Facts & Nonsense

Today was eventful. Five years ago today Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy which set off one of the biggest financial meltdowns in US history. President Obama discussed the current economic situation since then. Janet Yellin was put forth as the front runner of the Fed position, giving the markets more confidence that the monetary policy will stay ‘looser’ for longer, which was the reason for the jump. A shooting took place in the D.C. Navy shipyard killing 13 people. The U.N. confirms sarin was used in Syria. Elizabeth Hasselbeck made her first appearance on Fox and Friends [channel should be cancelled] and lastly Miley called off her engagement. I guess I should care about Miley’s life since some news sources don’t shut up about her and I see more retweets from people my age about celebrities than actual news. So I would assume based off of 

media coverage that I should have extensive knowledge about her life. Why? That answer is obvious I know, it’s because people read into it but why? If she made a good song, good for her, if I like it I’ll listen to it, I’ll maybe purchase it if need be, but do I care who she is dating? No, is it relevant in my day to day? No, I guess that Liam guy didn’t care too much for his fiancé swinging around naked on a wrecking ball. [Who could have seen that coming?]  More on my day to day as I guess we are on that topic, Me and Stephanie have some kind of an idea of when we are moving! My Brother Jon closed on his house on Thursday finally after about a 2 week delay. We started to paint on Friday. We then painted all weekend and we are mostly done with that. We do have “before and after” pictures coming but we are waiting until the end result so you can truly compare. The walls had wood paneling and the ceiling used to be white but over time turned a yellow creamy color. Our color scheme is gray, blue, white, and black. I know that based off of the color is seems very manly but I do have a wife who’s favorite color is pink and if she had her way I would be living in a room that appears to be a pre-teen girls room, so compromise is the key word. Yes the base colors are “manly” but the tones of these colors neutralize the “gender” of the room. She picked out the colors on her own and I agreed it would look nice. She did choose pink but I had to be an unsupportive husband with that decision, I do hate doing it but come on? Pink... Lastly, We are both very excited to get our ideas out from Pinterest and into our room. 

Politicians that have endorsements in their campaign will influence what they will do if they are elected which I have no problem with. It is common to get the backing from a party or special interest groups to get your name out there and get your message across but this involves money. If you support someone’s message it is also common practice to support them through money. On the dark side of things, being influenced with money can also cause politicians to do things outside of their tendencies so we can also see harmful effects for having endorsements in political campaigns. If people are mad that the Federal Reserve does not elect officials based on votes from the public and that they are not influence by politicians that have duties to pay back from campaign endorsements then how do you expect them to remain unbiased. A documentary named Etho’s I began to watch on Netflix and had to shut off. [it turned into a “conspiracy theorist” movie without in structure or backing to their arguments.] It looked at flaws in our country and they were outraged that we had no say in who was elected and that government had no regulation on the Fed, who oversees the banking industry. They just got done arguing how politicians are bias because of money endorsements on campaign runs, and then go on to complain on how we don’t have any say in the positions at the Federal Reserve. Do they really think that if a Fed position was an elected position they would not be influences by the big companies and politicians? I want my fed to be unbiased and not driven by endorsements. oh and they claim they operate without anyone knowing what they are doing. They do not operate without anyone knowing what they are doing, the meetings main reports are open to the public 3 months after and the full report is open years later and that is not because they do not want the public to know but they want to keep big companies from benefiting over smaller companies, you can go on their website for everything a citizen needs to know. Unless you have a PhD in a related subject you do not need to know, I think they got it. The reason I am bringing this up because in the next couple of months more coverage will begin to look at the next chairmen of the Fed. Ben Bernanke will be stepping down and the position will be open. Ben Bernanke took over in 2006 after Alan Greenspan and has had a tough job ever since. The Economy is obviously important and this will be an important building block to bringing the economy back. Janet Yellin and Larry Summers are the two front runners for the position. Janet Yellin is the current Vice Chairwoman of the Fed. Larry Summers left the National Economic Council in late 2010 to work for a hedge fund. Mr. Summer was in support of the deregulation of banks and the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. As the secretary of Treasury he famously pushed for the passing of the law that would make sure that derivatives would not be regulated by the government. “I think we will have continuing danger from these markets and that we will have repeats of the financial crisis. It may differ in details, but there will be significant financial downturns and disasters attributed to this[derivative market] regulatory gap over and over until we learn from experience”, a response by Brooksley Born during an October 2009 interview with frontline about the current regulation on the derivative market. Warren Buffet also stated that derivatives are the “financial weapons of mass financial destruction”. Looking at the two, Mr. Summers is at the root of many of the economic problems and Yellin only has experience and has made the right decisions in her positions.