No on Prop 8

What is Politics?

A little boy goes to his dad and asks, “What is Politics?”

Dad says,

“Well son, let me try to explain it this way: I am the head of the family, so call me The President. Your mother is the administrator of the money, so! We call her the Government. We are here to take care of your needs, so we will call you the People. The nanny, we will consider her the Working Class. And your baby brother, we will call him the Future. Now think about that and see if it makes sense.”

So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what his Dad has said.

Later that night, he hears his baby brother crying, so he gets up to check on him. He finds that the baby has severely soiled his diaper.

So the little boy goes to his parents' room and finds his mother asleep. Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny's room. Finding the door locked, he peeks in the keyhole and sees his father in bed with the nanny. He gives up and goes back to bed.

The next morning, the little boy says to his father, “Dad, I think I understand the concept of politics now.” The father says, “Good, son, tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about.”

The little boy replies,

“The President is screwing the Working Class while the Government is sound asleep. The People are being ignored and the Future is in deep shit.”

3 Men who brought down Wall Street... and where they are now!

Here is a quick look into 3 former Fannie Mae executives who have brought down Wall Street.

Franklin Raines was a Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Fannie Mae. Raines was forced to retire from his position with Fannie Mae when auditing discovered severe irregulaties in Fannie Mae's accounting activities. At the time of his departure The Wall Street Journal noted, " Raines, who long defended the company's accounting despite mounting evidence that it wasn't proper, issued a statement late Tuesday conceding that "mistakes were made" and saying he would assume responsibility as he had earlier promised. News reports indicate the company was under growing pressure from regulators to shake up its management in the wake of findings that the company's books ran afoul of generally accepted accounting principles for four years." Fannie Mae had to reduce its surplus by $9 billion.

Raines left with a "golden parachute valued at $240 Million in benefits. The Government filed suit against Raines when the depth of the accounting scandal became clear. http://housingdoom.com/2006/12/18/fannie-charges/ . The Government noted, "The 101 charges reveal how the individuals improperly manipulated earnings to maximize their bonuses, while knowingly neglecting accounting systems and internal controls, misapplying over twenty accounting principles and misleading the regulator and the public. The Notice explains how they submitted six years of misleading and inaccurate accounting statements and inaccurate capital reports that enabled them to grow Fannie Mae in an unsafe and unsound manner." These charges were made in 2006. The Court ordered Raines to return $50 Million Dollars he received in bonuses based on the miss-stated Fannie Mae profits.

Tim Howard - Was the Chief Financial Officer of Fannie Mae. Howard "was a strong internal proponent of using accounting strategies that would ensure a "stable pattern of earnings" at Fannie. In everyday English - he was cooking the books. The Government Investigation determined that, "Chief Financial Officer, Tim Howard, failed to provide adequate oversight to key control and reporting functions within Fannie Mae,"

On June 16, 2006, Rep. Richard Baker, R-La., asked the Justice Department to investigate his allegations that two former Fannie Mae executives lied to Congress in October 2004 when they denied manipulating the mortgage-finance giant's income statement to achieve management pay bonuses. Investigations by federal regulators and the company's board of directors since concluded that management did manipulate 1998 earnings to trigger bonuses. Raines and Howard resigned under pressure in late 2004.

Howard's Golden Parachute was estimated at $20 Million!

Jim Johnson - A former executive at Lehman Brothers and who was later forced from his position as Fannie Mae CEO. A look at the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's May 2006 report on mismanagement and corruption inside Fannie Mae, and you'll see some interesting things about Johnson. Investigators found that Fannie Mae had hidden a substantial amount of Johnson's 1998 compensation from the public, reporting that it was between $6 million and $7 million when it fact it was $21 million." Johnson is currently under investigation for taking illegal loans from Countrywide while serving as CEO of Fannie Mae.

Johnson's Golden Parachute was estimated at $28 Million.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

FRANKLIN RAINES? Raines works for the Obama Campaign as Chief Economic Advisor

TIM HOWARD? Howard is also a Chief Economic Advisor to Obama

JIM JOHNSON? Johnson hired as a Senior Obama Finance Advisor and was selected to run Obama's Vice Presidential Search Committee

Buy American. I Am.

By WARREN E. BUFFETT

Published: October 16, 2008

Omaha

THE financial world is a mess, both in the United States and abroad. Its problems, moreover, have been leaking into the general economy, and the leaks are now turning into a gusher. In the near term, unemployment will rise, business activity will falter and headlines will continue to be scary.

So ... I’ve been buying American stocks. This is my personal account I’m talking about, in which I previously owned nothing but United States government bonds. (This description leaves aside my Berkshire Hathaway holdings, which are all committed to philanthropy.) If prices keep looking attractive, my non-Berkshire net worth will soon be 100 percent in United States equities.

Why?

A simple rule dictates my buying: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful. And most certainly, fear is now widespread, gripping even seasoned investors. To be sure, investors are right to be wary of highly leveraged entities or businesses in weak competitive positions. But fears regarding the long-term prosperity of the nation’s many sound companies make no sense. These businesses will indeed suffer earnings hiccups, as they always have. But most major companies will be setting new profit records 5, 10 and 20 years from now.

Let me be clear on one point: I can’t predict the short-term movements of the stock market. I haven’t the faintest idea as to whether stocks will be higher or lower a month — or a year — from now. What is likely, however, is that the market will move higher, perhaps substantially so, well before either sentiment or the economy turns up. So if you wait for the robins, spring will be over.

A little history here: During the Depression, the Dow hit its low, 41, on July 8, 1932. Economic conditions, though, kept deteriorating until Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in March 1933. By that time, the market had already advanced 30 percent. Or think back to the early days of World War II, when things were going badly for the United States in Europe and the Pacific. The market hit bottom in April 1942, well before Allied fortunes turned. Again, in the early 1980s, the time to buy stocks was when inflation raged and the economy was in the tank. In short, bad news is an investor’s best friend. It lets you buy a slice of America’s future at a marked-down price.

Over the long term, the stock market news will be good. In the 20th century, the United States endured two world wars and other traumatic and expensive military conflicts; the Depression; a dozen or so recessions and financial panics; oil shocks; a flu epidemic; and the resignation of a disgraced president. Yet the Dow rose from 66 to 11,497.

You might think it would have been impossible for an investor to lose money during a century marked by such an extraordinary gain. But some investors did. The hapless ones bought stocks only when they felt comfort in doing so and then proceeded to sell when the headlines made them queasy.

Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn’t. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value. Indeed, the policies that government will follow in its efforts to alleviate the current crisis will probably prove inflationary and therefore accelerate declines in the real value of cash accounts.

Equities will almost certainly outperform cash over the next decade, probably by a substantial degree. Those investors who cling now to cash are betting they can efficiently time their move away from it later. In waiting for the comfort of good news, they are ignoring Wayne Gretzky’s advice: “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been.”

I don’t like to opine on the stock market, and again I emphasize that I have no idea what the market will do in the short term. Nevertheless, I’ll follow the lead of a restaurant that opened in an empty bank building and then advertised: “Put your mouth where your money was.” Today my money and my mouth both say equities.

Warren E. Buffett is the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, a diversified holding company.

Drunk Emailing

Google with its infinite wisdom has yet again found a way to solve problem, that I didn't know even had a feasible solution. Google has put a stop to drunk emailing by installing a feature with gmail that when activated requires the user to correctly solve a series of math problems before it will send the email. It is still in its early phases, so it has some kinks, but still pure genuis. Now if only someone could do this for texting.

From: Time Online

For a company that's dominated the Internet by doing one simple thing well, Google has also managed to build a thriving side business in bells and whistles: its features offer everything from the ability to search inside books and videos to the ability to watch a kid fall off a bike from the privacy of your own home. So when I heard that Google had unveiled a new feature called Mail Goggles that is designed to stop you from sending embarrassing e-mails while drunk by requiring you to do math problems, my first thought was, That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. My second thought was, I want to try it.

One of Gmail's optional features — along with more sensible applications like keyboard shortcuts, an e-mail signature or a profile picture — Mail Goggles operates on the theory that if you're sober enough to complete a series of simple arithmetic problems, you're sober enough to decide if you really want to e-mail your ex-boyfriend and tell him you still love him. With Mail Goggles enabled, Gmail will send your e-mails only after you have completed five arithmetic problems within 60 seconds. By default, the feature activates during weekend nights between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m., although the settings allow you to change the date and time. If you're more of a Tuesday afternoon drunk, Mail Goggles will be there for you. Of course, at that point, you might have bigger problems to worry about.

I decided to test Mail Goggles in the most systematic way possible. I surrendered my Saturday night to research, experimentation and the scientific method.

Hypothesis:
Mail Goggles will keep me from sending e-mails that I might otherwise regret.

Supplies:
2 bottles of wine
1 laptop
My college friend Laura, who once helped me climb up a concrete pedestal in order to dress a Civil War statue in a Hawaiian T shirt.

The test:
10:03 p.m. Mail Goggles is activated. I send a control e-mail to test my sober math skills. I subtract 12 from 22, and wonder if I'll ever be too incapacitated to come up with the number 10. "You know you can change the difficulty level," says Laura. We pour ourselves some wine, change the difficulty to Level 3 and start watching a movie.

10:25 p.m. I've had one glass of wine. I reply to a friend's e-mail about her recent bad date. Mail Goggles doesn't work — no math questions appear and the e-mail is sent. "Maybe you have to sign out and sign back in," suggests Laura. That works. If this is a necessary step, though, it's a huge flaw in the Mail Goggles system; nobody signs out of Gmail after every use.

10:45 p.m. Two glasses of wine. I e-mail another friend and tell him that his eyebrows are too big and he looks like one of the Jonas Brothers. I have this thought every time I see him, but I usually keep it to myself. The e-mail goes through. My friend will now ignore my phone calls for the next few days. I decide to change Mail Goggles' setting to maximum difficulty, Level 5.

11:10 p.m. Three glasses of wine. The problem 420+152 is not hard enough to keep me from e-mailing an acquaintance to tell her that I don't understand her religion and her clothes are out of date.

11:35 p.m. Three and a half glasses. I feel great. It takes me two tries because I mistype my answers, but I successfully e-mail Laura to tell her that I want more wine. "But I'm sitting right here," says Laura. She politely opens the second bottle.

12:17 a.m. Four glasses. To my unemployed friend with a master's degree: "Why don't you move out of your parents' house and get a real job?"

12:43 a.m. E-mail a co-worker and complain about the economic depression.

1:09 a.m. Mail Goggles makes me answer "8 x 2" twice. I use this opportunity to tell my cousin that her feet smell.

1:37 a.m. I drink some more wine and try to tell a friend that his hipster arm tattoo is going to look ridiculous when he gets older, but I can't type the words correctly and I get stumped on 517-139. I keep forgetting to carry the numbers. "Water and bed for you," says Mail Goggles, but then it lets me try again. And again. My insult succeeds on the third try.

1:52 a.m. You know what? I should e-mail my ex-boyfriend, even though we're not on speaking terms. Mail Goggles makes me divide 42 by 7 but otherwise has no problem with my incredibly bad decision. Maybe the program would work better if it filtered certain phrases like "What's your deal?" or "jerkface."

2:32 a.m. I write one last e-mail, apologizing for the previous e-mail, but I'm too tired to do the math.

2:47 a.m. I fall asleep on the couch and wake up half an hour later, thirsty and confused. Laura has apparently gone home.

10:15 a.m. I have three responses asking what my problem is.

Conclusion:
Mail Goggles' math questions are too easy to deter any but the sloppiest of drunks. However, my last e-mail remained unsent. If you have to do math at 2:30 in the morning, you're more likely to stop sending e-mails because you give up, not because you actually get the answers wrong. As a purely dissuasive tool, then, Mail Goggles works as advertised. Of course, there's still the text message, the Facebook message and the good old-fashioned drunken phone call. There are plenty of ways to humiliate yourself if you try. And for those determined to reveal their true feelings via e-mail, the company that brought you Mail Goggles helpfully provides a way around it as well: the Google calculator.