Good Reads

Over the last few days, I've come across some good information on the financial crisis. Dirckthenoorman posted a New York Times article from 2003 that has some interesting stuff in it. Also, John Stossel and Thomas Sowell have written some interesting articles. The Stossel piece is here, and the Sowell articles are here and here.

School and other things

Man, it's already been month since my last post. Anyway, after about a month, school is going well. Most of my classes are pretty straightforward, and I feel like I'm understanding the material pretty well. I'll start having exams next week, so we'll see for sure.
A couple of weeks ago, I attended a "meet the firms" event on campus. It was a pretty good networking opportunity, especially since it was at the west campus, and not very crowded. 3 of the big 4 were there (PWC didn't attend), as well as a lot of meduim sized accounting firms, and a few gevernment agencies, including the IRS (not exactly my dream job). The interesting thing I found out was that a lot of the firms are already getting ready to interview for jobs that begin next fall. So I've spent a lot of time lately working on my resume, and filling out applications. Being in a 1 year Masters of Accountancy program, with an undergraduate degree in something other than accounting, creates an interesting situation. Most of the interviews take place in early October, so if I get selected, I'll have only a month of accounting classes under my belt. Most of the other candidates are in 5 yr MAcc programs or are doing an undergraduate degree in accounting, so will have had a few years of accounting classes. Also, the typical routine for an accounting student is to do an internship prior to the last year of school, which I didn't do (I wasn't even considering returning to school a year ago). So I'm applying for a mix of full-time positions and internships, and we'll see how it works out. It may be a year from now before I'm able to get a really good job.

All summer, I've been looking forward to the beginning of football season, and especially ASU's game with Georgia. It was supposed to be a big deal: Top 5 Georgia vs Top 15 ASU, both undefeated, ESPN Gameday in Tempe, etc. Boy, ASU blew it. Coach Erickson didn't want to give UGA anything to work with as far as game film, and played it too close to the vest against UNLV. Big disappointment. I'm still excited for the game, though, and maybe since I'm not expecting too much, I won't be let down.

Update

I keep saying I'm going to post more regularly, but it doesn't happen. I've been really busy the last month or so - working 50-60 hours a week, getting ready for school, looking for a part-time job, and going on a family vacation.

For those who don't know, I am returning to school to get a master's in accountancy. It's a one-year program in the School of Global Management and Leadership at ASU West. When complete, Ill be prepared to pass the CPA exam. Well, yesterday was the new student orientation for graduate students in the SGML, and I received some interesting news. Because of budget shortfalls, the SGML and the WP Carey School of Business (at the main campus) are being merged. Initially this caused some uproar, because SGML students weren't sure what was going to happen to their programs. In fact, during the last week there were rumors that the online element of the program I'm in was going to be canceled. Because of all the uncertainty, the dean of the WP Carey school was invited to the orientation to answer any questions the students might have. He assured all of us that we would be able to complete the program we enrolled in, including those who were doing online degrees. In the end, the merger will be a good thing for me, because my master's degree will be from the WP Carey School of Business, a top 25 business school, and not from the SGML.
Classes start on Monday, and I'm a little nervous as well as excited. I'm enrolled in 4 classes - Accounting theory and practice I, professional practice seminar, cost management, and taxation and estate planning. I'll take 4 more classes in the spring, 2 in the summer and will be done. Hopefully it will go by fast.
This will be my last week at Desert Services. Last week I found a part-time job at Dick's Sporting Goods, and will start there on September 2nd.

I finally finished Liberal Fascism about a month ago. I also read State of Fear by Michael Crichton. The book has an agenda, but the author doesn't try to hide it. In fact, he included an appendix in which he explains his thoughts on global warming. The next book I want to read is The Last Patriot by Brad Thor. I'll let you know how it is.

Also, my new favorite website is dirckthenoorman.com. Check it out.

Paisley and Politics

I haven't posted in a while, and I've got a lot I want to write, but only a little bit of time, so I'll only touch on a couple of subjects.

Paisley Party Tour

On June 12th, (I know, more than a month ago) Brooke and I and a couple of close friends attended the Brad Paisley concert here in Phoenix. It was our 2nd time attending one of his shows, so we had high expectations going into it, and we were not let down. The show was great and we had a blast. If Brad Paisley doesn't finally beat out Kenny Chesney for entertainer of the year at one of the country music award shows, I'll be surprised. Chesney's show came through town just a couple of weeks before Paisley's did, and from what I heard, the Paisley Party Tour runs circles around Chesney's Poets and Pirates show.

Politics

Recently I've heard Barack Obama use the term "failed policies of the past" quite a few times to describe John McCain's platform. I find it ironic.

Communism
Socialism
Woodrow Wilson's War Socialism
The New Deal*
Nazism**
Italian Fascism**
LBJ's Great Society
Defeatism during Vietnam
Price controls
Windfall profit taxes

The above list is comprised of failed policies of the past. All either are drawn from heavily by Barack Obama as he forms his own platform, or are ideas that originated from the left. If he wants to have a discussion about failed policies of the past, I would say "go right ahead" if I were John McCain.

*Although many don't consider the New Deal a failure, among economists, however, New Deal policies are increasingly believed to have prolonged the Great Depression

**To any who see Nazism and Italian Fascism as right-wing, I encourage you to read Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg. Mussolini and Hitler were socialists.

My Thoughts on Gas Prices

This morning in the Arizona Republic was an article explaining why gas prices are as high as they are. It was put out by the AP and I was expecting it to place all the blame with the greedy oil companies. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the authors had actually done some research, and had found that there are many other factors involved. Although they miss a couple of important points, they are pretty thorough, as well as fair and accurate. The article is here.
The sad thing about the article was the comments. A lot of "this is BS, everybody knows it's corporate greed that's to blame", or "the AZ Republic has become a shill for big oil". When presented with a logical argument, complete with facts, the left just ignores it.

Some important facts about gas prices and oil companies, some from the article, some from other places:

Oil companies profit margins are estimated to be between 7% & 9% - actually below average when compared to other industries. The record profits are due to the tremendous size of the corporations.

Taxes account for over 11% of the price of gasoline.

Profit margins for refining oil into gasoline have dropped dramatically. Many companies in the refining industry lost tens of millions of dollars in the first quarter of this year.

The oil industry already has significant barriers to entry (the vast amounts of capital needed to find and secure the oil), which inhibit competition, yet our government creates even more barriers by severely restricting where oil can be drilled, and implementing other regulations.

I don't mean to be defending big oil, but, when you look at the situation, corporate greed is the least of the problems when it comes to high gas prices. I've kind of put this together haphazardly, and it may seem complicated, but it really is just simple supply and demand. Apparently, the majority of our country wasn't paying attention during their introduction to economics class.

Thomas Sowell makes a much better argument than I do. He did a series of columns last week on this subject. The first of them can be found here.

Well, I could go on forever, but I'll save it for another day.

It's been a while since my last post, and there's a few topics I want to cover. First, since today is mother's day, I just want to say how good of a wife and mom Brooke is. Also, happy mother's day and birthday to my mom - she turned 50 this week.

Abigail gave her first talk in primary last week. She spoke on how families in the scriptures can teach us to be better family members. She did a great job - she read the whole thing! (She's not quite 4 yet). She wasn't nervous or scared at all. I am very proud of her.

Well, Mike D'antoni is no longer the Suns' coach. I guess he accepted an offer from the Knicks yesterday. I have to say, I have really enjoyed watching the Suns play the last 4 years - much more entertaining than anything else the NBA has to offer. Many people are disappointed that they didn't win a championship during that time, and feel that their time has now passed, and blame D'antoni, saying his style made for exciting basketball, a lot of regular season wins, but was not suited for playoff basketball. I disagree. I don't think his style of play was the reason for the lack of success in the playoffs. I think the blame for them not winning a championship lies mostly elsewhere.

I have to say I mostly agree with Bill Simmons, who, in his ESPN column this past week, bid farewell to the "7 seconds or less" era in Phoenix. He believes the blame lies mostly with Robert Sarver and his penny pinching. But here's my take:

In 2005 (D'antoni's first full season with the Suns), they had the best record in the league, but lost to the Spurs in the conference finals. Despite their record, I never felt they were actually better than the Spurs, and that playoff series proved it. (Although it would have been closer with a healthy Joe Johnson) Point is, regardless of style of play, the Spurs were the better team.

2006 - With Amare Stoudemire missing the entire season, they were never going to win a championship. They overachieved by returning to the conference finals.

2007 - This was the year they missed their chance. They were no question one of the top two teams in the league. Their second round series with the Spurs was the real championship series. If not for the infamous suspensions, that series was a toss up at worst. They had just won game 4 in San Antonio to tie the series and were headed back to Phoenix. You have to admit, that had Amare and Boris been allowed to play, they had the advantage. Main point: they lost that series mostly because of the suspensions, not because D'antoni's system failed in the playoffs.

2008 - I won't get into much - there's been a million columns about why they didn't win this year. All I'll say is that it was mostly about not being able to adjust to Shaq being in the lineup. Again, they lost not because D'antoni's system failed in the playoffs, but because they went away from that system in the second half of the season.

Like I said before, I believe most of the blame is with Sarver. He traded Joe Johnson to save money, traded the 7th pick in the 2004 draft (which was Luol Deng, and Andre Iguodala was also available) to save money, traded the 21st pick in the 2006 draft (Rajon Rondo) to save money, and sold the 24th pick in 2007 for cash. Bill Simmons explains it best: "So if you're scoring at home, they downgraded from 'Luol Deng or Andre Iguodala in 2004' to 'Rondo in 2006' to 'selling the No. 24 pick in 2007 for cash' ... which means that, effectively, they traded a No. 7 pick in a loaded draft for $4.9 million. Phoenix fans, you may now light yourselves on fire."
The sad thing about all this is that they ended up wasting all of this saved money on Boris Diaw's contract extension and Shaq's salary. They easily could have kept Joe Johnson, and drafted Deng or Iguodala, and been set as the most stacked team in the league for the next ten years, and been in a no worse financial situation than what they're in now. Thanks, Bill, I think I will light myself on fire now.

In the end, I think the saddest part is that Steve Nash, who for the last 4 years has been the best point guard ever, probably won't win a championship, through no fault of his own. Oh well, it's just the same old story for the Suns.

My first time

Well, here it goes. Today was Easter, and we had a nice day here at home with the kids. We did an Easter egg hunt in the morning, and they loved it. Craig caught on quicker than I thought he would. He actually found more eggs than Abigail in the first couple of minutes, then lost interest.
Brooke cooked a ham in the crock pot so it was ready as soon as we got home from church, and dinner was nice.

On to other topics:

Discovery Channel: Last night, Brooke and I watched a program that I think was called Jesus: The Complete Story. We were pleasantly surprised. Usually programs like this one are out to prove religion wrong and that the Bible is historically inaccurate or scientifically impossible. This one actually sought to show how the story of Jesus did fit into generally accepted historical and scientific ideas. Really intriguing stuff - I recommend checking it out - I bet they replay it sometime soon.

Barack Obama: For a long time, I thought he was a decent guy that was really, really liberal (and was a lesser evil than Hillary Clinton). After this week my opinion of him has changed. There are only two conclusions that can be reached about his association with Jeremiah Wright. First, that he, for the most part, has the same racist, anti-american political views as the pastor and is now trying to distance himself from him so that he can win the election. The other is that he doesn't share those views, but joined Pastor Wright's congregation in order to appear more authentic in his "blackness" and gain the political support of african-americans in chicago at the start of his political career, and now that he needs broader support in order to win the Democratic nomination, and eventually the general election, is distancing himself from the pastor. Both possibilities show a lack of integrity, although the first is most troubling.
Jeremiah Wright has made enough radical statements on numerous occasions that the idea that Obama "wasn't there on that Sunday", or wasn't aware of them is absurd. Obama has been aware and has chosen to remain close to the pastor for 20 years.
I have begun to connect the dots lately - his association with Wright, his having the most liberal voting record in the senate, his wife's comments about never being proud of America, his refusal to put his hand over his heart during the pledge of allegiance, etc. - and have come to the opinion that he isn't a decent guy, and would be complete disaster as President, easily the worst we've ever had, and would cause severe damage to this country if elected. I realize John McCain isn't the perfect candidate, but it is becoming evident that support for him is critical. (Sorry, I went on longer than I thought I would).

Books:
I've read some good books lately, and would recommend them to anybody else.

Capitalism and Freedom - Milton Friedman
A difficult read, but incredibly important stuff if you can get through it.

An Inconvenient Book - Glenn Beck
A much easier read - lots of pictures, charts, etc. Funny at times. Glenn is spot on about a lot of topics

Liberal Fascism - Jonah Goldberg
I'm up to chapter 5 and love it so far. I've learned a ton. A lot of history, specifically about the liberal movement and its origins.