Saturday, October 4, 2008
The coming GOP massacre?
Friday, October 3, 2008
Foreclosure Alley
How we got here...
The Real Deal
So who
is to blame? There's plenty of blame to go around, and it doesn't
fasten only on one party or even mainly on what Washington did or
didn't do. As The Economist
magazine noted recently, the problem is one of "layered
irresponsibility ... with hard-working homeowners and billionaire
villains each playing a role." Here's a partial list of those alleged
to be at fault:
- The Federal Reserve, which slashed interest rates after the dot-com bubble burst, making credit cheap.
Home buyers, who took advantage of easy credit to bid up the prices of homes excessively.
Congress, which continues to support a mortgage tax deduction that gives consumers a tax incentive to buy more expensive houses.
Real estate agents, most of whom work for the sellers rather than the buyers and who earned higher commissions from selling more expensive homes.
The Clinton administration, which pushed for less stringent credit and downpayment requirements for working- and middle-class families.
Mortgage brokers,
who offered less-credit-worthy home buyers subprime, adjustable rate
loans with low initial payments, but exploding interest rates.
Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who in 2004, near the peak of the housing bubble, encouraged Americans to take out adjustable rate mortgages.
Wall Street firms,
who paid too little attention to the quality of the risky loans that
they bundled into Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), and issued bonds
using those securities as collateral.
The Bush administration, which failed to provide needed government oversight of the increasingly dicey mortgage-backed securities market.
An obscure accounting rule called mark-to-market, which can have the paradoxical result of making assets be worth less on paper than they are in reality during times of panic.
Collective delusion,
or a belief on the part of all parties that home prices would keep
rising forever, no matter how high or how fast they had already gone
up.
Animal Farm Friday - Bears
And this one time, at debate camp...
Palin didn't flame out to Ifill's questions, but that can be attributed directly to there being no follow-ups, and never mind that she didn't even bother to answer most questions, but instead asked then answered her own questions.
No doubt had Ifill asked a follow up questions, we would have seen the Sarah Palin that Katie has been seeing lately. Instead, we got a weak debate platform, hosted by a concilliatory moderator who was afraid to ask any challenging questions of either candidates. No fault to Gwen Ifill though, because if she asked tough questions of both candidates, the McCain campaign would have martyred itself over the affair while the Obama campaign looked on in befuddled wilderment, understandably.
That said, Biden took this debate away hand over fist. There was only one person up on that stage tonight that looked like a potential President of the United States, and that person was debating a someone running as Senior Class President of a small school from a small town in Alaska.
Hey, she plays the flute too!
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Energy Leadership from an Unlikely Source: Google
NO Free Lunch!
, a book I recommended not too long ago.
Two big takeaways from this conversation is a clear perspective on how and why our establishment media has ruined the country, and that our politicians are screwing each and every taxpayer - without the Vaseline - with this bailout. Don't be fooled by the new name, because this is not an "Economic Recovery Bill"! This isn't even a bailout bill. It's a "Bleed the Taxpayers Dry Bill".
More on Poll fixing
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Not a lame duck, just lame
Make-Believe Maverick
FINALLY! It's about time this story is making it into print in a relatively mainstream publication. Hopefully the rest of the country will start to realize that McCain has always been little more than a spoiled brat of privilege - just like George W. Bush - who had his success in life either handed to him on a silver platter, or he sold himself out for it (like Cindy, Charles Keating, Karl Rove). Yes, he was a POW, but McCain gives POWs a bad name. And so does Bud Day. But there are many more POWs who don't dishonor their names or their service by corrupting themselves for personal gain.
Obama's $700B mistake?
Is this McCain's next Hail Mary?
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
McKeating Five all over again
Seriously, with a history like McCain's, anyone who would take his word on anything has to be functionally retarded. If not that, then they should at least excuse themselves form the real world and slither back under the rocks they oozed out from under.
More, please!
I wish we could see this stuff on national broadcast so that the rest of the country can see what a belligerent, whining bully McCain really is. I mean, imagine what kind of a whining prick he was like as a plebe in the academy when he was crying to his upper-classmen about sicking his Admiral daddy on them when they were breaking him in. Or all the times he cried that same cry about his daddy every time he crashed a plane, just so he could keep from being grounded, and even get the chance to fly again. I don't even doubt he cried that same cry when he was being worked over in the Hanoi Hilton, but he can be forgiven for that, certainly.
But to be a cry-baby bully to the editors at the Des Moines Register in a sit down is beyond pathetic. As my buddy Adam would say, "someone should call the waaaaaah-mbulance" for McCain.
Here's another point I'm not ever going to give up on: just because a soldier had the misfortune of becoming a POW does not give that soldier a free pass to be a dick for the rest of his life when he is freed. You either do something good with your freedom, or you do what John McCain did, and you cheat on (and dump) your crippled wife - who waited for your return - for a rich trophy wife, or you sell out your Congressional office for favors to a criminal financier, or you help an asshole president start an unnecessary war of choice against an oil-rich Middle Eastern country, and ultimately run the most disgusting and despicable presidential campaign, completely devoid of honor and integrity.
Ladies and gentlemen, John Sidney McCain, III. The only guy who can make George W. Bush seem acceptable.
Monday, September 29, 2008
McCain Palin by 51.2%?
If the votes are not actually stolen, my prediction is a massive landslide by Obama, much greater than my original 300+ electoral votes.
But there is a very strong chance that this election will be stolen, so says the expert Stephen Spoonamore.
Crybabies
Seriously, Crybaby Boehner needs to change his name to Boner. He's now becoming famous for these pathetic, whining, candy-ass stunts.
The Bailout translated into English
What tomorrow will taste like?
The machinery that's pumped so much meat into our lives over the last half century was never built to last, and now it's breaking down big-time. Feed is more expensive. Gasoline is more expensive. Milk, rice, butter, corn--it's all going through the roof. And for the foreseeable future, it's not coming back down.
...As a culture, we need to be more curious about where our food comes from. We need to buy from farmers who are trying to do things the right way. We need to think before we eat.
If we do, we'll find that our cuisine and eating habits will more closely resemble those of the nineteenth century than the late twentieth. Hunting will be less about the buck points and more about the meat. Nose-to-tail eating will make a comeback--not because of fashion or Fergus Henderson (whom I love), but because of scarcity and price. And small-scale farming--little vegetable gardens in the backyards of homes in cities, suburbs, and the countryside alike--will become not just economically sensible but cool. Hell, maybe foraging for mushrooms and wild fruits will become a seminormal skill again.
Go Prather!
