Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire is definitely worth seeing before the Oscars this Sunday! After watching it last night, I can understand why it has received so much hype! It did not disappoint like the overrated Benjamin Button did! It has an artistic approach to it, with a great story, amazing imagery, a spectacular soundtrack, and all around good acting! Oh and let me just add that Freida Pinto is an essential element in the movie! Her beauty is vividly captured in the backdrop of the poor slum-life of India, and she quite literally shines from the screen! It's all around good-stuff, full of suspense, romance, comedy, and drama. I would not be surprised if it won best picture of the year, although I still have to see the other contenders such as; The Wrestler, Milk, Frost/Nixon, Doubt, and The Reader... We shall see this Sunday!

Also the movie has once again made me consider the thought of traveling/living in another country for a while! To experience another culture is something I feel that I can no longer pass up! I feel my life would be incomplete if I did not live in another country for a while!

Friday, February 13, 2009

Joaquin Phoenix's Slump

Although I am almost certain that the entire thing is an elaborate hoax, I still think its funny as hell! Joaquin Phoenix is clearly going through what appears to be a rough time... The guy has had a hard past no doubt, and its totally understandable if he's going through some sort of mid-life crisis... He says he's quitting acting and pursuing a hip-hop career... He's let his beard grow out of control, and appears to not give a crap what the media thinks about him. I say more power to him! To me it appears to be a sign of the times, and I completely relate with it all! He's telling the world, that he can do whatever he wants to... Sure, his music talent may not be as good as his acting talent, but still he has the right to do whatever he wants to do. And i think it's both funny and awesome at the same time!

When this is all over, he's going to return to acting, and he'll be even bigger than he was before... Just wait and see! Here's some of his previous performances I thought were amazing!
  • Gladiator- The Evil Emperor Commodus (Academy Nomination)
  • Ladder 49- An honorable family-man and firefighter
  • Hotel Rwanda- An admirable journalist
  • Walk the Line- The iconic Johnny Cash (Academy Nomination)

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Lay Off Phelps!

It bothers me to see Michael Phelps get such negative coverage over this smoking scandal. One minute he is the media's poster boy, the next he is their door-mat for one little insignificant mistake! Give the man a break! He's only human! I think it is awesome that the Worlds greatest athlete, just happens to smoke green once in a while. Goes to show you that even an Olympian can mistakes every now and then, and still be an amazing athlete! In a world where sports today are dominated by performance enhancing drugs, this should come as a minor tap on the wrist! I have grown tired of constantly hearing about these doping and steroid cases...

Floyd Landis: Cycling
Marion Jones: Track & Field
Barry Bonds, McGwire, and A-Rod: Baseball

Baseball for me has now turned into a complete joke. Almost every good player has gone through some type of doping scandal. It takes away from the legitimacy of the sport.
Marijuana on the other hand is not a performance enhancing drug and is in no way cheating! If anything this substance would hinder him from competing to his fullest capability! I think it's ridiculous the US can suspend him for 3 months! How ungrateful can they be, to the man who brought the country 8 golden medals! The man who has made swimming into a popular sport! What he does on his free time should not be a concern of others! Let the law deal with it, and that be the end of it! It doesn't make since to suspend him or strip him of his endorsements to set an examle!

So to hell with the US Swimming Association, Kellogg's, and other companies that feel the need to break away from Phelps in order to avoid looking bad! This goes to show you how in the end all these companies care about is the dollar... They'll chew you up one minute, then spit you back out the next when it is convenient for them!

Yet no matter what the case, nobody can take away from the fact that Phelps is still the greatest swimmer and arguably greatest athlete of all time!

Monday, February 9, 2009

Looking Back at History: The New Deal

I'm sorry my recent blogs have been so historical, political, and let's face it; GLOOMY! But I cannot deny that these are the times of the country and the sad times of my life! Dark and Depressing Times! Sometimes just writing about them and getting it all off my chest, just makes me feel all the better! Anyway after watching Obama give his first Presidental News Conference tonight, I further grasped a realization of the terrible situation. 3.6 million jobs lost in the past 12 months, and still dropping! No crisis has ever been this bad since the Great Depression... So I've decided to take a detailed look back into our worse economic period of American history; The 1930s!!

Instead of giving historical facts on this one, I'm going to wing it, and describe my theory as to why things got so bad in the 1930s... it was due to the economic boom of the 1920s...The Roaring 20s, as they have come to be called, was a period of celebration following WW1. This not only lead to the introduction of Jazz music, but more importantly it began a period of new government policy... let me stress, New Economic Policy! During the Republican presidencies of Harding and Coolidge they basically decided to cut taxes on the wealthy and to make business more private! It worked for several years, as corporations and companies began booming all over the country! Until finally these businesses got so big, that they were producing TOO MUCH! Here is the problem in brief; Over Production and Under Consumption... this lead to panic, which led to the Stock Market Crash of 1929!

The Stock Market Crash began a chain reaction of economic collapse. Companies and banks began to go bankrupt, because people were cutting their spending! This was all caused by a sudden fear and doubt in America's economic future... This eventually lead to what became the epitome of the Great Depression which was high unemployment, poverty, low profits, and bad living! The bulk of the Depression lasted through the early 1930s before FDR was elected. In 1933 FDR proposed his "NEW DEAL", the plan that would create jobs and save the economy!


I've always considered FDR as one of our greatest presidents... He was a progressive liberal-minded politician who wasn't afraid to implant radical solutions! He saved us from Depression, and got us through the world's worst war in human history! One of these days, I'm going to write him up a good tribute in my blog! But anyway, here is a brief outline of his New Deal policy! This one I did have to do some research on.



-Banking Reform Laws (It was the banks that got us into the mess... Just like today i might add)
-Emergency Relief Programs
-Work Relief Programs
-Agriculture Programs
-Industrial Reform
-The end of Prohibition (I don't know what I would do if alcohol was still illegal today)
-Labor Union Support
-Farm and Rural Programs
-Fair Labor Laws (Minimum wage and maximum hour laws)

I strongly believed that this program saved our country and brought the people a new sense of faith in it's government. Most Conservatives argue that it wasn't the New deal, but World War 2 that saved our economy... although part of this may be true, i think it is ignorant to assume that not doing anything would have fixed the issue. With millions of jobs being lost, something had to be done, and we couldn't sit around and wait for it to fix itself!

It has become an undeniable truth that this past situation has mirrored today's situation! We are in a serious crisis, the same as in the late 1920s, that is only going to get worse! FDR faced heavy Conservative opposition, yet still Congress worked with him. Yet in today's crisis, it seems like President Obama cannot get a break as these Conservatives simply do not want to cooperate! They believe the situation will take care of itself! So even though jobs are vanishing, they think we shouldn't worry about it! Give me a break guys! Your policies have not worked for the past 8 years, and your economic ideology is the problem! It lead to the Depression of the 30s, and could lead to the depression of the 2010s, if radical progressive solutions are not implanted!

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

The Global Economic Crisis

Although I have my theories on how we've gotten to this point, I couldn't even begin to explain the complexity of the current economic crisis... So I had to do some research to back up my theories!

The Economic Crisis didn't get serious attention until September 2008, with the failure of several large Wall Street banks. Yet there were definitely signs prior to that... It mostly began with a mortgage crisis, following the end of 2007. This crisis was caused by a high rise in foreclosures, because people were unable to pay for their house loans. Why were people suddenly unable to pay for their houses? Its easy! They never had the money to begin with! They were victims of a corporate scheme to make more money! They were victims of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac!


Lets take a step back further to FDR's "New Deal" days... One of his many programs to help a suffering economy, was to establish Fannie Mae which would make home mortgages more affordable to low-income families! This worked great for nearly 30 years, with the government controlling the company! Until some Business-minded politicians decided there was more money to be made! So why not De-Regulate these businesses, and let them run themselves. And to be fair, they decided to create Freddie Mac, so that Fannie Mae would not dominate the sector. Two companies with ultimate control over home mortgages!

Now to get back on what this all has to do with the current economic crisis, well here it is! The government wanted to increase home ownership so they encouraged Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to lower their loaning standards... This meant more customers, more home ownership, and most importantly more money in the pockets of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac! It would soon come to bite them in the ass, when they found that they were far too generous on giving out loans, and would result in the most foreclosures since the early days of the Depression!

Following this Mortgage Crisis, the government had to act, so they decided to once again take over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, like back in the old FDR days... Yet this quickly lead to panic on Wall Street, since these major banking and financing companies had large investments in these 2 mortgage companies! This fear and panic would eventually lead to a sharp drop in the stock market, along with bankrupting several finance companies such as Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, AIG, Washington Mutual, Wachovia, etc!!

And thus would begin an economic chain reaction of FEAR, that would eventually spread over to Europe and Asia. As the stock market continued to decline, companies began downsizing by the thousands, in fear that they may not have sufficient funds to stay-afloat. The crisis also spread to other sectors such as the Automobile and Commercial sectors.

The government finally passed the highly debated Bailout-Bill, a 700 billion dollar proposal, to buy assets and bring capital back to these banks... I'm sure there are both sides to this, but i basically see it as money coming from the tax-payers to save rich bankers! Not to mention, none of these rich CEOS, actually went broke! Hell I even heard some walked away with bonuses... Tell me that's not messed up?

So after a transition of power and policy, the crisis continues and Obama finds himself knee-deep in the mess... One thing is for sure, Obama has the crisis to thank for being elected. Had it not happened at such an ideal time in the campaign, he may of not won by such a large margin!

Nonetheless, I know Obama is the right guy for the job! He has a whole different approach and mindset than the Free-Market Republicans. Unlike Bush, he believes in a more equal balance of wealth to stimulate the economy! Yet I Cannot put the blame entirely on Bush's administration... It's far too complex, and I know there are both sides to the problem! In the end I feel the best solution is More Government and More Regulation! We've given these private companies far too much power! They run and control the government, and are causing all the lower-middle class people to suffer! They are the reasons we are in this crisis. They have grown too greedy for wealth and power, and must be controlled! Hopefully in time, President Obama will mend this terrible mess!

One thing I've come to understand about this whole crisis, is the imensity of it! It goes beyond Wall Street or Washington DC, and has spread throughout the global economy like a virus that cannot be easily stopped. It is a on a destructive path, like a Forrest Fire, affecting all those near it! I know I myself am definitely feeling it's affects! Hopefully we can stop it before it gets worse!