There is much debate surrounding the origins of Valentine’s Day. Many historians argue that it is linked to the Greco-Roman holiday Lupericalia, that was a celebration of romantic love, while other’s argue that Valentine’s Day was adopted from Chaucer’s poem, “The Love Birds.” But the origins of Valentine’s Day don’t matter if your forget to buy your significant other a bouquet of flowers on this special day.

Traditionally, one opts for vibrant red roses or less common white varieties. However, a smart boyfriend will realize that there are a great many other sorts of blossoms to select from. If you look into the significances of the various blooms going back to the Victorian Era, you can assemble a lovely and truly memorable bouquet of Valentines flowers for the one you love.

Petunias tell someone that their presences soothes you, orange blossoms are a symbol of marriage (this makes this flower very appropriate for presenting during a proposal), and phlox tells someone that “our souls are united”. The lily are elegant flowers which tells someone that your love is honorable, pure of heart, and majestic but use caution as the orange lily is interpreted to be a sign of hatred. Spanish jasmine represents sensuality, the purple hyacinth begs forgiveness, hibiscus tells someone that you are consumed by their love and beauty. Pure love is represented by white carnations.

Along with the bouquet, you could send a small note explaining its relevance and your reason for having selected a particular flower. A note like this could do wonders if accompanied by her favorite flower, if you know what it is. You must avoid sending asphodel which represents grief, striped carnation which stands for refusal in love, yellow chrysanthemum representing slighted love, oleander for caution, or rhododendron for danger, in addition to the orange lily mentioned before.

A benefit of deciding to do this is a substantial savings, since roses become much more costly and hard to locate at the last moment around the holiday, which is not true of all those other blossoms. You will seem romantic either way, as long as you show that you have noted her preferences in varieties and colors. When you put in a little extra effort, you demonstrate that your gift of Valentines Day flowers represents your loving feelings and not just a sense of obligation.

While you may want to deliver the bouquet in person as it is the most romantic thing to do, a delivered bouquet also has its own advantages since it imparts the recipient that moment of glory at the workplace. However, a timely delivery is of utmost importance since if a Valentines Day flowers delivery arrives on the fifteenth of February irrespective of the meaning associated, will lose all its significance.

Where is the moral outrage? Both presidential candidates are filled with lobby money, one with a quasi Marxist agenda, the other with quasi free market agenda and both sleepwalking through a financial dilemma that attacks every property taxpayer and American.

Selling an expensive assets such as a homes to those who are unprepared financially to deal with making mortgage payments, insurances and property taxes is foolish. But that is exactly what president Jimmy Carter did by passing legislation encouraging such loans. This started the disconnect between reason and reality and utter foolishness. Political meddling into economic issues and sound lending practices kills the golden goose every time.

With the Clintons in the White House, the problem skyrocketed. They passed legislation punishing the mortgage companies if they did not lend to high-risk borrowers. They put laws with penalties in them thus encouraging easy credit with eyes shut to risk. Sound lending practices were foresaken.

Who bought these bogus high risk loans? Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. They, furthermore, became a spring for sending political contributions to politicians encouraging this bad credit homeownership cancer to keep growing. Mortgage company lobbies’ handed over hundreds of millions of dollars to politicians’ greed in order to perpetuate this circus even as residents of high-foreclosure neighborhoods suffered additional pain from high property taxes.

AIG and other insurance companies insured these loans. Their chief fuction is to evaluate and insure against debt risk. Their leverage was set at 12 to 1 meaning that they had to have one dollar in assets to cover 12 dollars or risk. They threw millions of lobby money to leveraging its recirculation rate at a reserve rate of more than 30-1. With such a high-risk and profit expansion levels, any big bump in real estate valuation put those assets at risk.

This fraud was given the stamp of approval by chief economists Greenspan and Bernanke and the ship of fool’s balloon took off. Socialist organizations such as Acorn (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) and other related groups pressured banks into giving even more misguided loans.

Banking Committee Chairman, The House Finance Chief, SEC Chairman and other top-ranking government officials allowed this cancer to perpetuate because of the lobby money they received. The greed for lobby money twisted sound reasoning and perpetuated complete nonsensical thinking. The only solution for not tempting elected officials to sway their votes from socially responsible to sociopathic dimensions is to banish those accepting lobby money from government service as well as requiring jail time.

Hot air balloons have a way of crashing when their fuel runs out. When the rise in real estate prices came to a halt and the value of real estate assets declined combined with a foreclosure explosion, the market imploded. The government created the problem and a 700 billion dollar bailout (laden with funding for pork projects) is meaningless. The credit boom is finished. But, where is the outrage?

Real estate prices have fallen so many municipalities have raised tax rates. When you look at your assessments, there is a good chance that comparable sold homes would give you an edge for a property tax appeal. At least it is worth a second glance.