How much should we trust software companies

Ok, I accept that we are in the technological age. Which supposedly makes all things easy. Software and computers order things in a more rational fashion. Does it?

I subscribe to a couple of Adobe online products. You know, Adobe is probably second only to Microsoft in the consumer software market.

Well, my credit card was expiring, so I get this email from Adobe, telling me to follow a link to update the card.

I thought this would be a two minute thing.

Guess what? The link led me to nowhere land, something that did not recognize me as a customer, whereas I visit the site everyday. Then, I peruse the entire site, to see if there were any links. Nope!

My last option was to chat with a representative. I spent about half an hour, chatting with a couple of folks in the Indian subcontinent, only to be told that I needed to call a toll-free phone number to provide a different card!

HOW LOW TECH IS THAT?

In other words, we are supposed to trust that the companies that operate that way will make software that will work 100 % properly.

I don’t think so, sorry.

Wealth and fame, binders full of women, small business support

I am neither a Democrat, nor Republican. I just watched the debate last night to check whether any of the candidates represent me, the American middle class.

One thing I know for sure. Mr Romney does not.

In 2005, Mr. Romney said “When I was a boy I thought being rich and famous would make me happy, was I right” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsTAKhgtmvA. This type of remark would be suitable to the Lady Gagas and Madonnas of this world, not for an American president wannabe. The pursuit of happiness thought of by our founding fathers would thus be an empty one, for the vast majority of the populace will neither achieve wealth or fame in their lifetime. I suppose Mr. Romney’s country club buddies suit his ideal of happiness, though.

However, it is troubling that the man thinks that way, and is supposedly devising ways to make the middle class happy once again! How can that be? He is obviously out of touch with microeconomic reality, meats and potatoes. Talking about supporting small business and doing away with deductions is akin to giving a person a sedative before a lethal injection. Deductions are the only perks the middle class has, if we can call that. Small businesses are not businesses with more than US$10 million in sales or 100 employees, which may be Mr. Romney’s definition of it.  The wealthy class, however, has ~blind trusts~, private foundations, or receive income hidden as loans from companies, things small time operators are not privy too. This helps understand the 14% tax rate mentioned on the debate…

The reality is, we are reversing the economic process. “Mom and pop” stores are increasing in numbers, for jobs in multinational, large companies, have gone, perhaps forever. It is not only in manufacturing, which both candidates try to make us think. In services too. Anytime two large banks merge, thousands of people are made redundant forever, and hundreds of thousands have lost such jobs in the last 15 years, both under Dems and Reps.  These are the people that go on their own selling insurance, real estate, become “coaches” or consultants, because the job market no longer absorbs them. These, the micro businesses, are the ones that need help. Not even the regular mom and pop stores can survive anymore, globbed up by the Walmarts and chain stores of this world.

Then there was the binders full of women remark. I hope the binders were not full of old issues of Playboy. Just joking.

By and large, both candidates keep on going back and forth with the concept of “creating jobs” and “government does not create jobs”. The reality is that in a free market, jobs are mostly created by companies. Very simple. The laws of supply and demand, and availability of income and workers, dictates whether or not jobs are created. However, both candidates avoid the issues, or else, they have to clarify that they are in the hands of the market.

For instance, oil prices. Private oil companies follow international prices. Sure, the USA consumes 25 % of the world oil, but that means the majority is still consumed elsewhere. The supply and demand is as much international as domestic. And guess what happens? Oil companies do export, when the price is really good! Again, it is the markets that dictate this, but as the candidates do not want to seem powerless, they fake they have a power they do not have.

Thus, it is world of make believe.

The Bible says, wisely, that people perish for the lack of knowledge. This does not apply only to spiritual issues, it does to everything. People talk about the economy with almost doctoral authority, yet, have not idea as to the difference between assets and liabilities, currency issue, pork barrel politics, derivatives, foreign trade, and a host of other things that affect their daily living. Most people in this country still believe there is a gold standard and that the popular vote elects presidents! Thus a well-groomed dude can just tell them a whole bunch of things that are, at best, half-truths, and they fall for it. So no wonder the majority remains at the bottom of the food chain.

Over-reaction to the nth degree

Let me start by saying I do like the Beatles. I do fancy John Lennon. He was not my favorite beatle, but I acknowledge his contribution to music. He would probably not be a very good friend to me, as I found celebrities aren’t. At the least the few I met, are not ~good friend~ material. People love to say they are good friends with celebrities, because that supposedly raises their importance in society. So, we get the impression that they are good friend material, after all. You say a lie too often it becomes truth.

This post is not really about that. Is about an overreaction to a news article that was published on the internet. Supposedly, in Britain, somebody has vetoed, rather, prohibited playing Lennon’s “Imagine” in funerals.

People were going bonkers, as if somebody had excluded playing Bach in churches.

Anti-church people went crazy, of course. I suppose playing Marilyn Mason would be suitable to them. Come on, you are in a church, in a service, and the words “imagine there is no religion” does sound a bit off. To me, it is very simple.

Lennon was a man, like me, and you the reader. Sure, a good composer, only a reasonable musician and singer. Had great imagination, but he was no saint.

He is seen as the proponent of peace, he and his bride Yoko. Yet, on the same album in which the “peace anthem” Imagine appears, he slams his old pal Paul McCartney in a song called ‘How do you sleep”. A few years later realizing his faux pas, he kinda hinted the song is not about Paul, but it obviously is. Even if it is not,  JL shows in the song the aggression that people close to him always reported.

How can you have peace in the world, if the man writing the peace anthem cannot keep peace with his buddies?

Sure, I have my issues as well, as JL did. But let us stop imagining JL was somebody he was not. Just because he died a terrible death, that does not make him a saint.  Imagine is a good song, I am positive, imbued with good intentions, but I agree that it might be left out of funerals, especially in churches.

If you want to have your atheist or agnostic world views, fine, but keep it out of churches.

A sad thing about Facebook. Or kids growing up

It is not Facebook’s fault, it is life on its earnest.

A few years ago, I moved far away, and left a lot of people behind. Among them, this family that had a cute, quiet kid, who seemed very groomed, proper and intelligent.

Well, I befriended the kid in Facebook.

After a period in which he seemed to have a future in sports, now the youngster has assumed the gangsta persona.  His posts are so full of the “F” word and s**t, that it sounds like a Hollywood script. He, like millions of others, entertains the silly idea he will be a hip-hop star. Plus he is as white as it comes and his rhymes pretty much suck.

So, while social networks are excellent to keep up with people, and see they are doing well, they also allow us to witness a person’s undeterred descent.

I hope somewhere the kid wakes up from the hip-hop dream.