I’ve been sick

Gosh I hate colds. Last week it started off innocent enough, just a running nose. Nothing more. It was a just a bother. I figured it would pass in a day or so. Now, it’s a week later, and I can’t sleep thru the night, have a raspy cough, and am popping antihistamines like M&Ms. What a pain in the butt. Will it ever end???!!!!

Another totally non-photography related thought, I really feel badly for all the folks around that country that are losing their jobs. Everytime I turn on the TV I hear of more layoffs and companies closing. A few years ago, when I worked in a corporate environment (rather than freelance), I found the company I was with was closing. Nearly 800 people lost their jobs. Most employees were trained in specific job rolls that were relatively unique to the company. This meant that there were several hundred people (with similar qualifications) in our community competing for the same jobs . What a brutal environment.

Today’s job environment is certainly worse. While I am optimist that things are going to improve, I am concerned about the timeline. I believe in the free market system. I don’t think government can do it better than private enterprise. Government’s role should be protecting the people. The recent problems in the free market system have been a lack of oversight by the government. I don’t want the government telling my bank how to operate, but I do want the government to make my banks investments more transparent. In other words, if my bank wants to invest in speculative mortgages and other securities, then that’s fine. I’ll likely get a higher rate of return on my deposits for taking the risk. However with greater transparency, I can make the decision whether the higher return is worth the risk. Let the customer make an informed decision.

One problem with the current mortgage/financial implosion was that there was no disclosure, no transparency, and no oversight. The financial industry was heading towards the precipice 4-5 years ago. People in the industry saw it and didn’t care. They were making too much money. It was gluttony on grand scale and few people were questioning whether the business was heading off a cliff. There should be a financial rating system assigned to banks and other financial institutions that is based on their propensity towards risk. For instance a bank that holds gold as the majority of assets would be considered a 1 (very low risk) or a financial institution that has most of assets as stocks in IPOs may be considered a 10 (very high risk).

Anyway, that’s my feverish rants for this week. Thanks for reading.