How the Minneapolis Public Schools Piss Away Money

Friend of mine sent this to me.

I don't want to hear from the Minneapolis public schools or any of these leftist "we-need-more-money-for-education" cheerleaders telling me they need more money.

COSMETOLOGIST????? OJIBWE?????

WHY ARE WE PAYING HARD EARNED TAX DOLLARS TO TEACH COSMETOLOGY AND A DEAD LANGUAGE????

I can understand cosmetology in that it teaches a trade, but jeez, talk about low expectations! What, just because they go to the inner city schools they'll never become doctors or engineers? So let's set them up to become salonists???

And Ojibwe???? I'm sure it's interesting, but how is teaching a dead language going to help a student find a job???

The motto for the Minneapolis Public Schools is;

"Minneapolis Public Schools; Expect Great Things."

It aught to read;

"Minneapolis Public Schools; Setting Your Kids Up for Failure"

Corporate America Might Just Save the Baby Boomers

They pioneered rallying against "the man" and may have made "Corporate America" a four-letter word, but the Baby Boomers may yet come to appreciate Corporate America just yet in that it may just save their asses when it comes to retirement.

During the Dotcom Mania days and the successive crash, I was somewhat concerned that with 401k's, IRA's and the bevy of other retirement programs out there that these programs would incentive people (namely the Baby Boomer generation) to flood the stock market with retirement dollars, artificially driving up prices only to crash when the Baby Boomers retire and start pulling their money from the stock market. I noted this as the S&P 500's P/E ratio has never been below it's historical average since 1928 of 15 ever since the Baby Boomers entered their prime earning years in the late 80's. The S&P 500 P/E ratio didn't even drop below its average after the stock market crash suggesting there was a lot of excess cash floating around.


However, what amazes me is that even with this excess cash in the market AND the recent bull market, I would have sworn when I updated my charts that the S&P 500 P/E ratio would have skyrocketed again as America went back to mindlessly flooding the stock market with their retirement dollars. But no such thing has happened. Actually, the S&P 500's P/E ratio suggests the markets are accurately valued, borderline sane with the P/E ratio hovering around 16, just a smidge over the historical average.

With a bull market driving prices sky high, mathematically the only culprit that could be keeping the P/E ratio down is profits, and sure enough that's what it is.

Corporate profits in America have reached an all time high as a percent of GDP of just over 10%. This not only provides merit to the recent bull market, giving it some underlying value, but also suggests that a "Baby Boomer Crash" may not ensue as the Baby Boomers start to retire and switch their investments from equities to bonds. Corporate America, evil and vile as it may be, might just be able to keep the profits up making the stock market a viable and wise long term investment and making sure millions have the money in their retirement accounts.

Of course, I'd be curious to see what would happen to corporate profits when we enter a recession triggered by a housing bubble. But that certain isn't a possibility now is it?

Taxi Cab Economics

I found this interesting about Thailand's taxis. If you're looking for a lighter "fare" read. (Ha! get it??? "Fare?" I'm so witty!)

Loser!

Hee hee.

Socialists always lose in the end.

Simply because they do not live in the real world.

Only in a socialist economy could the world's 4th largest oil producer have to ration oil.

Yes, Still On Vacation

HI All,

Got a couple e-mails and I'm out in the wilderness so this is the first time in about 4 days I've had e-mail access, but anyway, yes, I'm still on vacation. A well-deserved one I might add.

But as a teaser for what is to come next, the first CHARITABLE post on Cappy Cap will be made upon my return. Amazing what you'll run into out in the middle of nowhere.

I Predict Unemployment Will Go Up to 4.9%

My economic spidey senses were tingling. And although not based in research, data and statistics, those spidey senses have rarely been wrong. They were triggered when I noticed a good third of my friends have either been laid off or quit their jobs. Anecdotal, I admit. Could be completely wrong? I admit. That being said, I think we're in for an unpleasant surprise here pretty soon. I predict unemployment is going to jump. I'd say to 4.9-5% or so.

But that is just my economic spidey senses.

The Other Captain Capitalism

So they have wifi at my hotel and I've been checking out the "other" Captain Capitalism.

This is hilarious (it's a cartoon so it's not like you have to "read" or anything lame like that)

Kate and her readers will love it.

Shiller Should Be Award the Nobel Prize

Couldn't resist, but I stopped in at the local library (which actually has internet access!) and saw these charts sent to me by Dav e.

This is the expected decrease in prices for major cities by the Case/Shiller model (though I respectfully disagree and think prices should drop more);


This is historical price changes in some sample cities (the link above has them all)

The Captain Goes on Vacation

Adios alles! (I'm getting multi-cultural here)

Off for another exciting episode of fossil hunting and hiking. And mayhaps the occasional red-headed fair maiden economist that frequently dot my path through life.

Will be back on Friday-ish.

Selma Hayek or Friedrich Hayek

So the debate is going around who would you rather take economics from;

Friedrich Hayek, world famous Austrian economist,


or

Selma Hayek, world famous actress who (in the Captain's opinion) is the hottest woman alive



It really is a tough choice!

Once a Commie, Always a Commie

OK, so reunification of Germany started in 1990. How long does it take the East to get its act together?

16%???? And this is after the Hartz V reforms. I wish there was a chart showing long term unemployment rates between the West and the East.

A Telling Screen Shot

So I hit Drudge and there were two pictures on the page that tell volumes of the differences between the "West" and the radicals in the "Middle East".

In one photo you have a bunch of Hamas militants pointing their AK-47's in the air claiming victory because they captured Fatah's key power points. While there's an astronaut hovering in space and something or other about them fixing a computer.

And I ask this as a serious question, but who do you really think has the bigger achievement and what does that tell you of the pettiness of the other's achievement?

You Will Read El Borak

"El" has linked to me for a while and I feel guilty in not returning the link. You will read him. You will confirm.

Now wouldn't that be great? A world where all conforms to Cappy Cap's orders. Ahhh, one can only dream. Selma Heyek would be serving me martini's now whilst reading "The Wealth of Nations" with that entrancing accent of her's. Now that I think about it, how many more economics majors would there be if Selma Heyek were the professor?

The French Do Something Right...Again

First it was Sarkozy, now their energy policy. They keep this common sense up lord knows what will happen.


That being said, I'm curious, but since global warming is now a much more pressing threat than the ills of nuclear waste, shouldn't we be all for nuclear power now?

So, It's Just Like Communism Then?

There was an article about how the police in China busted a slave racket. And there was this excerpt from the article I find some cynical humor in;




So it's just like the good ol' days of Communist China, right?

States by the Size of Other Nation's GDP

The Commander sent this to me;

What I particularly like is how Russia's economy is all the size of New Jersey's.

Yeah, right, "communism" did wonders for them.

How Much We Spend On Gas

I remember, not too long ago, students at the University of Minnesota complaining about the increases in tuition. They went on protest as uneducated, brainwashed young skulls full of mush are wont to do. Yet, while these poor students will always contest they can't afford the increase in tuition, they certainly seem to have enough money to spend it on beer and booze at the local bars in Dinkytown and Stadium Village. And I always said, "when these bars start to noticed a slip in sales, that will be the true economic sign that tuition costs have risen to the point the students truly cannot afford those increases. In the meantime, increase away."

But we adults are not guilt free either. For we complain about the price of gas, but rarely do we look at our personal expenditures to see exactly how much gas is costing us. So I went to the BEA and pulled the national income accounts to see how much the typical American spends on gas as a percent of their total income and today it is at 2.4%.


Now albeit at a recent high, compared to the 1950's we spent nearly 3% of our income on gas whereas during the oil embargo we spent 3.75%. And we're complaining about 2.4%?

But where we really ought to be ashamed, similar to the college students complaining about tuition when they have no reservations about spending $50 a night on booze, we spend roughly the same amount on clothing and shoes. And this despite a precipitous drop in the real price of clothing as we import textiles from China, India and the Pacific Rim;

Now I don't know about you, but I literally spend no more than $100 a year on clothes. Boxer shorts, jeans and socks taking up the majority of that expenditure. So I can't imagine spending anywhere NEAR the same amount on clothes as I do gas. And sneaking a peek into some of the closets of my female friends, not to mention I don't think I've seen them wear the same pair of shoes twice (ahem, FED EX!), methinks I have found the culprit for the large expenditure on clothes.

Regardless, before you get upset about spending $3 per gallon at the pump, you might want to check to see how much you dropped on that latest pair of shoes or what your tab was last night at the bar or maybe add up how much you dropped on cigarettes this week.

When Liberals Make Charts II

A reader sent this to me.

Cripes. Again, and I mean this in the truest sense of the word, it is a bold face LIE.

They are lying, as in not telling the truth, as in posing information that is incorrect. I don't see Social Security anywhere and they've been able to massage the figures to (how convenient) get the military budget up to 51%. It really begets the question whether they even bothered looking at the Federal government's budget. And it further points out that there are people in the world that would rather live in a false world that unfairly benefits them at the cost of the rest of society and will gladly let their ideology form their "truths" instead of the truth form their ideology.

And good lord, I've never seen such a budgetary allowance to the HR department! Catbert would become dictator supreme if that percent of the US budget was given to an HR department.

JESUS WILL SAVE YOU...But Only on Tuesdays

And so it happens again.

I had a friend a while ago that was a single mother. Got pregnant when she was 16, was a party girl, didn't really take her life seriously, drank, let her folks bring up the kid, didn't study in school and then one day the parents cut the purse strings.

Faced with the harsh realities of not just self-supportation, but the supporting of a child, she managed it for about a year before she (you guessed it) "found Jesus." And I always found it interesting how people who can't deal with the harsh realities of life always become born agains and "find Jesus."

And it basically boils down to something as simple as this;

People will goof up. People will make mistakes. You can either be a man about it, admit you made those mistakes, face up to those mistakes and live with the consequences or go find some excuse as to why it isn't your fault. And the latter case is the born agains and that is why I cannot stand them.

For it is has nothing to do with the noble purposes of religion (salvation, repentance, etc.) but to shield the ego of a person who does not have the character and wherewithal to be an adult and look at themselves in the mirror and say, "I goofed up."

Now I know Christianity isn't the only religion out there where people will abuse seeking for something else to make their lives easier or explain why their lives suck. If you are a poor young Arab the local imam may trick you into believing that it's Israel and foreign powers intervening in your life, making you poor, thereby incentiving you to go and join Islam and blow yourself up. I remember a woman desperately trying to marry a Jewish man so her son could become Jewish. I even remember one particularly intellectually weak-minded person that joined Christianity because she got in trouble for stealing a pair of pants in middle school (akin what Hilton above has done). But whatever the reason, the true reason for joining the religion is avoid serious self evaluation, criticism and blame and to make your life easier by jettisoning your responsibility for your actions and your situation. It is ulterior to the true purpose of the religion and is an insult to that religion. They're hypocrites.

But Christianity is different and is why I theorize it attracts more born agains (like Paris). And the reason I say this is two fold;

1. The forgiveness aspect. Hey, you could have kills a bunch of kindergartners, punched some nuns or been Hitler and as long as you ask for forgiveness, you are forgiven.

Are you joking me? This is the big attraction to those where reality or the authorities have caught up with and are now going to suffer punishment. Living life as if they are above all others, when revenge is about to take its toll, then they start to search for an excuse for their behavior. Having none, how convenient there's a bible there. And how convenient according to this doctrine you are forgiven. It absolves a person of any personal responsibility. This still doesn't change the fact my friend's kid has grown up in poverty is not going to have a decent shot of getting out of it.

2. The "Fateism" or "Calvinistic" aspect of religion. That everything is in God's hands or fated to happen. That God has a plan and you have no ability to control or change the outcome. I don't know how many times I've seen the direct consequences of an action a Christian friend of mine has made and when I asked them, "why did that happen?" "Well, God has a plan." Yes, a plan. I'm sure this morning when I woke up, God planned me to have a Rooster Booster light. My personal tastes and preferences had nothing to do with it. I was powerless, I really wanted a diet Coke, but God forced my hand to grab the Rooster Booster. Just as I'm sure it was God's plan for Mao Zedong to wipe out 40 million Chinese. Mao was completely powerless. Hey, he didn't want to wipe out all those people, he wanted to help them. But God had a plan. And I'm sure God made my friend have unprotected sex at 15 so she had a kid and has since lived in poverty.

But think about this aspect of Christianity (or at least the Calvinism sect of it) and how it again absolves you of any personal responsibility. And how convenient it must be for people whose lives just got too difficult for them to face. "Hey, it's not your fault, God has a plan."

So here's the deal people. I'm not a particularly religious fellow, but I do respect religion. And I don't much care to see people pervert and abuse a religion for purposes it wasn't intended for. So the next time you run into trouble do us all a great big favor, don't become an intellectual weakling and say "you found Jesus." That doesn't excuse your behavior or any of the bad things you've done to society. All it's done is convince you in your own little mind that you're still an OK person. Be an adult, be a responsible person, pay your dues and face the music. You'll get more respect from society and probably true forgiveness.

You Will Conform

You will watch this.

You will conform.

I have no relation to this guy, but it's freaking hilarious.