This is a bit mind blowing. The US debt is a bad situation. Japan after fighting its slump for decades is even worse. Both of them are not critical yet, but very well could be if China and others decide to stop buying bonds. However recent data analysis on British debt shows it now has a 950% private debt to GDP ratio, and a financial sector debt ratio alone of over 600%. Read more here:
Everyone Is Starting To Realize The Size Of Britain’s Debt Crisis
I’ve seen many others attempt to link our current situation with the 30’s but I think this article does one of the better jobs at making that argument:
The Book of Jobs by Joseph E. Stiglitz in Vanity Fair
Monetary policy is not going to help us out of this mess. Ben Bernanke has, belatedly, admitted as much. The Fed played an important role in creating the current conditions—by encouraging the bubble that led to unsustainable consumption—but there is now little it can do to mitigate the consequences. I can understand that its members may feel some degree of guilt. But anyone who believes that monetary policy is going to resuscitate the economy will be sorely disappointed. That idea is a distraction, and a dangerous one. What we need to do instead is embark on a massive investment program—as we did, virtually by accident, 80 years ago—that will increase our productivity for years to come, and will also increase employment now.
I’ve been catching up on a lot of reading with my kindle and the lovely instapaper.com. I found this article particularly good. Not only because it outlines how technology will change how we view crimes, but also a framework for how we should implement that understanding in the future. I recommend checking it out:
The Brain on Trial by David Eagleman in the Atlantic.
Today, neuroimaging is a crude technology, unable to explain the details of individual behavior. We can detect only large-scale problems, but within the coming decades, we will be able to detect patterns at unimaginably small levels of the microcircuitry that correlate with behavioral problems. Neuroscience will be better able to say why people are predisposed to act the way they do. As we become more skilled at specifying how behavior results from the microscopic details of the brain, more defense lawyers will point to biological mitigators of guilt, and more juries will place defendants on the not-blameworthy side of the line.
I can’t put it much better than the article, Marine reserve sets new standard for recovery:
No-fishing reserves can restore marine ecosystems better than previously thought and can turn a heavily degraded site into an international model for conservation, according to a decade-long study led by researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla. The report showed the amount of fish in an undersea wildlife park near the southern tip of Baja California soared 463 percent between 1999 and 2009.
Stone Brewing’s Escondido location is one our favorite places to spend an afternoon. Located in a business park wasteland, the gardens and open air bistro are unexpected and delightful. However, the hour drive to Escondido keeps us from going too often. West Coaster covered what looks to be a large south bound expansion by Stone. First they are opening a tasting/growler room in South Park, near The Station in about 30 days. Next they have some ambitious plans for Liberty Station in 2012: