Category Archives: Uncategorized

How in the world were these bundled up “subprime” mortgages passed off as being low-risk? That is one thing I couldn’t understand about this whole disaster.

This article, What the ‘Subprime’ Mess Is Really About, offered a possible explanation:

In truth, lenders have been systematically concealing the market value of this paper through a fairly simple and universal manipulation of the foreclosure process: when a property is foreclosed and “publicly” auctioned, the lender itself bids in the amount it claims to be owed at the auction, thus insuring that there is never a loss on the loan itself, since the loan is always “paid in full” at the auction.

When it is the successful bidder – as it almost always is – the lender then winds up owning the property. When the property is finally sold by the lender, there is normally a loss; but technically, that is not a loss on the loan itself. That does not damage the value of the original “paper.”

In this way mortgage paper and its many derivatives can be and have been marketed as very “safe” investments, providing a “good return” with “no risk of loss.” But of course there is no such thing. There is a risk of loss; it has just been hidden.

This one has got me interested: The Best One-Shot Investment on Earth

This is a powerful article by someone who really knows what they are talking about.

Science and technology will continue to advance at an ever increasing pace. It’s an exciting time to be alive:

You may not know it, but you are probably living in the final generation anywhere on the earth to endure poverty, disease and scarcity of physical goods – at least in the way such things have existed from the dawn of civilization until now.

Ron Paul gets a lively write-up in TIME:
The Ron Paul Revolution

Good to see he’s getting attention. The article isn’t perfectly framed, but at least people will find out about him. Looks like Tom Cruise even had some encouraging words for the good doctor.

I’m not kidding! Did you know that you don’t have to visit this website just to see what’s new? It’s the 21st century and there’s a better way…

Enter RSS.

RSS is just a way to use XML to represent content, but it has big implications. You can “subscribe” to any web page with an RSS feed and be instantly aware of any updates to that site.

For instance, my friend Justin created a blog that I’m interested in. But it’s inefficient for me to visit his site everyday to see if anything is new. Usually there’s nothing new, but you never know when a new post may show up.

All blogs and news sites offer an RSS feed, which contains a list of all the newest articles or news items. The cool thing is you can use a “feed reader” program to do the work of checking all of your favorite RSS feeds to see if anything is new. It’s kind of like an email program, but in reverse… No one is sending you anything, the program is actively checking all of the feeds you’re interested in. It will show you all the new articles and allow you to read them right within the program. So whether you’re interested in 5 sites or 100 sites, the feed reader will make sure you’re informed about all the new developments, without having to remember to visit all of those sites yourself.

Here’s what you need to get started: Google Reader. I use it, and highly recommend it.

This video can introduce you to the cool features of Google Reader.

One tip I have: only subscribe to RSS feeds related to specific topics you’re interested in.. For me, it doesn’t make much sense to subscribe to a site like Slashdot, because I know that they will be posting many articles per day, and it will just clutter my Google Reader inbox. Use the feed reader to keep yourself informed about those odd little things that you care about, but you don’t know when the new content might show up. For instance, I came across a neat programming language called Scala, and I’m interested to track it’s development, so I subscribed to an RSS feed to keep me informed.

This is a big shift happening.. How did you find out what was new before? Newspapers and magazines make the decisions about what to inform their readers about. Using an RSS feed reader is like being able to read a personalized newspaper that exactly matches your interests. Now, the power is shifting to the individuals to subscribe to all the little things that matter to them. So take charge of this new power, choose content that interests you, and stay informed about the things that matter to you.

So be sure to click the subscribe to this site’s RSS feed, and you’ll never be out of the loop again!