virtualroot.com Ramblings of a mad scientist

Sub-Prime EconomiesPosted by simon on September 27th, 2008

Since I know the people who stumble upon this sliver of the web do not live under a rock and are generally well informed. I’m sure they are familiar with the current state of affairs of the United States economy. To say that it is in a bit of a pinch would be an understatement. Our whole economy is going through a phase of what i will call “redefinition”.

Currently many public banks are going bankrupt due to a collapse in the resale of mortgages. This sounds rather simple, I know, but the repercussions of this single aspect of collapse is quite far reaching. I suppose I should set the stage for this story. In 1977, The Community Reinvestment Act was passed. What this states is banks aren’t allowed to make the most fiscally responsible decisions by only making loans available to those who can afford it. It has to equally consider and create loans for all economic classes. This in turn lowered the standards for what was required for traditional loans. Obviously this resulted in an increased amount of loans being issued and the country experienced a “housing boom”. This really kicked off in 1995 while Bill Clinton was in office, he revised the CRA.

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PoemsPosted by simon on September 25th, 2008

Heidi has been posting random blobs of text in twitter which I have been googling and discovering the wonderful context that these blobs originate from, I enjoy them so they should be shared.

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The Human ExperiencePosted by simon on September 11th, 2008

The Human Experience, something we are all living through day after day until our time is up. How we live our lives is often a point of contention with ourselves, family, friends, society and anyone else who thinks they should have an opinion. Thankfully I’ve tried to lead and live my own life, which is more of a task then some people will believe. It is comforting to be a follower and just do what you are told, it requires no thought or awareness. Always analyzing and internalizing each situation and experience requires more energy and awareness then many people are willing to put forth during daily life. We seem to strive for individuality yet if we achieve too much we become isolated and have a hard to relating. We find comfort in the pack and in the conformity so, we try to strike a balance between the two. Read the rest of this entry »

New York New YorkPosted by simon on September 3rd, 2008

My trip to New York to help Lindsey move has been a very unique experience. I have been able to live like a New Yorker would live and have discovered an interesting truth, New York is a hard place. It is expensive and doesn’t offer me anything more then Phoenix has to offer except an endless skyline, awesome mass transit, huge culture and a ton of great food. Unfortunately that is no where near enough to counterbalance the traffic, people, cost of living and general bonus hardships to the day to day life I never deal with in Arizona. It is a stress filled existence as you have to worry about parking, getting things to your apartment, bed bugs and general safety. These are all things I never even consider in Arizona, I get so much more space to live and seemingly a great deal more freedom since I’m not burdened with these constant problems.

Some may say these are problems of any big city, I would agree but I get the distinct impression from my travels that many European cities like Berlin or Prague have done a much better job dealing with these issues. Even in the US I found Chicago and Boston much more habitable then New York. Maybe I’m being unfair but I’m certain I’ll never want to live in New York.

The lifestyle is different in that most people work from 10-7 things generally aren’t open till 10-11 but they do remain open longer. The places we ate at were mostly hipster kind of joints that used top notch ingredients, I can’t recall the last time I had so many consecutively amazing meals in a week. The best was from a place called Northeast Kingdom where I was served a bacon sandwich with an egg on top. All the ingredients were from naturally raised and fed animals. It also came with a great side salad and the best coffee I have ever had.

Spending time with Lindsey has also been quite magnificent. It feels like I’ve regained a friend who has had many similar life experiences and appreciates many of the same philosophies I do while at the same time has walked down some different paths and has valuable advice in many areas I have not explored. I feel I’ve walked away from this whole vacation with a few new perspectives and I’ve had a really great time getting them.