Getting madder about the "boring" financial crisis

The more I learn about this crisis and the strategy to fix it the madder I get. The Dow has lost about 26% in a little less than a year, in 1987 the Dow drop about 36% in less than 3 months. Different from what happened before, not as drastic and yet there was no drastic bail out before. Do you remember Reagan trying to force through legislation for billions of dollars in the wake of the 1987 crash. Me neither. Of course I wasn't really paying attention at the time I was 10. Anyway I actually agree with the congress right now in not just passing this stuff blindly. I don't know that this is going to send the right message. It is going to be a real high level bail out where at risk mortgages are purchased from institutions in order to improve their liquidity so that they will feel like giving out more credit. Which when you think about it, is that really a good idea? These institutions are the ones that made the bad decisions to give credit to people who couldn't handle it anyway. It is like giving someone matches and watching them burn down their house and then hurrying up and getting them a new house... on me and you. I mean these people need to learn a lesson and if the federal gov't steps in and saves them then what lesson did they learn. They took really high risk mortgages and thought they could make money on it, and if they would have made money do you think they were going to share the money with us tax paying folk? Heck no! That's their money, but since they made extremely poor decisions, now they are going to show huge losses and it is up to us to bail them out. Well not this time. I say bring on the consequences for everyone, because it is going to happen eventually anyway. The next president is probably going to deal with double digit inflation or at least needs to in order to genuinely turn the economy around. This is sink or swim time. Eventually people have to be responsible for themselves and their decisions. It just isn't right that people try to follow the rules and do the right thing and then end up footing the bill for the people that either can't or don't care to be responsible. The problem still goes back to the banks and part of the answer going forward needs to be stopping where people can get a house with only 5% down. Move it back to 20%. The only thing here is if people wanted to put enough effort into it they could put the 5% down at one bank to get a loan for 20% of the house and then take that money and put in down at another bank. So that is why people can't be allowed to take out house loans for more than a total of 80% of the house. There needs to be transparency so that other banks have easy access to credit records so someone can't back door them and if a bank circumvents the rules then they assume the entire liability and the loans can't be insured. With the 20% minimum PMI is eliminated and the AIG problem goes away. And most of the bad loans will go away because it will be more difficult for people who can't handle to get the initial down payment. Hey I know I benefited from it, but there are just way too many stupid people out there that are screwing it up. This is where we need an actual leader to step in and say we'll take a look at a case by case basis, but make $700 billion available seems like a huge mistake to me, or at least drastic overkill.

Have you seen Stevie?

If you are in the desert in Iraq and you see a taller guy with like a beard and longer hair wondering around going,'I should have played Ronnie Brown, oh why didn't I play Ronnie Brown. I could have won, but instead I lost by 20 points'. That is Stevie, if you could bring him back in and get him some water or something that would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Kirk

HESCAR

Oh also all I got when I gave blood was a Greg Biffle key chain. I know what you're thinking 'but he won the last two races'. So what, he can't win a championship his name isn't Johnson, Edwards or Earnhardt and those are the only guys that HESCAR is going to let win. That is my new name for NASCAR and any reference to NASCAR from here on out will be in the form of HESCAR (Hendrick Earnhardt [or Edwards] Stock Car Auto Racing). Since all HESCAR wants to do is throw fantasy caution flags late in a race so that Jimmy can stay out front or take power away from Toyota, even though it is obvious that they have spent the most time on the new car and have made the most improvements. I will continue to root for Tony Stewart this year, common baby just one more win, and Greg, and the other Gibbs drivers, but that is it. And if HESCAR lets me down, well I could be done watching for good. Then I will focus all of my energy on competitive Cornhole.

Busy Monday

Today was typical, somewhat, of what our days have become. I left work a little early, about 4:00 PM (only 9 hours today) to go give blood and then go get Sampson at Football practice. In the mean time Sophie took Sampson to school picked him up and took Peach to "butterfly" school. Got home about 7:30 ate, got Sampson his bath, watched some TV and blogged a little bit. Sampson has his first game on Saturday, so I have to get some stuff done this week during the week so I can film the game on Saturday. Well I gotta watch Heroes.

Fantasy Football Week 2

Well Stevie took a butt whooping, but he could have won, Hah Hah Hah. It turns out that Ronnie Brown had one of the best days in Fantasy history, over 40 points by himself and Stevie had him on the bench. This is so funny. So he he ended up losing by 20. Ha ha ha.

And in baseball the Ninja Frogs are back to within 6 points or so of the baseball lead. Alas I'm down to my final 4 days at 3rd base and utility with about 7 games left. It is probably too much to overcome and Stevie will win the baseball prize. But we'll always have football. The day when Stevie took the big defeat.

Fantasy Update - the last week

I made a bunch of crazy moves in Stevie's other leagues because all of the pitching was used up. I got about two more tricks to try, but I think a couple of the leagues are out of reach. The Ninja Frogs are in second, 6.5 points out of first. Stevie is out of moves and feeling the pressure. I would have had a decent chance to catch him I think, but Figgans and Upton have been hurt for the last week. On the Football front the Dream Wreckers are in second, but are 1-0 and face a weak team in week two. It is actually Stevie's team and their name is 'Mom's 2nd fav son'. He did change it to 'Mom's fav son' but that isn't how it was set up. Either way he's going down.

Sampson's home remedies

Got an itchy butt, try tooth paste. This is a good reason to learn to read. Sampson finished his bath and I let him dry off, well he decided he wanted to do some self medicating, but instead of grabbing the A&D ointment he grabbed Sophie's tooth paste. Sophie noticed that the cap was off and the tube was squeezed into a funny shape later that night. She asked him what happened and he confessed putting the medicine on. Needless to say the tube was thrown in the trash, also his butt didn't feel any better, but it was minty fresh.

The "boring" financial crisis

This week the federal government bailed out some financial institutions. First it started with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which where already tied in with the government so no big deal, other than the complete lack of leadership and control exhibited by those companies. Lehman Brothers then went bankrupt, but the gov't didn't do anything then AIG went down and the gov't stepped in and bailed 'em out with tax payer money. So where did the problem start. I think if you back to 9/11, we lost 210 floors of business and over 3,000 hard working intelligent people directly tied to financial institutions. This wasn't the problem though the answer to the attack was the problem. Right after the attack the fed lowered the interest rate. Seems like a harmless move, but then President Bush wanted to make the attack on terrorism more personal so to speak. And what says freedom like owning your own house. So while the gov't made a move to make it easier to get a house. Well actually they made it easier to get your hands on money that you could use to buy a house. Banks started handing out money with little to no down payments now, (this is how the Helfen's came into home ownership with a 80/15/5 piggyback loan done avoid PMI). But I think the rush to get people into houses without having to have down payments and good credit actually lead to more problems than solutions. Before people wouldn't even think of getting a house without 20% to put down and banks wouldn't even consider a loan. I have heard many talk about waiting 10 years or long to scratch and save enough to get a house and now that was wiped out. It actually happened before 9/11, because we got our house in August, but I think the flood gates really opened after that and people where willing to take on massive amounts of debt in order to live in the 'now'. Unfortunately, 'now' is over and people are paying tomorrow prices for stuff they got yesterday (that may not make any sense, but it sure is fun to say). Anyway when the gates where opened the restrictions were lowered and all kinds of people could now get homes. Even people that had bad credit and unstable jobs. Good for them, bad for the banks. There is a reason some people are called 'high risk' and with the low interest rates even when the banks tacked on a extra percent or two it was still worth the risk. The problem is when the defaulted instead of default on 80% or less of the house now, they were defaulting on 95%, which is essentially an extra 15% the banks had to eat. I believe there was a lot of corruption on wall street and now the risk is being assumed by the tax payers which isn't really right, but I think we have back ourselves into such a corner that it has to be done. It really isn't fair when someone plays by the rules and tries to take care of their bills and then has to bail out people that have no business being allowed to get their hands on that much credit. The thing to do now is kind of roll back the legislation or rules that made it super easy to get housing credit, 20% down no exceptions, unless you've already owned a home or something, and keep the interest up. 1980 inflation is coming.... Also I think the crisis is closer to the collapse of 1987 or the economics of the late 70's. I don't think it is like the great depression the unemployment was in the 30% range and we are around 6%, plus wall street rebounded this week. So the dynamic are different here. Whoever inherits the white house likely will get a recession, funny how that happens ever 8 years.

Random Thought #7

A wise man will admit that he knows nothing.

The "Experiment" at 6 weeks

I still have some pain in the ankle especially like the last 4 or 5 days. I finally mowed yesterday. I was really lucky/blessed that I didn't have to mow for 6 weeks at the end of summer.

Fantasy Update

The new obsession continues to grow. We drafted our fantasy football teams on Saturday, and my team looks pretty decent. I had to draft in the middle of the rounds and I didn't care for that very much. Other than that it was pretty neat. Well see how I do, scoring starts next week.

On the baseball front the Ninja Frogs have climbed all the way to second and remain about 4 to 6 points out of 1st. I am completely out of moves and 1st place Stevie is down to his last move. His best player got hurt last week too. It could get close down the stretch, but Randy Johnson missed a start today and I could see the wheels coming off the pitching bus late here in the season. Just hold together a little longer... please.

Big Week

Sophie and I have a big week this week. Peach starts "butterfly" school, or dancing school as it is called in some circles, and Sampson starts flag football. It should be fun, but I have a feeling it is going to be busy, very busy. The blog may not get an update for a while. Just to fore warn.

Bad Weekend for Sports

First the OU debacle, then the Browns lose their opener in spectacular fashion to the Dallas Simpsons, the P-towners won, and Tony Stewart finished 2nd to Jimmy. He could have wrecked out and still made the chase, so finishing second was pointless. Every once in awhile a good sports weekend happens, but I think it is really hard for that to happen for me because of the teams I root for. It does make those good weekends extra special though. There's always next weekend.

Buying Palin

Right now Palin is still looking like a really good as a VP pick. She passed her first test in delivering a pretty awesome speech at the convention. And afterward depending on what pole you look at the candidates are pretty much even. What I liked about the speech is that she really came after the democrats and put her experience of being a governor up against the experience of her and McCain's opponents. She also took shots at the media who are challenging her ability to be VP and a Mom, but would never dare ask a man if he thought he could be a good Dad and also be VP. Kind of double standard. I loved how she was saying all this stuff and CBS and NBC and CNN had to broadcast it. That was great. I have looked at some of the differences between Ferraro and Palin and so far it looks like Ferraro was a representative only for about 6 years, before becoming the VP candidate. Right after the nomination Mondale and Ferraro pulled even with Reagan, but it was pretty steady downhill until the election. The press or the Republicans locked on to some shady dealings that she had done to finance her initial run for congress. What came out of it is that her husband wouldn't release his tax returns until it was too late, and it ended up being a good tactic because finances are fairly gender neutral. They ended up losing in every state except for Mondale's Minnesota.

The next tests that Palin has to pass is some type of interview with a major media network, and the VP debate. She also has to keep from dropping the ball by making some YouTube statement or having something come out. So far the best the media can muster is that her 17 year old daughter is pregnant. That could actually back fire if they try to villainize (I may have made this word up) her for being a supportive Mom and trying to help her daughter do the right thing. Don't forget these people are from Alaska and it gets cold up there. I think the state motto is "Alaska, too cold to pull out". They really should look at changing that.

OU Almost makes History

It would have been great to see OU beat OSu on Saturday, but the officiating or lack there of, finally caught up to the Bobcats as they fell 26-14. OU was up 14-12 going into the fourth qtr, but an untimely fumble on a punt gave the ball away on Ohio's 30 yard line. The ensuing drive saw the suckeyes pass the ball inside the 10, but it looked like a hold as one of the Bobcat lineman was tackled to the ground. No call. OSwho goes on to score. It was Ohio fault though, the only two touchdown drives the other team had where because the defense was on the field in back-to-back possessions. First they recovered the fumble in the end zone, and then on the botched punt. The last touchdown resulted from a punt return from the other team, in which in looked like there was a pretty blatant block in the back. No Call. Even the coach of the other team said in the press conference after the game that it looked like they got away with a block in the back. Fantastic. I hope they lose by about 40 next week. I blame the loss squarely on Hans, who was watching the game, but then "had" to go be an usher in a wedding. People need to work on their priorities. Also the next time the teams play, lets do it in Athens. Just for fun, see if our referees can do any better. Sophie has stated that due to the arrogance of the OSwho fans (and I would rate the percent at about 99.9% that have no humility and make the game completely unenjoyable) and the terrible refereeing she would root for their opponents exclusively through the end of the season including a Michigan team that earlier she had refused to support.

Presidential Election '08

I haven't talked about this in a while because I really felt their wasn't much to say until the candidates made their V.P. picks, and boy was I right. By now everyone has heard that McCain has picked Sarah Palin of Alaska to be his V.P. and at first I was like, "how dumb, all he had to do was pick Romney or even Pawlenty and just run the ball into the end zone". Even Sophie had the same sentiment when I first talked to her. But then a funny thing happened when I made Sophie sit down and watch Hannity and Combs and CNN tonight, all they did was talk about Palin. Obama closed the Democratic Convention last night with a rousing speech on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream speech", and like the guy or hate the guy you have to admit it was an historic night. He was the first minority candidate to ever except a major party nomination. I thought the content of the speech was lack luster and filled with lofty goals that will never be attained, but given the opportunity I definitely would have tried to get in to see history in the making. What John McCain did today though turned out to be brilliant. After 38 million people watched the speech last night all the news networks were talking about McCain and Palin. If McCain had picked Romney there would have been about 10 minutes of coverage, but it has been a non-stop barrage since the announcement. And now no one is discussing the Obama speech and moment from last night. So after watching coverage on the first day and after knocking Obama from the spotlight, I have to give John McCain an A+ on the first day for his selection for V.P., which was historic in its own right. Amazing, that is all I can say right now. I didn't think it was smart at first, and it could very well turn out that she can't handle the media spotlight and the whole thing blows up in McCain's face, but after looking at what it did today, it was a great choice. Well talk more about the race after the RNC this week.

Quick pros and cons for the VP's. Biden - energizes the white male demographic that so many people take for granted, lots of political experience (though mostly as a Senator), in-line with current democratic base. cons - he's not Hillary and doesn't guarantee a voter block, he doesn't put any major battle ground states in place, and no real executive experience.
Palin - energizes the female base of the Republicans and non committed conservatives (Sophie is even getting excited, she said if I didn't vote for McCain/Palin I was sexist. Note: Palin did finish second in the Miss Alaska beauty pageant, not sure what year.), she's a mom, has executive experience in the largest land mass state in the U.S., has a son in the service. cons - younger than Obama and has less experience in formal gov't at state/federal level (although Obama has spent the last two years running for president), unknown candidate who hasn't been put under the media microscope, little to none foreign policy experience, no major battle ground states put in play.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I am going to find out what the major differences are between this election and the one in 1984 when Geraldine Ferraro was the first ever female V.P. candidate. I know they got crushed in a landslide against Reagan, but that was when Reagan was up for re-election, this time there is no incumbent.

The "Experiment" at 3 weeks

The ankle is pretty much back to normal size. I have to really be careful going up and down the steps because it is still pretty weak. It was good enough to help re-bag the VBC today though. I can walk normally on flat ground going in a straight line, but the up and down gets me a little. It is real sore in the morning and loosens up in about an hour. Hopefully it feels better by the middle of the week so I can get some outside stuff done. We have been very fortunate without having rain for 2 weeks, so I haven't had to mow. But it looks like we are going to get a little rain in the next week, so I need to be able to mow. Unless someone can hurry up and invent one of those room bot type sweepers that can mow, only that could get a little messy what with a 6 hp bladed mower just going on a random path of destruction. Yeah, maybe that isn't a good idea yet, but I bet it would get the kids to get all there stuff out of the yard.

The last Fantasy Move

Well I've made my last fantasy move for the year. Pay attention this just may be a trivia question someday. I picked up Dave Bush for Fransisco Cordero. I've conceded that Stevie is going to catch me and pass me for saves, so I'm trying to make up as much ground as I can in Wins, Era, and Whip. Cordero has been terrible for the last month, and wasn't really contributing any saves lately anyway. I can still move Wagner off the DL if I need to, but I'll save that move for as long as I can. I did manage to make it into 3rd place today. We'll see how long that last or if I can move into first....

Random Thought #6

Hypochondriacs make me sick. Literally, I think I'm allergic

The "Experiment" at 2 Weeks

The ankle is finally good enough I can walk on it. I started walking on it Thursday, and I walk with a pretty nice limp right now. I'm hoping to take it easy here the next two days and by Monday it will hopefully be in good enough shape that I don't have to take crutches to work. I can still get around faster with the crutches than without. The swelling is almost gone, and now the limitation is mostly on range of movement. I figure once the ankle gets limbered up I be fine.