Werd: Bailout - Part Four

Posted by Patrick Snajder Categories: Domestic Policy, Editorials, US Economy, Videos, Wall Street

We’re bailing Thursday out with some videos.  Sit back, listen, and we can explore inner and outer space together, forever.

Werd: Bailout - Part Two

Posted by Patrick Snajder Categories: Domestic Policy, Editorials, US Economy, Wall Street

I am not a master of finance, to say the very least.  [You can find my full opinion on debt and credit here.] 

While 80% of the freshman when I was a senior at the University of Richmond in 2000 would go on to earn a major or minor degree from our Business School, I never took a single class at the School, and only ever held disdain for those that did.

It should be no coincidence, then, that almost ten years later, I am still buried underneath school loans and have seen my best entrepreneurial ideas die quick deaths due to my ignorance in all areas involving money.  My relationship to the American economy, to this point, has been adversarial: we both cared little for one another and worked towards the other’s hopeful demise.  But it is not with joy that I witness the economy’s current unhealthy state, as its disappointment only furthers a lesser state of my personal economy.  If the current American economy were to die, a part of my life would surely die with it.

Click to continue reading Werd: Bailout - Part Two

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Werd: Bailout - Part One

Posted by Patrick Snajder Categories: Domestic Policy, Editorials, Media, Taxes, US Economy, Wall Street

In honor of Merriam-Webster’s 2008 word of the year, bailout, we will focus this week’s efforts of The Werd on the big story of the year. 

To start the discussion, I will suggest these two great charts:

A Visual Guide to the Financial Crisis - Part One
A Visual Guide to the Financial Crisis - Part Two

Part One explains the many reasons for the financial crisis; Part Two suggests an alternative bailout that punishes those who benefitted from the bubbles without extracting social funds already marked for public programs such as social security or retirement funds (as the current bailouts do).  This expert work shows how solutions to our problems are not beyond our ability, but merely beyond the imagination of our current leadership.

We’ll dig in on Tuesday with my precious take. 

BAILOUT SERIES
Bailout - Part One
Bailout - Part Two
Bailout - Part Three
Bailout - Part Four
Bailout - Part Five

Read More | Merriam-Webster's 2008 Word of the Year

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Werd: Pirate - Part Five

Posted by Patrick Snajder Categories: Editorials, History, US Economy

This week’s werd pirate, as told by the other OED:

pirate (n.)
  1254, from O.Fr. pirate, from L. pirata “sailor, sea robber,” from Gk. peirates “brigand, pirate,” lit. “one who attacks,” from peiran “to attack, make a hostile attempt on, try,” from peira “trial, an attempt, attack,” from PIE base *per- “try” (cf. L. peritus “experienced,” periculum “trial, experiment, risk, danger,” see peril). Meaning “one who takes another’s work without permission” first recorded 1701; sense of “unlicensed radio broadcaster” is from 1913. The verb is first recorded 1574.

From its earliest roots, we can see that the word is based on the seafaring attack definition that we know very well and “one who attacks.”  Then, in 1701, that very concrete definition gains an abstraction – it becomes the piracy of copyright, a taking of thought.  You can say that 1701 marks the death of the singular pirate and welcomes a broader definition founded in the world of Gutenberg’s movable type.

We should not find it ironic, then, that Captain William Kidd was executed in 1701 for his act of piracy.

Click to continue reading Werd: Pirate - Part Five

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Werd: Pirate - Part Four

Posted by Patrick Snajder Categories: Editorials, History, US Economy

So in case some of you didn’t get the subtle satire, Part Three of this week’s Werd said that pirates can’t exist without capitalists.  If we want capitalism, we should expect pirates; if we want to rid ourselves of pirates, all of the laws and security in the world won’t ever get rid of them, so long as we still cling to capitalism. 

Today I received my copy of the January issue of Harper’s Magazine.  The very first entry I read is by former Editor-in-Chief Lewis H. Lapham, who writes about the financial crisis, etc.  Spurred by Thomas Friedman’s myopic quote that says Americans need to get back to their roots and “thinking about how—not just how much,” Lapham notes that the foundation of America’s independence from Britain was largely due to America’s embrace of privateers, who attacked British merchant ships and sold the profits of the booty to the French to support the revolution.  Loathe as I am to include huge block quotes of pirated text, I can’t help but reprint part of Lapham’s opening editorial that relates directly to this week’s Werd and essentially proves the subtle slants of arguments about pirates that I have been setting up all week.^[1] Lapham, better than I, writes my perfect and fitting conclusion.  Here we go…:

Click to continue reading Werd: Pirate - Part Four

Read More | Harper's Magazine

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