What the $^@# is Wrong?

Time to debunk yet another facebook viral staus that I have been seeing lately….

If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you would have $49.00 today! If you purchased $1,000 of shares in AIG, you would have $33.00. If you purchased $1,000 of shares in Lehman Brothers, you would have $0.00 today. But, if you purchased $1,000 worth of beer, drank all the beer, turned in the aluminum cans for recycling, you would have $214.00. Therefore the best current investment plan is to drink heavily & recycle. It is called the 401-Keg Plan!

Assuming there were no broker’s fees or taxes, it’s easy to show that this is very false, expect for Lehman Brothers, that’s true.

Aug 10, 2010 shares of Delta were 11.80 a share, so that would be 84.7458 shares.  Aug 10, 2011 1:40, the going price is 6.84, therefore that would be $579.661. (google finance)

Aug 10, 2010 shares of AIG were 40.19 a share, so that would be 24.8818 shares. Aug 10, 2011 1:40, the going price is 23.39, therefore that would be $580.99. (google finance)

Assuming you bought a 30 pack of the cheapest beer (best value for best case scenario) for $10 a case, you could get 100 cases (before taxes).  That would be 3000 cans of beer.  There are about 30 cans per pound of aluminum (wikipedia), and the going rate of aluminum is currently $1.08 per pound (metalprices.com).  So you would then have $108. 

The calculations are good as of writing this article, and will change constantly with the markets.

And Liberals…

And Gays…

And Women…

And the Enviroment…

And our future…

Last night marked the last day of the 2011 Legislative Session in Minnesota.

This legislative session has been full of promoting bigotry and hate towards women and gays by passing bill after bill against abortions and also attempting to ban gay marriage through the state constitution.

The MN GOP also attempted to redistrict the state of Minnesota to solidify the conservative voting districts that have been close in votes the last few year, which would have affected 5 democratic disricts and only one republican district.

My state senator, Roger Reinert, said it best on Facebook:

It’s 10pm. There are 2 hours left in the 2011 Legislative Session. And the Minnesota Senate has been in for a total of two hours today.

Closing speeches are being made. It’s now official. The 2011 Legislative Session failed to do Job #1 – balance the state budget.

It looks like Jonathon Seidl, who write’s for Glenn Beck’s site The Blaze, decided to take a bold step and wrote an opinion piece on Reddit.com. (Article)

If you are unfamiliar with Reddit, it’s a social news site similar to Digg.com, but without the crap.  I personally switched over to Reddit from Digg after the Digg v4 fiasco and I’ve never looked back.  With Reddit, you can personalize your front page by “subscribing” (+frontpage) to categories which are called subreddits.  You can find a subreddit for almost anything, because subreddits are user owned, operated, managed, and content driven.  That is what gives Reddit such a dynamic feel, and you can make it give you the exact content that you want to see. What amazed me the most about Reddit, is that one person was running the whole operation, and just recently, he hired a second person.

That being said, Mr. Seidl’s article focuses on how you can find adult material through subreddits and how there is offensive language on certain subreddits. What a revelation… there is porn on the internet /s.   This is nothing new. It’s not on anyone’s front page by default, and you would have to actively go and look for it to find it.  Just like anything else on the internet, if someone wants to find it, they will find it. Mr. Seidl, have you used Google lately? Rumor has it you can find bad things on there too.

With all subreddits, there is a subscriber count so people can keep track of a subreddit’s popularity.

(numbers are as of publishing this article)

/r/jailbait has 14,739 readers

/r/porn has 1889 readers

/r/ni**ers has 175 readers

Compare these to the subreddits I subscribe to

/r/funny/ has 584,007 readers

/r/WTF/ has 521,997 readers

/r/science/ has 517,763 readers

/r/politics/ has 484,832 readers

/r/IAmA/ has 199,633 readers

/r/todayilearned/ has 183,355 readers

/r/fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu/ has 121,620 readers

Are these numbers that anyone needs to be concerned with in the grand scheme of things?  I don’t think so.

Here are some of the “best” comments from Glenn Beck’s site.  It still suprises me how painfully ignorant these people are.

(Link)

(Link)

And here is what I would imagine Reddit’s response to be

Wisconsin is now Little Egypt, and it’s Dictator is Scott “Mubarak” Walker.

Scott Walker has taken it upon himself to introduce a budget reform to double the health care costs of his state workers (except for firemen and police officers) and also mute the voice of their unions so they have no negotiating powers (except for firemen and police officers).

This has sparked a protest at the state capital of Madison where teachers, iron workers, students, state workers, and others are gathering to show their support and to try and stop the attack on state worker’s families.

Yes, we all agree that the budget needs to be fixed.  But tas a part of trying to reform the budget and grow the economy, you cannot strip the rights of your own workers.  Everyone deserves a voice, and Scott Walker…. cannot mute the masses.