I need to get back on the bloggin horse… been so busy working on my novel that I didn’t blog much last week.

Got lots of great blog entries in the pipeline though. The tough economy has given me a ton of material for Austerity Blog.

Man, $350 in a month, I’d love that kind of extra income! Good Job! You’ve poured a ton of work into your blogs, so kudos to you.

Don’t know why you didn’t get invited… there was plenty of room. Don’t know when they’re having another one. It’s trade show season so the company is focused on that right now.

I also try to give some ‘click love’ to my fellow NWI bloggers, especially if it’s the stuff I’m really interested in.

Hey congrats on hitting $100 on google ads, you might be careful posting a request that people hit your ads, google gets real touchy about requesting clicks. I was going to comment on Ennui but wasn’t registered over there and too lazy to work at it tonite. Got three long research posts to write tonite before I call it quits

You’ll find that Chris Hedges, Chris Sloan, Aaron Simac and Dan ODay are all pretty good at the same. (if you know what I mean) They all help me out too … best month so far $350.

Except, leave the USPS alone. It’s already separate from the government, works well (don’t laugh, it delivers mail to every person in the country every day, wherever they are) and is not a drain on public coffers, it is entirely self funding.

As for Amtrak… I really wish there was investment in rail travel or high speed rail. Amtrak is a joke. If they privatized it, it would simply be closed down. It’s not a profitable enterprise and never will be unless there is significant investment in high speed rail.

Now, I am a free market theorist, and feel that the free market can correct itself. My concern is that regulations, intrusive and mainly feel goodisms, caused this problem. When banks were ordered to lend to the inner city, even though the loans are totally bogus … they created loan programs for people who don’t qualify and don’t have appraisals to support their loans.

When banks are ordered to “mark down” perfectly solid paying loans to 50% or 60% of their real value, and then also told that they have to raise additional capital to cover the pretend losses … they began to run out of options.

Remember Fannie Mae employees and board members have given $500,000 to Christopher Dodd and $300,00 plus to Barack Obama, they liked the regulations because they forced people to use them instead of the legitimate free market.

I’m all for free market, but the government strangled the housing market and banks, and they need to remove the stranglehold. My bills, if I were a politician:

1. Stop the campaign for public office for two weeks
2. Postpone all debates for two weeks
3. Everyone heads back to their jobs, and votes for open drilling in ANWR and offshore 10 miles plus
4. Everyone votes for nuclear power act that fast tracks the next 50 nuclear power plants … and get them built in 10 years
5. Free up $250 Billion to a government corporation to be used to buy pools of problem bonds, break them down into their basic components, sell off the good parts and auction the bad parts. The account can be revolving, so when they sell stuff they’ll have more money
6. Agree that if, and I think when, this company makes money it will stay in the company and the company will be privatized in 5 years with “zero” government guarantee. Don’t let the politicians pull it into the general fund and waste it.
7. Fully privatize Fannie and Freddie and the Postal Service and Amtrak. Take proceeds and totally retool Social Security and Medicare, making it employee directed.
8. Reinstate FHA downpayment assistance program that allows sellers to give down payment money to buyers. No government money, just plain ole negotiations between buyers and sellers. Government shut this down three months ago!
9. Slash the federal budget by 5% in 2009 and yes layout a plan to bring down troop committments in Iraq while moving some to Afganistan for a surge there.
10. Eliminate the capital gains tax

I know it’s a mouthful but we may need all of this to get the markets working again. Remember the government meddled with our money by trying to make people “do good” … they need to become a much smaller part of our lives.

I like your idea Steve, but the problem is that none of us have the time or resources to dedicate to that kind of undertaking.

What’s positive about the Times is that they already have a army of writers to keep up with things and generate content. Writers are expensive to keep around and you get what you pay for with them (crappy pay = crap writers). So, that’s why they are positioned to be this ‘portal.’ They already have everything in place and the resources to continue it. 219.com needs to work on their horrible design and start creating some regularly updated, relevant content.

Would I like to see someone else rise up and take the Times on and try to do it better? Hell yeah.

But you are right on, this was the exact kind of story that our regional bloggers should have jumped on and beaten the Times and Post with personal stories and photos and videos.

You may want to add http://nwiconnect.blogspot.com to your feeds if you don’t watch Dan’s posts. He does a nice job.

As for the Times, I’m not as excited. Their blogs for their writers are sparse and they seldom if ever comment back or engage their readers. The commenting on the articles is worthless and we now know they actually censor the comments when they attack politicians that the Times likes. In general I’d love to see your company, or Golden, or http://www.219.com or someone do a true community portal and aggregate blogging site that would have monster SEO and traffic.

I’d sign up to help that project.