Wired.com ran a story today about a great new innovation over at speedtest.net. The site has jumped on the social networking bandwagon and is enabling nerds around the world to engage in the age-old tradition of measuring themselves against their peers. Now anyone can test their internet connection speed and post the results to facebook and even earn “badges” to show off their uber-fast connection to the digital universe.

Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart told a group at that National Association of Business Economics in Arlington, Va. that if the price of oil keeps climbing, the Fed will need to purchase more assets, or QE3.

A firm with 50 employees located in Reston, Virginia calls MERS claims to hold title to half of all the home mortgages (60 million) in America. That’s one big pile of paper for 50 employees to push around. MERS ( Mortgage Electronic Registration System) was created by Fannie and Freddie and the rest of the big mortgage players to make loan securitizarion easier and faster. Forget about the thousands of county recorders around the nation, MERS would make note assignments and recordings passe. This all worked out until borrowers quit paying.

Thanks to all the people who posted interesting comments on my post questioning the suitability of the term “spontaneous order”.

I’d also like to note that, the kind of problems that arise with words which, like “spontaneous”, convey a sense of automaticity with regard to the market is discussed by Mises in Human Action:

I have misgivings about the term. ”Spontaneous” can mean “impulsive” (as in “he spontaneously started dancing”), which is obviously unsuitable. In biology, it means “involuntary”, which also obviously doesn’t apply to human action. I suppose “without external cause” (as in “spontaneous combustion”) fits somewhat, because the direction of market activities occurs within the market and not outside of it.

Back in 1900 over 40 percent of the America’s workforce was employed in agriculture. One hundred years later the percentage had fallen to less than two percent. What happened was technology. Tractors, balers and fertilizer meant that yours truly despite growing up in farm country didn’t get stuck down on the farm.