if only it was fanny may, the chicago based confectionery

The first website I see whenever I go online is the New York Times. I'm a big fan of newspapers - when my parents were married, I only remember them being consistently happy together is when they shared coffee and the Sunday paper, trading different sections as necessary. I think it's pretty important to stay informed in this day and age. I mean, if John McCain becomes president, Roe v. Wade could potentially become OVERTURNED, and it probably wouldn't be that hard. Like the difficulty of appointing a conservative justice to the Supreme Court to is analogous to making a twelfth birthday collage card for your friend's sleepover party. (I know I'm fucked up because A number 1: I just spelled "twelfth" as "tweltvh", and A number 2: I'm attempting to make a serious statement about politics.)
I feel like Sarah Palin is both part moose and also has no fucking clue what she's doing. She is possibly getting her all of her political information from the teacher edition of my seventh grade social studies book.

There are a lot of benefits to having the New York Times as your homepage. A lot of the headlining stories have hilarious accompanying pictures: Like this one:


(This was around the Iowa caucuses, and candidates were hitting up the state fairs.)

Also this one is pretty good too:


(This was in India. Something is definitely up with these monkeys but I can't remember what was happening exactly.)

The New York Times uses html codes to its advantage when there's BREAKING NEWS that's IMPORTANT. The headlining font is like 2.5 times larger than usual, and there's there's opinion pieces under it and usually there's a relatively inspiring picture and caption to top it all off. Tonight, the magnified headline says: "President Issues Warning to Americans" - 'Entire Economy Is in Trouble', He Says.

“Our entire economy is in danger,” he said.

This is the first time in Bush's presidency that he's delivered a speech addressed to the nation focusing exclusively on the fucked up economy.

Ok.

Both the Federal National Mortgage Association (aka Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Mortgage Corporation (aka Freddie Mac) used to provide loans and loan guarantees and had trillions of dollars in the secondary mortgage market (aka they purchased home mortgages from the original lending banks). They were privately owned by stock shareholders, but were government sponsored enterprises, which means they received credit lines from the US Treasury. They would group mortgages into bonds and sell them to interested investors, which made it easier for banks to distribute loans since these two mortgage giants were taking the risks of loan defaulting or missed payments.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were more or less the politically-empowered HBICs in their market, since they got special treatment from the government. They had pretty low funding costs for their borrowers, but let's remember that this is because they had something like $3 trillion of DEBT AND GUARANTEES backed by the US GOVERNMENT. This means that if they were unable to pay their shit, American taxpayers had to take the fall for it. Yeah. Theoretically.

Last year, both the housing and credit industries started to Epic Fail. Housing prices started to drop and foreclosures (meaning people who had mortgages and couldn't pay their debt had to auction their shit and property to pay it off - think when you're playing Monopoly and all of a sudden, your Utility purchases don't seem that wise when you have to flip that property card over so you can pay off that hotel on Park Place that you just landed on) were up almost 80% from 2006.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac NEEDED TO BE RESCUED BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, because they didn't have the money to cover any losses by all the loans and guarantees they were giving out. For better or for worse, the United States America bought a mortgage company. If the federal government hadn't come in, Freddie and Fannie would've absolutely murder the US housing market. Both of their stocks dropped hardcore. Smaller banks that were involved with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will probably fail.

How did this subprime mortgage crisis come about?

Because too many people made flawed borrowing mistakes (they thought the housing market would keep going up the way it was back when Clinty was Prez and took out loans they couldn't afford - the ones who didn't give in to foreclosures decided to default on their loans and had higher interest rates).

There was too much speculation in real estate (i.e. homes bought for investment/vacation purposes and not intended as primary residences - in 2005, nearly 85% of Miami condos were purchased for the purpose of re-selling them) and when housing prices started to drop, speculators dipped the fuck out - there was no profit left there.

A lot of banks lent money out to high-risk borrowers through adjustment-rate mortgages, where the homeowner only pays the interest rate on their loan, not the principal. "Ninja loans" - giving out money to individuals with no income, no job, and no assets - were happening more and more.

The US Federal Reserve (the institution that is supposed to stabilize our currency) lowered interest rates on high-priced houses because five years ago, inflation was low and contributed to the housing bubble, which is currently bursting all over the place along with credit and private investment funds. Housing prices were rising and rising and all of a sudden - they're so effing high compared to incomes that the homeowner is now paying a higher mortgage than their house is worth.

What needs to happen to fix this financial crisis (yes, it is a CRISIS. THIS IS THE WORST BLOW TO OUR ECONOMY SINCE THE GREAT DEPRESSION) is complete deleveraging, - financial institutions have to unwind their way out of this gigantic debt.

Banks and credit unions need to figure out the value of their distressed assets/pay off their debts/rebuild their capital. And this is not going to happen anytime soon, because first of all, hardly anyone is willing to purchase new assets, secondly, trying to sell these assets will lower shares, which makes it harder to increase capital.

Who's gonna pay off this shit?
The government?
Bondholders?
Stockholders?
TAXPAYERS.

Taxpayers might face a $300 billion bill to revive Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. If we don't end up paying the debt of these failing companies, dollar devaluation will continue to go up.

Our economy is absolutely FUCKED right now.

i think i like her like a metaphor, it's hard to get

Lonely in Montana. A/s/l.

I am certain that I have found the most badass roast in the past century. It's from President Harry S. Truman. Here it is:
"I never met you, but if I do you'll need a new nose and plenty of beefsteak and perhaps a supporter below. Westbrook Pegler, a guttersnipe, is a gentleman compared to you."

DAMN BITCH! I knew there was a reason why the Allies achieved victory in Europe a few weeks after you took office in 1945! And that was on your birthday too! Be my homegirl Tru Tru... please.
This was in a letter to Paul Hume, music critic, on the morning after a severe appraisal by Mr. Hume of a concert by the president's daughter, Margaret. It is dated Dec 16, 1950.

By the way, a "guttersnipe" is slang for "a purveyor of filth" and was originally used to describe dirty ass gutter-dwelling malnourished homeless folk back in the pre-Street Wise days. I know this because I checked out a book from the Norlin Stacks called Wicked Words: A Treasury of Curses, Insults, Put-Downs, and Other Formerly Unprintable Terms from Anglo-Saxon Times to the Present. I KNOW!


(Is that track jacket JUICY COUTURE?! Side note: Miley Cyrus has my boots! I have the boots she is wearing in this picture! I'm practically famous, basically.)

I also checked out The Psychology of Harry Potter. I just finished an essay comparing adolescent self-injury to situations in Harry Potter and applying the different reasons behind self-injury to wizarding characters. And it makes absolute, perfect sense dude! Dobby burns himself with an iron as a form of self-punishment for disobeying Master Malfoy. You-Know-Who must have gone through some xcore agony when splitting his soul into seven pieces and turning them into Horcruxes (I mean, one would be bad enough, but SEVEN?!). Harry undergoes Umbridge's twisted punishment and carves "I must not tell lies" into his HAND with each line he writes for hours on end. AND Harry decides against telling Professor McGonagall about this crazy shit, against the advice of Ron and Hermoine, and GOES BACK FOR MORE AT A LATER DETENTION. That is the interpersonal influence model of self-harm at work. To quote many Exeter theatre kids, way to stick it to The Man, HP.



The mix cd revolution is taking over! I've downloaded so many complete albums in the past couple days. Lily Allen's cd Alright, Still is helping me get through the night, along with my Social Psychology textbook. To quote a woman much wiser than myself, "[school] has turned me into a sexually frustrated hermit crab. Who says "fuck." A lot."

Shattered the lie, but you think I don't already know
Don't try to deny 'cause my fuse is ready to blow
Its your turn to learn, I think that you know where to go
It's a shame, shame, shame for you

an accurate depiction of how i've been feeling lately

Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, you're cool, and fuck you, I'm out.

Thanks Half Baked.

i'm not a hipster, i just happen to like death metal bands from inner city milwaukee

Dude dude DUDE I haven't smoked a cigarette all day! And as a result, my fingernails are chewed down to the brittle edges. Typing on my laptop feels more like I'm using my gums and blood than hands.

Bacardi 151 is seriously no joke. There are WARNING: FLAMMABLE signs all over that bottle. I was carrying some around in a water bottle with pineapple orange juice on Thursday night and some of it spilled on my desk and now it smells like I was trying to blow up the produce aisle in my room.

I am coming home on September 26. (The day after The Office season five premieres and also the day of birth of my Ex-Boyfriend Extraordinare). I wonder how many cigs I will abstain from between now and then. What a lousy way of measuring time.

come with me, my love, to the sea, the sea of love

Today is Veronica Claire Steege's birthday. She is one of my best friends in the whole world, but we didn't become close until the very end of senior year of high school. It's not very often when you meet someone who just understands you and can read your mentality and emotional state by something simple, like the way you open a car door or how long you spend doing your makeup.

I feel very blessed to have such good friends at home. I have the Sisterhood (which consists of Veronica and Cat and Kori) and all my guy friends and older people who I spent a lot of my time with in high school.

I dunno. I don't really like having this much personal information displayed on a silly public blog, but I love love love my friends.



This is what friendship for me is about (not capitalized and yeah, it's supposed to be a long ass centipede run-on sentence):
skyy and absolut from jewel, camel number 9s and red bull, coinstar, pita inn, long tv marathons including keeping up with "brooke knows best" and "i love money", thai sookdee in the rain, blowing smoke out your room with those eyeball cds, mix cds with mgmt, kimya dawson, will smith, old orchard trips and spending hours in bookstores, applying for jobs all over town, walking around downtown and running into so many people from the olden days, the yellow house on the corner of asbury and dempster, steak n shake (sometimes ending up in your purse), dogs that act more like spoiled little sisters than pets, dreamgirls (boys, we'll make you happy), all you can eat maki, sleepover the movie, racoons on my back porch and parmesan cheese scattered all over my kitchen, "curious" by britney spears, the milwaukee trip with benny hop and "no smoking" sign in alec's hotel room, mario kart at all times, taking shots in closets and sneaky rooms, burger king, grand theft auto, hating proactiv commercials, dying hair, lisa frank stickers from walgreens, becoming very familiar with side streets of skokie off of crawford, grape juice and "paradise city" from the bp gas station, TIMBER RIDGE and its hilarious names, drunk at parades (independence day and gay pride), banding together against a force of evil (it's like Harry Potter vs. Voldemort), purim parties at northwestern, phone calls to a hospital, all kinds of playgrounds and forest preserves, niles north juniors and that messy brownie battered house on noyes, chicken shack on the porch, unstoppable flip cup team getting down to flo-rida's smash "low", going across enemy lines, sneaking into movies, american apparel headbands worn across the forehead, parking garage tickets, great harvest free bread slices, the beach, freestyles from idiom, hating puzzles in tani's basement, "rick-a-lick, i can love you!", during winter break when they didn't card at new york deli and liquor and we got dmitiri grain alcohol and handles of malibu and 40s without any questioning, weeds on demand, sex and the city, investigation, chugging in parking lots, hilarious names for boys, running in the snow, almost cartwheels in the grass. This is love, this is friendship that will be around forever.

i know this is only a sitcom...but ugh, nobody can be that stupid

I dreamed that Barack Obama was my best friend and partied with us in Boulder. He was wearing a suit and an American flag lapel pin in the Smelly Deli, waiting for a pack of cigs.

Did you guys know that Cascada (techno diva wunderkind who already has the hits "Everytime We Touch" and "Miracle" and "Bad Boy" under her belt) dips mad mollie and rolls FACE whenever she performs live?

I won, so you lose.

still waters run deep

Torrents (both Bit and U) are eating away at the inside my computer. I imagine the damage is similar to that bitch shaving her legs in Cabin Fever. I guess it's what you have to sacrifice when you need the completed low rent Girlicious cd and a chicken sandwich and some waffle fries for free.

-"Who wants to do lines of birth control?"
-"Give it to Mama."

there's a place where lovers go to cry their troubles away

And they call it Lonesome Town
Where the broken hearts stay
You can buy a dream or two
To last you all through the years
And the only price you'll pay
Is a heart full of tears

I remember when I worked at the movie theatre the summer before freshman year. I was exposed to a lot of truly foul things, especially consessions. Did you know that nacho cheese comes in a plastic bag that has to be squished around like some unnaturally orange (seriously, this orange probably does not occur in nature) leftover liposuction? And that there are 10 grams of TRANS FATS per TEASPOON of that buttery topping you use to douse your stale ass popcorn? Truth. And I'll never forget the time I had a nervous breakdown because I got the most moronic customers this side of the Mississippi back to back. One lady armed with her spawn asked to see the cup sizes, so I put them on the counter in order - small, medium, large. AND SHE ASKED ME WHICH ONE IS THE MEDIUM. Maybe the one that's in the middle! And then the lady after her inquired if I could put a LEMON SLICE in her Diet Coke. This is Kerasotes Cinemas, cunt muffin! Not the fucking country club! Probably the strangest aspect of working there was that there was so much inner-employee drama of hook-ups and backstabbing. Incestuous fucking pool of popcorn cleanser and GBS kids. Weird shit.

My brain is slowly but surely becoming mashed potatoes. I think it should be at its prime around Thanksgiving. Deep breaths. That's wassup.

No need to cry about it
I cannot live without it
Every time I wind up back at your door

ride into the sunset, look back with no remorse

Oooh wee


I've definitely and throughly neglected this piece of medium in place of Twitter - yeah, I will admit it's way easier to just answer the FB status quality question "what are you doing" instead of coming up with anything original to say. Oh HAI I also dropped Physux. And “Drunk at the airport.” Can you think of a more fun phrase? Other than “drunk at the zoo"?