We're back!

Well I am back and taking over the blog from Anna.

Well I successfully tricked Anna long enough for us to plan a wedding and have a wedding =) So that is good, business is going really well and I will now be posting my random thoughts and funny links here....

Hope all of you have had a nice year and a half break from the Chianna, but now we're back and ready to blog!

Happy Square Root Day!

Square Root Day (3/3/09) today, math nerds everywhere rejoice

A rare math holiday, Square Root Day is just a warm-up for Pi day

Zack Teibloom


Less than two weeks before the famed Pi day (3.14), we’re treated to another math nerd holiday: square root day.

For those of you who don’t remember junior high math, a square root is when a number can be divided by the same number. Therefore, 3/3/09 qualifies and is the last chance we’ll have for a holiday like this for seven years.

“These days are like calendar comets, you wait and wait and wait for them, then they brighten up your day--and poof--they’re gone,” Ron Gordon, a Redwood City, Calif., teacher who organized a contest intended to publicize the event, told the Associated Press. The prize? $339.

To celebrate, people often cut root vegetables into squares. When that gets boring, they think about what pie they’ll make for Pi day. Hurray for math!

Other square root days this century include: 1/1/01 (but more people were celebrating the Millennium), 2/2/04, today, 4/4/16, 5/5/25, 6/6/36, 7/7/49, 8/8/56, 9/9/81.
3/3/09

Engaged!

Wow so a month with no posts and this will probably one of our biggest news items ever to make up for it!

So we are now engaged and officially on our way to becoming Chianna for realz!

Holiday Letters and Cards

So we have been noticing that everyone has been sending out these holiday cards and update letters....So we figured we would try to do the same, but we would save the trees so we will just do ours online. Enjoy!

The year started with us going to Tahoe so one of us could snowboard while the other one sat by the outside bar with a fire pit to read a good book, I will let you figure out which one did the sport while the other read the book.

In April we decided that we really hadn't done anything in four months so we decided to take a day trip up to San Francisco and did some touristy stuff. Such as the Japanese Tea Garden and the rest of Golden Gate Park. After which, we decided to not be cheap and drive across the Golden Gate Bridge to the Vista point. It was probably the best weather for us to have done this little outing! Just proves that if we don't do much then when we do something everything will work out!

In May I got ditched by Anna while she went to Stockholm. She left for two weeks for work while I sat at home and did productive things such as playing video games!

In June I got ditched again while Anna went to some bachelorette party. Once again I sat at home and did some productive things such as video games. After Anna returned we took a little trip to Maui, which was Anna's best flight of the year since it was with me! ( I am glad that I am writing this so that she will only read this after everyone else probably has )

In July we went to Anna's best friend's wedding. It was fun to see and meet everyone. It was a great day to have a wedding and couldn't have been any nicer. It was so nice that I don't think I need to think about a wedding for a long time to come.

We also went to Yosemite in July. It was the closest I will get to camping ever! The only thing that could have been better was the weather. Sadly with all the record amount of fires we had this year in California the viability was nil. But it still was beautiful and we realized how close it really was to us, so there will be a follow up trip in 09 for sure.

Then it was another long break from travel for us until December. Where we did three trips in a row to Atascadero the day after Thanksgiving to see some of Anna's family that I had never met. Then we were off to Chico to see our friends graduation from police academy, which actually was closer to the movie than I could ever imagine. After Chico we had a few days off until we went to Vegas for a "business" trip. We enjoyed a nice meal at the Wynn and then took in a show at MGM. It was a great trip!

Well that wraps up the year until now. As for the rest of the year we will be doing a Christmas trip down to Atascadero. After which we will be sitting at home and hopefully staying up to meet the New Year...and if not that is why we have Tivo!

We hope you all have had a great year!

Chianna

Stimulus Package

Hopefully the Obama team will spend the money wisely. Especially since the 100 biggest metropolitan areas account for 65% of America's population and 75% of its output. Hopefully they won't build bridges to no where and they repair the bridges we already have.

Top 100 Cities:

1. New York, New York (pop 8,213,839)
2. Los Angeles, California (pop 3,827,953)
3. Chicago, Illinois (pop 2,839,944)
4. Houston, Texas (pop 2,076,189)
5. Phoenix, Arizona (pop 1,473,223)
6. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (pop 1,460,301)
7. San Antonio, Texas (pop 1,262,858)
8. San Diego, California (pop 1,258,961)
9. Dallas, Texas (pop 1,213,608)
10. Detroit, Michigan (pop 920,645)
11. San Jose, California (pop 912,736)
12. Indianapolis, Indiana (pop 789,181)
13. Jacksonville, Florida (pop 787,735)
14. San Francisco, California (pop 751,461)
15. Hempstead, New York (pop 744,344)
16. Columbus, Ohio (pop 738,665)
17. Austin, Texas (pop 703,592)
18. Memphis, Tennessee (pop 676,738)
19. Baltimore, Maryland (pop 640,064)
20. Charlotte, North Carolina (pop 633,259)
21. Fort Worth, Texas (pop 622,811)
22. Milwaukee, Wisconsin (pop 600,787)
23. Boston, Massachusetts (pop 596,638)
24. El Paso, Texas (pop 591,168)
25. Washington, District of Columbia (pop 582,049)
26. Nashville-Davidson, Tennessee (pop 579,738)
27. Seattle, Washington (pop 577,727)
28. Denver, Colorado (pop 566,359)
29. Las Vegas, Nevada (pop 544,887)
30. Portland, Oregon (pop 536,871)
31. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (pop 532,861)
32. Tucson, Arizona (pop 516,791)
33. Albuquerque, New Mexico (pop 498,716)
34. Atlanta, Georgia (pop 483,108)
35. Long Beach, California (pop 471,957)
36. Brookhaven, New York (pop 468,034)
37. Fresno, California (pop 459,540)
38. New Orleans, Louisiana (pop 453,726)
39. Sacramento, California (pop 451,261)
40. Cleveland, Ohio (pop 450,046)
41. Mesa, Arizona (pop 443,710)
42. Kansas City, Missouri (pop 443,702)
43. Virginia Beach, Virginia (pop 438,191)
44. Omaha, Nebraska (pop 414,798)
45. Oakland, California (pop 394,715)
46. Miami, Florida (pop 383,048)
47. Tulsa, Oklahoma (pop 381,370)
48. Honolulu, Hawaii (pop 375,825)
49. Minneapolis, Minnesota (pop 374,682)
50. Colorado Springs, Colorado (pop 371,287)
51. Arlington, Texas (pop 362,385)
52. Wichita, Kansas (pop 355,015)
53. St. Louis, Missouri (pop 352,572)
54. Raleigh, North Carolina (pop 345,584)
55. Santa Ana, California (pop 339,685)
56. Anaheim, California (pop 331,885)
57. Cincinnati, Ohio (pop 331,310)
58. Tampa, Florida (pop 326,887)
59. Islip, New York (pop 326,631)
60. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (pop 316,615)
61. Toledo, Ohio (pop 301,493)
62. Aurora, Colorado (pop 297,081)
63. Oyster Bay, New York (pop 294,520)
64. Bakersfield, California (pop 293,456)
65. Riverside, California (pop 287,739)
66. Stockton, California (pop 283,657)
67. Corpus Christi, Texas (pop 282,022)
68. Buffalo, New York (pop 278,398)
69. Newark, New Jersey (pop 277,903)
70. St. Paul, Minnesota (pop 277,015)
71. Anchorage, Alaska (pop 276,613)
72. Lexington-Fayette, Kentucky (pop 272,219)
73. Plano, Texas (pop 250,067)
74. St. Petersburg, Florida (pop 248,191)
75. Fort Wayne, Indiana (pop 247,849)
76. Glendale, Arizona (pop 244,672)
77. Lincoln, Nebraska (pop 242,676)
78. Jersey City, New Jersey (pop 239,198)
79. Greensboro, North Carolina (pop 237,428)
80. Norfolk, Virginia (pop 237,349)
81. Chandler, Arizona (pop 232,312)
82. Henderson, Nevada (pop 231,880)
83. Birmingham, Alabama (pop 231,877)
84. Scottsdale, Arizona (pop 228,119)
85. Madison, Wisconsin (pop 223,719)
86. Baton Rouge, Louisiana (pop 222,669)
87. North Hempstead, New York (pop 220,975)
88. Hialeah, Florida (pop 218,529)
89. Chesapeake, Virginia (pop 216,644)
90. Garland, Texas (pop 216,012)
91. Orlando, Florida (pop 215,190)
92. Babylon, New York (pop 214,275)
93. Lubbock, Texas (pop 212,341)
94. Chula Vista, California (pop 211,609)
95. Akron, Ohio (pop 210,526)
96. Rochester, New York (pop 209,317)
97. Winston-Salem, North Carolina (pop 208,393)
98. Durham, North Carolina (pop 206,614)
99. Reno, Nevada (pop 206,375)
100. Laredo, Texas (pop 206,285)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

We are having Thanksgiving with the Chiangs then heading down South to the Kinney's to spend time with both families for the holiday.

We wish all our friends and families a safe and joyful holiday season!

We will be out of town every weekend until the New Year so most likely the next post will be in the New Year.

LOL robbing Peter to pay Paul....

This should serve as a good warning to the US government to think before bailing out the auto makers. When you provide a bridge loan to a company you want to make sure that once they cross that bridge they will know where to go......

A.I.G. Borrows Another $20.9 Billion From the Fed

October 30, 2008, 5:22 pm

• Link to This
• E-mail this

• Topics
  • Legal
• Industries
  • Financial Services

American International Group has found another place to borrow billions of dollars from the government: the Federal Reserve’s commercial paper program.

The distressed insurance company disclosed Thursday afternoon that it was borrowing up to $20.9 billion from the Fed’s program, under which the central bank is buying companies’ short-term debt in an effort to unfreeze the market for commercial paper.

A.I.G. already has access to two government credit lines totaling $122.8 billion in order to avoid collapse, and the company’s borrowing from the commercial paper program enabled it to reduce its debt under those lines.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, A.I.G. said four of its affiliates had exchanged commercial paper for cash from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It said in the filing that it would use the proceeds to refinance its outstanding commercial paper, as well as pay down its initial credit line of $85 billion.

The Fed said A.I.G. reduced its debt under the two existing credit lines to $83.5 billion, from $90.3 billion a week ago, by using cash from the commercial paper program, Bloomberg News reports.

With the latest loans of up to $20.9 billion from the Fed, the insurer’s borrowing now totals as much as $104.4 billion.

An A.I.G. spokesman, Nicholas Ashooh, told Bloomberg that the terms of the commercial paper program were better than those for the original $85 billion credit line, which has a higher interest rate.

“They’re paying off a Fed loan with another kind of government subsidy — it’s like using one credit card to pay off another credit card,” Robert Haines, an analyst at the research firm CreditSights, told Bloomberg. “If they make progress paying off debts over time, I don’t think it’ll be viewed as necessarily a bad thing.”

A.I.G. is rapidly running through the $122.8 billion made available by the Fed. Last week, A.I.G.’s chief executive, Edward M. Liddy, said the company might need to borrow even more money.

This enormous need for cash has raised questions about how a company claiming to be solvent in September could have developed such a big hole by October. Some analysts say that at least part of the shortfall must have been there all along, hidden by irregular accounting.

How quickly we forget!

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9c0de7db153ef933a0575ac0a96f958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print

Amazing that they could understand the consequences even before the tech bubble blew up...

September 30, 1999

Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending

By STEVEN A. HOLMES

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.

''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''

Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.

''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''

Under Fannie Mae's pilot program, consumers who qualify can secure a mortgage with an interest rate one percentage point above that of a conventional, 30-year fixed rate mortgage of less than $240,000 -- a rate that currently averages about 7.76 per cent. If the borrower makes his or her monthly payments on time for two years, the one percentage point premium is dropped.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings.

Fannie Mae officials stress that the new mortgages will be extended to all potential borrowers who can qualify for a mortgage. But they add that the move is intended in part to increase the number of minority and low income home owners who tend to have worse credit ratings than non-Hispanic whites.

Home ownership has, in fact, exploded among minorities during the economic boom of the 1990's. The number of mortgages extended to Hispanic applicants jumped by 87.2 per cent from 1993 to 1998, according to Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. During that same period the number of African Americans who got mortgages to buy a home increased by 71.9 per cent and the number of Asian Americans by 46.3 per cent.

In contrast, the number of non-Hispanic whites who received loans for homes increased by 31.2 per cent.

Despite these gains, home ownership rates for minorities continue to lag behind non-Hispanic whites, in part because blacks and Hispanics in particular tend to have on average worse credit ratings.

In July, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed that by the year 2001, 50 percent of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's portfolio be made up of loans to low and moderate-income borrowers. Last year, 44 percent of the loans Fannie Mae purchased were from these groups.

The change in policy also comes at the same time that HUD is investigating allegations of racial discrimination in the automated underwriting systems used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to determine the credit-worthiness of credit applicants.

Will Batman save us?

• “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” - Thomas Jefferson

"every movement in the stock market must have a rational foundation...is one of the greatest errors in the history of human thought." -- Robert Shiller

“The government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” - Ronald Reagan

Thank goodness DC gets a bailout too!

From www.hotair.com

However, the Senate did add a few winners to this new version:

New Tax earmarks in Bailout bill
- Film and Television Productions (Sec. 502)
- Wooden Arrows designed for use by children (Sec. 503)
- 6 page package of earmarks for litigants in the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident, Alaska (Sec. 504)

Tax earmark “extenders” in the bailout bill.
- Virgin Island and Puerto Rican Rum (Section 308)
- American Samoa (Sec. 309)
- Mine Rescue Teams (Sec. 310)
- Mine Safety Equipment (Sec. 311)
- Domestic Production Activities in Puerto Rico (Sec. 312)
- Indian Tribes (Sec. 314, 315)
- Railroads (Sec. 316)
- Auto Racing Tracks (317)
- District of Columbia (Sec. 322)
- Wool Research (Sec. 325)

Thanks Bill

Op Ed in the Washington Post:

(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/23/AR2008092302322_pf.html)


How Main Street Will Profit

By William H. Gross
Wednesday, September 24, 2008; A23

Capitalism is a delicate balance between production and finance. Today, our seemingly guaranteed living standard is threatened, much like it has been in previous recessions or, some would say, the Depression. Finance has run amok because of oversecuritization, poor regulation and the excessively exuberant spirits of investors; the delicate balance has once again been disrupted; production, and with it jobs and our national standard of living, is declining.

If this were a textbook recession, policy prescriptions would recommend two aspirin and bed rest -- a healthy dose of interest rate cuts and a fiscal package that mildly expanded the deficit. That, of course, has been the attempted remedy over the past 12 months. But recent events have made it apparent that this downturn differs from recessions past. Today's housing bubble, unlike that of the stock market's before it, was financed with excessive and poorly regulated mortgage debt, and as housing prices began to tumble from the peak, the delinquencies and foreclosures have led to a downward spiral of debt liquidation that in turn led to even lower prices and more foreclosures.

And so, instead of mild medication and rest, it became apparent that quadruple bypass surgery is necessary. The extreme measures are extended government guarantees and the formation of an RTC-like holding company housed within the Treasury. Critics call this a bailout of Wall Street; in fact, it is anything but. I estimate the average price of distressed mortgages that pass from "troubled financial institutions" to the Treasury at auction will be 65 cents on the dollar, representing a loss of one-third of the original purchase price to the seller, and a prospective yield of 10 to 15 percent to the Treasury. Financed at 3 to 4 percent via the sale of Treasury bonds, the Treasury will therefore be in a position to earn a positive carry or yield spread of at least 7 to 8 percent. Calls for appropriate oversight of this auction process are more than justified. There are disinterested firms, some not even based on Wall Street, with the expertise to evaluate these complicated pools of mortgages and other assets to assure taxpayers that their money is being wisely invested. My estimate of double-digit returns assumes lengthy ownership of the assets and is in turn dependent on the level of home foreclosures, but this program is, in fact, directed to prevent just that.

In effect, the Treasury will have the fate of the American taxpayer in its hands. The Resolution Trust Corp., created in the late 1980s to deal with the savings and loan crisis, dealt with previously purchased real estate, which was flushed into government hands with a "best efforts" future liquidation. Today, the purchase of junk mortgages, securitized credit card receivables and even student loans will be bought at prices significantly below "par" or cost, and prospectively at levels allowing for capital gains. This is a Wall Street-friendly package only to the extent that it frees up funds for future loans and economic growth. Politicians afraid of parallels to legislation that enabled the Iraq war are raising concerns about a rush to judgment, but the need for speed is clear. In this case, there really are weapons of mass destruction -- financial derivatives -- that threaten to destroy our system from within. Move quickly, Washington, with appropriate safeguards.

The Treasury proposal will not be a bailout of Wall Street but a rescue of Main Street, as lending capacity and confidence is restored to our banks and the delicate balance between production and finance is given a chance to work its magic. Democratic Party earmarks mandating forbearance on home mortgage foreclosures will be critical as well. If this program is successful, however, it is obvious that the free market and Wild West capitalism of recent decades will be forever changed. Future economic textbooks are likely to teach that while capitalism is the most dynamic and productive system ever conceived, it is most efficient over the long term when there is another delicate balance -- between private incentive and government oversight.

The writer is chief investment officer and founder of the investment management firm PIMCO.

How bad is it?

People are asking how bad the panic is right now....the chart here might lend some insight into the amount of panic out there.

A little humor to get us through the tough times.

Microsoft is back baby!

Forget the Mac and PC guys...this one takes the cake.

haha check out the new ad:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=gBWPf1BWtkw

Wow.....we should find some more tubes to speed up the internets

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTonHRerMC4&feature=related

Has it been a month?!

Has it been a month already?! We've missed you, did you miss us?

So, in a month we have actually done a lot! Let's start with our trip to Yosemite. Thankfully, we went when it wasn't on fire, but sadly we did go when the rest of California was on fire. So as you can see in our pictures it wasn't the best time to take pictures.

The smoke was visible all through the valley, and didn't ever leave. But it did clear a little as the temperature started to rise and the smoke made it in to the jet stream, TAKE THAT EASTERN STATES!





This trip was probably the closest I will ever come to camping. As you can see on the right this is my "tent" and yes it did have a bathroom, including a shower, in it.

And if any of you would like to repeat my camping adventures, we stayed at the Evergreen Lodge right by the entrance to Hetch Hetchy near the North entrance to the park.










Here you can see the trees in the Mariposa Grove of Trees. We took a bus tour with all the retired people through the park. Much easier than driving! Not only was our bus driver ridiculously knowledgeable, but he had a few good jokes too. In the two pictures you can see AK and me standing in a tree, one of the few times I have felt truly small in my life.















And in the second picture you can see a couple standing next to a super large tree. The funny thing about that couple is that the tour group we were with yelled a them to run up to the tree before our bus pulled away.....much like lemmings they complied. But yes those are two people waving from a tree that is nicknamed the cloths pin tree...for obvious reasons.

Much more on our other adventures in my next post....maybe even later today!

Maui continued....

We are actually facing the sunset not facing the camera and not using our flash like newbs!


All in all it was a great trip! A needed break from our crazy lives of working hard and not playing hard...

Sorry for all the short entries, but work is mega busy! Will catch up after our trip this weekend to Yosemite.