So today's the day I send the Maxima into the shop for a one hundred thousand mile overhaul, new fluids, new tires new battery, a thousand dollar expense and no more-we hope! Meanwhile, as Donny and Dave pore over my splendid Nissan, derivatives traders Up North will be trying to figure out who owes what to whom. Exciting stuff as they have an estimated one and a half trillion dollars worth of promissory notes to sort out. Even more exciting as no one quite knows who will be unable to meet their obligations and what happens when they shrug their economic shoulders and confess they can't pay off their failed bets.
I expect the markets will slide a bit and if my very smart buddy Josh is correct and this adjustment is nothing out of the ordinary, we will teeter on a bit longer evading catastrophe. Because these derivatives were created as gambles on Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae paper, everything is a little more opaque than it should be, and is equally a bit more in the public eye than past swaps. I shall be poring over the Internet entrails when I get up around lunch time, and will then devote myself to sorting out our emerging vegetable garden before I enquire about the Nissan. Acting locally, worrying globally.
Some people talk of buying motorcycles to economise, but it occurred to me my Nissan's tires aren't completely worn threadbare but they are getting changed after three years and fully 55,000 miles. They cost about a hundred dollars apiece, a similar price to my Bonneville's rear tire that wore out after just over 8,000 miles. If the derivatives swap is too distasteful to ponder, the tire wear comparison could be food for thought on what could be a momentous day which we continue to fervently hope goes off like a damp squid.
