Its a great day

General Motors cars are now backed by the full faith and credit of the United States of America! It was extremely reassuring to hear the President of The United States hawking car warranties on national television. Do not know if it is true or not, but I've heard rumors that he is going to be the new spokesman for Sham-Wow!!! I can't wait!!

Just saying

if you spent one million dollars a day, every day, from the time Jesus was born, until today, you would have spent less that the Congress and President Obama did in the first 30 odd days of his Presidency!!!!

MGM

which operates 10 Las Vegas Strip resorts is headed for bankruptcy. They also own the $10 billion dollar City Center Project.

Its really, really

disgusting. After pouring in more than $150 BILLION dollars into AIG, we are now giving them another $30 BILLION. We are quickly going to reach the $.5 TRILLION dollars to just one company!!!!! LET THEM FAIL!!!! After giving them $150 BILLION, they report a $64 BILLION dollar loss, and we give them another $30 BILLION. where does it end????? $.5 TRILLION, a cool TRILLION????? FUCK'em, we can't be any worse off if they fail. They need to pay the price for their stupid decision!!!! God knows the working stiff is. Recently a lady who had refinanced or bought a house in one of those exotic home loans acknowledged that she got into a mortgage that she didn't understand. She also acknowledged that it was her fault for entering something she didn't fully understand and accepted the consequences, mainly loosing her home. But, she asked, why are all of these so called "financial" firms, not reaping what they sowed when they got into financial arrangements that they did not fully comprehend????
Simply, they are being bailed out by the government!!!! The individual suffers the consequences of their poor choices, as they should, but companies do not have to??? We are bailing out these companies for their mistakes, yet the CEOs keep their jobs????

Staycation

Well there I said it.I have 2 weeks of vacation time for this year and I don't know what to do with it. I'm getting a big enough tax refund to do a staycation or a vacation. There are lots of places and things I would like to do....a 14 day cruise to......well where ever...would be nice. Considering the economy though, that is likely not a wise choice. I would like to save most of my return to help pay for the lost hours at work. I know I want to return HOME for the Dream Cruise. I will do everything I can humanly possible to be there for that. It is, more or less, a family re union!!! Especially since moving to Vegas. Its to special to miss!!!!

I should feel guilty for having to try to decide what to do with my vacation time I suppose. Many people today are just flat un-employed though no fault of their own. Our work load is going "ok" at this point. My main issue is that I do not know if we can survive on 32 hours a week. If we find a way to survive until things pick up, all will be well. If not, at least they are re building the I-15 and I can live under a new overpass!!!!!

Part of me says that "what ever will happen, will happen" and $1,000 for a staycation will not make much difference anyways. Part of me argues that "Hey! thats almost a months rent dumbass!"

Again I am drawn back to the conflicting ideas of "Americans spend too much money" remembering that the American economy is 2/3rds consumer spending, and that, IMHO, much of our problems now stem from Americans being un-willing to part with their cash because they are fearful of what the future may hold.

If people would spend money, things would be better, yet who in their right mind would spend a large sum of money in this economy???

It is a viscous circle feeding on itself!

Our

economic problems boil down to 2 things in my mind.
1. Lack of consumer spending.
2. Lack of consumer confidence.

Over the year I remember hearing the all to common refrain that Americans spent too much money and didn't save enough. We were often compared to Japan which, apparently, has a much higher savings rate.
Now when Americans get any extra money they are paying off debt or saving the money.
People often look to Japan and how thier economy is faring, yet they fail to remember the almost 2 decades of Japaneese history in the late 80's and 90's when thier economy stagnated much like ours is now. They indeed had a housing buble just as we have now. They poured billions upon billions of dollars into thier economy, and yet it made no noticeable difference. We are about to embark upon that path, but in a much bigger way, and I fear it will not improve things, but only make them worse.

Before us lies two paths. Each with the same end result. The path to the right, not coincidentally, leads to lots of pain, and I mean way more than we have seen so far, but over a shorter period of time. The path to the left leads to less intense pain, but it will be stretched out for generations. Both paths will eventually lead us to the same place. The question is, to my mind, do we want a lot of pain for a shorter time, or a lesser amount of pain for a longer period? I prefer the former!

Its gone too far

the President has to do something about the economy. And I mean right now. Today saw the end results of the slowing economy. It has finally hit home and I demand that President Obama take swift, decisive and effective action to stimulate the economy. The suffering has to stop.

The job losses have now reached to Microsoft!!!!! The have dissolved Aces Studio which produces my all time favorite game. We are likely to be stuck with FSX aka FS10 forever!!!!

I demand that President Obama get personally involved in this dire situation before it is too late. We were promised that FSNext would deliver TRUE DX10 along with un surpassable frame rate friendly world to fly in!!!!! Oh what has become of America???



For those that need it, please note that this post was made in jest.

Station Casinos

Station Casinos is the casino chain that bills itself as the casino for "Locals". It includes the Red Rock Casino, Station Casino, Palace Station(O.J. Fame), Aliante Station(Brand New at a cost of $662 million), Texas Stations, Sunset Station, Fiesta Station and the Wild Wild West Casino among others is widely expected to be in default on its massive debts and to file for bankruptcy protection later this month as it runs out of money. It just drew down the last of $250 million of credit that it expects would not be available after filing bankruptcy.

This is the

way it should be.
In the small town of Ashland Ohio, when Archway Cookies went bankrupt and closed it doors, 300 people lost thier jobs just months from Christmas. David Singer, CEO of Lance, says the gift cards were a way of letting Ashland know the new owners are different. "We wouldn't do it willy-nilly," Singer says. "We do want to make money. But this is the pool of folks that we intend to hire. We just wanted to let them know who we were."
Lance Inc bought the plant in a bankruptcy auction and re opened the plant hiring more than 60 former employees at about $15/hour with plans to expand production in the near future. Not only will they get to keep thier previous wages, but they also get to maintain thier seniority from Archway.
This is a great American company that we should support with our dollars...I know I will.

"I was crying," Devan says of the gift. "I am like, 'What are these people doing? They don't know me. They don't know us. They don't know any of the Archway people. And they are giving each and every one of us $1,500.' "
But, it does not end there. Lance Inc. also decided to make an impression on the small Ohio town and the former employees and issued $1,500 Visa gift cards to each former employee for Christmas.

Lance Inc. sells the cookies to large chains like Target and Walmart. I say eat up. I will be!

The bail outs

were a great success!!!! Thus far about 350 billion have been spent. This, so far, has allowed banks to:
1. Continue to pay dividends.
2. Buy other banks.
3. Pay outrageous bonuses.

This is exactly why we should not have given bail outs to anyone!!! It has served no useful purpose.

Troubled Asset R(something) Program. T.A.R.P. that is the name of the program that was given 700 billion dollars to buy troubled assets up. Then it was decided that they would not use it to buy troubled assets. Then they decided that they would buy troubled assets. Was there ever a plan??? No there wasn't. That is obvious now. 700 billion is easy to give away, but the big thress wants 15-30 billion, well they better have a specific, detailed and workable plan ahead of time!!!! Ofcourse now suppliers and dealers are looking for a bailout now. Another reason why no one should have been given one. It is really quite disgusting what the government is doing now. The real kicker is that, in the end it won't make any difference!!!!

Things in Vegas

are getting pretty bad. The economy here is built on tourism(down 10% year over year), commercial construction(2-3 major projects still underway), and residential construction(D.O.A.). Many residential construction companies, several who were customers of ours, have gone belly up. Many of our customers that were running 2 or three productions lines 24/7 are now down to 1 line on one shift. We currently still have the highest foreclosure rate in the U.S.

The good news is that they are rebuilding the I-15 expressway so there will be many new overpasses to live under!!!

Still there is little doubt that we are in better shape than Michigan.
Now that the auto bailout is dead, at least until W releases some T.A.R.P. money for the big three, things in Michigan are looking even bleaker.

I'm not real sure where this is leading. I remember being in PoliSci class and discussing the economy back then with the other students and with Ricardo Solomon (the professor), roughly about 2005 or 2006. Back then Fords was in its second or third iteration of its "turn around". Many of the die hard UAW members in the class blamed W and the Republicans. No surprise there. Personally I felt it was a combination of UAW/Management issues.

At the end of the class on one day I remember saying that this whole mess is from the fact that the U.S was built on the back of poor people around the world, and now that the economy is becoming increasingly globalized, those countries are getting their payback and that it would continue to drag our standard of living down until we were equal with most of the rest of the world. Professor Solomon was taken aback by my statement. There was no doubt that I was anything but a die hard conservative in the class, and my statement seemed to surprise him. I am beginning to fear that I was more correct that I thought.

In the world of business, the U.S. has two things that work to its advantage:
1. Innovation
2. Productivity

These two traits are also closely tied to each other. With innovation we increase productivity which in turn raises our standard of living. They are the only things we still have going for us in the long term. In the short term, it is going to get very ugly.

Its kind of funny

Not long ago all you heard about was how American were spending like drunken sailors, living off thier credit cards and home equity loans. The mantra was, back then, spend less and save more. Americans were too far in debt and sinking further everyday.

Now the government has just made $200 billion available to banks to try to increase the availability of credit for American consumers for credit cards, auto loans and the like. Isn't that part of what got us in this mess???Now the government has just made $200 billion available to banks to try to increase the availability of credit for American consumers for credit cards, auto loans and the like. Isn't that part of what got us in this mess???

The housing bubble has now burst and the government is doing all it can to re inflate that bubble. It was called a bubble for a reason. That reason is that the increase in housing prices had no real foundation. In other words, housing prices should not have been raising that fast. The government is now trying to stabilize and or reverse the declining housing prices. It wasn't long ago that people were complaining that no one could afford a house anymore. Not that it stopped anyone from loaning money for them to buy houses. That fact has now caught up with America.

So now the government thinks the solution is to pour more money into what is, essentially, a black hole. So far the spending is totaling about 2.5 to 3 trillion dollars between all of the bail outs/rescue plans proposed. One thing you can count on is if the government says it wants to spend 2.5 trillion, it will likely spend 5 trillion. That does not even include the additional spending that Obama promised and is still proposing such as health care, tax cuts, green initiatives, education.

The government has no idea how to get us out of this mess. The only way out of it is to take the pain. You can have a lot of pain for a little while, or a little pain for a long while, but you will have the pain no matter how much the government spends.

Bail Out?

To bail out or not to bail out. That is the question. The big three are in big trouble!Recently they came to Congress, hat in hand, asking for money to get them by. I have been against all of these bail outs from the get go. Decisions have consequenses. Or at least, they used to. Bought a house you can't afford, no problem the government will bail you out! Decided to have 70-80% of your profits derived from large suvs and never anticipate the need to diversify your profit base? Didn't buy a house because you knew you couldn't afford it? Sucks to be you!.No problem the government will bail you out. Make risky no doc(aka liar loans) to people who didn't have the money to pay for them? No problem the government will bail you out. Didn't buy a house because you knew you couldn't afford it? Sucks to be you! Bought a house you could afford to pay for using a conventional loan? Sucks to be you! You're going to bail out all of the above!

While I am against all of these bail outs, it is hard to justify bailing out wall street, and then turn around and deny the big three any help. Personally I do not think the near 75 billion they are asking for will do much more than delay the inevitable. I predict that within 3-5 years one of the big three will be gone regardless of how much money the government gives them.

The bail outs

so far John McCain is the only one, im my opinion, that has got it right on the housing/financial mess we find ourselves in now. The govenment cannot and should not be the borrower of last resort. People(home owners) and companies(Bear Sterns) should not be bailed out by the government. If you purchased a house with one of these questionable loans, that is your fault, not mine. What about the people who got into "good" loans and have made the payments and now will have to bail out people who bought houses that they could not afford? What do they get? Where is their bail out? Many of the people who are suffering in the housing mess bought houses they could not afford unless done with one of these questionable types of loans, or they were merely speculating that housing prices would continue to raise and they would be able to refi over and over again and pocket the equity. When you speculate in a market and are wrong, you lose. Thats the way it is supposed to work. The same with Bear Sterns. The government should not have bailed them out for one penny. They speculated and lost and they(shareholders)should have paid the price for it. The government shouold not be interfering with that.