I cannot help it. Apologies to Kal.
Where else but from The Economist?
Category: Humor
For our joint sake, please do not send our money down the hole.
Ah, hell. They’ve already bailed out the financial and the automotive sectors. What is the point of resisting anyway. Let us add another sector into the list in the name of saving jobs.
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Another major American industry is asking for assistance as the global financial crisis continues: Hustler publisher Larry Flynt and Girls Gone Wild CEO Joe Francis said Wednesday they will request that Congress allocate $5 billion for a bailout of the adult entertainment industry.
”The take here is that everyone and their mother want to be bailed out from the banks to the big three,” said Owen Moogan, spokesman for Larry Flynt. ”The porn industry has been hurt by the downturn like everyone else and they are going to ask for the $5 billion. Is it the most serious thing in the world? Is it going to make the lives of Americans better if it happens? It is not for them to determine.” [Porn industry seeks federal bailout. Rebecca Sinderbrand. Mark Preston. CCN Political Ticker. January 7 2008]
Yeah. We do not want to miss those big boobs and the ooh and the aah. No sir. Only socialism could save us all from those lonely nights.
[youtube]55xJnIqq9ZI[/youtube]
It is a season of sharing, you see.
Prediction is hard, especially about the future. [Slippery slope. Free Exchange. October 28 2008]
Shall we predict the past?
But here is something less tautologous by Myron Scholes (via):
Economic theory suggests that financial innovation must lead to failures. And, in particular, since successful innovations are hard to predict, the infrastructure necessary to support innovation needs to lag the innovations themselves, which increases the probability that controls will be insufficient at times to prevent breakdowns in governance mechanisms. Failures, however, do not lead to the conclusion that re-regulation will succeed in stemming future failures. Or that society will be better off with fewer freedoms. Although governments are able to regulate organisational forms, they are unable to regulate the services provided by competing entities, many yet to be born. Organisational forms change with financial innovations. Although functions of finance remain static and are similar in Africa, Asia, Europe and the United States, their provision is dynamic as entities attempt to profit by providing services at lower cost and greater benefit than competing alternatives.