I think you over-estimate the naivity of the banks and mortgage salesmen in relation to the credit crisis. It was nothing but greedy profiteering and has very little to do with encouragement from any recent adminsistration.
Here are some of the key points to remember:
1) Mortgage salesmen got a commision for each mortgage sold, regardless of whether it was stable or would be paid to completion.
2) Alarm bells should have been ringing down at the local bank branch but they weren't. Why? Because they were selling the loans (and inherent risk) on to larger invesment banks who repacked them.
3) The investment banks repackaged these loans together with the flawed reasoning that only a certain percentage would default based on projected market conditions. Those conditions turned out to be wrong.
4) The producers and packagers of asset backed swaps were further laying off and reselling the risk to hedge funds and banks that didn't necessarily have the capital behind them to pay up in the event of a default. It's illegal for insurance companies to take on obligations that they can't pay for but not for banks to jiggle risk around like this. This is criminal negligence in my view and people should have been in court by now.
5) No one really knows who is exposed to what risk because these leveraged products have been resold and unwound between multiple counterparties. The banks don't know how badly affected their peers are so they've stopped lending to others in case they disappear (like Lehman) or they need the cash themselves for their own write-downs which they don't really know the scale of for the reasons mentioned. This is the real credit crisis, not the mortgages themselves. That was just the catalyst.
Put it this way, you won't find anyone in the finance industry saying that they sold all those dodgy mortgages "because the government made us do it". It was greed, pure and simple.
DISCLAIMER: I worked in credit derivitives many years ago.
At least you've already done a good job and you don't need to worry about it too much. Your children sound well balanced and can probably reason all the angles from Darwinian to Young Earth theories and everything in between. I'm sure they have their own opinions on these concepts too and that's important
However, it's the less cerebral kids I'm concerned with. In the UK we have teenagers who leave school without being able to tell the difference between 10's, 100's and 1000's. The problem is that less bright children are the most vulnerable to being taught that intelligent design is scientific fact because they can't reason about it themselves. The word 'scientific' being the sticking point. Yes they should be taught to read and write correctly but we need to be careful not to confuse people who are the most vulnerable in our society.
You might not be too woried about intelligent design because you're christan but what if kids were taught sharia law in school as a valid alternative to US law? Is that a step too far down the religious dogma road? Where does it end? Creationism is a foot in the door of something which is best left closed.
As an aside, I also agree with you about the two fathers and Rikki Lake nonsense. Kids learn the most about society by actually growing up in it. It's doesn't need to be taught in schools either. It just gives self interested groups another angle to exploit and unduly influence young minds.
If you give up the fight against the creationists and allow them to allocate time to teach intelligent design, do you think that would help the situation? Like you say, kids need to be learning science and as guardians of their education, we need to make sure they don't get a confusing mix of science and fairy stories. There's only so much time in a school day so let's save the theology for Religious Studies class.
No, no, no. If you want legal advice, ask Slashdot! Given enough time, you'll get an answer that is exactly what you hoped for and you can ignore or mod down the ones you don't like. It couldn't be simpler and it's a whole lot cheaper!
I hope there's a middle-ground somewhere in your new world order for users who want stable performance from release to release without having to compile a kernel.
You're right though, the homebrew scene really does suck compared to the last generation of consoles. I was truly amazed at the things a modded xbox could do a few years ago. There doesn't seem to be anything close to that now which is a shame really.
Oh yes, thank you very much. You're the kind of person that when confronted with a malfunctioning home appliance suggests, "Have you tried plugging it in?". Very helpful there.
The measurements in question were taken over a period of months and relate only to downloading from Giganews. Giganews don't limit your connection to 60K/s for months at a time as far as I'm aware and the same account is fine when used from elsewhere.
Yeah, I think so too. I was using Be before, maxing out 13Mbps and zero complaints for just £4 a month more. However, I moved 1/2 a mile down the road and unfortunately landed on a non-LLU exchange. I used PIPEX back in the dial-up days and they used to be a good company so it seemed like a safe bet. I really have no idea what happened to them.
Take PIPEX as an example. I've been subjected to 56K speeds for exceeding my bandwidth quota of 50Gb per month. I can tell you that if I wasn't on a one-year contract, they would have lost a customer immediately.
Once this go-slow was lifted, I noticed that they were actually throttling my connection even when I'm a long way under my quota. I was getting a perfectly flat 512Kbps instead of the advertised 8Mbps and the 2Mbps I was getting previously. When I called to complain about it, they told me it was contention because of the olympics. When I pointed out that contention would cause variable transfer speeds instead of a flat one, they tried to get me off the phone and told me to write to their head office. I totally hate that company. Avoid.
they are not intended as a stepping stone to citizenship, even though in practice that's the way 90%+ of applicants see them.
Maybe I'm in the other 10% then. I think it would be fun to live in New York for a couple of years and then come back here to London. To do that I probably need an H-1B although maybe there are alternatives.
Of course. Everyone knows Loogabarooga is the university in the Jungle Book. One invents hydrogen motorcylces and the other eductates miscreant monkeys. I can see how it's easy to get confused though.:)
Slashdot Mirror
I think I meant precious. Previous bodily fluids are creepy.
You only say that because you think they're trying to steal your previous bodily fluids.
I think you over-estimate the naivity of the banks and mortgage salesmen in relation to the credit crisis. It was nothing but greedy profiteering and has very little to do with encouragement from any recent adminsistration.
Here are some of the key points to remember:
1) Mortgage salesmen got a commision for each mortgage sold, regardless of whether it was stable or would be paid to completion.
2) Alarm bells should have been ringing down at the local bank branch but they weren't. Why? Because they were selling the loans (and inherent risk) on to larger invesment banks who repacked them.
3) The investment banks repackaged these loans together with the flawed reasoning that only a certain percentage would default based on projected market conditions. Those conditions turned out to be wrong.
4) The producers and packagers of asset backed swaps were further laying off and reselling the risk to hedge funds and banks that didn't necessarily have the capital behind them to pay up in the event of a default. It's illegal for insurance companies to take on obligations that they can't pay for but not for banks to jiggle risk around like this. This is criminal negligence in my view and people should have been in court by now.
5) No one really knows who is exposed to what risk because these leveraged products have been resold and unwound between multiple counterparties. The banks don't know how badly affected their peers are so they've stopped lending to others in case they disappear (like Lehman) or they need the cash themselves for their own write-downs which they don't really know the scale of for the reasons mentioned. This is the real credit crisis, not the mortgages themselves. That was just the catalyst.
Put it this way, you won't find anyone in the finance industry saying that they sold all those dodgy mortgages "because the government made us do it". It was greed, pure and simple.
DISCLAIMER: I worked in credit derivitives many years ago.
Don't worry, it would be worse if it was an idiot lawyer.
At least you've already done a good job and you don't need to worry about it too much. Your children sound well balanced and can probably reason all the angles from Darwinian to Young Earth theories and everything in between. I'm sure they have their own opinions on these concepts too and that's important
However, it's the less cerebral kids I'm concerned with. In the UK we have teenagers who leave school without being able to tell the difference between 10's, 100's and 1000's. The problem is that less bright children are the most vulnerable to being taught that intelligent design is scientific fact because they can't reason about it themselves. The word 'scientific' being the sticking point. Yes they should be taught to read and write correctly but we need to be careful not to confuse people who are the most vulnerable in our society.
You might not be too woried about intelligent design because you're christan but what if kids were taught sharia law in school as a valid alternative to US law? Is that a step too far down the religious dogma road? Where does it end? Creationism is a foot in the door of something which is best left closed.
As an aside, I also agree with you about the two fathers and Rikki Lake nonsense. Kids learn the most about society by actually growing up in it. It's doesn't need to be taught in schools either. It just gives self interested groups another angle to exploit and unduly influence young minds.
If you give up the fight against the creationists and allow them to allocate time to teach intelligent design, do you think that would help the situation? Like you say, kids need to be learning science and as guardians of their education, we need to make sure they don't get a confusing mix of science and fairy stories. There's only so much time in a school day so let's save the theology for Religious Studies class.
In other news, bi-pedal world championship winning Thai kick-boxer out-performs one legged man in ass-kicking benchmarks.
Agreed, especially with number 1. :)
The poster also forgot that not that many people actually care about twitter.
I see what you did there, very good. :)
I think I have a skript for that.
You forgot to install your sarcasm chip today.
No, no, no. If you want legal advice, ask Slashdot! Given enough time, you'll get an answer that is exactly what you hoped for and you can ignore or mod down the ones you don't like. It couldn't be simpler and it's a whole lot cheaper!
First of all, can I have a job? Secondly, are you mad?
I hope there's a middle-ground somewhere in your new world order for users who want stable performance from release to release without having to compile a kernel.
A project gets late one day at a time. There's probably a similar proverb for this too.
You're right though, the homebrew scene really does suck compared to the last generation of consoles. I was truly amazed at the things a modded xbox could do a few years ago. There doesn't seem to be anything close to that now which is a shame really.
Oh yes, thank you very much. You're the kind of person that when confronted with a malfunctioning home appliance suggests, "Have you tried plugging it in?". Very helpful there.
The measurements in question were taken over a period of months and relate only to downloading from Giganews. Giganews don't limit your connection to 60K/s for months at a time as far as I'm aware and the same account is fine when used from elsewhere.
Yeah, I think so too. I was using Be before, maxing out 13Mbps and zero complaints for just £4 a month more. However, I moved 1/2 a mile down the road and unfortunately landed on a non-LLU exchange. I used PIPEX back in the dial-up days and they used to be a good company so it seemed like a safe bet. I really have no idea what happened to them.
Take PIPEX as an example. I've been subjected to 56K speeds for exceeding my bandwidth quota of 50Gb per month. I can tell you that if I wasn't on a one-year contract, they would have lost a customer immediately.
Once this go-slow was lifted, I noticed that they were actually throttling my connection even when I'm a long way under my quota. I was getting a perfectly flat 512Kbps instead of the advertised 8Mbps and the 2Mbps I was getting previously. When I called to complain about it, they told me it was contention because of the olympics. When I pointed out that contention would cause variable transfer speeds instead of a flat one, they tried to get me off the phone and told me to write to their head office. I totally hate that company. Avoid.
Supply and demand.
Highly advanced society? I'm a Scotsman living in London and every day I see evidence to the contrary. :)
I'm sorry, I couldn't concentrate on your post.
Maybe I'm in the other 10% then. I think it would be fun to live in New York for a couple of years and then come back here to London. To do that I probably need an H-1B although maybe there are alternatives.
Of course. Everyone knows Loogabarooga is the university in the Jungle Book. One invents hydrogen motorcylces and the other eductates miscreant monkeys. I can see how it's easy to get confused though. :)