Re: Vent Town
Posted:
Wed Jan 26, 2011 5:09 pmby Emeritus
Bummer! January is the most depressing time of the year. The weather is gloomy (actually it's wonderful here), the Christmas bills come due and the holidays are definitely over. Sometime you just have to stick it out and put things back together over time. Good luck!
Re: Vent Town
Posted:
Wed Jan 26, 2011 6:50 pmby Baglady
Sorry bout your car TT.... Germany fund????
Hmmm, didn't get any help on another topic so I'll try here. How do I get the 'powers that be' add additional NFL icons here at Swiss???? Yes, I'm thinking 'horseshoe'
Great to be in FL on vacation this time of yr - I don't even like to call on clients in Jan - just miserable in IN now.... So I'll just enjoy the sunshine while I'm here.
Re: Vent Town
Posted:
Thu Jan 27, 2011 9:16 amby Emeritus
I lived in Würzburg for a year, doing graduate work at the university. Take an overcoat!
Re: Vent Town
Posted:
Thu Jan 27, 2011 2:59 pmby 16Forever
Good afternoon shoppers, welcome to Vent Town. The nations largest vent and accessory warehouse. We crush the competition with the lowest prices and the best service on the market.
Greetings CK, hope all is well with you...........TT, no offense, just popping into say Bon Jour.
Re: Vent Town
Posted:
Mon Jan 31, 2011 11:28 amby Emeritus
Can anybody remember a more boring Pro Bowl? In my opinion, Terry Bradshaw isn't much of a color man, but I doubt if anybody could have added color to that game. I went and sat in my porch swing and watched things grow.
Re: Vent Town
Posted:
Mon Jan 31, 2011 8:48 pmby Keeping The Peace
Re: Vent Town
Posted:
Tue Feb 01, 2011 8:32 amby Emeritus
Since I absolutely refuse to carry a cell phone, that's not a high priority for me, but everybody to their own thing.
Re: Vent Town
Posted:
Wed Feb 02, 2011 8:07 amby dredwak
Understanding Derivatives-a Primer
Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Chicago .
She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar.
To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later.
Heidi keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans)..
Word gets around about Heidi's "drink now, pay later" marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Heidi's bar. Soon, she has the largest sales volume for any bar in Detroit .
By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Heidi gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages.
Consequently, Heidi's gross sales volume increases massively.
A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Heidi's borrowing limit.
He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral!!!
At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS.
These "securities" then are bundled and traded on international securities markets.
Naive investors don't really understand that the securities being sold to them as "AAA Secured Bonds" really are debts of unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb!!!, and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation's leading brokerage houses.
One day, even though the bond prices still are climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi's bar. He so informs Heidi.
Heidi then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being unemployed alcoholics, they cannot pay back their drinking debts.
Since Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and Heidi's 11 employees lose their jobs.
Overnight, DRINKBOND prices drop by 90%.
The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank's liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.
The suppliers of Heidi's bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms' pension funds in the BOND securities.
They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and lose over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds.
Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.
Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multi-billion dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from the government.
The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, nondrinkers who have never been in Heidi's bar.
Re: Vent Town
Posted:
Wed Feb 02, 2011 9:29 amby Emeritus
I find a few logical flaws in the analogy, but then reasoning by analogy is always risky. To say that something is analogous is to say that it isn't the same.
I just LOVE the idea of a Vent Town. Perfect! We can deal with our woes here from all areas of our lives. I do love my Switzerland so!!! 
Any stopovers on your flight east???
and spent the night in frankfurt...during the first gulf war...nice folks...
cant say i recommend it...
