TD2802

On the bailout, the Economist's pov: Crisis roundtable: The economists' position Posted by: Economist.com | WASHINGTON, DC Categories: Economist roundtables IS A centrist position forming among economists? An open letter to Congressional leaders: As economists, we want to express to Congress our great concern for the plan proposed by Treasury Secretary Paulson to deal with the financial crisis. We are well aware of the difficulty of the current financial situation and we agree with the need for bold action to ensure that the financial system continues to function. We see three fatal pitfalls in the currently proposed plan: 1) Its fairness. The plan is a subsidy to investors at taxpayers’ expense. Investors who took risks to earn profits must also bear the losses. Not every business failure carries systemic risk. The government can ensure a well-functioning financial industry, able to make new loans to creditworthy borrowers, without bailing out particular investors and institutions whose choices proved unwise. 2) Its ambiguity. Neither the mission of the new agency nor its oversight are clear. If taxpayers are to buy illiquid and opaque assets from troubled sellers, the terms, occasions, and methods of such purchases must be crystal clear ahead of time and carefully monitored afterwards. 3) Its long-term effects. If the plan is enacted, its effects will be with us for a generation. For all their recent troubles, Americas dynamic and innovative private capital markets have brought the nation unparalleled prosperity. Fundamentally weakening those markets in order to calm short-run disruptions is desperately short-sighted. For these reasons we ask Congress not to rush, to hold appropriate hearings, and to carefully consider the right course of action, and to wisely determine the future of the financial industry and the U.S. economy for years to come. Item 3 is a big concern for me. Down the road, our financial welfare is pretty much mortgaged off to stop the present bleeding. Unfortunately banks are going to jack up interest and borrowing rates to absorb their losses (they already have in my field). And people will pay them when they take out a loan for a car or business, whether because they have no choice or poor fiscal discipline. The immediate effects may not be apparent but plan on working more, paying more and earning less. Chicken Little signing off.

You've chosen wisely. Be prepared to hear 'why are you dirty?' millions of times. No det has as much as élan as MEPD imo.

There was a garrison 'groupie' at one of our events once who trolled our boards and posted all these WIP threads sans pics but full of all these mod techniques that he claimed to have perfected. You guessed it, he said my Rom was a little loud. Didn't pay him any mind since I'd yet to have seen any real evidence of his own modding skills. On a more positive note, when I was first adjusting it for volume, I tested loudness on my wife (who cares nothing for this hobby btw) to get a layperson's opinion - she was the one who decided whether a setting was too loud or not. I actually wanted it cranked but she said a more conversational volume would probably be more acceptable to the public.

Noticed he got busted down to TK.

Excellent job again Rolf- add 'packman' now to your list of titles.

Outed. Don't get me started on this but in short, usury is an end in itself for most banks and the Fed Reserve is the grand poobah of this cabal whose methods are almost as old as the country itself. That's how they create profits and use different financial tools to generate it either through loans, foreign currency exchange, special assets etc...The theory is that a lot of that money will be returned to the market through goods and services which banks help finance through, you guessed it, loans which they collect interest on thereby creating more money. Notice I didn't say wealth because too much money in supply drives up inflation and the easiest way to do that (brace yourselves) is to keep wages low or stagnant for a lot of employers. That's an unfortunate consequence of a currency not tied to a gold standard (but not the only one)- we're still paranoid of what that did to the markets when it was early part of last century. The Fed Reserve's solution is to just print more money and charge interest for using it in whatever shape or form and to add value by fiat instead of backing it with gold. I could go on but it will take another revolution to change the system - let's just hope its bloodless.

Personally I don't think a Chinese invasion would be in their best interest to put it mildly. If they wanted to bring us to our knees, they would just have to stop buying treasury bonds and financing our national debt and by extrapolation, bankrolling our overseas military adventures. Its cheaper to bankrupt us and sow internal economic crises than invasion. But that would be stupid too because they need our markets. Most of the stuff at Wallyworld is MIC which makes it an extension of their Ministry of Trade and Economics. True, the average citizen pays more attention to what the celebs are wearing than what's happening in some hellhole the other side of the world. Nothing will alter that as long as corporate media profits from meeting prurient demand. The recent shakeup in the financial world however should be getting their attention because it may not be as sexy as cyberhacking or foreign invasion but has an immediate negative effect on their pocketbooks. More preciseley, the banks stop gap reaction will be tighter credit and the potential for higher interest rates. Its gonna get a lot harder to borrow money folks and in short, any vested funds to feather your retirment are going to get hammered. Translation: you'll probably be working well past retirement to stay afloat if you haven't invested in any hedge funds or socked any disposable income away in high interest savings plans which should be immune to market downturns. The market will rebound, as it always does but you'll just have to postpone getting that retirement condo in the Poconos a little longer. Another sad irony behind all this is that if you conscientiously maintained your index funds as in a 401k, the current market has practically devalued them to a point of an entry level noob's portfolio. See, the problem with our society is instant gratification conditioned by years of material consumerism. People don't plan long term and unless they're self-employed, they don't make efforts to pay themself first through wise financial planning. Instead the mentality is everything on credit because we want it NOW. Witness the subprime fiasco and how banks got too greedy and arrogant cynically playing on that mentality and enabling people to live beyond their means. In the legion, I've lost count how many times some guy has to sell all his armor or swag to pay the bills. As much as I love this hobby, there are some cold real world realities that should take priority. If you're not worried, than I envy your optimism. But as an old Russian saying goes, 'All the optimists ended up in labor camps'. IOW, they never see it coming.

That's some amazing carpentry and one lucky cat too.

Great trooping with you DH. Sweet T-21 you got too. May have to invest in one myself soon

You'd definitely fill the MEPD archivist spot, if there was one Rolf! I'm sure you'll have no worries when its time to put the baby album together.

Forgot to ask what flavor ice you had at Matsumoto's? I'm partial to lillikoi myself.

Looks great! Now need more Tattooine lighting conditions than Kamino.

I think I had as much fun putting both my scratchbuilt and SB/MH packs together as weathering armor. Even trooping for that matter. As you collect material and assemble stuff - whether from someone else's tutorial (ie. ab plate, sniper plate, etc...), you may find a new method or technique for getting the job done. It may be an improvement or an alternative but you're bound to learn something here to suit your skill level. Often times too you'll discover your ideas converging with others. For example I couldn't get a hold of any fuller's earth locally for weathering so instead used crushed artist pastels. Turns out other sandies did the exact same thing before and got just as decent results. Good luck with your progress!

Well said Paul - Ohana is everything.

Malasadas too?? Oh now I'm speechless! Glad you made it out to Pearl.

Haleiwa!! Gotta love Matsumoto's Paul, now you know why I go back every other year. Done any surfing yet?

Ahh Ala Moana! Any luau plans?? Thanks for the memories.

Post pics Tony and make sure Paul get some of da kine local flavor there.

Where's the party? Have a good one Rolf!

I didn't like the speaker the kit came with so I swapped it out with a couple of mini speakers. After wiring them up serially I installed one each behind the hovis. Mine are hollowed out. To lessen the risk of feedback, be sure to use plenty of of dense material for dampening. A tip I got from the UKG troopers was to use blue tack (or something similar) around the speaker housing. That's basically a spraypaint can cap cut to fit a speaker in (thanks to TD1536 for that one). You don't need the whole cap, just the center part where the nozzle would go. Once you got the speaker in place, pack in plenty of blue tack behind and around it and mount them behind the hovis. I also used some pipe insulation foam trimmed to fit over each, and to add some extra density to help hold it in place. If everything goes right, you should be able to adjust the Rom's volume, even max it out without any feedback. Mine's pretty loud and people have actually told me to turn it down . Now its at a more tolerable level. For the board you can just place it wherever you want. I've got mine velcroed just above one of the wells in the front for easy access. I'm sure there's other techniques out there this one has worked best for me.

Outstanding! Good work guys.

I can only what echo what others have already said but good job gettin'it done.

Nice score! Decent weathering too.

Tinker, tailor, sandtrooper. Rolf, you da sandman again!

One of the comments posted was that it was like a snuff film for geeks.