Finance ? Short Term or Long term

I wanted to bring up a topic which I feel is the underlying, fundamental question when viewing the financial catastrophe. After watching the “Jon Stewart vs Jim Cramer Brawl” www.thedailyshow.com (which I thoroughly enjoyed) I really thought the emphasis should come down to “Should finance be regulated on a short term scope or a long term scope.”

As Jon said, for mom and pop investors, we are taught to invest for the long term and to be very risk averse, so when you hear of all the risky trading going on with retirement funds, it can make you distrust where you place your money. Now playing to Cramer’s side, and I will say he wasn’t given a chance to fully flesh out his side due to time constraints and his humbleness to be the financial scapegoat, but from my little experience of learning finance and working within the industry for a brief time, you are taught about Duty of Care and your goal, which is to maximize shareholders’ value. This value can be viewed not only as monetary but anything the stakeholder believes to be a positive gained aspect. For example, sustainability might be of prime concern to a stakeholder and therefore adding value could be contributing investments to environmental funds.

Adding and maximizing a shareholder’s value is all nice and vague but there is no scope of time in this goal. Some view any possible short-term gain should be taken if the opportunity is given ample due diligence. It really must be a balancing act between your long-term financial goal and the small opportunities that present themselves as short-term hurdles on your way to the long-term goal.

Additionally, I agree with Alan Greenspan in an interview not so long ago, that this is human nature and there will always be bubbles and bursts or a misuse of power by the “Commanding Heights”.  The reason I agree with Alan Greenspan is simply do to the fact that humans do not view ‘Positive Probabilities’ the same as ‘Negative Probabilities’. I do not think this is wrong for humanity to do, in a sense that we must be optimistic to push boundaries and evolve, but just to know that this will create greater volatility. Out of volatility will come innovation and evolution at a faster pace, but is this socially stable and acceptable? This one argument I have briefly touched on above is what keeps the political and socio-economical pendulum swinging between ideologies. It is for this reason that I will have to draw upon the old saying, “Everything in Moderation”. There is no one right answer but a collective force facilitated by democracy.

Long story short; in my opinion, there are regulations that need to be enforced and not simply more regulation. There should be no witch hunt, no one was arguing these risky trading techniques and securities when everyone was gaining (including the government), so stop vilifying the finance industry when the ones who vilify are the ones responsible as well. I believe there is much more to build upon in terms of accountability these days and I believe Jim Cramer is at least trying to take some accountability.

The above is a common perception of what you would say if you caught onto the ‘Twitter’ craze.  I know that’s what I thought when I first signed up.  My brother is actually the one who pushed me on and I am glad he did.  At first, I started out saying things like “Time to go to work”.  Most likely the blandest, dullest statement anyone would ever want to read or be reminded about.  

After some searching around and sifting through equally dull statements from people “that just didn’t get it”, I came upon some treasures.  My first Twitter love was the ‘TedFeed’.  TED is a website that hosts many of the intellectual thinkers for our time.  It’s like the best YouTube for the most curious people.  I don’t know if it’s good to say this or not, but I try to watch one TED video every night before I go to bed.  It keeps things jumbling around in the noggin.   Now that I was following the TEDFEED, I could get updates on new lectures posted to the site which in turn satisfied my hunger for input (thx johny 5).

That is a quick example of how you can use Twitter to create your own streams of information that you are interested in that isn’t edited by big publications.  Think of it as a big group of friends getting together and eventually everyone huddles into groups that they are the most interested in and think they can get the most out of.  Even if you are not totally interested on talking to one particular person in your ‘huddle’, you still want to over hear their conversations just in case something comes up that is useful to you.  

If I wrote that analogy well enough and you could follow, that is what makes Twitter so powerful.  I do not agree with critics who say that Twitter is just an evolution of the degradation of our language and how it is used to express ideas.

There is one thing I have to say… Well actually a few things, but first and foremost, I feel bad for Sarah Palin.  She was just a nice Hockey Mom who felt it her civil duty to run for and win the Alaskan Governor position.  Then Hillary Clinton had to set off the “Women’s run for the Presidency” while the republicans were left scrambling to strategically/demographically/myopically (not religiously this time) retaliate.  

Enter Sarah Palin. 

Do you think Sarah Palin had a plan to run for Vice-President when she first entered the politically arena? 
Most likely not.  She wanted to be prominent but still have the great outdoors with a loving family.  Getting to the point of this post, the media (and maybe a little of herself) completely ripped her a new one politically, but at least she still had her family’s support.  

The newest article on Sarah Palin, I felt, was an excellent addition to my Social Caliber category for the fact that now the Media is taking the knife to her social life.  She has lost the election, been put through allegations of “losing it for the team” and spending campaign money wrongly.  Now she is entangled in what I can most generously call a ‘Jerry Springer fiasco’.  More importantly, I took the time to forego reading about how bad the economy is and how bad all the plans are to save it to indulge in a tabloid moment.  All I can think after reading the article is, “I wonder what would have happened if she were elected Vice-President and this came out.”  If so, I would have been comically creating a conspiracy theory where Hillary Clinton made this Mom’s kid have sex with Sarah Palin’s daughter and then turned the Mom into a crack addict with money from the Clinton Foundation.

So all I can say is Thank you for not winning Sarah Palin.  I don’t think I could map out and write a blog that long.

The only thing holding me back from wearing skinnies and becoming an emo dancing maniac is the industrial synthesizers and lyrics that bring a bit of a (NIN) feeling to a well balanced dynamic composition.  

If your looking for something original and new but still legibly addictive, then check out The Reprieve on myspace.  www.myspace.com/thereprieve  

ps. my favorite song on their sampler is “Movies” (watch for the synthesizer breakdown during the chorus)

A poem by: Enkhsaikhan Saan Ulziidamba.

I definitely encourage you to check out his work.  Eric’s two main bands are Madison Crawl and The Ohio Sky.  For his schedule of gigs, please visit www.ericbambic.wordpress.com

I fully support local music!  If you have any musicians that should be in this category, please email me at kurtedwards1@gmail.com

If bringing the internet to Africa was going to be a successful profitable venture then the countless private companies in Africa would have done it instead of squabbling over fragmented infrastructure problems.  Some people will say, “How are they going to use computers and internet when they don’t even have fresh water to drink!”.  To that, I point to the Cell Phone phenomenon where they have been widely accepted in rare places in Africa. 

This might be out of place but if Google came out with their “google phone” where you listen to a 10 second Ad before making a FREE call, I would be all over that.  Its called voluntary exchange where I’m getting what I want and Google’s getting what they want.  I wouldn’t feel swindled. 

I think we sho

In quick other news: THERE WAS NO BLACK HOLE TODAYS YOU DOOMSDAYERS!  SCIENCE REPRESENT!

I, personally, am a news junkie and I encourage readers to incorporate any items they have unearthed.  Within the same mentality, this site will also display pictures and travel blogs from close friends of mine.  I believe that you must expose yourself to things outside of your own culture to fully comprehend who you are and where you are from.

Thank you for visiting and I look forward to some comments!

-Kindest Regards
                         Kurt

Welcome to the “Travel” section.  My first several blog posts will incorporate Jessica Prusa’s adventures around the world.  Our friendship started in Australia where she was another American studying at QUT and conveniently from my hometown in Ohio.  Jessica and I ended up living together for most of my time in Oz.  During this time together, I soon realized that Jessica had an eclectic mentality that allowed her to live free from the usual wants.  For instance, instead of being materialistic and consumer driven she was very happy with owning a few items and being the most frugal carefree traveler.  Jessica’s ability to view cultures from an objective stand-point is very rare and affords her the ease to discover many aspects of the “ethnosphere”.  

Jessica’s first installment on this website will be her trip to Cambodia.
Visit her blog at http://jesstd.blogspot.com/

If I had to describe Cambodia in one word, it would have to be intriguing if not unsettling. The genocide by the Khmer Rouge only ended in 1979 and the devastation and horror of it is definitely still lingering throughout the country. I’ve been to third world countries before, but this was the first time where I had an uneasy feeling throughout the entire trip and felt that I was in a haunted country. The Tuol Sleng (former Khmer Rouge S-21 Prison) was the first site we visited in Phnom Penh, followed by the killing fields. Both were equally disturbing as there were skulls and bones of the victims on display and pictures detailing how the prisoners were tortured. My friends and I were horrified to the point of being silenced. We also learned that there were shooting ranges just next to the killing fields where tourists were able to shoot off AK-47s or live grenades…not really something I’d be into after witnessing the aftermath of the atrocities of genocide, but backpackers do it ‘to let off some steam after seeing the killing fields’—pretty f-ed up in my opinion. (youtube ‘shooting guns in Cambodia to see these backpackers’ videos).

We were happy to leave Phnom Penh after a day and went to Sihanoukville, a beach town in south Cambodia. It was less eerie than Phnom Penh initially and we were just happy to be on a beach. We met 15 year old prostitutes at the beach shack bars, saw landmine victims begging on the beach without limbs, and got to know a few children who worked as bracelet slingers. It’s hard to even eat while this is going on around you, let alone try and have a good time. I guess that’s always the conflict when travelling in third world countries; it just had never been so weighted or intense as it was in Cambodia. We left after a few days and headed to our last destination, Siem Reap.

The temples in Siem Reap were amazing and putting them into words is almost impossible. The most famous, Angkor Watt, was where we spent the most time exploring, followed by the temple where ‘Tomb Raider’ was filmed (we met or eavesdropped on far too many tourists talking about Angelina Jolie). Siem Reap as a city is pretty beautiful but very touristy. They have lots of markets, up-scale restaurants, and French influenced architecture (like Phnom Penh). We were happy we only spent one full day there to see the temples.

Overall, I’m glad I went to Cambodia, but probably wouldn’t go back.