Net Neutrality.. Money?

The FCC's proposed net neutrality regulations are widely expected to be approved by a vote along partisan lines.  The controversy comes down to the fact that the FCC's new net neutrality rules reclassify broadband as a public utility.

Proponents of the new rules say regulating the Internet as a utility protects consumers and innovation. Opponents say it stifles innovation and restricts capitalism. Essentially, the debate has become ideological and partisan.

"On one hand you have the Internet companies like Netflix and Facebook who are trying to ensure they have unfettered access to the consumer and that the consumer has unfettered access to them," said analyst Craig Moffett at Moffett Research. "And on the other hand you have companies like Verizon, AT&T and Comcast who are saying they don't oppose any of the net neutrality-related rules, but the legal framework in order to get there imposes all these burdensome regulations and the risk of government overreach."

The concern is the risk that Title II regulation, even with all sorts of carve-outs or "forbearance" on certain parts, will lead toward price regulation.

Some are making great money now and they are against it.

Just a thought.

Driven... part 2..Pao

Fletcher delivered a speech built around the theme “What are the chances?”  that the nation would elect its first black President or that a Fletcher Fellow would read her poem at the Inauguration? He acknowledged his wife, the venture capitalist Ellen Pao, and their 6-month-old daughter, Matilda.

What are the chances, he asked, that he’d be there that day with his beautiful wife?

This last note elicited warm laughter. His friends all knew that Fletcher had, for years, openly dated a man, Hobart “Bo” Fowlkes, an employee of his investment firm, who helped plan the party but was not in attendance. But in the span of a year beginning in the summer of 2007, Fletcher and Pao had met, married, and started a family. The event was infused with a powerful dose of “hope and change.”

Nearly four years later much has changed for Fletcher and Pao though not for the better. After achieving coveted positions in the rarefied world of finance, Fletcher and Pao each filed sensational lawsuits that now jeopardize their careers, no matter the outcome.

Fletcher, 46, sued the iconic Dakota apartment building, located on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, accusing the board of racial discrimination after it questioned his ability to pay for an additional unit in the complex. The lawsuit triggered a series of events that ultimately led to the bankruptcy of one of Fletcher’s funds and investigations by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Then, just as Fletcher’s predicament was intensifying, Pao, 43, sued her employer, the venerable venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, for sexual discrimination, alleging that her superiors ignored her complaints of maltreatment by some male colleagues and curtailed her career for raising the issues.

The truth is stranger than fiction.  See part 1.  

Just a thought.

Getting ugly..!!

Crude oil prices plunged to a six-year low in a potentially painful threat to oil-exporting nations that rely on crude to power their economies. 

Many analysts believe that oil prices between $30 and $40 per barrel are a real possibility.  Oil traders are placing bets on oil sinking as low as $20 a barrel.

Oil prices are still looking for a floor, in part because the persistent mismatch between global supply and demand continues. 

Prices in the $40-per-barrel are starting to seriously test the economics of many operations. That’s because unlike other new sources of oil production such as Canada’s tar sands  U.S. tight-oil production relies on continuous drilling of wells.

Ultimately, the big risk to the U.S. economy lies in just how that yin and yang play out. Cheaper oil will hurt energy producers, the industry and some banks.

The drop would essentially extends the Federal Reserve’s policy of priming the economy with easy money and sets the stage for a harder landing sometime next year.

Just a thought.

Minimum Wage

Walmart, which employs 1.3 million in the U.S. alone, plans to boost its minimum pay to $9 an hour by April and $10 an hour by Feb. 1, 2016. The current federal standard is $7.25. 

That would generate long-awaited wage inflation, the lack of which has been a main contributor to the lackluster post-recession economic recovery in the U.S., the worst since the Great Depression.

"What Wal-Mart has done is set the new benchmark for employee pay for big-box stores.  It might be cooler to work at a Wal-Mart, where you get training and a higher pay,". "It could spread to the big-box retailers, and throughout the mall."

Wal-Mart's announcement comes after a solid two years of lobbying both from worker advocate groups and President Barack Obama's.

Walmart and other low wage companies' workers cost U.S. taxpayers $ billions in public assistance including food stamps, Medicaid and subsidized housing.

This is a good business decision to reduce turn around, better employment Poole, satisfaction of the employees and better customer service. Just a thought. 

Irrelevant...

I do not believe that the president loves America,” Giuliani reportedly said. “He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up this way ...... .......   and I was brought up through love of this country

He doesn’t talk about America the way John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan did, about America’s greatness and exceptionalism,”  He added that the commander-in-chief has been influenced by communists since his youth.

Giuliani implied he was the only one with the chutzpah to call out Obama, saying: “Somebody has to raise these issues with the president. Somebody has to have the courage to stand up.”

Giuliani said that his office had received some death threats over the phone. “But he did not say whether he alerted police and CNN has no way of confirming that,” “The majority of phone calls were supportive.”

Rudy Giuliani wants a little love, but most likely just some attention, from the president of the United States of America. [Huff Post].

People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Just a thought.

Road Rage

 

Las Vegas police work to identify a suspect in the apparent “road rage” shooting that left a mother of four dead.  Authorities are struggling to draw an accurate picture of what happened.

The adjusted timeline of events is largely based on the accounts of the daughter and son who were in the car with the victim, 44-year-old Tammy Meyers.
 

Police now believe that after Meyers and her 15-year-old daughter finished a driving lesson in a school parking lot, Meyers drove home. When a car pulled up aggressively behind Meyers and tried to pass, Meyers' daughter reached over and honked the horn, police say.

 

“Meyers sped past the male, and she continued on her way,” Steiber said. "Mrs. Meyers is scared, she’s upset.”  Meyers drove home and asked her daughter to tell her son, 22-year-old, who was armed, to come out to the car. Tammy and son went looking for the "road rage" suspect and found him, before losing track of him again, Steiber said.
 

When the mother and son returned home, the suspect's car pulled up. Gunfire erupted and Meyers was fatally wounded. "All indications ... are that this unknown person had fired shots first," Steiber said, adding that the son returned fire.

 

The son said, "I did what I had to do to protect my family. And I'd do it for anyone I love.” That may have been the cause of this tragedy.  

What kind of a lesson was that?   Just a thought.
 

A sad letter ..

This is a very sad time in Egypt where we are in seven days of official mourning for the 21 young Christian men who were brutally slaughtered by ISIS in Libya. The gruesome murder, and the produced video of that execution shocked the country and the world. It has united Egypt Christians and Muslims as never before. As soon as the video appeared, the President of Egypt delivered a speech declaring 7 days of mourning for the Nation.

Prayers and condolences have poured in for the victims, their families and the Coptic church, with many on social media using the hashtag    #CopticLivesMatter.

“They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. ” 

Vengeance
Be at peace with all men. Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written,                                                                "Vengeance is MINE, I Will Repay," says the Lord. .............."But IF Your Enemy IS Hungry, FEED HIM, And IF HE is Thirsty, GIVE HIM A DRINK; FOR IN SO DOING YOU WILL HEAP BURNING"…  

Just a thought.

But Rage.

Cho Hyun-ah, the daughter of Korean Air Chairman, served as head of in-flight service [Vice President] until she demanded that a South Korea-bound Korean Air jetliner return to a gate at NY JFK International Airport.

Cho was angered that a junior steward served her macadamia nuts  in a bag instead of on a plate, and without asking first. When a senior steward struggled to cite the proper regulations, Cho had him kicked off the flight, forcing the plane holding some 250 passengers to return to the gate before it could depart for South Korea."
The flight eventually arrived 11 minutes late, according to Reuters.

Cho later resigned from her post, was arrested in what is being called the "nut rage" incident and was charged with violating the country's aviation safety laws, coercion and interference in the execution of duty.

What else was that daughter of the Chair did to the subordinate?
  Just a thought.

Mother In Law

Your mother is Nosy Alice ... Nosy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92YQbNLnh_Q&index=7&list=WL

Cylvia...!

In her role as Oregon's first lady, Hayes has depicted her life story as a sort of fairy tale: Poor girl bootstraps her way to success, falls in love with a powerful man, together they save the world.

But a closer look suggests something more reminiscent of Greek tragedy. Friends, fellow environmentalists and political allies describe a woman with a desperate need for affirmation, a weather eye on the next opportunity and a giant blind spot when it comes to how others might perceive her.

She was 29 when she accepted $5,000 to marry an Ethiopian man hoping to stay in the United States, and 30 when she and a boyfriend bought property in rural Okanogan County, Washington, hoping to set up a pot farm.

Kitzhaber told campaign staff to treat Hayes as his spouse and the presumptive first lady. Democratic activists who did not, felt the irritation of both the candidate and his companion. Hayes expected respect, she repeatedly told people within the party. She'd earned it.......  Yet  personal email accounts relating to state business derailed her ambition....      Just a thought.