conundrum, wouldn't you say?

If you start following me, and I start following you BECAUSE you started following me, where do we wind up?

For the life of me, I keep coming up with a circle. God only knows where THAT is gonna go.

So, as a contribution to the loftier intent of the creators (the original Twits, that is), I have culled approximately one third of the Twitterers I was formerly following, and now only follow those whose interests and experiences somewhat mirror my own…at least superficially.

Does this mean I'm mean? Peculiar? Picky and ornery?

Who'd a thunk it?