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Just as I predicted in this week’s Politics Monday, the Gulf region is experiencing an economic boom. “The spill, now a month old, could end up killing the livelihoods of thousands of fishermen, restaurant workers, charter boat captains and tourism employees. “But for now, it’s triggering a mini-boom in other jobs across the five-state region.” *** “BP has spent [...] End the war on drugs. After 40 years, $1 trillion, US War on Drugs has failed to meet any of its goals — $121 billion to arrest more than 37 million nonviolent drug offenders, about 10 million of them for possession of marijuana. Studies show that jail time tends to increase drug abuse. — $450 billion to lock [...] Terrific post by Mark Cuban about the business of Wall Street. “The only people who know what business Wall Street is in are the traders. They know what business Wall Street is in better than everyone else. To traders, whether day traders or high frequency or somewhere in between, Wall Street has nothing to do [...] If the Alaska Permanent Fund is good enough for Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters and Alaska’s libertarian population, why isn’t it good for the rest of America? If we take Republican leaders at their word, the states are supposed to be laboratories of liberty, each trying their own strategies of improving the general welfare, [...] Elinor Ostrom is one of my intellectual heroes. She recently won the Nobel Prize in economics for her research on common property and cooperation. She’s interviewed at Yes! Magazine. “Elinor: Well, I don’t see the human as hopeless. There’s a general tendency to presume people just act for short-term profit. But anyone who knows about small-town [...] The Washington Post has some great charts that help clarify the Federal budget. Especially check out the historical chart tabs. Ars Technica has this chilling story of financial trading algorithms gone wild. “On November 14, 2007 at 3:20pm one of Credit Suisse’s trading algorithms suddenly went haywire, and, in a few moments, sent hundreds of thousands of bogus requests to the exchange. This sudden surge of requests, which were cancellations for a large batch of orders [...] The Brookings Institute released a report today about the rise of suburban poverty and the Tampa Bay area clocks in at number 11. (Thanks, TZ!) “Tampa’s share of suburban poor grew by 7.2 percentage points between 2000 and 2008. In 2000, the area’s share was 62.4%, but by 2008 it had risen to 69.6%.” Read the HuffPo [...] Jimmy Wales promotes a new site to help Tampa Bay’s homeless. Tampa Bay Homeless Resource Wiki. If you belong to some sort of community organization, charity, or good deeds club, you might consider spending an afternoon adding resources and information to the wiki. Big Picture blogger, economist, CEO, pundit, and all-around capitalist Barry L. Ritholtz gives one of the best definitions of science I’ve seen in awhile on his Big Picture blog. In this post on the hubris of Economics Ritholtz roundly criticizes mainstream economists. “Hard ‘science’ — Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and all variants thereto — begins humbly. [...] Typically, the liberal Atlantic Online takes the position that more poor people, a weakened middle class, and less access to health care is a BAD thing. If only the majority of people had followed conservative Republican leadership then we could have finally done away with the middle class completely and turned ourselves into a nation [...] The conservative Wall Street Journal agrees that Obama’s stimulus package is helping the economy. “The U.S. economy is beginning to show signs of improvement, with many economists asserting the worst is past and data pointing to stronger-than-expected growth. On Tuesday, data showed manufacturing grew in August for the first time in more than a year. “There’s [...] Stimulus money leads to 280 jobs maintained, 100 laid-off workers brought back to work, and 50 new hires at Port of Tampa. “The Port of Tampa is receiving $2.2 million for pier reconstruction and bulkhead replacement at the REK pier. More than 280 jobs will be retained as a result of the Recovery Act money. The [...] We don’t know what would have happened if the stimulus bill had not been passed. But there are a lot of indicators that life would be much, much worse. The Recovery Act in Action “As Mark Zandi, a highly respected economist (and former advisor to the McCain campaign) put it in a recent analysis, “The fiscal stimulus [...] Here is Bill Gates 1976 letter damning software pirates. Its tenor reminds me a lot of newspaper company executives’ response to bloggers. Or the RIAA’s response to music fans. They all have in common that they see fans as the problem rather than themselves. An Open Letter to Hobbists By William Henry Gates III February 3, 1976 An Open [...] “Work is the source of nearly all the misery in the world. Almost any evil you’d care to name comes from working or from living in a world designed for work. In order to stop suffering, we have to stop [...] Nice [...] Miami leads the nation in personal credit card debt with the average person owing over 20% of their income to credit card companies. That translates to a household earning $50,000 owes over $10,000 on their credit cards. Tampa is not far behind, where the average household “owes 17.1% of its total income.” Jacksonville (16.38%) and Orlando (16.37%) [...] Florida’s largest bank goes belly-up. “WASHINGTON — Regulators on Thursday shut down BankUnited FSB, a struggling Florida thrift whose closure is expected to cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. $4.9 billion. “The failure of the Coral Gables, Fla.-based bank represents the second-largest hit to the FDIC’s insurance fund so far _ the costliest was last year’s seizure [...] In this presentation at TED Dan Ariely explains why people generally think it’s OK to cheat a little (but not a lot). Over at Forbes Joel Kotkin suggests that Tampa and the cities along the I-4 corridor focus on “medical services, business services and light manufacturing” as a substitute for tourism and development. That sounds like pretty weak sauce to me. I’d like to see a huge hobbyist culture develop around the arduino, which leads to [...] The PoHo points to this Sun Sentinel report about more cuts at Florida Universities. “Florida’s state universities may look dramatically different this fall, with larger classes, fewer employees and fewer courses and degrees offered to students. “The University of Florida, the state’s flagship university, unveiled a list of $108 million in possible cuts today, joining a growing [...] Ahhh-hahahahahahaha. For a brief moment the light of reality shines on the Pensacola protest. UPDATE: Sinf got raptured up. That should drive up the YouTube hits. UPDATE II: Then raptured up again to the Olberman show. Congrats, Sinf! UPDATE III: Sinf, of course, is Sinfonian at Blast Off!, one of Florida’s best progressive blogs. He has posted the [...] Here’s a nifty little site – My Florida Stimulus. “If you’re a Florida Business Owner trying to stay afloat or seek out new government based contracts, a Job Seeker who has fallen victim to the economic downturn, a Home Owner trying to find the very best deal for you and your family, or a concerned Floridian [...] Foreclosure Prevention and Assistance [...] From Tampa Bay Business Journal - “A list of closures posted on the company’s Web site includes stores at 459 Brandon Town Center Mall, 19348 Cortez Blvd. in Brooksville, and 1600 E. 8th Street in Tampa.” NYT wants union to make $20 million [...] We need more help for returning [...] Federal Business [...] cheerfully confident piece about our impending economic [...] |
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