Tanta: Information is Power, Which is Why You Don’t Get Any
Submitted by
CalculatedRisk on Mon, 01/15/2007 - 10:53am (110 comments)
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Do you know much about the author of the article?
As a doctor, I get equally annoyed by medical news. Until I learned more about the economy, I assumed non-medical news was less biased and more factual than medical news. Now I wonder why anyone believes anything they read in the press besides the sports page.
I first learned about the press 20 years ago. I answered my boss' phone to find someone from the Chicago Tribune on the other end. He asked for my boss. I told him he was out and would be back late that afternoon. Was there anything I could help with? Reporter said no, left his number, asked for boss to call back. I returned to my job, running simulations to make sure we collected enough revenue to survive a serious recession.
Came to the office next dayr. Boss was furious, waiving copy of that morning's Tribune, wanting to know what the hell I told the reporter. There, in boss' hands, was an article saying that we had no idea if we could withstand a recession or not.
Apparently, reporter called flack. Flack said I don't know, but this other guy probably does, and transferred him to boss. When boss didn't call back by deadline, article said 'they don't know.' Of course, the reporter had the person who knew on the line, and just never bothered to ask me. I saw the reporter's byline in the Tribune a few years later - Tokyo Bureau Chief. Don't know if that was a promotion or a mechanism to get him out of the way .
The House Whisperer
We know this phenomonon as "Nadolny's Law" - all newspaper articles seem perfectly reasonable, except for ones written on subjects you know something about.
Tanta,
This is truly interesting. What I see when I read the WP piece is an article about something that this particular newspaper thoroughly understands: political risk. Howard is very unhappy, and in the coming months and years, there are going to be a lot more Howards. At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter what they've signed or whether they understood it: when fit hits the shan, somebody's going to have to stay after school. And who do you suppose that might be? Are there some a high-profile scapegoats available (remember what how titillating it was to see Mr. Keating in his bright orange prison coveralls?) -- not this time, I think. No, this time there's going to an entire industry sitting in tumbrel as it rolls into the square where the mob is shrieking for blood. Draconian Federal usury legislation would be a good start. Think it can't happen? Think the lobbyists will carry the day and that the bought-and-paid-for legislators will stand by their rentier patrons? Not this time, I think. Be sure to stock up on popcorn: it's gonna be a helluva movie . . .
Great article. Bureaucracy and the media - a winning combination!
Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed most media spelling "capitol" referring to a government seat as "capital" meaning money? I see CNN doing this all the time. Has the style guide changed?
Anyway, you're right about the media defining mortgage terms and trends in a way that suits the needs of their story. I wrote a similar post a few months ago.
Tanta, you want serious news from the WaPo? I am sorry, but last I checked the only news worth reading was the Economist, and sometimes that needs a large grain of salt, or a nice scotch to chase the headlines down.
No need to worry, subprime bk will be followed by oceans of fed liquidity. I do note that what seems to be happening is that wholesale financing is being pulled by wall street firms that are arguably now subprime competitors due to recent purchases. Might be a bit of violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act...
I am not worried, 'cause Uncle Ben says he won't let that nasty deflation thing happen again.
4shzl, I also thought this piece was classic WaPo political kabuki, wherein a pissed-off black NW DC working stiff is trotted out to put the fear of Hearings into somebody--usually Fannie and Freddie, yawn--but this reporter doesn't seem to have gotten the entire memo. Or perhaps has the memo but doesn't understand it, either. If this is how seriously the WaPo editors are taking this year's big story--assign it to somebody that dumb, with that tin a political ear--then the WaPo editors aren't fully on board yet with the scenario you outline.
I wish I shared your belief that anybody other than a couple of pissant subprime brokerages that are already out of business anyway--Scumballs R Us--is going to be sent to the principal's office. Even with Keating, you know, we kept up the pretense that there was a meaningful difference between grossly criminal and irresponsibly speculative behavior. Keating went to jail, but the bozos who ran my S&L--and never met some overleveraged local developer they wouldn't loan money to long after the market was already saturated with vacant commercial RE--sold out when the Feds arranged an acquisition and retired in peace and plenitude. There were hundreds of those for every Keating. And yes, we got FIRREA out of it. The current environment would be unimaginable without FIRREA. Except that the real players are no longer regulated thrifts, they're big money-center banks and Hank Paulson's personal best friends. Please convince me that a new Henry B. Gonzales will arise and smack that grin off those exceptionally well-paid faces. Please.
Tanta wants justice.
Actually I want a karma storm, but yes, I'd settle for justice.
Eh shrugs
More angry doomsters in denial. I would be too if I'd been in bonds lo these many years anticipating the mushroom cloud only to be faced squarely with an equities market at a p/e ratio lower than post-crash bottom, and zero sign of the prayed-for housing-led reccession.
Same old predictable sectors of the food chain won't be participating in the profitfest debauchery.
Yeah, pretty typical reporting job.
I thought I'd try and get into journalism a few years ago. Called my local paper (San Diego). I didn't even need a Masters Degree. Just a BA.
Rediculous!
Meanwhile, back on capitol hill, the Raiders of the Lost Currency are whipping Bernanke out of any thoughts of fighting inflation. Let phase 2 of the great inflation begin! Does Bernanke have the courage to defend the currency or will rampant inflation rule the day?
Congress may add a day to Fed hearings: report - Jan. 13, 2007
Stay tuned...
Tanta,
Too bad Howard can't read and take responsibility for himself.
Regarding your definition of points - perhaps the boss should have told you "this is how I pay your salary, payroll taxes, benefits, insurance..."
Tanta,
Forget about Henry Gonzales and think about Eliot Spitzer -- he's the model that ambitious young pols around the country most want to emulate. What makes it different this time is the sheer number of losers the current economic dispensation is creating -- and, as I've noted here before, the fact that Americans are sore losers. Political unrest will go hand in hand with economic dislocation -- you can count on it. I guess you'd just have to call me a born optimist . . . ;>)
For God's sake, they are reporters! They don't know anything about the subject matter and aren't paid to think about it.
We (my wife and I) have been quoted in the NYT about 10 times now. We want only two things: spell my name right and print this six word quote. The worst thing you can do is speak for 5 minutes: the reporter will just cherry-pick the phrase or two that supports his thesis and go this that.
Who knows if Howard was evil/stupid/whatever. A reporter isn't going to print two mortgage contracts side by side with expert analysis of the terms.
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves."
Tanta, the title of your piece says it all.
"I see CNN doing this all the time. Has the style guide changed?"
No, they're just idiots. Most likely graduates of Swarthmore is my guess.
Sippn,
Thanks for the daily dose of douchebaggey.
Sippn, what a classic non-sequitur. The fact is that you don't have any more of an idea who did what in this situation than I or anyone else does: that was kind of my point. This kind of half-assed reporting is no more than political rorshach, onto which you can project your political fantasies all day long if actually getting something accomplished doesn't interest you. Of course people can collude in their own victimization in all kinds of ways. There would be no such thing as scams, cons, ponzi schemes and Amway if this were not a fact. Are you suggesting that such things should therefore be legal? Good luck with that.
As it happens, I once had a boss who tried to explain to me where my salary came from. After he got done picking quivering shreds of what was left of his hide out of the air filters, he agreed that he should go find someone else to pick on if the urge to patronize an underling came over him again.
Now I wonder why anyone believes anything they read in the press besides the sports page.
LOL. The sports page???
Before I even thought about clicking on the comments section - half way through Tanta's rant - I thought to myself... "Tanta was before Title Nine, she never played sports... if she did, she would have realized how utterly simple obvious truths can be hopelessly screwed up by reporters..."
My kids did a bunch of youth sports then gravitated to swimming where they participated on a combination of four state championship teams (one still swimming).
As a result they and their teams got major coverage from the local paper all season long plus the largest paper in the state at tourney time... and the stories were astonishingly wrong much of the time.
Now understand swimming isn't like hockey where stuff happens fast and is so chaotic NOBODY knows exactly what happened... the puck is in the back of the net, the light is on, and no one - including the goalie or the referee know exactly how it got there but it got there... score it.
As a result of this chaos it didn't surprise me that I'd go to a game one night - see a crazy scramble - then read about it the next day and the report would be completely different than what I thought I saw (understand my tickets are very good, right behind the bench, I see what the coaches & players see).
But in swimming I would expect a pretty exact depiction of what happened. Everyone stays in their own lane, they go up and down doing the same strokes & the time and place is recorded electronically by 'touch pads'... Then the times & places are displayed on a big screen at the end of the pool for God and everyone to see. Then at the very end of the race the meet computer spits out 'Official Results'... hard to get that wrong.
My kids won more than their share of big races so we'd get the paper the next day to see what they said and about half the time something was wrong - wrong race, wrong time, wrong place, wrong swimmer - you name it, we have seen it all.
The old joke about being happy if they spell the name right isn't that far from the truth.
So considering something as obtuse as exotic mortgages... and reporters understanding of economics... I'd expect there is FAR more left out or made up or just plain WRONG in that piece than even Tanta can imagine.
And yup - I'm plenty cynical too.
"Sippn, what a classic non-sequitur."
BLAM! Click, click, BLAM! Click, click.
"Are you suggesting that such things should therefore be legal?"
BLAM! Click, click, BLAM! Click, click.
"As it happens, I once had a boss who tried to explain to me where my salary came from."
BLAM! Click, click, CLICK. Time to reload. BLAM!
Moral: Don't mess with Tanta unless you know what the hell you are talking about.
You know, guys, it's not that the thought has only just crossed my mind that reporting on all kinds of things--medicine, economics, politics, sports, the really important stuff like bread recipes--generally sucks and has for a long time. But let's not lose track of two things:
90% of all MSM articles is useless content written by non subject matter experts.
Media is interested in selling:
Ad Space
Newspapers, TV Media etc lives and dies by selling space. Information is a vehicle to capture attention and has nothing to do with providing useful information.
Did you ever hang around with any journalism Majors in college? LOL
Ron, that's all fine and well, but if WE weren't so stupid, maybe journalists and the rags they work for would set higher standards for themselves.
There are journalists and publications that have high standards. I know some, so do you.
My reaction to the article was from a banking pov. Not only don't I know whether Howard has a chance or not, it seems that no one has bothered to find out.
If it's an I/O at a decent interest rate and the man is financially solvent (could have afforded an amortizing mortgage), all he has to do is make extra principal payments to be sitting pretty at the end of the ten years. Does Howard know that? We sure don't.
The one thing WaPo did not provide in this article was any useful information for anyone who is seeking to refinance or for anyone who is trying to help borrowers who genuinely have been victimized.
As for Sippn's snark at Tanta regarding how her salary was paid, I can assure you that providing usable information to borrowers tends to produce happier, more loyal borrowers. An informational brochure should be written in plain language - otherwise it's just a waste of paper. There's no reason why you can't score some CRA points AND help your customers. A marketing person should be able to understand that reality.
Just a reality note from Broker's Universe:
"Anybody ignore multiple BK's within the last 5-10 years?
Property in FL"
Sure enough, Fremont and Novastar reply. I think there is about to be more blood swirling in the water....
There is still plenty of excellent reporting out there, and even the dreaded WaPo occasionally prints some of it.
Ya but knowing what is and isn't right from a reader's frame of reference is like the Heisenburg Uncertaitnty Principle
... with a Schrödinger's Cat like obsurdity...
You can look at those articles all day long and be certain you KNOW you don't know what really happened...
And what is worse is that it is impossible to get both (1) an accurate accounting (2) in a timely manner... and that trying to average out a reasonable 'middle ground approximation of truth' from the article probably leaves you with the equivalent of a 'half dead, half alive cat'.
But I read them anyway... and wonder. And I still get out of bed & go on with my life, in a fog. Fog is sometimes good.
MaxedOutMama, do you mean to say that, by educating my customers, it could help me in the 'long run' via loyal, ie, repeat customers? But, as Keynes said, aren't we all dead in the long run? What a radical idea, thinking about the long run!
Dryfly speaks with the voice of reason. I would only add: when one encounters fog on the road, slow down.
4shzl:
Coming this summer, to a theater near you....
Bailout!
"An extraordinary piece about naivete caught up in terrible events."
"As storytelling, it could use some fine tuning, but it keeps its dark premise close to its heart at all times."
"At its heart of darkness, the film is about the lure of power. It's a condemnation of all the dictators' men over all time."
"Idi's got da bling!"
You know, dryfly, my niece took physics last semester, so I just got my memory refreshed on what it's like to be 18 and convinced that there is nothing we can know with certainty, therefore there is nothing we can know, therefore there is nothing we can do, and what the hell are we going to do now? I explained to her that if she had only read Camus in high school like her Tanta she'd have already been through that by the time she got to college, and might have been more entertained by Schroedinger's cat. You can never cut these young ones any slack. They just take advantage of it.
Of course no narrative account in a newspaper is going to give us Objective Unambiguous Truth. So? There is still better and worse, we can still act as if words have meaning, and we can still do something about what appears, more or less, like injustice, a word that can certainly still mean something, Heisenberg or no Heisenberg. We may have to do it from a somewhat less steely-eyed sanctimonious messianic perspective than the True Believers, but I see this as actual gravy, not something to mourn the loss of.
As mp says, at some level we get the newspapers we deserve. If that dweeb who wrote the Post piece only knew it, I actually paid her quite a compliment by bothering to read the article as if it were intended to convey meaning of the generally relevant sort. If enough of us paid this rather savage compliment to those whom we read, they might start writing to us rather than to the skimmers. I can see that as helping.
Tanta:
I've just started The Art of Fact, a Historical Anthology of Literary Journalism.
"But just what kind of journalism is "literary"? Our five-word answer would be: thoughtfully, artfully, and valuably innovative. The "innovative" is key, for two reasons. First, it is our view that like much else in the twentieth century, journalism has been an object of mass production, turned out according to codified standards and in agreed-upon shapes. These standards are in many ways useful, yet they are also limiting, and for a writer to cast one or more aside can be liberating."
Maybe the reporter should be lauded for advancing the "art" of fact into a new form called Abstract Journalism where the truth is left as a subjective evaluation of the reader. Too many of those pesky things called facts would constrain the possible set of stories, making the article much less personally rewarding for the reader.
Tanta, thanks for this post. I read, with some frequency, the WaPo, NY Times, LA Times, and my local paper the OC Register (and I excerpt from all).
And I share your frustration. Last year I pointed out that a NY Times article
had presented MEW incorrectly. From the article: "In the first six months of this year, even with interest rates rising, more than $511 billion was extracted from homes through cash-out refinancing and home equity loans, and that was more than the amount taken out for all of 2005, a record year for mortgage equity extraction."
This was not correct. I emailed the writer and received a response, but ... the article still has not been corrected.
Oh well, at least I tried.
Best Wishes.
As mp says, at some level we get the newspapers we deserve.
And besides, what am I going to wrap my fish heads in if we don't have newspapers?
OT: Hey. I was just notified I won some blog award: 2007 REBA winners
Thanks for everyone that voted for this blog! I'm sure it was because of Tanta (and / or all the wonderful and intelligent people that participate in the comments).
Thanks! And best to all.
Maybe the reporter should be lauded for advancing the "art" of fact into a new form called Abstract Journalism where the truth is left as a subjective evaluation of the reader.
Nice try, but this isn't Gravity's Rainbow, nor should any of us want it to be. It's sloppy tripe on a subject that deserves competence, at least, if not a modicum of elegance. I am the first to applaud literary excellence of the avant-garde variety, but when financial institutions are going to be regulated or not based on what political pressures are applied or not on Congress, which will be shaped in no small measure by what one reads in the newspaper, it's time to quit playing awe-struck sophomore in Modern American Literature ("This is so totally cool! It can mean whatever you want it to mean!"), which is a luxury we don't have, and start demanding that it offer us adequately contextualized facts on the basis of which we can form considered opinions.
It's a good thing we're talking mortgages and not Iraq, or I'd be really pissy.
OT: Hey. I was just notified I won some blog award: 2007 REBA winners
Whooopie! You deserve it if anyone does...
gulp Now I suppose he'll double the price.
Ooooh, CR, way cool! The Brain Power Blog.
Can we all spend several hours arguing about what you should spend your $25 bucks on at the iTunes store?
mp wrote: "What a radical idea, thinking about the long run!:
Hahaha. Yes, the dark truth is that none of like being double-talked, obfuscated and just plain worked over. The less a consumer understands about a particular field, the more worried he or she is, and the greater payoff for putting them in more control of their own destiny.
The newspapers might be doing better if they adopted this radical style.... I second Dryfly's comment. I read newspapers (and blogs) for understanding. If, when I know something about the subject matter, I find consistent errors, it's not irrational for me to suspect that when I know nothing about the subject I'm probably getting the same. Like CR, if I find that newspapers don't print corrections when their errors are demonstrated, I become even more doubtful about whether they are worth my time.
I'm sorry, Tanta, but some of us are too cynical to believe that this crappy reporting thing will change, especially for real estate reporting. Another data point - a few years ago there was another round of "should the FHA limit be raised?" MICA (the PMI's trade group) sent out a press release about how awful it would be, which I and thousands of others received. A few days later in the Saturday Post real estate section was a regurgitation of the MICA press release, opinion masquerading as fact. A few days later FHA sent out a press release, contradicting everything in the MICA press release. It crossed my desk, and the desks of thousands of others. By god, next week the Post runs a regurgitation of that press release, with more opinions masquerading as facts, completely contradicting the article they had run just a week or so earlier. With no apparent sense of irony. This nonsense has been going on since the days of the town crier in Rome (the real one, not the excellent HBO miniseries) and not even expertly crafted takedowns in award winning blogs (congratulations, CR) will change it. But I'm with you for trying.
Why would you people read rags like the NY times or the Wa Post? Stick to WSJ FT and Bloomberg. You dont get all the news -- but the stuff you get is decent.
Congratulations, CR! A few years from now, we'll be talking about how we knew the William Allen White of mortgage finance back in the "good old days."
Congratulations CR, you really have earned this award and as Tanta suggests, a very small token for the advancement of our education.
And to you, too, my dear Tanta whose standards may be a tad higher than those of us who are trying to catch up (that would include me).
This is an art: redirection of an un-informed or ill-informed or, (to use the President's phrase), "plain flat-busted" opinion. And lucky for us this is an interactive forum where we can and do learn what works and what doesn't, and inform and be informed. The newsapapers, (even the NYT), do not have this advantage.
Our standards are higher and we might be asking a lot of the general WaPo-reading public to read that Howard article as anything more than a 'beware those refi applications'.
People who post here are fussy (ok, some are fussed.). Fussier than browsers of Wapo , the editors of which need to sell advertising space as ron says.
Tanta: I was being absurdly sarcastic. I'm already too cynical to take the media seriously. I merely use it as a signal to know where the herd is heading. Hopefully the distributed analysis of blogs will allow for more accurate descriptions of reality, problems faced, and plausible solutions. But the math isn't always encouraging. A recent book on the subject is Infotopia. As a marginal news analyzer, like the marginal trader in a prediction market, maybe you can move understanding at the margins by commenting, but there are pitfalls also.
Judge Posner on blogging in Infotopia
"Blogging is ... a fresh and striking exemplification of Friedrich Hayek's thesis that knowledge is widely distributed among people and that the challenge to society is to create mechanisms for pooling that knowledge. The powerful mechanism that was the focus of Hayek's work, as of economists generally, is the price system (the market). The newest mechanism is the "blogosphere." There are 4 million blogs. The Internet enables the instantaneous pooling (and hence correction, refinement, and amplification) of the ideas and opinions, facts and images, reportage and scholarship, generated by bloggers."
...
"But Judge Posner's use of Hayek misses the mark, and we should therefore resist blog triumphalism. Indeed, the very problems that infect deliberation can be found on the blogosphere, too. The world of blogs is pervaded by the propagation of errors, hidden profiles, cascades, and group polarization."
Of course, we can all do our part around here by relying on data and citing sources heavily. Most of the magic comes from aggregating data.
Q: So how exactly does this neg. arm work? Branch manager: It is negative,it is hard to explain. True story!
The following quote is taped to the top of my compter screen;
"The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the greatest propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology" --
Michael Parenti
Plug in lenders for leaders and Real Estate Industry for policical and you have the the essence of the US real estate suicide loan CON game.
I get my news recycled: the office gets the paper and I get it at the end of the day.
In any case, the blogs are like the forums of Rome in its best days. Lots of opinions with widsom and foolish all there.
Or more formally put.
"The "Delphi Effect" appears to be synonymous with the Delphi method. The Delphi method is based on the assumption that group, as opposed to individual, judgement of trends can improve the validity of forecasts. It was developed at RAND Corporation in the early 1950s in a project funded by the US Air Force. It has been used ever since, together with various modifications and reformulations, such as the Imen-Delphi procedure"
Delphi method - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I get my news recycled: the office gets the paper and I get it at the end of the day.
And what's best is you can still wrap fish heads in it - I like that.
Fish heads, fish heads, rolly polly fish heads
Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up
Yumm!
Fish heads, fish heads, rolly polly fish heads
Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up
Yumm!
In the morning, laughing happy fish heads
In the evening, floating in the soup
Fish heads, fish heads, rolly polly fish heads
Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up
Yumm!
Ask a fish head anything you want to
They won't answer, they cant talk
Fish heads, fish heads, rolly polly fish heads
Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up
Yumm!
I took a fish head out to see a movie,
Didn't have to pay to get it in
Fish heads, fish heads, rolly polly fish heads
Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up
Yumm!
They can't play baseball, they don't wear sweaters
They're not good dancers, they don't play drums
Fish heads, fish heads, rolly polly fish heads
Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up
Yumm!
Rolly Polly fish heads are never seen drinking cappuccino in
Italian restaurants with Oriental women.
Yeeaahh
Fish heads, fish heads, rolly polly fish heads
Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up
Yumm!
Fish heads, fish heads, rolly polly fish heads
Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up
Yumm!
Yum!
Fish heads, fish heads, rolly polly fish heads
Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up
Yumm!
Fish heads, fish heads, rolly polly fish heads
Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up
Yummmm!
Yeeaahh
There is yet another level of recycling at my home, that of news to kitty litter and bird cage liner.
All in all an approperate use.
There is something called American journalism, and it's unlike any other form. Here, in three paragraphs from a small-town Kansas newspaper, is some of the best. I hope you find it as inspiring as I do.
Anxious Friend
Thank you very much for that, mp. I did find that wonderful. I wonder if such statements could find print space in WaPo or the NY Times today? I think not.
Boy, this thread reads even better the next morning. I think there's an actual diagnosis for my share of it. I assume Party Boy was merely drunk.
What keeps striking me about all of this is that we are, after all the intellectual angst clears, talking about mortgages, for the love of Peat (poor Lama). Schroedinger's Cat is rocket science. Mortgages aren't even close to, say, the tax code, and people manage to file their 1040s every year, more or less. If, in fact, mortgages have become so hard to understand that AARP lawyers and WaPo reporters can't sort out one single case with both hands and a flashlight, then that's a social policy issue of profound magnitude, given that two thirds of the population lives in a mortgaged home. If, on the other hand, there's an element of good old American know-nothingism creeping in here alongside the popular pastime of casting ourselves as helpless victims whenever the lunch tab manages to show up, then endless hand-wringing about how damned hard all this stuff is merely positions us for the next bailout of middle-class property owners at the expense of everyone else, up to and including middle-class property owners who are notorious--Proposition 13, anyone?--for firing directly into the bunions.
Tanta, sorry about the quick cuts, you are, of course, right. Just feeling sorry for myself as my employees enjoy the 2nd paid holiday in January.
Who is going to read those brochures anyway?
I propose a new way to qualify for a mortgage:
Income Not Relevant Loan - if you can read all the loan documents, take a test and prove comprehension of 70% of the information provided, you get the loan.
My gut feel is ultimately a lower rate of loan failures, but I'm just a west coast State College simpleton.
"David Cay Johnson. Bartlett and Steele. William Grieder. Kurt Eichmann."
I don't know about Johnson and Eichman. But Bartlett and Steele and William Greider are total ignorati, doomsaying wastrels who peddle economic demagoguery of the worst sort. These guys still peddle myths that have been exploded for 200 years, and try to make everything fir into absurd leftist political theory. Tanta may know mortage finance, but her knowledge of policy economics may not be so great if these are her sources.
If you want real economic journalism, James Suroweicki of the New Yorker is the gold standard. Gladwell is good, too. Tyler Cowan, Virginia Postrel, and Hal Varian are also good.
James Surowiecki
Sorry, Keith, but as a card-carrying member of the Vast Absurd Leftist Political Theory Conspiracy, I'd rather be dipped in vinegar and shot full of carpet tacks than be in the same MSA with anything written by Virginia Postrel. Don't get me wrong; some of my best friends are Republicans. Absolutely zero of them are humorless antifeminist windbags. And my (limited) exposure to Gladwell suggests that if he got any shallower he'd be catching the drips from my teacup.
Yeah, sippn, those paid holidays are a bitch. Isn't it strange how wage earners refuse to see the world through the eyes of the small business owner? It's almost as if they think entrepreneurs couldn't exist without them.
Morty,
I have long suspected what you have defined as "Nadolny's Law" and have some acquaintences who would be entertained by knowing there there is a "law" that they experience regularly. Sadly, I get no hits when I search for "Nadolny's Law". Any idea where I might look?
My goodness! Tanta the tarantula. (Don't forget you are recovering.)
But Keith does worry about spelling his pets' names properly...such focus.
Income Not Relevant Loan - if you can read all the loan documents, take a test and prove comprehension of 70% of the information provided, you get the loan.
Recipe for a credit crunch: require prospective borrowers actually show they understand the terms of their loans (as Sippn suggests via test). Bernanke's helicopters would be dumping money into empty fields.
I assume Party Boy was merely drunk.
Whatever it is, if he shares, he can fish with me anytime.
Here, in three paragraphs from a small-town Kansas newspaper, is some of the best. - mp
I wonder if such statements could find print space in WaPo or the NY Times today? I think not. - MOM
Well I've been to Emporia - recently too - I hate to burst people's bucolic ideals but there is even LESS chance something like that would be written today in a Kansas paper than about anywhere I know. NYT or WaPo included.
'What's Wrong With Kansas' isn't a false charge... results of this last election notwithstanding... and it isn't just in Kansas either... but all over much of left-behind flyover.
I wasn't around for the dark ages though on cold mornings like today my joints think they were... But if the peasants of the Holy Roman Empire had DTV with 'Medieval Idol'... it'd be pretty close to Middle America today.
Tanta,
I don't WANT to be an asshole, but I'm gonna be one anyway.
In comments on your posting about inaccuracy in reporting, you misspelled the names of David Cay Johnston and Barlett & Steele.
I'm a reporter whose beat is mortgages and real estate, so naturally I find this posting interesting. It bothers me when people get so self-righteous about press accuracy, and then can't spell prominent reporters' names correctly.
I've met Kirstin Downey and she seems all right. Don't know why there were so many holes in the article. Did you ask her?
In defense of the article, I would say the following:
Try writing a piece in which you cover all the points Tanta raises.
When you have finished, ask yourself if this is a story about poor Howard the individual or about a general problem. If the former, then it is, at best, a human interest story. And why we should care about Howard, only the writer knows.
The point is: As we uncover more and more details, the story diverges from being a general problem to the specific struggle of one person. This is always the problem when a writer uses examples to illustrate a point.
Of course the writer could be criticized for not framing his example properly, but we have not done that here.
Mortys point is well-taken and quite accurate, I think: All newspaper articles seem reasonable, except the ones we know something about. Tanta criticizes the article from the point of view of someone who knows something about mortgages. Imagine the criticism that might be leveled by those who actually know poor Howard. And then there is poor Howard, who may know more than anyone about his situation. Perhaps he should have written the article so that we all could have a heartier laugh.
And then there are those wits here who wish to extend Tantas criticism to that of all articles appearing in the Washington Post and the NYT. My, my From one small example, such marvelous conclusions are reached.
There is much more to be said about the problems this article presents, as well as the kind of criticisms and conclusions it has elicited. A lot of this thread seems little more than the jeering crowd at a beheading.
How delightful it is to see the frothing head roll in the dust and marvel at the skill of the executioner.
Some people in Florida had a hard time reading the election ballots. My dear Tanta, do you think they should be allowed to vote? If yes, how about an I/O mortgage? I love you anyway.
Tanta
as owner of your post, might you consider submitting it to the Post as an op-ed?
CR
congratulations, even if you double the price of admission, I will still read it.
Mr. Lewis, thanks for catching my wretched spelling. I plead guilty to attempting to defend the media in a comment board while eating, and hence failing to look those names up. I notice I misspelled the late Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez's name, too, and he's one of my all-time heroes.
I'm sure the reporter is a all right person. What's that got to do with the price of coffee? I'm actually a all right person too, but I expect to be held accountable for what I write nonetheless.
The article is about ignorance about mortgages. (Even though it is titled "trapped," a case it does not make, although I always give reporters the benefit of the doubt on titles, assuming that's someone else's poor judgement.) It reports on an "expert's" analysis of a mortgage which does not add up. It doesn't even correctly name the mortgage it criticizes. And this is serious reporting, how?
I don't feel obligated to personally contact the reporter. This is a blog. The article is being discussed as an example of a certain distressing kind of journalism. Like CR, I hardly expect a WP reporter to a) notice b) care or c) correct the record. I'm prepared to be pleasantly surprised if my assumptions are incorrect, but they are based on experience.
Stormy, I wouldn't have that many questions if the article had contained a few more simple facts and an attempt to explain their relevance. I may well have failed to do so, but I was attempting to read the article not as a mortgage expert (although of course I am and that's why I noticed the errors) but as a mortgage naif, because it is not the responses of the experts which matter here--people like me do not get victimized by fast-talking loan officers, do we? That's why I started with the anecdote about the glossary of terms. You don't write those for experts. Experts don't go to the WaPo for information about mortgages. Just normal folks do. The article fails from the standpoint of a non-expert reader, not from mine. Were I, on the other hand, looking at an article in Secondary Marketing Executive, I'd find an article written at the level of comprehension of the general public to be a shocking waste of my subscription money. Context is everything.
Broker, I have absolutely no problem making mortgages to illiterates. In this country there are approximately 22 million people who are functionally illiterate. Most hold jobs, are fine citizens, and I have personally attested assignments of mortgages that were executed with a notarized "X" with a happy heart. As long as the closing agent attested that the borrower was accompanied to closing by an attorney in fact or attorney at law who read the documents for him or her. Closing a mortgage loan for a person who cannot read without making sure that person understands them should, of course, be criminal. It is.
dryfly: "Well I've been to Emporia - recently too - I hate to burst people's bucolic ideals but there is even LESS chance something like that would be written today in a Kansas paper than about anywhere I know."
Dryfly, that's also what they thought about Emporia a century ago, but White had a fire in his belly, expectations, and standards.
If you want better reporting, or better SAT scores for that matter, you have to set the bar higher. What has happened in this country is that people have been conditioned to expect less.
Holden Lewis: "It bothers me when people get so self-righteous about press accuracy, and then can't spell prominent reporters' names correctly."
That's bullshit. Tanta wrote that in the Halo, not in her piece. Tanta's piece stands.
This story and the reaction shows that we unfortunately get what we collectively deserve. What use are facts if they don't advance our agenda?
I present the formula for Modern Journalism:
1.) Decide what the message of the article will be.
2.) Find someone, something, or some data that represents what was decided in Step 1.
3.) Expand the conclusions reached from that case or a limited number of hand-selected cases to apply to all.
Try reading news with this filter on.
Great response, Tanta.
Holden Lewis: "I've met Kirstin Downey and she seems all right. Don't know why there were so many holes in the article."
I've got a dog named Earl and he seems all right. I just don't understand why he can't write worth a damn.
Holden, it bothers me that any reporter would wave around a very commonly misspelled name as a reason to toss out a very valid argument. Let he who has never misspelled cast the first stone. If newspapers really gave a hoot about pristine copy, they would not have cut their proofreading, factchecking and copy editing staffs with such imunity as they have in the past decade.
What print publications have cared about, without questions, is maintaining double-digit profit margins, even in an era where the internet is ascending, so here is what they do (which will shed a bit of light on Tanta's complaint):
This very deeply flawed method of newsgathering is taking quite a beating from internet communities-- as it should be. Newspapers could get away with cutting corners when they owned the presses, but now I wonder how much longer the public will want to buy what they're selling.
Opps, I meant "cut with impunity" Holden. No one can edit themselves...
22 Million functionally illiterate? (How many functionally active lawyers protecting them from harm's way?) [Insert the laughter of wolves here] My goodness the lambs are thick.
Well, that splains why we have ("no chile left behind") w twice, and holding.
Tanta, I guess when you are refering to "him or her", you mean the mortgage broker.
Calmo, add 1.5 mil realtors and mortgage brokers to that. LOL
I don't reject the criticisms of Kirstin's article. I object to the self-righteous tone of the criticism. Sometimes I make mistakes in articles that I write, and sometimes I leave big gaping holes in stories, and it feels terrible when someone slashes me to ribbons over it. From that perspective, I feel sympathy for Kirstin Downey.
Based on this post, I have a hunch that if Tanta were a Red Sox fan, and she ran into Bill Buckner at the grocery store, she would scream invective at him instead of treating him kindly.
I occasionally have worked for people who talk like Tanta. They start out by telling you a long story from the distant past about how stupid a colleague was, then they tell a long, long complaint about how stupid a current colleague is. I think most of us have had to deal with self-aggrandizing bores such as this. That's how Tanta comes off in this post. Most likely this is an unfair characterization. But that was my visceral reaction to Tanta's rant, because for several years I had an editor like that, and I'm sensitive to that sort of person.
Frankly, I think there are more worthy targets -- such as anyone who works for the National Association of Realtors -- than a well-meaning reporter who had a bad day. I met Kirstin Downey last year at an FTC hearing on exotic mortgages -- had lunch with her, in fact -- and I think she understands the subject. I find the holes in this article inexplicable. I don't like to see her demonized, when there are plenty of people out there who are more deserving of vituperation.
BTW, Nigel Swaby, a capitol is a building and a capital is the city that the capitol is in. It's in the stylebook.
k harris
just in case anyone is still reading this thread, nadolny's law is something we invented 30 years ago - I named it. Paul Nadolny had gotten a job during high school as a summer intern in the local municipal govt. At the lunch table he observed that the press coverage of village issues looked nothing like the actual issues. I noted a similar phenomonon from my summer work, and he said "I guess newspaper articles look like they make sense unless you know something about the subject." We've called that Nadolny's law ever since. Maybe I SHOULD set up a website with that.
I also named Brown's law, named for a govt. economist friend of mine who invented it. "In any complex financial transaction between the government and a private sector entity, the government will get beat like a drum."
Holden Lewis: "I don't reject the criticisms of Kirstin's article. I object to the self-righteous tone of the criticism."
Something tells me that Holden Lewis and H.L. Mencken wouldn't have gotten along.
Mr. Lewis, you are entitled to whatever projections onto my personality of your former boss's less attractive characteristics that you like. You are free to find both your own mistakes and your colleague's to be inexplicable, mysterious events from which a decent human being would avert her eyes, mumble something quietly about how you must have had a bad day, and move on, whether we're talking about misleading the public via an article in the Paper of Record for which you are privileged to write or wearing one black sock and one blue sock to work. You are free to apply the social standards of the Junior League to the Fourth Estate, wherein lunching with someone matters more than what that person writes in the paper. You are even free to deflect criticism onto NAR--an outfit which has taken quite a bit of a pounding on this blog, as you surely know, and ranks right up there with the easy targets, as if it were more important to rant about the easy targets than to examine examples of the diminished standards of the press which allow NAR, for example, to get so much press coverage, and to get quoted so often saying so little in so many newspapers. You are free to do this in woeful and, I must admit, highly entertaining innocence of the fact that this comment section is full of NAR members and people who--beacuse they work in the industry--do a fair amount of lunching with NAR members, who as individuals are generally quite all right people whose feelings are no doubt wounded by your comment. But of course you are free to hold NAR to a different standard than you do a fellow reporter. NAR is just some industry shill with its own agenda, its own financial self-interest, and its own mistakes. Reporters, on the other hand, are merely sensitive souls with better taste than I have.
I, on the other hand, am free to find this a sad confirmation of what I have believed for too long about too many print reporters, which is that they are too concerned with personalities--their own, mostly--to be able any longer to grasp the view that there are other ways of taking things. This tends to unfit them for the internet, whereon you are judged by the quality of your writing and the need you fill for your readers, not your ability to impress each other at lunch, and where stinging criticism is not just a fact of life but, well, one of the defining characteristics of the medium and milieu. After all, we're here, as a group, to attempt to explicate things, not merely to keep claiming that they are "inexplicable." My problem with your comment, therefore, is not, I hasten to add, that you have hurt my feelings by calling me a vicious bore. It is that you apparently expect me to care as little about the content of the newspaper on a matter of crucial public policy as you do. That, frankly, is an insult.
TANTA, IT'S OUT OF THE PARK!
YES, GOD DAMN IT, YES!
First, a disclaimer. I have never had the pleasure to lunch with Kirstin Downey, Holden Lewis, Tanta or anyone with the NAR.
Upon reading Tanta's article, my initial thought was that I was glad I read it. Not that well-versed in mortgages, I am precisely the person who would have glossed over the original Downey article and taken it at face value. While intuitively I may have thought a few things were missing, I probably would have just assumed the author left out some minor-but-not-significant details and not given it a second thought, completely unaware that the missing details WERE important. Tanta's criticism was valid and spot on.
Do I think all of the same points could have been made in a less "aggressive" manner? Sure. Do I personally think it would have been a better article if it had? Yes. Would I criticize Tanta for this? No. To begin with, much of the anger is justified. Second, I recognize that it's a matter of personal taste for writing style. I can still learn from an article (and did, here) regardless of the style.
Holden is defending Kirstin as if she were an old love (and she might as well be a current flame with this performance, yes?)...and well shoot man, he's wounded and liable to smear all of us in his valiant defence.
My heart is throbbing even now with the thought of this romance, you? [Whatsa mattayou? Erectile dysfunction? Projectile dysfunction? Projection dysfunction?.]
Of course there's mp who picks up that stupid baseball metaphor and ruins my day.
Last heart warming thing Holden: we are pretty fond of this poster/person Tanta...as fond as you are of your Kirstin.
Holden is defending Kirstin as if she were an old love (and she might as well be a current flame with this performance, yes?)...and well shoot man, he's wounded and liable to smear all of us in his valiant defence.
My heart is throbbing even now with the thought of this romance, you? [Whatsa mattayou? Erectile dysfunction? Projectile dysfunction? Projection dysfunction?.]
Of course there's mp who picks up that stupid baseball metaphor and ruins my day...don't mind excitable him.
Last heart warming thing Holden: we are pretty fond of this poster/person Tanta...as fond as you are of your Kirstin.
Having a bad day, if you are a responsible reporter, means having to say you're sorry.
It means having the grace and insight to be grateful for any valid peer-review you get -- even if you don t like the tone or the typos.
What is so dismaying to see is journalists buck against blog/message board factchecking so hard. It doesn't bode well for this profession.
Blogs like this already are reporting data more quickly, accurately and thoroughly than any traditional print/tv outlet can. I do not know how the media think they can smug and excuse their way through this new paradigm and hope to survive.
Jeez, Tanta, you don't have to go off the deep end.
I don't know what I said that confirmed your beliefs about print reporters, since I write for an Internet publication. You're right that stinging criticism is a fact of life, especially on the Web -- and my criticism of you is part of that. You certainly can dish it out, and you'll just have to take it, too.
I agree with Steve that the points you make in your post are correct, albeit long-winded and "aggressive." That's why I linked to your post on my blog. I think your criticism of the WaPo article is valuable, and it would be more valuable if it were concise and less mean-spirited.
As a longtime reporter, I'm always aware of the power I have to hurt people if I make an error or if I'm cruel. I try to live by this standard: Don't write something about someone that you would feel ashamed to say to their face. I wish more people lived by that standard.
Don't write something about someone that you would feel ashamed to say to their face. I wish more people lived by that standard.
I'm pretty sure most of us wouldn't be ashamed to say what Tanta said to the reporter's face. Maybe not as aggressive INITIALLY but that can change in a hurry...
In fact if she were like a lot of us - people also slogging through their day - she'd first be astonished somebody noticed and secondly that anyone cared.
I'd be surprised if she wouldn't be a bit flushed... as in 'Gee I do have a voice after all'.
And that is regardless of whether a bunch of 'know-nothing bloggers' spell her name right.
BTW - I've actually had journalists from the business section of a prominent US paper - one actually read when on the road - email me after one of my rants (on mfg & currency manipulation) telling me he wished he had the kind of freedom we do - that he feels muzzled & constrained. I at first thought it was a prank email - not unheard of in this medium - but later worked backward & found that the guy was real. My guess is that CR get's those kinds of emails every week if not everyday.
(But I still pulled my email after that)
In short, Tanta's 'rant' was a compliment - if the writer & her opinion didn't matter, she'd been completely ignored... like real estate advertisements. That woman has a voice - she should sing with it.
One more, and then I give up unless a new and more interesting issue arises:
But, Holden, I am "taking it." I'm sorry you didn't like either the tone or the drift of the piece. You can't please everyone, and if you're a grown-up you surely realize that adopting a certain tone will reliably turn off the readers who don't like that tone, just as the opposite choice would turn off those who are tired of tamer discursive choices. I don't feel obligated to apologize for having chosen to make fun of the piece; I thought it deserved it; I still think that; next time I'll write something calm and polite and professional and bland and get my case jumped by the readers who are tired of calm and polite and professional and bland because that's all you ever get in the newspaper and we come to blogs for some juice. So what? That's my dilemma. I'm willing to go out on a limb and say it's any writer's dilemma. There's a difference between just not liking the piece--and I wasn't born yesterday, I realize people won't always like what I write--and offering substantive criticism of it, nicely or snottily or however you like to do these things. Every time you come back to me, though, it's with yet another reason this is supposed to degenerate into something personal. Why you want to do that genuinely beats me.
The thing is, I don't know what you think "taking it" means. I'm still here. I'm still responding to you. I have not, as far as I can tell, misrepresented your comments; I have disagreed with them. I can only conclude that you you will not be happy until I feel personally ashamed of what I have written here and admit that my personality is inadequate compared to yours. If that's it, I'm sorry but I can't accommodate you. I register the fact that you don't like my style. I regret the typos. That does not make this personal. It does not incline me to grovel. It inclines me to remind you that you will find your toes getting stepped on less if you keep them under the table. If the tone of the comment I am currently writing comes off as defensive, antagonistic, apoplectic, or whatever else you associate with being "unable to take it," I will apologize for that, since it means I'm off my feed. I don't feel any of those things. I think at the end of the day, you and I simply have too widely varying definitions of the "deep end" to make for satisfactory exchange.
Another great example of media spin.
Dow Jones News says Foreclosures Fall 9% in December.
CNN has three different titles for the same story, eventually settling on Foreclosure rates spike in December.
You guys are being way too hard. This story appeared in the real estate section of the WashPost, a section that in most papers serves up 100% Realtor propaganda. At least they are trying...
Ms. Downey's article seems to be a quickly scrapped together with little research. In a haste to broadcast a simple message "people being swindled", it ignores a basic principle of journalism, that is, to examine critically information received and seek out opposing views. Alternatively, Ms. Downey may not have the aptitude to write on that particular subject. Tanta does. Maybe Ms. Downey should learn from the criticism and produce another, more complete, story.
One more thing, why is a colleague posting here in her defense? Why doesn't she do it?
One more thing, why is a colleague posting here in her defense? Why doesn't she do it?
a) I'm not a colleague. She writes for a newspaper in D.C. and I write for a web site in Florida.
b) Tanta says she didn't see a need to contact the reporter, so I assume Kirstin Downey wasn't aware of Tanta's post. One of the sources interviewed in the article saw it, and has notified the reporter.
c) Nigel, foreclosures fell 9 percent from November to December, but rose 35 percent from December 2005 to December 2006. Most economists advise reporters to ignore the month-to-month fluctuations and look at the year-over-year comparisons.
I hate to nit-pick, but if the term "colleague" arises again in conversation, keep in mind that it refers to members of a common profession in addition to persons operating under a common marquis.
Kirstin Downey has a purty mouth.
Very classy. Email your mom and tell her you put me in my place by signing a blog comment "Holden McGroyne." I'm sure she'll feel proud to have raised a child into mature adulthood.
You're not the first to come up with that one, by the way. Also, "Hey, Holden, what are you holdin'?" has been used countless times, too.
Who else here besides me posts with his real name, rather than pseudonymously?
Tanta - the impression I got from your piece was not aggression, but rather frustration, which strikes me as the
correct tone for someone who's appalled at what's passing for news content. Our families and friends read this tripe, and make bad decisions on that basis...it is cause for frustration.
Holden Lewis - most assuredly you are one heck of a troll, for I see not a single
complaint about Tanta's facts yet you managed to get fed. The fact that you think the frustration is unjustified just demonstrates you do not understand the perspective of your supposed audience.
Holden McGroyne - it's no fun mocking such an easy target. Just because he has an obvious affinity for the WaPo reporter is no excuse to make fun a of a guy for trying to get his nut graf into her brief.
Hugh
For the record the difference between Holden Lewis and Kirsten Downey is that she has a job.
And he is looking for one,
The Holden Lewis home page
Best of luck in your job hunting and let us all know where you land.
Ah, Frank ... that resume is from 1998, from a former Internet service provider that has never deleted it. It's out of my hands.
All you have to do is click on "Homepage" to see where I work now, and where I've worked since 1999. All you have to do is google my name and look at look at the top item, not the third one.
RP, go ahead and call me a troll. Whatever. If Tanta wanted to engage in constructive criticism, she would have sent the reporter a link to this post. She says she didn't see a need to do that. I thought the point of the post was media criticism, but now I understand that the point was to blow off steam, not to improve the level of reporting in this country.
As I have mentioned at least once, I linked to Tanta's rant on my blog because I believe consumers would benefit from it. I wrote in my blog: "The Post article has a lot of unanswered (possibly unasked) questions -- and if you're about to get a mortgage that's not a plain-vanilla 30-year fixed, you ought to ask some of the questions that Tanta says should have been asked by the reporter. If that makes any sense."
Those don't sound like the words of a troll.
The problem with Tanta's post is that it would be even more helpful to consumers if it were about one-sixth of the length, and less bitter in its criticism.
I believe my criticism here is constructive, where Tanta's is destructive. When people here call me a troll and make fun of my name, it reinforces my point.
The problem here is that both Holden and Tanta are still discussing the article and author as an excuse to attack much larger issues. Maybe I am wrong, but probably this is the reason Tanta chose the words she did...in the hope that it would escalate the conversation as it has.
Where's the beef?
"Who else here besides me posts with his real name, rather than pseudonymously?"
I do and I wish I hadn't. The Internet is a very scary place, especially at Casey's blog and Housing Panic.
These guys are pretty tame in comparison.
Dude, why are you buying into this?
Holden, I don't think people are being too mean, I have seen far worse. Far, far worse (the entry on my blog I wrote where a commenter said I was "repugnant" comes to mind).
The level of discourse here is fine. At least the commenters seem educated, apparently not any of them are among the 22 million "illiterates" someone mentioned.
The article did have some holes, and the blogger pointed them out.
Anytime you mention something, though, in a blog, it often explodes into something about something completely different (yes, my english sucks right now).
The biggest complaint I have about the press (mostly, newspapers) is what everyone here seems to be complaining about - the using of one anecdotal experience to explain away something. Often, the one anecdotal experience doesn't even fit the criteria of what they're talking about! The Boston Globe does it all the time.
It doesn't negate the validity of that individual's story, of course, but it raises questions in the readers mind (or, should) that the writer is clueless, too easily persuaded, or ... under a tight deadline?
Your blog at bankrate.com is wonderful. I suggest people here visit it, to see the quality of your writing and unbiased reporting.
Oh, and yes, it would be great if everyone posted their entries with real names.
However, it is a blog, and it goes with the territory that not everyone will be identified. To a certain extent, it allows for rude or insolent comments, but there are also many relevant comments left by anonymous sources, all the time.
Holden - you appear to be sincere in your follow up, so I will take back my
earlier appraisal that you were trolling.
You said:
Why does it have to be EITHER criticism OR blow off steam? You must admit Tanta did not pick...she accomplished both. Is blowing off steam illegal where you live?
Since when do voluntary posters and commentators -- who have day jobs -- have any requirements or obligations at all, let alone some arbitrary set dragged in by another reader? This is why I assumed you were a troll. If you are sincere, then you must "get used to
disappointment", to quote the man in
black.
Holden Lewis: Good points, and I agree the article is way to long. I became bored while reading it and decided to skip to the comments section, which were much more interesting. Keep up the great work you do for the little people.
Tanta, thank you for the insight provided into the industry firstly. I've been looking for some of the very information that you provided in your "Mortgage Servicing For UberNerds" piece.
I actually spoke to Ms. Downey by telephone probably a week or two before "Howard's" piece was published. After a quick 20 minute +/- conversation on what, at the time, was a little more than the last four years of my own legal battle against Fairbanks Capital Corp. n/k/a Select Portfolio Servicing, Inc and Mortgage Servicing Fraud, Ms. Downey thanked me and hung up with just about as many answers on the topic as she had before we spoke - which, judging by the flow of the "interview" was undoubtedly "all of them." If you'll notice, my name has not appeared in a WaPo piece and I doubt that it ever will as I'm still waiting for a follow up phone call from Ms. Downey. Should I stop holding my breath now?
After reading "Howard's" story a few weeks later I couldn't help but seek out my now favorite dent in my home office wall - which is at seated height because it's just not worth the effort to stand up to bang my head anymore after speaking with various reporters of both print and television media. Martin Bashir is another excellent example - I spent the better part of a year trying to have a serious conversation with both him and a producer about Mortgage Servicing Fraud only to ultimately be told several months ago "if we had known about this a few months ago we would have covered it. We pretty much "real estated" out now."
The reason I bring up the anecdote is because it was none other than Dustin Diamond - Screech of "Saved By The Bell" fame - that pushed me to come to the decision to make my own story public. For those that may not know, Diamond's own foreclosure "issue" was simply that he got into a bad deal from the get go and couldn't/wouldn't pay his land contract payments so the contract holder foreclosed. Diamond ultimately decided to let his "fans" bail him out by selling T-shirts to raise enough money to pay off his note. I just lost it after seeing this because there are entirely too many legitimate victims of Mortgage Servicing Fraud out there losing their homes illegally and this yutz gets half an hour on Howard Sterns show to bitch. My site originally evolved out of frustration with the purpose of letting other MSF victims know that they aren't alone out there.
Coming back to my issue with Mr. Bashir, last night's Nightline piece had Mr. Bashir traipsing through a porn convention - no that's not a spelling error. Part of the story settles on a "problem" that the industry is apparently having with the easy access to "amateur" video and who is held up for that example - but Dustin Diamond. The dent in my office wall roughly doubled in size overnight - which is a notable feat given that I'm dealing with hundred-year-old horsehair plaster. My hairline has also noticeably receded from its location o
My hairline has also noticeably receded from its location of yesterday.
The bottom line, I guess, is that if the story isnt in some manner, shape or form "sexy" enough due diligence wont be performed. I've got 280,000+ FTC-certified victims of Fairbanks/SPS alone behind me - many of whom may have lost their homes to the company in similar situations to the one that I've been fighting for more than 5 years now. There are dozens of other mortgage servicers operating just as fraudulently with hundreds of thousands of borrowers being systematically fleeced of their cash, homes, credit histories and in some very rare cases their sanity and/or very lives due to what they go through with Mortgage Servicing Fraud - and yet very few want to talk about it on any level. And it doesn't matter if someone like "Howard" can read or not - if he doesn't have at least a marginal comprehension of the words on pages above his signature he's screwed regardless.
Thanks, once again, Tanta. I'll be archive surfing for the rest of the day now while contemplating whether to patch the wall dent the right way or just fill it with sponge and paint it so it doesn't hurt quite so much the next time I'm totally befuddled by someone of the media reporting genre.