Ugh

I am very excited to watch the presidential debates this Friday, so when I saw the NY Times headline this evening about McCain calling for postponement of both the debates and the campaigns in light of the financial crisis, I was very worried. Of course McCain would want the campaigns to cease now that Sarah Palin's charm has worn off and Obama is gaining back his lead in the polls. I also think Obama will be much more effective than McCain in the debates. Fortunately, I checked back in with the Times a few minutes later and discovered that Obama agreed to suspend his campaign in order to be present in Congress while they decide whether to use 700 billion dollars of our money (another issue in itsef) to 'fix' our financial situation but declined the postponement of the debates.

Now, about those 700 billion dollars. Economics has never been my strong suit. I don't completely understand how the value of businesses and goods are based entirely on what people happen to think they are worth and not some intrinsic value. I also don't entirely understand how our monetary system became unlinked from gold such that we spend our entire lives paying for things with bits of paper that also have no intrinsic value, or how the treasury department 'keeps' their value by rationing how much of them they print. Regardless of the possible fate of our financial system, I don't think that taxpayers should have to support independent banks that are now failing just because they screwed up so badly they are threatening our and possibly the world's fianncial system. If we are going to save them under the auspices of saving the financial system, I think taxpayers should absolutely get a substantial stake in the companies.

On a slightly related topic, while the dollar has drastically dropped against the euro, it has unfortunately not done so against the Australian dollar. It seems that the Australian economy is just to closely linked to ours so that as our dollar has dropped worldwide recently, so has the Australian dollar. I only mention this because I closed the account I used during my year in Australia today. If I had been more on top of things and closed in during the summer, when the exchange rate reached a high of 0.97 AUD to 1 USD, I would be receiving a lot more money than at the current exchange rate of 0.83 AUD to 1 USD. Oh well, I think I better just stick with biology.

big school, small school

I've just started my third week of classes and already the differences between classes here and at my undergraduate school are stark. It's not because I'm taking graduate courses now. In fact, most of the classes I am enrolled in are technically undergrad ones. They are big lectures where half the students don't attend class and a good portion of the other half falls asleep. There is no participation, no discussion. The professors don't even attempt to learn names. With all of our assignments limited to quizzes and exams, it's no wonder why so many science students have difficulty writing. While this different style does mean that there is a lot less work needed per class, I miss the engaged classrooms where students talked to the professor and felt comfortable asking questions and where your professor would call you by name.

Ithaca weather

Here is a clipping of the weather forecast for Freeville tomorrow afternoon, courtesy of wunderground.com. Since when does the National Weather Service forecast a "definite" chance of rain?