Financial Aphasia: What happens when Mortgages, Credit and the Economy lose Meaning

The first time I spoke about the subject of sub-prime mortgages and the potential for this seemingly endless fallout came during a live television show in February of 2006. Granted, the demographic for that medium market audience was not the same as those watching the more affluent Bloomberg network or even the rowdy bunch who tune in to CNBC. Yet it was the very audience that needed to hear what must have seemed at the time like a “sky is falling” report.

As I revisited these thoughts over the next eighteen months, one simple fact always seemed to remain constant: we, not the investor class but the average person, continues to suffer from financial aphasia. Closely related to semantic aphasia, a mental disorder that does not allow the individual to understand the meaning of the words being spoken even as they understand what the words are, the financial form of this malady leaves the listener doing one thing while believing something wholly different. It has been best described as a little like hearing a love song - only without knowing why those words were used or what the singer meant by them.

Financial aphasia, by my definition, offers a look at the mounting storm surge that the housing market has become and the fact that, with so many people speaking about it, affected by it, and promising to reform the system, the words have lost their meaning. We hear them but we no longer understand them.

Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve Chairman wrote a letter recently to Senator Charles Schumer that offered some form of agreement with the outspoken lawmaker's fear. “ I share your concern about the potential impact of scheduled payment resets on homeowners with variable-rate sub-prime mortgages,” he wrote suggesting a little further along that perhaps “developing a broader range of mortgage products” might help those who are in the deepest trouble. Really?

Didn't the problem begin with mortgage products, Mr. Bernanke? The end result of the unceasing ingenuity and creativity of Wall Street to cater to risk seeking investors who saw the mortgage market as the new potential rainmaker is at the heart of this problem. More mortgage products Mr. Bernanke, are not the solution.

Even if the Fed has no direct impact on mortgage rates as many assume they do, shouldn't this traumatic event have been apparent at some point before now on their economic radar? As they sift through reams of data, is it possible that they suffer from financial aphasia?

That letter made Wall Street happy with anticipation. The possibility that Bernanke has refocused his attention on the economy, one in which he pronounced was doing just fine a month or so ago, sent stocks soaring - again. Despite what Wall Street wants and even lobbies so strongly for, and at the risk of repeating myself, an interest rate cut would not be in this economy's best interest.

Many of the newsworthy suggestions on how approach .....NEXT............

CIGNA Group Insurance Celebrates Return to Work Success During National Rehabilitation Awareness Week

  PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- On a routine stop at
the supermarket in November 2006, Leah Freesmeier fell to the ground,
hitting the left side of her head on the cement floor and leaving her with
a severe injury to her brain. The injury left her with language and hearing
impairments, aphasia and right cranial nerve/facial palsy. She doesn't
remember falling, or most of the three weeks she was in the hospital, but
she does remember the rehabilitation she went through that enabled her to
return to her job as a customer support specialist.
   "I was lucky to have CIGNA during this ordeal," said Freesmeier. "Not
only was the company great at assisting me with the overwhelming process of
understanding the various administrative aspects I had to take care of, but
my rehabilitation counselor worked very closely with me to ensure I had the
best care possible to enable me to get back to work, which was my ultimate
goal."
   After intense physical and speech therapy, Freesmeier worked with a
CIGNA vocational rehabilitation counselor and was ready to return to work
six months after her injury. CIGNA's vocational rehabilitation counselors
are educated and skilled in helping individuals with disabilities make
career plans, learn new skills and face their fears. They understand and
anticipate these fears and provide support, education and resources to
overcome them.
   Freesmeier's CIGNA vocational rehabilitation counselor began the
process of helping her plan her return to work. This included assessing
factors that could potentially impact the success of her return-to-work
plan and determining how some challenges could be reduced or avoided
altogether. Additionally, the counselor worked with all of Freesmeier's
treating physicians to facilitate easing her back into the workplace. Based
on their recommendations, the counselor worked with the local state
rehabilitation agency to arrange for Freesmeier to be accompanied by an
onsite coach for the first two months back on the job. The onsite coach
helped Freesmeier with things such as ensuring she was taking appropriate
notes and following processes.
   "Having the onsite coach during my first few months back on the job was
very beneficial for me," says Freesmeier. "It made my transition back into
my routine a lot easier."
   Freesmeier's rehabilitation experience is one of several successes
CIGNA Group Insurance is highlighting next week during a series of employee
and customer gatherings in the company's disability claim offices in
Pittsburgh, Dallas and Glendale, Calif. Through these events, CIGNA will
focus on vocational rehabilitation, celebrated each September as part of
National Rehabilitation Awareness Week, with a mission to educate people
about the benefits and impact of rehabilitation. CIGNA Group Insurance, and
sister company Intracorp, are the national sponsors of this observance,
celebrated from Sept. 16-22, in cooperation with the National
Rehabilitation Awareness Foundation (NRAF) of Scranton, PA.
   CIGNA will be awarding employers, including Toyota, McKesson
Corporation and Henry Ford Health System, with a Return-to-Work Award for
their success in implementing return-to-work programs for their employees.
In addition, claimants, such as Freesmeier, will be visiting the offices to
share their successful return-to-work stories with CIGNA employees.
   "CIGNA works to assist our employer customers, and their disabled
employees, in the shared goal of returning to productive work," said Mark
Marsters, senior vice president, CIGNA Group Insurance. "Many employers are
committed to ensuring return-to-work programs are in place. These efforts
not only contribute to productivity, but they also enable employees to
regain independent living."
   "I never imagined something like this would ever happen to me," says
Freesmeier. "I am fortunate to be alive and I am grateful to have been able
to return to work after my rehabilitation."
   For more information on National Rehabilitation Awareness Week, visit
the NRAF website at http://www.nraf-rehabnet.org/.
   For more information about CIGNA Group Insurance's disability programs
and services, visit http://www.cigna.com/our_plans/disability/index.html.
   About CIGNA Group Insurance
   "CIGNA," the "Tree of Life" logo and "CIGNA Group Insurance" are
registered service marks of CIGNA Intellectual Property, Inc., licensed for
use by CIGNA Corporation and its operating subsidiaries. Products and
services are provided by such operating subsidiaries and not by CIGNA
Corporation. Such operating subsidiaries include Life Insurance Company of
North America and CIGNA Life Insurance Company of New York. CIGNA Group
Insurance is one of the top five providers in disability management and
insurance with solutions that focus on helping employees return to a
productive work life as quickly and safely as possible.
   CIGNA Group Insurance is also one of the top five providers of group
term life and group universal life, and the second leading provider of
group accident insurance, including voluntary accident and business travel
accident insurance.

After stroke, life is one step at a time

Fast action when it occurs might help limit lasting effects.

By Nadia M. Taylor, Newhouse News Service

Last update: August 31, 2007 – 5:58 PM

Halloween was only a few days away, and it was the last game of the World Series. David Whitehead and his wife, Pam Bailey, had just gone to bed when Whitehead woke up to find his wife trying to crawl to the bathroom.

"She was real confused, real lethargic. Her mouth was drooped, and she had a totally confused look on her face, and her arm was like this," Whitehead said, hanging his arm lifelessly by his side.

Whitehead rushed her to a hospital near their home in Mobile, Ala. "Of course, I knew before we got her to the hospital that she had a stroke, and when I got her there, they acted like, well no she didn't," Whitehead said.

He had described his wife to the ER staff: healthy, vibrant and only 44. Not the normal profile of a stroke victim.

Then they went to help her out of the car. "The nurse -- excuse my language -- said, 'Oh sh--,' and threw her in a wheelchair," Whitehead said.

One of the most dangerous misconceptions about stroke is that it's something that only older people have to worry about, said Dr. William Hewitt, a neurologist with the Diagnostic and Medical Clinic in Mobile.

"Stroke gets more common as you get older, but we do see young people with strokes," Hewitt said.

At the hospital, Whitehead didn't see his wife for almost two hours, and when the doctors finally got back to him, Whitehead learned that his intuition was correct: Bailey had suffered a massive stroke.

There are several types of stroke, but all occur when a blood clot blocks an artery or a blood vessel breaks, interrupting blood flow to an area of the brain. When either happens, brain cells begin to die, and the physical and mental abilities controlled by those areas are damaged or lost.

Bailey's outlook wasn't good.

The effects of stroke are many and varied, depending on the severity and location of the blockage. They can include aphasia -- speech and language problems -- along with problems with memory, partial or full paralysis and problems with spatial and perceptual abilities, among a host of other lasting and life-changing effects.

While Bailey has recovered remarkably well, the aphasia remains.

"The paralysis went away within a week or two," Whitehead said. "Within a week she had her strength back, and within a month, she was walking pretty close to normal again. But it's been nine months, and her speech is still ..." Whitehead trailed off.

"But they told us she would never talk again."

Today, Bailey is talking again, but words come out a bit jumbled, and pronouns are often switched -- "he" for "she,"him" for "her." She also uses the word "him" for several other words, especially when she means to say "stroke."

But after sitting and talking with her for a while, her speech patterns emerge, and it's easy to understand what she's saying. Humor and emotion aren't lost. She knows what she means to say, but the wiring from her brain to her mouth just won't let her do it.

"Every day's different," Whitehead said.

Bailey nodded emphatically.

"Because I feel like I could do, but I can't, and I get mad," Bailey said.

The couple attend an aphasia support group at Mobile Infirmary's PRO Health Fitness and Rehabilitation Center.

The group is designed for individuals who have aphasia -- as well as their family members, friends and caregivers -- and provides education about the disorder, encourages socialization among members and provides an opportunity to practice speech and language skills.

"At the beginning, Pam was unable to say her name, even just the simple name of Pam," said Jennifer Pettis, a speech language therapist who organized the support group and works with Bailey.

With intense speech therapy, combined with practice at home with Whitehead and special speech therapy software, Bailey's improvement has been dramatic.

Frustration is one of the major hurdles in patients with aphasia, Pettis said.

"They want you to treat them like a regular adult, like a normal person," she said. "More than likely, they can understand everything you're saying, and they don't want to be talked to like a child."

Continue to next page

Identify language problems early on

Sarah Steedman, Louise Porteous

Language delay is one of the most common developmental problems seen in general paediatrics. Speech-language difficulties can have a considerable impact on a child’s development and learning. Language is the medium of education, it is how we learn about the world, interact with others, and express our thoughts and feelings.

Early identification of speech-language delay is important, because 90 per cent of brain growth takes place in the first three years of life, with the critical period for language development beginning prior to birth and waning in the fourth year of life. Therefore, the earlier problems are identified and managed, the better the outcomes.

Exact figures for language and speech disorders vary according to the definition and population used. However, there is a generally accepted range of between 3 and 10 per cent in preschool children. A smaller proportion has more severe and persistent problems.

Who is at risk?
The exact cause of speech-language difficulties is still unknown. However, being a boy is a significant risk factor! Overall, as with other developmental difficulties, boys are around three times more likely to have speech-language difficulties than girls.

A family history of speech-language difficulties is significant. The incidence in families with a history of specific language impairment is estimated at 20 to 40 per cent compared with around 4 per cent in the general population. There can also be reading or spelling difficulties in other family members.

Other risk factors include genetic disorders, eg, Down syndrome and sex chromosome disorders. Biological risks include in utero exposure to alcohol, ie, foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, and damage to motor pathways, eg, cerebral palsy. Children born prematurely have a higher incidence of speech-language problems, and cognitive skills will also affect a child’s ability to understand and use language.

There is still some uncertainty about the exact impact of chronic otitis media on speech-language development. Some studies suggest there is no compelling evidence for otitis media being associated with significant deficits in language development. Others believe, while otitis media is rarely the primary or sole cause of significant language impairment, it may be a substantial contributory factor.

Environmental and social factors can also have a significant effect. Children from economically deprived backgrounds are at significant risk of language delay. It is more common in families where there are several children, multiple births and higher levels of family stress, including parental mental health problems and in situations of neglect.

NEXT..............................................

I Hear Trumpets... Trumpets in the Sky

August 30, 2007

The shift for the mega-popular strip For Better or For Worse from real-time soap opera into a hybrid strip of frozen-in-time framing sequences around older runs of the feature will come sooner rather than later. Really sooner. Universal Press Syndicate has announced that the new format begins Monday, September 3.

That the strip's current format would end soon had been a rumor for a couple of years and an announced reality since last Winter. A September date for the shift had been bandied about for quite some time. Still, nothing had been 100 percent confirmed until this week. In fact, Johnston's recent talk about giving the controversial Anthony/Liz romance plot more space had led some folks -- myself included -- to believe that the strip would continue for at least a few weeks longer. Oddly, Johnston has continued to assert that the Anthony/Liz relationship needs more time to develop. Whether this makes it something she wants to do within the hybrid format, or if we're supposed to believe the cartoonist simply hasn't wrapped her mind around the forthcoming change or if it's supposed to indicate that tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday will cover an astonishing amount of ground, I couldn't pretend to know.

The first flashback will use Michael and his kids as a framing device and cover the romance between leads John and Elly.

Editor & Publisher has a lengthy article about the various issues around the shift and on Lynn Johnston in general, folding an older and informative piece about the switchover into its body.

Update: This will teach me to read all of my daily sources for links before posting and going back to bed. Brad McKay writes in to inform me that Alan Gardner at Daily Cartoonist has already solved the Anthony/Liz fate problem:

In a foreign land - life with aphasia

Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun

Published: Friday, August 10, 2007

If you meet Christy Campbell when she's well-rested, it's not apparent that there's anything wrong with her. But if she's tired - and she tires easily - her speech starts to fall apart.

Two years ago, when she was only 31, Christy had a stroke that affected the left side of her brain. Initially, she was completely paralysed on her right side and couldn't speak or swallow.

"The doctors showed her parents and me her CT scan," says Christy's partner, Sean Standing. "There is this big, black hole in her brain."

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When Christy Campbell was 31, she had a stroke which left her suffering from aphasia. Her recovery has been difficult and she is fighting to get an intensive therapy program. Here she is at home with her dog, Silas.

Ian Smith/Vancouver Sun

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Up until then, Christy had been vibrant, healthy and physically active. There was no family history of strokes or high blood pressure. The day before the stroke, Christy was at a conference in downtown Vancouver related to her job in Environment Canada's environmental assessment program. There she suffered a trans-ischemic attack, or TIA, a mini-stroke. For about 30 minutes, her right side was paralysed and she was unable to speak. But both functions came back and Christy took a taxi to her doctor's office and later went to Lions Gate Hospital for a CT scan that was normal.

The next morning, when Sean tried to wake her up, Christy's mouth was drooping. She couldn't sit up or talk. Christy ended up at Vancouver General Hospital and began to regain the use of her right side. But her speech was slow to return. A few weeks later, when she was transferred to G.F. Strong Rehabilitation Centre for six weeks of intensive physical and speech therapy, Christy could say only one word - Yes.

By the time Christy moved back to their North Vancouver condo, she could walk short distances. But she could only say about 10 words. She still couldn't say No. She couldn't say her name. She couldn't say 'help.'

She had to wait a few weeks before there was a space in the outpatient, speech-therapy program at Lions Gate Hospital. All the time, an invisible clock was ticking. Traditional wisdom is that stroke victims only improve for the first six months; whatever functions they regain within that period is all they're ever going to get. Christy and many others have proven it wrong. But that's what medical professionals tell people after strokes.

"You're left with this tick, tick, tick, tick for six months," says Sean. "You think every day, 'If I'm not helping her get better, I'm wasting seconds and it's taking away from her future.'"

Says Christy, "I kept saying to Sean, stop pushing me!"

At the hospital and at G.F. Strong, there was a seemingly daily dose of 'You should also be doing this . . . .' In the outpatient program, where she got a half-hour of speech therapy three times a week, Christy's speech continued to improve.

NEXT...........

Wired music: from PLOrk to ChucK and beyond

Wired music: from PLOrk to ChucK and beyond

plork_rich_julia.jpg

As part of an hourlong feature on wired art, New Jersey Public Television’s State of the Arts will be broadcasting a piece tonight produced by Eric Schultz on the Princeton Laptop Orchestra, otherwise known as PLOrk.

The piece was actually recorded last year, shortly after PLOrk gave its world premiere performance, to much acclaim. So what have PLOrk cofounders Perry Cook and Dan Trueman been up to in the meantime?

Cook is making music with a lithophone originally created with sculptor Jonathan Shor for Quark Park. Drawing upon his digital music expertise, he also is researching an inexpensive way to screen patients for the risk of having a stroke and developing technologies to help those who suffer from aphasia.

Trueman has spent the last year as a Guggenheim fellow in part working on his Cyclotron, which he describes as a “tool for tweaking time” and “a visual interface for experimenting with rhythmic cycles.” Trueman invented his Cyclotron more than a decade ago. But during his sabbatical he decided to figure how to hook it up to ChucK, a new music programming language written by Ge Wang, who just finished his Ph.D. under Cook’s supervision and in the fall will join the Stanford Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics as an assistant professor.

Last year Wang got high praise for ChucK from Linden Lab chief technology officer Cory Ondrejka (aka Cory Linden), who wrote in his blog that that he was blown away by ChucK when he came to Princeton to talk at the invitation of Ed Felten about Linden Lab’s 3-D virtual world Second Life.

By the way, the Educational Technologies Center at Princeton is building a campus on Second Life. Blogger Aleister Kronos — who recently got a sneak preview and tour from Princeton’s charming virtual tourguide, Persis Trilling — describes it on 3pointD, where you can take a peak at Nassau Hall’s virtual doppelganger. Just below is the Second Life version of Princeton’s Chancellor Green, where PLOrk gave a fabulous in-the-round performance last May. Surely PLOrk will be headlining on Princeton’s Second Life campus sometime soon.

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