Until Pluto can save the Economy, talking about whether it's a planet or not during these times is the last thing Illinois or the federal government needs discuss.

For one thing, I have seen more productivity coming from a mainframe based application than web or Client/Server based software. If you have two applications requiring the same input, 99% of the time, a system coded in say CICS will dominate user input much faster than the latter. Also when you factor in reliability, security, raw I/O speed and general processing power, mainframes can't be beat.

FTA: "The reason that ratings agencies and investors felt so safe with the triple-A tranches was that they believed there was no way hundreds of homeowners would all default on their loans at the same time."

The problem wasn't that the Triple A accounts were defaulting rather Moody's and other companies were stamping these ratings while they were combined with Triple B and other more riskier loans. All it took is several loans to fail while rotting the entire bushel and therefore the Investor is stuck with securities that have no value.