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We just finished the first season of kid pitch baseball for my son. It was a huge step up from coach pitch. We hung in there an gave it a shot.
My son struggled a bit with the increased speed of the ball. It’s tough for a nine year old to stand in there while another nine year old blasts the ball down past him. Finally, my son, tired of striking out, told me yesterday that he was just going to stand in the box. If the ball hit him, that’s fine. He would get on base. Curiously, that’s exactly what happened.
First pitch…whack! “Take your base!”
Today, he was playing second. First inning. Rocket line drive to second with a horrible bounce. “Whack!” He got hit again.
The picture above is what he left next to second base… what a season!
All the best
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You can’t turn on the news without being bombarded by gloom and doom stories about our economy, housing and the banking disaster. Who can blame you for being completely and utterly depressed and frustrated about the whole thing? If you’re like me, you’re mad as hell that some bad apples out there ruined your savings, jobs, security, etc.! I’ve written about my feelings on how we got to this point.
I feel compelled, however, to share with you my thoughts on the subject because we all need to focus on getting out of this mess. Mis-information in the media only confuses the matter and slows recovery. So, I’d like to focus on the “bank bailout” everyone’s talking about. I need you to understand what’s going on and how to recognize the truth from the river of news stories out there.
The first thing you need to accept is that banks are a vital part of our economic system. We need to have them to make things work. There is no question or doubt on this unless you want to go back to growing vegetables and working on the barter system. Therefore, to fix the economy, we need to fix the banks first.
This first step is what the TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) money is intended to do. It is money that is injected into the banks to prop them up and prevent them from going out of business. The TARP money was NEVER intended to flow through the banks to spur more lending. That would be phase 2 that TARP was not intended to deal with. So, please, don’t believe the news stories where a Senator is pontificating how he doesn’t understand why the TARP money is being horded by the banks. It isn’t to pay bonuses or to maintain fat cat lifestyles. Banks were supposed to hoard the money. That is how they are meant to stay in business.
You see, each bank needs to maintain certain ratios (established by law) of equity (assets) to liabilities. If a bank goes below those ratios, they cannot be a bank and they are closed down. As the banks used this “bad assets” as part of their equity, when the value of these assets went down (i.e., the housing bubble exploded), they were not able to maintain their ratios. The value of liabilities stayed the same but the value of assets plummeted! The government had to inject assets (i.e., cash) in order to get the ratios right again.
So far, $350 billion has been injected into the banks. The other half will be done soon by the Obama administration. This is a good thing, folks. We need the banks to stay afloat.
Once the banks are stabilized, Obama will have to face the more difficult question of how to fix those “bad assets.” That is the subject of another post.
I hope that clears things up a little for you. It’s not good news, but it’s important for you to know the truth.
All the best
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Happy New Year everyone!
I’m back from vacation and running some upgrades to the blog software. Hope you’re well.
All the best
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I wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas. As always, I hope that you practice living in the present today and not sweat the small stuff.
All the best
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“Remember, young one. It’s OK to question and try to understand more. It’s in our nature to be curious. It’s how we advance as a species. But, realize that understanding can only take you so far. Faith will take you the rest of the way.”
Jesuit school teacher, my high school, many moons ago
Have you ever taken the time to learn more about the universe and how it came to be? It’s a subject that fascinates me. It always has. It’s a subject that your kids may one day ask you about. Like me, you too may be fascinated.
Theoretical physics is the study of our world in an attempt to understand and explain it. It’s incredibly complex and is pursued by this world’s most brilliant minds. It is from theoretical physics that we get the leading scientific explanations of the origin of our universe. It is the study that gave birth to a theory called the Multiverse Theory.
The latest issue of Discovery Magazine has a wonderful article that explains this theory in layman’s terms (so that is how I think I understand it). The theory bases itself as an explanation to why our universe seems tailor-made for us (life as we know it). You see, theoretical physicists have noted that the universe has too many coincidences that allow for like to grow. Way too many for a simple “coincidence” explanation thereby leading to the question, “How can this universe be perfectly tailored to us?”
The thing that I find funny is how the supporters of the Multiverse Theory find it so impossible to consider that the answer may lie in faith (i.e., an intelligent creator). They refuse to acknowledge that understanding and science has taken them as far as it can take them and it is faith that will take them the rest of the way.
The only other explanation these theorists come up with is theorizing that there are an infinite number of universes along with ours. And, with all those iterations, we are lucky enough to live in one that has the exact requisites for maintaining life as we know it. In other words, with so many possibilities, coincidence is still the explanation for all things being right in this universe for life as we know it.
The article has a great explanation of the issue:
Physicists don’t like coincidences. They like even less the notion that life is somehow central to the universe, and yet recent discoveries are forcing them to confront that very idea. Life, it seems, is not an incidental component of the universe, burped up out of a random chemical brew on a lonely planet to endure for a few fleeting ticks of the cosmic clock. In some strange sense, it appears that we are not adapted to the universe; the universe is adapted to us.
I find that when science meets spirituality or religion, science always seems to focus on finding an alternative explanation. Oh well, lets wait and see what the Large Hadron Collider tests reveal…
In the end, I find a balanced person should do their best to understand science and explore their spirituality. It doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game where one side wins over the other. Both can co-exist in harmony.
What do you think?
All the best
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