An Observation

I'd like to share an experience I had in traffic recently. Either I ran over a sheep, or I ran over a small man in a sheepskin coat.
-George Carlin

I have an observation I’d like to share with you that, hopefully, will a) bemuse you or b) amuse you. That’s right, I just made a reverse alphabetical alliteration pun. I’ve no idea what that might mean...

Moving on: it’s a weird feeling when you walk into an empty men’s room in an unfamiliar building, and you don’t see any urinals; urinals being, of course, the universal internal signal that differentiates the men’s room from the lady’s room. For just a second you doubt your ability to decide whether a stick figure is or is not wearing a skirt. You could walk back outside and check real quick, but what if someone sees you? You’ll look foolish for sure. The only option is to enter a stall, do your business, and convince yourself that yes, you did read the sign correctly. At some level there’s still a little fear that a woman might walk in, creating a potentially embarrassing situation, so it’s best to hurry things along a bit. On the way out you can give a surreptitious glance at the sign to reassure yourself of your stick-skirt checking abilities. Maybe you’ll have the chance to hold the door for another man walking into the bathroom, which would give you a reason to hesitate long enough to read the sign without breaking your neck, not to mention the reassurance that if you’re wrong, at least someone else is wrong too. Embarrassment does love company.

Term Limits? How About Page Limits

If you watched the evolution of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (a.k.a. the bailout bill) then you've seen probably my most hated habit of Capitol Hill. The bill started as a three-page document that Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson sent to Congress as his suggestion for how to begin fixing the mess. Admittedly, it was not a complete bill, in that, it did not cover all of the bases. No need to worry though, The House turned that three-page flyweight document into a solidly middleweight 109 pages. This bill, as you may know, was defeated in the House sending the markets into tailspin. But for those of you left bored by the brevity of the House bill, never fear for the Senate then beefed it up to a hefty 451 pages. Though if you look at the final version, which was also passed by the House, you will notice that the first 110 pages or so look startlingly like the original House bill. However, starting on page 113 is the Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008 which has nothing to do with the first part. Beginning on page 261 is the Tax Extenders and Alternative Minimum Tax Relief Act of 2008 which again has little, if anything, to do with either of the first two acts in the bill. It occurs to me that only the first act of the bill was actually discussed while the rest was largely just added onto the end with little or no fanfare. Furthermore, the "bailout" portion of the bill was mostly left alone between the bill getting voted down by the House and it's passing a few days later. Why not just have three separate bills and three separate votes?

The worst part is that the best-case scenario for regular folks like myself is that our legislators are too lazy to vote three different times. Every other explanation is less palatable. One option is that either of the two extra acts tacked on the end wouldn't have been passed without being tagged to the must-pass emergency act. Another is that the members (read: Republicans) of the House that voted against the first bill (after saying they would vote for it) only did so to let memebrs of the Senate add the extra acts on a bill that was surely going to be passed when it came back. Or how about this scenario: Congress knew that nobody outside of Washington would support one or both of the extra acts, and so they had to add them to the bill that they knew the media would only refer to as the "bailout" (or the media were told to since we're being conspiratorial). So we're left with either a) lazy legislators or b) malevolent legislators. Great time to be an American, eh?

But back to the title of this little rant. How hard is it to limit the length of these bills? I understand that some things take longer to spell out than others, but can we at least limit each bill to one act? Or better yet, can we avoid making the bills and laws so complicated that nobody can understand them? Maybe that would help with all of these loopholes we're always hearing about being exploited. Or maybe we could have a more informed citizenry. At the very least the law could be clearer and more simple. Those are good things, right?

Financial Crisis 2008: Solution, anyone?

Something to keep in mind as all of this political and financial turmoil plays out: This has been coming for a long time. Bear Stearns, Lehman, Wachovia, Washington Mutual, Merrill Lynch, FNMA, FHMC, and all the other large banks that have failed should be signal enough that something is systemically wrong.

That the banks were over leveraged and made a bunch of bad decisions is given. However, they were allowed to make those bad decisions by the regulatory environment that was allowed to persist by the elected folks in Washington that were looking out for our best interests. Those same folks have largely sat on their hands for the past several months. At the same time the ratings agencies are to blame for rating the mortgage-backed securities as safer than they actually were. Mortgage lenders are to blame for giving out loans to people that couldn't afford them. Borrowers are to blame for lying on forms and borrowing more money than they could afford. Home builders are to blame for building many more houses than could be sold, helping to drive home prices down. The media is to blame for not investigating further than political talking points. Stock traders are to blame for relentlessly bashing the stock of companies that were in a bad position, but may have been able to survive without having their stock price pushed toward zero.

There's plenty of blame to go around, but that's not what's important right now. Let's work on keeping the ship afloat before we worry about who needs to walk the plank.

Across the Streets

You’ve heard the rhetoric in Washington and the media about Wall Street versus Main Street. The idea, I think, is that there is a difference between what would benefit the financial sector and what would benefit regular Americans, whatever “regular” is supposed to mean these days. However, I don’t think that this demarcation is constructive, or even correct, especially in today’s political and financial climate.

First of all, in today’s world it should be practically impossible to make the argument that any portion of the economy or population can prosper or falter without affecting other parts of the country. I would think that this fact alone would discourage the “us vs. them” thinking that seems to be prevail in the public discourse. However, since that type of thinking seems to be ingrained in our culture, I’ll go further.

At a basic level, the idea of an investor class as distinct from the non-investor class is becoming or has become moot. Every homeowner with a mortgage is directly investing in their homes by acquiring equity in an asset (the home) over time. Every worker with a 401(k) or IRA is directly invested into the stock and bond markets. Every current or future retiree with a pension is having that pension invested for them by their company. Even if someone claims to not be an investor, per se, is still deeply affected by the financial sector. All businesses need loans to keep their operations running smoothly. If businesses could not get those loans, then they would not be able to function well, if at all.

It’s my personal opinion that the Wall Street versus Main Street rhetoric is simply that: political rhetoric. Vote maximizing politicians and a profit maximizing media have discovered that there are votes and ratings to be gained by pithy, confrontational sound bites, and an otherwise distracted or ambivalent public plays along, but it gets us nowhere.

Legend of the Seeker

It's finally on its way, kids. A mini-series based on the amazing Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind was announced in July of 2006, and it's finally coming through. According to the promo during the Cubs game tonight, the series begins November 1, 2008 on WGN for those that get it. According to the website, the first season will consist of 22 one-hour episodes with a two-hour series primiere.

As someone that read and loved the entire series, I cannot wait until the show starts. Of course, at the same time, I'm scared of watching it get butchered on screen, but it's being directed by Sam Raimi (the guy that directed Spiderman) who had to do a lot of convincing for Goodkind to let him make the series. I'm choosing to be optimistic. It's going to be on Saturdays apparantly, which I'm not a fan of, but I guess they have that much confidence in the show.

So go get started reading the books, because you know they're always better than the film version.