Financial Change

In the immortal words of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy:

Don't Panic.

The news media and their 'financial pundits' keep saying "This is the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression", which upsets me because it's a flat out lie, designed I guess to increase ratings. Yes things are bad but common, every time there's a big 'crisis' they say that. They said that about the 1987 stock market crash, they said that about the Junk Bond trading scandal of 1989 and the Savings and Loan Crisis and every big drop in the market since the Great Depression.

Some facts to put things into perspective:

In the 1929 Stock Market Crash, the Dow lost over 40% of it's value (a value 10 times the budget of the Federal Government at that time. Of course the Govt. now spends so much more of our money...sigh.)

In in the 1987 Stock Market Crash, the Dow Jones lost 22.6% of it's value. The Savings and Loan crisis cost the Taxpayers $124.6 billion.

The AIG $85 billion 'bailout' isn't really a bailout because it's a loan. They will still have to pay it off.

Today, the Treasury has proposed purchasing $10 billion in mortgage-backed securities and is looking for Congressional approval to extend as much as $50 billion (or some rumors say $100 billion.)

Could this become another Great Depression. Yes, if politicians start creating government entities and laws to 'control' the economy.

http://www.fee.org/Publications/the-Freeman/article.asp?aid=3097

9/11 Black Hole

It's a quiet day in New York. It's September 11th and I remember that morning 7 years ago when Giselle and I heard the news. We had just started living in Hawaii. Now we live just across the bridge from Ground Zero.

What's sad is that the rebuild of the site and 9/11 memorial is grossly over budget and behind schedule. It's a shining example of what's worst about big government – what happens when design is decided by committee and when nobody is accountable and the decision makers are political appointees.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122108768069121211.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Speaking of big government projects, the worlds most powerful science experiment just came on-line this week, the Large Hadron Colider or as we call it in the street the LHC.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/telegraphtv/tvplayer/?ID=News&bcpid=1452197391&bclid=1453516501&bctid=1753815421

2008 Presidential Candidates

I'm glad the Dems and GOP national conventions are over. They're such a wasteful rah-rah fest. I'm waiting for the debates. The nomination campaigns have been so long and heated that I can't help feeling like the national election are a bit of a denouement. Me, I'm for Magneto.

The baby's growing nicely, though no new ultrasounds to show off, which is a bit disappointing. We've been staying home mostly and working on developing G's Dragonfli website and identity system. We'll also be staying in this weekend because tropical storm Hannah is going to be dumping all over us.