Sunday, October 05, 2008
Lions, Tigers and Bears
Random thought: one does not need to enter the lion's cage to be destroyed by it. This is a spiritual thought.
Saturday, October 04, 2008
The Economy Bailout and the Common Flu: a Rant
Perhaps it's merely temporal juxtaposition, but I see a similarity between me typing in my sickbed, thankful that my fever finally broke, and the current "Economic Crisis" and resulting government bailout (think-- you're family's tax money being paid to wealthy corporations who invested poorly) that occurred this week.
Working as a high school teacher I am continually exposed to students, gregarious creatures with tendencies for face to face interactions, phone-texting not included. They come to my classroom, a new batch of 20 every hour or so and we breathe each other's air. Perhaps more relevant is the scenario when a sickly student returns to school and ends up needing tutoring or making up a lab after school-- this 1:1 interaction dooms me to eventual infection, now only if my immune system can withstand it. Only, I'm not sleeping well, not eating well, and the marriage is on the rocks this week. Not good timing. So the other day I wake up all achy with no energy... happy day, a virus has invaded my defenses and I'm trashed!
In broader news: the Bail-out.
There are several sources that can break down events leading up to this massive, taxpayer-squeezing move by our federal politicians, so I won't bore you with my ineptitude. The commonality woven through each is something like this: local money-lenders gave money to local people to buy homes, people who they knew probably wouldn't pay them back (bad). But they did business on the assumption that SOME of the people WOULD pay them back (good debt), and that houses would increase in value. Then the lenders packaged all the bad debt into this bundle I'll call "Junk". Since it was packaged, it could be sold to someone wanting to take a risk on buying Junk, with the hope that (like the lottery) there might be a big payoff in the end.
Never came. Housing was OVER-valued... They're trashed!
Now the US government, with access to your family's income (tax), is going to come in and buy all this Junk, not because Junk a good investment (stewardship), but because it will make Wall Street and lenders happy (politics) in an election year, regardless of long-term ripples. Which is actually funny, because most public companies' fundamentals are unchanged... they're just cheaper to buy (hint: buy low...now is low). This feels like some big, propped-up madness in trying to avoid the natural consequences of doing bad business, lowering the prices of stocks that are solid investments, and this is because some greedy fund-manager way over-invested in Fannie Mae or Freddy Mac and started a stampede of technical-investing reactionaries, to which our all-knowing Federal politicians are now going to spend our hard-earned, middle-class cash to solve a problem that would eventually run its course, like the flu. But elections are in November. And please don't tell me T-bills are not the same as tax dollars; how does the US gov't get the money to pay it's debts?
In my Comments below, perhaps you could correct my thinking or improve my metaphor, but I see it something like this: I don't get to bed earlier, I skip meals all week long, I expose myself to sick students all week long, meanwhile the home-front is crumbling and end up feeling achy, because I now have the flu. So I call the Mayor who I helped elect, who sends a Life-Flight helicopter to pick me up and take me to Ben Taub, where attending physicians put me through a series of tests, put me on a gourney, place me in a hospital room with the best care, and I feel better in a couple of days... look it worked! Only let's say I'm broke-- now who is going to pay for the helicopter? for the physicians? for the bed space? for the medications? Oh, and I'll need a taxi ride home... I know, I'll make everybody else pay for it... why... it's not a lot of money if you spread it out, right?
Junk!
This smells like the Savings & Loan bail-out, or like Enron, like we keep repeating this laughable routine of paying off greedy multi-millionaires with taxpayer wages, except the only ones laughing (privately, so as not to be rude) are those who are avoiding the consequence of bad business, and the politicians who spend your money to position themselves for re-election (meanwhile extolling how they can relate to the common man--they feel our pain).
Maybe it's just the flu speaking...
Working as a high school teacher I am continually exposed to students, gregarious creatures with tendencies for face to face interactions, phone-texting not included. They come to my classroom, a new batch of 20 every hour or so and we breathe each other's air. Perhaps more relevant is the scenario when a sickly student returns to school and ends up needing tutoring or making up a lab after school-- this 1:1 interaction dooms me to eventual infection, now only if my immune system can withstand it. Only, I'm not sleeping well, not eating well, and the marriage is on the rocks this week. Not good timing. So the other day I wake up all achy with no energy... happy day, a virus has invaded my defenses and I'm trashed!
In broader news: the Bail-out.
There are several sources that can break down events leading up to this massive, taxpayer-squeezing move by our federal politicians, so I won't bore you with my ineptitude. The commonality woven through each is something like this: local money-lenders gave money to local people to buy homes, people who they knew probably wouldn't pay them back (bad). But they did business on the assumption that SOME of the people WOULD pay them back (good debt), and that houses would increase in value. Then the lenders packaged all the bad debt into this bundle I'll call "Junk". Since it was packaged, it could be sold to someone wanting to take a risk on buying Junk, with the hope that (like the lottery) there might be a big payoff in the end.
Never came. Housing was OVER-valued... They're trashed!
Now the US government, with access to your family's income (tax), is going to come in and buy all this Junk, not because Junk a good investment (stewardship), but because it will make Wall Street and lenders happy (politics) in an election year, regardless of long-term ripples. Which is actually funny, because most public companies' fundamentals are unchanged... they're just cheaper to buy (hint: buy low...now is low). This feels like some big, propped-up madness in trying to avoid the natural consequences of doing bad business, lowering the prices of stocks that are solid investments, and this is because some greedy fund-manager way over-invested in Fannie Mae or Freddy Mac and started a stampede of technical-investing reactionaries, to which our all-knowing Federal politicians are now going to spend our hard-earned, middle-class cash to solve a problem that would eventually run its course, like the flu. But elections are in November. And please don't tell me T-bills are not the same as tax dollars; how does the US gov't get the money to pay it's debts?
In my Comments below, perhaps you could correct my thinking or improve my metaphor, but I see it something like this: I don't get to bed earlier, I skip meals all week long, I expose myself to sick students all week long, meanwhile the home-front is crumbling and end up feeling achy, because I now have the flu. So I call the Mayor who I helped elect, who sends a Life-Flight helicopter to pick me up and take me to Ben Taub, where attending physicians put me through a series of tests, put me on a gourney, place me in a hospital room with the best care, and I feel better in a couple of days... look it worked! Only let's say I'm broke-- now who is going to pay for the helicopter? for the physicians? for the bed space? for the medications? Oh, and I'll need a taxi ride home... I know, I'll make everybody else pay for it... why... it's not a lot of money if you spread it out, right?
Junk!
This smells like the Savings & Loan bail-out, or like Enron, like we keep repeating this laughable routine of paying off greedy multi-millionaires with taxpayer wages, except the only ones laughing (privately, so as not to be rude) are those who are avoiding the consequence of bad business, and the politicians who spend your money to position themselves for re-election (meanwhile extolling how they can relate to the common man--they feel our pain).
Maybe it's just the flu speaking...
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