Waiting for an Assignment: A Purdue 1st Week

As you probably guessed, I am an impatient sort. Waiting is not something I do well - it leaves me too much time to think, to mull, or otherwise, to wish things otherwise. (Can't imagine why.) Living in the moment is something I am still discovering anew without my mom's presence in this world.

That said, I have been relatively patient at the start of my first semester in 16 years. While I do the readings, and work better to do note-taking this time, I have been pressing to do something more active.

So I did.

I wrote a 3,000+ word research paper on mortgage-backed securities and the impending cycle of recession to hit China soon over the last few days. I explain the history of the American growth in housing, the hurricane that swallowed a few investment banks (Lehman, Bear, Merrill Lynch) and the investment boom that will shatter China's economic dreams very soon. The parallels are there - shadow banking, overconfidence, a need to make numbers (profits) - but the differences are present too: top-down China edicts and local corruption versus bottom-up hyper-driven consumerism in the USA with politicians buying votes; a growing and flexing of the muscles in China versus the stagnating perils of middle-class America. The long cultural desire to renew the power of traditional China versus the America whining that we were once (a very short while ago) number one, but now, are reaching for mediocrity.

This is a very informal analysis of the paper. I will post the link to the actual one later, after the prof offers a grade, or tells me to cut 1,000 words so she will not have to read too much. Or reorganize the thesis to be a very specific instance - which is a part of writing to satisfy a college template. Not much can be said in 1,500 words where you cannot delve into the back history. (Which I did exceedingly too much of, I presume in this paper, but cutting is easier than adding too.)

For my bet, pros and cons or for-against papers can be sliced and diced anyway you want them. Whether you take an economic, social norms, or ethical path, the audience can ignore it, no matter how fluidly you frame the argument. Long papers give you challenges of finding more data, supporting a pronged argument, and the quest for what is to come. Because, really, if you cannot surmise, or give an example of the destiny of humanity via the present problem discussed, what does it matter?

I write this too to satisfy the requirement of blogging. Not that it has ever been hard to put something down for me. Life misadventures, book reviews, movies, sports, economics, history, and whatever catches my wandering eye shows up in the blog over the past six to seven years.

But the real assignments will come soon enough. And I'll ferret out the details; flush out the crap I suppose still lives inside my ho-hum life; and determine what angle is appropriate given the templates that are a college writing.

Just be patient...

Cross Post: McCain’s judgment in economics is inherently flawed

As the markets spin out of control, with wild swings based on calamitous events such as Countrywide, MBIA, Ambac, Bear Stearnes, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, IndyMac, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and AIG, why do many insist that Bush’s administration, or his party’s nominee, John McCain, have gotten anything right at all?

John McCain’s former top economic advisor, ex-U.S. Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, had a primary hand in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 that eliminated the firewall protections made by the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 between investment, commercial banking, and insurance services during the Great Depression when so many banks failed. As a result of this deregulation, we are now seeing the enormous problems of integrated services spread like a plague throughout the market as many of these financial players mixed investments and savings and high-risk loans together and across various business entities.

McCain’s economic proclamations and company kept should be an albatross around his neck. You cannot expect change from a man that hires people that called Americans, “a nation of whiners,” during an economic crisis of their making. Meaning: Phil Gramm had his hand in your misery and now blames you for it.

Phil Gramm continues to be major cog in McCain’s campaign.

How is that change we can believe in?

Late Addition: (WaMu, another bank, is headed for sale....Yahoo Business)
A quote from the link:

But TPG agreed to waive the clause after concluding WaMu needs all the help
it can get.
"It became clear that it would be in the best interests of
Washington Mutual and our investors to waive the ... provisions," Fort
Worth, Texas-based TPG said in a statement. "Our goal is to maximize the
bank's flexibility in this difficult market environment."
The efforts to
find a buyer, though, were being complicated by uncertainty about the magnitude
of losses still lurking in Washington Mutual's home loan portfolio.
"No
one knows what's in their books," said a person briefed on the talks
between regulators and banks, speaking Wednesday on the condition of anonymity
because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Citing unidentified sources, the New York Post said the potential
buyers include JPMorgan Chase & Co. and HSBC Holdings PLC., as well as Wells
Fargo. The banks all declined to comment.

Nice to see the whole financial system is in scared rabbit mode. Hopping up and down the road, looking for a way out while a Mack truck bears down on their position.

It won't be long now people. Look out below minimum wage workers. Get prepared for calamity you lower-middle class (under $50,000) per year people. Cut back considerably you upper middle class wannabes. The Rich: you'll go to your pile of bricks, lock you doors and come out when the getting is good again.

Good Luck All!