IS TIMOTHY GEITHNER HEADING FOR THE UNEMPLOYMENT LINE?

Can the treasure secretary, Timothy Geithner, make money flood through the national economy by sucking up 500 billion dollars of toxic assets? (translation of toxic assets: poorly researched items to make fast money which were loans to people who were too poor to pay them off and the greedy bastards who wrote them new it!)
Mr. Geithner, perhaps anticipating the opening market wrote a op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal Sunday, and when he unveils this plan on Monday, March 23, 2009, in reality he is fighting to keep his job. By the end of this week, he too, could be gainfully unemployed.

Welcome to the 5 million unemployed workers club, Tim!

Ultimately, I think what people are looking for in these hard times, is a scapegoat. Someone to hang all their frustration on, and politically Geithner is a excellent target. Why? Because he didn't do his own taxes right? Didn't fully disclose his plan in the first place? No, it's because the dude has no back bone. There are a lot of prissy congressional and senatorial scapegoaters that are hunting for blood. And his generally appearance of some geeky virgin right out of MIT does not really help any.

The basic idea that Treasury department has to keep the country making money is to buy up all the greedy assets and then sell them to anybody willing to take it off there hands. With the government involved there is a private-public sell off of these assets. But the catch? Oh, yah there is a catch.. The government, as well everyone else, really does not knows how much money these assets are worth. So the investment will be guaranteed by the government which means they may have to fork over more money if some of the asset don't actually make money. Sound like a plan? Perhaps not the plan the Republicans want, but since they are so busy being the “party of never say yes” at least someone seems to be doing something.

But what really bothers me about the whole thing? That Geithner has the Sword of Damocles above his head, and that hands above that sword are lining up to push it in to his vitals. I say this only to point out I would never want to be in his shoes. But it does not look good for him, mainly because of the search for the commy-under-the- bed sort of mentality that is all the rage in Washington. When I see Barney Frank lately, (who I liked for his fire and in your face attitude) I have a feeling that he thinks that AIG is not in the business of making money but becoming his personal serfs. All this atmospherics maybe causing over indulging hysterics. Who's with me in that? I can only feel sorry for the Geithner dude, and I can only hope, as the markets make money or tank, he grows some major balls by today some time.

SNAIL JOURNALISM AND SNAIL MAIL NO LONGER A MONEY MAKER:

The Rocky Mountain News could no longer make money. It died on February 27 2009. The U. S. Postal Service is hoping to early retire 150,000 workers to save money. Why? The Internet. The economy, the unemployment, but mainly the Internet.
For nearly 150 years the Rocky Mountain News has cranked out hundreds of thousands of dead trees, pulled out 4 Pulitzer Prizes, and in the end lost money, and made 230 people gainfully unemployed.

For over 234 years, the Postal service has delivered mail through out the United States and the rest of the world, but in the end is not making money. This year alone, the Postal service has lost about 2.8 billion dollars.

Is snail Journalism dead? Is snail mail dead? Not entirely. Even Fedex which had been steadily making money for the last few years, reported a 75% drop in profits shares. Why is all this important? Why is the New York times, and now Seattle Post-Intelligencer going the way of the Internet? Again it is the Internet, the economy and unemployment, but I think mainly the Internet. Do you really have to have the snail mail delivery your cell phone bill? You can use a pay system on your bank website. How your cable bill, your credit card bills, or your mortgage.
How about love letters or the the way sons and daughters send money to their family? Through the mail? With Moneygram and Western Union online now?

With economy still tanking, and unemployment heading toward 9 % nationally, it is in the interest of major newspapers and the Federally run postal service to rely on the Internet to make money.

I thought I would just point that out.

And, as I thought about this, it occurred to me that one way people are making money online now is email marketing.
But be warned Spam need not apply here. Direct marketing Association reports that email based marketing will get you $43.52 dollars in return investment. And, although down from last year, companies are still making money from email marketing.


WHO IS MAKING THE MONEY?


According to Merkle database marketing agency, the the winners this year is Permission email. Merkle estimates that 55% promotional email is never even opened. This is a dilemma. But only for for those marketeers so desperate to make money. Clearly the winners are those companies that know who they are marketing to. It is knowing the customer, not the random crap that you get in email that makes the real money.

--Courteous Navigator

ATLAS SHRUGGED, TEA PARTIES, BERNIE MADOFF: COMPASSION IS FOR SOCIALISTS?

Ayn Rand's prophetic 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged, has gained quite a bit of attention lately. With the "gojohngalt" site and the very hot Filipina American blogger Michelle Milken, Ayn Rand's book has reemerged as a very important conservative talking point. Wikipedia describes it as "the role of the mind in man's life and, consequently, presentation of a new morality: the morality of rational self-interest."

And the plot basically is very dramatic, that any one could find appealing. Again, Wikipedia.

The main crux of the book surrounds the decision of the "men of the mind" to go on strike, refusing to contribute their inventions, art, business leadership, scientific research, or new ideas of any kind to the rest of the world. Each man of ability eventually reasons (or is convinced) that society hampers him with unnecessary, burdensome regulations and undervalues his contributions to the world, confiscating the profits and sullying the reputations he has rightfully earned.

And while conservative pundits and radio peronalities make money off this there is another element at work: various conservative groups have formed "tea parties" as a way to protest the policies of the Obama administration.

It is here that if, in fact, you are 1). unemployed. 2) looking for a job on your own and need no hand outs, you may be wondering would in the world is going on! All these protests and talking points seem to have disconnection. Are these protesters of the current administration really talking about the threat of socialism and how they helping the unemployed workers who are willing to work?

Ayn Rand's personal and philosophical believes that emerge in this book, come from the knowledge and personal hardships of living in a Socialistic and totalitarian society. Yet, her views are so over compensating for what she saw that transferring them to a American society seems rather harsh and cruel in the end. This total believe in pure capitalism without any sympathy for the down-trodden may attract such people like the lovely Michelle Milken(although I believe she suffers from a racial identity crisis believing herself to be a anger white Conservative), it seems to me that the reason so many have brought up Atlas Shrugged, is the same reason I brought it up.

To make money.

Of course Michelle Milken ranks far better than me. And writing on Atlas
Shrugged keeps her high on the search engine. And on GoJohn Galt site(Galt referring to the pure capitalist protagonist of the story), not only attracting rather shady and egocentric and potential racists, he is actively seeking and trying to make money--like me. Note the Amazon links he has on his page. You think he doesn't get any money for referring to that book?

What disturbs me about the whole concept is the over compensation factor. Over inflating some misguided belief that Obama is turning America in to a socialist state. I would be willing to believe it, if i saw it happening.

Another important point is this: If you believe in the basic purism of this book's philosophy, there is no room for altruism. No room for helping others. Is that really what America is about.? A capitalism so pure it forgets the basic principle of culture of caring for those around you? Is this the conservative mantra now? Those that seem to speak for the rich or the conservative rich, are they speaking for everyone that is wealthy, or are they so alienating themselves from the hard working blue collar types or even the middle class?

Would not Bernie Maddoff be the 'Galt' if he had not been caught? Could he not be a poster boy for the pure capitalist system that some seem to want?

And now the economy sinks us lower. Those like myself that have never taken a hand out, and always worked for my food, what of us in this pure capitalist world? We listen, and we watch as some wealthy and employed whine, and all the while they do not see us. They alienate us.

--Courteous Navigator

Obamaton Or Just Wanna Make Money?

Apparently, I am a Obamaton. And I thought I was on blogspot trying to make money.(Sadly this is something that has not yet happened, no surprise.)

Okay, before I get into the subject of making money online,which is the exact reason I am here, let's digress to a definition: From the Urban dictionary:

"fan" (Note: Fans =/= Supporters) who is in such a state of being because of Obama's eloquence; one who hasn't even bothered to fairly compare his platform with other candidates' platforms. Pun on the word "automaton".

This was actually posted on the Urban Dictionary site on February 4, by Johnathan Andrew.It appears to be a rather new term haunting cyberspace. Yet, I had found it hilarious. Not only because someone thought I was one of THEM, but also because the term has it's place in this society.

Here is what happened. Just like any body trying to make money online, I was doing my daily backlink building. I came across a interesting article. I posted a comment here:

#http://www.americanconservativedaily.com/2009/03/views-on-the-news-2282009/#

Now, I tend to write long posts. This one was, perhaps, a bit too one sided? Whatever the case, I ended up getting dumped on. The article,Views on the News by a very talented conservative writer, was a long affair. In some cases, well argued. However, I thought it was inevitable colored with way too many stereo-types and sound bites that conservatives often use to place blame on others(meaning liberals), thus making them impervious to any concept of objectivity. Now, I am objective enough to say that liberals have taken on this curious and poor argument style of rationalization. However, this is my opinion, and I wish for you look at the article yourself.

So here I am trying to build my pathetic little money thing, when I crossed swords with fellow posters. I made what I thought was a valid argument. After all, the Stimulus bill was basically an attempt to put money in the hands of the average American. Well? maybe. The jury is still out on that one. The author of this piece insinuates that the markets "going south" as he puts it, is totally the fault of this president. Mmm, maybe? Or maybe it's because we are in a Recession. Here is a snippet from my post:

And talking about the Stock market? I mean, sorry man, liberal or conservative, this argument really does not seem credible. I mean, are we to live and die by this market? The Dow Jones in Dec 2007 to Jan. 21,2009 when Obama became president,already shed about 5,000 to 6,000 points. Unless somehow you are able to blame him for that? I mean I am not exactly a liberal, but I am willing to put whole blame on either Bush or Obama.

Now I thought that was a pretty lucid argument to make. No, I guess not. I forgot one thing about human nature. If your views are so strong in opposition, nothing one says can be ever construed as a valid argument.

This is what I got in response;

Your lack of knowledge of how markets like the stock market work is evident and you are, in my opinion, an Obamaton trying desperately to make it sound like you are not an Obamaton trying to make excuses for markets that are heading south because of Obama’s long term policy plans.

Is this the end of the moderate view point? Must I be pigeon-holed. All they had to do was click on my site and see I was trying to make money online(all be it naively so).

Okay, let's regroup. My "babbling" is well defined and I am totally owned by someone that 1) clearly does not have any moderate and compromising views on politics, and 2) So desperate to find an enemy to latch on to they most coin words to put them in their place.

Classification: Obamaton.

What is lost here?

I am not a student of history, but it safe to say that politics in this country has been deeply poisoned by such lack of moderate communication. Having said that, I see a deeper dilemma. A nation that is suffering from a very deep recession, two wars, and sinking employment rate, I see this inability to compromise in tone as a schism that will tear American apart. When, it seems to me we need unity more than ever. Art of compromise, dead? Let us hope not.

-Courteous Navigator