Cooking and such
I am really starting to take great enjoyment in cooking. I am far – and I do me far – from being a good cook, but I think this is something I wish to explorer further. Mind you, I’m not saying that I want to make a career switch and devote my life to the art of food. I do feel; however, exploring what cooking can offer me is something I need to investigate.
On another note, there are a number of things I want to try making:
- Mediterranean Lemon Chicken
- Hummus (Garlic or Red Pepper)
- Sweet Potato Oatmeal Bread
- King Size Corn Mufffins
I also believe that a blog dedicated to my cooking efforts my be in order…. we’ll see.
Geithner’s Toxic Asset Plan
If you didn’t hear, the administration announced a Toxic Asset Plan to help remove the bad debt from the balance sheets of banks. How does the plan look? Well, to me, it seems the government is trying to take action but not really addressing the issue.
Two things really stick out to me from Geithner’s plan…
Geithner: My Plan for Bad Bank Assets
The American economy and much of the world now face extraordinary challenges, and confronting these challenges will continue to require extraordinary actions. No crisis like this has a simple or single cause, but as a nation we borrowed too much and let our financial system take on irresponsible levels of risk.
There actually is a simply cause – The Federal Reserve mismanaged interest rates for years and the Government initiated policies that weakened oversight and regulation on the industry.
Moving forward, we as a nation must work together to strike the right balance between our need to promote the public trust and using taxpayer money prudently to strengthen the financial system, while also ensuring the trust of those market participants who we need to do their part to get credit flowing to working families and businesses — large and small — across this nation.
…
We cannot solve this crisis without making it possible for investors to take risks. While this crisis was caused by banks taking too much risk, the danger now is that they will take too little.
This comment goes to show that the government isn’t addressing the true issue – the banks have no reason to lend to anyone now. The reason credit has locked up is due to the lack of credit worthy borrowers. The consumer has taken on too much debt and is now struggling to get out from under the avalanche.
While the removal of toxic assets will put a stop to massive losses by banks, I fear the government is going to force financial institutions to engage in needless lending which would put us back into the same situation. Essentially, it looks as if the government believes there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the financial system, which is not the case. Bad banks need to be eliminated, much like bad automakers need to go away.
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