Here's my list of ads on the Internet that anger me and will not be included in any business I ever have any association with.
1. Those damned popups that sit over the page and you have to find a way to shut them off to keep reading what you're reading. Even worse, when they make sound.
2. Seperate pop up windows. Even with pop up blockers some make it through. Or, if they don't and you actually want a pop up you have to disable your pop up blocker. In Internet Explorer you have to click twice and reload the page to let you see pop ups. This is partially IE's fault, but I blame the pop ups. Sometimes when I use Firefox I end up with 8 extra tabs of pop-ups.
3. The sites where you click a link and you get not the page you were expecting, but an ad with a line underneath (in small font) that explains you have to click here to get what you already clicked for. I already clicked a link to take me there, why am I clicking another one to get there? Ok, it's only an extra click, but man it makes me angry.
Here is the list of the best ads that make money, help with brand recognition and (the first two) that I will be including in our new business.
1. Google listings. Most people don't even realize they are being advertised to because they search for keywords and the top listings have all paid to be there. The banner ads on the side are slightly less nice, but still relevant and handy.
2. Relevant banner ads. I'm surfing a site looking auto comparisons, and look, a simple banner ad reminding me that toyota won the most awards last year for build quality! Imagine that!
3. 15 second video ads before a professional video like the Daily Show on Comedy Central with a message that says your video will start after this short ad. These aren't a great deal different than number 3 in the worst ad section, but in this case you are getting a professional quality product, on demand and still seeing less ads than you would if you were watching the show on TV. I consider this well worth the 15 seconds.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Madoff Made Off with $50 Billion
Bernard Madoff lost $50 Billion of clients money. They only found out when he confessed and had himself arrested.
His financial advisory business had been insolvent for years. He lost clients' money from charity foundations to retirement funds.
Disturbingly, it wasn't your typical blue collar, financially uneducated people that got screwed either. Famous people like Steven Spielberg and even massive European banks were hit.
Here's another thing. He didn't keep much of the money, he just lost it. He didn't even lose it all at once, he just lost some, covered it up, lost some more and continued like that until the downturn in the markets meant enough of his clients wanted money back that he couldn't pay.
If he had put away a few billion and then moved to Cuba or somewhere warm with no extradition treaty I can understand that. I wouldn't condone it of course, but I can at least understand.
No, I'm shocked that he'd lose a bunch of money, lose more and eventually put himself in the position of having to confess and go to jail. Why would you do that? What sense does that make? He confessed! He didn't even get found out be the SEC, he just went ahead and confessed to his top staff and his sons. He could have done this years ago without losing so much and probably faced lesser penalties.
I guess he started on a slippery slope, probably lost some money for clients a few years ago and didn't want them to know because that would hinder his ability to get new clients. He probably thought that by posting modest gains he'd be able to take any additional profits and make up the difference.
This of course constituted fraud off the bat and when it didn't work he had to continue the trend on a larger and larger scale until he had lost 50 BILLION DOLLARS.
At a time where people are already liquefying assets to protect them (pulling more money out of the economy for investment and other purposes, hurting it further) they are even more likely to freak out about their investments and pull out of funds and stocks. The more people that pull out, the more the prices drop and affect the value of the remaining owners.
It also means less cash is available to help out entrepreneurs like me. I'm already having investment issues because of this financial crisis and this asshole makes it even worse.
Our economy depends on small businesses and new businesses. This stimulates competition, makes things more efficient, brings more and better products to people at cheaper prices. And I believe in my company, I think that my website is truly a better option for people who want to travel, share their experiences and find and vet businesses.
I can't think of a solution. The death penalty is a pretty good one for this kind of scale but it never works with slippery slope type offenses. The hard and fast rule of an eye for an eye just doesn't apply.
A few years in jail doesn't seem fitting either though. Maybe he just won't survive jail, a death sentence handed out by the courts that doesn't have the death label on it.
One thing is for sure, expensive lawyers aren't going to help this time. This is no O.J. Simpson, this guy is going to jail and isn't going to see a lot of leniency. That's a small smile.
His financial advisory business had been insolvent for years. He lost clients' money from charity foundations to retirement funds.
Disturbingly, it wasn't your typical blue collar, financially uneducated people that got screwed either. Famous people like Steven Spielberg and even massive European banks were hit.
Here's another thing. He didn't keep much of the money, he just lost it. He didn't even lose it all at once, he just lost some, covered it up, lost some more and continued like that until the downturn in the markets meant enough of his clients wanted money back that he couldn't pay.
If he had put away a few billion and then moved to Cuba or somewhere warm with no extradition treaty I can understand that. I wouldn't condone it of course, but I can at least understand.
No, I'm shocked that he'd lose a bunch of money, lose more and eventually put himself in the position of having to confess and go to jail. Why would you do that? What sense does that make? He confessed! He didn't even get found out be the SEC, he just went ahead and confessed to his top staff and his sons. He could have done this years ago without losing so much and probably faced lesser penalties.
I guess he started on a slippery slope, probably lost some money for clients a few years ago and didn't want them to know because that would hinder his ability to get new clients. He probably thought that by posting modest gains he'd be able to take any additional profits and make up the difference.
This of course constituted fraud off the bat and when it didn't work he had to continue the trend on a larger and larger scale until he had lost 50 BILLION DOLLARS.
At a time where people are already liquefying assets to protect them (pulling more money out of the economy for investment and other purposes, hurting it further) they are even more likely to freak out about their investments and pull out of funds and stocks. The more people that pull out, the more the prices drop and affect the value of the remaining owners.
It also means less cash is available to help out entrepreneurs like me. I'm already having investment issues because of this financial crisis and this asshole makes it even worse.
Our economy depends on small businesses and new businesses. This stimulates competition, makes things more efficient, brings more and better products to people at cheaper prices. And I believe in my company, I think that my website is truly a better option for people who want to travel, share their experiences and find and vet businesses.
I can't think of a solution. The death penalty is a pretty good one for this kind of scale but it never works with slippery slope type offenses. The hard and fast rule of an eye for an eye just doesn't apply.
A few years in jail doesn't seem fitting either though. Maybe he just won't survive jail, a death sentence handed out by the courts that doesn't have the death label on it.
One thing is for sure, expensive lawyers aren't going to help this time. This is no O.J. Simpson, this guy is going to jail and isn't going to see a lot of leniency. That's a small smile.
Friday, December 5, 2008
The Global Warming Swindle and Ridiculous Taxes on Cows
As a business owner, I got very angry when I saw this video about the EPA wanting to impose a CO2 tax on dairy farmers because cows and hogs output a lot of gas. For more information, read the article here.
In a time when our economy is going to shit, the EPA wants the U.S. to become even less competitive economically compared to Asian rivals.
I've blogged before about the hassles of and taxes on trying to run a business in Canada. I'm thankful for our standard of living and all of the opportunities that our system provides. I'm just tired of things like this environmental movement retarding our economic growth.
Contrary to popular belief, science is highly affected by political motivations. The nuclear winter theory back in the 50's where all life would be wiped out by lack of sunlight in the event of a nuclear war was a great example. Nuclear war bad - even if we win. Lets see, if I was a geography scientist I would think: "Hmm, what can I study that will get me more government funding and attention in the press? I know, I'll jump on the global warming bandwagon!" If you think that the results of those studies won't be influenced by the people that funded them, pull your head out of your ass.
There are plenty of reasons why we should be kind to the environment, but greenhouse gas induced global warming is far too simple a theory that does not take into account the complexity of earths interaction with sunlight. Plus, although North Americans produce more CO2 per person than most of the planet, Canada and the US only make up 5% of the earths population.
So I've got an idea. Instead of focusing solely on reducing our individual carbon footprints, how about we work a little harder on convincing our neighbors that have terrible environmental records to shape up their habits slightly as they grow. This is help we didn't have as we developed as nations.
A great example would be Beijing, widely regarded as the worst in the world, or Linfen, China.
World Bank estimates that 16 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities are found in China’s industrial areas.
Maybe it would be cheaper economically and better for the environment overall if we guided these developing nations that have much larger populations than us and are very energy hungry.
Hey, wait a second, we're already doing that aren't we? By funding programs that are developing things like fusion power, more efficient nuclear power, hybrid cars, electric cars, even the biofuel fiasco and more. By developing cleaner technologies to the point where the world is better off overall converting over from things like coal power plants we are doing more about cleaning things up than anyone else.
So instead of taxing us more and screwing our economy up further, (and making us more reliant on food imports that don't have the same health standards etc.) we should be providing more incentive to learn and grow.
All of you politicians that are using "climate change" as political fodder, you also need to pull your heads out of your asses and start helping our countries instead of wasting your time.
In a time when our economy is going to shit, the EPA wants the U.S. to become even less competitive economically compared to Asian rivals.
I've blogged before about the hassles of and taxes on trying to run a business in Canada. I'm thankful for our standard of living and all of the opportunities that our system provides. I'm just tired of things like this environmental movement retarding our economic growth.
Contrary to popular belief, science is highly affected by political motivations. The nuclear winter theory back in the 50's where all life would be wiped out by lack of sunlight in the event of a nuclear war was a great example. Nuclear war bad - even if we win. Lets see, if I was a geography scientist I would think: "Hmm, what can I study that will get me more government funding and attention in the press? I know, I'll jump on the global warming bandwagon!" If you think that the results of those studies won't be influenced by the people that funded them, pull your head out of your ass.
There are plenty of reasons why we should be kind to the environment, but greenhouse gas induced global warming is far too simple a theory that does not take into account the complexity of earths interaction with sunlight. Plus, although North Americans produce more CO2 per person than most of the planet, Canada and the US only make up 5% of the earths population.
So I've got an idea. Instead of focusing solely on reducing our individual carbon footprints, how about we work a little harder on convincing our neighbors that have terrible environmental records to shape up their habits slightly as they grow. This is help we didn't have as we developed as nations.
A great example would be Beijing, widely regarded as the worst in the world, or Linfen, China.
World Bank estimates that 16 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities are found in China’s industrial areas.
Maybe it would be cheaper economically and better for the environment overall if we guided these developing nations that have much larger populations than us and are very energy hungry.
Hey, wait a second, we're already doing that aren't we? By funding programs that are developing things like fusion power, more efficient nuclear power, hybrid cars, electric cars, even the biofuel fiasco and more. By developing cleaner technologies to the point where the world is better off overall converting over from things like coal power plants we are doing more about cleaning things up than anyone else.
So instead of taxing us more and screwing our economy up further, (and making us more reliant on food imports that don't have the same health standards etc.) we should be providing more incentive to learn and grow.
All of you politicians that are using "climate change" as political fodder, you also need to pull your heads out of your asses and start helping our countries instead of wasting your time.
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