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All Knowing Geek - September 2008

Suze Orman should try to make sense

September 29th 2008 22:00
Suze Orman, you don't work on CNBC for a reason.

I kind of thought she used to make a little sense and that her information didn't hurt people. Don't put it on the credit card, buy property as an investment, and buy stocks for the long term were some of the various tidbits she has said in the past that I honestly couldn't argue with.

Now that the U.S. economy hits a bump in the road, she says something very different.

If you are using stocks for your retirement, you shouldn't have been in the market to begin with. WHAT? You're the same person that says build wealth and let your money work for you, but now that the stock market takes a hit you say that people shouldn't be in the stock market.

Wolf Blitzer then says "So these people should take their money out of the market and put it in something like T-Bills?". Wolf makes some sense to me as if the market is gonna continue to go down, maybe you shouldn't go down with it.

Orman says no you shouldn't do that, you should keep your money in the market because it is impossible to time the market.

So if it is impossible to time the market, why are you saying the people who had their money in the market before were essentially stupid for having it in there? It's impossible to time the market afterall.

Not the stupidest thing she said though. She says the economy/stock market won't recover fully for 2-3-4 years up to her estimate of 2015. First off, 2015 is SEVEN years. Secondly, after saying 2015 is the recovery point she tells a common sense speaking Blitzer that people retiring soon should start buying more stock immediately. HUH?

So...the economy/stock market will keep going down for 2-3-4-7 years....but we should stick our money into the stock market even though its going down. Oh, but don't time the market. Oh, you're still stupid for having your money in to begin with.

Putting your money in now means you are timing the market as you think now is the low point. Predicting what the economy does 2-7 years down the road must mean you have a time-traveling DeLorean because nobody can predict even year to year what will happen.

Not a financial expert, not even saying which way to go with anybody's money but my own. I just want one viewpoint that isn't contradicted by her next viewpoint which is then contradicted by her third viewpoint.

Any Orman disciples or people that count on CNN for financial advice should just give up and put their cash under their mattresses and pickle jars in the backyard. Once they stop scratching their heads after trying to figure out what old Suze wants them to do.
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Chuck season premiere coming

September 28th 2008 23:29
I know there have been a lot of shows that have had a similar premise to Chuck. But I think its got a chance for a decent run after a promising first season.

It doesn't push a mystery into how Chuck got his special skill like Kyle XY or John Doe did. That kind of thing seems to end up killing a show when the mystery is resolved too soon or not soon enough.

Chuck is written to be way more fun than Jake 2.0 was. Characters other than the main character seem to actually have some use on this show and get some development as opposed to just being there to push a story.

After catching the first couple of episodes, I thought it was an entertaining show. But I also thought it would end up being another in a long list of one year shows I liked that would end up on the Sci-Fi channel. Glad it avoided the fates of John Doe, Now and Again, and really Jericho too.

Hoping for a fun run from Chuck for this year and beyond.
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Just another random thought thrown out into the digital world. So much for a blog having a general theme.

So, the US government wants to use tax money to save the troubled financial sector. Companies that have been run to the ground get saved by the American taxpayer of 2008.

These financials made bad decisions, created/inflated values of securities where nothing was added or even existed to begin with, broke these securities apart (like a chop shop which is def illegal) to increase "value" yet again, and that $1 item you started with is now "worth" $6 in all of about 10 minutes or even the time it takes to do a few keystrokes. After making money appear from thin air, the top level securities managers and CEOs compensate themselves and also get new out clauses with golden parachutes (Note the WaMu head getting a chunk of change that could be confused with the GDP of a third world country or a lotto winner.

The housing bubble bursts, families lose homes that they honestly couldn't afford, and now the speculators who created the mess are gonna get a bailout from the taxpayer. Since when does a free market economy save businesses because they are failing? I thought the purpose was for businesses to sink or swim on their own. If the govt. owns businesses, wouldn't that make us a communist state?

Oh, but this bailout helps the people in the long run. Why don't you bail Hanes out then? You can save 8,000 jobs and keep those people paying taxes. Wouldn't that help the people out? Or maybe you could reward companies that actually do good so they can hire more people and accelerate the rebound. Nah, that makes too much sense. Lets just buy a bad company and pray for a turnaround.

And what if there is a turnaround? Which taxpayers get money? The person that pays taxes during the crisis or the people that are paying taxes in 5 years? Some freshman in college just gets a job in 2011 and pays taxes in 2012. So he gets the profits from the bailout of 2008? Is that fair?

Don't worry though. You don't have to slap around any high schoolers and collegians for money. The government will say that they're using the profits from the bailed out companies to improve the infrastructure of the country. Bridges need to be fixed (yup), roads need to improve (sure), we need to drill for oil (hey wait a sec), we need to make more refineries (more freebies for gas companies already raking it in?), and lube for the taxpayers that think the government is looking out for them.

I honestly don't have any quick fixes to the problem. I only know what I think could make it worse or at the very least is unfair. If I go to the bank and pull out $5 k to bet to win on Curlin and he breaks his leg and loses, do I get a bailout? So these companies that gambled that the housing market would keep going up and up and their secured bond packages would be backed by that are different from betting on the horse how exactly?

If I had to take $9,000 from taxes, I'd rather put it on a good horse than a bad company. That's just me though.
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Shane Mosley in 6

September 27th 2008 04:40
Just want to get in a quick post, so might as well be a fight prediction.

Mayorga couldn't deal with the faster hands and superior boxing of De La Hoya, so how does he deal with Sugar Shane whose got better hand speed than De La Hoya. Beating Vargas gets Mayorga his last biggish payday and probably puts him on the losing end of a 6th round TKO by an accumulation of punishment.
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Smallville looks interesting again

September 25th 2008 20:57
Smallville is probably the first teen/young adult drama type of show that I got into. I'm pretty sure the familiar superhero mythology helped and the sci-fi feel helped. But Buffy was out there also and Roswell too, so it's not like the teen paranormal genre was limited to just Smallville. Dawson's Creek was busy trying to be a younger, smarter 90210 to be entertaining and Felicity was Felicity and I wasn't a 15-25 year old girl. Smallville was just old enough to be relatable to this college kid and had enough action in the background to keep me interested.

It also had an X-Files type of feel at the beginning, replacing the serial monster of the week with a freak of the week. It was nice to know that I could be entertained week to week even if I missed a show in between. Missing one episode wasn't that critical to your enjoyment of the show.
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Not a Tampa Bay Buccaneer fan. Wasn't a fan of Matt Bryant's when he was with the New York Giants.

Honestly, the only time I can honestly say I was completely rooting for the guy was a couple of years ago. I was at a friend's house watching the Eagles/Tampa Bay game. Dude is a HUGE Eagles fan. And as I am a semi-loyal Giants fan, I was naturally rooting on the Bucs. Not gonna expound about this since it isn't the focus of my post, so I'll just break it down to this tight game being led by the Eagles into the latter seconds of the 4th quarter. Barely any time left on the clock and the Bucs bring out the field goal unit. The FOX announcer who escapes me at this time says it is a 62 yard field goal attempt. My Eagle fan buddy just starts cracking up. No chance, no chance in hell baby. WHOOOO! And he's already celebrating the Eagle win. The announcer said something about Bryant kicking well pre-game, but I didn't get the feeling he thought it would happen. Being a Giants fan, I was worried whenever this guy was kicking over 40 yards. And there he was kicking over 60 yards, a mark that so few kickers in the history of the game have ever made. After what seemed like forever, the ball was snapped, the kick was up, and in my recollection he had a couple yards to spare.
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Well my first real post is going to be comics based. Let me quantify my criticism/cynicism/whatever other isms I'll display by saying I don't hate the idea of Brand New Day. I hate what it does to Spider-Man and the fans of the character.

Background: Spider-Man is in emotional turmoil because of his actions during Marvel's Civil War (if you don't know, pick up a comic or wiki it) having the consequence of getting his surrogate mother Aunt May shot. He goes from one end of the Marvel world to the other trying to find a way to save her. At the conclusion of the storyline, he ends up making a deal with Marvel's resident devil Mephisto and we get a brand new status quo.
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Hey

September 23rd 2008 09:23
Hello to the Blogosphere


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