Friday, September 26, 2008

Palin Interview

Bail Out Bill and Credit Crisis

I've gotten a lot of petitions in my email and complaints from people about Congress writing a "blank check to Wall Street." This just pisses me off because it is so, so wrong. Most of the people sending this are liberals, which is odd because the Democrats are supporting it, it's the Republicans who are giving trouble.

Anyway this is not a check at all, it is the government buying distressed assets from companies that are having liquidity issues. The government may take an equity stake as well. They took 80% of AIG in exchange for a loan at 11.5% interest. If I had the $75 billion to loan them I would have done the same thing. That is a smart move.

The main complaint from these people seems to be that the bill is writing a check to Wall Street and ignoring "Main Street." This pisses me off even more. Who is going to suffer more from not being able to borrow any money - a rich Wall Street executive or the average people who need to buy stuff and run their businesses? If the firm fails, then the executive doesn't have a job, but he likely has the millions of dollars he has saved up. The average person is going to have their deposits insured by the FDIC, but people like me need to borrow money. I had $4,000 just in appliance and car repairs this month alone. If I didn't have a usable credit card with a semi-reasonable interest rate I would still have no car, no heat and no refrigerator.

Another complaint is about how the government is bailing out the lenders and not the borrowers who can't pay their mortgages. I have several problems with this statement. First off is what good is it going to do to help the borrowers if their banks fail? The second is a practical concern, which is that no bank is going to want to foreclose on a property and have the expense of maintaining a property which no one wants to buy? Even if people could get mortgages no one is buying real estate right now. The bank is going to have to pay taxes and maintenance on a home and they are going to lose cash flow.

If you are having problems paying your mortgage for god's sake please contact your bank. The government doesn't need to restructure your loans for you - the banks will do that. They would be stupid not to. Banks lose money every time they foreclose. They keep cash flow and liquid assets if they restructure a loan or provide some sort of relief to the borrower. Is that a difficult choice at all?

The government is not doing this to "bail out Wall Street." They are doing it to grease the wheels of the frozen credit markets to coax people into lending again. Lending is the cornerstone of the entire world economy. Without lending no one has capital to start businesses other than people who are already rich and things fall apart very quickly. Financially speaking, lending is how money is created and is the major financial tool for doing everything.

If the markets continue to stay frozen the banks are going to continue dropping off like flies, collapsing under the weight of their illiquid assets and their bad loans. Forget another Great Depression, this would be a complete collapse of the entire global economy.

The Federal Banks have already loosened the money supply and injected as much capital as they can and its not enough. Things are just that bad. The government needs to step in and do something or we are going back to a barter economy pretty soon. Anyway, the government is going to hold on to the assets they buy and eventually resell, likely at a profit. That's a smart move for anyone.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Ben & Jerry's with Breast Milk

PETA, a pet cause of mine, has sent a letter to Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream suggesting that they switch from cow milk to people milk. Apparently the idea was come up with by a Swiss guy, which makes sense because the Swiss consume a LOT of dairy and they are also extraordinarily smart and forward thinking.

Monday, September 22, 2008

No More I-Banks?

I woke up this morning to an one sentence email saying that the Fed had converted Goldman and Morgan Stanley to bank holding companies. I get in to work and read the artcle. Holy crap. I'm still a bit groggy after a long and tiring weekend, so am I reading the correctly? Are there no more i-banks?

Glass-Steagall was dismantled or repealed by Clinton, is this a small reinstation of that or a complete destruction? I'm a bit confused but this seems like huge, huge news. And the markets don't seem to be all that happy about it.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Sarah Palin - Juneau

This was done by the son of a woman I know. Pretty funny stuff. I wasn't expecting it to be this good.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Sarah Palin on Funny or Die

Gina Gershon doing a parody of Palin.

See more Gina Gershon videos at Funny or Die

Thursday, September 11, 2008

MC Pee Pants

The original hit, stuck in my head since last night, I Want Candy:

Zack and Miri Make a Porno

Saw this movie last night, followed by a Q&A with Kevin. This was a cute movie, that combined some of Kevin's typical stuff with some more "popular" Apatow-style romantic comedy elements.

The Apatow Connection is blatantly obvious with Seth Rogen as the star, although Smith says he started writing the movie for him before he was a "movie star." The other Apatow-ish element is the underlying sweet love story, which is very much like Knocked Up and those other slacker romantic comedies. I can see where Kevin learned something from Jersey Girl and put it to good use.

First off I have to mention I was super stoked to hear a song by MC Chris (aka MC Pee Pants) off of his album "Life is a bitch and I am her pimp." The song was "Fett's Vette". The YouTube video for this song is below Great tune, great album.

The humor, the characters, the casting and, of course, the potty humor were pure Kevin. This was an odd hybrid of a popular Apatow-style romantic comedy and a typical filthy Smith movie. But it worked. And I think it could have been a big hit like Knocked Up if it wasn't for the whole porn thing in the title which I expect will turn off a lot of people who would otherwise have loved the movie.

I was impressed by the movie, Kevin is always an awesome speaker, and I will probably see it again in its regular run in theaters, if only to contribute my money to the goal of coming close to The Dark Knight's gross.

Oh, and Darryl from the Office, Craig Robinson, gave an awesome performance. Very dry and subtle and completely hilarious. I can't wait to see him in more stuff.

Smith and Mas:


Fett's Vette:

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Create Digging

This is incredibly funny to a vinyl junky such as myself. Crate digging will lead to your demise. Don't do it.

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

mRing for Treo

Looking for a way to do MP3 ringtones on my Treo I found this app, mRing. I downloaded and installed it and it works great for assigning MP3 ringtones, but I'm about to delete it for other reasons. I hate the way it changes the incoming call screen.

Gone is the little picture with two big, clearly marked buttons for answer and ignore. This is replaced with a giant picture with two little tiny buttons, and it's not really clear which one is selected at any given time. Tapping the screen ignores with text.

My other complaint about this is that every time I try to adjust the volume on my phone it ends up turning the stupid thing back on. The volume button was reassigned to be the profile adjustment for mRing. Today I will delete it completely.

If you want a completely new contact manager and to have to go into a different application to get more flexibility for assigned your contacts ringtones and pictures it is great. If you just want MP3 ringtones I would suggest playing them out of speakers and recording them using the Treo's sound application.

Friday, September 05, 2008

Blackberry vs Treo

Lately I've been thinking about trading in my Treo for a Blackberry. I've been trying to do some research on the two of them and stumbled across this article today, which isn't about Treos but about iPhone vs Blackberry.

The feedback I've gotten from people who have used both phones is that the Blackberry user interface is nicer, but it has some drawbacks - namely the lack of a touch screen and the lack of threaded SMS.

I haven't been able to find much about the threaded SMS online. I get the impression that Blackberry user's don't know how the Treo handles SMS because the reply is usually, "it does do it." But while they have come up with a way to sort of do it, it defeats the whole purpose of keeping things clean and simple. I am shocked that someone has not written a Blackberry app to do that.

Anyway I will be sticking with my Treo for now. Hopefully soon Blackberry will add this feature. I could live without the touch screen, although I love my Palm touch screen, but the threaded SMS I can not do.

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Vinyl Making a Comeback?

Don't call it a comeback, I've been here for years.

NY Times Article on the topic. I never abandoned vinyl other than for a few dark years in the early 90s.