Stock Market, Investing, Finance, Ecomony, Software, Political - News and Opinions

Guaranteed High Mileage Car Sales Boosting Plan

2009-06-09T11:15:00.004-04:00

Forget Tax Incentives...
It should be rather clear by now that the average United States consumer has little concern for vehicle mileage when purchasing a car; at least, that is, until the price of gasoline is absolutely oppressive. And, tax incentives for hybrid vehicles and the like make little difference too. Doing what is "right" for the environment just does not seem to matter either.

So, how do we encourage people to save gasoline and purchase high-MPG cars over larger, more powerful models? Simple...

Mileage Incentives that Consumers
can Understand and Appreciate
I was just thinking about this the other day, and the answer became quite clear to me. The average person needs something TANGIBLE and right "there and now" to remind them why they chose to save gasoline with a high-miles-per-gallon vehicle, and the answer is this:

THE GOVERNMENT CAN MASSIVELY INCREASE THE PACE OF ADOPTION OF EFFICIENT VEHICLES BY GRANTING THE OWNERS THE "PRIVILEGE" TO LEGALLY DRIVE 15-20MPH OVER THE POSTED SPEED LIMITS ON HIGHWAYS (only highways) IF THE CAR THEY ARE DRIVING IS RATED AT OVER 50MPG HIGHWAY. PERIOD. HIGH-MPG CARS WILL SPEED (literally) OUT OF DEALER PARKING LOTS!

Sure, going faster will burn a (bit) more gasoline, but not much. I do not believe the hogwash that every 5MPH increase in speed decreases mileage 10 percent, because I have tested this with every car I have owned and have seen negligible impact from even a 10MPH difference in average speed over the same driving course of enough length to test completely. Not to mention, that bit of false information implies that if you doubled your speed, you would essentially get zero gas mileage. Ridiculous! And, regardless, people would be STILL be saving gasoline in a large way on the highway (compared to their current cars), and also consider how the "free pass to speed" is only valid on larger highways... the cars would save a LOT of gasoline everywhere else they are driven too.

So, come on government, incentive smaller, more efficient cars, in a way that the average consumer can quickly understand and embrace. When that consumer walks into the showroom and looks at the tiny little car that can get 50 or 60MPG, and then, with great surprise, again asks the salesperson: "So, you are telling me that if I buy THIS car, I can drive 15MPH (or 20?) over the posted speed limit on all Interstates and 4-lane highways, without getting a ticket for it?...(yes)... you are sure?... (yes)... I WILL TAKE ONE NOW!". Can you imagine how many people with long commutes, or traveling salespersons, etc., would want to suddenly save on gasoline by getting a high-MPG car?

Food for thought people... just thinking out of the box a bit. Though, dreaming is more like it :)

SQL2008 SP1 (Service-Pack) Released

2009-04-10T23:45:00.005-04:00

In case you happen to be an enthusiast of Microsoft's newest SQL-Server Database software - SQL Server 2008 - you may be interested in knowing the latest Service Pack 1 for SQL2008 is now available. What you may not care to know is how small the list of new features is with this SP1 package -- it is mainly a cumulative bug-fix release.

Microsoft sums up the new features with three bullet points, that are essentially the following (which, I see potential in at least two items):

You can "slipstream" a SQL Server 2008 update and the original installation media so that original media and the update [presumably Service Pack 1 for example] are installed at the same time in future installs. Slipstreaming is an installation method that integrates the base installation files for a program with its service packs and enables them to be installed in a single step. The [SQL-Server 2008] update setup documentation available from the SQL Server Download Center has the most recent description of the slipstream process [including SP1 changes that make slipstreaming SQL2008 SP1 possible]. I plan to try this out soon using SQL-Server 2008 Developer Edition with SP1 as my slipstreamed update of choice. I really hate having to install Microsoft products and then apply all sorts of Service Packs and updates in addition (which of course means, more installation time, more reboots, and correspondingly more system down time), so this is quite welcome!
SQL Server 2008 SP1 now introduces the ability to uninstall cumulative updates or service packs via Programs and Features in Control Panel. I have not tried this yet; I will take their word for it, though I can only imagine the horror stories that will appear on blogs in the near future when people attempt to do this :)
SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1 provides a ClickOnce version of Report Builder 2.0. [my only comments: I have no idea what this is or why I even should care... I build databases, not reports, using SQL-Server; when I need reports, I use a "real" report builder that has wide adoption and a longer track record... at least for now]

SQL-Server is my favorite Microsoft software application, as I find it to be an incredibly robust relational database platform that is not only powerful and fast, but one that is easy to fully exploit from a software-developer's standpoint. Although it can handle very large databases (10's and even 100's or more Gigabytes in size), it is still quite manageable without a full time dedicated DBA (presuming your database and procedural code and queries are designed properly).

SQL2008 is yet another solid version of this database platform, and surely deserves a look if you have not upgraded from SQL2000 or SQL2008 (if you are using a version older than either of those, well, you are simply insane).

Now, I will look forward to SQL-Server 2008 SP2, or perhaps SQL-Server 2008 SP3 to introduces some nifty new features that may be more enticing to me as a database designer and database software developer. I expect the SQL-Server 2008 SP2 Release Date will be long ways off yet, and I suspect it will not even come until 2010. So, for now, off to play with SQL2008 SP1 I go...

Mortgage / Refinance Rates - Home Equity, Conventional, etc

2009-04-06T23:24:00.005-04:00

With mortgage interest rates being at super-low, rock-bottom, and certainly historically low levels, I have recently been thinking about how these rates really filter down to the consumer. I see home equity loan interest rates advertised as low as under 4 percent, though I am having a hard time determining if those are fixed-rate home equity loans (since they are quoted as Prime plus 3.25% or so), or whether, after taking out the loan, those rates are variable rate loans or somehow "float" over time.

I have seen 30-year fixed rate mortgage interest rates advertised at under 5% recently, though most often only if points and the like are paid (no-point loan rates seem to be just above 5% still regardless of all this talk I hear on TV of sub-5-percent loans).

Well, fact of the matter is that anything down in this range is quite reasonable considering the history of mortgage rates in the United States over the past decades. I remember the rates being quite high in the late 1970's and even through the late 1980's and early 1990's (my first home loan rate was something like 10.5% back then!!!), and it really is just amazing how people complain about "high interest rates" being anything over 5% (yes, I have heard people complain about this) even as I had to pay on a loan at twice that rate.

I calculated the other day how, if I purchased the same house now as compared to 20 years ago, I could have a payment that is literally just over HALF the amount of payment I had to make back then, and this is not even inflation-adjusted. If you throw inflation adjustment into the mix, the current-day mortgage payment would be essentially 1/4 to 1/3 of the payment. As such, I am just amazed that the housing market is still completely terrible. Sure, jobs are a major consideration, but wow... how much lower can rates go?!

I can not help thinking that it only makes sense to perhaps "step up" to a larger home or bigger yard or whatever while these lowest mortgage rates, lowest refinance rates, and lowest home equity rates in *forever* are available. I like my current house and yard, but I sure am feeling the "itch" to make a step-up now if I can.

The job market is bound to remain shaky, unemployment is sure to stay elevated for a while, but there is also one HUGE amount of fiscal stimulus in play (think: the Federal Reserve printing tons of money - TRILLIONS), that should get things flowing eventually. The only question is how long it will take for the Fed's, and Treasury's, massive injection of stimulus to start causing inflation. IF one would know that inflation is inevitable (especially re-inflation of some intensely-depressed home prices), then it would only make financial sense to purchase a property now, while interest rates are low, and hope for perhaps just a modest rise in interest rates coupled with a more substantial rise in home prices... that way, in theory, you can pay off the mortgage with post-inflated dollars.

But, who knows. Theory just does not seem to be panning out, since if it was, all this dollar-printing would drive interest rates higher (instead of lower) and also cause the US Dollar to devalue (versus getting "stronger" as everyone does the whole "flight to safety" thing). Macroeconomics, per what we were taught in College, is simply out the window lately, and this makes it tough to know whether these lowest mortgage rates, refinance rates, home equity rates, etc are all worth pursuing. arhghghgh. I need a crystal ball!

10 Trillion and Counting - PBS Frontline

2009-03-25T11:19:00.003-04:00

Did you see the 10 Trillion and Counting episode of PBS's Frontline last night (March 24, 2009 episode) that discusses the ENORMOUS NATIONAL DEBT and DEFICIT SPENDING AS AMASSED UNDER PRESIDENT BUSH (Jr.). OH MY GOD!

Watching this episode about the explosion of the Debt under GW, and the constant tax-cuts, entitlement program expansion (to garner votes) like Medicare-partD, and ignoring all advice to the contrary (including firing Treasury Secretary Paul Oneil when he advised otherwise)... it was somewhat like watching the darkest comedy ever.

Watching the Repubs (Repugs!) argue (during GW's term) that tax cuts and spending were needed to grow the economy... but, as soon as Barack wins office, they turn around and say the opposite with regards to spending, but persist with tax-cuts rhetoric even though CLEAR PROOF of outcome exists. Massive transfer of wealth to the top couple percent of incomes, and a fall in real-wages for most Americans (for the first time ever during an "economic growth period"). Unreal. MORONS!

The bottom line is that, given our spending habits, and our inability to deal with the fact that we can not continue to grow purely on credit, we are SO COMPLETELY HOSED as a country. This country is in such a state of denial.... DOOMED!

The national debt is likely to surpass GDP by 2017 if not sooner. Entitlement programs will consume the ENTIRE tax-intake of the Federal Government in the not too distant future also, as Baby boomers get their "benefits" (which were handed out for votes en masse during the past few decades).

Sadly, those "benefits" and promises were a big pile of garbage,... much like a Madoff Ponzi-scheme, where promises of huge returns (in this case, huge benefits including prescription drug benefits without any minimum-cost-negotiation clauses), are not met with ANY way to fund the expense required to actually deliver on those promised "benefits".

We are a country in DEEP DENIAL. We want it all. We feel entitled to it all. We want low taxes. But yet we want government spending on all sorts of entitlements. President Bush (Jr.) is sure to go down as the President that essentially sealed the fate on the United States sliding downward thanks to complete disregard for fiscally sound financial policy. He NEVER vetoed a single spending bill or tax-decrease -- the result: a huge explosion and doubling of the National Debt.

And, now the same Republicans that backed that agenda take issue with spending in order to (attempt to) avert total economic disaster. Unreal. Well, at least their core constituency (i.e., upper income brackets) fared quite well during Bushonomics, and should be in a better position to weather the storm! Mark my words: the ones that will benefit the most in the next decade are those upper 1% of income persons that paid the lowest tax ever on their incomes (during Bush Jr.) that will now use their "haul" to purchase depressed assets for pennies on the dollar and make out like bandits when the economy starts moving again. What a lovely cycle. I can nearly guarantee that wealth in this country will be even further consolidated among the top few percent, since there will undoubtedly be huge resistance to ANY tax "increases" (even though it could simply be returning tax rates to where they were during Clinton's term perhaps).

You can watch the episode online at pbs.org if you care.

Software Bloat: Acrobat Reader Executable Size Growth over the years

2009-03-11T10:52:00.005-04:00

Does this image say it all? Since I develop various software applications that, among other things, create reports in Adobe's Acrobat / PDF format, I tend to keep quite a few versions of Acrobat reader around for testing my program output with. And, I just could not help laughing when I looked at my file-server's Acrobat Reader executable programs directory, where, since 1997, I have accumulated versions of Acrobat Reader 3.2, 4.0, 5.0, 6.01, 7.05, 8.12, 9.0, and now the newest addition of Acrobat Reader 9.1

Check out the Software Bloat factor in Acrobat Reader over the years:

What started as a simple utility to display PDF files (Portable Document Format files from Adobe), has grown from an under 4Megabyte (MB) installation program to a whopping 42MB installation for Adobe Acrobat Reader 9.1 - which now includes things like Adobe Air and Acrobat.com and all sorts of other ridiculous crap.

I find this all crazy... how a PDF-Reader application can grown 10-TIMES in size (for the installer executable download) in a period of 12 years. Sure, it is no worse than Microsoft Windows or most other major applications that also seem to grow by orders of magnitude over the years, but why?

Is there really that much more functionality in the applications these days to justify this explosive file-size increase, or is it lazy software develoment, a lack of tuning, a lack of focus on clean and efficient code and re-use, or a combination of all the above? It is just hard to accept (for me) why a program designed to allow me to view PDF files on any computer must require a 40MB Download (I will not even get into how insanely large the post-installation size-requirements for this application are!).

I remember the days when I had an entire operating system (on a TRS-80) running in a mere 32K of RAM with simple word-processing programs, games, and the like. Sure, those programs were much simpler, and did not have modern GUI desktops and flash, but the entire OS AND PROGRAMS ran in 1/1000th the memory that this latest Acrobat Reader intallation program download is. Unreal.

This begs the question: what will Acrobat Reader 10 be like, or Acrobat Reader 11, or Acrobat Reader 12, or Acrobat Reader 13, or Acrobat Reader 14, etc... will we hit a ONE GIGABYTE download for their future PDF reader eventually? Given the history, file sizes have gone up to nearly 11-times their size in about the same number of years, and the version numbers at about 1 for every 2 years... so, in a decade, expect a 1/2-GB install of Acrobat Reader 14! It is coming! And, you will be using it (note: I use Acrobat Reader nearly daily; many people do)

Mark-to-Market Solution : Mark-to-Moving-Average

2009-03-10T13:15:00.005-04:00

I am of the opinion that, although mark-to-market (M2M) valuation principles make sense in some accounting situations where asset and financial-instrument market prices are readily obtained (on open exchanges - like commodity exchanges, ForEx, etc), this M2M accounting methodology does not make much sense for assets like homes and property, where the prices of those assets at any given time is hard to accurately value. I'd go as far as to place that *value* reference I made (in prior sentence) in quotation marks; i.e., they are assets which are hard to determine a "value" for at any point in time, because there is not always a willing seller and/or buyer for the assets, or an agreement on the value-point at which a buyer and seller would "value" the asset at the same price.

Mark-to-Market accounting is in the news a lot these days due to the SEC, and other regulatory body, requirements for banks and other financial institututions and the like to "value" their assets on a mark-to-market (M2M) basis. Well, this is creating a LOT of problems for Banks, Insurance Companies, and many other firms, as it is not just difficult to ascertain the current "value" of all assets held in a portfolio (be it loans, property, or even bonds for which there is no *current* market).

How does one determine the value for assets (like Sub-Prime mortgages or such) that there is no current buyer for? Is a financial firm simply to be forced to "value" all their loans at what is essentially fire-sale (or lesser) values of barely pennies on the dollar because there is no *current* buyer for those instruments? Many of these loans have some physical property behind them (i.e., homes), and most of those homes are NOT worth just a few cents on the dollar. Sure, there has been a huge decline in the underlying home prices and value of other assets subject to M2M accounting, but there were also nearly equally inflated prices in these assets over the past few years (which helped encourage the "Bubble" and ensuing financial crisis).

FIXING MARK-TO-MARKET ACCOUNTING!
So, let's address the pitfalls of mark-to-market accounting now, with a solution that considers the fact that quickly-rising asset prices (that can lead to financial "bubbles") are as bad (or certainly precipitators) of bubbles that result in quickly-falling asset prices.

I see an EASY solution to all of this mess: simply value assets using a MOVING-AVERAGE, and perform a "mark to moving average" accounting strategy to "smooth" values over time. Why do assets need to always be valued as of "right now", when such a strategy encourages panic as rapid oscillations occur when there is an imbalance between the supply-side and demand-side (i.e., sellers and buyers) of assets that lead to excessively inflated or deflated "values" when looking at "value" as a point-in-time evaluation.

Recently, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has suggested that regulators need to examine mark-to-market accounting during financial crises like the one we are currently experience, but he also rejected calls for immediate suspension of mark-to-market practices. He discussed how, when markets for certain financial-vehicles/assets "dry up", that mark-to-market can be misleading (note to Ben: during upward bubbles, mark-to-market can contribute to over-enthusiasm too, as balance sheets start looking exceptionally great as "value" rises extraordinarily fast; see past 7 years for reference).

So, please, someone from the Federal Reserve, SEC, FDIC, GAAP, or other regulatory and accounting-policy-setting players: consider something like a "mark-to-market-moving-average" strategy. The moving-average TERM will certainly need to be debated (e.g., does a 5-year moving-average home sales-price in a region work well, or a 3-year, or a 10-year?), as does the data to be used in calculating such averages (various home-price surveys, sales data, etc.). The longer-term TRENDS and moving-average historical-values are what matters more than anything for determining fair "value" for many assets.

Fact is, right now, average-selling-price is nearly useless as an indicator, because it reflects the sale of a boatload of foreclosed properties at fire-sale prices, and it does not mean most other persons would consider (or need to) sell their homes for similar discounts. Again, this is where a "smoothing" effect of a moving-average-M2M approach would be VERY helpful for everyone involved.

I can not help thinking how, over the years, we have all become so used to ever-faster information and ever more "instant" information, that we have thrown out common-sense in favor of trying to always obtain a "right now" look at everything (be it asset pricing or many other things). Mark-to-market in its current form is a perfect example of where data can be TOO INSTANT or current, and such data is actually misleading (if not outright harmful) compared to longer-term trends.

RESTORING REASON TO ASSET VALUATION
The entire goal of my proposed mark-to-average accounting is to remove these wild oscillations that are so damaging to our economy and financial system (both during "boom" times upward, and "crash" times downward).

The idea should help prevent situations like people in San Diego bidding 30-percent over asking price (and other such ridiculous behavior as we all witnessed over the past "boom" years), and then having that newly-paid price be representative as the "value" of a home, as well prevent situations where a $100K house (or mortgage on one) is now only "valued" at $2K just because there are no current buyers interested in it. Each of these extremes needs to be avoided. And, mark-to-market has only encouraged each of these scenarios by allowing banks to watch their own balance-sheet "values" explode during boom-times (and, feed further insane lending based on that "value"), and go down the toiled during the bust cycles (and then bring lending to a standstill as well). This can all be fixed.

AIG - no fire-sale please! Hold the "assets" government!

2009-03-02T23:04:00.004-05:00

Even a minimally-educated investor knows that, unless you expect an asset to only decline in value more, you do not sell it. As such, the government really needs to consider slowing down this push to sell of AIG "Assets". If they ARE truly assets, and not some sinking ship of a mess, then it is time this government does what Bernanke has said -- use the fact that the government CAN be in it for the very long haul, and hold assets until pricing improves.

I do not like this talk of "fire sale" prices on AIG Assets, as I highly suspect that the ONLY portions of AIG that anyone would bid on would be those that still have value. And, without those, what do we, the taxpayers, have left aside from a black-hole of cash-sucking doom?! So, please, if these "assets" that are still part of AIG are truly worth something, then hold them. I have heard talk that bids on some portion of the company may only be $20BB, and what is $20BB compared to the nearly $200BB the government has laid out there already.

Next, let's expose WHERE this $200 billion has gone!
It is NOT staying within AIG... it is going to, essentially, pay off gambling debts that their CDS (Credit Default Swap) business got into. WHO is receiving these payoffs? And, why are CDS's still legal?!!!! Last I heard, the same thing that got us into this financial meltdown (CDS instruments being a big part of the mess) are still not outlawed! These things are evil and must be stopped.

Oh, I am ranting big-time today... I apologize. I am just sick of this insanity. I think the government should declare all outstanding CDSs NULL AND VOID immediately - all 10's or 100's of TRILLIONS of them, before they take the entire world down with them. Fact is, world governments and economies can not compete with the magnitude of BETTING (by way of CDSs, options, and other derivative instruments) that is going on in this out-of-control deregulated market. Declare the CDS activity illegal, and nullify outstanding contracts NOW. I do not buy this argument that it will cause a collapse ... failure to derail and outlaw these instruments of doom WILL cause a collapse, or will force a MASSIVE devaluation of currency to "pay off the bets"!

Oh, and another rant: I asked the question a while back, and STILL have not heard anyone mention where all that money homeowners spent on PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance) went?! I am so completely fed up with watching the gross incompetence (otherwise known as incredibly smart manipulation) that exists EVERYWHERE in this financial system, our government, business in general, etc. etc.

I personally am having a hard time understanding why the price of GOLD (or other precious metals) does not reflect the fact we are printing currency like water flows over Niagra Falls. And, somehow the US currency is still "strong". Unreal.

JDK 6u12 Windows Installer Error 2203

2009-02-14T15:19:00.004-05:00

I ran into a rather weird Windows Installer error while installing the latest Java Developement Kit (JDK or Java SE Development Kit) version 6 Update 12 (otherwise known as JDK6u12). I was installing Java 6u12 dev kit into a Windows 2003 Server VM (Virtual Machine - VMware) and kept running into this whacky Windows Installer Error 2203 (followed by some other installer internal error code information).

I searched the web; tried various things as others suggested (to no avail), and finally decided I would figure out the "problem" on my own.

The Solution - TEMP dir must be default
Well, after repeated attempts, I figured out that this was all due to the fact that I had changed my Windows environment variables for the TEMP / TMP directories from the default ones. I generally dislike having the temporary directory for Windows being the default one located under a location like "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temp", and instead I go into the Control Panel, System, Advanced, Environment Variables, and set TMP / TEMP to point to something like "C:\TEMP" or "C:\Junk" or such.

Well, turns out the Java JDK installer does not like this, and errors with that Windows Installer 2203 error consistently -- until I blew away my re-mapped TEMP (environment variables) and allowed Windows defaults to kick in again (I assume this issue would exist on both Windows XP Pro and Windows 2003 Server). I was using Windows 2003 Server SP2.

I personally find this jdk6u12 install error 2203 something that should NEVER have happened to begin with. Obviously there is something a bit "off" in the Sun Java JDK 6 installer that causes this issue / problem. And, it cost me more time than I ever wanted to spend debugging it. Who knows, maybe it is a problem with the Windows Installer itself. I do not know.

Hopefully this will save someone else some time.

What I was REALLY trying to do was get the latest Java JDK, Java DB (aka Derby), NetBeans 6.5 and JavaFX 1.1 installed for development purposes, but instead I ended up wasting time debugging an installation routine. The good news is that in the end, I prevailed! :)

Government TARP Funds; Guaranteed Profits for Banks

2009-02-03T16:46:00.003-05:00

A CNN Money article today about how Citigroup (NYSE:C) has supposedly put their TARP funds to use got my attention for a variety of reasons. The most ridiculous item in their list of disbursements of these TARP monies was the one about how, out of $45 Billion they recently received from the government, they put $10 Billion towards purchasing "mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac".

Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) said it had approved $36.5 billion in loans and other commitments backed by TARP during the fourth quarter of 2008, which included making $1 billion in student loans and $2.5 billion in business and personal loans. The bank also said it expanded credit lines and opened new accounts for credit cardholders.
But the bulk of the spending was earmarked for the housing market. Citigroup said it spent $27.5 billion to that end during the last three months of 2008, much of which went to purchasing mortgages in the secondary market, including $10 billion in mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. About $8.2 billion was earmarked for making mortgage loans to families and individuals with good credit histories."

WHAT THE HECK?!

So, let me understand this... we (the people / government) give money to Citigroup, which is still supposedly a private corporation... Citigroup then takes a substantial portion of that money and buys *GUARANTEED* investments back from the government from which it borrowed money?

And, here I thought the whole idea of loaning Citigroup $45BB was to allow *LEVERAGE* their balance sheet like a normal bank... meaning, loan 5 or 10 dollars for every dollar on the balance sheet. But, they do not even loan 1:1, and as part of their loans, they put that money into guaranteed government investments (since we already Nationalized Freddie / Fannie).

THIS IS INSANE!
At this point the corporate welfare needs to end, and the GOV should just lend DIRECTLY, as they'd certainly get more bang for the buck by far. I find this all sick.

OK, government... GIVE ME $10BB to loan, and I GUARANTEE I will lend $10.25BB. I, like Citigroup, will purchase $10Billion in government-guaranteed Freddie/Fannie debt, and I will expect to make between 4 and 5 percent return on that debt. I.E., I would, like Citigroup, use $10 Billion to ensure that I made 400 to 500 million per year in INTEREST payments on those government-guaranteed loans. Of that, I will lend half to consumers directly, and in doing so, I will be beyond the 1:1 ratio that Citigroup is under. Do you see the insanity in this all?

Now, sure, in theory Citigroup is supposedly going to pay back the government with interest, and at a higher rate than what it is getting on those Freddie/Fannie bonds, right? Sure! I will believe it when I see it (though, I do consider it more likely than GM and/or Chyrsler EVER paying back any money handed to them -- it is mathematically IMPOSSIBLE that they will ever make enough to cover their debts).

This bailout thing is ridiculous. All of it. There is no such thing as a "free market", so why do we pretend there is? We are going to do everything to push losses onto the government to ensure "profitablity and viability" of large mega-corporations, all because "they are too big to fail", even though it is quite acceptable to continue to let them merge further and further into ever more large companies. Insane, but brilliant (for those who are making out on these deals).

KDE42 Released : Microsoft Beware! Windows is looking outdated.

2009-01-28T16:26:00.007-05:00

I just finished looking over the latest KDE42 (K Desktop Environment version 4.2.0 for Linux), and I was so impressed I just found myself repeatedly thinking: this latest FREE KDE42 desktop for Linux looks spectacular, and even more, it is extremely functional (yes, useful outweighs looks - are you listening Microsoft?) Over and over, feature after feature, I kept saying to myself "WOW!"

I am someone that has tried Microsoft Windows Vista, and after trying it, and hating it, has reverted to using Windows XP SP2 (or SP3) for all day-to-day mainstream Windows applications. Sure, Vista has some nice new features, but I overwhelmingly find it to be more eye-candy and bloat than true useful and functional improvements since XP. I can create a minimal Windows XP install in a couple Gigabytes or less, but no such luck with that bloated beast called Vista. I just purchased a new Dell Studio Hybrid recently with Vista on it, and without anything else installed, and I was flabbergasted by how much disk space an "empty" (fresh install) Vista OS took up (if you are lucky, Vista with SP1 may ONLY take up 10GB or so after you clean up unused files - unreal!)

Enough ranting about how lame Vista is... let's look to the future: KDE 42 on Linux! From what I am seeing, this is what Vista *should* have been. Sure, being Linux, it will suffer from a perceived "lack of applications", but most of that "lack" is a lack of mainstream Windows-only applications from major vendors, with the most notable titles being those from guess who: Microsoft. But, for most everyday users, Linux offers more than enough commonly-required functionality, whether Adobe's Flash or Acrobat Reader, Firefox browser, or a host of other applications.

And, unlike Windows, with Linux/KDE you do not need to wipe out your computer's disk drive and spend hundreds of dollars, and countless hours, to *try* the OS before you committing to using it... just try out a "Linux Live CD or Live DVD" with all sorts of common applications installed, and in as little as a few minutes (the time it takes to boot the running OS, with apps installed, from the CD/DVD media -- try THAT Microsloth!) Note: since writing that review, (the LiveCD link) Linux has grown a LOT and distribution options have improved... I currently prefer OpenSuse, Fedora, and Ubuntu/Kubuntu distros). Oh geez... how easy it is to again get a bit off course and rant about how lame Windows is with regards to nightmare day-long installs (especially when including time for "updates" and "Service Packs"). Onward...

KDE42 New Features
Here is a list of some noteworth items from the new KDE 4.2 release:

One of the coolest useful features in KDE42 is the desktop-application-quick-find thing (sorry, I don't know what it's code-name is), that lets you start typing the name of the open application, or sub-application-item too I think, and have KDE take you to the appropriate screen and application in as little as a few keystrokes when you have multiple applications and/or desktops open (note to Windows users: KDE allows you to have many virtual desktops that you can move between - perfect for keeping Email on one "screen", software development tasks on another, etc). If this existed on Windows, you could get to Control Panel (if it was open among many Windows) through a hot-key combo, then typing "CO...", and only typing as many characters as needed to uniquely find the "COntrol Panel" window and set focus to it. Nice (and, Linux only)!
Very nice integration of folder/file browsing on your machine in such a way that you can drag a view of a folder to your desktop, and have that folder window/panel visible on the desktop (not a shortcut, but a sorta window-panel view of the folder and files). Nice.
A slider-control within file-explorer (and other places) for sizing/zooming items within a panel. This is MUCH more useful than a dropdown (ala Microsoft) that you have to choose "details, icons, thumbnails" etc) - KDE has a faster and more useful interface paradigm here.
Desktop search is coming along, and in a sensible fashion. I utterly detest Windows desktop search, and de-install it on any of my systems, as I find it useless. KDE looks to have a better implementation even in early stages.
Improved power management - speaks for itself.
Improved printer configuration - something I don't mind in Windows, so I am always glad when Linux makes printer configuration easier with each release.
Smarter archive-file extraction and handling (about time).
And, of course, some requisite glitz and eye-candy including window and desktop transitions, etc. I do not care much about these things, though I can appreciate the fact that they look nice. Again, I focus on usefulness, usability, and features over glitz.

If you have not read the KDE42 Release Announcement, you may wish to do so. You can find links from there to pages like the Visual Guide to KDE42 page, which links to other detailed pages of pretty screen shots and videos demonstrating some of the features I have mentioned and much more. You will be awed (I hope) at how splendid KDE, and the Plasma desktop / widgets and overall functionality, is becoming.

To me the bottom line is obvious: Microsoft (Public, NASDAQ:MSFT) is losing whatever edge it had with regards to their Windowing Operating System. Other players are moving fast, and not just meeting, but exceeding, the abilities of Windows Vista (and perhaps Windows 7 - since that is coming soon). Microsoft needs to do something beyond evolutionary if they are to compete in the long term; fact is, the open-source community is getting their game on and working faster than ever to meet and exceed expectations. Perhaps this is one reason why Microsoft stock (MSFT) is taking a bath lately... it is not JUST Windows that is losing its edge, many of their products are becoming less dominant than ever as competition heats up (note: I still LOVE Microsoft SQL-Server, and consider it a fantastic product - no open-source DB even comes close).

Give KDE42 a look, and you will see what I mean.

General Motors : Buy-American Hypocrisy

2009-01-24T12:23:00.004-05:00

I am all for purchasing American-made, USA-manufactured goods and services where possible. But, I am sick of hearing UAW members and representatives, automobile dealers, and others going on about purchasing "American made" cars and vehicles. Why? Because of the underlying hypocrisy everywhere surrounding such statements.

Case and Point: I have attended an event, sponsored by General Motors Corporation (NYSE:GM), called the "Auto Show in Motion", on a couple occasions over the past few years. This is a very unique auto show and motor vehicle event - one held outdoors where you can test drive a substantial lineup of new vehicles. In fact, GM even has their Corvette offerings there, and you can drive a small "race course" (accompanied by a professional driver that gives you advice) around a short circuit, which is a fantastic experience! That is the good part...

But, let me move on to the buy-American hypocrisy that I have taken away from that show on both occasions: the T-SHIRTS GM handed out were MADE IN HONDURAS! Sure, I enjoyed getting a free T-Shirt for attending, but what a pile of @#$! that GM and other "American" auto makers, their employees, unions, dealers, etc. sit here telling me how I should "Buy American" while at the same time they purchased their promotional T-Shirts sourced in Honduras.

Why did GM hand out T-shirts made in Honduras, and not the United States? Simple: just like everyone else, they too wanted to save costs, and did not consider the fact that other American workers (outside of the automotive industry) were losing THEIR jobs to foreign workers... it is only the auto-workers they are concerned with (or, perhaps this is a giant faux pa on their part!).

Do not sit here telling me I need to buy American / USA produced products if you are going to source your promotional goods from the cheapest places possible. And, heck, I dare not get into discussing the hypocrisy of "buy American" when the ONLY thing American about some of these GM, Ford, and Chrysler brands is the BRAND name (where their cars are being made in Mexico, Canada, etc, and/or have the bulk of their components sourced from the cheapest overseas or over-border suppliers). We might as well say "Buy American" and tell people to shop at WalMart, since they are an AMERICAN BRAND (same logic folks - they ARE an American company, they create American jobs, they sell *some* American-made goods just like GM/Ford/etc, and they even make a profit and do not need a "bail out" from the government).

This type of thing is what really, in a super-sized way, peeves me about handing government funds out to "save a US industry", when it is obvious the industry being saved does no more than their foreign transplant auto companies to create US jobs in many cases. Now, I do not know if Honda, Toyota, or other transplants here distribute promotional T-Shirts made in the USA, but they certainly could not do any less to help the US textile and garment workers than GM has done with their Honduras-sourced promos that I received at their Auto-show-in-motion event.

Bottom line GM (and other "US auto companies"): do not preach what you do not honor yourself. And, that is just scratching the surface. I can not help wondering how many of your executives and union employees go out of their way for their personal purchases to TRY their best to *always* buy American. I find it unlikely. Sure, some probably do, but I would bet the bulk do not.

This is something that you ALL need to consider, since, those same USA persons that do not get your T-Shirt manufacturing contract for the Auto Show(s) are the same persons that later will not have a job, and thus no way to purchase your vehicles (or, they will essentially say "forget you GM!, you purchased Honduran T-Shirts, and I will purchase a foreign car!").

I doubt GM management gives a darn about my discussion, so long as they get the infinite hoard of government cash that is certain to come their way to "save US jobs", since, of course, THEIR industry is too important to let die.

Allstate, American Funds : Misleading Advertising

2009-01-21T10:37:00.005-05:00

Even after all the current financial market and investment related issues that have swept the market, I keep encountering advertising and marketing propaganda from investing, insurance, banks, and related financial companies that are nothing short of misleading - if not plainly incorrect or impossible.

Allstate (Allstate Insurance Company - NYSE:ALL)
The first example of misleading advertising I want to point out is from Allstate Insurance Company / Allstate Life Insurance Company. I was reading the February 2008 issue of National Geographic, and noticed the Allstate advertisement that occupied the entire back cover of the magazine.

This advertisement was about women, and how the average woman spends 11 years out of the workforce taking care of family - and, how this left the average woman without enough retirement money, due to missed earnings and corresponding missed 401K contributions during the same time. I am OK with this argument in concept, but where it fails is the specific numbers that Allstate provides in the advertisement. I challenge them to show me some real statistical proof of this following statement they make:

"Unfortunately, those 11 years out of the workforce put a woman even further behind, costing her an average of $659,139 in earnings."

YEAH, RIGHT! What a ridiculous statement or assertion! So, Allstate, you are trying to tell me, and the rest of the population, that the average working woman is making $60,000 per year!? This is impossible. And this utterly false statement follows a sentence (of your own writing) where you state in the same ad: "Fact is, women are still earning less than me do...". So, by that same logic, Allstate is telling us that the average man obviously earns substantially more than $60,000 per year!? ABSOLUTE FABRICATION.

Let me at least cite a source for my own assertion that Allstate is utterly full of it with this misleading ad of theirs. How about information from the US Census Bureau:

In 2007, the median annual household income rose 1.3% to $50,233.00 according to the Census Bureau. The real median earnings of men who worked full time, year-round climbed between 2006 and 2007, from $43,460 to $45,113. For women, the corresponding increase was from $33,437 to $35,102.

Now, could it be that the primary distortion that Allstate is using to inflate their case for whatever product/services they are selling has to do with the use of AVERAGE vs. MEDIAN. Allstate is asserting that women, on average, make nearly twice as much per year as the MEDIAN earnings for women. But, if that is their game (using Average vs. Median), it is just that - a statistical abuse to mislead.

Fact is, if you throw Oprah's earnings, and those of a few other top 1%+ earners, the AVERAGE earnings are skewed substantially. But, the true likelihood that an "average" woman in America is missing out on making $66,000 per year is statistically incorrect. I guess Allstate did not feel that 11 years of missed earnings, times the median of $35,000 (for a total of $385,000) was shocking enough to sell their product. Sure sounds like a lot of money to me, but I guess that it sounds so much better to throw out a number twice that high instead.

This is quite typical of so many financial service advertisements in America. Abuse statistics, or use statistics misleadingly, all in hopes of selling more of your products. And you wonder why people lose faith in your companies and products, especially as of late, financial industry.

American Funds
Next, I was reading over the latest American Funds Investor magazine from Fall/Winter 2008. American Funds is generally a decent mutual fund company from what I can gather, but I take issue with the fact that they, in their attempts to sell people on their products and services and the concept of long-term investing in general, make rather optimistic assumptions to say the least - especially given the current stock market meltdown.

My particular issue with their latest magazine / pamphlet has to do with their little push for College-Savings plans (i.e., 529 college savings plans) and how to build up funds for your childrens' college education. They show a graph of how, if you contribute $100/month for 18 years during your kid's childhood, that it can grow to an amount between $39,000 and $48,000 by the end of that period (taxable vs. tax-free savings respectively).

OK, that all sounds great, UNTIL you read the bull @#$! below the graph about how "this example assumes an 8% annual rate of return (compounded monthly) for both investments". EIGHT PERCENT AVERAGE RETURN PER YEAR OVER 18 YEARS - GEE, THAT IS JUST A BIT AGGRESSIVE! Wake up American Funds! The stock market is FLAT over the past decade now. Where are you making an average of 8%? If you can GUARANTEE me such returns, I will have you manage all of my money.

This is not an OLD issue of the magazine... it is current... and yet it ignores that simple fact that there will not be such huge returns available anywhere for years to come, barring massive inflation to go with it, and/or devaluation of our currency embedded in such numbers. It just is not going to happen. And, it has not happened (past tense) either looking at the numbers for the past decade or more. Consider the Nasdaq, that was around 5000 points a decade ago, and now sits around 1500. And, you surely are not making 8% in government bonds, notes, T-Bills, or bank accounts.

Summary
I am so sick and tired of these ridiculous advertisements that make, via assumptions, the case that you will essentially realize some fantastic pile of cash after a set period of time by using interest-rates and rates-of-return that are essentially unachievable (certainly not realizable as an AVERAGE of any sort). This is not just an issue with Allstate or American Funds, but nearly ALL financial service companies - I see this abuse of statistics and math constantly.

I guess companies just can not sell their products by making the only clear and honest statement they can, which is: SAVE MONEY, AND YOU WILL BE IN BETTER FINANCIAL SHAPE THAN THOSE WHO DO NOT, BUT WE HAVE NO WAY TO TELL YOU HOW MUCH BETTER. That just doesn't sound good enough... people want that chart showing that, if they save, they will be "rich" or have a huge pile of cash in the future.

Forget that stuff people... just start saving, and once you have established a decent record of saving, then you can start focusing on average-returns and projections if you still feel the need. But, projections are nearly meaningless; it is your ability to save that matters most.

Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 7000 and Blinking Red LED / Battery Charging Issues

2009-01-06T13:54:00.004-05:00

I just purchased a new MS Wireless Laser Mouse 7000 for my desktop computer. I used it for a couple weeks on the initial charge, and everything was fine and working wonderfully, but then it was due for a recharging and it just would not charge, and instead presented me with a blinking red LED while on the charging base after just a minute of green-LED status preceding that.

I was all ready to take the new Microsoft Mouse back to where I purchased it. But, I went hunting on the Internet to see if other people were complaining about the mouse recharge issues... YES! COMMON.

And the Microsoft Laser Mouse 7000 will not recharge for a RIDICULOUS REASON - which, I have to wonder how many batteries are pitched and/or mouses are returned because of, where MS needs to provide a SIMPLE FIX (due to a simple design flaw) by way of a new battery and/or workaround.

MS Wireless Mouse 7000 DESIGN FLAW; SIMPLE FIX!
I came across a solution someone figured out, which *appears* to be working now, as my Microsoft mouse, with its small rechargeable Nickel-Metal-Hydride (NiMH) battery, is recharged again finally.

Symptoms / Debugging:
If you try to charge your mouse without a battery inside, you will see a red blinking LED on the top of the mouse [like the symptom you are experiencing during recharging attempts for previously unknown reasons]. If there is a battery in the mouse, and everything is functioning properly, that LED should be slowly blinking GREEN until it is fully charged, and then it should be solid green light.

Why do you get a red blinking LED / Light indicator instead of a green one, even with your NEW Microsoft Laser Mouse 7000, which presumably has a NEW rechargeable and fully functional battery?

Well, it turns out that the mouse has an internal switch/button/sensor positioned under the battery (when battery is installed) that senses the presence of the battery in the battery compartment. Unfortunately, the standard NiMH battery shipped with the Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 7000 is too narrow of diameter and does not fully depress the battery-sensor switch, and the mouse acts as though no battery is present, even when it is.

Solution / Fixing Mouse Recharge Issues, Problem
The solution is to: 1) get a thicker battery (which, I have no idea where to find one) or more preferably, 2) wrap some paper and/or tape around the battery that came with the mouse - just enough to make the battery-diameter great enough to depress the switch under the battery.

I have taken the approach of rolling paper around the battery (2 or three turns around battery with normal letter paper I had cut into a strip the width of the battery) and taping the paper together on outside so as to prevent if from uncoiling itself. Then, I placed the battery back in the battery compartment an put the mouse on the base / recharger unit. Voila! It now charges.

Note: do not put so much paper around the battery as to make closing the battery holder compartment door impossible. My battery-cover door was a snug fit when I was done, but it worked.

Summary
I still can not help thinking how many of these otherwise-working mice are being thrown away and/or returned when Microsoft (or their designer, manufacturer, battery supplier, etc) made a rather simple design flaw error that has found its way into the market. Talk about LAME QUALITY CONTROL procedures! Simple test: assemble multiple Microsoft Mouse components, use, test, recharge, check for issues... BEFORE manufacturing and distributing a pile of mouse pointer devices that have an error that should be caught!

Well, so long as my Wireless Mouse 7000 Microsoft device is back to working and recharging consistently, I am OK with it. I generally like it otherwise. My ONLY other annoyance with it is the left-side navigation-buttons that are oddly small and positioned in a weird location for simple use (as compared to my older, and nearly perfect Microsoft wired Intellimouse Explorer 4.0 USB 5-button mouse). The ONLY reason I moved to the Laser Mouse 7000 was for the WIRELESS aspect, and if it recharges OK now, I will stick with it.

Cleveland Ohio Economy and Small Business Status

2008-12-16T13:23:00.007-05:00

Here are some recent observations about the state of the economy, from the viewpoint of a small business owner (I have a few diverse small businesses) that has also been discussing business and sales trends with other small and medium business owners throughout the greater Cleveland, Ohio and Northeast Ohio region. The observations surely do not leave much room for optimism about the economy at present.

Example #1: Home Theater Business
A relative of mine owns a small business providing Cleveland area Home Theater, Audio, and Video installation, sales, and design services - and even though he has been in business for over 10 years, he has never seen business as slow as it is now. His is a business that serves a demographic that would clearly be described as "upper middle class" and/or "upper class".

The clientele that keep my relative's company busy have included coaches from professional sports teams, players from those same teams, doctors, executives, and other rather well compensated individuals. Much of his company business comes by word of mouth and personal referrals. He has never had to advertise in order to obtain more work than his company can handle. But, suddenly, WHAM, this current economic mess has even these rather "upper end" clients hesitating at committing dollars to upgrading or otherwise investing in their home theater, multimedia, and audio-visual needs.

And, if these people are not engaging my relative's business for things like product purchases, wiring and other installation services, design and implementation services, and the like, the "trickle down" effect is immediate: my relative can not afford to keep as many employees active and employed. Sure, his company still sells some home theater and HDTV / digital-television equipment (especially as people hurry to be ready for the February 2009 digital TV cut-over and transition away from analog TV), but when the volume drops to the lowest level he has ever seen, it really puts the pressure on the viability of his company.

Sure, he will make it through the slowdown, but it is not even clear if the business will turn much, if any, profit while trying to maintain employees to handle those jobs that do come through yet. This is what a typical small business in Northeast Ohio is feeling right now - and the rest of the country too I expect.

The market-wide panic, and lack of buying, ripples through causing others to cut back employment and buying, which ripples through... etc. etc. It all becomes a self-fulfilling downturn: people expect a downturn, they alter their expenditure and investment habits, and gee... a slowdown occurs as they expected.

Example #2: Independent Book Publishing
One of my businesses is independent book publishing. I authored and publish a Gluten-Free / Wheat-Free Recipes (Desserts) Cook Book that I sell almost exclusively via my online website. Over the past couple years of selling, I noticed this VERY strong inverse correlation between gas prices and my book sales: meaning, when gas prices went up, my sales would slow, and vice-versa.

But, after this last round of super high gas prices, and the precipitous fall to the lowest prices in years, that same pattern of book sales increases that normally accompany the fall in gas prices did not emerge. This was the first time ever that book sales did not increase when gas prices fell!

Fact is, this demonstrates a LOT about how much market panic there is, and how close to the edge everyone has been, and/or is, living - with regards to their finances. Credit cards are maxed out. People have little to zero cash. Credit limits are being cut, making "extra" credit or "excess / available" credit shrink quickly. The results on my book sales are immediate.

Further proof: even discounting my book heavily has made little difference in sales! In the past, if I ran a temporary discount or promotional sale, book sales increased dramatically and in direct response to that short-lived promotion. Now, even deep discounts have made little change to book sales volumes. People do not have, or are not willing to spend, any money - PERIOD. Even though my book can save them money by teaching them how to bake gluten-free items at home (which saves a fortune over pre-made GF diet foods), they STILL hesitate to spend even $20.00 on a book.

The ONLY exception to sales volume has been that our "scratch and dent books" (those with MINOR scratches or bends from banding of boxes on pallets during shipment, etc) have been selling as quickly as we find any in our inventory. Why? Simple: I sell them for under $10! THAT is the price threshold where people feel "OK" about spending I guess. Unreal.

Keep in mind that I performed an online survey a while back about the ideal target price for my book, and overwhelmingly people said it would be a "no brainer" purchase decision if I sold it around $20. Well, that sure changed quickly! More indication of what the economy, and fundamental mentality, is right now - and why this could lead to a full blown Depression if people do not start snapping out of this mood (it cascades everyone -- if purchases are not made for products and services, companies lay off people, and it spirals downward).

How we got here...
That is a long story, but not an overly complex one.

The idiotic move the government made last year by handing our "rebate checks" to people, while gas prices were already insanely high, allowed people to essentially bid gas prices even higher... and all those checks went to cover inflation due to bidding with more dollars for the SAME fixed supply of petroleum (which then rippled through to food, etc.) This worsened the downturn that was starting, but which remained somewhat hidden by massive debt-spending (credit-cards). Credit cards sealed our fate by allowing people to spend more than they really had, all bidding on the same commodities, causing massive commodity inflation, and the gov put the nail in the coffin with rebate checks. Home equity lines and the like, based on inflated home prices from cheap money adjustable-rate or teaser rate loans also contributed to this ability to bid things higher when they otherwise could not have been.

So, here we are post-gas-price-maximum-time after people essentially had their wallets, and bank accounts, sucked dry by the gas pumps under Bush's grand plan to bankrupt the country via insanely poor foreign policy and ludicrous energy policy (one which had us buying petroleum for the Strategic Oil Reserve at the highest prices ever, when supply was constrained like never before) - idiot! So, all of the American money handed out via rebate checks was transferred to President Bush's REAL employer (Saudi Arabia - not the US citizens).

Add on top of this the housing bubble that was created to get us out of our last stock market bubble. Pile on a burgeoning debt - all debt - public, private... it is out of control. But, we are a consumer ecomony, and our only solution to overspending (per politicians) is spend more.

Where things are headed...
Fact is, we have a HUGE problem.
I predict MASSIVE LAYOFFS in January 2009 and February 2009.

MASSIVE - especially if people do not take a chance and spend some money on products and services provided by small businesses. Small businesses employ over 1/2 the workforce. All we here about is businesses that are "too big to fail", but the fact is, widespread failure of small businesses will be catastrophic.

Large businesses will weather the storm just fine and do their usual mass layoffs regardless of their sales volumes. But, small businesses do not have the resources (in general) to keep all their employees on staff for any length of time if revenue streams suddenly dry up or are reduced to a trickle. The government (i.e., US!) is not going to bail US small businesses out... only our customers can by purchasing our products and services.

The observations from my vantage point in Cleveland Ohio are certain to be similar to observations elsewhere in the country. So, if you want to see your own local economy do well, try not to fall too far down the well of fear -- engage your local small businesses when possible, and help them maintain their employees/staffing through this economic mess. These are your friends and neighbors' jobs I am talking about.

As for large companies: I am sick of reading this stuff about companies laying off hundreds or thousands of workers were it costs them $50K, $100K, or MORE on a "per head" basis to lay people off. These unemployed workers will hesitate to spend, and further flood the market of workers seeking work.

I have a better idea for companies, like Adobe for example, to consider. When I hear how they will spend $80K/head (roughly 1yr average salary) to get rid of someone, I find it insane. Instead, tell your workers that, should things NOT improve in a year, they will be out of a job with only a month of severance pay starting ONE YEAR from now, but not immediate. During that year, while still employed, they can look for a job, but they can also focus on adding value to the company and improving efficiency, and if the end result is the company does better than expected, they will KEEP their job(s). And, since they are not part of the unemployment mess, overall market sediment will likely be more optimistic, thus creating a positive impact on the economy, including the company they work for.

I just do not get the whole thing about paying tons of money to get rid of someone - it is rather short-sighted, and furthers the downward economic pressures and overall negative sediment that looms large right now (especially employment fears). I personally will try my best to have my businesses keep everyone employed as long as possible, in hopes of remaining a strong viable group of businesses while other businesses cut their resources to the bone and jeapardize their own long-term viability.

I have told my employees that things may get slow, but that corporate profits are of little concern in the short term if it means we are best positioned in the long term when the economy improves in general. I wish more companies took this stance, as we would all be less likely to experience an inevitable deep economic downturn and worsening of the employment market.

Speaking of business: time to get back to work!

3D CAD Software Review - Free, Cheap, Affordable, and others

2008-12-10T10:38:00.007-05:00

For a long time I have been fascinated by modern 3-dimensional modeling capabilities that 3D CAD Software makes possible, but at the same time I have been frustrated by the cost of such software.

I have had dreams of using CAD software to help me take the ideas I see in my mind, and put them into a visual model to share with others. I am always trying to invent some new product, design some variation or improvement on an existing product, and just apply creativite thinking to all sorts of mechanical design situations and opportunities. But, there is only so much you can do with just paper and pencil or pen.

Sure, a pad of paper and pen can help with getting that idea for a new invention down on paper, but... from my experience, something can APPEAR (on paper) to work, but can not be built. You just can not get a true feel for the 3D interaction of parts, especially in a complex mechanism or structure, using old-fashioned paper/pen techniques -- certainly not effectively or efficiently. The fact is, 2D design and 3D modeling software (aka, CAD - Computer Aided Design) is a HUGE improvement over hand-drawing, and 3D modeling is quite nice for working things out before building.

You can save a fortune by avoiding costly pre-manufacturing missteps by creating a detailed and accurate 3D model ahead of time, and you can even produce a nice bill of materials (BOM) and calculate the center-of-gravity from the CAD image too (in applications that include such a feature). Try doing that by hand! So, I decided it was time to make the leap and purchase a professional-quality full-featured CAD system for my own idea development, in hopes of bringing my inventions to reality.

My Findings and CAD Research Outcome

"Big name" CAD software like AutoDesk AutoCad, Solid, Pro/Engineer ("Pro/E") and the like are prohibitively expensive for the someone like me that wants to essentially experiment with 2D/3D design and modeling for developing some of my own product ideas in a visual manner. Some of those software packages are many thousands of dollars, which is far beyond the reach of hobbyist CAD pricing to say the least. And, I can get compatibility with those products at a much lower cost.

In fact, if you have been looking for affordable, relatively cheap, low cost, low price 3D CAD software that can fit a hobby budget or small business or startup business budget, you have surely encountered the same types of things I ran into: in general, there were two classes of CAD Software on the market; 1) full featured and expensive, and 2) cheaper, but lacking most features I consider a "requirement", including 3D solid modeling and extrusion from 2D surface drawings.

Thankfully, after evaluating a pile of CAD applications, I found one that fits my needs - VariCAD. But, in order to reach that conclusion and determine which was the best affordable 3D CAD software, I looked at a plethora of packages, including these just to name a few: Bryce CAD, QCAD, Google Sketchup Pro, IntelliCAD-based software like Bricsys, VariCAD (obviously) and quite a few others.

My criteria for CAD software evaluation was rather straight forward and simple:

I weighed features against price to determine a price-to-performance ratio. I also pitched anything above a couple thousand dollars - that was just out of my price range, and certainly out of the range that would make a solution a fit for other hobbyist inventors and designers.
I looked for active product development - and threw out a lot of otherwise prospective CAD/design software just because it appeared that companies were not keeping their product up-to-date or otherwise releasing bug-fixes and/or updates
and, perhaps most important was my requirement that without any prior knowledge of the CAD software, and without reading any manual or help files, I would be able to quickly feel comfortable and productive uwing the CAD software UI (User Interface) and be able to draw and manipulate 2D and 3D objects.
In summary: it had to be easy to learn, intuitive, full-featured, and reasonably priced CAD / CAM software to meet my criteria.

My Choice: VariCAD 2D/3D - and here is why.
So many of the CAD packages I tried were either not intuitive or lacking features. Some had really nifty and modern UI's, but lacked the professional features I needed. Others were perhaps exceptionally "powerful" and feature-rich, but so overly complex I could not make sense of them no matter how hard I tried.

I spent nearly two weeks installing software trials, testing them out for up to a few hours each (and, if they made my "consideration list", up to a full day of testing), and trying to "build" just a few simple 2D and 3D models. In the end, the clear winner was VariCAD. I had a second "runner up" of sorts that nearly matched VariCAD for features and usability, but it was nearly twice the price.

I liked the UI in VariCAD quite a bit. Sure, it has some room for improvement to fit "my perfect way" of doing things, but my way is no more likely to be "your way" than what VariCAD's UI offers by default. It does implement fancy Microsoft "ribbon-bar" or Vista-specific UI elements or such, and looks more like a traditional Windows-XP application (for good reason - this software runs cross platform on Windows and Linux).

I liked that I could quickly and easily, in 3-dimension mode, figure out how to size, scale, rotate, intersect, remove, etc. Here is a quick example of something I created after just a few minutes of practice.

This tiny little part I made used various features of VariCAD, where I had multiple 3-dimensional parts connected together. Then, I really liked how VariCAD had all these sorts of "tools" to use: drill, mill, groove, fillet, chamfer... .and, VariCAD also has all these pre-defined ANSI/ISO parts available for screws, nuts, bolts, etc. You can see how I chamfered the edges of my little test part, and then I made the holes by "virtually drilling" or whatever, and/or doing an intersection-removal of a predefined screw-shape. It was all EASY. And, this was a HUGE selling point for me.

And, as you can see, there is a neat screen-shot / display export. VariCAD makes saving an image easy to do (has high-res export of current view). Plus it can calculate a bill of material and center of gravity (has a list of all sorts of base-materials from pre-defined tubings, metals, plastics, etc that it "knows" all the information needed to calculate). There are dimensioning lines available in orthographic views too, making my drawings easy for an engineer to completely understand and build parts to exact specifications.

I like how VariCAD is a 3D/2D CAD system primarily intended for mechanical engineering design - since, it is my mental "visions" for products I needed to turn into true mathematical / visual representations that others can see and/or manufacture parts for - precisely. In addition to powerful tools for 3D modeling and 2D drafting and dimensioning, the CAD system provides libraries of standard mechanical parts (ANSI, DIN), calculations of standard mechanical components, and tools for working with bills of materials (BOM) and blocks.

BOTTOM LINE: If you have been looking for an affordable and inexpensive alternative to AutoDesk AutoCAD, SolidWorks, Pro/Engineer ("Pro/E") and the like, while maintaining a degree of compatibility with those expensive titles, VariCAD is perhaps just what you were looking for, with excellent 2d and 3d CAD Features in a Powerful yet Affordable Cross-Platform 2D and 3D CAD Software (Windows / Linux) in either 32-bit or 64-bit versions.

It is compatible with "the big name CAD packages too" via import/export of common CAD file formats like: DWG, DXF, IGES, STEP and STL. So, I feel quite comfortable that whatever I create, I can give my drawings to fabricators and designers to help me realize my inventions in physical form :)

Not only was I sold on the product, I even decided to become a VariCAD reseller / distributor for the United States after I already purchased the product at retail.

I am completely convinced this cheap CAD software represents an unbelievable bargain for such a capable application. Perhaps "affordable" sound better than "cheap" I guess - but, regardless, it is nearly free 3D CAD software in my opinion - with professional features at rock-bottom pricing - well under $1,000, and $500 or so on sale (even with ONE YEAR OF SOFTWARE UPDATES / SUPPORT TOO)! VariCAD costs no more than amateur-type products like "Google Sketchup Pro", but with full-featured professional CAD / CAM abilities.

Also, as a reseller / distributor, I have the flexibility to further discount the package for other United States customers. I believe in this product, and will do what I can to help others discover its full potential and save money by avoiding hard-to-use, costly, or less feature-complete alternatives.

I am also running a sale this month to further encourage adoption for your own hobby or small-business CAD needs (for businesses, this is a super-bargain especially considering it is a tax-free purchase, as it should surely be a qualified business-expense write-off if used in your operations).

Now, time to get busy inventing more products and put my nearly free 3D CAD Software to use! (actually, it IS FREE for 30-day trials - a great way to check it out and confirm what I have written here - just go to that link and read more on my website, and find links to the trial Free CAD Software Download and purchase information, etc.).

Credit Cards : Small Business = Personal Guarantee

2008-12-05T11:36:00.005-05:00

Since I own a few small businesses, I receive a boat load of small business credit card applications. The mailers always say the same thing in GIANT BOLD PRINT: get your "BUSINESS CREDIT CARD".

Yeah, sure... "business" credit card, so long as you sign with a personal guarantee.

As I sit here watching the unraveling of the American debt-laden financial system in this current economic crisis, I can not help getting a bit upset about the sick irony that these bank credit card offers present. That is, if you are a large company, a public company, and/or have reached some magical "size" threshold where, as an incorporated entity alone, credit is issued and secured ONLY by the assets of the company (as opposed to requiring any sort of personal guarantee by corporate officers and the like).

So, as all these massive corporations default on their debt, file for bankruptcy, and so in... I can not help but find these "business credit card offers" (that require my personal guarantee of payment) all ironic, sickening, and disturbing. A small business entity with small amounts of credit must secure their credit personally, but yet a "large enough" business can borrow hoards of cash and default on payment (repeatedly in many cases -- where companies have been given many a chance, gone bankrupt repeatedly, etc - like airlines e.g.) and still not be required to offer any personal guarantees from corporate officers.

I really believe this is, in large part, why corporate management in this country is so terrible. There is little vested stake in the DOWN-SIDE of the business should anything go wrong. Contrast that to the fact that if I take out "business credit" in the name of one of my small businesses, that I am really taking out money that I PERSONALLY guarantee to repay. Who do you think has more incentive to PAY BACK THE LOANS?

So, while the biggest of the big companies can borrow with nearly no limit (especially in the day of government-backstopped borrowing), and repeatedly default - sticking banks and investors with huge losses and write-downs - the small borrower does not have such a luxury of non-repayment. Instead, we have to personally guarantee every last dollar borrowed with these "business credit cards" and "business loans" that are nothing more than personal credit cards and personal loans that happen to also include someone typing the name of our business on the application in addition to our personal information.

I am not saying that there should not be personal guarantees for credit on small business loans, especially if the small business has not been around for a long time or shown significant credit worthiness. Instead, I am saying that there needs to be more "risk" for large business borrowing - risk to these insanely over-compensated executive managers that can take millions or billions in compensation and stock options during the good times (heck, even during the bad!), but yet not be on the hook for a dime in personal losses when the company defaults on loans a mere year or two later... when, obviously some of that insane compensation should have went to paying down debt or avoiding debt in the first place.

There are rampant cases of this personal-profit, company-loss scenario among large companies, but yet they continue to obtain credit without personal guarantees. And, here I am getting my nearly daily mail about how to get my "business credit card" which I have to guarantee personally. So, a note to all you banks that send me these offers for "business credit": get lost!

I will take such an offer (perhaps) when the playing field is level and those "large companies" that continually stick banks with Billions of dollars in losses will have their own management personally guarantee some of those loans. I guarantee I am a better credit risk than GM, Ford, or Chyrsler, and I still do not see banks (or the US government) demanding PERSONAL GUARANTEES from those corporate executives!

Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI) - What did consumers pay for!?

2008-11-18T12:11:00.004-05:00

With the current economic meltdown tracing its roots back to the housing bubble and subsequent bursting of that bubble, I could not help wondering why we have not heard much (if anything) in the news or in Congressional testimony and the like about Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI), and its (supposed) role (or absence) in minimizing the impact of mortgage defaults .

If you purchased a home at some point in your lifetime, and had less than the 20% down-payment required to avoid this added surcharge known as Private Mortgage Insurance, you know how much it can add to the price of your monthly payment. This required PMI premium was automatically added on to your mortgage payment and could amount to a large sum of money over the lifetime of your mortgage (at least until you paid down the principal on your house to where you had a loan representing no more than 80% of the appraised market-value). Since premiums ranging from $250 to $1,200 per year for several years are common, that seems like a fair amount of money that was being collected from mortgage holders.

So, what did consumers pay for when they purchased PMI!?

The following information is directly quoted from the San Fransisco Federal Reserve's web page discussing PMI:

What Is PMI?
PMI is extra insurance that lenders require from most homebuyers who obtain loans that are more than 80 percent of their new home's value. In other words, buyers with less than a 20 percent down payment are normally required to pay PMI.

Benefits of PMI

PMI plays an important role in the mortgage industry by protecting a lender against loss if a borrower defaults on a loan and by enabling borrowers with less cash to have greater access to home ownership. With this type of insurance, it is possible for you to buy a home with as little as a 3 percent to 5 percent down payment. This means that you can buy a home sooner without waiting years to accumulate a large down payment.

If PMI had done its job (i.e., provided the coverage we supposedly were purchasing with those monthly fees), would this not have helped prevent a mass collapse of loans in default? Where did all that Private Mortgage Insurance go?

I first of all have to attack one glaringly obvious problem with the whole PMI concept, and that is the FIRST WORD : "PRIVATE". Being "private" implies that, as always, Private companies had guaranteed cash-flow in the good times, and when the bad times hit, guess what... they are gone, and we the taxpayers are bailing out the mess left behind. Again we are struck with "Private Profits, Taxpayer Losses" instead.

I am of the opinion that this whole "PMI" mess should have just been replaced with a fee that, as collected, went into a trust fund in a non-profit government entity. At least now we'd have some cash built up to help offset the losses in the mortgage meltdown. But, alas, there would be all those "private" mortgage insurers that would not have had their guaranteed cash-cow (mandated by the government) that surely enriched more than a few executives around the country. Have we heard much about all the people that walked away from this industry with massive hoards of personal cash (by way of salary, bonuses, options, etc)? I have not heard much. Why is that?! Where did all that premium money go?

Have you heard ANYTHING about getting rid of, or changing, PMI? NOPE! NADA! NOTHING! I expect this gravy-train known as PMI will continue for those who still are able to sit back and suck money from a system that rewards failure and ensures private profits and public losses.

I keep hearing Bernanke and Paulson talk about our "potential to make money" or "be fully repaid" and so forth. Bull! It is never going to happen unless some massive reforms are put in place. With government-owned (now) entities like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae holding the bulk of all mortgages, would it also not make sense that any PMI paid on those mortgages be paid to the US Treasury?! And, how about all the mortgages held by financial firms that are receiving various degrees of "support" from the Fed, Treasury, and Taxpayers?

Something must change and change soon!

JCPenny (NYSE:JCP) Merchandise Giveaway; Profits Lower

2008-11-14T10:01:00.008-05:00

I had a very timely experience with what I call "sales plan insanity" at J.C. Penny recently, where JC Penny was essentially giving inventory away for nearly nothing (almost FREE). And, when I first encountered this sales strategy first hand, I knew for certain that JCPenny's earnings were going to suffer dramatically.

But, I guess the "analysts" that cover J.C. Penny Stock (NYSE:JCP), do not bother actually visiting the department store they are "analyzing". If they had, perhaps they would not so often be incorrect in their "analyst estimates" that seem to always miss the mark, as today's Bloomberg story on JC Penny earnings stated:

Nov. 14 (Bloomberg) -- J.C. Penney Co., the third-largest U.S. department-store company, forecast earnings that trailed analysts' estimates and posted its fifth straight quarterly profit decline as shoppers cut spending on home goods and jewelry.
[...]
Third-quarter net income decreased 52 percent to $124 million, or 56 cents a share, from $261 million, or $1.17 a share, a year earlier, the department-store chain said in a statement. Sales fell 8.7 percent to $4.32 billion from $4.73 billion.

Let me clue all you Wall Street analysts in as to how insane the management at various retailer in the United States is behaving: they are selling products for next to nothing, with obviously zero margin or, quite likely, negative margin.

This is not just conjecture, but rather fact that I will demonstrate with my recent sales receipt from J.C. Penny (click image to view larger size):

This is ridiculous! J.C. Penny has been sending (in the mail) these special Sales-Event Coupons for "$10 off $10 or more". First of all, that is just stupid! Every time they send one, I pick up more free or nearly-free items. Come on management: wake up and make it $10 off $20 at least (50% off is STILL darn good, and you may actually break even on the proposition). I realize you *hope* people will come in and buy much more than $10, but in this current economic environment, that is a bet I would not take.

The last time I got a coupon in the mail, I went looking around Pennys for kicks again, to see what I could perhaps use. I stumbled upon sales for 75% off on a few Polo shirts (and that was off existing markdowns or something). And, it gets better... they had yet another promo going where you could buy one get one (BOGO) too, and none of THESE promotions were excluded on that $10-of-$10 coupon.

Look at that receipt showing the proof of this SALES INSANITY: I purchased a total of 3 shirts that originally retailed for $104.00 for a grand-total, after Sales Tax, of $5.84. Give me a break! What moron management team came up with these incentives? I can not help thinking that they would have done better just to give the inventory to charity and write it off. How can you cover the cost of goods, let alone the cost of labor, advertising, floor-space, and so on by doing this?

Well, the bottom line is that this speaks volumes as to the state of the PANIC IN RETAIL right now. Retail stocks are all beaten down on the stock market, and for good reason -- the management of most retailers has decided that, in order to show any revenue production, they will have to engage in an insane race to the bottom along with all their competitors. As such, do not be TOO surprised if these stock market "analysts" continue to miss obvious indicators that earnings are going to be terrible for a long time to come.

Perhaps some bright spots will emerge in Retail yet (aside form WalMart), but it is a bit early to tell. Even though I am very cautious about investing in retail stocks, I have taken some "Mall walks" the past few weeks on various days of the week to see if any particular retailers seem to "stand out" consistently with regard to foot-traffic and, more importantly, purchases (I look to see what brand's bags are being carried around the Mall by people - if any one brand stands out).

I spotted a couple retailers that have my interest, like New York & Company (NYSE:NWY) being one I noticed decent store / Mall activity in, and a couple others. In the case of NWY, their stock is trading for around $2.00, so for the price I paid for my three uber-discount JC Penny shirts, I could purchase nearly 3 shares (or, at the original retail price of those shirts, I could purchase 50 shares). This puts the retail pricing strategy into perspective even more perhaps.

Stock Analysis: Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) and Ford (NYSE:F) Company Performance

2008-11-07T09:16:00.009-05:00

I just have to compare and contrast the operating results reported by two companies today (Nvidia and Ford Motors), and especially discuss a fundamental difference between these two companies' management philosophies and ability to adapt to changing markets. That difference is a large one, and an obvious one: market agility and anticipating the future - Nvidia does this well, Ford does not.

Both have faced similar challenges with regards to their products and markets lately: their markets have been challenged by competitors (for Nvidia, that mean AMD / ATI; for Ford, just think Toyota, Honda, etc.), consumers have been demanding different products (for Ford, that means higher mileage cars; for Nvidia, that means higher performing graphics processors and more and improved Notebook graphics chip functionality), and each company has seen their products caught in a period of transition.

But, where they differ dramatically is in how they reacted to these challenges, and how quickly they reacted to known changes as well as anticipating uncertainty.

Let me start by quickly presenting an excerpt from earnings reports for each company - first Ford, then Nvidia:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Ford Motor reported a $3 billion operating loss in the latest quarter, and said Friday it would reduce staff and capital spending in order to preserve its dwindling cash.

Ford said it would cut salaried employment costs by 10% - reducing compensation of its white collar workers by eliminating merit pay, bonuses and the company's matching contributions to their retirement accounts.

Now, Nvidiia's quarterly results release:

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 6 (Reuters) - Graphics chipmaker Nvidia Corp reported quarterly results on Thursday that topped Wall Street's estimate, as the company held the line on expenses while sales fell, and shares surged 12 percent.

Nvidia (nasdaq: NVDA) said its fiscal third-quarter net earnings for the quarter ended Oct. 26 came in at $61.7 million, or 11 cents a share, down 74 percent from $235.7 million, or 38 cents a share, in the year-ago period.

But after excluding items related to the company's recently announced layoffs and other charges, Nvidia earned 20 cents a share, beating the average analyst estimate of 12 cents a share, according to Reuters Estimates.

Notice the key differences.

Nvidia

Nvidia has been profitable in the past, and REMAINED profitable by acting quickly to reduce costs in light of the fact that demand was slowing and product-mix changes were taking place. In September, the company announced plans to cut 6.5 percent of its workforce when it was obvious their market was changing, and this quick reaction has helped them avoid losses.

You can argue that a graphics chip maker is inherently more agile than a car company because of the product lead-time and engineering/manufacturing cycle brevity compared to building cars, but on the other hand, that same logic must be applied to *competitors* that can also move just as fast to change their lineup of graphics cards and GPU offerings. So, Nvidia deserves credit for having management that is willing to act quickly, and decisively, in order to keep products inline with consumer expectations while keeping costs down as sales volume deteriorates a bit during a macroeconomic slowdown.

In addition, Nvidia shows foresight for future demand and growth in the parallel computing field with their CUDA offerings (this CUDA parallel processing cores feature is in nearly all their current GeForce and Quadro product lineup). I have been watching more and more commercial applications target this particular Nvidia platform advantage (which, I consider to be VERY large), and have seen applications like the upcoming Adobe Creative Suite CS4 even marketed as being best-with-Nvidia cards (and, Nvidia has a nice new high-end Quadro video card marketed specifically to Adobe CS4 users). This is great product planning, and will give them sales for many quarters to come.

And, if this were not enough reason to consider Nvidia a company with great foresight and momentum, consider how Apple Computer has just started offering the Nvidia mobile GeForce chipsets / GPUs in their new notebook lineup. As soon as I heard that news, it was even more obvious that Nvidia is making moves to future-proof their sales and grow their markets.

Ford

Ford has been losing money for a long time, and even while losing money, their management consistently acts slowly to reduce costs in light of the fact that demand was slowing and competitors were eating them alive. Ford Motors seems destined to live up to the image of the American Auto in general: outdated and behind the competition. Their entrenched management (just like General Motors) is a bunch of overpaid executives whose only tangible "plan" to fix things of late is to borrow (or be handed) more money from the United States Government and taxpayers.

I won't get into how lame this whole "rewarding failure" concept is with giving incentives to companies that fail is (instead of rewarding those that succeed and produce profits and jobs!), but it is highly indicative of the underlying problem with Ford and GM. They still, even after massive multi-Billion dollar repetitive quarterly losses, fail to act BEFORE the crisis gets worse, and are never able (or willing) to get ahead of the curve and show that they have any sort of visionary management abilities.

It is not like they have no knowledge of where the consumer is headed, where the economy is heading, and how their products stack up against the competition in regards to quality, features, mileage, and the like (start by reading Consumer Reports guys!). Nvidia has the same knowledge of what their competitors are doing (AMD's ATI division especially), and they must act to counter such competition quickly - and they do!

Ford looks like a slug by comparison to Nvidia, and repeatedly fails to deliver REAL change, and by the time (if ever it occurs) their management makes the DEEP CUTS and GROUNDBREAKING CHANGES required, they will have burned all their cash and find themselves once again knocking on Uncle Sam's door in hopes of more easy money. This door-knocking must be ignored, as it only encourages a repeat of their lame decisions, and will reinforce poor management "vision" while essentially penalizing those auto companies that DO have good vision for their companies' futures (by essentially subsidizing inferior products from Ford or any other competitor that is using government funds to prop-up their business).

Summary
Well, I think it is time to let some of the Silicon Valley management have their shot at Ford Motors management - or at least some of their foresight needs to go into play in Detroit. Funny thing is, the one Silicon Valley motor company I really find interesting (Tesla Motors) has breakthrough forward-looking products (like fully Electric sports cars), is creating new Auto-industry jobs, but yet has to compete with Detroit's entrenched industry without the massive handouts and support packages from the US government.

Instead, Tesla must secure private funding at market rates, and actually produce a product people want and set a price-point for its products where it can stay in business and perhaps even post a product. Gee, what an idea! All the more reason Detroit's antiquated auto industry needs to be allowed to simply DIE if they can not do the same -- it is time to reward success, and not failure. And, with regards to today's stock analysis, I plan to reward Nvidia's success with further purchase of their products (I have a Quadro in mind for before EOY 2008 yet) and their stock; but, by contrast, there is ZERO chance I will be buying a Ford product or company stock!

Obama Signs ALL Stolen!

2008-11-04T00:09:00.003-05:00

Here I am in a Cleveland, OH suburb, and it is midnight, the night before the election and voting for the 2008 Presidential Campaign...

I had my front window open until 11pm, and my Barack Obama yard signs were still in position. Now, they are BOTH gone, and my neighbor's signs are gone too. Some S.O.B. stole ALL the Barack Obama / Joe Biden signs for as far as I could see on our street!

Of course, all the McCain signs in the region still remain. Gee, is this what John McCain and Sarah Palin were essentially calling for today by telling their supporters to "fight... do whatever it takes...", etc.!?

This country has serious problems!

And to think, the people stealing these signs are the ones complaining about "values" and the like when they mention Obama. Ever heard this one people: "THOU SHALT NOT STEAL!". And, how about that one Constitutional right that everyone seems willing to give up these days: FREEDOM OF SPEECH.

Of course, given the nearly fanatical nature of a certain group of voters this year, any action can be "justified" I am sure. And, the ones that really need to take a hard look in the mirror are those from the "Religious Right" that find it OK to violate even the 10 Commandments so long as they are "doing God's work", since of course, they know that God wants McCain to win and such.

I really am utterly disappointed and distressed by where America is headed. This is just a prelude of what is to come I fear. The government has us divided, and the masses are playing right into their game and fulfilling their objective (which, I am certain, is imposing further restrictions on our freedoms as US citizens - and that goes for ALL of us, Republican and Democrat alike!)

God help America! Regardless of which candidate wins, this country needs serious help!

Stock-Market Panic Benefits Government (for now)

2008-10-23T22:17:00.009-04:00

What better way to find buyers for massive amounts of government debt than to scare people into buying that debt?

Do not fall for it people! Stocks would be plenty safe if the government quit talking all gloom and doom. That talk is self-serving for the government (at this very moment), and this is why...

The United States government needs a way to quickly raise enormous amounts of cash, and to do this they need to stimulate unprecedented demand for government bonds (US Treasuries). What better way than to instill fear, uncertainty, and doubt about investing in the stock markets!?

With the constant public diatribe about the "risk" in stocks and other investments, along comes the promise of the "safest place to put cash" : US Treasuries. But yet, where is the cash from that giant fund-raising securities auction going in large part: right back into the stock market, but not just ANY stocks, only the "chosen few" financial stocks that the Treasury is purchasing preferred shares in. This is so amazingly blatant market-preference and manipulation... why do we stand for it?

So, let's you wanted out of the stock market, and you moved your cash to Treasuries, only to have the government do your "investing" for you (Paulson keeps talking about this bailout as an "investment"), but you get no choice in what companies the government invests in. You do not care, so long as you "preserve your capital" and put it into the "safety" of Treasuries.

As such, this unprecedented outflow of cash from the (overall) Stock Market is driving the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), the NASDAQ Composite, and other major averages both here and abroad down quickly and repeatedly. The "repeat" comes precipitously with nearly an everyday occurrence of some government official testifying or otherwise speaking about the financial crisis, unemployment, housing bailouts, stimulus, and the like. With each speech that instills fear, down goes the market as more money is pulled out and put into "safe" investments like US Treasuries. If the market starts to regain some footing and climb upward, along comes a new round of fear to drive people out of it and to the "safety of Treasuries".

I hope you all realize this, people: the market would not go down if people were not selling en masse! This is a self-induced wide-scale financial catastrophe only because people let fear of losing their own capital scare them into selling. Is it greed? Sure, at some level. But, mainly it is fear of losing money. So, the herd starts running scared and finds it incredibly hard to stop running, and is easily spooked into running again.

But, the whole time this stock-market "adjustment" and pull-back is going on, the government is not TOO concerned, as they need that cash from the overall stock market to fund their debt, to turn around and selectively invest in financial firms and other firms that are "too big to fail". This rewarding of failure is what will destine us, as a country, to absolute failure too if we do not stop the practice quite soon and instead reward success! We can not fail our way out of a recession you moron politicians!

Sure, some companies the Federal Reserve and US Government are providing "assistance" to are solid companies that just need some back-stopping from the government while credit is tight (which, I predicted ages ago it would be, as banks were quick to learn that if they quit lending, money would flow from Uncle Sam -- it is very self-serving to stop giving credit these days). But, other companies (e.g., Ford and GM) should just be allowed to die if that is their market-driven fate. Likewise with any other "too big to fail" business that is just a pile of never-ending blunders and losses ruled by those that reward themselves with rampant excessive executive compensation while the average stockholder watches their investment go to zero : let them fail!

It is time to start focusing on successful businesses, and reward them instead of rewarding failure. But, of course, smaller companies and otherwise successful companies will bear the brunt of this financial crisis, as the mass redistribution of (corporate) wealth is orchestrated at the hands of the Treasury. We will create even larger banks and mega-corporations that, if already too large to fail, will be so large that nothing can possibly ever be allowed to happen to them. In the end, our government will have completely broken the free-market capitalist society we profess to live in, and will have decided for you where your investment money will be "invested". This is so utterly, and obviously, messed up! I can not keep this blog entry "clean" and fully express my disgust with how Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke, President Bush and his administration, and our Congress are all destroying what was a decent capitalist free-market.

And, then there is the currency market:

The one thing I got completely wrong (though I suspect only for the short-term) recently was my prediction that the US Dollar would weaken. In fact, it has strengthened at a pace unprecedented in recent history. The Dollar has gained 20% against the British Pound and Canadian Dollar this year, 25% against the New Zealand dollar, and even more against the Australian Dollar.

Why? See above: we have created enough fear and doubt worldwide that everyone is flocking to the US Dollar and US Treasuries, and it is really coming in handy as we have massive amounts of debt (Treasuries) we need to sell and sell soon. Again people, do not fall for it. This is ridiculous.

Every day a new massive USA government spending plan is announced (like backstopping money-markets to the tune of 1/2 Trillion; $700 Billion for Financial system bailout, etc etc), the US Dollar GAINS! Think about it everyone... if printing massive amounts of US Dollars leads to GAINS, perhaps we need to announce how we are going to spend 10 Trillion Dollars -- would that make the US DOLLAR SOAR EVEN FURTHER?! OR, would people finally wake up and see that we are amassing incredible amounts of debt and devaluing our currency!?

Current Exchange Rates:

In lengthy conclusion:
There is massive financial market manipulation going on here, and it is primarily either orchestrated by, or (perhaps) an unintentional result of pure stupidity at the Federal Reserve and the Treasury. I really can not help wondering if this "crisis" would be only a fraction of what it is had the US government stayed out of things. As soon as they stepped in, all bets were off, free market economics were broken, and everything went to hell.

I am NOT saying we do not need regulation. The fact is, unregulated hedge-funds and credit-default-swaps (CDS) have been a huge contributor to underlying stress on the system. Let me be clear: THAT type of thing should never have been allowed to happen in the first place, as hedge-funds are just an obvious way to dodge regulations that mutual funds must abide by, and CDS instruments are obviously insurance by another name that was dreamt up to avoid insurance regulation.

There needs to be a simple financial-regulatory doctrine: immediately shutdown and prosecute those businesses and individuals undertaking such obvious attempts to circumvent existing regulation (and tax code too!!) just by doing a name-change, rebranding, repackaging, etc., of an existing otherwise-regulated business. But, since Wall Street owns Washington, do not expect such simple logic to ever take hold - even after this current crisis. Expect more of the same: expect rewarding failure and appeasing the Wall Street elite that are "too big to fail".

Get ready for the next wave of this crap too. When you hear idiotic proposals from Presidential Candidates (McCain said this one I believe) to "remove ALL capital gains taxes on financial stocks", you are witnessing further manipulation of the free-market flow of money and equity-based fund-raising, as investors will have an incentive to put their money into Financial firms' stocks over other stocks. I can see this proposal happening too, as it is the ONLY way Hank and Ben will ever be able to sell their "investments" back to the public (i.e., all that preferred stock they just bought in financial firms).

The government has destroyed any hope of making "good stock picks" or otherwise "good investments" over what they have currently chosen as their target stocks of choice already. By back-stopping (i.e., providing guarantees) on everything from uninsured money-markets, to offering tax-advantages on Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae debt that was previously reserved for Muni Bonds, the government has intentionally shaped and directed the flow of capital to only those firms and investment vehicles they choose.

STOP THE PANIC NOW

The future of free-market Equity investing is over if we do not all stop falling for their game and moving our money out of stocks that WE choose and giving it to the government (as Treasury Bond investments) for THEM to choose to hand to the select few companies that are "too big to fail". God help you if you ever have a small business, like, e.g., a Google or something, that you want to take public and raise money through and equity offering in such an environment!

STAY IN STOCKS PEOPLE - and in the stocks that YOU want to own, not the ones the government chooses to own for you. Bring this out-of-control Treasury and Federal Reserve back under control. If you invest in stocks, the market will rise, and in doing so, the power of the Government to exploit mass-fear will be GONE! (and, so will the financial crisis). Reign them in now through such action, or you may never get the chance to stop their ever-expanding powers.

Joe-the-Plumber Demonstrates Business and Tax Ignorance in America

2008-10-16T14:29:00.006-04:00

I am not picking on "Joe the Plumber", though I need to start with this very current and in-your-face example that both candidates used in yesterday's presidential debate (quote from Fox news article link above):

Joe Wurzelbacher, 34, told Obama that he was preparing to buy the plumbing company he works for, and that its revenues come to more than $250,000 a year.

Does everyone realize how sad it is that people do not understand the difference between REVENUE and INCOME?! There is no income tax plan in America (whether presented by a Democrat or Republican) that sets tax threshold based on *revenue* of a company.

I could not believe it when Obama did not jump right on this fact and clearly say something like, "you know John (McCain), nobody is proposing taxing revenue, but rather *income*. It is only the business *income* that matters, and I will only increase taxes on the *income* over $250K/year. And, nobody is taxing a purchase of a business either, so the purchase price is irrelevant (except for the seller, who is presumably getting a favorable cap-gains rate already)." But, Obama and McCain, like most Americans, obviously lack the understanding of our current tax-code, even as they propose changes to it to improve it.

In addition, people incorrectly seem to think that if a tax-rate increase goes into effect for >$250K earnings that it raises taxes on dollars #1 through #250K, which is NOT the case. Our tax-tiers are additive bands, and the money earned in each "band" is taxed at that band's rate and that rate only, and have always been so. I.e., even if you make $300K, and taxes are raised by 3% on any income over $250K, you are paying 3% on the 50K beyond that 250K threshold, which is $1500/year. You are NOT paying 3% more on the entire 300K. No tax plan EVER has implemented such a thing. Again, I fault Obama for not pointing this out CLEARLY to everyone so as to dismiss the McCain fear-factor approach regarding Obama's plan to raise taxes on the income earned that EXCEEDS the $250K threshold, and ONLY on that amount. This is simply trying to return tax-band-rates on the upper-most tax-bands to rates similar to the Clinton era (which, if you noticed, we experienced a prolonged economic expansion during such times, and had much smaller deficits - it surely did not punish business or job-creation!)

American ignorance (in general) when it comes to understanding business and taxes is sad. It should be a requirement that we ALL learn about how a small business operation works, and about income taxes and how they are structured, so we know the basics. This should be a high-school class. The basics can be learned in just a couple weeks. And, it needs to be taught without regard to politics: we do not need teachers saying that either the Democrat's or Republican's version of taxation is "better" or "more fair" or whatever. Let people learn the tax code, and about how revenues, expenses, tax-credits, incentives, and all that come into play, and how it is net-profit (i.e., income) that is what matters most when it comes to taxation at a Federal level.

But, for now, the average American remains absolutely clueless with regards to taxes (in general), and especially in regards to taxes as they apply to small businesses. As such, John McCain can use the fear of taxes as a weapon against Barack Obama. And, because Barack seems to not command the details behind our tax-code, he is ill-equiped to stave off these attacks even though doing so should be SIMPLE.

Out candidates both prove that THEY are clueless in the matters of business and taxation, especially in regards to the "little guy"... they talk about education in America, but show they have no knowledge of how business and finance work for most of America. So, please candidates, get on the ball. I doubt John McCain really cares to learn (since his policies target large business and the absolute upper-few percent of incomes more than anything), but certainly Obama should be able to get some people onboard with his campaign to help him counter the fear/scare tactics of McCain. Talk to me Barack, I will GLADLY help your campaign with small-business issues... I own a few small businesses, and have for many years. I understand this all rather well, and can help explain to others that your plan really is not going to hurt small business AT ALL.

Sure, you have Warren Buffet and Robert Rubin as advisers, but you need someone that also represents the "small guy", the small business owner, and the concerns of the average American business owner. I will join your advisory board, and I do not expect compensation. I will make the same offer to McCain, but I really do not believe his interests lie in helping those that make less than $250K/year (income! not revenue people... income!), and as such, this would exclude 98% of small businesses from his target audience (though he surely has tried to scare ALL small business by misrepresenting tax-code and Obama's tax plan).

And, I have not even started on how insanely stupid McCain's health-care proposal is... he is incentivising me to drop the health-care plan I currently offer my employees and sticking my employees with the burden of acquiring healthcare for themselves at (I guarantee) a MUCH higher price than what I, as a business owner, get group-rates for. But, that is another issue.

Barack Obama Yard-Signs Attacked

2008-10-10T09:05:00.004-04:00

I predicted from early on, that if I were to put out yard signs promoting Barack Obama in an Ohio town that is predominantly white, middle-upper class, and generally Republican, that those same Republicans that constantly tout their "values" and "religious convictions" and such, would be the first to act in a fashion that is anything but what is preached in the Bible or in anyway reflect the same "values" they *talk* about.

Our yard sign and a couple other neighboring Barack Obama / Joe Biden signs a nearby neighbor had posted of the same type were pulled out of the ground and thrown aside this morning. The McCain/Palin signs remain standing on the same street. Gee, I guess some REPUBLICAN LOSER who felt it necessary to assail the political signs that I and my neighbors have in our front yards.

This is just further reinforcment of the reasons I have learned to dislike the current Republican party : mass hipocrisy! I hear all about how their Republican candidates (McCain/Palin) "better represents our values" and such, but the actions by many of these Republican followers demonstrates anything but values. I hear outright racism, intolerance for the poor, intolerance for anything but Christians, and in general, intolerance for anyone that doesn't believe exactly what they (these self-declared "conservatives") do. I just can not accept such intolerance as a "value" that represents me in any way, shape, or form.

I have voted Republican for some past candidates. And, I enjoyed the years where Republicans like Newt Gingerich led the charge to keep the budget under control (he was a bit extreme perhaps on many levels, but he sure did make an effort to control spending). I enjoy the thought of a fiscally conservative candidate and a business-friendly candidate, though not candidates that are business friendly only to BIG business and only fiscally conservative when it comes to cutting spending on things that they themselves do not want, while spending like crazy on everything else (for reference: just see George Bush's spending plan to see how screwed up the Republican "conservatives" are when it comes to fiscal responsibility these days).

So, I am beyond frustrated with this government, and with the divide that is running wild between the "left" and the "right", or the Democrats and the Republicans. It's like a professional sports event, where it is "my team" vs. "your team" mentality, when the fact is folks, I have to tell you, the ONLY winners in such an event are the suckers collecting the paycheck while we all root for "our teams". It's no different with politics people!

So, if you feel you are somehow furthering "your team" by assailing my Barack Obama yard signs, so be it. And, when everything goes to (further) hell under rampant deregulation of markets, Social Security, and everything else during this extended fleecing of America, do not come whining to me when you need YOUR social net that "your team" fails to provide when you no longer fit the profile of their chosen followers.

Intel X-25M SSD Benchmark Results (NASDAQ:INTC)

2008-10-08T09:58:00.011-04:00

I just purchased an Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) X-25M 80GB SATA SSD (Solid State Drive) from Buy.com (search for:X25M80GB) for $638.00 (a splurge, but I really wanted to speed up my primary software development desktop system!) I am pleased to report that, even with this "investment" coming at a rather steep price compared to traditional SATA hard-drives, I think it is worth it because of the massive productivity improvements I am seeing.

This "disk drive" (or, more appropriately, RAMDISK), is tiny and has no fan and makes zero noise because there are no moving parts. It is 2.5" form-factor drive, like a notebook drive, with a standard SATA interface and SATA power-cable (low-profile) connection. It installs just like any other SATA disk, and all I had to do was open up my machine, connect the cables, boot Windows (I still use XP Professional, as I have a dislike for Windows Vista still), and format the drive from Disk Manager utility.

TEST SETUP
I performed my tests on my Dell Dimension 9150 Desktop which has an Intel Pentium D 2.80Ghz Dual Core, 4GB RAM, Gigabit Ethernet, and SATA drives.

I do nearly all my work inside virtual machines, and as such, it is the performance of launching those VMs and running applications within those VMs that I have compared. For my Virtual-Machine testing, I am using VMWare Player 6.0 to run the VMs I created with VMware Workstation 6.0.

I especially do a lot of development in the Borland Delphi (aka, CodeGear Delphi, aka Embarcadero Delphi) IDE application. So, I have Delphi 2006 (D2006) Enterprise running under Windows 2003 Server with SP2 inside a VM, with a few Delphi component-sets installed that load into environment on startup (like Rave Reports, Raize Components, MustangPeak listview and treeview components, and QuickReports).

The Virtual Machine used in any benchmark below resides fully on whatever device it is that I am testing.

BENCHMARK RESULTS
For the speed comparison, I tested the same features and functionality with my test Virtual Machine running from either 1) a local Western Digital 7200 RPM SATA drive, 2) a QNAP NAS RAID-1 Gigabit-Ethernet connected device, or 3) the new Intel SSD installed on my local machine.

I saw INCREDIBLE RESULTS with the Intel SSD delivering MASSIVE SPEED IMPROVEMENTS for every operation I tested, as you will see in the table below. My tests were limited, as the speed-improvement trend was quickly apparent in everything I tried. In general, execution/load times when using the Intel SSD device were reduced by 50-80% as compared to the other devices - WOW! My tests included:

Booting WindowsXP to login prompt. Just like it sounds.
Starting Delphi 2006 "cold" after Windows first booted up, with D2006 loading the last-used project (same for each test) and to the familiar Delphi "Welcome" page.
Using D2006 to compile my largest project - that project is my own custom software that is 50+ units and 50,000+ lines of my own code, not to mention 10's of 1000s of lines of linked in code.
Using the BDS (Borland Developer Studio) Help System to "filter" the results in help to a particular language (in this case: language = Delphi), since Borland also includes other Help for C++ and Windows APIs and all sorts of stuff I don't normally want my search to encompass. Though this may sound trivial, just selecting the "filter" operation drove me nuts in the past due to how slow it was. Thankfully, the SSD speeds this up INCREDIBLY!
A "Find-in-Files" operation, where I search my large Delphi project for instances of various words, including searching files that are not already open in the IDE.

Here is a table showing how long the same operation took to perform in one of three configurations.

Elapsed times are in SECONDS (Lower is better!)	INTEL X25M SSD	QNAP SATA RAID over Gigabit Ethernet	Local WD 7200RPM SATA
Boot Windows XP to Login Prompt	36s	83s	112s
Delphi 2006 : Launch IDE	17s	40s	35s
Delphi 2006 : Compile a large project	Instant	4s	4s
Delphi 2006 : Filter Help by "Lang : Delphi"	2s	10s+	8s+
Delphi 2006 : Find-in-Files operation	Instant	1.5s	1.5s

CONCLUSION
As I expected when I wrote about the Intel X-25M, X-25E, and X18M SSD Specifications on my blog recently, Intel's new Solid State Drive delivered a substantial performance boost to my desktop. I am now limited only by the throughput of my somewhat outdated desktop CPU and the bandwidth of the SATA bus that I have the SSD installed on. If cost were no concern, I would definitely install a SATA RAID card and RAID 4 of these SSDs together to achieve insane throughput rates. But, that will have to wait until prices fall dramatically to become an option that is more affordable.

I do expect the price to fall somewhat quickly by the second quarter of 2009 as other competitors come on line with SSD offerings, and as production is ramped up in general. In the short term, I actually noticed that Buy.Com increased the price by $30.00, perhaps due to strong demand, to $668.99. I will be waiting for a price drop or promotion before getting a second one for my primary Windows XP boot / OS drive.

I think there is certainly potential for ROI (Return-On-Investment) justification for this Intel SSD already. Fact is, if you find yourself spending a fair amount of your day waiting for your computer to keep up with you (due to slow disk drives), the Intel SSD will deliver outstanding improvements and make your day more productive and tolerable. If the drive saves even 15minutes/day of a $40/hour employee's time that is otherwise wasted sitting there while a disk-drive does something, that is $10/day of savings if the newly found time is used for more productivity. As such, the ROI period would be only 2 months!

Sure, many people will not save 15minutes per day unless they do a LOT of disk-intensive work, but even 5 minutes per day savings (loading office applications and such) would pay for the Intel drive in 6 months, not to mention the MTBF (Mean-Time-Between-Failure) should be VERY low thanks to the fact there are no moving parts - so, less maintenance or down-time = money saved too. And, this device uses nearly ZERO POWER, and you will save there too (and, you will save on cooling costs, as thermal footprint is much lower than a standard disk). Consider this Intel SSD either now or in the near future... it may save you a bundle.

Sarah Palin Proves Ignorance in Interview with Katie Couric

2008-09-25T23:11:00.006-04:00

I just read the transcripts of Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric (CBS News), and I just can not help thinking: "Please God, do not let this person become Vice President (or President!)"

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UPDATE: The LA Times posted a nice extract of Sarah Palin's interview showing just exactly how absolutely scary-ignorant Palin is, and appropriately titled the piece: Palin talks to Couric -- and if she's lucky, few are listening. Here is an excerpt from that LA Times article, where Palin is responding to Couric suggesting the bailout may help Wall Street more than the average American:

" . . . where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh -- it's got to be all about job creation too. Shoring up our economy, and putting it back on the right track. So healthcare reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, um, scary thing, but 1 in 5 jobs being created in the trade sector today. We've got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that."

What the heck was that?? I just have to read that and think: "she is absolutely unbelievably incompetent", and all she is doing is throwing together buzzwords that she was coached to include in anything she says, but she is even failing miserably at that.
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Is she really the best the Republican party could find?? Better yet, is she really the best we, as a Country, can find in a population of 300 million to represent us?? I always though that we were supposed to choose the best and the brightest for our top leadership positions, but that is obviously not the case.

I'm sure plenty of starry-eyed zombies searching for ANY reason to follow her and the Republican party this year will find her "so incredible" and take issue with my critique, but I can not help thinking that compared to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Sarah Palin is nothing short of a mental-midget and certainly not even in the same league with regards to qualifications on ANY level. Just read the transcript or watch the interview. To argue for Sara Palin's ability at this point is to put ones own credibility on the line, as the only ones that would try to defend her lack of intellect, or insight into the issues America faces, would simply be die-hard Republicans that will vote Republican regardless of who the candidate is, no matter what. Period.

I am sick of reading comments these Palin "supporters" write in response to news articles that clearly show how unqualified Palin is, charging things like how "the liberal media is attacking her" and so on... give me a break! You don't see ANY other candidates (including McCain himself) breaking down in interviews like this and showing how they have nothing to back up their position. Sarah Palin could not even produce ONE example of "what makes John McCain a maverick" when asked... do you really think that means the media is attacking her when it should be one of the CORE concepts you best be able to answer when it is your running platform for god sakes!

And, if anyone wants to write me off as some sort of "left winger" or "liberal" or whatever, go for it... you'd be greatly mistaken. I would LOVE to see a solid Republican candidate that gets back to the roots that they (in theory) once stood for, like SMALLER GOVERNMENT and FISCAL DISCIPLINE, but, after Newt Gingrich lost control of the purse strings, the Republican party lost its direction completely and became the big-spending, big government Republican party that now wants us to bail out the result of their "anti-regulation" mentality. I've had it! I'm fed up!

Everyone that praises the (Bill) Clinton era for this supposed "Surplus" we ran for a brief time can thank, in large part, the spending constraints imposed under a Republican-controlled legislature, and the tax-increase imposed in 1992 by President Bush Sr. (remember folks? the whole "no new taxes", and then he increased taxes no the wealthy after all, and that cost him the election?). Too bad Bush Sr.'s son decided to undo all the positive change with regards to fiscal discipline! And, you can't say that "taxes were too high" under Clinton or that taxes stifled growth, as we had some rather nice GDP-Growth years during the Clinton era (50%+ higher average growth compared to under Bush Jr.) and tighter Congressional spending control.

By the way, the TOTAL DEBT never went down under Clinton:

Side-Note: regardless of how many times everyone keeps saying "Clinton paid down the debt" -- that is a bit of a lie at best -- they "paid down" the publicly-held portion of the debt only, by borrowing massive amounts from Social Security and other intra-governmental borrowing to cover shortfalls in spending.

The total government debt has gone up every year since 1961 (yes, Eisenhower was the last President that can truly claim a balanced budget!). Under President Clinton, we did come close and were only $17.9Billion in the red in 2000. It's accounting-tricks folks... the total debt still rose in every year we keep hearing about "balanced budgets" and "surpluses", as from 1998 to 2001 (yes, even GW's first year in office) the debt held by the public dropped in every year, though total debt still increased by nearly $400Billion during that same time (borrowed, or perhaps a better word is stollen, from the Social Security "trust fund" and the like).

So, along came President GW Bush in 2000, and sold everyone on a tax cut for the WEALTHIEST AMERICANS on the guise that there was some giant "surplus" that had to be given back to Americans. What a crock! There was NEVER a surplus, and the fact that Americans believed there was is what led, in large part, to where we are today with massive government spending-to-revenue ratios (i.e., incredible debt amassment: the total Federal debt under Bush Jr. has nearly doubled to $10 Trillion now, and that is before this latest bailout!) And, this led to the worst income and wealth disparity in the United States in any recent history, plus real-wages eroding like never before.

So, that puts us here in 2008 with a choice for yet another Republican that will most likely keep pushing to make-permanent the "Bush tax cuts" (which, again, help mainly those above $250K/yr in earnings), while we take on more and more debt (I really doubt the nearly Trillion dollar Wall Street bailout package will be the "end" of this fleecing of America in the name of helping the average American when, in fact, it will most certainly disproportionately favor the upper end of the income band in its current proposed form). And, to top off this latest Republican nominee that looks much like Bush Jr. (in policy slant), McCain picks someone (Sarah Palin) that, with nearly every unrehearsed speech, proves herself to be utterly ignorant and certainly intellectually inferior to the likes of Hillary, Obama, Biden, or even McCain himself. Sad.

I'm sure someone will have to tell me that I am being unfair, or sexist, or some other bull to cover up the fact that there is really no way to argue that Sarah Palin has the intellect, or the experience, to run this country should anything happen to John McCain. That alone prevents me from voting Republican this year, and McCain's pledge to keep the Bush tax cuts in place "forever" just tops it off.

Why didn't Ron Paul stay in as a 3rd party candidate??? At least he has a head on his shoulders, no matter how frank he is in speaking his mind, or how "out there" some of his ideas are. Oh how I want some REAL change! Barack Obama and Joe Biden are perhaps not the radical change I desire, but from where I sit, it sure beats the alternative McCain and Palin option.

I still would like to (at least partially) have seen Barack choose Hillary, as I think this election would be a blowout. Actually, I, and others, contend that it would be a blowout if it were not for racism; and, I don't just put this out as conjecture, I have had multiple self-declared long-time hard-core Democrats tell me how they will not vote for a "black guy", which is also just plain sad in this day and age - not to mention Barack is half-white too folks, as if it matters! I also ponder what Barack's following would be like had he crossed party lines and chosen Ron Paul for a running mate? THAT would have made things darned interesting! Well, at least Obama chose someone much better suited to take over the Presidency than McCain did, and he deserves credit for showing some judgement there (though, perhaps he played it a bit too "safe" with Biden for many).

OK, time to go back to reading all the headlines of economic doom that are all sprouting from seeds sown by the corrupt and well connected, and fertilized by the never ending flow of insanity in this greed-ridden politician, lobbyist, and Wall Street controlled country we call the United States of America!