Oh Crap!

08/16/2007: Looks like we have another tragedy at the Crandall Canyon mine. MSNBC is reporting there has been another collapse and that medical helicopters are en route.

This is going to get uglier before it gets better. The miners have been trapped for almost two weeks.

UPDATE: three people are dead, and six others are injured. Looks like rescue efforts have been suspended. Bob Murray is still running his mouth like a horse’s ass.

Vox Day on Abortion Supporters

08/16/2007: Anyone who reads these pages knows I tend to be a Vox Day fan. While theologically he’s substantially to the left of me–I’m not at all high on Open Theism–I do share most of his political and social sentiments. On abortion, he’s dead-on. Well, most of the time anyhow.

Today, he responds to an inquiry regarding how he ranks people who support abortion, or who have had abortions before. Here is his response:

I’d say just above Pol Pot and Mao, but below Hitler, Choibalsan and Bierut.

Well, that’s probably a stretch, at least in some of the cases.

First off, with respect to radical feminist leaders, he’s absolutely correct: they are worse than Hitler. Much of Hitler’s genocide focused on Jews, but the radical feminist leaders in fact are waging a war against all civilization.

As for rank-and-file radical feminists, I’d rank them as misguided pawns who haven’t a clue what they really are supporting. Most of the feminists I know think they are supporting more awareness for abused children, abused spouses, rape victims, etc. They are pro-choice on abortion because that is what they have been taught that good feminists must believe, even if they would not have abortions themselves.

Other feminists, on the other hand, fit the Vox classification.

As for women who have had abortions, that is a mixed bag, as not all women who have had abortions were willing participants. Even among those who were willing, many were duped while others went on to regret the hell out of it later.

I can speak from firsthand experience: from 1991 to 1993 I worked as a counselor at a crisis pregnancy center. My client load during that time was substantial: over 500 clients on a part-time schedule. 

Most clients came in for the free pregnancy tests and had every intention of keeping their babies.

Some clients, however, were abortion-minded: they knew they were probably pregnant and were determined to have an abortion if they tested positive.

Not one of those abortion-minded clients claimed she was raped.

Several of those clients were inclined against having the abortion, but were being pressured into it by their parents. We persuaded a few of them to keep, but most would go on to have abortions. The threat of being thrown out of the house was too much for them. They were certainly not monsters, and in that respect I would say Vox is wrong in those particular cases.

We had other clients, however, who knew darn well what they were doing. Some were cheating on their husbands and wanted to cover it up. Others were college students who didn’t want the baby to “f**k my life up”.

Those cases contributed substantially to my gray hair count.

As for women who had prior abortions, the dynamic was quite interesting.

  1. Not one of them was happy about it.
  2. Not one of them said she would do it again.
  3. Every single one of them had some symptom of post-abortion syndrome.
  4. Most of them had gone on to become Christians later–or went back to the Fold.
  5. None of them had more than one abortion.

I am not going to suggest that my experiences would be reflected by all former CPC counselors, but in terms of evil, I’d say the sobering truth is that they reflect a depravity that is in all of us. Given the proper stimulus and opportunity, anyone is capable of any manner of evil.

Noah (alcohol), Abraham (adultery, lying), Judah (whoremongering), King David (adultery, murder), and Solomon (idolatry, high taxation, lots of strange wives) were no less evil than anyone I counseled.

I must admit, though: I have no use for people who–claiming to be Christian–insist that feminism is a good thing and that abortion represents anything short of human tragedy.

How Would I Invest Now?

08/16/2007: The meltdown in the financial markets will not be over any time soon. There is far too much consumer debt, too much government debt, and much of that debt has very unstable service structure in the form of variable rate components.

Don’t believe all the talk about subprime mortgages, as it is not the “subprime” loans that are causing the problem, but rather the variable-rate loans. Right now, the variable-rate subprime loans are taking the hit; keep in mind, however, that many prime loans–especially the jumbo loans, over 50% of which are variable-rate–have yet to rear their ugly head.

The credit crunch is impacting the entire economy, because when banks tighten up their lending requirements, the cost of doing business goes up for everyone. For a company, the cost of capital goes up. For you and me, the cost of borrowing goes up because (a) interest rates will be higher and (b) more up-front collateral will be required.

When businesses must pay a higher price to operate, then that cuts into profit margins and even drives some firms into the red. That means–you guessed it–layoffs.

Some people might think, “Big fat hairy deal! A few hedge funds are blowing up. Why should I care?” Trouble is, it’s no longer a few rich people who are putting money into hedge funds. Mutual funds, pensions, investment banks, and global investors have poured money into hedge funds. And hedge funds have poured a lot of money into credit markets, as they have provided the capital that has driven the growth of exotic loan products that carry substantial risks.

Those firms also provide backing for interest-rate “swaps”, which banks use to hedge their asset-liability balance against interest rate shocks. When the credit markets become volatile, the cost of purchasing such products gets higher. That cost is passed onto borrowers in the form of higher rates and higher collateral requirements.

To make a long story short, you and I will bear the brunt of the disaster.

Having said all of that, what can the little guy do to protect his ass(ets)? Toward that end, I would suggest the following:

(1) Consult a financial advisor who completely understands derivatives before putting money into any exotic hedging product. Transactions that involve commodities, currency hedges, and even options can be very risky. As Laise, Browning, Levitz, and Karmin reported in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, many middle-America types have tried to use tools that professional investors use–which include very complex use of derivatives–and that has not been terribly successful. That said, there is an option strategy that is very useful–and safe–that I highly recommend: the “protective put”.

(2) For your stock positions, I highly recommend “protective puts”, which are options to sell units of stock at a given price. That would protect you from large drops in your stock prices.

(3) If you have any debt that is variable-rate, then take a bite out of your pride and refinance to a fixed rate. It will cost you money now, but it sure beats the heck out of foreclosure and/or bankruptcy.

(4) If you have not done so, start building up that emergency fund. 6 months worth. Take a second job to do this if you have to. The unemployment picture is about to get ugly in the next 18 months.

(5) If you have credit card debt, pay it off. Quickly. Otherwise, you will find your rates going up, and this will end up in higher monthly payments and potentially a ding on your credit rating.

(6) As for specific investments, I would take most of my money out of stocks for now, leaving about 15% in stocks, 50% in money-market accounts, 5% in international funds, and 15% in inflation-indexed bond funds and another 15% in reverse-index funds. In another 6 months, it might be a really good time to get back into stocks, but I’d rather keep the money on the sidelines and watch the crash for now.

For that 15% stock portfolio, what would I buy? I’d stick 5% in an S&P500 index fund, and the other 10% I would stick in some relatively stable stocks. SYSCO Corporatin (SYY) might be one of my picks, as would EDS. If was going to speculate, I’d put a small amount on Royal Dutch Shell.