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The Dilbert Economy

Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, wondered why someone wasn’t doing something that would give American voters useful and unbiased information about which candidate has the best plans for the economy.

Then he realized that he was someone.

He commissioned a survey of over 500 economists, drawn from members of the American Economic Association, a nonpolitical group, that had previously agreed to be surveyed on economic questions.

The economists were asked to rank the most important economic issues and pick which candidate they thought would do the best job on those issues.

Here are the results:

Rank Issues Obama McCain No Diff.
1 Education 59% 14% 27%
2 Health care 65% 20% 15%
3 International trade 26% 51% 23%
4 Energy 61% 22% 17%
5 Encouraging Technology/innovation 43% 23% 34%
6 Wars and homeland security 58% 30% 11%
7 Mortgage/housing crisis 41% 18% 41%
8 Social Security 40% 24% 35%
9 Environmental policy 72%  9% 19%
10 Reducing the deficit 37% 29% 33%
11 Immigration 33% 29% 38%
12 Increasing taxes on wealthy 79% 14%  7%
13 Reducing waste in government 16% 38% 46%

Adams is quick to point out that even though economists favour Obama in 11 of 13 of the most important issues (as decided by the survey) 48% of economists are Democrats and only 17% are Republicans.
It makes you wonder, are liberals more likely to go into economics, or are economists more likely to become liberals? Or is it just the simple fact that educated folks tend to be more progressive?

You can check out the full report (in Power Point format).

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Ladysugar

My friend Jake has a sister Katy who says:

My band, Ladysugar, made it to the final round of voting for the star 98.7 radio contest! The competition is extremely tight so EVERY vote counts. Voting is quick and easy and would really help us. Just go to http://www.987fm.com/pages/rockstar3/videos.html and find the Ladysugar video. Even if you’ve already voted you can vote again because that was round 1 but now it’s round 2 so voting starts all over! Voting started last Friday at noon and ends this Friday at noon. You can vote once a day from the same email address.

Hit play or watch I Want What I Can’t Have at YouTube.


And here is the voting page.

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The Shock Doctrine

In a couple of weeks Naomi Klein (author of The Shock Doctrine, and No Logo) is coming to the University of Lethbridge to discuss themes from The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. The book is the gripping story of how America’s “free market” policies have come to dominate the world—through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries.

Around the world in Britain, the United States, Asia and the Middle East, there are people with power who are cashing in on chaos; exploiting bloodshed and catastrophe to brutally remake our world in their image. They are the shock doctors. Thrilling and revelatory, The Shock Doctrine cracks open the secret history of our era. Exposing these global profiteers, Naomi Klein discovered information and connections that shocked even her about how comprehensively the shock doctors’ beliefs now dominate our world—and how this domination has been achieved. Raking in billions out of the tsunami, plundering Russia, exploiting Iraq—this is the chilling tale of how a few are making a killing while more are getting killed.

The following is the Shock Doctrine short film, it neatly summarizes how the Shock Doctrine works.

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Tab Cola Commercial

Here’s another one of those Tab Cola commercials from the 70’s early 80’s (previously). Same premise:

  1. hot bikini girl walks on the beach
  2. a man wants to drink Tab Cola
  3. girlfriend pours ice water on the man
  4. the man laughs because he realizes his girlfriend thought he was attracted to the bikini girl and wasn’t just craving a nice cool drink of Tab Cola
  5. Then everything is ok

Genius!

Hit play or watch Tab Cola at YouTube.