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Gone Too Favre

May 6th, 2009

Legend. MVP. All-Star. Disgraced Hero. Nutcase. Egomaniac. Warrior.

He’ll always be a Packer. Except for that year with the Jets. And maybe next, he’ll be a Minnesota Viking.

It’s one thing to want to play football. To want another shot at the Super Bowl. To want to extend quarterback records that will go long unbroken in the NFL.

To play for the love of the game was the motivation of Brett Favre throughout his career.

Now, if the sports-news pimps of ESPN have it right, Favre has a new reason for pretending to retire from the Jets. You can take all of the rational reasons aforementioned and simply strike a line through them. This time, Brett wants revenge against the Green Bay Packers, and no one is pretending it’s anything else.

The NFL, far from censoring Favre’s manipulative antics, will be certain to endorse them. Favre promises drama both on and off the field. Finally, the NFL can compete with professional wrestling. It wouldn’t surprise me if Brett Favre picked up a folding chair and smacked a referee in the head.

I’m a fan of Brett Favre, and have been since he began his career with the Green Bay Packers. When the Packers management didn’t welcome him back with open arms after a “retirement” announcement that was obviously premature - I took Brett’s side. Surely, a living legend who had brought so much glory to an independent, small-town NFL team, deserved leeway.

Now, I consider the plight of the New York Jets and their fans. Surely, a rebuilding team that gave so much opportunity to Brett Favre, deserved better than this. One year. A token marriage, never meant to last, a ceremony perfromed as a stepping stone. In short…a sham.

I still believe that this bitter, and unfortunate closing chapter of Favre’s career could have been avoided. Yet, the question of Favre’s retirement had loomed over Packerdom for years before it actually happened. Favre himself was the author of the annual ritual, casting comments into the media as carelessly as a hurled football on third-and-long.

Favre’s courtship with the Minnesota Vikings is not the act of a rational mind. The Vikings, should they accept this wounded warhorse into their ranks, won’t be going easy on him. They will demand not just the Brett Favre who had a few good games with the Jets; but the Brett Favre who was a three-time MVP. The Vikings are not a desperate team in need of a shot in the arm. If they choose to work with Favre, their expectations will be high.

High enough, that Favre is likely to further injure himself in the effort of living up to it all.

The AFC went relatively easy on Favre. I doubt the NFC central division - particularily the Bears and the now-inflamed Packers - will be so charitable. The war of words has now escalated into a tab that may be too high for Favre’s body to pay.

Furthermore, Karma does not smile on revenge. If this is Favre’s primary reason for staying in the game, he’s disgracing his own sportsmanship, and perhaps, nearing 40, he’s tempting fate.

But Favre cannot simply retire. He cannot willingly leave that field behind. I’m wondering if he really wants one more Super Bowl win, or if he wants to play football until he’s carried off the field in a stretcher. Only in the latter case, could he retire without self-debate. The decision, under such circumstances, would be out of his hands.

If Favre becomes a Minnesota Viking, he may have the chance to rub the Packer’s nose in it - twice - before he retires for good. But retirement will still come. What is one year, two at most, with Minnesota, and one year with the Jets, against a career spent with the Packers?

Revenge is expensive, Brett. Even if you’re willing to pay the price for it, should it be the last chapter in your storied career?

Once upon a time, in the frozen tundra of Green Bay, a wild, reckless kid from the bayou put on a green-and-gold uniform….

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Bits n’ Pieces

March 10th, 2009

This is a follow up to an earlier post, called “The Next Move.” I wanted a share a few things that helped me attain some goals over the years. None of this is meant to imply that I’m any big screaming deal. I’m not. I’m just hoping the thought process helps somebody.

If you read “The Next Move” post, you might recall how I mentioned a few other interests, like music and stock car driving. Let’s start with music as a quick example of what I did to get where I wanted to be with it, at the time.

First off, I needed to get all pissed off before elevating my own skills to the next level. Ya see, I was a good drummer, and I was content to be good. Boom-chicka-boom-chicka-boom. Then, I met some egomaniac in high school that was the best freaking drummer anyone had seen in thier lives.

I hated him and admired him instantly. He wasn’t just good. He was blindingly fast, technically proficient. To describe him as a rock star was inadequate.

Man, was I pissed off. There’s nothing like thinking you’re hot stuff and then finding out you suck, compared to somebody with real talent.

I rolled up my sleeves and practiced harder. I studied drummers and styles from Buddy Rich to Neil Peart and everything in between. And I studied Steve’s style, the guy who was pissing me off.

For two years in high school I closed the gap. We ended up in the same state-level competitive circles. We were both in every music program the school had to offer. Marching band, jazz band, pep band, symphonic band…hell, I took him on for the swing choir rythym section, just to give him headaches. I’ll admit plainly he was the better drummer, but I wasn’t having any trouble landing gigs.

Still, I was the pissed off drummer. I needed a breakout performance. I played with technical proficiency, speed, and catchy rythyms, just like he did. But when it came to drum set solos, Steve sat back, put on the cruise control, and hammered out something so damn fast and strong you felt shell-shocked. When I had the solos, I teased the audience with a simple beat, then built it up, added a layer or two…and then suddenly I’d blow it open. It was like watching 4th-of-july bottle rockets become artillery blasts. I knew I’d accomplished something, when after one auditorium solo, I stopped drumming abruptly - as planned - but the echoes of the last few seconds of play reverberated around the auditorium and hung there. The sound went deep. A friend in the audience told me that the sound seemed to go through his body, through his chair, and then he could hear it down the hall behind him. The crowd, as they say, went wild.

I’d finally won Steve’s respect. No easy task. Later that same year, we did a dueling drum solo. He was still better than me, but my own style was nothing to sneeze at. I remember Steve trying to duplicate the push-through echo…and not getting it. It was simple, he was drumming so damn fast and loud that there was no real distinction in tone at those decibles. It sounded like a dozen machine guns going off in an oil drum. Impressive, but it wasn’t the same impact as a solo that the audience could follow along and go, “yeah…yeah…YEAH!! Those were my solos. I took people with me.

But if it hadn’t been for Steve, I would have never developed the kind of style and sheer passion for drumming that I did. I needed a rival to goad me to the next level. I needed a REASON to improve.
I owe everything I accomplished musically to that jerk, and yes, we became friends. As fate would have it, he went off to a Big 10 college on a musical scholarship, studied engineering, got a job, and last I’d heard, hadn’t picked up the sticks ever since. That’s life, eh?

On to the next example. Stock car driving. Oh yeah, I wanted to do this. I was lucky enough to grow up in a rural area were race tracks were still common. There were three of them in a 10 mile radius plus a NASCAR track about 30 minutes north. I had a cousin who did fill-in driving for a buddy on the local dirt oval, and yeah, he could line up a chance for me to drive.

But I had to study. Ok, kewl. The first opportunity to race was going to be in a winged sprint. Or, super-modified, they were called. Basically it’s an oversized go-kart with big aluminum wings. It’s like driving a beer can strapped to a cruise missle.

I’ll never forget my cousin telling me this piece of advice. “When you lose control , and everybody driving these eventually loses control….remember to shut your eyes as hard as you can. Squeeze them shut. Otherwise your eyeballs can pop right out of your skull from the velocity at impact. The roll cage should keep you alive if your neck doesn’t break, so make sure the seat belt is tight. You need a good helmet too, because the best fire suit is only good for 13 seconds, and if you’re unconcious you won’t be able to release the harness and get out.”

I remember doing the math on the frequency and severity of the accidents I’d seen at this bullring of a race track. I was no coward, but I was no longer sure if I wanted to experience the flip side, pardon the expression, of sprint car driving. I told my cousin I’d look at getting the fire suit and helmet and all that. Well, those weren’t cheap, I’ll tell ya. Mercifully, I was broke enough that I was able to back down using the financial excuse without showing the fresh streak of yellow down my back.

That didn’t stop me, though, from taking the Impala out on a couple of race tracks, on basically what amounted to Amateur Night, “Run What Ya Brung.” When the Impala got an electrical fire in the pit area on the last occassion, the smoke poured out of the dashboard so thick and fast, that I barely had time to register what the hell was going on. Had that happened five minutes later on the track, I would have lost all visibility and I would have hit the wall, at the least. Sans fire suit, since this was Redneck Idiot night and all you needed to drive on the track, was a signed waiver of liability and they’d loan you a helmet.

So another part of examining your dreams close up, is being keenly aware of any downsides. And making sure you’re prepared, in case you encounter them.

They put out the electrical fire in the Impala pretty quick, by the way. Ya know, I’d gotten out of the car so fast, I didn’t even conciously know how I did it. It’s like one minute I was in the car and there was smoke all over the place, the next moment I was a safe distance away. I’d moved so fast, for a second I wondered if I’d left my body in the car.

Awright, this was supposted to be informative and I just sat here and told ya stories. I’ll try and put some actual useful information on my next post. Or maybe I’ll revisit other favorite blog topics, like sex and money. Never know, do ya!

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Evil Cheese

February 26th, 2009

If there’s a grilled cheese sandwich in hell, it’s made with this. Let me introduce ya’ll to the next product voted Most Likely to Sicken Innocent Consumers.

There is an unregulated ingredient called Milk Protien Concentrate that appears in Kraft Singles, Velveeta, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, and host of other like-kind food products. Basically, MPC is the gunk that’s left over from dairy processing.

MPC’s most appropriate use is for glue.

Kraft may not be the only company that hauls in this dairy waste product by the tons from unregulated sources overseas, but it is the most notorious. Ya see, using lots of MPC means less real milk, less real cheese. In short, it’s cheap.

Milk Protien Concentrate is NOT an approved food ingredient in the United States. It has not even been defined as what it is, exactly, by the FDA. ( how do you describe “gunk” scientifically?) Therefore, no standards for purity or nutritional value exist for MPC. Yet somehow, giant food agri-businesses companies like Kraft are positioning themselves to get away with murder. Hopefully it won’t come to that, but we’re talking the same kind of “protiens” China uses in it’s food products, and we know how well that’s turned out for their baby formulas, pet foods, and the like.

MPC is a dairy waste product. Not a food product. Because it’s not a food product, it’s snuck into the United States under cheaper tariffs. And then used for food. Ain’t that smart?

And because the source of the MPC in your slice of Kraft singles can be literally from a dozen countries, a contamination would be impossible to trace back to the point of orgin.

In the Fair Reporting sense that I honor, I’ll note here that not all Kraft products contain MPC’s. But because many of them do, you must read the ingredient label to know what you’ve got. Milk Protien Concentrate means you’re eating something that isn’t fit for human consumption.

The risk of mass food contamination is nothing new and it’s growing worse. The problem stems from outdated FDA regulations, lax or non-existent food inspections both home and abroad, economic pressures to be ever-cheaper for those Walmart shelves, and free trade agreements that resulted in corporate access to international garbage that can be re-packaged and disguised as food.

What’s more, big agri-companies like Kraft want the FDA to re-define what milk is, exactly, and what ice cream is, and what yogurt is, so that they can use more MPC in their products.

Don’t be surprised that Kraft doesn’t care about consumer health and product quality. After all, they’re owned by Philip Morris, a proud maker of cigarettes. They’re not easily daunted by things like serious illnesses brought on by the use of their product. Or lawsuits.

MPC hurts American dairy farmers who are already suffering from low milk prices. The mass importing of MPC as a substitute for real, honest food also puts the public at needless risk.

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The Next Move

February 25th, 2009

Mufn recently asked me a question that was important enough that I’m choosing to answer it here, in front of the Whole Universe.

She asked, “What’s your direction and how are you planning to get there?”

It’s more of a personal dream than a direction, maybe, because it’s got diddly-squat to do with my current career. It has nothing to do with my current job, that feels like it’s killing me slowly. ( and painfully. Aaaiiigh!! Eeeyaah! *Gasp cough wheeze* sorry, cheap theatrics there.)

I want a farm. Ya know, the works. House, barn(s), animals, pastures, crops, a tractor, the whole Green Acres experience in a box. This is what I’d call my last remaining dream from early youth.

I’ve long since realized I won’t be doing any NASCAR racing in my lifetime. I’ve even accepted the fact that once I’m done restoring my 67 Impala, I’m not likely to put it on the drag strip, either. Gone are the days where I’m looking to risk my life, or my classic car, on a 13-second thrill. At most, I might get a beater Monte Carlo someday and slam it around the dirt oval, trading paint with other home-grown stock cars in the rutted clay that remains to those of us who can’t afford to race anywhere else.

I realized as well, years ago, that I’d never make it as a professional drummer. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I was damn good. But I was working at an early age, and doing things for money that were more consistent. I can’t say I haven’t had my 15 minutes of fame with music. I have, on the local level and at an earlier time. Today, my drum set is in disrepair, and I can’t justify the expense of replacing it or completely refurbishing it when I’ve got so many other things competing for my paycheck. It’s not like I’d run out and immediately join a rock band at this juncture, anyway.

The last remaining dream is to own a farm. Sometimes this one seems damn impossible, too. Land prices where I live are sky high. Development pressures are intense. I don’t have any family members who own a farm. I have zip, zero, nada, to inherit.

But @#$% it, I wanna FARM!! I insist. I’m not taking no for an answer. I want to go to work in the morning by just walkin’ out my own back door. I want to look at some acres of rolling green and know that it’s mine.

My odds of achieving this are pretty slim, but I’ve got a couple of advantages that might make the difference. Namely, I have two people in my household who want the same thing.

If we fail to get our own farm, we’re no worse off than if we’d never tried. So the first stage of planning is just admitting this is what we want. Committing to it. It’s scary as hell to commit to a new goal, or direction, or a dream, because you don’t wanna experience the disappointment of having it not happen. Or having it not work out.

But I can’t accept the idea of going under the sod someday when my time is done, without ever having tried to cultivate it. There’s a weird sorta fatalism that actually works for me this way. I’m gonna die eventually. I’ve got an unknown amount of time to squeeze in what I want outta life, in the time that remains. I’d better freakin’ hustle.

Next, and probably most importantly… I gather information. Tons of information. I read. I go to workshops and seminars. I subscribe to local farming news. I pay sharp attention things that effect agriculture on the local, national, and global level. Recently, I had a mental breakthrough when I realized that a good core of my finance and marcoeconomic bents, would have ample exercise in unwraveling the ins and outs of the Chicago Board of Trade/Mercantile Exchange commodity system. Boy howdy.

Meanwhile, my roommates, and future business partners, study as well. One is attending ag school as I write this. We all study, learn, network with people in the industry. We make contacts whenever possible. We’re data-gathering continually.

I don’t have all the “how” worked out yet, on swinging a real estate purchase as monumental as this. But we’re doing our best to figure out how to make the place operate successfully once we get it. And so the last component, but not least, is faith.

I once thought I’d never own a house. My old blog entries speak to the efforts and thoughts on that front. I also wondered if I’d ever fix my Impala and I’d often bemoan the long list of repairs it needed. Well, it still needs a lot of work, but I started on that too. It wasn’t all that long ago where I’d posted both of those desires on a certain website - to buy a house and fix up the Impala - and looking back, I’d say there was value in admitting those wants to the world.

I can’t take entire credit for making it this far, however. The house purchase involved timing that was nothing short of miraculous. But to my own credit, I will say that I prepared, and prepared, and prepared for that transaction. I saved up all the money I could. I studied the hell out of my local market and I never stopped looking at houses. I had to be ready when the opportunity came. And I was.

I’m applying that same strategy towards getting a farm. I can’t flip a switch and get a farm overnight. Nor can I make this happen completely on my own. All I can do, is learn everything I can, and be as prepared as I can, with my finances in order and a business plan at the ready. Then, I can spring into action when that opportunity comes up.

Then, my cousins n’ friends, you all are gonna be invited to one hell of a party. Meanwhile, I hope that something in my rambling thoughts helps you approach your own goals.

If your goals involve living on a farm, maybe we should talk, eh? I’m sure my roommates will understand when I tell ‘em we have to make room for one more… or two…or three, or… wow, I’m gonna need a bigger farmhouse. Heh!

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Company Stock Shock

January 25th, 2009

Gather ’round for a sad tale of a fool and money that were too-soon parted. Yes, me and mine.

A year ago, I started a new job and signed up for the company stock purchase plan. Seemed like a good idea at the time to save money. The stock had a decent P/E ratio, the company was reasonably solid as much as any company in that industry was, and the stock paid dividens. I’m not a market expert but I knew what I was getting into. Thinking myself a prudent and pragmatic investor, I elected to have a certain amount of money automatically deducted from my paycheck to go towards the stock purchase.

This is basically a dollar-cost averaging approach to investing. Yes, the stock price may go up, down or sideways from one paycheck to the next, but because I’m always investing the same amount, sometimes I’m paying a little more for the stock, and sometimes I’m paying less. In the long run, in theory, one still comes out ahead, assuming the stock appreciates over time. Plus, the dividens - which is like a form of earning interest - go towards buying more stock, so it eventually compounds in value. Sounds good, right? Automatic investment, planning ahead, savings discipline made easy, yaddah-yah.

One Year Later…. *scene change to a dark and stormy night, thunder rolling, lightning flashing, with ominous music suddenly blaring certain doom…DAAA DA DAAAAAH!!*

I decided to sell 1/2 of my company stocks because the market was getting bad and my own personal threshold for “when to sell” was breached. Ya see, I always establish a bottom price tolerance in my mind when I buy a stock. I won’t blindly hang on to something forever in hopes it will recover or be worth more despite all odds. My risk tolerance for this stock was getting too close to that margin, so I sold half of it. The transaction executed real-time and I got my check in the mail in about four days. Which was good, because I was putting it towards my property taxes, which were due too soon and I’ve struggled with getting the upper hand on them.

Anyway, I watched the market value of this stock immediately rise a couple days thereafter, just to piss me off, and for awhile I thought myself too rash. But then it started to fall. And fall. It dropped like a fucking rock, pardon my language, but there’s no other way to say it when you’re watching the hard-earned paycheck dollars that you invested, become worthless before your eyes in a matter of hours.

I waited another day for a “lift.” As I’d hoped, the stock crept back up a few bucks after the big sell-off of the day before, and I pounced on the chance to cut my losses. I sold the rest of the stock, using the exact same employee online web account that I’d used flawlessly just two weeks ago.

Imagine my surprise, when it took several days later for me to receive a check in the mail, and the check was for a whopping $17.31. I was expecting the check to be closer to $300, based on the market value when I sold it. The $17.31 was “leftover” from dividends that accured. The rest of my money was missing in action.

Found out my company had quietly changed a few things about how the employee stock purchase plan is handled. In that two week timespan from my first sell transaction to my second, they changed the administration of the plan to an outside agency.

So when I hit “sell”, instead of sending me a check, they sent a “set up broker account” order to the new outside broker agency.

This was not conducted in real time, either. The stock was worth $25.00 dollars a share when I executed the sale. When my employer sent the transaction to the outside agency, at the “close of business”, whenever the hell that is, the stock was below $20.00 a share. Also, the stock wasn’t actually “sold” in their eyes. The value continued to plummet. Like, not just a rock, but like a falling anvil.

Worse yet, when the outside agency set up my account, it became immediately subject to their brokerage fees. By the time I tracked down where the hell my money was - the stock was down below $14.00 a share. If I wanted to sell now, I’d get a much smaller check, PLUS they would be deducting their broker services fee - around $40 - and then to add insult to injury, the would also deduct three cents per share commission for every share I ordered sold.

Oh, and the sale wouldn’t be done in real time, either. I was told that if I ordered a sale before noon, then it MIGHT execute at the “close of business” the same day, OR maybe the close of business the next day, and whatever the sale price was when they actually got around to the transaction, would apply.

I’m still feeling sore in the posterior from the screwing I just took. Ultimately, I decided to leave the tattered remains of my stock purchase plan in the outside broker account instead of selling it. I’d get so little out of it now, it’s not worth choking down the fee.

Which has also screwed my budget this month. The property taxes cost far more than $300, but the point is this stock money coulda taken care of utilities or something and left me more cash flow.

The real moral to this story, is…the rules of the game can change without warning. I’m not a complete novice when it comes to investing, but I never saw this coming. I can only speculate that my employer - who’s stock value has been battered like so many other companies in this market - was looking for a way to stop the stampede to the exits whatever way it could. By making the employee stock sale transactions a complete pain in the ass, as well as making them expensive, they’ve discouraged sales.

Have I mentioned, I also have to submit the sale order in writing to the outside brokerage? Oh, I can send a fax. What do you think the odds are of them acknowledging my fax the same day I send it, or finding it all ?

There was one last indignity to all this. A few weeks ago when I guessed the company stock was going to head south, I stopped the purchase of any new stock. I canceled the payroll deductions.

Just got paid recently and guess what. I’m the proud owner of three more shares of company stock. I don’t want any more shares of this toliet paper, I want the cash back in my paycheck where it can put gas in the car or buy some groceries. @#$&*@!!!!

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Let’s Get a New Economy - While It’s Cheap!

December 7th, 2008

My current job involves working with people who are in varying states of economic need. I’ve had this job for about a year. Progressively, the caseloads get bigger. The solutions become more difficult to obtain.

The pressure to solve the situations is huge, but it’s like trying to put band-aids on cracks in the Hoover Dam. It may look like the small, individual patching will hold the water back, but the main problem is the structure itself is compromised and weakened.

I have to admit it overwhelmes me at times. I’m grateful to have a job in this economy but I have a tough one. ( My prior employer, which I occassionally blogged about in older posts, has went out of business. ) Anyway, part of my job now is to read about hardships and then do a cold numerical analysis on whether or not their situation can be resolved under the solutions I have to offer.

So many times, it can’t. Those who I can help, who get a life preserver pitched to them….often end up back underwater. Because something else happens and they have no savings. No available credit. No reserves. Or, they just expect a second rescue and maybe this time a more generous rescue. But there’s no second rescue available.

Think about that a minute, then think about everything the government has been pitching at this barn fire of an economy. What happens if some of these troubled banks or other industries, don’t find their problems solved after billions of dollars in aid? That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t help them. It just means that we shouldn’t have unrealistic expectations about what a bailout or a government loan package will do.

I won’t detail every problem the world has here. Those of you familiar with my blog know that I touched on some major economic points a long time ago. I recall saying that the goverment needed to become part of the solution ( as it had helped create the mess ) but I also predicted the government would wait too long to get involved.

Since those posts, the mainstream media eventually reported similar thinking on topics like Greenspan’s over-aggressive rate reductions that helped create the housing bubble. On another topic, President Bush recently admitted he didn’t expect the Iraq war to last so long or cost so much.

I blogged about China’s untrustworty history months before the lethal taint of melamine was found in baby formula, dairy products, and other processed foods. The Chinese government, predictably, has promised to execute those arrested in connection to the tainted products. This empty justice will not make China’s products any safer or more reliable, and I dearly wish China’s partnership in the World Trade Organization would be revoked. Immediately. Would never happen though, because they own too much of our American debt, which brings me back to the economic subjects where tonight’s post started.

I’m no financial expert, but I haven’t been too far off the mark in the timing of certain subjects in my blog, versus when the same subjects show up in a big way in the mainstream media. I’m not any big deal, I just think on this stuff quite a bit and sometimes I see a connection that isn’t as obvious to people who don’t suffer from insomnia. Also, through my current job, I see the real-life front lines of what people are going through all over the country. I’ve watched the death sprial of the economy become wider and faster, affecting more industries, more jobs, more people. I haven’t seen anything yet that will slow it down.

I believe tho’, that we will eventually get out of this. How soon depends on one very simple thing. Namely… when will we spend money again? Yes, we have to save some money too, but let’s face it, if we don’t buy cars, or go out to a movie, or go out to eat, or do the normal purchase behaviors that keep money flowing, then employers will keep cutting back, and fewer people have money to spend, and the vicious cycle never ends. We have to reverse momentum on this. Before the unemployment rate gets worse. You can’t expect people to spend when they don’t have a job. Forclosures will only get worse as unemployment picks up. Crime, too, will escalate. So will nuisance lawsuits as people get more desperate to find money.

Here’s a few ideas of mine that I freely give to the Universe As a Whole, in the hopes that something catches on and helps.

I believe the government should work hand in hand with the Big 3 automakers, by making the interest on car loans tax-deductable. This would stimulate lending, stimulate car buying, and give the consumer an incentive to loosen the ol’ wallet. Plus, remember that state goverments get a piece of the pie from the car sales tax. Our states could use the money too, so it’s a triple-win. The loan interest deduction really woudn’t cost the Feds all that much, (compared to the cost of financial disaster) and they could put a three-year scale on it or something.

I believe the goverment should also give a tax break to individual taxpayers businesses for 2009…and make it effective in January by reducting the Federal tax withholding from paychecks. We know damn well that wages aren’t going up, so the only way to get a little more cash in people’s hands is to have Uncle Sam back off a bit. For businesses, the tax breaks should be directly in tandem with what it costs them to keep employees on the books. I believe employers have to match some of the income tax withholding but I’m not an expert on that side of accounting. You get the idea though.

For the housing crisis to end, there needs to be a realistic substitute for the ol’ toxic subprime mortgage. This idea might get me shot, but hear me out. The main problem with subprime loans were the adjustable rates, the piggyback mortgages with sky-high interest, ect. Would it be too unrealistic to let a modest-income buyer get a fixed rate mortgage at 3%, for a first home purchase? Before anybody else cries “no fair!” think of it this way. Those of us who pay more in interest, also get a bigger income tax break. It stands to reason that if we have bigger incomes, that we need the bigger tax break anyway, or more of our income would just go to the IRS. Also, we’re probably buying homes that are bigger or have more amenities than the person just starting out. I’d put a reasonable cap on the 3% forever deals for income and house price. It’s a stepping stone program, and it would help the bottom of the housing market stabilize. I’d make it especially applicable to bank-owned homes that went through a previous foreclosure to take some of the glut out of the market.

There’s my suggestions. Not being an official economist, maybe I’m full of beans, but here’s hoping something takes root out there and works.

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Damage Control

November 14th, 2008

When I was a kid, I had an uncle who was the fire chief of a rural, volunteer fire department. This was the kind of fire deparment that had cans of beer in the soda vending machine. Yep, instead of Coke, Orange Crush and Diet, they had Miller, Bud, and Pabst. Despite the kicking back and hangin’ out at the ol’ firehouse, when the siren went off, these guys were all business.

Nowadays, this same fire department has all the electronic alarms, automatic pagers and emergency dispatch coordination stuff. When I was a kid, they just blew the siren on top of the building to call in the volunteers. This damn thing was LOUD. As a bonus, the siren also went off precisely at noon every day for one long, loud blast, and did it again at six p.m. Ostensibly, it was to let the farmers know when it was time to come in from the fields and eat. Or if you had a hangover, it would have you up by noon and sober enough by six to go back out drinking again. If you were ice fishing, it told you it was time to come in off the damn frozen lake. If you were hunting, forget it, because the siren just scared the bejeezus out of the wildlife and probably caused you to fall out of your tree stand as well.

The siren also went off when lightning hit it, or when the wind was strong, or when somebody leaned against the switch, or when somebody couldn’t find their brother-in-law.

Anyway, my uncle spent most of his free time at the firehouse, but one day he was elsewhere and a four-alarm call went out. A hellacious barn fire was under way. I remember this distinctly because that siren went off for damn near five minutes straight at a howl to wake the dead. It was an all-hands-on-deck emergency, on a hot, windy day in July.

My uncle called up his son to grab his gear from the firehouse and meet him at the scene. I happened to be over at their house at the time, so I jumped in the car and rode along. What kid would miss this?

I tell ya, finding our way to the fire scene was easy. The smoke was like a black tornado, except wider, and slanted from the wind. We weren’t allowed very close to the property for obvious reasons, my cousin being the son of the fire chief or no, so he had to jump out of the car and run like hell, carrying this heavy load of fireman’s gear, boots and helmet and all. I was under strict orders to stay in the car.

Right. So I got out of the car and I could feel the heat of the blaze, even from the side of the highway where we were parked. Gradually I snuck in closer while staying beneath notice - a lifelong talent - and after a few minutes I spotted my uncle in his fire gear, yelling orders, with a two-way radio squelching in his hand. I have to say I was impressed by the sheer mass of trucks and firemen and water fighting this behemoth of a blaze. The wooden barn that was on fire was half-engulfed and housed a tractor and other expensive machinery. The firemen were doing their best to try and save it, but the wind was making a tough job nearly impossible.

I remember my uncle yelling suddenly into the radio, “Let it go! Let it go and save the other buildings!” There was another barn in an L-shaped layout on the farmstead, and next to that barn, the farmhouse. Chunks of flaming ash were heading for both as the wind shifted.

Immediately, everything the fire department had was hosing down the other barn and putting a wall of equipment between that one and the house. The barn that was not yet ablaze housed livestock. Fortunately most of the animals were in pasture at the time, but the milking parlor in that barn would have been another expensive operation to lose.

The barn that had been on fire burnt to the ground. The livestock barn and the farmhouse were protected, though you could see some scorching on the face of the surviving barn. Belatedly, it was realized that the second barn had in fact started to burn. It just couldn’t be seen by the naked eye because of the thick wall of smoke at the time. My uncle’s decision to change tactics and redirect manpower and resources kept a farmer’s loss from becoming a complete disaster.

I caught hell for being found standing there gawking, too close to the action. Little did they know this would become a blog post and a metaphoric story for the economy some umpteen years later. The moral being, when one has finate resources, you have to choose what to save, and what to let go, and you may have to do it blindly, having nothing to go on except the direction of the wind. You may have to do it without consensus or committee and without seeking everybody’s thoughts on the matter.

On an aside, the 1977 GMC pickup truck shown in the photo, is still in active service today with the same fire department. It was on the scene for that barn fire and countless other emergencies since then. Some things are worth keeping around…

Which, for you clever folk out there, tells you where I stand on certain economic bailout issues as well. Here’s to you, lil’ red lucky truck. *opens beer can*