Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Tuesday morning.. week 4

Well, we're in the home stretch! It's Tuesday morning and I'm wrapping up my readings for the day and getting my case study prepared for the after-SEF project I'll be working on with my group.

It's been a hell of an experience! We wrapped up last week with a trip to the JFK library, but only after a week of reading, case studies, reading, and more case studies. The schedule is been hectic. They keep us busy from 8AM to early evening most days, with one study groups before class in the morning and many times dinner speakers.

Last night was Jeff Frankel. Jeff was an economic advisor to Clinton. While I didn't necessarily appreciate the message (he was very doom and gloom), nor the slant (he blames everything on everyone but Clinton), it was still interesting having him here, speaking to us over dinner. An interesting thought though... 1/5 of our current budget goes to pay for interest on money borrowed from the rest of the world to pay our bills. I've not confirmed the number, nor audited our budget, but if this is right, it's amazing that we can continue to operate.

We discussed the current budget mess and the continuing resolutions. He told us that even if the planned cuts went through, it accounted for only 6% of the current issue (with the implication that it wouldn't do much good). I'm a bit concerned by this. I had a woman who worked for me in a startup a few years back. She was my most junior person -an intern from a local college. When we started running out of money in the end, she requested to not take a paycheck. She told me "it takes a lot of drops of water to make an ocean, but every one counts.". 6%? That seems like it'd pay interest at least don't you think?

OK, now for more fun topics... pictures of the JFK Library and dinner. We had a great time!



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