0687 - Subprime

It's the word of the week, not at your butcher's, but on Wall Street. For the innocent, a loan is "Subprime" when the borrower is poor and is going to have difficulty paying it off. Such loans carry high interest, reflecting lender's risk. Thus, the poorest borrowers get socked the hardest – but that's life, isn't it? The default rate on these loans is rising, and at least one lender's stock is suspended. Just why Congress needs to meddle is not clear, since the lenders gambled, didn't they? Nevertheless, Subprime is all over the financial pages, and is called an infection that may spread. The OO and Senior Staff, just back from super-thriving Atlanta, wish to report on other examples of Subprimacy.

First of all, air travel and airport transit, are way below minimal these days. You know those mazes constructed of standards and web belts that funnel waiting subservient passengers to desks or baggage inspections or prostate exams? They treat the passenger as either part of a Sudoku puzzle or an applicant for Guantanamo. Coming into Atlanta (ATL) you find these every step of the complex procedure. First Immigration, then get your baggage, then Customs, and then, and then, re-surrender your bag. Then you find another long entry maze and are told by a person speaking what may be English – or may not – to remove belt, shoes, handbags, and all trace of dignity. Just why the streets of Atlanta are threatened by shoe bombers is not clear. If you wear loose-fitting travel pants, they tend to fall off as your handbags are X-rayed again and you again pass through the mysterious electronic doorway. Then, you dress again and take a train, yes a train, for five stops, where you once again track down a carousel and rescue your suitcase. And then, since ATL is in critical need of a signage consultant, you wander around looking for a taxi. Our verdict on ATL's procedures: Subprime.

Atlanta the Metroplex is still gripped by a frantic building boom, with giant cranes teetering overhead, and sixty-story combination Condos/Offices/Hotels threatened every few steps. What the city did not think of, though, is that more buildings make for more traffic, so traffic is worse every visit; the air is thick with exhaust irritants. The people are pleasant and the restaurants splendid, but taxis and public transport are hard to find. At the wonderful Piedmont Medical Center, they built yet one more doctors' building, but it has no entrance from the street – none. Patients seeking succor (repeat that thrice) wander about until they are finally told to enter another building, take an elevator, take a bridge walk, then go in and out of a high-up parking deck. You see, the building is made only for those who drive in; non-drivers or taxi-ers were never conceived of as existing. But the MedCare is Prime, if the architect isn't. Does the staff at your hospital tell you to "Have a blesséd day?" Not likely.

Meanwhile, the sad spectacle of a seriously Subprime Washington was all over the news last week. The Attorney General – the smarmy guy who explains to you why it is right to torture or to hold people forever at Guantanamo without charges or trial, that guy has screwed up bad, yet again. The issue is the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys, probably for prosecuting Repubs, or maybe for not prosecuting Dems. Our Senior Counsel has known many Justice Department lawyers and this is dirty work. It's not done. Meanwhile John McCain the straight-talker was unwilling to say condoms should be distributed to prevent AIDS. That's courage? We thought much better of you, John.

Our Prime action of the week for Congress: stop running for office and asking for spinach subsidies, and vote to shut down Guantanamo. Now. Do right.

Next time: ChungLingSoo [OO #688]

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