My Aunt Lorine

I married into a good family.  Fun and funny, smart, and very very cool.  I have always considered myself very lucky.

My own family is full of good, sweet, honest people.  From my earliest memories I draw good feelings, despite the challenges from losing my dad at such a young age.  When we went to East Texas we were always welcomed with warmth and love...all the things you need when you're young.

My family...the generation before us...were older than most, at least compared to my peers.  My mom, the youngest of four sisters, is 46 years my senior.  Today she is the last of her sisters.

Today my Aunt Lorine, whom I saw as the most elegant of my aunts, passed away.  Her late husband, Carl, a former Scouter, was a model for me as a good and kind and funny man.  The two of them were the best of people.

All my uncles served their roles for me in place of my missing dad.  My aunts provided the warmth and love any family should enjoy.  For a few lucky months I lived among them full-time, at a time when it really counted.  Good people, in a good place, doing what family is supposed to do.

This is the way of things.  We come, we grow, we live, and we die.  Along the way we are touched by those who love us, and we touch those we love.  Hopefully, we remember to cherish those moments and feelings...they are the only things that are truly real, more concrete than the solid objects of our everyday world.

Last to remain, besides my mom, Grace, is my Uncle Vivian, husband to my late Aunt Maxine.  In his prime he was, I believe, a grocer.  In the war he was a Quartermaster...fitting to his calling.  All of this might be wrong...it's something I remember from my childhood.

Goodbye, Aunt Lorine.  I love you, and thank you for the gift of your love...and for what you and Carl meant to us all.

Lack of regulation proves the failure of regulation?

Wow...a failed financial industry specifically protected from any regulation would not be protected by a regulatory system that failed to prevent the last failure?  Hmmm..."Wow...a crashed commercial airplane specifically protected from any inspection would not be protected by an inspection system that failed to prevent the last crash?"

Humans are humans no matter where they work and what they do.  Some will selfishly abuse the trust of others for profit alone.  We have plenty of financial instruments that are regulated that remain safe and successful...thanks to their ongoing regulation that helps prevent abuse and makes abuse punishable.

It simply blows my mind that some in Congress argue against regulation like it was regulation that failed...when there was no regulation...thanks to Congress!

A freshly deregulated mortgage industry only set the stage for a downturn.  The main act was the derivatives market that rode on the flood of poorly-written, dishonestly-sold mortgages, a significant portion of which were doomed to fail before they were signed!

We do not need draconian regulations...we just need reasonable oversight and transparency to ensure the instruments being written or sold meet reasonable standards for risk, that they are made in good faith, and that those who seek to defraud investors will be subject to appropriate civil and criminal punishment.

Even with the rotten mortgage industry that grew out of the deregulation introduced in 2000 our problems would have been a fraction of what we have experienced.  The wholesale gambling and outright fraud that emerged in the mortgage derivatives industry multiplied the mortgage-based problems many times over.

We are a great country, with the competency to establish markets that balance freedom and regulation so as to pursue economic opportunities while punishing if not preventing abuse.  It does not have to be perfect, but we have lived through the grand promise and catastrophic failure of the "wild west" markets.  Now it's time to grow up and be responsible about profits, but not hungry with greed.