en-us http://www.gongol.com Research on market solutions to today's problems, along with economics and technology news. It's like Fark for capitalists. Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:45:09 CST http://www.gongol.com/fft/2009/01/07/ 1100.27 Well more than 200 sites dedicated to business and economics commentary and analysis, ranked by visitor traffic. And, given current events, not a bad place to start for thoughts on what to do. Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:45:08 CST http://www.gongol.com/fft/2009/01/06/ 1100.26 Al Franken looks like he's going to become a US Senator. By the same logic that brought about his election, Iowa ought to have jettisoned Tom Harkin and replaced him with Tom Arnold. Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:45:08 CST http://www.gongol.com/fft/2009/01/06/ 1100.25 And good for them. While it's true that Roland Burris was indeed nominated by Governor Rod Blagojevich, the Senate retains the Constitutional right to decide the qualifications of membership (see Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution), and in this case, it seems obvious that anyone appointed by Blagojevich quite likely lacks the legitimacy of the will of the people. Only 7% of the people approve of the Governor's work and the state House has voted unanimously to begin impeachment proceedings against him. Under those circumstances, it's pretty clear that the will of the people of Illinois is anything but served by seating an individual appointed by that same Governor. Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:45:08 CST http://www.gongol.com/fft/2009/01/06/ 1100.24 Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:45:08 CST http://www.gongol.com/fft/2009/01/06/ 1100.23 A TV ad that flashes back to gray times and splashes color all over them serves to remind just how much fun a good brand can be Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:45:08 CST http://www.gongol.com/fft/2009/01/06/ 1100.22 Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:45:07 CST http://www.gongol.com/fft/2009/01/05/ 1100.21 The company was founded in 1783, went out of business in 1851, then re-opened about half a century ago. Given the company's outstanding brand image and the huge tourist draw the factory in namesake city Waterford creates, the news is a real blow for the Celtic Tiger. Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:45:07 CST http://www.gongol.com/fft/2009/01/05/ 1100.20 JPG Magazine certainly had some outstanding photos, but it couldn't survive under a model assuming the need for print advertising Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:45:07 CST http://www.gongol.com/fft/2009/01/05/ 1100.19 The language is a bit coarse, and some of the suggestions are wrong. But rules like "No fancy hotels ever" and "Promote from within" would certainly do a lot to improve many American firms that are having trouble right now. Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:45:06 CST http://www.gongol.com/fft/2009/01/04/ 1100.18 Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:45:06 CST http://www.gongol.com/fft/2009/01/04/ 1100.17 Economists draw distinctions between things that happen as a result of paper-pushing and those that result from actual, true-to-life changes. And if the changes that led us into the economic recession include real-life changes in the way the economy works, then we may need to pay the piper for a little while and accept that some changes cause temporary pain. Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:45:06 CST http://www.gongol.com/fft/2009/01/04/ 1100.16 Anyone who was paying attention could have seen this coming, particularly since Russia had a similar spat with Ukraine exactly three years ago. It's imperative that world leaders recognize that the decline in oil revenues landing in Russian government coffers is going to have an effect on how Russia deals with the rest of the world, both economically and diplomatically. Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:45:05 CST http://www.gongol.com/fft/2009/01/03/ 1100.15 The mountain pine beetle is killing off huge numbers of trees in Canada, which is changing the country's forests from net consumers of atmospheric carbon into net producers as they die and biodegrade. Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:45:05 CST http://www.gongol.com/fft/2009/01/03/ 1100.14 Intellectual activity may help build the brain in ways that stave off the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:45:04 CST http://www.gongol.com/fft/2008/12/31/ 1100.13 A Beverly Hills liposuctionist is being investigated by the California health department for using his patients' fat to fuel his SUV Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:45:04 CST http://www.gongol.com/fft/2008/12/31/ 1100.12 The best and most promising: Flexible displays, edible computer chips, and the rise of flash memory Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:45:03 CST http://www.gongol.com/fft/2008/12/30/ 1100.11 For all the economic anxiety hyped daily by the news media, it's worth keeping in mind that any disruptions we pass through ought to be quite temporary. The Dark Ages, on the other hand, lasted a thousand years. Today we have the Internet, mobile phones, and mass publication of books, not to mention air travel, biochemistry research, and plastics. Technology and knowledge make it easier to recover from setbacks and easier to avoid hazards before they occur. We should, for instance, be using our technological sophistication to make better use of the food we grow so that less of it goes to waste and more of it can be stored in case of some calamity that causes widespread crop failures -- like the Year Without a Summer, which followed the 1815 eruption of the Tambora volcano. We know how to powder milk and freeze-dry ice cream, so it's not beyond our capacities to come up with ways to preserve enough food that we could survive a global ecological disaster for at least long enough to come up with a way to fix it. Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:45:03 CST http://www.gongol.com/fft/2008/12/30/ 1100.10 The Upper Midwest is wind-rich, but conducting the electricity that could be generated here outside the region would take better transmission lines. A project under consideration would build huge transmission lines to get the power out -- but it could easily cost $10 billion. Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:45:03 CST http://www.gongol.com/fft/2008/12/30/ 1100.9 Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:45:03 CST http://www.gongol.com/fft/2008/12/30/ 1100.8 Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:45:02 CST http://www.gongol.com/fft/2008/12/29/ 1100.7 If the vote wasn't manipulated, then the vote probably reflects admiration for Stalin's role in World War II, which is still celebrated annually in huge "Victory Day" events. But it likely whitewashes Stalin's role as a murderous dictator, who deliberately starved the people of Ukraine and sent millions to die in Siberia. Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:45:02 CST http://www.gongol.com/fft/2008/12/29/ 1100.6 Not illiterate in the sense that they don't know how to read, but in the sense that they are effectively illiterate about science. Among the winners: Both Presidential candidates, who blamed vaccines for autism. Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:45:02 CST http://www.gongol.com/fft/2008/12/29/ 1100.5 The World Food Program, a branch of the UN, says that it needs $5.2 billion to feed 100 million people around the world next year. $5.2 billion is less than what General Motors says it needs from the Federal government to stay afloat. Coincidentally, a new study in the US says that half of American kids weigh too much, but a majority of them aren't being diagnosed. Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:45:02 CST http://www.gongol.com/fft/2008/12/29/ 1100.4 But MasterCard says spending only dropped by 4%, which suggests a lot of people moved to online shopping Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:45:01 CST http://www.gongol.com/fft/2008/12/28/ 1100.3 Some very serious and intelligent economists are advocating for a permanent reduction in or elimination of the Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes, which would quite obviously have a direct and immediate effect on Americans' take-home paychecks -- after all, we're talking about around 15% of income. But we certainly can't abruptly stop paying for those programs, and they're about to get a lot more expensive than ever before. The idea is now being floated that a permanent greenhouse-emissions tax ought to be put into place to take up the slack. But to work, that tax would have to be enormous -- and it would imply that greenhouse gases are among the worst possible pollutants created in a modern economy. What happens, though, if it turns out that the science is just a little bit off -- not catastrophically wrong, but just a little wrong -- but wrong enough that it turns out that other things are far worse threats to human life? What if, just five years from now, someone discovers and deploys a substitute for energy sources we use today, and suddenly we need to produce few or no greenhouse gases without sacrificing our standard of living? Then what would we tax? Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:45:01 CST http://www.gongol.com/fft/2008/12/28/ 1100.2 Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:45:01 CST http://www.gongol.com/fft/2008/12/28/ 1100.1 http://www.gongol.com http://www.gongol.com/assets/top/invisiblehand/logo120x60.png