Sageman's Blog

So here is what I've been thinking. With gas prices at the point they are now maybe it's time for us to look at the positive behind rising prices. As well as a solution that involves less gas consumption rather than implementing plans that would only provide a stop gap solution to the biggest problem facing America today.

Positives

Higher prices will force people to focus on alternative means of travel; Public Transit, Car Pooling, Biking, Electric Scooters and Segways etc....

Will make people be more sensible in their housing purchases. Just think about this, the average round trip commute of 20 miles costs about $4.00 a day. That's $20.00 a week and  $1040.00 in gas a year just to go back and forth to work.  That's just going from work and back, not including your every day drive to the store, school etc...

Also higher gas prices will eventually level out, when that occurs, wage and other costs will balance out. Creditors will begin giving more credit when the economy stabilize and this will stimulate the economy and we will once again see economic growth. I thought of this theory the other day while thinking about economics. I personally think it holds true when we look at the past.

Research has increased on alternative fuels so fast that people are no longer looking 10 years in the future many are saying 5 years. Look at the history of trend setting products, the Internet, PC and Ipod, all took less than 3 years to meet the needs of consumers with infrastructure. Some analysts have stated that when alternative fuels become profitable you will see an implementation nation wide of less than 2 to 3 years.


Big Oil Companies and the politicians they pay are promoting off shore drilling to pump more oil but experts have said this wont lower prices at all. What republicans are arguing is a price plateua but history has proven this will happen even if we continue to rely on foreign oil. Where in fact if we drill offshore the only people to benifit will be the people drilling the oil. If we don't save any more money but provide a cheaper source of oil then who profits? Oil companys, and for those that argue competitive pricing, well my friend no oil company undercuts another by more than 10 cents on average. Keep that in mind.

Here is an article I ran across. What do you think about the restrictions on what can be asked or what can't be asked? A lot of people are finding this amusing, how about you?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcb_china/20080722/wl_mcb_chin
a/theeightdontasksoftheolympics

Enjoy.

If anyone has been reading the blogs here you will see a lot of really interesting articles written by people eager to open a discourse about the news that interests them. This is often impossible to do as of late because of certain individuals hijacking the blogs.

By taking a blog off topic to put forth your own agenda you are hijacking a thread. Doing this on most boards will get you a warning or two, then an IP ban (Internet Protocol I.E.  Your Internet Address). MyFox is unusually lenient with regards to this but I wanted to make a point.

All the people griping about there being a delay on your post's generating, keep in mind how many times your perfectly wonderful post was turned into a forum to bash a political figure, religion or other topic. Taking a post on these tangents detracts from the blog and it is rude.

If you want to push your own agenda do it by writing your own blog and putting forth your views there. I just hope no one comes and hijacks your thread like many have done to myself and others here.

You don't always have to agree with what's being written but at least respect the writers blog. I don't even mind the little greetings and the responses to those greetings when people write something that also pertains to the post but please be conscientious of the time and effort many put into righting their blogs.

Not trying to whine but I know others have the same opinion about this as I do.

Thanks

Let freedom ring, from the highest mountain to the lowest sea, let freedom ring! For it is in our hearts and minds where freedom is truly found. From the the depth of our heart freedom is allowed to reach heights unimaginable. It soars so much easier when others of like minds are able to come together, put aside their political biases and live together, proud of the fact that regardless of political affiliation, we are all the Sisters, Brothers, Mothers and Fathers that make America what it is. We are those living in the land of the free, the home of the brave, we are all proud Americans.

God bless the United States of America.

Independence Day is here and I was wondering what it means to you? To me I see it as a celebration of the freedom we have all been able to enjoy. To me it is a day to be thankful for the sacrifices so many have made so that I might be able to live the life I do. To me Independence Day is a day to think about those in the world who are not as lucky as us.

(Lets try to be positive in our posts in honor of the holiday, we have a bunch of other days to be negative.)

With wages increases at an all time low while productivity at an all time high, do you think that the federal government is ignoring the plight of the working man? As corporate executives’ wages and bonuses are increasing at a record high for certain industries do you think that the federal government needs to hold these companies accountable?

The theory behind corporate tax breaks are that companies take the money they receive from tax breaks and reinvest those savings into their employees as well as providing new jobs for their communities. This is not the case for most companies, in fact it’s the exact opposite. Most companies are laying off or cutting employee wages while providing bonuses (most of the time due to increases in productivity) for their executives. They are also shipping jobs overseas or outsourcing for positions. With many corporations moving their factories overseas, investing less in research and development and as a result letting our national infrastructure lag, the United States has the highest rate of poverty on any industrialized nation, and the highest level of inequality of wealth as well.

Comparing us to the rest of the industrial world, we have a declining education system, a lower life expectancy and a higher infant mortality. All of these are just the tip of the iceberg when we are also looking at a sagging economy. Experts have a few ideas as to what is causing this, low wages and a lack of health care.

The federal government has kept minimum wage down to an amount that is lower than the average wage 40 years ago at $5.85 per hour.  That means that we have lagged behind the cost of living increases by over $4.00 per hour. Also the amount of money put into taxes has lagged behind as well and failed to keep up with the cost of living increases as well.  Many experts state that to improve our economy we need an increase in minimum wage and we need to provide national health care plans to those working for small business unable to provide health care for their employees.

Do you think that federal guidelines need to be declared to protect employees and hold corporations accountable for their tax breaks.

With the recent news of the Army kicking out troops who are suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PST) for Misconduct, do you think this is unfair? With a bipartisan bill in place to investigate the mistreatment of its own troops, no one is sure how far up the chain of command this procedural decision goes?

In many of the cases those who suffered from PST were given recommendation from doctors for a medical discharge, instead of discharges, these recommendations were ignored. The Army failed to treat the soldiers and which caused many of the soldiers to continue to deteriorate and eventually led to discharges for disorder conduct. This means a loss of all benefits for the soldiers discharged for misconduct, regardless of their tenure in the service.

My question is this, who do you think should be held responsible for this and how can we make restitutions to these soldiers?

Tim Russert passed away suddenly today. I for one enjoyed "Meet the Press" and felt it was one of the few objective and open forums in the media today. With his passing we lose one of the great political analysts as well as one of the most recognized and  finest journalists on the air. His insight towards politics have helped many understand the complex political process as well as the points of view of both sides of the party lines.

I for one will miss his professionalism, his observations and the humanity he gave to the political process. In this day, I think it fair to say that he died at a young and untimely age.

So when we get down to understanding economics and we try to talk about interest rates, cost of living, credit ratings it all comes down to one thing, money. The fact is that we base our whole economy and faith on the dollar. A piece of paper that logically should be worth what ever a piece of paper sells for, right? Well no because we whether we want to think about it or not this piece of paper is being substituted for gold and silver and as such the federal government goes to lengths to insure that money in your pocket is backed up with an equal amount in our treasury. In theory at least, the actuality of it even becomes more complicated.

Yet here is where we get to the illusion of our economy, we are basing our whole well being  fiscally  on the assumption that money is the deciding factor in whether our economy exceeds or fails where as in actuality it's not money at all but rather whether people are willing to give us as credit that defines the strength of our economy.

See everything comes down to how much people are willing to invest in each of us. If the economy is booming people will give you money for anything, because in their eyes, we have an excess and as such by giving credit it will cause people to spend more and as such improve the economy. Where as this is a good system it is dependent on whether or not people are spending money.

See if no one is spending money, then there is no room for growth in economy. As such you have either an economy that is stagnant, or even worse, in recession! So the key is to get people to spend money thus giving it a much needed shot to arm! Remember those economic stimulus checks you received recently? Those were that shot in the arm the feds were hoping would boost our economy.

Yet here we come to the conundrum, there are certain factors that will always affect the economy. One is employment, simply because if people aren't working, they aren't spending money. If  they're not spending then, there is nothing to gauge their worth credit wise. Second is the housing market, mainly because out of everything a person owns, the house is the most expensive and as such it is the largest definition of your credit worth. Though many would agree it took the last year to bring this to it's true impact, Oil is another major influence on our economy!  Oil impacts so much its almost hard to fathom! What we sell, how what we sell gets from place to place, how people get from place to place, so much is impacted by oil! I'm amazed that how much we spend on oil has never impacted an individuals credit rating? Now we move on to inflation.

Well everything I've mentioned above is the end cause of inflation. Inflation is defined by the prices people are willing to pay for goods and services. As a result it directly impacts the value of an economy's money, thus it also impacts credit and is also affected by credit. Simply put if no one is using their credit then no one is spending money and as a result we see inflation drop this is not as good as it sounds. The reason being that when inflation rises, it is usually a sign that people are injecting money into the economy. When it drops then people are not spending money which in turn lowers the value of the money they do have, which in turn effects the health of the economy.

So the biggest thing is that the illusion of our economy is all based on one simple thing, credit and how much faith creditors feel is worth investing in the people the economy is built upon. If people aren't spending then there is a lot less faith in the economy and as such we see unemployment rise, the housing market slump. It seems that the biggest impact lately as too spending has been oil. I don't think I need to explain what that did to the economy. I hope that cleared it up a bit. It's no way doctoral thesis but it is a simple way of understanding economics.

I read the article where George Soros made some comments that oil prices were ,in large part, due to speculators driving up the prices. In my opinion, he's absolutely right. Though I noted he didn't mention that a lot of hedge funds and college investment funds are buying oil up and stashing it away. This is also causing the demand for oil to rise which in turn gives the speculators even more reason to raise the price of oil. Whats this mean over all though? This is what I predict for the future.

I agree that with what George Soros said when he commented that only when we are in a recession will we see the price of oil drop. Yet with that said I still don't see a serious recession for two maybe three years, by that time the price may have risen to $350.00 per barrel. If it does drop the price will be close to $266.00 per barrel. With this in mind, you will see an average of $8.00 a gallon and that's being optimistic.

Let me also state that the situations affecting our economy right now, rising food prices and the housing slump, are all tied directly into oil prices. Because of oil prices being so high, farmers are making crops for ethanol rather than food, as a result food prices are rising. Funny thing is though, the rise in food price is not due to a shortage at all, but rather what people are seeing as a shortage in the near future. So prices are being dictated by a demand in the foreseeable future, rather than an actual one, with regards to food prices. The food prices will fall back to the norm in the next year and a half maybe two years in my opinion. Demand will force more farmers to switch back to farming food products rather than alternative fuel products. You will also see people buying different foods as staples, that they haven't in the past. I think oat's, wheat and soy products will supplant corn as the main staple on American tables, thus reducing costs over all for Americans. Corn will continue to be put into ethanol and as feed for farm animals most likely, with a minute portion going towards food products. All this again will be due to rising oil prices.

With a slumping housing market and soaring oil prices, people are correctly linking the two, "hand in hand," with our economy. As a result, people are not buying homes, leaving our already beleaguered housing market in a steady slump. I don't see the housing market getting any better for a long time. Though housing prices are not going to fall any time soon, they certainly wont rise to what they were during the recent housing bubble we experienced. The only increases or drops we will see are going to be, "hand in hand," with inflation.

We are also going to see the biggest slump in unemployment this country has seen in a 100 years. Those Americans in the service industry are going to be the hardest hit due to the looming recession. This is because when people have to make cuts and choices on where they spend their money, they do so at the mall, entertainment centers and restaurants. They also take fewer vacations and if they do take them they are close to home. This unfortunately means that Orlando will be hit tremendously hard by any recession in the near future. In 3 years we will have one that will make the 1970's and the great depression look pale in comparison. Unemployment is going to rise to at least 30% as a national average in the United States within the next 4 to 5 years. So save up your money, watch what your investing in and get yourself a good cushion built, because in the near future you're going to need it.

Oh yeah! For the record I predicted the housing slump 4 years ago due to the housing bubble and the fact that adjustable rate mortgages were being fixed with rates that exceeded cost of living increases. As a result the subprime rates exceeded what people were able to afford and any sane person would see the result in that. People were getting houses that in the long run they could not afford. Also, the simple truth is that, prices for houses far exceeded their actual worth and that in part also caused the Bubble and eventually all bubbles burst. This one burst with a bunch of people having homes and mortgages they could not realistically afford.

Of course I had pointed this out to multiple people, including a girlfriend who was in real estate, selling (over priced) condos and she thought I was insane. I think it just comes back to the fact that people don't really want to hear bad news and as a result they assume people are exaggerating.

I thought I would do this in red, it seemed appropriate, since oil is bleeding everyone dry.

I've been reading a lot of different articles lately and the ones that trouble me the most are those that involve children. I can't really see how people can do what they do to children. From sexual abuse, physical abuse and neglect, it all seems so hard to comprehend. What bothers me even more is how these horrible, horrible things seem to fall through the cracks. What you always hear is, "No one knew this was going on."

I don't believe that for one minute. I think in almost every one of these cases people knew or suspected what was going on but no one had the courage to get involved. As a result they put what they see in the back of their minds and later one day they come around and say to someone that will listen, "I thought things weren't right." So If that's what they thought then why didn't they do anything?

Heres something that happened to me about 8 years ago. I was in a supermarket in a small town in Washington. I was there with a friend doing some shopping when I saw this child pick up a box of something or other and then saw her father strike her on the back of the head so hard she fell to the floor. The girl was little more than a toddler. I looked around shocked that of the four people there, I seemed to be the only one who noticed what was going on. I watched as he yelled at the child (who was laying on the floor crying). It was when he raised his hand up to hit the little girl again that I stepped in and grabbed him. He threatened to have me thrown in jail and for some reason that upset me even more, I had a hold of his wrist so I twisted it behind his back and pinned him to the aisle. I don't know what the reason behind doing this was really, though I suspect it was because if I had let him go I would have busted his nose.

I remember looking at the little girl and seeing her more afraid of me than her father and I felt a little bad but what made it worse was the fact that she seemed to think it was perfectly normal for her father to strike her like that. I was the bad guy stepping in breaking up what was a normal part of her life. It was about that time when one of the managers came up and asked what was going on? I explained that he had just hit his child so hard that he knocked her to the floor. He denied it and we began to argue. Store security came and stood with both of us while the manager went and reviewed the security tape. It was all there on the tape luckily. So in the end the police came and took the child away to stay with relatives and the father went to jail. The cops debated charging me with assault charges but decided against it. I got lucky in hind sight, Washington state is a lot different than Florida, I wouldn't suggest doing that here or you would sit a couple years in prison.

I 'm also amazed how people are unable to distinguish between normal and abnormal behavior. Case in point, a man I knew in Washington walked in to his neighbors apartment to find his neighbor holding his 9 year old naked step daughter in his lap. My friend asked some of us what we thought he should do and we all said he should report him to be safe. He called Child Protective Services, they investigated and decided that there was nothing bad going on. Which after hearing the whole story I believe it to be true. Even so, It always bothered me that he didn't just call them? I mean seriously, seeing a man holding a naked child in his lap, wouldn't that ring odd to anyone. There may have been nothing going on but I think to most people it would send up some flags or maybe I'm just paranoid.

I asked an acquaintance of mine who works with Department of Children and Families how people seem to get away with abusing children and she told me that many times the child is afraid to tell anyone. Furthermore adults are afraid to tell anyone either for fear of being wrong and causing the parents pain, even worse they might be sued or prosecuted for what they say. Even more disturbing is that many refuse to report suspected abuse because being proven wrong would be embarrassing for them. This stunned me to hear. I can't imagine that someone would be afraid to do the right thing because doing the right thing might hurt someones feelings or embarrass them. I mean seriously it blows me away that people could have the mind set.

I had a friend of mine tell me how she saw some of her neighbor hood kids smoking behind her house. I asked her why she didn't tell the kids parents and she said, why bother, they aren't her kids. This seemed to be the main consensus with most of the mothers there and yet once again I am amazed. Does it take a life or death situation before things become important enough to get involved?

Again it comes down to the "me, me," syndrome in America. People have this idea that everything is about them, and even though it might concern someone else, the final decision will always be based on how it affects them the most. Some people seem unable to act with out seeing if there are benefits in it for them. If there are none, then so be it, let someone else get involved. So tell me, if everyone begins to have this mindset, what happens then?

You remember the woman in Austria held hostage by her father and raped repeatedly, she gave birth to 7 children with one of them dieing. Neighbors all said something was odd but they didn't get involved because it just was not socially accepted to pry in others lives. People don't get involved in other peoples business in Austria. In fact you can know a man for 40 years and he will still call you, "Herr Smith" or "Frau Grisom" as a sign of respect . It's also to say, I don't know you well enough for you to get involved in my life.

I think that's what's happening in America, people are becoming socially ambivalent towards others, for much of the same reason too. We no longer live in  houses with big yards, we are right next to each other, sometimes our houses are feet away from our neighbors. It cuts into our privacy, as a result we decide to cut ourselves off from the neighborhood around us. We might know our neighbor's names but we don't know them, nor do we really care to anymore. It's all about retaining what privacy we have left in our little worlds. To do this we ignore whats going on around us and we expect others to do the same. That is until someone else does something that might shatter this little bit of home we have created. To me this seems wrong on so many levels.

I grew up knowing all my neighbors, and honestly, I just had to sit in the kitchen with my mother and her neighbor friends. In under 10 minutes I would know everything going on for the whole block. It seemed nosy but at least then people seemed to care about what was going on in their neighborhood. It was the odd person that didn't care or didn't get involved. Instead of how it is now, being ostracized for caring, in the old days you were shunned for not caring.

I even remember times when my brother and I were caught doing something wrong and the person who caught us in the act would take us to our parents and tell them what we were doing wrong. O.K. so I'm getting a bit nostalgic here about the, "good ol' days." Still I won't say it was some sort of urban utopia in those days, because a lot of the bad things I've talked about here went on then and was ignored as well for much the same reason.

Yet today we supposedly know better, and these horrible things still get swept under the rug by people who just don't want to get involved or even worse just don't care. That brings us around full circle, anyone got an opinion?

I remember a post on the blogs here not to long ago where someone child was threatened and they commented about the boy who threatened their child with something to the affect of, "Everyone knew that boy, he's from a bad family. They need to throw him in jail." My question is If he's in a bad family and you knew that they were doing bad things, did you ever talk to anyone about it before it affected you and your child? If not, why? I'm not blaming anyone for anything just curious how far things have to go before people do get involved?

Anyone Have any story's on how they got involved or didn't and wished they had when they saw or suspected something bad was going on with a child?

I read this article today and I wanted to get other peoples perspective on it? Do you think it was justice or did he deserve a harsher punishment? The link is below.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7404114.stm

Anyone know if it's been confirmed that the fires along the I-95 corridor are the work of an arsonist or not? I remember doing some research on them for a paper I wrote in college and from what I remember this seems to fit the bill.

All the fires are along the same stretch of highway. They were started in the same type of area. That is the first indicator as to whether arson is probable or not. The fact that the chances of this happening so close to the same routes and to the same type of area is improbable at best with out it being the result of an arsonist.

Another interesting thing is that there are some recognized statistics for serial arsonists. About roughly 80% of serial arsonists are white, around 95% are male and close to 50% were under the age of 27 years of age. About a quarter had attempted suicide with in a year of setting their first blaze. Over half come from two parent homes and roughly 35% said their family was not emotionally supportive of them. They typically started their first fire close to their own home and they like to watch the fires after they have set, often mingling with crowds near the scene of the fire.

This individual will most likely have a job that has him traveling past the locations where the fire's were set. He will most likely be employed in a blue collar position potentially a construction worker or similar position. He will be a loner and probably not have attracted much attention to himself in the past. He might have shown a change in mood recently, since the fires started, most likely he has been hyper even manic. Also he will have been very attentive of any news on the fires and uncharacteristically engaging in conversation about the fires. He will be a white male in his early to mid 20's with a history of psychological problems most likely depression and mood swings.

I wrote a couple profiles in college, my first major was Psychology with a focus on Human Behavior. I switched my major after interning at a psyche ward. I actually enjoyed the process of profiling because it's interesting how many similarities there are among people who display anti-social and abnormal behavior. I know people like to think they are all different but deep down inside there are archetypes that bind us. Overall I didn't feel comfortable dealing with people suffering from psychological illness', I couldn't see myself dealing with it on a daily basis.

On a final note, most serial arsonist's are caught eventually. It'll be interesting to see how close he fits the profile though. My mom would be happy if some of the money that was invested into college proved it's worth!

To all you Mom's, Mommy's, Mama's, Mother's and what ever else your kid's know you by, Happy Mother's Day. I hope each and every one of you know how much you are appreciated. I don't think it needs to be said but Mom's are probably the most important figures in the world! For that reason alone I don't think one day is really enough to show the appreciation and love kid's (of any age) feel for their mother's. How ever that being said, all the government allows is one day, so live it up Mom's and know you are loved by those you care for and stand by on a daily basis!

Happy Mothers Day

So recently I was offered a pretty good job in Seattle, a city I very much love. I spent nearly 13 years there and honestly It's a wonderful city. Once you get past all the rain, it rains and rains there and then it rains more.

Yet my question is this, " What are the pros and cons of Orlando?"

Why do call this city home? Is there something you love that you can't find any where else? Is there a reason you choose to live here over other places?

I have a few of my pros....

1. The weather! The sun is always out and it is always warm. Even at the coldest it gets hear it does not even compare to the freezing weather in other parts of the country.
2. The variety of things to do! There's a lot you can do around this town, from amusement parks. With a short ride to the beach you can surf, fish or relax.
3. The strong Latin culture to me is a plus. I have grown to love Latin food and Latin music and to me it gives Orlando a bit of flavor that you don't see in a lot of cities.
4. The big town atmosphere, it doesn't really feel like you're living in a metropolitan city. Orlando is just one big suburb, to me that is just fine.
5. New Job opportunity and industry growth. Major companies are choosing Orlando when they want to expand their business or relocate. Either way it means more jobs and better opportunities.
   

I have a few of my cons....

1. Commuting is a nightmare in Orlando! I can't believe how long it takes to just travel a few miles sometimes. The public transit system is probably one of the worst in the nation. We are the 5th worst city for commuting in the nation according to Forbes Magazine's Study.
   
2. People for the most part are not very friendly. I moved from a city where you said "Hi" to everyone, here if you do that you're liable to have the Cops called on you.
3. Very little in the way of culture, I think this goes hand and hand with the same reason our commuting is horrible. City planners were so interested in catering to increasing the economic growth, they did not take much time to invest in the growth of the arts in the city. Compared to most cities we rank in the lowest for culture.
4. Crime is horrible here. In the past 5 years we have spiraled down to being one of the most dangerous cities in America! We are ranked at 11 for violent crimes according to CQpress.com, this rating was based on FBI statistics accumulated relating to violent crime.
   
5. We are also one of the least Eco-Friendly cities in the nation as well. We don't even make it in the top 50, which in the long run is another thing that will impact the city of Orlando.
   

Anyone have anything to add? I grew up in Florida for the most part and I do love Orlando but with all the press lately slamming us for so many things that impact the quality of life are we on a downward spiral?

A group called the Hawaiian Sovereignty Government group occupied the historic palace of the Hawaiian people blocking traffic onto the grounds. They claimed that the palace is part of the hereditary people of Hawaii and as such the seat of their government. Is their any validity to this? For years sovereignty groups in Hawaii have asked for a vote to regain sovereignty of Hawaii should they be given the chance? Should their be a vote for residents of the state of Hawaii on whether to absolve statehood and regain their own sovereignty?

If this was allowed what kind of doors do you think it would open? Do you think other states would try the same? Is this the same as Puerto Rico, where they are periodically given a vote for statehood vs. territorial status?

I was just wondering what others thought about the circumstances surrounding the event.