Werd: Bailout - Part Five

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

The history of the word “bailout” is spotty at best.  My handy not-quite-the-real-OED has no etymological definition.  Merriam-Webster, who chose “bailout” as the word of 2008, gives a lame definition with a general reference to the year 1951:

Date: 1951
: a rescue from financial distress

So I went to the vast Google books resources and noticed that bailout in 1951 referred to pilots, bailing out of their cockpits [see also, Popular Mechanics in 1947 and 1956].

But what does that have to do with finance?

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Read More | 2008 Word of the Year

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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 Three

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

So the much belabored point of Part Two was that, in my opinion, we all realize that a bailout is needed.

There are some dissenters that would argue that no taxpayer money should rescue financial organizations or our American auto makers.  But anyone that seriously supports this philosophy is following the terrible advice that pushed us into the Great Depression:

Even today, with an economy much less dependent on bank loans than it was in 1930, a wholesale failure of the banking system, together with an extended fall in prices, could have a devastating impact. The reason most economists discount this possibility is that they don’t believe policymakers will make the same disastrous mistakes their predecessors made in the 1920s and 1930s, when the authorities stood by as the financial system imploded and withering deflation developed.  [Full article here.]

The lesson learned from the Great Depression was that no government intervention at all is a sure-fire way to see the system collapse severely.  There are many debates about what the government should specifically do, but all the debaters agree that doing nothing is the worst option of all. Nonetheless, many citizens seem to be opposed, in principle, to any bailouts at all that move taxpayer money towards rescuing banks or our automakers.

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Read More | Portfolio's Economic Predictions for 2009

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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.

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Werd: Thanks - Part One

Posted by Patrick Snajder Categories: Editorials, History, Videos

This week’s invocation for the Werd is William S. Burroughs reciting his poem “Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 28, 1986” (Gus Van Sant directed the video):

And the text to follow along:

Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 28, 1986

Thanks for the wild turkey and
the passenger pigeons, destined
to be #### out through wholesome
American guts.

Thanks for a continent to despoil
and poison.

Thanks for Indians to provide a
modicum of challenge and
danger.

Thanks for vast herds of bison to
kill and skin leaving the
carcasses to rot.

Thanks for bounties on wolves
and coyotes.

Thanks for the American dream,
To vulgarize and to falsify until
the bare lies shine through.

Thanks for the KKK.

For nigger-killin’ lawmen,
feelin’ their notches.

For decent church-goin’ women,
with their mean, pinched, bitter,
evil faces.

Thanks for “Kill a Queer for
Christ” stickers.

Thanks for laboratory AIDS.

Thanks for Prohibition and the
war against drugs.

Thanks for a country where
nobody’s allowed to mind the
own business.

Thanks for a nation of finks.

Yes, thanks for all the
memories—all right let’s see
your arms!

You always were a headache and
you always were a bore.

Thanks for the last and greatest
betrayal of the last and greatest
of human dreams.

Read More | YouTube

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