Guns & Roses

Plaxico Burress always struck me as a pretty good football player, albeit a little "odd". He caught the pass that was ultimately the winning score in last years Super Bowl I believe. He's a pro football player which also means he makes lots of money. So now he goes to a nightclub and decides to bring along an unregistered handgun to protect himself. Maybe I'm different, but I don't usually go to places where I think I'll need a gun to defend myself. Now I realize that pro athletes can be easy targets because of the money they make. But a gun? And he tops off the evening by shooting himself! Maybe he tried to rob himself. Maybe it was just mistaken identity. Maybe he had too much to drink and didn't remember which end of the gun the bullet came out of. I read yesterday that he's being sued by some woman that he rear-ended and that his auto insurance had lapsed. Are you serious? This guy needs to have a guardian appointed to make sure he doesn't go out and lie down on a highway somewhere.

Bet you're wondering about the roses part, aren't you? Those will have to be shared by the New York Yankees, agent Scott Boras and first baseman Mark Teixeira. Teixeira is a good ball player, he was a free agent and he was able to accept bids and go to the one he thought best. He seems like a nice enough guy whenever I've seen him interviews , so good for him. Scott Boras is what people see to call a "super agent" because he only seems to represent elite players. Upper level players who have other agents, like Manny Ramirez, fire their existing agents and go to Boras so he can represent (read: squeeze every last nickel from teams) them. Nobody really knows what is said behind closed doors in negotiations and I'm sure there's posturing and bluffing on both sides but this guy always seems to come out a winner. I just have a feeling that if I shook his hand the next thing I'd want to do is make sure I still had my wallet. And the final recipient of the roses is the Yankees. I can only fantasize what it must be like to be able to print your own money, to be able to just get anything you want by simply paying more for it than anyone else can or will. They are playing by the rules so good for them. I believe they've had the highest payroll in baseball for a number of years and still haven't won anything lately. There must be a lesson in that somewhere. In 2009 the Yankees will have 9 players being paid a combined $159.1 million - more than any other team in baseball. For that kind of money they should win their division by 20 plus games, blow through the playoffs and take the World Series in 3 games. I know it's a best of seven series but I think the other team will be so disheartened that they won't even show up for the fourth game.

Bernie Madoff

Well I guess they've really taught this guy a lesson for stealing untold amounts of money from schools, religious organizations and just about everyone! He's under house arrest so he's supposedly confined to his ritzy zillion dollar digs although he was on the news yesterday walking down the street shoving photographers and reporters. Doesn't sound like he was very confined to me. I wonder if I bilked millions of dollars from people if they'd let me stay at home? My guess is that I'd be given an orange jumpsuit and a number to call my own and I'd be a guest of the state for a pretty long time. Why are criminals treated differently if they're rich? A criminal is a criminal is a criminal!

Airport Security

I saw a spot on TV last night about airport security, and that so many people were complaining about it and being rude to the inspectors. I only travel by air a couple of times a year so it's not a real big deal to me. My wife usually gets the full treatment because she has a replacement knee which lights up every little device they have at the airport, so we're used to her being carted off to the side where they check her up, down and sideways while I attempt to recover all carry-ons, shoes, watches, keys, loose change and whatever else. Now only once did we encounter a security person that might have been considered a bit "over zealous". Maybe she watched a Rambo double-header the night before but she was only doing her job. If you are in a hurry then it's not their fault that they're trying to protect you and the hundreds of other people that are flying that day. Remember the old adage "lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part!". The only problem we had occurred in Atlanta when we were returning from a graduation with a 9 week old puppy. We were at the airport in plenty of time however they decided to open only 2 security lines for the literally hundreds of people attempting to make a flight. They opened up 2 other lines as soon as we got to the original ones, of course. However we missed our flight by 5 minutes because of security. The airline did put us on a later flight and the puppy was an absolute gem - not a whimper at all. So yes, that was dumb on their part but it did all work out. We shouldn't be angry with the people that are attempting to keep us safe - we should be angry with the people that made all this this necessary in the first place!

Punishing the innocent

Earlier today somebody sent me a video clip of a news account of CitiGroup and AIG reporting on the huge bonuses given to top executives. I think that's the same CitiGroup that put thousands of people out on the street not too long ago, and AIG has already had a small "reduction" with more to follow at any moment. Of all those people that were sent packing, how many of them do you think actually had an active role in the daily operation of those companies? Do you think they made key decisions regarding the direction that either of those two companies would take? My guess is no, that they were just ordinary people doing their jobs as instructed. So if they didn't cause the problem, why were they let go? And the senior executives that did make the decisions that resulted in financial chaos, why are they being rewarded for their stupidity? AIG said their bonuses were to keep the top executives from leaving and going to other companies. Considering the bang-up job they did I think I'd actually prefer them working for my competition! And it's more than these two companies, but they were brought to mind today so they win. I don't think you'd have to search very far to find people that think there's something fundamentally wrong with this. How about if we bring the little people back and whack all the top executives? The average person apparently has a better idea of right and wrong and it sounds like they'd also have a lot more common sense! And the companies would probably still save money!

And while I'm at it, what the hell is an "orderly bankruptcy"? Do they all march out in single file? If this wasn't so sad it would be hilarious.

Time to Get Creative

The Fed lowered their benchmark interest rate today to basically nothing which kicked off an immediate jump on Wall Street. If nothing else, this recession has caused lots of ordinary people like me to pay more attention to how the overall economy works. It's like a big wheel where every spoke feeds into the next spoke all the way around. Granted the banks and mortgage companies shot themselves in their collective feet by giving large mortgages to mostly well-meaning people that had no chance of paying them. Should the consumers have known better? Probably. But I remember when I bought my first house. I had stars in my eyes and thought that it was the most wonderful thing I could ever imagine which is what most of these people also thought I'm sure. The mortgage brokers fed into this and probably assured them that the $400,000 house they were buying today would easily be worth $800,000 in a couple of months. But to get back to my main point, consumers drive this economy. We buy cars, food, clothing, furniture, toys and we take vacations. However right now we're not buying much of anything because we either have already lost our jobs or are worried that we will lose our jobs. That's because if nobody buys anything then they don't need to make those products. So then the factories tell us they'll have to lay off thousands of people because nobody is buying their products or visiting their resort and restaurants. Is this the chicken and the egg or what? There are things that I personally would buy both for myself and others but I won't because I hear every day that it's going to get much worse. That's because the companies ran themselves into the ground with bad debt related to the mortgage stuff and other very creative "financial instruments" which is a term them all love. This had nothing to do with you or me. So now the Fed has lowered rates. They've given tons of money to banks that I thought were for loans to consumers. Maybe some of it has actually found its way to the consumers but I'm not seeing any mention of it. Maybe it was meant for businesses to help them get through this current situation and keep people employed, but every night it's a few thousand layoffs at this company, a few thousand layoffs at that company which puts more people out of work and more people worried about being out of work and fewer people spending any money. Maybe it's time to try something different. The modern version of the WPA will probably help to some degree and I hope the new administration has more ideas that hopefully won't take 15 months to put into motion. What's the answer? At this point I don't know. But I do know this: repeating the same action over and over hoping for a different result doesn't get it done. Anybody have any ideas? We can't afford not to listen.

A Parting Shot

To begin, let me make sure everyone understands that I am a self employed software consultant and project manager so although I cannot technically be "laid off" we realize that we are owed no unemployment compensation if we suddenly find ourselves on the bench as we like to call it. I was under contract since January of 1995 to a large international insurance company that just received a large dose of government aid and usually is just referred by 3 letters. On December 1 I was summarily told that my contract had just ended without warning. OK, it's a little abrupt but I have to admit I was surprised considering what I was in charge of for this company, but they're up to their hubcaps in problems and I guess it could happen. I have been attempting to find something else but between the economy and the holidays things are moving a bit slowly out there which comes as no surprise. However last week I received a Christmas card in the mail from, oddly enough, the guy that told me I was all done a couple of weeks before. I opened the card and realized it was pretty generic and actually was signed by his wife, not him. However there was a computer printed, very festive looking letter folded inside. That letter went on to tell people receiving their cards that they would be stopping after this year because 'with so many people having trouble meeting day to day expenses and more people needing help with basic necessities like food ... that they will donate the money normally spent on cards to a local food pantry'. However we all would remain in their thoughts in the future. Hmmm. Do they realize that they sent these cards to the people that they just terminated without warning 3 weeks before Christmas? Is receiving and reading this card supposed to make everything OK? I don't think so. Now I can't speak for any of the others that were sent packing the day I was, and I'm not ready to have to start looking for a bridge to move my family under, but I found this to be completely inappropriate. At 42 cents postage each they should have saved the $2.10 this year and kept those cards. Sometimes the less you say the better off you are. I think this was one of those times. We all know how to close our mouths, the secret is in knowing when!

Vladimir Lenin

Why is there a statue of Vladimir Lenin, the Communist leader, in Seattle? I don't recall ever hearing about him growing up or migrating there.