It's all ball bearings these days

Oct 1, 2008

So I was actually asked recently what I thought about the whole financial mess over the last couple of weeks. I swear, I will get back to writing about the family in the very near future - but I actually had some thoughts about this.

Fundamentally the problem is that the US is a debtor nation.

I mean we've had massive balance of payments deficit for years, and over the last ten years we've also had a huge fiscal deficit. So essentially we had to borrow money from overseas (china, japan, etc) to finance those deficits. In the 90s and early 2000s most of that money was going into stock market. And when that bubble burst in 2001 - all that overseas money started looking for new places to invest, so they turned to real estate.

My understanding is that a bunch of poor policy decisions rewriting some of the financial regulations that limited oversight and transparency happened right around the same time. A bunch of financial companies had more lax regulations and a ton of money to invest and they started being really really aggressive in writing mortgages (which they would then consolidate and repackage which was supposed to alleviate the risk, but fundamentally didn't change the risk) to people who couldn't afford them. And US consumers starting buying those insane mortgages to buy houses bigger/better houses. At the end of the day they couldn't afford them - and starting defaulting.

That meant that some of the assets that were based on those mortgages started performing really bad and the whole thing exploded. Honestly, I think all that would normally be fine - I mean you make a bad decision and you have to face the consequences.

The problem is that there has been so much slicing, dicing, and repacking of those mortgages that nobody really knows what anything is worth or what they're really holding. That's where it becomes a mess - it seems that banks don't fully know how many bad assets they hold or anyone else holds for that matter - that they are not lending money to anyone.

I think that's really what causing the crisis - banks aren't lending to other banks, and the cost of borrowing for normal companies has gone through the roof because everyone is freaked with who might fail next, so companies can't grow or can't finance equipment they need to buy - which could really effect the whole economy. I just read something about McDonalds not giving its franchises any loans to upgrade their latte machines, because the costs of borrowing and the risks associated with it have gotten so high. I mean, seriously - that's messed up, their latte's aren't even that good.

And that really does need to be addressed, but I think the gov. really needs to just get transparency back in the market so companies understand what's on their balance sheet and banks relax a little and start to lend money. I even have a possible solution.

I think the government should start a company. It's charter could be rather than profit maximization, just a fair return (say higher than the 30 year note). Hire a bunch of smart laid off wall street types (hey, it's a job creation program too). They could then hold an auction on the distressed assets. Any company that wants to offload some of it's bad assets could put them up for sale. Any potential company that was interested in buying the assets could bid on them. The government company would set the price floor at what price it would buy the asset.

I mean the assets do have some value, right - as long as they generate a modest return, they could work with the homeowners of the distressed properties to rework the mortgages; it would inject liquidity into the system.That might work. Eventually the gov could spin the company off or whatever.

I don't actually have enough detail on what the governments plan, but I think they are attempting something similar for getting liquidity back in the system. It sounds like a lot about the current plan stinks - but if companies can't borrow we are talking serious recession; so you kind of have to hold your nose and vote for it. From what I understand the plan doesn't just hand over $700bn to Wall Street or anything, it is letting the government buy these assets which they might later resell and even make some money. What I personally don't like is that it's not as market efficient as it could be. The price would be negotiated rather than market determined, and no other companies are able to come in and say they might buy the assets for a higher price. Why not?

So what do I think is going to happen? A recession, and a pretty bad one. That sucks, but consumers are worried, right? So they are going to start spending a little less, and probably try to pay off some of their debt. So production decreases, which means people start to get laid off (kind of a vicious cycle there, because that just reinforces the decline in spending). It also means imports go down (good thing), and with a depressed currency our exports will start in increase improving our balance of payments position, which is well overdue. Eventually, peoples credit debt gets cleared up enough to start to spend some money - and strong exports lead us back to some growth. But that's like three years away (that's a guess, but it's something like that).

And what is even worse is that when you are in a recession, you want the government to be spending money to get some growth in the economy. But with the already huge deficit, and funds potentially tied up with the bad mortgage assets, we've kind of limited ourselves there. One of the reasons why Bush's tax cut was kind of a bad idea - you want the government to be counter-cyclical. Saving money when the economy is doing well and spending when it's doing poorly. But the current policies spent a ton of money when the economy was doing well and gave money back in tax cuts when they should have been hanging on to it when everything went pear shaped.

Okay, well - now I feel uplifted. Back to the mundane.

There's an awesome This American Life that covered this a couple months ago - if you have an hour it's really worth a listen:

http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=355

Yeah, it's about politics.

September 22, 2008

Yeah, I don't care - I'm writing about politics. I know I normally discuss crap like my inability to parent. But I have to tell you, I've just been doing too much reading on politics and I can't handle it anymore. I'm about to freak out.

I actually try to be reasonable about shit. I mean if someone was staunchly pro-life, or thought that the Bush administration actually did a pretty reasonable job over the last eight years. Fine, I get it, go support McCain. Don't get me wrong - I don't agree with you, and think that W is going to go down as one of the worst presidents we've had, but my view perhaps is not shared by everyone (go figure).

It's not that I even think W is the root of all evil (which is how most of my liberal leaning friendse want to portray him). Bad, you bet - but he started off his presidency in the worst possible way (appointed by the Supreme Court) and then just a major tragedy nine months into it. I think a lot of the decisions he made (right or wrong, but really - just wrong) were based on what he thought was necessary for the protection of the country. That he refuses to reevaluate his conclusions or positions is a completely frustrating but a separate issue. I do actually think he was acting in what he thought was the best interest of the country. That is actions were actually the oppisite, does not speak to intent, just competence.

So all that is okay, see, I can justify W's presidency (ouch, that hurts even to write). But what I am struggling with is people that don't like Obama or are voting for McCain for completely bullshit reasons. I don't know how many people are making decisions like this, beause it's just based on some of the stuff that I am reading, but I'm following it pretty closely, and it seems like waaaaaaaay too many.

For example:

Obama is an elitist. WTF? A black man raised by a single white mom on food stamps is elitist, but silver spoon W. or multi-house McCain keeps it real? Excuse me? Have we entered some sort of bizzaro world? How is this even possible.

Obama will raise my taxes. Do you make more the $250,000? No. Then STFU. Oh, you do? My bad, he will raise your taxes. Actually that's not even true. The tax cuts Bush put in place have a sunset provision in them saying that they'll end in something like 2010. Bush/McCain wants to extend the cuts - Obama wants to bring taxes back in line where they were pre-cut.

Obama is all style no substance. Wrong. As a matter of fact it's so completely wrong it's not even a lie - it's like the anti-truth. Yes, Obama is a gifted speaker (esp. compared to McCain) - but if you actually listen to he speeches or go on his website, he has actually laid out a ton of actual policy positions. I mean, one might not like them, but seriously - they're out there, and they're real. McCain, on the other hand, has offered up no specifics - but says things like 'cut taxes' (and how to we finance that?) and 'washington needs change.' He gets that it's been a republican administration for the last eight years - and that until '06 they controlled congress as well. I mean he's tying to say 'we need change - stick with the party in charge'

Good God, I'm so frustrated I don't even have coherent thought anymore. I'll have to refine this tomorrow.

My new slogan is: Vote for the Smart Guy. Dumb hasn't been so good for the country.

Underoos Rule!

September 17, 2008


You know, I don't really care how old you are. Underoos are flippin cool as hell. I gotta get me a set.

That is all.

I am the poop whisperer!

September 15, 2008


I guess it turns out that there are just certain roles that each of us need to play in the family. For example, Parker, you know, with no income to speak of is sort of a money vacuum. His latest method of making suckers out of us is to find something he really wants (say, I don't know, a dump truck) and he'll get this long face and say "Awwww, I wish I had one of those - then I would be sooooo happy." And to our credit - his success rate is only 90%, I mean we really hold our ground 10% of the time. So that is Parker's role. Julie's, of course, is different. I think Parker put it best regarding Julie. I came home from work yesterday, and Julie and Parker were playing (yes, trucks). Parker likes to have some individual quality time with each of us, so when I came in he said, "Daddy, you can play with me now." Julie relinquishes her spot, gets a drink and shortly returns to the room. Parker looks at her and says, "Mommy, don't sit on the couch" (for fear she is going to interrupt our quality play time). "Mommy, you can go wash the dishes."

To his credit. there were a few dishes left over from lunch that needed to go into the dishwasher. And, in my defense, I have in no way suggested or implied that very traditional 1950's gender stereotyping for our family. No, the big man did that one all on his own. Very progressive. Apparently Mommy's role is in the kitchen.

Me? I am the poop whisperer. I don't know why - but the little man seems to only poop when I take him. It's actually a little freaky. I mean we have been trying to potty train this kid for like the last twenty years. He's been awesome with number one for maybe the last year or so - but he was in some sort of poop protest for the last nine months. He appeared to take great pride in informing us that he had, in fact, pooped his pants. But sometime over the last two months he has started to turn the corner. By the way, I realize that discussing a child's bowel movements is quite literally letting people into a world they could not care two shits about.

Anyway, like I said - he seems to have turned the corner, with one caveat - I have to be around. He actually even tells Julie that he's going to wait for me. I think Julie actually uses this, because lets face it, the whole thing is pretty disgusting, and the less time one has to spend dealing with other's feces the better.

I can handle it - we come up with games guessing how big it's going to be, calling it the big stinky, and rolling cars and trucks over my head. Good times, good times.

He has also started swim lessons again - and we are talking huge progress since last year. Still wants to have the death grip around my neck, but now I can eventually pry him off.

More about that later though.

Sibling Class

September 12, 2008



Okay, so I took the big man to preschool for the first time today. That was kind of a big deal. And I have to say he handled it really well. When we went on Tues, Julie and I were both there, which probably made it less weird for him. Not this time. And I have to say, I think I handled it just the right way - did the whole drop and run bit. Walked him in to the room, signed him in, and just said to him 'okay buddy, give me a hug and go and play' - and that is exactly what he did. It was cool. Of course, after I drove away, I was like 'damnit, I should have at least watched him for a minute.' I'm such a loser.

I also got to pick him up on his first day - and that was awesome. They were all out at the playground, so I got to catch a sneak peak of how he was playing with the other kids. More telling was that when I went over there, I was a little early, so I asked him if he wanted to go or he wanted to keep playing - and he wanted to keep playing (he wanted me to come in the playground which I declined).

But here's the thing, I try to get him to talk about his first day, show and tell, etc. And all he'll tell me is that he did nothing. It's like he's 13 or something. What did you do today? Nothing? I think it's actually pretty funny and then attempt to tickle the truth out of him, but it is so frustrating for Julie - who, you know, actually wants to carry out a real conversation. She obviously does not appreciate how guys are wired.

So anyway, the whole school thing went well.

So last weekend we took the little man to the hospital for a sibling preparation class. It was pretty fun. The only issue I had was that the instructor who is obviously used to working with kids was so flipping cheerful and upbeat it made me immediately dislike her. Nobody is that happy. And I know she was doing it for the kids, but still - easy on the cheer, okay.

So anyway, he got to see a newborn - which he loved. And there were some great things about the class -- like seeing what the hospital, room, and baby were all about. But then the whole thing got a little over-the-top when the arts and crafts project included gluing together a uterus, baby, and umbilical cord. The kids were all listening with screwed up faces until she finally said something familiar about belly buttons, which is when Parker tuned back in, lifted up his shirt and yelled, "I have a belly button!"

Next we were on to how to diaper and swaddle baby. Cookie Monster played the role of "baby" and proceeded to wear a diaper and receiving blanket for days thereafter. All in all, little man is as ready as he's going to be. He has a certificate to prove it.

First Day of Preschool!!

September 10, 2008

We're not going to lie to you hear (at least on this particular post, who knows about the rest of them). This has been a huge week. First over the weekend we took Parker to a sibling class at the hospital. I'll write more about that later, but he is now officially ready to be a big brother.

But on Tuesday, he had his first day of preschool. The little boy is all grown up - but it was pretty cool. Didn't start out that way. Perhaps Julie and I had been trying too hard to get him excited about the whole school thing. Here's the play by play.

Tuesday morning we have to wake him up at 8:30 (man he is lazy). The first day of classes started at 10am rather than the normal 9am . So we get up and get him all ready. And I mean Julie and I are fired up, we're jumping all around (maybe not Julie) saying dumb stuff like "who wants to go to preschool!!!!!" And Parker seems to be getting into it because he said "I am psyched to go to preschool!" (yes, he actually talks like that - he gets psyched).


So anyway, we go down to have breakfast (cracklin' oat bran) and we're sitting there having just a lovely little morning. So I start to give him some watermelon. So he's happily eating the watermelon, and Julie tastes the watermelon and thinks it's gone bad. No big deal we have other fruit - so I throw it away. Holy meltdown batman! I mean he starts to lose it. Julie is trying to console him, offer him different fruit. We actually had more watermelon, but it wasn't cut up, so I didn't mention that until later (Julie ended up getting fired up at me for holding out).

Even after I cut up the new watermelon, he's still pissed because he didn't want that watermelon - he wanted the other one. Mentioning that the old watermelon was in the trash didn't seem to do much good.

After about 10 minutes he finally starts to calm down and Julie looks at me and says "yeah, I don't really think he was that fired up about some watermelon"

Needless to say, we are off to a great start. So we head off to school, and meet the teacher (Mrs. LaRitz). So she gives about a 20 minute little talk about how she structures the class. And while all the grown-ups are listening Parker has camped out between Julie and I playing with (go figure) some construction trucks he's found. And he is taking a dump truck and running it up my one arm, saying "the dump truck sounds like this vrrroooooommm!" and then down my other arm.

And we're trying to whisper to him "why don't you go play with some of the other boys and girls" "Ummmm, no thanks." After I pointed out a jackpot of trucks over in the corner he keeps saying to me "come on daddy, come with me to get the trucks" So I am basically saying to him that he can go over and get them, to which he responds that I can go with him. After a couple of minute of this, he finally gives up and tries to get mommy to go with him "Mommy, come get some trucks."

Julie leans over to him and whispers something, and he just gets up by himself and gets some more trucks. I asked Julie what he hell she said to him; and she responded that she pointed out that all the grownups were sitting and listening, but all the children were playing. She couldn't go and get a truck now, because she needed to listen. It was amazing.

Finally the time had come that we had to leave the little man (although only for forty five minutes). Didn't really know how he was going to take it, and obviously the teacher must have picked up on some of our hesitation, because she asked Julie if he was going to be okay. We looked back in the room - and there he was happily playing with like eight construction trucks. Not any other kids, mind you, but the boy had his trucks and he was going to be fine.

And I will say that when we came back to pick him up, he really did seem to like it. He said that he wanted to go back - and that on Thursday it was going to be show and tell. He is bringing a John Deere dump truck. I did not see that one coming.

Yeah that whole Pregnancy Thing

Sep 3, 2008


That caption is probably true - we do bite. So since the boss has been pregnant for, you know, about eight months now; I think I've started to draw some conclusions.


I think being pregnant kind of sucks. I mean I realize that there's this instantaneous bond between mom and child immediately, given that she pushed the kid out and all. But seriously, at what cost?


I mean you put on like 20% increase in body weight (although for me it would only be 1%), you end up waddling around for a couple of months with none of your clothes fitting, out of breath walking up a flight of stairs, has to pee like every eight seconds, and can't sleep through the night. What a joyous life affirming experience (and, no, I really am not trying to be flip). At the end of term you get to look forward to pushing a bowling ball out an opening the size of a quarter. Yeah - that sounds awesome. Sign me up.

Now don't get me wrong - there are some really cool things about being pregnant.  First off, you can balance a bowl of ice cream on your belly perfectly when you want to eat it.  It's like having your very own personal table.  That's kind of cool.  And if you have a car loving three year old,  you can make belly mountain - and have all your matchbox cars zoom up belly mountain and have them race down the (very steep) hill.  That's cool.  Fun for the whole family.  And lastly - when you feel the kick - and you're like 'holy crap, something is actually growing inside of me'  While freaky and kind of alien - that's pretty cool too.


Julie has mentioned now several thousand times that she wishes that just for a week I could experience what she is going through. Obviously that implies that I am not sympathetic enough. And I try, I really do try to be sufficiently sympathetic.  Although sometimes when I'm a little fired up at her, I leave crap on the floor just so she has to bend down and pick it up.

I don't actually do that, but she is convinced that I do.

Anyway,  I don't really need to go through that. First, I don't deal with pain well and second, as Julie has pointed out repeatedly, I whine a lot - I couldn't handle it.

Daily Outlook for a Three Year Old

Sep 2, 2008

So I'm putting the big man to bed this evening, and I don't even think he was talking to me - but he started to run through a mental check list of what his day looked like tomorrow. "Well, I'm going to wake up, and then I'll PLAY, and then I'll eat lunch and then I'll take a nap, and then I'll PLAY, and then I'll go to bed."

Busy day. I guess breakfast and dinner aren't too high on his agenda. I should mention that Julie actually runs through a mental check list of her day also (although she makes sure she gets three squares a day).

Another thing we've noticed recently is that he seems to be projecting a fair bit of his feelings onto his cookie monster stuffed animal. It makes it a little tough when you are trying to get PK to do something. For example we were at dinner the other night and I had put some green beans on his plate (ugh). Being a good parent, and not having to eat them myself, I said "make sure you have a bite of green beans buddy." To which Parker responded that he didn't like green beans and more importantly, Cookie didn't like green beans either. So I asked "Cookie, you don't like green beans? But they're so good for you - they give you strong muscles." Parker takes Cookies heads and starts twisting it so that Cookie was saying "No" and says "see Daddy, Cookie doesn't like green beans."

Not only is it almost impossible to keep a straight face when a blue stuffed animal is refusing to eat his vegetables, but I also am forced to seriously negotiate with the blue monster to try and get my son to eat his food.