Business

GM workers are getting to the point where, apparently, they’ve had enough.  It must be tough for these High School graduates to go from making $60k plus a year with benefits, medical, dental, stock, etc to being unemployed like 10% of this country.  Much like High School graduates they’re bad at controlling their emotions and will lash out to anyone close to them if something goes bad.

Personally they need to get over it.  Just about everyone I know has either been laid off, knows somebody who’s unemployed or they themselves are about to get canned.  This is typical Union employee BS. These High School graduates have lived the good life, now at the expense of the American tax payer visa ve our bailout and their exhorbitant union contracts, for long enough and now that they’re getting laid off they’re showing their elementary maturity level.  If you’re going to fight people at least make it about sports or a girl.  Not work.  I thought we knew this?

“The economy continues taking its toll on people across the country. Locally, the emotion and pain of job loss struck in Wayland Friday as tempers flared and employees fought just hours after they found out they were losing their jobs. Employee Jason Stanton went after another employee in desperation in the aftermath of a difficult day. 30 employees at Wayland Chevrolet found out their jobs were gone on Friday, and to many in town the move came as a huge surprise. Compassion and sympathy were extended for those dealing with the sudden loss.”

Cool video on the history of the internet.

It’s sort of the Internet for Dummies.  Someone should pass this video through the walls of Congress or at least to Senator Ted Stevens office.

I can appreciate, at a superficial level, the need or desire to erase bad memories in ones life but once you start down the rabbit hold of purging your perceived bad experiences from your memory bank what’s next? Maybe you had a bad relationship, would you then like to purge all memory of that relationship? What if you had a tragic car crash that has scarred you from driving in heavy rain, will taking this pill then enable you to drive in the rain without fear?  Now I am aware this is a bit of stretch but my point is once you start playing god with your own memories then it can quickly domino into an overall effort to cleanse you of all of your perceived bad life experiences.  More on that in a moment.

Here’s the skinny. “A widely available blood pressure pill could one day help people erase bad memories, perhaps treating some anxiety disorders and phobias, according to a Dutch study published on Sunday. The drug was shown to significantly weaken people’s fearful memories of spiders. The generic beta-blocker propranolol significantly weakened people’s fearful memories of spiders among a group of healthy volunteers who took it, said Merel Kindt, a psychologist at the University of Amsterdam, who led the study.”

Personally it doesn’t make too much sense to me to help people forget about the bad things in their lives.  If you were to forget all that went bad in your life how are you to then prevent it from happening again in the future?  Just like the old adage says, “those who cannot remember history are doomed to repeat it.”  If you’re really looking to forget or get over something do one of two things: One confront it head on and get over it or just pick up the bottle ;).

Well at least the granola eating environmentalists are happy.  Bloomberg.com reported that, “U.S. auto sales plummeted 32 percent in October to the lowest monthly total since January 1991, led by General Motors Corp.’s 45 percent slide, as reduced access to loans and a weaker economy kept consumers off dealer lots. Ford Motor Co. reported a 30 percent drop in car and light- truck sales from a year earlier and Toyota Motor Corp.’s declined 23 percent. Honda Motor Co.’s slid 25 percent, Nissan Motor Co.’s were down 33 percent and Chrysler LLC’s fell 35 percent.”

Maybe this will finally be the wake up call that Detroit and the rest of the world needs to start creating cars that are efficient when it comes to gasoline consumption or run on alternative fuels.

As oil continues its epically awesome tumble, $.53 cents in 2 weeks, OPEC scrambles to try to save the only export, outside of terrorism, the Middle East and Venezuela possess.

In a desperate move to save oil prices from falling further OPEC members met in Vienna this week to decide what should be done to prop up the price of oil.  Obviously they’re not understanding that oil has cost way to much for way too long. OPEC will probably make a cut in production soon (if they haven’t already) which could impact the quickly dropping price of oil as, “the member nations account for two-thirds of the world’s oil reserves, and, as of March 2008, 35.6% of the world’s oil production.” Russia, Mexico and Norway (non OPEC members) should help to fill in the gaps from lack of production from OPEC.  Yet another reason to get our economy off oil energy.

A spokesman for OPEC, Jafar, pictured below, said in a prepared statement, “allah ak bar.”

Hilarious

Colin Powell highlights his displeasure with the Republican Party (I hear ya!), McCain’s “unsure” response to the economy and Sarah Palin as a viable running mate as reasons not to endorse the McCain campaign.

Colin Powell’s past endorsements include….

“If your annual salary is less than $112,000, you’d pay less in taxes under Obama’s plan; if your salary is higher, McCain would cut your taxes more. “While the aggregate tax cut is bigger for McCain, a larger number of voters get more money under Obama,” says Alan Viard, a tax-policy expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “Obama is choosing to emphasize tax cuts for the middle class, whereas McCain’s strategy is to keep rates lower at the top as a way to facilitate long-run growth.” For example, a person with an income of $1 million could see his taxes increase under Obama by as much as $94,000, whereas under McCain’s plan he could save about $48,000.”                                                                         

                                                                 Obama       McCain

If you make                                You would save     You would save

Less than $19,000 (go back to college)             $567            $21

$19,000 - $37,600                                            $892            $118

$37,600 - $66,400                                            $1,118         $325

$66,400 - $111,600                                          $1,264         $994

$111,600 - $161,000                                        $2,135         $2,584

$161,000 - $227,000                                        $2,796         $4,437

Top 5% of earners                        You would pay      You’d save

$227,000 - $603,400                                         $121           $8,169      

$603,400 - $2.87million                                   $93,709      $48,862

more than $2.87million                                    $542,882     $290,708

I don’t know about you but I’m voting with my wallet.  ”Income redistribution” my ass.

Lehman Brothers approves $100 million in payouts to top executives before declaring bankruptcy.  Come on let’s get some pitch forks and burn these motherf*ckers down!

“Mother’s Cookies, an Oakland institution for 92 years, has been shuttered, its owner seeking bankruptcy protection for the company.” Mother’s Cookies was known for generations for their animal shaped cookies with sprinkles that I would inevitably eat too much of.

“The ending was abrupt: Workers for the company, which shifted its baking and distribution operations to plants in Ohio and Canada in 2006, told workers Friday that operations would cease and cookies would no longer be made as of Monday. The company cited rising prices for raw materials and fuel, and on Monday filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.”  What!? We can’t bail out an all american cookie company? Come on, What Would Cookie Monster Do?

“According to industry lore, the company was founded in 1914 by a newspaper vendor, N.M. Wheatley, as a one-person shop. It expanded and moved to the 81st Avenue location in 1949.”

RIP Mother’s Cookies, sniff, sniff.