Ross Perot’s Charts

By Tommy Leung on 06/17/2008 in Politics

It looks like Ross Perot is quite concerned with our economic outlook as well. His new site, Perot Charts, provides detailed information about government spending, deficits, and other economic data. There is also a presentation that talks about how we got to our current national debt problem–$9.2 trillion–and makes projections to the future.

I am completely against greater and greater government spending and we certainly need to fix this problem before things get really out of hand. I am certainly glad to see Perot trying to provide information and educate the American people about this issue. We need to start cutting government spending as soon as possible–preferably now–before our debt eats all of us alive. This is obviously why we can’t continue fighting these wars, maintaining bases around the world, provide “universal” health care, or subsidize any industries.

Unless, of course, we are trying to lower our standards of living. In that case, we are doing a damn good job of it.

How I Got Into the Game Industry

By Tommy Leung on 06/14/2008 in Games

Not long ago, I was a starry-eyed kid who wanted to make video games for a living. I grew up with Mario and had every Nintendo home console from the Super NES forward. I was even one of those entrepreneurial types who made fan sites. It started simply with AOL’s free web space and then grew slowly to other free web space sites until finally a domain of its own. That site was known as The N Chamber–guess what the N stood for–and at one point Google had listed us first for the search phrase: “Nintendo dolphin.” Those were certainly good times but unfortunately our web presence was connected with eFront and their scandal brought everything to a fiery collapse.

At this point I was maybe 14 or 15 years old developing websites and offering my “opinion” on the industry news and with game reviews. To think that anyone seriously listened to what I had to say is laughable to me today. But, I was a fan and I loved the industry–if nothing else, I learned a lot about web development and the game industry. After the eFront meltdown, I was still active in the game fan site arena and worked on a few more websites before I finally called it quits. I tried to resurrect The N Chamber on numerous occasions but, it was not the same for a variety reasons including Google no longer listing us in a favorable search position and realizing it was futile trying to compete with the likes of IGN or Gamespot–blogs were not a big thing yet. Nonetheless, I worked on multi-platform gaming websites–GamerPlay/WiredPlay–and although they didn’t get very far, I learned a lot of PHP and MySQL programming as I was bent on creating my own content management system.

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The Campaign for Liberty

By Tommy Leung on 06/12/2008 in Politics

Ron Paul’s presidential campaign has officially come to an end but, the revolution continues. With the $4.7 million dollars that he has leftover from the campaign, Ron Paul has established the Campaign for Liberty. This is the next phase of the movement that Ron Paul has been talking about. The ideas, excitement, and momentum of the presidential campaign will not end with the campaign–the fight to restore the republic is just getting started.

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Miller Coors Merge

By Tommy Leung on 06/06/2008 in Marketing

I’ve made a few reports about the beer industry as I do enjoy drinking that stuff. Today, the Justice Department has approved the merger of SAB Miller and Molson Coors that was announced late last year. This merger will give the new MillerCoors 29% of the market while Anheuser-Busch holds 49%. This merger is expected to reduce costs by $500 million in the first three years which should result in lower prices–good for us.

InBev is reported to be mulling over a hostile takeover of A-B which would result in the foreign ownership of a very American brand. A-B plans to capitalize on the possible confusion that will result from this merger within MillerCoors while trying to fend off the wolves–we’ll see how that goes.

Salerno on Gold Standard

By Tommy Leung on 06/01/2008 in Politics

Joseph Salerno of Pace University explains and discusses the history of the gold standard in the United States on C-Span. I am a marketing major at Pace University and Salerno teaches graduate classes so I have never had the privilege to be in one of his classes. I do believe I’ve seen him on campus. It is always good to see an economics professor of Austrian economics. Salerno does a good job of teaching some economics in this video for those interested.

The Amazon Tax: Bad For Us

By Tommy Leung on 06/01/2008 in Politics

I made a purchase on Amazon about a week ago and while I was checking out, up came this message that told me starting June 1st, 2008, Amazon would have to collect a sales tax for New York State residents. I had heard about this “Amazon Tax” a few weeks prior and was disgusted by it. Amazon has sued New York on the basis that the law is unconstitutional; I am sure glad Amazon is fighting back. All of the articles on this  that I have read mainly discuss the legality of the law and those complexities. I’m going to look at it a little differently. What does this mean for we the people?

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