On the Day Before the Eve of Another Day

I am probably one of the worst Christians I know, and even in saying this, I am permeated by a secret pride that I am probably not half so bad as many others, secular or Christian alike. Often I tell myself that I've not hurt others, or wrecked the lives of others, with the greatest victim of my sins being me. My clones as firing squad, guns all pointed haphazardly in my direction, and me not even realizing half the time, or just ignoring potential doom.

But in the end this vision serves my pride, because I imagine that for every good gone undone--gentle whispers from God, conscience or nature ignored--at least, at base, I've not done incredible evil to others.

Of course that delusion, even if true, leaves me as just an unused tool hanging on the wall in the carpenter's shop.  I am the student at the back of the room, neither raising my hand with the answers, nor causing commotion. Ah, lukewarm. Past gone, future gone, forever in the present tense, buried in my body, buried inside myself. I am the man in limbo, caught between reality and imagination, between faith and disgust.

I seem not to be able to default to unbelief in God either, or open defiance. I lack the courage of the atheist. I lack also the will of God's former friend Satan, who could sit on a couch in paradise and conclude with open defiance that all that is, is not as it should be. In the end I believe in God, but have troubles with man, and most incredibly with myself. And yet, deep down, I want to love, and feel sadness that I don't, or can't, or can love some, but not others.

Which is why this song by Brandon Heath is on my playlist a lot:

Give Me Your Eyes

Looked down from a broken sky
Traced out by the city lights
My world from a mile high
Best seat in the house tonight

Touched down on the cold black tar
Hold on for the sudden stop
Breathe in the familiar shock
Of confusion and chaos

All those people going somewhere
Why have I never cared?

Give me Your eyes for just one second
Give me Your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me Your love for humanity

Give me Your arms for the broken hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach?
Give me Your heart for the one's forgotten
Give me Your eyes so I can see
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Step out on a busy street
See a girl and our eyes meet
Does her best to smile at me
To hide what's underneath

There's a man just to her right
Black suit and a bright red tie
Too ashamed to tell his wife
He's out of work, he's buying time

All those people going somewhere
Why have I never cared?

Give me Your eyes for just one second
Give me Your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me Your love for humanity

Give me Your arms for the broken hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach?
Give me Your heart for the one's forgotten
Give me Your eyes so I can see
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

I've been there a million times
A couple of million eyes just moving past me by
I swear I never thought that I was wrong

Well, I want a second glance
So give me a second chance
To see the way You see the people all alone

Give me Your eyes for just one second
Give me Your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me Your love for humanity

Give me Your arms for the broken hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach?
Give me Your heart for the one's forgotten
Give me Your eyes so I can see

Give me Your eyes for just one second
Give me Your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
That I keep missing

Give me Your arms for the broken hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach?
Give me Your heart for the one's forgotten
Give me Your eyes so I can see
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Financial Reform, A Mission Accomplished (Almost)

Deserves a Cookie!

Finally a piece of financial reform legislation has been cobbled together, unifying Senate and House variations into one common bill that will cause a certain amount of structural adjustments among firms with over $50 billion in assets. It's taken a while, given the turmoil that nearly collapsed the economy occurred in 2008.

This bill goes unsupported by most Republicans, though Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, much applauded by Republicans when he unexpectedly won the Kennedy's seat earlier this year, is turning out to be more responsible than your average Republican.

The bill is expected to have enough support to become law. Both chambers plan to vote next week. The margin in the House and Senate will likely be close because most Republicans are expected to oppose the measure.

If the bill passes, President Barack Obama is expected to sign the package into law by July 4. Thursday's agreement also gives the president leverage going into a weekend summit of world leaders in Canada, where he will prod other nations to rewrite their rules.

(WSJ)

Expect to hear a great deal of hyperbole from those against the bill, and how the heavy hand of government will lead to failing banks and higher expenses for us all. Ignore that.The number of banks and credit unions in the country is huge, with only a few firms of a certain size impacted by some provisions. The big banks can raise fees or pass along only so much before people switch their money to credit unions or smaller banks. Or before some wise entrepreneur comes along and forms a new bank to target a neglected market.  That's how capitalism works.

The legislation is pretty broad, and in the home mortgage arena, the source of all our woes, it extends changes in lending requirements initiated by the Federal Reserve in 2008.  It forces lenders to verify income, credit and job status on all borrowers, according to the Wall Street Journal. The earlier Fed adjustments along these lines were limited to sub-prime. It would also ban putting people into bad loans.

The root cause addressed, the legislation goes on to make a bunch of changes intended to limit the risk inside our larger financial institutions. Hedge funds and PE firms--which really were no factor in our financial meltdown--nevertheless get their wings clipped a little by being forced to register with the SEC, and more damaging, periodically disclose their positions. We imagine a certain amount of fraud and unintended shenanigans from that provision as people look to capitalize on the revealed holdings of these firms. We wonder if there is some time delay on what has to be revealed, or if it will be real time disclosures of current positions.

We've pointed out in the past Republican double speak over the provision that would have forced the banks to fee up in advance to cover potential collapses and unwinding of firms that might damage the financial system. That was called a "taxpayer bailout", even though, well, it's the virtual opposite. That provision was tossed, and instead using "no taxpayer funds", but government money up front (what? how?), fees will be collected from banks after any liquidation activity. Just like the Republicans wanted. But, just in case you are not paying attention, they still are uniformly not supporting the bill. All they managed to do was increase government liability by refusing to charge solvent firms a miniscule fee during good times to create a liquidation fund, in order to try to collect a fee after a potentially cataclysmic financial event. That makes a lot of sense.

Of course because Republicans have not voted for the bill, the potential stupidity of that provision will fall on the heads of Democrats, with future Republicans pointing the finger with a revisionist flourish.

The bill limits prop trading by banks, limits their investment in prop traders (meaning hedge funds), normalizes the trading of some derivatives to exchanges open to all, and forces banks to push their more esoteric derivatives trading into fully capitalized affiliates.

Again, while derivatives did not initiate our meltdown, derivatives did play a part in allowing large parties to greatly increase systemic risk when there was no systemic risk financing structure in place beyond the taxpayer.

This is a good piece of legislation that addresses the practices of businesses, individuals and governments and that is as it should be, giving the joint participation of all three in the economic meltdown.

The final vote is supposedly next week. We watch and wait.

Financial Freedom of America Financially Fleecing Americans

The radio ad offered the services of a company based in Dallas with a soothing name: Financial Freedom of America. It cast itself as an antidote to the breakdown of middle-class life.

“We negotiate the past while you navigate the future,” read a caption on its Web site, next to a photo of a young woman nose-kissing an adorable boy. “The American Dream. It was never about bailouts or foreclosures. It was always about American values like hard work, ingenuity and looking out for your neighbor.”

(N.Y. Times)

Here again we have the private sector taking advantage of people in financial distress. Observe the language in use: "Freedom," "America," "Hard work," "Looking out for your neighbor."

It's not about bailouts and foreclosures, or those things that get pinned on Obama despite the reality that the very people crawling to the debt recovery industry, and some in the industry, played a part in the mortgage collapse that derailed the country.

Notice the marketing here, appealing to and affirming people's sense of being a true American, and noble, and not at all part of the problem. These same people seeking relief will also, in their votes, turn on politicians who support bailouts or stimulus plans, often oblivious to the true scope of government action and how much that action (whether via aid or regulation) protects them from themselves, and from private sector crooks run amok.

Texas Representative Barton Against BP Corporate Responsibility to Victims

Tiny hands of God that you don't see. A lot of Republicans have been under fire for not adequately expressing outrage for British Petroleum's massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, despite the fact that this disaster in the oil industry will have the effect of destroying several other local industries, including fishing and tourism.

We think specifically of Representative Joe Barton of Texas, who referred to President Obama's desire to have BP pay for its mistake with a $20 billion victim fund as a "shakedown". The reasoning behind his defense of corporate messiness has to do with the ideology of unrestrained capitalism. The idea of personalized freedom (a good thing), transposed upon everything else in the world--like doing business--makes for a lot of faulty assumptions that result in ridiculous policies. For while freedom is good for everyone personally, any number of people will take that freedom and use it for really stupid things that impact others: theft, murder, property damage. We pass laws and regulate individuals, reducing freedom in order to allow maximum freedom.

The ability to adversely impact a massive number of innocents is exacerbated when we are looking at the behavior of corporations as they engage in free enterprise. In most instances they are capable of inflicting outcomes on large swathes of the population and no individual person can stand up to that on their own. Hence laws and regulations.

And for every backwater delusional congressman who is proclaiming an ode to free markets and lamenting the harsh treatment of a corporation like BP, there are any number of laws and regulations that are preventing some large or small injustice to the population at large.

Today's example, from an article in The Atlantic:

In January, the NYSE fined Credit Suisse $150,000 for “failing to adequately supervise the development, deployment, and operation of a proprietary algorithm.” The fine was a pittance, but more troubling was that the bank didn’t even know that its malfunctioning algo (which sent hundreds of thousands of cancel-and-replace requests for orders that hadn’t been made) had crippled some of the NYSE’s trading stations until regulators called them the next day. This spring, a newsletter from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago warned: “Although algorithmic trading errors have occurred, we likely have not yet seen the full breadth, magnitude, and speed with which they can be generated. Furthermore, many such errors may be hidden from public view.”

(The Atlantic)

Little Joe from Texas, the highest ranking Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, is not going to be paying attention to high speed automated trading on Wall Street and how it impacts the noble goal of raising capital for American businesses. Nor is Joe going to be focused on any number of other regulations that actually serve to prevent minor or total chaos. Joe has an ideology that simplifies everything for him into one cookie cutter reactionary stance, that private enterprise can do no wrong and regulatory actions by the government are always suspect. It's this same sort of philosophy that is in part hanging up financial reform legislation, with industry supported congressmen not wanting to make the banks pay in advance for their own salvage fund. (Republicans went so far as to call an industry financed bailout fund a taxpayer fund, turning reality on its head).

And yet, we vote for deep thinkers like Joe time and again. He  needs to stick to introducing college football playoff legislation in Congress and keep his mouth from uttering words his brain can't cash.

Whose the King of Kings Now!

Lightening struck Jesus and killed him. Not the Biblical one that some of us know and love, chat with and pray to (annoying atheists and hedonists alike). It's Touchdown Jesus, the one in Ohio who sat on the grounds of Solid Rock Church, the superchurch along Interstate 75. After the hit job from the heavens, he burned to the ground.

Officially known as King of Kings, he also went by such other names, (Wikipedia tells us) like Touchdown Jesus, Swamp Jesus, Super Jesus, and Drowning Jesus, because the waist up manifestation of holiness appeared to be chest deep in a pond.

While the church is planning to resurrect Jesus, probably not in three days, others have had harsher words.

"He was not the real Touchdown Jesus," said Notre Dame's Jesus from the grassy campus of Notre Dame in Indiana where he lives in eternal splendor. Authorities have questioned Jesus about the incident, with Jesus declining comment. "I never left the mosaic, or the campus. I did not kill that Jesus. It was an act of God" was all he would add.

Swarm

Alvin R.U.N. There?

In all the rumbling about Alvin Greene's super stealthy path to becoming the Democratic nominee for a South Carolina Senate seat, we cannot entirely dismiss his claim that he has a network of supporters. Nor is it entirely impossible for him to come up with a $10,000 plus filing fee while being unemployed.  Seriously, it's not that much money, especially if you have been in the military for a while and socking away cash while saving on expenses. People have pointed out that he should not have requested a public defender for his alleged showing of porn to a college student if he actually had the money, making it all very mysterious.

(We lack the details, but somehow showing porn to college students seems a bit like showing Sesame Street to toddlers). We assume that when you are down to your last ten thousand, but have also gotten busted for something incredibly stupid, you want to save your stash for your dream of being a senator and passing life changing legislation. Do you really want to blow it on a public defender who will probably lose your case anyway?

What kills us though, is the reflexive tendency to paint Greene (sans further facts) as both criminal and mentally deficient. It's particularly amusing to watch various media and loud voices go through Socratic variations of inquiry by way of asking him, "Are you retarded?" How quickly we can lose our manners with certain types of people. You know what I mean. Those people.

It's possible to imagine him running his stealth campaign via social networking from the comfort of his home. He could have been sitting there in the den with dad, firing up his netbook, and telling his friends, and friends of friends, to help raise the cash or get out the vote. "Dad, I'm firing up the BlueSwarm on my Asus to see how our supporters are doing. Gonna send out a few Facebook hugs to those on the fence."

In contrast, BlueSwarm and similar software lets users work their friends and families and, in turn, have them solicit their own network to build a donor tree with deep roots. The same technique applies to institutional fundraising used by colleges or social causes such as charity campaigns.

Success and failure are tracked over the Internet on a screen illustrating the roots of donor's organization, as well precisely who has given and who still needs to cut a check or type in their credit card number.

(AP via Yahoo)

It's good to know that the future may now be here, and that we can all run the most complex of campaigns from the comfort of home, not too far from the fridge. We only need exit our house on election day to make a speech and do some inarticulate interviews with the swarm of media voices who will simultaneously fellate and mock us out of the same mouth.  

Qualified to One Day Be President

Given the recent elections, we are faced with some exciting new voter elected voices to go along with the existing voices floating out there. California gave us two business women as potential winners for the governorship and California Senate seat. Don't worry that Carly never achieved very much when running HP, or that Meg became a billionaire atop someone else's entrepreneurial genius. We should know by now that Americans are not ones to let true accomplishment or real intellect meddle with their enthusiasms. We are delightfully delusional in our taste, willing to extend our attention spans (and votes) to any and all.

Alvin: ?

Sarah: ?

Alan: ?

Sail On

I'm into my second week of notional unemployment as a classroom assistant. My former (but still current, sort of) employer had the kindness to allow me to work a summer contract for their extended school year program, so while unemployed, I am not yet bereft. I return to work in a week, for four weeks.

For the fall school season I am on my own, and while someone assured me that I will land on my feet (during the worst recession in modern history, and in the education field where fully certified teachers are hurting for work), every now and again I imagine that homelessness might be right around the corner. I put the thought out of my mind, and try to think pleasant thoughts, while filling out yet another application.

I know more than a few people that are hurting--either out of jobs, or short on funds--and I don't imagine that's going to change any time soon. Of course the word "soon" is relative. I think our economy will be on an upswing about a year to 15 months from now. But "soon" is like today, tomorrow, July or August for those of us on the edge and wondering what will we do.

There are a lot of people in this nation facing the question, "What do I do?," and frequently the answer involves a lot of uproot, pain and difficulty. Sometimes those doing the firing have no idea what you will go through as your ship leaves their shore and heads out into the beautiful sea. You were only docking, offloading goods, lending a hand until utility is gone. "But the storm is rolling in," you say, hoping for reprieve, but you are told to sail on. It will be good for you.

Economic Mire Spreads Like Oil, Europeans Getting Tarred.

Virgin Oil

The economic news is all over the place, with the latest batch of factoids being a general sluggishness in private sector hiring. We realized that fact with unintended irony, since our private school ended the school year last Thursday with several employee contracts going unrenewed. The stock market took the news--the broader unemployment news--with some alarm, sending the Dow down below 10,000.

We are inclined to believe that this week will take the Dow down further, since there is nothing explicitly positive on the horizon to liven the spirits of people who pay attention to things like this. Other than, maybe summer and vacations.

As we speak at this later hour, the day officially Monday at 12:01 a.m. here in a blazing hot Phoenix, markets in Asia are getting fusty and reacting to our previous week's sell off and concerns about Hungary.

"The problem seems like a cancerous thing -- it's spreading from smaller country to smaller country, and many people are afraid that it will spread to a big country like France or Germany, although that's unlikely," said Jackson Wong, vice president at Tanrich Securities, in Hong Kong.

(AP via Yahoo)

None of this is entirely shocking, but it contrasts interestingly with various article titles I have seen with people admonishing the President, "It's your economy now!" This is tossed out as a way of saying that the president cannot blame the previous administration for any problems now that we are a year or more into his presidency. His critics are becoming bolder in their attempts to manufacture an image of a man who has done nothing during this time. Republicans in particular are not inclined to give him any specific credit, dismissing every piece of legislation and every act passed as some sort of monstrosity. He has done nothing, and...AND, he is not improving the job market. Unreconstructed laissez faire types are spitting this nonsense into the ocean-like expanse of the American mind.

Bad Oil

But let's be real here. You really cannot divorce the ongoing economic turmoil from the policies of the past, nor can you fix such turmoil easily or quickly. Compare it to the BP rig collapse and oil leakage. A year from now when the well is capped or cemented or blown up and coastal shores are still cleaning up the mess, imagine any sane person coming along and saying, "Well you can't blame BP, it's the Louisiana government's issue now." Nonsense. You cannot leapfrog culpability or causality.

Every single moment of our unemployed, credit rocked, under capitalized world is a function of previous policies from many presidents. And it's not nearly an American problem. It's a world problem, with many nations having followed our lead into murky financial waters.

Early last month, in an indication of just how dangerous the situation had become, European banks — which appear to hold more than half of that $2.6 trillion in debt — nearly stopped lending money to one another.

(N.Y. Times)

We have a habit of viewing everything in isolation, causality removed, perspective truncated. With Europe on the fritz and not exactly taking the bold action the U.S. took in the last two years, we are now faced with the risk of getting the blowback of our sins blown back at us. We led in the manufacturing of false prosperity and easy money, and European financial institutions followed our lead. Now they suffer, and if that pain is deep and hard enough, we will also hurt and remain mired in sluggish to non-existent job growth.

What Obama can realistically do about it remains to be seen. Righting the economy quickly is like cleaning up an oil spill quickly. Can't quite be done. The cleanup is long term, and there is a fight every step of the way as those responsible for lax oversight seek to shirk responsibility and deflect an accounting.

Pure Oil

What you cannot do is have it all ways in a consolidated "theory of everything" that begins with an Obama big bang explosion as the root cause of every single piece of man-made disaster extant in the U.S., and for a recession that began in December of 2007, and whose roots go deep into the depths of American spending, monetary, regulatory and credit habits.  Or rather, you can have it all ways, but you will sound like an idiot to anyone with half a brain to read between the lies.