CafeChatNoir

Yes, the bond markets were closed, volume was light, it was a Fed holiday, short squeezes were a big factor, our lovely neighbors to the North were celebrating Thanksgiving, etc, etc, etc…

But as I told a friend this afternoon after the market closed - “It’s nice to be a witness to history where you’re not saying, “Oh crap.” at the end of the day.

Went through 1987 and it’s redux this year.  Can’t say I thought I’d see it twice in a lifetime.

But damn, it was nice to see green again on the charts.

Maybe I’ve been in DC too long and am just too close to the politics.  Or I just spend way too much time watching CNBC.

But, I will admit I was very surprised when I heard that various Rep’s said their constituents were overwhelmingly against today’s package being passed.  (Of course, this was after the Republican’s came out and said, “Pelosi hurt our feelings so we changed our votes.  Oh, the maturity!)  But somehow, the S&P 500 dropping 8.78% in a day is OK?

Has it been reported everywhere else in the country as just a mechanism to protect “The Rich” on “Wall Street”?  Cause the current credit and banking liquidity issues that the country is facing really do extend beyond the hedge fund managers and bankers on Wall Street.  Regular non-Wall-Streeters who *haven’t* bought a house they can’t afford, or a car they can’t afford and have saved and invested are having their portfolios hammered.

I really do wonder how this is all being reported outside the DC area, and in non-business-focused news programs.

ETA: After it was all said and done, I went to see how my rep voted.  Both my current rep and the one from my last district, both Republicans, voted for it.

Well, sort of.

Looks like Wachovia Bank is next on the chopping block.  Of course, my grandmother has 2 accounts there…

Given that her FAVORITE activity is to actively seek out things to worry about and to then expect me to have all the answers, this should be fun.

Hopefully a few things will happen:

1.  She’s not paying any attention to the news.

2.  That it is just a matter of the name changing on the bank - trust me, having her deposits liquidated and sent to her will cause more heartburn than I even care to imagine.

Watching the Banking Committee hearings this morning on CNBC re: market bailout.

It would be more comforting if the members understood what a reverse auction was.

If you don’t like roller coasters, obviously this has not been the best week to be following the stock market.

However, if you are like me and actively follow the stock market, you may agree that today is a really crappy day to have the cable go out and not be able to get your CNBC fix.  (But Cox Communications has assured me that “technicians are in the area and they’re working on the problem!”)

Still picking through multiple news pages to get the details of what the government has in mind for all this.  Fun!

Got a letter from the IRS letting me know that they didn’t have a 1040 for tax year 2006 for my Mom. Well, that’s because a 1041 was filed instead.

I’m going to be optimistic - I will call on Monday and I think this can be cleared up with a simple phone call.

We shall see.

ETA:  And I even have a copy of the 1041.  Go me.

So, when we were out in Phoenix, we helped my Grandmother go through a bunch of old files and such. I got some old costume jewelery and a Singer sewing machine foot. Since she doesn’t even have a sewing machine anymore, she was going to just toss it.

Oh. No. Way. Singer parts for the older/GOOD machines are hard to find. I just said, “Oh, I’m sure I can find someone that can use it.” (I don’t have a Singer machine or I would have kept it myself.)

Ebay here I come. I listed it at 1PM and it was sold by 7PM.

Note to self: Get off arse and get other Ebay-able items listed.

Seems that I have a contract on my townhouse - with a completely different buyer. While realtor #1 decided to try to get into a pissing match with my guy, someone else came along with a better offer. So, everything has been signed and initialed and sent back and unless they find something absolutely horrid in the HOA docs in the next 3 days, things are good to go and closing set for October 12.

It’s a nice feeling.

Seems these folks put in an incredibly lowball offer over the weekend, which my realtor rejected immediately. (I don’t blame them for trying - you never know if you don’t ask.) They came back with something much more reasonable, but still want way too much for closing costs, so we’re countering with a lower subsidy and hopefully they’ll bite.

The good news is there are no contingencies, and they even included a letter from the lender saying this chick will in fact be able to finance the purchase.

Realtor was sending the counteroffer back this afternoon - figure I should know something this time tomorrow.

I might have an offer on the townhouse. My realtor got one offer this weekend that was apparently so far out in left field that he told them to sod off, and now it seems they’ve come back with something more realistic. He’s coming over in about an hour so we can go over it - let’s hope it’s something acceptable.

Kiva.org - Loans that change lives

Logged into Yahoo Bill Pay today to find the following annoucement:

Service Announcement- Yahoo! Bill Pay will be closing on October 1, 2007. You will be able to continue to pay bills using Yahoo Bill Pay as you have in the past through September 14, 2007.

* After September 14, 2007, you will only be able to view past transactions, download your account history, or cancel your account.
* Any payments scheduled to occur after September 14, 2007 will not be processed.
* All remaining active Yahoo! Bill Pay accounts will be automatically canceled on November 1, 2007.
* If you wish to continue using online bill pay services, you can contact with your personal bank.

To learn more about the Yahoo! Bill Pay service shutdown, please visit: Bill Pay Help.

Of course, Bill Pay Help hasn’t been updated yet with any actual information on why they’re shutting down the service.

I’ve been using them for at least 7 years and never once had a problem with a payment going through - I really liked the service, so this kinda sucks. Can’t say I’m really in the mood to be figuring out a new payment system from the credit union.  I do wonder if they’ll ever post *why* they’re shutting down the service.

Today I got to do something I haven’t done in years. Fill out a Federal tax return by hand. In running the error check on the final return of the 3 I was working on, I get a nice message from Turbo Tax saying, “Hmmm, well, this just isn’t going to work for you.” Mind you, the key piece of information that caused it to pat me on the head and send me on my way to the IRS website for new and different forms was entered in the system in the first 5 minutes of the process. Couldn’t tell me then, could ya?

Dear god, I’d forgotten how much doing taxes by hand is like a damned Choose Your Own Adventure book… Every line directs you to another form, another line, which directs you to yet another page in the instruction book and pretty soon you’ve got the entire floor covered with pieces of paper and strings connecting all the various lines.

Now I get to print the forms out again and try to fill them out neatly…

Current Music: Suddenly I See, KT Tunstall

Tonight’s task has been taxes. Whee!! Right now I have 2 of the 3 tax returns finished, which is a far cry from this time last year when I was filling out extension forms and praying that the IRS had the same definition of ” good faith estimate” that I did. As things turn out, we must have gotten a sympathetic reviewer, as I’ve not gotten any nasty-grams from them once our various and sundry accounts were paid in full before the super-really-totally-final-unless-you-file-another-extension deadline. This year, everything will be done well before the 4/17 deadline, thank god.

However, I do have to say I take just a tiny bit of pride in the fact that earlier this evening little bro left the house to visit w/folks as I was cussing out Turbo Tax’s auto-crap-update feature, and by the time he returned just a few hours later, I had 2 of 3 returns done and had still had time to go catch last call at the local watering hole. You can take the accounting job away from the girl, but you can’t take the accountant and resultant celebrant alcoholic out of the girl…

I remember the days when I used to have my taxes done before February 15th… Not sure what happened, but yeah, not quite that much on top of things these days, but I’m still meeting or beating deadlines, so it’s all good.

So, we’ve covered taxes. Death - it sucks and is inevitable, not much more to say on that. Other miscellany - indulge me on this one -I have a playlist called “Aftermath” - beats the initial naming of it, which was “Down, Not Across” - and well, it’s not quite *that* morbid…a small sampling follows.

To toast Spring: Back to the Earth, Rusted Root
To remember why you don’t want to be a cynical beeotych: Suddenly I See, KT Tunstall (took me a couple listens to get past the guitar riffs being too close to “Black Horse & The Cherry Tree”)
Just sit with me and listen: Samba Para Ti, Santana. Sit and listen and you’ll get it.
We can’t always have everything, and it’s not necessarily the end of the world…: Beverly Hills, Weezer
Things have a way of working out: Float On, Modest Mouse
Self Explanatory… : Superman, Lazlo Bane
Gotta bag of Mickey’s TallBoys without anyone to share with?: Party Generation, Dar Williams
I’d give you everything I have and then some: Santa Monica, Everclear
It just feels good: Naked Eye, Luscious Jackson
Cause we all need a little Dead: Friend of the Devil, Grateful Dead
Cause I’m a sucker for some old school Clapton: She’s Waiting, Eric Clapton
Where is that other shoe, anyway?: Feelin’ Way Too Damn Good, Nickleback
Damn, where did I eff things up?: How to Save a Life, The Fray

Oh to have the rewind button on life some days.

THE ESTATE IS SETTLED!!!!!!!!

During yesterdays fun and games in the market, over the course of approximately 4 minutes, the Dow dropped 200 points. They’re still not 100% sure exactly what happened, but so far it seems to come down to this - the volume overwhelmed some servers and things “broke out” a little before 3PM. The bottom half of the chart is volume - see that nice little spike there? At one point they were thinking someone made a mistake and put too many zeros at the end of an order, but it seems to just been a whole boatload of unexecuted trades just queued up and waiting.

It will be interesting to see what effect (if any) this has on the continued use of the hybrid trading systems that have been introduced in the past year or so.

ETA @ 4PM - Specialists on the floor of the NYSE have been told not to close their stocks just yet.  Curiouser and curiouser…

Yes, the Dow dropped 416 points today, for a 3.29% loss on the day. Yes, it would be quite possible to have some additional followthrough on this over the course of the week.

No, it is not the end of the world.

Life seems to have caught up with me. 11 hours of sleep last night and very possibly as much if not more today. Despite what I am sure are appearances to the contrary, I’ve got lots of crap going on - big/small/good/stupid and actually very little wild/craziness and my body has either decided “screw it, we’re stopping for the day” or I can just blame my brother as he was sick earlier in the week.

Note to Iran: Please stop with the asshat uranium enrichment comments, it’s screwing with the stockmarket.
Note to US policymakers: Please stop baiting Iran into asshat uranium enrichment comments, it’s screwing with the stockmarket.

There is an ad on CNBC by the National Association of Payday Lenders (might not have the name quite right, but it’s their self-governing body) and it stresses the responsible use of payday advances. I have no problem with the message whatsoever - getting into those can be an real slippery slope. However, I have to wonder if they’re really reaching their target audience - how many folks who are using paycheck advances are also watching CNBC?

OK, I think I am going to go curl up and die for a while.

Add to that list: Congressional hearings. Sure, Congressional hearings aren’t actually making anything, but eventually they lead to laws being made and well, it’s not always pretty.

Been watching Ben Bernake in front of the finance committees the past two days. Despite the fact that I’ve been a swooning fangirl of Alan Greenspan’s for years, the new guy has won me over in his time in the position. He knows his stuff, is very levelheaded and not into fear-mongering.

Overall, the hearings have been fairly tame, a lot of good questions and answers, no raking over the coals and very minimal snarkiness.

However, what is going to make my head explode is how many times I’ve heard reps saying things about “MY district” - do you not understand that the Fed is a regional/national organization? When you’re talking about Fed issues you have to think about the entire region that you are a part of, not just your district. Your district is just a little piece of a bigger thing and you have to remember that - it’s not all about you.

The other question/comment that just killed me was someone talking about “increasing take home pay” in her district… It seemed to be asked in a matter that she expected him to wave a magic wand and everyone would have higher take home pay. In my mind, for higher take home pay, there are two ways to go about it: 1) Make yourself more marketable so you can move up (and Bernake HAS said addressed workforce education as being critical) and/or 2) Find a better employer. Honestly, not sure how the Federal Reserve could directly control it, at least not in the way the representative appeared to think. (Yes, part of their work is employment, but not “*poof*, here’s higher take home pay”)

Best question/comment? From a congressman new to Congress and the committee - just asked (paraphrased to be sure) “Can you give a high level rundown of what the Fed is actually responsible for so that we don’t ask questions about things that you have absolutely no responsibility for?” Kinda think maybe he should have gotten to ask his question first…

I will be so damn happy when this estate is settled. (, I am sure you can relate.) Told the Credit Union to make the checks out directly to my brother, and then they made them out to both of us. Nothing that can’t be overcome, but freakin’ annoying - why ask who to make it out to if you aren’t going to follow the directions I give you?

Didn’t get me the mortgage payoff amount either. We really would like to pay that off, thankyouverymuch.

The savings account apparently had an little automatic life insurance thing associated with it, so there was a little extra there, so that’s nice, but I still need that mortgage payoff amount…

And of course, I don’t have access to Quicken cause the laptop is still in the shop, so I can’t compare what they sent to the records I have, and that is going to make me exceptionally twitchy until I can take care of that.

I am still amazed with the utter inconsistency of required documentation when trying to distribute an estate. It has ranged from having to have medallion guarantees and affidavits of domicile to, “fax us copies of these two pieces of paper and just tell us where you want the money to go” - kinda crazy and frustrating, because every time you make a phone call, you never know what to expect.

Off to see the painters for final payment & inspection, thank god that’s finished. Now that the abundance of tarps, painting equipment and plastic sheeting are going to be gone, I can get back to getting little things done around there. But at least I’ve got a big thing crossed off the list there.

The markets decided to play very nicely this first full trading week of 2007, thanks to oil dropping and some short covering today in anticipation of the long weekend. Here’s to it being a good omen for the rest of the year. Of course, we’re going right back into another short week, with a boatload of economic news and earnings, so the wheels could easily just fall right off. It’s nice to have the time to be able to actually pay attention to this stuff again.

Thank god for progress.

The dividend fuckup has been corrected.
The painters are painting.
The window install is scheduled and can likely be moved up if I get word back from the HOA sooner than expected.

More will be accomplished this afternoon, but first, more coffee.

I am greatly lacking in motivation right now. Or overdone with frustration, one of the two, or quite possibly both.

Got a call from the painters today, they’re coming on Monday. Mind you, this was originally scheduled for the 16th, and I guess got moved up - except that this was the first I’d heard of it being changed.

Just seems like there are so many hurdles to get from point A to point B and I just want to fucking get to point B already. Except that point B is several years away. Which obviously means I need to find some closer points in between to work towards so I don’t lose my mind. At the moment, I guess that is getting things ready for the painters on Monday. Fortunately it shouldn’t take much of anything, as there really shouldn’t be much of anything left on/near the walls. Next step - wrangling an approval out of the ACC for the windows so I can actually schedule an installation. (I may just schedule the installation anyway and if they drag their feet I’ll reschedule.)

Estate stuff is not as critical at this point, cause we’ve missed the “try to get it all done before the end of the tax year” goal anyway, and it’s not like we’re broke because of what is still unsettled. Still on the radar, just not the “Oh fuck gotta get it done RIGHT NOW” it was before. The brain trust over at Computershare managed to do the distribution the day before another dividend posted…so now I have to find out if I have to fill out another set of papers to get *that* distributed… So freakin’ close.

Also need to start making inquiries next week as to how long it would take to have the DVD drive on this laptop pulled out and replaced. It’s not under warranty anymore, so it’s not like it would have to be shipped off to Toshiba. In theory, that should be a quick fix, shouldn’t it?

Guess there will just be a flurry of activity of fixing a bunch of little things I don’t give a damn about in order to ignore the fact that I can’t figure out how fix the things I do care about.

It’s probably a good thing I know that drinking myself into oblivion doesn’t fix things, make time travel possible or any number of other things. But damn, I can understand why people try it.

So, I call the credit union to get decedent accounts to clear 2 accounts and get the final mortgage payoff amount.

Operator tells me there is 34 minute hold time. I tell her to go ahead and put me through anyway, after nearly blurting, “What, is there a run on dead people today?” (Reason #287 why I’m going to hell.) After a couple minutes oh hold she comes back on. Apparently the long wait time is because there is only one person answering the phones in that department, and all she is doing is answering the phones - the rest of the department is in a meeting that will last the rest of the day. (Read: Holiday party.)

Argh. ARGH.

She was at least nice enough not to leave me on hold for a half hour to find that out, and did offer to take my info and have someone call me back. Everyone I’ve ever dealt with at Navy Fed is very nice and helpful, but damn, they are understaffed - every time I am on hold for what seems like forever.

And the pods website is busted again - ever since they redesigned it, it’s near impossible to get logged in. I’m on with some poor woman from live help who is more customer service than tech support and well, I still can’t log in, but at least she’s getting me the info I need.

And people wonder why I like beer.

3 accounts to fill out paperwork for yesterday. Of course, one of the three has no known account number that I can find as it is a spinoff from one of the other accounts (just last month), there has been no printed statement for it yet, so I can’t get it from that, and the online information has the account number masked for my security and frustration. (I called, they won’t give me the information, so I get to wait 7-10 days for them to mail it to me.)

Electrician that was supposed to come on the 28th, then rescheduled for today due to a cancellation, is now coming on Friday because of the rain…which has stopped. And I suspect they will come out, take one look and say, “Oh, we needed to have this all marked ahead of time.”

Whoever did the first estimate on the paining neglected to write down an actual paint color, so now they have to come out Monday and basically take a chunk from the walls and trim and just take it back and match it.

The HOA wants a “product brochure” for the windows. Well, the company I’m using doesn’t really have one. (They have one framestyle they use and then grids and size are all custom.) Guess I’ll just print stuff off the website. They’re not fly by night, they just don’t have a shiny piece of paper with pictures of windows. Don’t know how I am going to convince them that the trim color I picked is in fact an exact match to the existing trim. (I think that may end up being my Christmas miracle.)

My grandmother arrives in a week. Decorating? Shopping? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. ‘Nuff said.

And to top it all off, we damn near ended up with nowhere to stay at the beach next summer thanks to my completely forgetting about it. (It worked out OK, we have a place that will even take the dog, but damn.)

Now I’m going to go find out if you really can get a dog license at the animal shelter or not. (Note to self: Do not go look at the animals.)

I swear, I get on a roll and things are all looking good and then everything decides to fall apart for a while…I’m ready for things to start going right again. And people wonder why I am so fond of beer.