Jailbreaking iPhones Destined to Destroy Universe!

According to eWeek.com, "Apple claims jailbreaking, or unlocking, its iPhone smartphone could lead to potential cyber-attacks, cell tower manipulation, increased drug deals and the end of the world."

You gotta love technology.

eWeek.com is also reporting that Intel expects a massive movement to Microsoft's new operating system, Win7, during the upcoming year, helping to fuel an economic recovery. Business has generally ignored Microsoft's Vista operating system, with reportedly 67 percent of businesses continuing to use WinXP. (My own employer is, for reasons that completely ellude me, just now upgrading from XP to Vista instead of making the leap directly to Win7.) The Vista operating system got a very bad rap because the hardware requirements to move from XP to it were substantial. And it came about when everyone new the economy was headed for the toilet. Now the question has to be is there enough money for the economy to dump billions into new hardware and software when what people have been using still works.

Interestingly, the hottest thing in computer hardware are the ultra small, stripped down netbooks, which have, by the way, very small profit margins for both the hardware and the software venders. Microsoft is making a Win7 system for them, but once again, the profit margin will be small, and Microsoft faces competition from Linux, including Google's own version to be called "Chrome."

Speaking of "Chrome," I'm using the Chrome browser now. It appears to be much faster both in loading the program and pages than any of the other browsers I use, including Firefox, of which I have been a strong proponent since its early beta days. (I first installed and used Firefox when it was version 0.6 and known by another name.)

Where'd the Money Go!

Obama is going to catch the flak for the bailout, but the giant federal giveaway started during the Bush administration. In 2008 the Republicans and their owners, the big east coast banking concerns, could see the jig was up. The Democrats could run a young, unknown black guy and sweep into Washington. This was the last time for at least four years and maybe much longer that the good ol' boys could feed at the Washington trough. And, let's face it, the country had been rammed down the free trader's rabbit hole chasing after Milton Friedman's economic fantasy.

So by 2008, the last strategy to rape, er … reap the benefits of power came in the form of a massive bailout. The government just had to dump billions of unregulated money into the Wall Street banks or the country would be flushed down the toilet.

Remember, this is 2008. George W. Bush is president. So where'd all that bailout money go? All those billions of dollars? Well, apparently, millions of it, or perhaps even billions of it, went into the silky pockets of the very same Wall Street manipulators who brought the crisis on in the first place. In the form of massive bonuses.

According to The New York Times, "At Goldman Sachs, for example, bonuses of more than $1 million went to 953 traders and bankers, and Morgan Stanley awarded seven-figure bonuses to 428 employees. Even at weaker banks like Citigroup and Bank of America, million-dollar awards were distributed to hundreds of workers."

Hey! — Stupid!

Most of us never have the courage to tell the police what we really think of them. We wait until their backs are turned and they're out of earshot. We hope.

After all, they carry guns. Every time they see us they are making up their minds whether or not to shoot us. The power has got to be intoxicating.

Only Sgt. Crowley and Prof. Gates know what happened inside the professor's home that led up to the arrest, and likely both of them have separate versions, unless, of course, the whole thing was a conspiracy. A teachable moment to bring race back into the national conversation. (See today's New York Times' story.) (Also see Charles Blow's op-ed piece: "that if [the police officer] wanted to, he could make us lie down in the middle of the road and shoot us in the back of the head and no one would say anything about it.")

Hey, Republicans, it took you six months to catch Obama in a slip of the tongue. How many did your guy W make in his first 180 days? So far, Obama's actions haven't led to even one war. Now let's get back to health care and the economy. Please!

This is what happens when you bounce a $25 million check:

All afternoon yesterday the news was filled with the story coming out of New Jersey. Who could pass this one up when some of the 44 people arrested were rabbis and three others were city mayors? According to The New York Times, the governor said, "The scale of corruption we're seeing as this unfolds is simply outrageous and cannot be tolerated." Please note the strategic use of the word "scale." Think your community is immune to corruption? My guess is that it's the scale that's keeping it under wraps.

How to make money on Wall Street even in the worst of times:

One way to do it is to begin with a large pot of gold right from the get-go. You start buying up stock in a company, which in turn causes the price to go up. Then you sell the stock when other investors start to chase the stock whose price you're driving up.

There are two tricks to this. One, you have to have money to begin with, and two, you have to do the buying and selling very fast before other investors catch on to the manipulation. Investors have a new weapon in the arsenal to aid with the latter: super high speed computers running clever algorithms that do the decision making for them. They can buy and sell within milliseconds, manipulating the market place faster than the eye can blink.

Interestingly, the value of stock now has little if anything to do with the actual value of the companies they represent. (Read The New York Times' story.)

What Economic Downturn?

While the country races toward double-digit unemployment and the lucky ones who still have jobs are going without pay raises while forking over even higher premiums to health care providers, Wall Street banks are paying their employees bonuses and pay raises that far exceed what they were earning in the previous year when the government had to bail them out with taxpayer dollars. (See The Washington Post story.)

What's the Problem?

Senator David Vitter, Republican from Louisiana, asked his fellow senators, "Is the problem law-abiding citizens who follow the law and take all the time and all the trouble needed to get conceal-and-carry permits?" Or the criminals who violate laws to obtain weapons?

The senate responded by failing to add the measure that would allow gun owners to carry concealed guns across state lines. Fortunately, there are enough senators who recognize that the real problem is that there are too many guns in the hands of too many people. And the state police in fifty states breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that at least some of the truckers they have to stop won't be—at least legally—confronting them with a concealed gun.

(See The New York Times' story.)

Who Do You Trust:

George Orwell thought Big Brother was big government, but the more likely scenario is big business becoming the equivalent. Or maybe the two will become so intertwined that it will be impossible to tell the difference.

Recently Amazon.com reached out through the air waves and wiped Orwell's two most famous novels from its customers' electronic book reading device, the Kindle eBook reader, even though the customers had paid for it. Apparently there were some "rights" issues. Naturally, Amazon reimbursed their customers by crediting their accounts, and afterall those same people could purchase the books at the local bookstore or simply go to the library and read them for free. Many of us who own paperback or hardback editions of the two famous novels simply snickered when the news broke.

But it's the implications that has everyone stirred up. If everything is moving to the Web, will anything be private or protected from deletion? We've seen recently what happens when we trust banks and Wall Street with our money.

Home Foreclosures up 33.2 % in Past Year:

One out of every 84 homes has been foreclosed, according to Gery Shih reporting in today's New York Times, but that hasn't stopped new home builders. Housing starts, according to Shih, "rose last month by 3.6 percent." Housing, of course, was a major force behind both the previous economic boom and its bust. With population in the U.S. relatively stagnant, there is no housing shortage, just a game of musical chairs and, in this case, no odd man out. The boom was based on the notion that real estate values would continue to spiral up and that everyone's income would follow suit. Ooops!

The Shifting Economy:

Two stories emerge in today's headlines: China is showing strong economic growth and two American banks have managed not only to report profits for the previous quarter but also to have gained a dominant position in the industry.

Nobel Laureate, Paul Krugman, adds to the discussion by explaining that Goman Sachs current financial success is taking place on the backs of the taxpayers. The bailout has taken place, Krugman explains, but without any governmental oversight in place, and the beneficiaries of the bailout are fighting tooth and nail to prevent any oversight.

The Sotomayor Hearings:

It's all about the next one: Peter Baker and Charlie Savage think the sometimes bizarre behavior on the part of the Republican senators who are currently cross examining Judge Sonia Sotomayor are trying to set up positions for the next Obama nominee. Considering the probability that the president seems likely to be re-elected in 2012 due to the collapse of the GOP following the fiasco of the Bush years and the ages of the majority of the members of the court, Obama almost certainly will be proffering at least one more nominee.

On the State of the Republican Party:

"I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities." — Gov. Sarah Palin at the 2008 Republican National Convention, as quoted by Frank Rich in today's New York Times, analyzing the state of the Republican Party now that the Alaskan governor has quit her job in order to go fishing with her husband and to devote more time to cash in on her media popularity.

Super Secret CIA Program Might Be Revealed:

Paul Kane and Joby Warrick report in today's Washington Post on the Dick Cheney inspired super secret CIA program put into place but never completely administered in the days following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. CIA Director Leon Panetta apparently canceled the program shortly after taking office this year. According to Democratic Representative Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, "There was an order given to not inform Congress" about any aspect of the program or even of its existance. Presumably, that order came from Tricky Dick Cheney.

Understanding the Economy:

During the 1950s and 1960s it seemed that crude oil was a fixed commodity. The price of crude was as stable as the job returning veterans of World War II had at General Motors. Set for life. People like Milton Friedman thought they had the economy figured out.

Jad Mouawad addresses the volatility in today's oil markets in "Swings in Price of Oil Hobble Forecasting." Mouawad looks closely at the effects on commercial aviation and its inability to forecast prices, as a microcosim of the situation.

"Today only the deluded would argue that markets are self-correcting

or that we can rely on the self-interested behavior of market participants to guarantee that everything works honestly and properly" — Joseph E. Stiglitz, "Wall Street's Toxic Message," Vanity Fair, July 2009.

Yes, she did!

Alaskan governor and former Republican candidate for Vice President announced her resignation as governor of Alaska yesterday afternoon, providing reasons that were so scrambled that the press has been covering the story with the notation that she is doing so without providing any reason for her action.

Let's be perfectly clear: sometimes what you see is exactly what you get. (See today's New York Times' story.)

Read Todd S. Purdum's Vanity Fair article, "It Came from Wasilla."

Happy Birthday, Declaration of Independence!

Quote of the Day:

"America is much more than a geographical fact. It is a political and
moral fact—the first community in which men set out in principle to
institutionalize freedom, responsible government, and human equality."

—Adlai Stevenson

Why do we see faces in clouds, but not clouds in faces:

Nicholas Kristof examines the reasoning behind human folly in today's New York Times. It turns out our brains are programmed to fear snakes, even harmless ones, but we find it almost impossible to recognize the dangers in something as profound as climate change. According to Daniel Gilbert, professor of Psychology at Harvard and quoted heavily by Kristof in the op-ed piece, the human brain is programmed for social issues, and that's why we see faces in clouds but not the other way around.

Kristof points out that we react quickly when the threat is imminent but we tend to dismiss long term threats. Which reminds me of a boss I once had. He was great in a crisis, so if one didn't exist, he made sure that one did. Eventually, he declared bankruptcy. Fortunately, I'd found another employer before that happened.