ADVANTAGES OF INVESTING IN MUTUAL FUNDS

President Obama,

How are you?
Things working out well in the new house?
Any closer to choosing a dog for Sasha and Malia?

Well, thanks for calling me back... I know that things have been incredibly busy for you over the past few months and I'm very happy you took the time to give me a call.

So, this is why I called you... I wanted to talk to you about this AIG Bonuses thing.

Yes Mr. President... I know you are angry about the bonuses.

Yes I know you feel they shouldn't be rewarded for their incompetence...

I'm very sorry to interrupt you Mr. President, but I feel like you are doing our country a great disservice by taking the stance that you are.

We the people need you to be the voice of reason. You are supposed to be the calm voice that keeps us from doing irrational things, not provoking us to do irrational things.

I'll try and make this short. Firstly I think you need to explain to the american people what a retention bonus actually is. It is not a bonus to reward incompetence, but rather a "bonus" to keep vital employees through a difficult time at a company. It's an effective way to keep valuable employees with your company whom might otherwise go to other companies when the going gets rough I've been watching the news quite a bit this week and I've yet to hear this mentioned. They keep saying bonuses as though this was a reward for great performance. This was not a reward for great performance... this was an incentive for employees to stick around...

Yes... Yes Mr. President, I understand that these are some of the employees that drove the company into the ground. But, would you rather all of the employees of this company jump ship and essentially kill AIG? This is a company that the American People now have an 80% stake in. This is the company that was "too big to fail." Shouldn't we want this company to succeed? And losing a good portion of their core employees would certainly be a death blow to a company, especially when it is in a weakened condition.

Besides, isn't there a chance (even a very good chance) that some of these employees actually do deserve these retention bonuses? That they are good employees? That company couldn't be made up of only horrible employees.

Furthermore I've seen Ali Velshi standing in front of a big board on CNN showing everyone a big graphic of the amount of people that were offered the retention bonus (they were symbolized as Green People)... And then he showed how many people left after accepting the retention bonus (they were red)... but he left out one VERY important piece of information. If you leave the company before the specified retention period is over, you have to pay back the retention bonus... they don't get to keep it. Isn't that an important little piece of information. Isn't it important that the American People understand this? Don't you feel this is your duty to help inform the public. The People trust you. You should really be using this public trust to be calming people down, rather than making them more angry. I really don't believe that you should be going onto Jay Leno and telling america how mad you are that these employees are getting these "bonuses" even if that is how you feel. We need a calming voice right now, not one that is making us angrier.

I'm sorry, I'm rambling... I'm obviously nowhere near as eloquent as you are.

Secondly, I feel like it needs pointing out how "little" 165 Million dollars is. I know that is a lot of money... But we have invested 182.5 Billion in AIG... We need to put this into some sort of perspective for people to truly understand. Those numbers are WAY too big for people to get.

So, let's frame those numbers differently... Let's say I loaned you $1,825.00 so you could go out and get a Nikon D90... and a Nikkor 70-300 VR Lens. So, while you were picking up the camera and the lens you also picked up a pack of gum for $1.65. Should I get LIVID about that? Really, really livid and insist that you give me that pack of gum. Doesn't that seem just slightly crazy? Well, that is essentially the same portion of money that the american people are getting mad about... And that money went to help keep the company afloat.

Mr. President, we all need to step back and take a deep breath. You can help us do that. We essentially own this company now and we should care if the company survives. We should care that they have happy employees and that their employees don't jump ship. And acting as though those employees are the scum of the earth certainly won't convince employees of a company that a few months back we called "too big to fail" to stick around for the long haul.

OK, I know you have a lot of other things to get to. Thank you so very much for the opportunity to talk to you. I hope you have a nice weekend. Good luck with your NCAA Pool, you're gonna need it...

A very beautiful morning

I need help! I need to decide what lens to get for my birthday, which is in just 2 weeks. Has to be in the vecinity of $500-$700. Maybe. Don't know.

Candidates so far:

Canon 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 (ultra wide angle)

Canon 85mm f/1.8

At one point I was looking at Canon 16-35mm f/2.8L but I realized I won't be making the switch to a full frame camera any time soon, so it doesn't make sens to invest such a huge amount of money only to get a regular wide angle out of it. I know, I know, that f/2.8 and the L are winking at me badly...

The Canon 17-40mm f/4L could be an option - but it's just f/4. But so is my 70-200 and I am happy with it (do I wish I had the f/2.8 version? You bet, but I am still very pleased with it). The 17-40 is an L lens and the contrast and colors are pretty impressive.

I'd like a wide angle that could take not only landscape and architecture shots, but also pet portraits and be used indoors

Current line-up of lenses:

Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L (love it! - it was last year's birthday present)
Canon 70-200 f/4L (best for action shots - got it 2 years ago, again as a BD present)
Canon 50mm f/1.8
Canon 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 (kit lens which I have to work really hard to get decent results)

Maybe another option would be the newer 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 IS? That is less than $150... if it focuses better than the one I have maybe it would be worth it?! Don't know...

What do you guys think?