This coming Saturday is the Red Bull Flugtag, the event where amateur teams build humorous "flying machines", then jump off a ramp where they invariably "fly" all of 30 feet....straight down.
It sounds like it should be a hoot and a half. As a cool front is coming through on Friday, and the temps on Saturday are expected to top out in the mid-80's, K and I are seriously considering going.
My only hesitation is the crowd/parking situation. We tried to go to the Red Bull Soap Box Derby back in the spring, but it was an uphill hike both ways from the parking area 20 blocks to the event site. We arrived there and my knees took a look around and said, "no thanks".
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It was exactly 5 years ago that our economy began it's near-fatal meltdown. Greed ruled over prudence back then, and lenders were making terribly bad loans, then selling them to unwary investors as top-quality thanks to phony bond ratings.
Now, with real estate loans again being packaged by banks and sold to investors, Standard & Poor's has again lowered it's bond rating standards in order to bring in more business.
Talk about a conflict of interest! Banks directly pay the rating agencies (the Big Three are S&P, Moody's, and Fitch) for a review of the bonds they are hoping to sell, and they are shopping around to see who will give them the most favorable rating. "Tell me what I want to hear, I'll pay you lots of money." Since lowering their standards, S&P's market share has jumped from 18% to 69%.
So what have we learned? Five years ago banks were "too big to fail". Today they're bigger. Five years ago bond ratings were a joke. Today it looks like they're headed that way again. So much for "financial reform". Bank Lobbyists, 1; The Public Interest, 0.
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Here's a thought....maybe we could make that Flugtag jump from 300 feet, and get all the Ivory Tower Bankers to enter themselves as a team. :)
S
Bring back the days that banks loaned money and then owned the mtg. 20% down, income to cover 30% of the payment, proof of both. Pumping up home ownership that ends in foreclosure is a really bad idea. Make the lender own the risk, and the risk will be minimized.
ReplyDeleteExactly! So if you can see it and I can see it, why can't those numbnuts in Washington see it?
DeleteThis would be news to the guy I was arguing with a couple months ago who said banks would never intentionally make bad loans. lol
ReplyDeleteThey had a Red Bull airplane race not far from where I work but I didn't go. I imagine there'd be too many stoner types at a Red Bull event.
Perhaps you should encourage Senator Elizabeth Warren to run for president. She's deeply concerned with our flawed banking system.
ReplyDeleteI've been keeping up with her efforts on this for a long time, Steve. :)
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ReplyDeleteEven 30 feet seems a bit suicidal to me.
ReplyDeleteThe Red Bull Flugtag has been in Tampa a few times, and I never went. So I think you should go and fight the crowds I didn't want to fight. And take the pictures I didn't get to take.
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