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.)

Peter B. Hayward

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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.

Patton and Eisenhower did not run their armies on consensus, and Obama cannot either.
.
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Published February 2
Updated, February 7

Official pictures of the Kindle 2 were published February 7th at Just Plain Tech. They are stunning. It will ship February 24.

**********

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."

Peter B. Hayward

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Announced today:

Maine's December unemployment rate jumped from 6.3% in November to 7%, an increase of 7 points.

In contrast, the December 2007 unemployment rate was 4.9%.

June 1992 was the last time Maine saw a 7% unemployment rate. Then, it took 5 1/2 years, until November 1996, for the rate to drop below 5%.

In December, the US unemployment rate was 7.2%, also a 16 year high.

Maine's unemployment rate, 2008:

4.7% January
4.8% February
5.0% March
4.7% April
5.4% May
5.3% June
5.5% July
5.5% August
5.6% September
5.7% October
6.3% November
7.0% December

The five states with the highest December unemployment rates were Michigan (10.6%), Rhode Island (10%), South Carolina (9.5%), California (9.3%) and Nevada (9.1%). The full list with a link to historical data can be seen at the US Department of Labor site.

Nationally, more than half a million jobs were lost in December.

And the official US unemployment figures do not tell the full story. Economists argue that the rate should be adjusted to include those who want a full-time job but who can only find a part-time job and include jobless workers who want a job but are not actively seeking employment or not searching through the bureaus that report unemployment. With that adjustment, the "real" US unemployment rate in October would have been 11% and 14% in December.

In November, the New England Economic Partnership projected that Maine's unemployment rate could be 8.7% by mid 2010. I make no prediction other than to note that 1) with today's jump, Maine is much closer to 8.7% than we were in October, and, 2) the Federal government did not foresee the rapid unemployment jump as recently as October.

Are these jobs coming back?

Bruce Springsteen sang in My Home Town: "... foreman says these jobs are going boys and they ain't coming back."

The reason many of the jobs can't come back to a state or even to the US is that once the work has been shifted elsewhere, it is very hard to shift the work back.

The second reason many jobs can't come back is that many are lost when the company closes down for good. When that happens, the company's machinery, inventory, etc is sold, often at fire sale prices, and again the work goes elsewhere in the US or overseas.

For example, the 28 year old Brewer auto parts manufacturer ZF Lemforder has announced that it will close next year and 127 will lose their jobs. Production of those auto parts, if ever needed, will be done elsewhere in the US or the world.

Let's assume the Maine economy turns around by December. Any company that went out of business cannot easily come back because the machinery and the plant, which may have been purchased years ago and is now completely paid for, is now gone. The hurdles to restart that or any new business are 1) to find financing, if possible, for plant, machinery, etc that then will cost much more, 2) to find and train a staff, and 3) to find a buyer for the product in an economy that has since shrunk.

This recession is different

This recession is different than all those recessions since the 30s. There are now many fewer good economic or business reasons for a company to be located in Maine, Michigan, Georgia, or even in the US. This has become a global economy with a global workforce.

For example, with a large part of Wal-mart's goods being made overseas, and with Americans being willing to pay the salaries of those overseas workers because the goods they produce are cheaper, the recession and the unemployment cannot be turned around by consumption of foreign goods.

Second, many economists believe there has been a paradigm shift over the last 8 months. Americans have started to fear for their economic well-being and have started to save when they can. Much of President Bush's stimulus rebate payments went directly into savings or went to pay down credit card debt. Americans have also started to save by cutting back on spending. 2008 holiday sales plummeted, resulting in the worst holiday sales period in decades. Apparently people were husbanding their money in case they lost their jobs.

Can spending on infrastructure turn this recession around?

It is a widely held belief that the infrastructure job programs of the Roosevelt era helped turn around the nation's unemployment problem and helped pull the US out of the depression. Forgotten is the fact that, by late 1936, economic indices were back at pre-depression levels while unemployment was still at 14%. Then in 1937, the economy tanked again and unemployment soared to 19%.

The US depression finally eased in 1940 with the massive government military spending and when the government subsidized the wages of workers in those industries. Thus, those industries were encouraged to hire and train even more workers and actually made a profit by doing so.

President Obama has pointed to President Eisenhower's construction of the interstate highway system in the 50s as an example of the way to turn around the economy and its unemployment problems.

What those touting infrastructure forget is that the building of the interstate system in the 50s was largely a shovel job. Millions of less unskilled workers were hired to do much of the work. For example, 2,000 people worked 23 months to extend the Maine turnpike 66 miles from Portland to Augusta in 1954/55.

In contrast, major infrastructure work, such as the rebuilding of the southbound portion of I-295 or the building of the Waldo-Hancock Bridge are accomplished by highly skilled workers in much smaller numbers using high technology machinery.

You simply cannot put the average unemployed worker behind a 50 ton paving machine. Even with extensive training, that now-trained person would stand in line behind 100s of workers with extensive construction and heavy machinery experience.

How do we get out of the recession?

The key to getting out of this recession before it turns into a depression is to put people into jobs that give them new skills and into jobs that will last. Construction jobs do not last. Construction jobs do not produce goods that others can buy. Companies that produce goods are the key to the turn around, and training people to occupy those jobs is part of the answer.

Technology infrastructure such as immediately running fiber (not cable or wire) to every part of Maine is a good first step. Massively upgrading Maine's cell networks, especially the GSM side, is a good second step since companies and employees need dependable communications across the entire state and not just along I-95 and the coast. We simply cannot depend on the GSM providers to do this given 1) their infighting and 2) the penalties the national carriers put on their own customers for extensively roaming on towers other than their own.

Finally, Maine needs to seriously consider creating a business tax free zone in southern Maine adjacent to I-95. It is true that arguments could be made for placing this zone in the County or Hancock/Washington, but the simple fact is that businesses will not haul raw material that deep into Maine, only to ship it out again. Such zones, if created in the County or Hancock/Washington, might be created with tax incentives favorable to attract businesses and work from Canada.

Finally, this recession simply CANNOT be turned around quickly. Careful thought must be put into what we want the nation (and Maine) to look like in 2010 or 2011, and we must do the spade work now, no matter how painful it may be, to get there from here.

Peter B. Hayward

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First published 1/22, 1:30 AM
Updated 1/23 3:30 PM

About 7 PM last night the New York Times tweeted: Caroline Kennedy had asked Governor David Paterson to withdraw her name from consideration for Hillary Clinton's Senate seat.

No further information was immediately offered and that is the beauty of twitter.com; news can be "moved across the wire" to normal people in the same way the AP moves news to the Press Herald and the New York Times.

Quoting unnamed sources, a subsequent NYT story said Kennedy was concerned with the health of her uncle, Senator Edward Kennedy, but various websites had suggested as early as Sunday that she was considering withdrawing because of poor public support.

Subsequently, denials of the story were made by people "close" to Kennedy and Paterson.

Finally, after midnight, the Times ran with Kennedy's offical announcement that she had, indeed, asked Governor Paterson to withdraw her name for "personal reasons."

Last week a Marist poll came out indicating that 40% of New York voters favored Mario Andrew Cuomo while 25% favored Kennedy. Kennedy's number's, in fact, had not changed from a Marist Poll a month ago when she was tied with Cuomo, while he increased from 25% to 40%.

A January 5 poll by Public Policy Polling revealed an even greater spread: 58% preferred Cuomo to 27% for Kennedy.

After the initial "WoW" factor of Kennedy's entering the nomination race, New Yorkers stepped back and asked themselves who *is* this women and what does she have to offer us. And then probably, does she think she has a right to this seat?

Their thoughts probably ran along the lines that "if an unknown fifty-one year old with Kennedy's resume had asked for the appointment, she would not have even made the news."

After her request for the appointment, Kennedy did follow in Hillary Clinton's foot steps and made forays into upstate New York which were well received. However, when Kennedy finally appeared before seasoned national journalists, Kennedy's grasp of important issues she would face was questioned and her repeated hesitations and halts were enumerated and parodied.

The question of entitlement

Although the founding fathers made every attempt to make certain that American could never devolve into a monarchy, we, the people, appear to have developed an entrenched fascination with aristocracy of every stripe.

Of course we can have had our fascination with the movie stars of the 30s to 60s, in politics with the Adams, the Roosevelts, the Bushes, Clintons, the Doles and of course the Kennedys.

But there would be no fascination without a sense of entitlement.

1) A Kennedy family member has been in the Senate for all but two of the last fifty six years. With Senator Edward Kennedy's time in the Senate perhaps coming to an end, maybe the family thought was that Caroline's appointment might bridge any gap.

The two year gap came between JFK's ascension to the Presidency and EMK's election. JFK's college roomate, Ben Smith II, was appointed to fill JFK's open seat; he stepped down two years later when EMK turned 30, the minimum age to become a US senator.

Perhaps the same sense of entitlement is happening with the appointment of Biden's chief of staff Edward Kaufman to Biden's vacated seat until a special election in 2010. At that time, Biden's son Beau should be back from Iraq and could run at the age of 31.

2) When running for election to the Senate, candidates are required to release a "10-part, publicly available report disclosing her financial assets, credit card debts, mortgages, book deals and the sources of any payments greater than $5,000 in the last three years." When asked by the NYT if she would release these records while under public consideration for nomination, Kennedy demurred, informing the NYT that the records would be released only *after* she was actually appointed.

3) Mayor Michael Bloomberg: "Caroline Kennedy is a very experienced woman. She has worked very hard for the city. I can just tell you that she has made an enormous difference in New York City. ****And clearly, being part of the Kennedy family, she has had lots of exposure. Her uncle has been one of the best senators that we have had in an awful long time.****"

4) From the early Thursday AM NYT article: "Ms. Kennedy believed that the job was hers if she would accept it, the person said, but aides to Mr. Paterson would not comment on whether that was true."

Update, Friday

1) Time reports that Ted Kennedy and his "camp" were quite upset that his niece's people floated the excuse for her withdrawal as being her concern with his health. EMK felt this sent a message he was on death's door.

2) CNN reported on Thursday that a source close to Paterson "had no intention of appointing Caroline Kennedy" and that "[t]he source told CNN that Paterson did not think Kennedy was 'ready for prime time,'" seemingly for the reasons I outlined above.

3) The New York Daily News suggested Kennedy's personal problem involved tax issues on a nanny, the same "oversight," if true, that derailed Zoe Baird's nomination to be US Attorney General in 1993.

4) In contrast, the New York Post stated that the personal problem might be a marriage issue. Vanity Fair dissected a rumor pushed on Gawker.com that Kennedy has a "close friendship" with New York Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger.

5) CBS news reported that her reason for dropping out was ***not her uncle's health*** and noted cryptically that " the reason Kennedy dropped out of contention truly is personal, and is something that only she and her immediate family are aware of."

6) Finally, in a postmortem entitled "Senate bid by Caroline Kennedy started poorly, wobbled badly and finished in a chaotic mess," the Daily News noted a souce close to the Kennedy family said at the begging of her bid "… it's more of a family push than her own" and "When Kennedy finally had her formal sitdown with Paterson on Jan. 10 to discuss the job, her poll numbers were in free fall - and the writing was on the wall..."

Peter B. Hayward

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.

Much has been made of tomorrow's inauguration as being one of a new generation...not only did soon-to-be President Obama bring in millions of disenfranchised and new voters, but he ran on a message of inclusion and not one of divisiveness or entitlement.

What will happen legislatively, of course remains to be seen, but there can be no doubt that this inauguration will be a technological first.

Inauguration technology firsts: the first inauguration carried by telegraph was in 1845; captured by a movie camera, 1897; on radio, 1925; the first carried on TV, 1949, on color TV, 1961; and tomorrow's inauguration is likely to be the first in which the event is planned to be shared instantly by tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions using social networking devices and sites.

Much has been made of the real possibility that the cell networks in D.C. might go down as the 2.5 million expected to be on the Mall and the millions more in D.C. attempt to voice, text and cam the event.

But little has been written about the fact that untold millions there are elsewhere are expecting to share their thoughts and emotions by tweeting the event on Twitter.com, and/or writing on social networks such as Facebook, Myspace, etc.

Even now, Twitter.com (where I am tweeting while I type) is slowing down and limiting activities, and an old time technology colleague who now works in the IT bowels of one of the social networking sites above says he is seeing an exponential increase in useage that, if it does not lessen, will GREATLY slow access tomorrow.

I sadly envisage millions on the Mall trying to text, cam or tweet, and being unable to do so, will repeatedly try, only to miss the raw and historic nature of the event.

Update 1/20 9 AM
My ex-colleague mentioned above says additional servers are online at his
social networking site; Twitter is running remarkably smoothly right now, at 11:45 AM, who knows, but at 9 AM they are prepared.

Peter B. Hayward

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Published Thursday, January 14, 8:37 AM
Updated Friday, January 15, 9:30 AM

Now that Macworld is over, the news has been released that Apple devotees have known for months but have not wanted to acknowledge -- Steve Jobs is seriously ill.

Steve Jobs, the Chief Executive Officer of Apple, announced yesterday that he was leaving his position on a medical leave until at least June.

In December, Apple announced that Jobs would not make his customary keynote speech at Macworld Expo, the independent tradeshow/love fest that had been originally developed around the Mac computer. For at least a year, rumors abounded that Jobs was seriously ill as his weight had plummeted. At the June 2008 announcement of the 2nd generation IPhone, Jobs looked absolutely gaunt.

When the December announcement came that Jobs would not make the keynote speech at Macworld, Apple's stock dropped, and just before Macworld opened, Apple made a new announcement that Job's doctors (who presumably were the best and had been working on Jobs for years) suddenly found he suffered from a hormonal problem that caused the weight loss. Apple's stock rebounded.

The Apple's products -- the Mac line of computers, the IPod line and the IPhone -- have engendered a cult like following. I have to admit, I was a member of this cult. In 1984, I was led into a room at the University of Chicago with 10 other members of the staff of the Computation Center and told to sign a non disclosure statement by an Apple executive.

On the table in front of us was something covered with a silken cloth. After the forms where signed, and when the interminable pep talk was over, the cloth was removed and the original Mac was revealed. I was in love, and stayed in love with that funky square box until my latest one died on November 11 2006 (like someone quitting smoking, I know the date).

And the cult? When tech reviewers like David Pogue of the New York Times and Rob Pegoraro of the Washington Post have given less than stellar reviews to Apple products they have had their mail boxes filled by Apple lovers criticizing their objectivity.

So why is it big news that Jobs is taking medical leave now?

First, it is hard to believe that after losing so much weight for so long, Jobs' highly paid doctors only discovered his problems after the uproar following the Macworld announcement.

Apple's Board of Directors, which represents the interests of the shareholders, has a obligation to ensure that the "chief man" is able to do the job, or must to spend the sums necessary to ensure he is able to do so. Secondly, the Board has an obligation to insure that all important news regarding the health of the company is made public so the shareholders can act in their best interest.

In my opinion, Jobs did not JUST discover the reason for his illness, and he, and perhaps the Apple Board of Directors, have not been totally forthcoming with information about his health.

****
Why is all this important?

Jobs IS Apple. He has spearheaded every major change Apple has made since his return to the company in 1997. He has driven the rise in the market share of Mac computers; he drove the design of the IPod family and the IPhone.

His iconic personality led to the development of the Mac/IPod/IPhone cult which allows Apple to sell its products at a premium which some analysts believe is unwarranted.

Apple will go on without Jobs until June, but there is no clear successor -- his management style insured that -- and it is hard for a cult to transfer its loyalty.

Secondly, although Apple has many brilliant technical people, in my opinion, there is no visionary like Jobs who can imagine a need for a product, imagine a product to fill that need, and design such a perfect product that people will pay a premium for it.

In my opinion, Apple will go on, but I seriously wonder if there will there be another revolutionary product from Apple like the Mac computer, the IPod or the IPhone.

********

Update: Friday, January 15

I wrote my entry on Thursday morning; on Friday, the major media hopped on the band wagon:

The Washington Post published an article today detailing the responsibilities that the Board of Directors has regarding Jobs' health as I discussed. This responsibility was defined in a 1976 US Supreme Court ruling.

CNET, the technology website of CBS, published a long analysis Friday on how Apple supposedly got to the point where Jobs had to take medical leave. CNET professes to have inside information, but misses the crucial 1976 Supreme Court ruling that the Board bore the legal responsibility to reveal information regarding the company if "there is a substantial likelihood that a reasonable shareholder would consider it important."

Fortune published Friday online a damning analysis of the way in which the major media outlets (the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CNBC) had reported on Jobs' illness in the past and includes a link to Wednesday's now infamous out of control interview that CNBC's Steve Goldman had with Newsweek's Dan Lyons (the "Fake Steve Jobs)

As it is early, I expect many more will hop on this band wagon during the day, (However, I suggest you use Google if you want to follow it. As I wrote this, Yahoo had none of these links.)

Peter B. Hayward

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Harold Pinter, the English playwright, died on Wednesday at the age of 78.

In 2005, Pinter won the Nobel Prize for literature, and the individual making the Swedish Academy's presentation noted of Pinter: "In your works, seductively accessible and frighteningly mysterious, the curtain rises on dense life-landscapes and harrowing confinement. In poetic images, you illuminate an existence where fantasy and the nightmare of reality clash."

Printer's genius was to break away from the customary genteel, sitting room English plays of the first half of the century and to create intense, claustrophobia dramatic environments in which words had the ability to sear the heart and the soul, stripping away any pretense, and, at times, one's very humanity.

In America, Pinter is perhaps best known for "The Birthday Party," "The Caretaker," "The Homecoming," and "Betrayal." The American playwright, David Mamet, owes much to Printer for his delicate balance between intense words and silence which Mamet used to his own advantage in his Pulitzer Prize winning play "Glengarry Glen Ross."

I had the fortune to meet Harold Pinter in 1970 at a the The Bat & Ball pub on Old Dover Road in Canterbury, England, which was directly across the road from the Canterbury Cricket ground.

I had been living on Old Dover Road near the The Bat and Ball for a year, first studying at the University of Kent and then teaching.

Pinter was avid follower of cricket, and although somewhat of a private person, he loved British County cricket and frequently traveled to matches at many of the county cricket grounds.

On that day, he had been in the stands at Canterbury's St Lawrence Ground watching one match in Kent's long march to the 1970 Country Championship.

After the day's play, my flat mate and University colleague, Martin and I entered the pub, ordered pints and sat in two comfortable arm chairs next to a thin man with a East London accent. Martin had played cricket in school, and he quickly struck up a conversation with the man who turned out to be incredibly knowledgeable about first class first class county Cricket and international Test Cricket.

When Pinter learned that Martin and I had recently earned our Master's degrees in English Literature at the University of Kent, he probed us deeply on our interpretations of themes in works by Samuel Beckett and Franz Kafka.

Pinter had not introduced himself to us, but the playwright's appearance was well known to those interested in modern English literature, and in no time, we found ourselves referring to him as Mr. Pinter, and he was calling us Marty and Peter.

After we gave our analysis, Pinter held forth for more than 45 minutes on what he called the "themes of tension and anger" in Beckett's and Kafka's works.

It was immediately clear from the extended dissertation Pinter delivered that Martin and I had failed the playwright's literary test, but now, almost four decades years later, I think back on that hour or so we spend with Pinter as the most intense intellectual experience I have ever had.

Peter B. Hayward

Copyright © 2008 Peter B. Hayward. All Rights Reserved

All of my Press Herald blog entries

A Maine Armchair Philosopher blog

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Permanent web address for this post:

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Update, 12/23

This blog was originally published 12/18.

On 12/22, I was informed by management of the Press Herald Online version that I erred in quoting reader comments that used punctuation to suggest profanity.

Those offending comments were removed from the web comments sections of the Portland Press Herald and the Waterville Morning Sentinel comments after my blog was published.

Today, I have removed the offending comments from the blog, but as the rest of the comments below remain on the newspapers' websites I have kept the comments in this blog.

(It has been suggested to me that I am "unhappy" with the Press Herald and that it be understood if I chose to stop writing my blogs. To date, I have published 25 blogs and only two have concerned matters at the Press Herald.)

My objection in the blog below, in the 11/20 blog referenced, and in a Letter to the Edior published in the PPH in the fall on the subject of vicious reader comments hardly means I am "unhappy" with the Press Herald.

As I noted in my PPH blog bio, one of the six interests listed there is "the move of readers and viewers away from traditional media." As users of the traditional media become increasingly polarized, faith in the value of the traditional media has declined. If the coin of the traditional media is debased, further move will occur.

So, rather me being somehow "unhappy" with the Press Herald, I was and remain astonished and bothered by the hateful tone allowed in the online comments -- comments that would NEVER be allowed in the print Letters to the Editor pages of the Press Herald or the Morning Sentinel.

The hateful comments that are allowed remain to appear in the online versions stay on the web for a year where the venom can be read by our Iraqi transplants in Maine, nationally and worldwide (and perhaps also be read by others thinking about coming to our State.

Call me old fashioned, but I believe that unless the papers' online comment sections are to be turned over to bullies for their personal sandbox, hateful comments that would NOT be allowed to appear as Letters to the Editor, should not appear under a newspaper's imprint online.

Based on history of online comments, I have come to the conclusion that the comments section should be closed to articles concerning

1) violent death
2) suicide
3) rape
4) abuse
5) people on welfare, handicapped, etc.
6) people of color
7) immigrants

If comments continue to be allowed, the resulting comments are totally predictable.

It is to be noted that, to their credit, the Press Herald and the Morning Sentinel made the the decision to deny reader comments on the Sandra May McIntyre/Paula Goodspeed story in November.

PBH 12/23 3:40 PM

****

12/18 as edited on 12/23

Sometimes the best blog entries are simply the words of others.

As I wrote in my November 20th blog entitled Not so hidden racism:

  "According to the US census, Vermont and Maine are tied as the
  "Whitest State" in the nation with about 96% in each state self
   identifying themselves as white.

  "Perhaps as a result, some of us have developed a not so
  subtle form of racism that finds an outlet in the online comment
  columns of the Portland Press Herald, the Waterville Morning
  Sentinel, The Augusta Kennebec Journal, and the Bangor
  Daily News.

  "When a person of color or an immigrant is in the news,
  the columns are often full of the most vile, bigoted comments.
  In some cases, readers report these comments are
  "inappropriate," in some cases the newspapers themselves
  monitor these columns, in other cases the comments remain
  for hours or even days and months in the archives...

  The great irony is that these newspapers would never allow
  these vile comments to appear in their paper editions as
  comments (Letters to the Editor), but allow the filth to appear
  under their Corporate logos [in the online versions].

On December 17th, the Portland Press Herald and the Waterville Morning Sentinel published articles concerning the relocation of Iraqi refugees to Maine.

The first article was "A haven from violence, war", and was published in the Sentinel as "Iraqi refugees hope Maine is last stop". The second article, "Iraqi refugees won't be left out in the cold", appeared only in the Press Herald.

The following quotes have been taken unedited from the articles' comments sections:

standup of skowhegan, ME
Dec 18, 2008 12:30 AM
[Comment removed by the newspaper's comment column for punctuation suggesting profanity]

dennis arsenault of rumford, ME
Dec 17, 2008 8:32 PM
[Removed by the newspaper's comment column for punctuation suggesting profanity]

Denny of Portland, ME
Dec 17, 2008 9:59 AM
First it was 200, now it's 300. Soon it will be 1,000 and more. If these people cared about their own country and took the action necessary to change it, they wouldn't have to come here to live off our welfare. Our country went through a devastating civil war to cement our values and principles that remain to this day; the Iraquis need to do the same... take charge of their own sorry country (yes, I've been there), fix it and stay there, rather than bailing out and living a good life at our expense.

Here's a question: Why don't they move to New Hampshire? The answer: Because New Hampshire does not give away the store to freeloaders. The message: As long as Maine continues to be excessively generous to those who won't carry their own weight, we will continue to import them from less generous states. If the Iraquis (and Somalis, etc.) were truly sincere about becoming productive residents, they would stay where the U.S. Government settles them and make the most of the benefits that are provided in those locations. Their migration to the states with better benefits is nothing more than a money grab, and we're paying for it.

CRD of Southern, ME
Dec 17, 2008 9:46 AM
Should we erect a huge statue of Baldacci in Portland harbor with an inscription that says send us your poor, unemployed, criminals, single moms, drug addicts, etc. ...............

SL of SP, ME
Dec 17, 2008 9:46 AM
How many of you bleeding hearts actually believe the stories? The first one...they would have shot the males first, not a girl... The nightmares comment guarantees a PTSD diagnosis for the wife and kids, this makes them disabled and gathers more hand-outs. Then the tale of being a sunni..sunni's did the same thing to shiites.. Great movies he is watching and exposing his young kids to...this is how you do things in America..I have an idea, they are called adult ed english classes...id you take any in Atlanta?

These stories are coached to many of the refugees because they hold the buzz words that will give them status over others trying to get a free ride to America or Europe.

You applied to 30 jobs in Atlanta, how many have you applied for here, it's been a few months? Soon enough we will see what happens when you bring a large sectarian group of people to a foriegn place...you should see how they treat females in the work place, I have seen this first hand...you're fired!

Back to work so I can pay for the next 300...

tax payer77 of kingfield, ME
Dec 17, 2008 9:08 AM
I have spent considerable time in the mid east. Plain and simple...they truly hate us and they do not support most of what we value. They kill women and children to make a religious point. If things are going so well back in Iraq, why not send these folks home. If welfare bennies are not so good in other states then we can expect to see a continous flow of the welfare savy arriving in Maine until we stop this madness.

Anti Liberal of Taxland, ME
Dec 17, 2008 8:58 AM
"After four months in Georgia, the family had seen a sharp cut in local benefits, he said, so that they couldn't afford rent."

Well...let mainers pay your rent, food, clothing, education, medical bills, take care of your kids, and while we are at it...what the hell, let us give you a new car and a plasma tv!!!

If there is anything else your little heart desires, please let us know, baldi, the governor just slashed some spending so we need to waste,ahhh spend, it elsewhere.

Welcome to Maine!

Biddy of Arundel, ME
Dec 17, 2008 7:08 AM
Merry Christmas people! We're in the good 'ol US of A! If you're born here you get to struggle to survive and get the third degree if misfortune strikes and you need help. If you're a refugee you get red carpet treatment and help with everything.
I think it's absolutely appalling that we have 50 million plus Americans without health insurance yet can offer health care to non Americans.
Look at the food this lady is preparing. How many Americans can afford fruit and vegetables? Some of our Seniors eat cat and dog food so they can afford their medicines and heat.
Of course we shouldn't turn our anger toward the refugees. They are just taking advantage of what is offered them by OUR OWN KIND!! They are looking to make a better life like we are.
My anger is directed at those who bring these people here and provide them with everything. We should know WHO they are. My bet is they are the same people who refuse to help their own American citizens who need help. HOW can we do this considering the state and Federal budget cuts that are hurting so many?

MainenCrisis of Portland, ME
Dec 17, 2008 6:56 AM
This article makes me want to throw up!!

Ford1600 of Canaan, ME
Dec 17, 2008 5:44 AM
Where are these jobs coming from that this group is going to get these people.
Why hasn't this group gotten jobs for the people here in Maine that are out of fuel and food for their kids???.
Is this group blind to deaths of their own neighbors kids deaths due to crime here in their own country,,,,.
Send all of them back to their own countries to tuff it out just as we do!!!.
THAT GOES FOR ALL IMMAGRANTS

Jack of nowhere, ME
Dec 17, 2008 6:49 AM
You guys are pathetic. Spoiled rotten brats, even. You're whining about 200-300 people moving to your state because you might have to shell out a couple of extra bucks in taxes, and want to see these people sent back to be raped, shot, forced to see family members killed, have acid thrown on them.... You people disgust me. You don't know what hardship is.

Peter B. Hayward

Copyright © 2008 Peter B. Hayward. All Rights Reserved

All of my Press Herald blog entries

A Maine Armchair Philosopher blog

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Permanent web address for this post:

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/blogs/phpost/037274.html

As I reported in my November 21st blog entry, "Finally?, for some, the 3G IPhone," Walmart will start selling the IPhone December 28.

Now, you ask, why December 28, and not right now, in time for Christmas?

My answer in that blog:

"Perhaps just in time for the after Christmas sales?

$150 anyone?

$125 anyone?..."

Well, I think we may well have our answer.

Just like the CIA watches for heightened "chatter" on the "network" in its efforts to thwart terrorism, I monitor blogs, lots of them, and since Tuesday, December 2nd, the chatter has become a shout.

So my prediction based on the chatter:

Within the next 30 days, Apple will introduce a $99 4GB IPhone.

At the original IPhone launch, the 4GB and the 8GB IPhones came out together, but Apple stopped selling the 4 GB version a little bit later and the price of the 8GB was dropped.

The word now is that Apple has the ability to juice up the original 4GB design and lauch it again for $99.

While you cannot drive a lot of applications or store a lot of songs or videos with just 4GB, you will still get to carry around one cool looking phone -- and anyway, who asks IPhone users how many horses they have under the hood?

Just think of it, you just came from Walmart and you are sitting at Borders with your latte or at Panera with your smoky Chipotle Chicken flatbread sandwich, and your IPhone is in front of you for all to admire.

They certainly don't need to know it is the $99 4GB version.

The chatter?

On October 27, Apple Insider quoted Analyst Charlie Wolf of Needham Research as saying that since Apple has 2 million IPhones in inventory, Apple could well introduce a $99 IPhone.

Friday, the same site quoted analyst Shaw Wu of Kaufman Bros saying ""While we are not sure of exact timing, we think a $99 Apple-branded cell phone is inevitable... As we mentioned in our initiation report, we believe one of the key things Apple needs to do to drive broader iPhone adoption is to build a more complete product line like it has done with the iPod."

The same day, Eric Zeman of Information Week noted that 300 million IPhone applications have been downloaded from the Apps Store and that suggests that a $99 IPhone could serve as a low end or entry phone, the 8GB as a midrange IPhone, and the 16GB IPhone could be positioned as a high end IPhone with a greater megapixel camera, flash, video and maybe even a memory boost to 32GB.

The definative site on all things Iphone is the Boy Genius Report which had long predicted that Walmart would sell the Iphone. The BGR was the site I quoted in the earlier blog when the news broke that Walmart had reached an agreement to sell Iphones on December 28.

On December 4 the BGR ran a piece suggesting that Walmart could be introducing the anticipated $99 4GB IPhone. BGR did not, however, give complete credence to the tip noting that BGR's tipster was not completely proven as solid and added "Don't hate us if this doesn't happen."

Not surprisingly, according to the Beta News Walmart refused to either confirm or deny the rumor, but with analysts all in agreement that the evolution toward differentiated IPhones is inevitable and that a $99 IPhone will come at some point, the only question is whether it will come on December 28 at Walmart, or whether it will be announced at MacWorld January 6-9 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

My $1099 bet: there will be a $99 IPhone introduced in the next month, but it will not launch at Walmart on December 28.

Walmart has positioned itself, trained its staff, and will be ready to pump out the $99 4GB IPhones the moment the iconic Steve Jobs announces it with his typical aplomb. (Assuming, of course, he doesn't shrink away to nothing before then.)

I could imagine Jobs on stage in his turtleneck, the screen is illuminated, the number $99 appears, and at that very moment, Walmart employees begin pushing out crates of $99 IPhones to the floor.

Peter B. Hayward

Copyright © 2008 Peter B. Hayward. All Rights Reserved

All of my Press Herald blog entries

A Maine Armchair Philosopher blog

Join me for daily tweets at twitter.com/pbh444

Permanent web address for this post:

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/blogs/phpost/036749.html

The Dublin, New Hampshire based publishers of the Old Farmer's Almanac have placed on their website a full year forecast for New England and eastern New York from November 2008 to October 2009:

"Winter will be colder than normal, on average, primarily due to persistent cold temperatures throughout December. Other cold periods will occur in early and mid- to late January, early and mid-February, and early March. Precipitation will be near or slightly above normal, with below-normal snowfall in the north and above-normal snowfall in the south. The biggest snowstorm will occur in early March, with other snowy periods in late November, mid- and late December, early and late January, and mid-February.
April and May will be warmer than normal, with especially warm temperatures in late April. Rainfall will be slightly below normal.
Summer will be cooler and drier than normal, despite hot weather in mid- to late June and mid-July.
September and October will be cooler and drier than normal."
© The Old Farmer's Almanac

In contrast, the Farmer's Almanac, located since 1955 in Lewiston, Maine, provides only a December and January forecast on its website for an area that runs from Maine to New York to Virginia.

December 2008

1st-3rd Clearing and cold. 4th-7th Quick changes: fair, then wet, then clearing. 8th-11th Pleasant weather. 12th-15th Heavy snow for much of Northeast, then fair, cold. Some snow also for Mid-Atlantic States. 16th-19th Becoming wet, especially New England. 20th-23rd Dry and tranquil. 24th-27thCoastal storm brings rain for Virginia, but farther north precipitation mixes and changes to snow, heavy (4 to 8 inches) for New England. 28th-31st Fair and cold.
© The Farmer's Almanac

The predictions of the two are prepared as much as two years in advance and each uses different, secret calculations that take into consideration such factors as the position of the earth and the other planets in space, solar conditions (sun spots, etc.), past weather patterns, tidal action, and the condition of the atmosphere.

Many people swear by the long range forecasts of the almanacs while others point to inaccuracies in past forecasts as evidence that long range forecasts are worthless. Some base this opinion on the fact that even the government's NOAA five day forecasts are often inaccurate.

For more than 50 years, my paternal grandfather, a skeptic in many matters, would purchase a copy of both almanacs, copy the forecasts of each to paper, and then write the actual weather beside the prediction. He gained much amusement from this, and told me that, for Portland, the forecasts where no better what he termed "using a finger in the wind in December for July weather."

By contrast, I talked last week to a man in central Maine who has done the same comparison since the 1980s and swears by the accuracy of the long range predictions.

For me, I take my weather day by day, and hour by hour.

If it looks like rain, I prepare accordingly; if it is hot, I wear fewer clothes; if we are on our boat, I keep NOAA marine weather on the VHF at all times since what NOAA said this morning may not be what is happening now.

What about you?

Peter B. Hayward

Copyright © 2009 Peter B. Hayward. All Rights Reserved

All of my Press Herald blog entries

A Maine Armchair Philosopher blog

Join me for daily tweets at twitter.com/pbh444

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http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/blogs/phpost/036636.html

Media Usage and Adolescent Health, a Metastudy

"Media are increasingly pervasive in the lives of children
and adolescents # the average kid today spends nearly
45 hours per week with media, compared with 17 hours
with parents and 30 hours in school. However, until
now there has been very little comprehensive analysis of
the different research tracking the impact of media on
children's health."

Thus begins the executive summary of a metatstudy on the relationship between use of media and adolescent health. The research results were published December 2nd by the advocacy group Common Sense Media.

The study was undertaken by the National Institutes of Health, the Yale University School of Medicine, and the California Pacific Medical Center, and analyzed the "best [research] studies" undertaken since 1980 on this topic. One hundred seventy three "best studies" were identified.

Of specific interest was the impact of increased media usage on:

- obesity
- tobacco use
- drug use
- alcohol use
- low academic achievement
- sexual behavior
- Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

Although the researchers attempted to assess studies related to the usage of all media (the internet, magazines, movies, music, television, and video games), the researchers found that "most of the quality studies" investigated only the impact on adolescenthealth of movies, television and music.

Of the "best studies," 127 evaluated the relationship between the hours adolescents spent on media usage and health outcome. Seventy five percent of these 127 studies demonstrated an increase number of hours were associated with a "negative health outcome" and 20% showed no statistically significant relationship. Seven studies (6%) showed a positive relationship between media usage and some measure health outcome.

In the findings below, statistically significant means the results were unlikely to have occurred by chance.

Obesity: increased media usage was associated with increased incidence of obesity and increased weight gain over time. (Of 73 studies, 63 (86%) showed this association as statically significant.) A single longitudinal study begun with 5,493 three year old children found that children watching more than 8 hours of television "were significantly more likely to be obese at age seven."

Tobacco usage: increased media usage was associated with increased smoking, which was defined as ""children trying smoking, or beginning to smoke at an earlier age." (Of 24 studies, 21 (88%) showed this association as statically significant.)

Drug Usage: increased media usage was associated with increased drug usage, defined as "past or current use of specific recreational drugs including cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamines, and ecstasy." (Of 8 studies, 6 (75%) showed this association as statically significant.)

Alcohol Usage: increased media usage was associated with increased alcohol usage. (Of 10 studies, 8 (80%) showed this association as statically significant.)

Low academic achievement: increased media usage was shown to have a negative impact on academic achievement "measured through standardized test scores or school grades." (Of 31 studies, 20 (65%) showed this association as statically significant.)

Sexual behavior: increased media usage was associated with "a more rapid progression of initiation of sexual behavior.' (Of the 14 studies, 13 (93%) showed this association as statically significant.)

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): increased media usage was associated with "increased attention problems." (Of the 13 studies, 9 studies (69%) showed this association as statically significant.)

Too often, a single research study can fall victim to the "umbrella/rain" correlation fallacy. Technically known as "Post hoc ergo propter hoc" or Post hoc thinking, it can be reduced to "X happened, Y happened, therefore X caused Y to happen."

The fallacy lies in the assumed directionality. On days that it rains, we see many people with umbrellas. Did the increased number of people with umbrellas cause the rain to fall, or did the impending rain cause people to carry umbrellas? Does increased media usage lead to obesity, or are obese people more likely to watch more television?

By rigorous analysis of a large number of "best studies," a metastudy can avoid the correlation or Post Hoc fallacy.

Of the advantages of a metastudy, one is that it pulls together all printed research on a subject, in contrast to the single studies which often make the news.

In gathering the research studies for a quality metastudy, typically a panel independent of the reviewers ranks each of the collected studies as to quality of research methodology and quantity of subjects in each study. A quality metastudy can control for study variation and can utilize statistical methods such as regression techniques which may not be appropriate in small N studies.

Metastudies are not without their disadvantages.

Unless well defined and unless the input is independently evaluated and controlled, a metastudy can have the disadvantage of investigator bias or weak study bias.

A further disadvantage of metastudies of published research is that unpublished results are ignored, thus skewing the results (Studies which result in a null (no) relationship between two variables are seldom published. Thus if there are 1,000 studies of media and health outcomes which find no relationship, these are "lost" as the researchers collect the studies which show a relationship.)

Peter B. Hayward

Copyright © 2009 Peter B. Hayward. All Rights Reserved

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A Maine Armchair Philosopher blog

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We will not know if Black Friday 2008 was the success which both retailers and customers hoped it would be, but take a breath because December 1 is Cyber Monday.

Not to be outdone by the brick and mortar stores, the online merchants, and the online sites of the brick and mortar stores offer discounts on many products to kick off their season.

While it seems that Cyber Monday as been with us since the Apple II, the day was first named in 2005 and is actively promoted by Shop.org, an organization of the National Federation of Retailers (NFR). This trade group reports that 84% of online retailers will have Cyber Monday sales, up from 72% in 2007.

The NFR further predicts that nearly 56% of workers with internet access are expected to partake in the Cyber Monday sales, with men more likely to be cyber shopping than women. In the 18-34 year old buying group, 70% are projected to visit the Cyber Monday sites.

CyberMonday.com, sponsored by Shop.org, is the official promoter of the day. Subscribers to the site receive emails of just announced Cyber Monday deals. 600 retailers will have sales on Monday, the site claims. CyberMonday.com posts a merchant's ads as soon as it is available (usually Sunday, but sometimes Saturday), and serves as the portal to the merchants' websites.

Sales made through CyberMonday's "click throughs" result in a small percentage of the merchant's sale being donated to the Ray M Greely Scholarship Fund which provides scholarships to students in e-commerce. The percent donated is listed by each merchant's portal.

Cyber Monday deals typically differ from Black Friday deals in that on Cyber Monday there are few absolutely "drop dead" door busters which are very limited in quantity and are sold on a first-come, first-served.

More often, a website will have a percentage off on all sales or on a number of product lines, with a few deeply discounted items to grab the web surfer's attention.

Gottadeal.com, which is always a good site to visit to compare online deals, is currently listing online Black Friday deals at its landing, but over the weekend it would probably be a good idea to check their deals on their Cyber Monday page

While Cyber Monday is an active day for online retailers, their "big" day in 2007 and 2006 came about December 12, two weeks before Christmas and in time for the purchases to arrive.

In addition, the sales on Cyber Monday are only a fraction of the sales at bricks and mortar stores; in 2007 Cyber Monday brought in three quarters of a billion dollars in sales, less than 10% of the amount taken in on Black Friday that year.

And on a sobering note, Newsday reports that a 37 year old Wal-mart employee was killed Black Friday morning on Long Island, NY, when "A throng of shoppers . . . physically broke down the doors" and trampled the man. When the horror became apparent, store employees tried immediately to close the store but the shoppers refused to leave and continued shopping.

Peter B. Hayward

Copyright © 2008 Peter B. Hayward. All Rights Reserved

All of my Press Herald blog entries

A Maine Armchair Philosopher blog

Join me for daily tweets at twitter.com/pbh444

Permanent web address for this post:

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/blogs/phpost/036413.html
*

Below the sales circulars available of 6 AM Thursday (and 10 PM).

But, want a Sony 32" Class Bravia LCD HDTV with Digital Tuner, KDL-32L4000 for just under $500 but don't want to line up Friday morning? I list below the online ads for stores that are having Black Friday sales, and some have jumped the gun and are having online sales today..

Some of the online sales of these sites open at the same time their physical stores open Friday, so if the weather is bad on Friday, or you think the lines will be too long . . .

By the way, some of these links are to online sales only. Please read the fine print.

And as 5AM Friday get's closer, response time on some Company's website may grind to a halt.

(T) indicates that some or all items are available on line now.

Friday and some Black Thursday sales:

Apple

(Some online T ) Amazon

Best Buy

BJ's

(T Apparently online only circular) Brookstone

Bull Moose

(T) Circuit City

Dell

Dick's Sporting Goods

JCPennys

(T) KMart

(T) Kohls

Lenovo Computers, Use coupon USPBLACKFRIDAY to get maximum savings

Lowes

McMall

Michael's

(T) Macys

NewEgg

Office Depot

PCMall

(T) Radio Shack

Ritz Camera

(T Online Only) Sams Club

(T) Sears

Staples

Target

ToysRUS

WalMart

(T online only) WalMart

Peter B. Hayward

All of my Press Herald blog entries

A Maine Armchair Philosopher blog

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Permanent web address for this post:

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/blogs/phpost/036362.html

Originally Published Wednesday, 11/19
Updated Friday, 11/21

As of 11/27, 755 people had read this blog entry.

Five months after purchasing their fancy new 3G IPhones, Mainers in parts of York county bordering I95 to the ocean, Cumberland County, Brunswick, Topsham, Bath, and a sliver of Auburn received 3G Network coverage yesterday, November 18.

Update: The NEW date for the switch on is Monday, 11/24, and until then 3G IPhone owners in these areas have had their data usage restricted to the the slower AT&T EDGE Network speeds and have been unable to make use of a 3G Network for many features including talking on the phone and surfing the web at the same time, accessing certain video features, etc.

This, in spite of the fact that they have been paying the same data fee as IPhone users living in areas with the speed tripling 3 G network.

When the Portland Press Herald reported on the roll out of the 3G IPhone on July 11, no mention was made in the article of the fact that there was THEN no 3G network for the new IPhone in Maine, New Hampshire or Vermont.

In fact, staff writer Rat Routhier ironically wrote of the supposed dilemma facing Emma Pope-Welch, Director of communications and marketing for the United Way of Eastern Maine in Bangor

"Pope-Welch, who bought the first version of the iPhone, also balked at the claim of faster Internet service. A map on the AT&T Web site shows that there are parts of Maine, including areas east of Bangor, that are not covered by the faster 3G cellular network.

"So in some areas it wouldn't be faster for me," Pope-Welch said."

As I wrote in an unpublished letter to the PPH editor, Pope-Welch and perhaps Routhier were apparently looking at the EDGE coverage which reveals there is no EDGE coverage east of Bangor and they failed to notice that the July AT&T 3G data map showed the very severe limitations of the 3G network when the new IPhone was rolled out.

Pope-Welch in Bangor was wise to keep her first generation phone as there is no official AT&T corporate indication on the internet as to when the 3G network will be expanded to Augusta, let alone Bangor.

Sources of mine indicate it could be 1/1/2010.

So 3G on Monday in the Southern Maine areas outlined above? We will see.

***

Now, for those of you who have asked Santa for a 3G IPhone, The Boy Genius Report confirmed just hours ago that selected Walmarts and Sam's will start selling the IPhone on December 28.

Perhaps just in time for the after Christmas sales?

$150 anyone?

$125 anyone?...

Peter B. Hayward

All original content copyright © 2009 Peter B. Hayward. All Rights Reserved

All of my Press Herald blog entries

A Maine Armchair Philosopher blog

Join me for daily tweets at twitter.com/pbh444

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Election day, November 4 2008

This blog will be updated as the evening goes on.

7:50 PM

It might have been normal weather for November here in Portland, but in Driggs, Idaho, at the head of the Tetons, it was a little grizzly.

The following photo comes to me courtesy of a website that will be very interesting to follow tonight, www.turnmaineblue.com which has a Google map of the Maine towns where Presidential and Maine Congressional results will be posted as they. (You can select other states or the entire Nation.)

Thanks to the site's Gerald Weinand for permission, and thanks to the photographer, Mike Zahan.

As I noted earlier today, a fact seemingly missed by most pundits (but probably not by the two campaigns) is that the first time voters most likely voted a straight ticket across much the country given that much of their enthusiasm focused solely on the Presidential race.

Thus, if Obama wins, this straight ticket voting by this group is likely to sweep in down ticket candidates simply because they have a (D) after their name.

After posting my earlier blog on this, I was informed by a Californian political science Professor that the straight ticket voting occurred in the 2004 election in those states influenced by the Rove inspired Evangelical vote.

And, while there has been much talk lately of the strong liberal turn that a Congress controlled by the Democrats would take, this fear flies in the face of the fact that many of the Democrat Representatives that were first voted in in 2006 were more conservative than the leaders of their party.

Thus, based on a thorough analysis of those likely to join the House for the first time in January, I predict that many of those will be like the 2006 class, fiscally conservative but socially liberal.

8:25 PM

As I have noted in my earlier blogs, the size of the National Presidential popular vote total and $2 will get you a small coffee at Starbucks.

It is the Electoral vote that decides the election, so basically, if you were a Democrat in Texas, a "Safe" state for McCain, your vote was wasted, it would NOT help push Obama across the line.

Likewise, if you were a Republican in New York, "Safe" for Obama, you might as well have stayed home. Your vote couldn't impact the Electoral College.

This is how the Electoral college robs people of their vote.

Because Electoral votes are (except in a few states) are "winner take all," the value of the minority party vote in each state is lost.

The race will be decided in the toss up states of Florida (27 EV), Indiana (11), North Carolina (15), Indiana (11), Ohio (20), Virginia (13) and Missouri (11).

Pennsylvania has been called for Obama which some pundits say was one Kerry state McCain had to turn Republican.

New Hampshire has been called for Obama, and although it has only 4 EV, it figured in the McCain "Electoral College Tie Plan" which saw McCain and Obama drawing even in the EC and the Electoral vote of otherwise conservative New Hampshire throwing the election to McCain.

Palin's repeated late October visits to Maine's Second District were also part of this "Electoral College Tie Plan" because Maine awards an Electoral College vote for winning each Congressional District. In a close EC vote, that one vote from the Second District could have given McCain the Presidency. (Nebraska is the other state that so allocates Electoral Votes.)

9:25 PM

Ohio has been called for Obama (CBS, NBC).

Thus, Obama has turned a 2004 Red state Democrat Blue.

The 20 EV in Ohio will be hard to make up unless McCain is able to regain them by taking several 2004 Blue states.

9:30 PM

Based on the National Presidential projections, many of the full time pundits and even a senior vice president of CBS News division stated that by this time (9:30 PM) or even earlier, the race would have been called for Obama.

As I have noted, the assumptions amongst some of these pundits appears to have been that a rising tide lifts all boats, and that somehow the 7 or 8 point lead Obama showed in the National Polls would impact the toss up states.

I explained last week:

"Let's say that California, Illinois, and New York are safe for Obama, and suppose that last week he was collectively ahead in those states by 10% (solid Democrat states). Now, if the UNDECIDEDS in those three states are polled and are deciding for Obama the vote total will go up for Obama.

Likewise, in the safe McCain states of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kentucky, let's say the pollster finds that the UNDECIDED voters are breaking for McCain.

The increase in support for Obama or McCain in these safe states contribute only to an increase in the popular vote, not to an increase in the Electoral college vote."

And each of the toss up states is comprised of a few large cities (projected to go for Obama) surrounded by rural areas that have traditionally gone Republican.

A RISING Democrat TIDE will work in those states only if the cities go heavier for Obama than they did for Kerry, and if the 2008 vote totals in the Republican rural areas are less than it was in the 2004 election.

In short, they may be paid well, but they all talk to the same people, and thus many of the full time cable pundits were simply WRONG about timing.

The key, of course will be Florida.

The senate races in New Hampshire and North Carolina have been called, and the incumbent Republicans (Sununu and Dole) have been defeated.

9:40 PM

New Mexico (5 EV), another 2004 Red state was called Blue.

It looks like when the West Coast 2004 Democrat states come in (73 EV), the Electoral College vote will be decided.

10:10 PM

Iowa has been called for Obama (Fox, ABC), another 2004 Republican state turned.

Electoral Vote Count at 10 PM

NBC Obama 207, McCain 135
ABC Obama 207, McCain 135
CBS Obama 206, McCain 135
CNN Obama 207, McCain 95
Fox Obama 207, McCain 135

The race in Connecticut has been called, and another Republican incumbent is out: Chris Shays.

10:40

Two more 2004 Republican states, Virginia and New Mexico, have been called for Obama.

Technically, unless the continental divide splits tonight and California, Washington and Oregon fall into the sea, McCain CANNOT win this election.

In an analysis of Obama's win in Pennsylvania, The New York Times states:

"Specifically, Mr. Obama swept the suburbs, 58-41 (in 2004, Mr. Kerry won 54-46). In the Northeast, Mr. Obama won 57-42, compared with Mr. Kerry's 51-49. How to explain the sweep in the more liberal suburbs along with the sweep in the more culturally conservative Northeast? In the suburbs, the Republican ticket may have been TOO CONSERVATIVE; also, the financial collapse was an issue there because home values have been high."

[Emphasis Mine]

I think there is a real jewel in these comments, and it strengthens a line I have argued since the Republican National Convention -- by selecting Palin and by appealing to the Republican right, McCain neglected the broader Republican Party. Again the NYT comment: "the Republican ticket may have been too conservative."

The Republican Right might not have selected McCain in the primaries, but it is highly unlikely that the Republican Right would sit on their (voting) hand in this election. They would have been McCain's if he simply promised them a Supreme Court justice.

Instead, as I argued in an earlier blog, Obama/McCain -- What If?, McCain probably would have WON if he had chosen a mainstream VP and if he had directed his campaign, not to the Right, but to the Republican middle and to moderate Independents.

NO President has EVER been elected without the Independents.

With McCain's demonstrated experience (and conversely, with Obama's lack of experience), I believe that a Republican ticket of McCain Romney or Pawlenty, etc., would now be leading in the Electoral College.

With Romney's business experience, McCain would not have fallen as he did when the economy tanked.

Indeed, McCain would probably have retained the Reagan Democrats and gained Clinton's "Lunchbox Democrats" and maybe even a sizeable portion of Clinton's female army.

11 PM

Now that the West Coast has closed (but not counted), the networks have stated that Obama will win -- Crowd goes wild in Grant Park, Chicago, where one estimate states that 3/4 of a million are waiting for Obama. (I don't buy that estimate having lived in Chicago -- that many downtown, but Grant Park simply is not that big).

The AP reports that McCain has called Obama to concede.

Apparently, Obama is being polite and will wait for the West Coast to be "counted" by means of exit poll analysis before he appears.

At about 11:10 the networks called the election for Obama.

AT 11:08, The New York Times splashed this headline on its online page in what looks like 48 point text:

OBAMA

Racial Barrier Falls in Heavy Turnout

The lead to the New York Times article Obama Wins Election:

"Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday, sweeping away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease as the country chose him as its first black chief executive."

Mr. Obama's election amounted to a national catharsis - a repudiation of a historically unpopular Republican president and his economic and foreign policies, and an embrace of Mr. Obama's call for a change in the direction and the tone of the country. But it was just as much a strikingly symbolic moment in the evolution of the nation's fraught racial history, a breakthrough that would have seemed unthinkable just two years ago."

The current electoral vote projection:

Obama, 338 McCain, 156 with 46 still unallocated.

At 11:57, President Elect Barack Hussein Obama appears on the stage at Grant Park with his wife and children; part of his message:

"Change has come to America -- this victory is a chance -- let us summon a new spirit -- we rise and fall as one nation, one people -- a new dawn of American leadership is at hand -- the true strength of out nation ... comes from our ideals -- America can change, our union can be perfected -- if our children should live to see the next century, what progress will we have made -- out of many we are one -- yes we can."

Oh, and yes, Oprah is deep in the mass of the crowd, just like everyone else.

Peter B. Hayward

Copyright © 2008 Peter B. Hayward. All Rights Reserved

All of my Press Herald blog entries

A Maine Armchair Philosopher blog

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*

I managed to pull myself away from my "Honeydo" chores and the radio long enough to buy two "Original Italians" and I overheard something I think many pundits failed to anticipate about this election.

In the store, when a first time voter was asked by a colleague making my sandwiches who he voted for in down ticket races, the first time voter stated that he could not remember, but he knew that he knew he voted for all the Democrats.

I think when the final analysis is done on this election, the biggest news will be that many of the first time Obama voters voted a straight Democrat ticket, thereby sweeping many down ticket Democrats across the country into office.

Peter B. Hayward

Copyright © 2008 Peter B. Hayward. All Rights Reserved

All of my Press Herald blog entries

A Maine Armchair Philosopher blog

Join me for daily tweets at twitter.com/pbh444

Permanent web address for this post:

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/blogs/phpost/035233.html

*

The major media outlets continue to trumpet the national Presidential polls, Obama ahead by 7%, in another, McCain behind by 3% and closing.

Let's say that California, Illinois, and New York are safe for Obama, and suppose that last week he was collectively ahead in those states by 10% (solid Democrat states). Now, if the undecideds in those three states are polled and are deciding for Obama the vote total will go up for Obama.

Likewise, in the safe McCain states of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kentucky, let's say the pollster finds that the undecided voters are breaking for McCain.

The increase in support for Obama or McCain in these safe states contribute only to an increase in the popular vote, not to an increase in the Electoral college vote.

A rising tide may raise all boats, but Presidential races are local, and it is the candidates' standing and MOMENTUM in the 6 toss up states that are the ONLY numbers meaningful. For example, a big run up in one section of a toss up state could swing that standing of that state from one candidate to another.

Pollster.com is a website that gathers all available polls and reports the state by state standing, but more importantly the candidates' movement in the polls using all that poling data.

The toss up states as of Monday morning on Pollster.com are Florida (27 EV), Indiana (11), North Carolina (15), Montana (3), North Dakota (3), and Missouri (11).

And although Pollster.com's averaged polling data show Pennsylvania (21) and Virginia (13) as states "leaning" to Obama, the two candidates are hotly contesting those states.

By clicking on each state above, you can see the pollster.com trend lines from January. Below the trend box are the most recent polls collected by Pollster.com. You can also access the site's National Presidential trend line.

However, for those that love the horse race of the National polls, here are the results from organizations that conduct polls (in contrast to sites that summarize polls.)

The following are polls released today or yesterday.

CNN/Opinion Research, Obama 53%, McCain 46%

Diageo-Hotline, Obama 50%, McCain 45%

Gallup, Obama 55%, McCain 44%

Investors Business Daily, Obama 47%, McCain 45%

NBC/Wall Street Journal, Obama 51%, McCain 43%

Rasmussen Reports, Obama 52%, McCain 46%

Reuters/C-Span/Zogby, Obama 51%, McCain 44%

Pew Research Center, Obama 52%, McCain 46%

Washington Post - ABC News Obama, Obama 54%, McCain 43%

My prediction? In the horse race, Obama 49%, McCain 46%. But in the all important Electoral Vote, the same numbers as in my October 37th blog entitled "Landslide or Squeaker?", Obama 311 (58%) , McCain 227 (42%).

And the surprise election story NO ONE is predicting?

People will be waiting in line to vote HOURS after the polls close in certain states and the Media will be unable to call those states until Wednesday AM.

Peter B. Hayward

Copyright © 2008 Peter B. Hayward. All Rights Reserved

All of my Press Herald blog entries

A Maine Armchair Philosopher blog

Join me for daily tweets at twitter.com/pbh444

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What if McCain had not picked Palin but had picked a centrist Republican?

Given the nearly even breakdown of Democrat/Republican voters nationally, pundits have long said that independents would determine the Presidential race, and that is what appears to BE/have happened. Polling indicated that since September 10, or a week after the end of the Republican National Convention, independents have moved gradually, then after the financial crisis, in a large mass to Obama. What if McCain had chosen a centrist and experienced person as his Vice President? For example, what if he had chosen the Governor of a battle ground state like Governor Ridge who might bring in not just Pennsylvania but Ohio? Alternately, what if he had picked a Midwest Governor like Pawlenty who would could have delivered his state and perhaps the Midwest and west states that eventually came into play? Or what if he had chosen as his VP the Governor with his highest name recognition, Governor Romney, who might only deliver New Hampshire but who would bring to the ticket the economic and business knowledge that McCain himself acknowledged he did not have. In any of these cases, it is extremely possible that the exodus of independents from McCain after 9/10 would not have happened. It is even possible that the election would have been McCain's, given the lack of any financial expertise in the Obama/Biden ticket.

What if Obama had chosen Hillary as his VP?

First, it is almost certain that McCain would not have chosen Palin, as there would been no disaffected female voters to be "stolen" from Obama. McCain's decision could would then have been a hard one, whether to turn to a candidate that would solidify his weak support with the "base" (perhaps by choosing Huckabee), or by choosing a centrist VP to counter the perceived far left wing bias of the Obama/Clinton ticket. Again, independents would have a strong role to play in many states, and while Clinton might have drawn some of those who vote for her husband but were leery of Obama in the primaries, a Romney might well have tipped the balance to McCain.

What if Clinton had voted against the Iraq War in 2002?

It is clear that Clinton entered the Senate in 2000 in order to position herself for a run for President. Insiders indicate that she was deeply torn over how to vote on the Iraq measure, but in the end, she deemed it appropriate to vote in favor of the measure least she be stuck with the "female weak on security" label. If, instead, Clinton had voted against the measure, Obama would not have had the single issue that galvanized his campaign in the beginning. Indeed, it is extremely possible that Obama would not have even entered the primaries, or if he did, his position against the war would have been negated by Clinton's actual vote against the war, and his lack of experience on the national stage would be trumped by her experience. In the end, it might have been a Clinton/Biden ticket.

What if McCain had not played to the "base?"

Did McCain actually need to devote as much effort in the general election to what is referred to as the Republican "base:" the pro-life, anti-homosexual religious right? McCain had won the primaries largely without their support, which indicates to me that using the term "base" is a misnomer when used to refer to this group. It is VERY possible that those who voted for McCain in the primaries ARE the REAL REPUBLICAN BASE, and that the religious right tail of the party is just that. Further, it is highly unlikely that this tail would have sat out the election if McCain did not play to them, knowing that IF they did sit out and if McCain lost, any gains the religious right tail made during the Bush era would be gone. Instead, if McCain had used as HIS BASE the center of the Republican Party and like thinking independents, he could have soothed the hard feelings of the tail by the promise of a Supreme Court justice. American Presidential politics is rife with the bones of Presidential candidates who have played to the fringes of their party and ignored the political middle. In fact, there is not a single President who has attained initial election by playing largely to the tail.

Now, what are YOUR what ifs?

Peter B. Hayward

Copyright © 2008 Peter B. Hayward. All Rights Reserved

All of my Press Herald blog entries

A Maine Armchair Philosopher blog

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We have less than 40 hours left for an October Surprise, BUT the real surprise, I think, will be a November Surprise.

And what is the November Surprise? The popular vote breakdown when the polls close.

Today, Pollster.com's analysis of numerous polls has Obama ahead in the national Presidential polls by 6%, but I predict that the final POPULAR VOTE total will be much closer.

There are two reasons for my thinking:

- The level at which the newly registered voters will turn out ON ELECTION DAY will be much lower than projected by many polling models

- There is serious concern amongst some voters about actually voting for America's first African-American nominee, regardless of what they may have told pollsters or others.

In the first case, I believe that the great mass of the first time voters who pushed Obama across the line in the primaries will NOT turn out ON ELECTION DAY in the numbers now projected in most polling models.

I expect that the percentage of their turnout on election day will be less than one-third of the turnout of the 40+ year old voting groups.

(It is true that numbers of first time voters have voted early.)

The first time voters are less likely to vote early, and -- I believe the following are the keys -- the first time voters may well come to the polls without government issued IDs or could turn away from the very long lines at the polling stations if they believe that Obama is "far ahead" nationally.

These first time voters get their news largely from the internet, and from each other, and do not have the advantage of having voted in or having followed the vagaries of past elections.

Long term voters are more likely to get their news from traditional outlets, including analysts, have seen past polling and vote swings, and know that every vote DOES count.

A decreased turn out by the first time voters in the key toss up states listed in my October 27 blog could result in those states going to McCain.

On the second matter, I have talked to a fair number of long term voters throughout rural northern New England over the last few days, and I believe that some voters have a very real concern about voting for America's first African-American Presidential candidate.

These voters are, by in large, those now described as undecided, but I believe some are also projected as voting for Obama base on the analysis that result from sampling.

What I believe we will see is a phenomenon called the "Bradley Effect".

In 1982, Tom Bradley, the multi-term African American mayor of Los Angles, ran for Governor of California. Although comfortably ahead of his white opponent in the state-wide polls, Bradley lost the election.

Subsequent analysis of the exit polling indicated that a larger percentage of voters who were polled stated they would vote for Bradly than actually did so on election day.

In the 1989 Virginia election for Governor, polls showed African American Douglas Wilder ahead of his white opponent by nine points. On election day, he won by only one percentage point. Analysis of the exit polling indicated the same effect.

In my travels, a fair number of people tell me they were thinking about voting for Obama, but were unsure and would wait until next week.

My bet is that when SOME, but not necessarily all of these voters enter the booth, they may well choose the "devil they know" rather than they one they have heard rumors about.

In states with large Obama polling leads like California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon, Washington, etc., the "Bradley Effect" may not matter, but in the six toss up states and in states with large concentrations of still undecided voters, this swing could well matter.

In fact, I believe that Obama's popular vote percentage totals in these states could go down by as much as 10%.

So the November Surprise is that the national POPULAR VOTE breakdown will be closer than it is now projected to be because of significant under representation on election day by the newly registered voters and because of the Bradley effect.

Of course, we will only know whether either or both occurred when the the exit polls come out after the election.

In the end, however, my prediction is still that Obama will take the electoral vote.

Peter B. Hayward

Copyright © 2008 Peter B. Hayward. All Rights Reserved

All of my Press Herald blog entries

A Maine Armchair Philosopher blog

Join me for daily tweets at twitter.com/pbh444

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(Hunt: to chase or search for (game or other wild animals) for the purpose of catching or killing.) from dictionary.reference.com

When did some hunters go wrong?

When they stopped hunting and just sat in pickup trucks or SUVs waiting to shoot out the windows at prey?

Or was it when hunting chairs, or as L L Bean calls them Wilderness Recliners, came with cup holders so hunters could sit comfortably in the sun and enjoy the beverage of their choice while they waited for an animal to wander aimlessly across the hunter's field of vision?

In Maine, my family goes back to 1820 when Maine broke from Massachusetts. Before 1820, they probably also lived here but undoubtedly didn't much concern themselves with Massachusetts matters. That was why they moved here.

But I do know one thing: my ancestors hunted like men.

They did not wait for the game to come to them.
They tracked it using their abilities.
They thought like their prey.
They walked like their prey.
They waited when the prey waited, and ran when the prey ran.

And one thing they did NOT do was to place mounds of months old twinkies into 55 gallon drums, haul them into the woods in the spring after the snow melted, and create a junk food dump for bears.

My ancestors did not believe in training bears to come to be shot.

My ancestors, like most Maine hunters, enjoyed the thrill of the tracking and the adrenalin rush of the chase.

Maine Guides go through rigorous training and testing to receive their highly coveted certification. Nearly all serve in the honored, 100 year old tradition of Maine Guides, yet a few, perhaps a small few, find it too arduous to actually guide their instate and out of state charges into an actual hunt.

Instead, these few train the bears with twinkies, or they hire others to do so, and then these few Maine Guides take lucrative checks from their charges for the privilege of leading them to a place where they can sit in their Wilderness Recliners and wait for a bear to come eat a twinkie.

Several years ago, some in Maine tried to ban bear baiting.

This misguided effort was, of course, defeated, and rightly so. A few Maine Guides should have the right, like anyone else to earn a buck by training bears to eat twinkies.

But these few Guides might consider covering that coveted patch on their jacket with cloth when they, themselves, sit on their Wilderness Recliner with their beverage in the cup holder, waiting for the bears to come to the fast food dump so their clients DON'T ACTUALLY have to HUNT.

Peter B. Hayward

Copyright © 2008 Peter B. Hayward. All Rights Reserved

All of my Press Herald blog entries

A Maine Armchair Philosopher blog

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http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/blogs/phpost/034887.html
*

As I wrote in my October 3rd blog entitled Ignore the National Polls, those polls simply represent a beauty contest, a snap shot of how people would vote nationally.

As I wrote, those polls completely ignore one fact:

"every four years we forget that the President is elected by the Electoral College vote and NOT by the total popular vote."

What is important is not the popular vote, (Gore won that in 2000 election). What is important now is the Electoral College (EC) standing, and who gets to 270 EC votes.

For example, one national poll shows Obama at 50% and McCain at 47% in the popular vote. If we just translated those percentages into EC votes, Obama would be standing at 269 EC votes, McCain at 253, with 16 votes undecided.

Instead, due to the undemocratic nature of the EC vote, most pollsters have Obama over the required EC number of 270 with his numbers ranging from 273 to 306 with 91 to 61 undecided.

The major states which are under contest are largely those in my October 3rd blog:

FL (27 EC votes), IN (11), OH (20), NV (5), NC (15), MO (11) -- total 89

Karl Rove, previously Deputy Chief of Staff and chief political adviser to George W. Bush, predicted last week that the EC vote stood at Obama 306, McCain 171 with 61 undecided. Thus, KarlRove&Co. shares with three other sites the high end of the EC estimated standing for Obama.

KarlRove&Co

Obama = 306
McCain = 171
Toss-ups = 61

Rothenberg Reports

Obama = 306
McCain = 163
Toss-ups = 69

Pollster.com

Obama = 306
McCain = 142
Toss-ups = 90

Realclearpolitics.com

Obama =306
McCain = 157
Toss-ups = 75

Rassmussen

Obama = 286
McCain = 178
Toss-ups = 76

New York Times

Obama = 286
McCain = 163
Toss-ups = 89

CNN

Obama = 277
McCain = 174
Toss-ups = 87

Zogby

Obama = 273
McCain = 174
Toss-ups = 91

And there are always outliers; Electoral-vote.com has the following

Electoral-vote.com

Obama = 375
McCain = 157
Toss-ups = 6

If McCain were assigned all the 89 EC votes listed in the 6 toss up states I have listed above (FL, IN, OH, NV, NC, MO), the results would be

Obama = 286
McCain = 252

Thus, to win the election, besides sweeping all these states, McCain would have to steal 17 votes from Obama's assumed total, perhaps by winning rust belt Pennsylvania. While Kerry won Pennsylvania in 2004, that state is rife with Reagan Democrats and went for Clinton in the primaries. However, most polling shows Obama with nearly a 10 point lead there.

Alternately, McCain could peel off Colorado and Wisconsin from Obama's totals, gaining 19 and the presidency. Polling has Obama, however, up 6 in Colorado and 7 in Wisconsin.

For McCain, the biggest problem is that by looking at the pollster.com trend lines for the 6 toss up states I assigned to McCain, Obama is trending upwards in all. Momentum plus staff on the ground is key in most races.

Ignoring trend however, Obama's lead in all but Ohio and Nevada is 2%, thus my projected EC vote today is:

Obama = 311
McCain = 227

(Obama: Ohio, Nevada. McCain: Florida, Indiana, North Carolina, Missouri)

But there are eight days left and time for an October surprise.

Peter B. Hayward

Copyright © 2008 Peter B. Hayward. All Rights Reserved

All of my Press Herald blog entries

A Maine Armchair Philosopher blog

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Permanent web address for this post:

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/blogs/phpost/034810.html

*

Dead Cat Bounce is the ugly name for a standard stock market action.

When a stock has taken a sharp plunge, buyers will sometimes rush in, often not knowing or caring why the stock took this plunge. These players, as they are called, are hoping to make a quick profit on the buy low, sell on a "little bit higher" strategy.

Other traders whose computers are programmed to catch such up movements in stocks that have taken a plunge may likewise buy in, producing a greater upward jump.

A few hours or a few days later the stock is dumped after the small profit is made.

The bounce in the stock and the return to the "floor" is the dead cat bounce.

On September 30, the DOW was at 10,850, Eight trading days later (October 10), it had dropped to 8,451, shedding nearly 2,400 points.

Since that day, the Dow has gyrated wildly, swinging up and down as much as 800 points until yesterday when the DOW closed at 8,519. Yesterday, the DOW had been as low as 8,324.

Even today, from 10:00 to 1:30, the DOW moved from 8,452 to a high 340 points above that, or 8795 and then at 1:00 it was down 400 to about 8,400.

Since October 10, there has been an extended dead cat bounce, or perhaps an extended dead cat dance, as the electrons still left in the market's nervous system twitched.

There is no absolutely no rational trading in this market, there are no market fundamentals to guide traders, no 200 day lines, no break outs.

There is just panic and selling on one rumor and euphoria and buying on another rumor.

Nothing rational happened between 10:00 this morning to make the DOW gain 340 points in an hour only to then 400 within two and a half hours.

Peter B. Hayward

Copyright © 2008 Peter B. Hayward. All Rights Reserved

All of my Press Herald blog entries

A Maine Armchair Philosopher blog

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http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/blogs/phpost/034643.html

*

The signs say Fed Up With Taxes ….

In Massachusetts, there is a referendum on the ballot to repeal the income tax.

No income tax period.

A man from Massachusetts asked me if that is what the sign meant here.

I said sounds like it, doesn't it, but it is actually about a few cents on a can of soda.

Specifically, it is about overturning a bill to fund Dirigo health insurance funded by a tax of 3 cents on a can of soda, tea, etc, 4 cents extra tax on a can of beer, or about a dime extra tax on a normal size bottle of wine.

You are a big drinker, you say?

By the six back, the new tax on soda, tea, etc. is 24 cents on a six back, and 21 cents on a 2 liter bottle; on beer, the increased tax is 18 cents a six back, and if you are a young Trendy who buys your wine at Whole Foods by the case, you are paying out an extra $1.20 for that right.

For fact checkers, the incredibly boring breakdown of these calculations, the Portland Press Herald the base tax figures came from is at the bottom of this blog entry.

So, who isn't fed up with taxes?

What don't you want to pay?

Your property tax -- and forgo local schools, roads, fire, police, libraries, etc.

Your income tax -- and forgo just about everything else.

How about a referendum to do away with property taxes and just stick it all on the income tax?

This will get those with vacation homes off the hook, like those people from away.

Or how about doing what New Hampshire does, and abolish the income tax and the sales tax, and just make property owners pay the full bill.

Three cents, four cents, a dime, eighteen cents for Joe the Plumber after snaking pipes all day?

The data below comes from the March 17 Portland Press Herald article.

There is a NEW soda, tea, etc. tax of $0.42 per gallon, which works out to $ 0.003 per ounce, or $0.04 on a 12 oz can of soda and $0.24 cents on a six pack of soda. A 2 liter bottle of soda will cost an additional $0.21.
($0.42 per gallon/124 oz = $.0033/ounce)

On beer, there is an increased tax of $0.29 per gallon, so that will add $0.03 to a 12 oz can of beer and $0.18 to a six pack of beer.
($0.29 per gallon/128 ounces =$0.0023/ounce)

On wine, there is an increased tax of 35 cents per gallon, so that will add $0.10 to a 1 liter bottle of wine.
($0.35 per gallon/128 ounces = $0.0027/ounce.)

There is a surcharge on paid insurance premiums. This is paid by the insurance company.

Peter B. Hayward

Copyright © 2008 Peter B. Hayward. All Rights Reserved

All of my Press Herald blog entries

A Maine Armchair Philosopher blog

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http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/blogs/phpost/034358.html

OK, now that President Bush made the announcement at 8 AM Tuesday that on Saturday I passionately argued he HAD to make before the markets fully opened, I have now SOLVED the commercial paper crisis :) and I can move on to a much more important world wide concern --- bottled water.

**************

I drink water, lots of water.

Eight glasses of water a day? … That's a child's play. I drink much more.

People think I have a Poland Spring bottle of water surgically attached to my hand, but the truth is it is the Velcro strip that IS SURGICALLY attached to my hand.

Why Poland Spring?

Well, if they serve it on the Sunday talk shows, and if it is owned by Nestle, which makes my favorite candy bar, then it's MY water.

For the first part of this decade, carrying a bottle of Poland Spring water meant you were cool, that you probably went to a gym with carpet and a juice bar, you ate tofu stroganoff and you fed your dog organic dog snacks.

However, now there is a rap against bottled water.

First there is THAT bottle.

It is not bio-degradable and will be in the land fill, if your local community STILL has a land fill, when the sun vaporizes in 5 billion years and spreads the plastic molecules into space to become new planets.

1) Use of Poland Spring plastic water bottles creates space pollution and new planets.

Then, as represented by the brave "Horatio at the Bridge" stand by the voters of Kennebunk, there is a fear that, if Poland Spring continues to suck water from Maine's aquifer, we will all FALL into a gigantic Florida-style SINK HOLE and New Hampshire will have a new coast line.

2) Use of Poland Spring plastic water bottles will lead to new beaches for New Hampshire.

Honestly, none of this concerns me.

I figured that, since I was leaving the massive national debt and cost of Federal entitlements to my grandchildren, I could leave them the sink holes and the plastic in space.

Those grandchildren are pretty darn smart; they will figure out something, or else they will move to Greenland.

However, the last straw was broken when I was walking around Whole Foods waiting for Di to put together her salad to to eat while I had my extra crispy KFC, and I realized the Trendies were shooting harsh glances at my water bottle.

Those Trendies, who carried these very same bottles a few years ago, now think the bottles are dirt, but then, dirt is biodegradable.

So I started on my search for the perfect substitute for my Poland Spring water bottle.

1) The new bottle had to be light.

2) It had to fit into the cup holder of my car.

3) It had to be able to be attached to my hand by Velcro.

Nearly everything I looked at failed my test.

The fat water bottle that the Trendies use at work didn't fit into the cup holder.

An aluminum or plastic coffee mug did fit, but it was too heavy to carry every day.

I COULD refill a Poland Spring water bottle, but the Trendies at Whole Foods wouldn't know it was refilled.

I remembered that Egyptian travel bottles had been woven from reeds, and reeds are very light, but it was not reed season, and with the plastic water bottle attached to my hand, I would not have been able to weave the reeds even if I had them.

Di, my good lady wife, as good an urban gatherer as I am an urban hunter, had long been on the lookout for me. She made countless trips to Kittery to look for the perfect bottle in her favorite stores like Jones New York, Anne Klein, and Liz Claiborne.

She spent hours each weekend, untold hours, wearing herself out looking for the perfect bottle in Kittery, but she came back exhausted, with nothing but a carload of bags.

That's why I love her so much.

And this weekend, she outdid herself.

She burrowed deep into the nooks and crannies of L. L. Bean, handing me each type of bottle she found so I could measure it against the bottom of my Poland Spring bottle for cup holder size comparison.

Nothing fit, and as we were just about to cut our losses and console ourselves with clam chowder and lobster, Di found the PERFECT PLASTIC BOTTLE.

Of course, L. L. Bean, had tucked it away in an odd corner where the young healthy people would NEVER see a bottle in Bean's that fit in a CAR cup holder -- you know the ones who camp outdoors without a tent, pack nothing but wild salmon jerky and freeze dried ice cream and have L. L. Bean outdoor gear for their dogs.

DRUM ROLL … Di had found the CamelBak Better Water Bottle which Bean has for $10.95 in the store and on line. It comes in the same trendy colors that refrigerators now come in. The bottle even has a built in straw, but I will still manage to find a way to spill the water, I'm sure.

A CamelBak Better Water Bottle is already attached to my wrist.

BUT I STILL have a problem.

I am accustomed to having a 24 pack of Poland Spring bottles in the trunk. When I finish one bottle, I put that in my recycle bag and just grab a full one.

I agonized over what to do when I emptied my wonderful new bottle --- where would I get my constant fix of water --- would I be carrying around an empty, but very acceptable bottle?

How I agonized.

Finally, at 2 AM last night, IT came to me.

The SOLUTION.

I headed up the road to Freeport and filled the trunk with 23 more CamelBak Better Water Bottles.

I will fill them from my pallet of Poland Spring bottles also in the trunk.

How simple and elegant a solution.

Peter B. Hayward

Copyright © 2008 Peter B. Hayward. All Rights Reserved

All of my Press Herald blog entries

A Maine Armchair Philosopher blog

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http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/blogs/phpost/034196.html

This is a true story.

At the age of 57, a good friend of mine decided to change careers and give back something to society.

As a baby boomer, she had studied art history at one of the seven sisters, but in the heady days of the early seventies, no one really needed a degree that was related to his or her career and, upon graduation, she found a job as a runner on Wall Street.

Over time, she moved into insurance, then finance, and finally became qualified as a Certified Financial Planner (CFP). In the early 1990s, she transferred from New York to her firm's office in Portland, and continued to do well working with those who wanted guidance or more with their estate planning, asset protection, investments, etc.

In 2004, she took early retirement and entered a clinical mental health counseling program with the goal of working with the elderly after she was certified.

A good student, she got As in her classes, she passed the first national test, passed the practicum where she had 8 clients of her own, and, with the end in sight, she worked to line up her 900 hour internship.

Much like a doctor, mental health professionals have to work as interns under qualified professionals in clinics, hospitals, prisons, etc for 900 hours which is the equivalent of 7 ½ months of working 30 hours a week.

The work is nearly always unpaid. As an intern, the student is exposed to a wide range of mental health issues, and is mentored by a practicing clinician. In addition, the student attends University classes during this period.

Taking guidance from her professors and from the school's internship placement officer, my friend sent letters to or visited 22 clinicians or organizations. In an attempt to secure an internship, she traveled in a circle bounded by Biddeford, Augusta, and Lewiston.

Of the 22, she was invited to an interview by 5.

She was turned down by all, each citing in turn and as if reading from a script that they were looking for someone more "qualified or with more experience"

Oh discrimination so insidious.

All of my friend's classmates were accepted into internships, and she told me that half of them had the same amount of mental health counseling "qualification or experience" that she had -- which was simply having passed all the courses for the degree and the first national exam.

And all those receiving internships were younger. In fact, the next youngest student was 12 years younger, and the youngest had simply graduated from college and gone straight into the counseling program.

She asked me what life experience I thought those 24 year olds could possibly bring to a counseling session.

In one interview, the interviewer asked my friend whether she thought she could empathize with the issues facing late 20 and 30 year olds, even though the interviewer, herself, was older than my friend.

In another interview at a University mental health clinic, my friend was told that "students these days really like to talk to people closer in age to themselves."

The person stating that, she learned later, was just five years younger than herself.

So, after having paid out $22,000 to the University for her classes, with no internship she withdrew from the program.

Life experience and wisdom just isn't what it's cracked up to be, at least not when it comes to clinical mental health counseling.

Peter B Hayward

A Maine Armchair Philosopher

Permanent web address for this post:

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/blogs/phpost/034181.html

To get away from the madness in the stock exchanges, my wife and I went to Freeport on Sunday, stopping first at the fantastic bead shop there, Beadin' Path.

What a totally glorious day for walking and shopping in Freeport: crystal clear blue sky, just the right temperature, the brilliant reds, oranges and yellows of the leaves, and the right sized crowds.

While there, Di, who is a water color artist, and I wandered north on Main Street and found an absolute treasure --- one that art lovers MUST visit.

At 140 Main Street, next to the Catholic Church and across from the Post Office, is FREEPORT SQUARE, an enormous, light and airy gallery with a large representation of Maine artists. The works are nicely displayed, and given the size of the gallery, there is not the crowding of the art found in typical galleries.

The owner, Kathleen Meade, has works waiting to be displayed and artists in line, so art lovers making regular visits to Freeport Square will not have that feeling that "I have seen all this before."

Too often those of us who want to build our collections, or maybe just want to see fresh new work, fail to break out of the mold of the "same old - same old."

Freeport Square is a wonderful find for us, and I hope will be for you.

And, for party lovers, given the gallery's size, beautiful hard wood floors and art covered walls, Freeport Square is also a great place to consider for private parties (and then later the group can skip down the street to L. L. Bean for 24 hour shopping.)

Freeport Square
140 Main Street
Freeport, Maine 04032
207-865-1616
www.freeportsquare.com

The hours are listed as Wednesday to Sunday, 10 AM to 8 PM
and Monday and Tuesday by appointment or chance.

Peter B. Hayward

Copyright © 2008 Peter B. Hayward. All Rights Reserved

All of my Press Herald blog entries

A Maine Armchair Philosopher blog

Join me for daily tweets at twitter.com/pbh444

Permanent web address for this post

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/blogs/phpost/034159.html

Anyone reading my blogs on the zigs and zags of the proposed bailout of the credit system will know that I have LITTLE faith in the ability of the Federal government to do the RIGHT thing in a timely fashion.

To me, TIMELY means NOT at the end of the October, but immediately as the British government did last week when it injected 50 Billion Pounds into its credit banking system, which, on a comparable GDP basis, would be equivalent to a $500 Billion injection here.

The Brits didn't need to meet with the G-7 and the IMF to get their approval as our government seemed to have to do this weekend; the Brits just did it.

Imagine what would have happened if Secretary Paulson had immediately injected the $700 Billion in the fashion I had proposed on September 29 by lending the banks the money, or alternately by purchasing preferred equity, as he now seems to be "dabbling" with.

On the 29th of September the Dow Jones Industrial was at 11,139. At close on Friday it was at 8,568, a loss of 2,571, or 23%.

I don't read tea leaves, but it's my bet that with a quick injection on the 29th or 30th, the Dow would be much higher than it is right now, and the PANIC selling by hedge funds, mutual funds, and institutions would not have happened.

What we have right now is panic, stark panic.

People, and not just investors, are terrified.

People are bailing out of the stock market because there was no immediate bailout, and we have, I fear, passed the point where people can believe that any new action by the government WILL return the market to sanity.

People have lost trust in the Federal government because it has appears to have lost its ability to lead.

The hedge funds are causing much of damage in the market. Hedge funds are somewhat like mutual funds, pooling money from RICH customers, many from overseas, and then using that money to buy stocks, some on margin. Buying on margin is what caused the 1929 stock market crash.

Panic from customers of mutual funds is also driving the downward spiral. In September, over $70 Billion was pulled out of mutual funds, and another $50 Billion was pulled out in the eight trading days of this month. The market simply cannot absorb that many shares in an orderly manner.

Finally, there is program selling by stock brokerages and massive selling by institutions such as pension funds, college endowments, insurance companies, etc.

Observe when Friday's sharp 6% drop occurred -- in the first 7 minutes.

That is when the hedge funds came in to cover margin calls, when the program selling kicked in because of the free fall, and when the mutual funds where dumping the stocks because of the customers' overnight requests.

It is not now a time to worry about how a strong decisive action taken by the Federal government will look to, or be interpreted by partisans on the fringes of either party.

It is time for the politicians, and the Secretary, to rise above politics and save the economy.

Our strong democracy can take bold actions and survive.

By Tuesday morning when the market reopens, investors, hedge funds, institutions, and holders of 401Ks will have had the three day weekend to worry, to listen to the analysts, and to wonder what to do.

Secretary Paulson, reportedly, does not intend to undertake his injection of Billions into the investment banks through the purchase of preferred stock for another two weeks. Apparently he wants to wait for the banks to ask for the money instead of making it appear that the Federal government is taking a unilateral action.

It has been less than two weeks since September 29 and the market has fallen 23%.

Another drop like that will get us down to 6,600, a level last seen in the mid 1990s.

If we don't have a BOLD and almost SHOCKING announcement from Washington by 9 AM Monday* about an IMMEDIATE $1 to $2 Trillion injection into the credit markets, I suggest you watch the market opening at 9:30 on Monday morning.

The opening drop will be awesome.

We will never see a drop like that again.

(Unless it occurs again on Tuesday because there is no announcement by then.)

********

Now....can an investor recover from his or her losses?

Yes, certainly.

Can and should an individual make purchases in this market?

Yes, certainly.

I will discuss these matters on Tuesday at noon.

Peter B. Hayward

Copyright © 2008 Peter B. Hayward. All Rights Reserved

All of my Press Herald blog entries

A Maine Armchair Philosopher blog

Join me for daily tweets at twitter.com/pbh444

*An earlier version of this blog misstated the day on which the NYSE and NASDAQ will open. Although Monday is a Federal Holiday, those markets are open that day. The Bond Market is not open.

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Nine days ago, on September 29, I explained in my blog post here, why the original Paulson plan was wrong and what the bailout SHOULD look like.

1) I noted that the White House and the Congress needed to think outside the box in rewriting Secretary Paulson's misguided proposal, because Paulson's imperial proposal simply removed from the investment banks' books billions of dollars worth of mortgage derivatives for which a market value could not established.

2) I explained how most of the mortgages in the derivatives were actually good, and that the derivatives did have value. That value was difficult to determine at this moment in this crisis, but that it could be determined if the derivatives were held to maturity.

In that post I wrote:

"My solution: the Federal government should authorize the Federal Bank to LEND up to $700 billion to those banks IN THE US holding these derivatives at a to-be-decided interest rate that is slightly higher than the normal rate. Banks would use the mortgage derivatives as collateral for this loan but would be required to hold these derivatives to maturity."

Two days after I wrote this, ex Secretary of the Treasury Paul H O'Neil
spoke publicly for the first time on the bailout, calling it "crazy" and called for approximately the same solution I did -- (quoting from the Denver Post's interview with O'Neil): " To replenish capital in banks, the government should make 20-year loans to institutions and charge 2 percentage points above the government's borrowing rate".

If the bailout had been structured as I proposed, as an immediate loan, the banks would have that $700 billion THE DAY AFTER THE BAILOUT WAS SIGNED, not by the end of October as Secretary Paulson now plans.

Credit would have started flowing again, and confidence would have returned to the entire economy, and not just the markets.

The failure to resuscitate the economy immediately by directly injecting the $700 billion into the economy means credit markets in the US are NOW illiquid with no or very little money being lent at the highest levels -- the levels that make the economy work.

For example, companies cannot get short term loans to tide them over until their customers pay at the end of the month; this usually means the company may not make payroll or pay its own creditors.

States often take short term loans to cover government costs while waiting for tax revenues to come in.

The Los Angeles Times has reported that California may need an $7 Billion emergency loan from the Federal government to carry on normal governmental activities this month that it would otherwise fund by short term borrowing until tax revenues came in.

Municipalities, states and companies cannot issue long term bonds for projects because the interest rates now being quoted for those bonds are, in some cases, triple what they were three weeks ago.

As a result of this credit freeze, the US stock market has dropped to levels not seen since the beginning of the decade, wiping out Billions of dollars of paper value.

And this lack of liquidity has become a world wide problem: Japan's stock index fell 9% yesterday, its biggest drop in 20 years, and the markets in London, France and Germany have fallen since Friday by 12%, 14% and 14%.

Today the Federal Reserve Bank announced a 0.5% cut in the Federal Funds rate to 1.5%, coordinating this cut with similar 0.5% cuts by the European Central Bank, and the central banks of China, Great Britain, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland and Saudi Arabia.

As of 1 PM today, the stock markets of London, Paris and Frankfurt showed little confidence in these rate cuts, with all three down nearly 6%. The Russian exchange was closed until Friday after a 14% drop in the first half hour. The Dow was flat, less than 1/10 of 1 % from its opening.

So now what?

The Congress needs to return to Washington tomorrow and do a BAILOUT OF THE BAILOUT, unanimously passing legislation to inject between $700 Billion and $1 Trillion IMMEDIATELY into the credit markets.

We need a Congress of national unity and a nation-wide awareness of what lies ahead if this is not done.

America should NEVER AGAIN be held hostage by politics as it was between the first and second versions of the bailout. The economy should not be governed by the political whims of a few.

If this is not done, our economy will NOT wait until the end of the month for the Government to inject money through buying the derivatives.

By then, our nation and the global economy WILL, not may, be in a depression deeper than that of the 1930s, and once there, it could take years for us to crawl out.

Peter B. Hayward

Copyright © 2008 Peter B. Hayward. All Rights Reserved

All of my Press Herald blog entries

A Maine Armchair Philosopher blog

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Permanent web address for this post

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/blogs/phpost/033991.html

*

There's about a month to go.

With the VP debate over, the media will now breathlessly announce moves in the national Presidential polls.

The media does this because it is part of the 90 second WOW factor: the polls' moves get the viewer's attention, and the media has led the viewer to believe that these polls are meaningful.

But in truth, the national Presidential polls have little predictive power because every four years we forget that the President is elected by the Electoral College vote and NOT by the total popular vote.

The United States is the ONLY nation with its leader elected in this undemocratic manner. Three times in the nation's history, the Presidential candidate who won the popular vote has been denied office by the winner of the electoral vote (2000, 1888, and 1876).

By focusing on the results of the national polls, the media is simply telling us what the popular mood is, and what the popular vote total would likely to be if the election were held on the day the poll was taken.

This year, 270 Electoral College votes are needed to attain the Presidency. Based on state polling, states are assigned to candidates as being "Safe," meaning the state is fully expected to go for one of the candidates, "Likely," "Leans," and "Neutral or Toss Up."

For example:

Texas is safe for McCain -- California is safe for Obama
Georgia is likely for McCain -- Maine is likely for Obama
Indiana leans towards McCain -- Oregon leans towards Obama.

Typically, Presidential candidates do not campaign for the popular vote but
for the electoral vote, and especially for the electoral vote in Neutral or Toss Up states.

To follow the true ebb and flow of the Presidential election, follow the state polls and the standing of the candidates in Electoral College projections. Pay special attention to the states that are listed as Neutral or Toss up College projections.

I believe the election will be decided by the electoral votes of just six states: Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio, and Virginia.

Your key states may be different, but that is the beauty of handicapping the election yourself instead of depending on the media.

Several sites that collect all available national and state polls and visually display Electoral College projections are

Pollster.com,
Realclearpolitics.com,
Fivethirtyeight.com,
Electoral-vote.com,

Other sites can be found by Googling.

Peter B. Hayward

Copyright © 2008 Peter B. Hayward. All Rights Reserved

All of my Press Herald blog entries

A Maine Armchair Philosopher blog

Join me for daily tweets at twitter.com/pbh444

Permanent web address for this post

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OK, the bailout plan went down in flames.

Let me get one big misconception out of the way: the proposed bailout would NOT have allowed people to live in their houses and pay no mortgage payments. (I heard that gem in Ri Ra) It was NOT the people who were being bailed out.

As I explained in my blog post on Friday, the plan dealt with bailing out banks, mostly New York and foreign banks with branches in the US that had the poor judgment to buy mortgage derivates. These banks bought lots of this stuff, but their smart MBA trainees could have told them that:

1) Housing prices in certain parts of the US cannot go up at 15%-25% a year without retreating someday, leaving people with a house worth much less than their mortgage

2) If you give people 100% mortgages with no credit check, many of those mortgages will fail

So, how many of those Trillion dollars of derivatives are bad?

Absolutely no one has any idea.

Our Portland mortgage is probably in a derivative package because we refinanced in 2004, and since we have never missed a payment, it may be classified as good; the so-so mortgage in the package is thus called because several payments have been late, but does the existence of a weak or failed mortgage with a good and a so-so mortgage make this derivative without value? Hardly.

Banks hold these derivatives as assets and collateral against which to borrow and then lend massive amounts of money. Seemingly to down play the credit crisis, the Press Herald ran an article Saturday proclaiming that people still were getting car loans; the credit crisis is not YET about car loans (but WILL be if not contained).

The crisis right NOW is about massive loans called commercial paper and lines of credit that make the American economy function.

Last week, Maine DOT was unable to auction $50 million in transportation bonds because no one was lending that much at a normal rate. Maine was offered 9% on the bonds instead of the normal 3.9%. There is talk on the web about large corporations that cannot buy supplies and make their payrolls because many depend on short term loans to tide them when they have cash flow problems such as when customers pay slowly.

Derivatives are structures meant to reduce risk. If the "bad" mortgage in the package fails, the so-so and good mortgages would still give the derivative value. The banks bought derivatives knowing THIS risk. Thus, the banks should NOT be rewarded for their folly for failing to see the weakness of the housing market. Banks should act like any other player in the stock market, and, since they cannot sell these derivatives, the banks should hold this paper to maturity.

The true crisis in the economy is liquidity -- the banks holding the derivatives cannot use the derivatives as assets and collateral to make the economy run.

Secretary Paulson originally framed the liquidity crisis by proposing a buyout of the derivatives, and the Congress walked in lockstep with that concept. The result was a public uprising on both the right and the left.

Congress needs to do what it failed to do over the last 10 days; it needs to consult the top economics in the US and the World -- no economists were consulted as of Sunday -- and Congress needs to THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX.

LIQUIDITY CAN BE RETURNED TO THE MARKET WITHOUT

BUYING THESE VOODOO INSTRUMENTS AND WITHOUT

THE GOVERNMENT REWARDING THE BANKS' INVESTORS

My solution: the Federal government should authorize the Federal Reserve Bank to LEND up to $700 billion to banks IN THE US holding these derivatives at an interest rate that is slightly higher than the normal rate. Banks would be required to use the mortgage derivatives as collateral for this loan. They would have to hold these derivatives to maturity or replace them with an asset of equal value.

This simple action is guaranteed to instantly return much of the needed liquidity to the US market with no complicated Federal ownership of mortgages, banks, etc. There would be no smell of socialism.

Finally, two things:

1) The Federal government needs to return to the problem of the sub-prime crisis by dealing with people who bought houses to LIVE IN and freeze their resetting Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMs) for 12 months. This will allow the homeowners the time to change to a traditional 30 year mortgage. The Feds should not rescue people who bought houses, condos, etc. to flip.

2) The stock market must be re-regulated. Banning naked short selling in any stock is absolutely essential; continuing the current ban on all short selling of the basket of financial institutions and troubled institutions is also essential.

3) The mortgage market must be re-regulated. The transparency of financial statements that resulted from the enforcement of Sarbanes-Oxley must be extended to complicated financial instruments such as derivatives and the more than $45 trillion of credit default swaps.

Peter B. Hayward

Copyright © 2008 Peter B. Hayward. All Rights Reserved

All of my Press Herald blog entries

A Maine Armchair Philosopher blog

Join me for daily tweets at twitter.com/pbh444

Permanent web address for this post

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*

It is estimated that there will be more than 6 million foreclosures in the next few years.

I want to make one thing perfectly clear from the outset: the bailout plan as originally proposed by Secretary Paulson was not to help homeowners who were in danger of losing their homes in the subprime mortgage crisis. The Paulson bailout was aimed at rescuing the Wall Street institutions that hold the mortgage derivates.

Paulson (and now much of the Congress) want to do this because derivatives were purchased as assets to increase the banks' liquidity, but with the value of the derivatives now BELIEVED to be unknown, the banks cannot use these as collateral. Thus, the credit markets are freezing up.

And what is a derivative? Once upon a time when I was young, a bank made a mortgage and "owned" the house, receiving a monthly stream of payments. The more mortgages it made, the more income, the more it could turn around and use the money to lend out again.

However, to reduce the risk of bad mortgages, clever investment bankers bought from banks good, so-so, and poor mortgages, packaged them in units with maybe 1000 good, 1000 so-so and 100 poor mortgages, and offered this package for sale. Sometimes, this package was sliced into manageable dollar amounts, but was still comprised of good, so-so, and poor.

For all the hype, Wall Street is always not moved by technical analysis or deep knowledge. Instead, the market is moved by naked emotion, by the herd instinct. Witness the wild swings this last week as Wall Street reacted to each rumor about the progress of the bailout and the Dow went up and down 100s of points. 99% of the individual Dow stocks have nothing to do with the derivative crisis.

Six weeks ago, Wall Street decided these derivatives were worth little. Economists had known that the number of poor or bad mortgages were growing, but NOBODY had or still has knowledge of the true value of the derivatives. Wall Street's emotional opinion and the subsequent naked short selling caused the downfall of AIG (which guaranteed the value of these derivates).

Paulson is not trying to help Joe and Mary whose ARM is resetting and whose mortgage payment will go up by $1,000s. Instead, he wants to buy these derivatives, which he calls "toxic," so banks can have more money to lend to business, for car loans, for more mortgages, etc.

We have been side tracked by Paulson from the debate that went on last year in Congress about relief for home owners like Joe (freezing their ARM payments for 2 years, etc). That legislation would have made the derivatives whole again.

Finally, Paulson's, and now Congress' plan to purchase the derivates begs the question: what will the banks sell the derivatives for? If the banks sell the derivatives to the government at fire sale prices, the liquidity returning to the bank will be little. If the government pays the bank close to the original price of the derivative and makes the bank almost whole, the government will NEVER make any money when it resells these sliced and diced securities.

My suggestion to solve this crisis is two pronged and will appear on Tuesday..

Peter B. Hayward

Copyright © 2008 Peter B. Hayward. All Rights Reserved

All of my Press Herald blog entries

A Maine Armchair Philosopher blog

Join me for daily tweets at twitter.com/pbh444

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