Leveller

Knowfx, thanks for your response although it wasn't needed, as I also said in that post, I wasn't intending to single you out or requiring an explanation (despite the question mark) as I obviously don't know anything of your personal situation it was meant to be more general.

I guess to give another scenario, I've seen several homes be repossessed in our subdivision over the last 6 months, and I know for a fact that at least 50% of them were "investment/rental" properties.

I was trying to highlight that it's not exclusively an issue with the bank, as you say, how can a 0% down mortgage to a 23 yr old be a sensible mortgage to give or accept, much the same as an 80% mortage on a rental/investment property when they haven't even paid off their own home? I agree, the bank was certainly in the wrong to push forward with that, particularly since the numbers you quote above suggest that based on working 40 hr/wk you'd not even be making enough to make your mortage payment before tax every month and in your situation they quite obviously made a stupid judgement call on what would be an intelligent loan.

But by the same token I've seen people who work a reasonable job in an office, park their new F150 next to their wife's Hummer in front of their 450K home which they had a 500K mortage on so they could put in a pool and furnish the house, sit down at dinner complain about how much their student loan is costing them.

I can't imagine their dinner conversation should anything change more dramatically, but I can bet it would be that the oil company, government, banks, finance company, electric company etc. are all screwing them. Yes the lenders have a responsibility, but where is the accountability for the individual on their purchasing decisions? Should the standard sized home where I live be nearly 4,000 sq.ft is that really necessary?

I guess what needs to be addressed is that this isn't just a mortage issue and whether banks have made poor choices around who to lend money to (as I addressed in my first post it wasn't always that cut and dried as it being a choice depending on the applicant's status), JP Morgan, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley, 3 companies who seem to be riding the tide of this crisis reasonably well all have a portion of their assetts backed by mortages. The difference is they don't operate the same leveraged model with their trading/investments as Lehman brothers for example.

Baer Stearns had a leveraged model of (around) 30:1, or for each $1 they had in capital/assets they were gambling with 30, so when the value of those assets drop 30% their borrowing/gambling ratio goes to 40:1. If you take JP Morgan where the model was more of a 10:1 ratio, then a 30% drop in value, still keeps them at a relatively low ratio or 13:1 (ish).

It's not necessarily who they leant money to, or the decrease in value that kills them, it's the leveraged model they operate.

You see where I'm going with this, it's more than just mortages with poor decisions on the part of the lender and borrower, it's more than regulating the finance industry, it's a bigger issue with the consumer driven, finance and borrowing driven mindset.

You give a great example in your "dumb year", it's not just those decisions which we're all going to be paying for over the next 12-24 months with the impending financial meltdown this country is facing, it's the mindset of buying new, buying on credit, how much can I borrow against my income, keeping up with the Joneses, that the nation needs to get away from and the banks, the government, the finance company can do anything about that without the individual making that choice.

While there are still other 23 year olds out there buying homes, when the reality is they should be saving for a nice big deposit on one and either renting or living at home with their folks, they shouldn't be necessarily going out buying the new car they'll be paying off in 6 years, and they shouldn't be buying the F-250 because it's bigger than next doors F-150...

The bailout or something needs to happen to stave off an imminent crisis which will impact everyone regardless of how many thousands they have in their safe (by the way don't get me into the question of what value that money will have should we enter a situation when everything grinds to a halt with hyper inflation, no gas, no food etc.).

I'm not a person who thinks anyone should be told what they can and can't do, I love this country and am looking forward to applying for citizenship (as several of you know, my wife is an American as are my kids), but there are moments when I wonder what the hell is going on.

I believe in people being rewarded for what they put in to this life and as such I'd love to see teachers and nurses better rewarded, but while we all may think hell that's a job I'd like to have (CEO of a bank etc.) when hard times hit, the person in that job is evil, lining their pockets etc.

There's a huge double standard that a portion of the population hold people to, while it's working out for me, everything's great, as soon as it doesn't, someone else should be to blame. Where's the individual level of accountability?

I'm not picking on you Knowfx as we have all made mistakes in our lives (if we hadn't what would we learn from), I just find it upsetting that one of the two countries I love, the land of opportunity is so quick to bite back at organizations/people when things don't go as they want and they might end up losing their home/car etc. There's almost always someone else to lay the blame on it seems.

Edit:

I know there's a hell of a lot of people already in a lot of pain in the current crisis through ultimately little fault of their own, a decision not to provide some kind of bail out or injection will simply increase that number and lead to a further downward spiral of the housing market etc. I'm no fan of government intervention in business, but something this huge which impacts so many people really does require some kind of action on the part of the nations government.

The debt is secured against property, property that no longer holds sufficient value to cover the debt.

As a consequence the loss on the loan is taken by the bank as the value of the assett they now own to counterbalance the loan is devalued.

There's a couple of pieces, you can't just erase the debt, someone has to hold it, in the case where the bank makes the loss, it's the bank who lose the money. If you simply erase the debt it's much the same as just printing more money, it devalues the currency.

When people are saying that the government's just printing more money, it's not accurate in the slightest, that money has to come from somewhere, loans from other countries, the tax payer etc. unless you want to cripple the value of your currency.

Regardless of what people say about the dollar, it's actually holding its own reasonably well on the global economy at the moment, predominantly because the rest of the developed world is having much the same economic problems. If you simply "print money" without any collateral against it (i.e. it being a loan, or tax dollars) that money has no intrinsic value.

Back to your question, the collapse of banks obviously creates a huge level of insecurity in the economy, the impacts of which are seen on the stock market most immediately. Most people in the street have savings of some kind, 401K for retirement etc. which are directly impacted by changes in the stock market (depending on how aggressive your portfolio is, it could be to a greater or lesser degree).

The other knock on effect is that as banks collapse and there is an increasing number of people defaulting on repayments, those banks who remain solvent change their credit terms as they have to be more cautious. Most businesses operate a credit line with their bank, if the bank withdraws that credit line, businesses fail or certainly have to change their operating model dramatically to survive.

To give an example, if a company invoices for services delivered at month end, the customer takes 30 days net on receipt of invoice to pay then there could be a 60 day period between the cost of the service being delivered and the payment against it, during that time the business has to survive either on it's own reserves or a credit line from it's bank. Bank withdraws it's credit line, business cannot pay it's bills, can't pay it's employees etc.

My next comment is probably going to be a little controversial.

I'm reasonably young (early 30s) but in my life I've seen huge changes in the economy both in my home country (the UK) and since I've been here in the US where property prices rise, businesses do well, then the market takes a downturn for one reason or another. We actually had something very similar in the UK in the late 80's/early 90's where the goverment cut mortage tax relief and overnight people couldn't afford their mortages, property prices fell 30% over a short space of time and we had a recession.

Having seen that, I don't live with the assumption that I'm going to make big money on my home, I buy what I can afford, or I rent.

It has happened in the UK where people have had the assumption that a 10% increase in the value of their home year on year is sustainable, while everyone knows all too well that incomes aren't increasing at anywhere near this rate, it has to stop, it has to end, there has to be a "bust".

I completely agree that the banks have a huge portion of responsibility to take against this, but at the same time, when government legislates that in low income areas it is virtually ILLEGAL to reject a mortage based on someone's credit worthiness (the Clinton administrations ambition to increase the number of minority home owners/mortage holders) it doesn't take a genius to figure out this is going to pose a problem down the road when the debts have to called in, or property prices drop. Fannie May and Freddie Mac being the primary organizations impacted by this ambition which resulted in an increase over 10 years of the subprime market growing from only 5% to 20% of the mortage market.

People took these loans on the assumption that they would be able to remortage their variable rate mortages as their house prices increased at a better rate, but as house prices stopped increasing/declining this wasn't possible.

I remember moving to the US in 2005 and I couldn't believe the volume of new construction in and around Cincinnati, I couldn't understand where the market for all these new homes was coming from as Cincinnati was hardly growing quickly but the reality was that the construction industry was responding to the rapidly growing market they had seen over the last 10 years, at some point supply outstripped demand and property prices began to fall.

Quite a wall of text I'm getting going here, but in summary.

I understand where ZD has come from pointing the finger at the democrats, but at the same time, I can't help but feel that a large portion of the population need to take some responsibility in this.

Knowfx said in another post somewhere, something along the lines of, "I have a variable rate mortage which I know I'll struggle to afford if I can't sell the house, I'll just give it back to the bank", yes, the bank took a gamble and lost, but don't you hold some responsibility in borrowing a sum of money you know you would struggle to pay off if the market changed?

I'm not singling you out on this, but it's quite clearly a mindset which a lot of people hold, I'll borrow something I know I won't be able to pay back in the long run if something doesn't change (I sell my house, property prices increase and I can remortage) and if it doesn't pan out I'll screw the bank by just giving it back.

Edit:

having read Mav's post, I couldn't agree more, this shouldn't be a blame game, the risks are too great. The purpose of my post was to say, that it's easy to point the finger at the big corporations and say, oh, you're evil, you've done something wrong and you're bleeding us all dry, but the responsibility is much wider and I believe that unless something dramatic is done things won't change, we'll go through the same thing in 10 or 20 years.

I know I've written this before, but I'm constantly amazed by general US culture of everything being disposable and bought on credit. If that mindset doesn't change, bailing companies out, blame slinging or whoever is in the WhiteHouse will make no difference what so ever.

Perhaps the huge problem this is will kick people back to reality where they realize that at some time, everything has to be paid for, by someone, but unfortunately, I don't think it will.

I've been following these posts for a while and haven't said anything as I didn't think it was necessary but:

Bin Laden/Al Qaeda have not only accepted full responsibility for the events of 9/11 but this has also been accepted/proven by the governments of both Britain and Germany in separate investigations.

The building you describe as the WTC in the spiderman 2 poster is not the WTC, it's a fictional building based on the Empire State building.

Are you suggesting with your Texas longhorns picture that long horn cattle are all inadvertantly (perhaps even growing their hair out into a special horn shape) making the sign of the devil?

The black guy behind Bush more than likely looks worried/attentive because he's security?

Your conspiracy theory around the events of 9/11 now encompasses the occult rather than it being politically motivated?

I actually believe it was all done by the world wide fashion industry, much the same as JFK assasination and the attempt on the life of the Prime Minister of Malaysia by Derek Zoolander in 2001.

I've got a level 48 Berserker, I've also got a Defender, Commando and Bio-Engineer in the works all at different levels, but haven't finished a play through with any of them.

I'd actually agree with you about more people playing it, I did get Too Human on release date and have persuaded a buddy to get it, he was really not convinced after reading a load of the reviews but is now hooked.

I pre-ordered it about 5 minutes after I watched the gameplay videos last weekend.

This is a game I'm really looking forward to, oh and Too Human has far exceeded my expectations...

Having seen him in the Departed I think he could certainly do the role justice.

Woolen mittens at 30 paces it is.

wait, did you just call me an ass_?

 

 

can't argue with a man of lev's background, but i still stand by my highlight reel resume

Well, only if you're making it out of me as well

If it's not directly relevant to what you're looking to do, keep it very simple, there's no reason to completely remove it (as you say it can account for lost "missing" time), but summarize it as a title and perhaps 1-3 bullet points if there's anything particular you were proud of achieving there.

People are often told at college that 1-2 pages as a maximum is fine, that is true, but as you get more experience don't be afraid to stretch beyond two pages. When you're fresh out of college if you're writing more than 2 pages there's little doubt that you're waffling but if you're in the running for a CEO's role it's probably safe to say you've got a lot more experience to talk about.

I'm recruiting manager for a large consulting company so I spend most of every day reviewing resumes and interviewing, I can say with a degree of certainty that most recruiters/hiring managers rarely go beyond the third or fourth page of a resume with any degree of depth, but there's no reason it shouldn't be 3-4 pages in length if you feel your experience merits it.

I have seen several people who've treated their resume almost as a covering letter, with 6-42 pages (yes, you read that right) of "additional information". If you strike the right balance a 1-2 page covering resume is great with some additional information available in an extended version. Ultimately your resume is there to get you an interview, no one will hire you on a resume alone, but they'll certainly reject you based on it.

If you want someone to review what you've got, PM me.

SJ, I'd agree with some of what you've said above, but I know for a fact we've hired people based on experience 5-15 years old, it's easy to get too engrossed in the "here and now" and you can miss out on interesting hooks/relevant past experience that'll get you an interview which just your recent work experience may not highlight. We are a technology company so obviously that experience may not be "day to day" relevant, but as a consulting company challenges someone faced on a global implementation 8 years ago, could well be just as relevant today.

You're also making an assumption with covering letters, more often than not if HR get the resume before the line, it's unlikely that the covering letter will get to the line, all they'll see is the resume regardless of HR reading it or not.

Often our most successful hires are through referral, as you gain more experience there's very little which is as likely to get you a good job to being well networked/well respected in your field regardless of the quality of your resume.

I discovered yesterday that there is an achievement for dieing 100 times. Not necessarily something I should broadcast......

Finished it yesterday, I think it had taken about 13 hours to get through, I'm not on my second playthrough with the same character (Berserker) and at level 30.

I really enjoyed the game, but I would say that a game which seems to "expect" you to die so often, as it's simply near impossible to survive, probably has some balance issues..... I've noticed that the "angel" doesn't appear everytime you die, but I could safely say I'm now sick of seeing it.

Contrary to popular misconception, the vast majority of imported oil in the US comes from outside the Middle East, in fact, the last figures that I saw, it was only around 20% that came from Middle Eastern countries. With more being imported from Canada, Mexico and Nigeria than Saudi Arabia, with Venezuela not far behind. These figures were a few years ago, so you'd probably find the balance has changed somewhat as Brazil wasn't even in the equation then (this data was only based on historical data, 2005 being the reference year I believe).

The link below is from a quick Google search but isn't to the original figures I quoted above, but seems to be significantly more recent.

US oil sources

Futures trading is supposed to act to even out huge price spikes and drops by guaranteeing a future price for a commodity, the futures market is really there to try and ensure a steady supply of product at a stable price.

It's theoretically sound, but the reality is that without reasonably tight regulation it's a perfect environment for profit based solely on speculation without any real justification behind price increases.

Do remember that it is also quite possible for a futures trader to lose their shirt if the market price of something drops significantly between the purchase of the future and the settlement date, or of course for large businesses to fold such as Barings when Nick Leason lost millions on the futures market and probably more famously Enron.

Cough, tidying up a presentation for a conference call I have in 15 minutes, well, that's what I should be doing, I'm actually browsing the forums, Newegg and BBC news.

Thoughts and prayers with you and their families.

Seems like our server is running 1.5 and 1.6 is out, makes Lev sad when wife is away for 6 days and he has time to play.................................

$72.60 worth of premium when I filled up last Friday night, I was wondering if I was going to have to swipe my card again, since apparently the maximum "at the pump" payment is $75 on my card at this gas station.

The secret is out.

There's a great family owned brewery in Blandford about 50 miles east of Exmouth (although it's not no a train line). Hall and Woodhouse, their signature (my normal pint when growing up) is Badger Best, Hopping Hare used to be their Spring ale and it is superb. They also brew Tanglefoot and Badger Golden glory. They have a brewery shop there and I know they operate tours.

I'm going to biased though, it was my local brewery and I was at school with one of the owner's sons, so we never went short

The other side of Devon (on the Bristol Channel) is Bideford, I remember going there for a geography/history fieldtrip as a kid and there was an open brewery there, although the glass factory in Torrington was the history part and flooding was the geography part.

Unfortunately I don't know of any really close to Exmouth, but there are several microbreweries across London.

Bath? only one way to pronounce it surely (maybe it's just because I'm English).

Exmouth's in a beatiful area, I grew up about 70 miles East in North Dorset (about 40 miles South of Baaaaaaath).

Be sure to head out West and have a look around Dartmoor, again beautiful scenery although there's not a huge ammount to do if you don't like scenery.

If you want to take a day trip along the coast, head East out to Abbotsbury (stopping off at Beer for a beer, and Lyme Regis), they have a wonderful Swannery (?) there, and if you continue East towards Bournemouth, stop off in Weymouth/Portland, I think they've started developing Portland Harbor already for the 2012 Olympics. Just West of Portland is Chesil beach which is about 20 miles of a pebble sand bar type thing, which is quite impressive.

If you head north from Weymouth through Dorchester (old home of Thomas Hardy), stop off and have a look at Maiden castle, which is I believe the largest Iron Age hill fort in Europe (and a favorite field trip for schools) then if you follow the road north towards Sherborne, you can see the Cerne Abbas giant, which is great for encouraging the wife to have a giggle.

The Strand or Manor gardens are really nice in Exmouth in the evenings (although I used to head down in the summer, I'm not sure I'd recommend them if the weather isn't great).

Lympstone's just north and apparently walkable, although I've not done the walk. It's a nice little village (the Saddler's Arms is a great pub for food in the evening, and the village is home to the Royal Marines).

A favorite pub of mine in Exmouth itself is The Beach, it's down on the marina, I think it's on Victoria Road but I've not been back in a few years now so I could be wrong.

Just a few ideas, oh, and Stonehenge is obviously a must, but if you go about 20 miles south of Stonehenge to Salisbury it's a beautiful old Cathedral city and worth a visit. Salisbury Cathedral has the tallest spire in England or Europe, I can't remember which.

Update:

On the 10th of May we are transforming the entire Open Beta into PvP MAYHEM, while at the same time giving you access to all which Hyboria as to offer! That is right, as we take down our servers for a short period we are at the same time changing the entire server rule-set to Free For All PvP carnage! Your servers will ALL become PvP! Participate if you dare, or make a new character and stay in the safety of Tortage!

Blowhole

Flange

Fileplanet also. DX9, 75% of folks I know who've taken the vista plunge have gone back to XP (I also run our work VPN at home and the client doesn't support XP currently, and I don't always want to boot up the laptop).

I wish I could add more to Penty's thoughts, but I spent an initial 30 minutes of game time with it on Friday and haven't started it up again...... There's a limit to how much fun I was going to have killing Crocodiles or "bandits" when Liberty City was begging to be explored.

I know it's hardly a fair overview, but I wasn't bitten by the WoW, Guild Wars etc. bug so I can't really provide much of a comparison. However from what I saw, loading wasn't overly quick, but the game world does look pretty good, and despite a lot of people in the beta forums finding it hellishly slow at times, I actually had absolutely no noticeable slow down anywhere, it seemed to be whipping along quite nicely, and I also liked the combat system.

If the beta hadn't been released the same week as GTAIV I'd probably have spent a lot more time on it