School Choice and Bread Lines In Delaware

This past November 3rd, early on that Monday morning, literally hundreds of parents were lined up outside of the Brandywine School District’s offices to sign their children up for the school choice program. More than 30 parents actually camped out overnight for a spot at the front of the line. The first people started forming the line at 2 pm on Sunday. All this for the opportunity to snatch up some of the district’s limited number of spaces.

“They closed so many schools this year, everybody’s panicking,” said Carla Woods of Claymont. She was one of the parents who camped out outside the office. “I’m freezing,” she said.

This is not the way things are supposed to be. But what’s the problem?
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First Of The Big Dead Wood: DHL To Stop All Express Deliveries in the U.S.

The DHL unit of Germany’s Deutsche Post (DPWGN.DE) announced today that it will stop making express deliveries within the U.S., close all of its 18 main distribution hubs there, and lay off all but a few thousand of its remaining 13,000 U.S. workers. Although it will still continue to make delivers to and from the US and other countries.

DHL purchased Airborne Express in an attempt to challenge FedEx (FDX) and United Parcel Service (UPS), but has lost nearly $10 billion in the US market in the 5 years since that purchase. The company is actualy a dominant force in the global market, but it was never able to compete with the stronger UPS and FedEx on American soil.
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Mini Nuclear Reactors Could Revolutionize The Energy Sector

Imagine a nuclear power plant the size of a garden shed able to power your house plus 20,000 of your neighbors houses. That type of machinery is on the horizon within the next five years according to scientists at Los Alamos. The mini-reactors will be completely self contained and sealed, with zero moving parts and be buried underground.

This tiny technology was originally developed by the US government’s Los Alamos laboratory, but the development rights have been licensed to New Mexico-based company Hyperion Power Generation (HPG), which has taken it’s first firm orders and plans to start mass production within five years.

“Our goal is to generate electricity for 10 cents a watt anywhere in the world,” said John Deal, chief executive of Hyperion. “They will cost approximately $25 million each. For a community with 10,000 households, that is a very affordable $2,500 per home.”
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What American Poverty Debates Look Like to Haitians

This story from The Onion gets funnier once you realize that – by world standards – the “American poor” are rich.

In The Know: Are America’s Rich Falling Behind The Super-Rich?

Peer-To-Peer Lending: The Free Market In Action

The internet is a beautiful thing, it creates opportunities to streamline so many things in our lives. It creates a marketplace where people can reach each other so easily. It has the power to decentralize authority and break down barriers. We have information sharing at an insane rate that people just 20 years ago couldn’t imagine, but I think we have yet to see the real power of the internet.

As the financial crisis rages on, a fairly new form of decentralized lending and borrowing is emerging through online sharing of money. According to a study by Grail Research, person-to-person lending (P2P) is a fast emerging trend that could seriously reduce dependence on banks. P2P lending is a form of micro-lending where an individual or a group lends money to a person in need without any intermediary or central authority like a bank.
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3i Group Acquires The UK Luxury Retailer “Agent Provocateur”

Just last year, European private equity company 3i bought high-end UK lingerie brand and retailer, Agent Provocateur, in a reported $120 million deal. AD has been doing well since the company was founded in 1994 by the son of Vivienne Westwood Joseph Corré and his wife Serena Rees, but things have been especially good since 3i’s acquisition. Just recently, the company set up a plan for aggressive worldwide expansion.

The company already 40 boutiques across 14 countries, and their plan is to open more stores in areas directly competing with similar shops in their niche. There are already 8 stores in the United States and AD plans on building at least 2 more: Boston and Chicago. They also have Bahrain, Geneva, Puerto Barres, Madrid, St. Petersburg, and Germany in their crosshairs.
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Amazon.com’s Frustration-Free Packaging Shows The Beauty Of The Free Market

Sometimes companies do things that have no obvious direct benefit but do have an indirect benefit. One example is Amazon.com’s recent frustration-free packaging idea. They’re basically making the world better because of the indirect benefit to the company.

Amazon doesn’t have any obvious reason to make product packaging less frustrating. On the surface, it doesn’t seem that they make any money by doing it, but by making the online shopping experience even more appealing than it already is, customers are more likely to buy online. Plus, Amazon gets the positive press of being the driving force behind a project that makes the world a bit less frustrating. That’s the indirect, intangible benefit.
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Worried About The Economic Crisis? Go Pray To A Golden Calf

In case you missed it, October 29th was the official “Day of Prayer for the World’s Economies” according to international nutcases, Mike and Cindy Jacobs. And what did they do on the day of prayer? They went down to Wall Street and prayed to the big bronze statue of the bull. Sound familiar? Good thing Moses wasn’t there.

“We are going to intercede at the site of the statue of the bull on Wall Street to ask God to begin a shift from the bull and bear markets to what we feel will be the ‘Lion’s Market,’ or God’s control over the economic systems.”

Wow. I remember reading somewhere that god’s not a big fan of people worshiping golden cows. Maybe I’m wrong, who knows. Check out the video:
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It’s Happened Before, It’ll Happen Again

I wouldn’t say I’m a fan of Bob Murphy, but he certainly hits the nail on the head this time:

Let me say it once again, for the record: Suppose that Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek were right, and that really low interest rates (caused by the central bank flooding the market with artificial credit) screw up the market’s coordination over time. Then that means we are now sowing the seeds for an even bigger crisis four or five years from now.

It’s true, many people would say, “That’s irrelevant. Right now the pain is so bad, we need to stop the bleeding and deal with future problems down the road.”

However, that’s exactly what people were saying in light of the “unacceptable” pain that would have occurred due to the dot-com crash and 9/11 attacks. It never occurred to people back then, how bad the housing boom would end up being.

Fed Cuts Rate By Half A Point to 1%: A Band-Aid On Our National Cancer

The Federal Reserve lowered the Federal Funds rate by half a percentage point today in the hopes that it’ll ward off the deep recession that keeps peeking it’s ugly head up at us. That’s about what everyone expected they’d do, but stocks still fell sharply right after the news, probably since many investors wanted an even more aggressive cut. Stock did eventually rebound and are still on their way up as this is being written.

The Fed’s statement on the cut said that, “The pace of economic activity appears to have slowed markedly, owing importantly to a decline in consumer expenditures.” Many people may not realize it, but we’re at the point now where it’s actually possible that the Federal Reserve could reduce the overnight lending rate to zero. Japan reached that point in the 1990s and remained there for years while it struggled to revive its economy. That’s grim.
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