travis' brain dump

“World leaders are trying to calm anxious investors…”

That’s a the words I read this morning on cnn… did it make me feel any better? No. Why? Well, as the market shows, it doesn’t matter what the governments are saying, investors (not to mention people in general) don’t trust them any more.

You say things will get better, but yet instead of stepping in and directly regulating failing banks, you simply produce a bailout plan that pays these companies billions of dollars to recoupe their failures. Why? Don’t you understand the biggest problem is not the fact they are in debt, it’s how they got there.

Between million dollar payouts to high ranking executives to poor spending habits (see AIG’s 500k retreat for their execs after an 85 billion dollar loan) these companies will continue to downward spiral until the money that us taxpayers are footing the bill for in some way or another is all gone yet again. You might as well sit out front on the steps of the Capitol and burn money and throw it to the wind.

Someone asked me why I was a bit cranky this week. Wouldn’t you be if you were watching as the key points of your 401k were just burning out? Now, keep in mind I am optimistic as to my investments and have faith in the particular ones I’ve chosen only because I trust the people who directly influence them and know that somehow those investments will recover once the bottom of this pit has been reached. Those investments don’t depend soley on the health of the stock market to continue doing business and that is why I chose them. One day, they can recover. But do I trust things will get better when government officials who allowed this to happen says they’re doing everything they can? *NO*

As I made pretty clear yesterday, I’m unhappy with the political and economic health of this nation. While being a nation of unparalleled freedoms it has also become a nation of greedy politicians and businessmen. While not all are blatent liars and thieves, the vast majority of them which directly affects us are. While at this point in time, my family is doing ok, who’s to say tomorrow says the same tale if things continue the way they are.

We’ve tolerated too much as a nation by putting our trust people who do not have our best interests in mind. They don’t care about their neighbors, just themselves. You see them with multiple houses (*cough*McCain*cough*) that they don’t need while families are losing their homes. Now, don’t get me wrong here… just because many of the leaders (both business and government)  are crooked doesn’t mean some of the American people aren’t to blame either.

The mortgage crisis, is in part the people’s fault for allowing it to happen. Wether through ignorance or plain stupidity, a lot of people fell for these shady offers that lenders put out there. I’m sorry, but a subprime loan that has an ajustable rate… use your noggins. If your payment was 1200/mo at the time of signing and you could barely afford it, you had two options… a) have a solid plan to refinance on a fixed rate within 2 yrs or b) make enough money to handle the hike in price. A huge chunk of the failed mortgages were due to the fact that when those loans adjusted up, people couldn’t afford their payments anymore. I blame both parties there. The lenders for allowing people to put themselves into that position without properly educating them and the borrowers for not having the sense to walk away if it was something they couldn’t do.

Regardless, the nation, the world is in turmoil and bleeding out due to many factors and instead of actually addressing and fixing those things, we’re trying to apply bandages where stitches and sometimes amputation is necessary.  I wouldn’t be too surprised if we dropped under 8,000 today. *shrug*

who knows…

yes, the rumors of my demise are false…  after a brief little vacation from technology, with the exception of some copious amounts of video gaming and movie watching when not being all consumed by work related projects, I am back with more material…

so, politics… *rolls eyes* wth!? I don’t know about the rest of you but I’m voting Myke Reinhold this year. (i’ll post the explainatory link attached to his name once his website issues are resolved) So. In looking at the candidates what do we have? Obama and McCain, but lets not forget their shadows, Biden and Palin.

Between one that constantly puts his foot in his mouth and the other who couldn’t answer a question with a straight answer if her own life depended on it, I think we’re in trouble either way on the VP front. I’m not saying we’re doing better on the actual Presidential side either. We’ve got Bush’s BFF and a man who I think intends well but I’m unsure on how well he can deliver without plowing over the American people in the process of fixing things. Let’s face it, we’re all done for. 🙂 I guess the moral of the story here is, if you want the same thing that’s been going on for 8 years to continue, you know which way to go. If you’re the gambling type you have a choice there as well.

To each and all who vote:

Forget about your party of preference, forget about what your friends or family tell you about a specific candidate. Ignore commercial spots and emails as their sole intention is to use the lowest tactics possible to tempt your vote. Educate yourself. Learn about the individual and how they will govern andc hoose the person, not the party that will best handle what you feel is important. If you simply vote Republican or Democrat or follow the advice of others, you’re acting out of ignorance and might as well have not even showed up to the polls as an ignorant vote can be more devistating than a missing vote.

Now… onto the economy… So, where’s my t-shirt that says “I told you so” about the bailout? 🙂 When the first bill failed, the market dropped a little shy of 700 points… when the second attempt passed the market dropped almost 1000 points. Take a hint!

I think government bailouts are just another method of prolonging the inevitable. I mean, let’s face it. One of the first bailouts with AIG was not only dumb but it proved that nothing would change. There is a reason why AIG was in trouble and it wasn’t because they were the victim. It comes from being poorly operated and making bad business decisions. I look at CNN this morning and see a headline “Three weeks after an $85 billion bailout, AIG is turning to the New York Fed for additional funding,” and I think to myself why do they need more money? Then I read about how they spent $440,000.00 on a retreat for executives that included spa treatments, banquets and golf tournaments!? uhhh… that’s taxpayer money you just spent! I personally am sick of these CEO’s and other executives who get retarded amounts of money and boards who willingly allow these stuck up rich bastards to negotiate contracts which allow for them to take in ridiculous amounts of money no matter if the business flops or succeeds then pass along those costs to the consumers at the other end labeling it as needed due to increase in costs to produce products.

Hey, instead of giving someone a golden parachute or lining their pockets with enough money in one month to pay the salaries of 200-300+ employees, how about use that money to HELP the American economy rather than kill it!? Instead of taking some reductions at the top, these companies lay off workers at the bottom and then go begging for money from the government, which is our tax money by the way, in order to keep their billionaire lifestyles and sit behind their desk signing off on ridiculous expenses, talking about their golf game with their cronies and giving themselves raises.

I say let the banks fail. The FDIC insures the deposits up to a limit so the working class doesn’t lose their money because the banks are stupid and when the bank rolls over and dies the pieces get picked up by another bank. I saw it happen with WAMU and everything seems to be running okay there and Chase bank is now bigger and stronger because of it. Yes, the world economy is going to feel it and things will get bad before they get better, but this bailout business is just prolonging an even bigger collapse. It teaches nothing to these folks except that it’s okay to continue acting the way they are.

But… what do I know? I’m just a server administrator for a natural gas company. I’m not a political or economical expert nor do I pretend to be. I’m just an angry American citizen who is fed up with the way things have been allowed to get. I worry for my family, our freedoms and our financial future and where the world will be tomorrow.

Saying that it’s been a busy couple of weeks I think would be an understatement. After the DNC died down here the real fun began at him. Completion of that blasted downstairs family room. If I didn’t have a shaved head, I would pull out my hair. 🙂

The good news is. It’s almost done. We texture and paint this weekend then get new carpet down there on Monday. YAY! I’m running about a week behind however due to the lack of a window showing up last week so I’m a little irritated there but everything else is falling into place. Amanda has been super efficient at sanding and cleanup – I honestly don’t know how we would be as close to finished if she wasn’t able to knock out most of that during the day while I am working. We have just about everything to complete the room except the materials to build the swinging book case and hardwood floor the stairs… I’ll get to that maybe sometime after the new kiddo’s room is done as it’s not really that urgent. I’ve got to switch gears so I can get Arwen moved downstairs and get some much needed cleanup work done in her old room/baby’s new room before he gets here. It’s mainly left-overs from when we pulled the chimney that ran through her room for the old fireplace out but there are some other little things which definitely need attention up there. *NOTHING* in comparison to what we just did downstairs though… wow. I’m taking a year off fromanything major after this is done, lol.

I’ve updated a couple of pictures over in the photo gallery from the during portion of the project so there are some new progress shots. Hopefully I’ll have the finished section up before the end of next week. I think that will primarily depend on how swamped we are with cleaning. Once this room is done, it’s top to bottom all over the house to get all the plaster dust out of everything… I hate that stuff. No matter how much you do to prevent it from spreading, it finds a way to land on EVERYTHING! I’m seriously going to have to clean out every piece of electronic equipment in the house, lol. It’s a good thing I own a compressor.

Other than that, life is good. I completed round one of my workout plan with some really nice results, now its time for round two but I need to definitely wait until after we’re done with this room. Trying to balance in a workout schedule alongside this project just doesn’t work. Just trying to get things taken care of before the baby arrives is the biggest challenge. Only about another 5-6 weeks and the whole house will be turned upside down yet again…. I hope we’ll be able to maintain our sanity. 🙂

Well, that’s my little update for now. I needed to post something up besides a rant… LOL

So… There is one thing that I have noticed over the last few days with these protesters. 90% of them are IDIOTS. Yes kids, you are. While the ideals of what you may be protesting may in theory be good ones, your execution shows just how uneducated and immature you really are.

http://www.webcastr.com/videos/news/anti-war-protesters-meance-intrepid-fox-news-reporter.html

There’s a great video of a march by “re-create 68” where, when approached by a fox news correspondent they didn’t have anything to say the camera except “F*** Fox News” and flip off the camera.  When asked what their message was, only one of them seemed to have an answer. Go Figure.

You see, this as well as other things I’ve observed over the last couple of days just goes to show that most people who are protesters or activists have no lives and feel they need to belong to something so badly they will embarrass themselves with uneducated chanting and the passing of inaccurate propaganda just to get their face out there and feel like their doing something. We even saw someone out protesting BIRD PORN! (Birdwatching).

One of the groups we saw yesterday screamed and yelled about how 9-11 needed to be investigated and it was a conspiracy by our own government, yet when asked, none of them had a single shred of evidence outside of quotes out of context from different sources, much of them not even pertaining to even the era in which this occurred. *rolls eyes*

I honestly don’t get it. Two of my biggest pet peeves out there this week:

Global Warming: You say the Earth is undergoing global warming … well NO KIDDING! It’s been doing that since the end of the ice age. It’s not something new that we’re doing. The planet has been warming up all along. We are *not* impacting the world as much as you would like us to think. A natural disaster such as a volcano blowing up does more damage than we’ve done in 100 years in under a day.

Ending Wars: You say stop wars and promote peace. As long as people (on both sides) cannot get past their human flaws and continue to be greedy, power hungry and/or secretive about things, it will NEVER end. I tell you what. When you’re done taking your 1st Amendment rights for granted and complaining on behalf of the individuals we’re at war with rattling off to our government like a bunch of wimpy kids screaming from behind the big kid “you better be glad he’s holding me back”… take your concerns about war and oppression over and march down the streets of Tehran or sit down and have a mocha frappuccino with Osama Bin Laden. Talk to them about terrorism and oppression and how they need to chill out. Oh wait, that would require you have a pair and some courage so I guess we won’t see that happening any time soon.

My point here is. While our country does some pretty dumb things, there are people in power who are much dumber in other places. While greed and power trips still drive many of the individuals here in our country just as it does elsewhere we still are better off than most of the world. Yes, there is definitely some room for change so stop whining about it and do something about it. Stop expecting someone else to fix a problem you see  and fix it yourself. A police record for jumping around naked in front of an oil and gas building because you think drilling for resources is bad is not going to help your future or anyone elses. But taking that step forward and doing something with your life, while it may not help you right now, just might help someone elses in the future. If you’re sick of our foreign policy or how things in this country are being conducted, fine, do something about it directly. Get off your lazy butt and get involved in politics. If the existing politicians don’t want to hear what you have to say you have to find a way to make them listen. Make your voice heard loud and clear from inside the walls of congress and the senate or even the oval office instead of being another crazy screaming out on in front of The White House about how life is unfair for you. No one of consequence pays attention to you when you’re with the circus, you’re just another clown for them to laugh at.

You probably won’t though because once you became educated and leveled your mind a little you might just find that things aren’t all that bad and you can make a difference if not just for a handful of people. Instead of waging a little war of your own in protests so your voice could be heard and people would walk with you shouting your chants, you might just see how much good you could do if you were a little more humble and politely asked for support nicely or just did it yourself. Then instead of being on TV and shouting about how the police are oppressing your freedom of speech or on the front page of the Denver post with your riot handcuffs on that you can show off to your cronies 10 years later, you might just disappear into the history books of America with a little one liner that said you helped some kids in a third world country and be remembered by those close to you as someone who cared enough to do things directly for others instead of for yourself.

Which would you rather die with? The knowledge you helped someone live another day with a smile on their face or that knowledge you squandered the opportunity just so you could yell at some people about how they’re doing it all wrong when they don’t care what you have to say anyway?