Learn

Hey! I am NOT a licensed commodities trader or stock broker or financial consultant or adviser or anything of the sort. I don't have a crystal ball either. However, I can add and multiply. Now, about BWMG, the stock I spoke about last week. Listen and learn. If you had purchased the 500,000 shares at the price I suggested, you would have made a profit of nearly $250.00 by early this morning. Your cost for the half million shares would have been $200 and those shares as of a few hours ago were valued at $450. Now, what bank would have paid you that amount of interest in two days? Buy low and sell high, as they say, and buy hundreds of thousands of shares.  Will BWMG go higher? You be the judge. It's not even at one tenth of a penny right now.  

Economics vs Poverty

So, the Nobel Prize committee is at it again. This time, they awarded the Economics Prize to three men who teach somewhere - it really doesn't matter. Economics has never actually been a science but there you have it. I submit to my six readers that one of the most pressing needs of our time is to solve the riddle of poverty. Yet, among the dozens of economics gurus who have received the famous Nobel Prize, none has had a fix on the problem, much less a solution. Is that not ironic? They know as much about poverty as this topless woman.

Rich but poor

It came out suddenly that one of the richest countries in the world, Dubai, is having money troubles. Everyone has read from time to time that very ambitious and expensive projects have been underway in Dubai for many years. That country is like an exclusive club but on a global level. The news reported that Dubai might default on its debt of approximately 60 billion (it's probably much more.) That sent negative ripples through world money markets. hehehe Remember to live within your means - even very rich people go broke. This topless woman looks like all she has left is her necklace.

Communism

A wise analysis: "You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it." by Adrian Rogers, 1931. I think this more or less describes Communism. Even this model works hard, no?

Justice and foolishness

From a Yahoo! News story: “GENEVA – When launched to great fanfare nearly a year ago, some feared the Large Hadron Collider would create a black hole that would suck in the world. It turns out the Hadron may be the black hole. The world's largest scientific machine has cost $10 billion, has worked only nine days and has yet to smash an atom. The unique equipment in a 17-mile (27-kilometer) circular tunnel with cathedral-sized detectors deep beneath the Swiss-French border has been assembled by specialists in many countries, with 8,970 physicists eagerly awaiting the startup. But despite the expense, thousands of physicists around the world, many of whom hope to conduct experiments here, insist that it will work and that it is crucial to mankind's understanding of the universe.” Thomas Huxley said: "You have no notion of the intrigue that goes on in this blessed world of science. Science is, I fear, no purer than any other region of human activity; though it should be." I say, who needs to understand the universe when we so critically need to understand why the world is so unevenly just and unevenly comfortable – too few rich, too many poor, too few healthy, too many sick, too few free, too many oppressed, too few secure, too many afraid. Please. Study that.

Juvenile Delinquency

So, North Korea conducted another nuclear test. It seems to have caught a lot of people by surprise. Everyone is saying that North Korea is such a bad nation - it behaves so, so badly. No psychologist has been able to figure out why it behaves this way. How many psychologists are there in the world - 300,000, 700,000, a million, two million? I do not know. That many people cannot figure out what to do with this bad boy. North Korea is lucky. It's like when a parent is trying to figure out what went wrong with their delinquent child. It's impossible to figure out. We sent the New York Philharmonic over there and that didn't help. If they attack someone, let them have it. If not, leave them alone. Anyway, they are so far away, we should not be worried. Let those that are closest to North Korea worry - it's their problem. We have enough on our plate already, no? I didn't notice any environmental extremists say anything about how much hotter the Earth is now that the North Koreans exploded this bomb, which I'm sure produces more than a little bit of heat. It just makes me wonder. How do they pick who to pick on???

What Poverty???

From a New York Times article: “Poor people have I.Q.s significantly lower than those of rich people, and the awkward conventional wisdom has been that this is in large part a function of genetics. After all, a series of studies seemed to indicate that I.Q. is largely inherited. Identical twins raised apart, for example, have I.Q.s that are remarkably similar. They are even closer on average than those of fraternal twins who grow up together. If intelligence were deeply encoded in our genes, that would lead to the depressing conclusion that neither schooling nor antipoverty programs can accomplish much. Yet while this view of I.Q. as overwhelmingly inherited has been widely held, the evidence is growing that it is, at a practical level, profoundly wrong. Richard Nisbett, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, has just demolished this view in a superb new book, “Intelligence and How to Get It,” which also offers terrific advice for addressing poverty and inequality in America.” How dumb can anybody get? I.Q. is only part of the poverty issue. There are lots and lots of poor people who are very intelligent. There are also lots and lots of rich people who are very dumb. A person can marry money and can also inherit money. They can also win the lottery. Poverty is concentrated among nations whose people are generally (1) inactive; (2) don’t have a cohesive society, (3) do not enjoy good health, and (4) unimaginative. (1) If you stay put all day (if you are inert) you will find that money will not fall down on you from the sky. (2) If you live in a society where people are adversaries and do not work as a family group, where there is no sense of community and belonging, then achievement and progress become almost impossible. (3) If you live in a society where people die young, you will find people struggling simply to stay alive and a life that could be productive for 70 years is simply productive for 30 or 40. (4) If people work hard and live long and work well together but have no imagination, they will also not prosper as much. Education is part of the solution but certainly not all of it. This article in the New York Times is just an effort to sell more books.

Charity from Venezuela

From a Yahoo! News story: CARACAS, Venezuela — “The Venezuelan government reversed course on Wednesday, announcing that its U.S. oil subsidiary (Citgo) will continue to provide free home heating oil to poor Americans. Critics of President Hugo Chavez had pummeled him for suspending the program. Among the beneficiaries of the 100 gallons of heating oil were 65 Indian tribes, including those in Alaska, Montana and South Dakota.” Perhaps Russia should do the same. The U.S. is not so proud that it would not accept foreign aid from them also. I’m sure of it.