I bet they get the same amount of work done either way. They'll double up on a few things here and there, etc. They've got the rest of the school year to spread those 11 lessons over. Most the homeschoolers here that I know who missed at least a week or more due to no electricity, etc., don't anticipate having to school halfway into June if they were originally planning to finish by the end of May. The outside classes my daughter takes missed two weeks and they're not making up, either. They've covering the material by working a little faster/harder for a while.

I'm having a really hard time believing that anyone who is a moderator posts in that fashion, or that anyone who posts in that fashion would be acceptable to SWB and PHP as a moderator. I think maybe you're mistaken... or maybe that's just your personal opinion about that particular poster?? I don't know if regular posters are taking turns acting as moderator or not.

That is awesome, Jean! Congratulations!! Robin

What's more is she had the balls to say so publicly. Pretty unbelievable, if you ask me!!

Go to the grocery store and price similar items yourself. Remember to always look for the cheapest generic for comparison, because that is what you typically get in the box. You might find it's not such a good deal at all.

Yeah, it tasted really bad in our opinion. I am surprised that someone thinks the fruit/veg box is a good deal. I thought it was overpriced.

Kathy, when my husband heard this quote he said, "She's probably right." Eeek... ducking for cover! LOL

It just keeps getteing worse, doesn't it?

I don't know anyone who thinks *that*!! NO one is saying that. Not anyone. Even with the bailout, things are going to be dicey for some time to come. BTW, it hasn't passed yet.

We did the same thing, but the answer key says silvis. Hmmm... anyone??

That's already happening - have you heard about some of the pork added to this bill? The bill isn't going to improve with each revision. It will spiral down as everyone tries to get their own piece of the pie. If the govt makes money off this deal, which they likely will, the money will retire the $700B debt, won't it? I don't want it to come back to me, I just want it to retire the debt used to fund the deal.

Such a simple question, I'm almost embarrassed to post... I asked this on the Henle Latin group, but would like your feedback as well. Early in Henle I (exercise 25, number 6), the student translantes into latin the sentence: The slaves are in the towns and in the forest. The answer key says that forest should be translated as plural. Can anyone explain why? When would forest ever be singular? Thanks, Robin

Yeah, with pork attached I've heard - to appease both sides of the aisle. Don't know many specifics, only heard bits and pieces on the radio yesterday. What on earth?!? Did y'all see/hear the clip from Diane Feinstein? Where she said that she received 91,000 calls/emails and 85,000 were *against* the bill? She said that her constituents simply didn't understand it, so she's voting yes anyway. What interesting times. Don't know about y'all but I'm fascinated! :lurk5:

My only complaint about the meat is that the few steaks, etc., that we've received have been treated with tenderizers, etc., and we thought they tasted... not so good. Not bad, but we just didn't care for the quality of the meat. A few things have been very good, a few things have been so so... things we haven't like were the boxed generic brand macaroni and cheese and we don't eat hot dogs. The dessert we got most often was a package of cookie dough. PErsonally, I think you can do just as good at the grocery store if you shop carefully and shop the loss leaders every week. I think the box saves you only about 10% or so. Robin

Things have seemed much better - haven't gotten a server busy message since the upgrade. Until tonight. Right before posting this mesage, I had a hard time getting on for about five minutes. Just fyi, in case it helps. Thanks for the hard work. Robin

Even the bail out gave a nod to lifting the mark to market rule for these particular types of assets. You are right... and there isn't going to be a JPMorgan to jump in and buy the assets of every bank that fails. All it would take is one or two more big banks to do that and FDIC reserves would be WIPED OUT. What would happen in this country if suddenly everyone's deposits were not covered by FDIC? Can you imagine the run on the banks?

Yes, you are understanding me correctly. Problem with these loans is there aren't on the books idividually, but as packages and I guess it's hard to price a package when there are so many, many loans at varying degrees of risk... surely they can come up wtih something, though. In regards to comments elsewhere, it really doesn't make any sense at all to force these companies to sell off their assets at fire sale prices... not to the govt, not to individuals, nor to anyone else. The banks should be allowed to weather the process of realizing their actual loss throughout time. Nothing more, nothing less. That's my opinion. I really don't understanding why anyone would object to these banks keeping the loans on THEIR books to deal with. Why use accounting methods to force them into either a bail out, or a sell out to private investors, or into failure? (oh, and guess who steps in and takes over when a bank fails - the govt... between Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FDIC, the govt is going to be one holding the bag in the end anyway). This is insane. Let them lie in the bed they made. The one they actually made. Not the bed as others decide to view it from day to day. I'm sure this is all coming to a head now because the write downs are quarterly, and sometime after July is when we get a peek at the 6/30 financials. That's when banks began to fail. I wonder how much of the serious decline in manufacturing in August is tied to tight credit. anyone know? ETA: Just read the article about Ford's sales dropping over 30% in September, and how they are expecting similar reports from other manufacturers. Here's a quote from the article - I'm beginning to wonder if people understand how critical the ripple effect of credit contraction really is... "Dealers from many manufacturers have said their customers are having an increasingly hard time qualifying for loans to buy autos, as banks have restricted lending because of widespread mortgage defaults that led to disruptions in the financial markets and the collapse of several banks. Plus, several automakers' finance arms have limited or discontinued leasing." This sort of things gets around to hurting all of us eventually. Hurting hard, too. Harder than the cost of the bail out, many would argue.

With time and google, I can find just as many quotes, or more, that say the opposite. Let's take a subprime loan that originated at $90,000. At the time, the house was worth $95,000 and the borrower put down $5,000. Let's assume that the market has reduced the value of the home by 15%, down to about $80,000. Let's also assume that the borrower is not in default (the majoritiy of subprime loans are NOT in default, but they are packaged together with the ones that are, so they are caught up in the same securities market). This is a borrower who wants to stay in the house and is willing to ride it out until home values come back up. Forcing a bank to write down a $90,000 loan that is not delinquent to a value of only $15,00 when, again, it is not delinquent and the collateral for the loan is worth $75-80,000 on the market is plain ridiculous. This is an instance where mark to market accounting exaggerates reality. Saying that that loan is should be valued at $15,000 is NOT reality. Even if the borrower was in default, writing the value of the loan below $50-60,000 is not realistic. This is the problem - the subprime securities are worthless on the financial market right now, but that doesn't mean that they are really as worthless as the current securities market treats them (which is panic driven).

First, something that hasn't been mentioned here is that mark to market post Enron is different than pre Enron. Mark to market may not be new, but the way it has been enacted since Enron is. As a matter of fact, I think that specifically what we are talking about here is only a year old or less. We're just now feeling the fall out. Actually, I don't understand why Cox can't just suspend the accounting practice. It's not law, I don't think... it's just an SEC audit rule. Can Congress make him do it? I don't know. That's a good question. I really don't have a clue. I get the sense that he is not comfortable with the idea, and you know... there are plenty out there who don't believe this will help, and may even hurt. The problem with it is it is so new, less than a year old. I wonder if anyone has any quotes from Cox on this topic? I read somewhere that he evaded this question from Congress...

Yes. Since there is no definitive way of quoting or valuing long term commodities such as gas, Enron used unprecedented methods for calculating market value of their assets which were, in their case, fraudulently overstated. For the most part, though, mark to market is considered a protection from fraud. It seems that most economists think it should be eliminated. Some are not so sure. The bill yesterday would have relaxed the law, or at least given the SEC some flexibility.

If I understand correctly, the only reason for a bail out is to free up the credit market. If the current problems were not effecting the availability of credit, the govt wouldn't be trying to come up with a rescue plan. It doesn't solve the problems and causes of the sub prime fall out, but it keeps the fall out from destroying the availability of credit. So, in a way, it's not aimed at solving the problem, but containing the damage. P.S. How would it have helped AIG? I don't know that it would have... don't know as much about AIG except that the reason why the govt stepped in and gave them a two year loan is because they couldn't get financing from any banks, and the govt did this to avoid their going into bankruptcy.

A company usually puts assets on their books at book value. Mark to market requires that they adjust the value of the asset to reflect current market value. Banks are required to maintain a certain margin of liquidity in order to protect their depositors. The amount of money that a bank owes its investors and depositors has to be offset by assets with enough value that they can be liquidated and satisfy those obligations. This is often referred to as their reserve. Right now, because of the real estate problem, mortgage backed securities have a market value of about 10% of their original book value. No one wants to touch them. And, despite what is being said elsewhere in this thread, the value of the homes/collateral is NOT what appears on the bank's balance sheet. The homes are NOT the asset - the LOANS are the asset. Right now, the market value of the LOANS (you've heard of financial institutions selling loans to investors, etc.), is *less* than the value of the homes that are collateral. We're talking the market value of the actual loan (how much a bank or investor will pay to buy that loan from the bank). We're not talking about the loan balance or the value of the collateral. Mark to market accounting laws force the banks to report the market value of those assets (the loans) - many have been written down to basically nothing. All of the sudden, banks don't have the assets that they once had. All of the sudden, total assets are way down in relationship to their liabilities. Cash and the other assets that the bank holds are now frozen because they are earmarked for required liquidity margins. And some banks don't have enough other assets to cover the required market mark down of their real estate portfolio - these are the banks that fail. The end result is that these banks can no longer make loans because they can't free up other assets to make funds available to borrowers - those assets have been moved to their reserve because asset depreciation depleted their reserves. That's what they mean by their balance sheet being frozen. If mark to market were relaxed, the banks would be able to carry their real estate portfolios on their balance sheet at something closer to book value. The good thing about mark to market is it can and does prevent fraud (you can't overstate the value of your assets). The bad thing is that in times like this (liquidity crisis, and instability due to panic - yes, panic), it tends to exaggerate the bad news. Everyone knows that the value of these mortgage backed securities is much more than 10% of their original value. Only 20% of homes are in foreclosure, and each of them are collateralized by real estate that is worth a lot more than 10% of the loan balance. The devaluation of these mortgages is exaggerated and temporary. Robin P.S. Many don't want to get rid of mark to market completely because they believe it prevents fraud. So there is a legitimate argument there. The package that was voted against yesterday gave the SEC the authority to suspend mark to market when immediately necessary.

No, but the value of sub-prime *loans* are marked down to practically nothing. That's where the bargain is - buy the loan for pennies on the dollar.