The Vapors big hit- and only one I am aware of- was Turning Japanese. The reason it is relevant is because what happened in Japan throughout the '90s and first part of this decade is repeating here in the good, ol' US of A. Japan had a huge real estate bubble to the point that the ground of the Imperial Palace were valued at a monetary level that made it worth more than all the real estate in California. We had much different reasons and causes for our land bubble but the outcome is the same: someone has to take the hit, lose gobs of money, possible go under and suffer. Just like the Japanese banks did, the U.S. banks are trying to pretend there is nothing wrong- all I can think of is that scene from Animal House during the parade..."Remain calm, all is well!" right before he gets run over by the panicking crowd.
We are becoming a banana republic because the government believes it is smarter than the markets and is infinitely more capable of setting a clearing price to take care of this mess. So it is going to nationalize all the bad mortgages vis a vis the Federal Reserve's latest nifty trick- the Term Security Liquidity Facility. Give us all the bad debt and we'll give you U.S, Treasuries. That means you and I and every other tax payer are going to bail out all the imprudent, greedy, foolish or plain right criminal people who should never have gotten the loan to begin with. How does this make us a banana republic? Well it makes U.S. sovereign debt worth less, it creates lots more dollars causing them to be less and the whole point of this country was to let people succeed or fail on their own, not bail them out when they made bad decisions.
Since I am on the topic of the government, I read about the Democratic candidates tax proposal and guess what- yep, they want there to be more (Obama) or more complicated (Hillary). If we could just institute a flat tax that would be huge for everyone but there are entrenched interests who don't want that because change is not their friend. But I digress...
Didn't write yesterday because I was out of sorts due to some upheaval at the office. My boss of bosses, aka the CEO of the company, resigned. The guy is great and got a lot done in two years but he and his bosses had a different idea of what to do next and where to take the firm. My immediate boss came in with him so everyone is thinking he is gone too but I asked him outright and he said no. The next step in Wall St. logic was I'd be going to or I am now vulnerable because my boss brought me in and I am viewed as his guy. That is not the case either to the best of my knowledge. The whole situation reminds me of the old Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times."
So when I got home I told the husband to meet me at the restaurant up the street and we were having dinner and drinks- no gym. Got home and didn't feel like writing and was mentally drained.
The positives of yesterday was I got to sit next to the other married hot guy on the bus in. He lives in our neighborhood and is hot. I call him the other hot married guy because my man is the hot married guy. Then on the way home I got to sit next to wife beater. He is so named because all summer whenever he wore a white shirt you could see his wife beater underneath. He is a hot fireplug of a guy who also lives in our neighborhood. Don't know where exactly but often see him at the bus stop in the morning and he gets off at the same one at night.
I am going to the GLAAD Awards Ceremony Monday night. I have never been and got invited by a woman I do business with. She runs the diversity committee at her shop, is a friend and attended our reception back in October. The husband says it is a HUGE thing to go to. I checked with some friends who are in the media biz and they are going as well.
I have to admit I have been kind of keeping up with the Spitzer fiasco and am wondering if I am the only one who thinks the high class call girl's name is one she stole from a drag queen. Seriously- Ashley Dupre...c'mon admit it.
One last thing, when a company's creditors start seizing assets, said company is not "near collapse" but is collapsed.
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