Overheard Online

Just for context, please remember that there is actual precedent for creating value for people with technology. Think of word processors, databases, spreadsheets, web browsers, web publishing, search engines, email, etc. Social media is the first major computing revolution that as far as I can tell, has produced essentially nothing. But the social media craze is perfectly fitting in a society where producing nothing has been in fashion for years. Mortgages without credit. Profit without product. Riches without risk. Oops.
Why Does Everything Suck on Social Media

So let’s not flip out too much about this brokerage bust. It’s going to hurt in the short term here in NYC and the effects will be felt on main street and even in the venture business. But in the long term this is all good. That’s why we need to be careful with all of this bailout activity. It’s not just moral hazard, it’s propping up bad businesses that need to fail so talent and capital can move to more productive efforts.
A VC on the Economy

At one time we worked hard so that someday we (or our children) wouldn’t have to. Today, the more we earn, the more we work, since the opportunity cost of not working is all the greater (and since the higher we go, the more relatively deprived we feel). In other words, when we get a raise, instead of using that hard-won money to buy “the good life,” we feel even more pressure to work since the shadow costs of not working are all the greater.
NY Times on the Economy

I don’t want to see the magic of the family-owned America disappear. I don’t want to see highway after highway of Taco Bell, KFC and McDonald’s signs. I don’t want every hotel room to look like every other hotel room. Life is about experiencing the differences and the riches that make us all so unique. And if I have to pay a dime extra for a can of green beans or a gallon of gas, well, maybe that’s well worth the price.
Zen Habits on America

Reckless indebtedness during a year in which Cindy McCain sold one of their 10 or so residences for a profit of more than a million dollars. That is a pretty sure sign of financial irresponsibility…By piling up credit card debt when he can easily afford to pay it off, McCain finally has convinced me that he was speaking the truth (for once) when he said last December, “The issue of economics is something that I’ve really never understood as well as I should.”
Daily Kos on McCain

For if the doomsday predictions are fulfilled and the world does come to an end, then all the money in the world — even if it be in the form of gold coins or pieces of silver, stored in a locked chest in the most remote corner of the planet — would prove of no value, because there would be nothing left to buy or sell. Apocalyptic investors will miss great opportunities if there is no apocalypse, but ultimately they will end up with nothing when the apocalypse arrives. Heads or tails, they lose.
Peter Thiel on The Apocalypse