(no subject)

[which_chick]

Special for my dad and possibly interesting for others who may yet feel that we're not totally fucked in a financial sense.



It's here.

Pony night: Tonight was actually a night off for Callie. I fed her and brushed her and put her away. In lieu of riding Callie, I took one of the two red three year olds out of the field and beat up on it a bit. (The field contains two blaze-faced chestnuts, both three years old. Neither one has been handled much and both of them need to be broke to ride in order to make them sold. The pair of them we have named Broadway and Dinero so that we can tell 'em apart and discuss them and so forth. Why the names? They're descriptive -- one horse has a broad blaze and the other has a narrow one -- so that we will remember the names two weeks from now. We are entirely too clever, are we not?) Broadway was the project for tonight. She catches, as does Dinero, because I've been bribing them with the odd handful of grain over the gate when I feed Callie. The pair have gotten the idea that I am the source of good things so I can now catch them. Being able to catch 'em is a good first step because ain't nobody learning anything being run around the field. I brushed Broadway and fed her a can of grain and flysprayed her. We did some preliminary rope work to no great excitement. She's way more levelheaded than Dinero, whom I did last Tuesday. Dinero snorted and leapt about and generally felt that outside-the-field was DANGER WILL ROBINSON! She did her work and learned but she never settled down to sensible. Broadway doesn't have quite that hardwired reaction to be goochy and I think she'll be easier to break.

On an entirely unrelated note, anyone who would like scanlations of the Yaoi Bondage Porn (It's manga, which is to say black and white comics from Japan) that I refer to here and there among these pages, those can be found here if you scroll down to the comments section. Links go to a freebie download site, but they worked for me. I should not have to say this, but the Yaoi Bondage Porn is Yaoi, which means there are no female characters at all in the whole run of the thing. None. There aren't even any supporting characters who are women. The YBP is a world made entirely of guys getting it on with other guys. It's Bondage. Expect to see whips, chains, hot wax, leather strappy outfits, people tied up, etc. There's a nice selection of that sort of thing going on, so y'know, be prepared. Finally, it's Porn. There are a lot of naked or partially-naked men engaging in assorted graphically-rendered sexual acts with General Enthusiasm and also Corporal Punishment. (I hesitate to guess how many of you gentle readers have any interest whatsoever in YBP, but what the hell. Enjoy, if it's the sort of thing that you might enjoy. If you think it wouldn't do anything for you, well, d'oh. Don't download it.)

Comments

[gwangi.livejournal.com]

The log graph is much more informative, imho.

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

Ur, if long-term borrowing is not allowed and then later it is allowed, and borrowing by investment banks is not allowed and then later it is allowed, and all this is in response to investment banks being short on cash, it is not unexpected that borrowing will go from hovering around zero to $lots.

Ask me in a year if $lots is too much.

(Note that my answer will be "yes", and my 401(k) is 80% in foreign securities at this time. But still, the whole "this looks like it's growing infinitely fast" thing is not entirely fair, what with the spigot being turned on instantaneously one day.)

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

Your argument about the all-at-once ability of investment banks to borrow money from the Fed is, indeed, valid. However, I don't think that it is the business of the Fed to lend to investment banks. I also don't think that the volume of lending is particularly reassuring. Quite the opposite, in fact.

I'm pretty much not in favor of the Fed letting investment banks borrow money. Throwing further liquidity at a problem that was, in part, driven by artificially low interest rates is about as useful as pouring gasoline on a bonfire.

I further do not think that the Fed taking the collateral paper (largely CDOs of the sort that are currently worth nothing much) of the investment banks at what the investment banks claim it is worth is a particularly sensible action. They're only propping up the value of paper that isn't worth anything. This isn't helping. The paper still isn't worth anything.

Investment banks, to my way of thinking, shouldn't HAVE to borrow money from the Fed. They should HAVE money of their own sufficient to meet the needs of their obligations by way of being profit-making enterprises. If they cannot manage to be profit-making enterprises on their own, perhaps they should try some other business.

Should investment banks be led into the drinking of poisoned Kool-Aid by financiers who chose to disregard history (Real Estate Always Goes Up! They aren't making any more land!) and reality (We can divide the pool of mortgages into tranches of risk and that'll make some of the debt AAA rated and Totally Safe! Yes, people can certainly have no-money-down mortgages with teaser rates. If they get in trouble when the rate resets, they can just refinance because the house will have appreciated. Hell, they'll even be able to take out money for A New Car or A Vacation.) in pursuit of unreasonably high profits, those investment banks should fucking fail. The investment banks should not swill whatever they are handed without a dubious look or two at the contents of the cup.

Spinning out the "credit crunch" by accepting shitty paper and handing over money to organizations that have PROVED their incompetence with a dollar is not a good policy. It does not encourage due diligence, thrift, or caution in the wonderful world of high finance -- a world where due diligence, thrift, and caution are, IMHO, sorely needed. No finance company should ever think that it is "too big to fail."

Attempting to mitigate said credit crunch by keeping interest rates the same while inflation heads ever higher so that debtors can pay back their debts with cheaper and cheaper dollars... that just assrapes the people who have actual money lying around. (It is not un-American to have piles of money. Having piles of money is what being an American is all about.) Stupid Fed and its stupid jawboning about "tough on inflation" stood pat again today, which was the wrong choice. My ass, Mr. Bernanke.

What we have, here, is a situation where the lads in high finance can rest assured that the government will step in and save them if they're too fucking stupid. When the future holds rewards without risk (because the gov't has shown itself willing to bail out losers), caution goes out the window. We will have ample opportunity to regret this dumb-ass decision in the future and I respectfully submit that the damage has been done even if the government says it's only just this once and that it can quit any time it wants.

Meanwhile, in the midst of all this economic unhappiness, the two people trying to win the job of running the country are busy Comparing the Other Candidate to Paris Hilton and Pretending Not To Know Mr. Unbelievably Silly and Cannot Spell. Neither one seems to notice the fucking economy. Color me not enthusiastic...

Actually, I'm starting to think that what we need is to watch the world burn.

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

"When fantastically rich gamblers fuck up, they should just eat it" is a very bourgeois attitude, young lady. Don't you know we socialize risk around here?