The long-predicted housing disaster unfolds

This article in the Telegraph about the credit crunch that began last year (and has begun to engulf major investment banks and the U.S. Treasury) makes a note of the loss of confidence in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. For those of us who have been following this housing market bubble with the kind of acid skepticism that it deserves, finding out that we were right in believing that housing couldn’t out-pace income indefinitely can only bring so much clarity about what’s next for the markets–none of it, probably, any good.

With that in mind, here is what I wrote about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac [.doc file] in a grad school paper in 2004. I had to frame the issue in the terms of the business ethics course I was writing it for, but for what it’s worth I was quite in a hurry then to pour cold water on these badly designed market inflation machines.

Like most scams, this housing credit disaster has unwound only when the market dipped. It should have been a sign that the end of the bubble was near when a Bear Stearns hedge fund collapsed in June 2007–clearly foreshadowing the near-collapse and pending sellout to JP Morgan Chase for considerably less than the firm’s recent market capitalization that has developed this month. What is Bear Sterns at this point, anyway, but an enormous ill-managed hedge fund itself?

The fact that the Federal Reserve is involved in trying to help bail out Stearns is another embarrassment to and encroachment upon America’s supposedly free markets. Why are those companies not on Wall Street expected to bear the brunt of their mistakes while those on Wall Street and in Greenwich, who have created a risk-management disaster, are to be bailed out? Maybe if there had been some semblance of regulation on hedge funds and other areas of the finanical sector, none of this would have happened–but that wasn’t encouraged in any substantive way by partisan hack charlatan Alan Greenspan, or his already low-rated successor.

When you hear people say, ‘this might be a good time to buy a house, now that the market is down,’ I’d let them know that there’s no hurry. The credit crunch that began in 2007 is likely to continue for a while.

Lights out in Lakewood

Last night the ice storm struck as Jessica and I were convoying down to Cleveland Hopkins to return a rental car. A sudden outage of lights in the distance made me wonder if power would be out at our place in Lakewood. But when we got home our lights were on. Today I drove Jessica to work and stopped at McDonalds on the way back– and managed to get the car stuck on an ice sheet (which had been covered by a layer of fresh now) until a few guys helped push it out. After getting the car a few feet up the semi-plowed driveway at our place, I went inside in the hopes of riding out the storm for a while–but then the power went out in the neighborhood (including stoplights) this afternoon.Fortunately the power is on a mile down the street so I went and got some gas and now I’m at Caribou Coffee sitting by the fireplace sipping dark roast.

Fishasaurus the betta fish


Tribute to Fishasaurus, February 2007

 

Dan-and-Fishasaurus_2-26-2007_CIMG4079Fishasaurus, aka Daniel J. McKeown, jr., aka my cool purple beta fish, died yesterday after a brief apparent illness. Jessica and I tried very hard to take care of him, and I was glad to be with him in his final moments. I wanted pay great tribute to his wonderful animal spirit, and with that in mind he was buried in the Presidio of San Francisco in a private service.
Fishasaurus was a great pet and I was always humbled and entertained by his big personality–when the minor earthquake of a few days ago hit, I was here and his calm determined look reassured me after the tremors. But usually he was bouncing around slowly like that or whipping his tail to propel him up top for food or around the tank in some sort of circular pursuit. Probably my favorite memory is of his small front fins, one on each side, that he used to motor around the water slowly. A frequent user of those small propellors, Fishasaurus was a wonderful spectacle and a great animal companion.
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Fishasaurus, Feb. 2007


Fishasaurus, aka Mr. Fishersen, Feb. 2007, by Daniel J. McKeown and Jessica(A photo of Fishasaurus, who was a cool-looking fish with a big personality, from February 2007.)


FishasaurusFor a little while a very amazing beta (betta) fish named Fishasaurus, a Valentine’s Day gift from Jessica, was a spirited and fun companion for me. I feel so grateful and only wonder if I did something wrong, as he didn’t live very long–but I feel like he understands that I did everything I thought was right to care for him. I was actually more fortunate to have such a great fish rather than unfortunate about how short it was for.He and I were always hanging out whenever I was home. I think this photo was taken when I had him down near the computer with me while I videoed a movie.


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Going to Cleveland

downtown-Cleveland-2007-byDanielJMcKeown

Jessica and I are moving to Cleveland.  It all sounds very exciting.  We’re going to visit this weekend again, and plan to move there in a few weeks.

We visited once before, last year, and decided to move there after that.

San Francisco is a great city but Jessica is excited about opportunities in Ohio and I’m looking forward to moving to the shores of Lake Erie, having grown up in the Midwest.

I’m here to protest the Iraq war

Jessica and I rode our bikes out to the anti-Iraq-war protest Saturday, making our way to Dolores Park in the Mission from our place in the northwest of the city. When we got there we took some photos, and also took some video which is now pacificpelican.us/podcast #13. The title of this post [“I’m here to protest the Iraq war”] is the opening remark that Jessica makes in her very impressive and persuasive appearance in the second half of the podcast.

It was later in the day when we were there, and it was hard to gauge how many people had participated overall. But I would say that it seemed like it was a very demographically broad group, all very determined to take action to stop the war.

The casual weekend marchers and local news anchors may have gotten bored with these things, but those that continue to hold signs or bus in from out of town are primed to continue their activism, for whatever it might accomplish.

Democratic politicans have certainly failed to do their job in ending this war, but I guess I’m still hoping that Barack Obama can get some momentum in the presidential campaign, and maybe do the right thing in Iraq when he gets in to power.

And what is that right thing? Withdraw. Now.