LUX.ET.UMBRA

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I have to say that overall with national politicians, there’s a pretty easy litmus test to find out if your particular representation is actually listening and serving your needs.

E-mail them.

In the past, I have had responses to emails from former Senator Edwards, and Senator Burr, but never anything from former Senator Dole. I also have received responses recently from Representative Mel Watts and Senator Burr (kudos here for always generating conversation) but nothing from Senator Hagan’s office.

Call it strange, but Hagan replaced Dole so I wonder what that’s about. In any case, in regards to my email, Senator Burr’s office contacted me directly and had a short but very responsive contact. Representative Watts though sent me a letter that basically said that he’d love to support my needs, but since no legislation was brought up in Congress about it, he’ll keep a look out for it. For the most part, it was a generic form mailer. Which, while I appreciate feedback, it’s one of those… ehh… what? It was almost answering a question like: “Is the sky blue?” with… “I’m sure your color has merit, and when the general consensus talks about a sky color, I’ll support yours.”

You sort of have to laugh at it and wonder exactly what politicians do. You’re either for, or against a certain ideal. Perhaps there is merit to either side and you could be swayed to one end. But without actual conversation, the generic stop letter is just not the way to go. Maybe that’s just me from a personal perspective, but it’s only slightly better than the total constituent ignore only because you’re getting it on Congressional letterhead.

Today, this issue really isn’t about Representative Watts’ letter and I apologize to him for using his letter as an example. But from a state where the general populace has been beaten down to a bloody pulp when it comes to employment and trade, the cynicism starts to grow when you don’t see conversations being started by even the aides of the representation. Call it strange but you would hope those are the individuals that are fighting for you in the big city of politics.

Tags: Government, Observation, Opinion, Personal, Politics by darkmoon
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Still think that the economy is improving? If the shutdown of the Dell plant around here isn’t enough to scoff at that mindset, let’s look at an even larger one. Sun Microsystems is looking to layoff three thousand more employees. Now, while layoffs are inevitable during mergers and acquisitions (in this case with Oracle), this also represents something a little bit larger.

It says that until corporations or the government gives a nice jab in the arm on hiring, the overall percentage of buying power has been reduced. This hurt can and will be felt through both retail and financial markets since people without jobs cannot pay loans and mortgages. And let’s face it. Saving the financial institutions do not amount to squat if the people that the money is being loaned to can’t get work to actually pay it back. This is not only brings financial players to a grinding halt, but it shows that politicians do not understand the basics of economics. Everything starts with the beginning of the food chain, not the end.

What’s worse is that until someone does actually gain this bright idea, all of the injection of federal funding is for naught. That means that the taxpayers bear the burden of a costly mistake, of which becomes more and more weight per each individual as more and more people cannot find work. And you wonder how Congress can sleep at night with a twenty or so percent approval rating.

Tags: Business, Government, Life, Observation, Opinion, Politics, Society, World by darkmoon
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Bleh. CNBC and the rest of the financial world totally is off their rockers.

I mean, think about it. The Dow Jones breaks 10,000 and people think that the economy is turning around. But in all reality, that’s an indicator of shareholder confidence in the corporations after the huge government bailouts. Not only is the dollar weak now against other currencies but it’s not likely to be any better any time soon with all the surmounting debt. But if you don’t watch the financial markets and actually just buy into your mainstream media, let me put it another way… do you think this will survive in the long term? Especially with the holiday season coming?

Think about it. Job loss is at an all time high, and corporations are not producing any more hiring. The jobs that are taking place are the entry level, non-education based while the educated workforce is laid off. On top of this, the government itself doesn’t hire civilians unless you have military discharge papers (go and try to apply and when you finally finish the entire application, you might be surprised at what you need to submit). So with all of this coming and locally, we’re losing 900+ jobs from the Dell plant closing, that means there is less money to pay for … yes, gifts. Less work force also means less taxes, and less potential profits for retail. Retail has a trickle-down effect upon anyone that supplies or transports for that industry.

In essence? Stocks that do well don’t mean jack diddly. If there is anything that it does mean, it means that the senior management is even less likely to hire. Why? Simple supply and demand. If they can squeeze the effort out of the current work force with the threat looming of job loss, and provide greater revenue for their shareholders, there isn’t one single event that could show why they would want to expand status quo unless it’s to squeeze more people with more work. And the way things are going, the stimulus money wasn’t just a wasted effort in my opinion, but it could have lead to more job creation from the government itself. Whatever happened to when we fought wars and provided jobs?

In the end? It seems like the only ones that win in the end are those that are in the upper social stratosphere. Where most want to be, but few ever achieve.

Tags: Business, Government, Observation, Opinion by darkmoon
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So I get to reading about a $529 million loan to Fisker Automotive which doesn’t help Americans with jobs due to the vehicle being developed in Finland, nor the fact that the price tag is eighty-nine thousand dollars (not to mention its a sports car) which is outside the realm of any middle class American.

What’s interesting is that these companies are getting these huge loans by the American taxpayers during a time where American job loss is at its highest and there have been many applications for smaller loans to develop vehicles that are less costly and better for American consumer pocketbooks, that have been turned down.

While the DOE spokesperson has said that each application is dealt with fairly, I have to wonder in knowing of practices within the federal government since most things are actually subjective to those that are working on the applications themselves. I also would be curious if there is an appeals process to understand why it was turned down.

Needless to say, the fact that money is being thrown about for a “greener future” without taking into account that the burden to the taxpayers has greatened due to job loss and global economic failure makes one wonder what the heck is going up at the top of the totem pole. Believe me, I get the whole environmental thing and how it’s good. But when you’re throwing some major cash at a foreign manufacturer while people here are screaming for help, a lot of eyebrows raise.

Let’s not forget that we the taxpayers not only pay for these ridiculous price tags, but we also pay your salaries.

Tags: Government, Observation, Opinion by darkmoon
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Are we ready for healthcare reform?

I believe that we are not as far as the United States is concerned. There are several historical things that really go to show that it wouldn’t really work. Not to mention it would cost more than any other government’s implementation due to how our status quo for government hiring and quality stand.

While it probably doesn’t matter since most citizens that speak out really do not get a chance to make a difference in the big picture of things, there are several things that speak against universal healthcare. I do believe this is an ideal and obviously worthwhile if implemented correctly. But I don’t believe the US can do it due to current government spending and past program histories.

Both Medicare and Medicaid are a joke when it comes to cost. Yes, we pay for it, but anyone can tell you that if you have some sort of a condition, it takes a while for granting of the funds. Will we be going for basic medical care that is granted by the second largest agency in the U.S., the Veterans Affairs? Because if so, then might we posture the horror stories that come out of the VA medical? Or the fact that every social program seems to be bloated beyond belief because of red tape to actually function as it should and are not optimized to a point where it would actually not cost billions of dollars just to run the management of it?

So if cost is a factor and you cannot pay for it, and healthcare would suffer due just by viewing how current programs are being managed, we fail to even consider the fact that the burden is carried by the taxpayer. With the majority of middle-class bearing the weight of taxes currently, and with those that have been hit by economic downturn and job loss, the burden is then unfairly increased across the class. Will the government pick up the tab when their paychecks are drawn from these tax collections?

What’s amusing in all of this is that I believe that healthcare reform is an ideal that would greatly benefit this country. But not in its current state due to how it’s managed. Imagine having to create a new division just to manage all of the claims and the management that comes with it. Let’s not forget that DHS was also created less than a decade ago and there are several GAO reports of its mismanagement of funds. Healthcare will be any different in this sense? I think not.

All of this brings me back to the days of high school back in ‘94 when the national debate topic was healthcare. Funny that I remember my school being National Champions that year and there wasn’t a time on the debate team that I remember us actually arguing for universal healthcare. It seemed that at the time, anyone that did would lose the arguments due to similar basic analysis as above.

So what’s different now? Haven’t really seen a thing yet. Universal healthcare? Ha. Why not get people jobs first, or you really want to make a difference with national programs, how about changing Social Security so that a person doesn’t pay for the older generations and instead pays for their own future. There are enough headaches to tackle as-is, and bringing one giant problem into the mess just makes you wonder if the entire system will falter at some point. It’s like for years, the foundation of this American house has been bearing more weight than it was designed to handle, and we’re looking to build a new wing on there instead of reinforcing the foundation. Just doesn’t seem like a bright move.

Tags: Government, Health, Observation, Opinion by darkmoon
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Call me crazy, but I just don’t get it.

Why is it that every single state has these huge deficits that didn’t show up last year? Or the year before? I mean, I’m absolutely dumbfounded by why suddenly everyone has a budget shortage and they claim that it has to do with the recession and such. The obvious only reasoning for it is that they come up with silly ideas of budgeting such as taxing digital transactions, alcohol and such and think that what the potential “bring in” is what they can spend.

Like I said, I don’t know anything about politics and state governments but that’s the only reason I can think of where you can suddenly have a huge dropping out of funds. When you spend more than you have because you think you’re collecting revenue on something instead of actually waiting to spend it after you’ve collected it. One of the biggest mistakes of fiscal responsibility that I’ve ever seen if this is the case. And before people start pointing fingers saying that it’s because we have Democrats, or Republicans or whatever XYZ political party, I find that this is the case across the board. Maybe everyone wants a piece of the stimulus bill. Who knows. But anyone that tries to achieve power eventually abuses it in the same fashion.

In the end, I just want someone explain to me where these huge holes are coming from. I mean, as a citizen that doesn’t have time to do the research because I’m too busy trying to put food on the table, the things from the media usually just talk about the doom and gloom instead of seeing where the issues lie and propose fixes. I’m okay with taxes as long as they serve a legitimate purpose and are not paying for someone’s pet project like building another bridge in a place that already has one. Anyone want to take a stab?

Tags: Government, Observation, Opinion, Politics by darkmoon
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Greenlight is a FTTH (basically the same technology as Verizon FiOS) service by the city of Wilson in North Carolina. But the question is that if there was to be the creation of such a service, would we have the infrastructure to support it currently and how far would the reach be? Thus, this discussion is predominantly about that and where we stand currrently.

DOCSIS
My main concern with Time Warner currently is how they’re selling DOCSIS 3.0 as if it’s going to fix the data cap issue. But, don’t forget that DOCSIS 3.0 doesn’t actually require that much effort in technology upgrades. It’s mainly a standards change and binding of channels. This basically means that 3.0 markets could eventually fall under the axe of the data caps. So when I saw that they were toting a $99/month 50Mbp downstream and 5Mbp upstream, it hit me that the consumers would lose yet again here in a tiered system.

So far, there have been no guarantees that going to DOCSIS 3.0 would actually have no data cap. Time Warner will probably not deploy this technology here either until there is serious competition since it doesn’t impact their bottom line here in the Triad due to little to no competition.

Verizon FiOS and AT&T Uverse
I predict that Verizon FiOS will not be here any time soon based purely on the fact that this market is maintained by AT&T (previously BellSouth). This was a distribution by the Baby Bells, and thus Verizon doesn’t have any infrastructure here. AT&T Uverse is a hybrid fiber/copper system that can provide a similar sort of service without going through the full fiber infrastructure ground work. The negative of it is that it doesn’t provide the speeds of FTTH (which is what FiOS is due to it being pure fiber to the homes), but the positive is that it costs less in the fixed costs of initial groundwork and can set up as an intermediate stage to FTTH. Unfortunately, AT&T has shown interest in the data cap type servicing plans which defeats the purpose of “faster” services when you’re limited to how much you can use.

Pricing
From a price structure, most of the speed is really lost when you’re on a data cap. Currently, the pricing below shows the more comparable services and how much they’re supposedly going to cost based on their current quotes. Also remember that as of current, unless you do a lot of simultaneous high bandwidth type downloads, upper limits of speed for downstreams are more or less irrelevant to most of your general consumers currently. Now if you had multiple HD streams going, then it would definitely make a difference but even with your current cable, you already can buffer and watch while it buffers the rest.

City Infrastructures
High Point : I’m not really sure if High Point has a fiber ring. They might, or might not but if they do, I don’t know what it’s used for as of current.
Greensboro : They do have a fiber ring but it’s city use currently. Can this be used to create FTTH service to certain neighborhoods? I think so. But the infrastructure would have be upgraded and extended out to service more than just the downtown areas where I assume most of the ring is located. They will also have to begin to look into how to create the jobs similar to Greenlight and how to break city and law enforcement services away on the same ring from servicing the public.
Winston-Salem : Of the three cities, Winston-Salem is probably the best set for a shift to services like Greenlight. This is due to the fact that WinstonNet already services the universities here and they have been working on a wireless initiative in the past to provide wireless to all of Winston-Salem and eventually Forsyth County. Being an Internet 2 POP, the bandwidth is definitely there and they can use that as a base structure to become a provider. I would love to see this happen, but it would depend on how they feel about the entire competitive thing and if they believe it would benefit the citizens on a whole.

Regional Politics
I truly think that regionalism is the best push for this type of project, but seeing how the Heart of the Triad pretty much fell by the wayside, and there’s always talk about regionalism but actually very little action, it’s hard for me to see it happen without turf issues. All in all, smaller cities just can’t compete on a grand scale compared with a larger populace.

Synopsis
I believe that a municipal provided service would actually be the most beneficial to defeating tiered billing. Not only would it be a cheaper service, but the governments on a whole are accountable to its people. The couple of parts that I foresee as an issue would be the fact that municipalities not working well together as a region to create a larger fiber ring that no one else has in the United States. It would also show that when people come together, they can provide for its people and put aside its differences. Great speech stuff, but in reality I wonder if the Triad can actually accomplish this. The other part is that business competition with municipalities is actually a potential legal problem. There would have to be some sort of a nonprofit that would represent the Triad in this matter similar to how Winston-Salem is represented by WinstonNet. Only as such, can they perhaps play the same game that the city of Wilson is playing.

Tags: Business, Government, Internet, Local, Technology by darkmoon
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I was recently at a Forsyth County TDA meeting along with Lucy and Jon.
Being that I’ve been in doing community things in Greensboro for years, and was starting my venture into Winston-Salem’s community work, I found that there were a few things that were somewhat off.
In one of the exercises, we were to describe Forsyth County in one word. As an “outsider” but resident of the Triad nonetheless, I found that many people were throwing out words that fit better with other Triad areas than within. For instance, Greensboro really is better suited for family life mainly due to the difference in culture and downtowns. Even the nonprofit worlds from both cities vastly differ. And in the world of business? You want to differentiate yourself by playing your strengths, not playing the general field.
To me? Winston-Salem offers a lot more business type opportunities. Their retail district at one time was one of the largest in the state, and I’m sure that the Hanes Mall area is still one of the most trafficked. By no means is it my favorite (Shops at Friendly would definitely rank the highest there) but Winston-Salem offers a lot in that realm. Also, the push for both WinstonNet and the loans for 4th Street are amazing. That’s definitely a push to make downtown a nicer food arena.
By contrast, Greensboro’s community pushed for a park within their downtown. They were the first to bring a new ballpark to the downtown area through foundation help. There were talks about making the Greenway better. All in all, the focuses were more on the living standards than business.
Here, each city has entirely different focuses based on their constituents and what they drive. So when people were throwing out the words and emotions tied to what they believed what this area entailed, I mentally had to sigh a bit. It’s not that it was wrong. In fact, the words probably do touch certain people in those fashions. But if ICF names you one of the top seven “intelligent communities” in the world of 2008, somehow I doubt your strength is in family building.
In that sense? Focus the marketing on what you are to others and less on what you want to be to others.

Tags: Government, Local, Observation, Opinion by darkmoon
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Here’s the deal. Where exactly are these bailouts going? I think that overall, Washington is missing the point of the matter. We keep bolstering large corporate structures to “provide, provide, provide” with lower interest rates, better loans, and everything.
But the real problem? Before, the problem was half the problem of the lenders by giving out “toxic” loans, and the other half were borrowers that were getting into loans they couldn’t afford or could barely afford. That’s an issue of financial responsibility.
Now the problem has changed. It was complicated before, but it’s even more so now because the effect is shown with the stock market and how corporations are responding. With unemployment at a high and layoff forecasts not getting any better in the short term, the Treasury and the federal government needs to stop a second and take a look at the big picture.
Our president has come out and said that the stimulus will be judged by job creation, but I just don’t see that happening. Technology is one of the movers and shakers of Wall Street and if you view just that category specifically, most large technology corporations are all in a hiring freeze and dropping serious attrition numbers in both last quarter and this quarter. This in turn will start the vicious cycle of having consumers stop “consuming” which will put them in a savings mode and thus break down retail. At this point? A tax credit for homebuyers isn’t going to cut it, nor will tax cuts. Let’s face the awful fact:
You can’t take advantage of the best sale in the world, if you have no money in your wallet.
And that’s the crisis that we Americans face, as do many others globally. A consumer culture meltdown with billions of taxpayer dollars thrown at the wrong areas. Tax cuts don’t work, mainly because to pay taxes? You have to actually be employed and something actually is going into your wallet from the sweat equity. So when House Speaker Pelosi is criticizing the Senate (whom is also pushing tax cuts) on cutting the money to build schools, I have to wonder what exactly the House Speaker is pushing. I mean, it’s a stimulus plan to help Americans back on their feet, not a “build our future” plan. The fact that the Democrats are pushing for these pet projects on this bill just sickens me.
While I’m thinking about it, the Republicans criticizing the current stimulus plan are not out of the hot seat either. Why? Most of these politicians are the same ones from before the White House administration change. Less we forget, the last bailout plan had a bunch of pet projects that didn’t support the so-called “small businesses are being hurt” type defense. No one is paying here, except really the taxpayers that are fearing for their jobs, or cannot find a replacement.
In the end, the solution to the problem is to provide financial stability to consumers. That means job creation, or perhaps grants or funds to help small businesses expand. Until you put money in the wallets of your taxpayers, they can’t pay taxes nor can they stimulate consumerism. And isn’t that what the entire toxic loans were all about? We just need to address the problems in a LIFO perspective and work backwards as each issue is solved. That’s the only way to ever get out of this mess.

Tags: Business, Financial, Government, Politics by darkmoon
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Yeah. Betcha those people that thought that the financial bailout was going to prevent financial ruin are thinking twice. Oh yes! The world economy is going to go to ruin, because these corporations don’t get their money to stay afloat?
What a load of horse dung. And look where it’s landed the taxpayers. We’ve already spent $350 billion and the rest will probably be released with little to no oversight or catches. And corporations like Citigroup are laughing all the way to the bank.
In their brand-spanking-new Dassault Falcon 7x.
Oh yes, you didn’t know they bought one of these babies, eh? It only cost a measly $50 million. And they’re trying to offload their two older model Dassaults valued at $27 million a piece. All the while claiming that if they didn’t pay, they would be accepting millions in penalty charges and that the jets are more fuel efficient. Maybe it’s just me, but it’s like someone telling me that they downgraded from a Hummer H2 to a H3 and they’re saving loads on gas now. Personally? I don’t think that Citigroup’s senior management’s time is worth $50 million. Not in this day and age, and definitely not while claiming to need the taxpayers to back them up.
What’s worse in all this is that people in Congress actually let this happen. Citigroup claims that TARP money will not be used for this purchase, but when you’re a financial institution, money can be shifted around and no one is the wiser. Not to mention, who’s counting those zeroes on the end now that they got almost $50 billion from TARP.
It’s ludicrous that as Americans, we allow any of this to happen with no catches. Politicians are just as much to blame as poor corporate management in a time when layoffs are at an all time high and the end doesn’t seem to be on the horizon.

Tags: Business, Government, Opinion by darkmoon
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