I don't know about anyone else but I am really getting sick of all the talk about the bad economy. Everyone from news correspondents to wall street experts to the President are projecting gloom and doom for this country. I just wanted to go over some of the things that have put us in this crisis.
First, the sub prime mortgages are responsible for a major chunk of the this mess. So many people opened fake companies and got on this bandwagon in order to make a quick buck and many vulnerable Americans who had the American dream of owning a home with a yard and a white picket fence fell for it. Most of them knew that they did not have the credit score nor the savings to afford a home but clever loan sharks made them believe that they could own a home for next to nothing. I blame these greedy people but hold the buyers equally responsible.
Another reason for this crisis is the American culture of spending. We love to spend the money we don't have. Let's say you have ten credit cards with a combined limit of $100,000. Does that mean that you have $100,000 to spend? NO! That money is not yours. That money comes with a million strings attached because each credit card comes with very high finance charges. If you charge a $2000 TV today and pay the minimum balance every month, that TV can end up costing you more than $10,000 before you can own it and chances are that by the time you finish paying it off it's time to buy a new TV!
My favorite financial advisor Suze Orman does not mince words when she gives financial advice to people and I love her for it. She tells it like it is and does not show mercy. One thing she said that really stuck with me is that, "You do not have savings when you have debt" Most people in America do not consider credit card balance as debt because they continue to pay on it, but any balance on that card is a debt even if you have money in your savings account. She points out that the number one priority of people in these economic times is to pay off your credit card debt.
Finally, we are in this situation because there are many big executives who only thought about fattening their pocket books at the expense of hard working taxpaying people. In my opinion there should be a salary cap for every professional out there. If our President can only make $400,000 a year, is it fair for the CEO of FEDEX to make $9,000,000 in salary and bonuses a year? I would even propose to cap salaries of athletes and movie stars who make ridiculous amounts of money. They say that California is 400 billion dollars in debt. I say that if every actor in Hollywood pooled their money together they can certainly get California out of debt.
My goal is not to preach but to make people aware that we are responsible for getting where we are today and we alone can make small changes to get us out of this situation.
R
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Rise of the Machines
Last night I was watching Oprah who was interviewing actor Dennis Quaid about how his newborn twins nearly died due to a medical mistake. The babies developed some kind of infection few days after they were born and Dennis and his wife took them to Cedar Sinai hospital in Los Angeles. There due to human error they were given an overdose of antibiotics which led the twins to get sick and then treated. Now the babies are happy toddlers. My blog is not about them but it's about the change that was brought in after this error. Cedar Sinai went electronic where every medication has a bar code which is scanned by a handheld scanner which feeds into a computer and only after that the medication is dispensed. All this to avoid human error.
OK so I was touched by this story and I like the fact that change has been put in place but how come we give machines such credibility over humans? After all aren't all machines made by humans? I love something my husband says, "A machine is only as intelligent as the human being who built it." Touche.
Now lets talk about how much the humans who built these machines are dependent on them. For example, cell phones. How many of us carry practically our whole lives in our cell phones? How many of us know five numbers of our family and friends without looking at the contacts on our phone? First it was saving phone numbers on it to save us from memorizing numbers or carrying a bulky diary. Now our music, calendar, alarm, camera and Internet are all on our phones. We would rather lose an arm but God forbid if our phone should get lost. I personally love my cellphone because I can save phone numbers but is that an excuse for not remembering my mom's number? What if I am stranded somewhere and don't have my phone with me. Will my mom ever know if I am dead or alive? Scary thought huh?
Cell phones are genius and texting and email capabilities on them has made life so much easier. We can send and receive texts and emails instantly. No more excuses such as, "I was in the bathroom", because you can take it there too. But I think this texting business has gone too far. Personally I'd like to hear from a loved one when it is my birthday and not get a text that says HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! in all caps with three exclamation points at the end. Or better yet just send a message on Facebook. Now don't even get me started about that!
However there are many benefits to having machines in our homes and offices. It's time efficient and predictable but machines shouldn't replace human intelligence. God has named us superior beings over all his creatures for a reason after all. I am afraid that dependence on machines have made us complacent and also stupid. We don't see a reason to use our brains when we have calculators, computers and fancy gadgets to help us. The other day I was trying to have a competition among students in my religious education class and asked the kids if anyone had a quarter to flip. One of the students handed me his iPhone which had a coin on the screen. I looked at him puzzled, "You want me to flip your phone in the air?" he looked at me like "no dummy" you just shake it and the coin will flip a few times and then stop. Whoa! Isn't that something? All I wanted was a good old coin to flip in the air.
Another place machines are making their presence felt are in the medical field. It is really awesome that a programmed robot can perform a very complicated surgery in which the physician is videoconferenced from across the country. I don't know about you but I would want my doctor to be IN the room and NOT across the country when I am on the operating table.
Machines are great but I don't want them to take over the world.
R
OK so I was touched by this story and I like the fact that change has been put in place but how come we give machines such credibility over humans? After all aren't all machines made by humans? I love something my husband says, "A machine is only as intelligent as the human being who built it." Touche.
Now lets talk about how much the humans who built these machines are dependent on them. For example, cell phones. How many of us carry practically our whole lives in our cell phones? How many of us know five numbers of our family and friends without looking at the contacts on our phone? First it was saving phone numbers on it to save us from memorizing numbers or carrying a bulky diary. Now our music, calendar, alarm, camera and Internet are all on our phones. We would rather lose an arm but God forbid if our phone should get lost. I personally love my cellphone because I can save phone numbers but is that an excuse for not remembering my mom's number? What if I am stranded somewhere and don't have my phone with me. Will my mom ever know if I am dead or alive? Scary thought huh?
Cell phones are genius and texting and email capabilities on them has made life so much easier. We can send and receive texts and emails instantly. No more excuses such as, "I was in the bathroom", because you can take it there too. But I think this texting business has gone too far. Personally I'd like to hear from a loved one when it is my birthday and not get a text that says HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! in all caps with three exclamation points at the end. Or better yet just send a message on Facebook. Now don't even get me started about that!
However there are many benefits to having machines in our homes and offices. It's time efficient and predictable but machines shouldn't replace human intelligence. God has named us superior beings over all his creatures for a reason after all. I am afraid that dependence on machines have made us complacent and also stupid. We don't see a reason to use our brains when we have calculators, computers and fancy gadgets to help us. The other day I was trying to have a competition among students in my religious education class and asked the kids if anyone had a quarter to flip. One of the students handed me his iPhone which had a coin on the screen. I looked at him puzzled, "You want me to flip your phone in the air?" he looked at me like "no dummy" you just shake it and the coin will flip a few times and then stop. Whoa! Isn't that something? All I wanted was a good old coin to flip in the air.
Another place machines are making their presence felt are in the medical field. It is really awesome that a programmed robot can perform a very complicated surgery in which the physician is videoconferenced from across the country. I don't know about you but I would want my doctor to be IN the room and NOT across the country when I am on the operating table.
Machines are great but I don't want them to take over the world.
R
Sunday, March 1, 2009
To Eat or not to Eat
Ever wonder why foods that are good for us taste so bad? I have yet to try a low calorie food that does not taste like cardboard. Granted that foods such as Lean Cuisine and Smart ones are good for you but they contain ridiculous amounts of sodium which can make you retain water in your body...which can give you a bloated look...so on and so forth.
I love the slogan Weight Watchers has, "diets don't work weight watchers does". Yeah only until you pay a weekly fee and have to go through the humiliation of getting weighed once a week. I tried it and it worked for the most part because the worst feeling in the world is when you have deprived yourself of all the regular foods and resorted to eating rabbit food and bread that tastes like....NOTHING...you get on that scale and it shows that you have gained TWO POUNDS. But how is that possible? I was so good all week. So weight watchers does work but it's a slow process and most of us don't have that kind of patience.
Recently I followed a diet that claimed you could lose up to 9 pounds in 11 days. Now I am a big skeptic when it comes to fad diets and don't fall for the gimmick, but my co worker's mother had tried it and she lost about 8 pounds. I figured that even if I lose five pounds that would be quite an accomplishment. So I logged onto the website, paid the mandatory fees and downloaded the custom made menu which comprised of three things, Milk, Eggs and peanuts. That's it! I was supposed to live on these for 11 days!! I mean I like eggs and but eating them three times a day was a little too much for me. Still I deiced to stick to it because the $40 were not refundable and besides I had bragged about it to all my coworkers and I was not going to let them call me a liar...or a coward...or a quitter..nope that was certainly not going to happen. I told myself to suck it up and do this. To my surprise I was able to stick to it and even lost four pounds. I was so proud of myself. Then I got off the diet and gained 8 pounds.
There is no quick fix to losing weight. You have to eat the low calorie, high fiber, cardboard tasting food and you have to exercise. Believe me I read every article about diets on the Internet and follow all the latest trends. I tell my mother and sister what to eat and what to avoid like I am their personal dietitian or trainer but I always procrastinate and don't follow my own advice because I tell myself that I know all the right things to do and it's just a matter of time before I get started.
The reason I am putting all this out there is because I need to make a commitment to myself that this is the year to reach my goal weight, this is the year to get healthy, this is the year to start prevention of all the potential ailments that creep up on you as your get older, this is the year to be proud of. Maybe by reading this blog some of you will get inspired to the same and if nothing else you can throw it back on my face by saying "FOLLOW YOUR OWN ADVICE."
R
I love the slogan Weight Watchers has, "diets don't work weight watchers does". Yeah only until you pay a weekly fee and have to go through the humiliation of getting weighed once a week. I tried it and it worked for the most part because the worst feeling in the world is when you have deprived yourself of all the regular foods and resorted to eating rabbit food and bread that tastes like....NOTHING...you get on that scale and it shows that you have gained TWO POUNDS. But how is that possible? I was so good all week. So weight watchers does work but it's a slow process and most of us don't have that kind of patience.
Recently I followed a diet that claimed you could lose up to 9 pounds in 11 days. Now I am a big skeptic when it comes to fad diets and don't fall for the gimmick, but my co worker's mother had tried it and she lost about 8 pounds. I figured that even if I lose five pounds that would be quite an accomplishment. So I logged onto the website, paid the mandatory fees and downloaded the custom made menu which comprised of three things, Milk, Eggs and peanuts. That's it! I was supposed to live on these for 11 days!! I mean I like eggs and but eating them three times a day was a little too much for me. Still I deiced to stick to it because the $40 were not refundable and besides I had bragged about it to all my coworkers and I was not going to let them call me a liar...or a coward...or a quitter..nope that was certainly not going to happen. I told myself to suck it up and do this. To my surprise I was able to stick to it and even lost four pounds. I was so proud of myself. Then I got off the diet and gained 8 pounds.
There is no quick fix to losing weight. You have to eat the low calorie, high fiber, cardboard tasting food and you have to exercise. Believe me I read every article about diets on the Internet and follow all the latest trends. I tell my mother and sister what to eat and what to avoid like I am their personal dietitian or trainer but I always procrastinate and don't follow my own advice because I tell myself that I know all the right things to do and it's just a matter of time before I get started.
The reason I am putting all this out there is because I need to make a commitment to myself that this is the year to reach my goal weight, this is the year to get healthy, this is the year to start prevention of all the potential ailments that creep up on you as your get older, this is the year to be proud of. Maybe by reading this blog some of you will get inspired to the same and if nothing else you can throw it back on my face by saying "FOLLOW YOUR OWN ADVICE."
R
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