I think I've grown to love the internet simply because it is information on demand. Those of you who have Tivo or any kind of DVR know how great On Demand content is.
To give you an example of what I'm talking about, when I'm just "surfing" the internet, I'm primarily doing it through Google Reader. Google Reader is like my Tivo menu for the internet. There I have thousands of articles from sites, blogs or twitterers that I like all compiled into one nice menu for me to look through. Then, as I'm going through my Reader list, I will be reading something interesting that has a link to something else interesting. From there I build my reader list and using my Reader analytics I can view my reading/interest trends and weed out those feeds that I seldom read and replace them with feeds I reed a lot. It is like a wonderful, almost perfectly efficient market of information.
To illustrate the power of this democratization of ideas, consider that right now I'm subscribed to Greg Mankiw's blog. Greg Mankiw is a world-renown professor of ecomonics at Harvard University. The reason he stands out to me is because he wrote the economics book that I bought (and still have) for my Econ 110 class at BYU. I liked the book, and figured I would also like his blog so that's why I subscribed. Now, back in the days before blogs and Google Reader, the only way I could know about Greg Mankiws thoughts on economics was through buying and reading his book. Well, now that he has a blog and I'm subscribed to it, I get to read his thoughts as they pertain to current economic conditions. It's awesome! And this is just one example of thousands that I've experienced as I've used Google Reader for surfing.
It makes me think that the internet with its immediate proliferation of ideas to people worldwide is as significant (if not exponentially more significant) as the invention of the Gutenburg Printing Press which brought books to the masses and helped jump start the reformation.
The internet can be an enabler of a societal good that is of enormous proportions. I feel privileged to be alive at this time to experience it.
Ever since I read Lee Iacocca's book "Where Have All the Leaders Gone?" I've thought a lot about leadership during times of crisis. In his book he says "Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car."
I agree with him %100. Where is our outrage?! Why the heck are those AIG executives still going out on vacations on the tax payers dime?!!! It is a sick and twisted person who can justify bringing a trillion dollar business to the brink of ruin, beg for government help, receive it, then run off to Vegas to have a $1500 massage!! What kind of leadership is that?
I'm sick of this stuff. And now we have to bail out the auto industry because for one, after 17 years of watching their market share plummet and the hand writing on the wall foretelling their doom unless they change course, they haven't changed anything! A few weeks ago I took a ride in my friends brand new Chevy truck only for the handle to nearly slice my hand open because the mold edging on the plastic wasn't properly shaved off. And they want us to bail them out!
Given the serious repercussions of losing jobs and seriously burdening our economy, it's easy to understand the reasons why we should bail out the Big Three. But I tend to think that if we do, Detroit will learn nothing and will just continue doing stupid things and making junk cars until they either die or come begging for more from the taxpayers. And the biggest reason why I'm not sure an auto bailout will work is because the UAW (United Auto Workers) need to learn a lesson - COMPANY'S DO NOT HAVE ENDLESS AMOUNTS OF MONEY! All unions seem to have this fairy tale belief that every company is a big bad wolf which greedily hoards tons of money while everyone else suffers. That's why they fight tooth and nail for every tiny concession a company is willing to give up in order to keep their skilled workers. Unions, especially the UAW, will stop at NOTHING SHORT OF COMPLETE BANKRUPTCY before they make any compromises with the Big Three. And they may just drive the companies to bankruptcy, then we'll find out if they're willing to negotiate.
I hope Obama is the great and chosen leader everyone seems to think he is. We certainly need someone to step up and lead us out of this mess.
Cuban points out that Obama has an economic advisory board full of economic hot shots - everyone from Google CEO to Warren Buffet. But Obama's star-studded line up is lacking input from the real stars of our economy - small business entrepreneurs. People who's entire living is on the line each day. Guys like Joe the Plumber who don't have a multi-million dollar golden parachute!
Obama, you're economic team is totally one-sided. Though I think the people you have are great, don't neglect getting some input from the real people who can and will fix this economy!
One of the biggest marketing and public relations challenges new companies often face is getting their site ranked on Google searches. Google basically owns the internet, and when it comes to search, approx. 50% of everybody who searches online is using Google. The other 50% are using one of the myriad of other providers (Yahoo, MSN, AOL, etc.).
So if you start a new business and you want to get your website up at the top of the search engine results, what do you do? Well, a good place to start is by getting yourself familiar with the way Google's algorithm decides what pages are relevant and what pages are irrelevant or just spam. Google uses what's called "Page Rank" to assign a number between 1 and 10 to every website Google's robots will crawl. It is that Page Rank that determines where your site lands on a Google search. The higher your website's Page Rank, the higher your site is listed on Google.
While there are many factors that determine a particular site's page rank, the top three in order of importance are these:
The number of other pages that link to your page - or "back links."
How long the web page has existed.
Frequency and location of keywords (the search terms) on the web page itself.
So now that you know what determines the Page Rank, how do you get "back links" for your site? The first thing I would suggest is to order the book "Search Engine Optimization - An Hour a Day" which will give you a step-by-step explanation of SEO and how you can begin right now to optimize your site so it shows up in the search results. Once you've familiarized yourself with SEO through reading the book, you can then go to that same website and download some SEO campaign planning templates. Use these templates to organize the steps you will need to take to optimize your website for search engines.
One thing you'll notice while getting into this process is that you need to know and understand well a host of new terms. Some of these include:
Anchor text - the text or words in the web address itself. If the anchor text of your website is not similar to the search keywords, you'll have a much more difficult time ranking your site. For example, if I own a company that sells vacuums but my website is called www.JakesSuctionWarehouse.com, I'm going to have a harder time ranking because when someone searches for vacuums, Google's index will skip right over my URL and instead favor listing sites that have the keyword "vacuum" in the anchor text itself.
Meta tags - the html tags embedded in web pages which only search engines can see. These tags provide search engines with the description text below links in a search listing.
Black hat - an adjective phrase used to describe deceptive SEO tactics that eventually lead to being delisted from a search engine database. For more information, see this Wikipedia article.
While there are so many more things involved in proper search engine optimization, I hope this gives you a nice starting point to help your site become "king of the hill" search results wise.
"Every American ought to celebrate tonight." - Karl Rove
I agree. This is a historic night. Congratulations to Senator Obama and all who have supported him - he has made history tonight.
Republicans are hanging their heads tonight - they deserve this defeat. Republicans, led by President Bush, have had their chance, and America was not impressed. Now the Democrats, led by Barack Obama, will get their chance and Republicans have no one to blame but themselves.
With an Obama victory, so many questions remain unanswered but I do not support the prognosticators of gloom and doom, they have misery as their company. No wonder Obama, with his message of change and hope, won this historic election - for Americans are a hopeful people at heart.
I continue to be proud of this great country and proud of our heritage. We have many things to be hopeful for, regardless of our ideologies. As I went to cast my vote today, a sense of incredible pride and patriotism came over me. I was proud to be a citizen of this great country. I was proud to be able to exert an influence, though small it may be, over the direction our great nation will take in the coming years. So very few people in the world have that privilege.
Good luck President-elect Obama and God Bless America.
First of all, I want to start off this post with the top three reasons why I'm not voting for Obama (the deal breakers) and then I'll explain why I'm voting for John McCain.
Obama deal breaker number one: his support for partial-birth abortion.
Obama's support of partial birth abortion and killing the babies who survive botched abortions. When Obama was a state senator in Illinois, the state tried to ban this hideous procedure, but guess who vocally opposed the ban? Yes, it was Barack Obama. What made me so upset about this issue was reading the descriptions (which are very graphic) of the abortions in the supreme court case DON STENBERG, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF NEBRASKA, et al., PETITIONERS v.LEROY CARHART. The descriptions are enough to make you sick. These procedures are sick, twisted and evil. There is nothing "hopeful" about infanticide - and there certainly is nothing "hopeful" about a candidate who supports and works to protect this wicked practice. This is deal breaker number one! How can liberals even think to explain their support for something like this?!! It is absolutely evil.
Obama deal breaker number two: his friends.
I don't care what every hollywood liberal and CNN pundit says, the old adage remains true: you can tell a lot about a man by who his friends are. Obama was close associates with terrorist Bill Ayers; radical, anti-American preacher Jeremiah Wright; criminal Tony Rezko, he was a member of the Illinois socialist party (do we remember socialism, that pernicious precursor to communism?); he praised highly the corrupt former Detriot mayor Kilwame Kilpatrick who now is spending time in jail, and the list goes on and on. Am I wierd because I question Obama's judgment because he associated with these wackos? I must be wierd, because half the country seems to look the other way when this stuff stares them in the face.
Obama deal breaker number three: his total lack of experience.
He has NO EXPERIENCE doing anything significant in his life. Yeah he went to Harvard, and I give him credit for it, but what has he done with his Harvard education? Became a community organizer? Sounds like a great way to describe "self-employed." But wait, he did become a state senator! Big deal, seems like every other person I meet has an uncle, brother, sister or aunt who's been a state senator. But wait, he was a U.S. senator! Great, finally something significant. So what did he do as a U.S. senator? Hmmm.... Still waiting to hear about that one. Evidently all he did was vote in the most liberal, partisan manner in the entire senate.
These are just the top three. I could go on and on (gun control, gay rights, socialist economic policy, tax hikes, socialized medicine, weak foreign policy, vote down military funding which Joe Biden himself said would only lead to more American deaths, etc. etc.) but I want to get to why I'm voting for John McCain.
Why I'm voting for John McCain reason one: he supports traditional family values.
John McCain supports traditional family values. Take a look at this video:
Contrast that with Obama's answer of "Well, uh, whether you're talking about it from a theological or a biological perspective (or whatever he said, I don't remember the exact quote but this is what he said in substance)...uh, that's above my pay grade." Above his pay grade, give me a break! What a bunch of garbage!
Why I'm voting for John McCain reason number two: his deep foreign policy experience.
John McCain understands foreign policy better than anyone. He is an American hero with his experience in Vietnam and he knows what it's like to be soldier. He knows what it means to be "commander in chief." I want a commander in chief! Not a "community organizer" in chief!
Why I'm voting for John McCain reason number three: his track record of change.
He has a solid track record of change, instead of just yammering about it all the time. He's already crossed party lines, he's already passed tough, bi-partisan legislation, he's already made a stand against earmarks, he's already accomplished the things Obama claims he "can" accomplish. I don't know about you, but I view walking higher than talking. But then again, I'm weird that way. Evidently nearly half the country views talk more than walk. To me, Obama needs a lot less talking and a lot more walking.
I could go on and on (tax policy, energy exploration and reform, health care reform, etc.) about why I'm voting for John McCain, but these are the top three.
This coming election, I hope we all decide what our own deal breakers are. Some things are just too important to sweep under the rug.
I like this article. Thomas Friedman seems to have it right.
"Bottom line: We must not overshoot in regulating the markets just because they overshot in their risk-taking. That’s what markets do. We need to fix capitalism, not install socialism. Because, ultimately, we can’t bail our way out of this crisis. We can only grow our way out — with more innovation and entrepreneurship, which create new businesses and better jobs.
So let’s keep our eyes on the prize. Save the system, install smart regulations and get the government out of the banking business as soon as possible so that the surviving banks can freely and unabashedly get back into their business: risk-taking without recklessness."
Well, the election is all but secured for Obama. I don't think McCain has a chance in heck to win this election. He's made far too many political mistakes while Obama has made far too many correct moves. If Obama loses this election, it will be his own fault, I don't think McCain alone can stop him.
Having said that, I want to prepare for an Obama presidency. Though I disagree fundamentally with many of his policy stances, and while I still hold reason to question his judgment with regards to the people he's associated himself with, there are some things I like about him - and they are things that in my mind are of substantial importance to a president.
First: he's a powerful communicator. Obama has a way with words that is unmatched in recent political history. He is a fresh departure from the disjointed bumblings of our current president. And I think that a president cannot be great unless he is first a great communicator. Effective leadership cannot happen without effective communication. While great communication skills certainly do not also automatically beget great leadership skills, great leadership (whether for good or ill) does entail great communications skills.
Examples of this are many and diverse. With the Gettysburg Address President Lincoln gave one of the greatest speeches in all of recorded history and its effect on our country and the world is still being felt. President Washington led with integrity and honor and inspired his legion of followers to do the same by his words and his deeds. President Kennedy, FDR, Ronald Reagan, and yes even to an extent Bill Clinton all had a way with words that not only solidified the nations allegiance to their leadership, but also helped them solve some of the most challenging national and global problems. George W. Bush has not had that ability and as a result has suffered dearly in terms of political clout and influence.
A strong command of words is an essential asset to any president, and it is his greatest weapon to use in solving challenging problems. Obama has that critically important command of language.
Second: He's smart. I like that Obama has a law degree from Harvard University. That tells you something of his ability to think critically and analyze problems on an intellectual level. I like that. I don't want a president who doesn't read the newspaper and doesn't understand the basics of critical thinking and analysis. And I know that so many conservatives will cry out that because of his Harvard background he must be an "elitist intellectual," well I've got news for every conservative who thinks that: Mitt Romney is the exact same way with a similar Harvard background. Yet conservatives would never label him an elitist with the same vim and vigour as they do Obama.
Third: He's an optimist. As I read his book "The Audacity of Hope" the thing that stood out to me the most was an impressive hope for the future and an outlook that saw the possibilities amid the problems. As cheesy as it may seem to some who'd rather wallow in their own depressing cynicism, hope for the future helps to illuminate a bright path through a dark challenge.
There you have it. Despite this list of things I like about Obama, I must re-emphasize that the things I dislike about Obama far outweigh my likes. He's lax on abortion, gay marriage and tax hikes. He's got less management experience than I can possibly be comfortable with. He's "palled around" with characters who put a new definition on the word shady. He's a smoker, something that screams poor judgment (sorry to any smokers out there, but I mean, c'mon, smoking is dumb, most smokers are the first to admit that). In short, he's an enigma - while he has certain characteristics that are appealing, he has a host of liabilities that I cannot ignore. That's why I'm still planning to vote for McCain.
But I will say this also, given Obama's strengths I do see potential for him to be a good president. But I don't think it's worth risking his unknown side.
Amid the fear and restlessness in the markets these days lies a golden gem of opportunity - capitalizing on the impending upswing.
Let me give you my reasons why there is an emerging opportunity amid the pandemonium on Wall Street, and why we should have our investment radars on full alert in the next few months.
The drops in the market are increasingly based on fear rather than on investment fundamentals. There is no question we had a huge bubble in the previous several years. The credit available in recent years for almost anyone to get a mortgage (and the subsequent securitization of those mortgages on Wall Street) was totally unsustainable in the long term. We are now feeling the fat and excess being wrung out with considerable force and immediacy. That is the fundamentals behind the recent drop in the stock market, and it was a necessary correction in our economy. But now that the Dow has slid on a week-long fall back into the 8,000's, we are starting to see fear, rather than fundamentals, drive the prices lower thus allowing bargains to emerge in the near future. But before we get too excited and start buying, we need to realize that the fear factor is really just starting, and if it gains momentum, we could see the Dow tumble even further, despite glaring fundamentals showing that prices have negatively overshot values of strong companies.
If we analyze the possibilities for the current bottoming out of the market against historical precendence, we could face a Dow that dips to below 6,000 before it starts on a strong upswing.These numbers are based off the research of Robert Shiller, a Yale University professor of finance who uses an adaptation of the Graham P/E (share price to company earnings ratio). According to the Wall Street Journal, the formula divides the price of major U.S. stocks by their net earnings averaged over the past 10 years, adjusted for inflation. Currently, the Graham-Shiller measurement has the S&P 500 at 15 times earnings, the lowest level since 1989, but still not far off from the average (which includes yearly data from 1881 to now) of 16.3. The times when the measure went way low was during World War II, 1977, and 1984, years which had the measurement at 10 or below. If the Graham-Shiller measurement for this market dropped to below 10, the Dow would be below 6,000 - a possibility given that the measure did go below 10 in the dates mentioned.
That's the bad news. The good news is this: the Dow may never drop to that point for two main reasons:
Heavy government intervention aimed at recapitalizing the markets, so much so that it is historically unprecedented. This was the fundamental mistake of the Depression era. Hoover did nothing and it hurt our economy for a long time.
Bargains are beginning to be noticed by buyers. For example, according to the same Wall Street Journal report, out of 9,194 stocks tracked by Standard and Poor's Compustat research service, 3,518 are now trading at less than eight times their earnings over the past year. One extreme example is Charles Schwab which has $27.8 billion in cash on hand yet the stock market values the company at $21 billion! Wow! Talk about undervalued!
"The market is moving on fear, not facts," said Eugene White a Rutgers University economics professor who was citing the main similarity in our time with the Great Depression.
What does all of this mean? Well, like I said, keep your investment radars on high alert, we are in for an investment opportunity of a lifetime. I don't suggest jumping in right now, like I said, the fear is just beginning to gain momentum and you don't want to deal with a drop from 8,000 to 5,500 in the next few months (if that happens, I'm not necessarily saying it will, but it could). I'm not sure when I'll pull the trigger and start buying into the market, but I can gaurantee that I am not going to let this opportunity slip away only for me to look back on it in 8 years (which it may take that long ;) and say "Man, I wish I would have put money in back then, the market is at 18,000 right now!"
Let me also be clear that this "opportunity" is really only suitable for those who have a long-term investment plan (long-term defined as 20+ years). If you are in your 20's or early 30's and need to invest for retirement, the upcoming months (possibly even weeks, but that's starting to get risky) are an awesome time for you to start doing so. What that means is, people who may be in need of the money in the short term should not mess with this market, it will probably eat your savings to shreds (even more than it has already) and you may not have the money when you need it the most. This is not an investment strategy for retirees! But for us youngin's, we'd be crazy to not plan on getting in soon.
Also, I would never suggest that anyone invest without professional help. Not knowing what you're doing can cause grief and heartache even if the overall market is strong.
How John McCain is trailing right now, I'll never understand. His only issue is that he's old and his running mate struggles for legitimacy in the media. Obama, on the other hand, has hosts of issues. Why the Bill Ayers thing doesn't make people sick and disgusted with Obama I'll never understand. Why can't we lay it down as an obvious principle of presidential criterion that the candidate cannot have ties to admitted and proud-of-their-wickedness terrorists? Is that too much to ask? Am I weird? I must be weird, because so many Americans (if you trust the polls) think that's okay.
Furthermore, why we can think to give someone with zero experience in doing anything significant the reigns to the free world I'll never understand. How we can think that Obama will get on-the-job training enough for him to lead effectively the largest and most complex economy on Earth I'll never understand. Why we can gloss over and think insignificant Obama's long list of close radical associates I'll never understand. Why we can drink his empty political Kool Aid till our mouth is red I'll never understand. How we can accept his do-nothing, non-voting senatorial record as something not indicative of his overall abilities I'll never understand.
What will it take for America to awaken from this deep drunkenness of political showmanship? What will it take for America to see Obama for who he is - a radical, liberal socialist? What does it take for McCain to convince America that Obama is, in fact, too dangerous, far too dangerous, for America? What will McCain need to do to win this campaign and free us from liberal radicalism with all it's abortion-loving, law-abiding-gun-owner-hating, free-market-suppressing, gay-marriage-embracing ideology? I'll tell you what it will take, it will take the American people to stand for something. To stand up for what we believe in. To fight against the tide of liberal secularism. To re-enthrone principles of discipline and morality. To reestablish the Founding Fathers original intentions of proper government.
In short, McCain must go on the attack. He must bring Obama's shady shenanegans to light. He must attack the core of Obama's leftist ideologies which are so out of touch with classic Americana. He must advertise, speak at rallies, go on every TV talk show (and don't leave Letterman high and dry, boy was that a dumb mistake), get in every major newspaper, rally influential bloggers and get busy exposing Obama's ridiculous past.
If McCain fails in this, heaven hope that Obama surprises me. As for right now, I am disgusted.
While I don't own my own business, I often think about ideas of how to do things if I were to own my own PR firm or any other kind of business for that matter. My ideas mostly stem from using the resources on the web. There are tons of resources available that probably only a fraction of small business owners know about. Here are a few, relative to the typical needs or departments in a business:
IT - IT is a huge expense for every business. Technology changes so rapidly that it seems like if you don't have a team of computer scientists working for you, you'll be behind the times. Here are some ideas for the business man on a budget:
For CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software, Salesforce.com sounds like a powerful, flexible and affordable solution.
For email, calendar management and collaboration software, I think just using Google Apps for business with Gmail with Google Calendar and Google Docs would be a very powerful and cost-effective solution. And you can get personalized domain names so when you give your email address out it doesn't say soandso@gmail.com, instead it can say whatever your domain happens to be, like soandso@ITsolutions.com or whatever. Google Apps also integrates well with Salesforce.com.
For website management, you could hire someone from Asia to do it for cheap through www.Offshoring.com, or if you have a little web design experience (or at least know how to use Adobe Flash and Dreamweaver a little bit) you could just purchase a template from www.FlashMint.com and customize it to your business. Or if you're really bad at web design or know nothing about it, you can use Microsoft Office Live Small Business where they have a really easy and simple way to build and manage a website.
Along with websites, another thing to do is use Google Analytics for high-quality website analytics that don't cost a fortune like offerings from Omniture or other high-end web optimization companies. You could also use Google Webmaster Tools and Google Insight for help with search engine optimization.
For conference calls you can use www.calliflower.com which will allow you to set up free conference calls and give you full administrative privileges by being able to track who gets on the call and recording calls.
Marketing - marketing seems to be the one area of a business that eludes most small business owners. We cringe at the thought of going into business without knowing how to sell or market our great product or service. Well, here again, some resources on the web can help.
For logos and graphic design help, you can use www.logoworks.com where for just $100 you can get a professionally designed logo. Normally these types of services cost thousands of dollars by going through a typical graphic designer or ad agency. They can also help with letterheads, brochures and other print marketing materials.
For public relations (and search engine optimization) you can use www.prweb.com where for just $200 you can send out a search engine optimized press release that will get posted on Google News and Yahoo News within hours. It is also a great way for you to get your name in front of journalists who might want to do a story on you or your company.
Also for added publicity, you can get an ad in the Radio-TV Interview Report, a magazine read by radio and TV producers who look through it for potential guests and show ideas. Got a new book? Put in an ad! They may just call and ask you to do an interview on the radio!
You can also use social networks such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter as means of promoting yourself or your business. But be careful, you don't want your friends to start blocking you because all you've sent them is spam.
Accounting - doing the numbers and keeping up the books in any business can be challenging, especially if you don't have an accounting or finance background. Not to worry, with a little familiarity of accounting principles and some relatively cheap software from Microsoft, you'll be up and running in no time.
That's pretty much all I have time for right now. Maybe in a later post I can go into strategic planning and organization. But hopefully this list can give you some ideas for how to run your business a little more efficiently.
Given that the stock market bear has just jumped out the window and many personal investments (including our family's) have recently dropped in value significantly, I want to mention a few thoughts and ideas I've had on how to secure ourselves financially. Many of these ideas are things I'm doing currently or are thinking about doing soon. Hopefully these steps can bring a little more peace of mind during these crazy economic times.
First off, we need to pay a full tithe. What is tithing? We read about it in Malachi in the Bible and in 3 Nephi in the Book of Mormon. In those verses, God promises us that if we pay tithing (which literally means "tenth" - hence 10% of our income) he will open the windows of heaven and pour out blessings that we will not have room enough to receive them. This principle works! I have lived it and felt the blessings it brings.
Second, we must know how to do things that we can make money doing. I.e. we need to have a solid educational background, or at least valuable experience in, a job or field that will make us money. Having a strong educational background in either formal education or in a high-demand trade, is a big hedge against an economic downturn. Always learning and improving our skills is a must in a fast-pace economy.
Third, we must live below our means and save as much as possible. This means that we hate debt! Debt is like prison. It is the devils way of keeping us up at night. It leads to marital stress and emotional pain. It is a ridiculous solution to a made-up problem. I.e. we always think we "need" a new car, we "need" a bigger house than we can afford, we "need" a bunch of new clothes, we "need" a huge TV that we got from Best Buy on credit, etc. Now, don't get me wrong, debt is necessary in some rare but important cases such as buying a house, getting an education and buying real needs in emergencies like transportation food and fuel. My point is that so many people think it's normal and okay to finance two cars, to pay the minimum balance on the credit card and to max out your monthly cashflow (income) on financed things and forget about saving. I hate that I am paying the bank hundreds of dollars every month just on interest for our house. I'm grateful that our house is our only debt liability but it just makes me crazy that I owe somebody thousands of dollars and if I can't pay it, I can't keep living in our house. It will be incredibly nice when I can say "I OWN this house, not the bank, not my parents, I do and nobody can take it from me!" Hallelujah when that day comes. And if you own your house outright, way to go!!
For more on this, I would suggest reading Dave Ramsey's book "Total Money Makeover." A friend told me about it and it's a great read!
Fourth, we've got to protect what we have with insurance. I am a big fan of insurance - but the right kinds of insurance, not that whole life insurance garbage. Every husband but especially father should have life insurance. If you are relatively healthy and you get a term plan, it is really affordable. For $450 a year, if I die, my wife gets half a million bucks! She might just be giddy at the funeral for that amount! I would actually like to up the amount to around a million, because half a million invested in cd's at the bank can only yield up to $25,000 a year. That's not much considering we live off more than that right now.
Other types of insurance that we ought to have are disability and the other obvious ones like car, and health. Disability insurance is just another safeguard against the possibility of becoming disabled and not being able to provide for our families anymore. I just barely applied for disability insurance that would cover us at $2,500 per month until I'm 65. While $2,500 a month isn't a ton of money either, at least its enough to cover a small mortgage and some other neccessities.
Fifth, we must diversify our investments and hedge against inflation. I once heard a story about a man who buried $65,000 in cash in the back yard in case he needed it. Well, that was about the worst thing he could have done. The U.S. dollar is ALWAYS decreasing in value. That $65k he buried could have bought a lot more at the time he buried it than at the time he dug it up! When I was young, we had this guy in our community that was certain the government was going to collapse and the dollar would be worthless. We used to make fun of him by saying that he probably has gold and guns buried in his back yard. Well, now it's us that look silly. If he had really buried gold in his back yard when I was young (mid 90's) he would have had a great investment that would yield nearly a 30% increase today!
Recently I've been thinking that I might want to have a little physical silver or gold (around $1,000 worth, not much) in a safe place like a safe deposit box or something. That way, no matter what happens to the dollar, I would own something of intrinsic worth, something that has always been rare and used as currency since the beginning of time.
I've also been more and more drawn to CD's. Warren Buffet said that the best way to make money is to never lose it. While he knows what he's doing in the stock market and how to not lose money with stocks, I don't. But I do know how to get a CD that I know will not lose value but will only gain value (probably at barely over the rate of inflation, but hey, at least its cash that increases in value).
Sixth, in general we need to be ready for any possibility. Having stockpiles of food storage (while it sounds crazy to most people) can bring incredible peace of mind. My wife and I are starting to buy canned items in bulk and store them on a rotational basis. We buy tons of storable food but gradually draw out of the storage to cook with normally. If any of you are accountants, its a FIFO inventory process. It works really well because we buy much more than we consume and hence our food storage continues to grow.
There you have it. I hope that you are able to build for yourself a financial fortress that will protect you when the waves of economic change come crashing in!
Given the endless stream of bad economic news and political panderings, it's important to do some peaceful mental exercises to put the times into fresh perspective - particularly our own situations.
In general, I would say that I am very much an optimist. I try to see opportunities when others only see difficulties. I try to make the most of seemingly hopeless situations. Though I like to think I do this all the time, I often notice that I have to catch myself if I get off track and start to think negatively. One of the methods I use to stay on track is this three-step process called Retrospection, Introspection and Contemplation.
Retrospection: "The deliberate recall of past events," or what I think of when I think of retrospection, a state of remembrance and gratefulness for the positive past events in your life. Think about that for a moment. Think about all the good things that have happened in your life and start to dwell on them. Relive them. Try to remember the emotions you felt during those positive moments in your life. For me, I can think of several. One of the most vivid for me was the day my beautiful daughter was born. It was the best birthday of my entire life. I remember the night before hoping that she wouldn't come until the morning because the next day was my birthday and I thought it would be great to share a birthday with my daughter. I remember holding her tiny body for the first time and proudly realizing that in that moment I had officially become a father. It was a very special moment, one I will not soon forget.
I could go on and on about all the wonderful past events in my life: memories from my childhood growing up on a farm, my wedding day, the day I graduated from college, etc.
Once you get yourself in this mindset, it is hard to not be grateful for life and the experiences we get to have.
Introspection: "A looking inward: specifically the act or process of self-examination," or what I like to think of as the process of recognizing the good things in your life right now and thinking about who you are now as a person. Introspection is a thought process that takes stock of what's good and happy about your life currently. Things that you are now involved in that make your life exciting and joyful. Obviously there are problems, we all have them. But we also all have things we can be grateful for, especially following a deep look inward at ourselves. This process reveals so many hidden gems in our lives, hidden by the rush of busyness we feel each day.
One thing that comes to mind is my family. I love spending time with and hanging out with my wife and daughter. Time with them can make any day wonderful. I can't tell you how much I look forward to coming home to a wife and daughter who love me and want to know about how my day went. I love to tell them about the things I learned or the things I did that day. It is so fun to share life with others.
Contemplation: "The act of looking forward to an event as about to happen," or I like to think of it as dreaming and visualizing the possibilities of life and how they can and will be accomplished. In challenging times, it can be difficult to remember that our better days are ahead of us, all we need do is work toward them. Contemplation to me is the state of mind that dwells on the possibilities. That expands them and gives them emotion. It is the process of leaving the current situation (the conditions of which introspection clearly reveals) and fast-forwarding through time, 1, 2, 5, 10, 30, 50 years from now and visualizing your life - seeing who you are, how much more you've learned and grown, how much more mature and pleasant your life is.
When I contemplate, I like to think big. It was Donald Trump who said, "You have to think anyway, you might as well think big!" I like to think of myself owning my own successful business, having a big family, driving a big car and having a big yard out back for the kids to play in. I like to think of myself being involved in helping hundreds if not thousands of poor people get any help they might need. I like to see myself making a difference in someone's life. Thinking about the future makes me really excited.
There you have it, Retrospection, Introspection and Contemplation, a positive mental exercise to help boost your spirits amid these tumultuous times!
Okay, I don't mean to dwell on the economy and Wall Street. Sometimes I just can't help but be fascinated by it though.
As I've read the news coming out on the government bailout for toxic sub-prime mortgage backed securities, I've thought about the effects of this government intervention and the possible alternatives. Neither are very good.
First off, the bailout. To me, it was absolutely necessary. I trust Henry Paulson's judgment when he, along with many renown economists, says that we would likely experience a catastrophic meltdown of credit - the lifeblood of our economy - if the government didn't intervene. That meltdown would come because money in the financial system would dry up. It would dry up because financial institutions bought all these mortgage-backed securities that are now nearly worthless because the people with the mortgages can't pay their house payment and are defaulting. So in order to fix the problem, the government buys up all these bad mortgage-backed securities (a fancy way of saying that the government would print more money) thereby injecting cash into the financial system and taking the toxic securities off the books of financial institutions.
Another reason the bailout is necessary is because it prevents widespread panic. People won't feel like they have to run to the bank and take out all their money - millions of people running on banks is a quick way to dry up credit and bring the economy to a screeching halt. That this has already worked is evident in the rebound in the market to around the same levels as what we had last week before this whole mess started.
So that's the good about the bailout. Here's the bad: the government is taking a much larger, more centralized role in our "free market" economy. The more government intervention and bailout, the more our economy starts down the dreary path of socialism - the antithetical structure of economic prosperity. Another problem is the message this sends to companies - they can do stupid things (such as bet big time on sub-prime mortgage-backed securities) and not have to deal with the consequences. This precedent could have serious long-term effects to our economy. Fortunately, at least one company, Lehman Brothers, didn't get off the hook and felt the full brunt of the consequences.
Now, having said this, it is important for us to consider carefully who to vote for. I will vote for John McCain because, when it comes to the economy, he is much less socialist than Obama. With Obama as our next president, he could capitalize on the recent panic against free markets and bring our country further into socialism than ever before imagined. That to me is unacceptable.
This past week has been an incredible few days for the financial markets. On Monday, I saved my copy of the Wall Street Journal with the headline: "Crisis on Wall Street as Lehman Totters, Merrill is Sold, AIG Seeks to Raise Cash."
Monday I had to travel to Atlanta for work and in the morning right before I got to the airport, I heard over the radio that the Dow had plummeted 350 points already. They kept saying that the worst thing we can do is panic and we should NOT call our stock broker and sell. Knowing my wife would wake up to the news of the market crashing, I texted her this: "The market is crashing today. Kind of wished we had pulled out a while back, but it's alright. Our plan is long-term." I was not particularly concerned for two main reasons: 1) the market always has its ups and downs and we have highly diversified mutual funds less prone to dramatic fluctuations, and 2) we are continually preparing for anything that might happen.
I then called her and talked to her about how fortunate we are to be prepared for an emergency. I have life insurance (although with AIG, which I guess means I know have government insurance ;), I had just applied for disability insurance, both of us have university degrees in high-demand fields, we have enough savings to last us nearly a year and we have enough food storage to last us nearly 3 months. Although we certainly aren't prepared for every possible problem, we felt good knowing that we are prepared to handle a lot of things if the economy turned south.
That brings me to my point. If Main Street (meaning ordinary folks like you and me) learns anything from the messes on Wall Street this past week, I hope that it is the importance of being prepared. We can never take the good times for granted. And it is naive to think the good times will never end. Bad things can happen and we should take every measure possible to ensure that our homes and families will remain in tact, no matter what happens. We need to have a college education or proficiency in a trade or skill (such as an automotive technician, a computer programmer or a welder), we need to have life insurance and disability insurance policies, we ought to save at least 10% of our income and put it away in safe, low-risk, liquid investments such as a savings account, we ought to never go into debt for anything except maybe a home, education or bare necessities, we ought to be stockpiling food in case of a rainy day, we ought to forgo the nice car for the used cheapo and overall we must protect the hard-earned assets we have, no matter how few or of little worth they may be.
Now in saying this, I don't want to sound gloom and doom. I hear the commentators of gloom and doom all the time and they make me nauseous. Listening to them all the time doesn't help anything, it only leads to discouragement. We need to put things in proper perspective and remember to always have faith, faith in the future, faith in ourselves, and faith in our Father in Heaven who is ultimately in control. It is only by faith we can solve the current problems we are in and build for ourselves a better world.
The panic among Democrats is laughable. Now they have a new talking point: "Jesus was a community organizer."
I don't understand this one. If they keep on the Jesus/Obama comparisons, they could end up like the Beatles' John Lennon who foolishly declared "We're more popular than Jesus!"
Comparing yourself (or your candidate) to Jesus Christ begins to border on blasphemy. Is it true that Jesus was a community organizer? Well I guess that depends on what a "community organizer" is. As of yet, I still haven't heard a clear definition. Wikipedia's definition talks in vague terms and avoids any specifics about what a community organizer actually does. Kind of sounds familiar, the whole vague terms and avoiding specifics is what Obama has done his entire campaign. Maybe that's just a common trait of "community organizers."
Going back to Jesus as a community organizer, to me Jesus Christ is the Son of God, Creator of Heaven and Earth. He is NOT a community organizer. And to say such is to demean and minimize the life and mission of Christ.
Another thing about "community organizers." Do you know who the "father of community organizing" is? According to Wikipedia, his name is Saul Alinsky (another Chicago native) who wrote two books Reveille for Radicals, published in 1946; and Rules for Radicals, published in 1971. Alinsky dedicated his Rules for Radicals to Lucifer, whom he described as "the very first radical."
Okay, so the Democrats are saying that Jesus was a community organizer. Hmmm. And the father of "community organizing" was a man who wrote a book dedicated to Satan? The notion is sheer blasphemy.
The Democratic talk points are making me sick and ought to be offensive to all Christians.
As long as I have lived, I have always admired firefighters. Their courage is heroic, their compassion is inspiring. Whenever I see them out on the streets with their boots working to raise money for a childrens cause, I always stop the car and give as much as I can. They always seem to be rescuing children, whether or not a fire is burning.
As this is September 11, we owe a supreme debt of gratitude to our courageous firefighters across the nation. They put their lives on the line every day working to save the innocent and the helpless.
May our God bless our firefighters and keep them safe as they continue the perilous work of saving lives.
Today is a day not to be forgotten. We all know what happened on September 11, 2001 when the forces of darkness and evil reared its ugly head. We all remember where we were when it happened, and we all felt the heartache for fellow citizens who died innocently and the boiling rage we felt against our common enemies of Islamic extremism - personified by one man - Osama Bin Laden.
I remember that day. When I first saw it on the news and heard what had happened, my heart broke for the innocent lives lost of fellow Americans. "They cannot do this to the United States of America!" I remember saying as I saw pictures of the towers engulfed in dust and smoke. That day, all Americans shared the common sentiment that we will not let this pass without the full arm of justice smiting into the dust for eternity the perpetrators of this despicable crime.
The words of Winston Churchill come to mind: "We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender!"
It reminds me of a story from the Book of Mormon when the Nephites were unjustly attacked and thus they began to defend themselves and their wives and children by going to war with their enemy the Lamanites. It was said of the Nephites in Alma 44 verse 45 "Nevertheless, the Nephites were inspired by a better cause, for they were not fighting for monarchy nor power but they were fighting for their homes and their liberties, their wives and their children, and their all, yea, for their rites of worship and their church." You could also say that in the war on terror the Americans are inspired by a better cause because we are fighting for our homes and our freedom.
The words of Captain Moroni, an ancient man of God who lived on this continent who led the Nephite army, also come to mind. He spoke these words to the leader of their enemy, the Lamanites: "As the Lord liveth, ye shall not depart except ye depart with an oath that ye will not return again against us to war. Now as ye are in our hands we will spill your blood upon the ground, or ye shall submit to the conditions which I have proposed."
Given that terrorists do not submit to demands of peace, we shall also spill their blood upon the ground and let it stand there as a bright testament to the inevitable consequences that follow those who spread terror and evil around the earth.
God bless America. I love this land of freedom and am everlastingly grateful for our God who had a hand in its establishment and who continually strengthens those who fight to keep it free.
So today while my wife went to Roberts Arts and Crafts I went to one of my favorite bookstores that is right around the corner, Deseret Book in Provo Utah. While there, I was mostly just burning time because I knew that Sarah would be a while and that I could enjoy myself just browsing around the bookstore. So without any purpose or thought of buying anything I just moseyed around looking at stuff and thumbing through pages of a few books that caught my eye. Then finally, I decided to buy a book that I had thumbed through for a bit and ended up spending an un-planned $16.
When I got home I thought, why isn't the web like that? Why can't I just easily browse through it and stop on anything that "catches my eye?" With the web, I have to take an active approach to finding things - inputting a search term and hoping for the best. This is too much work. Imagine all the sales that never take place online because you can't just easily "browse" the web and buy an un-planned item.
Take this concept a bit further with the bookstore analogy. When I go to a bookstore, I would say that about 1/3rd of the time I know exactly what book I want to buy and I go straight to the computer kiosk where I can look up the book and find the reference to where it's located in the store. The other 2/3rds of the time I go into a bookstore, I have no specifics in mind, but I go and browse the sections that I'm interested in until I find something neat. Then I thumb through pages of several books until I find something I really like. That's when I purchase something unplanned.
In a sense, Google has perfected the "card catalog" for the web. But no website has made a good way for us to browse the web. And the exciting thing about the web is that it has a lot more stuff in it than just books, music and magazines! The day will come, and maybe this is my ticket to internet entrepreneurship, when a website (or an enhanced web browser) will allow a person to browse the web similar to browsing a bookstore.
Update: Since posting this, I found Google Directory. It is a good start, but nowhere near what it could be.
Okay, so I've watched the conventions (the parts I could stay awake for), I've read Obama's book "The Audacity of Hope" (all of it!) and I've stayed pretty up to date on the election through Google News and my print subscription to the Wall Street Journal. So here a few of my thoughts on Obama and McCain:
My first issue: Obama's terrible friends.
Obama has responded to his relationship with Rev. Wright. You can read it here.
That's a good response. This was the most important part of his article: "He has never been my political advisor; he's been my pastor. And the sermons I heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor, and to seek justice at every turn."
I think I remember McCain even saying that he took Obama at his word that his pastor's political views were inconsistent with Obama's political views.
The thing is that Wright isn't the only problem. Obama has a long list of friends that put a new definition on the word "shady." The long list includes: Rev. Wright (we know what he did), Louis Farrakhan (a loud anti-semite), Bill Ayers (proud domestic terrorist who participated in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, the Capitol building in 1971, and the Pentagon in 1972), Tony Rezko (Obama's friend who through an illegal deal helped Obama get a huge discount on his Chicago house), Kwame Kilpatrick (corrupt Detroit mayor who had an affair, lied, and used taxpayer money to fund vacations and wild parties), and others. If anybody hasn't already, do some research on these men, their beliefs and actions are alarming. And that Obama has held very close relationships with each of them (excepting maybe Kilpatrick) is equally alarming.
I think the old saying that you can tell a lot about a man by who his friends are is still true. With Obama, there are huge personal character questions that remain a profound mystery. There is no excuse for being closely associated with an admitted terrorist. The fundamental problem, and the reason I am still skeptical of Obama, is because his actions do not align with his words. He can give a wonderful speech about patriotism and love for country (and he can write a nice book about it too - "The Audacity of Hope"), but after a critical analysis of his actions, all his words become empty and meaningless.
With McCain, even if you disagree with him, you know exactly who he is and what he stands for. Even though he may not sound as pretty as Obama when giving a speech on his love for this country, you can critically examine his record and notice immediately that his actions show clear as day that he loves this country to the core and that he has the personal characteristics of an outstanding leader.
I've been thinking a lot about "Someday." It seems like so many of my days are spent thinking about someday when they should be spent making someday today. Recently I graduated from BYU with honors. I am so happy to be done with that milestone in my life. It was a long time coming and it always seemed to exist only in "someday," but now it's real. Someday has become today for me in that regard.
Another "Someday" that has materialized for me was getting married. Right after I returned from my mission, marriage existed only in "someday," but now it is today and I even have a wonderful little daughter!
Owning my own home was another thing that existed in "someday," but has now come to fruition. Someday's start as dreams then through hard work and determination, become physical reality.
Every time I see a Wells Fargo ad with someone holding up a sign that says something like, "Someday I'll own a home," or "Someday I'll have a law degree," I start to think, what would be on my sign? What is it that I dream about accomplishing? Here are some things that would be on my sign (in no particular order):
Someday, I'll have an MBA
Someday, I'll have our house paid off
Someday, I'll own a successful business
Someday, I'll speak Mandarin Chinese fluently
Someday, I'll be a scriptorian and teach institute classes
Someday, I'll watch my kids grow old and give me grandkids
Someday, I'll travel the world with my wife
Someday, I'll be a missionary again with my wife
Someday, I'll feed hundreds of starving children and provide life-saving medicine to hundreds more
Someday, I'll drive a Toyota Avalon
Someday, I'll serve my country honorably
The objective now is to transform these "Someday's" into todays!
As my life progresses, I would like to be able to say the present tense of that list:
I have an MBA
I own a successful business
My house is paid off
I speak Mandarin Chinese fluently
I am a scriptorian and teach institute classes
I've watched my kids grow old and enjoy grandkids
I travel the world with my wife
I am a missionary again with my wife
I feed hundreds of starving children and provide life-saving medicine to hundreds more
I drive a Toyota Avalon
I serve my country honorably
I love this talk by President Thomas S. Monson, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In it he said this: "How fragile life, how certain death. We do not know when we will be required to leave this mortal existence. And so I ask, “What are we doing with today?” If we live only for tomorrow, we’ll eventually have a lot of empty yesterdays. Have we been guilty of declaring, “I’ve been thinking about making some course corrections in my life. I plan to take the first step—tomorrow”? With such thinking, tomorrow is forever. Such tomorrows rarely come unless we do something about them today."
What's on your "Someday" list? How do you plan to get it on your "Today" list?
I hate those times when I can feel myself becoming cynical. Do you ever feel that way? It's like a terrible burden that just keeps getting heavier and heavier until you finally realize what it is - a cynical mindset. I have never considered myself cynical and I sure as heck am not going to allow myself to become one now!
As I searched for blogs on the topic "Positive Mental Attitude," I found this post that I thought was interesting. It is the 5 Myths of a Positive Mental Attitude.
Several years ago I read "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill. It's a long-time, best-selling classic, and if you haven't already heard of it, you should read it. It can change your life. Anyway, when I read it I felt such a thrilling feeling, the kind of feeling you have when you know you have been created by God for a purpose and that your purpose in life is full and exciting and that you can fulfill it. That's the reality of life, and that's the thing you are continually reminded of in "Think and Grow Rich."
Just to give you a taste of what I mean, here are some excerpts:
"Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve."
"No one is ever defeated until defeat has been accepted as a reality."
"Remember that all who succeed in life get off to a bad start, and pass through many heartbreaking struggles before they 'arrive.' The turning point in the lives of those who succeed usually comes at the moment of some crisis, through which they are introduced to their 'other selves.'"
"A quitter never wins, and a winner never quits."
"Success requires no explanations. Failure permits not alibis."
"Genuine wisdom is usually conspicuous through modesty and silence."
"The value of decisions depends upon the courage required to render them."
We need to constantly take stock of our lives and recognize the positive influences and the negative influences. Then we need to strengthen and further wrap our thoughts around the positive influences and shun, hinder or eliminate those negative influences in our lives.
Some examples of positive influences in our lives could be (in no particular order):
Our relationship with God and the influence of going to church.
Our relationship with our spouse, kids and family.
Reading good books such as The Bible, the Book of Mormon, the classics in literature and art that teach moral and spiritual lessons.
Prayer
Meditation
Association with good friends/neighbors who have an inspiring or positive impact on your life.
Involvement in service/charity oriented activities such as community organizations, church and civic functions, etc.
Physical exercise.
Some examples of negative influences in our lives could be (also in no particular order):
Any kind of drug or alcahol abuse.
Association with friends who do not uplift nor inspire but who harbor a bad attitude.
Pornography or any obsession with low and degrading filth.
Extreme political views without tolerance for those with differing opinions.
Isolationist or anti-social behavior such as "hermit" style living.
These are the things to watch out for. But by strengthening the positive and shunning the negative, we can feel greater inner peace and calm the turmoil in our hearts.
Sarah Palin is the absolute perfect choice for McCain. She's better than Romney in that she's not flip-flopped and yet has had executive, turn-around experience. She's going to get a lot of Hillary Democrats because she's a woman. She's so conservative to the core it's not even funny (she's a total pure conservative, not a "conservative" that lets spending get out of control and allows the government to balloon in size at astronomical rates).
The Democrats are afraid, very afraid. They have absolutely NOTHING to use against the McCain-Palin ticket. Biden is a joke, Obama is an even bigger joke and the only thing they can do is continue running their tired old whiny messages about businesses being bad and the government being the answer to everything. They'll also try to push their hallow garbage about "change" without ever clearly defining the changes they intend to make.
I cannot justify supporting a "community organizer" (what the heck is a "community organizer?!!") and a senator who's mouth won't stop flapping, whether it's productive or not.
I am honored to support a war hero and a governor with impeccable integrity for President. I am excited about this election and believe that we have what it takes to win big!
Ever since Obama clinched the nomination, I haven't been very optimistic about McCain's chances in the general election. People have become disgusted with Republicans mostly thanks to the Bush administration and many Republicans have practically abandoned core conservative values. A democrat win in November seemed all but clinched - until John McCain.
The Democrats dilemma in this election is that they like John McCain! Obviously that's not what they're saying now, but, as McCain ads are pointing out, Democrats have always liked John McCain. It was the Republicans that have had problems with McCain! Democrats always saw him as a stark departure from the Bush administration and always praised him for it. Well, that's now coming back to bite them. John McCain has a ginormous archive of footage of Democrats praising him, his patriotism and his skill at working across the aisle.
Thanks to Mitt Romney, the Republicans are united and are fully in line behind McCain. The Democrats, however, have all but splintered off into Hillary Democrats and Obama Democrats. And now the Hillary Democrats are defecting to McCain! Isn't it wonderful!
McCain's chances are good and Obama has a hard road ahead of him.
While studying PR, I've had the opportunity to analyze (both in and out of class) the PR campaigns of each candidate and the two parties. Putting it lightly, the Republicans are vastly more united, competent and sophisticated at public relations (in all its forms, from message framing to overall communications strategy) than the Democrats. From Frank Luntz to Karl Rove, the Republicans understand extremely well how to craft messages that appeal to voters. The Democrats on the other hand struggle to find unity and an effective way to convey their ideas. And it doesn't help that their ideas stink. I mean, how can any person frame the practice of abortion or higher taxes in a positive light?
The Democrats have a big dilemma and I doubt their situation will improve much going into November. I'm not totally counting Obama out though, if he successfully ties McCain to the Bush administration, he'll win. But I doubt McCain will allow that to happen.
There have been many times recently when I've wanted to be an economist. The thing about economists that I'm particularly jealous of is their innate ability to spot inefficiencies. Well a few days ago, I had a moment when I thought like an economist. I think I've spotted a glaring inefficiency: college graduates who choose (for financial reasons or otherwise) to not pursue a career in their field of study during college.
Think of this, a student goes through four years of rigorous course work only to graduate and enter a career in a field totally unrelated to his college major. A career in which his college credentials were unecessary except for the notion that he has merely obtained a 4-year degree.
Consider the costs of this scenario:
Opportunity costs to society for 4 years of lost productive labor
Cost of student loans for the graduate
Cost to state and private institutions which subsidize the college education
Opportunity costs to individual for 4 years of lost full-time wages
Training costs to organization or company which hires the graduate
Consider the benefits of this scenario:
Individual gains increased societal stature for completion of a 4-year degree
Individual gains advantage over others without a 4-year degree
From a purely objective point of view, the benefits do not exceed the costs.
Now consider the benefits of a four year degree:
Individual gains immense knowledge and skill in his or her field of study
Individual gains increased societal stature for having obtained a 4-year degree
Consider the benefits of a graduate who enters his or her field of study as a career:
Societal capitalization on the stockpile of intellectual capital
Individual does not have to learn a new skill
Financial concerns aside, it is a matter of wasted societal intellectual capital when one decides to forsake his field of study for a career in a different and unrelated field. In many ways, it is a waste of four perfectly good years to study a field which one never intends to work in and contribute to later on.
Ever since I bought an iPod Nano, I have been fully immersed in podcasts, audiobooks, video podcasts and the like. Today I watched a lecture by Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, speak on his idea of the internet business model he calls "The Long Tail." I got the video from UC Berkely's iTunes Store site.
For a thorough explaination on The Long Tail, see the Wikipedia site here.
The best part of his entire lecture was the concept of the internet as an Abundance perspective on business whereas companies of the previous century were all built around the Scarcity perspective. An example which explains this well is the difference between a major TV broadcast network such as NBC and YouTube. With NBC, it is the editors who decide what shows people will have an opportunity to watch and at what times. They are in a sense constantly trying to predict mass consumer appeal of each show they produce. This is the model of distribution where the few dispense to the many.
Conversely, with YouTube, there is an over abundance of content, time and topics to browse. Without the constraint of channels, frequencies and editors who attempt in vain to find content with mass appeal, YouTube shatters the barriers to instant access and gives ultimate control to the end consumer. Ultimate control to the end consumer! What a powerful concept, one for which the internet is renowned.
This brings me to my point: the entreprenuers of the 21st Century understand that in order to truly gain mass appeal, they must shatter barriers between consumers and producers. They must give end users ultimate, or near ultimate, control over their experience.
Netflix, Amazon, iTunes Store are other great examples. How much more abundant in inventory and end-user control are these outlets than their brick-and-mortar competitors, Blockbuster, Barnes and Noble and the local music store?!
The businesses of the 21st Century obey the law of the long tail - more end user control and an over abundance of inventory!
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