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JerseySmarts.com

Some Thoughts and Pictures from My Recent Trip to Chicago, Illinois

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As you all know, last week I spent some time in Chicago at the National Charter Schools Conference. The conference was great, but from a personal perspective one of my challenges was to see if I could stomach returning to Chicago – a city where I didn’t have the best of experiences a few years back. Even thinking about how ridiculous that bad experience was pisses me off again!

However, last week my time in Chicago was great! I was absolutely stunned at how fun and active downtown Chicago was while I was there. I stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel, which was a first for me, and it was a pretty cool place. It didn’t have any major “rock and roll” stuff going on while I was there, but it is located in the old Carbon and Carbide building which has this amazing art deco vibe throughout. It was pretty cool.

On Sunday evening I walked a few blocks from the hotel down to Millennium Park. This park was really the only “sightseeing” that I wanted to do while I was at the conference because when I was in Chicago in 2004 my group kept driving by the park without actually stopping at it to see what was up. It’s really a nice place and there was a ton of activity for a Sunday night. On Monday, I had a separate conference to attend that was about a mile from my hotel so I walked downtown (over the North Michigan bridge) to get to the conference place and it was fun. It’s been a long time since I walked around a city on a consistent basis and I forgot how much I liked it.

Anyway, I was really pleased with my trip to Chicago and my opinion of the place has changed. The city is clean, vibrant, and has amazing architecture. I’d definitely go back again – and soon! Here are some pictures from my walking and driving around Chicago:

Heading to Chicago for Most of the Coming Week

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Later today I’ll be getting aboard my flight and heading to Chicago, Illinois for most of this week. My flight out of Chicago is late Wednesday night/early Thursday morning so I expect to be back in Tinton Falls, New Jersey by the wee morning hours of this Thursday. I have mixed feelings about going back to Chicago. For some of the long, long-time readers of this blog – you may remember nearly 6 years ago when I went out there and was treated like shit by a nearly-illiterate bouncer at a bar and one of the worst, poorly-performing, disgrace to the uniform police officers in the country.

If I had my way, I’d carve out some time to go back to that shit hole of a bar and do something to “get them” six years after the fact. Bunch of sleazeball scumbags…

Anyway, I’m heading to Chicago for the tenth annual National Alliance for Public Charter Schools conference. On a personal level, I’m a big believer in the ability for charter schools to change the educational dynamic in highly educationally distressed areas of New Jersey and the United States. Professionally, I manage my company’s charter school programs so I’m obviously going to go to the national conference.

I went to this conference last year when it was in Washington, DC and it was pretty good. There are usually thousands of people at the conference so I’m looking forward to seeing some folks that I haven’t seen in a while. Also, the keynote speaker this year is Bill Gates so I’m hoping to catch up with him and hopefully get a picture (unlikely since there is usually a mob of people around the keynote speaker).

This will also be the first time that I am traveling by air with my laptop so I’m not sure what to expect, but I’m hoping that it will be easy going. No worries here, folks. I have some posts already lined up for the next few days and they should automatically appear on the site without any work on my part. Enjoy and I’ll be back next weekend!

The Bailout is Doomed

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Far be it from me to be the harbinger of bad omens, but this bailout stuff is going to fall flat on its face. Maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow, but sooner or later we’re going to look back on the bailout and be disgusted with the entire fiasco. Some observations…

Capitalism. What a country we live in, huh? You have the opportunity to do anything that you want in America. Some folks are fortunate that they are born into wealthier families and thus they have less financial pressures. Other people are born into highly religious families and they are usually happier and more content. Yet some still are born into poor families with strong family bonds and they learn the power of relationships. We have it all in America including an economy where you can either make it on your own (Bill Gates) or climb up the corporate ladder to find success. That’s what a capitalist system is based on!

But in a capitalist system, you can also fail. There are many reasons for failure, not the least of which is greed, deception, and bad decision-making. Many of the failing financial institutions were marred by these characteristics and – in a capitalist system – this will lead to failure. Whether it’s a loan officer who is closing a loan that he knows is not good for the borrower so he can make some extra income (greed), an internal manager who fudges the numbers so his bosses won’t get mad at him and his division for under-performing (deception), or a company hiring the wrong people to the wrong positions (bad decision-making) – this is what happens in our system!

And in a capitalist system when you fail – YOU FAIL. Imagine if the casinos in Atlantic City and Las Vegas gave you your money back after you blew it throughout the night. Unacceptable.

The Smell Test. I don’t know about you guys, but when I hear that the people who already proved that they are not good at running their organizations will be getting government dollars (i.e. taxpayer dollars) to bail their companies out, that pisses me off. This country was not founded on bailing out greedy scumbags with taxpayer dollars. In fact, you can make a case that taking money from taxpayers and using it for ignoble purposes is what spurred the American Revolution. What the hell am I paying taxes for? To pay the $20 million payout package of the CEO who failed at WaMu?

This bailout idea does not pass the smell test. How can you give money back to the people who squandered it? NO ONE in their right minds would do that! Would you give a murderer a gun while he’s in the courtroom? Good grief!

Consumer Debt. This one pisses me off the most. A portion of this $700 billion is supposed to go towards a housing trust fund to help bailout those mortgagees who are in over their heads. What a crock of shit this one is!

What about those people who have already lost their homes? How are they supposed to be helped from this bailout? They already lost in this game! What about those punks who knowingly went out there and bought up too much house for their income? They are to be rewarded for not living within their means?!? Well what the F is that all about!? Maybe I should go out and buy a million dollar mansion really quick since I know the taxpayers are about ready to pay it off for me.

And why are we only looking at mortgages? I heard a rumor that some of this bailout will be aimed at those with high consumer debt. So if you’ve overextended yourself with credit cards or other loans, you might not have to worry about making the payments! Do student loans fall into that category? I doubt it. What a bunch of bullshit that is??! I go out of my way to spend money on a venture that increases my knowledge and is a proven method of making society “better” (it’s a cost-benefit analysis thing) and yet I’m now being asked to spend MORE money for those who make bad decisions? Are you out of your f’ing mind?!

What if all of us who have ridiculous student loans start bitching and moaning? Will we get a bailout, too?

Artificial Timelines. Why does a bailout bill need to be reached by midnight tonight? Why does something need to be done before the markets open on Monday? This is crazy. The market will do what the market does. Do we really have to take $700 billion in taxpayer dollars and spend it on bailing out the system? NO!

This entire bailout thing is such a complete joke. There is no way to make everyone happy. The real shame, though, is that there are real people in this country who were duped into making the wrong decision and their situations are different. They are being lumped into this bailout mess and it’s not right. Those people who were out there scamming homeowners and new homeowners should be found and prosecuted to the greatest extent possible. It’s a disgrace.