Author: mark

  • Political Marketing and the "Debt Ceiling"

    The phrase “Debt Ceiling” brings to mind phrases like “War on Terror”, “Abortion on Demand”, “Flip-Flop” – or some of the pejoratives used to criticize those wanting to depart from the Vietnam war: nervous nellies, special pleaders and politicians opposing the war were ready to “cut and run”.

    The reality is that there is no hard ceiling that is going to be reached this Tuesday. Instead the Federal Government will be forced to make progressively harder and more irresponsible decisions. Creditors and expenses will be put in a long queue and those with the lowest priority and least impact will go delinquent first.

    This has already started happening. For example, Geithner has declared a debt suspension period and is currently not putting money in the Civil Service Retirement Fund. They’re deferring payment. [Source: Hennessey’s interview on Econtalk]

    Come August 2nd with no decision, we will continue to pay back the interest and principal on government debt but Geithner will have to make progressively harder decisions about which payments to defer. At some point the lawyers in the treasury department are going to tell him he’s overstepping the bounds of what he’s able to do. But that will probably be some time after August 2nd.

    The Federal Government, the same organization that is asking the American people for more money and for permission to go into more debt, is the one who came up with the date August 2nd and the description of the political stalemate’s impact. They have branded it the “Debt Ceiling”.

    I think the date August 2nd is a useful forcing mechanism to inspire political debate and decision making. Movement is always good when it comes to Washington. But one wonders if the phrase “debt ceiling” is Barack Obama’s “War on Terror”.

     

  • I've reversed comment order

    The comment thread is getting a little long on this page and the oldest comment was first. I enabled threaded comments a few weeks ago and today decided to reverse comment order with newest first because it seems to work a little better with threaded comments, especially long threads.

  • Irish Melodic Metal to kick your Friday's ass

    When I’m coding on 4 hours sleep I stream very heavy metal to stay focused. ChroniX GRIT on iTunes is usually my staple. I just heard a new band out of Dublin, Ireland called Shattered Skies and they absolutely kick ass!

    They’ve released their Reanimation EP free on SoundCloud and BandCamp.

    This is the final track on the EP titled This is What We Built:

    06 – This Is What We Built – [Reanimation EP] by Shattered Skies

  • Who created the debt crisis the United States is in?

    This is illuminating to say the least. The Washington Post is reporting on spending under Bush vs Obama. Keep in mind that the Post has been called “Pravda on the Potomac”, so it comes with a healthy pinch of liberal bias. My view is that the budget culture in Washington is broken because a new budget item becomes permanent by default, so spending can never decrease.

    Spending under Bush vs Obama

     

  • Is the budget "crisis" an exercise in self promotion?

    One side effect of the so called “budget criss” is that everyone who never heard of congressman John Boehner, speaker of the house of representatives and representative of Ohio’s 8th congressional district, has now heard of him.

    Here’s Google trends showing the rise of Boehner:

    Google Trends showing Boehner's popularity

    The longer this spectacle continues, the more famous Boehner and everyone else involved in the process becomes. One wonders if this is self promotion at the cost of massive market uncertainty.

    It’s hard to believe that Boehner and everyone else in the process doesn’t dream of a scenario where they get maximum publicity until the very last moment and then pull a “solution to this criss” out of the bag on 11:59pm on August 1st.

    I doubt he’s crying now.

  • Is Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee Worth $45 a pound?

    About 3 weeks ago I had the worst cup of coffee imaginable – whole beans from the local supermarket and just unbelievably bitter. So to get over my coffee PTSD I decided to spring $45.55 (incl. shipping) for a pound of Jamaican Blue Mountain. I ordered it from Coffee Bean Direct. It arrived on time and in great condition. The bag is pictured on left. Whole beans, already roasted.

    My first cupping was, I must admit not as impressive as I thought it would be. I didn’t grow wings. Angels did not sing.

    I drink my coffee black with no sugar or cream. I grind whole beans in a regular old $10 grinder and use a french press. I’ll use 2 tablespoons of beans for 1 cup and let it brew for anywhere from 30 seconds to 5 minutes depending on how rushed I am.

    After drinking blue mountain for a little more than a week now I am on the fence. It’s great coffee. There’s no bitterness and it has a wonderful mild flavour. But it doesn’t quite have that $45.55 feel to it that I was hoping for.

    I usually get my coffee from Peets. Don’t bother with the supermarket stuff. Get it from the Peets store because it’s better quality, more selection and they clear out old stock after 10 days – and probably send it to the supermarkets. Peets Major Dickenson is almost as good as blue mountain. The bean quality, which I think is really important, is great with both coffees. Peets has one or two dull or smashed beans but on the whole they look almost as good as Blue Mountain.

    So I want to be able to say: Blue Mountain is all I drink because it’s the only real coffee. But it’s only about twice as good as Peets and 10 times as good as SB.

     

  • It's all about the default (Google Search Traffic)

    Seems like there’s a lot of fear out there. This is my search traffic for the last 72 hours to this site and pretty much 90% of it is people Googling the consequences of a US default:


  • The Today Show: Journey performs Don't Stop Believing this morning (Video)

    Today Show: With Arnel Pineda’s new haircut, Journey performed Don’t Stop Believing at the Rockerfeller Plaza this morning on The Today Show. Apparently it’s famous again thanks to Glee and the Sporanos.

    Check out the guy at 3:00 in the video. He’s just itching to rip that suit off.

  • If you read hacker news I want you to do something for me…

    I want you to do a little sanity check, because I’m worried it’s just me. Read the top moderated comment for the top items each day on HN and tell me if you’re also noticing that around 75% of them are posted by this guy:

    Duty Calls
    Duty Calls