I know I'm not an economist but...

The headline for this article in the NYTimes is "Fed to Lend $200 Billion More to Ease Market Strain ":

Scrambling to ease the strain on the credit market, the Federal Reserve announced a $200 billion program on Tuesday that would allow financial institutions, including the nation’s major investment banks, to borrow ultra-safe Treasury money by using some of their riskiest investments as collateral.

I have to admit that while I think I have a better grasp on the subprime loan crisis than most people, I don't fully understand it enough to teach a class on it. But doesn't this seem bad?

Funnily enough, the responses to the emails we sent out on mortgage lending reform were all about how we shouldn't bail out people who aren't smart enough to make good decisions. People don't realize that even if they have good credit, they're going to be affected by this. The interest rate on their savings is going down, their 401(k) is dwindling, the value of their homes will go down as well. I'm not sure how else to make the issue more personal. Meanwhile, in the latest in a long series of bailouts, the government is bailing out these big companies (ostensibly to shore up the stock market and help the economy- here's where my understanding gets fuzzy), and no one is screaming that they should fend for themselves.

The new seven deadly sins

The NY Times article on the new seven deadly sins:

Lust, gluttony, greed and the rest of the seven deadly sins gathered in the 6th century will have to get used to a modern companion. A Vatican official has articulated seven new categories of sin “due to the phenomenon of globalization.”

“While sin used to concern mostly the individual, today it has mainly a social resonance,” Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti told L’Osservatore Romano, Vatican City’s local paper. Bloomberg News parsed his remarks into a clip-n-savable list:

1. “Bioethical” violations such as birth control

2. “Morally dubious” experiments such as stem cell research

3. Drug abuse

4. Polluting the environment

5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor

6. Excessive wealth

7. Creating poverty

The message, according to a leading scholar on Catholic thought talking to BBC News, was meant as a reality check to priests “not sufficiently attuned to some of the real evils in our world.” There is more to life than following the Ten Commandments, it would seem.

The seven deadly sins served another purpose, too: inspiring artists from Bosch to Balanchine. Can anyone picture a similar renaissance fueled by this new list. Or has it already happened?

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What would you add? or take off the list? It also seems harder to do a Top Chef challenge based on these sins...

Eyesore or work of art?

Nancy and Ned said it was kind of scary and weird. The Denver Post says otherwise...

"It took 16 years of legal squabbles, skepticism and extraordinary sacrifice, but the tortured creative journey of Luis Jimenez's "Mustang" finally came to a close in February with its installation at Denver International Airport.

The wait was worth it. The gleaming, 32-foot-tall sculpture of a rearing horse is nothing short of a masterpiece, a monumental public work in which Denver, and indeed the entire region, can justifiably take enormous pride.

As one of the first artworks many visitors will see upon arriving in the city, it makes a strong statement that Denver aspires to cultural sophistication at the same time that it takes pride in the distinctive art and history of the West."

Read the rest of the article here...

Maybe you have to see it in person to decide.