Just another blog with the thoughts of someone you really don't know
No surprise really. Chrysler is a much different company structure wise then General Motors. What I find interesting the remarks from President Obama:
“This is not a sign of weakness but rather one more step on a clearly chartered path to Chrysler’s revival.”
And how about this?
“I have every confidence that Chrysler will emerge from this process stronger and more competitive”
My question would be “Isn’t this also true for General Motors”? Would have been a lot cheaper for the US taxpayers.
Time Warner Cable and Embarq are looking to shutdown a local ISP, Greenlight, in Wilson, NC. The tech blogs are all over this saying that it is too bad that Time Warner and Embarq can’t compete with Greenlight and they shouldn’t be trying to use the law to force them out of business.
Greenlight is offering 80 channels, 10 MB upload and download Internet speed, and telephone service for around $100 a month. Time Warner and Embarq can’t come close to that price. Hooray the tech bloggers proclaim, too bad for Time Warner and Embarq if they can’t compete with Greenlight. What they aren’t telling you is the city of Wilson paid $26 million to fund the effort and Greenlight just runs it for the city for no profit. Now if the city of Wilson gave went to Time Warner and said “Hey, if we gave you $26 million how much would you charge our citizens for a cable, phone, and Internet package?” I’m sure Time Warner would have come up with a great price, and people would be screaming at the city officials for giving a big business that much money.
My question, what’s the difference? Sure the citizens are getting a cheaper service up front but will end up paying more in taxes and fees to cover the city funding Greenlight.
But I agree with Paul Krugman on his blog post:
“Except, you know, really it doesn’t. Let’s say the administration finds $100 million in efficiencies every working day for the rest of the Obama administration’s first term. That’s still around $80 billion, or around 2% of one year’s federal spending.”
This is in regards to President’s Obama plan to cut spending by $100 million. Spending needs to be cut far more then that to make a difference.
For those of you that care, and anyone living in the United States really should care, the Social Security surplus vanished in February. In that month Social Security paid out more in benefits then it took in via payroll taxes.
I’m sure the economic downturn had something to do with this. The hope should be that once the economy picks back up the surplus will return. If it does don’t count on it being long term. To those that kept chiming that Social Security would be fine until the 2040′s, who is the joke on now? That’s right, the United States taxpayers.