Open Thread

And now for something lighthearted. Note the score at the end…FAIL!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNjXgS0_CWE&feature=related

Ok, folks, here is Benson’s “Provocative Quote of the Day”, courtesy of the sociologist Charles Murray:

“Drive through rural Sweden, as I did a few years ago. In every town was a beautiful Lutheran church, freshly painted, on meticulously tended grounds, all subsidized by the Swedish government. And the churches are empty, including on Sundays. Scandanavia and Western Europe pride themselves on their “child-friendly” policies, providing generous child allowances, free day-care centers, and long maternity leaves. Those same countries have fertility rates far below replacement and plunging marraige rates. Those same countries are ones in which jobs are most carefully protected by government regulation and mandated benefits are most lavish. And they, with only a few exceptions, are countries where work is most often seen as a necessary evil, least often seen as a vocation, and where the proportions of people who say they love their jobs are the lowest.

What’s happening? Call it the Europe Syndrome”.

I would like to give Mr. Murray a standing ovation for this statement. You know, years ago, I used to love to travel to Europe, and admire the architecture and other cultural sights. No longer. In fact, it kind of sickens me to travel to Western Europe these days, with a few exceptions. I am not interested in being an archaelogist, looking at the preserved artifacts of a past civilization. I have nothing to discuss with societies who think the highest calling in life is the ability to sit in the piazza for two hours, sipping espresso, all of the government’s dime. I’d rather save myself the money and just buy the coffee table books on these great buildings.

I will not stand still and see this great country turned into another Europe.

Although I think it may be an exaggeration that “most Pension and 401ks are chock full of this crap,” many Pension funds are. I think the endowments of the major universities have a bigger problem because they hired some of these “masters of the universe” who thought they knew a lot about derivatives. But your plain vanilla pension fund is probaly bruised but not toxic with these things. The majority of 401ks are self-directed with a limited selection of available mutual funds so they are probably down in-line with the market. Sad, but not blown up.

By law, many corporations have to begin to “top off” for lack of a better phrase, those pension funds that are severely underfunded. That means that there has to be a lot of buying between now and the end of April.

FYI- anyone looking for a diversion today- check out the Brooklyn Dreamland website. It has lots of artwork of Coney Island and take a look at the Around NYC and Portraits tab-

http://www.brooklyndreamland.com