jmproffitt

We find that mortality increases following the arrival of monthly Social Security payments, regular wage payments for military personnel, the 2001 tax rebates, and Alaska Permanent Fund dividend payments. The increase in short-run mortality is large, potentially eliminating some of the protective benefits of additional income.

If you haven't seen Alaska retail around PFD time, you're missing quite the spectacle. Big TVs, cars, guns, snow machines, booze -- it all goes out the door so fast it makes your head spin... at which point you crash your car and die.

But I'll take my chances this year, just like the last 7 years.

Using Google Sync, you can now get your Gmail messages pushed directly to your phone. Having an over-the-air, always-on connection means that your inbox is up to date, no matter where you are or what you're doing. Sync works with your phone's native email application so there's no additional software needed. Only interested in syncing your Gmail, but not your Calendar? Google Sync allows you to sync just your Contacts, Calendar, or Gmail, or any combination of the three.

iPhone users with Gmail accounts (or those with Google Apps Gmail) can rejoice! While we've had Google Calendar syncing for a while, the ability to handle "push" Gmail and Contacts syncing is new this week.

These days no one is doing as much for mobile devices as Google. Microsoft keeps worrying about search technologies, but they're losing the mobile game by a much greater margin -- and mobile is the real future. Search only covers one aspect of Internet usage. But mobile Internet is all-encompassing.

...the idea that there aren't blogging reporters is pure folly. In fact, I'd argue that the serious blogs on certain subjects to a lot more to "put stories in context" than your average newspaper reporter, who writes up a quick take and moves on to the next big thing. Topic-specific blogs are often much more accurate, much more detailed, and much more willing to focus on context than newspaper reporting. So why rescue one bunch of reporters, just because they happen to print on paper?

As always, a great post from Mike Masnick at TechDirt. The newspapers are a deplorable bunch, made all the less sympathetic when they lash out at bloggers, as if that's the cause of their downfall.

Enough with the bailouts, Mr. Obama. It's time for economic forces to take their toll on industries that cannot adapt.

The model shows that you get far more “bang for your buck” by giving the money to firms, rather than banks. Unemployment falls in both case below the level that would have applied in the absence of the stimulus, but the reduction in unemployment is far greater when the firms get the stimulus, not the banks: unemployment peaks at over 18 percent without the stimulus, just over 13 percent with the stimulus going to the banks, but under 11 percent with the stimulus being given to the firms.

There was a brief discussion before our tax dollars went to the richest men on Wall Street as to whether it was better to give bailout money to the banks or give it to the businesses and individuals in debt. But the discussion didn't last long.

When there are financial lobbyists -- especially already inside the Obama White House (Summers, Geithner) -- standing at the trough and there's no one representing the real people of America, we all know who wins the prize.

Obama's handling of the financial crisis is the worst part of his presidency, in my estimation. McCain would likely have made it worse, but not by much.