The Binary Circumstance

One of the most popular posts on my blog is the picture of my 2007 Kawasaki Ninja 250R.

Here is a picture of the 2008 Kawasaki Ninja 250R. They have changed the styling this year to make it look much more like the mid-priced sport bikes like the Yamaha FZ6. It’s the first significant change in styling in a few years.

It not only looks like a more expensive bike, it is a more expensive bike. They’ve increased the MSRP by about $500. That’s about a 17% increase over last year’s MSRP of $3,000.

I have a feeling that my 2007 Ninja, which is only one year old, may now be worth more than I paid for it. With a price jump like that for the new models, I think the recent used models have to go up in value.

There are more pictures of the 2008 baby Ninja 250R at the Kawasaki site.

Here is more detail about the new design.

The FDIC shut down NetBank, an online bank, because of “excessive” mortgage defaults.

WASHINGTON (AP) — NetBank Inc., an online bank with $2.5 billion in assets, was shut down by the government on Friday because of an excessive level of mortgage defaults.

It was the largest savings and loan failure since the tail end of the industry’s crisis more than 14 years ago. Federal regulators appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. as a receiver for Alpharetta, Ga.-based NetBank.

Customers with less than $100,000 deposited with NetBank will be protected by FDIC insurance.

While dozens of mortgage companies have closed due to soaring defaults of home loans made to borrowers with weak, or subprime, credit, those problems previously had occurred among non-bank lenders such as New Century Financial Corp. NetBank, in contrast, is federally regulated.

Loose mortgage standards in recent years — especially among lenders catering to subprime borrowers — have resulted in a spike in home loan defaults.

Bert Ely, a banking consultant based in Alexandria, Va., said NetBank was in “deep trouble” before the subprime mortgage market’s woes accelerated this year. Regulators, he said, “should have closed it a long time ago.”

What is you have more than $100,000 on deposit? You’re out of luck, I guess.

If regulators should have closed it down a long time ago, why didn’t they? That’s their job isn’t it?

I’m sure some people put more money into the bank in recent months. What if they increased their deposits to over $100,000 thinking the bank was sound while the government failed in its responsibility to shut it down? Should the government be held accountable? Of course. But they won’t be.

Accepting the Liberty Medal from former President George H. W. Bush, rock star Bono took the opportunity to promote free markets:

PHILADELPHIA - Accepting the Liberty Medal for his humanitarian work in Africa, Bono exhorted Americans to keep working to solve the world’s problems and spoke of those who are without freedom.

“When you are trapped by poverty, you are not free. When trade laws prevent you from selling the food you grew, you are not free,” the Irish rocker and activist said Thursday night as he stood steps away from Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell.

[…]

Calling America “my country,” Bono said he’s a fan of the United States despite its problems because of its contributions to the world.

“Your America is where Neil Armstrong takes a walk on the moon,” Bono said. “Your America gave Europe the Marshall Plan. Your America gave the world the Peace Corps.

“America is not just a country, it’s an idea, isn’t it? It’s a great and powerful idea. The idea that all men are created equal, that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Well, it’s a nice speech. But American is supposed to be more than just an idea. That idea was intended to be reflected in our government and the protection of individual liberty. No man has the right to enslave another.

Under socialism and coercive government control, which is what Bono is usually promoting, nobody is free, nor does anybody have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The achievements that Bono chose to mention were all financed with stolen property (taxes). When the government which represents the wishes of certain individuals can show up at your door and steal the fruits of your labor, you are not free.

How ironic that George H. W. Bush presented the medal. He is the father of the current president who has done more to destroy the basic freedoms that made this country great than any other president. That’s not to mention all the innocents that have died so that President Bush could transfer billions from those who earned it into the pockets of his wealthy friends. It is also President Bush who has promoted a constitutional amendment to ensure that only heterosexuals will have special privileges resulting from state-sanctioned marriage.

The medals and power go to those who embrace and promote contradictions as morality and rational thought.

Slate says that popular culture is a contrary indicator of how well things are going on Wall Street and provides some evidence to back up the claim. Hedge fund managers, private equity firms and very rich people should be worried.

We’ve seen this before. Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities timed the zeitgeist—and the market—perfectly, debuting in October 1987, the month the 1980s bull market came to a crashing end. But Oliver Stone’s Wall Street didn’t hit the theaters until December 1987 and tanked at the box office as a result. After a few punk years, Wall Street caught fire again in the mid-1990s. But programming executives didn’t catch on to the new wave until much later. Darren Star, who had neatly captured a cultural moment with HBO’s Sex and the City, rolled out The $treet on Fox in the fall of 2000. This show about the professional and personal lives of attractive employees at a New York brokerage firm arrived at a time when Wall Street was falling out of favor, and lasted just 12 episodes, one more than Bull, which was also about the professional and personal lives of attractive employees at a New York brokerage. The real-estate bubble produced the ABC sitcom Hot Properties, a bawdy sendup of the lives of four attractive real-estate brokers. It debuted in the fall of 2005, just as housing prices were about to peak, and went into foreclosure after 13 unfunny episodes.

[…]

The fall slate includes Dirty Sexy Money, an ABC drama about an insanely rich and charmingly dysfunctional American family based in New York (”they put the upper in Upper East Side”). And Big Shots, an ABC drama about four insanely rich and charmingly dysfunctional corporate hot shots based in New York. And Cashmere Mafia, an ABC drama about four insanely rich and charmingly dysfunctional female corporate hot shots based in New York. (Frances O’Connor plays Zoe, a “top investment banker.”) The sidekick on CBS’s new vampire show, Moonlight, is “eternally young, wealthy and mischievous Josef, a hedge fund trader who relishes his uniqueness.”

I don’t think they have much to worry about. First of all they’re rich. On top of that, the government is more than happy to bail them out of any pending financial disaster at the taxpayers’ expense.