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18 Nov 09

Online NewsHour: Remembering Vietnam: Carter's Pardon

www.pbs.org/...vietnam_1-21-77.html - Preview

Just a day after Jimmy Carter's inaguration, he followed through on a
contentious campaign promise, granting a presidential pardon to those who had
avoided the draft during the Vietnam war by either not registering or traveling
abroad.
The pardon meant the government was giving up forever the right to prosecute
what the administration said were hundreds of thousands of draft-dodgers.
2 more annotations...
- the president did not include deserters -- those who served in the war and left
  before their tour was completed -- or soldiers who received a
  less-than-honorable discharge. Civilian protesters, selective service employees
  and those who initiated any act of violence also were not covered in the pardon.
- There
  seems to be a myth that because you once went into the army, there's
  some kind of esprit that you have accepted or believed in," Ransom
  said. "

04 Nov 09

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/learn-how-to-invest/why-saving-is-for-suckers.aspx?page=2

articles.moneycentral.msn.com/...why-saving-is-for-suckers.aspx - Preview

Putting it all together, Reynolds thinks the evidence suggests we are still in
the very early stages of the credit cycle, similar to the first seven months of
the 1991-2000 period or the 2003-07 period. In those time spans, people who were
simply saving excess cash in passbook or money market accounts at banks were
throwing money at bankers with virtually no tangible benefit to themselves.
Different times call for different strategies. Last year you were a sucker if
you were long on stocks. This year you're a sucker if you're not. My suggestion
is that you participate in the recovery of the global economy right along with
the fat cats, instead of serving as their financing vehicle. Despite the recent
advance off the March lows, stocks and corporate bonds are still inexpensive relative to the sharp recovery that
likely lies ahead.
1 more annotations...
- with a very simple strategy first and adding more complexity
  later.
  
  A good, inexpensive exchange-traded fund to start with is Vanguard Total World Stock (VT, news, msgs),
  with an expense ratio of only 0.3%. It gives you exposure to all large and
  medium-sized companies in the world's developed markets. To add a little more
  risk -- and thus, hopefully, return -- add small companies with SPDR International Small
  Cap (GWX, news,
  msgs).
  To creep out a little further on the risk spectrum, add iShares Emerging Markets (EEM, news,
  msgs).
  And finally, to add bonds as ballast, add iShares Investment Grade Corporate
  Bond (LQD, news,
  msgs).

03 Nov 09

Social Darwinism and American Laissez-faire
Capitalism

British philosopher Herbert Spencer went a step beyond Darwin's
theory of evolution and applied it to the development of human society. In the
late 1800s, many Americans enthusiastically embraced Spencer's "Social
Darwinism" to justify laissez-faire, or unrestricted, capitalism.

In 1859, Charles Darwin published Origin of
Species, which explained his theory of animal and plant evolution based
on "natural selection." Soon afterward, philosophers, sociologists, and others
began to adopt the idea that human society had also evolved
In 1851, he published his first book. He argued for laissez-faire capitalism,
an economic system that allows businesses to operate with little government
interference. A year later, and seven years before Darwin published Origin
of Species, Spencer coined the phrase "survival of the fittest."
1 more annotations...
- Society advances," Spencer wrote, "where its fittest members are allowed to
  assert their fitness with the least hindrance." He went on to argue that the
  unfit should "not be prevented from dying out