Tuna and the Economy Returns

So, Lemon Pepper Tuna Medley. It has "vegetable broth" in it. What, exactly, IS vegetable broth? I mean, that's like saying "fish", or "meat". So, my tuna medley contains some sort of liquid made of unidentified (unidentifiable??) vegetables whose purpose might be to overthrow the world or kill all vegetarians or something freaky-weird, who knows, all we know is that they are VEGETABLES! Isn't that enough knowledge, by the gods??? Hrmmm?

It was good tuna.

And now, I present my Rescue Plan for the Economy. I note it is probably more bi-partisan than any politician will ever admit to. This is why I make the cough cough big bucks. And that, children, is sarcasm. Especially in THIS economy...

Why can't we do something like this? Why can't we give say $150B or so right off to buy off the worst mortgages, set up an emergency mortgage restructure program, then set up any balance of money "needed" by Wall Street as loans or "insurance" as needed, with proper caps on executive compensation, legislative oversight, repayment schedules, possible stock options and the like, and after the first payment and observation, have legislators meet with economists to re-evaluate and re-work effective regulation of the industry to help prevent this in the future?
Why can't we combine the best of plans? For that matter, what alternative plans might be out there? And why can't WE have a say in the matter?

That's my rational (and semi-rational) thought for the day. Not bad for a Friday. Ciao!

Wherever I may ramble...

First off, here are my daily observations.:

Given an entire apartment in which to run amok, Holly my ferret chooses to contain herself to causing trouble in the room that I am in, or one she knows I will look into. Apparently, it is much more fun to have me watch her drag things down onto the floor, get into things, toss stuff about, and run around like a lunatic than it is to do these things without an audience. It is nice to be loved.

If the sun is shining through the trees, you can see shapes in the shadow/sun patterns just like you can do with clouds. I saw a rooster this morning.

I notice I seem to talk about the sun a lot. I don't know if I have always been attuned to the sunlight, or if it is just a lingering aftereffect of 48 hours straight of rain, and not seeing the sun from the morning of 12 September until the morning of 15 September. It is something to ponder.

My thoughts are a little scattered this morning, I must admit. I've been thinking about the Bush bailout plan, and realized after hearing him speak last night that I finally had a use for the word "cockamamie". My goodness. I want to know, if I make a bunch of really boneheaded, stupid, risky, insert-your-expletive-here financial moves, do I get a government bailout? I'll only need $700,000 or so. A bargain, compared to Wall Street.

The President running about crying "don't panic!" and "we must hurry!"... seems to me to be panicking quite a bit. Fools rush in... and the rest of us are left to rescue their sorry behinds. You know, I understand that something has to be done. But I don't see that throwing money at it alone is going to solve things. And I am not sure that Wall Street is the end that the money needs to be thrown at. I want to see reform. I want to see where -- well, no, in the end, I know it is coming from my pocket. I want to know if I am going to have to pay this all in one fell swoop, or if I get to have an extended pay system. I want to know if I will get my money back. I want to know if infrastructure, schools, transportation, energy research, science, and heathcare are going to be funded. I want to see the profiteers suffer, and suffer vastly for this. More than anything, though, I want to know what other options there are and why the $700 billion bailout is the only option.

I don't have stocks. I don't drive. I don't own a home. I don't have a credit card. Yet I will have to pay. Will the Wall Street "fat cats"? I want heads to roll, and recompense to be paid. And I want all those involved to be held accountable. Right now, the only ones on the hook are the people who cannot make their mortgage payments, or who have already been foreclosed upon. Yes, many of them made bad decisions, but some of them were outright lied to, or tricked, or just too confused and/or ignorant of financing to realize the true nature of the situation. I would rather offer them a hand, offer them the money, with the stipulation of future repayment, than bailing out Wall Street directly. Offer them refinancing plans. Buy up the already-foreclosed homes, and offer them as rent-to-own. Tear some of them down and make parks. I don't have all the answers. But I know there has to be something better than lining the pockets of the suddenly less-rich with my money.

Today is one of those days when Thomas Jefferson makes a whole heck of a lot of sense.

Of water and snow and traffic

I was riding the bus this morning and we stopped on the bridge over the expressway. (It was the Edens, for anyone who really must know.) The cars' lights were on, and they glittered and sparkled. It looked a lot like a stream flowing slowly over rocks. I wondered to myself, would traffic flow better if we better understood fluid dynamics? Would we be able to find a way to make it flow free of obstructions?

I also happened to notice that the street (Addison) in front of work is a Chicago Snow Route. What this means is that, when there is too much snow on the ground (like, say, 54 inches), cars cannot park on the street (or that side of the street). It also means that people cannot put out really ugly lawn furniture or other parking-spot-saving hideous-items in order to keep other people from parking in the spot they took hours (days) to shovel clear. I didn't notice the snow route sign before. I wonder if I am usually that half-asleep when I walk by it, or if they just put them up.

Observations on the World

I taught a class this past Saturday on how a bard (poet, skald, scop) needs to look at the world in order to be able to create songs from what they experience. I charged my students with the task of going out and coming back to me with something they had noticed about some everyday thing that they had never noticed before. I thought, today, that maybe I should go ahead and do the same thing consciously, to write down what I have done unconsciously for so long. I did so on the way to work this morning, and here are two things I observed. I cannot say if they are profound, but they move me all the same.

--In the early morning, shadows against sunlit grass are the color of lime peel.
--Sunlight sparkling on morning dew looks like fireflies flitting in the grass when you turn your head.