The greatest golf tourney in the world gets going this week in Augusta, Georgia. For those of you from out of town, you may find the attached .pdf containing the city’s traffic plans and routes useful.
Happy Driving*
*(no pun intended)
Billy
Thursday night is upon us!
Rock On!
Billy
Today is a good day for Google. The search giant unveiled its very own music service.
Anyone can upload their fave tunes and have them stream right to you on command! Tunes will also sell for only 99 cents!
Google has always been ahead of the trend, and I have been right there with these fine folks.
Rock On Google Music.
Go Here For more info:
Google Music
How much house can you afford?
Well, just use the calculator below from bankrate.com!
Today is dubbed “Black Friday for Casual Dining”.
Many restaurants across the nation are offering free or discounted lunches, dinners, and other specials.
I salute the idea because it is a way to give back to those who proudly served in the armed forces.
So, if you know a veteran, or you are a veteran, get out there… treat a vet to dinner and join the celebration.
The larger chains are offering some great specials, just search here your fave!
The trackback url to this post is:
http://themilitarywallet.com/veterans-day-free-meals-and-discounts/
Billy
PS:Veterans Day restaurant business is the busiest of the year!
There is a special treat coming to Sky City on Broad St on Thursday November 17th.
Doors open at 7:00 pm. Music begins at 8:00 pm.
Frank Brittingham, an Augusta legend, will be entertaining the masses with his smooth vocals and teriffic guitar abilities. Later the stage will will explode with talent from Buford, a group of musicians who played together many years ago…The reunion of the band, Buford is set to bring joy to many locals who remember the band from the various clubs, weddings, parties, etc of yesterday.
Frank and fellow masters including the Brantley brothers, Steve and Jamie, will rock the stage with awesome originals and jams to some of the best music ever heard in the CSRA.
The event is open to all ages and the admission is less than the price of a fast food meal!
Come hungry with an appetite for great music and fellowship among old friends and musicians.
A good time is guarenteed for all!
See Ya There…
Buford Reunion
Billy
A Banking Primer: Understanding ‘Derivatives’
Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit. She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar.
To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing strategy that allows her customers to drink now and pay later; keeping track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers ‘loans’).
Word gets around about Heidi’s “drink now, pay later” marketing plan and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into her bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in Detroit.
By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Heidi gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for her products. Consequently, her gross sales volume massively increases.
A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that these customer debts [accounts receivable assets] constitute valuable future assets and increases Heidi’s borrowing limit. He sees no reason for any undue concern because he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral.
At the bank’s corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions transforming these customer loans into DRINKBONDS [aka securities] bundling and trading them on international securities markets.
Naive investors don’t really understand that the securities being sold to them as “AAA Secured Bonds” really are debts of unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb – and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation’s leading brokerage houses.
One day, even though the bond prices still are climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to tell Heidi she must demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at her bar. She demands payment from her alcoholic patrons; but, being unemployed alcoholics — they cannot pay back their drinking debts.
Since Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and Heidi’s 11 employees lose their jobs.
Overnight, DRINKBOND prices drop by 90%.
The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank’s liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.
The suppliers of Heidi’s bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms’ pension funds in the BOND securities. They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds.
Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.
Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multi-billion dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from the United States federal government.
The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, nondrinkers who have never been in Heidi’s bar.
There in a nutshell is what’s going on in the banking industry called ‘derivatives.’
Thanks to Adam over at MarketClub.
The url for this article is:
http://club.ino.com/trading/2011/10/a-simple-humorous-look-at-bank-derivatives/
