words, words, words

From today’s New York Times…

Rescues for Homeowners in Debt Weighed

Prodded in part by some of the nation’s biggest banks, the Bush administration and Congress are considering costly new proposals for the government to rescue hundreds of thousands of homeowners whose mortgages are higher than the value of their houses.

Not since the Depression has a larger share of Americans owed more on their homes than they are worth. With the collapse of the housing boom, nearly 8.8 million homeowners, or 10.3 percent of the total, are underwater.

…

I’ve got a few things to say about this:

Ok, I’ve been saying for YEARS that this is going to be bad. (Not that I’m such a megalomaniac as to think that it really matters, but I’m not an economist, and even I could see this coming.) Basically, there were a lot of greedy people making really ridiculous fiduciary decisions based upon what their neighbors earned from selling their condos. This, however, is an even worse turn of events. This is basically turning into the New New Deal.
Granted the administration have a little bit of wiggle room left to play with because of the stupid tax cuts for the filthy rich, but pouring more cash onto the real estate fire is not going to help.

The fact remains, there needs to be an evolution in the way the banks are monitored to keep regulate them to prevent them from having to be bailed out. (I especially love the mortgages that increase as you pay them off. WTF?!?) Perhaps, rewarding prudent money managers instead of egregious risk-taking. Minsky has some interesting points on this.

One brilliant professor at University of Florida once said, “If I lend you a thousand dollars and you can’t pay me back you’ve got a problem. If I lend you a billion dollars and you can’t pay me back, I’ve got a problem.”

Who is going to be rescued? Banks or homeowners? If people start defaulting on their mortgages… well housing prices will fall and then the MARKET and that good old invisible hand will readjust.

Where is Jeffrey Sachs? Where is the Shock Therapy?

It amaze me how we can talk out of both sides of our mouths about this. Including supporting structural readjustment overseas, but if there is a sneeze in the markets in the US the government bends over backwards to say ‘Gesundheit’.

This bailout will not work. It is, to misuse a cliche, like shutting the barn door after all the bad loans have been made.

Or maybe I should just stop flapping my lips, and watch the Dollar Lose value against the Brazilian Real and then go back and buy California.
U.S. Dollar to Brazilian Real Exchange Rate

I had a brief period of time off from training due to lingering injuries.  But now I am back… inching slowly onto the tatame.

This is classic, obviously the Google London headquarters was not consulted on this one.

As more publishers are being asked to complete the phone verification process, we’ve received a number of puzzled emails from our international community asking about the prompt to ‘press the pound key’. To clarify, the ‘pound key’ refers to the ‘#’ symbol (also known as the hash key), and not the ‘£’ symbol. The pound/hash key can typically be found below the ‘9′ key.

We’re working on perfecting our non-US English, and we apologise for any confusion caused

From here: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2008/02/in-for-penny-in-for-pound-key.html

This also falls under the category of the ultimate support call: “I can’t find the ‘any’ key.”

I just finished reading this essay, “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell. It is pretty graphic, but he makes some interesting points about colonialism.

Radio Lab, which is my favorite podcast, is coming back online for the next season soon.

I really enjoy it, it makes you think about stuff.

*Sniff. *

I read “The Secret Agent”, by Joseph Conrad, while on my summer vacation, and wrote a bit about it in a review on my site.  If you’re into that sort of thing…

I’ve give myself with this incredibly daunting task of trying to sum up a three-week summer vacation in a couple of paragraphs. And this was a trip in Brazil, which is a huge country with a lot of stuff to do. And each part is very different.

We started in Manaus, in the state of Amazonas. This part I felt like I had a bit of a point of reference. It is sort of like the Everglades, but without the Army Corps of Engineers. Oh and it is huge.

It was a river system that used to run to the Pacific until the Andes rose up, making it the world’s biggest ditch. It now slowly flowing to the Atlantic. The river only drops 180 feet over the 1,262 miles from Iquitos to Manaus. So it is pretty flat territory.

We spent about a week in the forest near Manaus which was great. We saw a bunch of sloths, monkeys an otter, and slept in the jungle. Fished for piranhas, and saw pink dolphins. This was near where the Rio Negro and Amazon meet in a swirly black and white pattern that you see recreated as metaphor all over Brazil.

Then we went to the dunes at Sao Luis, and the beach and Olinda for Carnaval. Oh and I got to surf some little tiny waves in Porto de Galinhas in Pernambuco.

Well, let’s say it was a great trip and an experience of a lifetime and we have lots of photos if you ever want a slide show.

I kept some notes while we were traveling, if there is anything legible maybe I’ll copy it.