Money Money Money Money

Welcome to Depression 2.0. If you disagree, that's fantastic for you, but I'm a pessimist by nature and that's just how I see it.

Yesterday the House voted to kill the $700 billion-with-a-B bailout plan, and while I'll admit up front to neither knowing nor frankly understanding the particulars, I have to say I'm glad. This is something that I would have been paying for until my retirement, my children would be paying for until their retirement, and likely my grandchildren and great-grandchildren would be paying for until THEIR retirement, and probably a generation or two after that. While I am aware and I agree that something needs to be done, I don't necessarily support the government whisking in with flags waving, fanfares blaring, and my forthcoming taxes at the ready to save the crooks who put all their eggs in one basket called Shady Mortgages. Furthermore, I don't support patchwork plans that cost more money than most of us can fathom and offer no assurance whatsoever of success.

Something that bothers me in the aftermath is all the finger pointing going on in the wake of the bill's demise. The facts are that the bill was voted down in the House 228 to 205; of the 205 Ayes (to approve the bill), 140 were Democrats and 65 were Republicans; of the 228 Noes (to decline the bill), 95 were Democrats and 133 were Republicans; one Republican abstained.

The Republicans are laying the blame squarely on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) speech just prior to the vote. It was rumored that the Ayes had it on both sides of the aisle prior to the vote, so what happened? Some said she scared and upset the Republicans into voting against the bill, thereby giving the majority to the Noes; that because Pelosi's speech took so many digs at Republicans, the Republicans took their proverbial ball and went home. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said that the speech "poisoned" the Republicans against the bill and, "I do believe that we could have gotten there today, had it not been for the partisan speech that the Speaker gave on the floor of the House." I'll agree that she was unnecessarily ideological and bitter in her speech (transcript here, for your reading pleasure.), but to that reasoning, I say, pbbbbbbbbbbt! Two weeks ago, two days ago, two minutes ago, you could have heard, up and down the halls of the House, Republicans taking any opportunity for another potshot at Pelosi et al. (To be fair, you could have heard the Democrats doing the same thing regarding the Republicans, but that's beside the point.) So since when are Republicans so moved and/or scared by anything Pelosi says or does that they would instantaneously change their vote? If the bill was such a shining example of bipartisan legislation, since when do personal feelings come into play? Congresspeople are figureheads, meant to represent the beliefs and opinions of their constituents. I know, my naivete is showing. But if the bill is bad, cop to it and say so. Don't whine and say, "She was mean to me!" You're big boys and girls now. Use your words. Furthermore, when people are this scared and the future is this foggy and/or bleak, how dare you even suggest that Republicans would vote against an ostensible economic - oh let's use McCain's semantics for it - "rescue" solely because of hurt feelings and insult?

Democrats by and large seem to be throwing up their hands, blaming the Republicans for killing the bill. Pelosi's reaction included statements such as, "Today, when the legislation came to the floor, the Democratic side more than lived up to its side of the bargain." There were various iterations to similar effect. Representative James Clyburn (D-SC) said, "...we came to the floor today with a piece of legislation that the members of our caucus decided was in the best interest of the country. And 60 percent of [the Democrats] put aside all of their individual feelings, emotions, experiences, and voted for this bill. Sixty-seven percent of the Republican Conference decided to put political ideology ahead of the best interests of our great nation." But let's not get too comfortable on that there high horse, Clyburn. If the bill was such a good plan, why didn't every Democrat in the room join hands in support of it? Democrats could have carried the bill without participation of a single Republican, but 95 Democrats voted against the bill. As Representative Pete Viscloskey (D-IN) said, "We are now in the golden age of thieves. And where I come from we put thieves in jail, we don't bail them out."

I've heard the media - several different outlets - painting the Republicans who voted against the bill in response to a flood of calls and emails from their constituents as weak and easily swayed because they by and large happened to also be up for re-election. The up-for-re-election business aside (because it would [okay, does] dismay me that voting one's constituency is an activity that is only seen during one's election year), I have this to say: um, that's their job, to vote the way their constituents tell them to. As I said earlier, they are Representatives, as in, representing the opinions and beliefs of the people who voted them into office. Under no circumstances should they vote their own beliefs when those beliefs go against the grain of their represented public, and don't you dare give me a line like, "Well the people voted the Rep in because s/he embodied the people's beliefs, so any way the Rep votes will thus be the way the people would have voted." That's crap logic. When your constituents tell you overwhelmingly to vote one way, you vote that way. Don't paint Representatives as villains because they voted their constituency. The people said no, so the answer is no. In fact, the real villains are the ones that pretend their constituency doesn't exist, that vote only their own opinions, as if they alone were in charge of how the vote should go.

Oh, but John Q. American Public, don't think you get to slide by unscathed. Today, Steven Pearlstein points the finger at you. It's YOUR fault that no solution is in hand. "The basic problem here is that too many people don't understand the seriousness of the situation. Americans fail to understand that they are facing the real prospect of a decade of little or no economic growth because of the bursting of a credit bubble that they helped create and that now threatens to bring down the global financial system." Really, Stevie? For two solid weeks, we're told that the sky is falling, that history is repeating itself 78 years and 11 months later, that we're all completely screwed, and we'd better go get in line early for the soup kitchen. We get that the problem is serious, that something BIG is going down. But I'll agree with you that we don't fully grasp the matter at hand. Why is that, do you think, Mr. Pearlstein? I posit to you that the people who get all this, who were at the root of the problem, who govern the subject, and who study it in depth, are collectively a very, very rare bird. Those of us who know finance only so far as to pay what the bill tells us to every month are collectively a much more common animal. So where do you get off taking me to task because I do not thrill at the sight of an Economics text? I pay people to be on top of that for me, just like people pay me to make sure they don't sound like blithering idiots to the client. However, those people, like yourself, who smugly sneer at silly little ignorant me, have yet to provide any comprehensive explanation of the problem in real-person words. How am I expected to "come to understand how deep the hole really is and how we're all in it together" without someone explaining to me that there is a hole, that it is this wide and this deep, and its walls are coated with this many slimy things and full of this many loose rocks? Jim Jubak, bless his heart, at least makes an attempt. And finally, thanks Steven, for closing with your holier-than-thou lament for what might have been: "In better times, the public might have put aside its reluctance in response to the strong and unified recommendation of political and business leaders. But it is a measure of how little trust remains in both Washington and Wall Street that voters are willing to risk a serious hit to their wealth and income rather than follow their lead." You're right that Washington and Wall Street have been stripping away every reason we have to trust that they know what they're doing. But just because someone takes the lead doesn't make them a good or knowledgeable leader.

I've said before that I honestly don't know how this all happened, what it all means, what's going to happen next, how it affects me and mine, or how we're going to get out of it. I don't know the details of the bill, I don't know how finance and markets and notes and bonds and all that crap works. That's for Sister, the finance major, to understand. Ha!

But here's what I think and here's what I know.

You don't put a band-aid on a gushing artery. The catastrophic failure and shaky prop-ups came to a head only last week. How in the hell did anyone think that a bill originated and concluded between then and Monday would be solid enough to win confidence from anyone? It was simply put together too fast and we all know that hasty, reactionary moves lead to nothing but more disaster down the line. Time was not taken to explore the alternatives, to consider other paths. It was as though the drafters got this idea into their heads and touted it as the only way to go, and since they're supposed to be the big experts, no one asked for anything else before putting it to the House floor. No one asked whether it was a good plan, or just A plan. This was a shell of a bill, a wad of gum in the hole in the dam, a strip of duct tape over the crack in the foundation. Rather than simply reacting, I think they need to take a step back and consider what's really happening, what's at the root, and how to prevent it from happening again. Deferral of the problem to coming generations, and faith that the future will turn it all around and make it all better, is foolish.

OMG U R SO S2PID!

PUT IT DOWN! Yes I'm talking to you. You with the phone surgically grafted to your head, or with permanently crooked thumbs because you can't go five seconds without texting.

The world has gone completely mad. I should have seen it coming. I thought it was odd and amusing when I carried on a conversation for a couple of minutes with someone at Target, only to realize that they didn't know I existed - they were talking into their earpiece. I began to worry when I learned that 10-year-olds were taking remedial English summer camps because texting had taken such a toll on their linguistic abilities. But it all came crashing down on me today when a Friend Who Shall Remain Nameless admitted to texting me while s/he was driving. But only at stoplights, so it's okay, right?

No, Friend! Not okay! That is super-dangerous, even at a stoplight. Would you read a book while driving?? It's dangerous enough using printed directions in the car, and those aren't interactive. You text only at stops right now. But how long until you text just this once while moving? And from then how long until it becomes commonplace driving activity? You already said your Significant Other does it all the time. How long until s/he's so busy texting you that s/he misses the traffic jam coming up, and plows into the line of cars at 50 mph? An engineer in L.A. was texting while operating a moving train just last week, missed a signal, and killed 25 people in the ensuing wreck; and operating a train doesn't even require the same level of visual attention and concentration that operating a car does.


In fact, be forewarned, if I find out you're again texting me while in any gear other than Park, I will immediately cease communication. This goes for everyone. I will not be part of this. If you want to communicate with me, CALL ME! I know, I know, that limits you to only talking to one person at a time, but sacrifices must be made, and your eyes will at least remain on the road.


I've grown to see texting as just one more way that technology has allowed us to not interact. And while the misanthrope in me sometimes welcomes the opportunity not to have to talk directly to someone, the rest of me knows that it's not a good direction for society and civilization as a whole.


Here's a nasty little factoid: according to an article I've seen in several places (but I'm going to quote from the one posted on slashdot.org), in a survey of 6500 travelling executives, 35% of them said they would choose their PDA over their spouse, and 87% bring their PDA into the bedroom. And back in April, Madonna thought the world should know that she and her husband, Guy Ritchie, sleep with their Blackberries under their pillows. Madonna claimed that she wanted to be able to write something down in case she woke up in the middle of the night and wanted to remember it; Guy apparently takes his to bed to play games on it. First, Madonna, it's called a pen and paper - look into it. And Guy, seriously? How old are you again?

I will admit I am not 100% innocent in all this. No, Mom, I never text while driving. But I do spend the entire workday on Gmail and Gmail Chat. In my defense, I am stationary and not in command of a vehicle, and it does not interfere with my work because, frankly, I have no work to do. Eight hours is a long time to do nothing. It often feels like three weeks have passed in my 8-hour computer-bound seclusion. In my excessively bored state, having gone through the copious websites I use to entertain myself and it being blatantly unprofessional to crack open a book or bring my cross-stitch or paint my toenails, I harass my friends to talk with me.

However, there are times and places for these things. At the office, I'm on the computer anyway, in case some work happens to flow my way (it sometimes happens). Your phone, however, you have to actively choose to utilize, whatever you may be utilizing it for.

I have encountered people texting me from doctors' waiting rooms, even in doctors' exam rooms. I've noticed as people blatantly disregard the "Please turn your cell phone off!" sign in medical offices, airplanes, movie theaters; not only do they ignore those signs, but they actively use the offending instrument. Folks, I know it's boring and gray there and that the wait may drag on, but you can find something more reasonable to occupy your time, can't you?

I have watched people, on multiple occasions, initiate personal calls while we're having a meal in a restaurant. Is my razor-sharp wit and sparkling personality not enough for you? If so, invite more people, or don't have dinner with me.

I have seen people take personal calls right in the middle of small parties. To me, that's as crass as lighting up a cigarette in a roomful of non-smokers. At least take it outside!


Cellphones have become an indispensable part of modern culture. And I know that. And that's fine. I carry mine (mostly) everywhere, though I have yet to utilize 90% of the features included on even my bargain-basement model. All I'm advocating for is a little bit of realism - the point at which we step back from an action and say, "Wow, this is not smart," or "I can't believe I even thought of doing that." It's bad enough that there's no recourse against those who cross the lines of social mores and bring we fellow Kmart Shoppers and moviegoers in on the details of their best friend's sister's coworker's breakup, or enlighten us as to where and what the cat barfed. It's important to know our realistic limits, especially those that severely compromise the safety of ourselves and those around us. Reallocating eyes and at least one hand while driving should be clearly on the other side.

Register This

I have had it. I've read one too many letters to advice columnists about the evils of wedding registries, and I just want to tell everyone to can it already.

Having nearly exited my 20s, I cannot tell you how many weddings I have attended or been a part of. I could sit here and count, but I'd rather get right up on my high horse and make everyone listen to me instead.

I love registries. I love them for weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, showers. I love getting a gift for my friend to celebrate their momentous occasion, whatever it may be, and knowing that my friend actually wants this thing. I love not having to stress over whether I'm giving my friend her 20th spice rack (sorry Stephanie!) because I was taking a shot in the dark. Don't you hate it when you ask someone what they'd like for their ______ (insert occasion here), and they say, "I don't know"? I certainly do, because now the onus is on me to find something fabulous.

Look, people, no event is gift-mandatory. If you don't want to give a gift, then don't give one. If you *want* to give a gift and you know exactly what the recipient would like, bully for you. But if you *want* to give a gift, and if you *can't think of anything* on your own, a gift registry is a blessing. That is the whole point of registering.

I know some people have ruined it for the rest of us and either enclose registry information in the invitation, or demand gift receipts, or get all bent out of shape if you get them something *not* on the registry. But that's a mark on your friend's character, and it's up to you after that whether you want to remain friends with those people. I have no defense for them.

But don't take it out on the well-meaning register-er (registree?). The registry is not your enemy. It is a dumb and passive tool if you want to use it. The register-er is not saying, "We've picked out exactly what we want you to buy." They're saying, "If you want to get us something but don't know what to get us, here are some ideas that we can volunteer."

So everyone, chill. Use it if you want. Don't use it if you don't. And if your friend has crossed lines of politeness, re-evaluate the friendship.

That is all.