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The rain, it falleth everywhere,Upon the just and unjust fellow.

But more upon the just because,The unjust hath the just's umbrella.

Sorry I disturbed you, dude. I figured if you could sit in a crowded Starbucks using your speaker phone you wouldn’t mind if I cranked up my bagpipes.

This Star Wars Day, let’s take comfort that our current banking crisis is nowhere near as bleak as the one the Galactic financial sector faced following the Empire’s collapse.

Setting the scene: At the end of Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi, the Galactic banking system was on the brink of failure. A $419 quintillion government project, the second Death Star, had just been destroyed by the Rebel Alliance, and the Galactic economy was set to enter a deep, deep depression.

How to avoid catastrophe? Well, you had the usual suspects pushing bitcoin, but the only real solution was a massive bailout to save distressed banks. In a 2015 paper, Zachary Feinstein, an assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis, attempted to calculate how much the Rebel Alliance would have to spend on a bank bailout.

What he found: Estimating that the Intergalactic Banking Clan contained 17,501 systemically important banks that were too big to fail, and that the Galactic economy’s annual Gross Galactic Product (GGP, similar to GDP) was $4.6 sextillion, Feinstein calculated that a rescue package would need to be at least 15% of GGP in order to prevent “catastrophic economic collapse.” That amounts to a $690 quintillion bailout.

Me, after working a night shift in the ER...sleep usually wins.

@trinsec True, the same storm took down several trees around the house. Straight line winds coming up the bluff. This was just the one that was the most majestic, in a gnarly, had a hard life, way. A large pine further down the bluff just missed the house when it fell. Tips raked the bricks and broke the railing on a side deck.

Sad day six years ago when the old oak tree blew over in a wind storm. It had taken no telling how many decades to grow on the bare rock of the bluff.

Life finds a way...
Little oak growing bare rock on the bluff.

Just at dawn, the moon is getting ready to set across the river. A peaceful way to start the day.

Wait, what???
Concussion syndrome quote:
An older patient comes in a couple of days after hitting his head while doing some routine home maintenance complaining of fatigue, headache, nausea, and difficulty thinking.
"I decided to come in because yesterday, I forgot to feed my pet crocodile and that's not something I've ever done!"

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