Saturday, January 24, 2009

Social reality and alcohol's importance

Link above goes to: Wikipedia, article on alcoholic beverage

An idea suddenly occurred to me for why drinking alcoholic beverages has continued to be so important to social realities--from meeting new people to diplomatic events.

And it's so obvious that I'm not saying it's new or not well-known but that I'm emphasizing it to myself as it is so huge, which is, social reality is that people lie about themselves, and present cloaks on their own inner selves because they sense there is something inside that is not to be presented publicly if possible, for whatever reason that might be.

And alcohol is useful for stripping such cloaks away.

Drink with a person and they tend to talk more, but if they get quieter then you learned something about them.

If they talk more, they are more likely to let slip ideas and opinions they might otherwise hold in check.

And if they refuse to drink, for whatever reason, you learn something as well.

Social drinking reveals information about people no matter what, whether they want it to, or not, even when they do not engage in it.

No wonder it has remained and I have no doubt it will remain as long as there is a need to hide things about yourself from other people, and for them to try and find out more about you, whether you want them to, or not.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Quick recovery, but at what cost?

Link above goes to: The New York Times

Quote from the source:

Some Forecasters See a Fast Economic Recovery
By LOUIS UCHITELLE
Published: January 3, 2009
Many economists are heading into the new year declaring that the worst may soon be over. Others are pessimistic.


I'm willing to go out on a limb and predict a very rapid economic recovery with the U.S. returning to growth in the second quarter.

Any reasoning behind that?

Well I'm no expert but as they are so terrible anyway, I don't feel bad about putting in my opinion, which is that money still wants to move to the U.S. and with so much information available--yup, I'm blaming the Internet--there will be huge growth from seemingly unlikely sources fueling a bunch of mini-booms, cumulative impact being, growth.

But then I expect a return to negative in the third quarter as no one sees this coming (but me) so there will be yet another adjustment.

Um, if I'm right, I get nothing really, which is what I get if I'm wrong, but could maybe some people start calling for the tossing out of these "experts" who are never right, either on the upside or the downside?

WHY, oh why, please tell me why, do these people get paid so well for being so terribly wrong all the time? Can someone answer me that basic question?

They are literally paid to fail.