Post-Non-Bailout Reflection

Not being an economist, it is a bit difficult for me to know why the Wall Stree Bailout needed to be immediately, if not sooner. The spiral has been going on for how long? The government chose to do nothing, or very little, for how long? I can understand the need to keep money moving and banks in business, but I really think it should be done on terms the people footing the bill can live with. I have read where in order to successfully perform the bailout the government would need to pay more than the distressed assets are worth? In other words, we are paying premium for garbage? All while someone on Wall Street is still getting a nice check? Truly, this is a mess, but Congress needs to take a bit of time to come up with something. If another bill that is unacceptable to Congress gets put up to a vote, the same thing will happen, and this, I would bet, would be worse than no vote at all. Anyway, even though the Dow went down over 700 points yesterday, it does appear to have regained half of that, making me wonder if those numbers really have any bearing to anything.

Fear 101

While I am sure there was a good reason for the Feds to seize Washington Mutual, there were a conspiracy theorist's concoction of unusual bits about it that raise doubt as to whether or not it was warranted. Perhaps the most glaring is that seizing banks traditionally is a Friday afternoon affair, rather than something mid-week. The other sort of odd thing is that Washington Mutual's management didn't sound terribly involved. Personally, I think it was a way of getting Congress to act, in Treasury's favor, by pulling this off just before the vote on bailing out Wall Street. Of course, the downside of all this is that now I have to move my money, as JP Morgan Chase (First Chicago, Bank One, etc) is not an institution I care to do business with, because from my experience Bank One/First Chicago were more interested in billing people to bank with them, then providing decent services to their customers. The less money you had in their bank, the more you paid the bank to handle it. Considering Washington Mutual's collapse was due to mortgages to people at the lower end of the monetary spectrum, I don't have high hopes they will be able to keep their homes. In addition, I would be the Feds also planned to buy all the bad stuff from JP Morgan as soon as they could, allowing the new owners of Washington Mutual a really cheap expansion opportunity. Remember, the legislation Treasury & the White House are clamoring for includes no oversight and no questions about the propriety of the purchases my with the tax-payer money.

All that being said, I doubt Washington Mutual needed to be seized yesterday, but that it happened to scare law maker's into action and tax-payers into asking fewer questions. If the Bush administration hadn't done this sort of thing before, remember Colin Powell's UN testimony, perhaps I wouldn't be so cynical, but I think they are just trying it again. And again, it is to the disadvantage of the american people. If Congress and the tax-payers fall for it again, then to paraphrase our future VP, Americans are exceptional (exceptionally stupid). I really hope that exceptionally scary lady does not become VP.

Saturday, with Rain

I am not sure if my thoughts of going to the Fremont Octoberfest will move into actions, as the day is overcast and rainy/drizzly in a fashion that makes drinking beer outdoors a less than ideal way to spend the time. I have been playing around with Facebook, though I can't really determine if there is any point in it. Incredibly silly things like giving people plants of pixels, then raking their pixel garden-- all of this in order to save rainforest. Yeesh, I don't know who comes up with these things, but the price is right, so it is easy to spend time mindlessly doing such tasks, designed to appear that you are doing favors for your facebook friends, some of whom you may know.

Fine day for a bit of Gloom

I live in Seattle and work for a company that makes aircraft parts. It was only a matter of time before the strike at Boeing trickled its effects down to us, much faster than Reagan's economic policy at any rate, which I believe those of us who have not had the benefit of getting paid handsomely to run a company into the ground are still waiting for. Aside from my feelings about corporate leaders who are only following the herd to big pay packages and platinum parachutes when concrete shoes might be more appropriate, there were other things that were discussed today at work. Boeing's machinists have been on strike for two weeks, it seems that Boeing's engineers have a contract that expires in December, and that there are those out there that believe the two unions will form a league of interests, perhaps giving the machinists cause to hold out until then. This is of course rampant speculation, as I don't believe I know anyone in either union at Boeing, unless of course it is in the sense of knowing someone but not what their occupation is. Gray, overcast days are the best sort for companies to warn of potential lay-offs, so who knows, perhaps I have a vacation later this year. I probably won't worry about that right now, and, to be honest, I don't really know how such a thing would affect our department. Generally we seem to be understaffed, but only last week it was mentioned that we were "overhead." If all we are is that, then we will be decimated fairly quickly if they do staffing reductions.

On the brighter side of things, yesterday as I was leaving the Jolly Roger I bought a growler of the Imperial IPA, and today I am drinking it.

Wednesday-- just about over...

Our friends over at Boeing have made life at work all sorts of fun with their strike. The last day and a half I have been really focusing on the pixels of my computer at work determining what we can and can not accept. No complaint about the speed of the day, though by the end of it, I am more than happy to have a break from computer screens. Today's break entailed some mini-burgers and a dry-hopped red ale at the Jolly Roger. That was after work, as for some reason if I were to decide to go there or Hale's during lunch and imbibe the pleasures of the tap, I am sure the bosses wouldn't look highly upon it, though since I don't operate heavy machinery, nor have a car to drive back from those establishments, they probably couldn't do much.

I am going to try and get some pictures of the new public art along the Ballard bridge. They are replacing lamp-posts with this stuff, so I may have to make it out one night as well as one day.

not terribly important

Having had this going now for quite a while, though I don't think I have managed to hit the 200th post just yet, though that may happen sometime this year, though not at the rate I have been going over the summer. It would be nice to say something new and different on there, but with politics the way they are, and isn't everyone pleased about the options, and work just that, no better or worse than two months ago -- the new, interesting, and erudite perspectives just aren't there. It may just be the time of year, or it may just be that I am so sapped after work that I don't feel like making much effort on anything. I really need to get the paints out and putter about with those as well, but that is a mess I only recently thought about breaking into, but in my moment of, "that sounds like a good idea," I was also planning on bottling beer that night, and after Kip got here and we started the bottling thing, then started the let's go eat dinner and have a few more beers, it was way too late to paint when I got home, and the inspiration had vanished by Saturday.

Now it is not that late, but I am tired. Because of that, I am calling it a night, as rambling doesn't really add much.

Friday before the bottling

While I am not relaxing and having a home brew, I am relaxing and having a Bridgeport Hop Czar. Come to think of it, I should buy one or two for christmas gifts, as I know several people who like hoppy beer.

The company I work for is affected by the Boeing strike, and those effects are gradually rippling through, so as long as the strike goes on, life should be interesting. If it last more than 4 weeks, we get 32 hr, 4 day weeks, which I wouldn't complain too loudly about, though it would likely dent what I could stash aside into savings (translation: next year's slush fund). As I try to decide what next year will hold, I am doing my best not to go buy a larger computer monitor or anything totally foolish. If my current monitor dies, I will replace it with a larger one, but I am not going to buy a larger one just because....

Well, if I am lucky, perhaps Kip will prove a sounding board of ideas on what to do when so many options arise.

Future Reflections

Or reflections on the future... English is really sort of fun. With all the world open to me next spring, though at an unfavorable exchange rate if I go abroad, I am really beyond puzzled as to what to do. Too many things seem to be some sort of escape, which is something that just avoids rather than confronts the issues. But then, I also probably need to decide the issues to be confronted rather than escaped, because otherwise I am making no progress by staying here, either.

Oh well, tomorrow is bottling night, and that allows me a bit of stuff planned, as well as running 50 bottles through the dishwasher with heated drying so I know they will resemble sterile, even if they technically aren't (or maybe they are since I don't know either the standard for sterility or how close the dishwasher gets, if it doesn't exceed it. Dryers on high heat exceed it, I believe, but my neighbors would surely frown upon brown glass bottle shards in the dryer.

Funny?

If the attitudes expressed (click the title link) weren't something that could conceivably happen, perhaps I would find this funny, rather than frightening.

Mid-September already

Amazing how fast time passes. It has been almost a month since my last post, and if I had been off doing something of great interest, like hiking the Appalachian Trail, perhaps that would be excusable. Rather than that, I have been having a less than delightful time at work, and trying to work out what February holds, since I can't justify it holding a commute to Woodinville on a regular basis.

Whatever next year holds, an extended vacation is not really in the plans, as anything chosen will still be some sort of work, relocating involves the work of moving and the work of finding a job, but why would I want to move somewhere else just to start back up with the daily 9-5 monotony, though it might be someplace more enjoyable.

I have been working my way through Danube, and found a nice passage yesterday while either waiting for or eating my gumbo at the Old Town, but today I can't find it, so suffice to say, it was around section four, "Cafe Central." The last 2 days someone has been doing laundry when I arrived home, which is why I was out yesterday, because I couldn't really do that which needed to be done at home, though today, I am doing laundry. I would like to use it as an excuse for unusual topic breaks, but that is rather lame, and the topic switches just have to stand on their own, with the internal logic of creation as flow rather than creation through revision. I can't really say that one is better than the other, but the phone rings...

And I have a conversation about beer and bottling and fun things like that. Friday, the second round of beer will be bottled. There was a bunch of over spill during the initial fermentation, and I am hoping that is not a problem, but only a few weeks will tell, after the bottles have been capped for 2-4 weeks.