ZekeWeeks.com

My eyes have been pretty much glued to Google Finance for the last two days, what with the biggest stock drop since 9/11 and all. It’s interesting to watch pan out… I’m not incredibly pessimistic about things in the long term, but it makes me wonder how much our economy will change in terms of who pulls the strings.

Merrill Lynch got really lucky and was bought out by Bank of America, saving them from bankruptcy or a federal bailout. Bank of America’s been doing OK, but I have to wonder what will happen when they grow so big that the federal government can’t afford for them to fail. Will they get bailed out? At what cost?

I noticed that my bank, Wells Fargo, has done pretty well through all of this. Word is that they’re much more conservative in their commercial banking and mortgage operations, and didn’t bring financial hell upon themselves because they weren’t giving out crap mortgages in the first place.

More disturbing to me is how the Fed will be bailing out AIG, the country’s largest insurance company, and taking an 80% ownership stake in the company. This means that the federal government will own the country’s largest insurer. While I don’t completely subscribe to laissez-faire economics and politics, this definitely seems a bit off. Let me get this straight: our government is buying the biggest parts of the so-called “free-market” at the same time that it takes out huge deficit-spending loans from China to finance its prolonged occupation in a country that has its own budget surplus.
Yes. That most certainly makes sense. Now if you would please excuse me while I go wring out this towel that’s dripping with sarcasm.

I’m not opposed to socialized government ownership of things. But with how our government is handling the economy in a system that’s designed to minimize government interference in such things, it makes me think twice about putting the same people in charge of more stuff. (side note: Bush and McCain are still plugging our economy’s resilience and strength. Hmmmm…)

Looks like I’m down to writing here once every week or two these days…

School + Work + Side projects have me pretty busy these days. I often use the blog post entry window as a mirror with which to reflect upon myself, but more recently I’ve been finding myself doing it on walks or bike rides where I convince myself to turn the iPod off.

Things are good. And crazy at the same time. But somehow I’m still managing to enjoy myself…

This site is a great tool, check it out… Put in your basic tax information (nothing personal) and it calculates your tax cut under Barack Obama’s tax proposal - and how much more you will pay under McCain’s plan.

This is an important factor for conservatives to consider- the Republican party of the last eight years has abandoned the ideals of fiscal conservativism in pursuit of other priorities, such as their aggressive foreign policy agenda and expansions of executive privelege in an ever-more-powerful federal government. While the GOP once served the interests of responsible spending and limited government, this is no longer the case.

I make no claims that Barack Obama is himself a conservative- he is most certainly liberal in his views. However, his plans and policies (warning: PDF link) reach above partisan politics and should serve to benefit all Americans, not just liberals. Conservatives no longer have a party or candidate that truly stands for them, but I believe that Barack Obama’s tax cuts and other plans deserve a lot more attention from the displaced conservative demographic.