Today’s Financial News
I’m hoping, with baited breath, that today’s, the past weeks, the past month’s, financial news will be a wake up call to America…not to just those that sit at the financial temples in NYC and Chicago, or those that administer our government, but to everybody out there.
Today’s fall of the market was the single largest fall per points that we’ve ever seen, though it’s not the largest in percentage points. However, what caused this fall to happen? Instant gratification, and a congress along with lenders feeding that instant gratification frenzy….all fed by what seemed like free money.
Most people that I’ve known would very often not take a $1000 bucks from a stranger on the corner without thinking, feeling, Knowing that there was a catch. Most people might even pass it up because the deal just sounded fishy. When someone offers these same people a mortgage for a house that is clearly out of their price range, they take it. It just doesn’t make sense. Ultimately, I say that those who tried to get what they knew they couldn’t afford deserve what they’ve gotten, and as a whole, have created this mess.
Next, I want to personally thank the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for possibly steering away votes for the bail-out. It wasn’t her intention I’m sure, but either way, a bailout is the last thing we need. Why? you ask…Lets look at it in simple, easy to understand terms that most with any type of foresight should understand (granted, I apparently just cut out 50% or greater of the population). If Fannie and Freddie Mac declare bankruptcy, billions of dollars by investors will be lost. Well, they’ve already been lost for a year now, because of the sub-prime dealings they’ve been doing for years, just ignored it. If/when bankruptcy is declared, the heads of those companies, and quite possibly some of the government reps, will go down with that ship. Those responsible will have to be held accountable. The companies get bought, keep their business plans in place, have a reorganization of the higher, and move on.
A bailout, however, just gives those companies that have mismanaged BILLIONS of dollars an infusion of BILLIONS of dollars, keep the same heads running the same crippled ships, and guess what…nothing will change. We’ll be back in the same boat we are in now, in say, another 5-10 years, whenever the next big set of sub-prime loans are bound to increase. The money gets lost, except to those few at the top, which they can just retire with a few hundred million while wishing everybody on their sinking ship farewell.
Ultimately, this country has just lost hundreds of Billions of dollars regardless of what we do. Thank those who chose instant gratification when voting for their representatives. Thank those who chose instant gratification when not budgeting their own money. Thank those who chose the easy route for a temporary solution instead of pulling the hard-6 and fixing the problem permanently. More or less, we have every one of those of us Americans who chose that the “ME” is more important than the “WE” in life, and those of us that just can’t be put out enough to do the right thing.
In closing, I would like you to view this video. I’m not a fan of Fox News, entirely too right-wing for me, but it brings to light who our next president could be, and addresses the issues of right now, today, Monday September 29th, 2008.
Before I forget
It’s coming up on tax time, and since I know you read this, the answer is an obvious No.
I don’t care that you work two jobs, one under the table, and slave out little girl to be a cashier/dishwasher/whatever at 8 years old for a third half income. You’re capable of being an adult like the rest of us have to be to support our families.
So, No. I don’t want any sad tales about whatever, long explanations about why…grind your teeth, but save the time.
Google Gears, Popfly, and other interesting things
I’ve got entirely too much to do, but I still find the time to tinker with stuff, read blogs, travel down obsure virtual bunny trails to find various solutions and cool things.
One little post I read today came from Stephen Shankland at CNET News that suggests that Google is working on making Gears (formally Google Gears) work with GMail and Google Calendar. It already works with Docs, though since I don’t use that app too often (until they get the word processor app working decently) I haven’t gotten to play with it much. Essentially, what Gears does is sync your online data for offline use, so if you’re not somewhere with an internet connection, you can still use the data, edit, so forth. I don’t know how this works with syncronizing the data if multiple people have access to one document however, but eventually (3rd quarter, 2009) I’ll have some time to play with these and do more in-depth research.
Gears is also going to be bundled with Wordpress 2.6, so after lunch there is a good chance you could read my blog offline (why’d anybody do that?: )
Popfly, at www.popfly.com, is something that i just came across the other day. It seems that it’s a browser editor that will allow someone to create mashups, little games, and what looks like a reduced version of a webpage (think Google Apps web-page creator, Google Page Creator). In any case, though it offers very limited content and so forth, it is built so that anybody can create something, not just a code monkey. At least that’s what it sort of looks like. I’ll try this out in the next few weeks and see if I can produce a couple little games for the kids to play, and put up a site for that.
I did allude to other interesting things, didn’t I…well, work becons, and I’ll have to do that in a bit.
