26 miles and 385 yards – that’s insanity!!! People point their finger at me and say that I’m a fan of a brutal sport (MMA –Mixed Martial Arts) but not a single person has ever died in the UFC octagon; and though I don’t have the exact statistics, invariably every year or so, one hears that a person has died of a heart attack running the outrageously long race.

Why does the race have to be that long ? And, who are the morons who elect to participate in such a deleterious sporting event? It’s a medical fact that engaging in any cardiovascular activity for more than an hour provides no further benefits to one’s health and in fact pushing oneself beyond 40 minutes to an hour without pause is simply put – dangerous. I find it quite interesting to note that these professional marathon runners do not look in any way shape or form  – healthy; in fact they look sickly and in need of a good highly – caloric meal.

I do respect the gutsy toughness of the runners, but can’t they cut it down to 13 miles, instead of 26 ??? Wouldn’t that make sense?

So, WhaDaYaThink ? What do you think ?

It was hard to argue against Milton Friedman when times were good, but now that the middle class is suffering (not to mention the poor but the poor always were and always will be poor & miserable), many people are starting to take another look at trickle-down economics.

Man is greedy and will always look out for his or her own interest before anyone else’s; Milton Friedman understood this very human trait only too well and developed a theory around it which won him a Nobel Prize for economics. “Greed is good…” Gordon Gekko, the fictional inside trader tycoon from the 1987 film ‘Wall Street’ said, echoing Friedman’s philosophy and it is in fact the driving force of a free market system – greed & competition. I agree with 90% of trickledown, free markets, and competition – oh yes, and even that ugly human thing – greed, which we can use for the benefit of society as a whole. Scenario: I do well, I create jobs, the people I hire do well and they create jobs, ad infinitum and then trickle down (I mean gushing down). This makes sense and it truly works, however not always.
I love the free market system and it works like magic when you are selling lampshades, cars, computers, etc. The problem exists down on Wall street; the successful traders or “Masters of the Universe” are just hoarding, buying yachts, and not creating jobs – not to mention derivatives, insider trading and cheating. Rather than Friedman’s theory, I’ve always liked John Maynard Keynes more.  I agree with the late Mr. Friedman in terms of free enterprise; however you MUST have some form of regulation, which is why I and President Obama put more stock into Keynesian economics.

Trickledown that ought to be gushing down if it were executed properly doesn’t always work in real life. When something catastrophic happens, such as the real estate burst, or the dot.com bubble, etc., the government needs to pump money into certain markets and bail out i.e. banks so we can get the well – oiled and finely tuned economic free market system going again – Keynesian economics. Yes, let the private sector do it’s magic but when there’s a recession, we NEED help from the government, a stimulus plan,which is exactly what this administration is doing as well as trying to trim the deficit.

It’s not only Wall Street that caused this mess e.g. I can get into supply and demand, markdowns, surplus, lack of consumer spending, economic cycles, high unemployment, the miserable poor, and a plethora of other economic variables but I just wanted to here in this blog – drive home the point that government spending is not a bad thing and point out that Mr. Friedman’s theory is almost perfect, but not quite.
So, WhaDaYaThink ? What do you Think? What are your thoughts on Keynesian economics or do you still hold on to the tenets of Milton Friedman?

I don’t think there is a day that goes by in which I don’t hear some thing or some incident concerning Lindsay Lohan – and my question is what is all the commotion and excitement about. I still don’t know a whole lot about Ms. Lohan, other than the fact that she was a child star- continues to act, model and sing and parties; she likes to drink and has had a couple of DUIs (what young person doesn’t party a little ?) Early in her career (she got into show business when she was 3), the press loved her and she got a lot of praise, now she’s the red – headed step child of show business and now everything is all negative. I’m sure she is a spoiled, insolent 20 – something but the media are all over her – give her a break !!!

The Germans have a wonderful word for all this tabloid media frenzy, it’s called schadenfreude – the malicious delight and satisfaction in seeing another human being suffer. Another truism is that people in general don’t like other folks who are too successful, especially if one seems ungrateful for their incredible good fortune. I started reading Wikipedia before writing this and I got bored after the first two paragraphs – there’s nothing special or outrageous about this Lindsay Lohan. So, again why do the media pick out a certain celebrity and then just incessantly grind away at him or her ?
So, WhadaYaThink ? What do you think ? Oprah, Lady GaGa, Alec Baldwin & Madonna (were).. the list is endless; but what is it about Lindsay Lohan ?

Last night I got a chance to watch the documentary ‘Casino Jack and the United States of Money’ which was about the life of the criminal, former Lobbyist – Jack Abramoff and the massive GOP corruption scandal in which he was involved during the W. Bush Administration. This film is as good as it gets in terms of documentaries go – 4 star, 5 star… whatever, Alex Gibney, the director (who also made the documentary about Enron) nailed this and I can’t recommend this highly enough -  this is a Must – see. I’m not going to do a movie review (future blog), however I just want to touch on something that struck me last night: how is it possible for a wicked and evil person to be pious, and I mean religious beyond the average i.e. born – again Christian or Orthodox Jew. It doesn’t make sense…it seems incongruous.
If you see the film and listen to the commentary (I recommend it), Alex Gibney raised the point as well – look: Jack Abramoff –Orthodox Jew (comically converted after seeing ‘Fiddler On The Roof), Ralph Reed – born again Christian, Tom Delay, Michael Scanlon, Bob Ney, and the rest of the thugs are all religious zealots. Well, I couldn’t agree more with Mr. Gibney when he theorized that very often religious zealotry and devoted godliness, is in a sense a way of easing one’s conscience; what I’m doing can’t be wrong, God is on my side. I’m the good guy and though bribing people for tens of millions of dollars may seem wrong at face value, it’s a means to an end. They all have this incredible arrogance as though to think ” I’m SPECIAL, I’m not mediocre, I’m allowed to do these things because I’m one of the chosen ones.
I won’t elaborate too much on this and I certainly believe that most ordinary Christians and Jews are good people, WhaDaYaThink ?  how can you rationalize or compartmentalize  such immoral action and with such passion and ambition – not all of these people are pathologically sociopathic.
What do you think ?