Be still, for I am God…

I MOVED…..PLEASE GO TO http://thestoph.blogspot.com

Wow….am I really here?  Something like that.  So much has changed in the past year that for me to blog about it on a night where I should be studying for a mid-term would be a bad idea.  So I’ll make it quick for now…

God is amazing…..
Something about an amazing church (CCk)….
Something about an awesome group of people….
Then there is the blessing of having a job…..
Something about have purpose and meaning thanks to the first thing I mentioned….
Weight loss somewhere in there….
Oh and school…. *sigh*…

All in all, I am back and we are definitely changing things around here…..starting with you!
I hope that this blog in some way shape or form opens a door in your life, or creates some kind of joy in your heart, that your life might be in some way better or encouraged after reading it….

Until I find time to actually write….I leave this for you:

“Be still, For I am God…” – Psalm 46:10

“I can finally see that you’re right there beside me.
I am not my own, for I have been made new.
Please don’t let me go, I desperately need you.
I am not my own, for I have been made new.
Please don’t let me go, I desperately need you.”

~Owl City

Gates playing God…

So most of us are familiar with creation, and how it is we as man came to be. God created Adam and Eve and then that crazy woman decided to listen to a talking snake and eat an apple from the tree, after which she did the woman thing and told Adam if he didn’t eat from it, no sex for weeks.  Long story short, they got thrown out of the garden for being disobedient and now here we are years later, cursed with sin and inherently evil.  I really hope that this isn’t the way Bill Gates feels, else his kids are in for years of pain.

According to a recent article on just about every website known to man, Bill Gates and his wife, do not allow their children to own anything Apple, specifically iPhones and iPods.  

“There are very few things that are on the banned list in our household…But iPods and iPhones are two things we don’t get for our kids.”

Ok, I know that Steve Jobs is probably the single greatest competitor of Bill Gates, but doesn’t something like this beg the question of is bill scared?  To start, he no longer is the CEO of the company, and while he may be a symbol of the company, his children choosing to own whatever they want shouldn’t do a damn thing to his rep.  I mean Microsoft used Apple computers and Apple generated images to render those failures commercials of “I’m a PC and my computer sucks“, so what is the big deal with his kids owning the single greatest MP3 machine or cell phone?

I think poor Gates is afraid.  Maybe he is starting to come to terms with the fact that Macs work better than PCs and that the OS Macs use is a million time more stable than the garbage that took them five years to fail on.  Maybe it was the below image, which shows Safari to be a far superior web browser than Microsoft’s beloved Internet Explorer.Wait…say what?  These are the results based on use from a PC?  Makes me laugh.  Takes me back to when PC World wrote an article on the MacBook Pro and said that Vista ran the best on a MacBook Pro.  I have to laugh.

I can sit here for hours and post a 20 page paper on arguments, but I am not going too.  I’ll just mention things like Steve Ballmer laughing at the iPhone when it first came out and saying it was a joke, only to be wrong just months later when the the iPhone took 40% of all smartphone sales in a 3 month period after its release.  He was wrong even after that when the iPhone reached and passed its 10 million unit goal long before the end of 2008.  Maybe the App Store, where over 300 million apps were downloaded in the first month, is evidence to how wrong he is.  I even remember hearing him say the App Store was a joke and that no one would make money off of it.  Tell that the developer of Trism, who made $250,000 in the first three months of his apps release.

Bottom line, PCs suck, Macs rule.  If Gates wants to keep his kids from eating the Apple, then I hope he doesn’t throw them out of the house for choosing what they want.  Granted, in the long run, I like what ended up happening with God, I get free will, and happily choose to serve Him, but I think Gates might be making a mistake…..doesn’t he know God runs Mac OSX?

Birthdays

So as some may already know, those being the three of you that read this, today is my birthday.  To be specific, it is my 23rd birthday.  Not sure what else to make of the day, other then the fact that I am a year older, and somehow that translates into being more experienced, however, that remains to be seen.

Reflection is something we sometimes tend to take for granted.  As humans, we have the ability to recollect and reanalyze, constantly being given the opportunity to fix, make better, and in some lucky instances, change our circumstances.  It is this ability to react to past experiences and reflect that I am so thankful for.

Sounds odd doesn’t it?  Being thankful for something so simple.  But see that is the rub, as people we sometimes forget the things we have that will in the long run better us as individuals.  Today on my birthday, if I have never taught you anything, let your gift to me be that you understand the amazing opportunity you have been given to be alive and be able to change your circumstances, regardless of how deep you think you really are.

I myself have come out of some interesting situations, taking with me the experiences and applying them to future situations, so that the outcome is never the same and gets better with time.  Their is no such thing as failure, failure should be renamed to opportunity.  When Thomas Alva Edison invented electricity, it took him over 5,000 times to get it to work.  When asked how he felt about having failed so many times, he replied: “My boy I didn’t failed, I just succeeded at figuring out 5,ooo ways not to do it”

I know this isn’t like me to get so emotional and psychological, however, I felt like this was necessary; throwing some perspective at you is always a good thing.  Do not take for granted the things which you have been given, tools within yourself, that will make your life a better one.  Reflection is an amazing ability we have, don’t lose sight of that.

To all those that wished me a happy one, thank you.  I appreciate every single one, and rest assured, my life in the last few months has seen some significant improvment.  This is thanks to the many people in my life.

Stimulating at a recession near you…

As a tax professional I am constantly being questioned by many of my colleagues, peers, and friends concerning this stimulus package everyone keeps talking about.  As many may already know, the bill was made law this past week  and a lot of people have no clue what it does or how it affects us.  Fear not, I have the perfect explanation, courtesy of an email my dad sent me earlier today.

Shortly after class, an economics student approaches his economics professor and says, “I don’t understand this stimulus bill. Can you explain it to me?”

The professor replied, “I don’t have any time to explain it at my office, but if you come over to my house on Saturday and help me with my weekend project, I’ll be glad to explain it to you.” The student agreed.

At the agreed-upon time, the student showed up at the professor’s house. The professor stated that the weekend project involved his backyard pool.

They both went out back to the pool, and the professor handed the student a bucket. Demonstrating with his own bucket, the professor said, “First, go over to the deep end, and fill your bucket with as much water as you can.” The student did as he was instructed.

The professor then continued, “Follow me over to the shallow end, and then dump all the water from your bucket into it.” The student was naturally confused, but did as he was told.

The professor then explained they were going to do this many more times, and began walking back to the deep end of the pool.

The confused student asked, “Excuse me, but why are we doing this?” The professor matter-of-factly stated that he was trying to make the shallow end much deeper.

The student didn’t think the economics professor was serious, but figured that he would find out the real story soon enough.

However, after the 6th trip between the shallow end and the deep end, the student began to become worried that his economics professor had gone mad. The student finally replied, “All we’re doing is wasting valuable time and effort on unproductive pursuits. Even worse, when this process is all over, everything will be at the same level it was before, so all you’ll really have accomplished is the destruction of what could have been truly productive action!”

The professor put down his bucket and replied with a smile, “Congratulations. You now understand the stimulus bill.”

So as you can see from the explanation it makes no sense.  It is like a picture I once saw of Darth Vader using a water purifier to make sea water drinkable, it makes no sense…Darth Vader can’t drink water, and you cant pay debt by being in more debt…sorry all who read this previously, when I pasted the story, it was a bit mixed…

Life

I have really been neglecting this blog lately. I have had little time to really do much of anything. Something about meeting new people, career hunting, and it being my birthday tomorrow make this blog sit on the back burner. Rest assured though, in time I will go back to my usual bi-daily blogs. I am unsure as to whether or not that is a word, either way, tomorrow is my birthday and don’t forget it…

Where’s Waldo?

Anyone seen this guy?  I here a nice reward is in store for his where abouts dead or alive.  In a recent article posted by Yahoo!, the U.S. government believes that through the use of science and some advanced geographic satellite analysis, they can pin-point his location.  Listed are three possible locations all within 12 miles of each other.  That is fine and all, but isn’t this slightly counterproductive?

Correct me if I am wrong, but why would you publicize the location of a known and sought after terrorist on the Internet?  Hopefully Bin Laden doesn’t read Yahoo!.  Granted, I hope our intelligence is smarter than this and has some other plan up their sleeves, however, given their luck in the past with this sort of thing, I wouldn’t know what to say.

Hopefully, we are smarter than that and can hopefully catch this idiot some day.  Although, we never could catch that secretary under the desk during the Clinton days, so this capture may never happen…

Debt + Debt x Debt x 45 = 0

So for a while now we have all been hearing about this whole government bailout for financial institutions.  Well, the dust has settled and the Obama administration has left its mark on history.  While no disrespect is intended, Obama sure has provided some “change.”

For starters, he changed the record for most money involved in a bill passed by the United States.  He will change the way some companies books look.  He will change the value of our dollar by freely throwing another $800 billion into our economy.  Sounds fun doesn’t it?

Recently a friend of mine put together a blog concerning the plans many politicians have with how to go about taking care of this financial crisis.  I will tell you right now, the worst way to reduce debt is by creating more of it, and at an exponential rate might I add.

One of the speculations of what will be done with all this money is the re-purchase of some bad assets, bad debts, bad securities, and liabilities.  This sounds great to the average person, however, such transactions can have very negative affects on a companies financial statements.  What is more is that these money hungry institutions are the reason why our economy is in the toilet.  That and our fun-loving consumers who think making $30,000 a year and spending $120,000 is a way of living.

My only concern with this idea of giving banks funds for bad assets as well as buying liabilities/securities that have gone bad is the balance sheet effects these transactions would have. What will most likely happen to most of these banks is a large extraordinary loss will be reported on their income statements due to the fact that their is no way in hell that the government will be willing to give them anywhere near the adjusted basis of most of those assets, which is what translates into a negative result for company’s balance sheets and income statements.

To explain what was said above, say ABC Bank has an asset on their books in which the adjusted basis (book value after depreciation) is $2 million.  Then say the government looks at this asset and says, “$500,000”, well now what happens to this $1.5 million difference?  See my point?  Let’s not forget what effects this will have on the stock market, granted, their is no logic that can explain that psycho ward, but say we were actually using logic to explain the stock market, this loss would be a bad thing.

The plus to that is with the new stimulus bill, these institutions would be allowed to transfer NOLs to all the way back to 2005.  NOL is the acronym for Net Operating Loss.  This refers to any net loss from a business for a specific year of business.  Usually, NOLs can be carried back two years and forwards 20 years, the beauty of this is you can use a loss from this year, to amend a prior year’s income, reduce it, and receive the tax benefit of a refund on the amount of your NOL.  Granted, the amount of the benefit is dependent on the tax bracket in which the company in, however, something is something.  Obama’s bill allows companies to take 2008 and 2009 losses back to 2005.

With most companies reporting in the red last year and this year, this may all turn out to be good on paper, however, all this does is further reduce government revenue and force us to rely more on debt as a means for financing our stimulus bills and really expensive inaugurations.

8+6 = 1.3 Million

Makes no sense at all right?  The math isn’t there.  Well according to California, this does make sense.   For a week now you have heard plenty on the woman in California who gave birth to eight children, EIGHT!  Octuplets is what they are called, something that to me sounds ridiculous.  I love children and enjoy hearing about birth because children are a blessing, however, the circumstances in this situation just beg the question: “WTF?”

According to the U.S. Department of Health Services, it took about $164,273 to house one baby in a hospital in California in 2006, multiply this by 8 and get the roughly $1.3 million taxpayers in California are going to have to pay to help this retarded woman out.  Somehow the responsibility falls on the state and government to provide for these children, rather than the idiotic mother who had the bright idea of having the kids in the first place.

Seriously?  This woman is just begging for attention and any reason to receive a social security check for each child.  It isn’t like there is a husband involved.  She is a single mother of 14.  Last year she had embryos implanted into her womb in order to birth these children.  When she had them implanted, she already had 6 children, and plenty of debt between student loans and the cost of having the embryos implanted, which by the way was a healthy $100,000 that the state medicare system is paying for.

What goes through a person’s mind when thinking about this decision?  How irresponsible and stupid can a person be?  I think now if you look up stupidity in the dictionary, you might find her face next to it.  It may even have a caption that says “See irresponsible.”  Does this woman not understand that her state is so far in the red that the governor is having a tough time trying to fit $42 billion into the already dying budget?  Nevertheless,  she still feels the government will take care of her.  How much BS is that?

See this has to be a huge joke.  Sometimes you see a stupid person and wonder to yourself, “Wow how dumb are you?  Can anyone else get dumber than this?”  Well my friend, God has your answer.  Behold, the SINGLE woman with six children who has just irresponsibly decided to give birth to eight new children, which she plans on supporting with her minimum of $150,000 of debt, $100,000 of which was created by the birth of the eight.  

The problem with the magnitude of stupidity here is that now the next example of stupidity will be worse.  Granted, I don’t think it can get worse than this, however, I wouldn’t put it past this world to produce a level of blatant stupidity that makes this woman look like Einstein.

To me it is disgusting.  I am no advocate for China-like government policy where you are limited to the number of children you can have, however, people should practice some common sense when deciding on how many children to have.  If you make $30,000 a year, I don’t think 14 children is the answer.  The clinic she went to should screen people before implanting children into the wombs of idiotic people.  

I hope for the children’s sake the state takes them and gives them to families who can’t give birth to children, however, have the financial and mental stability to care for a child.  Knowing this woman tomorrow she may say this to herself, “So I can either buy food for my kids, or have 10 more kids, wow this is tough…”

 Don’t worry, just when you think it can’t get any worse, God has a joke for you.  By this point it has to be confirmed that God has a sense of humor, and right now, He HAS to be chuckling.

World Economy

I almost forgot a nice piece of information.  In case you didn’t know, the world economy revolves around ours.  So you tell me, what do you make of the following statement:

The worst financial crisis in two generations has erased $14.5 trillion, or 33 percent, of the value of the world’s companies since Sept. 15; brought down Bear Stearns Cos. and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.; and led to the takeover of Merrill Lynch & Co. by Bank of America Corp.

Oh the joy…

The Root to all Evil

So maybe the picture I made is a bit of a stretched hyperbole, however, you get the idea.  According to a recent article on Yahoo Finance, should Congress pass Obama’s stimulus bill, it will make the U.S. government’s total for trying to solve our financial crisis a sum of about $9.7 trillion dollars.  Conincidently, this same amount is enough to pay off 90% of the nations mortgages, which in essence gives you an idea of how much liability is floating around the U.S.

So ask yourself this question:  We have heard of the $700 billion bailout, this new $826 billion stimulus, and last year’s $168 billion stimulus payment, what happened to the other $8 trillion?  Makes you stop to think doesn’t it? Supposedly most of that money has gone to pledges made by our U.S. government to help get us through this financial crisis, but you know our government, and that lie “fact” can be taken to the bank, which isn’t the best place to go as they might use whatever to take to them to payoff their CEOs.

Still don’t understand the magnitude of our debt, let me break it down even further.  This massive amount of money is equal to paying each person in the U.S., man, woman, child, a sum of about $1,430 and is about 13 times the amount spent in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Ridiculous isn’t it?  And they said this war was what was expensive; think again.  In fact I think the war is a good thing.  Just ask Roosevelt what he thought about the war?  What do you think got us out of the Great Depression, yeah you guessed it, the war.

I do admire one group of individuals over at Bloomberg who have decided to sue The Fed.  Yes you heard right, sue The Fed.  Basically they want some more disclosure on the amount of lending and to who the money has been going to.  I myself wouldn’t mind knowing too, as in case you didn’t already know, when I say $9.7 trillion, I mean $9.7 trillion taxpayer dollars.  Want more fuel?  They plan on spending another $200 billion in asset protection for banks and other financial institutions and have pledged more money to the Bank of America and Citigroup securities.

Call me crazy, but how is it logical to try and fix debt with more debt?  That is like having two maxed out credit cards, and paying half of each by using a third credit card.  Granted this is normal practice to save on APR, however, in the government’s case, they are then going back and maxing out the first two cards again and maxing out the third newly acquired card.  Obviously this analogy is a bit simplistic, however, the general idea is the same.

I know we have to spend money to make money, however, when does it stop? When do we begin to realize that while taxcuts are a nice security blanket to sleep under, as well as a nice pacifier for the American people to suck on so we can somehow feel at ease with everything else that is going on ,taxcuts are not the answer.  Taxcuts just make us taxpayers feel warm and fuzzy and reduce government revenue, causing them to seek funds elsewhere, and I can’t imagine who they would turn to.

The topic of the bailout may be over played and over heard at this point, however, with good reason.  Should the government continue down this path, expect the dollar to be worth peanuts, expect inflation to kick into 5th gear, expect unemployment to continue rising, expect the going rate to slowly creep its way back up and expect the supply of money to either become scarce due to more government issued lending or due to the simple fact that it just won’t exist.  See if that makes you feel warm and fuzzy….yeah didn’t think so.