Bizzy’s AM Coffee Biz-Econ-Life Links (053106)

Free Links:

• They needed a poll for this? — “Americans Like Instant Gratification” (and hate to wait in lines). Who knew?
• Jacques Chirac is getting grief for pardoning Olympic track hero Guy Drut, who had received a 15-month suspended jail sentence for “picking up a EUR 3,000 monthly salary for a non-existent job from 1990 to 1993.” Read the article, and you’ll see that the reason people are upset has little to do with condoning corruption, and more to do with fear that the dreaded “right wing” will seize electoral opportunity from it. Zheesh.
• Managing, or Massaging, Expectations — This Expatica report tells us that the Pope “was expected to draw up to one million people to the inaugural mass in Warsaw, but only an estimated quarter of a million showed up for Friday’s proceedings.” Benedict DID draw 900,000, as noted in this not widely carried AP report, at Krakow on Sunday (FreeRepublic has some great pics; this Catholic News Agency link reports “1,000,000 strong”). But this AP report managed not to mention the Krakow crowd size, and this one focused on the financial opportunism exhibited by some. And I’m supposed to believe that the WORMs (Worn-Out Reactionary Media, known to most as The Mainstream Media) have no anti-religious bias. Uh-huh.
• “Don’t try to control illegal immigration, or forest fires will burn out of control” — That’s what The New York Times article about private firefighting in the West is trying to tell us. Spare me.
• Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie had their baby daughter named Namibia this past weekend. No, BizzyBlog isn’t going Hollywood. I’m just amazed at the nerve of this: “As the world awaited the birth of the child at a luxury villa complex on the coast, Namibian authorities said they had bowed to pressure from Jolie and Pitt and granted them the right to ban foreign journalists from entering the country - a remarkable move for the Government of any sovereign state. But the exceptionally high-profile presence of Pitt and Jolie promises to be a massive boost to tourist income in the desperately poor country, where the average wage is $46 a week.” Wanna bet?

Subscription-only Links:

• Biz Weak reports in its June 5, 2006 issue that “The 3 million students graduating from U.S. colleges and universities this year carry more than $40 billion in student loans, and interest rates on federal loans are jumping two percentage points in July. That means new grads are going to feel an even bigger pinch than their predecessors ….. They do have a window to secure the lower rates if they consolidate their loans with one lender by June 30.” Take note if you or your grad are affected.
• Another Biz Weak article on voting machines found that Sequoia Voting Systems Inc., which sells machines in 20 states, is majority-owned by ….. Venezuelans. Nothing automatically nasty in that, except that a Sequoia affiliate provided the machines for the 2004 recall election of Hugo Chávez, which many observers believe was rigged. So we have potential foreign influence to worry about, on top of the already well-documented security problems. 1,050 counties in the US will use these in 2006. I say, “Paper ballots, please.”
• In its cover story Saturday, Barron’s reported that the market for second homes in some vacations spots is “starting to plunge.” Supposedly, “some welcome a correction.” I’ll bet that group would not include those who bought recently. (June 1 update: Free Real Estate Journal link is here.)