Year: 2007

There are a lot of people who are having trouble paying their mortgages these days. These are people who, in the last few years, over-borrowed to buy bigger homes because interest rates were low. The so-called “sub-prime” mortgage lending business saw a huge boom as a result, and now that interest rates are climbing again, the people with adjustable rate mortgages or balloon ARMs or whatever other creative things were invented are suddenly in a world of financial trouble.

The answer? Naturally there are people in the government who want to bail out these people. They advocate paying money to help support those who can’t meet their mortgage, and also requiring banks and lenders to foot part of the bill. Here’s a quote from an AP article:

So, just to be sure it’s clear what’s happening here, the government is using my tax dollars (and yours) to give money to people who made poor financial decisions. These borrowers “didn’t understand” what they were doing, and the lenders were “predatory” and evil by “pushing” their loans on people.

The last time I checked, no one is ever forced to get a mortgage and buy a house… especially one with bad terms, or a house that’s perhaps a bit too large or expensive for the income of the buyer. But forget logic and forget what’s fair– apparently people who are too dumb to read the terms of their mortgage deserve a government bailout. And the price tag for this is estimated to climb to $120 billion dollars or more. Ouch.

I think the most appropriate quote was from Michael Englund, an economist:

The financial irresponsibility of our government is staggering.

Just when you thought the War on Terror couldn’t get any stupider, you read a story like the one about terrorist-hunting dolphins (quoted from Associated Press):

Holy cow, underwater terrorists? That seems pretty dire. I can’t even imagine the conversation that led to this development. Were there a bunch of analysts sitting around a big conference table, talking about the dire threat of underwater terrorists, when one of them hit upon this brilliant idea?

“Gentlemen, I have it. We’ll train dolphins to find them!”

But that’s not all. Working in conjunction with the dolphins are– you guessed it– terrorist-hunting sea lions!

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen… the sea lions who bark for fish at your local zoo can also attach handcuffs to an underwater terrorist so sailors can “reel him in”.

(Shown here is a photo of a different but related program, where the Navy actually attached laser guns to dolphins. Yes, this is completely real.)

Wow.

A few weeks ago I bought an Xbox on eBay. I wanted it to build a media center for the family room, and after a bit of tweaking I got it working nicely. It’s a great little device, and the price tag of $60 is perfect.

With the Xbox came a stack of games which I didn’t want: a handful of John Madden NFL games, NHL, snowboarding, and the all-too-popular Grand Theft Auto (motto: “hey kids, smoking crack and beating up prostitutes is fun!“). I figured I’d sell them on eBay and get a couple bucks back, lowering the price of my new media center still further.

So I listed them with a starting price of a dollar, and a shipping cost of ten dollars. Ten bucks seemed reasonable to mail seven DVD cases.

The auction ended with a single bid, which was (naturally) a dollar. So I collected my $11.00 and went to the post office today to send them. The cost? $10.95.

Whee! I made five cents on the games. But wait– eBay charged me 40 cents to list the item, plus another 22 cents based on the selling price. So in the end, I paid for some guy in Pennsylvania to take seven games off my hands.

Chalk that up as Dumb Financial Decision #156.

Lee Iacocca (remember him?) says this:

“Unless we could impeach Cheney at the same time, the best argument against impeaching Bush is ‘President Cheney’.”

— Lord Slepnir, on Slashdot

Here’s an awesome spam message.

Sweet! I can receive %CUSTOM_3 for %CUSTOM_4 per month! Who can pass up a deal like that?

Last week I was privileged and honored to receive a personal letter from Senator John McCain, in which he announced his candidacy for President. Of course he rambled on about his service in the armed forces and his long history in the Senate, dropping a few names here and there to impress me.

But then things got a little weird. The rest of his letter was a survey in which he asks penetrating questions about domestic and international policy. He wants to know how I, a common American citizen, feel about the pressing issues facing our country today. Although I don’t have a problem with that in principle, some of the questions were surprising.

Umm, what? Who on earth would say “I disagree”? Is there someone out there who thinks the tax code should be more complicated and more unfair? What kind of question is that?

Again, what kind of boneheaded question is he asking here? “No, John, I think the government should keep spending money like it’s going out of style, funding every crazy pork-barrel project they can think of!”

Hmm. Let me think about that, John. No, I disagree– I think we should increase the federal deficit, because we all know the positive results that brings.

John, I think we should give our troops muskets. Forget this body armor crap, too. Davy Crockett coonskin caps were good enough at the Alamo; they’re sure good enough for the troops in the Middle East today.

I used to actually respect McCain. That all changed a few years ago when it became clear he was one of Bush’s yes-men, and idiotic stunts like this survey only reinforce my opinion that he’s either

( ) a bonehead
( ) unable to form his own opinions, thus asking us to form it for him
( ) both

I shudder to think that someone like him may actually become President some day.

“There’s always somebody who is paid too much, and taxed too little – and it’s always somebody else.”

— Cullen Hightower

(Particularly apropos as Tax Day approaches and I need to scrape together the money I need to pay the IRS. It seems like I pay them every year, sigh.)

“We expect the Congress to be wise about how they spend the people’s money.”

— President George W. Bush

Hah hah! That George is such a kidder. He says this just as Congress approved a $122 billion-with-a-B request for additional funding for the Iraqi civil war. When has Congress ever been wise about spending money?

Not satisfied with the usual docket of issues and problems facing the Minnesota state legislature, Representative Patti Fritz is leading the charge to make a major impact on the world.

She wants to make the Tilt-a-Whirl the official state ride.

Whee! That’s taxpayer money well spent. And it’ll work out nicely with Minnesota’s official state muffin (blueberry). No, I’m not kidding.