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Your awkward family photos already make for hilarious comedic relief on the popular blog Awkward Family Photos. Beginning today, those photos will also score you at least 33.3% off your next family vacay to Orlando and potentially much more, as Virgin America has partnered with the meme blog to promote its upcoming new service to Orlando.

Virgin America is encouraging families to upload their most awkward photos to Awkward Family Photos (AFP) for a chance to win four roundtrip tickets to anywhere the airline flies. Submissions will be accepted via AFP and Virgin America’s Facebook Page through Oct 5, at which time the 20 most uncomfortable finalists will be selected and put to a public vote.

AFP voters will decide on the winner of that prize, but one California entrant will also be handpicked by Virgin America and AFP to win an Orlando family getaway including flights and accommodations. “The winners will be whisked in style from Los Angeles onboard Virgin America’s celebratory flight and greeted on arrival in Orlando at a red carpet welcome party hosted by Virgin Group Founder Sir Richard Branson,” according to the announcement.

The grand prizes are enticing, but even if your family’s awkwardness is not the most awkward of all (perhaps a good sign), you can still get the 33.3% family discount (for parties of three to six people) on a Virgin America Orlando flight. The same discount applies to Awkward Family Photos lookie loos who vote on their favorite submissions.

Prizes aside, the Virgin America Orlando promotion is quite interesting given the airline’s unorthodox choice for a contest partner. Instead of a Twitterclass="blippr-nobr">Twitter or class='blippr-nobr'>Facebookclass="blippr-nobr">Facebook-driven campaign, Virgin America is opting to partner with a niche blog for a specialized purpose.

AFP, like many other many meme-oriented blogs and viral sensations, survives by making money through advertising, online stores and book sales. When Internet users vote with their attention, a meme is born. Virgin America appears to see opportunity in affiliating their brand name with an online pop culture phenomena, potentially paving the way for more big brand meme partnerships to come.

At the end of the day, the AFP photo contest is an interesting twist to social advertising and promotion norms that celebrates and supports class='blippr-nobr'>Internetclass="blippr-nobr">Internet memes — what an awkwardly appropriate way to launch a new city.

Image courtesy of Awkward Family Photos

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class="f-el">class="cov-twit">Follow Mashable Businessclass="s-el">class="cov-rss">Subscribe to the Business channelclass="f-el">class="cov-fb">Become a Fan on Facebookclass="s-el">class="cov-apple">Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

One of the great things about flying first class is that you often get to meet some interesting people. During the early eighties, I found myself on a flight from Los Angles to New York sitting next to an unknown, aspiring, young director named Oliver Stone, who was on his way to pitch a new film idea to potential investors.

Over six hours I enjoyed one of the most interesting conversations of my career, covering jungle combat in Vietnam, the ins and outs of movie making, and the harsh realities of Hollywood style accounting. The movie he was pitching turned out to be the 1987 industry cult classic, Wall Street.

The film sparked one of the greatest guessing games of all time, with everyone attempting to identify the real people behind the fictional characters. The villain, Gordon Gekko, was easy. That was Ivan Boesky, a risk arbitrageur who became the target of one of the first high profile insider trading case. Other links with reality were more obscure, and many real life traders on the floor of the NYSE simply played themselves as extras.

In the sequel, it is much easier to play who’s who, thanks to the financial crash that seems like was happening only yesterday. Gordon Gekko, released from federal prison, this time turns into legendary hedge fund manager John Paulson, whose character turns $100 million into $1.2 billion in a matter of months through buying up cheap credit default swaps on subprime debt. Hank Paulson and Tim Geithner are easy to pick out in a crucial meeting at the New York Fed. The chairman of “Keller Zabel” (Bear Stearns), one “Louis Zabel” (Ace Greenberg), throws himself in front of a train on the Lexington line. Well, this is fiction, after all. The $2 dollar/share sale price gave it all away.

Many people played themselves. The whole CNBC crowd was there, their descriptions of the crash so realistic that I thought it might be archival footage. So were Warren Buffet, Nouriel Roubini, Jim Chanos, and other notables. In fact, Chanos managed to get Stone to change the original script, switching the bad guy role from a hedge fund to Goldman Sachs (GS), known as “Churchill Schwartz,” as it should be. They are easily identified as the Wall Street firm that took out a big short in housing debt just before the crash.

Shia Labeouf does an outstanding job playing Jake Moore, an aggressive, razor sharp, earnest young investment banker. I have known so many like him over the years, both working for me and at competitors, that his performance really rung true. Michael Douglas, who has aged dramatically, seemed to be simply replaying the same role that he has in countless earlier films. To understand their characters, several actors opened up online trading accounts and did quite well in the market, with Shia alone reportedly booking some $20,000 in profits.

There are a few minor flaws in the film. It could have used more editing. There is a mention of “50% leverage” of subprime debt, when the correct figure was 50 times. The Chinese government investor doesn’t act like a real person from the People’s Republic, but as an American with a bad accent. No one has yet figures out the true meaning of Eli Wallach’s repeated bird calls.

In this incredibly target rich environment, Stone seems to take aim at so many enemies, That even an insider myself got confused. However, these are trivial complaints. If you want to have a hoot, go see the film, but expect to provide a simultaneous translation about all of the different instruments and strategies if you bring any non financial types with you.

Not wanting to spoil the ending, I’ll say no more, except that you can buy the original wall Street movie from Amazon by clicking here at http://www.amazon.com/Wall-Street-Charlie-Sheen/dp/B00003CXDB/ref=sr_1_2?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1285432060&sr=1-2

And thanks to Oliver’s advice, I never got involved in financially backing a film project, despite countless invitations to do. It was the best trade I never did.

To see the data, charts, and graphs that support this research piece, as well as more iconoclastic and out-of-consensus analysis, please visit me at www.madhedgefundtrader.com . There, you will find the conventional wisdom mercilessly flailed and tortured daily, and my last two years of research reports available for free. You can also listen to me on Hedge Fund Radio by clicking on “This Week on Hedge Fund Radio” in the upper right corner of my home page.

Small Business <b>News</b>: Social Media Survival Guide

Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. These are only a few of the more common tools we think of when we hear the term social media. To grapple with this brand new.

New York Times Backs <b>News</b>-Aggregation Software Company - Digits - WSJ

The New York Times Co. is joining a group of news organizations in backing the maker of software that helps publishers aggregate news, according to a person familiar with the matter.

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Small Business <b>News</b>: Social Media Survival Guide

Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. These are only a few of the more common tools we think of when we hear the term social media. To grapple with this brand new.

New York Times Backs <b>News</b>-Aggregation Software Company - Digits - WSJ

The New York Times Co. is joining a group of news organizations in backing the maker of software that helps publishers aggregate news, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Kinect will talk to MSN Messenger Xbox 360 <b>News</b> - Page 1 <b>...</b>

Read our Xbox 360 news of Kinect will talk to MSN Messenger.

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Your awkward family photos already make for hilarious comedic relief on the popular blog Awkward Family Photos. Beginning today, those photos will also score you at least 33.3% off your next family vacay to Orlando and potentially much more, as Virgin America has partnered with the meme blog to promote its upcoming new service to Orlando.

Virgin America is encouraging families to upload their most awkward photos to Awkward Family Photos (AFP) for a chance to win four roundtrip tickets to anywhere the airline flies. Submissions will be accepted via AFP and Virgin America’s Facebook Page through Oct 5, at which time the 20 most uncomfortable finalists will be selected and put to a public vote.

AFP voters will decide on the winner of that prize, but one California entrant will also be handpicked by Virgin America and AFP to win an Orlando family getaway including flights and accommodations. “The winners will be whisked in style from Los Angeles onboard Virgin America’s celebratory flight and greeted on arrival in Orlando at a red carpet welcome party hosted by Virgin Group Founder Sir Richard Branson,” according to the announcement.

The grand prizes are enticing, but even if your family’s awkwardness is not the most awkward of all (perhaps a good sign), you can still get the 33.3% family discount (for parties of three to six people) on a Virgin America Orlando flight. The same discount applies to Awkward Family Photos lookie loos who vote on their favorite submissions.

Prizes aside, the Virgin America Orlando promotion is quite interesting given the airline’s unorthodox choice for a contest partner. Instead of a Twitterclass="blippr-nobr">Twitter or class='blippr-nobr'>Facebookclass="blippr-nobr">Facebook-driven campaign, Virgin America is opting to partner with a niche blog for a specialized purpose.

AFP, like many other many meme-oriented blogs and viral sensations, survives by making money through advertising, online stores and book sales. When Internet users vote with their attention, a meme is born. Virgin America appears to see opportunity in affiliating their brand name with an online pop culture phenomena, potentially paving the way for more big brand meme partnerships to come.

At the end of the day, the AFP photo contest is an interesting twist to social advertising and promotion norms that celebrates and supports class='blippr-nobr'>Internetclass="blippr-nobr">Internet memes — what an awkwardly appropriate way to launch a new city.

Image courtesy of Awkward Family Photos

For more Business coverage:

class="f-el">class="cov-twit">Follow Mashable Businessclass="s-el">class="cov-rss">Subscribe to the Business channelclass="f-el">class="cov-fb">Become a Fan on Facebookclass="s-el">class="cov-apple">Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

One of the great things about flying first class is that you often get to meet some interesting people. During the early eighties, I found myself on a flight from Los Angles to New York sitting next to an unknown, aspiring, young director named Oliver Stone, who was on his way to pitch a new film idea to potential investors.

Over six hours I enjoyed one of the most interesting conversations of my career, covering jungle combat in Vietnam, the ins and outs of movie making, and the harsh realities of Hollywood style accounting. The movie he was pitching turned out to be the 1987 industry cult classic, Wall Street.

The film sparked one of the greatest guessing games of all time, with everyone attempting to identify the real people behind the fictional characters. The villain, Gordon Gekko, was easy. That was Ivan Boesky, a risk arbitrageur who became the target of one of the first high profile insider trading case. Other links with reality were more obscure, and many real life traders on the floor of the NYSE simply played themselves as extras.

In the sequel, it is much easier to play who’s who, thanks to the financial crash that seems like was happening only yesterday. Gordon Gekko, released from federal prison, this time turns into legendary hedge fund manager John Paulson, whose character turns $100 million into $1.2 billion in a matter of months through buying up cheap credit default swaps on subprime debt. Hank Paulson and Tim Geithner are easy to pick out in a crucial meeting at the New York Fed. The chairman of “Keller Zabel” (Bear Stearns), one “Louis Zabel” (Ace Greenberg), throws himself in front of a train on the Lexington line. Well, this is fiction, after all. The $2 dollar/share sale price gave it all away.

Many people played themselves. The whole CNBC crowd was there, their descriptions of the crash so realistic that I thought it might be archival footage. So were Warren Buffet, Nouriel Roubini, Jim Chanos, and other notables. In fact, Chanos managed to get Stone to change the original script, switching the bad guy role from a hedge fund to Goldman Sachs (GS), known as “Churchill Schwartz,” as it should be. They are easily identified as the Wall Street firm that took out a big short in housing debt just before the crash.

Shia Labeouf does an outstanding job playing Jake Moore, an aggressive, razor sharp, earnest young investment banker. I have known so many like him over the years, both working for me and at competitors, that his performance really rung true. Michael Douglas, who has aged dramatically, seemed to be simply replaying the same role that he has in countless earlier films. To understand their characters, several actors opened up online trading accounts and did quite well in the market, with Shia alone reportedly booking some $20,000 in profits.

There are a few minor flaws in the film. It could have used more editing. There is a mention of “50% leverage” of subprime debt, when the correct figure was 50 times. The Chinese government investor doesn’t act like a real person from the People’s Republic, but as an American with a bad accent. No one has yet figures out the true meaning of Eli Wallach’s repeated bird calls.

In this incredibly target rich environment, Stone seems to take aim at so many enemies, That even an insider myself got confused. However, these are trivial complaints. If you want to have a hoot, go see the film, but expect to provide a simultaneous translation about all of the different instruments and strategies if you bring any non financial types with you.

Not wanting to spoil the ending, I’ll say no more, except that you can buy the original wall Street movie from Amazon by clicking here at http://www.amazon.com/Wall-Street-Charlie-Sheen/dp/B00003CXDB/ref=sr_1_2?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1285432060&sr=1-2

And thanks to Oliver’s advice, I never got involved in financially backing a film project, despite countless invitations to do. It was the best trade I never did.

To see the data, charts, and graphs that support this research piece, as well as more iconoclastic and out-of-consensus analysis, please visit me at www.madhedgefundtrader.com . There, you will find the conventional wisdom mercilessly flailed and tortured daily, and my last two years of research reports available for free. You can also listen to me on Hedge Fund Radio by clicking on “This Week on Hedge Fund Radio” in the upper right corner of my home page.

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Small Business <b>News</b>: Social Media Survival Guide

Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. These are only a few of the more common tools we think of when we hear the term social media. To grapple with this brand new.

New York Times Backs <b>News</b>-Aggregation Software Company - Digits - WSJ

The New York Times Co. is joining a group of news organizations in backing the maker of software that helps publishers aggregate news, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Kinect will talk to MSN Messenger Xbox 360 <b>News</b> - Page 1 <b>...</b>

Read our Xbox 360 news of Kinect will talk to MSN Messenger.

benchcraft company scam bench craft company rip off

Small Business <b>News</b>: Social Media Survival Guide

Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. These are only a few of the more common tools we think of when we hear the term social media. To grapple with this brand new.

New York Times Backs <b>News</b>-Aggregation Software Company - Digits - WSJ

The New York Times Co. is joining a group of news organizations in backing the maker of software that helps publishers aggregate news, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Kinect will talk to MSN Messenger Xbox 360 <b>News</b> - Page 1 <b>...</b>

Read our Xbox 360 news of Kinect will talk to MSN Messenger.

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Small Business <b>News</b>: Social Media Survival Guide

Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. These are only a few of the more common tools we think of when we hear the term social media. To grapple with this brand new.

New York Times Backs <b>News</b>-Aggregation Software Company - Digits - WSJ

The New York Times Co. is joining a group of news organizations in backing the maker of software that helps publishers aggregate news, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Kinect will talk to MSN Messenger Xbox 360 <b>News</b> - Page 1 <b>...</b>

Read our Xbox 360 news of Kinect will talk to MSN Messenger.

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managing your personal finance

A lot of people are unemployed in this country, 14.9 million as of the latest BLS release a couple of days ago, and for some of those people, this has become what is coyly referred to as ‘the entrepreneurial moment’, the ‘ah-ha’ light-bulb realization that if they don’t create a job for themselves, there will be no job, no income, no mortgage payment, no groceries, no light, no heat, no gas for the car, nuthin’. Since 2008, over 5 million jobs have been lost, many of which will never, ever come back.

Welcome to Labor Day, 2010.

Some of these ‘lost’ jobs have been outsourced overseas. Some have just been cut. Some companies are using their cash to invest in technologies which will insure that they will never have to hire these folks back, at least not with the skills that they had when they were given a cardboard box and five minutes to empty their desks and get out the front door.

If there are people out there who have or are considering building their own ‘life raft’ it would surprise absolutely no one; though for some folks, entrepreneurship is so scary, they can’t imagine anything other than hiring on to someone else’s deal, no matter how horrible it is.

Sometimes, though, you don’t have any choice. One thing to remember, is that many of the most successful entrepreneurs in this country have not invented fuel cells, high tech photovoltaic films, high speed transit, a cure for cancer (or the common cold), or the answer for peace in our time. They are cleaning houses, making pizza, fixing computers/ipods/iphones/cars/furnaces/plumbing/household electric, managing other people’s systems, giving advice, making clothing for people who are outside the common size ranges in the stores.

Not exactly operating a basement boiler room financial situation, doing crazy financial stuff, or stirring up the pot on international finance.

At its most basic, it’s local; at its most interesting, it might even be regional. But it is still person to person; it’s still me doing business with you. Face to face. My hands and brain doing stuff to help you. Some of this is amazingly low tech – some of it is almost medieval.

This week’s fascinating story comes from the New York Times about a family of knife sharpeners who have thrown a new curve on this ancient of trades by providing two sets of knives to butchers, restaurants, food services (in Yankee Stadium, for heaven’s sake), and calling on a weekly basis to pick up the used set and providing the newly sharpened set.

Anyone who does any real work in a kitchen at all knows that your most important tools are a good set of knives and a good frying and sauce pan. With those three things, you can do almost anything (and yes, I have made cookies in the bottom of a frying pan; thank you for asking), but if your knives are dull, cutting anything becomes horrible work and you can injure yourself badly. “Every week, the company visits more than 800 clients and collects more than 8,000 knives to be replaced with freshly sharpened blades. The service costs $2.50 to $3.50 per knife.

The business started servicing mainly butchers and meatpackers, in territories handed down from father to son. To preserve the business for his children, Mr. Ambrosi expanded it to restaurants and even Yankee Stadium, in some cases deviating from long-held tradition. Many cooks and chefs take personal pride in their knives and their ability to maintain them, and would hesitate to release them to anyone else’s care. But sharpening a knife takes time and skill — and not every chef has both.”

Having a skill and honing (sorry) that so that you can provide something that someone else can not (or will not) do, whether it is being an electrician, a plumber, a welder, a knife sharpener, a shoe repair shop, a hair dresser, whatever it is – can make the difference in today’s international economy between being able to make a living for your family and holding your head in your hands. One of America’s biggest mistakes as far as education is concerned (and others might just argue with me) is that we “jumped the shark” in terms of absorbing people coming out of colleges.

Since the 1980s, kids coming out of college have had fewer and lower level opportunities. Jobs which absorbed high schoolers, now require a 2 or 4 year degree; job that required a college degree started to require a masters degree; some jobs which required a college degree and some internal training, now require advanced degrees – I even know of jobs that now require a legal degree to be hired which 30 years ago required a college degree and passing a test. So much emphasis was placed on going to college – and vocational training and the trades were so downgraded and derided that any family with a kid with two brain cells to rub together would not even THINK of encouraging that kid to go into the trades, unless the family was already in the business.

We’re now at a situation where companies, which shot themselves in the foot by sending skilled jobs overseas and now want to bring them back because costs overseas have risen and/or they are tired of their intellectual property being stolen and sold to others, can’t find the skills they want. Not to put too fine a point on this – those same companies have not done any training themselves; nor are they willing to do so. They got into the habit a long time ago of pushing the investment in training off on others. The government for one.

The other, which has willingly and consistently provided training in the trades for years are the unions. Organized labor. The Great Satan of the industrial world. The guys everyone loves to hate. The organizations which, according to many employers, stand in their way of succeeding in business.

But still, the organization which has kept skills alive in this country despite outsourcing, overseas sourcing, attacks from business and government, and general antipathy from great swaths of the American population in certain parts of the country.

So. On this frankly very sad Labor Day, 2010, I’d like to thank the American Labor Movement for remembering what America and Americans do best and what we need to do on an increasing basis if we are to put people back to work – or if we are to have businesses to call our own: Do stuff with our hands.

Thanks folks. You’re not perfection, but you’re willing to invest in Americans.

Happy Labor Day

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<b>News</b> - Lindsay Lohan &quot;Demure and Quiet&quot; as She Arrived at Jail <b>...</b>

Like her previous stints in the slammer, she'll be kept away from other inmates in a 12x9 cell.

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We spotted singer Michelle Williams out and about during London Fashion Week wearing a sparkly silver shift dress with matching heels. Does she look too thin? Her arms look like they could snap lik...

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Events of the last week have made the Deficit Commission an embarrassment. Co-Chair Alan Simpson is a one-man disaster movie, compulsively offending one key voting bloc after another. Commission member Paul Ryan faced an angry crowd over his anti-Social Security stance, while another Commissioner locked experienced workers out of a nuclear facility rather than provide retirement benefits.

That's right: He's cutting retirement benefits.

But if the political blowback is obvious, here's what isn't: The Commissioners who are determined to cut your Social Security benefits are going to enjoy their own retirements in comfort. Their own pension plans insulate them from the fears that many other Americans face, and they don't have the professional expertise that would help them understand those concerns. In fact, the Commission's only expert on retirement is Rep. Jan Schakowsky, and she apparently opposes benefit cuts. The rest of the Commission is dominated by people who've expressed their desire to cut Social Security, despite their own secure futures. Millions of working Americans who have contributed to Social Security all their lives will lose out if these Commissioners have their way.

Happy Labor Day.

Normally I consider it off-limits to discuss people's personal finances when discussing their political opinions. But these Commissioners' lack of subject matter expertise, along with their lack of empathy, is important. If you don't know much about the topic and are protected from the problem, what makes you credible? Their pre-established prejudices makes the situation even worse, and their own situations underscore the irony of their self-professed willingness to make "brave choices" - choices whose consequences will mean little or nothing to them.

The Commission's Social Security obsession is odd anyway, since the projected Social Security shortfall comes out to only 0.7% of GDP. Nevertheless, these Commissioners have made their benefit-cutting intentions plain, presumably because they want to offer up America's seniors as a sacrifice to the bond markets. So how will these would-be income-slashers for the elderly make out in their own golden years? They'll be golden.

Consider Commissioner Alice Rivlin. Rivlin co-authored a paper that called for raising the retirement age and other benefit cuts, and recently released a specious paper about "Saving Social Security." As a former HEW Undersecretary, CBO Director, White House Budget Director, and Federal Reserve Vice Chair, she will presumably enjoy a comfortable retirement supported by multiple public pensions. Says Rivlin: ""We can't get out of this problem without doing both spending cuts, especially slowing the growth of entitlement, and tax increases."

Experts on Social Security finance (including the long-time Chief Actuary for the program) flatly disagree with Rivlin, pointing out that an adjustment to the payroll tax cap would unquestionably be enough to get the job done. They have the numbers to prove it. So why does Rivlin, who does not have their expertise in this area, disagree? Go ask Alice.

Co-Chair Erskine Bowles brokered a deal with Newt Gingrich to cut Social Security in the 1990s, when he served as Bill Clinton's Chief of Staff. Before that he headed the Small Business Administration, so his government tenure presumably qualifies him for a Federal pension. If not, don't worry: He receives $425,000 per year in his current job running the public universities of North Carolina, and the people of North Carolina are presumably also funding a pension on his behalf. To his credit, Bowles pledged to donate $125,000 of his salary for need-based student funds - but then, he can afford it. As the son of a US Congressman, Bowles had the education and connections needed to make millions as an investment banker. The added income he earns today as a Board member for General Motors and Morgan Stanley will help, too - and his government experience undoubtedly helped him win those positions, too.

Republican Rep. Paul Ryan, an aggressive advocate of Social Security cuts and privatization, will also enjoy his sunset years in comfort, thanks to a publicly-funded pension from his tenure as a Congressman. (He'll presumably earn even more as a result of his employment as an aide to two United States Senators.) Rep. Jeb Hensaerling has served as both a Representative and as an aide to Sen. Phil Gramm, so he should be safe from financial insecurity in his old age too .

The average annual pension payments for former members of Congress ranged from $41,000 to $55,000 in 2002, considerably more than the average $13,836 that Social Security recipients received in 2009. Yet neither Ryan nor Hensaerling have proposed cutting Congressional retirement benefits - nor should they. Sound pension plans like theirs were once available to most working Americans, and more effort should be made to restore them.

Former SEIU President Andrew Stern, who once might have been counted on to defend Social Security, recently sneered at Commission critics as "assassins of change" while saying that "all entitlements should be on the table." Mr. Stern's annual pension is $152,000 - and he retired at the age of 59, not 70. Nevertheless, Stern now publicly muses about "whether defined benefit pensions can really exist in the long run in a globalized economy."

Judd Gregg, who wants to raise the retirement age to 70, will receive a Federal pension for his Senate position. Gregg, like Alan Simpson, is the son of a Governor (self-made men, you might say), which means that public pensions also ensured that neither of them had to worry about supporting their aged parents. Tom Coburn, another would-be Social Security cutter, will receive a Congressional and Senatorial pension too.

David Cote, the CEO of Honeywell, provides some "private enterprise" perspective to the Commission's work. But Cote's wealth comes in part from Honeywell's government contracts, which exceed $4 billion annually. What's more, Cote's "free enterprise" ethic didn't stop him from making sure that Honeywell grabbed a few million in stimulus money from the taxpayers, too. A few billion from the Pentagon here, a few million more from Uncle Sam there - that'll plump up the nest egg a little for Mr. Cote's sunset years.

Cote made the headlines this week when Honeywell locked out the union workers at a nuclear power plant over a labor dispute - even though the workers agreed to stay on the job to protect public safety. Instead, Cote hired replacements and put them through a pared-down training process. The image of Homer Simpson comes to mind, pushing the wrong buttons and spilling beer on the reactor console - which would presumably make Cote Mr. Burns.

But it's no joking matter. Apparently there's real danger, which is why the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reportedly stepped in to block Honeywell from distilling uranium with its crew of replacement workers And what are the union and Honeywell arguing about? Honeywell's raising health care costs - and eliminating retiree pension plans for new workers.

That's right. A member of the Commission that's pretending to judge our retirement security with impartiality would rather have hastily-trained amateurs handle nuclear materials than bargain openly with his workers - about their retirement. D'oh!

As for Simpson (Alan, not Bart), to say that he suffers from "political Tourette's syndrome" would be a disservice to Tourette's sufferers. Most of them don't really say socially objectionable things, and those who do (it's called "coprolalia") don't mean what they say. But Simpson does. By attacking senior citizens as "greedy geezers," then offending women with his "milk cow with 100 million tits" comment, and now offending veterans' groups, Simpson has now hit the voting bloc trifecta.

And Cote's outraged labor, a fourth group. But the problem isn't Simpson anymore, or Cote for that matter. It's the Commission itself. The coprolalic curmudgeon Simpson has done a service to the nation. He's drawn attention to the Commission, and to the anti-Social Security biases held by so many of its members - all of whom will retire in comfort, thanks to those whose benefits they would cut. It's the comfortable afflicting the afflicted.

If these Deficit Commission members want their recommendations to have any credibility, they should pledge to live on the same Social Security benefits that they would impose for other Americans. Better yet, they should dedicate themselves to helping provide every American with the kind of retirement security they enjoy. That was part of the social contract this nation embraced during its years of greatest economic growth, the fulfillment of a promise that a lifetime of work should never end with years of deprivation. They should be working to restore that contract, not erode it even further.

One thing is clear: This Commission has no business making recommendations about Social Security.

(Sign a petition asking Congress and the President to protect Social Security from the Deficit Commission. Roger Hickey has more here.)

Additional links:

* Sam Seder and I discussed Social Security this week while co-hosting The Young Turks.

* For further reference on the Commission's members and their biases, see Firedoglake and Talking Points Memo.

* House Democrats are vowing to protect Social Security from any cuts. The polls show why that's a very wise idea.

I am a 25 year old college student (school, job + savings, back to school… long story) and boy do I wish I knew about all the resources available to me back then. Good for you for starting early!

Lucky for me I have 1 parent (divorced) who is so bad with money that I have been scared into financial responsibility from a young age. Was I perfect? Hahaha.. but I am doing better than 95% of my friends are right now so I guess I am doing something right?

Here is my advice:

1. GET A JOB! - 2 shifts a week is all it takes. I have friends who just graduated from college without ever having a job. Result? No work experience so nowhere will hire them. Some had problems even getting an internship! Try for customer service jobs. Employers value people skills more than flipping burgers.

2. BUDGET! - Cant teach an old dog new tricks so it is best to start young. Add up your monthly expenses such as rent/insurance/cell/gas/etc and divide by 2 or 4 (depending on weekly/bi-weekly payday). Put this money in savings and no touchy! Once you can live on that budget a certain % for an emergency fund and then % for savings. The rest is your “fun” money. As others have said: pizza, ipods, and clothes are “fun money” and NOT emergencies!

3. DEBIT, CREDIT, or CASH?

DEBIT- I am a die hard debit card user. My credit union has detailed (free) online banking. I check my online bank statement in the morning and at night and go over my spending. Think of it as an instant virtual slap in the face about your spending habits. It hurts for the best.

CASH - Some people just cant be responsible enough to respect the plastic and do better with cash. Try and keep bigger bills on you. Breaking a $5 is less mentally painful than breaking a $20. $1s are dangerous. That can of coke is “only $1″. $7 a week, $30 a month. It adds up.

CREDIT - Many say don’t get a credit card, but I disagree. If you are responsible college is a great time to build credit (unless you have some serious control issues… if that is the case, these are not the droids you are looking for…). Not building credit early is the BIGGEST regret I have. Good credit means better rates when buying a house or a car. Do your research first. Consider a student, or if you have to a secured card.

More about credit-

*Do NOT apply for a credit card on campus. It is like selling your soul for a candy bar. Every time you apply for a credit card they run a credit check, which “pings” you. Too many pings hurts your credit score. Not good. Friend did that at every kiosk that offered something free to sign up when she was 20. This was 7 years ago and her credit is still recovering! The same is true for store credit cards. Do.Not.WANT!

*Pick a required expense, such as gas or cell phone bill and put it on the credit card. Pay off the card at the end of each month. Repeat.

*Do NOT use your credit card to buy “fun money” purchases. No clothes, no ipods, no pizza. This is why you have your debit card of cash. Don’t even think about it mr.!

4. EATING/DRINKING - This is going to be the weird random one from one young person to another.(Part of this only applies to you on/after your 21st birthday!) The young person’s life revolves around being social. For a 20 something this normally involves dinner and/or drinks with friends. It is expensive! So much money can be saved if you plan ahead!

*Eating - Going out to eat is a much needed social experience but NEVER go out to eat starving! Just like you don’t go shopping when you are hungry you never want to experience the whole “eyes bigger than stomach” thing while dining out. Have a snack an hour or so before you meet friends for dinner. This will help you avoid ordering that $8 appetizer! Also, try and order things that reheat or are good cold. LEFTOVERS! Also, water is free. It is good for you! Coke is $3. Go buy yourself a 12 pack and have one when you get home.

*Drinking - Most 20 somethings drink. It is a very expensive part of our lives. It is a social event to help us forget about school and work. We like bars. Unfortunately $5 for a beer is highway robbery! NEVER go to a bar completely sober (when you are 21+ & no drinky + drivey!). Have a drink or 2 at home and then have a beer at the bar. You will save TONS. Also, bring cash to a bar. Only bring as much cash as your sober self would like to spend. Alcohol impairs judgment. Sober you will thank drunk you for not spending. Drunk you will thank sober you for being smart enough to make sure you can afford the advil to take care of that hangover the next day. It is a win win.

Put all that saved food and drink money towards something that will last.

5. BOOKS - Buy used whenever possible. Check online first because campus stores are normally a ripoff. Try and sell the books back online, even if they have released a new edition. Most student book stores on campus will only give you 1/2 of what someone online will be willing to give you!

6. CARS - Buy used and reliable, but not “cheap”. New cars lose tons of value when you drive them off the lot. Don’t buy a “cheap” used car on it’s last leg. Think Goldilocks - not too new, not too old, juuusssttt right! Save up as much money as possible. Pay for it in cash if you can. If not, save up at least 2/3 before purchasing and do your homework!

And whatever you do: AVOID parking tickets, speeding tickets, registration fines.. may as well light the money on fire! Or if you do not want it I will give it a nice home and save you the trouble.

sc big white booty

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Making Money in Wotlk

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Making Money Without

"First, labor only accounts for only about 7 percent of the cost of a car. So, if you cut that to 6 percent, you’re going to make a bit more money, but this is not the biggest expense that an automaker has."

This doesn't pass the smell test. I remember that back in the day, we were told that health care costs were a sizable chunk of each American car produced, by those selling single payer.

I pulled up some numbers and in 2004, health care costs were claimed to be $1,525 per car for GM. Throw in pension benefits of $675 from the linked article, and we're at $2,200 in just health care and pensions per car. If the average car costs $25,000 to build, we're already at 8.8% before adding in wages. Assuming all other labor costs are equal to pension and health care benefits, we're at $4,400 for labor and 17.6% of the production cost.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/05/health_numbers.html

Moreover, not all cars are created equal, and the guys building the Focus and the Cobalt were probably not being paid less than the guys building the F-150 and Silverado. The Big 3 were always beaten up for never producing great regular cars, like the Civics and Accords, especially a few years ago. If a car is going to sell for $15,000, at $4,400 per car labor costs are 29.3% of selling price. If the competition is able to keep labor costs down to, say, $3,000 per car, they can spend a little extra money on their models and still have higher margins (or margins period).

So, it's not all that surprising to see GM/Ford/Chrysler rode high on the SUV/Truck hog and didn't invest much in regular cars until the mid 2000s when oil started to head north - the margins almost certainly weren't worth the investment.

By the way, the average annual operating margin for GM in the 2000s was -0.5%, so it looks like cutting costs by a percent of two might have made a real difference, though I'm not an expert here so maybe it would have been far too little to save the day.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/03/gms-problems-are-50-years-in-making.html

I'd agree management is partly to blame.

Management (past management that is) offered the UAW far too much in compensation.

In addition, I haven't read a whole lot of good things in general about management at the Big 3 during the mid 2000s, particularly at GM and Chrysler. So the blame is not only with labor, though labor seems a bigger part of the problem than this guy suggests.

"And yet while Ford certainly struggled for a while, they got through this and have been making good money for some time now."

Ford survived by slashing costs, having enough cash on hand to handle pretty severe losses while also having the good fortune to have gotten some decent product into the pipeline a while back.

Diddums. Casey Affleck admits that he ‘went broke’ filming his fail movie with Joaquin Phoenix. The movie, I’m Still Here, was filmed over two years and was revealed to be a fake documentary-style movie that Affleck thought anyone with two working eyes and ears would be fooled by. The film showed Phoenix, who would have made interesting material without the pretentious/ staged nature of the movie, doing coke/ hookers and getting pooped on. Or, as I like to call it ‘Wednesday’.  That’s some mid-week pAArtying and moviegoers agreed. Affleck’s movie went up against his big brother’s movie, The Town (which topped the US box office and opened on Rotten Tomatoes to a 93% fresh rating), and only took $96,658 in its opening weekend. Sucks to be the less talented brother, and there’s something I never thought I’d say of these two. Speaking to The Telegraph in the UK, Affleck says he came clean about the hoax everyone knew about so as not to permanently damage Phoenix’s reputation. The movie was supposed to be a cynical look at Hollywood and its trappings. Not poop.

Casey Affleck has admitted that I’m Still Here, his hoax documentary about Joaquin Phoenix, was a “planned, staged and scripted work of fiction” that nearly bankrupted him. Affleck said the project was an essay on celebrity culture. “It was pretty much all within the realm of possibility: people use prostitutes, people use drugs, especially in Hollywood. We didn’t take it so far that it wasn’t believable,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “Having something at stake is a great motivator and once this thing became public for me that was very helpful because there was no question: I had to see it through, no matter how long it took. I went broke. I hadn’t worked for more than a year, and I was pouring money into the movie. I had to stop for a month to do The Killer Inside Me. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to finish the film – I was out of money. There was a lot at stake financially and, if we had left [the hoax] there, it would have been very damaging to Joaquin’s career.”

Casey Affleck, Joaquin Phoenix: I’m Still Here mockumentary movie trailer.

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robert shumake

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Google has confirmed 19 acquisitions since the start of this year, making 2010 its biggest ever in terms of buy-outs. 28...

Enslaved DLC detailed <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net

Read our news of Enslaved DLC detailed. ... Enslaved developer diary #3 Monday. Enslaved - first 15 minutes 15 September, 2010. Latest News. Move demos flood PS Store . Enslaved UK pre-order deals detailed ...

Google New: It&#39;s Google <b>News</b> About New Google Stuff In One Place

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"First, labor only accounts for only about 7 percent of the cost of a car. So, if you cut that to 6 percent, you’re going to make a bit more money, but this is not the biggest expense that an automaker has."

This doesn't pass the smell test. I remember that back in the day, we were told that health care costs were a sizable chunk of each American car produced, by those selling single payer.

I pulled up some numbers and in 2004, health care costs were claimed to be $1,525 per car for GM. Throw in pension benefits of $675 from the linked article, and we're at $2,200 in just health care and pensions per car. If the average car costs $25,000 to build, we're already at 8.8% before adding in wages. Assuming all other labor costs are equal to pension and health care benefits, we're at $4,400 for labor and 17.6% of the production cost.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/05/health_numbers.html

Moreover, not all cars are created equal, and the guys building the Focus and the Cobalt were probably not being paid less than the guys building the F-150 and Silverado. The Big 3 were always beaten up for never producing great regular cars, like the Civics and Accords, especially a few years ago. If a car is going to sell for $15,000, at $4,400 per car labor costs are 29.3% of selling price. If the competition is able to keep labor costs down to, say, $3,000 per car, they can spend a little extra money on their models and still have higher margins (or margins period).

So, it's not all that surprising to see GM/Ford/Chrysler rode high on the SUV/Truck hog and didn't invest much in regular cars until the mid 2000s when oil started to head north - the margins almost certainly weren't worth the investment.

By the way, the average annual operating margin for GM in the 2000s was -0.5%, so it looks like cutting costs by a percent of two might have made a real difference, though I'm not an expert here so maybe it would have been far too little to save the day.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/03/gms-problems-are-50-years-in-making.html

I'd agree management is partly to blame.

Management (past management that is) offered the UAW far too much in compensation.

In addition, I haven't read a whole lot of good things in general about management at the Big 3 during the mid 2000s, particularly at GM and Chrysler. So the blame is not only with labor, though labor seems a bigger part of the problem than this guy suggests.

"And yet while Ford certainly struggled for a while, they got through this and have been making good money for some time now."

Ford survived by slashing costs, having enough cash on hand to handle pretty severe losses while also having the good fortune to have gotten some decent product into the pipeline a while back.

Diddums. Casey Affleck admits that he ‘went broke’ filming his fail movie with Joaquin Phoenix. The movie, I’m Still Here, was filmed over two years and was revealed to be a fake documentary-style movie that Affleck thought anyone with two working eyes and ears would be fooled by. The film showed Phoenix, who would have made interesting material without the pretentious/ staged nature of the movie, doing coke/ hookers and getting pooped on. Or, as I like to call it ‘Wednesday’.  That’s some mid-week pAArtying and moviegoers agreed. Affleck’s movie went up against his big brother’s movie, The Town (which topped the US box office and opened on Rotten Tomatoes to a 93% fresh rating), and only took $96,658 in its opening weekend. Sucks to be the less talented brother, and there’s something I never thought I’d say of these two. Speaking to The Telegraph in the UK, Affleck says he came clean about the hoax everyone knew about so as not to permanently damage Phoenix’s reputation. The movie was supposed to be a cynical look at Hollywood and its trappings. Not poop.

Casey Affleck has admitted that I’m Still Here, his hoax documentary about Joaquin Phoenix, was a “planned, staged and scripted work of fiction” that nearly bankrupted him. Affleck said the project was an essay on celebrity culture. “It was pretty much all within the realm of possibility: people use prostitutes, people use drugs, especially in Hollywood. We didn’t take it so far that it wasn’t believable,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “Having something at stake is a great motivator and once this thing became public for me that was very helpful because there was no question: I had to see it through, no matter how long it took. I went broke. I hadn’t worked for more than a year, and I was pouring money into the movie. I had to stop for a month to do The Killer Inside Me. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to finish the film – I was out of money. There was a lot at stake financially and, if we had left [the hoax] there, it would have been very damaging to Joaquin’s career.”

Casey Affleck, Joaquin Phoenix: I’m Still Here mockumentary movie trailer.

robert shumake

Google reports 19 acquisitions in 2010 - and more planned | <b>News</b>

Google has confirmed 19 acquisitions since the start of this year, making 2010 its biggest ever in terms of buy-outs. 28...

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robert shumake

Google reports 19 acquisitions in 2010 - and more planned | <b>News</b>

Google has confirmed 19 acquisitions since the start of this year, making 2010 its biggest ever in terms of buy-outs. 28...

Enslaved DLC detailed <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net

Read our news of Enslaved DLC detailed. ... Enslaved developer diary #3 Monday. Enslaved - first 15 minutes 15 September, 2010. Latest News. Move demos flood PS Store . Enslaved UK pre-order deals detailed ...

Google New: It&#39;s Google <b>News</b> About New Google Stuff In One Place

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Making Money Fast

ThinkFast: August 30, 2010

“I can’t spend all of my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead,” President Obama told NBC’s Brian Williams last night when asked about the growth of the fringe “birther” movement. “There is a mechanism, a network of misinformation that in a new media era can get churned out there constantly,” Obama explained.

“I’m making decisions that are not necessarily good for the nightly news and not good for the next election, but for the next generations,” Obama told NBC last night.

59 percent of Americans believe Sarah Palin lacks the “ability to be an effective president,” according to a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll. Only 26 percent of adults said she would have the ability to be effective, while that number is considerably higher — 47 percent — among Republicans. Only 21 percent of independents said Palin would have the skills to be effective.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who is spearheading efforts to build the Park 51 Islamic community center near Ground Zero in New York City,” told a Middle Eastern newspaper that he believed election-year politics had stoked the debate over the project and blamed a ‘tiny, vociferous minority’.” The full interview is available at The National newspaper’s website.

The “consensus among economists” is that the Recovery Act “worked in staving off a rerun of the 1930s,” but other emergency measures implemented by the Obama and Bush administrations played a larger role. The stimulus “was important for confidence,” said Harvard’s Kenneth Rogoff, former chief economist of the IMF, adding, “But fiscal stimulus was the least important of the three planks of the government’s strategy.”

Underwater mortgages “are a massive drag on the economy and it could take years to eliminate the negative equity from many markets.” While many homeowners are paying their mortgages, they are “trapped” and unable to move for better jobs because they would lose money if they sold their homes. HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan announced a program to help homeowners with negative equity.

Government anti-poverty programs now “serve a record one in six Americans and are continuing to expand.” Upwards of 50 million Americans on Medicaid and more than 40 million Americans are now receiving food stamps.

And finally: A New York Assembly candidate from Brooklyn has a very convincing character witness — his mom. He sent out a fundraising mailer titled, “My son Doug Biviano wants to protect your PENSION,” which featured nothing but four quotes from his mother and a picture of the candidate and his mom.

ThinkProgress is hiring! Details here.

A standard right wing talking point is that tax cuts for the rich and corporations create jobs.

This is, actually, true. They create jobs overseas.

The tax cuts’ two bills, in 2001 and 2003 – changed laws so that personal income tax rates were reduced, exemptions for the Alternative Minimum Tax increased, and dividend and capital gains taxes also cut.

Yet in the debate, it seems of no moment to either side whether the tax cuts were effective in achieving their goal of spurring business investment and making the US economy more competitive.

Our own examination of US non-residential investment indicates that the reduction in capital gains tax rates failed to spur US business investment and failed to improve US economic competitiveness.

The 2000s – that is, the period immediately following the Bush tax cuts – were the weakest decade in US postwar history for real non-residential capital investment.

Not only were the 2000s by far the weakest period, but the tax cuts did not even curtail the secular slowdown in the growth of business structures.

http://crooksandliars.com/ian-welsh/tax-cuts-rich-create-jobs-outside-us

The logic of this is simple enough. If you have money to invest, you're going to invest it where it'll return the most. Right now and in the past couple decades that is either in leveraged financial games, or it is in economies which are growing fast and have low costs. The US does not have high growth compared to China or Brazil or many other developing countries. It has high costs compared to those countries as well.

If you can build a factory overseas which produces the same goods for less, meaning more profit for you, why would you build it in the US?

Until that question is adequately answered, by which I mean "until it's worth investing in the US", most of the discretionary money of the rich will either go into useless speculative activities like the housing and credit bubbles, which don't create real growth in the US, or they will go overseas.

There are a number of ways this question can be answered.

• You could slap taxes on foreign capital flows;


• you could slap tariffs on foreign goods produced in low cost domiciles so that companies have to produce in the US to have access to the US market;


• you could push industries which are hard to outsource but don't actually decrease American competitiveness. The housing bubble increased the cost of doing real business in the US by inflating real estate costs. A massive buildout making every building in the US energy neutral or an energy producer would increase US competitiveness.


• you could try and do what America once did: have a tech boom. If the future is being produced in a country then everyone has to invest there and when things are changing fast you can't offshore production, because speed matters and offshoring is slow. This is why real wages increased during the tech boom of the 90s.

There are other answers as well, but the point is simpler: you must answer the question "why invest in the US instead of a low cost, high growth country?" Until you answer that question tax cuts will not only not do any good, but in a sense will do harm, by increasing the speed at which jobs are offshored out of America.

Eric Boehlert: Fox <b>News</b> Has a Christine O&#39;Donnell Problem

Why? Because now Fox News has to explain to viewers why O'Donnell is ready to serve in the US Senate even though she's not ready to appear on Fox News Sunday. Awkward.

More Fallout Online art dribbles out MMO <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net

Read our MMO news of More Fallout Online art dribbles out.

Pentax K-5 announced and previewed: Digital Photography Review

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robert shumake

Eric Boehlert: Fox <b>News</b> Has a Christine O&#39;Donnell Problem

Why? Because now Fox News has to explain to viewers why O'Donnell is ready to serve in the US Senate even though she's not ready to appear on Fox News Sunday. Awkward.

More Fallout Online art dribbles out MMO <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net

Read our MMO news of More Fallout Online art dribbles out.

Pentax K-5 announced and previewed: Digital Photography Review

Pentax K-5 announced and previewed: Pre-Photokina 2010: Pentax has announced the latest member of its DSLR line-up, the K-5. The new model is based on the Japanese manufacturer's current flagship DSLR, the K-7. Body design and control ...

ThinkFast: August 30, 2010

“I can’t spend all of my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead,” President Obama told NBC’s Brian Williams last night when asked about the growth of the fringe “birther” movement. “There is a mechanism, a network of misinformation that in a new media era can get churned out there constantly,” Obama explained.

“I’m making decisions that are not necessarily good for the nightly news and not good for the next election, but for the next generations,” Obama told NBC last night.

59 percent of Americans believe Sarah Palin lacks the “ability to be an effective president,” according to a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll. Only 26 percent of adults said she would have the ability to be effective, while that number is considerably higher — 47 percent — among Republicans. Only 21 percent of independents said Palin would have the skills to be effective.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who is spearheading efforts to build the Park 51 Islamic community center near Ground Zero in New York City,” told a Middle Eastern newspaper that he believed election-year politics had stoked the debate over the project and blamed a ‘tiny, vociferous minority’.” The full interview is available at The National newspaper’s website.

The “consensus among economists” is that the Recovery Act “worked in staving off a rerun of the 1930s,” but other emergency measures implemented by the Obama and Bush administrations played a larger role. The stimulus “was important for confidence,” said Harvard’s Kenneth Rogoff, former chief economist of the IMF, adding, “But fiscal stimulus was the least important of the three planks of the government’s strategy.”

Underwater mortgages “are a massive drag on the economy and it could take years to eliminate the negative equity from many markets.” While many homeowners are paying their mortgages, they are “trapped” and unable to move for better jobs because they would lose money if they sold their homes. HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan announced a program to help homeowners with negative equity.

Government anti-poverty programs now “serve a record one in six Americans and are continuing to expand.” Upwards of 50 million Americans on Medicaid and more than 40 million Americans are now receiving food stamps.

And finally: A New York Assembly candidate from Brooklyn has a very convincing character witness — his mom. He sent out a fundraising mailer titled, “My son Doug Biviano wants to protect your PENSION,” which featured nothing but four quotes from his mother and a picture of the candidate and his mom.

ThinkProgress is hiring! Details here.

A standard right wing talking point is that tax cuts for the rich and corporations create jobs.

This is, actually, true. They create jobs overseas.

The tax cuts’ two bills, in 2001 and 2003 – changed laws so that personal income tax rates were reduced, exemptions for the Alternative Minimum Tax increased, and dividend and capital gains taxes also cut.

Yet in the debate, it seems of no moment to either side whether the tax cuts were effective in achieving their goal of spurring business investment and making the US economy more competitive.

Our own examination of US non-residential investment indicates that the reduction in capital gains tax rates failed to spur US business investment and failed to improve US economic competitiveness.

The 2000s – that is, the period immediately following the Bush tax cuts – were the weakest decade in US postwar history for real non-residential capital investment.

Not only were the 2000s by far the weakest period, but the tax cuts did not even curtail the secular slowdown in the growth of business structures.

http://crooksandliars.com/ian-welsh/tax-cuts-rich-create-jobs-outside-us

The logic of this is simple enough. If you have money to invest, you're going to invest it where it'll return the most. Right now and in the past couple decades that is either in leveraged financial games, or it is in economies which are growing fast and have low costs. The US does not have high growth compared to China or Brazil or many other developing countries. It has high costs compared to those countries as well.

If you can build a factory overseas which produces the same goods for less, meaning more profit for you, why would you build it in the US?

Until that question is adequately answered, by which I mean "until it's worth investing in the US", most of the discretionary money of the rich will either go into useless speculative activities like the housing and credit bubbles, which don't create real growth in the US, or they will go overseas.

There are a number of ways this question can be answered.

• You could slap taxes on foreign capital flows;


• you could slap tariffs on foreign goods produced in low cost domiciles so that companies have to produce in the US to have access to the US market;


• you could push industries which are hard to outsource but don't actually decrease American competitiveness. The housing bubble increased the cost of doing real business in the US by inflating real estate costs. A massive buildout making every building in the US energy neutral or an energy producer would increase US competitiveness.


• you could try and do what America once did: have a tech boom. If the future is being produced in a country then everyone has to invest there and when things are changing fast you can't offshore production, because speed matters and offshoring is slow. This is why real wages increased during the tech boom of the 90s.

There are other answers as well, but the point is simpler: you must answer the question "why invest in the US instead of a low cost, high growth country?" Until you answer that question tax cuts will not only not do any good, but in a sense will do harm, by increasing the speed at which jobs are offshored out of America.

robert shumake

Eric Boehlert: Fox <b>News</b> Has a Christine O&#39;Donnell Problem

Why? Because now Fox News has to explain to viewers why O'Donnell is ready to serve in the US Senate even though she's not ready to appear on Fox News Sunday. Awkward.

More Fallout Online art dribbles out MMO <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net

Read our MMO news of More Fallout Online art dribbles out.

Pentax K-5 announced and previewed: Digital Photography Review

Pentax K-5 announced and previewed: Pre-Photokina 2010: Pentax has announced the latest member of its DSLR line-up, the K-5. The new model is based on the Japanese manufacturer's current flagship DSLR, the K-7. Body design and control ...

robert shumake

Eric Boehlert: Fox <b>News</b> Has a Christine O&#39;Donnell Problem

Why? Because now Fox News has to explain to viewers why O'Donnell is ready to serve in the US Senate even though she's not ready to appear on Fox News Sunday. Awkward.

More Fallout Online art dribbles out MMO <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net

Read our MMO news of More Fallout Online art dribbles out.

Pentax K-5 announced and previewed: Digital Photography Review

Pentax K-5 announced and previewed: Pre-Photokina 2010: Pentax has announced the latest member of its DSLR line-up, the K-5. The new model is based on the Japanese manufacturer's current flagship DSLR, the K-7. Body design and control ...

managing your personal finance

Are you a fan of the GTD personal productivity system? Well if you like "Getting Things Done," here's GFD, Getting Finances Done, which shows you how to map David Allen's same principals to managing your personal finance and achieving your financial goals.

Applying GTD principles to your personal finances - Part 1 [Getting Finances Done]

A lot of people are unemployed in this country, 14.9 million as of the latest BLS release a couple of days ago, and for some of those people, this has become what is coyly referred to as ‘the entrepreneurial moment’, the ‘ah-ha’ light-bulb realization that if they don’t create a job for themselves, there will be no job, no income, no mortgage payment, no groceries, no light, no heat, no gas for the car, nuthin’. Since 2008, over 5 million jobs have been lost, many of which will never, ever come back.

Welcome to Labor Day, 2010.

Some of these ‘lost’ jobs have been outsourced overseas. Some have just been cut. Some companies are using their cash to invest in technologies which will insure that they will never have to hire these folks back, at least not with the skills that they had when they were given a cardboard box and five minutes to empty their desks and get out the front door.

If there are people out there who have or are considering building their own ‘life raft’ it would surprise absolutely no one; though for some folks, entrepreneurship is so scary, they can’t imagine anything other than hiring on to someone else’s deal, no matter how horrible it is.

Sometimes, though, you don’t have any choice. One thing to remember, is that many of the most successful entrepreneurs in this country have not invented fuel cells, high tech photovoltaic films, high speed transit, a cure for cancer (or the common cold), or the answer for peace in our time. They are cleaning houses, making pizza, fixing computers/ipods/iphones/cars/furnaces/plumbing/household electric, managing other people’s systems, giving advice, making clothing for people who are outside the common size ranges in the stores.

Not exactly operating a basement boiler room financial situation, doing crazy financial stuff, or stirring up the pot on international finance.

At its most basic, it’s local; at its most interesting, it might even be regional. But it is still person to person; it’s still me doing business with you. Face to face. My hands and brain doing stuff to help you. Some of this is amazingly low tech – some of it is almost medieval.

This week’s fascinating story comes from the New York Times about a family of knife sharpeners who have thrown a new curve on this ancient of trades by providing two sets of knives to butchers, restaurants, food services (in Yankee Stadium, for heaven’s sake), and calling on a weekly basis to pick up the used set and providing the newly sharpened set.

Anyone who does any real work in a kitchen at all knows that your most important tools are a good set of knives and a good frying and sauce pan. With those three things, you can do almost anything (and yes, I have made cookies in the bottom of a frying pan; thank you for asking), but if your knives are dull, cutting anything becomes horrible work and you can injure yourself badly. “Every week, the company visits more than 800 clients and collects more than 8,000 knives to be replaced with freshly sharpened blades. The service costs $2.50 to $3.50 per knife.

The business started servicing mainly butchers and meatpackers, in territories handed down from father to son. To preserve the business for his children, Mr. Ambrosi expanded it to restaurants and even Yankee Stadium, in some cases deviating from long-held tradition. Many cooks and chefs take personal pride in their knives and their ability to maintain them, and would hesitate to release them to anyone else’s care. But sharpening a knife takes time and skill — and not every chef has both.”

Having a skill and honing (sorry) that so that you can provide something that someone else can not (or will not) do, whether it is being an electrician, a plumber, a welder, a knife sharpener, a shoe repair shop, a hair dresser, whatever it is – can make the difference in today’s international economy between being able to make a living for your family and holding your head in your hands. One of America’s biggest mistakes as far as education is concerned (and others might just argue with me) is that we “jumped the shark” in terms of absorbing people coming out of colleges.

Since the 1980s, kids coming out of college have had fewer and lower level opportunities. Jobs which absorbed high schoolers, now require a 2 or 4 year degree; job that required a college degree started to require a masters degree; some jobs which required a college degree and some internal training, now require advanced degrees – I even know of jobs that now require a legal degree to be hired which 30 years ago required a college degree and passing a test. So much emphasis was placed on going to college – and vocational training and the trades were so downgraded and derided that any family with a kid with two brain cells to rub together would not even THINK of encouraging that kid to go into the trades, unless the family was already in the business.

We’re now at a situation where companies, which shot themselves in the foot by sending skilled jobs overseas and now want to bring them back because costs overseas have risen and/or they are tired of their intellectual property being stolen and sold to others, can’t find the skills they want. Not to put too fine a point on this – those same companies have not done any training themselves; nor are they willing to do so. They got into the habit a long time ago of pushing the investment in training off on others. The government for one.

The other, which has willingly and consistently provided training in the trades for years are the unions. Organized labor. The Great Satan of the industrial world. The guys everyone loves to hate. The organizations which, according to many employers, stand in their way of succeeding in business.

But still, the organization which has kept skills alive in this country despite outsourcing, overseas sourcing, attacks from business and government, and general antipathy from great swaths of the American population in certain parts of the country.

So. On this frankly very sad Labor Day, 2010, I’d like to thank the American Labor Movement for remembering what America and Americans do best and what we need to do on an increasing basis if we are to put people back to work – or if we are to have businesses to call our own: Do stuff with our hands.

Thanks folks. You’re not perfection, but you’re willing to invest in Americans.

Happy Labor Day

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Capcom&#39;s profits plummet <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net

Read our news of Capcom's profits plummet. ... Bionic Commando faceoff comparison video 18 June, 2009. Bionic Commando - Trailer 18 May, 2009. Latest News. Ex-GRIN devs open new studio . Capcom unveils BC: Rearmed 2 ...