It's not just marketing. I was in the manufacturing program of a large public university in Michigan, where you would expect all the staff to be heavily biased in favor of Detroit automakers, and the constant refrain was "Toyota, Toyota, lean manufacturing, six sigma, Toyota."
But don't you see, you're missing the entire point. Banksy is a graffiti artist. At no time have any of his works been capable of being bought or sold. His graffiti has routinely been lost, painted over, weathered, or ignored. That is the whole point of his work. Not only that, but often the point of his work is to devalue some other seemingly valuable thing--witness his Ronald McDonald statue[1].
Just because some rich people feel like attaching monetary value to most art doesn't mean Banksy's art has to fall in line. It's not like you're going to take down a section of wall and sell it, and someone did, he would also be missing the entire point.
Just be happy that cameras exist and take a picture.
The interest on the national debt is $260 billion per year, on nearly $17 trillion in debt, for an effective interest rate of 1.5%. If that interest rate were to rise to 1980 levels, for instance, at 6% [2] that would be an annual interest payment of over $1 trillion/year.
In order to come up with an extra $700 million per year, the government would have to raise taxes by 25%. Possibly more depending on economic factors.
Now that I have run the numbers it seems that this is not as much of a Ponzi scheme as I thought but it still seems pretty bleak. Has anyone seen this video[3] of Japan's debt problem?
In a chat with one of my older friends who I respect very much, he lent this advice: Mark, the first thing you need to do to be successful is make a decision on what you want to accomplish, and then commit all your resources to that goal.
Can I get a citation for any of this? It was my understanding that the USDA allows cattle to be fed "cage lining" which is chicken feathers, poop and feed taken from the bottom of chicken cages. The chicken feed, in turn, contains cattle meat and trimmings, thus making your "side of scrapie" scenario a small but significant possibility.
In other words, what makes you think the USDA is not beholden to the commercial interests that it regulates, like every other government agency?
I believe it was originally because of postwar wage/price controls, which led to employers giving health insurance to attract employees, which led to the IRS taxing health insurance, which led to Congress exempting health insurance from tax, which led to the current regime we have today, compounded by the McCarran-Ferguson Act as well as the HMO Act.
Did you notice the data point in the article that Costco makes $2 billion in membership revenue and yet makes $1.7 billion in profit, which means they effectively lose money on their sales?
In fact, a little known feature of Costco's business model is their ability to sell all their stock well before their suppliers require payment for goods (Net 30)? This means they have an effectively _negative_ cash conversion cycle, or in other words, their suppliers are paying to stock their products.
Everything about Costco's business model is backwards.
Buddha said life is "dukkha", a word that his listeners would have recognized as sounding like a wheel with the axle slightly out of true: "Duka-duka-duka"...
He indeed meant that life is suffering. English speakers today translate the word as "suffering", "pain", "disappointment", or perhaps "striving" (a sentiment you will find echoed in Ecclesiastes).
Buddha also spoke about the cause of suffering, and suggested that if you can escape from the cause, you can escape from the suffering.
I personally disagree with this advice: Why would I want to escape from love, hate, pain, joy, and everything else? But I don't disagree with the basic teaching. Everyone has a cross to bear.
