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August 6th, 2009: Rupert’s Big Bad Gamble
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Betting against Rupert Murdoch is usually a bad bet. The media mogul, well known conservative and head of Newscorp, which owns, among many things the Wall Street Journal and the FOX News Channel , is making a huge bet on internet news. He wants to charge for it. The media industry is dying. Newspaper subscriptions are going down by the day. More and more people get their news online, and the ones who don’t are dying by the day. On a typical day I read 15 political articles, and several are from Newscorp owned papers.
The fact is, the horse is out of the barn. Newspapers should have never had their content online for free. Now that it is, we expect it to be that way. The old business model is broken. The idea of paying for news just seems archaic. I love newspapers more than most my age, and I love good reporting. That said, people won’t pay for a slightly better product in order to have slightly better reports. Sure, I will miss some of the great writing in the WSJ, but I can still sleep at night reading Bloomberg. If Bloomberg decides to start charging, I will read more off TheStreet.com and so on.
For online media to make money, it must figure out a different business model than in the past. Charging the reader just won’t work. Most people are trying some kind of online advertising model, and that seems to be the logical choice. Still, that may not be the right one. For sure though, it won’t be by paying for content in a free content world. |
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March 30th, 2009: In Defense of Detroit
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General Motors makes some of the best cars in the world. That said, they are in a horrible position because of some major mistakes made. First off, they put all of their eggs into one basket, the SUV/Truck. I think SUVs are fine and it’s a great thing that America was leading the world in making those vehicles, but when the cost of gas rose to over $4 a gallon, it was a reminder to people of how stupid it is for most people to buy one.
On top of that, there was a bubble in commodities, so after the shock of people seeing how stupid they were, they had no money to buy any cars. Any cyclical industry is especially hit by recessions, because they sell things than people don’t need to buy. Still, the harsh bubble/bust world is not the end for Detroit. The Unions put the American car companies in an extra harsh position because the increase the labor cost and thus increase the labor cost. Add on top of that the legacy cost, and you got one huge mess. Lastly, I want to downplay this thing that Detroit is not making green cars, which is crap. The problem is not that Detroit was not making green cars, but simply that they were making cars that people did not want to buy.
What do we do now? As the Republicans said months ago, we need these companies to go through bankruptcy. We can not keep throwing money down this pit. Still, the Democrats noted that we could not do this because people are not going to buy a car if they don’t know if that car company is going to be around. Well, Obama struck the perfect chord today, as he favors bankruptcy, but he favors it while at the same time the government protecting the car warranty. He is taking the system designed for this system and fixing it up to work in this case. Here they can shed the legacy cost and lower the labors cost and streamline the product. We can’t lose General Motors.
While I love what Obama did with bankruptcy, I am pissed over what the administration did to Rick Wagoner. They used him as an offering to the American people. I find it sick that the US Government is firing the CEO of a great American company. Wagoner made his mistakes, but that give the Gov’t no right to ax him. Where do they get this power?
So, good plan with the bankruptcy, but bad getting rid of Wagoner, he was a good man doing his best during a hard time. |
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March 25th, 2009: Bloggers and Newspapers
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A subject I don’t talk about often but follow closely is Newspapers. For those of you not following, Newspapers are dying. I personally find this a tragedy. Now I don’t think we ought to be bailing out the Newspapers like some in the Congress are suggesting. There is an idea going around Congress that we should allow Newspapers to operate as a non-profit for tax purposes and thus take out their ability to endorse political candidates. I do not favor this because Newspapers are not non-biased. I don’t like the idea of a newspaper saying they can’t endorse at all. The myth of newspapers is that they are un-biased.
I love the New York Times. It is one of the best papers in America today (yes, you read that right my fellow conservative friends). They gather news well and they are focused on their goal, getting the news first. They are also solidly biased to the left. I know this when I read it. If someone only read the NYT, they would be getting a distorted view on the world. The people who work their naturally have their biases seep in to what they choose to cover and how they write about it. Still, I want to make clear that they don’t try to slant the news to the left (not talking Op-ed page), it just comes through from their view of the world.
No matter what you think of newspapers, the truth is clear. Less and less people subscribe to them. I currently get one Newspaper which I will not be renewing, Investors Business Daily. (Which is a very Right leaning paper, like most Business papers) In a hard economy, I am looking for places to cut in my budget and this makes natural sense. The truth is though that Newspapers do something critical, which is they gather news. Many people say that bloggers will replace Newspapers. This is not the case. Bloggers can’t replace newspapers because bloggers have their own jobs. Even those bloggers who are successful enough to make it their job are not the same thing as a news organization.
Newspapers will have to change to an online outfit, which they are doing now. Again, the New York Times website is very, very well done. Another of my favorites is the LA Times, which is a good conservative paper, unlike the joke Washington Times. Newspaper medium will change, but their purpose will not.
So what about Bloggers? I think they are a very good thing. Remember this key line by Robert Di Nero in Casino:
In Vegas, everybody's gotta watch everybody else. Since the players are looking to beat the casino, the dealers are watching the players. The box men are watching the dealers. The floor men are watching the box men. The pit bosses are watching the floor men. The shift bosses are watching the pit bosses. The casino manager is watching the shift bosses. I'm watching the casino manager. And the eye-in-the-sky is watching us all.
The Bloggers are the eye in the sky. They call out when the media screws up. They can also make news themselves, as they watch us all. Still, there will always be a place for organizations who make a living following news. Now they just got that eye watching them. Remember Dan Rather? |
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March 16th, 2009: Jon Stewart is a Self-Righteous Hack
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Jon Stewart is getting praised as this voice of reason. People are saying he took down Jim Cramer. We know that Gibbs, if no one else, enjoyed seeing Stewart use Cramer as his punching bag on CNBC last Thursday. The crux of Stewart’s argument is this: CNBC is a finance network, they ought to have been ahead of the game on this whole debacle in the stock market.
CNBC is a right leaning financial news network. Lets compare this to their left leaning political news network, MSNBC. From 6AM until 9AM, CNBC has on Squawk Box, a financial morning show. It is on this show that a lot of the leaders of business appear. At the same time on MSNBC, the show Morning Joe is on, which is a morning news/politics show. They are very comparable to one another.
From 9AM-11AM, CNBC has on Squawk on the Street, which follows the opening of the market at 9:30AM, then from 11AM-12PM is the call, which is more market coverage. After that is Power Lunch from 12PM-2PM, which is a more broad show market wise, more like a news at noon show. Following that is Street Signs from 2PM-3PM, which is Erin Burnett trying to dig deeper into some top stories. Then from 3PM-5PM is Closing Bell, which the name describes well. So you see, all day CNBC is covering market news.
From 9AM till 5PM, MSNBC has MSNBC News Live, which is news as it happens. During the 9-5 hours, both networks do the same thing. The report breaking news and then spend the rest of their time debating each other. Stewart says that the network does not poke and prod enough. Why is he such a harsh critic on the conservative CNBC yet he has no harsh words for the liberal MSNBC? Because he is a leftist who has a venue to vent and has been put up on this throne as a bystander.
It is sick that we allow Jon Stewart, a comedian who relies entirely on writers to look good to be this arbiter. He pulls Jim Cramer onto his show, a man who is a commentator and has a show at 6PM that is not a hard news show but rather a show of commentary. Cramer has a show with his own style, as he said himself “I am not Murrow.” Cramer’s first concern is getting good ratings and he does that by being considered intelligent and entertaining by his viewers.
We allowed this same man to take down one of the greatest shows, Crossfire. He went onto crossfire and lectured Paul Begaula and Tucker Carlson and the show was taken off the air a few weeks later. The show was classic cable, one from the left and one from the right battling it out. He came on the show and talked about how what they were doing was so bad for society.
My question, what is what Jon Stewart doing that is so good for society? He is on a network that has been a joke since Battlebots and Win Ben Stein’s Money left and he has this horrible routine as a comedian and then when he decides he gets to get on his ivory stool and talk about who is right and who is wrong. He wrong and he ought to be resigned to what he does best, that is read what his writers have written him. Get out of these logically false arguments you are making on Business and Political Commentary. Also, stop trying to appear as an independent bystander who can make judgments freely. You attack CNBC became you don’t like that they are questioning Obama’s policies. You a partisan hack and a bad one at that. Get back to what you do best Jon, which is not being seen or heard except by those young people that worship you. |
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January 27th, 2009: Hey! You! Get off of My Cloud!
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First off, sorry for not posting in a week, its been a hard week. So what do I want to talk about, technology. I read this article the other day from the UK Guardian on what Google is trying to do:
The whole idea is to move away from the PC model to this cloud computer model. Basically, instead of your computer being a box where all the data is stored, your computer is located out there in cyberspace. That is, when you turn the computer on, you automatically connect to the internet and everything that was done before on your machine is now done out there somewhere, out on the cloud. The days of your hard drive failing are over. You could just get something else to connect to your cloud.
Since your computer is not the physical thing, you could access your computer from anywhere that would give you access to the cloud. You can just think of the implications. Every hotel room could have a cloud machine, and when you check in you could load your computer. It would be no different than accessing your computer from your own home.
Still, the idea scares me. Google is setting up to be the lead runner on this whole cloud computing idea. Google is already taking over our lives (or at least mine). I wake up and I check my e-mail on G-mail. My school just transferred all its e-mail services onto google, just like many other universities do all across the world. This blog is hosted on bloghost, but it has embedded in it code which is sent to Google Analytics so it can compile statistics to help me run the website better. On the left column you see that ad over there? Well google “reads” my site and hooks me up with an advertiser. During the campaign, John McCain was a heavy buyer on my website, which naturally made sense.
I could go on and on. When I search anything, I use google search. When I need to go somewhere, I use my GPS, but I look at the route first using google maps. I used to use Google Desktop, but that creeped me out too much. Now they want to go hosting my entire computer? I hope not. Google has shown no backbone in terms of bowing down to the Chinese government. How do I know they won’t do the same thing with my information. Plus, what if someone trumps google? If someone could take my whole computer, its makes the virus of old days seem like a single cough.
I favor Net Neutrality, but I don’t favor google pushing for these clouds. I like my current cloud, the little old box within 2 feet of me right now. I don’t want that box on the google server. Sorry. |
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September 29th, 2008: Bailout Bill Falls
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Today will go down in history as one of the worst days for America ever. This congress, with a low approval rating, will see a temporary spike in their Approval rating from killing this bill. In doing so, that have gave in to the populist American people who demanded Wall Streets heads on a stick. Well, they got it, with over 90 Democrats and 133 Republicans voting agonist this bill. Only with this crazy stuff do you get super conservative Mike Pence (very conservative R-IN) and Dennis Kucinich (very liberal D-OH) voting on the same side against while at the same time getting Tom Davis (R-VA, retiring) voting for.
Basically, looking at the list, you have the ideologues and the people who’s electoral fate rest in the vote going against the proposal. People who are retiring and people in safer seats were able to vote for. This is a horrible day as people put their own political futures over doing what is right. I know that Jefferson said the first order of a statesmen is to get elected, but this is sick.
I am still in shock. How did Pelosi bring this bill to the floor and it not have the votes. They must have had no clue, and did not check with their own party. All of the talk coming from the leadership was that the House Republicans were the only ones causing all this mess. The votes show that this is not the case. Somehow 94 Democrats opposed this bill. These 228 people may get re-elected now in 35 days, but wait two years and see what happens. I hope the vote themselves a big fat pension in Euros (wait that wont work either, try gold), because they are going to need it after getting kicked out of office in 2010.
A sad day for America. Pray that I am wrong in my assessment, but I don’t think that I am. |
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September 24th, 2008: Invest in America
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We folks are at a fork in the road. The biggest financial decision since the Great Depression will be made this week. We can either decide to accept the Bush Administration plan, the plan that invest in America, or we can choose to oppose it, and hurt America over the long term. The problem here is what people are looking at this under the wrong lens. Bernanke is a genius, but he is not a PR man. He has been saying that this plan will “unfreeze the mortgage market” What does that mean?
Well people are taking it to mean that it is a bailout of the people who got us here. That folks is flatly false. Well, false is the wrong word, because that will be a result of what happens. That is not why we are doing this through. This is clearly a main street move. This plan will allow people to stay in their hones, allow kids who need loans to go to college and allow small business that runs this America to keep running. I am seriously worried that I will not be able to finish Graduate school if this plan does not go through.
Without this plan, there is an economic disaster. Period, end of story. Do you want unemployment to be 20%? I hope you are seeing the point. It is hard to explain, but without credit, this economy does not function. This is not about saving Wall Street. This is about saving Main Street. Did people make foolish moves? Yes, but in this revenge driven society, this is not time for revenge.
People don’t like that the people who screwed up are going to get away with it. They want to make them pay. Forget that my friends. I am sick of seeing republicans acting useless on this thing. They are the ones holding this up. This is not a time to worry about CEO pay and other crap like that. You want to risk the American economy on a couple of million to a CEO. I say, if you will sign odd, lets add these provisions now. We should have passed this thing yesterday, and it better be passed by Monday or else bad things could happen. When credit goes into a death spiral, no one wins, not Wall Street, not Main Street, not you and not me. Lets take 700 billion dollars and invest in America.
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July 5th, 2008: George W. Bush makes Right Call on Olympics
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If you have not noticed, we are having George W. Bush go all over this planet. The less he is in the US, the less he is thought about and the better chance John McCain has of winning. The Bush people have decided to attend the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics in Beijing, China. The White tried to make this decision very nonchalant, having WH spokeswoman Perino report it like a non story. Well in fact it is not a non story. A few months ago the Olympic opening ceremony boycott was getting so hot that I thought that Bush would be forced to miss the games. Well the fire died down and was basically forgotten. Stateside, this whole energy crisis has over taken basically every issue. Many people have called for boycotts of all types due to the human rights violations of the Chinese, especially in regards to the Tibetan people. They claim that to participate in the Olympics in China is to condone that behavior. They are wrong in this regard. This was considered when China was picked to host the games and that was the point to decide against China, not now. The Olympics are special in that they transcend all issues of the world every four years. We get together and play in sport and it really is a great measure of goodness. In the past, when boycotts have happen of any sort they have always been negative. The world should be concerned about China. But the Olympics are neither the time nor the place to express that concern. While other leaders have sadly fallen to the pressure and now will not be attending, George W. will be there. Now following in his footsteps is the great French leader, Nicolas Sarkozy will be there as well. |
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June 17th, 2008: Gay Marriage in California
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A tragedy has occurred in California. Today was the first full day in which Gays were able to marry. The corruption of the culture is as evident today as it has ever been. Many argue that the definition of marriage being only between one man and one woman is a moral judgment. I oppose Gay marriage on many grounds, but the reason why the government should oppose gay marriage is not moral grounds but rather practical grounds.
Marriage was created as the bonding between one man and one woman. To dispute this is to dispute the definition of marriage. Marriage has a direct link to the family. The family is created to ensure that the children are put in the optimal setting to learn to be good contributions to society. Thus marriage is the idea that one man and one woman commit themselves to each other and become one, with the chief purpose of raising a family.
So, why would we offer this institution to two people incapable of conceiving of children? Not only are the incapable of conceiving, but time has proven that it would be sub-optimal for gays to raise children. Thus, when you allow them to marry you are saying that they are equal to adopt children as a typical married couple would be.
This is why us who value life are so opposed to gay marriage. I am not on some tirade of keeping society back in the 1950s. I am for children being raised by a mother and a father who complement one another in a way that most benefits the child. Once you allow gays to marry, they are put on an equal footing with a normal family unit.
My personal beliefs aside (and I want to be clear, I personal do think homosexuality is a sin, I take the bible literally and it is very clear on this issue) to change the definition of marriage is not a wise thing. Even more so, it was not changed by the legislature in California, but rather the court. If the people decide that gays who are together ought to have certain rights that typical married couples have, such as patient visit rights, than these right should be written out in a document under a different name. To define marriage as anything except a union of one man and one woman is to totally change the definition of something that ought not to be changed. |
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June 13th, 2008: If It's Sunday, it's Meet the Press
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Tim Russert was an icon. I heard that Russert died at age 58 from a heart attack at the Baltimore Orioles game today. I was shocked and called my brother to confirm the news. Tim Russert was the best journalist in America, if not the entire world. Meet the Press is the best show on Television. It is the one show that I will not miss. I DVR it every Sunday and watch it as soon as I get home from Church. Why was Meet the Press the best show on Television? Tim Russert. Everyone knew that he was the best interviewer on Television. If you going to make it on the national political scene, you had to go through Meet the Press. Weekly Russert interviewed the most important people in Washington and he asked the toughest questions. He was the best at getting people off the talking points and speaking the truth. While being such a tough interviewer, it was clear that he had a great heart. He was selected in Tme’s 100 influential people this year. Mario Cuomo said this about him in that article: “Most candidates are not eager to present themselves to Tim's incisive scrutiny, which is fed by his prodigious study and preparation. But they have little choice: appearing on Meet the Press today is as vital to a serious candidate as being properly registered to vote.” I never met the man but I felt like I knew him just from watching the show. He loved talking about his Father. I have his book, “Big Russ and Me” sitting on my bookshelf. It has been on my list to read in the near future and I will now read it in the very near future. In the book he talks about his father and how special his relationship with him was. I felt like he was someone like me. In fact he was, as he grew up in a blue collar town in Buffalo, NY. He loved Buffalo, he loved the Bills and he loved baseball. He went to John Carrol University and Cleveland State University, both in Cleveland, Ohio, my hometown. May God bless his family and God bless his father Big Russ. |
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