Comments

Tom,

Well done on giving a nod to one of your local business people.

My wife and I are huge fans of Dream Dinners and the local franchise we utilize is managed by a wonderful woman. Local businesses are the heart of any community, and much like you've captured, there are several that my wife and I support.

I believe we are seeing more trends of buying local and American, which is good.

Thanks for the post!

Posted by Scott Peters at August 7, 2009 11:50 AM

I'll get one of those as soon as I can find a 'thing to keep from losing the thing that
takes the skin off of a clove of garlic'.

Posted by zorro at August 7, 2009 1:23 PM

Tom, somehow I can actually picture you sitting and removing the skin from a whole pile of garlic cloves in one session, totally fascinated with the elegant simplicity of the design of this thing. LOL. But I'm with you on this one.

To fast forward a bit through my train of related thoughts, I seem to recall that when I used to go into Waccamaw stores (a fabulous store that had practically everything you could dream of for the home and especially the kitchen) all the fancy, complicated electronic and electronic devices were usually closer to the BACK of the store, while the simple, elegant, functional, almost "must-have" items were near the front. Perhaps I'm recalling it wrong (it has been a few years since they were open,) but I can't help but wonder if they had gotten hip to the fact that people were really craving the combination of "it's simple" and "it works."

If it is simple to work it and it simply works, I'm happy. But you have to love the humor in the fact that the simplest little thing -- usually the absolute cheapest to make -- can turn out to be the biggest seller at even a premium price. A good example: the well known "Ped Egg." It's a miniature version of a wood rasp (or cheese grater) stuck in an egg-shaped piece of plastic. My wife and I have one, and I dare so most of our friends probably do, too. WalMart couldn't keep the silly things on the shelf. Lo and behold, a new and improved Ped Egg has arrived. The difference? It has a handle similar to a hair brush. Yawn. I don't know a soul who has bought one of the new ones. My advice to the manufacturer: "Stick with the plastic Easter egg and miniature cheese grater, folks. You seemed to HAVE a better handle on things before you started PUTTING a handle on things."

Posted by Dan Gunter at August 7, 2009 3:26 PM

Isn't it great when you find simplicity and great design in an essential product? I thought of you when I recently bought a Proctor Silex Grinder. I am once again grinding flax seeds daily and putting them in my morning smoothie. I used to use a coffee grinder but it didn't do a very good job with the little flax seeds. So I went hunting for a grinder that wasn't necessarily for coffee. Not only was the Proctor Silex cheap at $12.99 (I expected to pay at least $20) but it's design is ingenious. It has a clear, bubble top with a longer end that fits in a slot on the side of the grinder. That end becomes the on/off switch. You press it to operate the grinder. But here are the two other features that make it ingenious - the cord stores inside the grinder; the bubble top is pushed in on one side so that you can place it on the counter with your ground up flax seeds in it and scoop them out with a spoon. They thought of everything when they designed this little baby! If they hadn't said on the box "also great for spices" I might not have bought it. Anyway, after I've ground my seeds to the right consistency - which I can see through the clear top - I unplug it and turn it to retract the cord. Then I turn the unit upside down so all my seeds are in the bubble top, give the end a tap, take it out of the lid and voila! I'm ready to put my seeds in the blender. (Can you tell I love it?) I wish I'd been a fly on the wall when the designers were brainstorming on how to make this such a unique product.

Posted by Sue Mosher at August 7, 2009 9:57 PM

Designer!

The designer lifestyle that is the envy of the free world belongs to our own Scott & Trevor duo. Sure they are radical wife-loving (sometimes more than once per month) heterosexuals - but they also have pulled of an across the pond manlove bromance that brilliantly brings together 2 continents.

Sure a couple of liberal haters on this site love to mock them - but almost all of us celebrate their long distance affair extraordinaire :>)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwEMxYggoKQ

Posted by TrueLove at August 8, 2009 7:56 AM

Thanks TP for the reminder of simplicity and Sue I love your comment. Great blog too! Thank you.

Posted by Judith Ellis at August 8, 2009 9:20 AM

Dan, perhaps, they should rename it "Ped-Egg-on-a-Stick", and yes, we have an original one too. Bought it from Bed, Bath and Beyond.

I don't want to sound like a curmudgeon, but there are plenty of products that have evolved themselves out of popularity by becoming something other than that which made them popular in the first place. Many kitchen items have been re-designed into obscurity... Original Tupperware, most Rival appliances, original 4 cup Mr. Coffee, etc. At least Coca-Cola had the huevos to admit that they had totally screwed up with New Coke and then brought back the original.

HOWEVER, thank God that GM figured out that they produced total CRAP in the 70s and 80s. Not that it helped them that much, but vehicles now are SO much better than 40 or 50 years ago. That is an example of great product evolution through rampant competition.

Bouncing back to Tom's first paragraph, small business is where RAPID entrepenurial evolution is going to occur. That is the only way that the umpteen million unemployed are going to find employment... either by doing something new and different, or being hired by someone doing something new and different. Most of those lost jobs aren't 'lost'... no one is ever going to find them again. They are GONE forever.

If you were unemployed and I told you to go ahead and risk your savings, rack up debt in pursuit of your dream, work your buns off to succeed, but don't hire more than 50 people and don't make more than $250K per year, else you will be subject to severe governmental oversight and penalties; how eager would you be to take the chance? Or might you just sit on the sidelines, collect your fifth quarter of unemployment benefits and wait for a job to magically appear? (Or maybe you start selling on eBay or find other shadowy ways of making money. You can save 10-50% of your income by not reporting or under reporting your earnings. Do these people show up in unemployment statistics?)

Let's hope that the ability to make serious money is not taken away from everyone except those who play Mega-Millions. We need the entrepenurial engine to start turning at turbo speed to work ourselves out of this depression or repression or whatever it is.

Posted by RandySpangler at August 9, 2009 12:08 AM

The funny thing about Randy's comment is that it was not small business that got us out of the Great Depression. Small business fueled the economy once the slump was over, but it most certainly did not get us out of it. Big government and big business enabled entrepreneurial ventures, not to mention the profiteering of war. (I am not advocating such.) But even here profits did not flow into communities as before but into limited pockets of Halliburton and Blackwater. It can be asserted that the vast difference is that our responsibility to each other has changed. While greed has always been with us, what we allow as a culture has changed. When JP Morgan was making his fortune and controlling small businesses and inventors like Thomas Edison, there was a sense of responsibility to the whole. It just wasn't about Morgan. During the panic of 1901 Morgan ordered the holding of his stock receipts to prevent a major crash that would destroy many and the American economy. Can you imagine such happening today?

Conservatives like Randy are funny people. Many can also be seen at town halls that are violently protesting a public option in healthcare and railing against big government programs while simultaneously screaming "don't take my Medicare away!" I have never seen so many uniformed irrational senior citizens taking to town halls in all of my life. They nearly stopped the breath of one of their very own Michigan Congressman John Dingell who's a senior and walks on cruches. He was valiant in the face of such irrationality. I guess if you stoke anger and propagate "death panels" lies for seniors and the handicapped that Sarah Palin peddles, which in reality has nothing to do with either and was initiated by a Republican senator, fear can be striken in the hearts of seniors. "Age should teach wisdom." Obviously, many times it does not.

Randy speaks from a particular ironic ideology, a kind that both espouse outsourcing and small business. How can small businesses be successful if everything is being imported and competing with the likes of Walmart is nearly impossible? Yes, I read TP's 4th of July post that spoke of his local store that competes successfully with Walmart. But this is undoubtedly not the case in most areas. I'd be interested in knowing the medium income of that area and the distance between Walmart, that store and his community. I know a business owner in Michigan that as 14 grocery stores; he is barely hanging on.

We tried trickle down economics and it has not worked well for the majority. "Anonymous" –-hi there!—wrote an astute comment on my blog that bears repeating and consideration:

"Capitalism failed back in the 1920's. We became a super power because of the government programs known as WWII and the cold war that followed. Some of the main technologies (if not all) that are driving our economy today were developed under defense programs which are after all socialist. We had a gigantic economic boom fueled by the socialism of the GI bill. The large middleclass was created by the changes brought about in the New Deal. Much of this growth happened during the 1950's when the top tax rate was 90%. When JFK became president, he fought to drop that to rate to 70% and Eisenhower (Republican) came out of retirement to fight against that tax cut. For the past 30 years, we have been living under the illusion that Reagan turned the economy around in the 1980's, when none other than Arthur Laffer (Reagan’s advisor on tax policy) recently said the success of Reaganomics had nothing to do with tax cuts, but instead was fueled by Paul Volker's (the fed chairman appointed by Jimmy Carter) management of interest rates. What outrages me is that people believe Ronald Reagan was a great president. Look up communism in Wiki. One of its main tenets is public education. We've accepted socialist ideas since the 1800's when the first public high schools opened. Unfettered capitalism works as well as unfettered socialism."

Oh, one other thing. With regards to Randy’s comment, "Let's hope that the ability to make serious money is not taken away from everyone except those who play Mega-Million, " I'd like to recommend one book: "Wall Street the Other Las Vegas" by Nicholas Darvas. Here is Jack Bogle, founder and retired CEO of The Vanguard Group and author of "Enough! True Measures of Money, Business and Life," on the stock market: "The stock market is a giant distraction to owning business."

Posted by Judith Ellis at August 9, 2009 7:20 AM

Judy - you flatter yourself to think you have anything figured out here - except your own 1 way trip into a clincal state of madness most likely! "Zorro" is his/her own persona - I naturally stay True to my Love of modernist practices & behaviours - which is to take the best from all persuasions & get results within a futuristic healthful & prosperous ecosystem. "A" to most & SP & TG for their futuristic bond - "F-" to JE for lack of effectiveness!

Posted by TrueLove at August 9, 2009 8:21 AM

"Bouncing back to Tom's first paragraph, small business is where RAPID entrepenurial evolution is going to occur"

My first response to this is where are these businesses going to be, here or China?
My second response is, Tom is right, but what these businesses do is at least as important as the money they make. We do not want an economy based on garlic skin removers, coffee shops, fast food joints, and patching up leaky basements.We need to start making stuff that weighs something and is made here and people want in other countries. I don't think Sissy will get many call in orders from the Chinese. For example, if we want to build a network of high speed trains to connect our major cites, we'd have to get the trains from overseas. If we started a large project to build these trains, many startups would be formed to supply these manufacturers along with all the deli's and so forth that would supply the factory workers with lunch and so on. I suspect that the size of the private US motel industry has a lot to do with the socialist project named the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System. These business all grew very quickly under a 90% top tax rate. Remember, Ronald Reagan was an actor. He was and expert at make-believe. Google is great, but they didn't invent the Internet. The socialist organisation known as ARPA was responsible for that.
And as for DESIGN. Here's another way to look at it. When you run out of new ideas, just keep repackaging the old ones. If its good enough for Hollywood, its good enough for America. Hell, we've never were ones to looking for new Frontiers. We'd rather deal with the mold in the basement.

Posted by zorro at August 9, 2009 10:41 AM

Here's a link with the facts on the socialist project that produced cheap microchips. The book from which this article is drawn has a great piece on the invention of the microchip which should be a story that is as as well known as story as the one about the 'invention' of the microcomputer. But storis about people who are not cool mavericks who challenge authority do sell as well to the rock and rollers of the baby boom generation.(I'm a baby boom who feels the 'renegate' story line is played out. It has become the 'status quo') Even men in Great Flannel Suits had great ideas.

http://www.slate.com/id/2220752/

Posted by zorro at August 9, 2009 12:00 PM

Watch this TP video, then read the comment if you are so inclined.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_w4AfflmeM&feature=PlayList&p=3327073C4983A302&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=8

To make a technical breakthrough such as was done with the integrated circuit, you need to color inside the lines in a way that no one else has ever done. You can't do it if you don't understand materials science, electrictiy, etc.
You might very well have to appear to be a very boring person to go through the tedium to gain the knowledge and iterate through the experiment.
But the key is that you are following the rules and understanding them and seeing something new that is still within the rules. Tom's video in the link above is pure bunk, makes a nice story that keeps an audiece interested, but borders on dangerous - and is far from truly inciteful.
We don't know if there was any purpose to the kid coloring outside the lines - curuiosly, the picture its not part of the story. We don't even get to see the 'art'. All we get is a meaningless lession that puts down authority. Worms covered in fingerpaint always color outside the lines.

If you read the new Malcolm Gladwell book,'Outliers', he has a whole section about how you become more innovative and usefully creative the more you study or practice. The more you know, the more creative you can be (beacuse you have more material to work with). The Ford model of education that pours facts into a students head is no where near as bad as Tom seems to think it is. In other words, the better you are at diciplineing yourself to perfrom the dull tasks of memorizing mathematical formulas or playing the scales, the more likely you will be to be labeled as talented one day. One secret to the Football player Jerry Rice's success was that he endly practices rote pass patterns over and over.

Nice cute stories like this 'coloring outside the lines' tale are silly and possibly dangerous.

Posted by zorro at August 9, 2009 1:58 PM

Truelove,

There is only one Truelove, and for that matter, Batman. Even though Hollywood morphed Batman into Kilmer, Clooney, and Bale post Keaton, nobody was fooled. Although, very apropos seeing as many children of true love saw 5 different stepdads and dozens of boyfriends during the sexual revolution as women became better managers than men.

I can't speak for Trevor, but kudos to giving our relationship an "A" in cyberspace...if only we could twitter more! Peace and love, love and war, yin and yang, potato and potatoe; I say we celebrate the anniversary of The Wall and document the true love between Waters, Gilmour, Wright, and the other guy. Fantastic album that shows the nature of humankind, both on stage and off.

I will not be pawed at by cheap imitators, only the real Truelove himself has won mine, and Trevor's heart, over!

Posted by The Joker at August 9, 2009 5:35 PM

Indeed Scott. We are both in awe of the masterful, unique Truelove. With a name like mine I have no fear of imitations and I have no need to hide in the closet. I’m honoured Truelove gives us an “A” for our openness. Truelove’s unique style is clearly best recognised by his many groupies. Scott and I are after all, founder members of “Truelove Groupies Non-Anonymous.” I take issue on rock giants. I look no further than Frey, Henley, Walsh and Schmidt for true rock genius.

Posted by Trevor Gay at August 9, 2009 6:06 PM

Oh, True Love, aka Zorro, is ticked! LOL! It must have been his quote I extracted from my blog that he wrote there. Oh, Zorro!

Posted by Judith Ellis at August 9, 2009 7:55 PM

"With a name like mine I have no fear of imitations and I have no need to hide in the closet."

Good line. LOL!

Posted by Judith Ellis at August 9, 2009 7:55 PM

"'Zorro' is his/her own persona."

Liar liar pants on fire! Zorro is most definitely TrueLove! LOL!

Posted by Judith Ellis at August 9, 2009 8:10 PM

Judy - "management" seems so foreign to you - you may not recognise it even if it was biting your big backside. Zorro & TG & SP are drawn to the healthfulness of prospersous ecosystems - they shall not be stopped by negative diatribes!

Love shall prevail per design by TrueLove & his/her followers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3YqaIxDp_0

Posted by TrueLove at August 10, 2009 6:25 AM

Oh, TrueLove! TrueLove is most definitely Zorro! I see he's still ticked! LOL!

Posted by Judith Ellis at August 10, 2009 7:24 AM

Judith and Zorro... so much to say and so little time to rebut since I have to go out and manage my little, inconsequential small business.

The thing I really admire about liberals is when they state something, they believe to their core what they state and are incredulous that not everyone believes their dogma. Also to hear Judith hold up JP Morgan as an example of responsible capitalism is a new zenith in rewriting history. Think about it, why would Morgan saw off the branch he was standing on? Or, in his case, cut down the TREE he was perched in?

I don't see how you guys can have it both ways (although it is something that we all strive for, isn't it?) You say that big business is evil because is is run by money-grubbing, greedy people but also that big business is needed to create high-speed trains, power plants, steel, etc. But, think about this... what is the biggest business of all? If you said government, then you are at least being honest. But it does business one step better. It has the power to take money involuntarily, make rules, imprison and possibly even cause death.

If big business were allowed to become as big as government and act like the government, I would dare say that most liberals would hate the 'biggest business' with more disdain than they have for your average run-of-the-mill oligopoly.

AT&T invented the transistor in the early 50's. Not long thereafter, they started putting multiple transistors on a single substrate and thus was born the 'integrated circuit' or IC. The IC is the foundation for every electronic device that we use today. Sure, NASA's need for miniaturization sped up the development of denser ICs which led to microprocessors, but does anyone really think that it would not have happened on its own? Did NASA go out and say "We want a microprocessor on a chip of silicon" or did they put out a spec to create something that did X in the space of Y, and industry created the microprocessor?

Even the hated military does very little development of its own. It puts out a spec and private industry creates a solution to meet the spec. You cannot have a Military Industrial Complex without industry...

Back in the day, GM did everything on its own (after buying Body by Fisher, DELCO, and a variety of other companies) but this paradigm changed when they realized (IMHO) that centralized planning and bureacracy does not foster creativity.

I am not an absolutist. I agree that government plays a vital role in creating rules and then enforcing those rules, however nothing is utopian. These same rules are created with input (sometimes too much input) from the regulated parties as well as those that don't like the other side. Also, depending on the administration and those in charge, it determines how much of the regulation is actually enforced.

I think that this is where socialism, communism, fascism, totalitarianism, whatever -ism begins to fail. If we all sit down in a circle and try to design the perfect society, it would probably end up looking like one of the above -isms. Perhaps if the central authority could be run by a benevolent machine, it could work. But it presupposes that all citizens would act the same, cast aside their desire for personal benefits, play by the rules and do everything for the 'good of the many'. We all know that this wouldn't make it past the first day. The industrious would hate the lazy. The lazy would resent the industrious for making them look bad. There has to be some sort of incentive beyond a citizenship award to motivate people to achieve.

Novels have been written on the subject, so I am not going to convince anyone here in a blog comment, but a lot of the current problems with Wall Street can be traced to the law of unintended consequences because of action by Congress to limit compensation. You all know the story of how compensation limits begat huge stock options. Huge stock options begat 'tweeking' the strike date. Stock prices started to directly influence the compensation of corporate management, not just the stockholders. We all know how that turned out.

I am going to step off of the reservation that you guys seem to have pushed me onto, to say that I want to know how much is enough? How much growth is needed in a stock price, or is a decent dividend enough? If a CEO makes $10mm in compensation, wouldn't $15mm make him work 50% harder? But what if another company is offering him $20mm? I want to know if ANYBODY is worth $20mm per year. "But, he is bringing in $1.8B in profit this year! He must be worth it." I say, NO, you are just charging too much money for your goods or services to make that much money.

This brings to mind my own little parable. It goes like this: A friend has inherited his grandmother's old house. It has to be cleaned out before it is sold. You tell him that you will pay him $1, you will clean out the house and you get to keep anything of value that you find. He agrees and takes your $1. Up in the attic you find an old cigar box in the corner. You open it and discover a collection of old stamps and coins. After poking through the whole pile of indian head pennies, silver dimes and such you find a sheet of stamps. You hit the web and find out that there are only two of these stamps currently in existence (except for your discovery) and that one of them recently sold for $500,000.

Here is the question. You are a good liberal minded individual, and you believe that no one should gouge on pricing. If a generator costs $250 before a storm, it should cost no more than $250 after a storm knocks out electricity in your town (maybe even less than $250, because someone REALLY needs the electricity.) How much do you charge for the stamp? All 100 stamps cost you $1.00, so each stamp is worth less than a penny to you (you got other stuff for your dollar, remember.) What is a fair return on your investment? 10%? 20%? 50%? Where does fair profit stop and greed begin? Is it a dollar value or a percentage? I doubt that any populist could agree that one dollar would be fair, since it is a 10,000 percent return on investment (and besides, you did NOTHING to create this wealth, except dust off the cigar box.)

Now, one more question for you. You realize that you could probably auction off a stamp for close to $500,000. What do you do with the other 99? Sell them? If you do, what does that do to the value of your first one sold? What does it do to the value of the original two? Are you happy when the feds take 39.6% of your $500K plus whatever your state is going to take? Will you be happy when your local revenue office hits you up annually for a personal property tax on just owning the stamp?

You guys can come back and suggest that I read someone's book that makes your points and I can suggest that you read a book that makes my points. Big deal. You can talk about how I don't know what I am talking about, throw around names like Halliburton or AIG but I challenge you to HONESTLY think about how you would handle the situation with finding the stamps. I venture that NONE OF YOU would sell more than one stamp and that you would hold out for TOP DOLLAR, and you would probably do whatever it takes to minimize taxation on your gains. After all, it is YOUR money, why throw away $200,000 just because?

IT IS JUST HUMAN NATURE TO CONSERVE WEALTH AND POSSESSIONS. It happens in any every society under every political banner. I guess that makes us all conservatives doesn't it?

Posted by RandySpangler at August 10, 2009 10:49 AM

Randy - The one thing that I am fully confidant of is that anybody who follows Sarah Palin on Twitter or Facebook needs to have their head examine. Of course, if they are doing so to get a good laugh that's another matter. Although, what she has been saying about President Obama as of late is pure slander. I see she is backing away from those statements today that President Obama wants to kill old people and children with Down Syndrome. I guess she must have gotten a letter from the President's personal lawyer like those Beanie Baby immoral capitialist who tried to make a buck off of his underage children's likeness. That project was yanked! Michelle Obama's personal lawyer might have gone after them. They are both astute lawyers.

Your words here have rendered you as a part of that self-imposed reservation, those loonies screaming at town halls, not those of others. Your girl Sarah Palin and the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck are stoking such irrationality and rage. Now, when someone takes a shot at the President it's not going to be so funny. But if you indeed now want to step out of that self-imposed reservation and join the rest of rather rational Americans, not that fringe Sarah Palin loving lunatic spewing bible toting hate mongering others, that will be just fine. I will concede, however, that you do seem like a good man and that is appreciated. But why you would follow such a one is indeed questionable.

Posted by Judith Ellis at August 10, 2009 11:32 AM

You cannot debate the issue without throwing around the "you follow Sarah Palin" card. How shallow. Typical debating procedure: shout over the person making their point, deflect the question and if forced to answer... obfuscate.

Posted by RandySpangler at August 10, 2009 11:42 AM

Randy Spangler--didn't anyone ever teach you not to argue with fools or drunks? And never try to teach a pig to sing--it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

Remember the "adults" are now in charge...

...heaven help us.

Posted by Red Island Rhodes at August 10, 2009 11:50 AM

AT&T invented the transistor in the early 50's. Not long thereafter, they started putting multiple transistors on a single substrate and thus was born the 'integrated circuit' or IC. The IC is the foundation for every electronic device that we use today. Sure, NASA's need for miniaturization sped up the development of denser ICs which led to microprocessors, but does anyone really think that it would not have happened on its own? Did NASA go out and say "We want a microprocessor on a chip of silicon" or did they put out a spec to create something that did X in the space of Y, and industry created the microprocessor?

Read the article again. Government demand for the IC's lead to mass production lead to them getting cheap enough to be a consumer item. Without the military or NASA, there would have been no demand and therefore no consumer priced IC.

Yes, I'm sorry, but facts, when you are willing to accept them, will force you to change your worldview. Changing worldviews can be uncomfortable - its a bit like breaking in a new pair of old-school Levi's, but its worth it.

"IT IS JUST HUMAN NATURE TO CONSERVE WEALTH AND POSSESSIONS. It happens in any every society under every political banner. I guess that makes us all conservatives doesn't it?"

The Neatherlands (per a 60 minutes profile - I saw it on TV - not by seaching google (this is for the benefit of my alternate personality, Judith)) are the most heavily taxed industrialized nation on earth. Also,each year for a while now, (based on a survey) they have won the 'Industrialised nation with the happiest population' award.

"Novels have been written on the subject"

If I remember my lessons from my elementary school days correctly, novels are fictional.

(I think my 'Randy' alternate is most fun to argue with)

Posted by zorro at August 10, 2009 12:06 PM

Your comment is largely farcical and somewhat egotistical, Randy. "How dare you challenge me," your voice seems to ask? You merely throw stuff around like books, but I throw facts and scenarios. But we don't need made-up scenarios when the real ones continue to stare us right in the face! I didn't even go there with you. The government’s effort to limit compensation is the problem not faulty shitty default credit swaps insured by AIG where some 60 billion of taxpayer dollar went ABROAD to secure. Oh no! It's the government's fault for limiting compensation.

You name AIG and Halliburton but you left out the right wing Christian conservative god is on our side kill the infidel hating Blackwater, overlooking the reality that they themselves have become the infidels using unapproved weapons and unholy practices, not that any war that destroy human life is holy, all in the name of Christianity. I guess you would be on the side of those righteous Christian warmongering capitalists too.

What Morgan can be credited for is withholding when he could have cashed right away in the Panic of 1901 would have been worse than a panic. (For you, I recommend another great book, "Morgan, AMERICAN Financier.") During WWII the economy improved. During the last Iraq War and the war in Afghanistan the economy has gotten worse, besides all the banking issues. The difference is outsourcing. Halliburton and the like seem to have largely outsourced their work and pocketed huge profits. Your many words do not make a thing conscionable or particularly sound or ethical.

Posted by Judith Ellis at August 10, 2009 12:09 PM

Red Island Red - You sound like a typical irrational Chrisitian right Republican. This is the shame in their game.

Posted by Judith Ellis at August 10, 2009 12:12 PM

Randy

"Typical debating procedure: shout over the person making their point"

So, I take it you don't like Bill OReilly?

Posted by zorro at August 10, 2009 12:18 PM

Oh, I'm sorry, Randy. I didn't respond to your comment as you would have liked or in the time allowed. My bad!

Posted by Judith Ellis at August 10, 2009 12:22 PM

Speaking of "adults," who was running the White House, Wall Street banks, The Treasury Department, and The Fed for the last eight years? That's the real question that begs an honest answer. To expect that after such disastrous leadership that everything will be better immediately is what's indeed childish.

Posted by Judith Ellis at August 10, 2009 12:47 PM

I'm not a liberal. I'm more of an Eisenhower Republican. That means I'm not a reactionary.
The current Republican Party borders on being reactionary.
From my way of thinking, debating over government involvment vs free market principles is like having a debate over the biological systems in the human body. What is more important, the skeleton or all of the epidermus? Removing either would not be pretty. It is a silly argument. What is not a silly argument is what is a good balance between government involvment and the unbridled free market. To get the right answer, all idology needs to be tossed away. The United States seems to becoming more driven by idiology and not driven by what actually works.
On the other hand, China seems to be less driven by idiology and more driven by pragmatism. They are moving from collectism to an economy based more on indivualism. Because they are not driven by idiology, they are more likely to find the correct ballance. Whoever discovers the correct ballance (it will be done by trial and error driven by what works) will be the big winner in the 21st century.

Posted by zorro at August 10, 2009 12:57 PM

Believe it or not, I am not a registered Democrat.

Posted by Judith Ellis at August 10, 2009 1:03 PM

Eisenhnower was definitely the man! I'm huge fan of Olympia Snowe and I appreciate many of the views of Congressman Darrell Issa of California. But lunatics have by and large hijacked the Republican party, beginning with its chairman in Black-Face.

Posted by Judith Ellis at August 10, 2009 1:10 PM

What is unsettling is the tendency to flat out ignore facts. This is what much of the Republican party in encourging people to do. It almost cancels out the balance that a free press brings. Examples of ignoring facts are seen right in this blog. Liberal philosphy was not prevalent in that article I linked to. The space race and the military were funded by Republican and Democratic admisnstrations. And the technology they fostered are very likely responsible for all the economic growth we've had since 1980. But the facts get ignored in favor of idiology. Its what I expected, but it would have be nice to be pleasantly surprised. I think I mentioned before that this whole Palin story about Obama's death bill is about a provision that was introduced solely by Republicans. If the press is so liberal, why isn't this a headline on the NY Times?
In the 1950's, the right wing of the Republican party (which I think is what the current Republican Party has become) accused Eisenhower of being a Communist (per Chris Mathews).
Eisenhower views on race weren't particularly enlightened, but he was not a racist - he was worried that if he forced the south to desegregate, there would be an insurrection.
One of the reasons he pushed for the Interstate Highway System was that he felt without excellent highways, regions of the country would become so economically independent of each other, the country would actually break apart. Looking around today, I think we can thank god Eisenhower got his way.

Posted by zorro at August 10, 2009 2:45 PM

Red

"Remember the "adults" are now in charge...
...heaven help us."

Funny you should mention Heaven.

http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=haught_29_5

Posted by zorro at August 10, 2009 3:08 PM

Wow! One of the most disheartening things that the article bears out is that the likes of these guys give Christianity a very bad rap and such faulty ideology and abhorrent hypocrisy, including the members of C-Street, are unacceptable. What the article points to is one of the reasons I say that the Republican Party has been hijacked.

If we were judge a great many of our past American leaders, including Abraham Lincoln, solely on statements on race, there would be very few to praise. Instead, I choose to view these gentlemen wholly historically and judge accordingly. Some emerge far better than others. But none of us is perfect and if the light was held brightly on each there would undoubtedly be things that we would not like brought under scrutiny.

The problem arises when such views as those of the past president emerge into public policy and the reason for war then becomes, as stated earlier, a war against the infidels, those who hold different religious beliefs than yours, those espoused by the Neo-Cons to essentially murder many innocent citizens of a different faith in the name of God. This religious ideology is no better than the radical Muslim fundamentalists who murder.

If what the article says is true, there undoubtedly needs to be a commission to look into the past administration more closely. I have been reluctant to say this. But it now seems to me a necessity for the integrity of our country. Thanks for the article.

Posted by Judith Ellis at August 10, 2009 3:47 PM

I had heard the other day on Rachel Maddow that
Johnnny Isakson was the originator of the 'death clause'.
I can't find any conformation on the net that I trust.
Of course, its not a 'death clause', but it would be very ironic if a Republican was actually party to it.

Posted by zorro at August 10, 2009 4:08 PM

I found the Bush article on a link in the huffington post. It was from Arianna's weekly review.

Posted by zorro at August 10, 2009 4:11 PM

Kinda strange how a sack breakfast, lunch, and dinner of a local company coupled with a garlic peeler can lead to the last several posts.

"Black Face", Sara Palin bashing, and the like don't serve to support the original post. Everybody has an opinion, and they're all wrong; except TP of course :).

On a different note, and this isn't meant to be disgusting (sorry Shelley), but purely humorific banter. I once worked with a great supervisor and we enjoyed every day at work. He had a remarkable sense of humor and came up with the most ridiculous quotes and sidebars. He kept life and work full of humor and always pointed fun at himself and others. We had a very good office manager (female) that had ups and downs and would lash out on occassion if me and the supervisor didn't follow procedures to the "T" with regard to work orders and invoicing...sometimes things just had to get done and we would overlook policy to take care of a client or salesrep in the field. I prescribe to Ted Turner's ideas on rules and that some should be tossed or broken very frequently.

Anyway, the supervisor had made some decisions on his own and he took a tongue lashing from the office manager because of paperwork "stuff". After his tongue lashing, he comes up to me and puts his hand on my shoulder. Without pausing, he says, "Joker, always remember something, anything that bleeds for seven days once a month and doesn't die you need to be a little suspicious of." That quote has stuck with me ever since...I thought it was hilarious.

Posted by The Joker at August 10, 2009 4:22 PM

Tom's blog post was about design. The comments have veered so far off topic that we've decided, with Tom's disappointed consent, to close comments on this post. We've never felt it necessary to do this before and hope we won't need to again. At tompeters.com we enthusiastically welcome open discussion about the topic at hand. We hope you'll join us for meaningful discourse in the future.

Posted by Shelley Dolley at August 10, 2009 5:16 PM