If federal spending were the key to job creation, we would be living through the greatest boom in American history.

Looking over to the other side of the Atlantic, can we be even cautiously optimistic about the US whose president in the midst of a cyclical and structural fiscal crisis, dreams of massive railroad and alternative energy expenditures? (sorry “investments”) How long can the US government stay in this fiscally irresponsible dream world when the rest of the world including US states are biting the bullet of contracting government?

Accumulation of capital, knowledge, and political connections takes decades. As a result, political power tends to rest in the hands of older people. The average age of the USSR’s general secretaries was 62 years, for European monarchs it is 70, for voting Roman Catholic cardinals 73, and for US senators 62. In the long run, changes in national retirement systems will probably reinforce democratic gerontocracies around the world. People of working age will continue being economic slaves of the pensioners. But living half of one’s life as a slave and half as the master is not the same as being free.

All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of Government employees. A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable.

If a chief function of competition is to ensure that consumers get the lowest possible prices, how can Apple’s policy of requiring that content suppliers give Apple customers the “best available” – i.e., the lowest – prices be anticompetitive, especially given Apple’s obvious interest in keeping the prices its customers pay for contents as low as possible?

It’s interesting to watch the Fed try to blow up the inflation bubble at the same time other countries around the world are trying to deflate it.

It is really annoying when people, particularly those in positions of power, can’t even be bothered to take the trouble to lie well.

As in the US, voters in Japan are fed up with taxes. However, Japanese revenues are not only running dry, but in reverse. Proving that government stupidity has no upper bounds, Mike “In Tokyo” notes Japan wasted $78 Billion on Global Warming Research in six years. Given a 200% Debt-to-GDP ratio, the world’s worst aging demographics, and with Social Security consuming 53% of government spending, Japan is in a debt trap with no possible escape. Japan’s debt crisis is rapidly coming to a head, and few are even watching.

After the housing bubble burst, the problem wasn’t just that some construction workers should have been busboys; the problem was also that some backhoes should have been ovens.