The CALM Act

Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse is ready to take on that annoying blast of sound when TV commercials are just too loud and wants to compel the Federal Communications Commission to fix it and require the ads to be at the same decibel level as the programming.

Whitehouse has introduced legislation called the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act of 2009, or CALM.

Democrats say the FCC has received consumer complaints about commercials being louder than television shows since the 1960s. In the 25 quarterly reports on consumer complaints released by the FCC since 2002, 21 have listed as a top complaint the loudness of television commercials.

From: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/12/10/2148946.aspx

$4.8 Trillion -- In Interest!!

More than HALF of the $9 trillion in debt that Uncle Sam is expected to build up over the next decade will be interest.

HALF!!

$4.8 trillion!! That's trillion with a "T".

In 2015 alone, the estimated interest due - $533 billion - is equal to a third of the federal income taxes expected to be paid that year, said Charles Konigsberg, chief budget counsel of the Concord Coalition, a deficit watchdog group.

From: http://money.cnn.com/2009/11/19/news/economy/debt_interest/index.htm

One Hit Wonders

Billboard Magazine has released its list for the top one hit wonders of the decade:

#1 was.....

Daniel Powter with "Bad Day"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH476CxJxfg

Congratulations, kinda.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091207/ap_en_mu/us_music_one_hit_wonder

Social Networking to the Extreme

You have to see this to believe it:

http://laughingsquid.com/groom-updates-facebook-twitter-at-the-alter-while-getting-married/

NFL's Top Sellers

Highest grossing NFL Teams in terms of merchandise sales this season:

1. Pittsburgh Steelers
2. Dallas Cowboys
3. Minnesota Vikings
4. New York Giants
5. Chicago Bears
6. New England Patriots
7. Philadelphia Eagles
8. Denver Broncos
9. Indianapolis Colts
10. New Orleans Saints


Best selling NFL jerseys this season:

1. Brett Favre
2. Troy Polamalu
3. Adrian Peterson
4. Tom Brady
5. Peyton Manning
6. Jay Cutler
7. Ben Roethlisberger
8. Eli Manning
9. Tony Romo
10. Mark Sanchez

http://www.cnbc.com/id/34259984

1 in 8

From the New York Times:

With food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children.

More than 36 million people use inconspicuous plastic cards for staples like milk, bread and cheese, swiping them at counters in blighted cities and in suburbs pocked with foreclosure signs.

Virtually all have incomes near or below the federal poverty line, but their eclectic ranks testify to the range of people struggling with basic needs. They include single mothers and married couples, the newly jobless and the chronically poor, longtime recipients of welfare checks and workers whose reduced hours or slender wages leave pantries bare.

The entire article is long, but well worth the read: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/us/29foodstamps.html?_r=2&hp

4 Pillars

Thomas Friedman, the NY Times columnist, and author of The World is Flat, recently wrote that:

My own foreign policy thinking since 9/11 has been based on four pillars:

1. The Warren Buffett principle: Everything I’ve ever gotten in life is largely due to the fact that I was born in this country, America, at this time with these opportunities for its citizens. It is the primary obligation of our generation to turn over a similar America to our kids.

2. Many big bad things happen in the world without America, but not a lot of big good things. If we become weak and enfeebled by economic decline and debt, as we slowly are, America may not be able to play its historic stabilizing role in the world. If you didn’t like a world of too-strong-America, you will really not like a world of too-weak-America — where China, Russia and Iran set more of the rules.

3. The context within which people live their lives shapes everything — from their political outlook to their religious one. The reason there are so many frustrated and angry people in the Arab-Muslim world, lashing out first at their own governments and secondarily at us — and volunteering for “martyrdom” — is because of the context within which they live their lives. That was best summarized by the U.N.’s Arab Human Development reports as a context dominated by three deficits: a deficit of freedom, a deficit of education and a deficit of women’s empowerment. The reason India, with the world’s second-largest population of Muslims, has a thriving Muslim minority (albeit with grievances but with no prisoners in Guantánamo Bay) is because of the context of pluralism and democracy it has built at home.

4. One of the main reasons the Arab-Muslim world has been so resistant to internally driven political reform is because vast oil reserves allow its regimes to become permanently ensconced in power, by just capturing the oil tap, and then using the money to fund vast security and intelligence networks that quash any popular movement. Look at Iran.

Hence, post-9/11 I advocated that our politicians find sufficient courage to hike gasoline taxes and seriously commit ourselves to developing alternatives to oil. Economists agree that this would ultimately bring down the global price, and slowly deprive these regimes of the sole funding source that allows them to maintain their authoritarian societies. People do not change when we tell them they should; they change when their context tells them they must.

A League of their Own

Phyllis Patterson is 78 years old, lives at the Beaumont Rehabilitation and Skilled Nursing Center in Northbridge, MA.

She is also an avid fantasy football participant.

In just two months, attendance at televised Sunday afternoon games in the third-floor common room at the Nursing Center has doubled, and about a dozen seniors between the ages of 77 and 93 earn points weekly depending on the performance of their NFL teams.

You can learn more about the fantasy football adventures in Northbridge here:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/11/09/fantasy_football_giving_these_residents_a_kick_sundays/

Global Warming & Boston

A new report out by World Wildlife Fund and insurer Allianz warns that sea levels could rise along the U.S. coast a whopping 26 inches by 2050 as the world warms.

That would place assets worth $7.4 trillion at risk along the US coast.

$463 billion worth of those assets are in Boston, which is cited as the city with the fourth greatest risk exposure in the study.

The top three are Miami with $2.8 trillion; New York with $1.8 trillion and New Orleans with $753 billion.

The report comes several weeks before the world’s nations meet in Copenhagen to work toward a binding agreement to lower greenhouse gases from power plants, cars, and factories that are warming the earth and causing sea levels to rise.

$500 @ Birth

Here is a snapshot of an article from US News & World Report:

Imagine a world in which every baby receives a trust fund at birth.

It might sound like a fairy tale, but being born into money -- or at least into a $500 savings account -- could soon become a reality for all children born in the United States.

Lawmakers are considering a bill that would give each newborn just that, with the goal of promoting savings that would later be used for education, a first home or retirement.

The ASPIRE (America Saving for Personal Investment, Retirement and Education) Act would give each child born in the United States a $500 savings account. Low-income children would receive additional funding, and all participants could add to their accounts over time.

The purpose of the accounts, says Reid Cramer, the director of the Asset Building Program at the New America Foundation, would be to get people invested in their futures. "Having an asset has the potential to change the way people think and plan for their future, and sometimes those effects can be generated just from small asset holdings," he says, adding that it's possible for people to build significant savings over time.

The ASPIRE Act also would pair the creation of the accounts with financial literacy programs in schools.

From: http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/SaveMoney/juniors-first-paycheck-500-dollars-at-birth.aspx