Just to compare my thoughts now to my past and future.
I may be forgetting things. These are not my final thoughts, just what I'm thinking about right now at this moment after watching the 3rd presidential debate.
Military spending-We apparently spend more on military than the next ten countries combined. I think we could downsize and still be safe. Military movements should be a joint efforts from countries with an investment in the movement, and not just America.
Renewable energy-Renewable energy is great. How it becomes affordable is the question. Should the government spend money borrowed from other countries (and incurring interest on it) to subsidize companies which may or may not be shams? That is a democratic idea I believe. The alternative is to offer tax deductions for people who actually buy the renewable energy. I think both parties would do that.
Drilling for oil/mining coal - Ideally we drill and mine short term telling people that fuel prices will be low now, but price increases should be expected every year, so investments in renewable energy would make sense long run. (Or a tax on pollution should be implemented.) In the mean time private investments in renewable energy makes them more affordable and competitive with gas now. People will move to renewable energy if it becomes more affordable than dirty energy, but in the transition period, fuel should come down for a while, so go ahead and drill and burn, cleanly, but let people know we want to reduce our dependencies on these forms and invest in other forms of energy.
Abortion-I grew up in an environment where abortion was murder. Looking at a larger scope, unloved kids are more likely to become criminals. The morning after pill seems fine because it doesn't kill anything. The two pills for expelling the placenta a few weeks after is supposed to be a safe way for letting people not ready to have kids to not have them yet. The partial birth abortion seems kind of gross and apparently is dangerous with women going through this having potential issues with their next child. There will always be people who get pregnant and will want to have an abortion. If you make it illegal, and they are set on doing it to prevent embarrassment or keep going with their life as is, their options are limited to black market which is more dangerous. I think that we've come to a point where people should be educated by special interest groups (not only the government) into prevention and care.
Birth control-Is it the government's obligation to pay for this for people who make these choices? It should be made available, absolutely, but the cost to manufacture is tiny and the cost should come down so people should be able to pay out of pocket. $30 a month for birth control seems pretty fair. Male birth control may be interesting to pursue as well.
China-Yikes. I don't feel completely educated on this. China needs us to buy stuff from them to keep their economy going. They also do infringe on patents which hurts AMerican countries, especially pharmaceuticals, which causes pharmaceuticals to charge more in the US to recoup research (and probably unnessesary advertising) costs and make profits. How can the US control patent protection in other countries like China? It needs to happen. I am scared of an increase of cost of Chinese goods with there being more manufacturing jobs in the US when I don't want a manufacturing job (though management of one would be fine.)
Immigration-There is a lot of open land in some places in the US, like Nebraska and Texas. We don't want people to come over and freeload as we know happens now as people come to escape poverty.
Who should come over? The educated? The ones pursuing education but don't have it yet? Apparently California spends a massive amount on heath care for illegal immigrants. I don't like that. I think there is a raffle and also visas for education but I'm not sure. Generally speaking, I hate raffles. I need to learn more. Uneducated people have more kids than educated families. Generally speaking, they also have a higher percentage of lower performing people as well. There is always a star in the rough though, but at what cost? People should come over legally, not illegally, and someone should make reasonable means of doing that so that America has the resources in healthcare and education to meet the flow of immigrants.
Education - Well, short term, if everyone in the US has a college education, my college education won't separate me out from the rest of the people. In the larger scope, America needs more innovation coming from people with advanced degrees in science, medicine, and engineering. Something should be done to make eduction for economically valuable degrees a bigger draw. Theoretically the pay bump should be a factor, but costs for those degrees has also increased so doctors could still be paying off debt in their 40s (maybe not research because of research grants. Hmm.)
I think teaching is something I'd be interested in doing, if it paid similar per hour to what I'm making in IT. The thing is, there are a lot of people willing to do a good job at teaching for cheap pay for whatever reason. That leaves cities, many of which are in debt, more money to spend elsewhere. Certain student teacher ratios should probably be maintained and accreditation should be standardized. I've heard of private college scam schools. People should do more research before going into incredible debt. State schools are usually a good value. I don't know why people go to private schools without a good reputation.
Schools should have teachers that teach to the students, involve the parents, be adequately funded academically, and sports shouldn't be a massive amount of the budget. It should be primarily funded by donations, and parents when possible. Should there be a school sponsored football team if textbooks over a decade old are being used? Still have the football team, but find alternative ways of funding it. Funding may be more responsible that way. I'm not sure why vouchers are such a bad idea as long as the money follows the child. Everyone should be given access to good education. How can this be reasonable funded for families who choose to live far away from a school in very rural areas? That kind of hurts the kids, right? Government shouldn't be forced to spend 3x the cash on them because of poor family choices, right? Do they just do Internet learning? Probably not since Internet may not be offered in those areas. I don't know what's best.
National debt- I think that the debt should be under 5 trillion dollars in 5 years, down from the 10 Bush had and the current 16 trillion from Obama, otherwise interest payments will be stupid high. This hurts the value of the dollar.
Local jobs - Jobs created by the government is paid for by taxes, and government contracts have red tape which costs more than it's supposed to. In theory, private companies and citizens could do a lot of that stuff cheaper.
Healthcare - Socialized healthcare causes an increase in taxes. Look at Europe. Should it be tied to a job? I'm not sure because that hurts employers. Should there be caps? Let medical practices run crazy expensive procedures that may or may not work? What is the markup? I think there should be more doctors and nurse practitioners, clinics, and that people should shop for the best value instead of just doing copays and letting the insurance cover the rest.
Monday, October 22, 2012
Thursday, October 11, 2012
TriBling
I had a great experience with the creator of TriBling today (10/11/12). http://www.tribling.com/index.php/
A former marathoner turned mom, turned Ironman woman spent 1 year training for the Madison full Ironman triathlon and designed some really cool necklace pendants with waves (I think they look like water droplets or swimmer heads and an arm as it comes out of the water), a bike gear, and a shoe print for each of the events.
At the 2012 Chicago Triathlon, I briefly saw post card stock talking about them, and was like, eh, a jewelry ad and didn't look at the detail. A post race e-mail had a link that said, "Congratulations! You've earned yourself some trithalon bling!" and it had a blue hyperlink. I saw the really cool design, thought it had some meaning, some creativity, and would be a fun conversation starter. I then posted a link to it on Facebook and said that that was one piece of jewelry that I would actually wear. I actually started measuring my neck to see what size necklace I'd need.
It was $120ish for the small pendant (which I thought was just the right size), and two spare chains since the site said they would need to be replaced every so often and it was cheaper to order them together than to find replacement ones as needed. I thought that was a little much for jewelry (having never bought it before for myself) so I looked on eBay, Amazon, and google marketplace for a used one, but didn't come up with anything. I guessed it was a startup. I thought about asking for one as a gift, but didn't want to wait in case the company went under like a lot of small businesses do. I looked at the card that came in our race day packets and confirmed that it was a really cool design and saw somewhere that they were offering discounts for showing up at the booth. I hadn't seen them at the Triathlon Expo, but my roommate had. Anyway, thinking it was a startup got me a little worried that I'd loose the opportunity to have it, so not long after, I just went online and bought it. I was order 000008 which confirmed that it was a pretty new company.
I didn't see it charged on my Mint.com and thought that was odd, but assumed it would show up soon. That was August 17thish. October 11th, 2012, about two months later, I got a call from someone at TriBling saying, "Sorry to bother you, but I'm with TriBling. Our credit card processing on our site went down so you were never charged, so if I could have you mail a check or get your credit card information down now that would be great. Oh, and afterwards I want to get your feedback on your bling."
I actually told her my idea about using the edges of the bling for the water and shoe in addition to the gear instead of having just the gear 3D and the other edges smooth. She liked my idea saying she could incorporate waves on the side or something. I said it wold be really cool if I could have one if she ended up doing it. She said it may be a while since she has inventory and that she had a lot of requests for strictly running first. I agreed and said that that would expand her market quite a bit because a lot of people are scared of the swim.
I asked if I could get the discount they offered at the event since I didn't see the booth at the Chicago tri but was there. She said sure, she'd take $5 off. Then I got a pretty cool crash course into what she's going through. She wore her rubber necklace all triathlon training season and by the end it was looking rough with the chlorine, sweat, and stuff, and that, like a bike chain, it needs to be replaced. (A parallel which was on her website.. which didn't have the pages you could order from up anymore 10/11/12, probably they will come up once the billing process works again.)
Anyway, she has people who want to invest, but is doing all of it herself because she isn't sure she wants to share yet. She found a jeweler in Chicago who includes the silver, the wax mold, and hand finishing and she wants to keep it in the US instead of going overseas even though it would be cheaper. She's only been able to do small batches, so that is also why the price is high.
The cost of marketing is kind of much. Expos charge upper hundreds to in the thousands for a booth. Printing cards and fliers also costs money, between $.25-$.75 depending on the quantity. Also, to get them to place the fliers in bags, that can be a few hundred dollars as well. Then there is managing a website that isn't charging credit cards properly so only being able to sell inventory at events, also teaching college classes and being a mom.
I had fun talking to her!
March 2013 update: TriBling dropped their prices by about half since I bought my necklace. I paid over $100 including an extra rubber band and a silver band.
A former marathoner turned mom, turned Ironman woman spent 1 year training for the Madison full Ironman triathlon and designed some really cool necklace pendants with waves (I think they look like water droplets or swimmer heads and an arm as it comes out of the water), a bike gear, and a shoe print for each of the events.
At the 2012 Chicago Triathlon, I briefly saw post card stock talking about them, and was like, eh, a jewelry ad and didn't look at the detail. A post race e-mail had a link that said, "Congratulations! You've earned yourself some trithalon bling!" and it had a blue hyperlink. I saw the really cool design, thought it had some meaning, some creativity, and would be a fun conversation starter. I then posted a link to it on Facebook and said that that was one piece of jewelry that I would actually wear. I actually started measuring my neck to see what size necklace I'd need.
It was $120ish for the small pendant (which I thought was just the right size), and two spare chains since the site said they would need to be replaced every so often and it was cheaper to order them together than to find replacement ones as needed. I thought that was a little much for jewelry (having never bought it before for myself) so I looked on eBay, Amazon, and google marketplace for a used one, but didn't come up with anything. I guessed it was a startup. I thought about asking for one as a gift, but didn't want to wait in case the company went under like a lot of small businesses do. I looked at the card that came in our race day packets and confirmed that it was a really cool design and saw somewhere that they were offering discounts for showing up at the booth. I hadn't seen them at the Triathlon Expo, but my roommate had. Anyway, thinking it was a startup got me a little worried that I'd loose the opportunity to have it, so not long after, I just went online and bought it. I was order 000008 which confirmed that it was a pretty new company.
I didn't see it charged on my Mint.com and thought that was odd, but assumed it would show up soon. That was August 17thish. October 11th, 2012, about two months later, I got a call from someone at TriBling saying, "Sorry to bother you, but I'm with TriBling. Our credit card processing on our site went down so you were never charged, so if I could have you mail a check or get your credit card information down now that would be great. Oh, and afterwards I want to get your feedback on your bling."
I actually told her my idea about using the edges of the bling for the water and shoe in addition to the gear instead of having just the gear 3D and the other edges smooth. She liked my idea saying she could incorporate waves on the side or something. I said it wold be really cool if I could have one if she ended up doing it. She said it may be a while since she has inventory and that she had a lot of requests for strictly running first. I agreed and said that that would expand her market quite a bit because a lot of people are scared of the swim.
I asked if I could get the discount they offered at the event since I didn't see the booth at the Chicago tri but was there. She said sure, she'd take $5 off. Then I got a pretty cool crash course into what she's going through. She wore her rubber necklace all triathlon training season and by the end it was looking rough with the chlorine, sweat, and stuff, and that, like a bike chain, it needs to be replaced. (A parallel which was on her website.. which didn't have the pages you could order from up anymore 10/11/12, probably they will come up once the billing process works again.)
Anyway, she has people who want to invest, but is doing all of it herself because she isn't sure she wants to share yet. She found a jeweler in Chicago who includes the silver, the wax mold, and hand finishing and she wants to keep it in the US instead of going overseas even though it would be cheaper. She's only been able to do small batches, so that is also why the price is high.
The cost of marketing is kind of much. Expos charge upper hundreds to in the thousands for a booth. Printing cards and fliers also costs money, between $.25-$.75 depending on the quantity. Also, to get them to place the fliers in bags, that can be a few hundred dollars as well. Then there is managing a website that isn't charging credit cards properly so only being able to sell inventory at events, also teaching college classes and being a mom.
I had fun talking to her!
March 2013 update: TriBling dropped their prices by about half since I bought my necklace. I paid over $100 including an extra rubber band and a silver band.
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