Crazy economy

The economy is going crazy right now, with stock prices plummeting on healthy companies, as quickly as unhealthy ones.

In a lot of ways, the crazy world of subprime mortgages, and the subsequent drop in house prices and then the destruction of the assets associated with the subprime homes has evidently caused the entire economy to fall down. It's puzzling on a number of fronts, because I and everyone I care to ask, got normal, safe loans. What portion of loans out there are truly in the 'at risk' category, and where does my normal, fixed rate, loan fit in?

I can say this: my fixed rate loan was sold by one of the 'failing' companies, and purchased by some small company, hence causing that 'failing' company to become weaker, in my opinion. I'm thinking they, and other companies on the brink of failure, are probably doing this to survive from day-to-day, selling off their best loans but unable to shed the most toxic of their assets.

Seems to me that a lot of people got rich as the housing boom took place, and now another set of people are getting rich off the housing bust. Nice to see that the irrational behavior of the marketplace is transferring a ton of wealth from company to company. Meanwhile, grocery costs seem to have climbed a bit (anecdote: apples were 1.25 per pound and are now 2.25 per pound, ouch).

The question is, can the common person benefit at all from this crazy economy? Typically, the stock market is only available to those who have a certain minimum amount of money to invest, to overcome the cost per transaction of stock purchases. I refer you to zecco.com, where you can buy stocks without any fees (except the penny or 2 charged by the SEC). This could be a way to buy stock in amazingly great companies for 1% of what they used to cost. Example, Fannie Mae, a company with lots of great loans and great assets, has gone from 40 dollars/share to 60 cents. Buy 100 shares for 60 bucks, and maybe in 10 years they could be worth 10 dollars a share, and you can sell them for 1000 bucks. That is totally possible and, involves such a tiny amount of money that anyone above the age of 16 could do it. Why not eh? at that cost, their entire portfolio of assets could drop a ton, and still you stand a good chance of making a good amount of money. There are still assets behind these 'toxic' loans, and unless $200,000 houses start selling for $4,000 , Fannie mae will eventually turn around. If that actually happened, most of us will be more worried about surviving on rats and whatnot than whatever money we put into our portfolios.

promiscuity causes less aids spread:

I read this interesting article on disease control: Simulation shows promiscuity prevents aids spread
I'll assume you will read it, and not quote it here. What I think is interesting is that, with only a small amount of promiscuity, you are virtually guaranteed to eventually contract a sexually communicable disease. So, if I am loyal to my partner for 20 years, and then pass a beautiful person on the street, one that just can't be resisted (and fit into the stereotype that is the weak-willed male), and end up having sex, chances are that I'm not her "first lover", and also, chances are that, she's a disease-ridden germ factory, spewing death in all directions. That puts things in perspective.

While I was reading the article, they mentioned that, with nightly promiscuous activity, 200 days , in a population of 400, would cause the entire promiscuous world to be infected. Scary freakin' simulator. They mentioned the simulator's ignorance of the fact that most sexual behavior is more strait-laced than random partners every night. Most lovers are semi-loyal to each other, even in a promiscuous relationship. But the problem is the interconnections with each other. I think the 200 days represent a speeded-up simulation, where it would be better to say that 200 couplings where a good percentage of people are not monogamous will virtually guarantee contraction of Aids. I think most of us are safe from this fate regardless of our status. Our greatest fear would be to live long enough to couple with 200 non-monogamous people (repeats would count toward this total, I believe). Since I don't have a very good imagination, I think this would take 1,000 years to manage for all but the most libido-driven person.

I have always found this topic fascinating, because AIDS is REALLY hard to get. You have to find someone with aids who is also willing to 'rub nubbins' with you, and even that isn't always enough. You both have to also be unwilling to take basic contraceptive practices (make sure the rubber DOES meet the road). It's interesting, and scary, that for promiscuous members of society, the only thing that will save them from aids is that old age will get them first. And any monogamous partner of a promiscuous person is also screwed (no pun intended), and didn't even get to have the 'fun' of barhopping and whatnot.

Saturday

Getting over being sick, hanging out with the kids and listening to npr. The story is about a guy that has made lists of everything he has done since 1955. Phone calls etc.

Anyway, it reminded me that I haven't written anything recently. So there you go.

I have never voted for a winner.

I have done a small amount of blog reading in the last little while, and it's a little strange. The category that seems most common seems to be a mix of satire and self-righteousness, which leads me into my post.

I have never managed to vote for the winner in any presidential election. My first opportunity to vote involved William Jefferson Clinton, and I decided to vote against him because he was getting sucked off in the oval office, and decided that that wasn't 'sexual relations'. Evidently it's just a mouth hug, as the comedians say. I voted for Bob Dole, because he seemed like a good man, with an honorable military history and a tendency to do the right thing. According to the media, he was too 'wooden', but that just appealed to me, because I'm a bit 'wooden' myself. I'm sure that personal charisma plays some part in running a country, but I don't care for that part. All it gets you is mouth hugs.

At my next opportunity, it was Gore Vs. Bush, and I decided that George Bush wasn't wooden enough. In fact, he struck me as a garrulous father with a hickory stick behind his back.

Third time isn't the charm. After the events of 9/11, along with the inability to find Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, and the fact that we were essentially spending billions of dollars to ship soldiers within range of 50 dollar roadside bombs, I had had enough of the war. Although John Kerry bugged me a lot, I had to vote for him. Either George Bush misled the American people into the war with Iraq, or he was duped into it by his staff. Either way, he deserved to lose his job.

In 2008, I went to the polling booth and put my mark in for John McCain, for very similar reasons to why I voted for Bob Dole. I think I will always tend to lend support to a military man over anyone else. I'm not sad that Barack won, but I didn't really keep good track of the presidential candidates this year. I voted for John McCain, because I really wished I had the chance in 2000, and I wasn't going to miss it now.

I wonder if it would have really made a difference. If we had elected Bob Dole, and Clinton would have been kicked out early, would we have remained on track to pay off the deficit? Clinton was actually a kickass president, if you can discount his one small character flaw.

What would have happened, if Al Gore had become president in place of George Bush? I think we can agree that our planes would probably still be doing patrols through a no-fly-zone over Iraq, and Saddam would still be taunting us. There would be no need of a national monument commemorating the dead in the Iraq war, but we would probably still have the unalterable reality of the skyline changes in New York.

I don't want to think about what would have happened with John Kerry in charge of the United States, but let's face it, a lot of contractors would have lost their jobs in Iraq as we pulled out, probably causing a massive economic slump. oh wait... that happened anyway. Maybe it would have been ok.


Well, I think I got a little self-righteous in there, but I didn't master the satire portion. Better luck to me next time.

Semi-irregular post, welcome to guests!

Well, with the advent of telling my wife about my blog (2 weeks ago), and through word of mouth a few other people now finding out about it, I am changing the bent of this blog a bit. Rather than the tight-eyed nod, and insincere welcome in first post to those who could only have found it by googling my name, I should give a sincere welcome to people who got here through the 'word of mouth generated by my spouth', (does a lisp count as a rhyme?) so here it is:

WELCOME!!!!!

ok, that's done.

In the interest of the original, somewhat unstated purpose of this blog (Allow me to feel less guilty about googling even the most casual acquaintance) I will try to say something personal that is somewhere between sincere and cautious, as befits the crazy permanence of the web, and its potential audience of anyone with access to google, including past lovers, future employers, my neighbor's dog, special investigators or fellow employees.

I think the above paragraph reveals quite enough about me. Suspicious, hostile, and probably for no reason since the only people who visit this blog are my wife and me. Take what you will from that, and once again.....

WELCOME!!!!!

Tim? Caleb? Who am I?

It occurred to me that my name is probably confusing. In my very first blog entry, I managed to put 'Tim' in the title, while the author name reads 'Caleb'. My full name is Timothy Caleb Nordloh. My mom called me Caleb, and most of my family and friends call me Caleb. Since I don't want to appear to be a picky person in the workplace, I don't mention my second name, so they call me Tim. I'm not the type of person who associates the name to the heroic, but bloody biblical history of Caleb, or the pious biblical history of Timothy, so the connotations of either are lost on me, other than as anecdotes and and incomplete references, as seen at the beginning of this sentence. I do find it ironic that in both cases, they were essentially sidekicks, like me.

Anyway, it's pretty strange to be known by an alias, like some sort of criminal, but in my case it's just a non-aggressive personality trait, where I don't insist on one or the other with either my family or work. I truly don't have a preference at this point except that, if my mom was alive, I would hope that she always calls me Caleb, like she did when I was a child.

Clothespin art?

My wife is making little Christmas Fairies from clothespins, not the ones with the springs, but the old-fashioned ones that are a single piece of wood. She is making white ones, hawaiian ones, chinese ones etc. I'm kind of upset,she appears to not want to cover my favorite demographic, the 'alien' ones. Little green ones with antennas, to honor our future alien overlords would be good. Of course, I'm more of a suckup than she is, so of course she only makes the human clothespin fairies.

You can check out other artwork by her at http://trcreations.com/