oja oba !!!

What does Google want? Well you only have to read about Google’s latest foray into the Fashion Business   to come to terms with what many have suspected all along. Google wants to rule the world, through the Internet.

What has fashion got to do with love? Just ask around - ask Google

The political discourse in the US for much of the last two years has been about how the Democratic Party under President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi have overreached, gone beyond their mandate to enact partisan legislation and abandoned bi-partisan consensus building. But few in the media or among the elite, and aspiring elite have taken time to either understand or explain why a bunch of adults in the opposition party on tax-payer funded salary and benefits would choose to intentionally foil the will of the people as demonstrated in the 2008 election to ensure that their chosen President fails, and that the State fails along side. A party that calculated early on, that ensuring the President does not succeed is far more important than getting the nation out of an economic crises won an election in a landslide – how does that square with voter’s self-interest?

The political discourse in the US for much of the last two years has been about how the Democratic Party under President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi have overreached, gone beyond their mandate to enact partisan legislations and abandoned bi-partisan consensus building. But few in the media or among the elite, and aspiring elite have taken time to either understand or explain why a bunch of adults in the opposition party on tax-payer funded salary and benefits would choose to intentionally foil the will of the people as demonstrated in the 2008 election to ensure that their chosen President fails, and that the State fails along side. A party that calculated early on, that ensuring the President does not succeed is far more important than getting the nation out of an economic crises won an election in a landslide – how does that square with voter’s self-interest?

“As we approach the Seoul Summit, the world is looking to us to work together to strengthen the global economic recovery, continue to repair the financial system, and promote the stability of global markets. “The United States will do its part to restore strong growth, reduce economic imbalances, and calm markets. A strong recovery that creates jobs, income and spending is the most important contribution the United States can make to the global recovery. “The dollar’s strength ultimately rests on the fundamental strength of the U.S. economy. To secure the strong recovery the global economy needs, the United states joined with its G-20 partners to take decisive action to halt the fall in activity caused by the deepest crisis we have experienced in generations. “The United States moved quickly to repair our financial system and to enact the strongest financial reforms since the 1930s. “The United States is committed to an ambitious path of fiscal consolidation, consistent with our G-20 ...

"As we approach the Seoul Summit, the world is looking to us to work together to strengthen the global economic recovery, continue to repair the financial system, and promote the stability of global markets. "The United States will do its part to restore strong growth, reduce economic imbalances, and calm markets. A strong recovery that creates jobs, income and spending is the most important contribution the United States can make to the global recovery.

It was conventional wisdom in the Winter of 2009 that the Republican Party was deeply wounded, and may require several election cycles to redeem itself. By the Fall of 2009, that conventional wisdom has been turned on its head – largely by Democratic incompetence, from the White House down on to the State Houses. The Democrats early on began to distance themselves from the policies they had ran on that gave them the Presidency, the Congress, the Senate and the most number of State Houses in the first place. Right out of the gate, the President was compromising even before having a conversation with those he needed to compromise with. Bipartisanship became the White House mantra – as members of the President’s inner cycle focused on 2012 instead of 2010. But after the 2010 routing, which Mr. Obama self described as a “shellacking”, the road to 2012 just became more difficult, if not mission impossible – At least so says the conventional wisdom. Speaker Nancy Pelosi came down as one of ...

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If you read the average newspaper editorial or many of the purported news articles about the US mid-term election, you may get the impression that the US electorate is angry, and that that anger is organic and grass-root in nature, pointed at the current ruling party – but you would have been wrong. Indeed there is anger in the land, but that anger did not originate in the grass-root. It is anger from a political party that could not handle its electoral loss, it is anger from a political elite on the US right that could not imagine being beaten by a team led by a woman and a black man, it is anger by corporate giants who tremble at the thought that their grip on the levers of power just be slipping – but it hasn’t. It is not the populist anger you would come to expect, it is the rage of the connected scared of loosing their perch at the top of the hill. Indeed there is discomfort in the land, but disillusion has set in not because of the discomfort but because of the widespread perce...

If you read the average newspaper editorial or many of the purported news articles about the US mid-term election, you may get the impression that the US electorate is angry, and that that anger is organic and grass-root in nature, pointed at the current ruling party - but you would have been wrong. Indeed there is anger in the land, but that anger did not originate in the grass-root. It is anger from a political party that could not handle its electoral loss, it is anger from a political elite on the US right that could not imagine being beaten by a team led by a woman and a black man, it is anger by corporate giants who tremble at the thought that their grip on the levers of power just be slipping - but it hasn't. It is not the populist anger you would come to expect, it is the rage of the connected scared of loosing their perch at the top of the hill.

China, with a population of 1.3 billion manage to have a relatively tamed polity, even in the face of the massive instrument of chaos, aka the Internet. The US, with just .3 billion people have on display one of the most raucous polity in world as occasioned by cacophonous blabber of political activism, open dissent and expression on the internet. The two nations exemplify the two extremes in governance, political organization and tolerance, economic management and philosophy and accommodation of dissent. But more importantly, the two nations demonstrate the extreems of freedom or the concept of freedom.

This is an interesting article   from The New Yorker. I got the article from a colleague earlier today, and took a cursory look at it. Other than the obvious point about Dick Clarke bloviating again, I continue to reserve my opinion on the article until I have read it all carefully, which I intend to do this weekend.

B ank of American is leading the way out of the nation’s foreclosure freeze after it announced plans to lift its self imposed moratorium on the process on the 23 states where it first imposed them last week.

Bank of American is leading the way out of the nation's foreclosure freeze after it announced plans to lift its self imposed moratorium on the process on the 23 states where it first imposed them last wee

And alas, there are real signs that home prices in Baltimore, City and County, are coming back to earth. The correction in the real estate market – at least in this region, continues briskly as home owners, who had previously held out for more are now shaving, between 30 and 50% off their 2008/2009 assessed home values – and these in many stuck-up neighborhoods. The foreclosure contagion is gradually spreading and is expected to accelerate in 2011 as many of the ARM products sold in 2005/2006 come due with massive price reset – and too many home owners were not able to refinance (again) because their homes have been under water since 2008. So, expect the deluge of homes in the market. One group have managed to hold relatively steady, the new home builders. That market has continued to hold steady to its market peak, or just under the peak prices with no real corrections yet. But expect some of the pressure to come down on any inventory home, and expect builders to start reflecting the...

And alas, there are real signs that home prices in Baltimore, City and County, are coming back to earth. The correction in the real estate market - at least in this region, continues briskly as home owners, who had previously held out for more are now shaving, between 30 and 50% off their 2008/2009 assessed home values - and these in many stuck-up neighborhoods.