"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety" --- Ben Franklin, 1775
If one paid close attention to President Obama's speech to Congress on February 25th of this year it should be abundantly clear that to him government is the answer to all social woes.
In a recent article for Real Clear Politics Robert Tracinski makes a number of points outlining Obama's plans for America as stated in his Address to Congress:
1. Taxes and regulations will increase.
2. The government will take over lending directly for many of the loans currently provided by the banking industry and indirectly by increasing federal regulations targeting banks and other lenders.
3. The government will continue to vilify and punish bankers.
4. No one will know when all of this intervention is going to end or how much bigger it is going to get.
5. Obama will subsidize inefficient and unprofitable "renewable energy" projects whose production levels are more limited than coal-fired or nuclear sources.
6. Obama will artificially increase the costs of all other forms of energy through a market-based cap on carbon pollutions that will not make wind and solar less expensive, but the other forms more expensive.
7. He will seek to impose socialized medicine that will include government restrictions (rationing) on what kinds care of medical practitioners are allowed to provide.
8. He will "soak the rich" (resulting in effective punishment for the more productive, considering that the top 1% of taxpayers currently provides nearly 40% of all federal income taxes).
All of this appears to mirror FDR's disastrous economic policies resulting in ten years of "economic collapse", but whose rhetoric enthralled the American public.
Considering that Obama's history contains lots of campaigning for high offices but remarkably little tenure in the same, it is not surprising that his plans for governing depend mostly on leftist Democratic boilerplate and provide little or nothing in the way of new approaches or "change".
His "stimulus bill" - actually created by House and Senate Democrats - is no more than a vehicle for his stated purpose (during his campaign) of imposing the "redistribution of wealth" - in this case transfers that favor those who owe rather than those who have saved. And the question still looms large; where are these trillions of dollars in deficit spending going to come from?
After all, money shoveled from Washington into the coffers of state capitals to help retain government positions (an undisclosed percentage of the "millions of jobs saved and created") is different from money actually entering the private economy and creating jobs.
The rush to socialism - or perhaps the "social democracy" practiced by many European governments and much admired by the American Left - has indeed begun.
This is a President who ignores history or revises it to serve his own purposes ("America invented the automobile", from his speech before Congress on 2/25)
For many of his post-collegiate years Obama embraced the adversarial mentality of "us versus them", relying upon "the man" or some other vague authoritarian figure to provide a target upon which to direct the blame for society's ills. Now he is the titular head of "them".
All of this bodes ill for those of us who prefer a diminished role for government in our daily lives, who value self-reliance, enjoying the challenge of a free market economy rather than relying upon the largess of a restrictive and intrusive government.
I would argue that the price for the "safety net" that this new President is gathering to cast over America will prove to be a dear one to pay for those who value the unique freedom that our country has flourished under.
Such a bank is one which has too little capitalization (assets) to operate normally such as making commercial loans, etc, but still exists in the market place.
The term came widespread when, in the 1990s, the Japanese suffered a severe financial crisis and had to pump billions into their banking system, but the banks remained still too weak to stimulate the economy. Resultingly, the Japanese economy was in decay for a decade.
By all measures, Citicorp is a zombie bank. The Federal government has poured $40 billion into Citigroup, but the stock market values Citigroup at less than that. Citigroup is still acting as a retail bank, handing customer deposits, checking accounts, etc, but the bank is not a functional commercial bank. Citigroup has approached the Obama administration for help, suggesting the government pour money in and take in exchange a 40% common stock share with voting rights in the bank.
However, in my humble opinion, a 40% stake in a zombie bank does not give the Federal government the clout it needs to bring liquidity back into the nation's commercial banking system.
Right now, besides Citigroup, Bank of America and several other giant banks are zombie banks, lacking the assets and/or willingness to make the commercial loans get the commercial markets moving again.
So, let's start by dropping this N word, "nationalization."
In pure terms, nationalization means taking over and maintaining ownership of what was a non governmental asset.
Currently being discussed regarding the "zombie banks" is a take over of the banks, a sale or restructuring of the bad assets, a restructuring of the management, and a sale of the good assets into the market.
The same thing happens when a private investment company buys a failing company, pares off the failing units, and runs or sells off the viable parts.
Every Friday, the Government, in the form of the FDIC takes over failed banks, restructures the banks and sells the banks to healthy banks. This is hardly nationalization. It only makes the news when the banks being considered are the Bank of America and Citicorp.
In the 1990s, the Swedish government faced a financial crisis similar to the one we face today: deregulation had led to a real estate buying frenzy fueled by lending by banks with no real oversight of the loans. In 1991 the real estate balloon burst, the banks went into crisis, unemployment tripled.
The two Swedish political parties joined together, underwrote all bank deposits to prevent a run on the banks, told the banks to write down their assets to market value (mark to market), restructured management, and recapitalized the banks.
This cost the Swedish government approximately 4% of GDP which was reduced to 2% when it took its shareholder profit.
It is time we stop using this N word as if it were a swear or dirty word. The FDIC is taking over institutions every Friday to save what are typically small or regional banks.
This crisis and this nation will not start moving again until the banks start loaning.
And the crisis is very real.
On February 24, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of the Federal Reserve discussed new projections of the period of high unemployment levels and also of how many years it may take to return to sustainable growth.
Specifically, the FOMC stated: (I added the emphasis):
Given the strength of the forces currently weighing on the economy, participants generally expected that the recovery would be unusually gradual and prolonged: All participants anticipated that unemployment would remain substantially above its longer-run sustainable rate at the end of 2011, even absent further economic shocks; a few indicated that more than five to six years would be needed for the economy to converge to a longer-run path characterized by sustainable rates of output growth and unemployment and by an appropriate rate of inflation.
In my opinion, a worry about a movement to socialism is misleading and is meaningless.
The economy needs to have its banking system restored to "normal" as soon as possible, and if that means doing exactly the same as what private investment firms do: buying failing businesses, writing down the bad assets, spinning off the good assets into a new company and selling it off, then that is what the Federal Government must do with the "zombie banks."
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AUGUSTA - If the state can tell school districts to consolidate, the state Legislature should consolidate too, Rep. Linda Valentino says. How would that work? By creating a unicameral Legislature with 105 senators to represent the entire state. The Saco Democrat thinks Maine should put a lock on the Senate chamber door and create a one-body Legislature that would provide a strong counterbalance to the executive and judicial branches. To make such a radical change, it takes an amendment to the Maine Constitution. That means Valentino has to convince two-thirds of the current Legislature to go along with the idea before it would go to voters.
"Those Americans who borrowed too much, or are near their financial limits, should certainly cut back. … Yet there are many Americans who spent the last eight years living within their means, and have plenty of resources left. For those Americans, the ones with cash in their bank accounts, this is the time to spend. "
So what does the good professor suggest those with money do to stimulate the economy?
One suggestion is to "…buy new Cadillacs. Each car [bought] will mean a little less bailout money that we'll have to come up with."
Note that the professor from Harvard suggests that we encourage GM to continue to build lots of their energy profligate cars.
Glaeser didn't suggest that "those with money" buy millions of energy efficient cars from GM, Ford or Chrysler that will save us gas and create new jobs in gas efficiency technology. No, we are to buy gas guzzlers so Congress will spend less bailout money on a company got into its own financial crisis by making cars no one wanted to buy.
The good professor also suggests that, to stimulate the economy, those with money:
"Buy things that are private and enjoy them as much as possible within a close circle of equally fortunate friends. This would be a great time to redo your master bathroom."
Unless your "close circle of equally fortunate friends" really, really want to delight in your new Greek marble sinks, French toilets, and Italian faucets, your bathroom remodel to stimulate the economy can probably wait. (And, of course, you can always remind your fortunate friends that you would only be enriching the economies of those countries.)
Perhaps one should ask why the Professor didn't suggest that people with money spend in such a way to support the local companies that sell the things people need, because many of those companies are on the edge of disappearing forever. Sure, the marble counter top sellers need help too, but so does your corner store, your locally owned furniture store, and the charitable organizations in your community that help the people who are direly affected by the recession.
Professor Glaeser's other suggestion on how people with money to spend can turn the country around:
"consider becoming a more generous gift-giver. I am sure that your children, spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, pet, has done something good that deserves a gift. Valentine's Day was a great chance to splurge, but heck, what about a good round of Easter and Passover presents. April Fool's Day calls for a round of humorous gifts, and May Day for a gift celebrating either spring or the Haymarket riot, depending on your political proclivities."
Our good Harvard professor would have "those with money" get the economy back on track through buying friends gifts on odd events. Regrettably, the economy will not turn around with the purchase of trinkets or iPods but with the continuous purchase of that our fellow Americans make or sell. Gifting a pair of earrings will stimulate the economy?
What our good, highly educated, highly paid Harvard Professor is suggesting is like putting a child's band-aid on an amputated leg. And what our Harvard Professor failed to talk about is that our national financial crisis occurred not because we have failed to buy gas guzzlers or iPods or earrings or toilet seats but because we have a banking liquidity crisis in this country not seen since the Great depression.
Banks simply do not trust those who want to borrow money.
Corporations and local businesses cannot obtain from banks the short and long term loans they need to buy the inventory and equipment to stay in business and to compete.
Most of the banks that received the first round of TARP money simply sat on it; they did not lend it out. Some banks also raised credit card fees and reduced credit limits for the very people who needed to use their cards, either those laid off, on part-time, or small businesses who use credit cards for inventory purchase.
One possible, and I stress possible reason the good Professor is off base is because he earned his PhD from the Department of Economics of the University of Chicago, a department where many professors espouse a theory termed the Chicago School of Economics . This theory eschews Keynesian Economics in favor of neoclassical economics. Three tenents of neoclassical economics are:
1. People have rational preferences among outcomes that can be identified and associated with a value.
2. Individuals maximize utility and firms maximize profits.
3. People act independently on the basis of full and relevant information.
The exponential explosion in the stock market since 1996 and in housing prices since 2002 were fostered by one tennet of neoclassical economics, the belief in unregulated markets and that "full and relevant information "was available to people in the market (housing or stock).
However, as we have seen, those beliefs was far from the truth. With deregulation came 1) mortgage agents who falsified financial data for applicants, 2) mortgage companies which did little oversight of agents and which sold off mortgages in dubious financial instruments called derivatives created by investment banks (financial instruments of which no one knew the true value), and 3) firms like GM which had a concern with maximizing short term profit by selling gas guzzlers instead of building the foundation for long term profits by designing gas stingy cars.
The bane of the Chicago School of Economics is Keynesian Economics, named after economist John Maynard Keynes. This theory holds that individuals and firms can make "micro-level" decisions that result in "aggregate macroeconomic outcomes in which the economy operates below its potential output and growth." This is a perfect description of how we got to this recession.
A key element in Keynesian Economics is that a national depression can be turned around through 1) a lowering of interest rates which leads to more lending to more borrowing and to investment in industrial output, and 2) government investment in infrastructure that stimulates greater spending in the country's economy.
TARP, the new the $2.5 trillion Geithner plan to straighten out the banking/lending mess, and the $787 Billion stimulus plan are examples of Keynesian Economics. These actions are more likely to stimulate the nation's $14.3 trillion annual economy than is having "those with money" remodel a bathroom, gift an iPod, or buy a gas guzzler. Serious public consumption must follow the stimulus actions once the funds start to flow,
Perhaps the New York Times needs to read the economic pieces before they run.
(Full disclosure, I received my PhD in the same academic division as Glaeser, although not the same department (and 30 years before him). Graduate study at the University of Chicago allows students to interact fully in most divisional activities, and in the 70s, I had the opportunity to listen to, understand, and discuss ideas with many of the greats of the Chicago School of Economics such as Gary Becker, Robert Lucas, George Stigler, T. W. Schultz, Robert Fogel, and, to a much lesser extent, Milton Friedman (who had a lower opinion of students from outside his department.))
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I would really like to see the new "stimulus bill" result in new jobs and growth in our economy, even though a Cato Institute report estimates that each new job will cost the taxpayers of America $225,000 over the course of this borrowing and spending splurge.
But I do find it disturbing when White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel exhibits a wide streak of cynicism by insisting, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste".
And it makes me uneasy when a President who campaigned on "openness in government" shills for the biggest spending bill ever and it was passed behind closed doors. Plus, Mr. Obama has eagerly violated his pledge to have at least five days lapse between passage of a law and his signing of it to allow for public comment.
Lobbyists had copies of this bill before it reached Legislative desks. Does that suggest anything?
Perhaps there will be new jobs here in Maine if some of the nearly one trillion dollars being parceled out by Nancy Pelosi and her cohorts winds up in our state, but I suspect that the "16,000" jobs being touted in our local media will consist of positions currently filled and bolstered by stimulus funding plus the return of some workers who have been recently laid off from various local government positions.
Another problem is that the jobs that might be generated by this bill don't match the jobs that have been lost.
Think about it. The majority of new jobs are created in the private sector, as are the layoffs. Does such an economic base exist here in Maine to provide that many truly new jobs?
This bill provides $30 billion or so for infrastructure, but there are just not that many "shovel-ready" projects available. Do you believe that spending on "neighborhood stabilization activities" (read, ACORN), livestock insurance, polar bear exhibits (Philadelphia Zoo), STD Prevention, etc. is really going to get the economy moving?
I am familiar with the argument that if, say, a new Special Education Teacher is hired with some of this taxpayer money, then this person will spend on groceries, dry cleaning, etc. and strengthen the economy by creating new jobs in the service sector. Is this a different form of "trickle-down economics"?
One has to look no further than our own state to discover the problem with this theory. Maine's biggest employment base is Federal, State and Municipal positions. We have lost much of our manufacturing, agricultural, fishing and woodland products industries and basing our economy on the service sector has failed to provide sufficient revenue to run our local government (Augusta is already salivating over the prospect of "new" money to rescue the administration from its failure to impose fiscal responsibility).
More and more jobs propped up by taxpayer funding (or worse, more spendthrift government borrowing) is not the answer to economic distress. Taking more money out of the taxpayers' pockets to pay the salaries of government-sponsored employees - and how else would you classify jobs created through "stimulus" funding - is not going to put more money in our pockets. Instead, it is a prime example of the old "shell game", hoping that we cannot keep track of where our money is going.
A state-run economy will guarantee crushing debt. This most recent piece of legislation adds a huge amount to our National Debt (didn't that used to be a major complaint of the Democratic leadership against the Bush administration?) and I would confidently wager that another "stimulus" package will appear on the horizon before the year is out.
We are in dire need of leadership to reverse our economic downward spiral. I doubt that we are going to get it from this President, nor from the Democratic Left who exults in being in the position to force their wildest dreams of social restructuring upon an American public who has yet to awaken to the potential dangers resulting from their decision to follow a new and destructive Pied Piper.
The New York Times reported that "Newsweek is about to begin a major change in its identity, with a new design, a much smaller and, it hopes, more affluent readership, and some shifts in content." Newsweek is reportedly shooting for a core paid readership of 1.2 million in contrast to more than 3 million previously.
Apparently Newsweek's goal is to move away from being a "news weekly" and to having instead an "opinionated, prescriptive or offbeat take on events."
While this move might make sense to Newsweek because people get their fast, up to date news from the 24/7 cable networks and to a lesser extent from their newspapers. Long gone are the days when people were willing to wait a week to read about the latest battle in Congress or Khe Sahn, the latest on the stimulus plan, or on US Airways Flight 1549 crashing in the Hudson River.
But the problem for Newsweek: by going to an "opinionated, prescriptive or offbeat take on events" people have to buy into have Newsweek's version of an opinionated approach. According the the NYtimes aticle, Newsweek is after "its best-educated, most avid consumers of news, ... who have higher incomes than the average reader."
But that role is already filled online by the Huffington Post which offers a wide range of "opinionated, prescriptive or offbeat take on events," and for free. Ditto for Slate.com, and in print or online by Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Esquire.
Newsweek has a well-known brand, but its change would be like Dove soap going after the anti-bacterial hairy crowd.
With broadband, the "best-educated, most avid consumers of news, ... who have higher incomes than the average reader" can have their news and opinion when they want it, where they want it, and for free, or get it from magazine that have an established brand for doing so.
My prognosis, Newsweek will be gone by 2011. The "best-educated, most avid consumers of news" are on broadband, not reading always print.
(Full disclosure, I read online the Huffington Post, Slate, the IHT, NYT, WashPost, WSJonline, and read in print Time, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, Esquire, and the New Yorker.)
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When I was growing up in Topsham we lived well outside the village (only 3500 or so population, back then) and I can vividly recall waiting for a ride to school in very cold temperatures. Of course, being much younger then I am now, I enjoyed better blood circulation and withstood the cold with more equanimity, if not enthusiasm.
This past month of January brought back memories of winters more harsh than we have faced for several years. As a youth, I enjoyed ice skating on the millpond that bordered our front yard and driveway and could usually count on being able to begin that past time around Thanksgiving when the ice had thickened sufficiently to hold my weight. If I was feeling adventurous I might even skate a mile or so up the river until I reached "The Rips" (a brief stretch of rocks and rapids that interrupts the normally placid flow of the upper Cathance River.
As winter deepened and snowfall built up, the journey upriver required snowshoes and I had the time to review the multitude of wildlife tracks that decorated what was then a secluded area.
I never developed a liking for skiing, but there were hills available for tobogganing with friends.
As the years went by, I found that my enthusiasm for outdoor winter fun waned. Currently, my outside activities are governed more by necessity than by recreational opportunity, particularly when the snow is deep and the day time temperatures struggle to get out of the single numbers.
This past January has been a particularly trying one, in my view. Cold temperatures have been well below the norm and snowfall accumulation is well above average. The bird feeders have been exceptionally busy (we have had "winter" robins in evidence for the past several weeks and I am stymied by their presence) and I no longer see the tracks of foraging deer traversing the deep snow in my front field.
This past fall I bit the bullet and installed a wood stove and that has made a significant difference in the oil bill. It is surely a good thing that programs have been set up and funded through volunteer contributions to help those who are struggling to pay for oil heat even though the price of heating oil has dropped significantly from the record highs of last year.
January and the first week of February have surely reminded me of the trials of winters long past.
Still, daylight has increased by an hour and the sun is providing increasing warmth. Weather forecasts are calling for a warming trend over the next few days and we actually had a melting day or two this past weekend. Once January is past, hope begins to faintly glimmer and the prospect of bare ground instead of snow and ice becomes more and more a hope.
Spring is the sign of renewal. The deep, dark days of winter always seem to pass as hope grows.
And so it is with darkness imposed upon our souls by events that we struggle against. Change is the only constant in life. How we deal with the issues causing change is what reveals our character.
In many of his stories, Jack London signified the impartial brutality of the elements to highlight the struggle between mankind and his environment. Despite sometimes seemingly overwhelming circumstances, many of us, through strength of character, planning, cooperation and implementation still manage to prevail.
WISCASSET - The Wiscasset Board of Selectmen has more information to digest in the case of a local business owner who is asking the town to pay for damages caused by a Dec. 12 sewage backup at her establishment. The board tabled the issue at its regular Tuesday night meeting after hearing a Maine Municipal Association attorney explain why the group's insurance denied the claim, then hearing Wiscasset Wine Outlet owner Luanne Clifford's assertion that the town set a precedent by paying for repairs in a similar case several years ago.
President Obama got to be President because he had his Mojo on, the phase from African Americans which can be interpreted in many ways, but I prefer "mastery of his game."
Obama showed it in the campaign and brought millions of people who had never voted before along with him. He inspired them; he gave them a dream.
Then, shockingly, in July, Obama, pulled his first consensus move and voted to immunize the Telcos in their spying on Americans, something he said in the campaign he would not do. Clinton said the same and held true to her word, voting not to immunize.
The US unemployment rate for January was announced on Friday, and it had jumped to 7.6%, representing more than 11,600,000 people out of work. The actual January job loss of 598,000 jobs was the biggest loss in 34 years.
As I explained in my earlier blog, this rate is a gross understatement of those out of work. The underemployment rate of 13.9% is comprised of those who work part-time but desire full-time work and workers who have given up looking actively for work because the outlook is negligible.
But Obama continues to act as if consensus is the key to running the country.
This economic crisis is far beyond consensus.
It calls for bold leadership, and sometimes leadership is exercised alone.
As Obama famously stated a few weeks ago, "I won," but then he acted as if American is being run by a unity government, half of which seems to want to see a return to the failed policies of the Bush years.
As I noted in my earlier blog, the Harris Poll proved decisively that Bush's Spring 2008 stimulus payments were not used in a manner that stimulated the economy. The payments were used instead to pay down credit card debt or saved against the very real possibility that a family member would lose his or her job or have hours cut back.
The stimulus package, whether the House or the Senate version, is doomed to failure.
1) It is targeted towards the wrong issues.
2) It is far smaller than necessary (it should be, let's say, $2 trillion).
3) It is concentrated on tax cuts or rebates, infrastructure, and support to state government programs (like Medicaid).
Why will it fail?
1) Infrastructure jobs hire highly skilled workers using high technology equipment. The word "shovel ready" is part of the sales job. Shovels imply people. Shovels were used to build the Interstate system in the 50s: 2000 people build a leg of the Maine turnpike using shovels. Hardly a shovel was used to rebuild a portion of I-295.
2) Tax cuts or rebate or credits are likely to be used as they were in Spring 2008: to pay off credit cards or to build savings. There will be no consumption spree.
3) Increasing eligibility for Medicare is a good idea, but it will not stimulate the economy. It will serve as a backstop for those millions of workers who have lost their jobs; but it will not create new jobs.
4) It is far too small. The Gross National Product of the US in 2008 was $14.3 trillion. To spend 2 trillion to get the economy back on track would not be a mistake; to spend only $800 billion is a serious mistake; if the $800 doesn't cut it, it is gone, and it will cost much more because the economy will be further gone. Desperate times require bold actions.
Obama needs to be a leader. Saying "I won" is not enough. He has the votes. He needs to do it right the first time. We are in the fourth quarter and there is no overtime.
He needs to forget consensus. He needs to appeal directly to the American people. He needs to remind them that they voted him into office 52-48%, and that he is going to lead the country the way he sees fit. If he makes a mistake, they can vote the Republicans into Congress in 2010 or him out in 2012.
He needs to put people back to work.
The depression of the 1930s ended not because people were put to work building the national parks and painting murals on post office walls, but because the Federal government built war ships and subsidized the wages of workers in the defense industries. The more workers that were hired, the more the companies made.
Since the vast majority of jobs in America are created in small businesses, Obama needs to give a generous Federal tax credit to each small business that creates a new job and keeps that job in place for, lets say, three years.
When ordinary people are working, those people buy goods, they buy cars, they even buy houses.
Forget rebuilding schools, those school repairs can be put off until after the recession; let's get ordinary people to work.
Small businesses are the back bone of America and we need to ensure that they prosper.
A green revolution is nice, and green energy is nice, but when your corner store has just closed because it can't get the credit to buy inventory, something is wrong.
When a car dealership in Maine, which has never missed a payment, has to close because its bank is no longer going to lend it money to keep its cars on the lot, something is wrong.
When there are 524 job applications for six full-time and nine part-time job openings at an Oxford store, something is wrong.
The banks need to start lending to businesses again, and if they do not, the government needs to fund banks that will. This is as much a crisis of liquidity as it is of customer confidence. If it takes nationalizing the five largest banks in the US and the five largest in each state so the funds flow again, it must be done.
Obama needs to defer the dream that he ran on, he needs to step up to the plate, get his Mojo on, and spend to save the American economy. We spent billions on Iraq; let's spend money to get America back to back to work, to get the banks lending and to get the economy working.
We can do it; this is America; we need to think bigger; and we need to jettison the naysayers.
"Folgers, Maxwell House, and Starbucks are America's best-selling ground coffees. But all three were iced by Eight O'Clock Colombian coffee in our taste tests. As for Starbucks, it didn't even place among the top regular coffees and trailed among decafs … Our tests of 19 coffees also show that some of the best cost the least. At about $6 per pound, Eight O'Clock costs less than half the price of Gloria Jean's, Peet's, and other more expensive brands."
I am an unabashed fan of Starbucks coffee. I like it so much that I gladly pay their admittedly ludicrous prices; and I'm the Grand Poobah of cheapskates - just ask anybody! It makes me crazy when I hear people describe Starbucks coffee as bitter. News flash: That "bitter" taste you detect is what actual coffee tastes like. That stuff you THINK is coffee is really just coffee-colored hot water.
Consumer Reports is a great source of generic information about a lot of products, especially electronics and appliances. They're fantastic when it comes to things that can be objectively measured, such as the suction power of a vacuum cleaner. Too often, however, they try to evaluate subjective criteria like the taste of coffee. Nowhere is this more evident than in CR's automotive evaluations - inarguably the main focus of their entire business. I figured out years ago that CR was never going to give a favorable review to a pick-up truck because they couldn't find one that had the ride and handling characteristics of a Lincoln Town Car. Now, any true pick-up truck has a rail on frame suspension. This type of suspension is well suited for load carrying work vehicles, but will never deliver the smooth ride of a unibody suspension, despite the best efforts of automotive engineers. Any idiot that has ever walked down the aisle of a Home Depot understands this, and yet the writers at Consumer Reports have historically dissed the pick-up truck because of its uncomfortable ride characteristics.
(And for those of you who would take me to task for referring to CR as a business in the previous paragraph: Yes, I understand that they are a non-profit. But they're still a business in the sense that they make money to keep their staff employed and grow their organization. I know this is true because I get just as much junk mail from CR as my wife gets from Pottery Barn.)
Anybody that thinks 8 O'Clock Coffee is better than Starbucks knows as much about coffee beans as I know about astrophysics. CR's conclusions about coffee simply defy rational thinking.
Official pictures of the Kindle 2 were published February 7th at Just Plain Tech. They are stunning. It will ship February 24.
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On February 9th, Amazon will announce the updated version of its hot selling ereader -- the Kindle.
Unofficially dubbed the Kindle 2, the new version is supposedly more streamlined and less "klugy" than the original version. Pictures of what might be the Kindle 2 were leaked to the Boy Genius Report at the beginning of October.
The original Kindle is on the left; supposedly the Kindle 2 is on the right.
At that time, the expectation was that the Kindle 2 would be unveiled by Amazon in time for Christmas sales (if not necessarily Christmas delivery). However, on October 23, Oprah Winfrey endorsed the Kindle, and sales skyrocketed, apparently leaving Amazon with too few Kindle 1s or even 2s for the stocking.
No further pictures have leaked since October 3, and there is a suggestion that Jeff Bezos had subsequently called for a software redesign that delayed the Kindle 2 until February.
The Kindle 2 will debut at the same price as the Kindle's current price, $359; Amazon's website is taking orders for Kindle delivery at that price in "three to five weeks."
But the issue that I want to address is not what the Kindle 2 will look like but rather is whether the Kindle a gadet (or toy) whose time has come and gone.
Ereaders have been around for years.
The Sony Librie EBR-1000EP in 2004 was was designed for the Japanese market; the new major inovation was the Sony Reader (PRS-700), which was introduced into the US in November 2006. It used an "epaper" surface that was not backlit (unlike a computer laptop ot terminal) and thus easy on the eyes. Amazon's Kindle debuted a year later in November 2007 and uses the Whispernet (Sprint EVDO) to deliver books wirelessly to the device.
The problem with the Kindle is that the Kindle books are in a propriety format. Microsoft Word documents and Adobe PDFs, the formats used by most businesses, must be translated, either by the customer or by Amazon before they can be read by the Kindle.
Finally, not all new or older books are available to the Kindle. Publishers must decide whether to format new books for for the Kindle which versions then sell for less than hard cover books. Also, older books are less likely to be available for the Kindle as publishers must whether they will receive a good ROI (return on investment) if they go back into their data files and reformat them for the Kindle.
Finally, the simple fact is that the iPhone, the Blackberry, the Nokia 810 and other smart devices have bypassed the Kindle for book and text reading. Stanza and similar programs have made it possible to read books on the small screens, and one is much more likely to see people reading books (or newspapers) on the IPhone or iPod Touch than on a Kindle.
The former are multi purpose devices, while the latter are single purpose devices.
The Kindle can show your son's baseball pictures (but only in monochrome) but cannot show your daughter's wedding videos, and the Kindle can certainly not make a telephone call.
The move in technology today is to multipurpose devices, not back to single purpose devices.
Kindle's early adopters were, in my opinion, revolutionaries whose revolution has been surpassed by the smart device.
As Van Baker, an analyst at Gartner Inc., notes in ComputerWord, "We at Gartner are struggling to see what the compelling value proposition of the Kindle is for the average consumer,"..."For the average consumer, a paperback book and a printed newspaper still work pretty good."
Today is the inauguration of Barack Obama. The players have arrived and the prayer has been spoken. Aretha Franklin sings Let Freedom Ring and I am crying. The pictures of the crowd in Washington are awesome and moving.
This day has been so long in coming and it means so much to so many. Joe Biden is being sworn in. He wears a blue tie and I feel comfort and hope at seeing him. Cheney had to be wheeled in because of a back injury from packing yesterday. He threw out his back. Perhaps he was trying to take all his secret files with him, which I heard this morning that he was ultimately allowed to do.
A beautiful song plays by Itzak Perlman and YoYo Ma and tears come to my eyes again. It is the music of hope and the change that is in the wind. I feel a fresh breath of air and a smile comes to me.
What is this feeling? I watch the little Obama girl dance in her seat at the lilting melody. It is joy and a sense of relief, as the tension and uncertainty fade away. Bush gave us feelings of fear and they have been replaced by feelings of hope.
Then it is here. The swearing in is spoken with a mishap by Chief Justice Roberts and then Obama stumbles over the words and shows his humanity, his enthusiasm and the overwhelming enormity of it all. I wonder that he doesn't want to run screaming the other way.
Humble, mindful and honored he becomes our president. His words reassure - Hope over fear. All are free. He speaks of our history and how we have come to be here. Then he speaks of the things we can and will do to transform our country. He dismisses the critics and talks of restoring the trust of people and their government. He vows to restore the rule of law and declare that we are ready to lead once more. (Bush is shown as he hears the words and understands that what he has wrought will not stand.) America will play its roll in a new era of peace. WE must change with the world. He speaks of the spirit of service and a new era of responsibility. Remember what brought us here, he says and we picture the sharecroppers and the factory workers. Let's carry the gift of freedom forward for future generations. Then, with that thought, our nation begins anew. Tears fell and hearts were healed, lives were fulfilled and deaths were avenged. This was a truly miraculous moment and it was a wonder to see.
Elizabeth Alexander, poet, read Praise Song for the Day. She speaks of the people, ordinary people and how they lived and how they died and what they died for. She speaks of love and how words can change and bring in light.
Dr. Joseph E. Bowery - reads the Benediction - and it is a prayer for the world and the poor, the commitment to work together and choose love, not hate, tolerance over intolerance, and bring fellowship and the oneness of families. And he ends with a witty rainbow of racial rhyming hope and everyone chants AMEN.
I do not stand for The Star Spangled Banner. It glorifies war and I always exercise my right to deny any glory to war. When they sing of love and light, then I shall stand and hold my hand over my heart.
With that, Barack Hussein Obama walks into history as the 44th president of the United States of America. A new day has dawned. This country will never be the same. He shakes Bush's hand on the way out. Bush looks like he will cry and I wonder who he cries for.
Bush deserves our thanks as well, for without his dramatic presidency we would not be here. Bush galvanized this country in such a way that would not have been possible without his guidance. He woke us up and showed us that without paying attention, we as a people can loose our way. Unless we speak up and get involved, others will. WE may not like or want what they seek and it is our duty and destiny to create our own future, for ourselves and our children.
The Bush's finally got on their helicopter and leave their legacy behind. They never embraced Washington and will get to fly over it as they return to Texas. The crowd sings "Na na na na - Goodbye!" Bush can now witness the millions of people that have come out to see him go and the parade route of people that will celebrate today. What a stark contrast to the anger and protests that marked his own inaugurations.
For it is not just a celebration of Obama becoming President, but it is also a celebration of the end of an era. The people have spoken loud and clear. Their will be done and not the will of the neocons and oilmen.
Today is also a personal highlight for my family. My daughter takes her oral exams for her PhD. Program today. She is the first doctor in our family and the only woman besides my sister to hold a degree higher than high school. This day she carries the hopes and dreams of many women in our family. The ancestors must be smiling today.
My mother's mother remembered not being able to vote as a woman when she was young. She prided herself in never forgetting or neglecting that sacred duty. She taught me it is a privilege that should never be taken for granted. Since then the women in our family always vote and I think of those female ancestors each time I close the voting booth door.
So this day represents the hopes and dreams of generations of people. We can change the world and with this day, we have.
Blessings to all and best wishes to my daughter as she travels the road to her own freedom.
P.S. - My Daughter called later in the evening. She was crying. She didn't pass.
Life is a struggle and we rarely get a glimpse of the why of things. It is unimaginable how things are linked and we can never see what the life line we are holding on to is connected to. Perhaps that is just as well, because if we could anticipate all the blood, sweat and tears that go into living, many of us would simply let go. Yet we know our efforts are not in vain for we cannot always hope to see the harvest of the seeds we sow. We can only go on - one step at a time and with determination and purpose. We hope that our work will accomplish what needs to be done and that we do make a difference. Yet if the end result is never known, be at peace, for the effort is never wasted, never lost. The eyes of the ancestors are on us this day and they know too that our journey will not be easy. We will struggle as they did. We will shed our own tears and blood. But what we learned today is that this hard journey is NOT in vain and the struggle does matter. It helps us to choose the things that are important and remember why we do the things we do. That is the lesson here today. Never give up. Never waver in the conviction that we all can and do make a difference. What matters is the kind of difference that we make and whether those goals bring us closer to each other and our hearts.
Let freedom ring.
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