Nobody Panic
So, President Bush gave a speech this week about how to fix the economy.
Good evening. This is an extraordinary period for America's economy.
Good start. "Extraordinary" doesn't sound bad at all.
We're in the midst of a serious financial crisis...
...our entire economy is in danger.
...the gears of the American financial system began grinding to a halt.
...the situation becoming more precarious by the day...
...our country could experience a long and painful recession.
Ok, ok, I get it. He means extraordinarily
bad. No need to harp on it.
The government's top economic experts warn that without immediate action by Congress, America could slip into a financial panic...
Why wait for Congress to cause a panic by inaction when a doomsday speech can do it now?
First, how did our economy reach this point? ... Easy credit... led to excesses and bad decisions. Many mortgage lenders approved loans for borrowers without carefully examining their ability to pay. Many borrowers took out loans larger than they could afford...
So, basically the economy is messed up because some banks made some "bad decisions" lending money to people who couldn't pay it back.
So I've proposed that the federal government reduce the risk posed by these troubled assets, and supply urgently-needed money so banks and other financial institutions can avoid collapse and resume lending.
Great idea. We just need to give those banks that made bad loans a bunch of money so that they can keep making those loans. That should fix the economy in no time.
Despite corrections in the marketplace and instances of abuse, democratic capitalism is the best system ever devised.
Under normal circumstances, I would have followed this course. But these are not normal circumstances.
Right, we only need the best system ever when things are good, not to help us out of a crisis.
The government is the one institution with the patience and resources to buy these assets at their current low prices and hold them until markets return to normal.
...the one institution that doesn't mind putting their money behind a bunch of companies that have shown their prowess at losing their own money.
Under our proposal, the federal government would put up to $700 billion taxpayer dollars on the line...
I mean, that doesn't mind put taxpayer money behind those companies.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/09/20080924-10.html
Denver in a nutshell
This video has everything that you ever need to know about Denver. If anyone tries to tell you otherwise, they're a communist.
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/e5b8b7ef2b
NBC needs to shut up
We're watching the women's individual all-around gymnastics right now, and the announcers on NBC have some serious bias. They complain and harp on every little mistake that the Chinese girls make and they sit silent when the Chinese do well, but they ignore any mistakes that the Americans make and complain like crazy if they don't get perfect scores. Don't get me wrong, I hope the American girls do well, too, but I expect the journalists to keep it to themselves a little more.
Bloggenting
As you may know, it's been quite a while since I've written a blog. I realize that I'm failing the blog community, and that many people are likely depressed and lonely waiting for the next words of wisdom to flow from my keyboard.
Despite the cause for disappointment in my lack of posts I want all of my many readers to know that I have been struggling to make a contribution to the digital community in another form: commenting.
Every blogger knows that the key to blogging is in the comments. After all, if it weren't for the comments from our readers telling us how great and/or stupid we are, then why would we blog at all? If it weren't for the comments, why not just write our ideas in journals like our ancestors did? I'm sure I'm not alone in saying that humankind has evolved past that method of expression.
So, lest anyone think that I am no longer a contributing member of the blogciety, just remember that I'm here every second I have to waste, reading and judging your blog posts, and commenting on them. You couldn't do this without me.
Chicago radio
We were in Chicago a few weeks ago for
Stefroni's wedding, and everything was really wonderful. But that's not what I'm posting about.
Chicago's a
big city, right? Well, as you would expect from a big city, there are a lot of radio stations. You can't go more than two clicks on the dial without getting a new station. I'd say there's about 800 FM radio stations around Chicagoland.
The part that surprised me is that only about 5 of those stations are devoted to popular music. I don't mean popular music as in Brittany Spears and the Backstreet Boys, I mean mainstream music, including country and rap and everything. So, between these 5 radio stations they pretty much need to play all of the music that normal people would listen to. The other 795 stations in the area are split pretty evenly between Mexican
rachero music and talk radio.
Now if I had just 5 quality radio stations to choose from in an area that'd be plenty. The problem is, I don't want to listen to just any mix of mainstream crap. I need a rock station. Kelly and I spent all weekend scanning the spectrum for any semplance of rock, and the oldies station was the only one we could find.
So, in conclusion, Chicago radio stations suck.
