Aids Awareness Day: Silence is Death
Today is Aids Awareness Day. The organizations and people who have tirelessly worked to rid the world of this terrible plague is expected to announce that the scourge of Aids has peaked and that it is believed that in the struggle to manage, control and eradicate Aids the tide has turned. Some believe that the total eradication of Aids is within reach and could someday soon become a reality.
I remember when the Aids virus came to the attention of the general public. It was first called “the gay influenza” because of the preponderance of infection within the gay community. I also recall a news broadcast that identified the first Aids carrier into the United States. If I remember correctly it was reported that a Scandinavian Air steward had the unfortunate distinction of being carrier 001. A convenient scapegoat that supported the narrative of the disease as transmitted and carried by promiscuous gay lifestyles.
As the plague of Aids grew it devastated the gay community. Young beautiful men in the prime of their lives withered away to become living cadavers as the HIV virus ravaged their bodies. Caregivers and doctors fought to combat the disease but its cause and cure remained a mysterious enigma that baffled and perplexed researchers as the toll of is devastation mounted.
Friends, lovers and families were ripped apart by death and ignorance. Bigoted intolerant beliefs were voiced that the disease was God’s retribution visited upon Sodomites for their sinful behaviors. The vibrant gay communities of Castro and Christopher Street were besieged within by the virus and from the outside by the rising vitriol and condemnation of the gay lifestyles. The growing virulence of anti-gay bigotry paralleled the rising death toll of Aids victims. The mysterious terror of the disease permitted public opinion to elevate the sin of homosexuality from a “misdemeanor nuisance crime” to a capitol offense. Many believed the ghettoization of the gay communities was a rational response to quarantining Aids. Bigots preached that God’s Divine Retribution would snuff out Aids as the last gay man succumbed to the virus confined within the walls of their profane ghetto.
Medical science, social service and compassionate empathy of caregivers turned the tide and public perception concerning the nature, causes and treatment for Aids. Today we understand that this disease is not a gay affliction but is a virus which attacks the body’s immune system. HIV can be passed on through infected bodily fluids, most commonly via sex without a condom or by sharing infected needles, syringes or other injecting drug equipment. Aids afflicts people of all social classes, color, nationality and is particularly prevalent in the Third World where unprotected sex is common.
Aids Awareness Day brings us full circle about the need to be vigilant in seeking understanding and practicing intentional compassion. Our ignorance and our willingness to blame a segment of society as the cause and curse of Aids made us all complicit in the victimization of sufferers. It also make us defacto carriers of the disease by enabling the politics of intolerance and exclusion by erecting a wall of silence around the steeples of bigotry. Silence is death. May our voices and prayers always be heard in affirmation of all life.
Selah
Chris Cristie’s NJ Energy Plan: Is A Small Business Job Killer that Favors Big Fossil Fuel Energy Interests
Risk Rap returns from its hiatus with a guest blogger Meaghan McCallum. This is a testimony opposing the Governor Christie’s administration revised 2011 Energy Master Plan.
Thank you for the opportunity to have my voice heard. My Name is Meaghan McCallum. I’ve received my undergraduate degree from Montclair State University, educated in the state public school system, and work in the education field in New Jersey. I am a New Jersey citizen concerned for the future. With this proposed reduction of Renewable goals that the revised Energy Master Plan establishes, the people of our great state are in jeopardy. We need to be setting goals that propel us toward a cleaner, brighter future. We need to take action now in order to build NJ’s economy, quality of life and support our local environment. Lowering the renewable energy goal to 22.5% and defunding Renewable Energy programs that provide assistance to the public and private sectors to engage with Fossil Fuel industry is not only archaic but criminal.
In 2020, when the lack of vision expressed in Governor Chris Christie’s proposed 2011 revised EMP becomes reality, all of us will have to face our children and try to explain the unexplainable. Why their rivers are polluted to the point of no recognition, why the air is choked and more hazardous than ever, and why more people, everywhere, are struggling to pay their power bills and simply put food on the table. Why, we will be living in a dirty state tomorrow when solar and wind are here now and able to rebuild our infrastructure today.
For example, solar energy provides peak power during peak energy hours, which means relief when the grid is most stressed. Ultimately, the use of solar energy as a primary source of power in state, local, public and private industry will decrease demand and ultimately save the citizen’s power costs dollars on the dollar. Compared with a cheap and easy “fix”, Fossil Fuels will deteriorate the state infrastructure and even further destroy the local economy, by outsourcing fuel contracts and employment to Pennsylvania, the US Midwest, and stimulating foreign markets.
So I ask; are we going to address our children a decade from today in a classroom powered by Renewable, clean energy, in a state where a cleaner, smarter, more efficient future exists? Because lowering the bar on the Renewable Energy goal to the lowest possible percentage allowed by NJ law and refuting financial subsidiaries for Renewable Energies for a focus on dirty fuel in the name of profits and convenience is not cost effective and will quickly deplete our, the citizens, quality of life and the environment that we depend on.
The 2008 EMP goal to generate 30% of NJ’s total power needs from Renewable Energy sources is responsible for the economic growth and clean energy job creation in the state. Key legislation was passed and generated over 2,000 clean energy businesses and over 25,000 clean industries employees in New Jersey. The revised proposal will lower the goal to 22.5% and discourage investors, renewable energy companies and vital renewable energy technology from continued growth in New Jersey. The revised plan relies on outdated and inflated numbers, and simply disregards proven science and the NJ public’s well-being. This plan impacts us and it is imperative to demand that the current administration change priorities and address inequities.
Please visit www.state.nj.us/emp/ for information about the EMP and submit testimony to the Board of Public Utilities by August 11 to oppose this dirty energy plan.
UPCOMING HEARINGS:
Trenton — Wednesday, August 3rd:
State House Annex
Committee Room 11
125 West State Street
Trenton, NJ Get a map!
1PM – 5PM
Pomona — Thursday, August 11th
Richard Stockton College of New Jersey
Campus Center
Vera King Farris Drive
Pomona, NJ Get a map!
1PM – 5PM
CONTACT:
Beyond Coal Campaign
Sierra Club
Risk: environment, economy, jobs, small business
Then They Came For Me
The ones shouting loudest with greatest vehemency for liberty are ironically the proponents of its gravest threat. Rep. Peter King, the Chair of the House Homeland Security Committee has scheduled hearings on the radicalization of the US Muslim community and its threat to the homeland. Mr. King said the hearings are the result of a growing concern by law enforcement officials that the US Muslim community has not been cooperative in rooting out the home grown terrorists multiplying within their midst. In service to liberty’s highest ideals, the ever vigilant Mr. King looks to initiate an assault on the civil liberties of our brother and sister Muslim citizens.
A group calling themselves The Liberty Alliance are in full support of Mr. King’s ethnic profiling and the grave threat it poses to the civil liberties of all citizens. Mr. King’s committee hearings will be a resplendent grand standing platform for him to play to the basest prejudices of his constituency and stoke up the fear of American angst already overloaded with a symphony of terrors. Muslims, like the LGBT community and illegal aliens, labor unions and teachers make convenient scapegoats for the myriad problems confronting the nation. Mr. King and The Liberty Alliance would like us to believe that labor unions have plundered the wealth of the nation. Teachers have destroyed the schools. The poor have bankrupted our federal treasury while the LGBT and foreigners continue to undermine the true American Judeo-Christian culture by defiling the purity of its heritage.
Its a grand irony to witness self styled libertarians mobilized into action to attack civil liberties and right to privacy of their fellow citizens. They clamor for disclosure and transparency with the diabolical refrain, “if they have nothing to hide, they have nothing to be afraid of.” Such seditious thinking undermines the spirit of liberty. It is a direct assault on a society governed by laws and its citizens shielded by due process and protected by a Bill of Rights. These democratic virtues once distinguished America as the shinning city on a hill. Now The Liberty Alliance denigrates it with an Orwellian platitude believing civil rights, privacy and due process are covers for terrorist cells that must be dispensed with at all costs.
It is not difficult to divine that Peter King’s committee will encourage a number of informants to come forward to meet a specified quota for stool pigeonry. A legion of rats and informants are the armies of despots not agents of democracies. But these are the same Real American Freedom Fighters who led the charge against American Muslim’s right to build a mosque in the shadow of Ground Zero. Ask them about religious tolerance and the freedom to worship as guaranteed in the US Constitution and they’ll concede the point with the promise to serve Halal meals and build a mosque with extra capacity at Gitmo.
The ones shouting the loudest for liberty do indeed pose the greatest threat to it. The libertarians who opened the door to 527 llcs have turned Lady Liberty into a common prostitute hiring her out to the highest bidder. The zealots waving the Constitution with the fervor of a Red Book sprouting Maoist, forms a reactionary vanguard eager to deny the very same sacred civil liberties and rights to fellow citizens in their deranged constitutional republic of unfree and unequal citizens.
Despots and non-democratic societies do not offer or practice universal rights, freedoms and liberties for all its citizens. Pitting one group against another, scape goating, delineating special classes of people or dual classes of citizenship are hallmarks of repressive societies. Mr. King’s committee hearing of racial and ethnic profiling divides citizens and denies the constitutional rights and liberties for Muslims. This is apartheid. Gov. Walker’s and Chris Christie’s attack on labor unions and teachers as the source of our economic debasement obfuscates systemic inequities and masks the identities of the perpetrators who plundered the wealth of this nation. The economic elites are trying to beat the rap by forcing their public elected shills to make the working people of America pay the price for their own victimization.
Peter King’s sons of liberty are complicit agents of enslavement to the power and privilege of corporate oligarchs; hiding behind the billowing smoke of America’s civic strife and brewing internecine struggle. They are gravely mistaken in believing that they are safely ensconced behind the golden walls of their enclaves the piles of cash allowed them to build to protect themselves from the seething masses. Mubarak nor Gaddafi’s moat protected strongholds could protect them from the volatile tide of history.
Peter King opening up hearings on radical Islam and its role in creating home grown terrorism is of course just in time for the 2012 election. It will provide some red meat for rabid Teabaggers screaming for blood. Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin and other righteous Falangist Crusaders can use the grist of Peter King’s xenophobic fear mill to paint our Mau Mau loving President and any progressive opponent a Fifth Columnist for the new Caliphate they are working to establish in the last stand of the land of the free and the home of the brave.
You Tube Video: James Cagney, Yankee Doodle Dandy
Risk: tolerance, politics, civil liberties, Bill of Rights
Economic Recovery Gathers Steam
Private-sector employment increased by 217,000 from January to February on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the latest ADP National Employment Report released today. The estimated change of employment from December 2010 to January 2011 was revised up to 189,000 from the previously reported increase of 187,000. This month’s ADP National Employment Report suggests continued solid growth of nonfarm private employment early in 2011. The recent pattern of rising employment gains since the middle of last year was reinforced by today’s report, as the average gain from December through February (217,000) is well above the average gain over the prior six months (63,000).
The fears of a jobless recovery may be receding but the US economy has a long way to go before pre-recession employment levels are achieved. As we stated previously the economy needs to create over 200,000 jobs per month for 48 consecutive months to achieve pre-recession employment levels. The six month average of 63,000 is still well below the required rate of job creation for a robust recovery to occur. The Unemployment Rate still exceeds 9%.
The February report is encouraging because it points to an accelerating pace of job creation. The post Christmas season employment surge represents a 30,000 job gain over January’s strong report that triples the six month moving average. The service sector accounted for over 200,000 of the job gains. The manufacturing and goods producing sector combined to create 35,000 jobs. Construction continues to mirror the moribund housing market shedding an additional 9,000 jobs during the month. The construction industry has lost over 2.1 million jobs since its peak in 2008.
The robust recovery in the service sector is welcomed but sustainable economic growth can only be achieved by a robust turn around in the goods producing and manufacturing sectors. Service sector jobs offer lower wages, tend to be highly correlated to retail consumer spending and positions are often transient in nature. Small and Mid-Sized Enterprises (SME) is where the highest concentration of service jobs are created and the employment figures bear that out with SMEs accounting for over 204,000 jobs created during the month of February.
Large businesses added 13,000 jobs during the month of February. The balance sheets of large corporations are strong. The great recession provided large corporates an opportunity to rationalize their business franchise with layoffs, consolidations and prudent cost management. Benign inflation, global presence, outsourcing, low cost of capital and strong equity markets created ideal conditions for profitability and an improved capital structure. The balance sheets of large corporations are flush with $1 trillion in cash and it appears that the large corporates are deploying this capital resource into non-job creating initiatives.
The restructuring of the economy continues. The Federal stimulus program directed massive funds to support fiscally troubled state and local government budgets. The Federal Stimulus Program was a critical factor that help to stabilize local government workforce levels. The expiration of the Federal stimulus program is forcing state and local governments into draconian measures to balance budgets. Government employment levels are being dramatically pared back to maintain fiscal stability. Public service workers unions are under severe pressure to defend employment, compensation and benefits of workers in an increasingly conservative political climate that insists on fiscal conservatism and is highly adverse to any tax increase.
The elimination of government jobs, the expiration of unemployment funds coupled with rising interest rates, energy and commodity prices will drain significant buying power from the economy and create additional headwinds for the recovery.
Macroeconomic Factors
The principal macroeconomic factors confronting the economy are the continued high unemployment rate, weakness in the housing market, tax policy and deepening fiscal crisis of state, local and federal governments. The Tea Party tax rebellion has returned congress to Republican control and will encourage the federal government to pursue fiscally conservative policies that will dramatically cut federal spending and taxes for the small businesses and the middle class. In the short term, spending cuts in federal programs will result in layoffs, and cuts in entitlement programs will remove purchasing power from the demand side of the market. It is believed that the tax cuts to businesses will provide the necessary incentive for SME’s to invest capital surpluses back into the company to stimulate job creation.
The growing uncertainty in the Middle East and North Africa is a significant political risk factor. The expansion of political instability in the Gulf Region particularly Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia; a protracted civil war in Libya or a reignited regional conflict involving Israel would have a dramatic impact on oil markets; sparking a rise in commodity prices and interest rates placing additional stress on economic recovery.
Political uncertainty tends to heighten risk aversion in credit markets. The financial rescue of banks with generous capital infusions and accommodating monetary policies from sovereign governments has buttressed the profitability and capital position of banks. Regulatory uncertainty of Basel III, Dodd-Frank, and the continued rationalization of the commercial banking system and continued concern about the quality of credit portfolios continue to curtail availability of credit for SME lending. Governments are encouraging banks to lend more aggressively but banks continue to exercise extreme caution in making loans to financially stressed and capital starved SMEs.
Highlights of the ADP Report for February include:
Private sector employment increased by 217,000
Employment in the service-providing sector rose 202,000
Employment in the goods-producing sector declined 15,000
Employment in the manufacturing sector declined 20,000
Construction employment declined 9,000
Large businesses with 500 or more workers declined 2,000
Medium-size businesses, defined as those with between 50 and 499 workers increased 24,000
Employment among small-size businesses with fewer than 50 workers, increased 21,000
Overview of Numbers
The 202,000 jobs created by the SME sectors represents over 90% of new job creation. Large businesses comprise approximately 20% of the private sector employment and continues to underperform SMEs in post recession job creation. The strong growth of service sector though welcomed continues to mask the under performance of the manufacturing sector. The 11 million manufacturing jobs comprise approximately 10% of the private sector US workforce. The 20 thousand jobs created during February accounted for 10% of new jobs. Considering the severely distressed condition and capacity utilization of the sector and the favorable conditions for export markets and cost of capital the job growth of the sector appears extremely weak. The US economy is still in search of a driver. The automotive manufacturers have returned to profitability due to global sales in Latin America and China with a large portion of the manufacturing done in local oversea markets.
The stock market continues to perform well. The Fed is optimistic that the QE2 initiative will allay bankers credit risk concerns and ease lending restrictions to SMEs. A projected GDP growth rate of 3% appears to be an achievable goal. The danger of a double dip recession is receding but severe geopolitical risk factors continue to keep the possibility alive.
Interest rates have been at historic lows for two years and will begin to notch upward as central bankers continue to manage growth with a mix of inflation and higher costs of capital. The stability of the euro and the EU’s sovereign debt crisis will remain a concern and put upward pressure on interest rates and the dollar.
As the price of commodities and food spikes higher the potential of civil unrest and political instability in emerging markets of Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America grows. Some even suggest this instability may touch China.
The balance sheets of large corporate entities remain flush with cash. The availability of distressed assets and volatile markets will encourage corporate treasurers to put that capital to work to capitalize on emerging opportunities. The day of the lazy corporate balance sheet is over.
Solutions from Sum2
Credit Redi offers SMEs tools to manage financial health and improve corporate credit rating to attract and minimize the cost of capital. Credit Redi helps SMEs improve credit standing and demonstrate to bankers that you are a good credit risk.
For information on the construction and use of the ADP Report, please visit the methodology section of the ADP National Employment Report website.
You Tube Video: John Handy, Hard Work
Risk: unemployment, recession, recovery, SME, political
Two Americas
Bill Maher recently did a bit on the Eco-friendly packaging of Sun Chips. In its desire to get down with the Go Green marketing trend, Frito-Lay developed a biodegradable bag. It was hoped the new package would alleviate some of the toxic burden traditional polyethylene packaging places on landfills. It was a great idea and a small sign of forward progress in developing environmentally friendly waste management solutions for our conspicuously consumer centric throw away society. Seemed like a good idea until Frito-Lay started to get negative feedback from its customers on its packaging. The crescendo of noise the crackling bags made was too much for the sensitive ears of Sun Chips consumers. In deference to their clients wishes Frito-Lay scrapped the Eco-friendly packaging and returned to the old polyethylene bags.
Its amazing how a small inconvenience compels us to to cede the pursuit of the better path. The paths that affirms our better nature and sustains life is abandoned because it is burdensome or makes too much noise. It pesters our ears, it hectors our comforts. We prefer to down our cholesterol in the silence of compliant bags rather then suffer the annoyance of a deafening crinkle to protect the environment and save the planet. We take the easier path that confirms the adage “have it your way”. In America the personal “my way” is the only way. After all this is America and that is what freedom is all about. My way or the highway. Can I get an Amen?
During the holiday season the big stink was about the Transportation Security Authority (TSA). The news was flush with reports of travelers outraged by how TSA personal were overly intrusive and overstepped the bounds of decency and deportment as they screened exasperated airline passengers trying to board planes. Travelers became angry and ornery complaining about the violation of their person and screamed violent threats at TSA personnel if they “touched their junk”.
I find it a bit curious that the response to this egregious violation of personal liberty fails to call for the repeal of laws that codify the erosion of our freedoms. In its stead we learn states are busy passing privilege and immunity laws that confer special rights to certain classes of citizens. The Arizona Immigration law that was enacted earlier in the year burdens Latinos with proving they belong to be living amongst us. Its a pathway to a softer kinder Apartheid that codifies a bifurcation of citizenship and the value and validity of a persons humanness. In its wake the value of liberty and our humanity both plummet.
The notion of Two Americas is not new. Its just that the glaring injustice threatening our society is becoming too stark to ignore. This pernicious sedition is the gravest threat undermining our democracy. It is a greater threat then any attack Al Qaeda could ever mount on America. In 1962 Michael Harrington wrote “The Other America”. It was instrumental in publicizing the pervasive poverty that existed in America. In response to the growing threat poverty and the cultural and economic fissure it created between the of “haves and have nots,” the Johnson Administration initiated a war on poverty. The Great Society legislation was enacted to insure that all citizens are enfranchised with the vote and that a social safety net would catch any citizen from being swallowed by the great divide. Today such notions are condemned as socialistic and unAmerican.
While the richest 1% of American’s continue to amass great fortunes for themselves gobbling up a disproportionate amount of income the much greater proportion of our countrymen sees its standard of living erode as the Two Americas drift further apart. The well off cash their fat dividend checks from a roaring stock market that has less to do with the economic development of America then the self enrichment of capitalist speculators. The greatest irony is that as they sit atop their piles of cash they remain convinced that their riches confirm the greatness of America and that their wealth is why America remains great.
When President Obama took office the country was in a terrible state. Two wars were raging, unemployment was spiraling upward, foreclosures were throwing millions of Americans out of their homes and an epidemic of small business bankruptcies was a plague ravishing Main Street USA. During times like these you would think patriotic minded citizens would come together to aid the country in its dire hour of need; but the GOP led a virulent opposition whose single goal was Obama’s failure. Their obstructionism added distance to the divide and America suffers for it. The ugliness of the debates concerning Health Care Reform spurred the creation of a political dialog that delegitimatized governing institutions. It made the ability to reach consensus impossible and prompted threats that Second Amendment solutions would be considered to remedy ill considered legislation.
In the aftermath of the Tucson Massacre, we dusted off the old debate about gun control and wheeled it on to center stage again. Many believe that the mentally ill murderer should have not been allowed to purchase a semi-automatic Glock and the 30 round clip that served to enlarge the scope of Jared Loughner’s terrible carnage.
All are thankful for Gabrielle Gifford’s miraculous recovery from her head wound. All hope for a speedy and full recovery of the thirteen wounded and offer condolences to the six citizens whose lives were senselessly ended. But all don’t believe the availability of guns should be restricted. In fact many believe that had more citizens been armed the death toll of innocents would not have been as great because it would have included Jared Loughner before he could finish his grim work. I’m not so sure. I believe it more likely that a widely armed citizenry encourages wanton barbarity then the well considered promotion of dispassionate civic discourse.
Differences of opinion are critical to a healthy society. The ability to have dialog and assimilate differences in a shared consensus in service to country is what makes democracies the best form of government.
If we are a people who prize freedom we cannot be complicit accomplishes in ceding our liberties. We must be vigilant missionaries seeking to enlarge the pallet of liberty for all people. Martin Luther King Jr. said it best, “All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality” Affirming a respect for our shared humanity, equal rights of citizenship and sense of duty to one another in service to our country and democratic way of life is how we breech the walls that divide us and bridge the fissures that separate. These are the characteristics of a great nation and protecting them serves to maintain the greatness of its people. It is how out of many becomes one. It may require that you put up with the annoying noise of a loud obnoxious windbag but the savory delight of the bread of freedom is well worth it.
You Tube Music Video: Max Roach, Abby Lincoln, Freedom Now Suite, We Insist
Risk: democracy, civil liberties, culture, consensus
Credit Starved SMEs
Greenwich Associates highly regarded Market Pulse Study on SME credit availability reports that two-thirds of small businesses and 55% of middle market companies indicate that banks are failing to meet the needs of creditworthy companies. Half of the 221 small businesses participating in the latest Greenwich Market Pulse Study say it is harder to secure credit today than it was at this time last year including roughly 33% of businesses that say it is much harder to obtain loans today.
The Small Business Lending Fund (SBLF) a $30 billion program established by the Treasury Department to encourage Community Banks to step up lending to SMEs is still trying to get some traction in the marketplace. The SBLF injects capital into community banks that demonstrate an active SME lending program will take another quarter to determine its effectiveness.
Community Banks are still transitioning its small business lending focus from an over dependency on real estate development. SMEs seeking loans for capital improvements, fund operations or business expansion must provide lenders some added assurances about the financial health of the business.
SMEs can take steps to improve their credit standing and get approvals from lenders for loans and expansion for credit. SMEs must demonstrate they have an excellent understanding of the condition of their firm’s financial health, what they must do to improve profitability and how they will use the credit extended by lenders to produce an acceptable return.
Credit Redi helps SME’s demonstrate the condition of the firms financial health, the risks and opportunities that SMEs must address to improve the firms financial health and identify the initiatives that need to be funded to achieve desired profitability and growth. These are the keys bankers look for on applications for loans. Being able to demonstrate credit worthiness with an industry standard rating methodology determines weather a lender will grant you a loan, what rates you will pay and how much lending institutions will lend.
Since 2002, Sum2 has been helping SME’s manage risk and seize opportunities to grow and prosper under the most competitive market conditions. Credit Redit is the latest addition to Sum2′s series of SME risk management products.
To determine the condition of your company’s financial health click here: 
Risk: credit, SME, capital allocation, credit rating
Credit Redi Helps Spot Small Business Credit Risk
The recession and credit crunch have shifted financial risk from banks to small and midsized businesses (SME) that often must extend credit to customers to make a sale. When companies extend credit, in effect making unsecured loans, they’re acting like banks but without the credit management tools and experience of a banker.
Credit Redi is designed for small businesses to quickly spot customer credit risk. Small businesses typically don’t have access to information that provides transparency about customer credit worthiness. Credit Redi is a credit risk management tool for small and mid-sized businesses. It only takes one or two bad receivables to damage an SME’s financial health. Market conditions quickly change and its critical to have some type of business insight into the businesses SME’s work with.
Credit Redi is also an excellent tool to determine the financial health of critical suppliers. A key supplier going out of business could have disastrous consequences for SMEs. Credit Redi monitors the financial health of existing suppliers and help managers make wiser choices in supply chain and business partner decisions.
Get Credit Redi here: 
Risk: SME, credit risk, supply chain, partnerships, customers, receivables
Risk Rap: 2010 In Review
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.
Crunchy numbers
About 3 million people visit the Taj Mahal every year. This blog was viewed about 36,000 times in 2010. If it were the Taj Mahal, it would take about 4 days for that many people to see it.
In 2010, there were 56 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 302 posts. There were 62 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 14mb. That’s about 1 pictures per week.
The busiest day of the year was December 20th with 806 views. The most popular post that day was American Evita.
Where did they come from?
The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, linkedin.com, stumbleupon.com, search.aol.com, and ph.yfittopostblog.com.
Some visitors came searching, mostly for sarah palin, sarah palin photos, butterfly effect, ramadan, and cookie jar.
Attractions in 2010
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
American Evita July 2009
Butterfly Effect January 2010
Welcome Ramadan August 2009
Giving Thanks November 2009
Paying The Mentor March 2009
Thanks for supporting Risk Rap.
You Tube Music Video: Jerry Lewis, Typewriter
Risk: communication
010111
friends
splendor
service
abundance
beauty
faith
love
happiness
goodness
fascination
challenge
achievement
creativity
sensuality
peace
May you find some of these and more during 2011
peace and prayers to all the beloved
You Tube Music Video: Crowfoot
Risk: life
Emmanuel: God Is With Us!
Yesterday as I was out with Tritty I met my neighbor on the road walking with his son. My neighbors son moved to Boston and had become a pediatric heart doctor. He was always a very fine boy and he had grown into a very fine young man. He had recently become a father and he asked us to stop by to see him. I asked him what he had named his son. He answered Matthew. It gave me reason to pause because my nephew Matthew passed away seven years ago a few days after Christmas. After a third relapse Matthew succumbed to Leukemia at the tender age of sixteen.
Later that evening my family gathered at Matthew’s home for a wonderful Christmastide celebration. The house was packed with the aunts, uncles and children of four families. The food, drink, music and gifting created a festive air of joy but the mirth of the season is always tempered by Matthews absence and the association of his death with Christmas. This time of year is particularly difficult for Matthew’s father. They were exceptionally close and my brother-in-law carries Matthew’s absence in a somber heart that seems to grow a bit larger this time of year. As the evening passed I related my story about meeting my neighbors son on the road that day and the appearance of Matthew. This news uplifted my brother-in-laws spirit. He smiled and said “thats Matthew letting us know he’s around.” Matthew continues to be a real presence in the lives of those who knew him and loved him. In a most real sense he continues to dwell with us.
Emmanuel, means God is with us. God dwells with us. Many believe this to be patented nonsense. They point to the endless string of calamitous events and abhorrent tragedies that plague humanity. If God was loving why does the Benevolent One allow such misfortune to befall his children? If The Omnipotent One is all powerful why does he not come to their aid? If God is the embodiment of love why does the power of evil and the treachery of man seem to multiply and grow laughing in the face of an impotent God? I must admit as a person of faith it can be difficult to answer these questions. Asked in the spirit of truth they are not easily dismissed. A Pollyannish response is not sufficient to halt the eroding power of pessimism, the ambivalence of fatalism and the cynicism it voraciously breeds.
What is our answer?
We have sifted through the rubble strewn streets of Port-Au-Prince.We have extracted our beloved ones from their prisons of concrete and twisted rebar. We worked until utter exhaustion overcame us. We labored in the fervent hope that our exertions would not be in vain to find and liberate one more soul awaiting deliverance. We administered inoculations to ward off the plague of cholera. The awful stalk of the grim reaper has been arrested. The indiscriminate threshing of souls has abated. The construction of new dwellings arise out of the rubble to house those saved from the prisons of concrete and the sickle of disease.
America’s wars rage on. The conflict has mercifully ended for some combatants. Some will experience the joy of a reunion with families, others will find rest in an eternal heavenly peace. A fragile peace reigns for yet another day on the Korean Peninsula. Dispassionate reason has cooled the temper of belligerence as blessed ones continue to witness for peace to end the abomination of all these unjust wars.
The egregious ecological wound of The Gulf of Mexico is beginning to heal. The good work of vigilant environmental stewards deeply engaged in the work of restoration remain in attentive loving service to our gracious Mother Earth.
The economic distress of the unemployed has been salved with government service and the kindness of family and friends.
The plight of the evicted has been eased. The foreclosures on millions of families has peaked, homes have been opened to those seeking a places to live, shelter workers keep the light of rooms brightly burning so the those in need of a bed may find one.
Sudanese huddling on the windswept desert of the Great Rift Valley, Mexican immigrants crossing hostile borders of the Sonoran desert and the terror stricken LGBT community will come to realize that it will get better. That their situation is not hopeless. The ardor of intolerance will abate and the peace of reconciliation will reign on the throne of understanding and acceptance. All will find sanctuary.
Israeli’s and Arabs with a dogged determination come to the table yet again to talk about the prospects for peace in Palestine.
Missionaries of hope spread the message of peace and reconciliation.
Healers without borders doctor to the distressed.
Carpenters are building hospitable habitats for the homeless.
Teachers are reaching troubled children and adults most needing to hear kind, thoughtful instruction.
Emmanuel! God is with us. Yahweh is forever faithful. The Beneficent One moves across the trouble waters of time to unite Gods Children in a single river of humanity, where justice flows and the Good Shepard finds all lost sheep. Allah softens the hearts of the zealous. God informs a sober reason to the obstinate. The Holy Spirit swaddles all in a blanket of divine love. The Prince of Peace is with us.
As I walked through the doors for Christmastide services I was asked by a church brother if I would sit in with choir. Like the Prophet Samuel I heard the call and answered “here I am.” It was a special unanticipated grace to process into the church on Christmas Eve. The Lord asked me to make a joyful noise and walk with him on this Holy Night. It is a blessing to walk with the Lord as a real presence.
After the nights services as I was leaving the church I witnessed two brethren sitting side by side in the now empty pews. They were father and son. About the time that Matthew died, the boys mother, the mans wife passed away after a heroic fight against cancer. As they sat in the presence of their God, father and son were present for each other. I imagined them also to be in a rapturous communion and loving embrace of their very present mother and beautiful wife.
Emmanuel!
God is with us.
Our expectant hope is realized.
The Word has been made Flesh.
God has broken through.
God remains ever faithful.
God dwells with us.
A good and present helper
guide our hands
open our hearts.
Selah
Christmas 2010
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