Zakaria: The real burden on the U.S. economy

The United States isn’t broke. Taxes are at a historic low and have been that way for many years. The United States is one of the highest ranking countries for being business friendly, especially with low regulation and has been that way for many years.

What is hampering the U.S. Economy? Trends over many years of the United States not improving ( or maintaining ) its infrastructure, not investing enough in education and increased consumer spending at the cost of savings.

From Wikipedia

Fareed Rafiq Zakaria is an Indian-American journalist and author. From 2000 to 2010, he was a columnist for Newsweek and editor of Newsweek International. In 2010 he became Editor-At-Large of Time magazine. He is also the host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS, and a frequent commentator and author about issues related to international relations, trade and American foreign policy. In 2010, the government of India honored him with the Padma Bhushan for his contribution towards journalism.

New Habits. 21, 66, or 256 Days?

Jeremy Dean

The link below goes to an interesting article by  blogger Jeremy Dean. Though Jeremy Dean works in the IT industry, he has a graduate degree in psychology and based his blog post on a well cited study.

There is a folklore on the internet “that it takes 21 days to form a habit”.

That is, you have to do something new for 21 days before it begins to feel automatic, before it has momentum, before it FEELS easier to do than not to do.

According to Dean this is not true. This idea came from a pop self-help book author who wrote the famous “Psychocybernetics”( postive thinking).  Maltz, the author, was a plastic surgeon who observed that amputees would feel phantom limbs for up to 21 days after the loss of a limb.

The study that Dean looked at said that establishing “automaticity” ( a habit feeling more natural to do than not ) varies by person and by new habit. There comes a point where a new habit comes to feel as natural, as “automatic”, as it is ever going to feel.   For some people and some changes,  this  point of  “automaticity” can take up to 256 days to reach.   The average was 66 days for most people and most habits.:

How Long To Form A Habit?

 

CCF: Corporations Spoofing As Non-Profits

The Center For Consumer Freedom is a non-profit group under Rick Berman( pictured above ).    The CCF was formed and funded by a number of large corporations( Philip Morris Tobacco, Cargill Processed Meats,  Monsanto and about 97 others).   Their stated purpose is to preserve the freedom of consumers to choose the products they want.   In reality they attack non-profit groups that publish information which may convince consumers not to buy their products.   The Center For Consumer Freedom has a reputation for dirty tricks.

Rick Berman, who opposed regulation of puppy mills ( factory farms for dogs ), defended the clubbing of baby seals in Canada and is for allowing American horses to be slaughtered for export meat has formed the phony organization  called “Humane Society for Shelter Pets”.   The purpose of “Humane Society for Shelter Pets” is  to turn local animal shelters against The Humane Society Of The United States ( HSUS ) by advocating that the money people donate to HSUS should go to local animal shelters instead.   Berman is doing this because he knows that local animal shelters do not threaten the corporate interests of his sponsors and that the activism of the HSUS does by going to the root of animal welfare problems in the United States.

This action by Berman would be similar to the actions of a man who wanted to keep a poor country poor.   Instead of funding soup kitchens, education and the creation of jobs,   such a person would make a phoney organization called “American For The Relief Of Poverty” and try to anger people into not supporting education and the creation of new jobs by claiming that such support would diminish the support for soup kitchens.   In reality,  supporting education and job creation would get rid of the poverty that would make soup kitchens necessary, while supporting only soup kitchens would keep a poor country poor.

Don’t be fooled.

You can find out more about this issue on the here.