Corporate Approval Ratings

Whats worse in the mind of Americans: oil spills, SEC investigations, or runaway cars?

Here are the approval ratings of three companies recently based on polls from NBC News:

Toyota in the midst of the accelerator issues - 31% approval

BP currently dealing with the oil spill in the Gulf - 11% approval

Goldman Sachs - 4% approval!!!!!!

Big bonuses, high frequency trading, market turmoil and an overall distrust of Wall Street is leading to approval ratings at BP that are almost 3 times higher than Goldman Sachs.

From: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37212334/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/

Graduation Speeches

In honor of graduation season here are some of the best quotes from graduation speeches of the past:

Winston Churchill, Harrow 1941

“Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”


Will Ferrell, Harvard 2003

“I’m not one of you. Okay? I can’t relate to who you are and what you’ve been through. I graduated from the University of Life. All right? I received a degree from the School of Hard Knocks. And our colors were black and blue, baby. I had office hours with the Dean of Bloody Noses. All right? I borrowed my class notes from Professor Knuckle Sandwich and his Teaching Assistant, Ms. Fat Lip Thon Nyun. That’s the kind of school I went to for real, okay?”


Steve Jobs, Stanford 2005

“Death is very likely the single best invention of life. It’s life’s change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it’s quite true. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary… Stay hungry, stay foolish.”


Conan O’Brien, Harvard 2000

“So, that’s what I wish for all of you: the bad as well as the good. Fall down, make a mess, break something occasionally. And remember that the story is never over. If it’s all right, I’d like to read a little something from just this year: “Somehow, Conan O’Brien has transformed himself into the brightest star in the Late Night firmament. His comedy is the gold standard and Conan himself is not only the quickest and most inventive wit of his generation, but quite possible the greatest host ever.” Ladies and Gentlemen, Class of 2000, I wrote that this morning, as proof that, when all else fails, there’s always delusion.”


http://www.gradspot.com/guides/top-ten-all-time-best-graduation-speeches

How Rich?

As Americans we are very lucky. Did you ever wonder just how lucky?

The website "Global Rich List" attempts to answer that very question. You type in your annual salary and it tells you where you rank as compared to the rest of the world. I guarantee you will be amazed and stunned at the results:

http://globalrichlist.com/

DID YOU KNOW?
Three decades ago, the people in well-to-do countries were 30 times better off than those in countries where the poorest 20 percent of the world's people live. By 1998, this gap had widened to 82 times

Perfect Game

In what might be the most amazing story in the history of video games Wade McGilberry of Mobile, Ala., a 24-year-old experienced gamer was simply perfect. Back in January the creators of the new Major League Baseball game 2K10 came up with a very interesting promotion. The first person to throw a perfect game with specific settings and do so online would win a million dollars. Here is Wade's story:


After purchasing the game he debated with his wife Katy whether he should go to work or attempt the perfect game. He decided he'd show up to work in his capacity as a 401K record keeper. At around 4 p.m. that day, Wade returned from work. He logged on to XBox Live, set the game on the special perfect game mode, and just played.

Perfect game until the fifth. Base hit.
Reset.

Perfect game until the sixth. Base hit.
Reset.

Three more times, McGilberry shut the game off after he lost the perfect game.

But something strange happened during the sixth game. McGilberry took the perfect game to seventh, to the eighth and closed out the ninth. It had taken him less than an hour and a half to do it, he said.

"I called my wife, who was a work, and said, 'Honey, I'm done. I don't need to play anymore," McGilberry said.

He will collect his money shortly and spend the first part of his prize money on paying off his mortgage. As for how many perfect games he has thrown since Day 1?

"The funny thing is I haven't even come close since then," McGilberry said. "There must have been something special about that day."

From: http://www.cnbc.com/id/36960201

Apple Product or Apple Stock??

Blogger Kyle Conroy has run some numbers and determined what would have happened if people had taken the cash they plunked down over the years on an iMac, iPod, and iPhone and put that money into Apple stock.

The choice is clear—buy the stock.

For example, if you'd bought an Apple PowerBook G3 250 when it was released on November 10, 1997, it would have cost you a whopping $5,700.

If you'd instead put $5,700 into Apple stock on that day, that investment would be worth...wait for it...I hope you're sitting down...$330,563.

The whole story is worth the read: http://www.cnbc.com/id/36875273/

CNBC Coverage

One of my 10 predictions for 2010 was the push for the legalization of marijuana. I think this is a prediction that will definitely pan out.

Normally very conservative CNBC, is actually devoting an entire section of their website to the topic of marijuana and a specific focus on the effect on big business of potential legalization:


http://www.cnbc.com/id/36022433?__source=vtymarijuana&par=vty

Graduation Speech

The 1 minute graduation speech:

The Tea Party

From Tim White @ http://ephphatha-poetry.blogspot.com/2010/04/imagine-if-tea-party-was-black-tim-wise.html:

Imagine If the Tea Party was Black:

Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC . . . armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protesters — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic?

Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark “other” does so, however, it isn’t viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic. Which is why Rush Limbaugh could say, this past week, that the Tea Parties are the first time since the Civil War that ordinary, common Americans stood up for their rights: a statement that erases the normalcy and “American-ness” of blacks in the civil rights struggle, not to mention women in the fight for suffrage and equality, working people in the fight for better working conditions, and LGBT folks as they struggle to be treated as full and equal human beings.

******

The entire piece is well worth the read.

In the wake of the new "Papers Please" immigration law in Arizona it is vital that we start calling these events and movements what they truly are: racist.

Weird Origins

Here are some famous companies that roots are in very different pursuits then you ever would have imagined:

Nokia - Got its start as a paper and pulp mill in Finland. The company bounced around a couple of different industries before getting started in the phone business.

Samsung - Was first opened as a trading shop in Korea mainly dealing with exporting dried fish and fruit.

Wrigley's Gum - Was originally started with the goal of selling soap and baking soda.

Raytheon - Before missiles for the government, Raytheon was focused on a technology to keep your leftover food fresh in the refrigerator.

Hasbro - Before Monopoly and Scrabble, the Hasbro company was focused on textile products and school supplies.

Toyota - Prius problems aside, the Toyota company first created a more efficient way to manufacture cloth.

IBM - Got its start making meat slicing machines and punch cards if you can believe that.

Ben and Jerry's - Was originally envisioned as a bagel delivery service.

From : http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/companies-that-almost-weren2527t-ben-jerrys/12/11/2009/id/25767

Obama

It has been over 460 days since President Obama was sworn into office. It is time for a look back and a re-buff of those who say Obama's accomplishments have been less than steller:

- Health Care - Say what you will about the reform not going far enough but President Obama's reform expanded coverage to 32 million more Americans while simultaneously reducing the deficit by $1.3 trillion over the next 20 years. It also made it illegal for insurance companies to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and allowed young people to stay on their parent's health care plan until they are 26.

- Economic Stimulus - Obama signed into law the largest stimulus package in history at $787 billion which included spending for health care, infrastructure, education, and direct assistance to individuals. As a result of these measures, the industrial production index has been up 9 months in a row, the readings on GDP last quarter showed 5.9 percent annual growth and employers added 162,000 jobs in March, the biggest gain in four years.

- Nuclear Weapons - On April 8, 2010, President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed the latest Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), a "major" nuclear arms control agreement that reduces the nuclear weapons stockpiles of both countries.

- Supreme Court - Obama's first Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor became the very first hispanic on the Supreme Court and only the 3rd woman. He now prepares to announce his second nominee.

- Stem Cell Research - On March 9, 2009, Obama repealed a Bush-era policy that prevented federal tax dollars from being used to fund research on new lines of embryonic stem cells.

- Environment - On January 27, 2009, Obama directed the Department of Transportation to raise fuel efficiency standards incrementally to 35 miles per US gallon by 2020. Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provides $54 billion in funds to double domestic renewable energy production, renovate federal buildings making them more energy-efficient, improve the nation's electricity grid, repair public housing, and weatherize modest-income homes.

- Iraq and Afganistan - On February 18, 2009, Obama announced that the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan would be bolstered by 17,000 new troops by summer in an effort to create a new strategy in the war "Canaidate Obama" promised would be the focus of his presidency. On February 27, 2009 Obama declared his plan for ending the Iraq War in a speech at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

- Nobel Peace Prize - Obama was awarded the Peace Prize "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples" . He then donated the $1.4 million given to him in conjunction with the Nobel Peace Prize to ten charities, including the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund and the United Negro College Fund.

What did I miss, and what are your thoughts?