BillBakerBlog.com

The scariest thing you'll ever see on Halloween

I mean besides a picture of Dick Fuld...

GAHHHHH!

Here's a chart of the Dow for the past six months, ending October 31, 2008:

Trick or Treat!

Maybe we should start printing with red ink...

Whilst reading my New York Times this morning, I was struck dumb by the enormity of the collapse of the media business. These five headlines appeared today alone:

Christian Science Paper to End Daily Print Edition

Time Inc. Plans About 600 Layoffs

Gannett to Cut 10% of Workers as Its Profit Slips

Advertising Sales Decline at Martha Stewart Living

The Media Equation: Mourning Old Media’s Decline

Houston, we have a problem.

The last link is to a story by David Carr, where he sums up the malaise in a nice, neat, depressing package. In it he quotes Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google (of all people) who in a recent speech before the American Magazine conference said "... that if the great brands of journalism — the trusted news sources readers have relied on — were to vanish, then the Web itself would quickly become a “cesspool” of useless information."

True dat.

In March of 2006, on this blog I lamented the sorry state of journalism in this country. It has only gone down hill since. Earlier this year, I specifically addressed the "cesspool" concept, identifying Timmy the Blogger as the new Ed Murrow.

Some blame the Internet. Some blame media bias - liberal or conservative - for the decline. Political candidates can whine all they want about unfair treatment in the "mainstream media." The fact is, were it not for a free press, this country would not exist. It's so important to our foundations of democracy that it is the FIRST Amendment to the Constitution.

Does anyone really, truly want to live in a country where professional journalists are replaced by loudmouth bloggers like me as a source for... anything?

Based on the headlines, I guess we're about to find out first hand what a press free (not free press) society is like.

Popular versus electoral vote: Obama wins in landslide

As we all recall from the 2000 election, the popular vote and the electoral vote are two very distinct entities.

A great web site to follow both, but with an emphasis on the electoral count is http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

As of the writing (Sunday, October 26, 2008) FiveThirtyEight has the popular vote at 52-46% in favor of Obama. But the electoral count is 350-188 in favor of Obama.

If you are wondering - 538 is the number of electoral votes. That means a candidate needs 270 to win (half plus one.)

By the electoral count, this election is over. You might as well skip voting on election day and head to the local pub to toast President Obama.

Sarah Palin: Good news and bad news

An imagined conversation between Sarah Palin and her handlers:

Handlers: Governor Palin! We have good news and bad news about the campaign. The good news is that we're giving you a $150,000 allowance to update your wardrobe.

Palin: That's swell! What's the bad news?

Handlers: The Republican Party is going to pick out your clothes for you.

Palin: OK by me, as long as there are more of those mavericky red leather biker-chick jackets. Joe Average, Joe the Plumber and Everyday Joes really dig those!

Political campaigns don't get any better than this.

Paul Krugman wins Nobel prize in economics

Paul Krugman won the Nobel prize in Economics. He is a professor at Princeton, but most people know him from his op-ed columns in the New York Times.

My dad used to call me to talk about what Krugman would write in the Times. I miss those conversations.

Say what you want about his politics (unabashedly liberal) or his philosophies on economics (I would have paid big money to see him and Milton Friedman in an "Octagon-of-Death" cage wrestling match on "Friday Night Raw"), his columns are always thought provoking.

He has the courage of his convictions and now he has $1.4 million extra to help shore up the global economy. Were I him, I would place an order for a Bugatti Veyron. At $1.5 million a pop, he's almost there.

The Bush Administration: Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory

Yesterday, Fed chief Ben Bernanke held a press conference and the Dow dropped 500 points.

Today, when Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson started his press conference, the Dow was up about 100. It closed the day down 200.

Memo to the Feds: STOP TALKING! Yer killin' us!

Separated at birth?

I am watching Lehman CEO Richard "DICK" Fuld testify before a congressional committee. He is arguing with Congressman Henry Waxman as to whether he made $250 million or $500 million over the past few years.

For the record, he did take home $34 million last year.

But I digress.

I am struck by the remarkable similarity between DICK and a lizard:

Would you buy stock from this man?

The WORST thing that EVER happened to me

• Stock market meltdown?
• Serious illness?
• Car-jacking?

No, no and no.

When I was on vacation last month, my wife and I were walking through the lobby of our hotel - a Westin in Washington D.C. - and it dawned on me that I recognized the elevator music that was wafting through the lobby.

To my horror, I realized it was... "Pink Floyd's "Shine on You Crazy Diamond."

That's right - the music of my halcyon youth - the music that I listened to in high school while studying, volunteering at the soup kitchen and helping disabled children - was being played by a Mantovani-like string orchestra in the lobby of a chain hotel.

After the CPR kicked in, I thought how great it will be when Kanye West and Pink are audible in the freezer section of my local Shoprite.