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Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Passing the Buck Since 1994

I read a very interesting article about a letter faxed to an old employee of Bain Capital, signed by Mittens himself.  He claims he didn't cause the layoff of this employee and the shut down of the entire business he worked for because, he had "left Bain in 1994" and so was not responsible at all for what happened.  Sound familiar?


http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-05-21/read-the-fax-romney-sent-to-a-laid-off-worker



And apparently the guy has a whole box of stuff he's kept (against his wife's wishes because of the clutter) that details a lot of stuff that happened while he worked  under Bain's watchful care.


http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-02-23/mitt-romneys-box-of-kryptonite

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

If You're Upset About The Quote "If you've got a business...you didn't build that", Then You Must Be A Moron


You've seen it, I'm sure, the "If you've got a business...you didn't build that" Obama quote. It's plastered all over Facebook and more than likely, in your inbox. You've probably even re-shared it with your friends, enraged by the audacity of our president to make such a condescending claim. But did you read or hear the rest of his speech? That quote, in context, is clearly not the message depicted in two sentences:


"There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.



The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires."



The point he's making isn't that small business owners don't exist or that they don't deserve the credit for being successful. In fact, he said the opposite, "we succeed because of our individual initative". If you want to make something happen, it's up to you to make it happen.  If you're successful, you should be proud of your success.  The point he's making is that there were people in your life who helped you get where you are today. Either you went to school and learned how a business works, you had a mentor, you had people who invested money into your start-up business, you had parents who taught you, you read books, etc. No one is successful without having the knowledge to get there, and no one is born with knowledge in their brain of how to start a business. It is learned through study or experience. Someone wrote the textbook that you read, or taught you how it's done. 


You cannot wake up one day and invent quantum physics without having studied or been taught the underlying principles that allow you to arrive at the conclusion. Maybe it was Einstein's teacher who told him he would never amount to anything that pushed him to be inquisitive, fueled with creativity, and broadened his horizons just to prove his teacher wrong.  He wasn't born with the theory of relativity in his head, there were people and prior knowledge out there that aided him in the discovery that ultimately, with his individual initiative, reached. 


By posting a meme like that you are displaying your own ignorance. It shows that you, just like FOX and CNN, only read the first line of a report and make false judgments, or like a million other people on Facebook, you can't think for yourself. I don't care if you like Obama, or Romney, or Ron Paul; HAVE AN ORIGINAL THOUGHT. If you have such a strong opinion about a topic, you had better know the topic before you preach it. 



Just because I disagree with what you may believe does not mean that I think you're wrong. If you feel strongly about something, wonderful, tell me why you believe that so strongly. If you do not have a logical explanation with real facts to support your belief, than you make it very difficult for me to respect you or your opinion. I can't respect your insistence on having a voice when you insist on being an uniformed puppet of propaganda. 

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts.
Besides, this speech has been given before:






Monday, July 16, 2012

Obituary for Eh, Steve?

Eh, Steve? (2010 - 2012) passed away peacefully in his sleep July 15, 2012. Survived by Jake, Hannah, and his neighbor Dennis the Hermit Crab. Eh, Steve? lived in his small aquarium located above a rolltop desk in Jake's bedroom. Eh, Steve? was friendly and inviting to everyone, and loved to have company. Whenever someone walked into the room, he swam happily over to greet them.

Eh, Steve? enjoyed tutoring Jake in such subjects as accounting, corporate finance, statistics, and business law. He enjoyed listening to music, and his favorite band was Jimmy Eat World. He loved life, and he loved his friends. Eh, Steve bravely battled a common fish disease for over a year, with dry peeling scales and torn fins. He responded positively to medication that successfully restored his fins to their natural length and beauty, but ultimately could not conquer the illness or the side affects of the treatment.

Eh, Steve?, no fish has, nor will ever be loved as you were. You made the sun shine on a rainy day, and warmed our hearts in the dark of night. On behalf of those of us privileged to have shared the past year and a half with you, you will be greatly missed.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

The Problem With Today's News

"The media's the most powerful entity on Earth.  They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power.  Because they control the minds of the masses." Malcom X

"A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier. " H. L. Mencken

Last Thursday I witnessed what news networks are really all about: being the first to report, regardless if the facts are there.  I don't doubt that each network had prepared days in advance multiple different stories and scenarios to begin with, and as the facts came in, would tailor their stories to the facts.  But the Supreme Court issued a document nearly 150 pages long explaining the ruling, so how could anyone decipher the complexities of the bill and its explanation of existence in less than a day?

I personally have lost all faith in news networks.  Too often we forget that the news, like sitcoms, is driven by ratings, advertising, and feedback from focus groups.  Each network has some kind of angle to every story, because  "good television" is more important than honest straightforward facts.  "Good television" allows for opinion to be masqueraded as fact.  

Networks know they can play on our competitive nature because "good television" evokes emotion in the viewer.  No matter what happens in Washington, you will turn on the news to see a "win for the Republicans today" or "a devastating blow to the Republican party" depending on the channel.  Thursday was a montage of contradicting statements of whether Obama's campaign hung in the balance or if he would gain momentum, depending on the each channel's chosen side of the political spectrum.  It's almost as if there is an invisible scoreboard of victories and losses that drive the stories that are aired like a countdown to the superbowl. Chalking up wins or a losses skews the way Americans view current events.

The media  also plays on our innate sense of justice and injustice.  When a crime is committed the villains and victims are immediately identified by the networks.  The recent case of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman comes to mind.  Depending on which channel you watch, Zimmerman was a racist, cold-blooded killer, or Martin was a dangerous hoodlum who had it coming.  The only people who know what transpired that night are Martin, Zimmerman, and God, and yet Americans pretend to know "what really happened."  And before you know it, what the murder case is "really about" is racism, class, and status.

Casey Anthony, Amanda Knox, and O.J. Simpson are good examples of media villains.  Blood for blood was demanded by the reporters, but in a court of law there was not enough evidence to convict any of them.  By digging up enough information to create a colorful past, the media convinced viewers that these lowlifes were definitely capable of murder.  Nobody knew who Casey Anthony or Amanda Knox were, but over night they were hated by all America because we were convinced they are murderers.

I'm all for freedom of speech, but it is unethical to report opinion as news.  The way news is reported today is shameful.   In the eyes of the netorks, Americans are too stupid to understand current events and come up with our own opinions.  We're told exactly how to feel, and we're blinded from seeing the more important issues.  It shouldn't be about which political party comes away with a win, but did we as Americans win?  In the case of healthcare, did Americans overall win from the Supreme Court Ruling?

Maybe we are too stupid to come up with our own opinions.  We like be told what we want to hear because we're afraid the truth may evoke a sense of duty to act and remove ourselves from complacency .  We like to pick villains and heroes.  We like to see our heroes as invincible, and we're willing to overlook our heroes' flaws because we like to hate the villain more than we like to love our hero.  We like to point fingers and pretend we are experts on everything.  We enjoy telling others why they're wrong, especially when we know that we're wrong.  We enjoy believing that underneath every executive decision lies a bigger cinematic plot bubbling to escape.  

Each political debate in which we engage is about who's a better debater, when it should be what is the right answer?  The media preaches only black and white, right and wrong, good and evil, and those are defined completely different by each station.  Deep down, I think Americans know that there are not two solutions to every problem, but that's what we've decided to accept.