Matt: So, who won the debate?
Jordan: Some people thought McCain won. Others thought Obama won. But the real winner was the American people :)
Actually it was a tie. Browsing both liberal and conservative sites they would say their guy won, but both added "needs to do better next time." Both candidates played it safe for the most part. The consensus is that Obama was at his best during the first half of the debate when the topic was the economy and McCain won the second half of the debate when it was about national security.
Since neither one trounced the other, fake outrage has been drawn up. Republicans cite that Obama said he agreed with McCain 11 times during the debate and that he always referred to McCain as just John and never Senator. Meanwhile, Democrats are mad that McCain rarely ever looked at Obama while speaking and body language experts are trying to read his facial expressions to see if he was snubbing Obama.
M: I actually didn't get to watch all of the debate. The wife and I were out with some friends at a local eatery. It was on, but the only thing I could hear was McCain whistling. What was up with that? Did he not put his dentures in correctly? Did he possibly break a tooth on a candy apple?
J: Midway through the debate McCain started whistling a song he once heard his great-great granddaughter singing back in 1932. Obama's rebuttal consisted of a improv rap called "Bush is a Gangsta." The moderator, Jim Leeher, sounded the bell and started the next round of questioning about Iraqi national security.
M: OK, pretend for a moment that I am a simpleton, an idiot, a drooling manchild with a questionable IQ and poor dental hygiene--not quite Simple Jack, not full on Forrest Gump, but, like, kind of dopey. Explain this whole economic crisis to me.
J: Well it's very complicated. It's no surprise that Americans live in debt. Instead of cash many of us live off credit. The average American household carrys about $8,000 in credit card debt. About 43% of American families spend more than they earn each year, and personal bankruptcies have doubled in the past decade.
So for a long time now banks and other financial institutions have been giving out loans to people who couldn't afford to pay them back, particularly loans to buy houses.
The most common problem has been with banks giving home loans to low income people who really couldn't afford to pay them back. And eventually all these bad loans came to the surface at the same time creating trillions of dollars of more bad debt. Banks lose the money, they get the deed to the house, but the country is also in a housing crisis - there are more houses on the market for sale than people willing to buy them, so the value of the homes nationwide are dropping as are mortgage-backed securities. So the banks are stuck with lots of worthless paper they can't unload.
On top of that we have a process called securitization, where a bank or lender can sell the rights of the mortgage payments and risk to a private investor. But so many bad loans with high risk were traded around that the market as a whole is getting hurt, not just big banks and mortgage companies.
Also we have seen a rise in the country's unemployment rate and a rise worldwide in oil prices which caused the prices of everything else to go up.
Some people blame the gov't oversight agencies for not keeping their eye on these loans happening or at the government for not giving them the authority to regulate these loans. Some point to laws passed in the 90s that made it easier for low income people to get loans...
M: Whoa, whoa, whoa--sum it up in three words.
J: Bad-Loans-Suck (Hard)
M: If the economic crisis was a sound, what would that sound be?
J: The sound would be like a huge tornado swirling around.
M: So, whoosh, maybe? Like, a continuous whoosh-whoosh-whoosh?
J: Yeah, like a whirlwind of crashing and banging with some light crying in the background and an elderly woman yelling "Skeetor! The tornada' knocked over my trailer!"
M: The premiere of Paris Hilton Is My New BFF is tonight and I wondered if all the candidates-presidential and vice presidential--appeared on this show, who'd go away claiming Ms. Hilton as their BFF?
J: I think that Paris would probably pick Barack Obama as her BFF. Her parents are McCain supporters, but after his campaign ran a TV ad that mocked Obama as a celebrity and featured Paris in it, her mom was very upset and asked for their contribution back. Paris may still hold some disdain for McCain for that reason. Also he and Biden are like crazy old. And Biden's had two brain aneurysms so she may think he's going to die on her.
Sarah Palin is probably too old fashioned for Paris. Probably too much like one of her mom's friends. So in the end she'd pick Obama although I don't know how much he'd like to be associated with her.
(Check out Jordan's personal blog for more political coverage, including this shocking-yet-not-shocking interview with rapping-dumbass DMX.)
