So the $700,000,000,000 bailout plan pushed by the Bush administration and tweaked by Congress over the weekend failed to make it out of the House, and everyone is scratching their heads, wondering, “Now what?”
With a population of about 300 million people, that comes to about $300 billion total, less than half of what Congress was proposing to spend. Trim it down to $1 million per household (still fine by me!), and that number drops even further.
Time again for another amazingly accurate prediction (also known as a wild guess) for this week’s Texas Longhorns football game, courtesy of NCAA Football 09 for the Nintendo Wii.
Past predictions have been so-so, with last week’s real score a whopping 18 combined points different from the Wii prediction. (Hey, I never said this was a perfect system.)
Anyway, this week the Arkansas Razorbacks come to town, still sore from getting their pork pulled last week by Alabama. On paper, tomorrow’s game should be no different. After all, this Arkansas team has struggled all season, and don’t think for one minute the Horns have forgotten what happened the last time the Hogs came to Austin.
Still, after seeing Oregon State take down #1 USC on Thursday night, it’s important to remember that nothing can be taken for granted anymore in NCAA 1-A football. The Wii, in all it’s electronic wisdom, must understand that because this week it’s predicting a painfully close score of 24-21, Texas.
Let’s hope I’m way off, ’cause I’m smellin’ bacon!
Hook ‘Em, Horns!
Real Score: 52-10. Whoa. Not even close. Maybe the Wii thought I was playing Ole Miss vs. Florida.
Is it OK to “let” your kids win? Last night my 5-year-old daughter Erin and I played a board game, and I won. Immediately she began crying because I didn’t let her win. I offered to play again, telling her she might win this time, but she wasn’t having any of it.
I’m reminded of that scenario this morning as I read about the federal government’s $700,000,000,000 (let those zeroes sink in for a second) plan to bailout the financial sector. Under the hastily proposed plan by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, the federal government would buy up a bunch of bad assets from banks in order to keep them from having to suffer the consequences of their actions.
But should it?
The Bush administration says that it’s necessary in order to end the financial crisis we’re in, but there’s no guarantee that the plan will work. But even beyond the question of the plan’s efficacy is the question of whether we should be letting these financial institutions off the hook in the first place.
We’re in this mess because of a host of systemic failures that have been largely ignored for years. And now, because it’s right before a presidential election, we’re supposed to rush in bailout these companies?
Certainly there are enormous consequences if we don’t, but what are the longer-term consequences if we do? By bailing out these companies, aren’t we letting them win? Aren’t we sending the message that if you screw up again, Uncle Sam will be right there, ready and willing to give you a free pass?
The real problem with the plan, many economists argue, is that it attempts to be something that’s a contradiction in terms: a free-market bailout. By scooping up securities with no strings attached, it fails to give financial firms the right incentives to get healthy.
Erin eventually agree to play me again, and that time she won fair and square. Now that she was happy, I was able to talk to her and explain that in life she was going to win a lot and she was going to lose a lot and how if I let her win all the time, that wouldn’t be fair to either of us.
I just wish someone in Washington had the courage to have that same talk with the folks on Wall Street.
Microsoft is finally getting around to responding to Apple’s “I’m a Mac” ads by releasing a series of ads showing various people, including a few celebrities, proclaiming that they’re a PC. The idea is to combat the negative stereotype of Windows and its users propagated by the Apple ads.
With other marketing efforts such as the Mojave Experiment falling flat, it was a smart move on Microsoft’s part to take direct aim at Apple. After all, the Windows/Mac debate has always been about culture and stereotypes rather than about the actual quality of the products.
As well-orchestrated as the ads may be, however, I don’t think they’ll be enough.
Microsoft is in a terrible position, image-wise, in the tech world. Windows Vista, although a pretty good operating system, has been so maligned since its release that no amount of marketing is going to change that. That’s the reality.
But that’s not the only area they’re having problems in. They continue losing ground to Firefox and Google in the browser world, and they’re struggling with RIM, Apple, and soon Google in the mobile OS market. And when you look at online activities (search, webmail, social networking, web-based apps), they’re not just losing out to Google and others, they’re becoming the AOL of the Net in the process. Think about it: which connotes a more professional image, a Gmail address or a Hotmail address? WordPress or Windows Live Spaces? Flickr or Windows Live Photo Gallery?
Microsoft continues to excel (no pun intended) in the OS and office productivity worlds, and they have a strong foothold in the enterprise. But clearly they’re struggling with an image problem in the consumer realm, and ultimately that could be devastating. (And honestly, their own “Windows Live” branding isn’t helping anything.) Even non-techy users are becoming more sophisticated, and they’re going to use the products that best fit their needs. And the fact of the matter is, outside of the enterprise Microsoft does not have the best products in most cases.
The “I’m a PC” ads are a good first step in changing how their products are perceived, but they’re going to have to do much, much more–going on the offensive not just against Apple, but against Google and others–if they hope to remain relevant in the years to come.
After having a soggy weekend off from Texas Longhorn football, I’m back with my weekly prediction for the game, courtesy of NCAA Football 09 for the Wii. Previous weeks have yielded fairly close prognostications, so I’m eager to see if the trend continues.
This week, the Horns host the Rice Owls at home, and the Wii predicts the final score to be Texas 62, Rice 18.
No doubt the Longhorns will dominate this game, especially on offense, and after having to deal with the ravages of Hurricane Ike this past week, you kinda have to feel sorry for the Owls. Kinda.
Last weekend it was Hurricane Ike. This weekend get ready to meet Hurricane Mack.
Hook ‘Em, Horns!
Real Score: 52-10. Sorta close. Give each time another touchdown and throw in a field goal for Texas, and you’re there!
Consumption is indeed important in a free economy: particularly the freedom of consumers to buy their goods in unhampered markets. However, key to long-term economic growth is investment (savings), which is the opposite of consumption. Public policies that promote consumption — such as low interest rates — do so at the expense of savings. Less savings means less investments; an economy that does not save or invest will consume all of its resources and eventually end up bankrupt.
We’ve already seen the collapse of Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and other big financial institutions, and it looks like this latest round may not be the end of it. And all of it can be traced back to the failure of the mortgage industry in the wake of the end of the housing boom, a boom driven by bad loans and easy credit issued to borrowers who couldn’t afford it.
And yet, even in the midst of this turmoil, we hear that the Fed will be keeping interest rates at 2 percent and may actually lower them further, which seems at odds with Myth # 6:
A rate below the market rate creates a higher demand for credit; thus people and companies get into debt beyond normal levels. On the other hand, low savings-account rates push people to withdraw money, lowering the market supply of funds. These dislocations are at the root of the eventual credit crisis, which follows the boom period that was caused by artificially low interest rates.
I’m the first to admit I’m no economist, but something just doesn’t seem right here. Yes, I know the Fed is trying to prevent a recession by keeping rates low. But isn’t it just exasperating the credit crisis in the process?
Saied also tackles the myth that “dependence on foreign oil” is keeping oil prices high. He correctly points out that switching to American-produced oil will do nothing to lower oil prices, a fact that will of course continue to be completely ignored during this election cycle.
One factor that is related to high oil prices, however, is the weakening of the dollar, and with the collapse of Lehman and others, the dollar will continue to lose value, meaning we can probably expect even higher gas prices, regardless of oil supplies.
The company has been logging on, reaching out to potential customers, and trying – sometimes awkwardly – to listen to them. And it’s using social media to do so. That’s right, Web 2.0 isn’t just for college sophomores anymore. Apparently you can use it to patch up a $37 billion PC business too. …
It has a squad of 42 employees who spend their workdays engaging with the communities on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. What is this Team Web 2.0 learning? One important nugget: that potential customers spend 99% of their time on the web doing research and just 1% actually buying. So the company has tried to dial down the hard sell and become – or at least appear to become – more helpful.
OK, Mike. You wanna be my friend? You want to “at least appear” to be more helpful? Then here’s a suggestion: hire qualified tech support staff at the Enterprise level. When I, as a network admin, call in to get a replacement part for a dead Latitude that’s still under warranty, just send me the part–the right part, please–without treating me like a 5-year-old. And don’t route my call to four different queues, all of which end up in Bangalore.
Is that too much to ask?
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate Dell (the company or the products–or the man for that matter), but I’ve seen the quality of their support decline rapidly over the last several years. When I worked at Microsoft, we dealt with Enterprise-level support engineers at Dell all the time, and they could always be counted on to deliver top-notch service. Nowadays, though, it’s sometimes painful calling in for support. Even after I’ve done the requisite troubleshooting on my end, they still sometimes refuse to admit that their hardware could be faulty.
And it’s not just me. The Unisys techs I talk to–the ones that Dell sends out to perform on-site service–admit they’re just as frustrated.
Write something about Dell online, and chances are the company will know about it in an hour or so. Dis the company in a blog or a Facebook group, and someone from a crack response team may even chime in, if only to let everyone know that Dell cares.
Last week I started playing NCAA Football 09 on the Wii, pitting the Texas Longhorns against their opponent for the week, which was Florida Atlantic. The Wii score was 55-0, Longhorns, and the real score was 52-10.
Not bad.
This week the Horns head to El Paso to take on UTEP. Just another non-conference road game for UT (or not), but the game of the century for the Miners. While most predictions for the game give the Horns at least 50 points, the Magic 8-Ball Wii says they’ll only score 33 to UTEP’s 10.
But then again, the Wii doesn’t have the “Q” Package.
Hook ‘Em, Horns!
Real Score: 42-13. Again, pretty close, particularly since the score as of about 13 minutes left in the game was still 35-13. I wonder, though, how accurate it’ll be when they get into the harder conference games. We’ll see…
On July 31st I made a decision to monitor by bandwidth consumption for the month of August to see how many bits I downloaded and uploaded. The experiment was in direct response to the decision of several ISPs who are now imposing usage limits, including New York ISP Frontier Communications’ paltry 5 GB cap.
I installed DU Meter on my home computer and then just used it as I normally would. The results were pretty surprising.
The total usage for the month came to 21.4 GB, using a whopping 4.3 GB the first day alone.
Admittedly a big chunk of that 21 GB came from downloading video podcasts and a 2 GB documentary using Miro. But even if you take out all that traffic, I’m still way over Frontier’s 5 GB limit. Other bandwidth-hungry activities include downloading some songs from Emusic, and watching videos on YouTube and Hulu.
But the biggest surprise was not the numbers. As I mentioned on August 5th, it’s really the psychology that changes once you know that the Internet is no longer unlimited. As I wrote:
Something really weird has happened since beginning this experiment. Even though my ISP doesn’t currently set any usage limits, just knowing that my usage is being monitored has drastically affected how I think about the Internet. I’m hyper-aware of every song or video I download, every website I visit, every desktop application that polls the Internet for updates.
It used to be in the early days of home Internet access that a dial-up account included a limited number of minutes. As you used it, you unconsciously counted each minute spent online so that you wouldn’t hit your limit before the end of the month. Now imagine that same scenario but with a limit based not on minutes but on megabytes.
With a limited number of bits you can push or pull over the wire, are you going to waste them downloading a movie from Netflix or uploading the pictures of your kid to Shutterfly? Are you going to use them to watch your favorite TV show on ABC.com or Hulu, catch up with your friends on Facebook, or talk to a loved one over Skype?
I think Comcast understood that when they decided to impose a 250 GB limit for their customers. It’s unlikely that many households will hit that limit, but just knowing that it’s there will almost definitely change the behavior of those users affected, at least temporarily.
It’s for that reason, primarily, that I remain opposed to bandwidth caps, more now than before I started my month-long trial. Coercing your customers to use less of your product not only is a poor business model, it’s a quick way to stifle communication and innovation, while also hurting so many other companies who depend on web advertising dollars to stay in business.
Here are the reports from DU Meter. Click to enlarge.
Error: Unable to access Twitter at URL (http://www.twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/jasonspooner.json?count=5). Verify service status. (HTTP code 401.)
