link round-up

[cellio]

Maritan Headsets (from Joel on Software) is a long but worthwhile article on software standards -- both not having them early enough, and having them and trying to enforce them. Parts of it made me laugh out loud, like the paragraph containing this passage: "[...] but of course when you plug the headphones into FireQx 3.0 lo and behold they explode in your hands because of a slight misunderstanding about some obscure thing in the spec which nobody really understands called hasLayout, and everybody understands that when it's raining the hasLayout property is true and the voltage is supposed to increase to support the windshield-wiper feature, but there seems to be some debate over whether hail and snow are rain for the purposes of hasLayout..."

Rescue me: a fed bailout crosses a line seems (to this non-expert) like a good analysis of what just happened to the market and the dollar. (Need a login ID? Try BugMeNot.) I am more scared, and more angry, about our government's economic policies than I've been in a while. As someone on my subscription list said (I forget who), the people who actually took personal responsibility and saved rather than spending recklessly are the ones who are going to get hammered by this, while the idiots who bought houses (or corporate holdings) they couldn't afford and racked up tons of debt will be bailed out because we can't stand to say "too bad you were an idiot".

As long as I'm saying "too bad"... too bad, Michigan and Florida. Agreed.

On a lighter note: Garfield Minus Garfield is surreal. And since seeing it a week or so ago, I haven't been able to read Garfield "straight".

Comments

[sethg]

We really need some sort of financial education in our high schools.

As osewalrus points out in his most excellent rant, the people who loaned out all this money had plenty of financial education.

[fauxklore]

I have no sympathy for them either. They knew the risks they were taking in most cases. Which is why subprime interest rates were and always will be higher than rates for people with good credit. (It's also why interest rates on long term bonds are longer than on short term bonds - you are running more risk of default, as well as the risk of inflation.)

The most culpable people are probably the middlemen - mortgage brokers advertising absurd teaser rates and encouraging people to lie on loan applications to borrow more than they could otherwise. Consumer education is not a foolproof solution, but I believe it would help at least some people understand that somebody trying to sell you something is looking out for their interests, not yours.