Todd 3:16

I'm no economist. I don't carry cash because If I do, I spend it on needless stuff. The fact that I'm incurring large debts to finance an education when the resulting job market is consistently shrinking is not what financiers might call a "sound investment." So the nuances of this whole "bailout" thing is far and away out of my grasp. But I do know one thing, and that is that the subprime lending issue is at the center of the problem. Now people are defaulting on thousands of mortgages because subprime lending is an all-around absurd proposition that was destined to fail throughout its inception. And I know enough to understand that if a lot of really bad mortgages are piling up, and someone's buying them all, then great shall be the fall thereof.

What I do know, however, is that most problems, be they economic, social, political, or personal, have a common solution. See, with every choice comes a consequence. This is simple stuff. If you do X, you get Y. In the case of subprime lending (which is the practice of making high-interest loans to high-risk individuals) if you give someone a loan where they traditionally would not qualify, you take a sizable risk that they will default on that loan. And in a market where $600 billion is tied up in these high-risk loans, that's a recipe for disaster, which is a good term for what's currently going on.

The problem is that all the proposed fixes to this problem seek to avoid consequences. The $700 billion bailout was predicated on the bare assumption that if the government eats up all those bad mortgages, the market will recover and those mortgages can be sold several years down the road. Basically, the American taxpayer puts $700 billion of his taxes in escrow while we wait for the market to recover and gain ground, the government then unloads the bad mortgages, and we get our money back. And who gets bailed out? The guys who made these loans in the first place. They're trying to avoid the choice-consequence paradigm I mentioned earlier. The problem is that such a scenario poses an even greater risk to the economy. What happens if things don't go according to plan? Then the crap really hits the fan, taxes go up to compensate, and pretty soon a bigger chunk of my paycheck is going to Congress while corporate executive retain their lifestyles.

This is not good policy. Again, you don't need to know anything about economics to state that if you do something, attempting to evade the consequences usually makes things worse. The safest bet is usually to accept the consequences, take your medicine, and be done with it. If you lie to a friend about one thing, you normally don't (or at least shouldn't) keep lying to maintain that first lie. You sack up and tell the truth. If you smoke crack, you shouldn't go through your mom's purse to steal coke money; it'd be better to stop and check into rehab. It just makes the situation worse to avoid the consequences of one's actions. Which is exactly what Wall Street and Congress are trying to do. And who picks up the tab? The American taxpayer, many of whom understand this principle and live by it.

I've said this from the beginning. The answer is not to bail these companies out, but to let them fail. Cut off the cancerous limb to save the body. Let them spiral into bankruptcy. Sure, there will be hard times for all of us, but we're in a "damned if you do" scenario anyway. The only thing this bailout would do is trade one financial crisis now for another one years down the road. How long can we keep running from ourselves?

I've got backup too. Check out this opinion piece from Harvard lecturer Jeffrey A. Miron. As blasphemous as it might sound to the ears of capitalists continually seeking to avoid the messes they make, I hope there is no bailout. I hope those golden parachutes get shot down. I hope we just take our medicine now and ride it out.

Just a follow up from my post the other day. Missouri's governor, Matt Blunt (what a cool name) had pretty strong words for Obama's proposed wrangling of law enforcement officers to help him in his quest for "truth" in the presidential campaign. I've reprinted the text below, which I found on the Missouri state web site:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Contact: Jessica Robinson, 573-751-0290

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Gov. Blunt Statement on Obama Campaign’s Abusive Use of Missouri Law Enforcement

JEFFERSON CITY - Gov. Matt Blunt today issued the following statement on news reports that have exposed plans by U.S. Senator Barack Obama to use Missouri law enforcement to threaten and intimidate his critics.

“St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch, St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer, and Obama and the leader of his Missouri campaign Senator Claire McCaskill have attached the stench of police state tactics to the Obama-Biden campaign.

“What Senator Obama and his helpers are doing is scandalous beyond words, the party that claims to be the party of Thomas Jefferson is abusing the justice system and offices of public trust to silence political criticism with threats of prosecution and criminal punishment.

“This abuse of the law for intimidation insults the most sacred principles and ideals of Jefferson. I can think of nothing more offensive to Jefferson’s thinking than using the power of the state to deprive Americans of their civil rights. The only conceivable purpose of Messrs. McCulloch, Obama and the others is to frighten people away from expressing themselves, to chill free and open debate, to suppress support and donations to conservative organizations targeted by this anti-civil rights, to strangle criticism of Mr. Obama, to suppress ads about his support of higher taxes, and to choke out criticism on television, radio, the Internet, blogs, e-mail and daily conversation about the election.

“Barack Obama needs to grow up. Leftist blogs and others in the press constantly say false things about me and my family. Usually, we ignore false and scurrilous accusations because the purveyors have no credibility. When necessary, we refute them. Enlisting Missouri law enforcement to intimidate people and kill free debate is reminiscent of the Sedition Acts - not a free society.”

Nice to know sane voices exist so high in government, and more importantly, that they're being heard. Maybe I'll move to Missouri.

This is terrible. Barack Obama's campagin is asking Missouri law enforcement to "target" anybody who spreads "misleading information" during the campagin. I guess John McCain had better watch his back if he ever sets foot in that city in the video. Because, you know, he's obviously one of the evil misinformation culprits and Barack Obama never lies.

McCain also eats puppies, sources say. And Barack Obama would never lie about such things. In fact, Barack Obama is so concerned about telling the truth in the campaign that he's getting law enforcement involved! What a committed guy!

This is absurd and more than a little scary. Barack Obama is advocating the "thought police" concept. I can't think of something that is more contrary to the tenets of freedom of expression in the Bill of Rights. He's basically farting on the First Amendment here, people. Any media lawyer worth his salt would be all over this in a heartbeat.

I'd write more but I have to go. I just had to post this before I forgot about it. The Barack Obama Kool-Aid is getting a little sour if you ask me, folks.

Name please?
Todd Bluth
Phone number?
XXX-XXX-XXX
You do have service ticket number?
8017359345
Ok, and I am speaking with Todd..Bl...Bl...Blut?
*sigh* Yes, Todd "Blut"
Tank you Mr. Blut, what seems to be the problem?

Well, If my prior experience with your customer service department is any indication, I can probably expect you to take one look at this letter (a crapshoot in itself), and toss it on the bonfire you must have raging constantly in your main office, composed entirely of customer complaints and probably used to sacrifice puppies and small children to the Prince of Darkness.
In order to be clear (since nobody at your fine company seems to understand plain English without two or three repeats) I'll repeat myself again, in simpler terms: I hate you. You are a blight upon your industry and an utter shame to American business. But why, you ask?

1. Let's start with the products that you release to blindside the American public. I updated my system like Windows often asks me to do, only to find out that the most recent system update caused the motherboard to stop recognizing my wireless card. So, in essence, an innocuous system operation permanently cost me my internet connection. I'm no computer scientist, but it doesn't seem as though computers were meant to operate that way. But that's just me. Did I mention this happened a week before school started?

2. Outsourcing your call centers. I understand cost-cutting. I understand there are a lot of people in India who need jobs and are willing to work for beans. That's fine. But is it worth it when your customer service department becomes a bastion of incompetence? You took these poor people and told them to read a script which would somehow magically resolve every issue? Not working. It took me no less than 3 calls to figure out that my computer had been recalled, and even then I didn't find that out until I was transferred to somebody stateside who was able to actually comprehend my problem and give me a direct answer. It's not their fault. It's your fault for putting them in that situation. And by the way, stop telling them to say they have American names like "Roman" or "Shawn." I kid you not, an obviously Indian woman answered the phone and called herself "Ryan." You really think the majority of your customers are that dense? It's demeaning, really. Not a positive customer service experience when you realize the company invariably assumes you have an IQ comparable to a sea sponge.

3. The box you all were supposed to send me didn't arrive on time. I had to call again to ask where it was. Somebody apparently made a mistake and asked me to fax in my warranty information. It's a recall repair. There is no warranty information. What should have taken 3 days at the most took a week. By now school was starting. Finally got my box, shipped off my computer.

4. Got my computer back real fast thank you very much! If only you had made repairs. You didn't. Let me reiterate: Your repair department didn't make any repairs. I wiped my hard drive for you, did everything you asked, and you sent me back a computer that worked correctly for a total of 12 hours before the exact same problem crept up again. Your excuse? Ooooh, looks like someone didn't make the right repairs. They should have replaced the motherboard, not the wireless card. Are you kidding? What kind of raging idiots do you have working in your repair department? I mean, where did these guys go to school, DeVry?

5. Sent my computer in again after no less than three calls to your customer service people (because they didn't understand me the first two times). Another transaction that took twice as long as it should have.

6. I never saw my computer after that. I can only assume it was lost somewhere in your ugly underbelly. I called to complain numerous times and was abjectly blow off by your case managers. They sincerely did not give a crap about any problem I had and were absolutely not willing to work with me or even attempt to understand my situation or my concerns. When the due date for my computer came and went, I called to see where it was and was told I'd need to wait another day to find out where it was. When I called back, I was cryptically told "We're going to send you a new unit." What? Why? I asked you to do that 3 weeks ago and you wouldn't! Why now? Did you refurb it and sell it to some unsuspecting poor soul? Did one of your bonehead techs try fixing it by hitting it with a sledgehammer? I'm willing to believe anything at this point.

Even then, that was fine. I'm getting a new computer, right? That's all I want. Great. How soon will it get here? 1-4 weeks. What? It's been 4 weeks already with you people. You want me to wait another month to get a computer when you could easily ship it tomorrow? No, not doing it. I bought a Toshiba. On my student loans. That's money I need for food and rent. But no. You took it from me.

I will never buy another HP product again. I wish nothing but ill and evil upon your malicious little corporation.

Ok sir, I understand that, thank you. Let me check on the status of your order. Please call back tomorrow to follow up.

Ugh...

I thought this was fun...