On the Bailout Bill
This was for my Finance 318 class. The assignment was to write a 1-2 page paper about the provisions of the bailout bill. In my typical style, I went straight for the fun stuff.
The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 was signed into law by George W. Bush on the afternoon of Friday, October 3, 2008. Of course, at the heart of the bill is still the Bush administration's plan to buy troubled assets of mortgage lenders such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and generally "relieve the credit crunch." Of course, though, that's the easy part. That is the part that is almost understandable.
What the real meat of the issue, and what adds approximately $100 billion to the tab is the variety of "sweeteners" (read: bribes, pork) that were added to the bill to make it appealing to Congress to get it passed. These tasty morsels include (but certainly are not limited to):
- "[A] proposal [to] exempt from the excise tax any shaft consisting of all natural wood with no laminations or artificial means to enhance the spine of the shaft used in the manufacture of an arrow that measures 5/16 of an inch or less and is unsuited for use with a bow with a peak draw weight of 30 pounds or more." This is worth $200,000 a year to Rose City Archery in Myrtle Point, Oregon. Interestingly, it was backed by Oregon Senators Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith, a democrat and a republican. What bipartisanship.
- "Creation of a seven-year cost recovery period for construction of a motorsports racetrack." Cost: $100 million
- Tax breaks for money received in connection with the Exxon Valdez oil spill and litigation. Cost: $49 million
- A $3.3 billion program to replace revenue rural communities used to get from the sale of federal forest land.
- Citizens who don't pay state income tax can deduct the amount of sales tax they pay over a year from their federal income tax for two additional years. Cost: $3.3 billion.
- U.S. production companies can deduct the cost of producing films from their taxes to keep movie production in the U.S. Cost: $478 million.
So, all in all, even in these harsh economic times, it's nice to know that some people are not feeling the crunch like the rest of the world. When many Americans are wondering where their retirement went, Congress is wondering about getting a little discount for their children's collective arrows.
Welcome to America.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/02/bailout.pork/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/06/walker.bailout/index.html
Bit O’ Fic: The Clean-Out Continues
So this one was scribbled on the back of an envelope. It looks like one of the envelopes that the hospital uses to send me my direct-deposit paycheck stubs.
Apparently the muse hit me, and I had to write this down. Then it went into nothingness until I found it at the bottom of a box I was cleaning out.
Verbatim off of the back of the envelope:
dark night
darkest one she'd ever seen
stars in the sky
streetlight out
25 years ago
she still missed her
kicked the gravel driveway
sounds-night
remembered the twinkle in her eye
in the kitchen
she's gone-10 yrs ago today
it was unexpected
nobody expects pneumonia
they said it would get better
Janice thought-Hell, might be better... but it hurts so badly.
So, for fun, I decided to take those thoughts and put them together into a little bit of fiction.
It was a dark night--the darkest one that she had ever seen, as far back as she could remember, at least. It seemed darker than usual. "Is it just my heart and my emotions playing out into my perceptions?" she wondered. No, the streetlight must be out. Yes, it was definitely out. At night in the middle of the country it's like swimming in coffee when the moon isn't full, and it wasn't that night. All she could see were a few holes pricked through the fabric of the night letting the light from outside shine in.
It was 25 years ago that they had moved out here to get away from it all. After her father died, she and her mother had decided to get out of the city once and for all. Away from the bright lights, away from the noise, away from the heartache.
As her eyes began to adjust to the utter lack of light, other stars started to appear as if someone were poking holes through the night sky. She paused for a minute, and kicked the gravel, distracted momentarily by the feel of it squishing around her shoe and relishing the grating noise as each pebble landed.
Her attention next darted to the music of the night all around her. The crickets and cicadas chirped, coupled with the wind through the trees, a glorious nocturnal symphony.
She remembered the twinkle in her eye. The hours she spent in the kitchen lovingly preparing food for her family. The selfless sacrifices that she would make for her children. It hit her again. It was 10 years ago today that her mother died. It was unexpected. Death is always unexpected, even if you see it coming, she mused. Nobody expects pneumonia. They all said it would get better.
Of course they said it would get better; that's their job. But no mortal man makes the final decision for someone to live or die.
The supreme being in whose creation she was completely enveloped, but at the same time completely lost, makes those calls with much more authority and knowledge than man will ever have.
Janice thought to herself, "Hell, it might be better now... but it hurts so badly," as she turned around to head back to the little house that she now lived in by herself.
Time
I'm taking my own advice. I'm cleaning out boxes of stuff preparing to go back to school, and came across something from my Conceptual Physics 205 class a while ago. I have to share it with you.
Our professor was Croatian, and sometimes things smacked into the language barrier and passed out. I think this assignment might have been one. It was "Whatsa Time?" roughly translated after minutes of class discussion as "What is Time?" Without further ado, I present "Time" by Branson Sparks.
First and foremost, time is a scarce resource. There's never enough of it, and everyone always wants more. It can't be paused, fast forwarded, or rewound. Einstein once explained relativity by giving a simple example: when you're sitting on a hot stove for a few seconds, it feels like hours; when you're sitting with a pretty girl for hours, it feels like a few seconds. It is also said that as one ages, time seems to go faster--a rather cruel twist of fate. This brings up an important issue: the passing of time versus the perception of the passing of time. Though time marches by with the swing of the pendulum and the vibrations of Cesium 133 atoms in the atomic clock, there are occasions when it seems to drag by slowly and with painstaking tediousness. At other times, it flies by. Regardless, the common theme, at least among most college and working age individuals is that there don't seem to be enough hours in the day. However, this is a fallacy, because if days by some strange action became longer, the amount of stuff that needs to be done in a day would simply increase to fit the amount of time allotted to it. Though morbid, everyone on the Earth is a timer counting down. We all will eventually die. Therefore, we must use the time that we have wisely and budget it carefully, because however much time you have, it's never enough. It's a scarce resource and must be dealt with accordingly. Actually, it is the most valuable asset in the world-more precious than diamonds, gold, or silver. Your time is yours to do with it what you will, so choose wisely.
Just a little nugget of wisdom from The BS-Files for you.