Good Morning, Everyone, on this last day of summer and first evening of fall. We are expecting some rain today but temps in the mid 80s. That flooding in Georgia is somewhat spectacular. Remember last year at this time when all the news was of the drought. Before anyone cheers the end of the drought remember that even desert areas get heavy rain every now and again. Can't win for losing, as the old saying goes.

I found this story on MSNBC which goes along with a notion one of the bloggers I faithfully read had yesterday. I can't link the blog because I get it through my e-mail. But the stats presented pretty much go along with this story. So far this year just over 400 banks have been taken over by the government--i.e., they have failed. The author of the blog cited a report from a private organization that rates banks and noted that he has found this organizations past results very accurate. They gave some 2000+ banks a rating of F (and yes that is an A through F school style rating.) Historically, half of the banks given that rating fail. That means that we can expect another 600 banks to go belly up this year. When such banks fail, the FDIC is usually on the hook for around 25% of the endangered assets. The value of the F category banks were about $2 trillion--half that is $1 trillion--one quarter of that is $250 billion. I do notice one discrepancy--the MSNBC piece says 'only' 94 banks have failed since January. I don't know how to resolve that. But if, FDIC is thinking of raising funds by borrowing from healthy banks then the situation must be serious--and likely to get worse. For my part, I don't really want the banks getting all that profit from a situation they were instrumental in creating. And, the 'too-big-to-fail' boys will get the lions' share. Damn!!!!

This is a cute idea for anyone who wants to do up something different for fall plants. Kerry Michaels calls it a 'jack-o'-plantern.'

Susan Wittig Albert on her All About Thyme site mentions 'Earth Overshoot Day' and provides a link to this site that provides a fuller explanation. The logic behind it is fairly simple. We would need the equivalent of 1.4 earths to sustainably maintain our current consumption of resources. Since we only have this one planet, we have already in ten months consumed this year's resources and now are dipping into capital. If you would like to read more go here and subscribe to Susan's weekly newsletter. Susan also writes the China Bayles mystery series. I highly recommend all of them.