I have been watching the baseball wire over the last few weeks, I am continue to grow more and more disgusted as I see the news:
Atlanta Braves Sign: Rafael Furcal 3 Years – $30 million
Philadelphia Phillies Sign: Raul Ibanez 3 Years – $31.5 million
New York Yankees Sign: CC Sabathia’s 7 years – $161 million
Mark Teixeira looking for $200 million contract.
Last night, I had dinner with several venture capitalist guys who are all a heck of a lot smarter on the financial markets situation and the proposed bailouts than I am. Here was the crux of the conversation:
1) The largest issue with the banking crisis is FAS 157 (FASB is the Financial Accounting Standards Board and FAS is Financial Accounting Standard). FASB is the organization that recommends and implements financial accounting standards for all businesses is the US and is generally driving many international accounting principles. They start with a recommendation and the allow for discussion on the recommendation, then in most cases the recommendation becomes a regulation. Once the recommendation becomes a regulation, the regulation becomes part of GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) and most companies implement immediately. More on FAS157 below.
Whenever I describe my political views, I generally state: “I am socially liberal, financially conservative”. This means I generally vote for conservative Democrats and Liberal Republicans. I am not into extremes. One of the main reasons I tend to lean Republican is: fiscally the Republican Platform makes more sense to me. As a businessman and an individual, I have studied the pros and cons of a free market society and I believe in most cases, the free market is the best way to insure growth and prosperity for ALL citizens.
Today I am scratching my head wondering how the fiscally and socially conservative Republican Party has seemingly overnight turned into a socialistic society. Those on the Democratic side of the street claim the bailouts being proposed and executed (a good word for it) is simply cronyism, which is completely absurd. I believe the real issue is the current Republican Government (good old GWB) is attempting to stabilize the economy in a fairly transparent effort to bolster support for John McCain. First and foremost, I do not believe McCain needs that sort of help, secondly, IT IS STUPID, DESTRUCTIVE, AND EXACTLY WHAT WE DO NOT NEED!
I am trying to keep up with all of the idiotic partisian crap flying around the 2008 Presidential Campaign, and I certainly expect most of the mainstream press to slant their stories to favor the Democrats (in fairness, I expect Fox to slant things a little to the Republican side of the house). Today I came across a Time-Blog.com posting from Karen Tumulty.
John McCain’s campaign has begun lambasting Barrack Obama over his choice of advisers, in the ad Tumulty references, they are going after Frank Raines (Former Fannie Mae chief). In Tumulty’s “report”, Tumulty alleges that the McCain ad is displaying ” Sinister images of two black men, followed by one of a vulnerable-looking elderly white woman.”
Tumulty uses the image of a smiling Barrack Obama and a somewhat sinister picture of Raines as evidence that the McCains ad “Plays the race card”. What a bunch of political bullsh*t. Go figure that Time-Blog.com is “In partnership with CNN”. I am more balanced in my own made up blog than this idiot is.
I admit it, after hearing all of the political rhetoric flying around about Sarah Palin, her apparent lack of qualifications, her 4 month old baby with Downs Syndrome, her inexperience as an executive, all lead me to feel like the GOP missed the mark with their nomination of Sarah Palin.
As with most Americans, I was interested in hearing her speak last night. WOW! Color me impressed! If Sarah Palin can be remotely as eloquent and charming as she was last night in non-prepared speeches, she is going to give the Dems a good run for their money. (Rumor has it she did half the speech from memory due to a screwed up teleprompter)
I believe this election year will bring us the most interesting and exciting campaign season in a very long time. I find the stance the republicans taking on working mothers quite intriguing. The crazy right wing “Mothers should stay at home” crowd is being forced to bite their tongues while the more moderate republicans are defending working mothers! Wow, what a change of pace.
It is also very interesting to me that most of the “women first” organizations have either come out against Sarah Palin, or have remained silent. I thought the National Organization for Women was for Women, not for Women whose politics they agree with! Sarah Palin is the first legitimate female Vice Presidential Candidate in the history of this country, female gender activists should be jumping to her side in droves, but she is conservative and pro-life, so let’s remain silent. I sometimes abhor politics for the two-faced antics that go on (on both sides).
No matter who wins the presidential seat this November, both the campaign season and the next presidency promise to be very interesting. We will either have the first black President of the United States of America, or the first female Vice President of the United States of America. Either way we will be shaking up the establishment!
All in all I am more engaged in this campaign than I have been since 1988!
I received a digg alert this morning, informing me that Vanity Fair has published a list of this years most powerful and influencial people (the story can be found here). On this list Steve Jobs comes in at number 4 and Mick Jagger at number 60. All in all an interesting list as lists go. The list is topped by Vladimir Putin, who given the recent events in Georgia and Russia is probably a good choice. But wait a minute where is George Bush? He is the President of the United States of America, arguably the most power country in the world? “Well”, I think to myself, “maybe it is just the liberal press being liberal again”. But wait, Barrack Obama and Hilary Clinton did not make the list? Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are number 9 on this list!?!? No American Leader or potential leader is in the top 100? What a bunch of idiots. What warped political agenda would cause Vanity Fair to exclude the President and Vice President of the United States of America AND the two presidential hopefuls from this list? Even given the mainstream presses bias towards the left, certainly Barrack Obama should have made the list? In any event, I think they got it wrong and I truely believe any sitting President of the United States of America should be in any top 10 list of the worlds most powerful and influencial people (regardless of party).
For some inexplicable reason, John McCain added Sarah Palin to his ticket as his Vice President. I have thought a lot about WHY he would do such a thing. Many of my friends seem to think that this is a death blow for the McCain presidency. I am not sure. Since this is front of mind for me today, I thought I would attempt writing an op-ed piece, although I have never formally written ANY “piece” for publication outside of technical journals.
Pros:
Cons:
I am not certain how much Sarah Palin will help McCains presidential aspirations, though in aggregate, I think it might have helped him. What would help him more is Gustav not causing too much trouble during the Republican National Convention.