So on Day 3 we drove up the coast on I-5 from San Diego to San Juan Capistrano. The fabled place where swallows go...and they really do. Apparently in March. I love the name "San Juan Capistrano." Something romantic about that name.
Anyway, we visited the mission there and learned a lot about its history. It's a beautiful place -- in between the original walls, naturally aging, they have beautiful courtyards and gardens. The bells you see above were rung not only for prayer, but for special occasions, especially funerals. So, when people heard a certain bell rung, they would run to their neighbors to find out who died.
The mission is still active -- there is daily mass there, along with an assigned priest. There is also a "basilica" (which doesnt look like a basilica) next door, along with a school. So the Catholic Church is very active in this area.
After we saw the mission, we drove through the mountains along Ortega Hwy, a winding road up and down the mountains that reminded me of the Bear Creek mountain roads of Colorado through Morrison and Kittredge going towards Evergreen. As we came down the mountain, we saw Lake Elsinore there in the valley of the mountains with a small city surrounding it. It looked very picturesque--the kind of place you imagine in TV shows like Northern Exposure or some such.
We got there early, so we went to the local outlet mall and hung around an hour or so until evening. Then we spent the evening with my brother, his wife, and my neice and step-neice (is there such a thing?). It was very nice. We went to dinner at a cool asian-fusion restaurant and shared entrees family-style.
Afterwards, we went back to their house and watched t.v. They watch a lot of the new broadcast t.v. shows that I never watch. I can't even remember their names. But it was fun. They've done a lot with their house, and it's inspired Dean and I to do some work on ours. I'm finally going to paint the bathroom downstairs, and we've already done some things to spruce up the bedroom.
The uploader farked up about two dozen of the pictures, so I will have to tweak those and re-load them. I won't get to it until Sunday at the earliest.
So on the second day of our trip, we went to the San Diego Zoo. Beautiful place. Zoos are some of Dean and my favorite places to go. San Diego Zoo is really big, but maybe not as big as Omaha Zoo (not sure).
My favorites are always the bears -- brown bears, polar bears, grizzly bears, any kind of bears. Dean's favorites are usually the monkeys. Well we saw plenty of monkeys. Only a couple of brown and grizzly bears. But the polar bears were great. There were 2 in their exhibit and they were actively playing at dunking each other in the water. They were obviously having a lot of fun. And they were HUGE!
There was an awesome panda exhibit. Dean and I discussed how at the Washington D.C. zoo, the big draw there is the pandas. But they have a really crappy exhibit (indoor, with hardly any "natural" looking stuff), and when we went, the pandas were so still that I initially blew by them thinking that they were diaramas.
Not so at the San Diego Zoo. They have 3 pandas: dad, mom, and baby. Dad was asleep, but mom and baby were playing around with each other and having a great time. They were in a really great outdoor exhibit that was very natural looking and gave them plenty of stuff to interact with. When we got there, the zookeeper had just put some honey on a log, and baby was licking off the honey. I guess that's her snack. While we were there, they had a zookeeper there giving us a running commentary that was interesting, and not too intrusive.
We also saw more birds in this zoo than anywhere else. They have like 4 aviaries, and even in places where they don't have an aviary, they have birds.
The weather, again, was perfect. Which reminds me -- San Diego Zoo is really well shaded. There are trees everywhere, and wherever there isn't shade trees, they have an awning to provide some shade. And there's plenty of places to sit down and rest too. I also appreciated the escalators and the special "less steep" path that they put on the map.
We also rode the tram all the way around the zoo. Some of the large outdoor animals I don't really get into, but it was nice to drive by them. Towards the end of the day, there was a live sea-lion show that was a lot of fun. Dean says that he liked it better than the Shamu show at Sea World. I don't think it was THAT good, but it was still nice. I'll have some video clips up later on in the day for that.
So we spent all day at the zoo, and then went back home to Howard's for dinner. Howard tried to get dinner on the table earlier this time, but it was still 8:30 before we ate (at least we got to have a snack!). He made a yummy, savory roast beef. I can't even remember what he served with it. But I do remember stuffing my face again. And going to bed stuffed. Ugh.
I couldn't blog pretty much the entire time Dean and I were on vacation, so now I have to catch up during this week to tell you all about our trip.
Day 1 we arrived in San Diego at about 10am. Dean was still getting over his cold (yich!), but managed to not be totally miserable on the flight (except that his ears refused to pop for hours after the flight). We were picked up by Dean's 2nd cousin Howard. He took us on a very brief tour of the area because the airport is right next to the dock where the cruise ships and various shops were. He showed us some of the new art that has been put on display near the dock, including this one:
We also stopped at a memorial to Bob Hope that was really interesting. Next we had brunch at a local restaurant. I had the cherry pancakes (yum!) , Dean had the blueberry pancakes, and Howard had an omelette.
Then we went to Howard's apartment (he lives downtown) and met Bernadette, his "roommate". Bernadette is actually a 60+ year old former client of Howard's and very eccentric.
Next, we went on our first attraction - Sea World! It was a lot of fun, but we were obviously in the off-season. Not only were there hardly any crowds, but there were very few shows playing. For example, Shamu, which normally runs about 10x/day in the summer, only ran twice the whole day -- once in the morning before we arrived, and once at 4:30 in the afternoon, just before closing.
The weather was absolutely fabulous. Mid 70s and clear skies. At Sea World, we saw some beautiful beluga whales, manatees, flamingos, dolphins, penguins, and lots of fish. My favorite part was the "Aquarium Del Mar," a beautiful salt-water aquarium with really brightly colored fish and coral. I got tons of great pictures. One of them was this strange creature called a Reef Stonefish: Towards the end of the day, we saw the Shamu show, called "Believe". Basically it was about how we can do anything as long as we believe in ourselves. Yada yada. Kinda cheesy. But the show was still good. There were 3 killer whales in the show making the jumps and making splashes.
After we were finished with Sea World, Howard picked us up and took us back to his place. It was really nice of Howard to shuttle us around. It kept us from having to rent a car in San Diego. And it saved us about $200 to stay at his apartment instead of in a hotel. So we were willing to put up with certain inconveniences.
Like the fact that Howard wanted to cook dinner, but didn't get around to having it ready until about 9pm. That's about 4 hours later than when Dean and I usually eat! We were STARVING. But when we finally did get dinner, it was delicious. He made roasted chicken stuffed with apple and rosemary, steamed asparagus, and mashed potatoes. Yummy!
Then it was off to bed for us (stuffed to the rafters.... I'm really ornery about how much I eat before going to bed. I don't like going to bed on an empty stomach, cuz I can't sleep if I'm hungry, but neither do I like going to bed completely stuffed. Oh well!) We slept well. Or at least, I did.
Yesterday, Dean and I spent the day at Union Station and Crown Center. We watched a 3-D film about dolphins and whales. The show was educational, but the production values I thought were quite low. Just not the colorful and inspiring show I was hoping for.
Today, Dean and I saw the Soweto Gospel Choir at the Lied Center. 100% opposite--very colorful, very positive, very inspiring performance. Dean really liked it. Here's a clip:
One of the blogs I read regularly is by a young man who just came out to his parents (they basically confronted him and he admitted it). His parents reacted by kicking him out of the house. It's all very sad and angering.
Update: It's been a month since I wrote this blog entry. Since then, 2 more young men whose blogs I read have been thrown out by their parents. It's really very sad.
Maybe I'm just not feeling really gracious right now. Maybe I'm just tired and cranky and reading too many blogs.
But isn't it funny how, now that conservatives have lost, there is this outcry to put an end to all the fighting and just get along (and put goopers in cabinet positions, make McCain Secretary of Defense, pre-emptively pardon Bush and Cheney, cancel all investigations, yada yada).
It's like they beat the shit out of you every single day for 8 years, and now that they've lost, they want to shake hands and say, "no hard feelings right? can you give me a job?"
Lo, I am with you always means when you look for God, God is in the look of your eyes, in the thought of looking, nearer to you than your self, or things that have happened to you. There's no need to go outside.
First, some background. I used to say that I was a very tolerant person. By that, I thought I meant that I was open minded, able to agree to disagree, able to let people have their own way.
But then, I realized, that I really am not very tolerant. I am completely intolerant of fools like Sara Palin. I am intolerant of the idiots who voted for Prop 8. And I am totally intolerant of people who want to rape the environment and not look back. Yes, in many ways, I am very intolerant.
But recently I listened to a teaching on patience. In it, the author spoke of 3 facets of patience: persistence, tolerance, and acceptance. And in the facet of "tolerance" she said that when we are confronted with the unacceptable, patience is born out in tolerance for the process of change. That is, tolerance isn't saying that the unacceptable is acceptable, or that everybody is right. Rather, it is being patient with the time needed to bring about change. That is real tolerance.
Wow. That I think I can do. I hate that folks voted for Prop 8. But I think I can at least try to be patient--tolerant for the process of change.
Just more proof that some people live in another universe than I, convicted felon Ted Stevens, guilty of violations of his elected office, is in the lead for re-election.
There is no doubt that I am very happy that Obama has won. It's a great thing. Truly historic and amazing. And when you look at the exit polls, you see that Obama won every single demographic except one: white men over 65.... (:))
But what is sad about the election are the ballot initiatives:
ban on gay marriage in AZ, CA (probably), and FL. An end to affirmative action in NE, and gay couples can't adopt/foster parent in AR.
So what happens to those like Ellen DeGeneres who got married in CA? What happens to those who have already adopted or are foster parents in AR? Will their children be taken away? Very sad.
Of all the stories told this election cycle, the one that I think really hasn't been told is this: how Joe the Plumber, Tito the Builder, and Jen the security guard all are supporting McCain against their best interests.
Joe the Plumber admits that under Barack Obama, he would get a tax cut, and he would not under McCain. Tito the Builder will suffer under McCain's immigration policy. Jen the Security Guard wants McCain as commander-in-chief despite the fact that McCain will keep the Iraq war going on as long as possible.
I don't know why people vote against their interests, but it's fascinating to see.
The state that she governs has no income or sales tax. Instead, it imposes huge levies on the oil companies that lease its oil fields. The proceeds finance the government’s activities and enable it to issue a four-figure annual check to every man, woman, and child in the state. One of the reasons Palin has been a popular governor is that she added an extra twelve hundred dollars to this year’s check, bringing the per-person total to $3,269. A few weeks before she was nominated for Vice-President, she told a visiting journalist—Philip Gourevitch, of this magazine—that "we’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs."
Early this morning while Dean and I were going to breakfast, we saw a huge flock of migrating birds. 'Twas neat. This is the second time in a few months that I've seen a really big flock of birds flying by.
We have a birdfeeder out back, and Dean says that the birds are pigs.
Today's political campaign word of the day is, "troubling."
As in McCain spokesman's statement that, "Obama's record-breaking fund raising is very troubling." Or "Obama's association with a domestic terrorist is troubling."
Customer: Please delete this entire web page, we don't need it any more. Me: Are you sure you want to delete this entire page? It has links to A, B, C, D, E, and F. Are you sure that I can delete all of that?? Customer: Oh, goodness no! Just delete A & B. Keep the rest. Sorry about that. Me: Okay. I deleted A & B.
[next day]
Customer: I see that B has been deleted. Did you do that when you were deleting A? Me: You asked me to delete A & B. That's what I did. Customer: Oh, I meant delete A and keep B. Sorry about that. Can you fix that?
Until I went to CIGNA, I've always been on a PPO. Even when PPOs were bad, they've never been as bad as the HRA plan that I have now. With CIGNA, I can't choose a PPO. HRA (Health Reimbursement Account) and HSA (Health Savings Account) are the only options.
So here's how it works: CIGNA tosses $750/year into an account for me (and another $750 for Dean). When I go to the doctor, CIGNA pays the bill up to the $750 limit. After that, I have to pay 100% of the bill up to $4,000 (the deductible) After I pay the $4,000, CIGNA starts chipping in again, at roughly 80%.
So here's the situation I'm in: Dean and I have been to the doctor a couple of times and got a few prescriptions. No sweat, but I burned through the $750 pretty quick. Then, one of my blood tests came back with a high creatine count (0.7 when 0.1-0.3 was normal), which indicates poor kidney function. So that took me to a specialist. Since I only have 1 kidney left, it's pretty important to stay on top of these things.
The specialist recommended a CT Scan. I've had these before--they are no sweat. It took 10 minutes start-to-finish. But the bill!! OUCH!!
I now owe $2,000 to the hospital and the radiologist to pay for that 1 CT scan (which, thankfully, turned out negative...I think...the nurse had a hard time interpreting it for me).
I'm supposed to see the specialist again in November for more follow-up tests. At this point, I am probably going to put it off to the new year (when I get another $750 from CIGNA). I just don't see being able to afford another $2,000 for another test this year.
So -- this is how consumer-driven health insurance works, and now I know it first hand.
It lowers the cost of health insurance by forcing customers to have to choose between getting the health care they need and risking that 1 kidney they have left because they can't afford the 10 minute test to check it. It SUCKS.
THE SUCCESS OF FAILURE If there is anything that strikes terror into the soul of the sincere it is fear of failure. To be a success in something marks the measure of our worth. It gives us honor on the street corners of the world. It gives us stature among our peers. It gives us a sense of invincibility. But one of the central questions of life may well be how to tell success from failure.
It’s not so simple a task as we are inclined to think, perhaps, at the first toss of the question. Failure, we know, is unacceptable. We do a great deal to avoid it. We do even more to hide it. But the real truth is that there is a great deal of failure in all success: Winning pitchers lose a good many baseball games. Scientists can spend their entire lives mixing the wrong compounds, writing the wrong formulas, testing the wrong hypotheses.
The problem is that there are two faces of failure, one of them life-giving, the other one deadly. I have seen them both.
The first face of failure I saw in the life of an internationally recognized writer who, first intent on being an English professor, studied at Oxford but failed. I gasped at the very thought of it. But she spoke about the loss of those years and that degree with a laugh and a toss of her head: “Luckiest thing that ever happened to me,” she said. “Otherwise I’d be in a small college someplace teaching writing. As it is, I’m doing just what I’m supposed to be doing.” I thought about the remark for days. Here was a woman who knew the place of failure in our eternal quest to be ourselves.
The second face of failure I saw in a woman with great musical talent who, discouraged by the difficulty of her early studies, dropped out of music school and never studied another thing in her life. She died disgruntled, underdeveloped, and trapped within the boundaries of the self.
Clearly, failure may, in the long run, be the only real key to success. The first step to becoming what we most seek may well be indifference to dashed hope and perpetual disappointment and the depression that comes with reaching for guinea gold and grasping only dust.
But if that is the case, then we must develop the capacity for failure in a society that glorifies success but gives short shrift to the forging of it. We must learn to recognize, to value, to prize all the endless attempts it takes to do what we want to do but which for us is still undoable.
Whilst I was getting pictures off my camera for the previous post, I came across some pictures I took during our 4th of July fireworks here in Eudora. I'll get them all up on webshots later tonight.
I have been so busy lately, that I haven't really had much time to spend on the blog. It's still mostly a place for me to vent about the crappy things going on in politics.
One of the things I've been doing this summer, and now into the Fall, is taking pottery classes. So here's a picture of a few things that I've finished. This Fall we're focusing on Korean decorative techniques, but I don't have any pieces to show yet.
If you look at my blog stats, you see a rapid decline in postings starting in May. That pretty much reflects how busy I've been this summer with Souljourners and church. Dean and I haven't been able to get away on the weekends to relax because we each have obligations at church. This spells doom in the long-term.
My biggest obligations end next week, and then I am taking all of November off (in terms of heavy church stuff) until Advent.
Here I am at my computer listening to an NPR podcast. They're talking about how to follow the market, and how the DOW Jones isn't the place to look right now, that we need to look at the "3-month treasury rate." So, the radio broadcaster has the investment banker on the phone talking about this rate, and how do you find it. So the investment banker says, "well, go to yahoo finance and on the left hand side click on the "more bonds" links. So here is the investment banker on the internet telling a radio broadcaster how to find this rate, and here I am following along on my computer and seeing what they are seeing and following the conversation much more closely.
Our friend, Satyajit Das, sends a note from Australia.
He is the credit derivative expert who was featured in Alex's story on our recent hour on This American Life.
Alex and I just love talking to Das (he goes by his last name). He can bring a sense of flair and drama to the discussion of credit derivatives. That is hard. We have not found a lot of opportunities to use the words "flare" and "drama" in the same sentence as "credit derivatives."
It's nice to give Das's book a plug, since I've stolen ideas from it for stories. Like the one in which I explain risk management by looking at the pollen shakes when doused in water.
De-leveraging -- Fairy Tale Endings By Satyajit Das
In the Arabian Nights, the beautiful princess Scheherazade buys one day of life at a time by recounting fantastic fables that entrance the King who has condemned her to die. Investors and traders are currently telling each other fairy tales to buy one day at a time to stave off the inevitable.
The drama and tumult of recent events are not symptoms of the disease but the cure. The "disease" is the excessive debt and leverage in the financial system, especially in the US, Great Britain, Spain and Australia. In the lyrics of the Bruce Springsteen song -- many have "debts that no honest man could pay".
The "cure" is the reduction of the level of debt (the great "de-leveraging"). In 1931, Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon explained the process to President Herbert Hoover: "Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate. Purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. ... enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people."
The initial phase of the cure is the reduction in debt within the financial system. The overall losses to the financial institutions (net of re-capitalisation via new equity issues) are $400 to $600 billion and may well go higher. This requires reduction in financial sector balance sheets (assuming bank system leverage of around 10 times) of around $4 to $6 trillion through reduction in lending and asset sales.
For example, the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers resulted in $600 billion of debt being eliminated. In turn, this inflicts losses on holders of Lehman debt that in turn flows through the chain of capital. The destruction of Lehman Brothers' capital (around $20 billion) also permanently diminishes the capacity for further credit creation in the future.
The second phase of the cure is the higher cost and lower availability of debt to the real economy. This forces corporations to reduce leverage by selling assets, reducing investment and raising equity (for example, as GE have done). This also forces consumers to reduce debt by selling assets (where available) and reducing consumption.
Feedback loops mean reduction in investment and consumption lowers economic activity placing stresses on corporations and individuals setting off defaults that trigger losses for the financial system that further reduces lending capacity. De-leveraging continues through these iterations until overall levels of debt reach a sustainable level determined by lower asset prices and cash flows available to service the debt. The process of destruction echoes W.B.Yeats' words: "All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born."
. . .
Within the financial sector, de-leveraging is well advanced. In the real economy it is in the early stages. Fairy tales in financial markets focus on the "superhuman" abilities of regulators and governments to avoid the de-leveraging under way.
The key issues are availability of capital and liquidity. The perceived abundance of liquidity was, in reality, merely an illusion created by high levels of debt and leverage. As the system de-leverages, it is becoming clear unsurprisingly that available capital is more limited than previously estimated. Central bank reserves and sovereign wealth funds are often cited as evidence of the amount of available capital. These reserves are invested in US dollar denominated US Treasury bonds, GSE paper and AAA rated asset-backed securities. It will be difficult to mobilise the funds and convert them into the home currencies of the investors without large losses.
Government and central bank actions need to be focused on managing the transition to a lower debt world. Actions should be directed to three areas.
Banks must be forced to write-off bad loans without delay even if this means breaching minimum solvency capital requirements. Bank capital needs must be addressed by forced mergers and restructuring, new equity issues and (in the absence of other options) nationalisation or liquidation. Central banks need to guarantee (for a fee) all major bank transactions to reduce counterparty risk enabling normal transactions between banks and other parties in the financial markets to resume.
Elements of these actions are already in place but the absence of a co-ordinated global strategy reduces effectiveness.
A global conference (along the lines of Bretton Woods) under a respected chairman (Paul Volcker is the obvious choice) must be convened. It would bring together all the major players including the vital creditor nations -- China, Japan etc -- to develop a framework for the major economic reforms (currency policies, fiscal disciplines, trade barriers) to work towards a resolution of the crisis.
A principal objective of this conference would be ensuring supply of funding for the US in the transition period. Recent comments by China about US responsibility for the crisis and its resolution miss the point. As China's Premier Wen Jiabao observed the U.S. financial may "affect the whole world". As Wen noted: "If anything goes wrong in the U.S. financial sector, we are anxious about the safety and security of Chinese capital..." All creditors have much to lose if the de-leveraging process becomes dis-orderly.
Like a giant forest fire the de-leveraging process cannot be extinguished. Thoughtful actions can create firebreaks that limit preventable damage to the economy and the international financial system until the fire burns itself out.
The Arabian Nights had a happy ending. The King after 1,001 night of enchantment and three sons pardons the beautiful Princess Scheherazade who becomes his queen. Despite the fairy tales that investors are putting their faith in currently, the de-leveraging that is at the heart of the current financial crisis may not have such a happy ending.
James K. Galbraith, author of The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too and chair of Economists for Peace and Security, says what we’re getting is:
The point of the bailout is to buy assets that are illiquid but not worthless. But regular banks hold assets like that all the time. They're called "loans."
With banks, runs occur only when depositors panic, because they fear the loan book is bad. Deposit insurance takes care of that. So why not eliminate the pointless $100,000 cap on federal deposit insurance and go take inventory? If a bank is solvent, money market funds would flow in, eliminating the need to insure those separately. If it isn't, the FDIC has the bridge bank facility to take care of that.
Next, put half a trillion dollars into the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. fund -- a cosmetic gesture -- and as much money into that agency and the FBI as is needed for examiners, auditors and investigators. Keep $200 billion or more in reserve, so the Treasury can recapitalize banks by buying preferred shares if necessary -- as Warren Buffett did this week with Goldman Sachs. Review the situation in three months, when Congress comes back. Hedge funds should be left on their own. You can't save everyone, and those investors aren't poor.
Dean Baker, author of The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, says:
There is no doubt that the world financial system faces unprecedented strains as a result of the incompetence of our business and economic elites. The collapse of the system of finance that we started to see last week would be a genuine disaster. ...
However, we did get through the crisis last week with quick actions by the Fed and Treasury. There is no reason to believe that with comparable steps in the future, coupled with the raising the $100,000 limit on deposit insurance, as suggested by Jamie Galbraith, that we cannot keep the financial system operating.
Keeping the financial system alive, but in the intensive care unit, is not desirable. However, given the integrity and the competence of the individuals involved, it may be the best option.
It's extraordinary to me that the United States can find $700 billion to save Wall Street and the entire G8 can't find $25 billion dollars to saved 25,000 children who die every day from preventable diseases.
This is the most irresponsible thing Bush could have said: ""Without immediate action by Congress, America could slip into a financial panic."
Economy is 9/10 perception. If America THINKS that Congress must act, then if Congress doesn't act, perceptions change and panic sets in, and THEN the economy tanks.
Bernanke said pretty much the same thing this week, without those words. I can't find the exact quote, but it was basically that SINCE the Administration said that Congress must act, THEN Congress must act OR ELSE the markets will panic. Self-fulfilling prophecy.
There are so many options for dealing with a "credit crunch" besides throwing $700 billion dollars to failing, irresponsible companies hoping to God that they use the money wisely.
There isn't a damn thing about Glenn Beck that I agree with. Until now. Here's his "Defconomy" (think DefCon) scale that he wrote way back in February with the help of a few economists. We're obviously at DEFCON3.
• DEFCONOMY FIVE
How you'll know we're here: The housing downturn turns into a free fall, making it the worst collapse in our country's history. That not only triggers massive numbers of foreclosures and lost household wealth, but it also sets off another large wave of bank write-downs.
Odds we get here: Roubini told me that it's "extremely likely, even unavoidable" that we hit this stage because "the excess supply of new homes in the market is like we've never seen before." Prices, he believes, "need to fall another 10 to 20 percent before that clears."
• DEFCONOMY FOUR
How you'll know we're here:Americans upside-down on their mortgages and unable to pay their home equity loans begin defaulting on other debt, like credit cards, car loans and student loans. In addition, bond insurance companies lose their perfect credit ratings, forcing already troubled banks to write down another $150 billion.
Odds we get here:High. Roubini says that 8 million households are already upside-down on their mortgages and he thinks we could see that number go to between 16 million and 24 million by the end of 2009. A lot of those people, he believes, will simply walk away from their homes and send their keys back to the bank.
• DEFCONOMY THREE
How you'll know we're here: Some banks begin to crack under the pressure of continuing write-downs and mounting defaults by consumers. A national or large regional bank finally collapses, triggering hedge fund failures and general chaos on Wall Street, potentially leading to a 1987-style market crash.
Odds we get here: Very good. Roubini says that we'll likely socialize the losses, "effectively nationalizing the mortgages or the banks." It would be, he told me, "like Northern Rock (the large bank in England that was recently taken over by the British government) times three." He thinks the stock market will head south throughout the year as fears about a severe recession are confirmed.
• DEFCONOMY TWO
How you'll know we're here: Most forms of credit (both to consumers and businesses) become virtually nonexistent. That results in a "vicious circle" of additional write-downs, stock market losses, and bank collapses, which leads to even less credit being available.
Odds we get here: Good. Roubini says that credit conditions are becoming worse everyday across a variety of markets and won't be getting better anytime soon. Without extra credit available, people might have to actually (gasp!) live within their means.
• DEFCONOMY ONE
How you'll know we're here: Welcome back to 1929. A full economic meltdown results in a complete failure of the underlying financial system. What will be known to future generations as "The Greater Depression" has arrived.
Odds we get here: Not likely. Roubini believes that this will be a "very painful and severe recession" that could last for 18 months or more, but it will be more like 1981 than 1929. Families may be eating soup again, but at least it'll be in their own kitchens.
Isn't it great how the government will bailout big corporations and their wealthy investors--like Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bear Stearns, JP Morgan, etc.? Isn't it great that the millionaire investors don't have to worry about keeping their millions and losing everyone else's money?
And isn't it great that the Government will fight tooth and nail for every dime given to the poor? Health care for kids like SCHIP, welfare, food stamps, college grants, etc.?
YES to $80 Billion to fund AIG's bailout. NO to $4.8 Billion to fund SCHIP health care for kids for 5 years.
A perceptive, but utterly infuriating article here:
Not one of the people who are voting against Obama in this piece are voting against his issues. They are voting against the myths of a false Obama portrayed by the Republicans, by the media, and by the ghosts of the ancient past.
Utterly infuriating. I want to shake these people.
Some people are just unteachable when it comes to computers.
It's not that they're stupid. It's not that they're too old or not logical or don't understand the lingo or don't have experience or whatever. It's that their brains are wired differently than most of us. So they end up interpreting every little step in a way that is shockingly different than what one intended.
For example, today I was asked to help someone copy a file (a Word document). Now that's not my job, but it is so ridiculously easy, that I thought it would be no trouble. It took me 20 minutes to help her do it. Seriously. Something that should have taken about 1.5 seconds took 20 minutes.
Now there's at least 8 different ways to copy a file in Windows. And it seemed that every time I walked her through one of the ways, she found a way to do it wrong. And because I wasn't staring over her shoulder, I had a hard time figuring out what she was doing wrong because she SAID she was doing exactly what I told her to do.
Finally I thought of an absolutely fool-proof way of copying a file. I broke it down into these steps:
1. Open your My Documents folder. 2. Single-click on the file you want to copy so that it is highlighted. 3. Go to the Edit menu and select "Copy" 4. Go back to the Edit menu and select "Paste"
That would undoubtedly copy the file and automatically name it "Copy of [filename]." No sweat right??
Didn't work. She said that her "copy" menu item was greyed-out. In my mind that meant, "well, then you didn't single-click on the file so that it was highlighted." But she insisted that she did.
I refused to give up on this way of copying because I honestly couldn't think of a simpler way to do it. So I persisted. Several times I asked her to re-play back for me every single thing she did and not leave out any steps. After about the third try, I finally figured out what she was really doing.
When I said "single-click on the file so that it is highlighted," she: double-clicked the file, which launched Word and opened the file in Word Then she single-clicked on the "File" menu in Word, which of course highlighted the word "File".
So, naturally when I said "select copy" from the Edit menu, it was greyed out because now she was in Word, and there was no text selected to copy. I did finally get her to copy the file (since she was already in Word, I had her go to "Save As..." on her File menu.)
This isn't the only example, but this is how it goes. I say, "Click A" and they think I mean "Click Ayyyyy". It sounds right. But it's not.
Every once in a while I read Cary Tennis, a kind of hip Ann Landers at Salon.com. Today there was the following letter from a Canadian. It expresses pretty much EXACTLY how I felt in 2004 and, more or less, how I feel today. Except that, unlike 2004, I am trying very hard to stay balanced and not let things get to me as badly as it did then.
Sadly, Cary Tennis usually gives good advice, but this time, simply didn't take the letter seriously, or somehow manages to miss the truthfulness of it, or tries to inject humor. I can't imagine a letter decrying, say, genocide in Rwanda, deserves humor as a proper response. That's the situation I think we face.
I'm especially troubled by the Canadian's phrase, "And at what point in time do I have to accept that you're sincere and take you at your "brand promise," as marketing and P.R. types like to put it, that your government is truly representative of your people? ".
This is exactly where I am at. The polls say (today) that McCain has a slight lead. How much longer do I need to wait before believing that, yes, indeed, more than half of this country REALLY DOES want to live this way? And that, more than half of this country has REALLY wanted to live the way we have these past 8 years. It's hard to believe that there's just a small minority manipulating others. Over and over again I encounter people who are intelligent, well-informed, rational people, who think and come to such ASTONISHING conclusions that I really have trouble accepting that we live in the same universe.
But we do. How do I accept that? What do I do about it? Last summer I wrote my congressman every single solitary day. I counted more than 300 letters that I wrote. The impact I had was absolutely nil. Anyway. I'm not really looking for a solution along the lines of "more effective activism." I'm looking for a state of mind that is able to accept reality as it is and decide what to do about it, and I don't think "activism" is it.
I haven't bothered to copy Cary Tennis' reply. You can read it here.
Dear Cary,
I've written to you once in the past, and you gave me great advice, so I'm hoping once again you'll share your valuable gift of a different perspective with me.
I'm a journalist and editor from Canada and I have a real problem that I'm struggling with these days -- my nascent anti-Americanism.
Allow me to explain. Like most Canadians I've always taken a bit of a sideways view of the U.S. Nice enough folks but sometimes a bit weird. Generally a force for good, but a bit much if they get too wound up. Just the usual uncertainty about the "other." Sort of like you guys not "getting" universal healthcare and hockey.
Well, for the past several years I've seen more and more evidence that America is a country to be avoided at all cost. You've all been wound up into a righteous rage. And the results haven't been pretty. You've turned your back on some of the wonderful things that made your country great and embraced some extremely ugly things -- imperialism, resource wars, torture, etc.
Our former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau once observed (I'm paraphrasing somewhat): "Living next to America is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt."
That's all fine and well when the elephant is generally even-tempered. But when it's in a foul temper there is little to no protecting yourself from being trampled.
As resources become scarcer and I see us sitting on a pile of them and again and again I hear that "the American Way of Life is non-negotiable," I see a higher and higher likelihood that this is all going to play out badly.
There's a 1932 feeling to the whole thing, with the U.S. playing the role of Germany. Unfortunately that would make us Czechoslovakia and the Alberta tar sands the Sudetenland.
Bottom line, my old coping strategy -- which was something along the lines of "love the Americans, not that wild about their government" -- just isn't working anymore. America 2.0 scares the living crap out of me. And at what point in time do I have to accept that you're sincere and take you at your "brand promise," as marketing and P.R. types like to put it, that your government is truly representative of your people?
And if that's so, how can I possibly like and support your country? And make no mistake, if there ever was a natural friend and ally it's me and my ilk. I live right next door and we share many of the same values and a common history. We have coincident interests in many areas. But, increasingly, I see trying to do business with the U.S. is like trying to do business with the mafia. The rules are slanted against you right from the start. And if you don't believe me, do a little reading on the softwood lumber trade deal -- the one where you willfully ignored an established treaty and basically told us to like it or lump it.
You have every right to govern your country as you see fit. But unfortunately you aren't content to busy yourselves with market fundamentalism and spiritual excess at home. You're equally determined to remake the rest of the world in your image -- whether we want it or not. Your evangelicals mess in our domestic politics, our current government is a pale imitation of your neocons with expat U.S. academics as key advisors, and you insist on attempting to export your insane war-on-drugs mentality.
Additionally you're shocked and appalled when my country doesn't immediately toe the line to your every whim. Back in the schoolyard of my youth there was a word for that, of course: "bully." America presents itself as a nation of bullies.
If you don't believe me, ask a good friend of mine who was down in Grand Forks, N.D., on a day trip in 2003 during the run-up to the Iraq war. Our former prime minister had just announced that day that Canada would continue to contribute troops to the war in Afghanistan, but wouldn't be joining the Iraq war. He parked his car. He went into the mall for a bit of shopping. He came out. He found his car with Canadian license plates keyed. He heard later that several Canadian cars got similar treatment.
Help me, Cary (and readers). Tell me how I can put this aside. I fear that the flow of history is preordained. I fear that regardless of who wins (though I suspect McCain will in the end) none of it matters. Until you're able to accept that American exceptionalism is bunk and that Manifest Destiny is nothing more than a polite way to describe empire, the script for this movie promises heartbreak.
There remains a faint glimmer of hope in my heart. Again and again in the past America has reinvented itself when it has needed to. Perhaps, once again, you'll be able to pull it out of the ditch. But I've been hoping for that for many years now. And I'm beginning to get discouraged.
Ford is doing badly, not because of the AFA boycott, but because they are stupid!
Ford has a new car called the ECOnetic, that gets 65 mpg. But it will ONLY sell in Europe. Why? It's being built in Britain and Ford thinks that Americans just won't buy a diesel car.
IDIOTS. People will buy almost ANY car that gets 65 mpg! Even if Diesel is more expensive (which could be changed if some taxes were lowered on diesel), people would still rather get a high mpg car.
Naturally, Honda and Toyota are all working on new diesel engine cars to sell to the U.S. So Ford is actually ahead of them, but refusing to take advantage of it.
The flaw in their business model is that they are owned by private shareholders but backed by the government. As a result, lenders do not care about the risks the companies are taking because they know that the government will eventually step in to protect them against losses on their loans.
This could all have been prevented if Congress had acted years ago to eliminate the GSE business model. There are three possible models -- privatization, nationalization or liquidation. Congress and the president can decide which it will be, but the worst idea is to reconstitute them as GSEs. Unfortunately, that seems to be the choice Treasury Secretary Paulson made in the plan he announced Sunday
What he neglects to point out though is that there is another flaw that still isn't being addressed: the groups that gives credit ratings to these loans aren't doing their job right.
When Moody's rates a chunk of sub-prime loans as AAA, it isn't so much the LENDER like Freddie Mac who are at fault as it is the RATER and the INVESTOR.
Yes, Freddie Mac's govt backing gave them the ABILITY to buy junk loans for the cheap (and shouldn't have been). But it is the RATER who gave a false rating and enabled Freddie Mac to buy and sell junk loans.
The Rater should have rated the sub-prime loans for what they were--B or C, not AAA because Freddie Mac bought them.
The Investor, looking for a safe investment, will always pick an AAA loan. But they were FOOLS to believe Moody's ratings. And they knew it. People like Warren Buffett knew it--he told everybody that these investments were junk.
The mortgage banks, KNOWING what they were doing, were taking advantage of Freddie Mac to make a quick buck. They knew they can could buy junk loans and hand them off to Freddie Mac. No responsibility, all the profit. And virtually no rules for how bad of a mortgage they can write and still get Freddie Mac to buy it. When anybody can walk off the street and tell a bank that they make $400,000 and the bank just hands them a loan without verifying anything, that's a bank regulatory problem.
The problem is far more systemic than the article suggests. Democrats were always leary of reigning in Freddie Mac because to do so meant that low-income people may not be able to get loans. So that's understandable. Yes, part of the problem is Freddie Mac as a govt-backed entity, but the real problem is how people perceive and take advantage of that and the lack of regulations for how mortgages get written.
Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we learn. The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and prejudices and the acceptance of love back in our hearts. Love is the essential reality and our purpose on earth. To be consciously aware of it, to experience love in ourselves and others, is the meaning of life. Meaning does not lie in things. Meaning lies in us.
First Jackson Browne, then John Cougar Mellencamp, then ABBA, then Van Halen, and now Heart...the first suing, the others only complaining that McCain and the Republican party are using their music without permission and thus violating copyright law. Isn't it interesting how the Republican party can't seem to find music that artists are willing to let them play?
And isn't even more interesting that they are willing to violate the law and play it anyway?
It has always struck me as ironic that the Republican party is known as the "moral" party and the ones that are "tough" on crime. This is just one more example of how loose they play with the law. I guess the law just doesn't apply to them.
So the Alaska Independence Party is the one that wants to secede from the U.S. and set up Alaska as a separatist government. And Palin was a member. And McCain's trying to distance Palin from that. They released her voter registration records to show that she's a good ol' Republican.
But, you know, THIS video makes it pretty hard to distance Palin from the party!
Some comparisons being made between Palin and Harriet Miers. That's probably a good comparison. Except this time the Republicans will not make her withdraw.
So McCain has chosen Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin. I said in an earlier post that McCain needed to pick somebody that nobody knew about, like Pawlenty. Well, McCain did me one better and picked somebody I didn't even know existed! And a pro-life woman (talk about appeasing the Right)! Wow! Without knowing one single thing about Palin, I have to say, this is probably a very smart move for McCain. NOBODY has ever heard of this woman, so there's no baggage. And he might bring back all the conservative women that voted for Bush because of security, but were bolting to Obama because of the mess. Not to mention the Hillary supporters that still want a woman to vote for (I wonder what Joan Chittister would say since she is still steamed about the whole thing)! I think this has got to be the first Republican female VP candidate? So, McCain's making some history too. And young. And I imagine it's going to be a lot tougher for Biden to really go after a woman candidate in the VP debates.
Unless the muckrakers find major dirt on Palin (unlikely I'd think), this seems to be an amazing choice. But it's also putting all the pressure on McCain. Really the criticism is going to be that she's not ready to step into the Presidency. There will be comparisons with Quayle. But if she's articulate, she can easily dispel those comparisons. If she's not, it could turn into a disaster for them.
Looks solidly conservative: pro-life, anti-gay, pro-drilling in Alaska, pro-gun, anti-tax. And no information on a lot of the other issues.
Second Update: Yup, the Quayle comparisons are out. Interestingly, re: the VP debates, many are saying that Biden would simply eat her for lunch. I suppose that's possible. I guess there's still some mis-placed chauvanism in me that says that a guy hitting a girl is bad. But I guess if you're willing to do it, there's no doubt that Biden can politically punch her into a bloody pulpy mess on just about every topic I can think of.
Third Update: This is funny. Apparently, when asked a few months ago whether she would be interested in the VP job, she responded with something like, "are you kidding? what does the VP do??" The muckrakers are starting to dig dirt already. Apparently she has her own Troopergate scandal.
Gawd. So they're really going with this, eh? Their attack is going to be that the elitist Barack Obama is using... ETHNIC ARCHITECTURE?
What the h... I mean, how does... with the... and half of D.C... the White House... aaaargh.
Holy Fucking Thundercats, I can't even find words for the stupid. Nobody can be this stupid. Nobody. Not even in politics. Not even among Republicans. I don't care if they're paying you to be this stupid, I don't care if you're having daily meetings to decide how to best be stupid, I don't care if you're an ten-time gold medalist in synchronized stupidity, it's not possible. You could drill a hole in your skull and fill it with mayonnaise and olives, and you still wouldn't be this stupid. You could convince yourself you were a tropical fish, and dunk your head in an aquarium to breathe the cool, refreshing water, and your decomposing body would still be smarter than this two weeks later.
CNN says that McCain has chosen his Veep and is supposed to reveal on Friday. The bookies are giving the odds to Romney (4/6 or 60%) with Pawlenty a far distant second(9/2 or 18%). Personally I think Romney is a sucker bet. I don't think there's a chance in hell he'll pick Romney. I think it's either going to be Pawlenty or Lieberman, and I give the nod to Pawlenty. At this point, McCain needs somebody that nobody knows! There's an outside chance it could be Tom Ridge, but since he really wasn't that great at his job as Home Land Security chief, I doubt it.
The Lord cares, despite all of our silliness. We are the kind of being God loves. God's love doesn't depend on our doing nice or right things. Yet it's an illusion to think that any of us would operate totally beyond self-interest.
We're doing it in part for ourselves, and God, in great love and humility, says, "That's what I work with. That's all I work with!" It's the mustard seed with which God does great things. Thank God!
True recognition of our basic egotism is a humbling experience, but a liberating one, too.
from Richard Rohr, Letting Go: A Spirituality of Subtraction
So it's Biden. Ah well. So much for "Change we can believe in." Whatever.
Meanwhile, McCain gets to attack Obama using Biden's and Hillary's own words. You know...Obama isn't ready (Biden) and better McCain than Obama (Hillary). Ouch! Pretty effective I think. I'm bracing myself for a McCain presidency and eternal money- and life- sucking war with Iran, Syria, Russia, North Korea, and whoever else the NeoCons are after.
Meanwhile, Glenn Greenwald blogs so that I don' t have to.
In other news, much more fun and stress reducing, Dean and I have been playing with Legos. Yes, Legos. They're quite fun. We just finished putting together Dwarves Mine last night.
There stood the president of the United States speaking passionate words into a Rose Garden microphone. He was excoriating Russia's "dramatic and brutal escalation" of violence toward Georgia, "a sovereign neighboring state," in retaliation for Georgia's suppression of Ossetia, its breakaway province. The action, George Bush said with properly restrained indignation, has "substantially damaged Russia's standing in the world."
It was a stupefying moment. In response to Russia's troop movements into Georgia in defense of South Ossetia ,a province on Russia's southern border, George Bush, architect of the invasion of the still embroiled and desperately damaged "sovereign nation of Iraq" declared to the world that "such action [as Russia took] is unacceptable in the 21st century." Yo, George! Aren't you forgetting something?
So how is it that a president can make such an officious display of condemning - demonizing -- another nation for doing the very thing we have done? How can we possibly threaten them with international opprobrium while we bask in fabricated virtue and ignore public opinion entirely?
In a world that has become the global village Marshall McLuhan predicted in the '60s --20 years before the personal computer - "the medium," has indeed, "become the message." A president who can criticize others with such vehemence for doing exactly what he has just done and can neither redo nor undo nor solve and resolve, is a message for the world: Words are meaningless now.
"'Oh, how charming you are,' she tells me. There, I received a positive stroke, as they say now. I'm okay, you're okay. I swear I'm going to write a book some day, the title is going to be, I'm an Ass, You're an Ass. How liberating! How wonderful to be able to admit that I'm an ass! And people will tell me that I'm wrong. And I'll just say, 'well, what did you expect from an ass?'"
Here is a curious English construct I recently encountered:
Have I not been paying attention?Yes, you have not been paying attention.
No, you have not been paying attention.
According to some handy-dandy reference guide, the question is in the "present perfect contiguous negative interrogative" case. That's the easy part.
Here's the hard part: What is the difference between these two answers? They both seem to say the opposite of each other, and they both seem to say that the questioner has not been paying attention...curious!
Of course, if a person were trying to say that the questioner HAS been paying attention, they could say, "Yes, you have been paying attention." Or "No, you have been paying attention." Curiouser!!
Is there an English major out there that can make sense of this?
One of the reasons I seem to not be blogging much is that I have been deliberately staying away from politics. I just checked in to my RSS Reader for the first time in about 2 weeks, and it showed that I had over 1000+ blog posts to read. That's probably about how much I used to read on politics. No wonder I needed to blog to get rid of all the garbage I was taking in!
So, I like not being so involved in the politics right now. Really I just hear things 3rd hand in little tidbits, which is fine. So...instead...let's have a little comedy. Like with this:
There's a story on CNN about how a zoo has euthanized an ailing gorilla. I wonder, why is euthanizing a gorilla humane, but euthanizing a human is inhumane (and illegal)?
The scapegoat sequence, without being too clever, goes something like this: We compare, we copy, we compete, we conflict, we conspire, we condemn and we crucify.
If you do not recognize some variation of this pattern within yourself, and nip it in the early stages, it is almost inevitable. That is why spiritual teachers of any depth will always teach simplicity of lifestyle and freedom from the competitive game.
It is probably the only way out of the cycle of violence.
The latest critique of Obama is that he painted over the American flag on his campaign airplane, replacing it with a symbol of his campaign.
This, of course, is supposed to mean that Obama is unAmerican. Nevermind that McCain's airplane ALSO does not have an American flag and ALSO has a symbol of McCain's campaign. Nobody mentions that.
I am tired with all the people who mistake a symbol of patriotism (lapel pins, where they put their hand during the pledge) for the real thing.
On this week's This American Life, they featured Anthony Pico, a teen who has been in the foster care system. To the outside world, he's a "winner" or "star" because he goes around the country speaking to different groups about the problems in the foster care system and what needs to be done about it. He's very articulate and can easily speak to people.
But internally, the person that most people don't know, is that Anthony is still a kid without any parents. He lives in a building with other teen foster kids, and there are no adults living in this building, and no adults present in the building after business hours.
So Anthony really has nobody to talk to, is years behind in school, and is unmotivated. Public speaking has been the only way he's figured out how to talk to adults and get advice from them, by networking with adults after his speeches.
The show highlighted this important insight -- nobody can make you do anything (like show up for school), and nobody can do anything without help (like show up for school). It is a strange paradox.
So, life has been busy this past week. Wednesday I chaired the first Worship Committee meeting at church. Overall it went pretty well. But some people that I was hoping would show up, didn't. So I get to decide what, if anything, to do about that. In the meantime, things roll on....
Work is heating up. Lots and lots and lots and lots of work involved in transitioning systems from Great-West to CIGNA. And here's the thing: I support 5 different systems, and none of them full-time. Yet every system requires full-time effort to transition. So (almost) everybody is expecting me to work full-time on their project. And management is very de-centralized right now. Part of the problem is that when project managers look at their project, they look at dollars. And there are plenty of dollars in the budget for their project. So they think everything is good. It means that they have plenty of money to pay for the work. What they don't have, is bodies. There just isn't enough bodies to do all the work, and it doesn't matter how much money you have if you don't have the bodies.
And training new bodies is a nightmare. If I *don't* work full-time on System A to get it transitioned, it will take 3 or 4x the amount of effort to train someone else to do it. And training takes full-time effort too. Thank God I'm not a manager. I think I'd be having a heart attack right about now.
On Thursday and Friday I went to Souljourners. That went well, although it wasn't my favorite weekend. The topic was on discernment. Which is always a good topic, but it's one we've had before, and sometimes I think we're wasting time duplicating stuff. There's so much ground to cover, that I don't know why we'd repeat anything.
Saturday I went to clay class. Didn't learn much that was new, but spent time practicing. I made a bottle, but unfortunately, I made the bottom too thin, and I lost the bottom when I lifted it. Then I made a bowl, which turned out okay.
This past Sunday I preached. The topic was Friendship with God. Overall I think it went very well. It was really a way for me to introduce the congregation to the Spiritual Director ministry I've been working at with Souljourners. I haven't really had much response from my own congregation, and this last week at Souljourners I talked with Joanie about it, and she gave me some really perceptive ideas why. First, she says, there is always that "who do you think you are?" kind of perception, like when Jesus got a poor reception from his own home town. Second, because Spiritual Direction is potentially a very personal kind of ministry, some people just don't want to talk to someone that they know. So, I may just need to give up on offering this in my congregation and start reaching out to KU and the other area churches.
