Thanks for sharing your dreams, Tanta. Although I work in a different field, your description of corporate life resonates with me. Hopefully, the next generation will get things straightened out once and for all, or at least make some incremental improvements through participation in this forum...
If you hadn't drunk the Koolaid, you would never have been able to communicate with people who are still ensnared in the american dream/nightmare.
Very few people have the courage to toss away foundational beliefs and goals without having guaranteed alternatives in hand. You are providing people with a vision of what else there might be to replace everything they have ever known.
Yes, it is annoying and heart breaking on a daily basis, but there probably wasn't any other way to accomplish this.
wally maybe picks an unfortunate metaphor in more ways than one, with donuts.
Consider muffins, people: no big hole in the middle with them and, compared to donuts, positively nutritious.
Of course Fannie's marketing canon has little to do with what is nutritious but what will make you happy...what will make your dreams come true: owning your own house.
Seems nutritious enough until you look at the price tags and discover those prices are predatory for first time buyers with mere wages to cultivate this hope of acquiring wealth. Ignoring the failure of wages to meet housing costs is part of the malnutrition.
And that is the current story in America: if you do not inherit your wealth, you have to dream in order to own your house...Fannie and Freddie are there to help with this dreaming.
It's not what you do, your work, it's your address --where you rest when the day is done.
We pay for this marketing and this dreaming by ignoring work and especially, fair compensation for work done: reasonable wages.
My two favorite mortgage sites these days are BrokerOutpost.com and Calculated Risk.
One deals with the beginning part of the foodchain - feeding the monster - that's where my line of work is at. The other site - yours - deals with the end product. Both are very interesting and educational but in different ways. If you want to see what people act like when they're told that the Koolaid is running out, there isn't much more left, and there definetely isn't enough for everyone, check out the BrokerOutpost.
And to you, I would like to quote my five-year old. When her grandma said "you can't hurt things with a little bit of chocolate", my daughter replied "Grandma! You can't hurt things a lot of chocolate either!"
"Will" tears his button-down shirt off, revealing a cheap T-shirt with a poorly designed logo that says "quackprogrammer". He thrusts out his chest and flexes his keyboard hands with a manly stance. After a long silence, a tumbleweed floats past.
As a longtime software consultant (20 years), I've seen my share of trainwrecks. These wrecks happened for simple reasons (fear, overdesign, politics, confusion, or "design by resume"). Software development is just very messy, and not at all like what bridge engineering appears to be.
Anyhoo, I'm optimistic. The technology is neat, but the problems are banal.
I just think we software types are building the wrong things. I'm plotting in the direction of software/systems as a tool of statecraft. Its a long shot, but what the hell.
Thomas Jefferson once said something deep about the Tree of Liberty, and that every generation or so, it needs to be fertilized with the blood of Patriots and Tyrants.
I don't think a shot will be fired or a bayonet raised during (or within) the approaching financial catastrophe, but many large things will fall face-first into the muck at the base of the tree.
Tanta, you help us understand the chemistry of the next big wave of fertilizer. Thanks.
BTW, Kansas: "Dust in the Wind" gets my vote. My 3 year old loves it.
DUDE!! it sounds just like wachovia... especially the part about the hr infractions to casual fryday didja ever have to do powerpoint ??
But serious, you can only do what and where you are. And you can walk, a step that too many will not take. You can take where you came from to different places, and hope some other cogs take inspiration from that.
Abe Lincoln said "I feel sorry for the man who cannot feel the whip on another man's back" Civilians need to take responsibility if and when they get screwed, IMHO, instead of running off to see a lawyer because it is someone elses fault. I've been in the housing market since 2003, except for one year when I actually found a dream fixer upper, at a reasonable price, and worked my fingers to the bone fixing it up (only to get transferred to another state)My point, I suppose, is that I've had to seperate a lot of shit from shinola. And while I'm not smart enough to appreciate most of the intelligence in here, I do appreciate the honesty and compassion, and feel better not being alone in my frustration at the current situation!
Tanta, I've read your stories of the mortgage business for a while now, and it's striking how different the picture you paint (working hard to put first-time buyers in homes) is from what my experience was as a first-time buyer in early 2005 (wish I knew then what I know now...)
I spent hours in Borders (OK, I was on a business trip and really bored...) reading books on first time homebuying and financing (even bought a couple), read everything I could only, assembled an accordian folder full of financial documents--a few years of tax returns, W-2's, recent statements on my student loans, bank statements, brokerage statements showing my "emergency fund" parked in Vanguard's money-market mutual fund.
When I first spoke with a broker, things were a lot different then what I'd read. I'll never forget: When I told him that I had a 5% downpayment in my checking account and several months living expenses in a money market fund and retirement accounts I wasn't touching, his response was "Oh, so you're actually good with money. Most people I work with your age come across a couple thousand and decide to get a house" (that may not be verbatim, but it's pretty damn close). He was surprised when I showed up to fill out the paperwork with my document-stuff accordian folder. He was surprised when I specifically requested a fully-amortized fix-rate loan for my piggyback (I used an 80/15/5).
In retrospect, perhaps those all should have been warning signs. It's been a learning experience (and given that I bought a place I could easily afford with fixed rate mortgages and my career is pretty good, not nearly as painful as it could have been).
It's a fine line to walk. Too much pessimism and you risk becoming that old crank in the corner of the office who nobody listens to and everyone hates. Too much positivism and you end up over the cliff with the other lemmings the first time the faith is challenged successfully or funding is pulled.
It seems as though you've found that balance here, and by sharing your knowledge so eloquently, you're helping others find that balance as well.
Thanks for sharing. I wonder if you will be ok about me sharing some beliefs that seem to make sense to me? I will try to say it without i hope you being offended or upset. I know your situation cannot be so easy for you. In alternate health what is not expressed and is therefore held in leads to illness. Specifically it leads to a specific kind of illness. It is worth reflecting on the idea that although anger can be a wasted emotion there is wisdom in anger. Anger has a message. Why not wish for a better place? Why not dream? Please keep dreaming and help people to create a better world - much as you are already doing. Your work here is wonderful. It is beautiful.
For sure you have a wonderfully supportive group here. I think too that you and CR are kind of expanding our minds. We wont be the same for this experience. Anger held in creates a distructive force. An internally distructive force. Anger released without wisdom is also distructive as we all know. Life is as it is. Whatever terrible things may be happening your dream is still a beautiful dream.
Tanta,
Closer to Krogers than Dorothy Lane? Are you in the burbs of Dayton? As far as I know there are only 3 Dorothy Lane Markets? If so would love to meet you in person. Spend about 1/3 of my time in Dayton, the rest in Chicago.
Thank you Tanta.I would describe you as a loving skeptic rather than a cynic.I have also found Pain to be the teacher i paid the most attention to.this evening i have two chores,one is notarizing the loan docs for a retiree who is going to lose his retirement nest egg in a bad real estate deal (no,he won't listen,he can't)the other will be talking to the daughters of a friend who bought a new home at the peak with a 2/28 Arm,which will reset next month.they are 23 and 25 years old,and both are married,both work in real estate related fields,as do their husbands.I'll take a look,and likely tell them to do a short sale,or file BK.If they have any equity at this point,i can probably refi them,and prolong the pain,but i'll never be that hungry as long as there are wild turkeys in these hills,(tough but flavorful meat,real tough)
The San Diego-based company obtained a $500 million commitment from a large commercial bank and renewed a $600 million facility with an investment bank, Accredited said in a statement yesterday after the close of regular trading. It didn't name the companies.
Writing State government employees health policies which were designed to deny legitimate benefits and cause the insured to lose the family farm if they sought treatment.
The worst was adding coverage for the goofy union negotiated benefit enhancements while pulling coverage for liver transplants to pay for it.
Employees should never allow a union negotiate your health benefit plan improvements. A receipe for death despite of a curable disease.
Dirk, I have visited Dayton. Duly diligently. Probably stayed in the same Holiday Inn Express you did. When the laptop got boring I'd hit the grocery stores.
quackprogrammer, you're the reason God made Kansas. One of these day's I'll post a YouTube of "You're The Reason God Made Oklahoma" if I can find one.
Eek, one Thursday afternoon, having read the latest outrage from HR, I stormed out of the office like the Wrath of Goddess, and stopped at a very cheap retail outlet--in all senses of the term--to purchase a lime green sleeveless zip-front mini-dress and a pair of deep brown high-heeled platform-soled ankle-strap sandals to wear to work the next day, the holy casual Friday.
You all don't know this, but I'm not the voluptuous sort. Tall, thin. I looked about as appetizing as a half a Freon-flavored popsicle propped upright in a dollop of congealed dog poop. It was perfect.
I had decided I was tired of hectoring memos aimed at our file clerks and fax operators, those loyal dogged folks we paid just over minimum wage, and who had a bad habit of showing up on casual day a little, well, tacky sometimes. Even, perhaps, trashy. There I had been, quietly role-modeling for them all in my elegant, restrained Pendleton suits, and for some reason they didn't run right out and spend a week or two's gross for one of my tailored dresses. And, yeah, they occasionally crossed the line, taste-wise.
But that day, HR had to either pick on someone its own size or admit that it was time to address the clothing budget.
It's a wonder I never got fired.
I will never claim that childish acting out in the office will bring the revolution. Nor am I inclined to apologize for it, either.
I'm one of the FTHBs. Moved from Vegas back to NH in 98, bought a little 2up, 3down for $65k in '99 and thought that everything was working out really well. I had had the first day of the rest of My Life. Then, in '01 I made the mistake of refinancing. Not so much the act itself; that was a fairly smart move. Problem was that I did it with Superior Bank. Two weeks later the note was sold to Merrill Lynch and I was beginning to slide down the drain without even knowing it.
Shortest version, Superior kept the servicing rights to the loan then tanked six months later. The FDIC threw the brakes on them and Merrill hired Fairbanks Capital to "service" the loans, mine included. Literally Day 1 of obtaining the servicing rights to my loan Fairbanks had me in default AND claimed that I had no homeowner's policy in place so they hit me with FPI. I didn't have clue one that any of this was happening until the first quarter of '02 and by then I had already been teed up for foreclosure.
Fade in: 04.03.07 I'm still in my property. It's no longer a "home" just the building we live in. I've got permanent injunctions and contempt orders against Fairbanks n/k/a Select Portfolio Servicing after opting out of USA/Curry v. Fairbanks 404 Not Found in '04 unlike the 280,000 other victims who opted in.
Eckert, Seamans, Cherin and Mellot, opposing counsel representing Merrill Lynch Mortgage Capital, Merrill Lynch Mortgage Investors, Fairbanks/SPS, and their former local counsel Harmon Law Offices, has petitioned to remove my case to federal court. The PMI Group's counsel, somebody Boutin, assented to the petition as well.
I brought 19 charges against everyone just at the state level, including conspiracy, NH's version of civil RICO from what I'm told. You can't swing a dead cat anywhere around my case without knocking over some kind of documented fraud. And yet, these guys keep letting me stay out here talking about the case. Probably because of two things: 1.) They think they can "out money" me and 2.) Because they think that people look at me like I've got three heads when I tell them that this goes straight back to Wall St. and REMICS, REITS and RMBS in general - which it does. I've got the PSAs from the prospectuses to prove it. But at the same time, I've got bozos at places like WSJ who look at what I've got and tell me "I'm exaggerating" about the problem. Wasn't that what they said about predatory lending 10 years ago?
It's people like yourself, Tanta, and some of the other great minds here that really could help solve a few of these problems in the industry. All it would take is a few verdicts in favor of actual victims to begin to turn things around. In all honesty, I could use some help from some great minds because I used to push road cases and climb 2" steel 100' in the air for stadium shows for a living. I barely understand what I've written here never
ever mind everything that is actually happening with my case.
This is quite probably the most intelligent, informative blog that I've come across to date regarding the industry. I've learned the answers to some of the most crucial questions that I've been trying to ask for literally years - just in the last few months of reading here. I only wish that I had found CR back in '02. It might have made things sooo much easier for me to understand back then. As it is, I've still got holes in the walls that I have to patch from banging my head against it for so long.
If anyone would care to help out with my case, either officially or unofficially, I'd really welcome the help. So would a couple hundred thousand other victims of Fairbanks/SPS - not to mention the millions "doing business" with the likes of Litton, Ocwen, EMC, etc. I don't care where the info comes from - as long as it can be authenticated in and of itself. The messenger isn't necessarily important other than to be able to say thank you and possibly send chocolate and/or grape squeezings to at the end of the day which seem to be the preferred indulgence around here. Im sure other culinary tastes could be catered to as well.
The important thing is that you ceased drinking the Kool Aid. I have not had a drink in years, but that makes it hard to talk to anybody but my wife and daughters. All my friends and family are still drinking the Kool Aid. Try as I might I can not get them to look at Calculated Risk or any other information concerning real estate.
Enjoy the spring and never look back on your life for too long!
I, too, used to believe that Communism was wrong and there could be a happy medium between capitalism and socialism.
Then LTCM got bailed out by fleecing people with a fake new internet economy which put lots of money back into the investment banks who were so connected to LTCM. Yup, then my suspicions were notched. As the foolish Americans all glowed about that triumph of capitalism, I winced, knowing that foreign sweat shops were producing more and more of what American fools were buying, thinking that they were spreading that capital, never realizing that the capital they were spending was going to the owner class, and maybe a few cents to the enslaved, Asian sweat shop workers.
Bob Rubin and Alan Greenspan validated the corruption behind the 'success' of capitalism.
That is when I knew that there had to be something else, and I discovered the wisdom of Marx. He knew of the corruptive destination of capitalism, and described it perfectly.
Everything that criminal Bush gang has perpetrated has convinced me more of capitalism's core criminality.
I know that the masses will resist admitting that they were wrong and duped, but they will get there eventually. But the greedy owner's have such a hard time sharing, that I fear the great change will only come with great sadness.
Tanta - Don't forget that the vast majority of homeowners are doing just fine. Why, I'll wager that many of those fine people that YOU helped put into their first homes are not only doing well there, but have moved up since then!
Do you know what it's like to rent with 3 kids and a dog? It's not friendly. It's not nice. It's not particularly comfortable.
Sure, there are people in trouble thru ARMs. And being part of the industry, and being a compassionate person that you are, I know that stings.
But Tanta - don't forget that you've also done good. You've also helped people, even if the corporate life was tedious, hard to take, and not for you.
I'm not an intellectual. I've gained so much knowledge these past few weeks reading these posts. I appreciate that. I am one of those young (ahem) dreamers who moved thru 2 houses and partly because of this blog am hesitating on house #3.
My prescription for you today is to make a huge cup of tea, get in your jammies, get cozy on the couch, and pop in "It's a Wonderful Life." Homeownership really is a beautiful thing, warts and all.
Tanta - thanks for writing this. I think you uniquely captured the odd blend of idealism and cynicism that makes a successful banker and makes banking a career worth its while. Done right, it is tremendously productive. Done wrong, it is tremendously destructive.
Just remember that the Tantas will be needed as we all slowly climb out of the mess that's been created. You are very much needed; take care of yourself.
Mike Dillon: I'm not sure exactly what you need. If you need analysis, I might be able to help you. If you are looking for information that would help the case, my guess is that the best weapon is legal discovery. Anyway, if I can help I'd be more than willing to. No strings attached. Email maxedoutmama2@hotmail.com if you have specific questions.
I do know some of the Fairbanks story, and it is dreadful.
Doing business with Drexel was never boring. Ain't that the thruth? When I was 15, my Dad was able to put us (Mom and three kids), into a home for the first time. Until then we had gone from apartment to apartment. He was never more proud than when he walked us through the front door. It is, and should remain part of the American dream.
Hi All, I'm hoping you can provide some ammunition in an upcoming fight I'm about to have:
My brother in law defaulted on a mortgage about 4 years ago. He's... terrible with money. He's self employed and has a patchy tax record. No money down and has no chance of any kind of mortgage worth having, if at all.
His current "Boss" is offering to sell him a $160k house for $190k, and then "promises" to pay my b-i-l $30k. The Boss says he has a mort broker friend and is "sure" the house will appraise for $190k.
My b-i-l is incredibly headstrong and is convinced this is a great deal and will easily be able to afford this great place if he rents out 3 bedrooms to his buddies.
Thanks for the offer Mama. I'll be in touch shortly.
Pat of what I'm looking for is what "inside" questions I should actually be asking. The standard legalese discovery in easy enough but I'm wading into things like D&O insurance, pmi, what kind of insurance covers REMICS, what are the tax consequenses if/when as many as 4 or 5 claims are made on the same loss when a note goes nonperforming, definitions of "cut off" and "closing" dates of a REMIC and what exactly each entails, if a note can be added into a REMIC after the cut off or closing date and, if so, with what ramifications. I just don't have enough of a handle on the inner workings of the industry to know what to ask for. And at $400/hr searching for the answers to those Qs starts to add up fairly quickly.
At this point, Fairbanks/SPS is claiming that I owe more than $70k more than I originally borrowed in '01. They haven't offered to settle, they haven't tried to gag me, they're just trying to run out the clock. I figure the more people I talk to the better I can make my case which may, in turn, help out others if/when I go to trial - which I'm fully expecting to do. No one has made a serious move to settle this even after being awarded injunctions and contempt orders and I've been at this for coming up on 6 years now so I'm fairly well settled into the groove by now.
What makes it even harder for me is knowing that what has happened to me (and the 280k other Fairbanks/SPS victims) can just as easily happen to anyone with a mortgage. All it takes is having your servicing rights sold to the right/wrong servicer and you're off and running. Maybe if more people understood that Mortgage Servicing Fraud would be considered a bit more seriously than it currently is in the mainstream.
One of the nice things about making markets in options was that no one ever pretended that it was about anything other than making money for the company. Some of us went about that in ethical ways, others not so much, but everyone knew exactly what the reason for being there was. I miss that sometimes in the flood of blather about what we're about in the pizza business.
In fairness, though, while there was no crap about why we were trading, Citi has been incredibly good to me even after my nervous breakdown left me useless to them any longer. I haven't had a single problem getting assistance, including a lot of help from the HR person navigating the disability insurance system. I have no idea if that represents Citi in general, or merely the office I was in, since the company I was with had been purchased by Citi ten months before I left.
The idealist walks a fine line in the business world. Sometimes you don't even know you're an idealist until the company asks you to step over a line you didn't even know was there, and something inside you says, "I can't. I won't."
Thanks for helping those you did, while you could, before the game turned dark.
An extraordinary post elicits extraordinary responses. These days, CR is the first page I look at on the web -- and sometimes I think I'd be better off if were the only page. One comment from this thread that I'd like to see written on the blackboard at least a hundred times:
Ignoring the failure of wages to meet housing costs is part of the malnutrition.
With all due respect, bush ain't no capitalist, he is, at least nominally, a classical facist, one who believes the state exists to benefit the corporations.
Something must be in the air today. Or maybe it's the moon. (Or, in my particular case it's the cold hard reality of a phone call from my acct last night regarding a particular sum of money due April 15th, and the realization that although I'm paddling just as fast as I can, my little boat is being sucked downstream with the current because, no, Virginia, the average american (me) can NOT in fact afford to put two children through college at the same time.)
And yet. I look outside. And the sun is shining, And the birds are still singing. The moon will come out tonight, and the world will keep spinning around. And it will continue to do so just like it did on the afternoon of Sept 11, 2001, and regardless of whether The Thing Who Thinks It's President decides to invade Iran this week, or whether we enter the next Great Depression, or my bank account slides further and further towards zero.
So, I don't know, maybe in the big big picture, everything is OK. Those birds sound nice.
Some of us never drank the Kool-Aid that is so freely dispensed in America. In late 1990s I was telling people that MSFT and CSCO were committing the biggest accounting fraud in American history, when I was working at CSCO, and that was the prime mover of the tech bubble. Silly.con Valley was full of corrupt morons and some of them are my friends. I left and retired in March 2000.
It would be helpful to you, and us all, if we understood the limits of your knowledge. It is so obvious that the whole debt business in America was turned into fraud because someone can loan someone elses money, fifth hand, without consequences. Debt business is not like selling toys. I bet you never read Schumpeters warnings about bankers mischief and what happens when bankers behave like salesmen. And do you know where bankers mischief leads to, according to Schumpeter? Catastrophe!
You are still clueless about the corrupt American System controlled by Crooks because you still drink the American Kool-Aid that our system is the best, blah, blah, blah. I bet you still believe in the cult of democracy and the cult of "Free Market."
Every human institution in infinitely corruptible (the Church?!) and in America our political and economic system are reaching the end until they break because they are as corrupt as any that failed. Only blind faith sustains Americans belief in the system.
Just remembered an old story about soldiers fighting the good fight and being wounded on the battlefield. They're no longer useful in the battle and may even get in the way! So what should we do with them -- finish them off? Not where I come from, we don't. Rather we thank them and give them all of the considerable respect they are due. In life apart from war, however, we tend to "finish them off", and I've often wondered why.
Fannie Mae's announcement that it will renew buying municipal housing bonds after a two-year break could reduce borrowing costs for state and local housing agencies and benefit low-income home buyers.
Well, now, for years I have watched some folks destroy the American dream for their fellow citizens and sell the US down the river to make a buck. (ITT just got fined for exporting military tech to China so it could be made cheaper and ITT could make a bigger profit from Uncle Sam link)
I have watched while our military was crippled and while free speech was surpressed.
Lots to be angry about. Lots to be worried about. But there are tomatoes to be planted and here in Alabama, the great cycle of life starts anew indifferent to crooks and heroes, economics, politics and other transient things.
"You are still clueless about the corrupt American System controlled by Crooks because you still drink the American Kool-Aid that our system is the best, blah, blah, blah. I bet you still believe in the cult of democracy and the cult of "Free Market."
I do not understand your "vitriol," as the previous poster called it. You yourself may or may not have drunk the Kool-aid, but apparently you profited from its sale, all the way to an apparently comfortable retirement.
So Tanta posts a mea culpa, and you go a little crazy. Some psychology there, or what?
I look back on my childhood and teen years and I remember my parents always, I mean always talking about Household Finance. For the longest time I never understood why, then when I went to law school and learned about this thing called predatory lending - I understood. My parents were part of the working poor, proud immigrants looking for their American dream. I spoke with my Dad this morning and asked him his first memory of HF. He said in an engish tinged with a foreign accent "it was just after I was hired by XXX company and I was still on probation with XXX company, I made a stupid mistake and ran a red light, this was my second ticket in only a few weeks and I had no money to pay, I needed to make the house payment though, so for the first time I went to HF, I borrowed $500 and they charged me 30% interest, I went back to them over the years and they never wanted to re-finance the entire house loan but just do seconds and thirds, they loved seconds and thirds."
Except the vegetarians - but they get cranky from all their undigested cellulose.
If they every stepped into a TVP (textured vegetable protein) plant where they turn soybeans into 'vegan meat'... they might prefer sausage. I've done both... makes one want to grow the food you eat, that is until you start contemplating 'fertilizer'.
Are sub-prime loans and guns in the hands of a predator inherently bad? Well yeah, I have this adversion to having a gun stuck in my face.
Are sub-prime loans and guns in the hands of someone who doesn't understand how they work and is totally ignorant of the safety precautions entailed inherently bad?. Well no, because the gun won't necessarily go off and the mortgage payments will be made most times.
Sub-prime was not the equivalent of armed robberty. Except of course when it was. But mostly it was a matter of putting people into houses. I spent the last eight months working in a firm that originated a lot of sub-prime loans. Our loan officers were not ghouls, they were in the business of writing loans though. Their interests were not aligned with the interests of the end investor. The market finally noticed the non-alignment and the subsequent readjustment has been painful.
The loan instruments were not the villains here, the loan officers were not the villains either, at least most of them most of the time, the failures were structural, a market was allowed to thrive where all the risk was shifted outward and nobody could possibly get hurt unless the market stalled.
wcw wrote -- "That cynic's bitterness about life's failings always stems from an inherent idealism. This is why I prefer cynics to pessimists. They hope."
I'll second that motion, wcw, and add my own little take to it. You may have drank the Kool-aid Tanta, but it didn't kill you. You are one of the few that lived, realized it for what it was as contrasted to what it should be, and got better.
What is idealism without being seasoned with a touch of pragmatic reality? To paraphrase a quote out of one of my favorite Michael Cain movies, "Second-hand Lions" -- "It's not the way it is, but it is the way it should be, and no matter if it's true or not, we should believe in those things because those are the things worth believing in."
This post of yours inspired me and almost convinced me that, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, it is worth sharing one's personal experience.
So I'll take a stab at it: I am an immigrant, I came from a formerly communist country in 1995. Being a programmer it was not hard for me to get relatively well-paying jobs (except for the 2002-2003 downturn), although most of them quite banal, indeed.
But, frankly, I was hoping for so much more - I too, had drunk the kool-aid, just a different flavor. You see, on the other side of the iron curtain, we were convinced that communism was pure evil, I could say at least as convinced as most on the other side were. And through some faulty reasoning, it followed that the "opposite", capitalism, was heaven on earth. See, capitalism was all about freedom and free-markets which had created this meritocracy where you just had to work hard and be good at what you were doing, and then you would be automatically propelled to the top, 'cause the free-market would notice and it would jut do its magic.
Add to this the propaganda wars that were waged on us. The communist one was pretty dull, coarse and relentless, so we became largely immunized, we would automatically tune out (a skill that has proven remarkably useful even after I got on the other side). The western one (Radio Free Europe) was mostly shrill and recognizable as such as well, especially when they were talking about things that were happening to us. But there was a subtler version as well, one that I fell for: through the American embassy they were disseminating interesting magazines, with articles that felt true when recommending to resist authority. I remember how impressed I was when reading an article called "Obedience and its risks" about the famous experiment where people in white coats were demanding from (real) test subjects to punish (fake - in reality actors) test subjects for failing to memorize some data. This and other articles seemed to be honestly reflecting about their own societies, something absolutely forbidden in our world.
And then I got here and started working in some big corporations. It truly is amazing how similar they are to the former communist societies, and how little do people realize this (a notable exception would be Noam Chomsky, who seems to have realized all this without having had the direct experience of living in both worlds). Extremely hierarchical, huge concentration of power at the top (including enormous concentration of political leverage) cult of personality (I watched in amazement how most of my American colleagues, who appeared otherwise intelligent, would automatically assume that, just because someone had raised to the top (CEO, CFO, even managing directors), they must be extraordinary and very bright and very deserving (of their huge paychecks) - all this while seeing what our direct managers were doing (in other words we had the opportunity to observe them before they got
to the top), stabbing each other in the back, destroying projects through incompetence and mismanagement and then jumping onto other projects before everything came crashing down, with a complete disregard for the consequences of their actions), a lot of overambitious people climbing the ladder over other people's corpses, a complete disconnect between one's goals and the goals of the organization (as we used to say in communism, "who cares, it's not mine, it's nobody's"), since a huge corporation is just as impersonal as the society at large, the wooden language, the slogans and mission statements. I tell you, for me it was surreal.
And the politicians! They were exactly the same kind of people like our former party leaders. Just because one chants "death to communism" does not mean that one is not exactly the same kind of bastard that would climb in the ranks of the communist party if one happened to be born on the other side.
Even long after the initial shock, I am amazed at the unbelievable gall of these people who passed (election finance) laws that allow them to be openly bribed.
But it would be unfair to finish before saying that the socities are also different. Maybe these differences will vanish, it certainly seems so right now, but maybe it is just a pendulum swing. One major difference is the (now besieged) middle class. I was truly impressed when working for smaller companies (as opposed to giant corporations), with the work and energy invested by the owners of these small companies. They were the first to arrive and the last to leave. One can see as an example of its wonderful effects the abundance of good and cheap restaurants in New York, or the myriad of technology companies that were started in a garage. This is something that was completely lacking under communism and is probably the single biggest cause for their eventual economic collapse. But it seems we are getting there here too, it is exactly these middle class people who are now squeezed by the growing inequality.
Another important difference is the amazing people who try to make a difference. A few of them existed even under communism, we did have a few dissidents, but with the population too afraid to even mention them, let alone follow their example, it seemed hopeless. Here the population at large is not (yet) as afraid (there is of course, the material screw - job insecurity, enormous medical expenses - which, interestingly enough, did not exist in communism, there the screw was sheer terror directly exercised by the police state). So here there is less fear, more hope. And this hope is constantly renewed for me by people like Chomsky, Nader, and yes, Tanta
Quote of the Day
I would rather know the agony of defeat and the ecstasy of victory, than live in the twilight of never having experienced either. Theodore Roosevelt
"A room for the kids. A yard for the dog. Walls you could paint purple, if you felt like it, and hell with the landlord. A 1200 square foot elderly bungalow with a porch. You could start from there. Exposed power lines, cracked sidewalks, closer to the Krogers than the Dorothy Lane? One bathroom for three people? Old double-hung windows in need of a little paint and a little more sweat equity? No garage for the old beater? You could start from there. You could start."
You still can in Podunk, places like that go for less then 10k at the auctions, I saw one go for 4k, no need for a loan. Of course no one but us hicks want to live here but that's ok with me I hate crowds. 53, retired, debt free, and loving it.
"Take up the White Man's burden
Send forth the best ye breed
Go, bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait, in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child."
Funny how capitalism now seems more and more like Kipling's Burden, as I grow older and less tolerant of fools.
Of course they grow less tolerant of me and wish me gone to my retirement...but twenty more years of toil and travail await while I point out the emperor has no clothes to new victims of groupthink.
I sometimes see Jas' point, but believe that Tanta's makes more sense.
Things only change in America when enough people are miserable.
Hark, the footsteps of change are upon us again, and the periodic crisis of capitalism will shed more blood than the usual casualties.
Florin- "So here there is less fear, more hope. And this hope is constantly renewed for me by people like Chomsky, Nader, and yes, Tanta"
Here's an immigrant from a former communist country talking about hope, Chomsky, Nader and Tanta in the same sentence. I like it. Sounds good. Sounds sincere. Sounds HONEST.
Hey, Tanta, what do you want, flowers? Let's get on with some righteous ass-kicking!
I would love to get married Tanta, but unfortunately I'm just not smart enough to keep the conversation going. Thanks again for all your great posts. Like you, I am a little cynical and skeptical, but I still believe that there is (was?) an ideal worth working for. Hopefully this ideal will return some day, but first we have to cleanse the system. We have to get back to the point where people can save money and it means something as opposed to just speculating in everything in a giant ponzi bubble casino economy. I believe we are in for a lot of pain and suffering, in more ways than one.
OT: To all of the Jas bashers, I don't think you guys get the point. Jas is 100% correct in pointing out that Amerika has become a fascist state; of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations. You guys just know that the globalist elite fascists are itching for an opportunity to introduce the Amero and do away with America entirely. And the comments about the mischief of bankers is also correct and one which Tanta has talked about time and again. Jas rails against the government-corporate-banking complex and against the big lie. It just came out sounding like an anti-Tanta rant, which it wasn't. I understood the post to be a prod to get Tanta to take the thinking to the next level. Most people can never think like Jas because its just too dammed painful and you have to keep connecting dots all the way to the finish line. You have to throw away all pre-conceived notions about what our government is and what it isn't, and realize that we may all have been sold a giant bill of goods. I can barely handle it and I am the biggest bear in the universe, except maybe tj or Jas. IMHO, we are headed exactly where Jas says and until the sheep wake up and take the red pill, we won't reverse course.
And no, dotcommunist, communism isn't the answer. More people have died under the tyranny of that system than any other - by a mile. What's needed is a pure conservative (Eisenhower or Barry Goldwater) not one of these worthless country club Republicrats that are nothing but corporate shills with MBA's. A strong person like that could turn this country around, but not without a lot of pain first. But then, who would support such a person with a platform of pain when the easy road is so much simpler? We need to look at ourselves to realize that we are the problem and the solution. Bring back the Founding Father's original vision of a representative republic: seal the borders and kick out all illegals, abolish the Federal Reserve and return to a gold standard, abolish 90% of federal programs and departments that are unconstitutional and totally unnecessary, abolish the IRS, Department of Education, Homeland Security, Social Security and Medicaid, enforce anti-trust and copyright laws, and on and on. See, its not hard to think of the solution is it? You just have to have the will to do it. I'm sure the fat cats living off the government dole will
mp, you know Emma Goldman was famous for once having said, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution."
So, yes. I want flowers. And righteous ass-kicking. Whatever world in which those two things are mutually exclusive is not the world I'm fighting for.
I have read and learned a great deal over the years from both Noam Chomsky and Ralph Nader. Whatever their flaws, they are extraordinary public intellectuals. I am incredibly flattered to be mentioned in the same sentence therewith.
And talk about a couple of dudes who could use some flowers. Holy shit.
I don't think Tanta wants or needs cheering up. Her post is, to me, a great piece of memoir. One thing I like about being a CRitizen is the heady balance of left- and right-brain. How the numbers forecast the future and the stories illustrate what the numbers will mean.
Darth Toll, give me credit for being able to read. I understand what Jas Jain is saying, but don't like the way he says it. Jas Jain does not have a god-damned patent on enlightenment.
This isn't the first time the United States has flirted with fascism, and it won't be the last. In 1926, Andrew Mellon was in Rome kissing Mussolini's ass and loaning him money. During the '30s, Father Coughlan was extolling the Fuhrer's virtues. Wall Street was conspiring to overthrow FDR. It's all there in the public record. Big Money likes governments that are run like businesses.
You said, "We need to look at ourselves to realize that we are the problem and the solution." That's the only thing you said with which I agree completely.
Eisenhower? Goldwater? Some "strong person?" I don't think so. I predict that the guy or gal who officiates at the turnaround of this mess will be someone who doesn't want the job and isn't tied to any particular ideology, but who believes passionately that this two-centuries-old experiment is worth saving.
In the end, the most important decisions will be made across countless backyard fences across countless neighborboods. If you don't believe that, and if you don't believe that the battle begins here, right on this blog, then you've missed the whole god-damned point of this righteous rant.
You know, I'm not a huge fan of the "grand conspiracy" sort of prognostications that Jas Jain is talking about. I find it far more likely that the individual actions of a bunch of totally clueless individual actors just sum up to that so it looks that way.
Corporations do some pretty evil things, but the people in them aren't evil. They're just human. They're flawed. They can be influenced to do good or evil. Any system that removes real personal accountability fosters terrible results, and people who design systems that do that get my wrath. So do we change the system? Absolutely. I wrote a little earlier about well written rules. Ideally, systems are transparent enough so bad actors cannot conceal their actions, not from an all-seeing regulator, but from all related parties in a deal.
Systems should be designed with a bias towards ethics. therefore the right way should be deliberately designed to be the easiest way. Laziness usually beats evil.
Ah, but you helped many people and did what you could. No one can do more than they can do.
No reason to be broken-hearted unless idealism superseded reality on this journey. Have come to conclusion that idealism belongs with philosophers on mountain tops. Left any thoughts of tilting at windmills when v. young.
Have enjoyed others citing their philosophy, ethics, and experiences.
Ancient Greek Lit., some Roman, and some Shakespeare provide great guides to human nature... and exile to separate islands is a solution.
I dare not venture further with my view of the inhabitants of this earth or where I have concluded that they came from ...
Once I was a conservative, politically. Then Nixon and Reagan did me in.
It is one thing for the masses to suffer for some idealized goal where folks will be better off someday.
Another to loot and lie to enrich a already rich class.
If you think that's bad, I used to be a lawyer for a federal agency in D.C.
Most soul-destroying thing I ever experienced.
Mmmmm... donuts!
Hey, Tanta, life is life. Everybody gets there, but those of us who are cagey hold a few good things inside right up to the bitter end.
Thanks for sharing your dreams, Tanta. Although I work in a different field, your description of corporate life resonates with me. Hopefully, the next generation will get things straightened out once and for all, or at least make some incremental improvements through participation in this forum...
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter -MLK
Koolaid not so good -- never shutting up about drinking it, priceless. Bottomless thanks, Tanta, for not shutting up.
All I really knew for sure was you didn't sell vitamin "C" for a living. I had no clue you were a poet. Have a great day,
If you hadn't drunk the Koolaid, you would never have been able to communicate with people who are still ensnared in the american dream/nightmare.
Very few people have the courage to toss away foundational beliefs and goals without having guaranteed alternatives in hand. You are providing people with a vision of what else there might be to replace everything they have ever known.
Yes, it is annoying and heart breaking on a daily basis, but there probably wasn't any other way to accomplish this.
That cynic's bitterness about life's failings always stems from an inherent idealism. This is why I prefer cynics to pessimists. They hope.
Looks like Countrywide is taking it on the chin...albit on deaf ear's.
403 Forbidden
This too shall pass.
Tanta,
Thanks.
Frequently the most reliable source of information about a particular industry comes for individuals who have worked in the industry.
This blog has improved. It's gone from a good textbook to a good novel. Strong work.
wally maybe picks an unfortunate metaphor in more ways than one, with donuts.
Consider muffins, people: no big hole in the middle with them and, compared to donuts, positively nutritious.
Of course Fannie's marketing canon has little to do with what is nutritious but what will make you happy...what will make your dreams come true: owning your own house.
Seems nutritious enough until you look at the price tags and discover those prices are predatory for first time buyers with mere wages to cultivate this hope of acquiring wealth. Ignoring the failure of wages to meet housing costs is part of the malnutrition.
And that is the current story in America: if you do not inherit your wealth, you have to dream in order to own your house...Fannie and Freddie are there to help with this dreaming.
It's not what you do, your work, it's your address --where you rest when the day is done.
We pay for this marketing and this dreaming by ignoring work and especially, fair compensation for work done: reasonable wages.
Tanta,
Thought I'd share:
My two favorite mortgage sites these days are BrokerOutpost.com and Calculated Risk.
One deals with the beginning part of the foodchain - feeding the monster - that's where my line of work is at. The other site - yours - deals with the end product. Both are very interesting and educational but in different ways. If you want to see what people act like when they're told that the Koolaid is running out, there isn't much more left, and there definetely isn't enough for everyone, check out the BrokerOutpost.
And to you, I would like to quote my five-year old. When her grandma said "you can't hurt things with a little bit of chocolate", my daughter replied "Grandma! You can't hurt things a lot of chocolate either!"
"Will" tears his button-down shirt off, revealing a cheap T-shirt with a poorly designed logo that says "quackprogrammer". He thrusts out his chest and flexes his keyboard hands with a manly stance. After a long silence, a tumbleweed floats past.
As a longtime software consultant (20 years), I've seen my share of trainwrecks. These wrecks happened for simple reasons (fear, overdesign, politics, confusion, or "design by resume"). Software development is just very messy, and not at all like what bridge engineering appears to be.
Anyhoo, I'm optimistic. The technology is neat, but the problems are banal.
I just think we software types are building the wrong things. I'm plotting in the direction of software/systems as a tool of statecraft. Its a long shot, but what the hell.
Thomas Jefferson once said something deep about the Tree of Liberty, and that every generation or so, it needs to be fertilized with the blood of Patriots and Tyrants.
I don't think a shot will be fired or a bayonet raised during (or within) the approaching financial catastrophe, but many large things will fall face-first into the muck at the base of the tree.
Tanta, you help us understand the chemistry of the next big wave of fertilizer. Thanks.
BTW, Kansas: "Dust in the Wind" gets my vote. My 3 year old loves it.
Hope your internal chemistry is doing better.
DUDE!! it sounds just like wachovia... especially the part about the hr infractions to casual fryday didja ever have to do powerpoint ??
But serious, you can only do what and where you are. And you can walk, a step that too many will not take. You can take where you came from to different places, and hope some other cogs take inspiration from that.
write on....oh yes, and death to amerika
Abe Lincoln said "I feel sorry for the man who cannot feel the whip on another man's back" Civilians need to take responsibility if and when they get screwed, IMHO, instead of running off to see a lawyer because it is someone elses fault. I've been in the housing market since 2003, except for one year when I actually found a dream fixer upper, at a reasonable price, and worked my fingers to the bone fixing it up (only to get transferred to another state)My point, I suppose, is that I've had to seperate a lot of shit from shinola. And while I'm not smart enough to appreciate most of the intelligence in here, I do appreciate the honesty and compassion, and feel better not being alone in my frustration at the current situation!
Tanta, I've read your stories of the mortgage business for a while now, and it's striking how different the picture you paint (working hard to put first-time buyers in homes) is from what my experience was as a first-time buyer in early 2005 (wish I knew then what I know now...)
I spent hours in Borders (OK, I was on a business trip and really bored...) reading books on first time homebuying and financing (even bought a couple), read everything I could only, assembled an accordian folder full of financial documents--a few years of tax returns, W-2's, recent statements on my student loans, bank statements, brokerage statements showing my "emergency fund" parked in Vanguard's money-market mutual fund.
When I first spoke with a broker, things were a lot different then what I'd read. I'll never forget: When I told him that I had a 5% downpayment in my checking account and several months living expenses in a money market fund and retirement accounts I wasn't touching, his response was "Oh, so you're actually good with money. Most people I work with your age come across a couple thousand and decide to get a house" (that may not be verbatim, but it's pretty damn close). He was surprised when I showed up to fill out the paperwork with my document-stuff accordian folder. He was surprised when I specifically requested a fully-amortized fix-rate loan for my piggyback (I used an 80/15/5).
In retrospect, perhaps those all should have been warning signs. It's been a learning experience (and given that I bought a place I could easily afford with fixed rate mortgages and my career is pretty good, not nearly as painful as it could have been).
It's a fine line to walk. Too much pessimism and you risk becoming that old crank in the corner of the office who nobody listens to and everyone hates. Too much positivism and you end up over the cliff with the other lemmings the first time the faith is challenged successfully or funding is pulled.
It seems as though you've found that balance here, and by sharing your knowledge so eloquently, you're helping others find that balance as well.
Keep it up!
Pending Sales of Existing Homes Rose 0.7% in February
Pending Sales of Existing Homes Rose 0.7% in February (Update2) - Bloomberg.com
I am not familiar with pending home sales but they are up 0.7% MoM and down 8.5% YoY.
Dear Tanta
Thanks for sharing. I wonder if you will be ok about me sharing some beliefs that seem to make sense to me? I will try to say it without i hope you being offended or upset. I know your situation cannot be so easy for you. In alternate health what is not expressed and is therefore held in leads to illness. Specifically it leads to a specific kind of illness. It is worth reflecting on the idea that although anger can be a wasted emotion there is wisdom in anger. Anger has a message. Why not wish for a better place? Why not dream? Please keep dreaming and help people to create a better world - much as you are already doing. Your work here is wonderful. It is beautiful.
For sure you have a wonderfully supportive group here. I think too that you and CR are kind of expanding our minds. We wont be the same for this experience. Anger held in creates a distructive force. An internally distructive force. Anger released without wisdom is also distructive as we all know. Life is as it is. Whatever terrible things may be happening your dream is still a beautiful dream.
Tanta,
Closer to Krogers than Dorothy Lane? Are you in the burbs of Dayton? As far as I know there are only 3 Dorothy Lane Markets? If so would love to meet you in person. Spend about 1/3 of my time in Dayton, the rest in Chicago.
Thank you Tanta.I would describe you as a loving skeptic rather than a cynic.I have also found Pain to be the teacher i paid the most attention to.this evening i have two chores,one is notarizing the loan docs for a retiree who is going to lose his retirement nest egg in a bad real estate deal (no,he won't listen,he can't)the other will be talking to the daughters of a friend who bought a new home at the peak with a 2/28 Arm,which will reset next month.they are 23 and 25 years old,and both are married,both work in real estate related fields,as do their husbands.I'll take a look,and likely tell them to do a short sale,or file BK.If they have any equity at this point,i can probably refi them,and prolong the pain,but i'll never be that hungry as long as there are wild turkeys in these hills,(tough but flavorful meat,real tough)
Accredited Shares Rise on $1.1 Billion in Financing
Accredited Shares Rise on $1.1 Billion in Financing (Update3) - Bloomberg.com
The San Diego-based company obtained a $500 million commitment from a large commercial bank and renewed a $600 million facility with an investment bank, Accredited said in a statement yesterday after the close of regular trading. It didn't name the companies.
worst job?
Writing State government employees health policies which were designed to deny legitimate benefits and cause the insured to lose the family farm if they sought treatment.
The worst was adding coverage for the goofy union negotiated benefit enhancements while pulling coverage for liver transplants to pay for it.
Employees should never allow a union negotiate your health benefit plan improvements. A receipe for death despite of a curable disease.
This blog has improved. It's gone from a good textbook to a good novel. Strong work.
Well said.
Dirk, I have visited Dayton. Duly diligently. Probably stayed in the same Holiday Inn Express you did. When the laptop got boring I'd hit the grocery stores.
quackprogrammer, you're the reason God made Kansas. One of these day's I'll post a YouTube of "You're The Reason God Made Oklahoma" if I can find one.
Eek, one Thursday afternoon, having read the latest outrage from HR, I stormed out of the office like the Wrath of Goddess, and stopped at a very cheap retail outlet--in all senses of the term--to purchase a lime green sleeveless zip-front mini-dress and a pair of deep brown high-heeled platform-soled ankle-strap sandals to wear to work the next day, the holy casual Friday.
You all don't know this, but I'm not the voluptuous sort. Tall, thin. I looked about as appetizing as a half a Freon-flavored popsicle propped upright in a dollop of congealed dog poop. It was perfect.
I had decided I was tired of hectoring memos aimed at our file clerks and fax operators, those loyal dogged folks we paid just over minimum wage, and who had a bad habit of showing up on casual day a little, well, tacky sometimes. Even, perhaps, trashy. There I had been, quietly role-modeling for them all in my elegant, restrained Pendleton suits, and for some reason they didn't run right out and spend a week or two's gross for one of my tailored dresses. And, yeah, they occasionally crossed the line, taste-wise.
But that day, HR had to either pick on someone its own size or admit that it was time to address the clothing budget.
It's a wonder I never got fired.
I will never claim that childish acting out in the office will bring the revolution. Nor am I inclined to apologize for it, either.
Tanta,
I'm one of the FTHBs. Moved from Vegas back to NH in 98, bought a little 2up, 3down for $65k in '99 and thought that everything was working out really well. I had had the first day of the rest of My Life. Then, in '01 I made the mistake of refinancing. Not so much the act itself; that was a fairly smart move. Problem was that I did it with Superior Bank. Two weeks later the note was sold to Merrill Lynch and I was beginning to slide down the drain without even knowing it.
Shortest version, Superior kept the servicing rights to the loan then tanked six months later. The FDIC threw the brakes on them and Merrill hired Fairbanks Capital to "service" the loans, mine included. Literally Day 1 of obtaining the servicing rights to my loan Fairbanks had me in default AND claimed that I had no homeowner's policy in place so they hit me with FPI. I didn't have clue one that any of this was happening until the first quarter of '02 and by then I had already been teed up for foreclosure.
Fade in: 04.03.07 I'm still in my property. It's no longer a "home" just the building we live in. I've got permanent injunctions and contempt orders against Fairbanks n/k/a Select Portfolio Servicing after opting out of USA/Curry v. Fairbanks 404 Not Found in '04 unlike the 280,000 other victims who opted in.
Eckert, Seamans, Cherin and Mellot, opposing counsel representing Merrill Lynch Mortgage Capital, Merrill Lynch Mortgage Investors, Fairbanks/SPS, and their former local counsel Harmon Law Offices, has petitioned to remove my case to federal court. The PMI Group's counsel, somebody Boutin, assented to the petition as well.
I brought 19 charges against everyone just at the state level, including conspiracy, NH's version of civil RICO from what I'm told. You can't swing a dead cat anywhere around my case without knocking over some kind of documented fraud. And yet, these guys keep letting me stay out here talking about the case. Probably because of two things: 1.) They think they can "out money" me and 2.) Because they think that people look at me like I've got three heads when I tell them that this goes straight back to Wall St. and REMICS, REITS and RMBS in general - which it does. I've got the PSAs from the prospectuses to prove it. But at the same time, I've got bozos at places like WSJ who look at what I've got and tell me "I'm exaggerating" about the problem. Wasn't that what they said about predatory lending 10 years ago?
It's people like yourself, Tanta, and some of the other great minds here that really could help solve a few of these problems in the industry. All it would take is a few verdicts in favor of actual victims to begin to turn things around. In all honesty, I could use some help from some great minds because I used to push road cases and climb 2" steel 100' in the air for stadium shows for a living. I barely understand what I've written here never
ever mind everything that is actually happening with my case.
This is quite probably the most intelligent, informative blog that I've come across to date regarding the industry. I've learned the answers to some of the most crucial questions that I've been trying to ask for literally years - just in the last few months of reading here. I only wish that I had found CR back in '02. It might have made things sooo much easier for me to understand back then. As it is, I've still got holes in the walls that I have to patch from banging my head against it for so long.
If anyone would care to help out with my case, either officially or unofficially, I'd really welcome the help. So would a couple hundred thousand other victims of Fairbanks/SPS - not to mention the millions "doing business" with the likes of Litton, Ocwen, EMC, etc. I don't care where the info comes from - as long as it can be authenticated in and of itself. The messenger isn't necessarily important other than to be able to say thank you and possibly send chocolate and/or grape squeezings to at the end of the day which seem to be the preferred indulgence around here. Im sure other culinary tastes could be catered to as well.
Anyone? Bueller?
Tanta, you have a way with words.
The important thing is that you ceased drinking the Kool Aid. I have not had a drink in years, but that makes it hard to talk to anybody but my wife and daughters. All my friends and family are still drinking the Kool Aid. Try as I might I can not get them to look at Calculated Risk or any other information concerning real estate.
Enjoy the spring and never look back on your life for too long!
True story-
When I was a soon to be agent in the academy, one of the instructors (DEA Agent) said to me, "You wanna know what I'm gonna do when I retire?"
I said "No, what?"
He said, "Go home, buy a 20 sack of weed, and smoke that sh!t all by myself in the dark".
Moral of the story: Everyone drinks the Kool-Aid at some point in their career. Eventually those that think outside the box wake up.
I, too, used to believe that Communism was wrong and there could be a happy medium between capitalism and socialism.
Then LTCM got bailed out by fleecing people with a fake new internet economy which put lots of money back into the investment banks who were so connected to LTCM. Yup, then my suspicions were notched. As the foolish Americans all glowed about that triumph of capitalism, I winced, knowing that foreign sweat shops were producing more and more of what American fools were buying, thinking that they were spreading that capital, never realizing that the capital they were spending was going to the owner class, and maybe a few cents to the enslaved, Asian sweat shop workers.
Bob Rubin and Alan Greenspan validated the corruption behind the 'success' of capitalism.
That is when I knew that there had to be something else, and I discovered the wisdom of Marx. He knew of the corruptive destination of capitalism, and described it perfectly.
Everything that criminal Bush gang has perpetrated has convinced me more of capitalism's core criminality.
I know that the masses will resist admitting that they were wrong and duped, but they will get there eventually. But the greedy owner's have such a hard time sharing, that I fear the great change will only come with great sadness.
Oh, well, REVOLUTION NOW!!!!
Tanta - Don't forget that the vast majority of homeowners are doing just fine. Why, I'll wager that many of those fine people that YOU helped put into their first homes are not only doing well there, but have moved up since then!
Do you know what it's like to rent with 3 kids and a dog? It's not friendly. It's not nice. It's not particularly comfortable.
Sure, there are people in trouble thru ARMs. And being part of the industry, and being a compassionate person that you are, I know that stings.
But Tanta - don't forget that you've also done good. You've also helped people, even if the corporate life was tedious, hard to take, and not for you.
I'm not an intellectual. I've gained so much knowledge these past few weeks reading these posts. I appreciate that. I am one of those young (ahem) dreamers who moved thru 2 houses and partly because of this blog am hesitating on house #3.
My prescription for you today is to make a huge cup of tea, get in your jammies, get cozy on the couch, and pop in "It's a Wonderful Life." Homeownership really is a beautiful thing, warts and all.
wcw wrote: That cynic's bitterness about life's failings always stems from an inherent idealism. This is why I prefer cynics to pessimists. They hope.
Nicely put. When I was in college, some people called me a dreamer. I replied that without dreamers, there would be no progress.
Amazing that some people can't see that reality.
Take a chance on dreams....
Tanta - thanks for writing this. I think you uniquely captured the odd blend of idealism and cynicism that makes a successful banker and makes banking a career worth its while. Done right, it is tremendously productive. Done wrong, it is tremendously destructive.
Just remember that the Tantas will be needed as we all slowly climb out of the mess that's been created. You are very much needed; take care of yourself.
Mike Dillon: I'm not sure exactly what you need. If you need analysis, I might be able to help you. If you are looking for information that would help the case, my guess is that the best weapon is legal discovery. Anyway, if I can help I'd be more than willing to. No strings attached. Email maxedoutmama2@hotmail.com if you have specific questions.
I do know some of the Fairbanks story, and it is dreadful.
Bob Rubin and Alan Greenspan validated the corruption behind the 'success' of capitalism.
Everything Marx said about Capitalism was correct. Too bad he was so wrong about communism.
How right you are, Max. Unfortunately, dotcommunist's Utopia-seeking will fail.
I wish that it wouldn't, but that's life...
Doing business with Drexel was never boring. Ain't that the thruth? When I was 15, my Dad was able to put us (Mom and three kids), into a home for the first time. Until then we had gone from apartment to apartment. He was never more proud than when he walked us through the front door. It is, and should remain part of the American dream.
Hi All, I'm hoping you can provide some ammunition in an upcoming fight I'm about to have:
My brother in law defaulted on a mortgage about 4 years ago. He's... terrible with money. He's self employed and has a patchy tax record. No money down and has no chance of any kind of mortgage worth having, if at all.
His current "Boss" is offering to sell him a $160k house for $190k, and then "promises" to pay my b-i-l $30k. The Boss says he has a mort broker friend and is "sure" the house will appraise for $190k.
My b-i-l is incredibly headstrong and is convinced this is a great deal and will easily be able to afford this great place if he rents out 3 bedrooms to his buddies.
How do my Wife and I talk him out of this?
Tanta
One of your west coast colleagues did much the same work to get us into our first house. Thank you
And don't think the office memo nonsense is limited to your company or even your industry. Dilbert is universal. Any company, any industry, anywhere.
Thanks for the offer Mama. I'll be in touch shortly.
Pat of what I'm looking for is what "inside" questions I should actually be asking. The standard legalese discovery in easy enough but I'm wading into things like D&O insurance, pmi, what kind of insurance covers REMICS, what are the tax consequenses if/when as many as 4 or 5 claims are made on the same loss when a note goes nonperforming, definitions of "cut off" and "closing" dates of a REMIC and what exactly each entails, if a note can be added into a REMIC after the cut off or closing date and, if so, with what ramifications. I just don't have enough of a handle on the inner workings of the industry to know what to ask for. And at $400/hr searching for the answers to those Qs starts to add up fairly quickly.
At this point, Fairbanks/SPS is claiming that I owe more than $70k more than I originally borrowed in '01. They haven't offered to settle, they haven't tried to gag me, they're just trying to run out the clock. I figure the more people I talk to the better I can make my case which may, in turn, help out others if/when I go to trial - which I'm fully expecting to do. No one has made a serious move to settle this even after being awarded injunctions and contempt orders and I've been at this for coming up on 6 years now so I'm fairly well settled into the groove by now.
What makes it even harder for me is knowing that what has happened to me (and the 280k other Fairbanks/SPS victims) can just as easily happen to anyone with a mortgage. All it takes is having your servicing rights sold to the right/wrong servicer and you're off and running. Maybe if more people understood that Mortgage Servicing Fraud would be considered a bit more seriously than it currently is in the mainstream.
One of the nice things about making markets in options was that no one ever pretended that it was about anything other than making money for the company. Some of us went about that in ethical ways, others not so much, but everyone knew exactly what the reason for being there was. I miss that sometimes in the flood of blather about what we're about in the pizza business.
In fairness, though, while there was no crap about why we were trading, Citi has been incredibly good to me even after my nervous breakdown left me useless to them any longer. I haven't had a single problem getting assistance, including a lot of help from the HR person navigating the disability insurance system. I have no idea if that represents Citi in general, or merely the office I was in, since the company I was with had been purchased by Citi ten months before I left.
Tanta:
The idealist walks a fine line in the business world. Sometimes you don't even know you're an idealist until the company asks you to step over a line you didn't even know was there, and something inside you says, "I can't. I won't."
Thanks for helping those you did, while you could, before the game turned dark.
Everyone makes sausage at some time.
Yeah, donuts, muffins, bagels, lunches, oh man, the food was good...
We were all young and idealistic once. I believed computers would change the world, and I was right. They have. And it was fun to be part of that.
But I'm not sure it's all that much better, some days.
An extraordinary post elicits extraordinary responses. These days, CR is the first page I look at on the web -- and sometimes I think I'd be better off if were the only page. One comment from this thread that I'd like to see written on the blackboard at least a hundred times:
Ignoring the failure of wages to meet housing costs is part of the malnutrition.
Nicely said, calmo.
And I thought I was depressed!
dotcommunist
With all due respect, bush ain't no capitalist, he is, at least nominally, a classical facist, one who believes the state exists to benefit the corporations.
Don't take it that hard. At least there a bunch of nice houses out there.
Eventually things will balance out and it will all get better.
We'll all sort through the debt madness.
All I can say about this " the path to hell is paved with good intentions"... People slipped from the good path.
Its funny but the old and New testament preach against going in to debt.
But God forgives and life turns around.
Good luck and good health
James
Everyone makes sausage at some time.
Except the vegetarians - but they get cranky from all their undigested cellulose.
Something must be in the air today. Or maybe it's the moon. (Or, in my particular case it's the cold hard reality of a phone call from my acct last night regarding a particular sum of money due April 15th, and the realization that although I'm paddling just as fast as I can, my little boat is being sucked downstream with the current because, no, Virginia, the average american (me) can NOT in fact afford to put two children through college at the same time.)
And yet. I look outside. And the sun is shining, And the birds are still singing. The moon will come out tonight, and the world will keep spinning around. And it will continue to do so just like it did on the afternoon of Sept 11, 2001, and regardless of whether The Thing Who Thinks It's President decides to invade Iran this week, or whether we enter the next Great Depression, or my bank account slides further and further towards zero.
So, I don't know, maybe in the big big picture, everything is OK. Those birds sound nice.
--
Tanta,
Some of us never drank the Kool-Aid that is so freely dispensed in America. In late 1990s I was telling people that MSFT and CSCO were committing the biggest accounting fraud in American history, when I was working at CSCO, and that was the prime mover of the tech bubble. Silly.con Valley was full of corrupt morons and some of them are my friends. I left and retired in March 2000.
It would be helpful to you, and us all, if we understood the limits of your knowledge. It is so obvious that the whole debt business in America was turned into fraud because someone can loan someone elses money, fifth hand, without consequences. Debt business is not like selling toys. I bet you never read Schumpeters warnings about bankers mischief and what happens when bankers behave like salesmen. And do you know where bankers mischief leads to, according to Schumpeter? Catastrophe!
You are still clueless about the corrupt American System controlled by Crooks because you still drink the American Kool-Aid that our system is the best, blah, blah, blah. I bet you still believe in the cult of democracy and the cult of "Free Market."
Every human institution in infinitely corruptible (the Church?!) and in America our political and economic system are reaching the end until they break because they are as corrupt as any that failed. Only blind faith sustains Americans belief in the system.
Jas
Just remembered an old story about soldiers fighting the good fight and being wounded on the battlefield. They're no longer useful in the battle and may even get in the way! So what should we do with them -- finish them off? Not where I come from, we don't. Rather we thank them and give them all of the considerable respect they are due. In life apart from war, however, we tend to "finish them off", and I've often wondered why.
Fannie's return to muni house market to lower costs
Fannie's return to muni house market to lower costs
| Reuters
Fannie Mae's announcement that it will renew buying municipal housing bonds after a two-year break could reduce borrowing costs for state and local housing agencies and benefit low-income home buyers.
jasbhai,
vy the witriol, man?
vots she done other than woice herown feelings, man?
and you
you jas
jas posting here
and there
hows retirement
with your keyboard?
Well, now, for years I have watched some folks destroy the American dream for their fellow citizens and sell the US down the river to make a buck. (ITT just got fined for exporting military tech to China so it could be made cheaper and ITT could make a bigger profit from Uncle Sam link)
I have watched while our military was crippled and while free speech was surpressed.
Lots to be angry about. Lots to be worried about. But there are tomatoes to be planted and here in Alabama, the great cycle of life starts anew indifferent to crooks and heroes, economics, politics and other transient things.
MERLE HAGGARD - Are The Good Times Really Over
YouTube -
Mortgage humor
From here.
Jain:
"You are still clueless about the corrupt American System controlled by Crooks because you still drink the American Kool-Aid that our system is the best, blah, blah, blah. I bet you still believe in the cult of democracy and the cult of "Free Market."
I do not understand your "vitriol," as the previous poster called it. You yourself may or may not have drunk the Kool-aid, but apparently you profited from its sale, all the way to an apparently comfortable retirement.
So Tanta posts a mea culpa, and you go a little crazy. Some psychology there, or what?
Tanta,
I look back on my childhood and teen years and I remember my parents always, I mean always talking about Household Finance. For the longest time I never understood why, then when I went to law school and learned about this thing called predatory lending - I understood. My parents were part of the working poor, proud immigrants looking for their American dream. I spoke with my Dad this morning and asked him his first memory of HF. He said in an engish tinged with a foreign accent "it was just after I was hired by XXX company and I was still on probation with XXX company, I made a stupid mistake and ran a red light, this was my second ticket in only a few weeks and I had no money to pay, I needed to make the house payment though, so for the first time I went to HF, I borrowed $500 and they charged me 30% interest, I went back to them over the years and they never wanted to re-finance the entire house loan but just do seconds and thirds, they loved seconds and thirds."
Except the vegetarians - but they get cranky from all their undigested cellulose.
If they every stepped into a TVP (textured vegetable protein) plant where they turn soybeans into 'vegan meat'... they might prefer sausage. I've done both... makes one want to grow the food you eat, that is until you start contemplating 'fertilizer'.
No one gets out of this life alive.
Are sub-prime loans inherently bad?
Are guns inherently bad?
No. Not to me anyway.
Are sub-prime loans and guns in the hands of a predator inherently bad? Well yeah, I have this adversion to having a gun stuck in my face.
Are sub-prime loans and guns in the hands of someone who doesn't understand how they work and is totally ignorant of the safety precautions entailed inherently bad?. Well no, because the gun won't necessarily go off and the mortgage payments will be made most times.
Sub-prime was not the equivalent of armed robberty. Except of course when it was. But mostly it was a matter of putting people into houses. I spent the last eight months working in a firm that originated a lot of sub-prime loans. Our loan officers were not ghouls, they were in the business of writing loans though. Their interests were not aligned with the interests of the end investor. The market finally noticed the non-alignment and the subsequent readjustment has been painful.
The loan instruments were not the villains here, the loan officers were not the villains either, at least most of them most of the time, the failures were structural, a market was allowed to thrive where all the risk was shifted outward and nobody could possibly get hurt unless the market stalled.
Then the market stalled.
wcw wrote -- "That cynic's bitterness about life's failings always stems from an inherent idealism. This is why I prefer cynics to pessimists. They hope."
I'll second that motion, wcw, and add my own little take to it. You may have drank the Kool-aid Tanta, but it didn't kill you. You are one of the few that lived, realized it for what it was as contrasted to what it should be, and got better.
What is idealism without being seasoned with a touch of pragmatic reality? To paraphrase a quote out of one of my favorite Michael Cain movies, "Second-hand Lions" -- "It's not the way it is, but it is the way it should be, and no matter if it's true or not, we should believe in those things because those are the things worth believing in."
Secondhand Lions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
New Line Cinema : Secondhand Lions
Goldman Sachs is owed 1 billion dollars by New Century, and countrywide is their 10th largest creditor.
Goldman named largest creditor of New Century - Times Online
Tanta
Google the name Carl Schmitt
He is the High Priest of Kool Aid
The only problem is no one knows who he is or what his philosophy is doing to America.
Kool Aid will never taste the same!
Tanta,
This post of yours inspired me and almost convinced me that, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, it is worth sharing one's personal experience.
So I'll take a stab at it: I am an immigrant, I came from a formerly communist country in 1995. Being a programmer it was not hard for me to get relatively well-paying jobs (except for the 2002-2003 downturn), although most of them quite banal, indeed.
But, frankly, I was hoping for so much more - I too, had drunk the kool-aid, just a different flavor. You see, on the other side of the iron curtain, we were convinced that communism was pure evil, I could say at least as convinced as most on the other side were. And through some faulty reasoning, it followed that the "opposite", capitalism, was heaven on earth. See, capitalism was all about freedom and free-markets which had created this meritocracy where you just had to work hard and be good at what you were doing, and then you would be automatically propelled to the top, 'cause the free-market would notice and it would jut do its magic.
Add to this the propaganda wars that were waged on us. The communist one was pretty dull, coarse and relentless, so we became largely immunized, we would automatically tune out (a skill that has proven remarkably useful even after I got on the other side). The western one (Radio Free Europe) was mostly shrill and recognizable as such as well, especially when they were talking about things that were happening to us. But there was a subtler version as well, one that I fell for: through the American embassy they were disseminating interesting magazines, with articles that felt true when recommending to resist authority. I remember how impressed I was when reading an article called "Obedience and its risks" about the famous experiment where people in white coats were demanding from (real) test subjects to punish (fake - in reality actors) test subjects for failing to memorize some data. This and other articles seemed to be honestly reflecting about their own societies, something absolutely forbidden in our world.
And then I got here and started working in some big corporations. It truly is amazing how similar they are to the former communist societies, and how little do people realize this (a notable exception would be Noam Chomsky, who seems to have realized all this without having had the direct experience of living in both worlds). Extremely hierarchical, huge concentration of power at the top (including enormous concentration of political leverage) cult of personality (I watched in amazement how most of my American colleagues, who appeared otherwise intelligent, would automatically assume that, just because someone had raised to the top (CEO, CFO, even managing directors), they must be extraordinary and very bright and very deserving (of their huge paychecks) - all this while seeing what our direct managers were doing (in other words we had the opportunity to observe them before they got
to the top), stabbing each other in the back, destroying projects through incompetence and mismanagement and then jumping onto other projects before everything came crashing down, with a complete disregard for the consequences of their actions), a lot of overambitious people climbing the ladder over other people's corpses, a complete disconnect between one's goals and the goals of the organization (as we used to say in communism, "who cares, it's not mine, it's nobody's"), since a huge corporation is just as impersonal as the society at large, the wooden language, the slogans and mission statements. I tell you, for me it was surreal.
And the politicians! They were exactly the same kind of people like our former party leaders. Just because one chants "death to communism" does not mean that one is not exactly the same kind of bastard that would climb in the ranks of the communist party if one happened to be born on the other side.
Even long after the initial shock, I am amazed at the unbelievable gall of these people who passed (election finance) laws that allow them to be openly bribed.
But it would be unfair to finish before saying that the socities are also different. Maybe these differences will vanish, it certainly seems so right now, but maybe it is just a pendulum swing. One major difference is the (now besieged) middle class. I was truly impressed when working for smaller companies (as opposed to giant corporations), with the work and energy invested by the owners of these small companies. They were the first to arrive and the last to leave. One can see as an example of its wonderful effects the abundance of good and cheap restaurants in New York, or the myriad of technology companies that were started in a garage. This is something that was completely lacking under communism and is probably the single biggest cause for their eventual economic collapse. But it seems we are getting there here too, it is exactly these middle class people who are now squeezed by the growing inequality.
Another important difference is the amazing people who try to make a difference. A few of them existed even under communism, we did have a few dissidents, but with the population too afraid to even mention them, let alone follow their example, it seemed hopeless. Here the population at large is not (yet) as afraid (there is of course, the material screw - job insecurity, enormous medical expenses - which, interestingly enough, did not exist in communism, there the screw was sheer terror directly exercised by the police state). So here there is less fear, more hope. And this hope is constantly renewed for me by people like Chomsky, Nader, and yes, Tanta
Thanks,
Florin
Wow Florin -thanks for sharing. What a great insight to get from both sides of the curtain.
Makes perfect sense that these two reality-denying ideologies birth the same beast -- a hierarchy where the buck never stops.
Quote of the Day
I would rather know the agony of defeat and the ecstasy of victory, than live in the twilight of never having experienced either. Theodore Roosevelt
Jas Jain has discovered Schumpeter and wants to share him with us. How thoughtful.
Jas Jain, your bullshit and $1.50 will buy you a cup of coffee at any Denny's, coast-to-coast.
Dear Tanta & CR,
You are to the mortgage industry, what Pamela Jones is to the Operating System Industry (http://www.groklaw.net)
I'm reading Walden.
Know anything about squatter's rights in Canada?
Tanta
"A room for the kids. A yard for the dog. Walls you could paint purple, if you felt like it, and hell with the landlord. A 1200 square foot elderly bungalow with a porch. You could start from there. Exposed power lines, cracked sidewalks, closer to the Krogers than the Dorothy Lane? One bathroom for three people? Old double-hung windows in need of a little paint and a little more sweat equity? No garage for the old beater? You could start from there. You could start."
You still can in Podunk, places like that go for less then 10k at the auctions, I saw one go for 4k, no need for a loan. Of course no one but us hicks want to live here but that's ok with me I hate crowds. 53, retired, debt free, and loving it.
Someone said "honesty and compassion. Yes. Thank you, Tanta and CR.
Ah well, ours is to do or die.
"Take up the White Man's burden
Send forth the best ye breed
Go, bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait, in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child."
Funny how capitalism now seems more and more like Kipling's Burden, as I grow older and less tolerant of fools.
Of course they grow less tolerant of me and wish me gone to my retirement...but twenty more years of toil and travail await while I point out the emperor has no clothes to new victims of groupthink.
I sometimes see Jas' point, but believe that Tanta's makes more sense.
Things only change in America when enough people are miserable.
Hark, the footsteps of change are upon us again, and the periodic crisis of capitalism will shed more blood than the usual casualties.
Florin- "So here there is less fear, more hope. And this hope is constantly renewed for me by people like Chomsky, Nader, and yes, Tanta"
Here's an immigrant from a former communist country talking about hope, Chomsky, Nader and Tanta in the same sentence. I like it. Sounds good. Sounds sincere. Sounds HONEST.
Hey, Tanta, what do you want, flowers? Let's get on with some righteous ass-kicking!
I would love to get married Tanta, but unfortunately I'm just not smart enough to keep the conversation going. Thanks again for all your great posts. Like you, I am a little cynical and skeptical, but I still believe that there is (was?) an ideal worth working for. Hopefully this ideal will return some day, but first we have to cleanse the system. We have to get back to the point where people can save money and it means something as opposed to just speculating in everything in a giant ponzi bubble casino economy. I believe we are in for a lot of pain and suffering, in more ways than one.
OT: To all of the Jas bashers, I don't think you guys get the point. Jas is 100% correct in pointing out that Amerika has become a fascist state; of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations. You guys just know that the globalist elite fascists are itching for an opportunity to introduce the Amero and do away with America entirely. And the comments about the mischief of bankers is also correct and one which Tanta has talked about time and again. Jas rails against the government-corporate-banking complex and against the big lie. It just came out sounding like an anti-Tanta rant, which it wasn't. I understood the post to be a prod to get Tanta to take the thinking to the next level. Most people can never think like Jas because its just too dammed painful and you have to keep connecting dots all the way to the finish line. You have to throw away all pre-conceived notions about what our government is and what it isn't, and realize that we may all have been sold a giant bill of goods. I can barely handle it and I am the biggest bear in the universe, except maybe tj or Jas. IMHO, we are headed exactly where Jas says and until the sheep wake up and take the red pill, we won't reverse course.
And no, dotcommunist, communism isn't the answer. More people have died under the tyranny of that system than any other - by a mile. What's needed is a pure conservative (Eisenhower or Barry Goldwater) not one of these worthless country club Republicrats that are nothing but corporate shills with MBA's. A strong person like that could turn this country around, but not without a lot of pain first. But then, who would support such a person with a platform of pain when the easy road is so much simpler? We need to look at ourselves to realize that we are the problem and the solution. Bring back the Founding Father's original vision of a representative republic: seal the borders and kick out all illegals, abolish the Federal Reserve and return to a gold standard, abolish 90% of federal programs and departments that are unconstitutional and totally unnecessary, abolish the IRS, Department of Education, Homeland Security, Social Security and Medicaid, enforce anti-trust and copyright laws, and on and on. See, its not hard to think of the solution is it? You just have to have the will to do it. I'm sure the fat cats living off the government dole will
(cont.)
no doubt take umbrage to my comments.
"Democracy is the worst form of Government ever attempted in the world. The only exceptions to this are all the other ones tried." Winston Churchill
mp, you know Emma Goldman was famous for once having said, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution."
So, yes. I want flowers. And righteous ass-kicking. Whatever world in which those two things are mutually exclusive is not the world I'm fighting for.
I have read and learned a great deal over the years from both Noam Chomsky and Ralph Nader. Whatever their flaws, they are extraordinary public intellectuals. I am incredibly flattered to be mentioned in the same sentence therewith.
And talk about a couple of dudes who could use some flowers. Holy shit.
I don't think Tanta wants or needs cheering up. Her post is, to me, a great piece of memoir. One thing I like about being a CRitizen is the heady balance of left- and right-brain. How the numbers forecast the future and the stories illustrate what the numbers will mean.
Darth Toll, give me credit for being able to read. I understand what Jas Jain is saying, but don't like the way he says it. Jas Jain does not have a god-damned patent on enlightenment.
This isn't the first time the United States has flirted with fascism, and it won't be the last. In 1926, Andrew Mellon was in Rome kissing Mussolini's ass and loaning him money. During the '30s, Father Coughlan was extolling the Fuhrer's virtues. Wall Street was conspiring to overthrow FDR. It's all there in the public record. Big Money likes governments that are run like businesses.
You said, "We need to look at ourselves to realize that we are the problem and the solution." That's the only thing you said with which I agree completely.
Eisenhower? Goldwater? Some "strong person?" I don't think so. I predict that the guy or gal who officiates at the turnaround of this mess will be someone who doesn't want the job and isn't tied to any particular ideology, but who believes passionately that this two-centuries-old experiment is worth saving.
In the end, the most important decisions will be made across countless backyard fences across countless neighborboods. If you don't believe that, and if you don't believe that the battle begins here, right on this blog, then you've missed the whole god-damned point of this righteous rant.
You know, I'm not a huge fan of the "grand conspiracy" sort of prognostications that Jas Jain is talking about. I find it far more likely that the individual actions of a bunch of totally clueless individual actors just sum up to that so it looks that way.
Corporations do some pretty evil things, but the people in them aren't evil. They're just human. They're flawed. They can be influenced to do good or evil. Any system that removes real personal accountability fosters terrible results, and people who design systems that do that get my wrath. So do we change the system? Absolutely. I wrote a little earlier about well written rules. Ideally, systems are transparent enough so bad actors cannot conceal their actions, not from an all-seeing regulator, but from all related parties in a deal.
Systems should be designed with a bias towards ethics. therefore the right way should be deliberately designed to be the easiest way. Laziness usually beats evil.
Ah, but you helped many people and did what you could. No one can do more than they can do.
No reason to be broken-hearted unless idealism superseded reality on this journey. Have come to conclusion that idealism belongs with philosophers on mountain tops. Left any thoughts of tilting at windmills when v. young.
Have enjoyed others citing their philosophy, ethics, and experiences.
Ancient Greek Lit., some Roman, and some Shakespeare provide great guides to human nature... and exile to separate islands is a solution.
I dare not venture further with my view of the inhabitants of this earth or where I have concluded that they came from ...