LET'S CUT TO THE CHASE

The media and presss have done a very pathetic job in educating the public how this financial crisis was created other than it had to do with mortgages and something called credit default swaps. Bear Stearns bought mortgages and bundled them together and sold them as bonds called CMO on Wall Street.
Banks, pension plans, etc around the world bought them. Bear Stearns used the money to buy and bundle more mortgages. A big buyer of these Collateralized Mortgage Obligations was AIG. The problem however extends to credit default swaps(a type of complex financial instrument known as a derivative). AIG sold insurance in the form of CDS(credit default swap) which is insurance against the default of a corporate bond issued by General Electric or Lehman Bros. for example. AIG beleived that CMO were safe, after all they were rated AAA by
Standard and Poor and Moodys for example. Some CMO especially for subprime(people with lower credit scores or no down payment) mortgages. These were especially attractive because of the higher interest rates. So the whole system was predicated on this cycle of mortgage, bundle it, sell it, use money to lend new money on new mortgages, then do it all over again created a global chain.
Now enters a problem AIG and others were borrowing money for short periods of time to buy what is essentially a long term financial instrument. It is known as the carry trade. As long money was easily available, they began to buy $30 of bond for every $1 they had in assets. This is what has always been known as speculation. As a result the global purchase and trade of financial derivatives exceeded the entire value of the gross domestic product of the world. They were essentially buying on margin. Well if you have ever heard of a margin call, you know that you end up having to sell stock to meet a margin call, in other words you must put up collateral against the money you borrowed.
As long as housing values went up, people refinanced to use equity in their homes to buy items they otherwise could not afford, money was flowing and everybody seemed fat and happy. What however was created was a bubble in the housing market unlike any previous housing bubble, since consumer spending in 70% of our economy. Now it was not a large percent of subprime mortgages that went into default about 8%, but when you are leveraged 30 to 1, it does not take much to bring the whole house of speculation tumbling down. Once it started heading down, bear raiders(again speculators) rushed in to grab a quick profit, they started buying credit default swaps and shorting(borrowing shares, selling them today and repaying the shares in the future by buying them when they became cheaper) financial instutions. This accelerated the fall of the house of cards, financial institutions had to put up collateral because of the loans they had taken, as they did so, they had to write down the value of their assets, as they did their share prices fell, which bear raiders then shorted even more, as the value of CDS(credit default swaps) went up.
The federal government decided to let Lehman Bros fail, the bonds it had sold became worth only pennies on the dollar, it rippled around the world started bringing down banks while bear raids did further damage. Finally Uncle Sam could no longer stay on the sidelines, so they jumped in with hundreds of billions, then hundreds of billions more, took over AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, etc. As noone anymore wanted to buy CMO, no more money for mortgages, housing sales dropped, values of houses dropped, causing layoffs, ertc. AIG and others stopped borrowing money and issuing credit default swaps. The credit market froze up, causing more layoffs, further declines in home building and sales, etc.
As Paul Harvey would say and now for the rest of the story. Eventually a large stimulus bill of almost a trillion dollars was passed. On top of the immense borrowing by the Federal Government to the tune of 5 billion dollars a day, the Federal Reserve a little more than a week ago, decided to add to their reserves, so they issued electronic money in exchange for Treasury bills. This injection did not mean money was printed, but actually produced right on the computer at the Federal Reserve to the tune of a trillion dollars.
Consumers have cut back, the savings rate has gone from minus one percent in 2007 to plus 4 percent so far this year, it was 10 percent back in 1980. Now the actions Uncle Sam is doing will cut into those savings with inflation. When you pump up the money supply to this degree, hyperinflation is coming, not too far away. Inflation was created in the 70s, mortgage rates went up to 19% for those with good credit, it was as a result of wage and price controls imposed in the early 70s, when they were taken off, inflation took off. This was at a time of increasing unemployment, added together it was called the misery index and propelled Ronald Reagan into the White House.
It is time to stop adding to the national debt, not just for the doubling and quadrupling of debt. The Debt was doubled under Pres. Bush and is being doubled again under Obama. From 5 trillion to 20 trillion in 12 years. It took 211 years to get to 5 trillion, only 8 years to get to 10 trillion and will at this rate only take 6 years to reach 20 trillion, 4 trillion of which was taken from the Social Security payroll taxes over the last 40 years leaving zero, yes that is right zero cash in the so called Soc Security lockbox.
Tell your congressmen/somen that you do not want them to creat debt at this rate, they must slow down in issuing debt. How? Send them an empty tea bag, beleive me, they will know what it means, it will speak for itself, a modern day "Boston tea party".

Sad Day for our Country

Our country was founded by men who not only believed in a God but that human beings have inalienable rights, rights that cannot be taken away in other words. Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Roe vs Wade was bad enough it has resulted in the unmerciful ripping apart by suction machines of over 40 million unborn babies in this country alone. I shudder to think what the worldwide figure is. It is a modern day holocaust of defenseless unborn human beings and if you can somehow rationalize this and still beleive in the 5th commandment, then you are using awfully twisted logic. 2 days or 200 days old is merely a matter of size. It is not a potential human being, it is simply a human being without protection
Abraham Lincoln was quite familiar with the Bible and used the ideas from it many times. When he said to take care of the widow and the orphan he was appealing to our human compassion. The truly noble will always defend the weak and defenseless. Let's get our priorities right since how many years is it that we care more about a bald eagle, a harp seal but not about an unborn human being. Again twisted rationalization.
PETA is more concerned about cows than human embryos. Nowadays you can drum up more support to stop a puppy mill than an abortion clinic. Why is that? I do not expect everyone to agree with me, however on this issue I will not mince words.
The whole reason I am bringing all of this up is our President, is going to propose on Tuesday to lift the ban on research funding for embryonic stem cell research. This, despite the fact that everyday adult stem cells are being shown to do the same thing. Also federal funding for adult stem cell research continued unabated. So why in God's name would you want to set aside billions as has been done in California, when not necessary.
The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, but there is absolutely no reason to continue to destroy human embryos just because they are leftovers from in vitro fertilization. As for in vitro fertilization since this is what it has led to, maybe it is time to reconsider whether it is really a wise thing to do. Let's leave fertilization up to God, and let us not destroy His divinely produced unborn human beings. If you do not agree with this blog, oh well that is fine. If you do agree with this blog, please pass it on.
Yours in Christ always and forever

Defining Deviancy down

Let me begin by saying that phrase was coined by none other than the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, an old school Democrat and scholar. He wrote about how our standards in this country keep slipping downward, such as percentage of births that are illegitimate, violence in our music, higher divorce rate and promiscuity resulting in so many fatherless children. Oh and by the way, a very large percentage of the poverty in this country are fatherless households.
There is great deal of disrespect for women in our culture. When entertainment embraces songs that call women whores, b--ches, and glamorizes being a pimp. Why would we possibly say pimp my ride, is that somehow cool. Well, be careful what you are willing to embrace in the name of cool. Gangsta rap songs are filled with disrespect to women, foul language, and violence toward women. Now if only a few of our youth were listening to this, it would not be a large problem, however it is a large percentage of our young people. Bill Cosby has spoken about the gangster subculture, the promiscuity that is causing both illegitimate births and fatherless households. Bill Clinton even talked about once when he talked about Sister Souljah.
Now if you do not engage in homosexual sex or IV drug abuse , you have a 1 in 8,000 chance of contracting AIDS if you are not promiscuous and live in the United States. For every four people killed in car accidents one person dies of AIDS. However in sub-Saharan Africa where promiscuity is king, unfortunately five percent of all Africans that is 23 million are infected with AIDS. Promiscuity is a life and death problem, it is a public health problem, it is not just a personal decision, or a moral decision.
Look at Magic Jordan he could tell you a lot. AIDS is on the rise in India now with 1.3 million cases or about one out of every 100.
Some say oh let's just distribute condoms, well when you are dealing with a deadly disease, statistics become important, couples who use condoms, the woman becomes pregnant 10% of the time. The pill is used because there are less pregnancies, but the pill does not prevent sexually transmitted diseases. Would you play russian roulette with a gun with ten chambers and one bullet, would you put that gun to your head over and over again, each time increasing your chances that it will be deadly? So when it comes to AIDS the answer to safer is not a condom, it is to not be promiscuous or put IV drugs into your body.
The bottom line is that immoral decisions do not just have consequences for your soul, they have consequences for your body, your family and the society at large. Decisions have consequences, sometimes very deadly consequences. Why do we put so much publicity into wearing seatbelts, but not against promiscuity, not more about respecting women, and deglamorizing gangster culture.
We have a murder rate in the US that is twice that of Canada or Washington state which is 3 per 100,000. US is 6. Texas is 18, unfortunately capital punishment does not deter murderers, because like any criminal they do not expect to get caught. Most murders occur where gangs are widespread, that is the large cities. In those cities it is not all neighborhoods. The neighborhoods where gangs do rule, the gangsters end up in prison or dead, sometimes in prison first, then dead. Our number one problem in this country is not the public education system, that could be number two. Our number one concern needs to be stopping the gangs.
How are we going to minimize gangs. The FBI estimates 80% of all violent crime is committed by gangs. Number one we need to stop glamorizing gangsters in our movies and music. We must take a stand like Bill Cosby against irresponsible behavior, we must let our young people know that the glamorization of promiscuity and running in the hood, ends in poverty and body bags. The number one source of revenue for gangs is illegal drugs. Drugs are a gateway for the devil to enter your soul, ex-addicts will tell you how they will sell their soul for a fix. Why would we possibly not want to keep our young out of these criminal organizations? Additionally, fatherless households are ripe pickings, young men want an older male to look up to, to model themselves after, if that person happens to be a gang leader, how tragic.
The subculture of promiscuity and gangs is killing our young people. Let's turn our young people around by cutting off the pernicious influence not only of gangs but the music industry and everywhere gangsterism is glorified. Come on we are the adults, no adult should make money off the pimping of women, the perversion by gangs of young men. There is glamour in crime, if you don't mind the evil, but only because we are not critical enough of pimps, the victimization of women and young men, we must not look the other way just because it is not happening in our neighborhood.
In Nazi Germany, someone said they came for the Jews, I said nothing, they came for the retarded, I said nothing, they came for the Catholics, I said nothing, by the time they came for me, there was no one left to say anything. So you see the cancer of gangsterism which flourishes in the inner cities is spreading like a cancer across our country, if we do not do more to discourage young people from joining, soon it will be your neighborhood. So even if it is not yet in your neighborhood, for the sake of our society, draw a line in the sand now. We are in the midst of a financial breakdown, it will pass. But the ever increasing homicide rate in inner cities will not pass on its own only keep marching until it reaches your neighborhood. Wake up before it hits your family.

Unfortunately we seem to be slipping ever deeper into "It takes a village". What I mean is we have many people who think that the government is there to bail us out when we make bad choices. It started with hey if you are going to be an intravenous drug abuser, then let's give you clean needles so you don't get AIDS. Kids if you are going to engage in premarital sex anyway, well let's just push condoms so their immature relationships will be somehow safer. Oh by the way sorry to burst that bubble but 10% of the time sperm gets through anyway, which is why they have never been as good a contraceptive as the pill. Oh by the way, we now know that the combination pill with progestin and estrogen, progestin to somehow prevent cervical cancer, turns out most cervical cancer is caused by an STD, therefore the need for Gardasil to be a vaccine to prevent this particular STD.
What about abstinence, why all the amoral focus just on diseases or making sex safer? Because missing from this governmental approach condoned by Planned Parenthood, is morality, we wouldn't want that now would we? Oh and what has in vitro fertilization brought us besides Octomom, how about cloning embryoys in orded to harvest stem cells, instead of latching on to the advances in adult stem cell research, because after all embryonic stem cell production is so much easier, we have cloning down right. Let's see there were people who said the pill was wrong, who said in vitro fertilization was wrong. Who said separating love and morality from sex was a bad idea. Don't sound like such dinosaurs now do they? Perhaps they were visionary, or perhaps they did not need to see the consequences of these particular paths. Maybe they just saw that the creative act where Heaven touches the earth, where human interacts with the divine, should not be taken into a laboratory.
You see that is the way wisdom is, certain things are wrong, they are wrong for a reason, we may not always know the reason, but we do not always need to know the reason to know right from wrong.
Our loving Father has figured it all out. And when we start taking him out of the creative act, so we can pursue pleasure only, or procreation without love, then that is where we head down into Hell. Yes oh my goodness, I did say Hell, and yes there are many demons who would like us to join them. You know, misery really does love company.
Ta ta until later, your fellow human being. Enjoy your life and do not anything or anybody rain on your parade, as long as your parade is stimulated by true joy, may it fill your heart to overflowing. God bless.