On Skating, ABCP and supporting the troops.

First off, if anyone has any comments, please share them with me. The only way I can improve my selection of topics is if people tell me what they like and don't like, use the comment section, its down under today's post, like all the other posts. Short of your comment being downright rude or using language you would not say in front of your grandmother I promise I will not "moderate" the comments. (I might from time to time reply, but I promise no censorship.) Please post your thoughts, it tells me that this is actually being read.

Today I have three things to bring up, as the title suggests, lets start with skating.

So I am going to Scooters again tonight, apparently Monday and Wednesday nights are the intensive skates and Sunday is the more recreational practice. While I would normally be excited by the prospect I am actually quite nervous. I am not sure, as I said early if I will end up just making an utter fool of myself. Add to that, the built up nervousness and I am pretty sure it will be impossible for me to enjoy tonight one way or another. Which is a shame, but at least I can get some skating, on Sunday mornings, in this Winter.

In any case Wednesday night practice is quite impossible, Monday starts at 7pm and runs to 9. But Wednesday starts at 9pm and runs to 11, add an additional 30 minutes to get home, an hour to tidy up, get ready for work the following morning, shower and go to bed, I won't be asleep until 12:30 which gives only about five hours of shut eye before I have to get up for Thursday. I don't function to well on anything less than about six and half hours of sleep.

Now I'd like to rant about a few things, first the "Support our Troops" bumper sticker. The first time I saw one must have been in 2004 when I drove into the US from Buffalo or possibly Queenston / Lewiston. When I first saw these bumper stickers the unwritten meaning to me was obvious, "you don't support President Bush in Iraq implies you don't support our troops". When did the same stickers start to appear in large numbers in Canada? After our own conservative Prime Minister Harper came into office. "You don't support the PM and his intentions for Afghanistan implies you don't support the troops." Of course I support our soldiers, I want them to have the best equipment, the best training and a reasonable salary. I also support them in that I do not want them sent into harms way unless there is a damned good reason.

I am not sure nation building next to some of the largest untapped natural gas deposits is a good reason for our boys and girls to be off fighting. Nation building is good, but why not Sudan? Why not Rwanda? In short why Afghanistan? Sorry we never really had the big national debate on which country deserves our love and affection. If the 'conservatives' in Ottawa and Washington want to make hay of supporting the troops that's fine, I "do not support the troops" and will not wear a poppy this Remembrance Day. I did not make this situation political, the conservatives did, they can explain to the gallant vets who freed Europe why so many young people, who probably subconsciously share my opinion's do not care to wear the poppy.

Now the other thing I like to discuss is Asset Backed Commercial Paper, or Sub-prime loans. I bring this up because yesterday Citigroup chairman and chief executive Charles Prince resigned and it was announced today. He is being replaced by Bill Clinton's Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin.

First a quick run down, ABCP or Asset Backed Commercial Paper is debt, lets say mortgages, or Visa and Master Card bills, lots and lots of them all bundled together and sold to people who have money. So for example, lets say I owe 100 thousand dollars on my home (I wish) to the Royal Bank of Fartland, the bank decides they need ten million dollars to buy the Imperial Bank of Beans. Rather than sell bonds or stocks the Bank of Fartland, here after the BoF, bundles my mortgage, and a bunch of other debt, maybe their Airmiles credit cards, some other mortgages, together and sells that debt and uses the proceeds from the sale to pay for the BoB (Bank of Beans). Meanwhile I continue to pay my mortgage so the people who bought the debt from the BoF make back their investment plus interest. If lets say a credit card holder does not pay the bills, then the assets of the credit card holder a repossessed and sold off to pay the bill. Hence this is asset backed debt. The debts when bundled together by an institution like the Bank of Fartland is called commercial paper, hence Asset Backed Commercial Paper.


Well banks, like say the the Bank of Beans and the Bank of Fartland were a little to willing to loan money to people, say Mister Ben Dover and Charles Uxbridge Farley of 123 B.S. Address Way. So surprisingly Ben Dover and Chuck U. Farley never made a single payment on their 2.3 million dollar mortgage (why would they? didn't they mention they were having way too much fun at 123 B.S. Address Way in Micronesia?) Or how about Miss. 'I cannot ever afford to pay off all the money you guys are willing to give me' she gets her $250 thousand dollars and on the first of the month when she is told to pay $1,700 she goes bankrupt because she just spent the last of her $800 monthly disability cheque on the month's supply of beans. Well Chuck and Ben naturally are a write off, that is $2.3 million the bank will never see again, as for the lady on disability, she looses her trailer and ends up moving in with her daughter. The bank meanwhile has a trailer that it cannot possibly sell for a quarter million dollars.

Investment companies, like pension funds, insurance companies, and other banks who bought this commercial paper are screwed, they bought something that looked safe but was built on sub-prime loans, loans that were higher risk. Hey it was asset backed, it was supposed to be low risk... ooops, the BoF forgot to mention that when they sold the ABCP to whomever.

Well Citibank is a HUGE player in the ABCP game, they bought and sold ABCP with the best of them and it all came crashing down. Frankly one of these days I'd like to rant on the horrors that is personal lending, predatory lending really, companies like MBNA, Capital One, Citibank, Bank of America, are just way too willing to spot you thousands of bucks that will absolutely ruin you as you try to make ends meet with all your debt. Then when you try to file for bankruptcy these same companies have lobbied congress (Parliament) to ensure that filing for bankruptcy is much harder and harsher. So when I hear Prince resigned, the thing that upsets me is that he gets a multi-million dollar golden handshake while Miss 'I'm on disability and living with my daughter cause I cannot pay the bills' is being evicted cause the daughter's husband got laid off at the GM plant while GM outsources to China.