Reporter doesn’t like Bush’s presence in Iraq.

The act has significant cultural meaning and apparantly there are now rallys to free the reporter who through the shoes.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFJzJGs07iQ

With some goading I got my wife to go with me to an election watch party for Obama supporters at Gilley’s near downtown Dallas.  Gilley’s is a large country resteraunt/bar that hosts many private parties/functions for large groups.  I highly recommend the venue for business parties.  If you’re in Dallas and throw a party be sure to send me an invite or send me a tweet on twitter.  I’ve been to a couple of events at Gilley’s including the IHG Investor’s Conference party and I haven’t been disapointed.  They even have a mechanical bull.

This was the first time I’ve been motivated enough to go to a watch party on election night.  Usually I just watch it at home on TV and go to bed disapointed in the past 2 elections.  This experience was a good one.  Seeing the energy of the crowd regardless of affiliation is definitely invigorating to say the least.

There were plenty of TV’s at Gilley’s and of course the bar in case you need to celebrate or drown your sorrows should your candidate not win.

Below are a few pictures:

I should have worn a bigger shirt. I definitely need to hit the gym.

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Going out to vote gives you pride of being part of the Democratic process our forefathers envisioned.

Election day is about the people’s choice in choosing their government. This is America so it is also an opportunity for savvy companies to get some free promotion for their products. Some companies are offering freebies on election day to encourage people into their stores. Coincidentally many of these businesses are suffering poor sales. In any case they are getting free publicity from these “freebies.”

Most states have laws to prevent paid voting so no proof of voting is required for these offers:

•Coffee – Starbucks is giving out free 12-ounce drip coffees (valued at about $1.75 each)

•Doughnuts – Some 85 of Krispy Kreme’s 231 locations in the U.S. will hand out star-shaped, red-white-and-blue sprinkled doughnuts “while supplies last,” and will give out about 200,000 doughnuts valued at 99 cents each.

•Ice cream – Between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. in each time zone, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream shops will hand out single-scoop ice cream cones (a $3.40 value).

Personally I’ll avoid any place giving out freebies. I hate lines and I won’t wait in line for a “free” .99 donut. The ice-cream may be a different story. )

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This site was even rated by Forbes on their Best of the Web list in the Market Data category. It certainly can’t be that expensive to keep this site up and the value to cost has to be through the roof. The only conclusion I could come to is that this data is inconvenient. The administration is trying to paint a rosier picture of the economy and cold hard data doesn’t support that image.

Upset with this, I did a search to find out if I can get more context around this event. I stumbled upon The Carpetbagger Report. They mentioned this shutdown as well as several other actions to make inconvenient data unavailable.

* In 2005, after a government report showed an increase in terrorism around the world, the administration announced it would stop publishing its annual report on international terrorism.

* After the Bureau of Labor Statistics uncovered discouraging data about factory closings in the U.S., the administration announced it would stop publishing information about factory closings.

* When Bush’s Department of Education found that charter schools were underperforming, the administration said it would sharply cut back on the information it collects about charter schools.

- The Carpetbagger Report

Regardless of political affiliation, this is disturbing. Government should move towards more transparency not less. Reducing public information is the characteristic of a closed society not a free one.

I encourage you to write to your congressman/woman to let them know this is not right. Last I checked that information is still available.

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Of course I’m talking about inflation, the silent mugger that robs you of your buying power.

Here’s an excerpt from a newsletter I receive from the President of Everbank World Markets:

The Fed has turned its back on inflation folks… And here’s some items that you won’t see in the CPI data…
1. Grade-A Large Eggs – Dec. 06 $1.54 a dozen… Dec. 07 $2.10, and current $2.73 a dozen… That’s up 36% in a year!
2. White Bread – Dec. 06 $1.13 a loaf… Dec. 07 $1.28 a loaf, and current $1.62 a loaf… That’s up 12.6% in a year!
3. Whole Milk – Dec. 06 $3 a gallon… Dec. 07 $3.87 a gallon, and current $3.93 a gallon … That’s up 29% in a year!
4. Fresh Whole Chicken- Dec. 06 $1.06 per pound… Dec. 07 $1.17 per pound, and current $1.19 per pound… That’s up 10.3% in a year!

These are the things I talk about all the time, in that an individual can feel the inflation eating away at this wallet… This is just some simple food items… I’m not even talking about things like: Tuition… Insurance… Medical… Movie tickets… And so on…

The Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us that inflation is running at 4.1% a year. I guess things average out, but to an individual where the household’s largest expense is housing, auto/fuel, and groceries I can’t imagine that 4.1% would hold. It is just a hunch, but the last time I bought groceries with my wife (and paid attention) I thought she was crazy because the bread was $1.99 and the milk was $3.99. I told her “I swear milk is only 2 something and bread is under a dollar.” She pointed out that you can’t even buy generic bread/milk at that price. Certain I was right, I did the right thing and shut up and Google’d food inflation stats when I got home. Sure enough it was confirmed. I was living under an inflationary rock this whole time. Prices were stable for so long that I stopped paying attention to stuff like milk prices.

One thing to note is that much of the inflation in food is caused by transportation costs (fuel). High oil prices have a direct impact on food inflation. In fact it is felt more so in Asian countries where the rate of oil consumption is going up faster than the U.S. This is yet another reason why we must strive to encourage mass transportation, less urban sprawl, and alternatives to our oil-based vehicles.

The other factor that certainly can’t be dismissed is our monetary policy. The Fed cut rates down to 3.5% last week. I suspect that today we’ll be looking at 3.00% after today’s FOMC meeting. This will further stoke inflation and reduce the dollar’s value. Since most good we purchase are foreign it reduces our buying power. I guess a nice indicator to watch is to see if Wal-Mart keeps “rolling back” prices as our dollar devalues. I believe they are the largest importer of Chinese goods now of all the chains.

Well I mentioned food, but what about housing? Housing will be pumped up or at least not allowed to deflate with these current low rates. In addition there is some work going on to increase the FHA loan guarantee limits to upwards of 729K from a current 362K (for high cost areas). There is a general concensus that some areas of the U.S. such as San Francisco are as much as 30% overvalued. By passing this type of regulation the Fed doesn’t allow prices to come back in line. This gives the false impression that prices can’t fall. This is exactly the type of interest rate policy that caused the housing bubble in the first place. When I buy a stock at say $100 and then earnings don’t materialize, it may fall to $80. That’s the market. I don’t have the government stepping in to try to boost it back up. That just wouldn’t make any sense from an economics perspective. I sort of went on a tangent, but my point is housing inflation will continue as long as we keep printing money.

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Looks like the economic stimulation package is going to pass through Congress. So this may leave you with a few questions: 1. How much do I get? and 2. What am I going to spend it on?

I can’t tell you what to spend it on, but if you want to get an idea of how much you might receive I found this – The Olathe News Tax Rebate Calculator. Unfortunately I’m not receiving anything back. I guess it is fortunate that I’m earning enough to not qualify. In any case it would have been nice. Even if I received the rebate I would still disagree with it.

The stimulus package does more than rebates.

The Package:

• To address the mortgage crisis, the package raises the limit on Federal Housing Administration loans from $362,000 to as high as $729,750 in expensive areas, allowing more subprime mortgage holders to refinance into federally insured loans.
• For consumers, up to $1,200/family
• The package would allow businesses to immediately write off 50 percent of purchases of plants and other capital equipment and permit small businesses to write off additional purchases of equipment.

Notably Absent:

• No extension of unemployment benefits.
• Removal of ability of businesses incurring losses now to reclaim taxes paid in past years.

There are a few things that concern me. The rebate is slated to be 1% of our GDP. Now I really doubt that it will move the economy much. In fact most of our consumption is on foreign goods. Of course our economy is 60% services so a good chunk would get spent on domestic services. In any case I think it to be inefficient.

Another concern I have is the cost – $100 billion. Putting cash in the hands of consumers is not what I consider a stimulus. It is irresponsible at best. What really stimulates the economy is investment in capital goods. The 50% capital equipment writeoff is a good start, but I think more targeted tax cuts would do a better job then giving away cash to consumers. This is a stop-gap measure that at best will have a very short-term effect of delaying a recession or at best provide a few quarters of flat growth.

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I just saw a Rudy Giuliani campaign ad today on youTube. It was disgusting.

All I can say is, tell me you don’t want this guy in office. He’s a 1-trick pony and terror-monger. So how did he fair in Iowa?

“The Democratic Iowa Caucus began at 7 p.m. CT, January 3, 2008. Participants in the Iowa Caucus were as follows (in alphabetical order by last name).

Democrats: Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson

Republicans: Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, John McCain, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson

First in the Democratic caucus was Barack Obama, followed by John Edwards, then closely by Hillary Clinton. The other candidates scored much lower, none receiving any potential national delegates.

Mike Huckabee won the Republican process, followed (in order of votes) by Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, John McCain, and Ron Paul. Rudy Giuliani and Duncan Hunter came in below Ron Paul, who took the last potential national delegates.”
-courtesy of wikipedia

So Giuliani did very poorly in Iowa.  I would much rather have a current NY City mayor Bloomberg run.  He’s good with money.  He doesn’t need the money.  He’s a billionaire.  He seems genuine and he’s done a bang-up job with NY City.  He has shown a focus on performance and accountability including his own.  Read this NY Times article to see more about his performance.   NY City is a tough city to manage.  What’s the phrase?  If you can make it in New York you can make it anywhere?

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I spotted this sign in the median outside our local target while driving. I did a double-take and did a u-turn to make sure I saw what I thought I saw.  I did when I got home.  Campaign 2008 should be interesting.  He won’t be getting any new coverage unfortunately from Fox before Iowa.

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If you’re like me then you love the internet. I mean without the internet how would I know how to spell words or make informed choices. Politics is no different. The internet is proving to be a very useful tool in choosing your candidates. Without information, you would simply vote for the guy who “looked nicer” or the one that appealed to you on that day you decided to pay attention. No more indiscriminate choices. This is an important decision and you owe it to yourself to test yourself. Test who you think aligns with your beliefs instead of being sold. Buy your candidate with an informed vote. Don’t let the candidate get pushed on you.

If you want to find out how your values/beliefs align with the candidates, visit Glassbooth and fill out their survey. It’s all about politics and is non-biased. It will show you how your thoughts line up with the candidates. Once you have your candidates in descending order, you can cross reference every candidate with every issue and see where they stand, what they’ve said, and how they’ve voted. It is a great site that’s educated me quite a bit. I’m avoiding the media noise, and using these type of tools to make an informed decision in ‘08.

My quiz shows me aligning with Kucinich. Not much surprise. The candidate chart showed the same result. What is surprising is that if I didn’t use this quiz or the presidential candidate matrix that I blogged about in an earlier post, I was leaning to someone that didn’t even show up on the charts of either. What does that mean? Well it was either the day I paid attention to the television or he was wearing a nice suit that day. This is why you have to pay attention to the issues and be as objective as possible.

Everyone should vote. If you don’t you can’t complain.

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The Revolution Begins

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