I thought it was important to repost this considering Obama is supposed to “win by a landslide” but you never know what will happen. So if you live in a swing state… remember to go out and VOTE!
Man if you’ve been watching the news, you know what’s happening. It makes me so sad to look at my 401K. Good thing I’m young!
September Madness chart by Techcrunch - this is funny…it’s modeled after the march madness basketball brackets but is replaced with banks and government. The taxpayer isn’t on there…I guess that means there’s no way we’re going to win no matter what they do. bah!
Peter Schiff, economic adviser to Ron Paul predicts the economic situation we’re in now while the other guests on the show laugh at him. Btw, it was recorded less than 2 years ago.
I know the average american doesn’t understand what’s happening. It just looks like we’re bailing out these rich bankers from their mistakes but there is a bigger problem here.
Here is a great comment that I read on another blog that explains it pretty well for all of the naysayers:
The rest of you seem to think that because you have been responsible, you’ll be OK no matter what. So you are suggesting doing exactly what was done in 1929 — let investors lose their money and banks fail. You are essentially saying that Hoover policy - drive all the “rottenness out of the system” was correct even though most analysts agree that this is what caused The Great Depression. It took over 20 years, all the way to the 50s for the market to reach the same level it was at in 1929. Just the same level, no gain. Or have you all sold your stock two years ago? Do you think your job is secure and immune to this crisis?
I heard an old commentator on TV tell “when the market crashed in 1929, my father said ‘it serves them right’. A year later he had to close his business”. This is exactly what you are saying. Well, I hope a year from now you aren’t going to lose your job.
Even if you don’t work for banks, you are likely to be affected. Your company needs credit too. Oh yes, I know, according to some of you nobody is supposed to use credit. So do you think the companies shall just keep piles of cash lying in a vault earning nothing or just have it broken up in nice chunks of under 100K in multiple banks? No business can afford to do that. The cash is invested in the business. When a business needs to pay your salary it takes short term loans, then when it gets its revenue, it pays the money back. Without loans all business except for maybe some large cash-rich corporations (like the one I work for) can survive. But these corporation may be producing products that banks used to buy e.g. computers or furniture…. Without banks buying it, these companies will suffer to, laying off people and adding to unemployment. Currently there is almost total credit freeze - nobody lends money to anybody else. Many smaller businesses are having pretty hard time - businesses that had nothing to do with real estate or mortgages.
I also just love this “There is no reason to believe that these companies will change their ways”. What exactly is a company? Is it a single monolith? Is it one person? What percentage of the employees of any of these companies were involved in this type of decisions? Is a teller at a bank responsible? How about a database administrator? A network administrator? A computer programmer? Or a secretary to some manager? Think about thousands of people that were employed by some of these companies. How many of them do you think actually made the decisions that got us into this mess?
You are willing to “punish” thousands, maybe millions of people so that a few of those can “learn a lesson”? Newsflash. Those responsible for this crisis have already made millions and probably can retire nicely. You, on the other hands, may lose your jobs because the company you work for may have trouble getting credit it needs. Or because with so many unemployed people, there will be not many left who can afford to buy its products. Then you may have trouble finding another one because there are so many unemployed people around.
Oh right, all of these people were supposed to save money. Enough to live in for a few years of unemployment. What about young people? Those who graduated a year or two ago and still have student loans? They’ll be unemployed too.
Incidentally, unemployed people don’t pay taxes. What exactly do you think will happen with government budget with so many unemployed people? And how do you think FDIC will be handling bank failures after it runs out of reserves? Print more money? Here we go.
What about the real estate market? With the credit freeze as it is now, it’ll be extremely difficult to take mortgages. It already is. So the prices will fall. Good, right? Except for it’ll cause more foreclosures and more bank failures.
As Foobarista has already pointed out, the Great Depression had other effects as well. It spread to other countries. One of the countries it hit the hardest was Germany. Remember what happened next? Hungry people are ready to elect any charismatic leader who promises to feed them. Has anybody here ever experienced real hunger?
Yes Preston, your IDEALS are great - let thousands, maybe millions suffer just so we can punish a few wrong-doers. Are you sure you will not be affected?
- made by a person named Kitty (she did not leave a website or contact info)
As I’ve said before, I’m not really into politics but it’s just been so entertaining watching the McCain/Palin campaign. With every interview Palin does I feel worse and worse for her. I now see why they are limiting her access to reporters. With each question she answers (or actually doesn’t answer), it’s becoming more apparent that she has NO IDEA what she is even talking about half of the time. It’s so embarassing! Please America, don’t vote for this!
If you don’t want to watch the video, check out the excerpt highlighted on the america blog.
If you fly a lot or have ever experienced problems with an airline it’s really important that you know your rights! Here is a link to the Airline Passenger’s Bill of Rights. Bookmark this or read up at least on the hot topics that you might foresee having problems with so when it happens, you know what to do.
With the way the airline industry is today, the chances of you experiencing a problem are very high. Just the other weekend when I flew to Toronto, my fiance and I got INVOLUNTARILY bumped. We did not know our rights at the time so we did not argue very much. Now that I have read the rights and know that I’m entitled to compensation in the form of a voucher or cash, I can fight for what I’m due. I really wish I had known at the time, it would make this battle with customer service that much easier!!
As I’ve said before, United Airlines is the worse airline out there.
Connect2Elect - a website that will tell you who you should vote for based on your position on different issues. Glassbooth is another one.
About the Missouri Bellwether phenomenon where the state of Missouri has voted for the winner in every U.S. Presidential election beginning in 1904 except in 1956. In case you were wondering, supposedly Obama has the popular vote in Missouri.
Preacher killed his wife and stuffed her in the freezer for four years - To top it off, he was also abusing his 8 children! Can you imagine living in that house knowing your dead mom is in the freezer? *shudders*
Mother lies about 2 year old missing daughter - ok, it’s hard to give much details about this story because nobody’s talking and the whole story is full of lies after lies. All we know is a 2 yr old girl went missing about 6 weeks ago and the mother is in custody for neglect. She says she doesnt’ know where the girl is but she doesn’t seem worried at all. They even have pictures of her partying it up at a club a few days after her daughter goes missing. It’s the oddest story because nothing makes sense. You just have to follow the story from the start to understand what I’m talking about. All I know is I can’t wait for the DNA test to come back so we can finally figure out what/who was in the trunk!
BTW, i can’t stop watching Nancy Grace who has featured all of these stories and especially the last one. I don’t really like the way she reports the news but she is very engaging. It’s so annoying when every single one of her callers will call in and the first thing they say is some butt kissing comment to Nancy. Has anyone else noticed that? Is she paying people to call in or what?!
Anyways, the world is F-ED up….what’s it coming to?? I’m scared.
Just so you know, traveling sucks now. The last few times I flew there was no food and last I heard, they will soon be taking away the free beverage service! Which wouldn’t be so bad if we could bring liquids past the security checkpoint. MSNBC just put together a list of what exactly each airline offers in terms of food and beverage.
FYI the following airlines don’t even offer the bag of peanuts anymore: American Airlines, Frontier, Northwest, and Spirit (they even charge you for the beverage!)
I thought this webpage was so interesting to look at! It shows you how different groups voted during the Obama/Clinton race by state. The different groups include men, women, blacks, whites, age, salary, education. [Link]
Pick through the slag heap of the nation’s big network carriers and it’s easy to find the worst of the worst: United Airlines.
United’s day-to-day operations have also deteriorated markedly.
And in April, United’s overall on-time performance slumped to 72.7 percent, five points below the industry average and 18th among the 19 carriers tracked by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
As a result, United’s future as a going concern is an open question. One thing that isn’t in doubt, however, is the financial wherewithal of the airline’s upper management.
Wikis are everywhere and there is one for everything nowadays. Here are some of my favorites:
Wikipedia - Everybody knows about this website by now. It’s always the first place I check when I want to research/read more info about something. It’s mostly right. :)
WikiTravel - I’ve blogged about this website before but it’s worth mentioning again. Great resource for travelers!
WikiHow - Another one I link to a lot. This pretty much has a howto for everything.
CookbookWiki - everything to do with food and cooking…includes recipes, howtos, and tips
Wikimapia - This is a cool google mashup that lets people make comments about anyplace in the world.
Uncyclopedia - this is the funny/sarcastic version of wikipedia. always good for a laugh.
Mentat Wiki - this one is pretty cool. it has different methods on thinking and gives you tips for studying/memorizing. Great if you’re still in school.
Be sure to check out the video, it’s hilarious. First off…that kid is 7 yrs old?! He’s as tall as me (ok, that’s not saying much but still!). And there are some choice quotes in there like when he was asked if he should be punished and he replies “no videogames for a weekend”. haha. This kid has a bright future ahead of him.
One of the major stories from this week was about a 13 year old girl who had a school assignment to make a protest sign. She decided to make a sign that said “If you love our nation, stop illegal immigration.” The sign got passed around at lunch and supposedly a group of 20 latino kids started harassing her including beating her up and threatening to rape and kill her. You can read about the story here.
So guess what just came out? The girl FAKED the whole story. And get this, she caused the injuries to HERSELF and was caught on tape!!! I hope kids really do harass her now.
Qeeper - this is my shopping blog I run with my sister. Cute finds for under $30!
Artificial Christmas Trees - Bring a Treetopian Christmas to your home with Treetopia's artificial Christmas trees
