Cicero and the budget

My friend Nat sent me this:

What have we learned in 2,064 years since the Roman Empire?

So here it is. What have we learned in 2,064 years?

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled,
public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be
tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should
be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to
work, instead of living on public assistance."

- Cicero - 55 BC

By the Grace of God

Upon further investigation, it appears that my Beethoven Fidelio DVD was ordered on Dec. 16 and shipped the 17th thereby falling not on Dec 23 but instead in the middle of Chanukah 2009.

Still further investigation leads me to suspect that Seinfeld is an apostate and that Festivus is an alien holiday that all good men should abjure. My right arm thus invigorated and skilled, I, with all other men good and true, shall endeavor to smite the alien impediments to the restoration of the Tabernacle of God.

Y2K bug strikes 9 years later

It seems that some of the alleged global warming can be attributed to a Y2K bug in software of sensors that gathered data circa 2000. Here is a link to this bizarre basis for a multi-trillion dollar policy decision based on a computer programming bug.

This is not to say there might not be other data that support global warming. It might exist.

Optimism about the Future

Despite the immediate cares of the world, there is also plenty of reason for longer term optimism. As usual, this mostly centers around the improved living made possible by improved technology.

In health care, many and profound discoveries are being made about the origins of disease and aging. Inevitably this has resulted, and will result in advanced medications that pinpoint target the origins of medical problems. Sadly, soon to be instituted proposals to limit profits from pharmaceuticals have already resulted in disinvestment in pharmaceuticals in anticipation of a new political world order. Eventually new meds will find their way to market in other countries, but later than necessary in the good old USA. In any event, the wealthy or desperate will be able to travel to find advanced medications.

Imagine a world where cancer, obesity, and aging are conquered. It will be great for the individual. The resulting overcrowding of the world population will lead to very regrettable means of limiting population, but that can be solved by war, pestilence, famine and suicide. Whoops ... I forget that pestilence will be fixed, and, that is reason for optimism.

It has long been a truism of science and technology that advances in materials result in advances in engineering and in science. Those advances, in turn, feed back to create still further advances in materials. It is a virtuous cycle of advancement. New materials such as nanotube paper, biologically inspired catalysts, and electrochemical batteries will all have immediate application to real world living.

The late Julian Simon, an economist at the University of Maryland, is famous for his predictions that the costs of all products, over the long term, become less due to advances in technology. So far he has proven to be correct. When a raw material such as copper becomes costly, someone finds a different way to provide the same function in the final product. Alternatively, someone invents a more economical way to extract a product such as copper from abundant low grade ores hitherto ignored.

The New World Order

Let's be cheerful. Instead of calling it the Greater Depression, instead, call it the New World Order. The stock market still have not found a bottom. As I write the Japan stock market is down over 9% on top of what has gone before. Where will it stop?