A Productive Day

I realize that the name of this blog does not really lend itself to a good description of the content that can be found here. From the content posted thus far it is pretty obvious that the main purpose of this blog is to act as a medium through which I may vent certain political or economical frustrations. This post, however, will branch into the realm of the mundane and simply be about my rather productive day. These are noticeably rare despite efforts to at least try to be more productive with my time. I blame spending too much time at a job I don't like for the lack of any motivation to do anything but sit on the internet browsing until my brain is mush and the day is gone.

Awake to the sounds of Blackberry buzzing on my desk. Stumble out of bed and, remembering it's Sunday, head to church. Arrive back home to the prospects of stealing the bottom of the pot coffee one of my roommates made and making eggs. That done and not finding anything good on TV (not even a decent "Deadliest Warrior" marathon) I make up my mind to be as productive as possible. My roommate and I spend the next several hours cleaning the apartment. Now I enjoy a little squalor as much as the next guy, but our place was really getting bad. We probably easily filled one of the municipal garbage cans with crap that had just been hanging out because we're too lazy to really clean the place.

We also decided this would be the big DIY fixing broken stuff up day. Before we could get to work we needed an emergency trip to the Walmart to stock up on tools and supplies to augment my limited cache. Shopping at Walmart is a dangerous and potentially expensive ordeal if you go without a list. We went in for paper towels, light bulbs, screws, and garbage bags. We almost came out with that plus a 47" TV, cordless drill, and a new vacuum cleaner because we couldn't just find bags for the old Electrolux.

In what was left of the afternoon we successfully managed to reattach the dishwasher to the counter after it had been loose from its moorings for weeks. We also got the coffee table back to a suitable level of stability, and the couch no longer falls backward due to a leg needing to be reattached. All in all a decent number of projects done in a day.

Now we just need to convert one of our empty rooms into a MMA fighting area and we'll be all set for the summer.

Government Motors

I was reading an article about GM's bankruptcy in the Financial Times where Obama said that the government was a "reluctant" shareholder, that the government would not have a heavy hand in the company, and operations would remain "business as usual." They also tried to say that GM would be a public company again within a year.

Not likely. All this reminded me of an interesting quote from Milton Friedman, "Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program." 

Other than that I don't even know where to begin. Having read about this issue and after covering it in some of my business classes I can't say I was surprised to see General Motors file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. What irks me is that this does not seem like a real bankruptcy proceeding. It is more like the outright nationalisation of the auto makers and I don't see how this course of action could possibly improve the situation. Keeping things "business as usual" was part of the problem at GM, and with governments appointing most of the board of directors I don't see how they could not have a heavy hand in how the company is being run. 

I agree that what should emerge from "bankruptcy" should be a leaner, more nimble company, but does anyone think that's possible with the block holders being the government and the unions? The unions sucked the lifeblood out of GM and the government hasn't been innovative since it wrote the Constitution. 

Instead of being a reluctant shareholder in these companies I would rather see them go through real bankruptcy proceedings. Then maybe we would find out if there's anything people actually wanted to save. 

Swine Flu

I'm definitely not a medical student so I'm going to need some help on this. Is the only reason swine flu is so bad because we don't have a vaccine for it? If that's the case, do people who normally don't get the flu shot every year have anything more to worry about? 

Reality Sets In

As I was perusing business news online I happened across this article on the Wall Street Journal's website: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124027087650836931.html

After reading something like that I guess we can really begin to see what the government actually intended to have happen with their "helping" of the banking sector. They weren't acting as benevolent saviors in a time of crisis.  Rather, Geithner and the rest of the Obama administration sought to wrest control away from the shareholders and the private sector in general with seemingly little intention of giving said control back. The idea that the "health of individual banks won't be the sole criterion for whether financial firms will be allowed to repay bailout funds" also snubs the American tax payers who were forced to provide the funds. For all the rhetoric assuring everyone that this money would be repaid, the government seems to loathe the possibility of actually get any of it back. 

Housing Rescue Plan

The housing rescue plan put forward by the Obama administration confuses me to no end. A recent article published in USA Today tried to highlight some of the areas to be addressed by the plans. Their analysis, however, was vague at best though through little fault of their own. The administration is also being decidedly vague on any particular parts of the plan. Sure, they lay out basics to help some 9 million homeowners who are deemed to be in trouble. They even plan to throw $75 billion directly at the problem and almost $200 billion more toward Fannie and Freddie. How these plans will ultimately play out, however, is not addressed (let alone how they will eventually be paid for). Besides the issue of whether or not it's too little too late I'm concerned with just how fair a plan like this can possibly be. It doesn't address anyone who followed sensible rules and decided to avoid living so far beyond their means. Instead, people who took on too much debt probably thinking it would somehow magically go away are getting that wish fulfilled. Too much debt was a big part of the problem leading up to this economic meltdown, and now it seems we're OK with handing out "get out of jail free" cards to anyone who made irresponsible choices. This package may help a few people out in the short term, but it will keep mortgage rates too low and the cycles of shouldering too much debt will be allowed to continue.   

Super Bowl Ads

Just finished watching the Super Bowl. While I really didn't care who won it turned out to be a pretty decent game. Unfortunately, the business-minded part of me was disappointed in the ads. I'm almost not looking forward to my marketing class tomorrow because it will mean revisiting these 30 second slices of mediocrity. The vast majority of them were uninspired and did not make me want to put money into whatever product or service they happened to be peddling. My favorite ad was actually the one second Miller High Life commercial. They only aired one out of the series they had done, but it was still really effective. 

I thought the ad mix was interesting in that it really reflected the difficult economic time we're currently going through. Beer ads were prevalent as usually, but so were a lot of commercials for services to help bolster a resume or burnish your image. The ranks of escapist ads were also bolstered by several movie trailers, Priceline.com spots, and other vacation ideas. Durable goods commercials were non-existent, the only cars being advertised were foreign makes, and GE is left banking on their ability to get big infrastructure projects. 

December 29th

People, in my expert opinion, are dumb.

By spending my night in the airport on very little sleep I got to witness a striking array of odd behaviors. 

First and foremost being the lady from the Philippines who was incessantly taping and carting around boxes to be shipped back to her home country. Every five minutes I'd hear the jarring sound of tape being pulled from the roll. Then I would get to watch as she carted the boxes out of the little maze of chairs to some some area she deemed worthy of having her packages. This process was repeated for an unknown number of times as some boxes had to be re-taped and were continually brought back to her seat in the waiting area. 

Imagine it's now about 4am and the airport is just starting to wake up again. My friend and I get back into line with our bags to finally check them through to Lima. Ahead of me in line at the security checkpoint is a girl who would be cute except for the fact that she is extremely tan, too tan really to be seen in public (think almost orange). She goes through the checkpoint as a normal person would, I follow and am waiting for my backpack to come through the x-ray thing when she begins to freak out. Apparently she left her purse on the opposite side of the security point and thought she'd never be able to get it back again. Almost to hysterics she wails "My purse! My purse! Now what do I do! I need my purse!" in the general direction of her mother. The mother, quite fed up and rather embarassed, states what's on the mind of everyone within earshot, "Stop being a moron and ask them to get it! Good Lord!" Needless to say I started chuckling at both of them.

Hungry from, you know, not doing anything for the last eight hours but trying to sleep on uncomfortable benches we decide sustinance is in order. Too early for the American airport favorite: a slice of Sbarro pizza, we head instead to Dunkin Donuts. Delicious, and not as expensive as I would have thought. Sitting at one of the food court tables, we have a prime vantage point of everything that passes through the area. In yet another interesting turn of events we get to see a lady spill a medium orange juice all over the floor. This in it of itself isn't that great, but the response from the Dunkin Donuts people was. They chose not to use a rag or paper towel to clean the spill, no, they used the garbage can itself. They pushed the nearest garbage can over the spilled juice in a feeble effort to hide the mess. About half an hour later a guy finally comes to completely clean the mess. We begin to plot more messes to see how the Dunkin Donuts people would react.

12-1pm Flight delayed for an hour. Look for some Sbarro and a USA Today. No luck. Settle on BK Lounge and hope that our flight comes up soon so that we don't miss our connection to Lima. 

3:45pm Arrive in Miami with just minutes to switch planes. I'm stuck next to some quite guy who's allergic to various parfumes so he sniffles a lot throughout the flight. In-flight movies: Journey to the Center of the Earth. This mangled mess of moving pictures tries to pass itself off as a movie. Spastic acting prevails throughout the film, the dialogue is simply awful, and I find myself feeling sad and achy after seeing it. Next up: Wall-E. Absolutely loved this film. Start to finish I thought it was great (minus a very few slower parts I didn't care about on the colony ship thingy). The level of storytelling that Pixar was able to accomplish was stunning. Definitely has my vote for one of the best films of the year. 

11pm Finally check into hostel. No one else seems to be here. Fun. Now to get some real sleep for a change. Aurevoir.