Since data plans are going down from at the minimum $30/month it might sweeten the deal for me if it was something I was going to do. The only downside is that it won’t be unlimited but then I’m not sure how much downloading I would do on a mobile phone. At best the services to be utilized would be either texting or mobile photography where I can upload to an online service to display the photo.

Also if I was getting a Blackberry this new plan could benefit me since there are no plans on my part to buy an iPhone.

My only thing is I really wish the price of a Blackberry could go down a little bit!

Last month ShoreBank was spared an impending bank failure thanks to last minute help from either the federal government and Wall Street. On the right there are many who take issue with it because we’re in the time of taxpayer funded bailouts.

I often would follow this activity on my other blog, The Sixth Ward, primarily because ShoreBank has a branch in Chicago’s Chatham neighborhood (contained within Chicago’s 6th Ward). One of my bloggers there would declare this to be a disappointment since ShoreBank bought that branch which was once an independently owned bank called Independence Bank. If that hadn’t occured we may have had FIVE black-owned banks in Chicago instead of the current four we do have today.

At the same time while I do believe those business with bad business plans should fail I don’t have a problem with the fact that ShoreBank hadn’t failed and was bailed out. Of course it has been said that federal money was involved and since the Federal Government has been spending like crazy since Obama became President, I can see where many have a problem.

Hopefully ShoreBank will avoid the issues of its past that got it near the point of failure. In the future it can take the example of another neighborhood bank, Seaway Bank and Trust which avoided the issues of other banks by being conservative on their lending.

The buyers think what they’re buying will appreciate in value, making them rich in the future. The product grows more and more elaborate, and more and more expensive, but the expense is offset by cheap credit provided by sellers eager to encourage buyers to buy.

Buyers see that everyone else is taking on mounds of debt, and so are more comfortable when they do so themselves; besides, for a generation, the value of what they’re buying has gone up steadily. What could go wrong? Everything continues smoothly until, at some point, it doesn’t.

Yes, this sounds like the housing bubble, but I’m afraid it’s also sounding a lot like a still-inflating higher education bubble. And despite (or because of) the fact that my day job involves higher education, I think it’s better for us to face up to what’s going on before the bubble bursts messily.

College has gotten a lot more expensive. A recent Money magazine report notes: “After adjusting for financial aid, the amount families pay for college has skyrocketed 439 percent since 1982. … Normal supply and demand can’t begin to explain cost increases of this magnitude.”

Consumers would balk, except for two things.

First — as with the housing bubble — cheap and readily available credit has let people borrow to finance education. They’re willing to do so because of (1) consumer ignorance, as students (and, often, their parents) don’t fully grasp just how harsh the impact of student loan payments will be after graduation; and (2) a belief that, whatever the cost, a college education is a necessary ticket to future prosperity.

Bubbles burst when there are no longer enough excessively optimistic and ignorant folks to fuel them. And there are signs that this is beginning to happen already.

I can certainly relate to this, since not only am I a recent college graduate (at least a year ago), but I have some debt to pay back to. At that I chose not to attend a cheaper alternative as well.

I believe it’s OK to pursue a prestige degree as I had, however, if you want to avoid the student loan route it’ll take some serious financial planning. You might want to put some money away for tuition especially before college or work part-time during college. In addition to pursuing other alternative money to fund education especially in the form of scholarships and grants.

And Reynolds is right. Perhaps we need to re-evaluate some of the degrees that colleges offer. And evaluate what skills these various disciplines intend to distill. Surely some of the skills that are important in higher education will be valuable in the workforce as well. And I’m referring to both writing skills and research skills.

Read the whole thing! It’s worth your attention.

Still whats going on in Dallas’ school system:

The movement mirrors, on a smaller scale, massive white flight from the district in the 1970s.

Black students formed a majority in Dallas schools through the 1980s and ’90s. Over the last 10 years, though, the number of black children has fallen by nearly 20,000, or about a third. Meanwhile, Hispanic children have filled their seats as the district’s overall enrollment remains fairly flat at about 157,000.

Today, about 41,000 black students attend DISD schools. They make up 26 percent of the district compared with 106,000 Hispanic children, or 68 percent. White students are 5 percent of the district.

The trend seen in Dallas schools is part of a larger national move away from inner cities for many black families, but the plunge is steeper in Dallas ISD than other urban districts in Texas and is among the biggest declines nationally.

Interviews with dozens of parents reveal that the exodus is not fueled by a single reason, but by myriad forces including issues of race, class, perceptions of problems within DISD, an explosion of charter schools and the quest for the American dream in the suburbs.

Adelfa Callejo, a Latina civil rights activist, said it’s like history repeating itself.

“They’re doing exactly what the whites are doing, abandoning the school district,” Callejo said. “That will leave us with a lack of black leadership. You need leaders of all races to make it happen.”

I can understand the quest for better schools. When it was time to send me to high school once upon a time safety trumped quality. It was of less concern to my parents to send me to a better school than to insure that I would still be safely tucked away in the neighborhood. Thus I didn’t go to a good school during my teenaged years.

Well I still don’t have to worry about sending any kids to school since I don’t yet have any. At the same time I want the best education for those children I plan to have. It’s unlikely that I would ever move to insure that since there are those schools in the public school system where my children could have a quality education.

I think Ms. Callejo makes a valid point about a lack of diverse leadership. Everone has a hand in making a public school system viable. Especially in an urban area where we hear all too often how the system has failed our young people.

Via Instapundit!

Here are highlights from the last two games in Philadelphia. Game 3 was a very good game, but the Hawks let game 4 get away from them.

Game 3

Click here to view the embedded video.

Game 4

Click here to view the embedded video.

Finally back in Chicago for Game 5

Click here to view the embedded video.

If I was able to post on the blog you would likely see one of these two images in the sidebar.

This image I found on Twitter denotes that last game the Hawks need to win to clinch the Stanley Cup championship.

This image I had up since the end of the San Jose and until the Hawk’s loss in Game 3 is merely an NHL take on a Chicago Cubs tradition. A W (win) flag for the Chicago Black Hawks.

There were a post or two I hoped to be up by today or in the next few days, but I can’t save them to even publish later until Blogger is back up to speed.

I especially want to talk about the Black Hawk’s victory over the Philadelphia Flyers in Chicago last night to come within one game of winning the Stanley Cup. Expect to see highlights of the last three games here!

In fact I think that’ll be the first post here!

Here’s the description:

General Motors CEO Ed Whitacre has bragged in TV commercials and newspaper columns that GM has paid back its bailout “in full and ahead of schedule.”

As with the Pontiac Aztek, an ugly exterior masks an ever darker problem: Whitacre is being fanciful to the point of deceit. GM received $50 billion in TARP funds (never mind that TARP was only supposed to cover financial institutions). About $7 billion of that came in the form of a straight-up, low-interest loan. And about $13 billion came in the form of an escrow account.

So how has GM, which lost $38 billion in 2007 even as it sold 9.4 million cars, paid back its debt? It took money from the escrow account to pay back the $6.7 billion loan.

Do you remember when you were a kid and your parents gave you $20 to buy them a Christmas present? You bought them something worth $3 and pocketed the rest? That’s what GM has just done.

Oh, and do you remember when you hit your parents up for college? GM has applied for a $10 billion, low-interest loan from the government to modernize its plants so its cars will meet new federal mileage standards.

If you think all this constitutes paying back their debt in full and ahead of schedule, you might want to check out the new line of GM cars. And hope that the company’s safety engineers are better at math than their CEO.

I would very much consider this good news. I’m sure many would use this to say that this only is going to justify future bailouts of failing businesses. Well I would be concerned about that for certain!

General Motors Co. has repaid $8.1 billion in loans it got from the U.S. and Canadian governments, a move its CEO says is a sign automaker is on the road to recovery.

CEO Ed Whitacre announced the repayments Wednesday at GM’s Fairfax Assembly Plant in Kansas City, Kan., where he said GM is investing $257 million in that factory and the Detroit-Hamtramck plant. This afternoon, he flies to Washington to meet with top lawmakers.

The White House pointed to GM’s repayment of the loan and Chrysler LLC’s posting of an operating profit in the first quarter of 2010 as concrete signs that the bailout of the U.S. automakers was working.

Get this!

GM got a total of $52 billion from the U.S. government and $9.5 billion from the Canadian and Ontario governments as it went through bankruptcy protection last year. At first the entire amount of U.S. aid was considered a loan as the government tried to keep GM from going under and pulling the fragile economy into a depression.

But during bankruptcy, the U.S. government reduced the loan portion to $6.7 billion and converted the rest to company stock, while the Canadian governments held $1.4 billion in loans. Those loans were repaid Tuesday, five years ahead of schedule.

The automaker hopes to repay the remaining $45.3 billion to the U.S. government and $8.1 billion to Canada via a public stock offering, perhaps later this year. The U.S. government now owns 61 percent of the company and Canada owns roughly 12 percent.

So GM also got money from Canadian taxpayers as well?

You know the sooner GM is able to pay off it’s gov’t loans the better. No one was happy about these bailouts and gov’t outright owning a business. I just hope that in the future we don’t repeat this example.

BTW, while looking for stories on this I found this headline “GM Pays Back TARP, But Unions May Need More” from FOX Business. I almost used this article, however, many may view FOX as having their own bias.

Within five years, they will have to pay $15.7 billion into the carmakers’ union pensions to comply with federal funding requirements, ($12.3 billion to GM’s pensions, $3.4 billion to Chrysler’s plans), according to the GAO report.

The problem with the automakers that are struggling right now many are saying rest with the unions they have to work with.

BTW, I would really like to buy that new Cadillac SRV in a newly privatized GM. Just saw that vehicle today although not the whole vehicle. It’s really a nicely designed vehicle unlike it’s predecessor.

ALSO, when will they bring back either Oldsmobile or Pontiac!

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has warned in a secret three-page memorandum to top White House officials that the United States does not have an effective long-range policy for dealing with Iran’s steady progress toward nuclear capability, according to government officials familiar with the document.

Several officials said the highly classified analysis, written in January to President Obama’s national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, came in the midst of an intensifying effort inside the Pentagon, the White House and the intelligence agencies to develop new options for Mr. Obama. They include a set of military alternatives, still under development, to be considered should diplomacy and sanctions fail to force Iran to change course.

Officials familiar with the memo’s contents would describe only portions dealing with strategy and policy, and not sections that apparently dealt with secret operations against Iran, or how to deal with Persian Gulf allies.

One senior official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the memo, described the document as “a wake-up call.” But White House officials dispute that view, insisting that for 15 months they had been conducting detailed planning for many possible outcomes regarding Iran’s nuclear program.

In an interview on Friday, General Jones declined to speak about the memorandum. But he said: “On Iran, we are doing what we said we were going to do. The fact that we don’t announce publicly our entire strategy for the world to see doesn’t mean we don’t have a strategy that anticipates the full range of contingencies — we do.”

But in his memo, Mr. Gates wrote of a variety of concerns, including the absence of an effective strategy should Iran choose the course that many government and outside analysts consider likely: Iran could assemble all the major parts it needs for a nuclear weapon — fuel, designs and detonators — but stop just short of assembling a fully operational weapon.