Nice.

Patriots HOF

Glimpse from our trip to Gillette Satdium and the Patriots Hall of Fame

I laughed. I cried. It was better than Cats.

Visitors

We have a regular Wild Kingdom going on in our backyard. We often have turkeys. Occassionally we have deer. Today was the first time for these visitors:

They're Here

United Air to Return 165 Reservations Jobs to U.S. From India

By Mary Schlangenstein Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) -- UAL Corp.’s United Airlines, the third-biggest North American carrier, will return 165 call-center jobs to the U.S. from India to help improve customer service. The jobs will be moved to Chicago and Hawaii, United told employees today. Workers initially will handle reservations and,beginning in April, will add customer-relations duties, the Chicago-based airline said. An evaluation “determined that bringing certain customer-relations positions back to the U.S. will provide the right level of focus this important function requires,” United said in thenotice to workers.

I have argued for a long time, that eventually companies would bring back call center jobs as a way of improving customer service. Outsourcing to lower cost countries is an important step for US companies to remain competitive and effecient. I completely support it. It's not the job loss that bothers me - that job loss is made up in a number of other ways. However, poor customer service does bother me. Too many companies have outsourced service functions to people who don't know how to resolve anything without consulting a FAQ website. US-based customer service will become a selling point for US-businesses soon, and United has taken one of the first shots at it.

When will this guy stop campaigning?

From Obama's weekly radio address:

"Let's be clear: We can't expect relief from the tired old theories that, in eight short years, doubled the national debt, threw our economy into a tailspin, and led us into this mess in the first place. We can't rely on a losing formula that offers only tax cuts as the answer to all our problems while ignoring our fundamental economic challenges – the crushing cost of health care or the inadequate state of so many schools; our addiction to foreign oil or our crumbling roads, bridges, and levees," he said. "The American people know that our challenges are great. They don't expect Democratic solutions or Republican solutions – they expect American solutions."

When will this guy stop the rhetoric? Presenting a laundry list of eight years worth of left pet projects and labeling it "stimulus" is harding grasping the ecomomic reigns and leading.

U.S. Gross Domestic Product
U.S. GDP, Current Dollar and Real Dollar, 2000 - 2008
Year / Current $ / Real $
2000 / 9,817 / 9,817
2001 / 10,128 / 9,890
2002 / 10,470 / 10,049
2003 / 10,961 / 10,301
2004 / 11,686 / 10,676
2005 / 12,422 / 10,990
2006 / 13,178 / 11,295
2007 / 13,808 / 11,524
2008 / 14,421 / 11,712

U.S. GDP Percent Change, Year to Year
Year / Current $ / Real $
2000 / 5.9% / 3.7%
2001 / 3.2% / 0.8%
2002 / 3.4% / 1.6%
2003 / 4.7% / 2.5%
2004 / 6.6% / 3.6%
2005 / 6.3% / 2.9%
2006 / 6.1% / 2.8%
2007 / 4.8% / 2.0%
2008 / 3.6% / 0.5%

Yeah tax cuts really sucked didn't they?!? I'd rather throw a $1 trillion we don't have on a bunch of projects that will do little to stimulate [read sarcasm].

No! Insulate bad assets. Protect the financial system. Give people incentives to invest and spend. done.

Pelosi's Warning!

Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, warned Americans in her Feb 3rd news conference, and it could affect you! In fact, it affects EVERYONE (and then some).

"For every month that we don't pass an economic stimulus plan, five hundred million Americans lose their jobs."

Wow.