Jim's journal on e:strip™ - Buffalo, NY's Original Neighborhood Blogging Community (estrip v5.0)

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jim 00:33 Movie over time for sleeeeeep.
tinypliny 00:16 Aarrrgh. Home remedies without basis
tinypliny 00:16 because it doesn't
tinypliny 00:15 Unless they mean it increases the white cells - which makes no sense
tinypliny 00:15 I mean mucus is like white cells and infection jumbled together - the immune reaction to an ongoing infection - how does milk increase this?
tinypliny 00:14 I don't see how milk is a mucus-inducing food
tinypliny 23:44 That local sneaky bloke must have such a workload if he or she is real - which I suspect they are not.
tinypliny 23:43 for just about everything.
tinypliny 23:43 I was looking for best pizza places and I was SO annoyed looked at that generic paragraph with "Our local sneaky blah blah"
tinypliny 23:42 that website is SUCH a colossal letdown!

Jim's Journal from 02/2009

02/18/09 09:51 - 35ºF - ID#47793Category: politicsPolitician's Syllogism

As explained by wikipedia:

We must do something

This is something

Therefore, we must do this.

Which is ultimately why I am distrustful of trillion dollar bills rammed through Congress, even though I think we do need something.

permalink: http://estrip.org/articles/jim/47793.html

Words: 50 -- Buffalo, NY

02/18/09 12:58 - 34ºF - ID#47798Category: internetsHow Many Times Are You Going to Kill Me?

permalink: http://estrip.org/articles/jim/47798.html

Words: 9 -- Buffalo, NY

02/21/09 14:31 - 31ºF - ID#47850Category: economicsCredit Crisis Visualized

Excellent visual summary of the credit crisis / current economic woes.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Best watched in HD (.mov download) at source:

permalink: http://estrip.org/articles/jim/47850.html

comment CLICK HERE TO ADD A COMMENT!

tinypliny writes at 03:44:21 02/21/09 - Comment #45776

You know, the more I learn about this crisis, some things become increasingly clear to me.

1. Everyone wants someone to blame. No one wants to look at how they themselves are contributing to the mess. (eg. Look at my two comments below. I was so very quick to blame the investment bankers. Then I pulled down the govt. after a few minutes)

2. People were created equal. However the greed in their minds were completely cultivated and honed over centuries.

3. Some people who realized the evil that is greed, tried to balance this out by donating, becoming charities, establishing socialist movements and communities etc.

4. But that didn't change the greed. In fact, all the good schemes suffered from the greed coming in from various quarters.

5. Some really powerful greedy people went right ahead and built an empire and economic framework called capitalism. The basic tenet behind it was to make the wealthy even wealthier and take psychological as well as literal advantage of the greed in the minds of similarly oriented people - only the people at the bottom rung of the capitalism totem pole who were being taken advantage of were sucked into the whole scheme because had they been powerful, they could easily have been the leeches at the top.

6. The socialist societies didn't do so well - mainly because the greed still existed and rotted it from within. But it also didn't implode and continued to limp on - sick and starved but alive all the same.

7. The capitalist camp imploded - bringing the majority of the world down along with it - because really, greediness is a universal human trait. There aren't so many people out there who would resist the opportunity to:
a) Own a home when they can't afford one
b) Live flagrantly beyond means
c) Laugh at the concept of family planning and continue reproducing with wild abandon
d) Appropriate and embezzle as much money as they possibly can.
e) Try and think of making money in the easiest most dishonest greedy way possible.

8. Reasons 1-7 are the reasons I would blame for this crisis. There are no good people. There are plenty of greedy self-centred irresponsible people. On an average, we deserved this meltdown. We asked for it.

9. By trying to find whom to blame we are only ignoring our own greed that has lead to this outcome. How many of us can step forward and declare that they have never had a greedy thought, never hoarded (anything, really) more than they needed, spent more than they needed to, wished for more money even though they really didn't need it?

I can't. Can you?

jim writes at 03:20:10 02/21/09 - Comment #45775

Tinypliny, the CRA: there is no shred of proof tying this relatively small program to the giant trillion dollar mess that we're in. If the CRA was behind the issuance of the any significant chunk of sub-prime mortgages I've yet to see the proof. There's no actual evidence that I can find that the CRA resulted in even a tenth of the sub-prime activity as the CDO's allowed.

The rise in sub-prime mortgages was only made possible via pooling them up and then slicing them into tranches. That's fairly well proven and documented - that's what the CDO's are. Why do have a 2 trillion dollar problem with fantastically worthless CDO's if the CRA was actually at fault?

The CDO story is much more credible and backed up with evidence and reason. Faulting the CRA just blames poor people without any evidence.

tinypliny writes at 03:04:27 02/21/09 - Comment #45774

Okie - this video = not entirely responsible.

tinypliny writes at 03:01:53 02/21/09 - Comment #45773

Here is part 2:

tinypliny writes at 03:00:46 02/21/09 - Comment #45772

One of the commentator on youtube said:

"Lenders didn't make the decision to abandon lending standards. That decision came from the Clinton adminstration in the 90s. They wanted everyone to own a house, so they FORCED private institutions to lower their standards."

Is that true? Then - the government is to blame for poor governance!

tinypliny writes at 02:57:25 02/21/09 - Comment #45771

Wow - that was awesome. Good find!

So the irresponsibility and greed of the investment bankers caused this meltdown.

But there they are laughing from mansions on their islands and thinking up new ways to get a chunk of the new handouts. Maybe some of them are politicians themselves. We (as in people who have always worked hard to maintain a good credit and never carried a balance forward) are doomed. UGH.

Words: 44 -- Buffalo, NY

02/25/09 11:20 - 33ºF - ID#47884SAVE THEM

Source:

permalink: http://estrip.org/articles/jim/47884.html

Words: 11 -- Buffalo, NY

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