Thursday, October 30, 2008
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Mac's Place
Where would you rather go out to eat a meal when you are on campus? The two places that I go to are Umphrey Lee Center and Mac's Place. Now why am I writing about this. I am writing to show how much better Umphrey Lee is than Mac's Place. Now you may have a totally different opinion than me but that is okay. I welcome all opinions.
Umphrey Lee is my place that I would rather go to eat when I am eating a meal on campus compared to Mac's Place. At Umphrey Lee I enter and I always find that the person who is swiping the ID cards is always welcoming me in a polite way. The staff at Umphrey Lee is are always working hard and the food is always fresh. If anything of any type runs out I find someone to replace the item right away. Whenever I may have a complaint or complement about the food or something in Umphrey Lee I always get served and in a good manor. From what I have explained above you would be under the influence that Umphrey Lee is a great place to eat at.
Besides Umphrey Lee there is another place where food is served on campus. This place is called Mac's Place. It is located in the McElvaney Hall on the south end of campus. Whenever I enter that "place" I come out upset. The line is always long, the plates are greasy, the service is awful and the selection of food is limited. We can only get two sides and the choices are not to the healthiest of options. The most important thing that I have noticed is the service at Mac's Place. I think that it is nothing compared to Umphrey Lee. Whenever I go to the counter to order something like a chicken sandwich I get a nasty response. From about five or six people who have cooked for me there have all treated me like absolute garbage and the people at the check out desk treat me the same way. I am only going in there to get a chicken sandwich and I get treated like garbage.
I know that the employees at Mac's Place might not like their job but I think that I should be treated with some sort of respect when I come there. I have the intention of coming there for a decent meal. The end result is that I get to eat on a greasy plate, can only pick out certain things to eat and get treated like trash. I have asked many people around campus and they have the same opinion. Does this happen to you? If it does we need to let the SMU dining services to know because the problem is only on the way to getting worse if nothing happens.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
What caused this financial crisis edit
If you have read any newspaper, watched any news station or listened to any talk radio station, there has been a lot of talk about the financial crisis that our economy is currently in. I explained in an earlier blog about what happened with the American International Group (AIG) and if they failed that we could have already been in a depression. Now what the average person wants to know is how did we get to this spot that we are currently in and what can we do to get out of it?
There are many different issues that could explain where we are today but one big issue that surrounds all of the financial worries on Wall Street have to do with the two biggest mortgage lenders in the United States, Freddie Mac (FRE) and Fannie Mae (FNM). Freddie Mac is a company that engages in mortgage purchasing and credit guarantee and portfolio management in the United States. Fannie Mae is the primary mortgage liquidator to help insure mortgage companies, savings, loans, commercial banks, credit unions, state and local housing financial agencies have enough money to lend to home buyers. In short, these two companies insure loans made by banks and mortgage companies.
George W. Bush made a speech on Thursday September 25th, 2008 on national television that helped explain to the average person across the United States about what is going on. In short, there were plenty of foreign investors outside the United States interested in investing in the United States because the United States is a safe place for business. All of the money that has come in from these outside investors, with low interest rates, made it easier for people to get credit to help families borrow money for whatever they may please. These loans helped people open businesses and as a result more jobs became available. The negatives come in the housing market. With easy credit and the assumption that the price of housing would rise, mainly in Florida, California, Arizona and Nevada. The mortgage lenders like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae lent out loans that some people would not be able to pay off. These institutions were under the assumption that people could pay off their houses when they would sell in the future. As it turns out this did not occur.
The number of houses that were being built continued to increase and soon there were not more houses out for sale than people willing to buy them. This creates a problem because the supply exceeds the demand and as a result the price of houses dropped. So people who wanted to try to refinance or sell their homes at a higher price would not be able to do so. The people who owned homes would not have enough money to pay off their homes because of the bad loans that were given out. In the mortgage industry today the mortgage companies package mortgage back securities that are sold to investors worldwide. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are the leading purchasers of these securities.
These two companies are financed by Congress so many believed that they can borrow large sums of money. There were a lot of questionable investments that took place. This lead to a domino effect and many companies that had ties to these investments, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, collapsed. The next company that could have collapsed would have been Merrill Lynch (MER) before they got bought out by Bank of America. The Japanese helped Morgan Stanley (MS) stay afloat and Goldman Sachs (GS) was saved by Warren Buffett.
The US Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, proposed a $700 billion dollar plan to help rescue our financial institutions. This plan mainly says that the US Government is going to try to purchase all of the financial institutions so called "toxic assets". I think that this is the best way for the financial system to get restarted again. The only thing is that we need an outside investor to express alot of interest in our nation. This is what happened in the late 1990's when the Saudi Prince Al- Waleed bin Talal invested $500 million dollars in Citigroup.The only question is know who is going to invest in our country now? Who is willing to take a chance to invest in such difficult times around the entire world? That is what I think the people on Wall Street and in Washington D.C. should be thinking about. It worked then but who is going to help us out now? That is to be determined but I am thinking that some investors from the United Arab Emirites or Kuwait might be up on that list. That is my opinion but I do not have any idea as of right now.
There are many different issues that could explain where we are today but one big issue that surrounds all of the financial worries on Wall Street have to do with the two biggest mortgage lenders in the United States, Freddie Mac (FRE) and Fannie Mae (FNM). Freddie Mac is a company that engages in mortgage purchasing and credit guarantee and portfolio management in the United States. Fannie Mae is the primary mortgage liquidator to help insure mortgage companies, savings, loans, commercial banks, credit unions, state and local housing financial agencies have enough money to lend to home buyers. In short, these two companies insure loans made by banks and mortgage companies.
George W. Bush made a speech on Thursday September 25th, 2008 on national television that helped explain to the average person across the United States about what is going on. In short, there were plenty of foreign investors outside the United States interested in investing in the United States because the United States is a safe place for business. All of the money that has come in from these outside investors, with low interest rates, made it easier for people to get credit to help families borrow money for whatever they may please. These loans helped people open businesses and as a result more jobs became available. The negatives come in the housing market. With easy credit and the assumption that the price of housing would rise, mainly in Florida, California, Arizona and Nevada. The mortgage lenders like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae lent out loans that some people would not be able to pay off. These institutions were under the assumption that people could pay off their houses when they would sell in the future. As it turns out this did not occur.
The number of houses that were being built continued to increase and soon there were not more houses out for sale than people willing to buy them. This creates a problem because the supply exceeds the demand and as a result the price of houses dropped. So people who wanted to try to refinance or sell their homes at a higher price would not be able to do so. The people who owned homes would not have enough money to pay off their homes because of the bad loans that were given out. In the mortgage industry today the mortgage companies package mortgage back securities that are sold to investors worldwide. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are the leading purchasers of these securities.
These two companies are financed by Congress so many believed that they can borrow large sums of money. There were a lot of questionable investments that took place. This lead to a domino effect and many companies that had ties to these investments, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, collapsed. The next company that could have collapsed would have been Merrill Lynch (MER) before they got bought out by Bank of America. The Japanese helped Morgan Stanley (MS) stay afloat and Goldman Sachs (GS) was saved by Warren Buffett.
The US Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, proposed a $700 billion dollar plan to help rescue our financial institutions. This plan mainly says that the US Government is going to try to purchase all of the financial institutions so called "toxic assets". I think that this is the best way for the financial system to get restarted again. The only thing is that we need an outside investor to express alot of interest in our nation. This is what happened in the late 1990's when the Saudi Prince Al- Waleed bin Talal invested $500 million dollars in Citigroup.The only question is know who is going to invest in our country now? Who is willing to take a chance to invest in such difficult times around the entire world? That is what I think the people on Wall Street and in Washington D.C. should be thinking about. It worked then but who is going to help us out now? That is to be determined but I am thinking that some investors from the United Arab Emirites or Kuwait might be up on that list. That is my opinion but I do not have any idea as of right now.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Going back home
During fall break I went back home. It has been my first time back home since I came to SMU. It felt so odd because when I got home it felt like I never left. Everything that was at my house was still the same the only thing was I did not stay that long. The thing is that I did not really feel the comforts of home when I went back. My new home was my dorm room. I have most of my stuff there and the people that I have spent alot of time were at their homes.
Most of my friends from high school were at their colleges or universities and did not have a fall break. I went to the main university in my state for a football game over the weekend with my friend. It was alot of fun. When I got back I just went to my friends house and spent very minimal time at my home. Over the break I saw my family and just did other activities not at my home over the break. Then before I knew it I was back in Dallas.
I came in thinking that I would spend alot of time at home over the fall break but it did not feel like home when I went back home. It felt like I was just on a short vacation at a place I have been to many times.
How was your fall break and did you feel the same way?
Most of my friends from high school were at their colleges or universities and did not have a fall break. I went to the main university in my state for a football game over the weekend with my friend. It was alot of fun. When I got back I just went to my friends house and spent very minimal time at my home. Over the break I saw my family and just did other activities not at my home over the break. Then before I knew it I was back in Dallas.
I came in thinking that I would spend alot of time at home over the fall break but it did not feel like home when I went back home. It felt like I was just on a short vacation at a place I have been to many times.
How was your fall break and did you feel the same way?
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