Random Ideas

Who would have predicted to return of Reagan’s economic idiocy? Republicans in New York and other financial centers are once again touting the theory that if we charge less tax to corporations and rich people, the money will “Trickle Down” to the rest of the economy. I was born at night, but not LAST NIGHT! Corporations have already shown what they will do with the money. AIG partied like maniacs with bailout money. Other companies who have gotten give-backs from unions and lower level employees have ELIMINATED jobs and tried to bring in cheaper workers from other countries. They have taken assets offshore to avoid taxes and generally flaunted the fact that when they do wrong, they are largely untouchable.

On the other hand, New York City has become a dictatorship run by an attempted “Mayor For Life”. Bloomberg has hampered efforts to control the rougue agency known as the MTA. When they see advantage to it, they act as a private company. When cornered about breaches of ethics and laws governing corporations, they are suddenly a city agency. A city agency that is in no way officially answerable to anyone. They raise the rates and leach off taxpayers at will. People working for minimum wage are paying full time salaries to fat managers who outnumber actual workers by a ridiculous margin and paying for them to have a free car and fuel to run it on. When there is a public outcry, the gluttonous management point to a select few who “double dip” the pension system and scam the overtime system. When they run out of people who played the system at the lower levels, they vilify the union in general as the true cause of the public’s woes, while cutting services and raising rates. All supported by the mayor and other key people in government. This makes people feel insecure enough to think they need a “money man” in the mayor’s office. So the City council gets pressured until the term limit laws are set aside, without any attempt to give the people of the city any choice in the matter. Now, it already looks like he will try it again! Term limits were put in place democratically, they should not be removed in any other way.

The wonderful land of the Scotts has now been revealed to either be run by morons, or run by BP sell-outs. The “terminally ill” murderer of Lockerbie has now been revealed to be in wonderful health. How could the Dr. make such a mistake? Maybe his equipment malfunctioned? Could the samples been mixed up? No. He was simply paid off by a Lyban sympathetic BP. WHy would BP work with a country with such a history of evil and pay for the release of a man who is evil incarnate? Oil. Plain and simple. It’s the same thing that has lead Sarah Palin to sell out the great state of Alaska. It’s the money gotten from oil that has lead the Republicans and some Democrats to accuse our government of being too hard on the company that has, trough penny pinching and other unethical measures, destroyed a huge part of our ecosystem. The same company who created the worst oil disaster in history… Wouldn’t it be scary if they were the same ones who bought the freedom of a mass murderer in Scotland… Oh, wait, IT IS! I am finding it hard to think of a more evil company outside of the tobacco industry.

If these acts of evil bother you, act on it. No, do not throw mud. Do not throw anything or break anything. Simply pull across the street and buy gas at another place. The consumer has the power to kill a company by choking off their income. Vote with dead presidents.

Many of you may have read the recent remarks by Apple representatives about netbooks… They generally denegrated the platform and called them “cheap and flimsy” if memory serves. They claimed that low quality was the only way the price could be so low.

I am going to have to call BS on all counts. I happen to own an ASUS  1000HA. I have it dual booted with Windows XP and Ubuntu 9.4. I also have done various levels of support and repair on Apple computers and laptops for the last 12 years. What Apple fails to admit is that every time they tried to make a small machine similar to netbooks, they ended up with junk. Case in point the Macbook Air… No physical network port? Are they NUTS? (Yes, they are.) Larger machines, they make very nicely (although they are still over priced in the extreme). Ever since they failed at the Newton and the Powerbook Duo, Apple has had a chip on their shoulder for the subnotebook/netbook category. Add to the issue that a refurbished, off brand netbook can easily be made to run the latest Mac OSX and you have a very sore spot for a proprietary company that is used to charging two thousand dollars for a small form factor laptop.

Apple is going to have to grow up and deal with the fact that zealots are not the end all, be all of marketing. At some point, you have to actually give the market what they want to stay in business. They learned that with the iPod and the iPhone. The iPhone is merely a better version of the touch screen phones that Palm, Audiovox, HP, and many others have been selling for years with great success and considerable proffit. The iPod is just an improved MP3 player. MP3 players were popular in the market before the iPod and will always be.

I think they need to stick to actual advantages in their product line rather than propaganda that insults other manufacturers to sell their product. Either that, or admit that they lack to intellect and skill to compete in the netbook category.

There was an email that went out today from a major medical teaching and treatment center. I have removed certain information that they may consider private to them. Please read it and take action.

Subject: New York State Budget Negotiations – Impact on Hospitals

WE NEED YOUR HELP: The New York State Legislature and the Governor’s Office are now in negotiations regarding the State Budget. While negotiations are on-going, under the current proposals the Medical Center stands to lose significant resources. Other medical centers would also experience significant losses. Cuts of this magnitude will seriously jeopardize our ability to meet the needs of some of the patients who come through our doors each year by forcing cuts in essential healthcare services, as well as limit our ability to invest in the latest medical technologies and make much-needed improvements to our infrastructure.

I urge you to send an email from your personal computer and personal email address to Governor Paterson and key Members of the New York State Legislature, opposing the proposed cuts to Graduate Medical Education (GME) funds to our Medical Center and the gross receipts tax (a tax on our total revenues). The email can simply say:

“Please oppose cuts to Graduate Medical Education and the imposition of a gross receipts tax, as proposed in the New York State Budget discussions.”

Please send your email in opposition as soon as possible to:

Governor David Paterson- www.ny.gov/governor/index.html and go to the bottom of the page and click on “Contact the Governor”.

Speaker Sheldon Silver- Speaker@assembly.state.ny.us

Assembly Health Chair, Richard Gottfried- gottfrr@assembly.state.ny.us

Assembly Member Jonathan Bing- bingj@assembly.state.ny.us

Assembly Member Brian Kavanagh- kavanaghb@assembly.state.ny.us

Senate Health Chair, Tom Duane- duane@senate.state.ny.us 

Senator Liz Krueger:  lizkrueger@gmail.com

You may also want to email your own Assembly Member and Senator about these proposed cuts and ask them to oppose the cuts too. To find your Assembly Member and Senator you can go to the website of the Healthcare Association of New York State at http://capwiz.com/hanys/state/main/?state=NY and put in your zip code.

Your support on this issue can make a big difference in the outcome of the budget negotiations. Thank you for taking the time to voice your views on these important issues.

As of 2/27/2009, HSBC chose to “reduce risk” by cutting credit limits across the board on an entire line of credit cards. They made this choice without any connection to the credit rating of the customers or their payment history. On top of that, they are not allowing any apeals to this punishing of their own customers. The reduction has been by as much as 90% in some cases.

This move is one that stinks of desperation. Considered along with increasing cuts in service and interest rates on accounts with them, and truly astounding layoffs, it makes me feel like I need to find a safer place for my accounts. Let’s face it, if they are willing to do something this stupid and revenue limiting, they must truly be close to the brink of disaster. Other cards have lowered limits and increased fees and rates on cards, but HSBC is the only one I have seen reduce a limit by 90% on a customer with a credit rating above 700 who had a spotless payment record and multiple accounts with the bank. Far be it from me to give financial advice, but I know I am looking for a bank that is not headed for the drink to put my accounts at.