I want mine...

There is a new trend... in the news, around the house, even over dinner with friends... with massive amounts of federal money flowing in the name of the economic bail out, everyone is wondering about how they get their share? In some circles this may have always been a topic of conversation, but not so much in the circles I run in. This is new!

It might help if I described my friends and family; they are hard working - no excuse types of people. They pay their taxes, they manage their money, they don't whine (much), they are democrats and republicans, all sexes and orientations, and of many races... in other words I mingle with a healthy cross section of the U.S. population. I believe the people I associate with are a good representation of the hard working core of middle class America.

In our conversations we talk about the rich fat cats that are getting bailed out, we talk about the misinformed consumer (very gentle moniker) who overestimated their ability to pay for homes that were much too expensive, and we talk about the greedy middle men who set these deals up. But we have also talked about people who were relocated to an expensive area to keep a job, or entrepreneurs who took a risk in this greed fueled feeding frenzy to make a business work, and how their loss is our loss.

There is never a consensus about what steps Governments (lets bring our global partners into this, they are equally responsible) or individuals should take in the coming years, the economic crisis has put the personal interests of the very people who make the Government work at odds with the Government itself.

At the end of the conversation, one thing is always clear... we hate the idea that this crisis is going to be resolved at the expense of the people who were careful to make good choices and manage their lives according to their means. We don't like the idea that many greedy, irresponsible people are going to wind up with our tax dollars in their pockets. I just pray that we all have temperance to guide us in the coming years, because what ever happens we are not going to like the end result.

There is no "fair solution"; this crisis was brought about by greedy people taking advantage of ill informed people and the Government not enforcing the regulations. And as for my friends, we are not blameless, we sat and watched while our the cocoons we fought to build for ourselves were hijacked by greed and sloth.

Quote

"If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, 
you must first create the universe." -Carl Sagan

The campaign is over... Finally...

Even though we all must get used to having to watch regular television, drive the streets without campaign slogans, and in general re-engaging with our loved ones, none have it worse than the hard core Obama fans.  Check out this video from "the Onion"


Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

Lorne Michaels ... a Sarah Palin fan?

For all you Palin Nay sayers out there, check out this quote from Lorne Michaels of Saturday Night Live after she appeared on SNL...

"What do you think Palin gained from her appearance?
I think Palin will continue to be underestimated for a while. I watched the way she connected with people, and she's powerful. Her politics aren't my politics. But you can see that she's a very powerful, very disciplined, incredibly gracious woman. This was her first time out and she's had a huge impact. People connect to her." (EW.com from entertainment weeky)

This isn't what you hear most of the liberal media saying... Check it out...

The current financial Meltdown is Jimmy Carter's fault!

while listening to Rick Roberts on the way into work this Morning, I caught his summary of an Article in the "News BLAZE," going over the history of our current financial Meltdown meltdown. Its very interesting that both Bill Clinton & George W. Bush tried to correct the situation but were thwarted by liberals in congress.

P. Diddy Examines John McCain, Proclaims Him “Buggin’ the F**k Out”

P. Diddy Examines John McCain, Proclaims Him “Buggin’ the F**k Out”

I feel much better about Obama now that I've watched this...

Posted using ShareThis

Its a small world... economically speaking.

While sweating on the elliptical trainer, I had the opportunity to listen Thomas Mayer, chief European economist talk about the Macro Economic situation in Europe. Well it appears that Despite the strong Euro, the Europeans are having problems of their own. Dr Mayer laments the fact that the grand European experiment is hitting some rough spots. It appears that Europe's schizophrenic approach to separating fiscal and monetary policy has caused inflation in many parts of Europe and recession fears in other areas. In other words without control of the fiscal policies of the member countries, the ECB can't take any action right now without hurting some of it's members.

Even though the ECB has maintained interests rates at a higher level than the U.S. Central bank, the European's recent growth, like the U.S., has been fueled by highly leveraging credit. The result is that the Europeans are looking at the same credit crunch as the U.S. but without having benefited from a period of sustained low interest rates.

Most folks reading this are well aware of the situation the U.S. finds itself in... with a slowing economy and a bursting credit bubble, we've got a long way to go before we are back to boom times.

And China is no better off, being the owner of much of the Debt generated in the U.S. and Europe over the last decade, they can't even spend the money they have in reserve for fear it will cause either the U.S. economy of the European economy to take a dive. And what good is money if you can't spend it?

A new strategy for McCain?

While the recent events in the presidential race have been slow lately I think McCain has stumbled on a winning strategy.

Just shut up!

It seams that when McCain is quiet and Obama does all of the talking, McCain narrows the gap. If you look at Real clear politics polls you can pick out the periods when McCain is out in front stumping his brains out and the periods where the media is ignoring him because he does better when the media is completely focused on Obama (like his trip to the Middle East)

Check it out



If you look at the far right edge of the above snapshot, you'll notice how successful the Britney and Paris adds were

The real reason for line standing

Over the weekend I had to buy some new clothes. I hate shopping so when I have to buy clothes that means that my old ones are nearly falling apart. So I hit my favorite spots; unfortunately they are everyone's favorite spots so the lines were long.

While standing in line, I struck up a conversation with a very attractive young lady from Zimbabwe. At first we were talking about goofy stuff like golf gifts lining the queue. But then it came up that she was here for a semester to begin her graduate study in law, piquing my curiosity. What does a law student from Zimbabwe think about our culture and our legal system?!? As we continued through the queue, she explained how she was amazed about how well the law works here in the U.S. and observed that even though the police are not ubiquitous, and apparently way under armed (only service revolvers in most cases, no AK-47's) she felt safe. I hypothesized that it was because we have a functioning independent court here in the U.S., her reaction was one of surprise, like the concept had not ever been mentioned before.

About that time, the checker was calling for the next person in line (her) and then it was my turn. A tremendously interesting conversation was ended much to soon. The more I travel, the more I talk to people from other cultures, the more I appreciate our form of Government. Every encounter leaves me amazed by the perfect storm that occurred in the years around 1776 that brought together a group of inspired Geniuses to create these United States.

Mérida Initiative

In my last post (I know it was a long time ago) I mentioned the Mérida initiative and the rising death toll in Mexico's struggle to reform itself, Since that time I have come across this additional information from the Mexico Institute on providing an overview of the Mérida initiative. This article gives an overview of the plan including to the Mexican legal system, establishment of a non-corrupt Mexican FBI, and an accounting of the 500M of aid sent to Mexico each year under the program to purchase things like helicopters for use in drug enforcement.

The bad news is that my last post under reported the number of murders and assassinations carried out by the drug cartels who will stop at nothing to derail the reforms. If Mexico eliminates corruption, the drug families will have a much more difficult time exploiting the Mexican people as they cash in on the American appetite for illegal drugs.

Every Californian should understand what the Mérida initiative means to our economy, safety, and overall well being.

The heck with Iraq, the war we need to watch is just south of us.

There is a tremendous amount of blather on the airwaves about what we should do in Iraq when we should be watching the war waging just south of us in Mexico. I'm not talking about illegal aliens, that has been sooo overdone, the people I'm worried about don't have to worry about crossing the boarder, their credentials are rock solid. In case you haven't figured it out by now, I'm worried about the toll the drug cartels are taking against the people and Government of Mexico. The roughly 28 prominent families that run the drug trade in Mexico have declared open season on anyone who would deny them their access to the valuable U.S. illicit drug market. According to the San Francisco Chronicle (I hate quoting these guys) the death toll in the war against drugs last year topped 2000! In other words, you don't have to travel to Iraq to put your life at risk, just travel south.

This explosion in violence has been largely in response to the crackdown on Government Corruption by the Felipe Calderon Government. Calderon has been doing some major house cleaning in the judicial, police and military forces in an attempt to bring Mexico out of its second class economic status. This is important to us, because the sooner we get Mexico's economy on line, the sooner we will be able to control the boarder and all of the crime that comes with having a porous boarder.

A good source of information on the topic has been Strategic Forecasting Inc. The often have good articles on Mexico's heroic efforts to control corruption. Also keep an eye on the Merida Initiative as it could be the key to our security in this hemisphere.

Military history in food

This video is an entire course in Military history, combined with international cooking. I've got to talk to the Dean to see if we can get this added to the cirriculm.

I had the privilege to listen to listen to a presentation by David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States on his last day in office. He took the opportunity to go over a presentation that he has given in various forums over the past few months to explain how his generation, the baby boomers, have not been good stewards of our economy. He is concerned that, if things don't change, we will not be able to sustain our economy or our current standard of living. If his predictions are correct, the baby boomers will be the first generation in American History to leave the economy in worse condition than they found it.

The graph below is is one of the first in his discussion of trends in federal spending.

Click on the slide to view the entire brief. Shows the growth of mandatory spending compared to discretionary spending such as defense

As you go through the brief, keep in mind

• We are paying compounded interest on our growing debt
  
• We are a rich nation today because nations around the world believe that we are a good economic risk, and spend lots of money in the U.S.
  
• The U.S. economy would be in grave danger if the markets were to flee the U.S. dollar because we were no longer a safe investment

One last slide from his brief to help make the point.

In this slide Walker makes the point that the U.S. spending is already exceeding revenue, and if no action is taken by 2040, we will not have enough revenue to cover some of our mandatory obligations (like Medicare & Medicade) and discretionary spending such as National Defense and Diplomacy . Sad to say, if our economy gets to the 2040 scenario, the average American will have more to worry about than medical coverage and national defense.

Mr Walker presented a compelling argument for fiscal reform and restraint, I encourage everyone to check out his briefings posted on the GAO site and watch as he transitions into the private sector.

Did Enron Kill Innovation in America?

I was fortunate enough to sit through a presentation of a venture capitalist, I can't say who or what company because we operate on the principle of non attribution (you get better info that way). She had several extremely interesting points that I will attempt to weave together to get a little closer to the answer...

Up until 2003, IPO's were among the best ways for a company to acquire the funding needed to further a good idea. Granted there were several bad ideas that went public on the stock exchange but they were quickly weeded out by market forces. The bottom line is that IPO's are a great, market driven way for companies to raise money.

Sarbanes Oxley has increased auditing burden placed on public companies and discourages IPOs for companies less than 200 Million dollars in annual revenue because of the huge cost. To comply with the SOX (AKA Sarbanes Oxley), companies must hire a staff of auditors, accountants and attorneys to ensure their continued compliance with the new laws designed to prevent fraud in corporate America.

Congress mixed up market exuberance with fraud when they created SOX. Market exuberance is a natural psychological element of a market. Simply stated; when people get excited about an idea they throw their money at it. If the idea is really good it becomes self sustaining, making its investors a nice profit. If its not so good it falls short, costing the investors their stake in the company.

• This is good!
• This is Capitalism!
• This is what our economy is built on!

Fraud is when people with malice of forethought enter into an agreement with the intention of bilking their counterparts in the agreement out of their stake. This was the case with Enron, MCI and others in the early 00's.

• This is Fraud!
• This is Criminal Behavior!
• Protection from fraud is one of the most important roles a Government can have in a market based economy!

SOX was put in place in response to Corporate Fraud to protect investors from the massive criminal behavior observed in the Enron scandal. Unfortunately, Congress didn't take into consideration the second order effect that it would have on the American entrepreneur. We should re-look at SOX and ask our selves these questions:

• Is SOX making it to expensive for startups to access public funds?
• Is the reduced availability of venture capital hindering inventors and entrepreneurs?
• Did Enron start a chain reaction that will stifle a major American Innovation Engine?

More on Traffic

The guys over at cognitive daily noticed that even under perfect conditions where everyone is trying to avoid traffic jams that traffic jams occur.




So remind me again why we're not required to telecommute more? It seems that the human race is just a little to uncoordinated to handle driving without traffic jams.

China's Competitive Advantage

Check out the Chinese Scaffolding:


Chinese Welding Mask:

Chinese Hard Hat:


Chinese Particle Free Breathing:


One thing we forget when we talk about how scary China is, the Chinese people are all just trying to make a living for their families. The above are some pictures from a Chinese shipyard, they obviously want to get home to their families and friends (or they would not be doing the weird things in the picture to protect themselves) just like we do here in the U.S. . Unfortunately, the workers in China are forced to take the same types of risks that our forefathers took for us over the past centuries.



Building a country is hard work, it takes great sacrifice by all of a country's citizens. I just pray that the Chinese Government is working as hard as its people to build the Civilization that its citizens deserve.

Solution for frustrating Bureaucracy

When I first moved back here to the Washington area I hypothesized that one of the reasons that our Government was so illogical was that our law makers are forced to drive on the hairball of a road system that surrounds the Washington D.C. area. It's not like California, where everything is laid out on a grid, and the shortest distance between to points is a straight line. Here goat paths, that have been in existence for centuries, are paved over and now make up the roadways. I can't tell you how many times I have been on a road, could see my destination and the road leading up to the destination and still had to drive 10 miles to get there.

I wonder if we straightened out the roads in Washington DC if our bureaucracy would become more straight forward and transparent?!?

The official Pentagon Blog site

Check out the new link to the DoD Blog feed on the right of the screen, I believe that it is staffed by the pentagon Public Affairs Office and caries the pentagon's latest releases to the world wide web. As far as I know it is the only public site at the pentagon. There is lots of cool stuff there so Check it out.

How does Google make so much #@#$ without charging us?

Wired magazine just published an article about the search engine industry by Chris Anderson, the author of "the long tail", called "Free". The article goes into how Google pioneered the use of Cross subsidy advertising to provide unbelievable service to its customers for FREE. It also explains why Google keeps giving us more stuff like google earth, google docs, and Grand Central (Someone click the Call me button!) all for free. Check out the article its well worth the read.

This new service is like "Got V-Mail" advertised on FOX. But this is free and offered by Google! They are accepting beta testers now, so get you phone number quickly.

I've got it installed on my more random, sometimes tech focused blog "Mobloggin"