Good morning.  The sun is out — snow is melting (hopefully) — and I only have a few weeks of school left!!!!!!  I never thought that I could be this excited about returning to the working world — but I cannot wait.  I suppose I’m just dreaming about surfing again.  If you haven’t seen yesterday’s post w/ footage from the Wedge - check it out.  It was firing that day.

Today’s theme song of the day is "I’m Yours" by Jason Mraz.  I have heard a few versions (including the video version), but the one posted in the comments section is my favorite.  It makes me smile.

link posted in comments.

Still thinking about Bear Stearns? Well John Hussman is — and he has some very strong opinions: Bear Stearns is trading at $6 instead of $2 because unelected bureaucrats went beyond their legal mandates, delivered a windfall to a single private company at public expense, entered agreements that violate the the public trust, and created a situation where even if the bureaucratic malfeasance stands, the shareholders of Bear Stearns will either reject the deal or be deprived of their right to determine the fate of the company they own. Very simply, Bear Stearns is still in play. Still, when all is said and done, my own impression is that the ultimate value of the stock will not be $2, but exactly zero.

link.to.hussman’s.site

And Bill Gross (MD at Pimco) is convinced that our ‘Shawdow lending’ system can be compared to a pyramid scheme.  The basic notion is simple — if we sustain heavy losses in the near term, banks will hold back exponentially more — constraining our access to debt, and (in his opinion) bringing on a recession.

link.to.pimco

And you should definitely check out this article I found at Bloomberg.com.  They speculate that The only tool left may be for the Fed to help facilitate a Resolution Trust Corp.-type agency that would buy bonds backed by home loans (can you say early 90’s S/L?).  Looks like I am heading to office hours to talk to my prof that worked with the RTC last time.

buying.mortgage.bonds.next?

I found this quite interesting: The cost of pure coke rose 44 percent in the United States between January and September 2007.  The DEA tries to take credit, but it’s really a function of currency exchange.  Both the UN and DEA note that a kilo of coke brings in two times as much in Europe as it does in America.