Can't believe they are so stupid as to fire Tommy Tuberville. I am not a huge Auburn fan, but I do like to see them do well. I'm sure there are a lot of other programs glad to see Tuberville is available. He will probably improve whatever program he goes to, then go beat Auburn.
At least Alabama gave Shula (who is not half the coach Tuberville is) a few bad years before they fired him. Has Auburn become as snobby about their demand for excellence as they claim Alabama is?
I realize everyone keeps telling us the economy is bad. But reports like what I am about to copy below are interesting.
"Reports show better-than-expected results from online shopping over the Thanksgiving weekend.
Internet research firm ComScore said on Sunday that online spending was up only 2 percent on Thanksgiving Day and Friday combined, compared with a year ago.
PayPal, the online payment service owned by eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY), said Black Friday transactions were up nearly 34 percent, compared with 2007.
Another research firm, ShopperTrak RCT, that tracks total retail sales at more than 50,000 stores said sales were up 3 percent to $10.6 billion on Black Friday, compared to a year ago."
(bizjournals.com)
So in store sells may have dropped (or at least "experts" expect them to drop), but online sales transactions are up by over %30 from last year. That is remarkable since we are in the midst of "the worst recession since the great depression." I realize things could get much, much worse. But right now it seems people are still quickly buying all those non-essential items like we have done the last 50+ years. It is also worth mentioning that people today are waiting for hours to get the new blackberry, not gas or food.
especially when buying a blackberry means upgrading to the plan with unlimited data package, but that may say more about Americans, than the actual economic climate. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,456108,00.html
To some degree; however, if we were in a period actually comparable to 1929, these people wouldn't have the ability to obtain a blackberry and certainly not pay for it.
My mom hates when they say "the worst recession since the great depression" - she says that ppl are walking around bare foot and actually starving like back then... and my Grandma says as long as there is meat on your table there is no comparison! I tend to agree!
Today things are much worse...we can no longer afford $40,000 cars, and 2500 square foot homes. Some people have even had to stop eating Chili's, Logan's Steakhouse, and Applebee's so much! If those people in 1929 could just see how bad we have it!
well technically this is the worst recession since the great depression, but it's still a far cry from there!
it could also be that americans are financially retarded, and continue spending money they don't have. if this is the case (and i think it is; the average american is leveraged up to his eyeballs) then we could be headed for deeper trouble.
that being said, i would have to give at least a little credit to the bailout. we might have made larger long run sacrifices, but the short run should see some improvement from it.
i wonder why the liberal media keeps over looking the Jimmy Carter era as far as a period of financial turmoil comparable to today. from what i've heard about that time it was much worse than what we are facing right now.
i think DEMs like to use the Great Depression because a) Hoover was a Republican b) it is connected with the Stock Market crash which represents free market capitalism, which they hate. On the other hand, Jimmy Carter's recession was the product of many of the liberal policies that are still held as sacred scripture in the DEM party today.
I would not argue that it is "technically" the worst. But as I have said before if Warren Buffet loses 80% of his wealth, and I lose 80% of my "wealth" who is in worse shape? I am by far. Technicals really do not tell the story very accurately. We started so far ahead of those in 1929, that we could afford to lose much more than we have, and still be doing better off. Second, People can't keeping buying if they do not have cash, and the credit markets are frozen. There are two options then: Either people buying blackberry's, etc. have good enough cash flow and credit that credit cards are willing to lend them the money (which means there is no problem), or they are simply buying with disposable income (something very few in 1929 had).
In my above statement I am agreeing with Chris, that it is "technically worse." I just realized my wording made it sound like I was disagreeing with his statement.
Although I wouldn't doubt the underhandedness of politicians to try to compare a "Republican run" economy to the great depression (forget that the DEMs ran congress), the wide scale comparison has much more to do with irrational behavior and over dramatization. It happens in any downturn in the economy. People always do the wrong thing in the market. They sell low and buy high. In school we looked at figures that showed that the average investor average only 1-3% gain the stock market over long periods of time, because of poor financial behavior (Note: the market was making 12% during the same periods analyzed). People think things will never improve when the market is bad. Conversely, they think the market will never go bad when it is soaring off the charts (this happened in the 1990's and set up both the 2000 and 2007 recessions).
it's terrifying to me that our economy is based on people spending more than they have, or at least to the limit of their abilities. Here in Oz, the government is handing a 'bonus refund' to millions of people. They blatantly said that they are focusing this refund on people who are likely to 'spend it immediately'. nice
i see what you're saying. credit markets might be frozen for new applicants, but there are probably lots of people still maxing out credit they already have.
in terms of financial turmoil it might be comparable, but the cause of the 70's turmoil was kinda unique. it ends up not being a fair comparison because they came about so differently.
but in one sense it is only people who had the ability to get a high credit limit in the first place. For example, most college students can't get a $5000 limit. Therefore, they are limited as to what they can buy in terms of luxury. I understand what you are saying, but there are limits in place that would keep just anyone (or thousands of people who couldn't afford it) to be lining up for hours to buy blackberry's. If someone has an $8k limit, either they can technically afford it due to their high cash flow, or they just lost their job and are living on credit for a while. Obviously the second is much worse than the first. Hopefully someone who just lost their job doesn't go get a blackberry. The people hurt the most in this recession are those who had homes when they shouldn't have had them, and the lenders that gave them the loans. Losses in the stock market are just on paper until people sell. If people will just keep buying and wait it out they will be fine.
I realize everyone keeps telling us the economy is bad. But reports like what I am about to copy below are interesting.
"Reports show better-than-expected results from online shopping over the Thanksgiving weekend.
Internet research firm ComScore said on Sunday that online spending was up only 2 percent on Thanksgiving Day and Friday combined, compared with a year ago.
PayPal, the online payment service owned by eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY), said Black Friday transactions were up nearly 34 percent, compared with 2007.
Another research firm, ShopperTrak RCT, that tracks total retail sales at more than 50,000 stores said sales were up 3 percent to $10.6 billion on Black Friday, compared to a year ago."
(bizjournals.com)
So in store sells may have dropped (or at least "experts" expect them to drop), but online sales transactions are up by over %30 from last year. That is remarkable since we are in the midst of "the worst recession since the great depression." I realize things could get much, much worse. But right now it seems people are still quickly buying all those non-essential items like we have done the last 50+ years. It is also worth mentioning that people today are waiting for hours to get the new blackberry, not gas or food.
I finished the final phase of my computer purchasing. Over the past few months I was working on getting new computers. The computers we had were getting old and needed to be retired. Thanks to the help of my computer informed brother in-law, David McGee. I was able to get a 24" iMac and a macbook white at relatively low prices. I bought both refurbished from the Apple store, which is basically like getting a brand new computer.
At David's suggestion, I bought them at the cheapest prices I could get them from Apple and did the upgrading myself. I saved over $500 on the iMac and well over $200 on the macbook (not including the upgrading i'll describe below). I got an older version iMac (mid-2007, which isn't that old. Only one product cycle back. It had a 2.4ghz processor instead of a 2.8ghz. That was the only difference). I made sure both computers were expandable up to 4gb RAM.
After I got the computers I went to ramseeker.com and ordered 4gb of RAM for each mac. It was about $130 for 8gb of RAM! If you go to the apple.com site you will see it costs $150 to add 2gb of RAM to a macbook (Twice as much as I paid for 8gb). I saved another $300, at least by adding the RAM myself (Grand total savings of at least $1000, and probably more).
I'm not a super computer savvy person, so if I can do it anyone can. If you want to get a high quality computer(s) next time you buy. I suggest buying refurbished and adding the RAM yourself.
Isn't it interesting that California is having such a huge financial problem. They are the world's 9th largest economy, yet they are broke. I wonder why?
On the other hand. Texas who is just a few spots below California on the world economy (11th I think) is doing just fine. I wonder why?
Before any comments are made in this direction. This post has nothing to do with which state is better in terms of: Weather, football, state pride, how nice people in the state are, etc. Just an observation regarding the size of the economy and the financial situation of each state. I find it to be something worthy of consideration. If Texas is able to stay profitable, and California is not, maybe we should learn something from that. Just an idea. For those of you living in California, sorry about the new tax you are going to have to pay for having a pet.
i can see that the "i wonder why" question is rhetorical, but i really don't know the answer you're pointing at. the first thing that occurred to me is that the state economies are fundamentally different.. but i don't know if you meant the businesses within the states or the state gov'ts themselves. of course the state gov'ts get their revenue from taxes, which are based on the individuals and businesses within the state.. ahhh i'll just ask; what are you getting at?
i do know that, although our local economy hasn't been as immediately impacted, projects are getting shelved at local energy and energy engineering firms.
What I am getting at is the fundamental principles of economics that are, for the most part, practiced in the state of Texas. It is not a matter of Texas being wealthier or anything like that. They just use their money better, that's all. I do not know all the specific reasons, so the question is half rhetorical and half inquisitive. I'll be glad to hear anyone's specific reasonings. One thing is for sure, Gov't is run more efficiently in Texas. They have parameters in place to make sure that happens. Congressmen can't waste public time and money with filibuster in TX. I guess they can for as long as they can stand up without holding on to anything and not go to the bathroom, because if you sit down, lean on anything, or leave the room for any reason its over.
They also are not full-time either, the reps in TX are business men too (As far as I understand), so they don't have much time to waste anyway, since they are busy contributing to our nations economy.
Anyway, my main point is this: California is a bigger economy than Texas, yet they have maintained continual budget problems. With such a huge economic base, you would think they could get that under control. TX rev is about 45billion (took me about 30 secs to find that info), California's is something like 102bill (took me much longer to find this, after much digging). They double Texas' revenue, but they are having major problems, I don't understand that. Where is all the money going?
To bring it down to size, let me state the situation: If Bob makes $102,000 and Larry makes $41,000 per year. If Bob has 3 children, and Larry has 2 (rough ratio of population difference), Bob pays 13% more for his home relative to his income than Larry does for his (given that they both live in standard single family homes). which one should be saving the most money, at the end of the day? The obvious answer is Bob. The problem is tons of expenses plague Bob because he spends like crazy on unnecessary things, that Larry does not spend on, yet all five children are doing just fine (The people of both states are doing just fine, regardless of the states budget issues, or lack thereof. Basically the people of CA are receiving not benefits by the fact that their gov't is spending so much each year).
Better stated. There is nothing of real significance that the citizens of CA have that the citizens of TX do not also have. In fact, they are paying much more for housing, higher taxes, etc. to live in CA, than those in TX do, but the state still has nothing to show for it at the end of the day. What is going on?
A few more fun facts for you: Texas does it without a state income tax. Texas has an enterprise program that helps make the business expansion process simple and efficient. Summary: Government provides the infrastructure, incentive, and a clean path, and you get a state with the most job creation and best increases in GDP, etc. I'm starting to sound like a Texan...eek.
