Suit Up

Yes, I still have a job. No, the bank is not going under. Yes, it's business as usual.

Have you been following the financial news? Crazy times! Personally, I'm pretty much done "making history" - I was on the forefront of the Sub-Prime meltdown, then I was on the forefront of the Credit Crisis, now I'm on the forefront of the Bank Disaster. Yay, me!

Since I'm an uber nerd, I've been filling my free time (what little there is) with news, blogs, and podcasts about the current state of our economy. If you are at all interested, NPR.org has some awesome info, and the podcasts at NPR.org/money are amazing - they give great info about the financial sector presented in terms that anyone can understand, even without a degree from Harvard.

Here's the bottom line: we are screwed. Through "toxic waste" loans (a real Wall Street term) being bundled into AA+ rated CDO bonds and sold to the national and international market, naked short selling running rampant on the stock market, creating new and high-risk loan packaged to fulfil the global hunger for American Debt Bonds, and the Republican "hands-off" and "zero regulation" policy surrounding the stock and investment market, the global economy is in a place it has never been before. A baaaaaaaad place.

I'm not going to bore you with specific details (unless you want info about something - comment and I'll post about it next) but realize this is Historic. Last night as I was falling asleep I found myself really wishing I had gone to college so I could go back for a masters or Doctorate in Finance/Business/Economics now. This stuff is amazing to me! I would totally be at home studying all this stuff - modern economic education is almost more complex that astrophysics.

Monday is going to be a big day. Bush is working to have a $700 billion bail out of the toxic waste mortgages: banks will be able to sell the crappy high-risk mortgages to a government vehicle created to take this crap, hold it for a few years to let the market and investor confidence return, then trickle that waste back into the market. In short-term, that's a good and possibly much-needed thing. Long-term this could be devastating. First, the government has never stepped into free trade this way: there is no prescience for this. Second, where do you thing that $700 BILLION dollars will come from? Johnny Taxpayer, that's where. I'm not adverse to paying more taxes if it means that the global financial market will continue to turn and other countries will continue to buy up rights to American Debt (hell, American Debt is what makes the financial world go 'round, to no small degree). But for Bush to get "credit" for this "fix" and then leave office and let the next President figure out where the money comes from is simply bullshit. It's a case of "spend now, get the money later." Oh wait - that's the Modern American Way.

So there you have it. Banks are going to stay in business, AIG will still be around (I won't address the dangers of allowing a company to get "too big to fail", or more literally "too big to allow to fail" in this blog), Bank Of America is well on their way to getting "too big to fail" with the purchase of Merrill Lynch, and stocks are coming back up. Until, at least, SEC Chairman Christopher Cox decides to make another boneheaded move and do something that fixes thing for three days and then makes it a million times worse.

God Bless America, and out ability to spend way outside our means in order to fund other countries who want to buy the debt we incurred purchasing the goods that those countries produced in the first place!




Okay, so I'm done Financially Ranting for now. Does this interest anyone else? Or should I go back to my other trademarked Rants?