Tom Wolfe:
An intellectual is a person who is knowledgeable in one field but speaks out only in others.
January 2, 2011
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Carbs and Harvard: Common sense (finally)
“Carbohydrates are a metabolic bully,” Phinney says. “They cut in front of fat as a fuel source and insist on being burned first. What isn’t burned gets stored as fat, and doesn’t come out of storage as long as carbs are available. And in the average American diet, they always are.”
Here’s how Phinney explains it: When you cut carbs, your body first uses available glycogen as fuel. When that’s gone, the body turns to fat and the pancreas gets a break. Blood sugar stabilizes, insulin levels drop, fat burns. That’s why the diet works for diabetics and for weight loss.
(Source: Los Angeles Times)
- carbs
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The Fat Shirt of Shame
I’m wearing the Fat Shirt of Shame, I suspect I’m not the only one. I deserve nothing better, I spent the last 2 weeks eating and drinking like a pig and I haven’t done a modicum of exercise.
So out of the wardrobe it comes, drape me in it, weigh me down in it’s flab covering XL-ness, cover me with it’s wide fitting caress of compunction.
This is just what I deserve.Now I just need to dig out the Sweatpants of Self-reproach.
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Philanthrocapitalism or Paternalism in New Guise?
It appears that over the last 30 years wealth and political power have become more concentrated as has market power and its natural bedfellow, political power. Incomes have become more unequal with the spoils of market and political power going disproportionately to captains of finance and industry. If not corrected, some among us may begin to question the value of an economic system that has ceased to deliver universal opulence to worker, rentier and investor alike.
The answer to this from those who still value a capitalist system appears to be creation of a new class of philanthrocapitalists who, like Andrew Carnegie, after eroding consumer surplus and perhaps a soupçon of individual liberty (along with workers’ wages (I didn’t talk about this)) to gain higher profits, will turn around and redistribute that wealth in some way of their own choosing. That redistribution will presumably benefit us all, though we may have little say in it.
And I, a big fan of Carnegie-financed libraries and universities and foundations, am left to ask the question I have always asked even of those same libraries, universities and foundations. Would we all have been better off if Carnegie had simply paid his workers higher wages? Would we all have been better off if Carnegie had simply charged lower prices? These were the opportunity costs of those libraries, universities and foundations. Wouldn’t it have been better to increase consumer surplus and consumer sovereignty (and consumer wages)? I mean, my tastes and preferences happen to coincide with Carnegie’s, at least as far as libraries, hospitals, universities, and foundations go. But what if the people working for him would have preferred to buy their own books or educate their children their own way? Or even party hard and long? Why do a wealthy philanthropist’s tastes and preferences trump those of the people they employ? Make no mistake here. We’re talking paternalism by a group of elites, just as surely as when the guvmint does it.
(Source: azspot)
December 28, 2010
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Indentured Servants
Let’s look at the numbers and see what I mean. What is the average salary for a Wal-Mart associate (the label is such a joke in itself)? Maybe he or she earns $9.00 an hour. OK, let’s make it $10 an hour for argument sake. They work 40 hours, meaning a gross of $400 a week. Take out the approximately 7% for FICA and then federal withholding and the take home is what? About $300 a week, just for argument. The employee has no employer paid health coverage to speak of. If they do, it is probably with a high deductible and CO pay. That means if the worker gets sick, money has to come out of pocket, and not just $10 . More like $40 or $50 and that doesn’t include the cost of medicine. If the Wal-Mart worker has a young child and is a single parent (which is over 50% of the workforce) the child has to have day care if not yet in school. That takes money. Then you have rent for a two bedroom apartment (or they both share one bedroom — most likely) and a car payment, gas for the car, repairs for the car, food and clothing. Need I go on? How in the hell is a single parent earning $300 a week take home pay going to afford all that !?
In the not so good old days they had company towns with company housing etc. In the feudalistic days they had the farm with the manor house and living quarters for the workers. Check out the fine Swedish film Pelle The Conquererto see how that looked. All in all, these folks were what we call indentured servants… In ‘debt’ to the employer. Tell me what is so different from that Wal-Mart worker? Unfortunately, many Mom and Pop businesses are not immune from this mindset. A friend once worked as a carpenter for a local cabinet manufacturing shop. The employer paid a few dollars above minimum wage to the 4 or 5 craftsmen he had working for him. In a union shop, the workers would have earned 25% more and received better benefits. This shop did not pay for health coverage. Of course, the owner made sure his two children and his wife (and himself) all had brand new BMW cars…. On the company nut.
Some reading this would say ‘Well, God bless him to take care of his family. After all, he started and built up the business and why shouldn’t he have the very best?’ My answer is what the Japanese instituted decades ago. It was called the 15 times system (now it may be up to 30 times) . It followed a structure that the very highest earner in a company could not make more than 15 times his lowest full time worker. Do the math, even at 30 times and see if that cabinet shop owner would be buying BMWs for the whole family. In America, the Fortune 100 companies have CEOs who average over 400 times the pay of their lowest paid full time employee.
As the economy tanks again and again, the question is how much longer will the indentured servants quietly trudge into work each day? When will the majority of us who make up the workforce say ‘Enough is enough’?
(Source: azspot)
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Review: Borgoantico: Montepulciano d’Abruzzo
Decent, not exceptional
Musky aftertaste
December 27, 2010
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Review: Fresh Direct Wine: Astica Cuyo Malbec (2009)
Syrupy, potent, not particularly good.
December 21, 2010
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astrud gilberto - who needs forever? (thievery corporation remix)
really enjoyed listening to this track, quintessential thievery, while watching that paraskiing video i just posted. the original music in that vid is pretty good too, but this really captures the third-person weightlessness and transcendence of effectively floating down a monstrously epic mountain. pretty much no one pulls of this style of music as well as thievery corporation, and the addition of the eternally sultry vocals of astrud gilberto (the vocalist in ‘girl from ipanema’) heightens the mood they so proficiently establish.
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- [Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
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Tom Jobim e Elis Regina - Águas de Março
- Has been played 110 times.
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Don’t know what you’re doing with your life?
*Never, ever, ever get into debt. Just don’t do it. If you have debt (student loans, credit cars, etc), pay them off as soon as you have any cash at all. Debt is okay for a mortgage on a house, and that’s about it. I think education debt is a bad idea personally, and that universities exploit young people who don’t understand the value of money yet, but I’m in the minority on that. Maybe take university debt if you need to, but much better to save and pay cash if possible. If you take on debt, absolutely no buying toys or partying with your money until your debt is paid off. Debt cripples a man’s ability to do what he wants with his life. Stay away from it at all costs.
(Source: azspot)
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"What are you working on? If someone asks you that, are you excited to tell them the answer? I hope so. If not, you’re wasting away. No matter what your job is, no matter where you work, there’s a way to create a project (on your own, on weekends if necessary), where the excitement is palpable, where something that might make a difference is right around the corner. Hurry, go do that."
- Seth Godin (via azspot)
(via azspot)
