Our friends at Lucera are in number 6 for best use of HPC in a financial services category. Our Unison product is at number 11 for Best HPC Storage Product or Technology. And I did a write in for #21 for us :D. Our friends at Mellanox have their 100Gb EDR Infiniband technology at number 14. Please do vote (early, not often).

Detroit had filed for bankruptcy protection a while ago. The rationale for this was simple, they simply did not have the cash flow to pay for all their liabilities. They had limited access to debt markets for a number of reasons, and they couldn’t keep cranking up the taxes on residents and businesses in the city to generate revenue. They were between a rock and a hard place. I have a soft spot in my heart for Detroit.

For those who don’t get the reference, “going Galt” points back to the masterpiece novel “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand. In it, one of the characters is named John Galt, and part of what he does, early in the novel, is convince those whom create jobs, and wealth in the country, to abandon their efforts, as the government lurches harder and farther to the redistributionist world view. Indeed, the country eventually goes full on socialist in the story, where people are not allowed to quit work, take a better job, and so forth.

Lets see if this actually materializes. Its pretty obvious as to how hard the media folks tried to spin this with the title. A good rubric for how the US media treats the president and his opposition could be found in this cartoon. With that in mind, read the title of that article, and then note this little tidbit on the inside: Notice the scare quotes around the word treason. Treason has a very straighforward definition in the US Constitution.

This is sad. Here’s the really sad parts of this Not only did they close the parks, but they turned off the web sites The park employees are being ordered to make life as hard as possible for the patrons. None of this had to happen. Had the democrats decided that, ya know, in a political environment where negotiation is the key to advancing agendas, and not a burnt ground strategy, chances are they would be able to get some of what they wanted.

What many of us worried about years ago was whether or not we weer electing an empty suit to the highest political office in the land. Someone with no experience running anything. With no great accomplishments upon which to build. Simply a moderate orator with a teleprompter. 5 years in, our worst fears don’t even appear to scratch the surface of the failure that we have brought upon ourselves. This piece at the Wall Street Journal is so completely spot on.

is due, in significant part, to bad law and bad policy enshrined in law. Ideological view points are hard coded in the firmware of Michigan. Which allows lawsuits and results such as this. It cannot be overemphasized how bone-headed this particular law is. That one can never, under any circumstances, reduce pensioner benefit values. This means, if you ever struck a bad deal, like Detroit, and many others in Michigan have, you have no choice but to continue this bad deal for eternity.

This brings me no joy. I went to grad school in Detroit. I like this city. It has character, it has guts, it has potential. It also has no cash to continue operations. And that sucks. Detroit filed for chapter 9 bankruptcy a few hours ago. There are many reasons for this, but there are a number of specific ones, that are generalizable to businesses as well. First, population decline has led to a tax revenue decline.

Link here. Don’t want to tax ALL businesses … out of business? Just some of them? Are you mad? Are you freaking kidding me? Pulling my leg? Very sad. Very very sad. The government should be seeking to reduce taxes to make sure businesses grow, and hire, and spend. Mr. President, the entire role of government in business should be to get out of the way, lest you slow down growth, employment, and spending.

[Update] That didn’t take long. Looks like the government is angry about all of this. The leak of the leaks that is. And they are going to try to find the culprit, and prosecute them. Any “Mea Culpas” from them on the fact that this is … I dunno … illegal? Er … no. Most transparent admin … evuh??? I read something last week which made me laugh. It read “tomorrow is Thursday, time for a new scandal”.

Here in the US, we have a number of scandals brewing. Many of those for the party in control of the White House and the Senate would like to have you believe that these are in fact tempests in teapots. In this case, there are at least 2 Nixonian scandals going non-linear here, with a 3rd trying to break through. The political left is doing all it can to wave off one of them, though this is getting progressively harder by the day as more information comes out.

Yes, actually we do. Too many. Turns out that little law of supply and demand does in fact hold true. The higher the demand for something in limited supply, the higher the price (wages) you will pay for it. By applying forces to this law, you impact a number of outcomes. That is, if you start monkeying around with the supply, sure, you can adjust the price you pay for the STEM.

Watching the slow motion train wreck in Cyprus made me wonder exactly whom the target of the money grab was. And more importatly, whether or not the people making demands had any clue that their victory was, at best, Pyrrhic, and at worst, a serious contagion. Any financial system in operation is built upon various levels of trust, implicitly in the case of the least risky capital storage system. You know that you can trust, within reasonable expectations and parameters, that capital that you deposit there can be retrieved later.

Suffice it to say that much hot air was blown over the sequester in the media. Really, there was much tearing of clothes over this. Much righteous indignation that someone in government, somewhere, would have to make (not so very hard) decisions about where to trim budgets. We needed this, as the US government is so completely broken as to no be able to propose a reasonable budget, pass a reasonable budget, nor listen to and work with ideas from other portions of the legislative branch which want to work on reasonable budgets.

Dave Barry in his usual fine form … summarizes our year. The one take away should be … WHAP

[update] This pretty much says it all. [update 2] … and … they … fold. A bad deal, about to be voted into law. As they said, elections have consequences. Whatever happens, they (WH and Senate) now own it. No cuts, just taxes. Even though our problem is way too much spending and mis-targeted tax increases. Less than 10 hours into the new year for us here in GMT-5. There is some aspect of humanity whereby many view this as a hopeful time, a chance to “begin anew”.

is drinking your own koolaid, consuming your own product, believing the wishful thinking that underlies your most serious predictions. Like this. Just like in catastrophic AGW, there’s one single chart that belies all the claims as to how “well” the “stimulus” package did. Its a damning chart. Here it is. [ ](http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/11/is-this-as-good-as-it-gets-novembers-dismal-new-normal-jobs-report/) And worse, if you look at how the recovery compares to others … its not going very well at all.

… the game may be over. Ok, this is a very well written, and extremely cogent argument. Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, indicated why he’s not supporting Obama, and is endorsing Romney in the US Presidential election. His reasons boil down to a firing offense Mr. Obama committed (in Adams' opinion). More specifically, he indicates that he doesn’t like lots of Romney’s positions, but Romney hasn’t committed this particular offense. And specifically to the point of competence, Adams gets that Romney is a turn-around guy.

A few prefaces … First, I disagree with the premise throughout this article that our governor is timid. He is, IMO, and in many people’s opinion, doing a great job. Governor Romney is very similar to Governor Snyder in many ways. Timidity really isn’t apparent. I guess that people see someone making a cost-benefit analysis for engaging in a particular debate, or pushing for a particular outcome, and deciding to forgo a particular fight, as being timid.

[update] below the fold and video. I can only conclude at this point that the “don’t get it” disease runs deep and wide in this administration. [update 2] This at the WSJ encapsulates what we are observing. This has gone beyond painful to watch to embarrassing. The president now claims that his statements were sliced and diced. He now is saying that he believes that businesses built themselves, while claiming that his earlier statement was taken out of context.

And do it again, … sooooo …. a public works project (bridge, dam, …) is equivalent in his eyes to …. a risk an entrepreneur takes? Seriously? Erp …. its glaringly obvious whom does not have an understanding. The worker in the private sector, punches the clock BECAUSE somewhere, somewhen, the entrepreneur had the idea, took the risk, entirely upon themselves, and built something. The “public sector” is a cost, something to be kept as small as possible so as not to drive those paying the public sectors bills, into the poor house.

Wonderful post by Jim Pethokoukis, covering a talk made by Ronald Reagan years ago. and I will freely admit that I was (almost) completely wrong in my original impressions of Reagan. I had a different political outlook in those days, and I had trouble viewing the guy as getting it. But get it, he did. This change in perception comes mostly from a maturing and a rethinking of my own world view.

below the fold. Snarfed from many places on the net. Copyrights are owned by their respective owners. I don’t know all the correct attributions, so if you find/know of it, please let me know so I can correctly update the list. The few remaining defenders of this failed statement and meme are all parroting seemingly, the exact same talking points. Now why would that be? Most everyone else, regardless of political affiliation realizes what a complete mess this has become … well … those outside of the media.

[update] Good for them, the NFIB hits back, hard. No mental gymanstics required to correctly interpret what was said. Further they back it up with almost identical quotes from Elisabeth Warren herself, who appears to be the originator of this epic failure of a meme. This entire meme deserves all the derision being heaped on it. [update 2] And the pile on begins in earnest. James Pethokoukis (economics blogger and many other things) has some good comments of his own, as well as from others.