“I never met a crisis that I didn’t like.” Rahm Emanuel, White House Chief of Staff The Great Social Security and Medicare Panic – Time Magazine, May 2009 It is becoming increasingly clear that one can gauge the direction of the Obama White House by the crises of the day.  It’s the old ying and yang, the noisy wheel gets the grease model. With this said, what’s the latest trend we need to focus on? Health care. According to the White House, the American way of health care is broken and must b... Read Full Story

“I never met a crisis that I didn’t like.” Rahm Emanuel, White House Chief of Staff The Great Social Security and Medicare Panic – Time Magazine, May 2009 It is becoming increasingly clear that one can gauge the direction of the Obama White House by the crises of the day.  It’s the old ying and yang, the noisy wheel gets the grease model. With this said, what’s the latest trend we need to focus on? Health care. According to the White House, the American way of health care is broken and must b... Read Full Story

So you want to be a community organizer.  You could do worse - after all, President Obama cut his political teeth as a community organizer. What exactly does a community organizer do? In broad terms, the community organizer engages with an identified group of people, facing specific issues, and who individually have no voice in the political/economic process. While community organizing is a sub-section of the skills taught to social workers, most organizing efforts that are familiar to us hav... Read Full Story

So you want to be a community organizer.  You could do worse - after all, President Obama cut his political teeth as a community organizer. What exactly does a community organizer do? In broad terms, the community organizer engages with an identified group of people, facing specific issues, and who individually have no voice in the political/economic process. While community organizing is a sub-section of the skills taught to social workers, most organizing efforts that are familiar to us hav... Read Full Story

Microsoft (NASDAQ MSFT) continues to play catch up with Apple. (NASDAQ AAPL) While its Windows Vista program can best be described as a bust, they are now rushing Windows 7 to market as quickly as possible. In fact, the number of people “downgrading” to Windows XP continues to grow. (This user, among them.) The Vista system, with its highly touted bells and whistles was marketed as an answer to the Apple operating system. Complete with snazzy graphics, ease of use, and intuitiveness, Vista ne... Read Full Story

Microsoft (NASDAQ MSFT) continues to play catch up with Apple. (NASDAQ AAPL) While its Windows Vista program can best be described as a bust, they are now rushing Windows 7 to market as quickly as possible. In fact, the number of people “downgrading” to Windows XP continues to grow. (This user, among them.) The Vista system, with its highly touted bells and whistles was marketed as an answer to the Apple operating system. Complete with snazzy graphics, ease of use, and intuitiveness, Vista ne... Read Full Story

It wasn’t too long ago that if you purchased a new car, you often found yourself financing that purchase with a financial arm of the manufacturer. For example, if you bought a General Motors (NYSE GM) product, you financed it through their financing arm, GMAC (NYSE GMA). Same with a Ford (NYSE F) or a Chrysler product. Each manufacturer made additional money on car sales by offering car financing. Right or wrong, the system worked for the car makers, as well as the buying public. This is all ... Read Full Story

It wasn’t too long ago that if you purchased a new car, you often found yourself financing that purchase with a financial arm of the manufacturer. For example, if you bought a General Motors (NYSE GM) product, you financed it through their financing arm, GMAC (NYSE GMA). Same with a Ford (NYSE F) or a Chrysler product. Each manufacturer made additional money on car sales by offering car financing. Right or wrong, the system worked for the car makers, as well as the buying public. This is all ... Read Full Story

With almost everybody in the business community expecting General Motors (NYSE GM) to be forced into bankruptcy, let’s review some of the reasons why this icon of American industry has fallen on hard times: Too many marquees. Currently, GM has at least 7 different brands under their banner (depending on what you count as a brand.) Within each brand are several models, and then each model is further broken down, dependent upon options and other packages. If you were to break down a count of al... Read Full Story

With almost everybody in the business community expecting General Motors (NYSE GM) to be forced into bankruptcy, let’s review some of the reasons why this icon of American industry has fallen on hard times: Too many marquees. Currently, GM has at least 7 different brands under their banner (depending on what you count as a brand.) Within each brand are several models, and then each model is further broken down, dependent upon options and other packages. If you were to break down a count of al... Read Full Story