Jindal

The proclaimed new face of the Republican party had his time in the spotlight Tuesday night.


Potential 2012 presidential candidate Bobby Jindal delivered the Republican response to President Obama's address to the nation.

Unfortunatley for Jindal, the reviews even from his own party, were less than stellar...


From the NY Times:
"Conservative commentators were among the harshest critics, calling Mr. Jindal’s delivery animatronic, his prose “cheesy” and his message — that federal spending is not the answer to the nation’s economic problems — uninspired."


"If it sounds like Jindal is targeting his speech to a room full of fourth graders, that's because he is. They might be the next people to actually vote for Republicans again."
-Nate Silver www.fivethirtyeight.com


The Republicans may never come to the realization that pushing for polices that failed the last 8 years is not the way to regain trust or instill confidence.

1 Trillion Dollars

It wasn't long ago that billions replaced millions as numbers that can be tossed around without people batting a eye.

It seems like it won't be long until trillions replace billions with that auspicious honor.

President Obama has already said that the deficit will hit $1 trillion dollars soon.


So how are we supposed to get our heads around a trillion dollars...

One million seconds is about 11½ days.

A billion seconds is 32 years.

A trillion seconds is 32,000 years.



A stack of one trillion $1 bills would reach more than a quarter of the way to the moon



If you want some good news try this one...

A $700 billion bailout translates into $45 per week for each American man, woman and child. Going one step further, it comes out to a little more than $6 a day. Are you willing to pay $6 a day to have a functioning financial system, OK attempt to have a functioning financial system.


And finally...

If you spent 1 million dollars ever day since year zero you would be short of a trillion dollars.

Address to Congress

"We will rebuild, we will recover and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before."

"Now is the time to act boldly and wisely - to not only revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity."

"We are a nation that has seen promise amid peril, and claimed opportunity from ordeal. Now we must be that nation again."

"If we come together and lift this nation from the depths of this crisis; if we put our people back to work and restart the engine of our prosperity; if we confront without fear the challenges of our time and summon that enduring spirit of an America that does not quit, then someday years from now our children can tell their children that this was the time when we performed, in the words that are carved into this very chamber, "something worthy to be remembered."

Obama was elected on hope and is forced by the responsibility of his office to dampen expectations so as not to disappoint. This speech represented an elegant balance between providing both hope and realism. In order for things to recover we must believe it is possible. This was a step in the right direction.

Daily Links

Buzzer Beater: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI2_ZcDYj28

10 Letters a Day: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/02/dear-president.html

Hail Mary Pass

8 years of tax cut for the wealthy, deregulation of financial markets, and bailouts for Wall Street.

Barack Obama was elected because Americans wanted a president to address the middle class. A month into his term, Obama has received nothing but criticism from the right for attempting to do just that.

In one month, Obama has pushed through legislation to attempt to jump start the economy, create the jobs of the future, and help struggling homeowners on the brink of foreclosure. He has been called a socialist and any attempt he has made at bi-partisanship has been futile.

Republicans are screaming that Obama is simply helping those who made poor decisions (homeowners in houses they can't afford) at the expense of people who made the right decisions (tax paying citizens that did not splurge on a huge mortgage).

Hang on a second, these are the same Republicans who proclaimed that we absolutely must bail out Wall Street. Since then we have spent over $1 trillion to help those who made bad decisions (Wall Street Banks) at the expenses of Main Street Americans (taxpayers).

The last 8 years have proved one thing time and time again. Republicans are looking out for the rich in this country and pitch their policies as standing up for what is right. They demand tax cuts to business and the top 1%, while living standards for the majority of Americans decrease at an alarming rate. They demand bailouts for Wall Street and cringe at the thought of helping struggling homeowners.

What the majority of people are missing in Obama's housing plan is that by helping those on the brink of foreclosures it actually helps everyone in the neighborhood. By stopping the precipitous price decline of all houses when foreclosures overrun a neighborhood it is not just the one homeowner who benefits. Obama's plan even helps the banks who now will receive a monthly mortgage payment rather then repossessing a worthless house.

Republicans have blocked or ridiculed Obama on so many levels, that they are now staking their claim in 2010 and 2012 as the party that opposed Obama's financial plan from the start.

In essence, they are betting that he will fail, and they will be reborn as the new "party of change".

Any economist would tell them that with how economic cycles work it is very unlikely that it will be worse in 2010 then it is today. The amount of monetary stimulus and the fact that this is already a long recession by historical standards, make it very likely that recovery will have begun by 2010.

The party of tax cuts and free markets has been ripped to shreds by an economic crisis caused by their failed policies. This is their Hail Mary pass, and it will fall short.

The Republicans have played partisan politics at a moment in history only rivaled by the Great Depression. I truly believe that come 2010 the Republicans will be the party of change, but our country will want more of the same.

Rant Coming

On Monday I will post my personal rant surrounding the current crisis and the responses to it.

If you would like to e-mail me your opinions on the current state of affairs, I would be happy to post them anonymously.

Finance

Day 3's websites are apropos in our current environment...

Mint

A free service that links all of your bank and credit card accounts. It presents your financial summary in a detail every night.


Billshare

Billshare is designed to make sharing bills and expenses easy. It allows multiple users to create bills for divided receipts and track group spending habits. Users receive email alerts to keep up to date on total balances and the amounts that are owed.

Music

Day 2 is focused on music sites. As always feel free to post any sites you rely on...

www.pandora.com

One of the most popular music recommendation services on the Internet. At its core it is an internet radio service that assigns up to 400 attributes to every song and uses your preferences to dictate the music played.


www.musicovery.com

Web radio service that uses your desired mood to adjust the music played. The more you listen and rate songs the more personalized the service becomes.


www.mufin.com

Mufin's software begins working as soon as you enter one of your favorite songs. Mufin's algorithm then analyzes the fundamental properties of the song and makes recommendations based solely on musical similarities. Mufin is not an internet radio, but it does allow for previews of songs and gives you the option to buy the song from iTunes.

100 Posts

The aim of this blog was to create a forum for the web content that spurs discussion, debate, and disagreement.

This week, in honor of 100 posts, I will try and highlight the websites that truly are revolutionary in their ability to make your life easier.

Feel free to post your own favorite "web gems".

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The last time you booked a trip online I sure hope you checked these websites first.

Day 1 of our look at revolutionary websites is focused on travel...

http://www.kayak.com/

Kayak searches airline fares (plus hotel rates and other travel products) from more than 140 sources. If your itinerary is flexible, you can search for rates up to three days before and after your ideal travel dates.

http://www.yapta.com/

Yapta is a service that allows you to track the price movements of specific flights. You can utilize the service to attempt to purchase tickets at the lowest possible price or request a refund if prices drop below the price you purchased at.


http://www.thebathroomdiaries.com/search.html

Because when you gotta go, you gotta go. The bathroom diaries allows you to search through ratings for over 12,000 public bathrooms across the globe. You can even read about the world's top rated bathrooms (http://www.thebathroomdiaries.com/GoldenPlungers.html). The best part is that you can access the website right from your cell phone.

Phelps

It was announced yesterday that the USA Swimming federation has suspended Michael Phelps from competition for three months.

This along with the Kellogg corporation saying that they will not renew their sponsorship contract with Phelps are the latest fallout from a photo that showed the Olympic great with a marijuana pipe.

Does the punishment fit the crime?

What are you thoughts?


I will be on vacation next week, so there will not be any posts.

100th post coming on Tuesday the 17th.

Bailout Money = Volunteer

Yesterday President Obama caped executive salaries at $500,000 for any bank that will receive additional government bailout money. I would have liked to have seen one additional provision...

For every million dollars a firm received in bailout money they must donate 100 hours of community service. This would be a firm wide initiative and it would reap benefits across the country.

Thru February 3rd over $290 billion dollars of TARP money has been invested in banks around the country.

So under my proposal:

Citigroup $45 billion = 4,500,000 hours of community service = 22 hours per employee

Bank of America $45 billion = 4,500,000 hours of community service = 30 hours per employee

A.I.G. $40 billion = 4,000,000 hours of community service = 40 hours per employee

And so on...

Cell Phone Spending

From The Big Picture Blog:

In 2001, the ratio of spending on residential phone services to spending on cellular phone services was greater than 3 to 1. In 2007, cellular phone expenditures accounted for 55 percent of total telephone expenditures compared to 43 percent for residential phone expenditures.

Annual expenditures for cellular phone services per consumer unit increased from $210 in 2001 to $608 in 2007, an increase of 190 percent. Expenditures for residential phone services per consumer unit decreased from $686 to $482 over that period, a decrease of 30 percent.

Is anyone else surprised it took until 2006 for this shift to occur?

Daily Links

US Airways Flight 1549: http://jalopnik.com/5144502/us-airways-flight-1549-towed-through-jersey-streets

Glass Pool Table: http://icantseeyou.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/02/the-g1-glass-top-pool-table-with-a-very-cool-video-demonstration.html

Blinged iPods: http://www.vagant.net/blog/2009/02/02/elton-john-brings-blinged-ipods-noble/

Groundhog Day & Commercials

Punxsutawney Phil, the critter in charge of predicting the weather, saw his shadow this morning predicting another 6 weeks of winter. Since 1877, Phil has seen his shadow 98 times, hasn't seen it 15 times, and there are no records for nine years.

Here's to the hope that the prognosticating critter was out too late partying because of the Steelers victory last night and was mistaken.

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My favorite three commercials from the game last night:

Pepsi "Forever Young" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R27Pd_KpKIc&feature=related

Doritios "Crystal Ball" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF2OITaJIxw

CarrerBuilder "New Job" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79tMMFja-Fw


Yesterday over

15,000 tons of potato chips

4,000 tons of popcorn and

8,000,000 pounds of guacamole

were consumed which may explain why 7-11 reported a whopping 20% rise in the sale of antacids.