Bailing out a Bailouter?

According to the NY Times, yes it is my favorite current newspaper, the FDIC is going to require banks to pony up more $$ in insurance deposits because they are forecasting over 86 more banks to fail this year alone (14 have done so already and over 100 total for the year are expected).
So essentially the government is giving banks money, then forcing them to give portions of it back, just so the government can then give it out again. I wonder how much of this money is getting lost through transaction costs, overhead costs and other misc. costs. Seems to me if you are going to hand out my money, at least just do it in one transaction, not a series of 3 where everyone skims something off the top. What is this, a boot-legged "charity" with high "administrative" bills?

Produce The Note

While I don't condone the activity of fighting the foreclosure of a home where an individual can no longer pay the bill - regardless of whether or not they should have been approved for their loan or not - I certainly don't condone the actions of the banks to sell off loans and mortgages in the form of bonds and other bundles with reckless abandon. Should you be facing foreclosure, there is an interesting option that many people have been taking advantage of: simply ask the bank trying to foreclose your home to produce the note which you signed and they signed showing they actually have a right to your house.



On another note, if we are trying to increase accountability within the economy, how is this supposed to help? We have the people owning the mortgages without care and without anyone honestly regulating their business practices and we have people in homes that are getting free passes and their $200. Is it surprising Wachovia, the bank in question in this video, was taken over by Citi a few months later after it promptly failed?

Don't Waste Your Life?

Well, the message here is a little different than the message in John Piper's "Don't Waste Your Life", but this video is equally interesting...especially for those of us in academia.

*Update

Remember the story about the football evangelism of sorts I posted a while back? Well, turns out Troy Aikman, Roger Goodell and others noticed it too - check it out.

Who woulda thunk?

Adam Smith gets the last laugh
By P.J. O’Rourke

Also, for those of you with particular interest in the evolutionary belief system of the world, here is an interesting chart with special reference to Darwin.

I don't wanna grow up...

After a couple of days of negotiating the price of a home Theresa and I have been looking at - we have reached an agreement with the seller.
For those of you with a list of things young married couples should do, the only remaining thing now that we have full time jobs, are in the process of buying a house, etc, is to have some _______. We don't need to go there just yet...let us enjoy this step for a little while first please. :)

Golden Boy inserts Golden Foot into Golden Mouth

So what does Peyton Manning do now that he lost his head football coach? Throw the blood-sugar monitor of a Type 1 Diabetic into a swimming pool...nice