It's the Economy Stupid Wednesday

Being inside the beltway this past week is enough to give one a headache. Two conventions and one major hurricane down (Gustav), and two on the way (Hannah & Ike). I think there have to be better ways to spend my time than watching speeches and mentally handicapped reports standing in the wind and rain. This is my way of excusing the fact that I haven't been as diligent as in past weeks of culling fun economic news. So here is my weak attempt this week. Hopefully my radar will be functioning properly next week.

A visual representation of the cost of US wars. Not really startling that the past two major wars (Desert Storm was too short to be considered major in my book) were very expensive and are also the ones that we were not asked to sacrifice at home. Oh yeah and don't add the Iraq war and the Afghanistan/GWOT totals together, it is a bit depressing. (Note: Are we still officially considering them separate wars or aren't they both still part of the Global War on Terror? I know the Bush administration has lost its mojo for rebranding things the last year or so, so I was just wondering.)

Here's something that should really make your head hurt and seriously question the intelligence of someone. (It made Barry's head hurt too.)

Our next national bailout will occur in Detroit. Why? US auto manufactures didn't learn their lesson in the 1970s because if they did we would have domestically produced cars that looked good and got exceptionally good gas milage. We don't though, we had an industry that decided to go on an orgy of building the most SUVs and generally ugly cars with so-so fuel efficiency. Lest we forget the politics of Detroit, there is a presidential campaign going on. More quick sales stats here.

The X-Box 360 is officially dead. (In all honesty, I thought that HD-DVD was going to win out, so I can't fault MS here. Same thing would have happened to PS3 if blu-ray would have lost.)

If you believe this, I have a bridge to Brooklyn to sell you.

And as always, It could be worse: We could be in Zimbabwe.


_John

image from The Big Picture