Author Archives: trr

About trr

25 male single never married.

1 month updates

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At least, I write something on here once a month. Not a good practice for building a user base or community, but then again, I write for a more therapeutic personal purpose than for an anonymous spammers enjoyment. Be prepared though, I just enrolled in Advanced Corporate Finance even though I did not need it. I figured it would be good preparation for a PhD program. I also have a couple drafts waiting for final review before I publish them. The stock markets suck as everyone might already know, so I applied for a couple jobs. Already had a phone interview for one, and will have a face to face in about a week with them.

Returned from Vegas…

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Made some money on the tables, got some pit bosses business cards, but most importantly, I got a business idea for Vegas. It would be so easily implemented. Capital Investors contact me at 479-530-3999, or my attorney Gregg Klebanoff at 479-442-7400. Phillip, I am calling you. We could be rich, please say yes.

Eros and Thanatos

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My site was describe by my good friend, Chris Kindrick over at Monkeybulb, as a green conscious blog for an unconscious world! Even though I have definitely taken a conscious life-style shift to use best practices and maximize energy efficiency, my green thumb outlook on the world some how mixes or combines with my thoughts and worries about the state of our financial economy. Politics, Economics, Businesses, Consumers, Finances; how they are all so influential over one another. The direction that I feel we are heading in as a country has severely diminished my outlook on the future of civilization as we know it for some time to come.

My thinking is that we are being guided, by what or who I don’t know yet, or if I can even describe the thoughts accurately, might be better to say feeling, gut feeling. I’d like to think that this feeling is just humanity’s will at work and that we are guided by some higher power.

“Progress, man’s distinctive mark alone not God’s and not the Beast, God is, they are, man partly is and wholly hopes to be.” – From “A Death In The Desert” by Robert Browning

But then again, it could just be the foreign investors who control our federal reserve, and the fact that our government operates a financial system based solely on debt. George W. has really taken to heart the slogan “Owe the bank 3 million and the bank owns you, owe the bank 3 trillion and you own the bank.”

The longer I think about it, the more utopia and doomsday scenarios both race through my mind. A great many of Sci-fi movie scenes come up, and while most of the ideations are all well and good, happy scenes like the famous cartoon “The Jetsons”, and the world we live in is independent from oil, and national borders and governments cease to exist because of world peace. The trip in between is what I am most curious and sometimes worried about. My anxiety gets the best of me and then thoughts like the world population is going to have to collapse to reach the state of utopia in my dreams.

With talk of the Amero coming up more frequently, I can’t help but think that there is no denying now we are in a state of globalization. The path that the US seems to have gone down is one that resembles Freud’s instinctual state of Thanatos, or self destruction, but then as with all things as dynamic and diverse as the human race, Eros, the instinctual state of creation and life. Cyclical states of change vs inertia.

Business cycles seem no longer relevant in today’s business world. Today we live in bubble cycles, which is to bad because historically a bubble that had a globally devastating aftermath would only happen about once every one hundred years. A change every one hundred years, Eros was the norm, Thanatos only came around every now and again, just like wildlife fires.

Even though it is widely disputed the first bubble is credited to the Dutch Tulip Traders of the 1630s, but in the 21st century we have seen 2 bubbles burst, dot com and real estate. The real estate bubble in my eyes only occurred to offset losses of the dot com bubble. So the financial sectors are playing games with the political sectors, and while I am not a history buff, I would bet that if I researched long enough I could probably trace the reason for the all the historical bubbles back to some sort of change in legislation on a governmental level to benefit people in the financial sector or vice aversa.

Ultimately, I believe the Amero will be good for the US, and furthermore Canada and Mexico, but it is what we as Americans will have to endure for the majority to be willing to accept the change. President Bush has deliberately been driving down the value of the dollar for at least 2 years now. Is this to prepare us for the acceptance of the Amero? or is the Amero just part of the long agenda that progress and globalization will have for us?

I look at the European Union, while political borders are still present, the Euro has aligned the financial interests of all the nations with in the union. It has brought these people a little closer together by giving them a common bond with which to perform transactions with. I believe that with the development of a North American Union, our financial interests will be the same as Cananda’s and Mexico’s. Financial Borders will be the new rule of thumb. Destruction of the US dollar to create change and acceptance of the Amero. Eros and Thanatos always at work, always in tandem.

Much like when we see videos and pictures of a forest fires destruction in California we morn for the loss, instead we should celebrate the change and rejoice for the new life that comes in its place.

If Eros were to take place 100% of the time, nothing would change ever. Life would go on, nothing “bad” would ever happen. Death and destruction would be words that were forgotten. However, the same would be true if Thanatos were to be ever lasting. Death and destruction for everything, never any new creation, no new life. We would be inert, running pegged to one side of the spectrum or the other, light or dark, white or black, good or evil. But to have both means that we can at least continue towards change and progress. Inertia vs Change, i like to think it keeps us in the grey, with a balance of good and evil, and just enough light to see our hand in front of our face.

Map Pack Download available now

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We are proud to be the first people to make available the in game maps anywhere on the internet. You can download them in this zip file: GTA IV – TW@ internet cafe map pack

Images are jpg format and a resolution of 1024 x 516

McDonaldization… (expanded)

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What is Mcdonalization, and is it bad for a society? Mcdonaldization is a term coined by George Ritzer in his book The Mcdonaldization of a Society. Ritzer explains the process of Mcdonaldization as a society becoming more like a fast-food restaurant through the adoption of four prominent characteristics. Efficiency, calculability, standardization, and control are the four characteristics of Mcdonalization, and these characteristics might seem like good things to any rational person. However, any process that adopts these characteristics, no matter how rational or good it appears at first glance, has the potential to turn out detrimental to society and even possibly transgressing the four primary characteristics of said process.

Ritzer based his work on Max Weber’s work. The only difference is that Weber compared society to a bureaucracy (which Mcdonalds is a bureaucracy so I don’t see much of a difference) with the same four characteristics. What makes Ritzer’s critical analysis stronger is that it has been updated with a modern bureaucracy that is identifiable by most people on this planet. Ritzer’s Mcdonaldization is the same thing as Weber’s rationalization and the structure these processes impose on human social interaction and thought process furthers the process even more and it is not a process that is easily reversible. The differences between someone who has gone through Mcdonalization and someone who hasn’t, is comparable to a domesticated animal and a wild animal. Granted this is a rough comparison, but the difference between the two is as apparent. While the four characteristics of Mcdonaldization have proven themselves successful over the years, the success has come with a grain of salt. In the past half century the effects of Mcdonaldization have become more apparent. Mcdonaldization is depersonalizing the social institutions that our society puts so much value in. In the past both individuals and society has a whole bought stock in our inalienable rights, but recently there seems to be more value placed on material goods. This attitude has taken over many of our social institutions and the negative effects have become blatantly obvious, the most prominent is the dehumanization of daily life, social interaction, and how we perceive our own lives.

This is a trend that needed to end yesterday. I think everyone can agree that this world is not a perfect place, but can anyone agree that the dehumanization of humans is in anyway going to help make this world a better place to live in? Unfortunately, people can be institutionalized to certain ways of life, and our society has been institutionalized to this way of life. So changes will not, nay, the changes cannot come overnight like a dream. No matter how badly they are needed.

Rising food prices across the world.

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http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2008/04/rising_food_pri_1.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/world/americas/18food.html

1. Why are food prices rising across the world? In the U.S?

Food prices are rising due to the increase usage of corn in ethanol production. This takes extra corn away from the food supply. The ripple effect has moved over to other grains, since there is less corn, they are feeling the effects in added demand for their use as a substitute. Even meat and poultry products are feeling the effects because of the increased cost in feed. The U.S. uses 25% of corn produced for ethanol production! This is outrageous, on top of that according to the USDA projected corn production is expected to be down 8% for 2008 in the U.S. due to farmers planting other grains to take advantage of other grains higher prices.

2. Is this a short-run or a long-run problem? Why?

It is a short-run problem that if not addressed quickly and properly could turn into a long-run crisis. Oil is at record prices, so we looked to ethanol to help alleviate some of the pressure put on the oil supply. The issue is that the U.S. uses corn to produce their ethanol to substitute for oil, but this is a major cause of the increases in food prices, and as long as we are using corn for this purpose it will continue to put pressure on food prices. The U.S. uses about 20 – 30% of its farmland for biofuel production, this farmland could be used for food production of course.

3. Are there any solutions to this on the horizon?

There are many alternatives to corn ethanol production that would help relieve some of the pressures that it has put on our food prices. Brazil has had tremendous success with sugar ethanol production and has become energy self sufficient. In addition they have a nation wide ethanol network and 90% of the automobiles manufactured in Brazil run on ethanol. Will this work for everyone, I don’t think so, but we can follow Brazil’s example. Sugar ethanol production does not take away sugar from our food supplies and the farmland used to produce sugar has taken away about 2-3% of land from grazing land for cattle, although, this has not hindered their beef production. In the U.S. the first algae biofuels plant went online April 1st in Texas. Biofuels from algae produce 30 times more energy per acre than corn or soy, so this is a start.

**4/21/08 my discussion board post for my Economics of Mgmt and Strategy. What are your thoughts/comments?

2:00 AM Tired

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OK, I am tired of being tired at 2 am. I’ve done almost all my homework…almost.

That’s besides the point. The reason for this post is to tell the 1 to 2 people who visit this site to hold on just a couple more days. I’ve finally got it looking somewhat respectable. So that said, please excuse the 2 color top image, it is just a place holder for another one coming soon. More to come later. Maybe I’ll start posting my homework for the internet.