Hot Products create demand

As we struggle thru Great Depression 2.0, everyone laments the "lack of demand" i.e. people aren't buying stuff. If only they say, people would spend more, we would be on the road to recovery.
Target Stores cut some deal with a hot Italian designer to do some really nice clothes that Target would sell at typical Target prices (low). The stuff was so good that eager shoppers bought up every thing on the store shelves and crashed the web site trying to order over the web.
That's the answer to the lack of demand, offer desirable product. Even a big bland box store like Target can pack 'em in with the right merchandise. People will spend money for the right stuff.

Antibiotic residues in Pork?

USDA announced tighter limits or more inspections of pork looking for "antibiotic residues" that might be harmful if eaten.
No mention of breeding up an antibiotic resistant version of the andromeda strain by feeding penicillin and other antibiotics to farm animals. A common practice but very dangerous. The damn bugs learn how to survive antibiotics. A lot of antibiotics that worked just fine when I was a child are no longer effective, the bugs have learned to resist them.
Bad enough that we over prescribe antibiotics for humans. Worse is feeding them to farm animals by the pound. Sooner or later an antibiotic resistant bug will jump from animals to humans (swine flu anyone). The farmers claim that the antibiotics make the animals grow faster and bigger and squawk whenever someone suggests limiting antibiotic use.
Anyhow, I don't see a problem with "antibiotic residues" in pork, that could not be solved by banning the use of antibiotics as feed.

Demand, the fix for Great Depression 2.0

70% of the US economy is consumer spending. Right now the consumers have stopped spending, which means that companies cannot sell their products. Which means they lay off workers and stop buying parts.
To get the consumers to spend again, we need some new and attractive products that everybody "just has to have." Let's start with a look at the US auto industry, as a vast consumer producer.
The US car companies haven't introduced a new type of car since Lee Iaccoca invented the minivan back in the 1980's. They used to introduce new types of cars every few years, the station wagon in 1954, the compact cars in 1959, the pony cars in 1964, the SUV and the minivan later. Each new car resulted in a shower of sales. Then Detroit went to sleep and now they don't even bother with yearly restyle anymore. They used to restyle and announce "all new" cars every September. The suits in Detroit lack the stones to do that anymore, for fear that a new design that doesn't sell will be blamed on them.
How about a "mini hauler". A small car that somehow can carry furniture home from the auction or sheetrock back from the lumber year. Perhaps a hatchback with a really really big hatch, perhaps a detachable roof. What we want is a low price car that can get you to work, and haul stuff, smaller and more agile that an F150 pickup.
How about a commuter's hot rod? All the car has to do is get one person to work in some style, and with enough power and handling for rush hour on Rt 128. Maybe even four on the floor. A small car, with a small engine that gets 30 mpg and yet is still fun to drive. Give it one passenger seat just in case the lucky owner has a significant other, and it's somewhere to put a few bags of groceries.
How about a skier's sled? Comes with a stylish factory ski rack guaranteed not to separate at 80 mph full of expensive skis. Plus a good snow car, front wheel drive, traction control, an out side air temp gauge so you can tell if that black patch on the asphalt is a puddle or an ice patch. Good ground clearance for pushing into unplowed parking lots. Big fat tires to float you over snow. You could sell it to boarders and bikers too.
A snow country hot rod. Something as jazzy as a Mustang or Camaro, that would get around in winter. I used to lust after a new Camaro until a friend came up skiing in one. That car got stuck in my driveway, got stuck in the Cannon Mt driveway, couldn't climb the hill into my mother's place. After that weekend it came clear that if I bought something like that everyone would just laugh at it (and me) in snow country. Shouldn't be too hard to do. Good styling, 50/50 weight distribution, front wheel drive, big fat tires, reasonable engine power, say 300 horse.

9/11 according to NPR

It's Sunday, a morning that NPR uses for spiritual pieces. They don't do religion these days, but they feel that Sunday ought to be different from their all-politics-all-the-time fare. So they did a long piece on 9/11, about how it was connected to (they didn't come right out and say caused by) some obscure fault in American souls. And it led to a long dark time of reduced civil liberties at home and evil ass kicking overseas.
Arrgh.
Needless to say I don't agree with that "interpretation" (distortion) of the last ten years. In fact, we suffered an unprovoked attack in time of peace that caused 3000 deaths. That's worse than Pearl Harbor. We got serious about it, and struck back with some heavy blows. Al Quada is a shadow of it's 2001 self, we killed Bin Ladin, we overthrew Saddam Hussein and the Taliban. Not a bad score all things considered.

The horse business

According to the Wall St Journal, 14805 race horses were sold at auction, for $617 million last year. Damn, that's a lot of money for horses. Of course, I'm not into horse racing. If we were talking motor racing, now that's different, I could relate.

Suvival of the lucky

How smart are spiders? Every up and coming web spinner needs to get a web spun so he/she can eat. Some lucky spiders spin in a workable corner and raise a good looking, bug catching web over night. Less lucky spiders try to spin a web from my eaves to my deck railing. It's a web too far, no spider has that much silk in his little bottom, plus people on the deck wreck the web by merely bending their elbows (as in lifting a beer can to their lips).
I watched a number of small junior spiders starting web spins. They were jumping off from my deck sun umbrella, into the air, trailing silk behind themselves. Could they know if the breeze would take them to a nearby anchoring point from which a successful web could be spun? I doubt it, I think they just leap off into the air and hope for the best.
So, I think the survival spiders, those that spin a good web, are the ones lucky enough to land on a nearby anchor spot when they leap into the unknown air. Most of 'em miss, and expend their limited supply of silk on blind alleys. Then they starve to death.
Which is too bad. I'm basically on the spider's side. They eat mosquitoes which is a very good thing and to be encouraged.

GOP Debate

I watched it for about an hour before falling asleep in front of the tube. Looks like Rick Perry and Mitt Romney got all the airtime, the other candidates were just stage decoration. The moderators sucked. Nobody committed hari kari on live TV.