I had a pizza for dinner. Yeah, the whole thing. I was hungry, and I'm pretty sure I burned up that many calories and more today. Plus, tomorrow is a 40-mile ride up into the hills so I need the fuel. At least that's what I told myself as I was committing the sin of gluttony.
Did the USA Network knowingly plan to show the Pirates of the Caribbean movie tonight because this is "Talk Like a Pirate Day?" I didn't have an opportunity today to talk like a pirate except in a conversation with Pam. It didn't seem appropriate to throw an "Aaaargh" into my phone conversation with a customer.
If I have this right a whole bunch of people bought houses they couldn't afford by getting creative (aka bogus) mortgages from banks and mortgage companies looking to make quick and easy money. A lot of those institutions bundled and sold those mortgages to really big institutions like mutual funds, insurance companies and the like. When a whole lot of those buyers couldn't make their payments their homes went into foreclosure and those really big institutions ended up holding a ton of "bad paper." This bad paper formed such a substantial part of the big boys' financial inventory that several of them, like Merrill Lynch, AIG and Lehman Brothers either went under or stood at the brink.
It's one thing for your neighborhood bank to go belly-up, but when the giants look like they're going to topple one after another the government sees the need to step in lest innocent people get crushed underneath them.
So, today the govt. announced a program that will buy all that bad paper at a cost they haven't figured out yet, but that according to them will cost "hundreds of billions of dollars."
With those big financial institutions out from under all that bad debt they'll feel more free to loan money to people and companies with good credit, thus keeping our economy rolling along. And they won't be in danger of collapse.
What will the govt. do with all those bad mortgages? Hmmm. They could work with homeowners to restructure those loans to more favorable terms. But that's a pretty complicated and time consuming process. Or they could end up holding the same bad paper the giants held and owning a lot of empty houses.
Boy, am I glad I'm not the government!
Have I mentioned that I like cars? I can't remember a collection as sweet as this. It opens as a Power Point presentation, and you click to advance to the next beauty.
Classics
Lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, the pride of life...all right here on one street.
I know some people think watching golf on TV carries all the excitement of a cemetery but to everyone's surprise the current Ryder Cup competition has turned into a thriller (thank you, Michael). The Ryder Cup is played every two years and pits a team from Europe against a U.S. team. The site alternates between the the U.S. and Europe, and this year it's being played on a course in Tennessee. The U.S. hasn't won since 1999, has been pretty much whooped every year since then, and went into this year's competition as huge underdogs.
The event is played over three days - today was the first - and includes two rounds each day with a different scoring system for each. It may sound complicated but it's not. It is, however, very competitive with partisan crowds. Today they were shouting "USA, USA" with great elan because our team jumped out to a fairly large lead after the two rounds.
It's on NBC tomorrow, so tune in, if only to watch an hour or so. I'm guessing you'll get hooked.
Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before lift-off because passing wind damages the space suit. I'm thinking of a person or two I know who will never make it as an astronaut, beans or no.
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