It is past 2 am and my system, as it seems want to do lately, refuses to allow me to sleep, even though i work in less than 5 hrs. So i use this time to follow/stalk more people on twitter and fall across a number of bloggers/indie type radio hosts whom i have meant for quite some time now to subscribe to after hearing them regularly on siriusxmu. siriusxmu, in case you have not had the privilege of discovering yet, is the indie music station on both sirius and xm satellite radio. i have them to thank for having introduced me to many, many great acts and expanding my musical horizons exponentially. always a new band or website to check out, and for that i am eternally grateful. but a pessimist at heart, i have to have a few things which i despise from this station. first is hipster runoff. hipster runoff is a blog and radio segment of a severely emo-ish annoying monotone voice set on despondent despair and boredom. while i sometimes like the music he plays i will immediately turn the station as soon as i hear his annoying-fingernails-on-chalkboard pointless drabble to any of the myriad of other available stations (so long as it isn't that annoying madison, whose voice i just can't handle). nice thing about satellite radio, lots to choose from.
next on the peev list : repetition. as i have said, i am thankful for the introductions for which the station has done to show me acts you would never hear on regular radio. but it is too bad that independent radio doesn't actually mean that. instead you have the same annoying system as what you have on local radio. they play the exact same singles over and over and over again. until you simply want to puke from hearing that gawd damned whistle song even one more time. i love alexander's truth. but seriously! now, i know he has ONLY one song to play but wouldn't it be possible to play something other than sufjan steven's "i walked". last i checked there were 11 songs on his age of adz release but you would never know it from listening to siriusxmu...the "independent" station. i guess even "independent" stations have to kow tow to record labels and the "released" singles list. too bad.
and despite the myriad of available music to choose from, it always seems like the same play list is being repeated over and over again. matt and kim to be followed by vampire weekend, beach house and toro y moi. it makes me wish that they might play something..oh, i dunno, different! so, i return to some classic rock, just to hear something a lil more original, for a lil bit of change.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
These Economic Times vs Ned's Atomic Dustbin's Song "Selfish"
If you have opened a newspaper, turned on a newscast, or listened to any recent Canadian/United Nations financial reports lately you will have heard that the global economy and as an extension of such, the Canadian one, have many warning bells coming. The recession (though declared flatlined by Canadian authorities in the spring of this year) continues and is expected to do so for some time. International trade has been and will continue to be affected. Currencies are having drastic fluctuations. As a result, gold has hit all time highs. With the US Fed likely to have to print more greenbacks (and further devalue their currency), murmurings are being heard of a new dollar standard to replace the US Dollar. But it surely won't be the Euro where after shocks continue to abound from sunk/sinking national bailouts.
When money gets tight, the smart thing to do is to cinch the belt line, find areas to sacrifice and toe the budget. People the world over are having to make tough decisions and reduce their spending. But Canadians have bucked the trend of increasing their savings and decreasing their debt loads, instead taking advantage of low interest rates to perpetuate their interest spendings. While our brethren to the south have decreased their debt load we have instead managed to surpass their level of debt and in so doing posted new record levels. Astonishing. The creepmeter has already been going off about a potential housing bubble building in parts of this country. Ballooning household debt, most often placed up against property value, only furthers to create a Freddy Kreuger scenario. The Canadian government had taken a pot shot in 2009 of hedging off an increase in debt by increasing the capitalization requirements for mortgages, especially those on properties not occupied by their owners. But bankers were quick to contact their customers to advise them to set up credit lines on their properties to the max available before the new laws went into place. This way mortgagors could tap their revolving line of credit whenever they needed despite the new rules. In a worsening economy (a decrease in average after tax income is one of the main culprits being fingered, though at a decrease of only 1.5% it can hardly be solely reliable for a 6.7% increase in debt) higher debt only causes a greater crash.
So why are we bucking the smart trend of preparing for a bitter storm? Instead of warning bells we are being cajoled into believing, rather erroneously, that Canada is beyond all that. We have heard the praises of Canada's banking system sung out around the globe. It wasn't OUR fault that everyone else had such low levels of capitalization for their banking systems! It wasn't us who caused the bad investments in the housing market, putting people who couldn't afford them into houses they would one day be unable to pay for. But perhaps we DID do that. As a long time banker I saw many people who did not fit into the bank models of affording homes still find financing. Mortgage brokers bend and manipulate guidelines and incomes to put people into debt they may not be able to afford. And the big banks find ways to work with them. The argument goes that with interest rates so low people can afford more. And in time, their incomes should go up. But incomes are not going up. And interest rates will. By the time that mortgage terms mature from their record setting lows, rates will have climbed. And when they do, they will likely have to go up in big chunks in order to stem an eventual inflation. Of course, each quarter per cent that rates increase causes the amount of interest to be paid on debt to increase. Resulting in higher payments and longer terms. If income doesn't increase (with indicators stating they will remain stagnant for some time) but interest costs do then people will have less to live off of. If they have less to live off of they will be forced to spend less. If commerce ceases then the whole system is fucked. This is why we have been lead by our government to believe that we are sitting pretty. The Canadian government has been following a spend your way to happiness approach. Record levels of military spending, infrastructure development, and other stimulus spending were meant to spur the economy. The reasoning goes that if people just keep spending then we can spend our way out of this doldrum. Obviously this is a flawed logic. For a short term cold streak it could work, go into temporary debt and just pay everything off later. And we were assured that it would be a short term situation. But as the world economy staggers and even falls we are surely being sucked right into the whirlpool. Even if we HAD been away scott free our reliance on world trade puts us in a very precarious situation. As other economies falter the Canadian economy will follow. Free trade was meant to open up new markets in order to stem against regional market fluctuations. But with an inherent reliance on trading partners, when the whole of the world is sinking then so too will relatively healthy regional members.
It appears to me that the Conservatives have been incorrect on this soft world economy from the get go. They initially believed that this would be short lived, even stating in 2008, after the recession had hit, that they would have balanced budgets throughout. Interestingly it was only through the coalition of the majority of seats in the house that they were spurred to react to the softening marketplace. They then predicted that they would return to balanced budgets by 2013. This has now been delayed to 2015. And yet, even with the economic package meant to spur spending, indicators are that those measures which are working surely won't have us back in any pretty position anytime soon. It is far time that Canadians and their government pull the wool from their eyes and realize that we are in the midst of a continued recession which, while not hitting us as hard as say Ireland, Iceland, California, and others, will have long lasting effects on our way of life. As such, it is time that we started to think beyond the box on new measures we can take to go beyond the limits of a free trade, commerce based, economic system with its inherent flaws.
be careful, you might hear something
you don't want to hear
be careful you might say something
that you really mean
you say 'take things easy,
go and have some fun'
but my mind is hazy
about times i've spent alone
so be careful, you might feel something
you don't want to feel
be careful, you might learn something
you don't want to know
stop yawning, stop yearning
and wake up
what you wanna do is wake up
tell me, what you wanna do
what you wanna do, what you wanna do
what you wanna do is wake up
wake up, wake up!!!
When money gets tight, the smart thing to do is to cinch the belt line, find areas to sacrifice and toe the budget. People the world over are having to make tough decisions and reduce their spending. But Canadians have bucked the trend of increasing their savings and decreasing their debt loads, instead taking advantage of low interest rates to perpetuate their interest spendings. While our brethren to the south have decreased their debt load we have instead managed to surpass their level of debt and in so doing posted new record levels. Astonishing. The creepmeter has already been going off about a potential housing bubble building in parts of this country. Ballooning household debt, most often placed up against property value, only furthers to create a Freddy Kreuger scenario. The Canadian government had taken a pot shot in 2009 of hedging off an increase in debt by increasing the capitalization requirements for mortgages, especially those on properties not occupied by their owners. But bankers were quick to contact their customers to advise them to set up credit lines on their properties to the max available before the new laws went into place. This way mortgagors could tap their revolving line of credit whenever they needed despite the new rules. In a worsening economy (a decrease in average after tax income is one of the main culprits being fingered, though at a decrease of only 1.5% it can hardly be solely reliable for a 6.7% increase in debt) higher debt only causes a greater crash.
So why are we bucking the smart trend of preparing for a bitter storm? Instead of warning bells we are being cajoled into believing, rather erroneously, that Canada is beyond all that. We have heard the praises of Canada's banking system sung out around the globe. It wasn't OUR fault that everyone else had such low levels of capitalization for their banking systems! It wasn't us who caused the bad investments in the housing market, putting people who couldn't afford them into houses they would one day be unable to pay for. But perhaps we DID do that. As a long time banker I saw many people who did not fit into the bank models of affording homes still find financing. Mortgage brokers bend and manipulate guidelines and incomes to put people into debt they may not be able to afford. And the big banks find ways to work with them. The argument goes that with interest rates so low people can afford more. And in time, their incomes should go up. But incomes are not going up. And interest rates will. By the time that mortgage terms mature from their record setting lows, rates will have climbed. And when they do, they will likely have to go up in big chunks in order to stem an eventual inflation. Of course, each quarter per cent that rates increase causes the amount of interest to be paid on debt to increase. Resulting in higher payments and longer terms. If income doesn't increase (with indicators stating they will remain stagnant for some time) but interest costs do then people will have less to live off of. If they have less to live off of they will be forced to spend less. If commerce ceases then the whole system is fucked. This is why we have been lead by our government to believe that we are sitting pretty. The Canadian government has been following a spend your way to happiness approach. Record levels of military spending, infrastructure development, and other stimulus spending were meant to spur the economy. The reasoning goes that if people just keep spending then we can spend our way out of this doldrum. Obviously this is a flawed logic. For a short term cold streak it could work, go into temporary debt and just pay everything off later. And we were assured that it would be a short term situation. But as the world economy staggers and even falls we are surely being sucked right into the whirlpool. Even if we HAD been away scott free our reliance on world trade puts us in a very precarious situation. As other economies falter the Canadian economy will follow. Free trade was meant to open up new markets in order to stem against regional market fluctuations. But with an inherent reliance on trading partners, when the whole of the world is sinking then so too will relatively healthy regional members.
It appears to me that the Conservatives have been incorrect on this soft world economy from the get go. They initially believed that this would be short lived, even stating in 2008, after the recession had hit, that they would have balanced budgets throughout. Interestingly it was only through the coalition of the majority of seats in the house that they were spurred to react to the softening marketplace. They then predicted that they would return to balanced budgets by 2013. This has now been delayed to 2015. And yet, even with the economic package meant to spur spending, indicators are that those measures which are working surely won't have us back in any pretty position anytime soon. It is far time that Canadians and their government pull the wool from their eyes and realize that we are in the midst of a continued recession which, while not hitting us as hard as say Ireland, Iceland, California, and others, will have long lasting effects on our way of life. As such, it is time that we started to think beyond the box on new measures we can take to go beyond the limits of a free trade, commerce based, economic system with its inherent flaws.
be careful, you might hear something
you don't want to hear
be careful you might say something
that you really mean
you say 'take things easy,
go and have some fun'
but my mind is hazy
about times i've spent alone
so be careful, you might feel something
you don't want to feel
be careful, you might learn something
you don't want to know
stop yawning, stop yearning
and wake up
what you wanna do is wake up
tell me, what you wanna do
what you wanna do, what you wanna do
what you wanna do is wake up
wake up, wake up!!!
Thursday, December 9, 2010
my birthday present to myself : early beginnings
what better way to celebrate it than to loathe my most recent spat of bad decisions causing astronomical pressure in my cerebral cortex such that my scope of movement limits me to my bed. not that i had planned to roll out of it much before the afternoon today anyway. just that i had hoped to enjoy more of it. maybe with some rolling around in it, some sweating activity, followed by relapses of sleep. only to be repeated again and again. alas, it is good to have dreams.
with all that technology has traversed since i was first born some 3 decades ago, perhaps the greatest single advancement has been what we can pack into little tiny pills. thank goodness for their fast acting relief and proliferation in the market place. i find that i am only too happy to pay the hundred fold increase in mark up to benefit from the pain relief. i am free to make that stupid decision again and again. i know the mixing of different strong alcohols will end this way. well, not ALWAYS this way. sometimes it is worse. sometimes my whole system decides to clam right up and i end up writhing in agony, using a toilet for my sustenance to life. but all the knowledge in the world can't help me avoid my star pattern! a sagittarius can try to avoid the need for variety, but like a vampire in the night, the allure of tasting something different is simply too strong to resist. beer, tequila, vodka, liqueur, rum, different beer, different vodka, gin...in this way i am the spitting image of my sign. even knowing the predestined end result.
when my self inflicted wound has finally subsided in its efforts to dominate MY day i find my desire to bask in my narcissistic gloating too overwhelming to ignore. for, truly, isn't the celebration of a birthday nothing more than a conceited fluffing of one's feathers? i log into my facebook account and into my email to receive all of the accolades provided in my name, if only for being born once upon a time. finding enough of substance of the manner provided by some imaginary place we all exist in, without ever stepping foot into : cyberworld i continue on, being motivated enough to check, as i do daily, for signs of the impending doom of our civilization. by logging again into the grande scope of the internet addresses of news sources and twitter i find nothing to point me towards the coming of the book of revelations. or anything like an armageddon. save for a reference in the globe and mail talking about vbite's plan to take on mcd's for heavyweight kingpin in the dominance of fast food. never heard of a vbite before? well, that is because there is barely such a thing. a single establishment exists which is oddly enough closed during this winter season. i imagine that mcdonald's is shaking in it's greasy booties in fear. the reference to the coming end times? that'd be this : "With experts at this week’s Climate Change conference in Cancun warning of impending food shortages and surging food costs". but who listens to experts anyway? didn't they claim we had started down the road to irrepairable damage of our earth by man's billions upon billions of footprints? but all those lawyers who make up the scope of our politics have reasoned for us that "this couldn't possibly be. or maybe it couldn't possibly be. and even if it were perhaps a chance, we could likely still alter this so called self genocide. and if we might conceivably fail at our own salvation, well we are but puny lil beings on a great wide earth. the earth could possibly correct any damage on its own. therefor lets just continue as we do and let what may or may not be one day deal with itself"
so, i sing along with some of my most favorite songs ever and give to myself one more gift, that of a new blog. one to write about what ever the fuck i want to write about. but mostly my own perception of what is important in this world (read, MY world) which will likely consist of music, show reviews, photos of said shows, and my skewed version of reality today. happy day of birth to my blog. Dec 9, 2010.
music i have been enjoying as of late includes : broken bells - self titled, crocodiles - sleep forever, black mountain - wilderness heart, gayngs - related, kele - boxer, klaxons - surfing the void, soulsavers - broken, the sunshine underground - nobody's coming to save you, and finally tricky - mixed race
with all that technology has traversed since i was first born some 3 decades ago, perhaps the greatest single advancement has been what we can pack into little tiny pills. thank goodness for their fast acting relief and proliferation in the market place. i find that i am only too happy to pay the hundred fold increase in mark up to benefit from the pain relief. i am free to make that stupid decision again and again. i know the mixing of different strong alcohols will end this way. well, not ALWAYS this way. sometimes it is worse. sometimes my whole system decides to clam right up and i end up writhing in agony, using a toilet for my sustenance to life. but all the knowledge in the world can't help me avoid my star pattern! a sagittarius can try to avoid the need for variety, but like a vampire in the night, the allure of tasting something different is simply too strong to resist. beer, tequila, vodka, liqueur, rum, different beer, different vodka, gin...in this way i am the spitting image of my sign. even knowing the predestined end result.
when my self inflicted wound has finally subsided in its efforts to dominate MY day i find my desire to bask in my narcissistic gloating too overwhelming to ignore. for, truly, isn't the celebration of a birthday nothing more than a conceited fluffing of one's feathers? i log into my facebook account and into my email to receive all of the accolades provided in my name, if only for being born once upon a time. finding enough of substance of the manner provided by some imaginary place we all exist in, without ever stepping foot into : cyberworld i continue on, being motivated enough to check, as i do daily, for signs of the impending doom of our civilization. by logging again into the grande scope of the internet addresses of news sources and twitter i find nothing to point me towards the coming of the book of revelations. or anything like an armageddon. save for a reference in the globe and mail talking about vbite's plan to take on mcd's for heavyweight kingpin in the dominance of fast food. never heard of a vbite before? well, that is because there is barely such a thing. a single establishment exists which is oddly enough closed during this winter season. i imagine that mcdonald's is shaking in it's greasy booties in fear. the reference to the coming end times? that'd be this : "With experts at this week’s Climate Change conference in Cancun warning of impending food shortages and surging food costs". but who listens to experts anyway? didn't they claim we had started down the road to irrepairable damage of our earth by man's billions upon billions of footprints? but all those lawyers who make up the scope of our politics have reasoned for us that "this couldn't possibly be. or maybe it couldn't possibly be. and even if it were perhaps a chance, we could likely still alter this so called self genocide. and if we might conceivably fail at our own salvation, well we are but puny lil beings on a great wide earth. the earth could possibly correct any damage on its own. therefor lets just continue as we do and let what may or may not be one day deal with itself"
so, i sing along with some of my most favorite songs ever and give to myself one more gift, that of a new blog. one to write about what ever the fuck i want to write about. but mostly my own perception of what is important in this world (read, MY world) which will likely consist of music, show reviews, photos of said shows, and my skewed version of reality today. happy day of birth to my blog. Dec 9, 2010.
music i have been enjoying as of late includes : broken bells - self titled, crocodiles - sleep forever, black mountain - wilderness heart, gayngs - related, kele - boxer, klaxons - surfing the void, soulsavers - broken, the sunshine underground - nobody's coming to save you, and finally tricky - mixed race
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