Going into High Alert

As much as you know these days most of the stand up comedians like Jon Stewart, Colbert and so on are mostly just the one man on the set doing the show. No extras and no puppets just people and the performer and their witty jokes. Well for once how about a ventrilloquist. Here is Jeff Dunham and the youtube video to it.

You need to laugh more.

And then some more.

Oh yes keep laughing.

Over the past week, the stock market collapsed. This time its a bit different. 4 major companies are facing a crisis. Of which 2 have already sunk, one being swallowed up by Bank of America and another has already file for bankruptcy as there is no way to save it. The other 2 however are probably going to sink at this rate if this keeps up.

Ok so what the hell happened? AIG in trouble, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and a few others namely so, insurers and mortgage lends and also financial companies in the US are facing a major problem. Bad debt. Now how does that equal to an entire corporation to a collapse? The answer is quite simple actually, we look to the clients of such banks and corporations.

In America a gamble was actually taken and played out. Its not named yet but I would probably say its what I would call the buy now and pay later syndrome where you get loans and credits and pay back later on when you have the money to pay back and without guarantee that you will be able to pay back at all. That means that people in the US have been borrowing money from banks and not been able to pay back at all. It seems that according to what Maria Baritomo said on The Colbert Report (yes its comedy but the people interviewed are actual people in such areas and they do give facts) banks and financial corporations have been lending money to people who have no jobs. Means they don’t earn a thing at all and they expect them to pay back later on. This comes about as a mortgage scheme where you get some money for your house in order to pay for something and pay back overtime where the house becomes the bank’s property and not yours if you are unable to pay up later on. Its sort of like guarantee’s the bank that if you can’t pay up they have collateral which will ensure that they do not lose such an investment on you. Well for the situation in America they lend out money to people who have no assests, no jobs, and practically no money at all. This runs into the mortgage scheme only that it does not have anything to guarantee such and the lending corporation makes a loss. This is step 1.

The next step is where the gamble comes into play. What happens next is a collection of these mortgages which then equals to bad debt. Now with such debt the lending corporation will make a lost and the money lent out will lead to the collapse of people’s saving accounts and they money they have saved up from their hard work which earned it in the first place and that would lead to a lot of people losing their money when its suppose to be saved up nice for their future. With a bad debt there is no way the lending institution can pay back their clients who have put their money in them for safe keeping and investment. So in order to solve that problem, major financial institutions and larger banks buy up these bad debts. They take over these debts so that the lending institutions will continue to operate and do business as usually without leading to a financial collapse and leading probably millions without money and yes ultimately the collapse of a country where the citizens have no money at all and will be left in debt and end up on the streets and you can be rest assured that it will never be the place you want to go and visit and millions ending up on the streets means the fall of a nation. Imagine I am Legend, yes the city would look very much like that in the future, just without the infected people thats all. So we have large corporations with the funding taking over “bad debts” from the smaller ones and ensuring that the financial world does not collapse overnight like that. However there has been a rise in credit card debts, bankruptcy and easy credit (buy now, pay later) where people spend and spend and do not save up. According to a financial report since the 1950, consumers on the whole have been saving less. That figures, with less saved up and people spending more, where do you fall back on when you run out of money and are unable to pay up all the debts?

So here is the problem, people save less, over spend, borrow more. Its practically filling a pot and waiting for it to spill out. Once it reaches its peak it will overflow and everything will come out affecting all outside the pot. The bad debts in this case will never be paid back in due time. Yes if it will kill a smaller financial instituion it will kill the larger one eventually as it reaches an epic scale. So practically this is what happens in the end, a financial meltdown. The large institutes have no more money, they have huge debts and they cannot release any money back to the clients who invested in them.

The first company to go is Lehman Brothers, they are currently filing for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection as all rescue deals have fallen through. Merrill Lynch has been acquired by the Bank of America for a $50 billion dollar saving deal. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are also facing the situation. Currently the Federal Reserve has coughed up $285 billionn dollars in order to take over mortgage company Fannie-Freddie and of that total $85 was to rescue AIG. However currently president Bush seeking the go ahead for $700 billion currently in order to buy up more mortgage troubled assests. Experts on the other hand estimate at least $1 trillion in total would be the amount to spend on bailouts. However the US government will be selecting who to throw the life float and who to let sink. Lehman Brothers is the first already of many more to come.

In the next fiscal year the US congress has set the nation’s debt ceiling to $10.6 trillion running from October 2008 to September 2009, however the proposal for the bailouts sets requests it to be set to $11.315 trillion. Which will increase the load further on tax payers. Tax payers have to pay more, the bank they save their money in is flat out, they have no money now and how are they going to pay the heavier tax load? See the cycle now?  To counter this problem on the other hand, the Federal reserve has lowered interest rates. How does that help? Lower interest rates make it cheaper to take on a loan. So that means the people who still have a tidy sum hidden away can now buy properties by taking on a loan that has less interest and would be affordable to them. Yes these are aimed at people with money and not the ones who are unemployed bums and borrowing and spending what they do not have.

So basically, in order to solve this, money is needed to fix money. That would mean proper respectful hard working people have to pay for the debts that are raked up by the others who borrow and are unable to pay back. Hence lower interest rates to spur home purchasing rates and loan refinancing. So yes you pay for what other people have raked up in debts.

Nice.

Depends on what kind of company we all keep. Some keep good ones, some work for big ones, some work for small ones, some stick to neutral ones and some even are in bad ones.

In this case its a different story:

Now thats one company I wanna be with.

Doors, their made of wood, plastic, metal and so on. So why this post? Well to put it simply we have door issues here in the house here. Over the last few weeks, months and so on the doors have well to put it in an easier term, gone out of shape. Hanging over the hinges and not closing properly the doors here are well out of order if I may say so.

So what exactly is the cause for this here in UK. The weather.

Well the answer is surprisingly simple, the weather. Well the moisture from the air apparently is absorbed by the doors especially the ones made out of wood. This seems to only happen to wooden ones then again wood here is kinda the way to go for a door. Nice good look and heavy. I’d rather have a carbon fibre one which is strong as steel rather than a wooden one that is so heavy that I can’t even lift myself.

Carpenters here dont’ ever run out of work at this rate. All they need to do is to replace the screws and hinges and shave the door. Yes you heard me right, shave the door. We had 3 doors here fixed and finally you can use the bathroom and lock it without anybody barging in on you all of a sudden.

I bet you didn’t see this one coming eh.

Believe it or not, London as we know it, isn’t what we see on the map and what we refer to at all. In the picture above is the map of “The City” otherwise known as City of London. Truth to be told anything that is not green in colour is not City of London at all. To be exact The City is only 1 square mile in area size. Pretty small land area. Within this zone you can find St. Paul’s cathedral, Bank of England, London Stock Exchange and a few other famous landmarks. Its the financial district of London. You’ll find tons of office workers here alright.

Hereford Road zone W2 is located in the City of Westminster. Wait a minute, does that mean there are 2 cities in this capital? No, there are more than 2 cities within the large megalopolis of London as we all know. The majority of the city is the City of Westminster where all the landmarks such as Big Ben, Houses of parliament, Buckingham palace and so on are located. Hence the are 2 mayors, the mayor of London and Lord Mayor of London. The first refers to Westminster and the later to The City. Funny thing though as we call City of London, The City. Probably the first one since long ago.

Remember there are more than 2 cities within London itself. Here we have the Borough of Southwark which is South of the river Thames. This is area is also know as Southwark where a lot of shops and also hotels can be found plus in addition city hall. Yes the main city hall is fantastic if you get to see it in real life. Heres a picture of it.

The glass building on the left side is city hall, the one where its slanting on both sides giving it the oval shape. Here is a close up shot.

All sorts of people outside on the grass sitting down and taking time out.

Like it or not city hall isn’t within The City. So here is where the mayor of london resides and not the Lord Mayor. Truth to be told if the Queen were to pass into The City, she would have to reach a certain point on before entering The City and declare that she comes in peace. Believe it or not the Queen is not allowed to enter The City at all without the permission of the Lord Mayor. Its like a country on its own in there. As plebes on the other hand, we don’t need to do that. All we need to do is either get into a cab or bus or the tube and ride in and get to work, play or whatever it is we need to do in there.

Well in addition to that, the roads are also given some extra info to indicate what area you might be in within any city. Like for example here in Leicester Square is what is known as Theatreland. Theatre here means that there are people acting on stage and not to mention there are around 20 different theatres here in Westminster. The known one here that some of you might know is Dominion Theatre, where Hillsong London has their church service at. The play that is current showing there is We Will Rock You. Did not get to catch that one then again get a job and then work and save up money and go for probably a weekend trip down to London to catch some plays and so on.

Chinatown anybody? Gerrad Street is the main street of Chinatown.

Here is another interesting zone in London. This area is near Bayswater which is a rich man’s area but is also known to be where Kensington palace is located. Also the Royal Albert hall is located within this city in particular.

In addition Imperial College is nearby there or rather right across the road from the Royal Albert Hall.

Anyway here is this post’s eye candy. Till the next time.