My wife has a similar saying; although now that I think about it, it's completely different.

I had chance to examine several thousand mortgage files for a regional lender about a year ago.

Not WaMu, but there were some VERY slim HELOC files in there post '96 or so -- basically an app from a tri-fold front-area display rack and the agreement. Appraisal with 3 comps in maybe 60% of cases. Serious documentation that I would expect from a mortgage (tax returns, interior appraisal) in less than 10%.

Adventure pictures to come!

You mean like Captain Blood (1935), with Errol Flynn and Olivia deHavilland?

OT -- looking for a social / organizational history of the Grange movement.

Recommendation of up to 3 good texts on the subject would be greatly appreciated.

[The holiday results indicate possible consolidation and further bankruptcy filings, said Gilbert Harrison, chief executive officer of retail advisory firm Financo Inc.

“It’s been difficult, much more difficult than anyone expected,” Harrison said in a Bloomberg Television interview from West Palm Beach, Florida. ]

And the bubbleheads were clinging to a 2nd half recovery until the end. We got a 20% SPX bump from the lows TOO! HOOOOOCOOODANODE ?

Post-Christmas Sales May Not Help Retailers Salvage Holidays - Bloomberg.com

o one home...

Go zombies!

From prior thread:

Google was not too helpful with those terms.  Is this what you refer to?
Blackhalo | 12.27.08 - 9:21 pm | #

No, this is what he was talking about (in case no answer was given):

The Winners and Losers from Devaluation

Monday, Feb. 26, 1973

In past crises, U.S. officials have tirelessly argued that foreign governments were at fault for keeping the values of their currencies unrealistically low in order to spur exports. This time, though, Nixon had already been contemplating a second dollar devaluation in order to strengthen the U.S. trade and payments balances; even in early January, German officials were picking up hints to that effect. When the flood of dollar-selling burst in Frankfurt and Tokyo, Nixon, Shultz and top White House aides realized that it would be simpler to devalue the dollar rather than try to work out a package of changes in other currencies. A float or upward revaluation of the mark, for instance, would have raised its price not only in dollars but also in francs, pounds and Dutch guilders, playing havoc with the Common Market's plan for monetary union.

we all read this, shake our heads and know that nothing will happen. The executives will keep there gazillion dollar bonuses, more tax money will be shoveled to support insolvent entities and our politicians will prostitute themselves to lobby groups. We are powerless, or born and bred dopes as Jas will say.

Hey Rob Dawg, you still up? How about feeding that prev thread contribution and your aggregation wider? ie active viral? Wouldn't take too much to get FT Alphaville going on a slow news Sunday...
Counterpointer | 12.28.08 - 2:07 am | #

Yeah, jus gettin' outta the hot tub.  Almos' too freakin' cold to have a soak.  Brrrr.  I didn't drive my motorcycle cross country just to have to put up with this weather.  I'll seed your ciriculae around a bit tomorrow.  I'll start collecting some class materials and lining up guest lecturers as well. 

The new Dodge Challenger and Chevy Camaro could be collectables. Only a few Challengers have dribbled off of the assembly line, and Chevy could probably cobble together a few Camaros. Through in a quick bankruptcy and you would have instant classics.

Here's my prediction for 2009-10:

Widespread political collapses of nations, as direct or indirect consequences of the global financial implosion.

Considering what's happening in Greece, Thailand, China, Ecuador, and Pakistan, as well as the precarious condition of the oil exporters (barring a quick escalation in oil prices, which is possible), a cascade of political collapses seems to be a no-brainer.

Even Canada and GB are showing cracks from the strains. And the US as well.

And I don't mean just brief upheavals or military coups. I mean nations going down the Somalia path.

As the tide goes out, we're discovering that EVERYONE has been swimming naked.

What did you put together?
\t
hong konger | 12.28.08 - 2:28 am | #

Click on my "homepage" below for the course schedule Rob Dawg's Post Apocoleptic Reeducation Camps as written by Counterpointer. 

hong konger

Ok, Dawg's in ahead o me. We had some fun with a putative re-education camp and its curriculum.

C

Uncle Billy - not bad, not bad. Like it. Love yr muse post from last night too.

Except WE'RE STILL APOPLECTIC NOW....

/pants a bit, lager sheila darling, puhleeze.

C

wow, you've been watching Flipping Out? This perfectly describes Jeff Lewis' life.
Al Gore | 12.28.08 - 3:18 am | #

What are the odds that the entire collapse of the American economy is a result of all that bad "Feng Shui" advice that's been handed out?  If you want, I'll throw in a conspiracy theory that it was that dastardly villian, Fu Manchu, behind it all!

sd: It is a hoax! A chinese lady told me that it's not even called Feng Shui, but rather Feng Hui.
Uncle Billy Smiles | Homepage | 12.28.08 - 3:34 am | #

No, no!  It works!  But evil forces have corrupted the message so that instead of promoting harmony and prosperity, Americans have designed their living spaces to increase friction and poverty.  Americans, it's time to turn your beds around and move that sofa one foot to the right.

You guys making comments on the new Camaro...must be kidding. My first car was a '76 Camaro, have never bought a new car, not concerned at all about impressing the ladies or recapturing my youth, but, a new Camaro...if there's an American car out there I'd buy, that would be it. In fact, if Chevorolet wants to save itself, it should either find a buy for the Camaro line, or better yet, shut everything else down and just make tha Camaro...might be the car that saves the company (and, don't compare it to that piece of crap that has been in production since the early 80's...that was not a Camaro!)

This is Hank's policy, too.

Aren't all his 8 trillion dollars of gifts and loans essentially low or no doc?

It's a good thing that the exalted macro level Hank plays in works by such a different set of rules than the micro level of bank loan officers.

Thank God I was already broke and didn't have any more money to lose when this all started.

Is there still a Camaro market ... I mean really.

It might appeal to NASCAR fans? Are they big enough to be a profitable market? I work with a dedicated motor head who just has to have the latest muscle car from Detroit to impress his friends. He just paid 40 grand for Chrysler's latest offering, a 2008 Challenger. It makes sense for GM to want a piece of this market. It's tiny and most of the young motor heads have switched loyalties to Japanese iron.

They're not making anymore Challengers. Funny that Chrysler kept the name after the Space shuttle fiasco.

Al Gore (if you happen to check in): Yeah, happened to see part of that house flipper segment on TV & it stuck with me.

More from the Dept. of Silly Jobs:

Earth acupuncturist

Pet food taster

Gross stunt producer

A list of silly products might be fun too, like in the vein of pet rocks. I always thought flavored water might fall into that category. Awful stuff, IMHO. But someone must buy it (my apologies to those who do.)

Bad Breath smeller

A side note: While I might think house blessing is a silly job, at least the way Americans do it, I understand blessing one's business or new home is common in Japan.

As I noted a few months back, there is considerable evidence that removing all traffic controls – lights, signs, road markings, and even the distinction between streets and sidewalks – can actually make traffic move more smoothly, as well as cut down on the number of accidents and increase the area’s economic vitality. CS Monitor

As a result of poor enforcement of traffic laws (other than parking) and local attitudes, Boston has served as a natural laboratory for testing this hypothesis for decades. The general consensus I think would be that the theory is hogwash.

Sounds like a nice place to take a walk, actually.

Well, maybe. As local humor would have it, there are two kinds of pedestrian in Boston -- the quick and the dead.

Interesting article - 'Does closing roads cut delays?

Think of it this way. If you're coming from the burbs into town and you have 2 lanes merging into 1, vs. 6 lanes merging into 1. Yes, more roads (more lanes) will lead to more congestion.

With only 2 lanes, the ones who left home first are merging into the single lane first.

With more lanes (or roads) you end up with many cars leaving the house at different times all trying to merge at the same time.

If the number of lanes serving the destination point is not increased, no amount of roads is going to fix the congestion problem.

...tried to refi a house and they wouldn't honor the loan I locked in because they "lost my file"...

Well it was so thin that it slipped behind the filing cabinet.

Computers are behind many of the excesses of our time. Our recently acquired computational power has gone through an experimental testing period. Precise inventory control, robotic “lights out” manufacturing, just in time supply chains, financial derivative modeling and climate modeling prophecy all came about from our enhanced ability to program and crunch numbers.-$12 Help

Well, if we are so darn good with precise inventory control, this graph here (from EV) should scare the crap out of people:

Economist's View: Are Workers Unwilling to Work?

It's gonna be a long depression, so get with the pacing:
Counterpointer | 12.28.08 - 3:41 am | #

The death throes of the doomed are wicke evil to watch.  They are just making one last splash.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AsId-qVIb4&feature=related

The executives at these companies (yes, you Killinger and you Mozillo) should be sitting in prison right now but instead are celebrated as "heroes" and "geniuses" in our thoroughly rotten, bankrupt culture.

I tell you I think they are just driving crazy (agressive! and risky).
Werner | 12.28.08 - 11:00 am | #

#1      Lithuania:    26.1329 deaths per 1 million peo     
#2      Latvia:    22.7074 deaths per 1 million peo     
#3      Spain:    17.5752 deaths per 1 million peo     
#4      Iceland:    16.8499 deaths per 1 million peo     
#5      Estonia:    16.5041 deaths per 1 million peo     
#6      Norway:    13.9342 deaths per 1 million peo     
#7      Egypt:    12.9409 deaths per 1 million peo     
#8      Slovenia:    8.95077 deaths per 1 million peo     
#9      United States:    8.83226 deaths per 1 million peo     
#10      Luxembourg:    8.53659 deaths per 1 million peo     
#11      Hungary:    8.29419 deaths per 1 million peo     
#12      Cuba:    8.10787 deaths per 1 million peo     
#13      Sweden:    7.88714 deaths per 1 million peo     
#14      Finland:    7.65843 deaths per 1 million peo     
#15      Costa Rica:    7.22112 deaths per 1 million peo     
#16      Bahamas, The:    6.62712 deaths per 1 million peo     
#17      Australia:    6.62021 deaths per 1 million peo     
#18      New Zealand:    6.19579 deaths per 1 million peo     
#19      Venezuela:    5.47783 deaths per 1 million peo     
#20      Thailand:    5.4529 deaths per 1 million peo     
#21      Croatia:    4.89324 deaths per 1 million peo     
#22      Canada:    4.75537 deaths per 1 million peo     
#23      Netherlands:    4.75407 deaths per 1 million peo     
#24      Japan:    4.66186 deaths per 1 million peo     
#25      Panama:    4.4586 deaths per 1 million peo     
#26      Denmark:    3.86598 deaths per 1 million peo     
#27      Mexico:    3.74754 deaths per 1 million peo     
#28      Slovakia:    3.49844 deaths per 1 million peo     
#29      Brazil:    3.40653 deaths per 1 million peo     
#30      Argentina:    3.33856 deaths per 1 million peo     
#31      Austria:    3.29872 deaths per 1 million peo     
#32      Paraguay:    3.1506 deaths per 1 million peo     
#33      Germany:    2.85087 deaths per 1 million peo     
#34      Malta:    2.5092 deaths per 1 million peo     
#35      Uruguay:    2.34192 deaths per 1 million peo     
#36      Moldova:    2.24467 deaths per 1 million peo     
#37      Romania:    2.06001 deaths per 1 million peo     
#38      Puerto Rico:    2.04551 deaths per 1 million peo     
#39      Colombia:    1.79262 deaths per 1 million peo     
#40      Poland:    1.60797 deaths per 1 million peo     
#41      Kyrgyzstan:    1.16595 deaths per 1 million peo     
#42      Czech Republic:    1.07411 deaths per 1 million peo     
#43      Georgia:    0.641437 deaths per 1 million peo     
#44      Ecuador:    0.523795 deaths per 1 million peo     
#45      Kuwait:    0.428082 deaths per 1 million peo     
#46      United Kingdom:    0.264721 deaths per 1 million peo     
#47      Chile:    0.187723 deaths per 1 million peo     
#48      Nicaragua:    0.182983 deaths per 1 million peo     
#49      Korea, South:    0.143912 deaths per 1 million peo     
#50      Peru:    0.0358089 deaths per 1 million peo    

Interesting that most of the top 10 countries on that list experience snow and ice during the winter.
mal | 12.28.08 - 11:20 am | #

Yeah, but the Canadians, Poles, Brits, Koreans get that too.   Looks like the Baltics, excepting Germans and Poles, are suicidal.

One little glimpse into the rear view mirror definitely tells you whether the car following you is driven by an American or German
Werner | 12.28.08 - 11:29 am | #

If you are looking in your rear view, you are surely not American.  Here, that is apparently just a vanity mirror for applying make-up while driving.  In Germany, if you flash your high-beams, dirvers pull aside.  In the U.S.A. no one would notice except oncoming traffic, thinking you were signaling a speed trap behind you.

I would challenge you to drive the I-35 corridor between Dallas and San Antonio for the most insane driving I have ever seen.  Austin is the worst with all of the Chinese and Indian, first time drivers attending U.T.  But nobody matches the soccer mom in the S.U.V. for awful driving.  People die.

What astounds me in the list is the absence of the French and Irish.  Those guys are scare me.

In other words, an awful lot of people that should never be driving are behind the wheel of a car in America, while in Germany, a good number of people don't drive at all.
rent_to_own | 12.28.08 - 11:50 am | #

True, that.  A functioning public transportation system, would be a good thing for many reasons.  Still waiting for Vegas to connect the tram from the airport to the strip.  Cabbies are not big fans...

 Perhaps Barry-O will figure out that it is a good way to spend some money.

Anyway, you can be moving along at a nice 110kph
Geoff | 12.28.08 - 11:58 am | #

I can't drive 55.

$12 Help Computers are behind many of the excesses of our time. Our recently acquired computational power has gone through an experimental testing period. Precise inventory control, robotic “lights out” manufacturing, just in time supply chains, financial derivative modeling and climate modeling prophecy all came about from our enhanced ability to program and crunch numbers.

$12 Help | 12.28.08 - 2:25 am | #

Aw, come on. People knew how to write bad loans and sell snake oil before computers arrived on the horizon. I think what's behind our problems is the will to believe nonsense. The nonsense could be dressed up by computer runs, by feathers and paint, by religious vestments, by end-of-the-world doctrines, by fake testimonials, by celebrity endorsements.... Those are just the trappings.

Laetrile and nerve tonics composed of equal parts alcohol and codeine were popularized long before the first silicon chip. Read about Orgone boxes - the combinations of genuine scholarship with mania and fakery isn't new. Computers are just a new tool to assemble masses of questionable data. One wonders what Gall (phrenology) could have done with them.

Fiat Cinquecento
Geoff | 12.28.08 - 11:58 am | #

Oh, my god!  I had no idea.  Puegots, must REALLY suck.
Blackhalo | 12.28.08 - 12:08 pm | #

Not so much.  Anybody who remembers the Fiat Abarths from the 60s and 70s has a new one to admire:

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/02/27/160hp-fiat-500-abarth-ss-to-follow-in-november/ 

I have no doubt that this baby moves with 160HP!

my point on Italian drivers (maniacs) and the cinquecento, is not so much to say that the Peugot was a crapper. It was. This was about five years ago, and not knowing much about either car, I just assumed from looking at both, and from driving the Peugot for a few hundred miles already, that it should easily be able to best the 500.

So, leisurely cruising at 65 mph, or so, and seeing this piece of crap come screaming up on you from behind, is a bit disconcerting. First you think, wtf, and then you think, how the F&*k? So you get on it a bit, to see just how this could be happening. And then you get on it some more and more, and more still. And on the straightaways you start to make up some of the gap, but only after you realize you are hurtling down the road at closer to 160kph. But once you finally catch up to the bugger, you next get to experience the pure terror of realizing that this person will not slow even slightly in serious curves. It's as if they arent there. And you cannot possibly believe that the 500 does not become airborne and fly right off the curve. And there is no way you are going to test the limits of your p.o.s. rental car to keep up.

It was a humbling moment.

I don't see how it is very useful to have the U.S. on that list. California drivers are completely different from Boston drivers, and both are completely different from midwest drivers.

It's as if they arent there. And you cannot possibly believe that the 500 does not become airborne and fly right off the curve. And there is no way you are going to test the limits of your p.o.s. rental car to keep up.

It was a humbling moment.
Geoff | 12.28.08 - 1:52 pm | #

I understand especially if you aren't used to these cars and roads.  The Autostrada is not always smooth and features some sharp curves that at 100mph+ that can easily give you some heart stopping moments....

A bit of nostalgia at the bitter end of a thread.

Classic racing Abarths in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUoHL2_Kl0k&NR=1

Glen writes:
The best part about the entire article? Yes, WaMu loan officers WERE snorting methamphetamines. You can't make this stuff up.

I'm surprised you were the first to point this out. Some priceless quotes in this gem of a story:

"...The borrower was claiming a six-figure income and an unusual profession: mariachi singer.

"In our world, it was tolerated," said Sherri Zaback, who worked for Parsons and recalls seeing drug paraphernalia on his desk. "Everybody said, 'He gets the job done."'