Even though I have been in business for over 22 years now, I will never claim to understand all the trappings of high finance. What I will say is that all of these people involved with some of the stupid mistakes made on behalf of companies like Lehman Brothers and AIG could do with going back to their most basic business classes.

I have sat back watching this whole debacle unfold, and I am just dumbfounded by some of the things I have learned were going on that led to this whole slide into oblivion for these companies.  Apparently there was some form of loan I had never heard of before named “No Income, No Job, (and) no Assets”, or N.I.N.J.A. loans, where, as the name implies, apparently you can get a loan without a blasted thing going for you in the positive corner.

…

What idiot came up with this idea?  How can anyone with a modicum of intelligence even begin to think that making loans to someone with no assets is a bright idea?

As I see it, you had companies who were already incredibly rich and just got greedier for even more money, and how do you make that money in an over saturated market?  Well, you just give money to anyone who walks in!

So, I honestly was just going to let this whole thing pass without much thought, but when I heard the news tonight that the government is loaning $85 billion dollars to bail out AIG, well, it kind of becomes the business of every US citizen doesn’t it?  Now it appears if you’re big enough, and run your company into an iceberg, the government will come and pick you up, dust you off, and say “now you behave”.  However, if you’re a small business, you’re screwed and too bad.

Remember that old saying about “the rich just get richer…”?  Yeah, seems to be true doesn’t it?

Again, I am no economic expert, but this current crisis feels to me like it was all brought on by greed of slap happy executives who thought that the mere fact they were loaning money would keep the good times rollin’, and basic business sense be damned.  Yes, these companies crashing is bad for economies, and I would say it would be worth to let them rot, but then no one ever seems to learn from any company falling apart, so why bother?

I guess I am writing this more out of a bewilderment than having my own conclusion because nothing about this whole mess makes the least bit of sense to me how any group of people could be collectively this stupid.

In a move that is sure to leave me scratching my head for days, Microsoft has partnered up the Xbox 360 gaming platform with Rock the Vote.

In a press release put out today, Microsoft revealed that as of today, users of Xbox Live will be able to take polls about the upcoming presidential election, participate in forums and… oh, how this scares me… register to vote.  Don’t get me wrong, I am all for people registering to vote, and I actually went and did it the day of my 18th birthday I was so anxious to have the right.  What scares me is, and I know I will catch flames for this, is the goofballs on Xbox Live messing this up.

I’ve written a couple times this year about the intellectual titans I run into playing some of the games online, and it worries me that some of these folks, for laughs, may try to register fake people or some other way gum up the works.  I have not looked at the process yet, but I am hopeful there are multiple safeguards in place.  I asked my mother for her feelings on this since she used to be the president of the local League of Women Voters chapter, responsible for many people being registered to vote, and her reply was simply, “this troubles me.”

Hopefully this will lead to legitimate sign-ups, and hopefully it will also lead to people actually going to the polls come election day, but it still makes me a bit nervous to see it done in this fashion.  Going to the gamers is a great idea, but why not set it up around the release of a major game?  Madden ‘09 just came out with a huge push for midnight releases, wouldn’t it have made sense to set up at some stores and do it there?  Yes, there is a certain convenience factor to doing it at home, but I worry about faked names, hacked accounts and any other number of potential problems.

In my heart, I hope it is successful because I think our freedom to vote is one of the greatest things in this country, it is just the method of registration that is worrisome to me.

It seems in Sweden you aren’t allowed to dislike any one for any reason, and if you do, someone will cry to the government about it.

Duncan Riley at The Inquisitr wrote up a story this weekend that is just jaw dropping in its oddness.  It seems that an 8-year-old in Sweden has set off a firestorm of controversy over his not inviting two of the kids in his class to his birthday party, while inviting the rest of the class.  The two kids were left out due to one not inviting the original boy to his birthday party, and the other because they had a falling out.

When the teacher saw that two students had been left out, she confiscated all of the invitations and informed him that since he did it during class time, it fell under Sweden’s non-discrimination laws.  According to the original BBC story, when the birthday boy’s father learned of this, he filed a complaint with the parliamentary ombudsman for a ruling, and that is expected to be handed down by September.

I can see where perhaps handing out the invitations during school was a poor choice, but what do you expect from an 8-year-old?  As for it being an act of discrimination, let’s look at the Dictionary.com definition of discrimination:

1. an act or instance of discriminating.
2. treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit: racial and religious intolerance and discrimination.
3. the power of making fine distinctions; discriminating judgment: She chose the colors with great discrimination.
4. Archaic. something that serves to differentiate.

Okay, yes, they did belong to a class you could say: Kids This Other Kid Hates.  Again, I can see where it would have been better not to have been done in class, because I’m sure those two kids felt bad not getting invitations, but I think the teacher’s explanation was a bit much that this incident fell under this law.  How do they handle round robin picking of teams in gym class there?  “Okay, you can’t pick any one last because that would be discrimination, so whomever you were going to pick last, pick them first… wait that won’t work either… could someone call parliment to see how we should handle this?”

That is the other thing that amazes me about this whole incident: the parliament is actually going to rule in this. Why didn’t they say, “You know, this is silly, sort it out for yourselves at the school level.” No, the parliament of Sweden is going to actually rule in what boils down to who a child can and can not invite to their birthday party. I think Mr. Riley may have said it best in his article, “We now crown Sweden as the winner of the ultimate nanny state award for 2008…and possibly all time.”

When are people in the public eye going to learn? If you are a well-known person, someone in power, someone famous, there are always going to be those that enjoy watching your fall from grace. True, in the case of Governor Elliot Spitzer, the sting was set up to go after the call girls, and he got caught up in it, but it doesn’t matter, don’t be an idiot.

This seemingly never-ending stream of public officials that get caught up in sex scandals just amazes me. Do none of them pay attention to the stories of those that have gotten caught before them? What makes them think, “Well, sure, so-and-so got caught, but I’m too smart for that.” Newsflash: you’re not. I don’t care how smart you think you are, no matter what makes you think “oh, it won’t happen to me”, just don’t. Stop embarrassing yourself, your family, your staffers, and most importantly, the people who elected you.

Then comes the public “mea culpa” after the outing of your doings. Who wrote the law that the wife has to stand around as Silda Wall Spitzer did? What moron decided that every wife of a politician caught up in a sex scandal has to say the same, tired line about “standing by their man”? FORGET THAT! HE CHEATED ON YOU WITH A PROSTITUTE! Throw his clothes out on the mansion lawn like any self respecting woman should, and tell him he can go live with her if she’s so wonderful.

The other day I said I don’t trust anyone that chooses to run for President, but now I really think it stretches to anyone that runs for any political office. I just don’t get it, do they lose all common sense the moment they declare they are running for an elected seat? It’s all shameful and disgusting. Yes, I realize they are all just human, but, funny, somehow I’ve managed to get to 36-years-old without once considering hiring a prostitute, surely if I can do it, so can they.

As long time readers of this blog will attest to, I try to avoid politics. I am not a political blog, and venturing into that blog space could be a dangerous thing for a neophyte. One subject has popped up that effects everyone involved in the race for President is money.

Whatever happened to the idea that any one could become President? When have you ever heard of someone who didn’t have huge backing to begin with, or had amassed their own fortune, of making a serious run for the White House? It takes an obscene amount of money to become President, and you have to wonder why anyone would spend hundreds of millions of dollars to get a job that only pays $500,000 a year?

You don’t think all that money doesn’t come with favors attached to it? Yes, candidates do raise money from common people also, but the big donors who help them out all expect something in return. It happens with both parties, neither is clean, and it has become the nature of the beast. Course, like anything, that doesn’t make it right.

At the heart of it all is the mere fact it now takes ludicrous amounts of money to run a campaign. In data collected through January, Clinton and Obama have both raised over $100 million in funds, and McCain is back at $53 million. This isn’t to mention the people who already dropped out, like Mitt Romney, who had raised $105 million by the time he dropped out.

The point?  No matter how much people say it’s about issues, it isn’t.  It’s about who can use their campaign funds to woo the most voters in what really does amount to a popularity contest, with the winner being in favor-debt to fat cats.  It’s been this way for years, for both parties, so I don’t feel I am showing favoritism to either party, I have an instant distrust of ANYONE who runs for President… I’m very, very equal in my distrust.

This has been all over the media, so I assume most of you have heard about it by now, but for those who haven’t, a nurse in Massachusetts wants to ban the spanking of children entirely, including in your home.

The theory is that spanking is as much a crime as domestic abuse and it is wrong for parents to have carte blanche to abuse their children. From the ABC News article this quote (and picture) came from:

“I think it’s ironic that domestic violence applies to everyone except the most vulnerable — children,” said Kathleen Wolf, who wrote the bill.

Look, there is a difference between “domestic violence” and swatting your kid’s behind for misbehaving. Sometimes it is the only way to get a kid’s attention, and I know it sure as heck always worked on me as a kid. Sure, there are some parents who take it too far, and those people should be punished, but if you want to swat your kids behind after you have repeatedly told them no about something, then do it.

The general sense is that the bill won’t pass, but it is just insane to me that it ever even got considered. Spanking is as old as humanity for the most part, and while I think it can be taken to excess, I think every parent has the right to make this decision for themselves.

Working in a comic book store for over 15 years, I saw my fair share of rowdy kids, and the parents who always went the “Do you want a time out?” route usually got no where with their kids, and the one’s who gave them a small swat on the butt got their attention. Again, it’s all in degrees, but to give a total ban is just stupid in my opinion.

And if this does pass somehow, what’s next? What part of your private life in your home will the regulate next? Rough housing? Watching wrestling? Where does it stop?

Oh, and by the by, according to the poll on ABC, most folks think this is stupid also.

I have been going back and forth on the Elizabeth Edwards Vs. Ann Coulter “fight” on Hardball from yesterday. (Video link, Transcript link… thanks to CJ for both) I discussed Ann’s original comments against John Edwards here, and I still stand by what I said about Ann the first time I wrote about her; Ann Coulter is an internet troll.

And therein lies the problem. While I understand Ms. Edwards outrage against the woman, she handled it incorrectly, and played in to her hands. Ann now has fodder for a hundred articles and just as many speeches. While Coulter was visibly shaken by the confrontation (way to stumble all over your own words, Ann), Edwards came off as, well, a bit pathetic. Her thoughts weren’t organized, she meandered, and quite frankly, she sounded more like a mother protecting her cub, than a wife. Not a good public image for a man running for the highest office in the land. “Lizzy! The Russians are being mean to me! Could you call and give them a stern talking to?”

Elizabeth Edwards is correct in that the political dialogue needs to be raised, but you relay this message to the masses by calling into a talking heads pseudo-political show and scold the woman who said unkind things about your husband? Way to raise the bar there. You sank to her level of maturity, true, you used better language and didn’t fall to the level of school yard taunts, but simply by acknowledging her, you fed her ego, and gave her fodder for months to come. “Well, obviously I am relevant to the political process if the wife of a Presidential candidate calls me to tell me to change my style. I am obviously keeping them on the ropes.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not defending Ann. I can’t stand the woman and would like nothing better than to see her fade into obscurity, which, it almost seemed like she was doing. Sadly, Elizabeth Edwards little “chat” did nothing but propel the snake-creature back in to the limelight. Heck, it got me to break my political neutrality again. (Honestly, I am neutral, I pretty much hate anyone involved with politics… I don’t trust any of them at the end of the day)

One extremely odd thing I wanted to point out from the whole debacle was this: Ann doesn’t pay attention. If she does, then she just makes things up. (Text from the above linked transcript)

Elizabeth Edwards: It did not start with that you had a column a number of years ago

Ann Coulter: OK, great the wife of a presidential candidate is calling in asking me to stop speaking

Chris Matthews: Let her finish the point…

AC: You’re asking me to stop speaking stop writing your columns, stop writing your books.

CM: OK, Ann. Please.

AC: OK

EE: You wrote a column a couple years ago which made fun of the moment of Charlie Dean’s death, and suggested that my husband had a bumper sticker on the back of his car that said ask me about my dead son. This is not legitimate political dialogue.

AC: That’s now three years ago

EE: It debases political dialogue. It drives people away from the process. We can’t have a debate about issues if you’re using this kind of language.

(Audience member yells something.)

AC: Yeah why isn’t John Edwards making this call?

CM: Well do you want to respond and we’ll end this conversation?

EE: I haven’t talked to John about his call.

AC: This is just another attempt for –

EE: I’m making this call as a mother. I’m the mother of that boy who died. My children participate — these young people behind you are the age of my children. You’re asking them to participate in a dialogue that’s based on hatefulness and ugliness instead of on the issues and I don’t think that’s serving them or this country very well.

(Audience applauds.)

CM: Thank you very much

Elizabeth Edwards. Do you want to — you have all the time in the world to respond.

AC: I think we heard all we need to hear. The wife of a presidential candidate is asking me to stop speaking. No.

Did I miss something? Did Edwards at any time ask Coulter “to stop speaking”? No. She asked her to stop personal attacks. This leads one to one of the following conclusions:

A) Ann has no comprehension of what is being said to her.

B) Ann finds it impossible to write without personally attacking someone.

C) Ann just makes crap up to make herself sound like a martyr.

You be the judge, but personally, I think this whole exchange, as distasteful as it was, shows Ann can’t handle being put on the spot. Just as Edwards was obviously not all together, neither was Coulter. For such a “respected” political commentator, she couldn’t think on her feet. That says a lot to me about how this woman really is just nothing more than a “shock jock” and not a true political pundit.

I said it before, and I’ll say it again… please don’t feed the Coulter troll.

Reading Engadget today led me to this article. The British Home Secretary, John Reid, wants to approach Apple and Sony to join a summit to help fight crime in England. It seems a lot of gadgets are getting stolen, so, of course, the solution is to make them more technologically complicated, raising risk of more things going wrong, and raising the cost across the board to all consumers of these products.

All because England is worried about their crime rate.

Thanks England!

Here’s the part of the article that kills me though:

“New technology, lifestyle changes, new commodities and new gadgets mean that the criminals continually move on,” Reid told the BBC’s Sunday AM programme.

“So when we defeat them on mobile phones, they move on to Sat-Navs and then on to iPods.”

Okay, so, you’ll get to work on iPods, and as you just said, you defeat them there, they move on, leaving consumers to continue covering the costs of theft-prevention to help idiots who aren’t careful with their gadgets. Again, seriously Reid, so appreciate it. I’ll remember you fondly when I buy my next iPod.

So, I spent the majority of my day updating various things to get ready for the change in Daylight Savings Time tonight. My PDA (A Dell Axim 51v) was 2 hours of a nightmare trying to get it to synch with the updated copy of ActiveSynch, still never got it to work. I cursed…a lot.

My Blackberry seems to have gone smoother, but I’ll find out for sure in a couple hours. I always thought it pulled it’s time from cell towers, but oh well.

I think all my PCs are updated, but who knows.

Who’s bright idea was this? Did they give NO consideration to the headaches it would cause? Apparently not.

It seems an audit was done of the FBI’s use of the Patriot Act in investigations and, gee, guess what, it was abused. I am all for fighting terror, but, as I have quoted before…

“They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
- Benjamin Franklin

The Patriot Act was passed in an air of panic, and has always had a sense to me of closing the barn door after the cows got out. It wasn’t thought through, the powers to broad, and some of the things it considered were just insanely trivial. And so no, I am not surprised some of the powers it granted law enforcement have been mishandled. It doesn’t sound like the powers were intentionally abused, but it sure seems like they weren’t handled properly. To give these sort of powers to agents not properly trained in their use was just a horrible lapse in judgment on the part of the government.

In the interest of full disclosure, I will admit to having run afoul of the Patriot Act. My crime? My family/business had too many checking accounts. We had to condense and it was a huge pain, but yes, we are evil people having too many different checking accounts. It’s true. I’m a horrible person.

It’s well known that California never met a law it didn’t like, but now it appears New York state is following the lead. A couple of weeks ago a state senator proposed banning using electronic devices when crossing the intersections in major cities such as New York City. Apparently three pedestrians were killed by cars while crossing streets and were found to be using iPods. They would be ticketed $100 if spotted by police.

I traveled to New York City for five years in a row when I was a magazine writer to cover a press event. It was the early to mid-90’s, and I noticed something about people crossing the streets there, I called it “The Lemming Effect”. They would be reading newspapers, magazines, any number of things besides paying attention to the lights. They would see movement out of the corner of their eye, they’d step in to the street thinking they had the signal. This was pre iPod mind you, and cell phones were just picking up speed. Some people weren’t even reading or using anything, they were just zoned out. Also, I really can not see cops taking time out of their day to cite people for using electronic devices when crossing the street.

Now there’s a new one, a different state senator is proposing banning “spinner” hubcaps as a distraction. His law, however, would not ban hubcaps with built in LED lights or advertisements. On the third citation, it would be a $750 fine for the spinners.

This is government as “nanny” in my eyes. These are pointless laws where these men feel they have to hold your hand and help you cross the street. They are nothing but a burden on the people who have to enforce them, on the courts, and on the government itself. No distractions when crossing the street? Ok, you’d better include newspapers and magazines. What about people who get lost in their own thoughts? Deaf and blind people? This is silly and a waste of time. The government has to stop trying to be our parents and protecting us from ourselves.

I am sure these men have the best of intentions, but they are just silly laws that do nothing but irritate people, take up valuable police time and do nothing but further take away personal rights. How about concentrating on actual problems like state budgets?

Could we please get finished with THIS election before we start talking about the 2008 Presidential? As I write this, this one isn’t even finished yet, and it seems to be more about the ‘08 election than anything. I know this is normal, but come on folks! Clinton, McCain, it doesn’t matter which side, they are all posturing and it just seems silly when this night isn’t even over.