I wanted to point to a new site I’ve been working on.
It’s for a friend of mine: Dr. David Barsan. He’s a dentist with offices in Fairlawn and Cuyahoga Falls.
He is a genuinely nice guy and sincerely cares about his patients. If you are in the market for a new dentist, check out Dr. Barsan. He is impressive. You can learn more about him here:
Akron Dentist – Dr. David Barsan
I follow the economic catastrophe at a variety of places. One blog I love is Calculated Risk.
Today, they link to an article by Roubini:
Calculated Risk: Roubini: “Reflections on the latest sucker’s rally”
People love Roubini because he pretty much called this economic situation spot on:
Nouriel Roubini – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fortune magazine wrote of him, “In 2005, Roubini said home prices were riding a speculative wave that would soon sink the economy. Back then the professor was called a Cassandra. Now he’s a sage.”[1] In September, 2006, he announced to a skeptical International Monetary Fund (IMF) that an economic crisis was brewing. “In the coming months and years, he warned, the United States was likely to face a once-in-a-lifetime housing bust, an oil shock, sharply declining consumer confidence and, ultimately, a deep recession,” according to the New York Times.[2] According to the Times, he accurately foresaw “homeowners defaulting on mortgages, trillions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities unraveling worldwide and the global financial system shuddering to a halt.” The NY Times even labeled him “Dr. Doom.” In hindsight, IMF economist Prakash Loungani has called him “a prophet,”[2] and the vice chairman of AIG said “Roubini was intellectually courageous, and he called the shots correctly.”
In the article I linked to above he is basically saying that we are in a “dead cat bounce”. Basically things are going to continue to get worse because we haven’t solved the heart of this issue.
I have been touting the fact that I think we are at the bottom. And while I agree with Roubini that the heart of this still has significant problems, I still feel confident that we are roughly at the bottom and will be heading up from here.
This is why I think this:
Confidence is truly at the heart of all this.
Things are contracting primarily because people are scared.
Economics becomes incredibly difficult to measure and predict because emotion plays a major factor in determining the ups and downs.
Because of that, I feel that egghead economists often times do not have a tool to accurately measure today’s confidence, much less predict it into the future.
Simply put: I believe people are tired of being scared and not buying.
I think people are ready for this to be over and so… it will be over.
I know that isn’t quantitative. But the driver of this mess is primarily psychological.
I’ve been predicting that March would be the end of this for quite some time.
It’s just because Spring is a good time to start anew.
You’ll see. I’m right. Roubini is wrong (this time).
It’s truly rare for me to get an extremely clear perspective from a news organization that has a total different point of view.
Educated Americans love to sight the BBC as “unbiased, unfiltered news.” It’s just news that fits with their own bias.
I just read this fascinating story about the Dalai Lama:
Dalai Lama’s utter distortion of Tibet history_English_Xinhua
According to the article, the Dalai Lama is a cruel dictator that was the true oppressor of people.
This article popped up on my Google News home page.
With a little researching I learned that the souce is:
Xinhua News Agency – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Xinhua News Agency is the official press agency of the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the biggest center for collecting information and press conferences in the PRC
The Internet is so amazing because you get to see stuff like this.
It’s a well written piece that uses “facts” to make its case.
What impressed me was how fluid “facts” can be.
If you have a moment, I’d appreciate your help. Please take a look and forward this job on to anyone you think would be interested/qualified in the position, or anyone else who could help me find a great candidate.
Thanks for your help!
-Greg Habermann
COO/VP of SageRock, Inc.
++++++++++++++++++++++
Company: SageRock
Job Title: Web Marketing Specialist — Entry Level
Description: SageRock is hiring a full-time web marketing associate to assist our PPC and SEO specialists in overall web marketing campaigns for clients.
Responsibilities include Paid Search account setup and maintenance, market and industry research, strategy planning, HTML and CSS code modification, ROI management, and more.
Job Responsibilities:
Assist Paid Search Media and SEO specialists with:
Skills and Experience:
Excellent benefits package includes generous vacation; flex time; medical, dental and disability insurance; simple IRA matching. Come work in a collaborative, enriching environment in an exciting, fast-paced industry.
Please send resume and salary requirements to greg@sagerock.com
I have lead pretty much the last decade of my career doing what I felt I “should” be doing.
Recently I have had a change of heart. I’ve decided to make a withdrawal from SageRock. Not a money withdrawal as much as a time withdrawal.
I have decided I was going to start doing the things I wanted to do and really minimize what I didn’t want to do.
The first aspect of that is that I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. I just started doing things that I liked. Namely, blogging and emailing.
I have been spending a lot of time writing on a variety of blogs. And now I’m spending more time interacting with people on social networks.
I’m just trying to reach out to people in ways that are comfortable to me.
I’m not a big fan of calls and meetings. So, I’ve consciously been limiting those things. I honestly think I might have a slight tinge of agoraphobia… or something like that. I don’t think my level of disinterest in physically connecting with people is typical.
This has been an interesting process because if you have never done what you really enjoy, you really don’t know what it is you do enjoy.
But writing and doing videos is incredibly enjoyable to me.
Further more, because I’m doing what I like, I feel like I’m more effective.
Who knows. Maybe all this will come back and bite me in the ass. But so far, I feel more effective. More happy.
Every time I miss an @reply from someone I feel like a total jerk. You see, I don’t usually check my twitter in a browser. I do most of it on my phone. I miss @replies all the time.
The only way you can get @replies to go to your phone is if you have all messages from a particular person sent to your phone.
Well, I “think” I got a solution.
The first thing I did was go to search.twitter.com
I then did a search for: @sagerock
This search gives you an rss feed.
I then took that feed over to Feedburner and “burned the feed.” That’s not a hard process. You just get a free account with them and then add a feed you want sent through Feedburner.
From there, Feedburner has an email feature:
FeedBurner Email that I set up for my new feed.
I then subscribed to the “@sagerock” feed I burned and turned into email via feedburner.
Now, hopefully, I will get my @replies sent to my email address.
I also have Tweetscan running. But for some reason those weren’t sending @replies to me.
Maybe now I won’t look like a total heel.
Crushing Job Losses May Signal Broader Changes – NYTimes.com
“These jobs aren’t coming back,” said John E. Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia in Charlotte. “A lot of production either isn’t going to happen at all, or it’s going to happen somewhere other than the United States. There are going to be fewer stores, fewer factories, fewer financial services operations. Firms are making strategic decisions that they don’t want to be in their businesses.”
So, the official word is that another 651,000 jobs were lost in February.
I believe the above quote. American businesses are just going to get out of certain fields… namely crazy-ass loans and a large chunk of automobile manufacturing.
There was a time in my life when I thought that the world was going to be dominated by like 4 major corporations. That the “corporation” would control everything.
Now I think the opposite. I think large corporations are going to slowly lose their power in the world. I’m not sure what the power center will be. Initially I thought it would go back to the government. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s something we haven’t fully seen yet. An advanced social media platform that gives true power to the people.
I think the power will become fragmented… but yet more powerful than anything we have experienced.
With all of this, I really wish these people that have lost their jobs in areas where they will likely never work again, would just start their own business.
Running a business doesn’t take a ton of brains. I know a lot of really successful business people that are the most asinine humans I’ve ever met. It doesn’t even take that good of an idea: mechanic, window washer, home repair, painting. Those are all outstanding businesses… and businesses where you could stand to make a lot more money than working “on the line.”
The government will be touting education and that sort of thing. I really wish they would promote entrepreneurship.
Op-Ed Columnist – Spock at the Bridge – NYTimes.com
“Take advantage of a crisis to grab an opportunity.”
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