TARP money for auto bailout

It makes perfect sense actually. The idea of TARP was to get the credit markets flowing again. Instead, the banks have taken our tax money and hoarded it, exacerbating the problem instead of improving it. Why not just skips the banks and loan the TARP money directly? Now whether loaning it to a possibly losing proposition like GM is a good idea remains to be seen, but clearly giving it to the banks has already proven to be a waste. I'd rather see the bankers that caused the housing crisis (and thereby the credit crisis) in the first place in the unemployment line than auto workers. And Rick Wagoner and Bob "global warming is a crock" Lutz too: they've gotta go.

That is all.

This and that

This blog was at 666 posts, so it's good I decided to update it! No Twine Ball cyclocross race today. Turns out it's been neutered: they took out the centerpiece of the race (a big mound from which you can see the rest of the course) and made it flat and fast. Saves me $25 and a long drive. Too bad, though, that was my best race last year. Plus I slept in - that was nice! Looking forward to the Wirth race tomorrow. The Ridley crew is putting it on, so I expect a good cyclocross-y course from them. It'll be the only urban race this year, so hopefully there will be a Powderhorn/Boom Island turnout. Plus, Meow is bringing pumpkin muffins, which is reason enough right there!

I'm ashamed to admit I haven't bike commuted since we moved offices. Considering the new office is closer, that's pretty pathetic. But today I did a trial run of my new route, and I have my lock and shoes at work, so I'm all set to start bike commuting on Monday. The poor Surly is still a parts donor at the moment, so I'll be taking the BMC for now. I don't think it's too happy about having lights on, but no fenders or saddle bag yet. It'll just have to come to grips with the fact that road racing season is over, and be happy to get out of the house at least!

Running has taken a back seat now that the duathlon is over. I still run a couple times a week, but no speedwork. It'll kick up again once cyclocross season is over and it gets too cold to ride.

I'm really scared about the economy. Lame duck Republican president that no one believes any more, already in debt to our eyeballs because of Iraq, years of deregulation and mortgage time bombs ticking away for some time to come. A general sense of doom pervades. I'm okay for the moment, but like many people, I'm a paycheck away from trouble. The only good thing is that I moved the bulk of my 401(k) into a conservative account a while ago. Everyone says buy low sell high, but I'm not quite ready to roll it over into my more aggressive account with my current employer. We haven't hit bottom yet either.

Bush's social security plan

Funny, I don't hear much about Bush's plan to invest social security into the stock market any more.

I'm voting for McCain

Okay, just kidding, but McCain said made the most (and maybe only) sensible proposal to deal with the economic crisis that I've heard so far.

The Arizona senator said he would cut taxes for all Americans and proposed a new policy in which the Treasury secretary would "buy up bad home loan mortgages."

The proposal would cost about $300 billion, which the campaign says would come out of the $700 billion financial bailout package passed by Congress last week, according to a fact sheet distributed by the McCain campaign.

"Let people be able to make those payments and stay in those homes," McCain said. "Is it expensive? Yes. But until we stabilize, we're never going to be able to turn around and fix jobs. We got to bring trust and confidence to America, and I know how to do that."

This is what I've been looking to hear for a while now, and McCain said it. This addresses the root of the problem, not just symptoms. While deregulation is also at the root of the problem, fixing that won't change anything for years. Fixing as many shady mortgages as possible will go a long long way toward improving the situation both for homeowners and for the banking industry. Why the banking industry hasn't been doing this themselves is a bizarre mystery to me, but clearly they need to be told what to do. I applaud McCain for this proposal. Whether it's just smoke and mirrors or not remains to be seen, but at least he's got it on the table, and that's a good thing.

Where our bailout tax money is going

Less than a week after the federal government offered an $85 billion bailout to insurance giant AIG, the company held a week-long retreat for its executives at the luxury St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, Calif., running up a tab of $440,000, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said today at the the opening of a House committee hearing about the near-failure of the insurance giant.

Washington Post

So apparently we have learned nothing...

...from the last financial crisis.

L. William Seidman, former chairman of both the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Resolution Trust Corporation, stated, "The banking problems of the '80s and '90s came primarily, but not exclusively, from unsound real estate lending."

For more eerie similarities between the current crisis and the S&L crisis of the late 80s and early 90s, see the Wikipedia article. Main causes: deregulation and imprudent real estate lending. We are doomed to repeat history, since clearly we haven't learned from it.