Filed under: Architecture, Failure, Health, N. Am. Welsh Choir, Patagonia
Gah.
I mentioned the antibiotics I was taking last week. Well, by the time I finished my full course last weekend, I was feeling pretty good. Energy levels back up, exercise felt good, et cetera. So first part of the week I went and got a Hep A vaccination for our upcoming trip, as I had planned. Wednesday I was feeling a little achey, glands a bit sore, and just figured that it was a normal reaction to the vaccine.
Nope.
By late yesterday I was really pretty miserable again, sore throat on the left, nasty headache I had all day, shooting pain behind my left ear.
Yeah, another infection. Saw my doctor first thing this morning. Got another round of antibiotics, something a little more suited to this kind of thing. Anticipate feeling miserable for the rest of the weekend.
Which is unfortunate, because here in about 90 minutes we’re leaving for an AIA retreat thing my wife has.
Charming.
But I want to clear this up and make sure I’m healthy before our trip to Patagonia in less than three weeks.
Anyway, I’ll be mostly offline for the rest of the weekend.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Emergency, Failure, Government, Predictions, Preparedness, Society
I’m not real big on conspiracies. I don’t think that the US government was behind the 9-11 attacks, or that the UN has an agreement with extra-terrestrials to reveal their presence and influence in our world in 2017. While the Warren Commission had problems, I don’t think that Oliver Stone was right about the JFK assassination.
But maybe – just maybe – the International Banking Conspiracy nuts have a point. I’ve never really thought so, despite the growth in power and scope of multinational corporations, the increasing symbiosis between politics and industry, et cetera. I just figured that normal political & economic forces were at work.
But the Big Bailout Debacle(tm) has me wondering. From the AP:
US to ‘press’ countries to forge financial bailouts: Paulson
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States will press other countries to forge bailout plans for financial institutions where needed, US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Sunday.
Paulson said the Treasury’s proposal to Congress for authority to spend 700 billion dollars to buy toxic mortgage-related assets from financial institution could serve as a blueprint for foreign authorities facing similar problems.
* * *
Asked whether the plan provides for government purchases of tainted assets owned by foreign institutions, Paulson said that would occur as long as they have operations in the US.
“Obviously, we’d want to buy from financial institutions that are employing people, and are an important part of our economy. Because to the American people, if an institution is doing business here is clogged, and can’t perform the role they need to do, it’s a distinction without a difference — whether it’s a foreign or a US owned.”
“Remember, our system is a global one,” he said.
But don’t worry, he feels really bad about the whole thing. No, seriously:
Paulson said that “it pains me tremendously to have the American taxpayer put in this position but it is better than the alternative.”
Yeah, right now the thought of some vast, shadowy, international conspiracy that actually knows WTF it is doing being behind all of this is actually kind of comforting.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Emergency, Failure, General Musings, Government, Politics, Predictions, Preparedness, Society
I wanted to follow up this post with a note about what has happened in the two weeks since. Particularly over on UTI there was some discussion about my assessment of the true scope of the situation being wildly overblown:
Trillions? Really? Do you have a source for this prediction other than “I have a degree in economics”? You’re predicting that 10% or more of these loans will go bad, or that interest rates on these mortgage backed securities will go up after the government starts guaranteeing them. Both of these outcomes seem unlikely.
Well, guess where we are just two weeks later:
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration is asking Congress to let the government buy $700 billion in toxic mortgages in the largest financial bailout since the Great Depression, according to a draft of the plan obtained Saturday by The Associated Press.
The plan would give the government broad power to buy the bad debt of any U.S. financial institution for the next two years. It would raise the statutory limit on the national debt from $10.6 trillion to $11.3 trillion to make room for the massive rescue. The proposal does not specify what the government would get in return from financial companies for the federal assistance.
And:
Nearly one-in-10 American mortgages is delinquent or in foreclosure. The government would be buying debt backstopped by the U.S. home values that have been falling in value for eight consecutive quarters, according to the S&P Case-Shiller U.S. Home Price Index.
And there is still more to come.
9/21EDIT TO ADD: for an excellent summation of how we got to where we are, how bad it really is, and who is primarily responsible, take a look at this post on Daily Kos.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Bruce Schneier, Emergency, Failure, Government, Preparedness, Society, Terrorism, Uncategorized
That’s the closing line of yesterday’s post by Bruce Schneier. Of course, Schneier has thought this for a long time. But what is he going on about? This:
Are the fire hydrants in your neighborhood turned on?
ROCKWALL COUNTY – A North Texas homeowner wants you to learn from his family’s tragedy.
The fire hydrants in his neighborhood are turned off.
Now, why are the hydrants turned off?
You guessed it: terrorism.
More from the news story:
Clay Hodges is the general manager of Cash Special Utility District.
He explains all the district’s hydrants, including those in Alexander Ranch, have had their water turned off since just after 9/11 – something a trade association spokesman tells us is common practice for rural systems.
“These hydrants need to be cut off in a way to prevent vandalism or any kind of terrorist activity, including something in the water lines,” Hodges said.
But Hodges says fire departments know, or should have known, the water valves can be turned back on with a tool.
Insane. Just bloody insane. As Schneier says:
One, fires are much more common than terrorism — keeping fire hydrants on makes much more sense than turning them off. Two, what sort of terrorism is possible using working fire hydrants? Three, if the water valves can be “turned back on with a tool,” how does turning them off prevent fire-hydrant-related terrorism?
Yes, this is insane.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Emergency, Failure, General Musings, Government, Politics, Predictions, Preparedness, Society
So, remember the S&L Crisis of the late 1980s? I do. It was a direct result of the deregulation pushed by Reagan which resulted in unwise real estate lending. In the end, it cost American taxpayers something like $160 billion to clean up the mess (that’s about $270 billion in today’s money). Notable names associated with this debacle include John McCain and Neil Bush.
Well, guess what happened this morning?
WASHINGTON — U.S. federal regulators outlined their takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Sunday morning, including control of the firms by their regulator and a Treasury Department purchase of the firms’ senior preferred stock.
The plan, outlined jointly by the Treasury Department and Federal Housing Finance Agency, also includes a plan for the Treasury to purchase mortgage-backed securities from the firms in the open market, and a lending facility through the Treasury from its general fund held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
OK, this is basically S&L Crisis, Part II: Revenge of the Greedoids. You, and me, and every other US taxpayer are now on the hook for trillions of dollars of bailout money. Why? Deregulation and unwise real estate lending.
Yes, that is a gross oversimplification. But it is essentially true, and even one of the men responsible said so last year. Between them, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac control something like half of the mortgages in the US, to the tune of about $12 trillion. Now, not all of those mortgages are going to go ‘bad’. But it’ll probably take trillions of dollars to clean this mess up.
Why do it? Well, the argument is that this is just too large a component of the US economy to allow things to spiral down. So the government has stepped in to secure ‘preferred stock’ in these two entities – the kind of stock held by other banks and foreign governments – in order to cushion the impact of the ongoing credit crisis.
But there is a problem in doing this. From the Wikipedia entry on the 2007 Subprime Mortgage Crisis:
A taxpayer-funded government bailout related to mortgages during the Savings and Loan crisis may have created a moral hazard and acted as encouragement to lenders to make similar higher risk loans.[68]Additionally, there is debate among economists regarding the effect of the Community Reinvestment Act, with detractors claiming it encourages lending to uncreditworthy consumers[69] [70] and defenders claiming a thirty year history of lending without increased risk.[71][72][73]Some have argued that, despite attempts by various U.S. states to prevent the growth of a secondary market in repackaged predatory loans, the Treasury Department‘s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, at the insistence of national banks, struck down such attempts as violations of Federal banking laws.[74]
Yeah, you got that right: the feds *stopped* individual states from enacting legislation which would have limited the damage.
Your tax dollars at work. In the service of the big national banks who wanted to operate under the easier rules on the Federal level.
And now, we’re going to wind up with the tab for the bulk of the mess. And, in doing so, will once again establish that we’re not willing to let big businesses suffer the consequences of their errors in judgment (in this case the monetization of bundled subprime mortgages). I hold the current administration predominantly responsible for this debacle, just as I held the Reagan administration predominantly responsible for the failure to regulate the banking industry in the 1980s, but both political parties share some of the blame for refusing to stand up to the special interests who wanted to be insulated from their bad business practices.
I believe in the free market. But intelligent regulation has to temper the excesses of business. We learned that lesson in the 1930s. It looks like we’re going to have to learn it again.
Jim Downey
(PS: yeah, I do have a degree in Economics. It doesn’t usually come up here, but I actually understand this stuff.) Cross posted to UTI, where there are more comments you may find interesting.
Shawna Johnson was my manager, my assistant, my friend during a large portion of the time I owned and operated Legacy Art here in Columbia. A very talented artist in her own right, I also found her an invaluable resource at the gallery. We’ve maintained a close connection over the last several years, since she moved to New York to fight the good fight there.
Last night she sent me this meditation. After reading it, I asked if she’d allow me to post it here, since she talks about things I have referenced several times, and echoes many of my own thoughts. With her permission, here it is.
Jim Downey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Legacy became a legacy on May 31, 2004. The doors were closed and locked. Nothing was left but the dregs of a half-keg of stout from Flatbranch Pub and some empty plastic cups scattered around. The gallery space of 4000 square feet looked bigger than it ever had before. Each nail hole in the wall seemed to stare out at me, silently accusing. The ceiling fans clicked and their flat sound just reverberated in the dead space. Every inch of that space seemed to be waiting for something.
The only artwork that remained was the floor sculpture of Jim Kasper. It was a jester head. It stared out into the vast emptiness with a similarly blank expression, and said nothing. Just like the jester, everyone was putting on masks that day. Not out of deceitful urges, but because they just did not know what to feel. There really were just too many options. Memories crowded around, butting into conversations, demanding to be recognized. Maybe they were afraid of becoming legacies too.
Most artists came in rather subdued. For some, it appeared to be similar to going to a funeral. They spoke softly, as if out of respect for the dead or mourning. Or maybe they just didn’t like the way the mammoth space amplified their voices. One voice stood out over all. Jim Downey’s forced boisterousness comforted many and gave them the direction they needed. His laugh was heard booming overhead quite often, as if to retaliate against the despair, or to say something noble and profound about the unconquerable art spirit. Many left that day inspired by him to keep fighting the good fight. Few of us knew the fight that was going on inside of Jim. Even fewer knew that the laugh and the effort behind it were both forced. I was grateful for his effort, for it gave me the courage to do the same. As his assistant, it was crucial that I stay in synch with the tone he set. He projected the spirit of undaunted hope and continually repeated the list of victories, insisting that everyone focus on what had been accomplished in eight years of trying. I found myself saying the same things, as if we had rehearsed beforehand. We hadn’t. I just trusted his leadership and followed the tone he set. It may just be the only thing that got me through that day. Or through the next two years. That litany of good deeds running through my mind helped me to ignore the sounds of defeat.
Now, four years later, I am finally listening to some other sounds from the past. Each day a remembered voice penetrates my mental filter, or the image of an artist’s face. Scrolling through my phone’s list of stored numbers, a name jogs a memory. Often I have hurried on, refusing to accommodate the memory. But they keep coming back. Lately I have begun to allow myself to linger for a moment, here and there. Was Jim’s method the best for dealing with the loss we all experienced? I don’t know about right, wrong, or best, but it certainly enabled us all to survive and to put that day behind us. Now I have begun to bring it back, piece by piece, in manageable portions, to process and evaluate. To cleanse myself and let the wound heal.
My position at Legacy enabled me to see a lot of things. I saw how, for many people, art is simply decoration, a background for what they see as real life. It is not a necessary commodity, but a luxury of sorts. Most considered their art purchases as some kind of treat, and bought only on special occasions. People constantly needed to be reassured of the validity of their purchase. Very few felt confident as consumers to decide for themselves which paintings were better, and seemed to think there was some hidden magic code that they were not privy to.
I, on the other hand, felt quite confidant in my role. I knew what I believed about art. I knew what was good or successful art based on formal qualities and my own definition of art. I easily shared these things with patrons, offered them guidance, and encouraged their own confidence. People often left the gallery feeling bolstered by my input, whether they chose to buy that day or not. I felt that because of this, we were making progress. I believed it was possible for one little gallery to change the face of consumerism in that college town. I was convinced that if people were simply educated, they would come to see what I saw and value art as I did. Once that happened, the money would follow.
We had a wide range of price brackets. Anyone could afford something in our shop. In fact, when Jim ran the numbers that spring, he determined that if all of the members of our mailing list had spent ten dollars a month, we would have more than doubled our net income. (Ten bucks seems like nothing to me, living here in New York.) There were five hospitals in our town of 100,000 residents. We were home to the state university and two other private colleges. It seemed logical to deduce that there were plenty of intelligent, cultured people who could afford $100 annual investment in the arts. If only we could educate them and provide a safe, secure environment for them to ask questions and grow confident in their ability to choose which painting to buy. That was my theory.
So, what went wrong?
The subject perplexes me. It has to be a combination of factors…I’m just not sure which ones were most prevalent. Every time I examine the question, I come away with a different answer. How do you keep from repeating the past when you can’t understand it? At one time I thought it possible to change the way Americans view art. Now I am quite shaky on what I think. I see increasing evidence that the ones responsible for America’s view of art compose quite a stockpile list. All arts professionals have an influence: curators, gallery directors, teachers, grant-writers, critics, the media, and even artists themselves. Perhaps artists are the most responsible.
I would like to know why we failed and if there is any chance of redirecting this avalanche that is swallowing up my hope. Is it possible to change the system? I don’t want to grow old wondering, “What if…?” And I also don’t want to end up an old, bitter, jaded person who tried to change it but eventually accepted that resistance was futile. Can I live with myself if I don’t try? Can I live with the world if it doesn’t turn out to be what I want it to be? These two questions present an essential crossroad in life which I am trying not to view as a roadblock. In my efforts, I constantly fall back on Jim’s method of remembering old victories. I also think it’s O.K. if I let the engine idle here a while as I let myself refuel.
Shawna Johnson
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, ACLU, Babylon 5, Civil Rights, Constitution, Daily Kos, Emergency, Failure, General Musings, Government, Guns, J. Michael Straczynski, JMS, Politics, Predictions, Preparedness, RKBA, Science Fiction, Society, Survival
There’s a line from a Babylon 5 episode (I’m a big fan of the series) which has always stuck with me. Several characters are discussing the political situation on Earth following the imposition of martial law. One character says that people love it – crime is down, things are calm, peaceful.
“Yeah, the peace of the gun,” replies another character.
And that, my friends, is what we have today, here in the US. Specifically, in one small city in Arkansas:
HELENA-WEST HELENA, Ark. – Officers armed with military rifles have been stopping and questioning passers-by in a neighborhood plagued by violence that’s been under a 24-hour curfew for a week.
On Tuesday, the Helena-West Helena City Council voted 9-0 to allow police to expand that program into any area of the city, despite a warning from a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas that the police stops were unconstitutional.
Police Chief Fred Fielder said the patrols have netted 32 arrests since they began last week in a 10-block neighborhood in this small town on the banks of the Mississippi River long troubled by poverty. The council said those living in the city want the random shootings and drug-fueled violence to stop, no matter what the cost.
“Now if somebody wants to sue us, they have an option to sue, but I’m fairly certain that a judge will see it the way the way the citizens see it here,” Mayor James Valley said. “The citizens deserve peace, that some infringement on constitutional rights is OK and we have not violated anything as far as the Constitution.”
From another source:
Controversial Curfew in Helena-West Helena
Mayor James Valley has given residents in one high-crime neighborhood two choices…. go home or go to jail.
Valley’s issued a mandatory curfew for Second Street and the surrounding blocks — a place he considers to be a “hot spot” for crime. The curfew applies to anyone of any age at any time of day.
* * *
“This turf belongs to taxpaying citizens, not to hustlers and drug dealers….We are going to pop them in the head,” Mayor Valley said.
* * *
The mayor only has the power to issue a 48 hour curfew – so he says when this one expires, he’ll issue another one, and another one.
Predictably, the ACLU is taking a rather dim view of this:
The ACLU has written a letter to Helena-West Helena Mayor James Valley protesting the curfew he imposed on a portion of the city. The mayor says he’s received the letter, but believes it’s intentions are misplaced.
* * *
Mayor James Valley says no constitutional rights have been violated — he says they’re doing what’s needed to clean up the streets.
No doubt. And he’s willing to be reasonable:
Helena-West Helena Curfew Changes
Leaders in Helena-West Helena have come up with a new plan after criticism by the ACLU of the mayor’s recent curfew on a particular part of town.
This past weekend, Mayor James Valley issued a mandatory curfew for Second Street and the surrounding blocks — a place he considers to be a “hot spot” for crime.
* * *
Valley’s curfew will remain in place for all minors, but adults will be allowed out if they can answer questions about their need to be outside their homes.
See, like I said – he’s being perfectly reasonable about this. You can leave your house. If you can explain to authorities why you need to do so.
How could anyone possibly object to this?
*sigh*
This is nothing more or less than the peace of the gun. This is the abrogation of civil liberties as a solution for incompetent governance. Of course people like it – let things get bad enough that they fear for their lives more than they value their liberties, and you can get people to do almost anything. Mayor Valley is just applying the same logic as he applied in mid July when he, well, here’s the news report:
Mayor Orders Dogs Released Into Forest
You’ve heard it before…..Arkansas animal shelters struggling to take care of unwanted dogs and cats. One mayor has decided the best way to fix the problem in his town is to set the animals free.
KARK visited the Helena-West Helena animal shelter back in January. Conditions were dirty and animals were in poor health.
Thursday, KARK learned the town’s mayor James Valley has taken the unconventional approach of releasing the animals into the wild. In a press release, the mayor says “we fed and watered them and took them to the St. Francis National Forest.”
Yeah, he just turned them loose.
Like I said, incompetence. Let things get so bad, and then you can take absurd steps.
Like imposing martial law.
Is this just a trial run for other cities? Other levels of government? Because you can be damned sure that there are power-hungry people watching this situation very closely, and drawing their own conclusions. If a small-town mayor can get away with it, why not a large city mayor? Or a governor? Or a president?
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI and Daily Kos.)
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Alzheimer's, Book Conservation, Daily Kos, Failure, Feedback, Fermi's Paradox, General Musings, Guns, Health, Hospice, Science Fiction, Writing stuff
Well, we didn’t make the “10,000 downloads before I turn 50” goal. Still about 225 shy of 10k. Which is OK. It’ll give me another reason to celebrate when it happens!
I did get a nice comment over on dKos in the cross-posted diary there yesterday:
Happy birthday Jim, read your book again the other day, liked it as much as the first time. When’s the prequel describing the fireflu and the sequal where we actually have contact?
As I’ve discussed here often, the recovery period from caring for Martha Sr is taking longer than I had initially expected, and as a result I haven’t been as quick to return to writing St. Cybi’s Well as I hoped. But that’s OK, too. I find that I am feeling somewhat energized by crossing the threshold* of turning 50. It has helped that we’ve got a lot of the household stuff packed up and sent off – now my wife and I can start rearranging things here to suit our preferences. It’s funny how little things can clear the slate, allow you that wonderful feeling of starting something fresh. It also gives me more focus and enthusiasm for finishing other projects – the ballistics testing website, working on the book about being a care provider for someone in the last year with Alzheimer’s, even just my conservation work.
So it’s an exciting time, a good time, even with the mild disappointment that I didn’t get all I wanted for my birthday.
Jim Downey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*Threshold, by the way, was the original working title for Communion of Dreams, playing off not just the impending revelations of the reality of the universe and our place in it, but also on the idea of crossing the threshold of the dimensional boundary layer which has isolated us and therefore explains Fermi’s Paradox. Unfortunately, as I discovered, there were already several uses of that title in SF alone. Ah, well. I like Communion of Dreams even more – it’s more evocative, if less succinct. – JD
Filed under: Climate Change, Comics, Failure, Humor, Publishing, Writing stuff
I’m just being environmentally conscientious.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 