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I’m not sure I know how to react to the news today that the House of Representative defeated the bill giving Treasury the ability to purchase mis-priced assets from the banking system.

As the market collapsed, $1.1 trillion was destroyed in falling share values held by Americans. That is much more than the $700 billion that Treasury requested. So we no longer have the $700 billion, and we lost another $400 billion. I can’t think of a better definition of “stupid”…

Are Americans worthy of being saved?

During this financial crisis I have been wandering the halls of academia, blog space and the business world and I’m shocked by our people’s lack of comprehension about what is going on in the economy. The misperceptions about the current banking crisis, its seriousness, the implications, and potential solutions defy understanding. There are times when I just shake my head.

I have found that the groups of incomprehension fall into four camps…

As a follow on to my last post, and in the spirit of more regulation is good (the protest cry from the streets these days following Wall Street’s crisis), here are two ideas where we might be able to do more with less:

Fedealize insurance regulation, and adopt principles based accounting.

As quaint as state insurance regulation is, and as well intentioned as Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) was, its time for both to go. This is such a no brainer that it will never get done…

An angry and probably jealous nation is getting ready to make some big mistakes in financial industry regualtion.

Given that the media has been driven into a psychotic incoherent rage, first over the popularity of Sara Palin, and then by the incomprehensibility of a credit crunch that they really don’t understand but are absolutely convinced was done deliberately by people richer than they, to this there will be only one tolerable response: Criminalize more behavior.

The results will not be good…

I lost Saturday, Sunday and Monday to the cutest little game called Tower Defense. It completely mesmerized me for three days. I was told that during that period I hardly moved and there is no question that on Friday when I looked down to start playing it was morning, and when I again looked up, it was night. I haven’t been this engrossed in a game since Stronghold devoured weeks of my life back in 2002.

What is it about this game and why is it so cool…

As reported in Touching History by Lynn Spenser, Major Billy Hutchison of the 121st Fighter Squadron, DC Air National Guard was the only military jet between United 93 and the populated city of Washington DC on September 11, 2001. His jet was diverted from training with limited munitions and he was given orders to keep United 93 from crashing into the city by any means necessary. He was minutes from intercept before the passengers on the hijacked jet succeeded in their second assault on the cabin.

After I read his story, and thought about being in that cockpit, I wrote this poem…

Productivity consultant Matt Cornell starts a conversation about “Blogruptcy”. It’s really all about the metaphor we use of being on “the shiny edge of an ever expanding bubble of posts”. But that can change…