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Unholy Alliance

The President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness has descended on Palo Alto to meet with the usual suspects in Silicon Valley. Their topic, hilariously: How the public and private sectors can team up to create jobs. Hilariously because California—Silicone Valley in particular—has been on the forefront of transferring jobs to China and other countries.

Remember him? Creating jobs in China….

Why the decline in German beer consumption?

So people ask me that after reading the post below. All sorts of researchers are studying this phenomenon, and they’re coming up with a laundry list of reasons, which I may or may not buy, but here is a thought from memory lane.

PROST! Germany lost the beer war, And China won.

Germany, country of the Reinheitsgebot (Beer Purity Law), and cradle of beer as we know it, where, at the age of fifteen, I regularly drank a few Helle too many at any pub I wanted to, well, that very country not only has failed to export its beer, but now, Germans have stopped drinking it themselves, apparently.

The Landmine in the GDP Report

There is a landmine buried in today’s 2Q GDP report, and Congress is about to step on it while engaging in its debt-ceiling pissing match.

We Should Give them a Calculator

The raw numbers are ugly. The federal budget deficit is nearly 40% of total spending; that is, for every $1,000 the government spends, it collects $600 in taxes and borrows $400. Doesn’t anyone do any math in Washington?

Not What You’d Expect from a Topless Beach in France

French beaches, best known for their topless female sunbathers, have been afflicted with a disgusting and deadly scourge: floods of green algae. 

The latest victims were eighteen young wild boars, whose cadavers were found on July 26 on a beach of the Bretagne. Ten cadavers were found nearby the prior two days.

Your Dollar

…is falling off a cliff again, hitting ¥78 and €0.69. You can sit idly by and watch it get demolished, or you can do something about it.

Our Chinese Bay Bridge

The high-speed train fiasco in China makes us worry about our San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge whose gigantic one-tower landmark suspension segment was fabricated, you guessed it, in China. In return for some paltry savings, if any, California gave up enormous economic opportunities.

Love Cherries

My twin eggs (posted July 15) aren’t the only twins around here: California cherries. Once again, I wonder why I haven’t seen twin cherries before. I should go talk to the guys at the Diablo Canyon nuke facility. Maybe they’re starting to look funny, too.