In Case You're a Sound Sleeper

As a dedicated insomniac for the last decade I always have trouble sleeping.  But for those of you who have no trouble finding the Land of Nod, here are a few things to keep you awake tonight:

• Federal Spending vs. Median Income.  As the link of Ace of Spades states, "Holy Effin $&it!"

• Why the Fed's policies will collapse the economy.  Key thought of the article:

In a credit-driven monetary system, you can only get "inflation" (in the truest sense, where it flows through to wages and prices, thereby debasing - that is, helping - people pay down indebtedness) if there is credit expansion.


But when the limit of credit expansion is reached ...further machinations of this sort do nothing other than bankrupt the population.

We essentially have the Fed trying to create inflation in order to pump the economy and stabilize employment, but it isn't working because no one wants new credit.

So we have the government spending like mad, the Fed pushing ZIRP (Zero Interest Rate Policy) AND having bought all sorts of bonds (one type of paper) by issuing new money (a different kind of paper) through quantitative easing, and now hinting to do more.  And so far all of this has done...nothing, except rack up more debt that someone has to either repay or that has to be defaulted on.

What, Wealth Is Supposed to Go Up in a Down Economy?

Looks like it's time for another entry in my Continuing Stories from the Annals of the Obvious: American's wealth sinks as economy stalls.

The article talks about how Americans spend less when their wealth goes down, but it doesn't once mention taxes - a sure fire way to lower American wealth and reduce spending.

A Lot Of What You Own Is Made By a Company You Never Heard Of

Hon Hai - also known as Foxconn - has nearly a million employees churning out iPhones, computers, video games, and all sort of gadgets. Whole cities of nothing but 300,000 Foxconn employess - giant versions of 19th century factory towns - exist to crank out electronics for the world masses.

The article Everything Is Made by Foxconn in Future gives an interesting overview of this giant company, it's founder, and it's place in the world supply chain.

They Change the Flight Numbers of Planes that Crash

Over at Wizbang, one of the writers realizes that he was today, on 9-11, on the exact same plane route at the exact same time as one of the doomed flights of  9-11-01.

He didn't realize this until well after booking his flight.  But it was easy to forget since there will never again be an American Flight 77, or American Flight 11, or a United Flight 93, or a United Flight 175.  Airlines "retire" the flight numbers of doomed flights, hoping to erase the memory from their customers' collective conscious.

Japan's Version of "Computer Dating"

I love Japan, but it is a strange culture. So I was not too surprised to see that Japanese men are starting to spend real-world weekend get-aways with virtual computer girlfriends:

In the first month of the city's promotional campaign launched July 10, more than 1,500 male fans of the Japanese dating-simulation game LovePlus+ have flocked to Atami for a romantic date with their videogame character girlfriends.

The men are real. The girls are cartoon characters on a screen. The trips are actual, can be expensive and aim to re-create the virtual weekend outing featured in the game, a product of Konami Corp. played on Nintendo Co.'s DS videogame system.

The link has pictures of the three girlfriends to choose from, so you can decide for yourself which one you would want to take a weekend trip with.  I am a "girl-next-door" type myself and would go for Manaka-chan.