The bailout explained

Posted on March 11, 2009 by ChrisA

and “new math” as well.

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The bailout explained

Posted on March 11, 2009 by ChrisA

and “new math” as well.

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A sense of entitlement

Posted on March 11, 2009 by ChrisA

Nancy Pelosi? Couldn’t be. Seems she want and expects to have first class transportation available at her beckon call.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly requested military aircraft to shuttle her and her colleagues and family around the country, according to a new report from a conservative watchdog group.


Apparently only the best will do…

But Judicial Watch said that Pelosi was notorious for making special demands for high-end aircraft, lodging last-minute cancellations and racking up additional expenses for the military.

The e-mails showed repeated attempts by Pelosi aides to request aircraft, sometimes aggressively, and by Department of Defense officials to accommodate them.

“I think that’s above and beyond what other members of Congress are doing and what is expected of our elected officials,” said Jenny Small, a researcher with the group.

In one e-mail, aide Kay King complained to the military that they had not made available any aircraft the House speaker wanted for Memorial Day recess.

“It is my understanding there are NO G5s available for the House during the Memorial Day recess. This is totally unacceptable … The Speaker will want to know where the planes are,” King wrote.

In another, when told a certain type of aircraft would not be available, King wrote: “This is not good news, and we will have some very disappointed folks, as well as a very upset Speaker.”


Here’s a video Fox News report as well.

This is not good leadership in poor economic times. Yet, it is exactly the type of leadership one would expect from our entitled political leaders. Seems like a great way to lose some “moral authority”, of course that assumes Ms. Pelosi ever had any. There is NO doubt she has the power and the associated arrogance.

Added 3/11 @ 2:26pm. The country’s in the very best of hands.

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Average cell phone cost is $3.02/minute

Posted on March 11, 2009 by ChrisA

The Utility Consumers’ Action Network (UCAN) makes idiots of themselves in their use of math. It’s a case of mean vs. median. As an example…

It reminds me of the (probably apocryphal) story about the geography department at the University of North Carolina, which in 1986 supposedly reported that the average starting salary of its graduates that year was $300,000 — without explaining that there were only six graduates that year, and one of them was Michael Jordan. Anyone who understands math knows that the average (know in math speak as the mean) is almost always not the most illustrative way to look at a range of numbers. Instead, it is the median, or the middle number in a list of numbers, the point at which half the numbers are higher and half are lower.

The overall cost per minute for ALL users is…

Even with the unrepresentative sample group, in the simplest, Occam’s razor sense of the word, the $3.02 claim is wrong. Of those 115 bills, per page 44-46 of the report, the average monthly bill is $56.87 for an average use of 193 minutes.

$56.87 / 193 minutes = 29.4663212 cents per minute

Now that doesn’t tell the whole story as it’s quite true, as in the example above, some people pay a lot of money because they use their phone very little.

One would think that the members of UCAN would have the intelligence to believe that publishing a report like this makes them look like total incompetent fools. Considering the math competency in the United States, that’s not likely. UCAN should be laughed out of town, the state, the country and the internet for publishing such trash.

Posted in idiocy, you can't make this stuff up | Leave a comment

Buffett to Obama

Posted on March 11, 2009 by ChrisA

Is Obama listening to Warren? Without a doubt…

BUFFETT: I think–I think a lot of things should be–job one is to win the war, job–the economic war, job two is to win the economic war, and job three. And you can’t expect people to unite behind you if you’re trying to jam a whole bunch of things down their throat. So I would–I would absolutely say for the–for the interim, till we get this one solved, I would not be pushing a lot of things that are–you know are contentious, and I also–I also would do no finger-pointing whatsoever. I would–you know, I would not say, you know, `George’–`the previous administration got us into this.’ Forget it. I mean, you know, the Navy made a mistake at Pearl Harbor and had too many ships there. But the idea that we’d spend our time after that, you know, pointing fingers at the Navy, we needed the Navy. So I would–I would–I would–no finger pointing, no vengeance, none of that stuff. Just look forward.


he is not.

The quote above is from page 7 of the CNBC interview.

Posted in Buffett, Obamanomics, stoopid politicians | Leave a comment

Brad Feld on failure

Posted on March 11, 2009 by ChrisA

Disputing the mantra that “failure should be avoided”, Brad recounts failures, especially the 2001 tech bubble bursting. He doesn’t dress it up as “fun” but something to deal with and learn from. If you’re avoiding failure, how can you learn the skills to deal with it and learn from it?

While I fail at stuff regularly, I’ll never forget the deepest cycle of failure I’ve been in to date. As the Internet bubble popped exploded, company after company that I was an investor in failed. As I grappled with this, I felt like I had been run over by a truck. After I got up, a steamroller came and flattened me. As I was peeling myself off the ground, the steamroller backed up and smushed me again. Then, I realized I was lying on top of a hole and the top fell in and I tumbled down to the bottom. As I was looking up at the sky, some jerk came into view, poured gasoline onto me, and then dropped a flaming stick on top of me. By the summer of 2001, I realized that ever day had been worse than the previous day. I no longer got up in the morning and said “ok – today will be better than yesterday”; instead I resolved myself that every day would be worse, until it eventually got better. Then 9/11 happened.

I hung in there, kept getting up every day and doing my best, working hard to make informed and intelligent decisions, and helping all of the companies I was an investor in however I could. A few more failed, but a nice number survived and ultimately thrived. Things eventually got better. And I learned a lot.

(bold is mine)

Brad concludes…

In my world view, the best leaders understand that failure is an integral part of things. The cliche “fail fast” is one of my favorites. When things aren’t working, deal with it. Another is the famous line from Atlas Shrugged “Nobody stays here by faking reality in any manner whatever.” Denying that failure is part of our existence is akin to faking reality.

While I accept “the experience of failure” feels “negative / crappy / depressing / hard / sucky”, I don’t believe that “failure is bad”

(yea, that bold thing again!).
Thanks for the inspiration Brad.

Posted in the weekend | Leave a comment

Get up every morning and “Do Stuff”

Posted on March 11, 2009 by ChrisA

Venture Capitalists Brad Feld of the Foundry Group (and apparently co-founder of “Tech Stars” emplors entrepreneurs to “Do Stuff”. I think I’ll take that advice as well.


Brad Feld – cofounder of Tech Stars – “Do Stuff!” from Seattle20 on Vimeo.

Thanks Brad.

Posted in the weekend | Leave a comment

Perhaps he won’t sign it?

Posted on March 11, 2009 by ChrisA

Not a chance. I’m sure President Obama will proudly sign the pork laden, fiscally irresponsible omnibus budget bill.

Posted in budget, Obamanomics, stoopid politicians | Leave a comment

Tying a ribbon on an old era

Posted on March 11, 2009 by ChrisA

I’m voting with Neil!

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Return to sender

Posted on March 11, 2009 by ChrisA

Some banks are in the process of returning the bailout money as soon as the Fed’s can take it back. Others are working feverishly to get in a position to return it.

Some bankers say the conditions have become so onerous that they want to return the bailout money. The list includes small banks like the TCF Financial Corporation of Wayzata, Minn., and Iberia Bank of Lafayette, La., as well as giants like Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo.

They say they plan to return the money as quickly as possible or as soon as regulators set up a process to accept the refunds. On Tuesday, Signature Bank of New York announced that because of new executive pay restrictions in the economic stimulus package, it notified the Treasury that it intended to return the $120 million it had received from the government only three months ago.

I say that’s good from all points of view.

Posted in financial crisis, stimulus | Leave a comment

Bank exec’s keep hangin’ around

Posted on March 11, 2009 by ChrisA

From a letter to the editor in today’s Wall Street Journal…

Readers’ Corner
When a business goes bad and finds itself in a workout, the first thing the bank does is to throw out the existing management. Why should this treatment not apply to Bank of America?

— Richard Wise, responding to “Some Myths About Banks.”

Posted in stoopid government, stoopid investment bankers | Leave a comment

Obama gets a grade

Posted on March 11, 2009 by ChrisA

I believe you can still vote. This is a MSNBC poll, not a Fox News poll!

Posted in Obama, Obamanomics | Leave a comment

Nancy wants the military at her beckon call…

Posted on March 11, 2009 by ChrisA

No doubt Ms. Pelosi thinks quite highly of herself. In all fairness to Nancy, that seems to be a rampant disease among politicians.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly requested military aircraft to shuttle her and her colleagues and family around the country, according to a new report from a conservative watchdog group.

Posted in stoopid politicians | Leave a comment

Boulder firefighters douse fire…

Posted on March 11, 2009 by ChrisA

Be careful out there, we are experiencing perfect conditions for a wildfire. A spark plus high winds is a recipe for almost instant devestation.

A potentially damaging wildfire in the mountains west of Boulder was contained before it could be spread by high winds Tuesday.

The fire began at around 2 p.m. on private property west of the Betasso Preserve, according to the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office. The fire burned approximately one-quarter acre before 35 firefighters were able to control it.

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Started strong, ended strong

Posted on March 11, 2009 by ChrisA

We could use more days like this. I suggest tomorrow!

The rally has extended to Japan.

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It ain’t your money to spend…

Posted on March 11, 2009 by ChrisA

Music here.

Lyrics here.

Music by Kathleen Stewart, lyric by Steve Jones

Here’s a sample…

You gave some cash to ACORN.
Those folks are so corrupt.
All the pork and all payoffs,
It makes me want to erupt.
Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi,
The scariest folks since Bela Lugosi.
Let me help you comprehend.
It ain’t your money to spend.

Hat-tip to Powerline.

Posted in Obamanomics, stoopid government | Leave a comment

Ban on open burning east of Peak to Peak

Posted on March 11, 2009 by ChrisA

Ban on open fires east of Hwy 72 in Boulder County.

Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle on Tuesday enacted a restriction on open burning in unincorporated areas of the county, east of Colo. 72.

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Atlas Shrugged makes a comeback

Posted on March 10, 2009 by ChrisA

To steal Dr. Helen’s headline. Hey, when it’s out on a display table at the Borders store in Boulder Colorado, there can be (absolutely) no doubt it’s making a comeback.

Posted in politics, the weekend | Leave a comment

Atlas Shrugged makes a comeback

Posted on March 10, 2009 by ChrisA

To steal Dr. Helen’s headline. Hey, when it’s out on a display table in the Borders store in Boulder Colorado, there can be no doubt it’s making a comeback.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Hey, hey, hey.. this looks familiar!

Posted on March 10, 2009 by ChrisA


Captured from the sidebar.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment