If anyone who has read the “About Me” page on this site already knows, I’ve spent more than enough time in my life in school. I’ve received a Bachelor’s of Science in Business Information Technology and a Master’s of Science in Management Information Systems. The way I see it, I’ve done a pretty good job of training my mind, which has honestly always been my strongest asset.
However, in doing so, I’ve neglected other parts of my being. Obviously, if you’ve seen any pictures of me laterly, I’m not the most svelte person. While I’m knowledgeable about the Bible and what it contains, I feel like I don’t know enough to defend it myself, much less to disciple my family in what it means. Financially, we’re doing OK, but could stand to do a lot better.
All this being said, I’ve made some personal changes, and we as a family have made some as well. What I’m trying to do is to build up muscle in other areas of my being, to bring them up to par with my intellectual training. What exactly am I doing differently?
Physically, I’m trying to eat better and have started going to taekwondo with Alex twice a week. If it wasn’t so far away (30 minutes) I would happily go more often, but twice a week is enough for right now. We are both white belts, but we have a test coming up next weekend to see if we advance to yellow belt.
Financially, Collette and I have drawn up plans to have all of our debt (minus student loans) paid off by the middle to end of next year. This includes our car, personal loans, credit cards, and a couple other debts that we’ve incurred. After that, we’ll take a year to build up our savings, then turn it loose on the house. If my calculations are correct, we’ll have it paid off completely by the end of 2013. My plans are all based on the Dave Ramsey “Total Money Makeover” book, which was so generously given to me by my brother.
Spiritually, I’m reading more about theology in an attempt to better be able to defend my faith. I know the basic talking points, but I want to know more in depth. Going back to school isn’t an option right now, because I really don’t want to. The two weeks I spent in the PhD program at UNT was enough to make me realize I don’t want any more formal education. I’ve been reading Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem and it’s really excellent. It’s not so intellectual as to be difficult to read, but not so basic as to be boring.
So there you go. That’s my current life goals. Others are included as part of the whole, like better time management and spending more time with my family. I’ve cut down on the TV that I watch, especially as the one show I was really looking forward to this season turned out to be a dud (Heroes).
What kinds of things are you doing to maintain or make your life better?
This is part of a larger article at Dr. Voddie Baucham’s blog. You should really read the whole thing, but this video is pretty funny. It seems the British understand how the system works better than we do.
While you’re at Dr. Baucham’s site, read some of his other stuff. He’s really good. His writing is excellent, but his live teaching goes way beyond that. He’s a wonderful speaker and a really genuinely nice man.
My answer is yes. Take this snippet from an AP article:
The Dow Jones industrials plunged nearly 800 points, the most ever for a single day.
I’m going to assume that they are comparing it to history using the point loss rather than the percentage loss because it makes a more gripping storyline. However, the loss was not the worst loss in history. The largest one day percentage drop was 22.61%, which occurred on October 19, 1987. Today’s loss of 777.68 points is a 6.98% drop, less than 1/3 of the loss suffered on Black Monday.
I may be overly optimistic about this, but let’s not get all caught up in it. By not passing the huge bailout bill, the House of Representatives has actually saved us a great deal of debt in the future. If they are serious about fixing the problems that face this country, how about all the Senators who have served more than two terms, and all the Representatives who have served more than four terms resign immediately, or remove themselves from ballots if they are up for election this fall. The problem lies in the current power-hungry, career politician class. No more lobbyists, no more crony appointments, just sensible people in government. People who have the ability to lead this country won’t run for office because honestly, who wants the headache of all the personal attacks and partisanship. The whole system is corrupt. It’s time t reboot it.
I’m not an economist, so I really can’t speak in detail about ways to get our nation out of the current crisis. However, the CEO of a bank is qualified to speak to it. This is part of a letter reportedly sent by John Allison, CEO of BB&T, to all members of congress.
Key Points on “Rescue” Plan From A Healthy Bank’s Perspective
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are the primary cause of the mortgage crisis. These government supported enterprises distorted normal market risk mechanisms. While individual private financial institutions have made serious mistakes, the problems in the financial system have been caused by government policies including, affordable housing (now sub-prime), combined with the market disruptions caused by the Federal Reserve holding interest rates too low and then raising interest rates too high.
There is no panic on Main Street and in sound financial institutions. The problems are in high-risk financial institutions and on Wall Street.
While all financial intermediaries are being impacted by liquidity issues, this is primarily a bailout of poorly run financial institutions. It is extremely important that the bailout not damage well run companies.
Corrections are not all bad. The market correction process eliminates irrational competitors. There were a number of poorly managed institutions and poorly made financial decisions during the real estate boom. It is important that any rules post “rescue” punish the poorly run institutions and not punish the well run companies.
A significant and immediate tax credit for purchasing homes would be a far less expensive and more effective cure for the mortgage market and financial system than the proposed “rescue” plan.
This is a housing value crisis. It does not make economic sense to purchase credit card loans, automobile loans, etc. The government should directly purchase housing assets, not real estate bonds. This would include lots and houses under construction.
The guaranty of money funds by the U.S. Treasury creates enormous risk for the banking industry. Banks have been paying into the FDIC insurance fund since 1933. The fund has a limit of $100,000 per client. An arbitrary, “out of the blue” guarantee of money funds creates risk for the taxpayers and significantly distorts financial markets.
Protecting the banking system, which is fundamentally controlled by the Federal Reserve, is an established government function. It is completely unclear why the government needs to or should bailout insurance companies, investment banks, hedge funds and foreign companies.
It is extremely unclear how the government will price the problem real estate assets. Priced too low, the real estate markets will be worse off than if the bail out did not exist. Priced too high, the taxpayers will take huge losses. Without a market price, how can you rationally determine value?
The proposed bankruptcy “cram down” will severely negatively impact mortgage markets and will damage well run institutions. This will provide an incentive for homeowners who are able to pay their mortgages, but have a loss in their house, to take bankruptcy and force losses on banks. (Banks would not have received the gains had the houses appreciated.) This will substantially increase the risk in mortgage lending and make mortgage pricing much higher in the future.
Fair Value accounting should be changed immediately. It does not work when there are no market prices. If we had Fair Value accounting, as interpreted today, in the early 1990’s the United States financial system would have crashed. Accounting should not drive economic activity, it should reflect it.
The proposed new merger accounting rules should be deferred for at least five years. The new merger accounting rules are creating uncertainty for high quality companies who might potentially purchase weaker companies.
The primary beneficiaries of the proposed rescue are Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. The Treasury has a number of smart individuals, including Hank Paulson. However, Treasury is totally dominated by Wall Street investment bankers. They do not have knowledge of the commercial banking industry. Therefore, they can not be relied on to objectively assess all the implications of government policy on all financial intermediaries. The decision to protect the money funds is a clear example of a material lack of insight into the risk to the total financial system.
Arbitrary limits on executive compensation will be self defeating. With these limits, only the failing financial institutions will participate in the “rescue,” effectively making this plan a massive subsidy for incompetence. Also, how will companies attract the leadership talent to manage their business effectively with irrational compensation limits?
Was doing some link chasing on Wikipedia and came across this:
The Panic of 1873 was a severe nationwide economic depression in the United States that lasted until 1879. It was precipitated by the bankruptcy of the Philadelphia banking firm Jay Cooke and Company on September 18, 1873, following the crash on May 9, 1873 of the Vienna Stock Exchange in Austria (the so-called Gründerkrach or “founders’ crash”). It was one of a series of economic crises in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
…
Years of government-promoted speculative credit created vast overexpansion of the nation’s railroad network. The failure of the Jay Cooke bank, followed quickly by that of Henry Clews, set off a chain reaction of bank failures and temporarily closed the stock market.
I’m not saying it’s a perfect comparison, but there are enough similarities to be worth the read.
I thought that this piece by CNN’s Campbell Brown hits the bail-out nail squarely on its overinflated head.
I know everyone is screaming about how urgent this crisis is and that action must be taken immediately.
But I love and live by former Supreme Court Justice Brandeis’ great quote: “Sunshine is the best disinfectant.”
What we need is scrutiny and debate. If it has to happen quickly, then do it fast, but without grandstanding or political posturing.
We need serious scrutiny and debate, and that should happen whether we are talking about a giant piece of legislation that is going to affect us all, or whether we are talking about presidential and vice presidential candidates.
In the last month, I was accepted into the Business Computer Information Systems PhD program at the University of North Texas, turned it down, then turned around and accepted it, went to about two and a half weeks worth of classes, and realized that I liked free time with my family and actually doing what I want to do better. It was a good program, but I’m not going to be a college professor, nor am I really all that fond of doing research. Does that explain my absence completely? Well, no.
I really haven’t felt like writing all that much. About a year or so ago, something happened that totally turned me off writing. I tried some off and on, but it just didn’t feel the same. So, I guess I took kind of a self imposed exile from blogging to get my thoughts together about what I really wanted to write about. I’ve got a pretty good idea where I’m headed now. I’ll be posting more later.
Was reading this on Fox News tonight, and it just seems wrong to me. Some of the ideas being floated are good, but not all of them. Let me say up front that I don’t like the bailout idea, but if you’re going to do it at least have some sense about it.
[Rep. Barney Frank] said the bill will not provide “golden parachutes,” or loaded compensation packages, for executives who lost money for their firms.
This is a great idea. They ran those firms into the ground, so they should not be compensated with my money for doing it.
[Senator Christopher] Dodd said he has great faith in [Treasury Secretary Henry] Paulson, a former Goldman-Sachs CEO, to deal with the crisis. However, he said a legislative relief package also should be tailored to protect taxpayers in the best way possible.
He said they should be “first in line” to get money back once conditions in the industry stabilize and recover.
Again, this is a pretty good idea. It won’t happen, and it’s just pandering to voters, but it’s a good idea. We’ll never see a dime of this money back. Not a dime.
Frank agreed that more should be set aside for homeowners who have been unable to keep up with payments once their subprime adjustable rate mortgages spiked.
And there’s where they lost me. I’m sorry, but the people who signed up for these mortgages should have known what they were getting into. When we bought our house in 2004, the mortgage company gave us three choices: a fixed rate, 20 year mortgage; an adjustable rate 15 year mortgage; or an adjustable rate 30 year mortgage. It was a pretty simple decision. The fixed rate was the best because I knew what my mortgage was going to be for the next 20 years. I didn’t have to hope that the economy stayed good so my payment wouldn’t go up. Just like the banks should have shown some restraint in the number of bad credit mortgages they issued, people should have had some smarts about the kinds of mortgages they were seeking.
“The private sector got us into this mess,” Frank said, “The government has to get us out of it. We do want to do it carefully.”
Wow. Tell us how you really feel about non-governmental entities why don’t you? Big government doesn’t have to do anything. They should do as little as possible and stay out of the way.
Congressional leaders have endorsed the main thrust of the administration plan, but also have said that it must be expanded to include help for people on Main Street as well as the big Wall Street financial firms who have lost billions of dollars through their bad investment decisions.
Why should we help them out with their bad investment decisions? If I sink all my money into a widget company and they lose their shirt, I lose all my money. That’s why it is an investment. It isn’t guaranteed to always be positive.
This could get very ugly in the next few months. Neither presidential candidate will get us out of this mess quickly or painlessly. It’s times like these we have to remember Matthew 6:19-21:
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
So, where is your treasure? Here on earth, tied up in the federal banking system? Or is it in heaven, where we actually will be able to enjoy it forever?
I finally gave up waiting for my host to get their stuff together and restore my old DB, so I’ve just reimported everything into my new one. It’s not like I haven’t been writing. I’ve brought over a couple of pieces written for Backseat Writer, where I’m a reviewer and scribe.
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