Space-X

Congratulations to the whole Space-X team.  Getting the Falcon to lift off and the Dragon to dock is a huge victory over Murphy's law.  There are a zillion things, some tiny, some large that can break, and it only takes one breakage to scrub the mission, or worse.  The Space-X team  did the required quality control checks, designed out the weak points, worked hard, and succeeded.
    It should be remembered that Elon Musk made a fortune in Silicon Valley, and then plowed a good deal of that fortune into Space-X.  Clearly better use of the money than Uncle Sam would have made of it had Uncle taken it in taxes.  Let's hear it for private enterprise.

Pop goes the tendon

Must be getting old.  I was in the kitchen and I just flipped a bit of crud off my fingers into the sink.  They was a faint pop sound and all of a sudden the index finger was off at a funny angle.  It didn't get better so next day I went to see my doctor.  Got there about nine o'clock. Did some Xrays, nothing's broken, got set up to see a hand surgeon in Concord (hour and a half drive).  Surgeon looked at it.  The tendon that runs over the knuckle tore out of its groove.  Only fix is splint the finger and wait FOUR WEEKS for it to heal.  With the splint in place.  Arrgh.
  So now I am learning to do one handed, all kinds of things that I always used two hands to do.   Including typing. 
   Note to self.  Don't wave hands rapidly.  Something might break off.

Words of the Weasel, Part 30

"Growth".  As used by European politicians.
Plain English meaning.
"Germans give us money."

Perhaps Europe can't pull the US economy down

Interesting charts in today's Wall St. Journal.  It shows US exports to Europe to be only 1.2% of US GNP.   That means the entire continent could disappear from the face of the earth and we would only loose 1.2% of GNP in export sales.  To be real, Europe won't disappear completely, worst that can happen is it drops into recession and it's US imports drop off somewhat.
   Somewhat larger, Eurozone banks make loans to the US equal to 10.5% of  US GNP.  If things get bad enough in Europe, and enough Eurozone banks fail, that lending can dry up.  But so what?  We have plenty of banks over here, and we can print as much money as well like to fund loans.
   In short, a Euro meltdown won't hurt us nearly as much as it hurts the Europeans.  Of course plenty of US politicians are already pointing fingers at Europe to explain miserable US growth rates.  How can you tell when a politician is lying to you?   When you see his lips moving.

Words of the Weasel Part 29

Heard this morning on good old NPR.
"The discussions are on going". 

Plain English meaning.   "Nothing has happened" 

What Price pills?

Anything you want apparently.  My doctor has prescribed me seven pills to keep body and soul together.  I had been getting them for free thru Medicare Advantage.  Then all of a sudden, my Visa got zapped for $180 on the last refill.  Ouch.
  So it being time for new prescriptions anyhow, I took the new ones down to Walmart.   After a half an hour (spent browsing Walmart) they gave me a grocery bag full of pills and paperwork, for a mere $81.  For three months worth.  Not so bad. 
    So before I put all the new pills in the medicine cabinet I read some of the paperwork.  Each bottle of pills comes with four pages of paperwork, run off on the pharmacy's laserprinter.  Aside from the name of the pill and a number, the paperwork is all the same.  Boilerplate.  I should be happy that despite this government required cost enhancement Walmart is still cheaper than Medicare Advantage. 

So how bad is it in Europe? Really?

Hard to tell.  Germany, the biggest part of Europe is reported to be doing well.  A few small fry like Iceland and Ireland have already suffered financial collapse and bailout.  They are poorer now, but doing OK.  Greece is getting a bailout, but they are bitching about the conditions the bailer outers (Germans mostly) have demanded.  If the Greeks manage to irritate the bailer outers enough, the bailout will stop.  Then the Greeks will run out of money and have to print their own to keep going.  It will be tough on them, but heh, you want to speak politely to those who are giving you money.  Either way,  Greece is a sideshow. 
   Italy and Spain, both much bigger than Greece, are having the same problems.  To many government "workers" and pensioners demanding monthly checks and not enough tax revenue coming in.  Private investors have indicated that they won't lend either country much (if any) more dough.  They have to cut spending (lay off government "workers" and cut pensions) and get their economy growing again. That means scrapping no-layoff regulations, and dropping license requirements that keep the unemployed from taking jobs.  Spain and Italy are too big for anyone to bail out.  Nobody has that big a bucket.  If this doesn't work, they will have to print money or IOU's (which probably amounts to dropping out of the Euro) to make ends meet.
  The financial press and blogs are beginning to cry terror about Europe.  Undoubtedly some banks have been stupid and will get hosed when the defaults begin.  Too bad.  The world would be better off with fewer stupid banks. But the majority of European countries are doing OK (not great but reasonably OK), and having a few losers get flushed won't be the end of the world.