So while discussing with my wife the banking debacle yesterday, we came up with this scenario. I see a person on the street holding a large sum of money. I snatch the money from them, but soon after the police are involved and I have to give the money back. If this person decides to press charges, I go to court. Whatever the outcome, I am guilty of being a thief, and I'm treated like the common criminal I am; a person that takes money from others. It wouldn't matter that I gave it back. It might make a difference in punishment, but not the fact that I would be guilty of that specific crime, and there would be no other conclusion to come to.

But replace these two individuals with two different players in the same situation, and another conclusion is arrived at entirely. In essence, Chase bank plucked money right off the top of the funds we sent them, arbitrarily three months worth of payments, charged us interest on that money that had not even accrued yet, and used the rest as we intended. Their assets and resources are in the billions, ours meager in comparison, so the conclusion is that they are just doing what they do, and we were fortunate enough to be watching what they do and thwart the loss. Funny how that works.

On another note, interesting video here. This guy is spouting some doom and gloom, but at one point he says something I've not heard anyone else talk about. He espouses people working in community, sharing helpful information over a cup of coffee, and people interacting in a way that doesn't involve economic concepts but still improves the lives of individuals in a community.

About books I've read. Since reading Ender's game for the group, I've listened to Speaker For The Dead, Ender's Shadow, and I'm in the middle of Shadow of the Hegemon. Speaker for the Dead was somewhat interesting, but not enough to say it was a good book. The first two books in the Shadow series are much better. I will probably move on to the next one. I'm also listening to Hawaii, by James Mitchner. My wife kept asking me if I had reached the time of Pearl Harbor in the book, and I finally did yesterday. It is a good story, but the writing is atrocious. He moves from talking about generalities to specific situations in a way that makes it difficult for the reader to discern just when the transition occurs. For instance, he will talk about an annual event and describe it's re-occurrence, then isolate one particular event and describe it so that it is not clear a particular descriptor pertains to every event or the particular individual event he ends up speaking about. It's very frustrating. He also describes events in detail, even if they include human interaction. This isn't as bothersome, but it is considered taboo nowadays. Important writers today usually advise other writers to allow a story to be come out with dialog. This only becomes a nuisance when the scene becomes long winded because it is filled with extraneous bullshit. It's not bad enough that I won't do another though, so I have to decide which to listen to when I finish this one.

A friend suggested I listen to some Alexander McCall Smith, particularly The #1 Ladies Detective Agency. A lot of research went into this series of books, so I'm told. He's written quite a few novels though, to me a sure sign the first few are the best, but later additions, especially of serials, turn out to be churned out just to put something out and therefor are less interesting. Contrary to the suggestion I started the first book of a series called The Sunday Philosophy Club by the same author. Too early to give an opinion, but I did start it and should at least find it interesting enough to finish.