08:48 – We decided not to continue our subscription to Acorn TV beyond the 30-day free trial. There’s just not enough content there to make it worth our while. It’s not the price, which is only $3/month or $30/year. It’s the hassle of figuring out what’s on when on Acorn and keeping track of what we’ve watched on Acorn streaming versus what we’ve watched on Netflix streaming. If Acorn had any sense, they’d offer to merge their content with Netflix’s in return for a small monthly license payment, maybe $0.10/month per Netflix subscriber. Acorn would make more money without having to run its own streaming operation, and Netflix’s catalog would improve. My guess is that Acorn hasn’t done that because they have the rights to stream the material themselves but not to sub-license it. None of this would be a problem if the powers that be would just rationalize copyright, reducing it to one year at most and then putting everything into the public domain.
Colin has a new little friend. He now likes to visit Sophie, Kim’s five-month-old Yorkshire Terrier puppy. The two of them go tearing around in circles in Kim’s front yard, with Sophie chasing Colin and Colin trying to herd her. She’s fast for a little girl. The expression on his face the other day was priceless when Sophie ran between his front legs, underneath the length of him, and back out between his back legs. At first, Kim was afraid Sophie would get hurt playing roughly with Colin, but he’s very careful not to step on her. She’s about the size of Colin’s head, maybe four pounds or so, but she’s fearless. Periodically, the action stops when Colin goes into his herding crouch. Sophie walks over to him and they touch snouts. Then she reaches up and licks his nose.
11:30 – I see that the Portuguese government is on the verge of collapsing, which calls into question the Troika’s continuing bailout. If Portugal, like Italy, is unable to form a new government quickly, it’s likely that Draghi’s promised unlimited backstopping of Portugal’s sovereign bond yields will not be honored, thereby putting Portugal quickly into default. Germany is fed up with paying the bills of the southern tier, and at some point will simply refuse to continue doing so. Merkel wants the election this autumn out of the way first, but her voters are growing increasingly restless. At some point, the whole house of cards is going to come tumbling down. It’s possible that Portugal will cause that to happen, but I think it’s more likely that Italy will be the straw that breaks the camel in half. An increasing number of economists are betting that Italy will be the first eurozone country to depart the euro, although Portugal, Spain, Cyprus, and Slovenia are also likely candidates. Greece, of course, is hanging onto the euro for dear life. Without the euro, Greece is completely toast. Of course, with the euro, Greece is also completely toast.