Tuesday 11 March 2008

This Bud's For You

For all those who've waited for the other shoe to drop, may I present - a dropped shoe:

"The Fed normally lends Treasury securities to banks for just a few hours. Under the new program, money will be lent for 28 days and the central bank will accept nongovernment mortgage-backed securities — the source of the current crisis in the credit markets — as collateral.The Fed will require that the assets, which are linked to soured home loans, have a premium credit rating." - NYT

The Dow went up over 400 points on this news. Look at that middle sentence "...the central bank will accept nongovernment mortgage-backed securities — the source of the current crisis in the credit markets — as collateral." Basically, the Fed just transferred all of this corporate risk onto you and me. Our collateral is the worthless piles of shit that have caused the problem in the first place. The only reason that the rating ("premium - now with nuts!") is good enough to use as collateral is because we're stupid enough to buy it. I swear to God I think Milo Minderbender runs this fucking country. That's a Catch 22 reference if you didn't catch it.

Don't be fooled - this is NOT a good thing for you.

Mountain biking has made me suck at cornering on the road. Not as bad as the Fed is at looking out for my best interstes, mind you. Level pedals, super loose upper body, hovering over the bike, these are all pretty much bad things on the road, but they're pretty ingrained. Watching Parrish go downhill this weekend made me realize that I pretty much blow at going downhill. He's got the nice locked in form and it just looks like he's going to make whatever line he wants. I'm also wicked scared of getting whacked in the face by a car, and I do a zillion times better on good roads. Sketchy, wet, gravelly and sandy roads pucker me up something fierce.

For the first time in my life, my legs told me to attack rather than my head deciding "well now seems like a good time." On Saturday, nearing the top of a relatively long (but not compared to the two really big ones we did that day) hill, I dug once to shake everyone that I could free. When I saw who was left, I sat on for about a minute or two, then smacked it once I saw the crest and got about 20 or 25 seconds gap by the top. Well, not really since Jay was right with me cool like lemonade but he doesn't count.

On that really massive mammoth climb a couple of things happened. My arms, wrists and hands were absolutely dying. The whole time I was thinking "man it's a good thing I did all that lifting this winter because I'd have been dead by now otherwise." Maybe lifting did nothing for me but it had a pretty huge placebo effect if not. Strong core and upper body has got to do you some good, though. The other thing is that I did some dark science and figured out (to within a few beats) what my wattage was on that climb. Which brings me to my final point.

Now that I've learned how to train much better, man is this shit hard. WTF? If you aren't going just north of zero on a recovery mission, you are busting ass on some interval or kicking yourself in the face on something else. I really was a bastion of that dead spot riding, only I didn't know it. I just didn't know how much it's supposed to hurt. Hopefully this stands me in good stead as the year goes on.

Who knows, once Great Depression Act 2 (or at least 1977 Stagflation Act 2) gets rolling we may not have any more bike races to worry about.



This is me wearing literally every piece of cycling kit that I own.

3 comments:

Kyle Jones said...

I was hoping the 30 year fixed rate would drop. A week from today my house closes. So I would like it to drop for the 20 dollar a month savings.

Love the photo.

Chuck Wagon said...

Ain't happening. One year, maybe 18 months from now, you will be LAUGHING when you look at what rates are being offered.

John(ny) said...

It's been a while since I've seen Milo Minderbinder in print. The logic of buying eggs at 7 cents per and selling them for 5 cents per and somehow making a profit is the "brilliance" behind the situation we're in now. And I'm no economist.

Catch-22 is my favorite American novel, bar none.

Great blog, by the way.

John(ny)