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Monday, September 15, 2008

News from the Front Lines

You may have heard in the news about Lehman Brothers filing for bankruptcy. For those of you who don't know, it was a 150 year old investment firm that was the fourth largest on Wall Street. I'm not sure how this news hit the rest of the world, but in New York it was huge news. Two of our good friends got their start working there for two years. They still have friends who worked there. Walking past the morning coffee carts you can overhear conversations between people discussing whether or not they expect to have a job by the end of the week and that is in midtown where there aren't really many financial jobs, so it still remains to be seen what the fall out from all this will be. New York City depends on tax revenue from all the wealthy financial industry folk in order to run the city and when they don't earn money, the city doesn't either. That means that subway stations don't get painted and there might not be as many firefighters around.
Despite the fact that this is all not the greatest news for New York, personally I think it's about time the tax payers stopped bailing out Wall Street for the risk the people flinging money around decided to take. Many people were surprised that the Fed didn't step in to help this time like they did with Bear Sterns, I'm happy they didn't. Legislators have bought out Freddie and Fannie and they're all in a tizzy over the housing market being down, but how is it that when food prices go up it's a problem and when gas prices go up it's a problem, but when housing prices go up, it's not a problem? The housing bubble is all intertiwned in our country's financial mess and that bothers me too. I hope to own a home one day, but right now I'm priced out of it. Housing prices need to drop so the honest hard working joe schmoe who actually saves their money and doesn't borrow more than they can pay back has a chance.
Excuse my rant, I don't typically like to be too political, but sometimes I think people need to understand what all these things mean to them. I'm guessing the majority of people think that it doesn't affect them, but it does. The money that I pay to the government should go into things like schools, not into pockets of already wealthy risk takers.

5 comments:

  1. Adrienne for President in 2012. Lock it up.

    ReplyDelete
  2. As much as I'd absolutely love a Schafer/Mapes ticket, Adrienne won't be thirty-five by then =(

    Plus, my man McCain has dibs on Teh House until 2016...maybe in 2024 after Jeb's had his turn you two could take a shot at it =)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Haha Scott pointed out the age thing too, but I figure if Olympic gymnasts can pretend they're old enough to compete I could do the same for the presidency. I think Schafer/Mapes has a nice ring to it. Sarah, we both have experience as "community organizers" and we did always want to go into business together...

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  4. There may be enough photographic evidence of me misbehaving at this point that it could be tough to survive the vetting process. Doesn't mean I won't try though! I'll get started on our campaign logo.

    ReplyDelete

Recap Defined

ri•cap 1 (rē-kāp') Pronunciation Key tr.v. ri•capped, ri•cap•ping, ri•caps
1. a summary at the end that repeats the substance of a longer discussion
2. To replace a cap or caplike covering on: recapped the camera lens.
3. Ri - a female given name: derived from Adrienne.