Potpourri witches brew to start the day

Instead of a bunch of posts, I think I'll condense everything into just one this morning.

Here's an interesting discussion about the gold market.  Funny, I'm not that bullish on gold right now, but this is a persuasive post.

Things, like refrigerators and cars, are about to get connected to each other, thus called the internet of things.  This will usher in with it a host of security issues.

Obama says debt limit fight imperils elderly's checks.  Actually, he is trying to scare everybody to death so as to get the Republicans to cave again.  There won't be any spending cuts.  I've written about the trillion dollar coin idea that would end this threat and it appears Obama is opposed to this.  Of course he is.  This would end his leverage to make such a threat.  But Republicans won't do that because they are only pretending to fight Obama.  This is all theatrics---kabuki theater.  Both sides are playing their roles in this little drama with the predetermined outcome.  But The Street seems to think the Republicans are serious this time.  Or some of them are serious this time.  Or they want to look serious so that they can fool enough people back home.

I like the name of this website--- Reality Bats Last.   Read the nice little ditty on the debt limit kabuki theater. This is a kabuki theater because of the Sandy Pork Bill is going to pass. If they were serious, this wouldn't be loaded with pork.  Not serious.

Obama is going to issue executive orders on guns.  This despite the fact that there are threats of impeachment if he does that.  Levin wants to impeach on debt ceiling.    If impeachment gets anywhere, it is going to be different than the Clinton impeachment.  These are substantive issues, not about sex.  This can't be trivialized like it was back then.  But, impeachment won't get anywhere.  Nobody gives a crap about the rule of law--- are you kidding me?

Some discussion at Ace about The Internet Dumb Effect got my attention.  Two coined terms 1) SUXXOR and 2) RUXXOR.  They mean 1) absolute hate or 2) absolute love.  General impression is one of shallowness and immaturity.  Not very reassuring about the future.

Update:

How much does one trillion dollars weigh?  Not a mere trivia question. The answer is that it weighs about as much as a small ship. The printing presses can print that much money at a fairly low cost. So, here's one for you---print up a trillion dollars worth of 100 dollar bills and deposit it in the Fed.  They'd probably refuse, but, if so, inquire as to how much would they accept-- anything?  If they won't accept anything, wouldn't that tell you something?

A rough guess would be about 200 semi-truck loads would carry the 11000 tons.  That's 50 tons * 200 loads.  You could swing that.  But where would you put it?  Maybe Fort Knox?