Here is an article by a UT Philosophy Prof. It concerns giving structure to an undergrad core curriculum. He had in mind a curriculum centered around Great Books, a history of Western Civilization. 

The Humanities Dept had different ideas.

http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/news/2711/a-texas-sized-defeat-for-western-civilization

Okay sound off, do you think your core curriculum was worthwhile, or just killed some time and money waiting to get to the junior level classes. i suspect it is even worse at the Community College level where one is encouraged to just hang around and take classes. 

The Cost books and Supply Chain Management would have you believe Just in Time Inventory is all the rage.

Not so fast, price now reigns supreme. 

Companies are examining their shipping costs and cutting them. Less overall is being shipped and I suspect until the truck is full of something, it does not depart the loading dock. 

UPS and FED Ex shipments are down some 25%. Dell is now stocking computers at Wal Mart and has little to say about the make it when you want it policy.

Business is subject to change. 

Charlie Rangel is head of the Powerful House Ways and Means Committee, way being taxes you owe means being we can come get you in the event of non payment. 

Rangel admitted on the floor of the House he has not paid income tax on the rental income of his Caribbean property for years. The IRS allowed him to pay the tax sans penalty and interest. 

Hold on says former atty and Judge John Carter. He has introduced legislation called the Rangel Rule. Any taxpayer who owes back taxes should be able to write Rangel Rule on his form and forgo penalty and interest. Treasury Secretary Geithner got similar treatment for his back taxes. 

Do you think it has a chance to even come up for a vote?

Larry Kudlow at CNBC dissects the latest job numbers. 

The so called stimulus has not created a single private sector job. It has been a pork barrel of mostly projects yet to be started as well as programs which extend things like unemployment benefits which hardly gets people out looking for work. 

See the other blog for updates on gold and silver that Kudlow mentions. 

http://www.professorelam.typepad.com/markets

Enron, among other creative schemes, was manipulating energy markets to their advantage and the disadvantage of the State of California. Now really high speed trading brings such activity front and center. 

Read about Optiver,  a Netherlands based trading operation. Goldman Sachs is also participating in such activity. Front running is the process of entering your order before the client's to obtain a better pricing, knowing what the market price is.  High speed computers have brought this practice to the mili second of time. 

Expect such activity to draw the attention of an outraged public the next time a melt down occurs. 

We are all learnign the new BB system. I just posted new content.

When one views the Content area on the HOME PAGE,

it only shows the first four entries If there are more than four they do not show on teh home page, so go on to the content page to see all entreis. This is a bit misleading and a design flaw in BB in my opniion.

Note to Students

I urge you to stretch yourselves. We require written assignments for several reasons. Writing stimulates critical thinking, you have a tangible product. Too often we get the question, how long should the paper be?  Did Michaelangelo  ask about the budget for the Cistine Chapel?  No he painted the way he thought it should look, centuries later it is in every art book. 

You should be accumulating a series of written articles, they reflect who you are and how you think and view the world. Having said that, I still write a weekly column for a small newspaper, it allows me quite a bit of freedom. so here goes.

Same

The manufactured world of automobiles is chock a
block full of THE SAME. The Administration which ran on Change is determined to
fit us, each and every one, into SAME. The same refrigerator, auto, home,
medical plan, and yes salary.  Over
$250,000 is too much, save for athletes, trial lawyers, actors, and
musicians.  Too little is
apparently the entire state of Michigan. I shall have none of it thank you very
much. Here and now, while auto makers everywhere struggle to regain ground, my
advice, back to future, innovate or die, you had it right to begin with.

In 1950 every auto from Detroit had a straight
six cylinder engine driving the rear wheels. Now only BMW can  manage that.  Only BMW remains pure to its straight six roots, Lexus,
Mercedes, and Hyundai have succumbed to the compact V shape.  What happened?

In 1976 VW copied the Sir Alec Issigonis Mini design of a
transverse  engine driving the
front not rear wheels. The British Mini was born..  This allowed all mechanical to be up front, freeing space
from the cockpit back.  Space
efficient, cheap and fun, yes but….And it is that but that perturbs.  A tiny front drive engine plows its
understeering self, a larger engine does it more and more.  And that is the problem for anyone
enjoying that rear drive sensation known as oversteer.

 

BMW has recently revived the Mini to wild
success. Buyers like the idea so much their cars are named on the internet. The
thing to be learned here is that, buyers come to the showroom to buy things
that excite them, be it autos or lingerie. Chrysler had it right with its slant
six, where is the new Dodge Dart, a possible  low buck alternative to the BMW 3?

Automakers are pining for someone to come to the
showroom and without the latest discount coupon. Offer something different I
say, no one stays famous by imitation, originality is the ticket. Roger Moore
is an adequate Bond, Sean Connery is the real thing, no mistaking the
difference.

Enzo Ferrari decided his cars would be powered
by twelve tiny pistons. Ferdinand Porsche deemed a horizontally opposed boxer
engine in back would push him to fame. Both different, from each other and the
rest, there’s the ticket. While most of the ordinary rabble have never driven
either marquee, we all know what they are, and that is all the difference.

Nissan re Datsun added tow cylinders to the four
cylinder engine of  its
successful  510 sedan. Presto the
econobox four became the 240Z faux 
Jaguar for the masses.  And
as they say, a star was born.

I would eschew electric mirrors, my 1981 Audi
had wonderful T shaped manual controls inside the car for the outside mirrors.
No gps or Bluetooth, a iPod connection, well okay.  We are building the most pleasant personal transportation
possible,  not home stereos.  We will do without heated seats or left
and right HVAC controls, simplicity is the thing.  A mechanical torsen limited slip for the rear and a fore and
aft engine placement. It will multiple torque through  a five or six speed manual. We will pass on the paddle
shifting automatics. Front doors will have proper window frames.

 Every manufacturer now has a fine dohc four cylinder and many
of them in all aluminum no less. Do two more identical  cylinders really cost more than a
turbocharger on a four?  Do it now,
add the cylinders, put the axle to the rear where it belongs, and set yourself
free from the econobox rent car mentality.

 

I would begin with a coupe on a 106 inch
wheelbase. One could shorten it ten inches for a two seater. It should sound
like a proper internal combustion engine, not a cuisinart.

Two well shaped front seats and a proper boot in
back. Mercury Marine had it  right
with its six cylinder outboard, this design will do the same for whoever
embraces it first. Understeer is no fun, a straight six both sounds and feels
right ripping right through 5,000 rpm in a way a four never can/

 

Build it and they will come, to the
showroom,  I say.  Who knows, people might even change
their own spark plugs again, just because they can. They might go for the
Sunday drive, just because they want to. And until that happens, cars like
refrigerators will suffer from the SAME.

 

George Will suggests it is high time to leave Afghanistan. Charles Krauthamer noted that Democrat Strategist Bob Shrum wrote an article saying the Dems never wanted to fight in Afghan, that was just to cause Bush grief in Iraq. Eric Holder has decided to investigate/ CIA tactics. The end of the war in the Mid East will come by June, 2010. 

 On February 27, 1968, Walter Cronkite suggested on his evening broadcast it was time to leave Viet Nam. Seven years later dangling from helicoptors, the Americans did. The parallel with the 1970s continues. 

One can question whether an armed invasion in the mid east was the right response to 9/11. Yet today the proverbial Martian would surely conclude that, given the cost, the lives of the Arab attackers, the terrorists accomplished their goal. 

The World Trade Center was destroyed. 

Financial markets have been in turmoil and are now in the worst shape since 1974. 

Political division is as bad now in the USA as it was in 1974.

The responses of low interest rates and building homes has imploded most of the major players in the mortgage business. Home prices fall 3% every six weeks. 

Commercial real estate vacancies continue to escalate. 

Once again the US has been drawn into a guerilla war with an forces still best equipped to fight WW II. 

Dictators come and go in the Mid East. Ssdam Hussein is gone, the Taliban remains in Afghan. Resentment towards the US throughout the region remains high. 

And finally, the US cannot afford this financially. The US cannot afford the damage to our military morale. A way to declare victory and leave needs to be found, quickly. 

While attention has all been on his domestic agenda, the Obama may be finally held, like LBJ and Nixon, to the prism of unintended, unending war. 

Washington politicians are forever fiddling with rules and spending. The result is more rules and spending but rarely anything is accomplished. 

Here is the latest on Cash for clunkers

CARS WILL LEAVE SCARS

The scuttlebutt is that the cash-for-clunkers triggered an even greater rush of activity in August and that we will see 14.3 million (annualized) units of auto sales on the month, which would be the highest tally since April 2008 and a 27% MoM increase over July. But the folks at Edmunds.com are noting that sales towards the end of the month were tapering off towards an 8 million rate. 

As we have discussed in class, this simply robs future car sales and leaves buyers with debt when they had a paid for car. The results no doubt show up a quarter or two from now in even lower sales. The same thing will be true for the 8K rebate for first time home buyers. 

Spending will only change when mood changes, a fundamental of socionomics. 

I suspect we have a permanent shift to saving money and spending what one has rather than borrowing. No amount of govt fiddling is going to change that.