Go over the Fiscal Cliff: Bond Style

There seems to be an obvious approach to the impending fiscal cliff: Fall off it, and then get rescued - Bond style.

Why? Well, the short-sighted Republicans who have signed onto the "no new taxes" mandate will never back down - that would involve admitting they were wrong. So, there will be no Grand Bargain.

The Fiscal Cliff, however, has new taxes built in, so they would not have to vote for it....they could just let it happen.

If both parties got together today and started to negotiate a "plan to put in place as soon as the fiscal cliff kicks in", they can have their cake and eat it too. The Republicans can actually negotiate a post-cliff tax cut, the Democrats can allow some cuts to Government spending while rescuing a few key areas....everyone is a winner.

Chances of this happening: about 0%

The Centre Cannot Hold

Some thoughts on decentralization . With all of the blockchain and Ethereum news, along with the dramatic uptick of ICO's, it is worth building a framework for decentralization. The linked post makes a start on that.

Acsoi - Land Grab Economics

"Adjusted Consolidated Segment Operating Income" ( Acsoi ), is a measure of what a companies profits would be if they were not spending like crazy to acquire a space: in GroupOn's case, this would be retailers. To me, using Acsoi as a measure is really an admission that a company has no staying power beyond brand awareness. So, they need to grab and own as much mindshare as they can, as quickly as they can, to increase the barrier to entry for competitors. Without intellectual property to help protect them, and with the cost of switching (for a user) being effectively zero, building a global brand, and relying on brand stickiness, is the best way forward. Companies like Amazon that have been effective at this have also built in other "sticky" factors over time: recommendation engines, one-click purchasing, etc. This increases the cost for the user to switch, and allows the company to stop pouring money into marketing and acquisition costs. You also buil

Gliese 581g

So...there is probably intelligent life out there. As the old Monty Python saying goes, "I hope so, cause there certainly isn't much here on earth." Case in point. The video for Gliese581g is on MSNBC, and works fine in IE, but crashes in Chrome [ here ].

Todd G. Simpson

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