elgringocolombiano

T Hartmann on link bt productivity & wages

2011-12-02T07:24:00.002-05:00

In US history, 1776-1980, productivity tracked wages. The workweek declined from 60+ hrs to 40 hrs. In 1981 Reagan's disaster policies helped to kill the link. The economy has been bubbled out on credit or crap ever since. T Hartmann clip

Eric Draitser Stop Imperialism podcast

2011-12-01T10:32:00.004-05:00

Eric Draitser is a NY schoolteacher, that is a quality amateur commentator on global geopolitics and oligarchy. Draitser is now making a weekly podcast , & also messages on twitter: stopimperialism

editorial on Canadian healthcare

2011-12-01T10:26:00.002-05:00

editorial from a Canadian woman who has lived in the US, & has been a patients in both nations' health systems. She claims after tax, after healthcare cost income is higher in Canada, altho the tax itself is about 10% more in Canada. She prefers the CA health system, both on quality & price

homeless engineer Maurice Johnston

2011-11-22T00:17:00.002-05:00

crazy story about homeless engineer with 2 MS degrees (Purdue & Dartmouth) Maurice Johnston yt LinkedIn resume

state of solar power

2011-11-09T23:09:00.001-05:00

Economist article on state of solar power.

Primary Obama Now

2011-10-26T23:48:00.002-05:00

Primary Obama Now site has nice detailed editorial on Obama's betrayal of Progressive values, & why Progressives should support a Dem Primary challenger in the 2012 Presidential race

list of biggest H-1B visa employers/abusers

2011-10-12T19:16:00.000-05:00

list

99ers in San Jose

2011-10-05T06:46:00.000-05:00

60 Minutes (TV news show) on the 99ers in San Jose/Silicon Valley area. Basically age discrimination seems rampant on the 40+ in the anecdotal individuals profiled. Examples like a Fiberopitic Engineering Mgr now working for $9 as a retail worker at Target.

fw - Greenwald ethers traitor Obama

2011-07-27T08:59:00.001-05:00

Glenn Greenwald editorial on how Obama is gutting core principles of Dem party

fw: article on auto insurance

2011-07-26T17:40:00.002-05:00

good Consumer Reports article on car insurance, Oct 2010 issue p. 34-37. p. 37 has a rating of auto insurers, broken down by claims-related problems, timely claim payment, & non-claim related problems.

Debit Card rule change might hurt Reward Checking

2011-06-30T16:51:00.004-05:00

Ken, the guru of depositaccounts.com , wrote this article that there is a Fed Reserve rule change, that will lower the fees from a debit card transaction, that banks charge retailers significantly.

This could HELP consumers IF the retailers passed along part of any savings, which is probably doubtful (retailers will just take the savings as profit).

This could HURT consumers in that these fees the bank gets from debit cards are used to subsidize Rewards Checking accounts.

What will be the impact on options on how a consumer manages their Emergency / short term cash funds?

For liquid deposit account , my guess is that Rewards Checking, if still offered, will still offer the best rate. Currently, Rewards Checking is widely available at 3-4% at many small local banks & credit unions. This is superior to bank alternatives, including the deposit accounts of type savings, money market. It's also superior to a time deposit account such as a certificate of deposit (CD), even despite the inconvenience of a time deposit locking up your money for a period of time. I will keep my eye on depositaccounts, hopefully remembering to check in Dec 2011 & Jun 2012 to verify that Rewards Checking is still superior, aka the "least bad option" in this era of negative real interest rates for short term savers.

The other decent option imho is I Bond, a type of Savings Bonds from the US Treasury. I've yet to buy an I Bond, but am interested. Here is my limited understanding of I Bonds. Each person can purchase up to $10K per year, $5K in paper & $5K electronic. The I Bond updates its interest every 6 months, in relation to the US Gov's CPI inflation index. An I Bond is like a time deposit in that you must hold it for 11 months. After that can be sold, with a penalty of giving up the most recent 3 months of interest. After 5 years there is no 3 month penalty, & it can be held for up to 30 years. The interest income might be partially exempt from taxation (need to learn more about this aspect).

A key notion is that one can set up their FUTURE emergency fund through I Bonds. For example, if one bought $10K in I-Bonds by the end of May-2011, she would have $10K + interest available for sale quickly. It wouldn't be as liquid as a deposit account, but it shouldn't take much times (2 weeks?) to sell the bonds & receive the cash that you could put in a deposit account.

It's possible that best after-tax Rewards Checking rate available in your state declines to the point that it's lower than the comparable I Bond rate. In this case those who purchased I Bonds in prior years would benefit. It's possible that it could be beneficial to buy some I Bonds & hence "diversify" your Emergency cash between Rewards Checking & I Bonds.

fw - Ted Rall "Rise of the Obamabots"

2011-05-19T13:19:00.003-05:00

Ted Rall editorial . It does seem imho that Obamabots (such as extreme douche Daily Kos Moulitsas) copied "It's OK If You Are A Republican" into "It's OK if Obama does it".

Well the phenomenon of Obamabots shows most USians support a politrickian, cursing the policy of the other side when they do it, but staying silent when their Dear Leader does it.

Those of us who support a policy regardless are in the minority. *smh in disgust*

university education bubble

2011-04-27T12:02:00.002-05:00

article on university education bubble. I did not now that there are securitized university loans, just like mortgage back securities of the housing bubble.

also learned that student loans are not able to be defaulted on in bankruptcy. So I would guess that many univ loan students will be screwed by the wage deflation

1 graduate & get a univ-degree requiring career, but face the general wage deflation or stagnation in force in the US since ~1980.

2 underemployment - graduate & don't get a univ-degree requiring job. or have it & lose & work a blue collar job.

3 the dropouts. With the exceptions of a few Kanyes, most will be screwed by the loan burden.

It would be nice if the model of the AP program, had video lecture & textbook materials in open source formats, freely available, such that maybe at least 1 yr of the BS degree could be done cheaply. Also strengthen community colleges. But this would help Avg Jane, & not 1% special interests like Univ admins, or student loan security investors. *smh*

Max Keiser "cacacracy"

2011-04-22T08:54:00.000-05:00

LOL @ Max keiser, financial pundit/journalist, ex-Wall Street worker & anti-Wall Street, anti-US oligarchy steez. An American that lives in Paris due to US being too corrupt. http://maxkeiser.com

"The US in recent decades is a cacacracy, the rule by the worst of the society. Cacacracy derives from the Latin/French word, Merd".

article advises barbell weight training for fitness

2011-04-16T19:33:00.002-05:00

interesting article on fitness. If true, this would be another example of conventional wisdom & industry marketing being bogus.

fdl opinion article that Obama < Bush 43

2011-03-21T13:17:00.001-05:00

opinion from David Swanson that Obama < Bush 43. I don't agree, but the guy makes good points. I do agree with Swanson in being very disappointed with the Wall $treet Welfare Weed Carrier, Pope of Hope.

American Monetary Institute

2010-09-09T20:50:00.002-05:00

monetary.org - American Monetary Institute. Prescribe the US Treasury to control the issuance of fiat money, as opposed to the quasi-public quasi-Wall $treet Federal Reserve.

Bogus Accounting of US National Debt & Social Security

2010-08-09T17:31:00.002-05:00

Random thought.

Have you ever heard those that want to slash the US New Deal-inspired Safety Net programs of Social Security, Medicaire, Medicaid? Such as Pete Peterson, David M Walker, etc?

They throw out some huge number such as the "real national debt" is 60 Trillion if you "count unfunded liabilities such as SSN, Medicare, Medicaid".

First of SSN IS funded & taking in more $ than it spends until 2040 or so. Even after that, the "problem" by several ways. One obvious way is eliminate the tax cap. Currently Joe UpperMiddleClass that makes $107K pays the same SSN tax as Bill Gates, since the tax is capped at the first $107K in income. Without the cap Gates would be paying ~10,000X as Joe UMC.

As Dr Dean Baker has pointed out, Medicare & Medicaid, although still much cheaper in admin costs than private health insurance, are too expensive because of US health care cartel interests, that get paid excessively compared to any other rich world country.

But put that aside for a second.

Why do the Pete Peterson types never talk about the Trillions in costs for the Net Present Value of all funding for the

Military Industrial Complex

Corporate Welfare

Wall $treet Welfare

Overly broad Patent system which often creates cartel industries & stifles innovation

etc

It's like the NPV of all future spending which might help Average Joe, eg SSN, Medicare, Medicaid; must be funded & accounted for NOW.

But Cartel/Rich Welfare programs that benefit at most the richest 2% & in many cases 0.1% or 0.01% of Americans? No they must not be accounted for NEVER.

Am I missing something obvious? Or am I correct? You tell me.

Naomi Wolf 10 steps that close an open society

2010-08-07T06:14:00.003-05:00

Naomi Wolf 10 steps that close an open society (article). Wolf's book on the topic is The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot .

DG rec links

2010-07-18T18:42:00.003-05:00

This homie DG reads up on alternative media & conspiracy-related sites.

Here's a list he recommended.

Deep Capture

Gnostic Media

Tragedy & Hope

Tim Geithner incompetent work history

2010-07-18T18:33:00.002-05:00

economist Simon Johnson article details Treasury Sec. Tim Geithner's incompetent work history. As of now, it appears Geithner is trying to block the possibility of consumer advocate/lawyer Elizabeth Warren to be the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency head, an organization that was Warren's idea! Johnson notes Geithner's blocking of Warren might be his "9th life" & for once Geithner's incompetence may hurt Geithner's career.

S Johnson's blog Baseline Scenario is bookmarkable.

Michael J Smith "The Ratchet Effect" of US bipartisan rightwing trend

2010-07-18T18:28:00.002-05:00

Michael J Smith essay that claims that since 1968, the Fed Democrats function is to maintain the political spectrum position, whereas the Republicans always move it rightwards.

This is similar notion to Cenk Uyger's opinion that Obama is more conservative than Reagan.

Apparently Smith's essay is a chapter from a book he hosts on his site, as well as blog articles.

case for GDP-weighted equities

2010-05-27T19:29:00.001-05:00

interesting article on weighting equities by a country's GDP, as opposed to a country's free float market cap.

teachers getting laid off for lack of $23B

2010-05-27T16:16:00.002-05:00

Jane Hamsher firedoglake article

Teachers about to get their jobs murked, for lack of $23B

My take not covered in this good article. AFAICT to raise the 23B no politrickians talking about cutting military, which is more than the rest of world combined when the US is only 25% world economy. How bout cutting medicare/aid physician pay to raise $23B, when US physicians are making 1.5X-3.0X pay of physicians in any other rich country like Canada, UK, Japan?

Military & physicians pwn DC politrickians. Teachers have a medium strength union, not on those other levels. It's more important to military & physicians to get unreasonably high funding, than for there even to be enough teachers to do the job. I guess the teachers at least have medium strong union, more than the no union-having engineer/scientists that keep getting H1B'd & offshore outsourced like a mofo.

Rewards Checking

2010-05-25T17:19:00.003-05:00

I stumbled upon this notion of Rewards Checking. Basically Rewards Checking type of checking account requires a customer to do the following each monthly banking cycle (which could be the calendar month, or some random dates like Feb 22 - Mar 21, for example):

1 do X amount of debit card transactions

2 possibly (depends on bank) do an additional action, such as a work pay direct deposit, or an automated monthly ACH-type payment

I'm a newbie to this Rewards Checking idea which I stumbled upon, but apparently for the last few years it has been superior as a short term savings method, in terms of APY & flexibility, when compared to money market acct, savings accts, CD, even Treasury's I Bonds CPI inflation-adjusted flavor of Savings Bonds (!).

mymoneyblog confirms that Rewards Checking is current best choice for short term savings

Another nice feature of Rewards Checking, is that they seem to be offered by small community banks & credit unions; not the 2 Big 2 Fail cartel mega-banks. Always dece to help a small fry out instead of a cartel bent on destroying the US economy, bonus!

Deposit Accounts , written by Ken - Bank Deals Guy. that follows what happens on Rewards Checking, thorough in depth nerd-style, as if it were a sportswriter reporting on the Vikings. You can look up by state, filtered by APY interest rate. There's many interesting & educational articles here; I think it will be a good ROI of your time to spend ~2 hrs reading articles here.

example weekly update article, which highlights changes in Rewards Checking rates from banks & credit unions, as well as the best current CD & Savings Acct rates (which are currently pwned by Rewards Checking).

article on how Rewards Checking even exists & is profitable.

1 the bank is giving you their portion of the ~1.75% fee a retailer like Kohl's or Progressive Insurance (Eg you buy $100 at Kohl's, Kohl's is giving Visa ~$1.75), etc, pays the debit/credit card company like Visa, who then share's it with the bank, who shares it with you.

2 banks use Rewards Checking as a "loss leader", get a happy new customer who then later on they might sell more profitable products like a car loan.

article on Debit Cards, Credit Cards, & Rewards Checking. Note that there are different type of debit card transactions

PIN - enter PIN

debit - enter PIN or signature

credit - signature

pay by phone (example, car insurance payment). Not sure what this counts as?

A particular count may count only some, or all, of these transactions towards the monthly requirement. My take is that if one gets a Rewards Checking account, 1 should try 1 of all types of transactions, then call bank Customer Service, & ask how many & which transactions have counted.

article listing 4 banks with avail to all USian residents, with 4.0% yield, with at least 25K max limits that get 4.0% yield.

Clark Howard article on Rewards Checking. Howard's co-sign on the notion is great; Howard seems knowledgeable & strongly pro-consumer ("I want you to save more, spend less, & avoid getting ripped off")

Some (probably inferior) alternatives to depositaccounts (Ken claimed that some of these sites only list vendors that pay the site a listing fee, so good vendors might be omitted)

Bank Rate

Checking Finder

Money Rates

Hit up comments with any info/experience you may have had wrt Rewards Checking.

Steven Hill "Europe's Promise"

2010-05-23T17:20:00.000-05:00

Thom Hartmann interview of author Steven Hill of book "Europe's Promise" book site, article list.

claiming Europe (Germany, Scandinavia) economic approach is best, superior to the USian approach. For example, in Germany, a company's workers pick many of the board of directors.

Euro currency & bonds attacked by hedge funds

2010-05-23T17:14:00.000-05:00

Interesting take by Webster Tarpley, I heard on Thom Hartmann link, article.

Permanent Portfolio

2010-04-25T16:20:00.001-05:00

The Harry Browne Permanent Portfolio (HBPP) is an investment asset allocation, which allocates 25% in 4 distinct non-correlated assets:

stocks - for prosperity

bonds - for deflation

cash - for recession

gold - for inflation

The Browne notion is that is impossible to predict/guess financial market events with any consistent skill, so it's better to have non-correlated assets that perform well as a total portfolio. Eg in the 1970s when stocks & bonds both declined, gold went up.

Supposedly since 1970s this portfolio has performed similar to an 100% stock portfolio, with the worst year being down ~15%, while stocks have been down ~50% at times.

mymoneyblog review

craigr's Crawling Road blog & discussion forum - many knowledgable gurus on here, veteran HBPP personal investors

UKer Clive/JF from crawlingroad forum site. Clive advocates for currency diversification, to hedge against domestic currency collapse. This is contra US "convential wisdom" that USD is somehow forever safe, & anything international is riskier, stupidly conflating stable rich countries like Canada or Germany or Japan (which might be safer than the US, at least for some years) with unstable countries like Argentina or Pakistan. This is also contra Harry Browne's own thoughts, of having 75% of the PP in USD-priced assets & 25% in gold.

US economic problems such as a trade deficit, budget deficit, unwillingness to cut profligate cartels such as the Military Industrial Complex. Also, many key assets such as oil & derivates being priced mostly in USD. Maybe in the future only 50% of oil will be priced in USD. Either of these issues could make it hard for the USD to get much stronger, with much risk of it getting weaker.

It seems that diversifying among global currencies would be "safer" than holding assets exclusively against any 1 currency.

Belgian Marc De Mesel, who like Clive shows (an extreme) example of domestic currency risk, with the 2008 Iceland PP

Boglehead's HBPP forum page

8 Lazy ETF portfolio reviews, which includes HBPP

Get Rich Slowly review

mymoneyblog

2010-04-25T16:17:00.000-05:00

Great personal finance site mymoneyblog

fwd - I stumbled upon this free personal finance blog. Excellent free advice on IRA retirement accounts & other personal financial matters. The blogger is like a Consumer Reports, stays up on the rates/deals/hidden fees for the "custodian" IRA vendors like Vanguard, Schwab, Zecco, etc. Vanguard seems like a good deal as far as minimizing index fund Expense Ratios & having stable fees, without bogus hidden fees.

Amazing this is this guy is a 30 yo hobbyist, his real job is IT. I guess he loves to say follow money market & home loan rates, instead of a typical guy's hobby like say playing NFL fantasy football. My guess is that this hobbyist's free advice is probably superior than most personal financial planner "professionals"!

Finance quote & info sites

2010-04-25T15:55:00.000-05:00

USian finance info sites for financial quotes/data, especially for assets with a ticker: ETFs, funds, individual stocks.

Google Finance - good graph feature, can quickly modify the time scale of the graph from intraday to multiple years. Would be nice if they included dividend-included returns

Morningstar - The Morningstar X-Ray is useful feature for slicing a portfolio (especially an broad index based portfolio) into asset allocation components - cash, bonds, US stock, non-US stock, other, not classified. It calculates weighted avg expense ratio. Especially equity stock components, which are broken down by geo regions like N America, Japan; industrial sector, stock type, & a 3X3 box for Valuation (Value/Core/Growth) X Size (Large/Medium/Small). For bonds & cash as a total group, it has a 3X3 box for Interest Sensitivity (Short, Intermediate, Long) X Credit Quality (High/Medium/Low).

Seeking Alpha - note has avg bid ask spreads & expense ratios clearly listed

Yahoo Finance - good for historical prices & dividends

D-Traxs funk music site

2010-04-25T15:41:00.000-05:00

1970s & 80s funk music D-Traxs.

HC Bill elimination of pre-existing condition: True or Bogus?

2010-03-22T15:53:00.001-05:00

One of the supposed great benefits of this health care bill, HR #4872, is that starting in 2014, pre-existing conditions & rescission will be made illegal.

However, there is some articles claiming these customer protections are bogus, insofar as a health care insurer could still do rescission existing customers or deny existing customer for pre-existing conditions because

1 No strong enforcement - firedoglake http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/03/22/signed-sealed-but-not-delivered-six-big-flaws-need-fixing-to-make-new-law-meaningful-health-care-reform/

My sense is that without strong regulation, a sick broke consumer will not get justice, fighting a health ins co & its army of lawyers.

2 Weak fine on health ins co, will be viewed as "cost of doing business" http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/3/22/849097/-want-to-improve-the-ban-on-pre-existing-conditions

This article claims Michael Moore claims the ins co fine is $100/day. So for costly treatments, such as cancer, an ins co could just say wait 1 year for the patient to day, & pay the $36.5K fine, as opposed to the $50K or $200K or whatever cost of actual health care treatment.

There was another article (don't recall source) claiming this fine was a flat $5K.

I've not been able to figure this out. I searched online. I called my House Rep, & Public Citizen. In each case the operator transferred me to the relevant "expert", which went directly to voicemail.

Do any of you know? If so could you indicate whether

1 the illegalizing of pre-existing conditions & rescissions is true or bogus?

2 Point to the specific page nbr(s) of the bill with the relevant evidence, along with a url link to said bill

Pls drop knowledge in the comments.

Extreme Inequality

2010-03-21T18:19:00.000-05:00

Extreme Inequality site

8 Switch

2010-03-18T15:36:00.001-05:00

saw this funk cover band 8 Switch yesterday.

Dope show. Remind me of Orange Whip, insofar as they play long 2-3 hours & bring great energy, have 1 lead female, physically small, singer with huge strong voice; & a bunch of dudes. 8 Switch's focus is 70s funk like Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind & Fire. Also similar to OW, 8S did maybe 15% hip hop songs also, Notorious BIG's "Big Poppa" & Young MC "Bust a Move". I see 8S site says they also have 1 self-titled album for sale with their original funk songs.

8 Switch advantage might be that the instrumentalists "go in" more on solos, & they have horn instrumentalists. OW's advantage is that they cover more ground, 70s - 10s pop, broadly, from ZZ Top to Dr Dre/Snoop Dogg to Billy Joel to Duran Duran (song list). So with OW prolly any of your homies will enjoy something they play, whereas 8S folks would have to not dislike funk music. But for me they're both great, you can't go wrong with either.

BJ Services Company

2010-03-18T15:17:00.001-05:00

Looking through the list of companies in global stock index, VT, Vanguard Total World Stock ETF which tracks the FTSE All-World Index. BTW, this is a great idea, it covers ~2700 comapnies in 46 countries, developed & emerging in every populated continent. Basically it only excludes tiny & non-tiny "frontier" or other risky countries that don't have "mature" stock markets.

Anyways,I randomly noticed there's a US oil services company in the VT index called BJ Services Company, stock ticker BJS . LOLz! I'm surprised some type of vulture capitalist like Govenor Bittsch Romney , private equity firm, etc, doesn't

1 buy 50% of the company to get "controlling interest" to run thangs

2 split off the oil biz with a separate company name/stock ticker

3 relocate to Vegas or some other place where prostitution is decriminalized or legal.

4 Actually provide "bj services"

Doing so would surely increase the P/E ratio. Price to earnings, get ur mind outta the gutter! Altho it would surely increase the penis ejaculations ratio also. [||]

G Greenwald article - Dems are fronting on Public Option

2010-03-13T01:03:00.002-05:00

Glenn Greenwald breaks it down as u-sual.

This is really disappointing. Supposedly Adam Green/Progressive Change Campaign Comittee has 41 Senators who signed paperwork claiming to vote for a Public Option. Huffington Post Ryan Grim article claims Obama could pressure 12 additional Dem Sens to get 53 votes, based off of these Sens' prior statements wrt Public Option, & would only need 9 of these 12 to get to 50 Sens & win the vote (VP Joe The Biden is a tiebreaker when Senate ties 50-50).

So Obama COULD get the Public Option if he actually WANTED it? Obama is 2X worse than Liebermann.

You know how Dems usually clown closeted gay ReThugs like Larry Craig? The rationale, which I agree with, is the Hypocrisy Rule. Craig, Mark Foley, Rev Ted Haggard, etc are hardcore anti-equal rights for gays, when they themselves are gheys.

To be fair, I think it's way past time to apply the Hypocrisy Rule on fake-ass Cartel Corporatist Whore Dems like Obama & Liebermann. ReThugs don't front that they are for the average Jane. ReThugs clearly state themselves Big Cartel Corporate Whores, no ReThug hypocrisy here. But Cartel Dems like Obama pretend & campaign for the economic issues of the Average Jane & Joe voter, when really they continually defecate on Avg Jane & sellout in backroom non-Cspan'd televised deals with Wall Street, Pharma, Heath Ins, etc. I call Hypocrisy, I call BS.

The sad thing is that real Progressive leadership ala FD Roosevelt or or TD Roosevelt or LB Johnson looks unlikely until Jan 2017 at the EARLIEST, assuming Obama isn't gonna magically turn Progressive, nor is it likely Obama could be primary challenged in 2012. So it's either Obama, Romney, or another even worse ReThug as Pres until 2017. The country has excessive multiple problems to wait until 2017 for adult & Progressive Fed Gov governance to fix this mess. W T F. Perhaps I should holler at a girl with Canada or EU citizenship? Only half-kidding.

how-to: m3u file with relative path

2010-03-12T07:08:00.000-05:00

I figured out how to create an m3u file for a Playlist/tracklist, which is a simple text file, that by using relative file paths, works for both

1 playing mp3 files on my PC

2 playing mp3 files on my Sansa Sandisk Clip mp3 player, by merely copying/pasting the m3u & the relative album/folders of tracks the m3u references. NOTE - you must pick "MSC" in Settings>USB Mode. The other modes: "Auto Detect", or "MTP" mode will not work.

Note, I've tested this using "standard English" characters 0-9 & A-Z. This happens to work for me, given the nature of the mp3 files I have. You might find a bug if you have "non-English" characters, such as the Spanish ñ, or even worse the Asian language "Unicode" type characters. Personally I just rename the tracks with Non-English characters, aka I "anglicize" it, eg I retitle"Nariño" to "Narino".

Here's an example m3u file, which happens to be an Artist playlist of Dilated Peoples m3u . Either download that link, or just copy/paste this text in between the ---- in a blank text file & save that file as .m3u:

----

#EXTM3U
D\Dilated Peoples 2000 The Platform\03 No Retreat.mp3
D\Dilated Peoples 2006 20-20\03 You Can't Hide You Can't Run.mp3
D\Dilated Peoples 2000 The Platform\14 The Shape Of Things To Come.mp3
D\Dilated Peoples 2001 Expansion Team\11 Pay Attention.mp3
D\Dilated Peoples 2004 Neighborhood Watch\01 Marathon.mp3

----

You can use this as a template, just keep/reuse the 1st line "#EXTM3U " & the final blank line. Delete off the middle lines that reference Dilated tracks; replace these with similar lines referencing your tracks. Note that your tracks do not need to be in subfolders. If your tracks are in the same top folder which contains your m3u, you would just refer to the track itself. Eg you would just reference "03 No Retreat.mp3" instead of "D\Dilated Peoples 2000 The Platform\03 No Retreat.mp3". I do recall reading there is an upper limit of 200 or so characters. For me, this is not a problem. If you have a ridiculously large number of nested folders, or a long track name, you might need to shorten it to ensure you don't hit this character limit.

BTW big ups to Sansa for making such a great functionality. My Creative Technologies 60 GB player does not have this functionality; 1 must manually define Playlists in their proprietary app. I've never owned an Apple mp3, but I heard one must do a similarly define their playlist in iTunes.

If u try this out, pls comment on how it works for you, or if you have questions. Hope this helps.

MN Music Directory - cover bands

2009-11-05T21:31:00.002-05:00

link I stumbled upon of MN area cover bands. Orange Whip is great, but nice that there might be other good cover bands. Interested in checking one that does the 70s/80s R&B/Funk steez ala Prince & Earth Wind Fire.

John Dean "Republican Rule is Dangerous article

2009-10-24T11:23:00.001-05:00

article by John Dean, Nixon's "White House Counsel" lawyer

how-to: bandana

2009-10-23T16:20:00.002-05:00

I found this helpful link via a Wikipedia external link, a how-to on tying a bandana that covers your entire dome (heretofore described as "dome steez")

I use a bandana not for fashion, but because my dome sweats profusely if I really do heavy cardio, like the ArcTrainer on level 10, or a 3+ hr all-court net rushing, lob-chasing tennis match. But I had always used the Federer/2Pac bandana steez. I tried the ArcTrainer with the dome steez, & it worked great. Better soaking of the sweat & less times I had to use the "wipe head with shirt sleeve" move.

Mike Stathis

2009-10-21T13:23:00.000-05:00

econ/financial markets writer Mike Stathis site

Kenneth C Davis Don't Know Much

2009-10-21T06:27:00.000-05:00

historian Kenneth C Davis Don't Know Much site. Davis writes books about many topics, correcting popular misinformation.

Working Life

2009-10-21T06:16:00.000-05:00

Working Life/Jonathan Tasini site on US worker issues

New Album Releases

2009-10-09T06:15:00.000-05:00

site with links to new album releases.

pop/rock disco link

2009-10-05T07:42:00.000-05:00

blog with link to some pop/rock discography

ReThug Hypocrisy: support Pubic Insurance Option for Trent Lott's house

2009-09-24T02:10:00.001-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeZv8AEv0uQ

Kanye West "Yo" images

2009-09-16T06:37:00.001-05:00

Have you seen these joke Kanye West "Yo" images mocking Kanye's douche behavior interrupting Taylor Swift @ MTV Awards?

example

I want to see one as follows

"Yo Obama, I acknowledge you're an epic Corporate Whore in general, & specifically for killing the Public Health Insurance Option, & I'll let you finish, but George Bush 43 was the Biggest Corporate Whore President of All Time"!

Leo Hindery Jobs Solutions for Our Jobless Recovery

2009-07-02T10:24:00.002-05:00

good article, I agree on most of the policies Hindery recommends. It's a shame Obama & the Dem congress is not making the bold changes in economic policy required to fix the fugazi economy.

Paul Krugman refutes Austrian view of RGD1

2009-06-18T06:40:00.000-05:00

Paul Krugman refutes Austrian economics view of the 1930s Republican Great Depression. The Austrian (Libertarians, Ron Paul heads, Peter Schiff, etc) would say that Fed Gov response made the Depression worse, but Krugman/Keynesian shows that lack of Fed Gov response from Repub Pres Hoover in 1929 when RGD1 started actually did make the Depression worse. Plus Krugman highlights some illogical aspects of the Austrian explanation wrt RGD1

Hiway Credit Union

2009-06-18T06:33:00.001-05:00

a friend/existing customer highly recommended Hiway Credit Union, as a great bank for personal finance use. Dude said their rates are dece, the service is dece, & it's reassuring that one can go in & talk to a real manager at the branch.

After all the fraud in 2008-9 Banking Crisis, imho I feel like investigating Credit Unions more.

1 thing I worry about is if Credit Unions enjoy FDIC protection, or if they have an alternate protection, is it dece enough. Hit up the comments if u have a take on this issue.

Michael Boldrin "Against Intellectual Monopoly"

2009-06-18T06:33:00.000-05:00

economist Michael Boldrin has a free pdf book "Against Intellectual Monopoly". Also has a Econtalk podcast.

Common Good Bank

2009-06-18T06:30:00.001-05:00

Common Good Bank is a new type of bank, whose leader was interviewed by Thom Hartmann. IMHO, from the interview, their steez sounds similar to a credit union, but apparently their are some differences.

Twin Cities Hip Hop

2009-06-18T06:27:00.000-05:00

Twin Cities Hip Hop lists local MSP metro area shows, & the local artists that often do local shows, such as Atmosphere, Brother Ali, Leroy Smokes, etc.

Jim Sinclair's Mineset

2009-06-18T06:22:00.000-05:00

commodity dealer Jim Sinclair blog, who Thom Hartmann recommends

economist Alan Blinder, offshoring expert

2009-06-18T06:20:00.000-05:00

economist Alan Blinder, who does academic researching on the effects of offshore outsourcing on US economy.

Working Group on Extreme Inequality

2009-06-18T06:18:00.000-05:00

advocacy org Working Group on Extreme Inequality

review of interstate bus service

2009-06-18T06:17:00.000-05:00

review of interstate bus service

Single Payer Action

2009-06-18T06:14:00.000-05:00

Single Payer Action is a advocacy org for US Universal Health Care

Larry Beinhart "Tax Cuts: BS & the Facts"

2009-06-04T06:37:00.000-05:00

Larry Beinhart editorial. Beinhart demonstrates the facts that high income tax rate on the top income group has predictably led to good economic growth, and reduction of said rate leads to economic bubbles & recessions.

essay on Breaking Bad

2009-06-03T04:57:00.000-05:00

Here's a great take on the greatness of the TV drama show Breaking Bad, from a random commenter dmallet on AMC's Breaking Bad website.

"This is the finest dramatic work of art I have ever seen. Be it films, theatre, or television, this is the most spectacular entertainment to date. If America needs to see what the failure of the War on Drugs has caused, they need look no further than this show. Walt is the symbol of all unassuming people who have been seduced by the unregulated, uncontrolled universe of organized crime fuelled by drugs. But, it is not only a statement on a matter of policy and morality. It is also a detailed portait of a failing marriage. It is a commentary on the folly of youth. It is an expose of the sordid underbelly of addiction. It is a glimpse into corruption at every level. It is a terse and biting knock at the disarray of the American Health care system. It is an emotionally devastating dissection of the family unit from several different angles. It is another in a fine line of creative endeavors that has taken on the difficult task of satirizing suburban life and does so perfectly. It is all of these things and more. It is the most provocative, complex and rewarding show ever broadcast on television.

Several years ago, a horrid, melodramatic film called Crash won the Oscar for best picture. It attempted to connect various characters and situations together to make a statement about the struggle between races for equality and acceptance. Here drugs and the criminal underworld act as an initial catalyst for a deeply felt, artful exposition of the human soul in all of its complexity. Where Crash, Magnolia, Short Cuts, or American Beauty succeeded ( and let me add that Crash fails on every count to feel the least bit genuine), Breaking Bad triumphs.

But don't view this simply as a pastiche of events...see it as the unfolding of a solitary decision....to sell a hard drug to help sustain his family after his death. A dark means to an end. Every man, woman and child has made a decision like this. Perhaps we have had a child as a result of a night of impulsive passion, unfurling a lifetime of changes, all based on a moment we decided to keep removing articles of clothing. Perhaps we have lashed out in anger, and escaped into a self destructive pattern of behaviour. Walt, Skyler, Flynn, Hank, Jesse, Jane...the entire cast of characters is a prism of the human condition.

One knows when they have witnessed great art when it conjures up emotions that cause a person to pause and reflect, to see this painful mosaic of life and identify with those elements that ring true in your own life. And simultaneously, it is supreme entertainment.

I pray that come Emmy time, the Academy is willing to reward Season 2 for what it is...a watershed moment in television and art in general and do their part to ensure that the public knows of it.

I have no hesitation proclaiming Breaking Bad as a modern masterpiece, alongside M.A.S.H and All In The Family as the best this or any genre has to offer"

Garden of Life

2009-05-21T20:16:00.001-05:00

Garden of Life website, vendor of food powder that my homie LA recommended. Dude is smart in general, is dude's hobby is to read up on nutrition & exercise. So I'm following the guy's advice.

Been taking this stuff Perfect Food Super Green formula, has 46 nutritious items, most of which would be impractical for me to buy at the local grocery (don't stock it) & eat otherwise, such as grass juice, kelp, obscure vegetables, etc.

hilarious Obama quotes

2009-05-21T20:13:00.000-05:00

some soundbites of Obama talking slang talk, including n-bomb, s-bomb, f-bomb. Taken from Obama's audio book, where he has to quote his school homie Ray's slang talk from back in the day

20 jobs that pay $20/hr

2009-05-21T20:12:00.000-05:00

cnn article

Phone Scoop

2009-04-28T14:57:00.001-05:00

Phone Scoop is a site the Radio Shack guy recommended, as a independent site that comments on mobile phone service & mobile phones.

I'll watch this site to see what happens to Boost Mobile. I'm a new Boost customer, but because of the crappy frequent dropped calls & "No Service 2F" outages, I'm gonna roll with $0.10/min for a while & "wait & see" if Boost actually scales up their infrastructure capacity, like they claim they're doing, to handle their massive increase in customers. The Radio Shack dude opined Boost will be able to scale up sufficiently within 2-3 months. Not sure if I believe it, but don't hate Boost enough yet to quit. Even no-contract Boost has the "switching cost" of having to cop another phone if I were to switch. Damn you switching costs!

A New Way Forward

2009-04-15T07:22:00.000-05:00

Greenwald article on how Summers & Geithner are Wall Street Welfare Whores.

former IMF Bank economist Simon Johnson article on how the US Wall Street Welfare 2009 is similar to prior "emergent market" failures, where an oligopoly of bankers control the Government to extract Welfare.

A New Way Forward is an org of citizens that is fighting Wall Street Welfare 2009. I doubt they will be successful, but their effort is the only type I see having any chance regular US citizens have of changing Obama's Wall Street Welfare policy.

oDesk

2009-03-27T16:39:00.003-05:00

oDesk is a homeshoring marketplace in which anyone can randomly take free certification exams, then become an oDesk "provider" working on tasks in a variety of fields.

I did some brief browsing to see about this homeshoring category, since I suspect it may be "a winners take all" niche where 1 or a few leaders dominate & end up getting more of the volume. It appears that eLance leads in volume, & oDesk is growing fast. Other sites like guru exist, but seem to have less volume than these aformentioned 2 sites. oDesk seems to provide more statistics than eLance about average hourly rates by skill & country, etc.

If anyone has experience with any of these homeshoring sites, pls hit up the comments with your $0.02.

Politifact

2009-03-27T16:36:00.001-05:00

Politifact reports on the truthfulness of statements made by politrickians.

Checkbook.com

2009-03-27T16:32:00.003-05:00

Consumers Checkbook aka checkbook.org is a site with local metro area consumer info, published by the same Consumers Union group that publishes the magazine Consumer Reports.

Richard Florida "How the Crash Will Reshape America"

2009-03-27T16:29:00.001-05:00

urban studies professor Richard Florida article

Ian Welsh @ Firedoglake

2009-03-27T13:22:00.000-05:00

UPDATE, apparently now Welsh does most of his writing on his own ianwelsh.net, while still posting somewhat on Firedoglake

--
Ian Welsh @ Firedoglake blog, is a 40s-yo Canadian in Toronto with a great broad take on US economic/politics topics, with an ability to take long historical perspective, ala Thom Hartmann.

I stumbled upon 1 of Welsh's posts. Welsh is great, I'll likely become a regular reader because this guy is dropping too much insight to be slept on.

Here's an example post labeling 3 groups in US political spectrum
reactionaries (Rethugs)
conservatives ("centrist" Dems like Obama)
liberals (very few exist in House & Sen)

Political Calculation

2009-03-25T07:16:00.000-05:00

interesting blog with quantitative spreadsheet-like estimates on various economic & social matters.

AvaxHome

2009-03-25T06:09:00.001-05:00

Good ebooks site AvaxHome

eBook search engine

2009-03-25T05:16:00.000-05:00

This custom google search engine scans 100s of eBooks sites.

Booktraining

2009-03-24T06:53:00.000-05:00

This site Booktraining.net fileshares many instructional videos for computer-related training, which is a focus I haven't seen. Like many other sites, it also shares many pdf eBooks.

MN Latino Economic Development Center

2009-03-22T16:08:00.000-05:00

MN Latino Economic Development Center (link)

Disgusting behavior by Brazilian Catholic Church

2009-03-06T18:50:00.001-05:00

this story is disgusting.

1 A 9 yr-old girl was raped by her stepfather
2 The girl became pregnant with twins due to the rape
3 The medical opinion is that giving birth to the twins would endanger the girl's life
4 The girl's mother arranges for the girl to abort her pregnancy, which is legal in Brazil for life danger &/or rape
5 A moron Brazilian Catholic bishop excommunicates from the Church the girl's mother, & the physicians who administered the abortion.

WTF?! I guess the pedophile rapist step-father is a good Catholic since he did NOT get excommunicated. The extremely immoral contrast in who did & did not get excommunicated is beyond absurd.

Religions that are both authoritarian & reject science seem dangerous to society.

issues that cause a divorce

2009-02-24T20:41:00.001-05:00

typical issues that cause a divorce, per a divorce lawyer's experience.

Latin Tropical sites

2009-02-19T07:59:00.000-05:00

A friend wanted some sites that have Latin music albums. Apparently this friend is not "nice" with "the googles".

Spent like 10 minutes with google & found these. Hope that helps.

Gru. Niche discography (might be missing some items, I don't know)
JL Guerra discography
Salsa 1 2 3 4

stimulus for electronic medical records = corporate welfare

2009-02-11T12:48:00.005-05:00

Part of the 2009 economic stimulus plan making its way through the Congressional "sausage factory" includes money for electronic medical records (EMR).

EMR itself is a good idea. Healthcare industry is horrible at using, er not using, information technology to increase productivity. For example, the practice of some physicians poorly handwriting a prescription that a pharmacist can't read is excessive industry inefficiency, not to mention extreme incompetent arrogance (a deadly combination) for the physician offenders.

However, I don't see why in principle the Fed Government should be paying for EMR, this is straight corporate welfare for the healthcare industry.

To my knowledge, no other industries have gotten such corporate welfare for their IT. I suppose their may be some tax credit, but even so this would be at worst a partial deduction of the cost. Eg if a grocery retailer buys a $2 million transaction information system, they don't pay $2 million less in taxes, maybe at best they get to deduct $200K from their tax bill or some such.

Speaking of grocery retailers, I heard that they are often the least profitable industry in the US, with a slim profit margin of say 3%, which often times is less than that of a regular savings account (depending on the interest rate level). If grocery retailers can pay for their own IT, why can't the super-expensive health care industry?

Perhaps the Feds should just mandate/regulate that EMR must be implemented by say 2014. Or implement EMR corporate welfare as an low-interest loan of sorts. Various healthcare industry participants could be levied a tax to ensure that they pay back the EMR corporate welfare within say 8 years. The tough thing would be ensuring that the healthcare industry doesn't just pass the tax on the consumers. Perhaps health care insurers & pharma companies company profits, as well physician/dentist/pharmacist incomes should get an extra 10% tax for the 3-10 years it takes to pay off this EMR loan.

Another point about EMR, is that the Feds should insist that any software used in the EMR should be completely FOSS (free & open source). This way whoever is paying the EMR bill, Feds &/or healthcare industry, they would be paying only the initial implementation/consulting fee, & a minimal annual maintenance fees. I don't want to see the closed proprietary enterprise software cartel of Oracle/SAP get paid off of this EMR corporate welfare, with their ridic initial license fees & usurious 22% annual maintenance fees. If there is any "functionality holes" in what is needed, the Feds could hire maybe at most 100 of the vast sea of US unemployed IT professionals to develop the missing functionality. If a small software vendor is already working on this functionality, the Feds could give some free IT workers' time in exchange for the vendor's committment to FOSS. Wikipedia notes that several FOSS EMR apps already exist.

Competence: Is Your Boss Faking It

2009-02-11T12:46:00.000-05:00

interesting Time article

fw - free ebook sites

2009-02-08T22:34:00.001-05:00

I stumbled upon a blogger's massive list of free ebook sites, pt 1, pt 2

fw - Job Market could be bleak for years

2009-02-05T07:17:00.000-05:00

msnbc article on fugazi US job market.

Obama blacklists Progressive Economists

2009-02-05T07:12:00.001-05:00

David Sirota editorial & Christopher Hayes editorial detail how Obama has shunned Progressive hires for the economic-related cabinet jobs. It would be great is Obama had named Dean Baker, who is not only Progressive, innovative, but most importantly has the benefit of being correct on calling the Nasdaq bubble in 1999 & housing bubble in 2004.

These Obama economists Larry Summers & Timothy Geithner were incompetent in the 1990s & deregulated financial derives. This action made the housing bubble & 2008 Financial ELE worse. Summers & Geithner also Wall Street Welfare Whores.

On economics, it seems that Obama is a Corporate Welfare Whore Lite, ala Bill Clinton.

I sincerely hope that Obama will prove Sirota, Hayes, & myself wrong.

Chris Hedges "It's Not Going to be OK"

2009-02-05T06:57:00.000-05:00

Chris Hedges big-picture editorial about the US economy & state of democracy.

Obama salary limit for bailed out companies

2009-02-04T07:52:00.003-05:00

Obama has announced a $500K salary limit for the employees of bailed out companies, including the CEO. Personally, given the Fed Gov's deficit spending, I'd put the limit at $200K, but hey I still support Obama for this effort.

I put on Morning Joe on MSNBC this morning while eating breakfast. This host/douche Joe Scarborough said that this plan is "Marxist" and "we can't get qualified CEOs".

What extreme idiocy from Scardoucheough.

Erin Burnett & Steve Forbes were crying the same river on Meet The Press on Sun Feb-1

The Fed Gov funding the banks is what is "Marxist". If the banks need the bailout money, they need to accept the terms of the US public aka the taxpayers.

The fact that the current bank CXOs are "talented" is in question anyways. If they were so "talented", how did they bankrupt their banks & wreck the broader US economy in the process?

Even if they are talented, where would these CXOs otherwise go for jobs? All the banks are downsizing.

Also, their are probably 1000s of bank executives who could do at worst "as good a job" as the current CEOs, from any of these 3 categories:
1 midlevel managers at the bailed out banks who have a track record of good performance AND were prudent in their risk/reward decision making, not causing Billions in losses for their department

2 CEOs of profitable regional commercial banks or successful not-for-profit credit unions, which unlike their more glamorous investment banking CEO competitors, did not ruin their organizations in the 2008 Financial ELE.

3 CEOs of profitable banks in BRIC-type countries. In India alone, there's probably at least 100 English-speaking & competent bank CEOs that would take the job for $100K, much less $500K. The Feds could allocate a few H1-B visas for them to relocate to the US.

Funny how Wall Street was cheerleading for US nonfinancial corporations' offshore outsourcing for PhD engineers, radiologists, accountants, etc. Because apparently all work skill sets are comodities whose price needs to fall in a "Race To The Bottom", & we should not worry about the effect of this massive US job loss on the US economy. But yet somehow their expertise is some unique Jordan/Federer/Einstein skill set than only NYC investment bankers have? FOH!

Corporate Welfare Whores like Joe Scarborough practice the REAL CLASS WARFARE. Everyone else needs to show extreme competence & ruthlessly compete with globally cheap labor. But the how dare we plebeians suggest the US' 0.1% superrich class of Wall Street execs, douche cable pundits (like Scarborough), etc, have to ACTUALLY COMPETE in an actual global free market! No, we 99.9% plebeians should "bow our heads" (c) Cenk Uyger, & let the 0.1% enjoy Corporate Welfare aka Conservative Nanny State protection, while basic government services for the common folks are getting cut.

An extreme FOH to Joe Scarborough, Erin Burnett & the rest of these unAmerican US Corporate Welfare Whores. They can all EAD.

IBM relocating US employees to BRIC

2009-02-04T06:40:00.000-05:00

IBM is relocating US employees to cheap-labor countries such as India, of course getting the much lower salary. Presumably the fugazi choice for many US employees is IBMer in India on a $15K engineer salary, or possibly $15K as Walmart clerk in Rochester, NY.

IBM can EAD.

Judd Gregg same bad behavior as Blago

2009-02-04T06:37:00.000-05:00

C&L makes great point that NH Sen now Sec of Commerce Judd Gregg did similar action as disgraced IL Gov Rod Blagojevich aka Blago.

Economics & Revisionist History

2009-02-03T18:23:00.003-05:00

A TYT listener blogger, sisco66, has a good take on the RGDs aka Republican Great Depression(s).

need mp3 encoding advice/winLAME

2009-02-03T07:34:00.000-05:00

What do you use to rip audio CDs to MP3? Any suggestions or advice?

I had heard that the "LAME encoder" was a better technology to "encode MP3s" than whatever Apple iTunes uses. This open source/free software winlame allows one to use that LAME format.

I downloaded this app & tried it. It seems to work good. I picked
Encoding Quality = High
Quality = 4 (0 = best/big file, 9 = worst/small file)
Variable Bit Rate Mode = Standard

The resulting files sound good to me, but I'm not an audiophile. The albums (1 jazz, 1 electronica, 1 world genre). They were all about 50 minutes & the albums created were about 50 MB in size, with mp3 files of about 150 kbps VBR.

Fiscal Therapy

2009-02-02T07:01:00.000-05:00

David Cay Johnston article Fiscal Thearpy, editorial on how to fix the US fugazi economy.

CNN's Stimulus 101 overview

2009-01-28T07:26:00.000-05:00

CNN has an overview of the proposed 2009 stimulus plan.

Baker's ideas for 2009 stimulus package

2009-01-27T08:50:00.003-05:00

Dean Baker article has some ideas for the 2009 stimulus package, many of which are ideas from his Conservative Nanny State book. I really support the public funding of pharma clinical trials that would eliminate the current pharma monopoly system.

Obama's current stimulus plan is very disappointing. Per Rachel Maddow, only 18% is on infrastructure. More than that infrastructure amount is more supply-side Reaganomics tax cuts, which have been proven failures since the 1980s. If the Feds are gonna spend $820 B, it should all be bang-for-the-buck items that have a good chance of getting a return.

It seems that on economic policy, Obama is like B Clinton, a moderate ReThug, a less whorish Corporate Welfare Whore. I sincerely hope Obama proves me wrong on this stimulus package & other economic policies in this 2009Q1. Just being less corporate welfare whorish than WOAT Bush, but still whorish, is NOT "change that I can believe in".

offshore outsourcing of drive thru

2009-01-27T06:20:00.000-05:00

article on how Jack In The Box fast-food restaurant (same niche as McDonalds), in its Charlotte restaurants, has started using offshored drive-thru order takers.

ESPN2 Aus Open schedule

2009-01-19T18:33:00.002-05:00

BTW, peep the Hewitt pic of dunny doing his classic "come on" gesture.

ESPN2 has stepped up their tennis coverage tremendously.

IIRC, it was just 3 years ago when ESPN was derided/ethered by Jon Wertheim as "Eternally Shafting Players Non-American". They would stay showing rerun blowouts of the Williams sisters & Roddick, while a live epic 5-set match was going on bt non-Americans such as M Safin v F Gonzalez or some such. The only exception was the Non-American they vag-rided even more than the few American stars, Maria Sharapova.

Sharapova is injured this year, so we don't have to bare her-shrieking unsportsmanlike anorexic ass this year preempting more interesting matches.

But ESPN2 aka "the deuce" (no scatalogical jic) is rolling mad hours of live coverage.

Well done ESPN.

Here's the ESPN2 sched (source tennis.com):

ESPN2 live schedule
Mon Jan-19 21:00-02:00
Tue Jan-20 03:30-08:00, 22:00-02:00
Wed Jan-21-Thu Jan-22 03:30-08:00, 23:00-02:00
Fri Jan-23 03:30-08:00, 19:00-21:30, 23:30-02:00
Sat Jan-24 03:30-08:00, 22:00-01:30
Sun Jan-25 03:30-08:00, 21:00- 01:30
Mon Jan-26 03:30-06:00, 21:30-01:30 QF
Tue Jan-27 03:30-06:00 QF, 21:30-02:00 QF
Wed Jan-28 03:30-06:00 QF, 21:30-01:30 W SF
Thu Jan-29 03:30-06:00 M SF, 23:00-01:00 WD F
Fri Jan-30 03:30-06:00 M SF
Sat Jan-31 03:30-05:30 W F
Sun Feb-01 03:30-06:30 M F

Ravi Batra on the 2008 Financial Crisis

2009-01-16T07:05:00.000-05:00

Economist Dr Ravi Batra's essay breaks down the 2008 Financial Crisis like an organic compound, no Keith Murray. Batra's website here, unfortunately he doesn't update it much, but will drop some essays periodically.

Batra is mad nice, too bad Obama overlooked "economists who called it correctly" like Batra & Dean Baker, in favor of 90s Clinton retreads who got it wrong like Larry Summers.

Carbonomics

2009-01-16T06:56:00.001-05:00

free ebook Carbonomics by Steven Stoft on energy/economics issues. You can download the free pdf here or cop a printed book at that same site or at Amazon.

I dig the tagline "How to fix the climate & charge it to OPEC". Word?! I love the sound of that solution! "Fock it, do it live", no Bile O'Really.

Ron Paul kicks the truth on the Gaza massacre

2009-01-16T06:42:00.001-05:00

Ron Paul quickly in 3 mins drops some intellectual ether on Israeli's Gaza massacre, & hypocrisy in US foreign policy since the 80s to now.

Even offshore outsourced at enterprise software oligopolists getting ethered

2009-01-12T18:38:00.006-05:00

Even the enterprise software oligopolists SAP & Oracle are laying off workers at their offshore outsourced Indian offices.

Supposedly some of this is India-specific sales, which I could understand more.

But the majority of these Indian offices are working on offshored work in product dev, consulting, internal G&A tasks such as Finance/Accounting, etc, for a rich country end customer, especially the US.

Either overall global employment in enterprise application software is in a bubble, or SAP or Oracle are just too damn greedy. Perhaps the CXOs feel that to maintain their multimillion pay packages, they need to eliminate even those "greedy" $10-25K (not sure on actual amount, just know it's much lower than the US which motivated the offshoring) salaried Indian employees doing real customer work.

If the oligopolist offshored knowledge workers getting eliminated like this, what does this say for US workers at non-oligopolist vendors? "Shhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiid" (c) The Wire's MD State Senator Clay Davis.

I hope open source takes over the enterprise app software business, indy or small business software engineers, project consultants, etc have a chance at decent careers, or even self-employment.

Those that don't actually help the end customer, brutal arrogant oligopolist, parasite CXOs like Larry Ellison or Safra Catz can eat an infinite johns sandwich. I'm sure the Bangalore staff are saying similar things in Hindi right about now.

CNN profiles the underemployed

2009-01-12T18:22:00.003-05:00

Case studies on how several workers have seen their careers ethered, going from 110K to 33K for instance.

Keep in mind these "underemployed" don't show up in the U3 reported unemployment figures. They sometimes show up in the U6 figures.

Expect to see more college degreed "knowledge workers" driving trucks, taxis, waiters, etc. Nothing wrong with those jobs, but it shows the social contract in the US is broken. Workers take time, & often debt, to become a knowledge worker.

Apparently in the US now, it's a luxury to work a knowledge worker job until retirement.

Unions & pro-employee government policies are needed ASAP. Let's see if Obama & the Dems do a little something for us wage slaves & unemployed wage slaves, or they bitch out as Corporate Whore DINOs ala Bill Clinton did on NAFTA in the 90s.

Howard Dean gets no love like foster kids

2009-01-08T23:16:00.003-05:00

Howard Dean, was an innovator in using the internet for campaign donations in his 2004 Presidential Campaign. Dean also innovated as the Democratic Party Chair (aka DNC Chair) with the "50 State Strategy", which led to the Dem party performing well in the 2006 & 2008 elections. Both Dean innovations greatly influenced Obama's 2008 campaign.

Note that many typical "centrist Dems" like Rahm Emmanul, Bill & H Clinton & her WCs like space alien/campaign advisor James Carville all scorned Dean for trying something different. Dean's approach was more democratic a "bottom-up" approach from everyday people on the internet. The old Clinton approach was "top down" appealing to big rich individual & corporate donors, & ignoring the grass roots, especially in "red states" that recently had been voting ReThug.

This C&L article notes Dean will not even be at new DNC Chair Tim Kaine's induction ceremony. It states that Obama Chief of Staff & former Dem US Rep Rahm Emmanuel was a big Dean & 50 State Strategy hater, & may have something to do with Dean not being named to a Cabinet office in the Obama staff.

Dean, a former VT Governor who implemented a good health care reform, & a physician, could have been a great qualified pick for a health-related position, but Obama gave Health & Human Services to Tom Daschle, & Surgeon General to CNN TV medical PR dude Sanjay Gupta.

What the fock. No reward for doing a great job for Dean. Dean "gets no love like foster kids".

Obama has made some good decisions like naming Dr Chu to Sec Energy, & is infinitely superior to WOAT Bush or McShame. Despite this, with moves like shafting Dean [||], Obama is half-wack in his approach so far. Man, funk dat (c) Sagat.