SUBLIME TO THE RIDICULOUS

THE SUBLIME. recently there have been stories that remind me how amazing people are capable of being. like the chilean miner resecue. here we have a wonderful country, shaken by a terrible earthquake with tremendous loss of life and property; digging out largely on its own; without the help of sean penn; confronted with a potential tragedy with 33 miners trapped deep below the surface. the country rallied, the world rallied and unlike most of these occurrences they were saved. NASA helped. a small drill bit company in berlin, pennsylvania dropped everything and made special drill bits that ultimately led the successful of 3 different drill attempts. the owner of the business said it was the most important thing he had done in his life.

then there is the story of the unemployed construction worker who jumped into his car and chased the bad guy who abducted and attacked a young girl. he chased him down at obvious risk and rescued the girl.

these are the things we are capable of as individuals and as a species.

and then you read the rest of the news. a few items that caught my attention; not all that important maybe but of interest to me

THE RIDICULOUS

joy behar and whoppie goldberg walked off the set of the View during an interview with bill o'reilly, see it on youtube, where he calmly said 3 things; that obama refused to express his opinion on the ground zero mosque after saying the constitution allows for it; bill said the same but that it was inappropriate, wow, what a fiery word; and then he said why, because Muslims killed americans on 9/11 at that location.

joy and whoppie got up and left. outraged by the truth. now upon reflection bill said he should have said muslim extremists, not just muslims; you watch it and tell me. if joy and whoppie are america, i want out

lastly, bernanke said more or less today that the fed should ease more because of high unemployment. well that sounds good at 30k feet but what on earth can they do? rates arent low enough? 3 years treasury bonds at 35 basis points or so! its not the cost of money, its the availability of money. printing dollars and spewing them into the economy? how is that going to create jobs? the fed cant create jobs! if anything it should raise rates so savers can get some return and let the market function on its own. if the government wants to create jobs it needs to create an environment where business can create jobs. that would involve creating an environment where companies know what the rules are and can count on some stability of rules, taxes etc. perhaps investment tax credits and accelerated depreciation to encourage capital investment? perhaps less class warfare on businesses?

how can we be capable of such courage and sacrifice on the one hand and such stupidity and venality on the other?