I looked at the financial news this evening. The NYSE fell again, but more frightening were the huge drops in stock markets around the world. There has been fuzzy dealing in our financial institutions during the past twenty-five or thirty years, the crop of which we are now reaping. This is a link to a video about the Lincoln Savings and Loan scandal and Charles Keating. His good buddy during the rape of the S & L was John McCain. So, what are we thinking?
http://my.barackobama.com/keatingvideo
I was pretty young during the S&L scandal, but I remember it costing a lot of money to clean up …
Ah yes, I remember it well. Not long after we moved to Oregon I got a job as the accounting/data processing department supervisor for a company who was buying up loans from the failed savings and loans at a discount rate and servicing them.
It was an interesting job. The collections department was separate from accounting, which was a plus. I hate doing collections but enjoy computer challenges. I was able to write some programs which calculated how much we should bid on portfolios using standard “future value” formulas which were based on delinquency percentages.
And I know that I’ve mentioned that I worked for the IRS in “Non-Masterfile billing” during the Nixon years. Yep, I’ve seen interesting times. And I believe that we may have more to come.
Of course the other side is screaming “friends with a terrorist!”