See Jobs statement on his A4 chip. He wants people who are ten times the value of the “ordinary” chip designer.

The dumb factor needs to be plugged into the employment. We do not have enough smart people.

Debt is a function of savings. (One man’s savings is another’s debt… right?)

@ Ahab — Clearly the 1999 stock bubble was a bubble, while 2007 levels just corrected with recession. The financial crisis was mortgage credit driven. Stock indices x-financials are not down that much, maybe 10-15%. X-financials and Commodities and they may be flat. Its hard to call general stocks a bubble when they were flat on the previous 10-yrs… right? The 2000-07 bubble was housing and commodities. My point is… we’re fortunate we had the internet bubble at a different time then weak-dollar, demographics, etc caused RE bubble. Japan can be understood as having both the BIG stock bubble (US 1999) and the big RE bubble (US 2007) at the same time. Much tougher to recover from the deflation effects of both.

A good way for a populist 3rd party to come to power and minimize the rotten and corrupt to the core Dem and GOP parties…..won’t be easy but beats the crony, corporate, gangster capitalism that we have today.

Cloud Culture and “cloud capitalism”
http://www.counterpoint-online.org/cloud-culture-promise-and-danger/

disclosure: I consult with software startups who are doing “cloud capitalism”

Are Low Interest Rates Good for Consumers?
http://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/es/10/ES1003.pdf

It is true that credit card debt was reduced slightly at the ends of some previous recessions, but that was not the case in 2001 and the current reduction is the largest since the Fed began collecting such data (in the early 1950s).

Gavin’s Conclusion:
The economy is currently in the worst recession since World War II. Conventional macroeconomic wisdom suggests that low interest rates will aid in the recovery by restoring health to the banking system and promoting lending to both businesses and households. So, if low interest rates are indeed good for consumers, then the benefits must come from the effect these policies have on future output growth.

The unstated point here is that, when you’re in debt, deleveraging IS savings, especially when the spreads are still so freaking high. It’s a no-brainer choice for households.

“I dont think we’ll have the Japan-problem (bc of cultural differences and bc we did not have simultaneous stock and RE bubbles). ”

I guess Dow 14,000 was just about right on valuation then? all predicated on an economy sucking on the fumes of a RE boom-

dude- you have ZERO credibility w/ me

OK, you have your next assignment:
“Frequency of blog commentary as indicator of marital satisfaction”

or

I’m thinking the chart would look an awful lot like the top chart (comment freq in blue)…