02/24/2009 06:36:00
Hmmmm... it's been awhile hasn't it? Well not only am I posting something to the site, I've also uploaded a slightly improved build of it along with adding a new default theme into the mix. I've been toying with the idea of a decent all black theme for awhile now and finally got around to throwing together something that works. Of course I'd be lying if I said that I came up with it all by myself . But hey, I never claimed to be a graphic artist, did I? Oh and the application has now been moved to the .NET 3.5 framework and consequently is being compiled/developed with Visual Studio 2008.
That aside, as anybody paying attention can clearly see, the economic situation in this country continues to get worse and worse. Today the DOW plumments to the low 7100 range, making estimates of 6000 or less by the end of the year seem even more likely. On top of that we find out that AIG is in even deeper shit that previously thought . Of course by "previously thought" I'm referring only to Washington bureaucrats and idiots that couldn't be bothered to see this coming. AIG is set to announce a 60 billion dollar quarterly loss next Monday and doing so will result in their credit ratings being downgraded which will force to cough up additional cash or declare bankruptcy. AIG of course has no additional capital. Hey wait, didn't we just give them nearly 100 BILLION FREAKING DOLLARS 6 MONTHS AGO?!?!?!?!?
What the hell? How is this acceptable? Just let them go out of business already. Enough is enough. The financial industry in this country is so bad off that the shockwave domino effect that AIG toppling has will likely happen sooner or later anyway. At least by letting them go out of business we can save a little money up front and spend it picking up the pieces later on. But Obama doesn't seem real keen on just accepting reality at this point. Between a 700+ Billion dollar stimulus bill that is nothing more than shotgun blast posing as a missile defense system and another 250 billion dollar program designed to prop up homeowners that shouldn't have bought a home to begin with, it has become very clear that the Obama administration believes that spending money is the way out of this mess.
I can't say that I agree with them. I didn't agree when GWB was playing this game on his way out of office and I don't agree now even with Obama in office. It reeks of playing politics at it's worst. Rather than consider real solutions, the Obama Administration has chosen to play politics and try to placate the public rather than face up to the facts. At this point there are only two ways out of this mess:
Nationalize the biggest banks. By doing this the government can cut out the shareholders, default on the CDO/Derivative debt and then sell off the viable divisions to private parties interested in buying that can do so without government assistance. By nationalizing the largest banks in the country (Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citi) in one fell swoop, the government can effectively nullify a lot of the toxic derivatives that threaten to cascade into a landslide as soon as one of them or a company like AIG kicks the bucket. A few months ago I wouldn't have been in support of this idea, but since the next option seems even less palatable to these politicians, I decided to put something a bit more in line with their tastes.
Screw em and let them die already. This is the Ron Paul approach. Personally I'm a big fan of this one as I've indicated earlier. If derivatives and CDOs threaten to destroy these institutions in a massive chain reaction domino effect when one of them drops, then I say let it happen. They are the ones that built the house of cards, so letting it topple down at their expense has a certain appeal to it.
Make no mistake, either way this country is pretty much freaked for the forseeable future. I anticipate at least 5 years of recession even if we do everything right from here on out. Obviously given the politics being played, that isn't going to happen (at least not in terms of what constitutes "right" in my point of view). So realistically I believe we are looking at least ten years of depression before we can crawl our way out of this. That fact that this has clearly become a worldwide epidemic along with the fact that we are beginning to fall back into the trap of protectionist policies, only means that things will continue to get worse rather than better far longer than had to be the case.