Tuesday 24 March 2009

Screwed

Wall Street rallied yesterday on news of this public/private partnership deal. I personally think we the people are taking a shellacking on it. The whole issue stems from no one knowing what these "toxic assets" are worth. Apparently toxic now means "of indeterminate value" according to what I've heard. Anyway, we are going to pay a price for them, and are totally unprotected against their decline in value. Sounds like any other investment deal, right. Well, except for all the deals that got us to this august state of affairs, where the people who fouled up reaped tremendous profits.

As much as I hate executive pay caps and Congress making tax laws up on the fly, it's a bad response to a bad situation. Seriously, what are these people thinking taking $6mm bonuses. These same guys are probably screaming about stupidity and shortsightedness when they read about the UAW sticking to some deal that is strangling the auto makers. Whatever, I guess $6mm in my pocket might make me a bit shortsighted too. Why don't people own up to their messes anymore?

Housing sales went up last month. Median sales price was down 15.5%, but I guess you take the good news where you can get it. Tightening mortgage qualification standards WILL by themselves drive prices down. When you have to do the deal with real money and not funny money, it changes the equation quite a bit. How can you afford your rock and roll lifestyle? Oh, you can't? Not surprising.

While stuck in traffic on 95 in DE this weekend (the absolute worst toll booth design ever - backups generally span the length of the state) I had some mental masturbatory flashes of clarity. For example, training is a strict math problem set, while racing is like a word problem. You have to strip it down to the relevant components and go from there. You also have to realize that you may be faster than every "him" in the race, but it's a special kind of hammer who's stronger than the "them."

Strange week for me this week. Looks like rain on the weekend. Groovy.

1 comment:

chris said...

Rain rain go away...yeah that would really suck...Jeff cup is doable in rain but if theres cold added it would be a drag.