URLs du Jour

2006-11-21

  • The Forbes list of the 15 Richest Fictional People (via CfG).

    Funny coincidence that Oliver ("Daddy") Warbucks became a defense contractor. I mean, "Warbucks" … what are the odds?

  • Interesting story in USA Today (although, as I type, it's USA Day Before Yesterday) about the plans for a new dollar coin, which people are hoping will work where the Susie B Anthony and Sacagawea dollars failed. The new gimmick is that the dollars will feature ex-Presidents, four per year, from Washington (next year) up to Nixon (in 2016); later Presidents are as yet unscheduled.

    Emabarassing local connection: the usually-sensible Senator John E. Sununu (R-NH) was a driving force behind this silliness. Dollar coins are superficially neat, but require Your Federal Government to undertake a lot of social engineering to "encourage" people to use them. Left to their own devices, people prefer bills.

    The esteemed Weekend Pundit also has words on the matter, and advocates removing the dollar bill from circulation. WP is correct that the success of the dollar coin depends on dollar bills being made unavailable (as they did in Canada), and that replacing the dollar bill with the dollar coin would (probably) save the government money; unlike WP, Pun Salad does not think that necessarily settles the issue.

    In fact, the government profits from all currency issuance; this is called seignorage. It's just that they profit less from dollar bils than they would from dollar coins. How much should we care about that, given the obvious consumer preference for bills? Who's running this show anyway? And for whose benefit?

    (Previous Pun Salad post mentioning this issue is here.)

  • What are the biggest questions ever asked? Find out at the New Scientist, where they have an article titled 'The Biggest Questions Ever Asked', with links to further articles.

    I must quibble with the following, tho:

    What happens after you die? By Mary Roach

    We have all wondered if there is an afterlife, but only a few are brave - or foolish - enough to try and find out

    Well, actually everyone—brave, cowardly, foolish, wise—either already has, or will eventually, find out, whether they try or not.


Last Modified 2012-10-21 12:43 PM EDT