My Blog

Blog

  • 400 Richest Americans’ Worth $1.7 Trillion

    The net worth of the richest Americans grew by 13 percent in the past year to $1.7 trillion, Forbes magazine said on Wednesday, and a familiar cast of characters once again populated the top of the magazine’s annual list of the U.S. uber-elite, including Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Larry Ellison and the Koch brothers.

    The average net worth of the 400 wealthiest Americans rose to a record $4.2 billion, the magazine said.

    via Chicago Tribune.

    I love stories like this.  The Left will go on and on about how its unfair that these people earn this money; it’s terrible that anyone should be allowed to have this much money, and what-have-you.

    So let’s just take.  Let’s just take all of it.  Let’s take these thieving bastards money and redistribute it so everyone benefits.

    $1.7 T / 314,409,835 people = $5,406.96 per person.

    That would be a one time payment by the way.  No one would ever get another nickel from these people ever again.  Hardly seems worth it to me.

    Maybe we should use it to pay off our national debt.  After all every citizen owes the government over $51,000.  Surely we’d all be better off if we just paid down the debt.

    $16T – 1.7T = $14,300,000,000,000

    After that we all now owe about $46,000 to the government, each. … Huh?!   Still seems like we all owe a lot of money.

    And this is the folly — we can Eat the Rich — but it would never be enough to save us from what we’ve already done to ourselves.

    Inflation and austerity are coming.  Plan for it.

  • Crumb & Get It: Baker with Principles

    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s_CGWKN8Ak]

  • Student Denied Entry to Michelle Obama’s Speech

    A conservative student was denied entry into a rally featuring First Lady Michelle Obama at the University of Florida on Wednesday because he was wearing a t-shirt in support of Republican John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) 2007 campaign for the White House.  …

    A conservative student was denied entry into a rally featuring Michelle Obama at the University of Florida because he was wearing a McCain t-shirt.

    “I was waiting in line wearing a ‘Gators for McCain’ shirt when a guy [representing the Obama campaign] comes up to me to just intimidate me,” Pesek told Campus Reform. “[He then] asks me for my ticket saying… this is an event with only Obama supporters.”

    via Campus Reform.

    Hummm…

    I guess Michelle was not too confident in her message being persuasive.  When you can’t change minds, just lock the door.

     

  • Harvard vs. South Dakota Mine School

    Which Grads make more?

    Harvard University’s graduates are earning less than those from the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology after a decade-long commodity bull market created shortages of workers as well as minerals.

    Those leaving the [SDSMT] college of 2,300 students this year got paid a median salary of $56,700, according to PayScale Inc., which tracks employee compensation data from surveys. At Harvard, where tuition fees are almost four times higher, they got $54,100. Those scheduled to leave the campus in Rapid City, South Dakota, in May are already getting offers, at a time when about one in 10 recent U.S. college graduates is out of work.via Bloomberg.

    Good old fashioned job.

    Man I wish we had some of them around here.

  • Pete’s Fresh Market — Update 09/19

    Reliable sources inform me that Pete’s and people from the city are sitting down and trying to work out a deal to restart construction.

    Reliable sources also have confirmed the facts of the original post.

    If any readers have stories of problems with any politicians please contact me privately with that information.  We have been abused by our elected officials for far too long.  Criminal elected officials are the reason why the West Side does not have the retail and other amenities of other neighborhoods.

    It’s immoral, unethical, and just plain sad that the poor, who needs the most help, are the most abused.

    Rumors are swirling that a community meeting may be held one day next week.  Please visit again for further information.

     

    UPDATE:  This topic updated 09/25/2012 here.

  • Treasury Won’t Sell Take a Loss on GM Shares

    General Motors Co. executives want the Treasury Department to sell its almost 27 percent stake in the company because, they say, the feds are hurting their image and government pay restrictions are chasing away top talent.  …

    Government officials weren’t interested in the deal.“At GM’s Friday share price of $24.14, the U.S. would lose about $15 billion on the GM bailout if it sold its entire stake,” the Journal notes. “While GM stock would need to reach $53 a share for the U.S. to break even, Treasury officials would consider selling at a price in the $30s.”

    via TheBlaze.com.

    This is the Treasury department playing politics.  Treasury is supposed to be “above” politics.  It’s supposed to control the U.S.’s monetary policy such that our economy grows at a steady pace.

    The question now is did Tim Geithner make this decision or did it come from Obama himself?

  • Wealthy Donors Work to Improve Schools

    The union and HuffPo object:

    Stand for Children is a non-profit education reform group advocating for the inclusion of standardized test scores in teacher evaluations, charter schools and decreased teacher union power. Over the past three years, the group’s political action committee has raised more than $4 million and doled out more than $1 million to politicians, political parties and other political committees in Chicago and around Illinois. That’s more than double the $460,000 the Chicago Teachers Union PAC has given to political campaigns and other committees over the same period of time. While contributions from the Illinois Federation of Teachers bring the two sides into closer competition, much of IFT’s contributions went to a Supreme Court race in 2010.

    via HoffPo.

    It’s bizarre to me how anyone can get behind the current union, CPS model.  It’s so clearly failing.  …  Well maybe what we have is a tale of two school systems — one that services the middle-class on the North and Northwest Sides and South Loop, and another that dooms the poor kids on the South and West sides to lives in poverty.  But that’s a topic for another post.

    What we have is CTU standing in the way of progress.  They don’t want teachers to be accountable for anything.  When 79% of 8th graders are not proficient in reading and Karen Lewis says, “Give us more money” and “You can’t evaluate teachers” the message is clear that she, a/k/a the union, have no interest in teaching… only the money for even the worst of the worst.

  • Moneyball in Law Firms

    Moneyball is moving onto another major-league diamond: Big Law, where law firm chiefs—under pressure from clients to cut costs—are re-engineering law firm management, much as the Oakland Athletics’ Billy Beane did for baseball.

    Exploding salaries, frequent roster changes and emphasis on short-term performance in a tight economy are just some of the sports-world realities confronting the legal industry.

    via Crain’s Chicago Business.

    Couldn’t happen to a more well deserving bunch of people.

    I’ve worked as in-house counsel for a couple of companies and lawyers understanding NOTHING about business.  They don’t understand cash flow, human resources, receivables, etc.  It’s amazing that big law has survived as long as it has.

    Big law is dying.  Everyone will be better off as a result.

  • Leno: Obama’s ‘Encouraging More Americans to Give Up Looking for Work’ to Bring Down Unemployment

    Talking about how the unemployment rate only fell last month because of the number of people that dropped out of the labor force, Leno quipped that the President is “encouraging more Americans to give up looking for work so the numbers will come down a little bit”

    via NewsBusters.org.

    Ouch!  Video at the link.

     

  • Dark Energy Camera — Science Rocks!!

    The highest-resolution camera ever built has begun its quest to pin down the mysterious stuff that makes up nearly three-quarters of our Universe.

    The Dark Energy Survey’s 570-million-pixel camera will scan some 300 million galaxies in the coming five years.

    via BBC News.

    Very  v e r y  cool.