anecdotal: bumped into a young man, works for a national mortgage firm out of Dallas
they buy mortgages, accumulate enough and then sell off to Bof A and others like them
he says business is rocking along
no let up in securitization?
He went on to say that BofA et al are becoming quite particularly sticky over the paperwork, rejecting anything with missing anything (including punctuation).
I suggested to him that many attorneys will make a lot of money for the rest of what we call our lives representing clients in land title disputes.
Looking at the local RRE listings the majority have no furniture in them. No problem here either! Buy now or loose you $8K! They will be worth a lot less next spring.
re: Volker
Maybe they buy the mortgages from the FDIC? Why am I thnking there was some large operation based in Dallas (LLC perhaps?) that makes their bread and butter buying loans from the FDIC... couldn't find a link.
Re: Discussion on last thread, Sheila v. Timmy
I don't know how much experience the Treasury has in use of taxpayer funds... however it seems apparent that the government from now on whenever they bailout private corporations require that the entity getting bailed out raise private money; and the government will match 1:1 whatever private money is invested (sounds like the P-PIP?).
Again, its clear this is a Congressional failure. No one said, "Hey, lets not bail the banks out completely, lets at least require them to raise private investment money to match... if the private sector can'd get behind industry than why should the government?"
and memorabilia – such as Frost’s Pulitzer Prize diploma for New Hampshire (1923) and a patchwork quilt made from his academic hoods. (patchwork quilts made from 26 academic hoods he has received along with honorary degrees).
I used to use the Chrysler bailout under Carter as an example -- a clear precedent as to how TARP should have been dealt with, but when Paulson was allowed by congress to abuse his power and set a new precedent of unlimited abuse .... I gave up, because we have the mafia or some coup in control now, and the future is not looking too good!
Winter comes to an end
But who will be there
When the first buds swell?
How that question kept our ancestors focused, generation after generation. The survivors are our grandpappys after all, and we have that in us.
So after thousands of generations, all predating the invention of CDS, it only took a couple decades before we lost our capacity for feeling frostiness?
Looks like it. In my time zone, the children's one day of indulgence has been spent on a milk dud and malteezer orgy!
Why am I thnking there was some large operation based in Dallas (LLC perhaps?) that makes their bread and butter buying loans from the FDIC... couldn't find a link.
YLSP, it might be that you're thinking about someone who is doing quite well buying troubled loans, but not from the FDIC. He and his bank were in the news lately:
This is what I found about those terms (for others who may not have been a twinkle in their parents eye) Despite Chrysler's immediate enthusiasm, the Treasury package falls far short of what the company sought. It does not give Chrysler the $1 billion cash aid that some analysts insist is the minimum it needs to keep going until late next year.... Treasury aides were understood to be thinking of $500 million to $750 million over a limited period. With those guarantees, the company would be able to borrow from private bankers who would otherwise turn down Chrysler as an unacceptably high risk. In case of default, taxpayers would be left holding the bag, and the Government would probably have to take over Chrysler and hope to sell off its vital parts.... The combination of squeeze and sacrifice is expected to meet the Treasury's conditions, but Congress will be harder to sell. The aid package will go before the banking committees of both the Senate and the House. Their chairmen, Senator William Proxmire and Representative Henry Reuss, both Wisconsin Democrats, opposed aid to Lockheed. "A terrible precedent," said Proxmire of the proposed Chrysler deal. Reuss expressed distaste for guaranteeing loans for Chrysler to build "gas guzzlers that nobody will buy." ... Congress can also consider that if Chrysler fails, the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. may have to assume responsibility for about $800 million in insured but unfunded pension obligations to the auto company's employees. "That would be catastrophic," warned one agency official. To pay the bill, the PBGC would have to get special congressional approval to raise the fees that it charges for insuring other companies' pension funds....
ylsp: no, in fact he said they would buy mortgages from small independent types without enough volume for the BofA types. They accumulated, then sold to Bof A. He was low level type with no discernment for what was truly going on macro wiise. It was a brief encounter, but one where I sensed that the whole charade is still chugging along, maybe at a lower volume, but still going.
Made me think again that we weren't close to having the problem behind us, if anything, it's getting worser and worser and bigger and badder, and more concentrated as well within the FRE and FNMA arena.
Henry Merritt "Hank" Paulson, Jr. (born March 28, 1946) served as the 74th United States Treasury Secretary. He previously served as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs. In 2008, Time named Paulson as a runner-up for its Person of the Year 2008, saying, with reference to the Global Financial Crisis of 2008: "if there is a face to this financial debacle, it is now his.
“Look,” Geithner said impatiently, “we’re going to have to decide in the next half-hour what we do. Time is running out.”
“Good luck,” McCarthy said curtly.
Geithner ended the call and rushed into Paulson’s office, where the secretary and Chris Cox were speaking, and recounted the conversation.
“I asked him if he was saying no,” Geithner said, “and he kept saying that he wasn’t saying no.” But clearly, Geithner complained, that’s exactly what he was saying.
Paulson was beside himself. “I can’t believe this is happening now.” After a brief discussion of strategy, Paulson ordered Cox, who was the only regulator in the room with legal authority over Lehman Brothers, to call McCarthy. Cox, Paulson thought to himself with a sense of annoyance, was supposed to have prewired these very regulatory issues. “I don’t want to be left here holding Herman,” the Treasury Secretary said, glancing at his zipper in case the joke wasn’t clear.
volker,
Why wouldn't you expect the current wild-fire low-end housing sales to be securitized and sold? That practice wasn't the problem it was the poor underwriting and due diligence of the buyers.
ylsp: not in total disagreement, but once the securitization occurs, then the swaps happen, next the swap against the swap and the next thing you know ....
of course I could be wrong
He and I also talked a bit about CDS action and he was aware that the pyramiding was still going on.
That is the real problem, isn't it? the greed and corruption and total disregard for the bad effect it works on the whole system
I mean, one could sell hotcakes for a dollar apiece until one has most of the money and screw the next guy, perhaps a poor analogy, but what is the problem if not that? I really don't know because I'm an idiot.
An H1N1 update. We had gone to the doctor, and our daughter had an ear infection. Two days later, she gets more symptoms, and they diagnose H1N1 over the phone. Younger brother has similar symptoms. They said not to bother to come in.
BTW, YLSP, I do admire your tenacity in following congressional activity and other events related to the current meltdown. It's clearly a labor of love for you.
At your age I might have done the same thing, because I really did care about what was going on.
There actually even was a time when I charged windmills.
Since then, though, I've come to the realization that all it did was increase my blood pressure.
Hence, the 'modified limited dropout' that is now a decade old.
My goal for today is to go buy some candy for there will be kids coming around tonight.
When was the last time sheep revolted? Even in Animal farm it was the pigs. The MSM and political accomplices have successfully distracted the sheep with irrelevant issues. Nuclear power on the left and gay marriage on the right.
Doesn't look like more air pressure will help much.
That is why they are using printed money and taxpayers bodies to fill it back up.
This article from the WSJ was interesting for the whole extend and pretend game and why all these banks are going down the zombie route: Banks Get New Rules on Property - WSJ.com
I was always amused (if that is the right word) how Obama and Palin's date, never came to grips with the reality of the economy and they both danced around the meltdown like it didn't exist -- primarily, because all their talking points and rhetoric were based on pre-conceived strategies that were at least two years behind what was going on! Now we have Obama, still in a daze and ignoring unemployment, as he cheers the jobless recovery on -- in a style that looks and sounds like what Bush was doing for 8 F'ing years (of hell)!!!
not clear why legitimate mortgage securitization is charade? The fact that it exists doesn't mean its not legitimate. My guess is that the private stuff is probably quite attractive right now. Without the benefit of a AAA rating the dumb money has left that leaves smart money to pick up assets at realistic prices. My guess is that the crap is in the FHA stuff and perhaps even stuff sold to FRE/FNM where buyers are depending on the US government explicit/implicit guarantee rather than their own due diligence.
This tale of two inflations helps to explain how we arrived at the unequal, credit-centric economy we have today. Central bankers are notoriously allergic to "wage pressure" as a harbinger of rising prices. Wages have two distressing properties: First, they are sticky. They represent repeated and persistent cash flows that cannot be downward adjusted en masse except during a serious crisis or dislocation. Second, a substantial fraction of wages goes to lower quintiles of the income distribution, who have a high marginal propensity to consume. Central bankers are not evil scrooges — they have nothing against consumption by poor people. But funding that consumption by wages limits the effectiveness of monetary policy. They'd prefer that the marginal dollar bound for consumption flow from a more malleable source...
This article from the WSJ was interesting for the whole extend and pretend game and why all these banks are going down the zombie route:
Banks Get New Rules on Property - WSJ.com
Subject of KDs latest rant. To be fair there are no ALL CAPS, very few bolds and only one ROTFL icon.
volker the viking (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Sat, 10/31/2009 - 11:44 am
I see the process as much like grief, in stages;
Fear
Frustration
Anger
Bitterness
Resentment
Me too, volker, but as long as their own little bubbling view of the world remains more or less intact, folks are largely insulated from any of this process. The goal of TPTB from a PR standpoint is to do whatever it takes to ensure very few people have to acknowledge the reality beneath their bubble of complacency on a personal level.
Treasury & Fed still making money on their "investments, at CIT at least"
"Under the prepackaged plan, bondholders would receive about 70 cents on the dollar for their claims. The government’s $2.3 billion investment would likely be wiped out."
Re: collectibles. The only reason to own them is because you love them. The only reason to deal in them is to fund the expansion of your collection. If you value a collectible for it asset value on the open market, sell it now. I strongly believe that their value will (continue to) drop -- partly because of the financial situation, partly because collecting is generational.
Objects collected by one generation are not valued by the next, especially as they're dumped on the market as the older generation ages. The only exception are those things which are true rarities, and those are affordable to few of us. (Edit: I make an exception for guns. People will collect guns forever. Go figure.)
And "old" is not "rare." Got a necklace downstairs an antiquarian friend bought from the British Museum made out of 5000-year-old Sumerian stone beads. You could replace it for a couple of hundred. Lots of old stone beads out there.
This article from the WSJ was interesting for the whole extend and pretend game . . .
It was a good article. I realize a lot of people use 'extend and pretend' as a criticism or pejorative term, but I really don't see any other alternative that is viable at this time.
The 'extend' part is guaranteed. Whether the 'pretend' part will be realized in the future will depend on how many of these loans actually fail in the future.
In my simplistic mind any loan that is current on monthly payments is still a good loan.
crazyv,
It's way more than that. It's stuff like the argument between Fox News and Obama; political bickering over health care while ignoring the real debate. Death panels seem so far-fetched; however the government taking away children because their parents don't give them the H1N1 vaccine? But it's beneficials to both parties that these distractions take place.
It is true that issues like gay marriage and abortion are divisive, but that's only because a large number of the country hold pro/con positions that are essential core values and non-negotiable. Many Pastors I know say "I'll never vote for a candidate who is for abortion." Quite simply they should realize in holding this position they are limiting their options; additionally when is the last time there was a significant political debate or question on abortion? Maybe the health care debate will include one; but it seems the country is split enough. It seems more viable to support medical people who work on making fetuses more viable into the 1st tri-mester might be a better strategy than placing hope in politicians... additionally there are numerous other activities that can be focused rather than simply expecting a political solution to pop up. I don't think God cares much about the American political process; He cares more about people's hearts and character and relationship with Him and each other. How does supporting politicians from either party; who are scumbags and publicly exhibit such poor character that no matter if they go to church one has to doubt that they are "Christian"?
The 'extend' part is guaranteed. Whether the 'pretend' part will be realized in the future will depend on how many of these loans actually fail in the future.
In my simplistic mind any loan that is current on monthly payments is still a good loan.
Do you really believe that?
I mean.... if you were going to buy bonds based on those loans, would you pay par?
In my simplistic mind any loan that is current on monthly payments is still a good loan.
But the rules are about restructuring loans, cash flows will fall, I'd have to read the rules but it sounds like they get to take the monthly loss on cash flows but still consider the collateral value at the original value. Even though it has clearly fallen and the loan isn't performing under the original terms.
The banks will know how bad their book of business is and won't be doing any new lending. It isn't helping anyone but the FDIC, they get to take over the banks later instead of now as they should.
The term “jobless recovery” is relatively new. Its first appearance in the media, according to a Factiva search, was in the New York Times on October 12, 1991. The story was pegged on sluggish retail sales, and the conclusion was that the economy was expanding because of productivity, not employment.
Again. Here's the problem (Denninger has correctly pointed out the problem, and that no one is willing to solve it beyond extending).
- America is dependent on borrowing, not only publicly but privately.
- How many businesses require borrowing to go forward with their business? It's not just companies with horrible business plans; but companies that are completely genius and awesome, world changing ideas.
- Its American policy, ie. Congressional policy that we need borrowing to continue in order to help foster our pro-business environment. So even if all sorts of capital is wasted on bad ideas, and non-viable companies; there's a benefit to our economy in developing disruptive/amazing world changing technology. This is not public borrowing; but private borrowing.
- If private borrowing dries up our economy dries up.
- Hence, in order to ensure America doesn't collapse every effort must be made to ensure banks and non-banks are loaning money and able to continue loaning money. Even if it requires artificially subsidizing these loans with public money (TARP).
- There's no concept that the consumer is dead, and any business with debt now is dead in the water; this is such an anathemic thought to American leaders, both politically and in business.
(Okay, here's where the CRE 'extend and pretend' comes in).
- When loans start to be impaired it impacts banks abilities to loan further money as money is tied up in loss reserves (I'm not exactly sure but I think this is why the regulators are involved).
- If money is tied up in ensuring capital reserve and other regulator ratios are met, that money cannot be used to give out loans to businesses of America.
Isn't this the whole reason we've had TARP and all the other programs of the past year! Why is any of this a surprise?
Compaining about the law, requirements and "shalls" is futile. We no longer live under "rule of law", but "rule of political will"; gee, why are there 10 million+ illegals in America? (I'm sure there are various other examples of 'rule of law" vs. 'rule of political will' in fact I'm sure someone can write a profitable book on the subject).
We are right to be upset that the American political leaders assume this is our countries will... or they just assume whats best for the country is that we don't suffer from economic collapse (or economic collapse is staved off by 5-10 years).
I realize a lot of people use 'extend and pretend' as a criticism or pejorative term, but I really don't see any other alternative that is viable at this time.
I suggest "cleanse and remand." "Extend and pretend" is the fiscal equivalent of drinking seawater.
People are upside down in their mortgages. Their mortgages are worth more than the houses that they live in. And that doesn't mean that they're going to default or millions will be foreclosed, but many millions more simply can't sell, can't move, can't change their circumstances, don't have a cushion. And that is a factor that will bring stress into their lives over time.
Perhaps I'm being picky, but isn't this statement incorrect. A collateralized debt can never be worth more than the collateral. The problem is for the lender, not the borrower. The mortgage has lost just as much value as the property...if not more.
Okay and now back to what volker was saying re: securitization. My concept is something like this, it might be wrong and I may have missed a number of issues on CDS, etc.
So basically:
"Lender of America" makes a loan to John Smith. Say its a $50k loan fixed over 5 years.
"Lender of America" decides that they want to sell off the last 4 years of payments (securitization).
They sell off the last 4 years of payments to "Buyer of loans".
Buyer of loans buys some type of insurance (CDS?) that will ensure if the payer cannot pay for those 4 years, they will get paid.
They eventually sell off the last 3 years of loans to "2nd buyer of loans". However, they still hold insurance on the 3 years which they no longer will lose money on.
The 2nd buyer will buy insurance on the final 3 years.
If this process repeats itself you'll have 2 claims on the 3rd year payments, 3 claims for the 4th year payment, and 4 claims on the 5th year payment. The problem is the insurance can only cover 1 claim; as there was only 1 year of payments.
Is this right, or am I confused? Why isn't someones job to crack down and regulate on the insurance sales? Who has authority to regulate on the insurance sales?
Let me pick up on your rant- the same people who have a strong view on abortion also have a strong view on government provided health care. If these people were honest or even moral in their pro- life position they would be advocating for pre and post natal care, improved education funding for college a living wage etc- all things that make it more likely that a woman would choose to have a baby. Ironically many women today don't have a real - "choice". The extra child is more than what they can afford. For too many right wing Christians ( it is not the Christian Right because there are left wing Christians) Christian thought is more important that Christian action. While there are many criticisms that can be leveled against the Vatican they at least are morally consistent - anti abortion, anti death penalty and pro social programs to take of the poor.
BTW the folks that I think are gutter slime are the so called moderates on abortion- those who would oppose abortion except for rape or incest. Is the fetus so conceived not worthy of life? Since when did how you were conceived determine your humanity? These gutter slime would put into law the equivalent of the original 3/5th person.
How many businesses require borrowing to go forward with their business? It's not just companies with horrible business plans; but companies that are completely genius and awesome, world changing ideas.
I think we need to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water. Consumption is not bad only consumption financed with debt is. Borrowing is not evil and in fact is perfectly appropriate if invested in productive assets.
Who has authority to regulate on the insurance salewhen they repealed Glass Steagal (sp?) they included provision that CDS was not insurance, hence unregulated
pretty cool beans, huh?
unregulated means the pyramid grows and we get screweder and screwder
Consumption is not bad only consumption financed with debt is. Borrowing is not evil and in fact is perfectly appropriate if invested in productive assets.
well, that sums it up nicely
the conundrum resides in the second sentence
the world economy would be about half what it is now were it simply so
I mean.... if you were going to buy bonds based on those loans, would you pay par?
First of all, yes, I believe that. Secondly, I would never buy bonds based on loans. That is debt squared.
Every loan buyer or maker wants a good LTV ratio. When making a loan, that's easy. When buying a loan, evaluation of the collateral and calculation of a discount is all that's required to accomplish that.
Effective Demand, sure the FDIC benefits if fewer banks foreclose fewer loans and recognize fewer losses and thus don't go belly up.
As to what the modifications might entail, I really don't know what the banks will do. I do know there are lots of construction loans never converted to permanent financing that aren't being foreclosed because the borrower is still making interest only payments.
I think the big issue in the FDIC release yesterday was that the value of the collateral won't in itself cause a loan to become troubled if payments are current and the borrower is creditworthy and whatever else they said. I don't have any problem with that concept.
YSLP
If it was categorized as insurance then you would be exactly correct. But CDS were never categorized as insurance they were "financial products". Your argument could also be extended to put or call options on stock. If you own a stock and buy a put then sell the stock the subsequently buyer buys puts etc. you would end up with the same situation far more put contracts than the outstanding stock. I would point out that if the language of many state statutes was literally interpreted than virtually every financial transaction becomes insurance along with the person who locks in your heating oil prices or the person whom you agree to pay a flat amount tor the season to plow your driveway. The point being somewhere an arbitrary line needs to be drawn.
I'VE DECIDED THAT I"M GOING TO BE KD FOR HALLOWEEN!!!
GODDAMNIT, WHY WON"T THIS UNDERLINE WORK!!!!!!!111!!11!! IT"S A DAMNED CONSPIRACY TO KEEP ME FROM UNDERLINING AND KCOOP IS THE MASTER OF THIS UNDERLINING CONSPIRACY, CURSED BE HIS SOUL!!!!
The temptation to drink seawater has always been greatest for sailors who have expended their supply of fresh water, and are unable to capture enough rainwater for drinking. This frustration is described famously by a line from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner:
"Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink."
YSLP- your example is correct but unrealistic. It costs money to have bought insurance and most people will dispense with the insurance when they have no further use for it.
no mention of 9 banks closed on yahoo news top stories
Somali pirates
Obama touting stimulous job creation
search for mid air collision
clinton makes personal bid to resume mideast talks...
A great outfit tonight for a couple of friends going out would be black sweats, 2 sided tape or clear packaging tape reversed around body, lots of cotton balls, a black ball nose, signs with slogans like (i didn't know I needed a downpayment for a home), (my credit score is 580 and I just got a 500K home), (that no interest home loan is the bomb)
Borrowing is not evil and in fact is perfectly appropriate if invested in productive assets.
No, not correct. A home is not a productive asset in an economic sense.
Borrowing is not evil and in fact is perfectly appropriate if the lender has reasonable basis to believe the borrower can repay and the borrower has intent and clear ability to repay, without using further borrowing or speculative investing for repayment.
"We do not want churches because they will teach us to quarrel about God.......We do not want to learn that. We may quarrel with men sometimes about things on this earth. but we never quarrel about God." Chief Joseph, Nez Perce
some above say there is not difference between bush and obama (or obama and bush)
we will see...i can think of several...but heres a biggie
what if obama winds down both wars quickly (two years or less) and halves the costs pulling us forces back to safe bases?
note from the presentation below stiglits estimated a 3 trillion dollar number back then
he has revised that figure up an addition trillion or so since then
the 3 trillion dollar war...joseph stiglitz and linda balmes presentation at harvard more than a year ago
excerpt from harvard gazette
"The five-year-old Iraq conflict is America’s first “credit card war.” And like anyone who has run up a huge credit card bill knows, a credit card debt can turn into a crushing burden with long-term consequences. This, too, will be a legacy of the Iraq War.
That was the sobering assessment of an April 2 seminar at Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Business and Government as presenters — who included an Iraq veteran — attempted to estimate the true cost of the Iraq War both in dollars and in human lives.
“There were two decisions in this war: one, to go into Iraq in the first place,” said Linda J. Bilmes, Kennedy School lecturer in public policy. The second was that “we would fund this war by borrowing — putting the whole thing on the credit card. This is the first war in American history that has been funded this way.”
Contrary to long-standing impressions that “wars are good for the economy,” the Iraq conflict will have multiple negative economic effects both on the micro and macro level, claimed Joseph E. Stiglitz, Columbia University economics professor and Nobel Prize winner. “This war has been a particularly bad war for the economy.” Oil prices have increased, and resources that could have been spent here went elsewhere, Stiglitz said. Moreover, “this war has been totally funded by deficits, and deficits do have consequences.”
Prewar estimates put the cost at $50 billion, but already close to $1 trillion has been spent on the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan with no end in sight, Stiglitz said. The real tally is reflected in the title of Stiglitz and Bilmes’ new book, “The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict” (W.W. Norton, 2008).
After listening to the Moyer interview, you realize how tainted Obama has already become by his association with Geithner, and how much more tainted Obama probably will become before he wakes up.
We sure do step up for everyone else in the world...yet the homeless grow, more children go hungry, families live in tents...the pigmen and all the cronies in govt. need a prodding...
I can't believe 10 million people can't get together an walk on dc to show the PTB who can seize control whenever..
they did in the 60's without the internet...amazing...
/rant on
Bush's attempt to avenge the planned but not executed hit effort on his father's life, will at the end cost a few hundred thousand lives and ~3Trillion dollars. Nice work fellas. Roman Empire all over again!
/rant off
He won't. In fact, within two weeks, he'll deliver a "major address" in which he reaffirms America's commitment to see the fight in Afghanistan through until Al Qadea is eliminated. He won't say "until the Taliban is defeated" of course. He won't go that far.
You remember the defining characteristic of Obama that was pointed out by several people with first-hand knowledge of his character during the election? He's incapable of hard decision-making.
you realize how tainted Obama has already become by his association with Geithner, and how much more tainted Obama probably will become before he wakes up.
Let's call this credit what it is, The Home 'Seller' Tax Credit. Here in SoCal, the buyers end up paying much more than the $8,000 credit due to frenzied buying prompted by the tax credit.
It's the sellers that are making out with all the gains. That is, the banks and the former subprime mortgage brokers turned flippers who pay cash at the court house and flip the home in days to the some dumb first time FHA home 'buyer'. The flippers are making more money now than ever!
mock, I'm inclined to see a little bit of the fool in him. His whole campaign was mostly about issues other than the economy. By the day of the election the economy was in free fall mode and he was blind-sided by something he had not anticipated. So he went with the guys he thought knew how to fix it. He didn't choose well.
Early on I said Geithner was a transition choice and would be gone in a year. We'll see.
I talked to friend who supplies RMCR's to mortgage companies and he says that is the big thing right now in so cal, making 50-70K per deal.....amazing we circled back to 05
YLSP wrote:
Who has authority to regulate on the insurance sale when they repealed Glass Steagal (sp?) they included provision that CDS was not insurance, hence unregulated
pretty cool beans, huh?
The insurance industry got organized for DC control very early on. By law, the Feds cannot regulate insurance companies since the insurers wanted only state regulation so they could control the action with more maleable regulators (aka easier and cheaper to buy).
Their is no federal agency that can control insurance company practices (except, SEC for securities/fraud issues, I believe, and they own the SEC as well cough Chris Cox **cough).
Unbelievable, but true. Incidentally, this history is a large part of the health insurers opposition to health care reform, because for the first time they'd have a federal regulator.
unregulated means the pyramid grows and we get screweder and screwder
we will see, as with the geithner appointment...where i ate crow on these pages...i will admitt if im wrong
my prediction is obama will make every reasonable effort to wind down war spending
btw are you saying above that taliban equals alqaeda ("...until Al Qadea is eliminated. He won't say "until the Taliban is defeated" of course. He won't go that far...."
mark my words , you , we will never eliminate taliban from afghanistan unless we are willing to carpet bonb, commit mass murder and genocide
the afghan people are a regional tribal people...not even a country...and see americans as invaders
we had 8 years to kill bin laden and i wish we had...our time is up... and the odds are we will be facing similar fate of all the other empires that got bogged down in afghanistan where they have lived war almost non stop for more than a generation
Any way we can get political parties classified as religions? I guess there's no way to organize if any attempt at organizing and raising money to further political goals was considered a religion... so if a religion attempted to have a political party they might be successful at arguing they are organizing and furthering political goals related to their religion.
on the flip side, you've got ERISA preempting state regulations of insurance that are actually effective.
Right, Basel Two. Biz hates fed. regulation (that has teeth), until the little teeth in the states start to hurt, and then they love the Feds. It's like the GOP hates deficits unless they finance war and biz giveaways. Principles are fungible.
how much more tainted Obama probably will become before he wakes up.
Tainted?, I think not. Groomed, trained, and faithful to his masters?, Yes.
Not only did he choose Geithner, but gave Bernanke another term. Has Summers and Shapiro. Plus Rubin and Levitt as early advisors. Gary Gensler, and the recent appointment of Adam Storch (29yr old from Goldman). Rahm And Eric Holder, Mostly from the Clinton years most popular for the demise of Glass Steagall, WTO, and NAFTA. to name a few off the top of my head
ot- have to rub it in, bought 2 tickets to see U2 in Athens, Greece next year....only drawback is I could lose the girlfriend to some Greek Adonis guy though
'Cooling out marks is how institutions persuade people to accept things they think are wrong...Did the economy cheat you, fire you...Listen, the motivational speaker explains, it's not the economy's fault...' Cooling the Mark Out (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought)
In 1952, sociologist Erving Goffman's 'On Cooling the Mark Out, Some Aspects of Adaption to failure' appeared in Psychiatry
Madoff's recent comments from jail that the SEC was never aware that anything was wrong with Madoff's ponzi operation is a way to 'cool the marks out' by making it possible to accept losses because of the ineptitude of the regulators which made the scam inevitable. It shifts the responsibility for the Sting on to the SEC in the minds of the marks and makes it possible for them to accept their losses. If the marks do not accept their losses, they will 'squawk', 'beef' or be angry and not accept their losses and maybe come after the operators.
When the theory that our administrators and leaders are simply 'idiots' and inept and the economy simply spiraled out of control...this is a form of 'Cooling the Mark Out' so that losses can be accepted because they were inevitable or an 'accident' that couldn't have been prevented because nobody knew what was happening as they were simply 'idiots'...
Also anecdotal, but I have a neighbor who is in the mortgage brokerage business. He says BoA has always been particular about what they buy. He always went to others when he had something edgey. FWIW
Politics OT: (but amazing: the Republicans don't have a candidate now in the race for NY-23 congressperson)
Dede Scozzafava, the Republican and Independence parties candidate, announced Saturday that she is suspending her campaign for the 23rd Congressional District and releasing all her supporters.
The state Assemblywoman has not thrown her support to either Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party candidate, or Bill Owens, the Democratic candidate . . .
Being particular is no big help if what you buy goes down 40% in
value. Even honest appraisers can't just ignore a whole series of
comps that seem to validate the sales price. Since stuff has gone
down 55% or more in value in South Florida, and about 30 % in Brevard
(I'm told), the only wise thing to have done was to simply shut down
business, or almost shut down, for a few years. Big corporations
are not able to do that.
I could lose the girlfriend to some Greek Adonis guy
Say a Aristotle Onassis lookalike....lots of body hair, ear hair, nose hair and squat.......shudder. Even that amount of $$$$ couldn't make me blind. Don't know how Jackie O did it........bleh
how much more tainted Obama probably will become before he wakes up.
that comment assumes that he wasn't tainted to begin with. I think many of us who voted for him were misled ( like all good cons we needed to believe after the Bush years) and he has turned out to be just another crooked Chicago politician. For those who still have the rose colored glasses there are three questions they need to ask themselves (a) why were GM bond holders wiped out but Citicorp bond holders and shareholders protected (b) why were WAMU bondholders wiped out (c) how come the Treasury didn't get the same terms as Buffet from lending money to GS? I am sure that there are convoluted theories to explain those but then again in keeping with Occam's Razor there is a simple explanation- the GM bond holders were average Joe - a hold over from when it was a widow and orphans company while the bond holders at Citicorp and the financial institutions were the "master of the universe".
When the theory that our administrators and leaders are simply 'idiots' and inept and the economy simply spiraled out of control...this is a form of 'Cooling the Mark Out' so that losses can be accepted because they were inevitable or an 'accident' that couldn't have been prevented because nobody knew what was happening as they were simply 'idiots'...
Yep, that's just the blunt truth. I wonder when it will dawn on the American public that they've been taken. A germ of the idea has taken root, but it is not really mainstream, being still restricted to the smarter folks watching PBS and reading blogs, ahem, and younger activists less concerned about the politics of protesting.
Incidentally, the link posted by MoF above is well worth reading. I recognized two of the nastier episodes of my working life as having fitted in with the model described. Once again, the only way to win is to refuse to play the game.
It is the Taliban we are fighting in Afghanistan, not Al Qaeda.
The Taliban has a military, a hierarchy, commanders, tanks, a few airplanes, etc.
Yet, you will never hear Obama's lips move and say that we are at war with the Taliban.
How can you invest this much taxpayer money and this many lives in a war, and never tell the American people exactly whom you are fighting against? The purpose of any war in Afghanistan should be to defeat the Taliban army. But Obama won't define it and can't say it.
As I mentioned on another thread...'A related prodedure for cooling the mark out is found in what is called stalling...'
But when the cooling out and the blow off does come...''An attempt is made to define the situation for the mark in a way that makes it easy for him/her to accept the inevitable and go home.' On Cooling the Mark Out
Believing that this whole clustermess was caused by 'idiocy' or ineptitude is a way for people to accept their losses(cooling out) in the stock market, housing, pensions, 401Ks, their jobs, etc. If any of this could have been prevented because some of the leaders knew what was happening and went ahead anyway with failed policies, the marks would not accept their losses and may be angry and want justice(squawking).
What if he wasn't masterful in bed and ugly as a ogre, obnoxious in person, and so you never forgot that you married for $$$$$? I think Jackie married him for security for her kids after JFK and RFK were murdered.
What if he wasn't masterful in bed and ugly as a ogre, obnoxious in person, and so you never forgot that you married for $$$$$? I think Jackie married him for security for her kids after JFK and RFK were murdered.
He would have made a better human shield if he'd been a bit taller. Perhaps platform shoes...
Jonathan,
Yeah...And when people start to think through the fog and 'cooling out' period, the economy will tank even more and then just making ends meet will be the priority, rather than trying to figure out what actually happened...
Punk scene in Boston has always had all the answers. YouTube - Human Sexual Response - Jackie Onassis
I had the album (an ancient technology also known as licorice pizza).
Now, don't make break out Father Christmas lyrics.
The Bankers, on Halloween night,
Are careful to stay out of sight,
For fear they'll be seen
In the hideous mien
That's different from that in the light.
New job numbers from businesses, contractors, state and local governments, nonprofit groups and universities were released, showing 640,329 positions credited to the stimulus, according to the independent federal board monitoring the program's progress.
Teachers and other education employees represent the largest number of jobs in the report -- about 325,000.
The new data released late Friday represents 156,614 federal contracts, grants and loans awarded to more than 62,000 recipients worth a total of $215 billion. The largest numbers of jobs were created or saved by state governments.
IMHO, the majority of these jobs created by states, are jobs related to people that have lost jobs, who are going back to schools, who are then in positions to need workstudy jobs from community colleges -- and many of these jobs are probably jobs that amount to a few hundred bucks per month. The increase in stimulus funds is probably directly correlated to an increase in this type of poverty level job expansion. Yes, those are real jobs, but those are also jobs which may account for less than 10 hours a week and less than a $300 per month -- that is what this recovery is all about - and that is why the jobless recovery data is retarded. Taxpayers re paying the government to create a few thousand very low income jobs, for people who are no longer counted as being unemployed!
The end, amen...
No wait, read that again:
New job numbers from businesses, contractors, state and local governments, nonprofit groups and universities
This also implies that jobs were lost at universities, because some people that have moved on, are replaced by new students that get new workstudy jobs, so this statistic of job creation, needs to be clarified and put into perspective in terms of new jobs....
how much more tainted Obama probably will become before he wakes up
That was rich's opinon. Mine is that he was groomed. I was never under the illusion Obama was anything but the new lap dog. He was too young, inexperienced, and a mediocre senator. Only thing he has going is his ability as the speechifier. He reads well from the blue monitor.
The wars will on until we realize there is no Afghanistan. There are Iran, Iraq, India, Pakistan, and Other.
On one's ever conquered them, much less pacified them. Lately the CCCP learned this lesson the hard way. But apparently the Masters of the Universe don't learn lessons from others.
i absolutely agree that we have been ripped off, robbed , screwed and what ever similarly appropriate terms you want to put on it...by the bankstas and that obama is in bed with the banking oligarchy
i suspect he chose his bed partners and enemies with some degree of calculation
he chose to take on the petrochemical-oil coal -complex, the medical insurance industry, and try to curb the military ambitions of empire, and move towards reducing the growth in CO2 emissions....
his calculus may have been that he needed to court , date and couple with the financiers
i dont know these things...obviously im on the outside looking in
One good thing coming from the Unemployment Bill re: TARP.
Corker-Warner Amendment has been agreed to. This will create three trustees to watch over the US stake in bailed out companies.
`designated TARP recipient' means any entity that has received, or will receive, financial assistance under the Troubled Asset Relief Program or any other provision of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (Public Law 110-343), such that the Federal Government holds or controls, or will hold or control at a future date, not less than a 20 percent ownership stake in the company as a result of such assistance;
The "good" Roman Emperors often conducted wars personally,
and risked death, and did die in them. Sometimes they were
foolish wars too.
On the other hand, dying in your bed was usually not very pleasant,
and Roman doctoring, though better than medicine was for more than a
thousand years, was not at all good at chronic diseases of the
elderly. And you got to be elderly way sooner than now, tho lifespans were
relatively high after childhood.
I'd like to see our presidents occasionally go in harm's way.
such that the Federal Government holds or controls, or will hold or control at a future date, not less than a 20 percent ownership stake in the company as a result of such assistance;
Well, that means that the TARPists will find a way to get the gov't share under 19% for existing and new giveaways.
Corker-Warner Amendment has been agreed to. This will create three trustees to watch over the US stake in bailed out companies.
There are still some of us who remember when this was a constitutional republic and stuff like this needed to specifically allowed by the laws of the land and there used to be people who respected and defended those concepts.
rich wrote (in reply to...) on Sat, 10/31/2009 - 11:33 am
mock,
"....It is the Taliban we are fighting in Afghanistan, not Al Qaeda...." (and obama wont say it)"
rich i dont agree that obama views the war in afghanistan as necessarily against the taliban
i suspect obama has delayed funding and troup decisions until the rigged karzi election issue is resolved
because to have the people view us as supporting an unpopular puppet regime would be the kiss of death for our forces
yesterday, secretary clinton challenged the taliban to put down violent insurgency and run as a legitimate political force in national elections
if the taliban agreed to expell AQ(which i dont think they will agree), but if...and exchange politics for violence then the us would not engage the taliban militarily
i can give testimony and links re people who see us taking a live and let live reaction to taliban in certain tribal areas where insurgency is not active
bottom line...the wars in iraq and afghanistan and the 800 plus foreign bases usa has around the world etc is at least an equal part of bankrupting our nation as social - welfare programs...and maybe more because
both wars have been funded with credit cards where as
social security, however wobbly and medicare, have taxes levied and assigned to them...
a war tax and a draft that excludes nobody but the totally mentally
or physically incapacitated, and includes people up to say 35, both
men and women (who haven't served already) and a war tax should
suffice to eliminate all but the most truly necessary wars.
Who cares what you call the people? We are fighting with the people of Afghanistan, period.
I think Obama should listen to Matthew Hoh. There's no one else I would trust on commenting on the Afghan war, than someone who has been in the boots on the ground.
Economic inertia...and the creation of perceived external threats...
'Organizing Societies for War'
Societal militarization and international violence
(The author)...'conceives of militarization as a process that is driven by several factors. Some, such as international technological development, external threats, and political and economic inertia are quite standard in the literature...contributions to militarization are...the manipulation or creation of a perceived external threat by national elites.' JSTOR: Mershon International Studies Review, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Oct., 1995), pp. 266-268
"i can give testimony and links re people who see us taking a live and let live reaction to taliban in certain tribal areas where insurgency is not active"
Which would leave the central government in Kabul where?
"a war tax and a draft that excludes nobody but the totally mentally
or physically incapacitated, and includes people up to say 35, both
men and women (who haven't served already) and a war tax should
suffice to eliminate all but the most truly necessary wars. "
Better yet, require military service (or other hard, dangerous national service) to vote, like in Starship Troopers.
Ethnologists out with the Sioux
wired home, "Send two punts, one canoe."
The reply came the next day,
"The girls are on the way,
but what in the world is a panoe?"
a war tax and a draft that excludes nobody but the totally mentally
or physically incapacitated, and includes people up to say 35, both
men and women (who haven't served already) and a war tax should
suffice to eliminate all but the most truly necessary wars.
Read an article sometime back about two strategies in nature for breeding the next generation -- the rabbit method and the elephant method. Rabbit method = having a lot of offspring, pushing them out into the world; if most of them get slaughtered, still some survive since you had so many. Elephant method = have few but nuture them, put a lot of time and energy into raising them over a long time. The argument was that human reproduction had been a little closer to the rabbit model throughout history -- have as many children as possible, expect to lose some. But the advanced countries have lately gone elephant -- few offspring, major investment in each, not expecting to lose any.
Our "all-volunteer" army harvests the remaining rabbits, the ones who haven't been invested in, the ones who are disposable. And a few patriots. Damned few of the privileged. When the elephants have to send their children to war, there will be no discretionary war.
It seems more viable to support medical people who work on making fetuses more viable into the 1st tri-mester might be a better strategy
*
It might be an even better strategy to: (1) make sure girls have something more to look forward to/things to do, then getting pregnant--have things they want to do and the ability to be able to do them or work towards doing them: (2) easy & educated access to various methods of birth control; (3) if they get pregnant anyway, then access to good pre-natal care, and affordable day care afterwards so, at a minimum, the mother can finish highschool, if not continue on to a trade/vocational or community college.
Wouldn't hurt to educate males regarding the facts of life either, since it seems so easy for them to father & walk away.
I continue to think it'd be useful to put every since anti-choice person on the list of those willing to adopt at least 3 children, of any race, either sex, no matter how many developmental or other problems that child might have. Let them live with the results of no choice or poor choices that they wish to mandate for others.
Yes. The numbers don't lie. 5% (2 votes)
No. Subsequent revisions will erase recent positive indicators. 41% (17 votes)
Doesn't matter. This is the new economy. Get used to it. 54% (22 votes)
Pavel said, "Which would leave the central government in Kabul where?"
i hate to say it but afghanistan may be ungovernable by any quasi western style federal system located in kabul or anywhere else... assuming means less than that of a tyrant
afghnaistan is not a country... it is a collection of tribal areas
we have managed to unite them once again, in their hatred for foreigners
we should have killed osama bin laden and wiped out his forces 8 years ago in the mountains of torra borra
but rumsfeld directed the us military to back off
i guess
because the bush administration needed bin laden to live on... to fuel the hate and fear necessary to per sue the war in iraq
It should be 23 votes, I thought about it that 22nd is a hanging chad so the voting methods were too arcane for a real election...snark/ The real truth is that we live in a nation ruled by smelly old people (vs the real old folks like me who don't smell so bad) who sold out a long time ago, the rest of us are collateral damage in maintaining their status.
Now that I've cleaned up my soup mess I'm typing: Right now the bankers resembling the Snidley Whiplash and Nell unable to pay the rent, only problem is, we don't have any heroes to come galloping in to save the day.
Funny how cartoons and comedians often get it right more than historians.
Those people were nutz, but they were keeping to themselves,
and no threat to the republic. I have never heard an explanation
of the firepower employed.
'(Obama) he chose (to) curb the military ambitions of Empire.' ... and then added a question
Really? Using drone bombing.
my complete quote was
he chose to take on the petrochemical-oil coal -complex, the medical insurance industry, and try to curb the military ambitions of empire, and move towards reducing the growth in CO2 emissions....
let me repeat
and try to curb the military ambitions of empire
the key word is try
i dont think he has been successful, yet and may not be (edit not successful so far)
drone warfare should be outlawed and is repugnant
carpet bombing is ugly and repugnant and horrific
war is hell ..and...all who played any significant part in a war of choice will have to answer to a higher authority with consequences i believe
Read the story.
Scrooge believed his worker Cratchit should be paid according to the letter of the contract: no welfare just because it was Christmas. Do Republicans now call that evil?
I'm still waiting for you to put up complaints about Brad Sherman, or ...
That thing was a power trip I think Liz. Yeah there was some nasty stuff going on there with kids I think but the firepower was so over the top. Janet Reno broke a whole bunch of constitutional laws that day.
"Those people were nutz, but they were keeping to themselves,
and no threat to the republic. I have never heard an explanation
of the firepower employed."
Yes and in his 5 months on the ground he was able to become one of the top US leaders of a dangerous Afghanistan province? What are the people who have been over there longer doing? Certainly not getting out and understanding anything about Afghanistan, right?
- Afghanistan is not in a 35 year old long civil war?
- Does US presence and support of the government work against the goals of the Pashtun insurgency, which causes them to figure and oppose us?
- Is it not true that to follow logic of US intervention that US should occupy Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, and Pakistan areas as well?
- Is our involvement worth the costs borne by America's armed forces?
to eliminate all but the most truly necessary wars
Sound money also has this quality. The inability of the government to counterfeit currency is indispensable in preventing unnecessary wars. I refer you year to Antal Fekete's latest essay, describing how the elimination of sound money in 1909 lead quickly to the War to End All Wars. Recall that this followed the most peaceful century in modern European history.
The thing is I know Janet Reno a bit. The hub worked under her,
and he found her intimidatingly intelligent and very honest, and not
particularly pressurable by political power. She only held office for
a month or so when it happened. I doubt if she planned anything
nefarious, and if she had, it would have been well done.
RATM (profile) wrote on Sat, 10/31/2009 - 12:20 pm
I think mandatory service is a horrible idea, especially under a corrupt government.
i respectfully disagree
universal service is an obstacle to tyranny...everybody has skin in the policy decision to go to war
its not perfect obsticle and we have seen it abused
but professional armies are a greater risk
thats why our constitution for bids the maintenance of standing armies
but we have let our government violate this constitutional pricipal since the civil war
the framers believed in an armed population that was drilled( regulated) on a state level
and every citizen owned their fire-arms and brought same to the formations of the militia
ie
the second amendment is not about defending my sorry ass as i walk at midnite thru the park
(although it protects that right too)
its about maintaining military power in the hands of the people... to overthrow a government like hitlers nazi germany or stalins russia (ussr) where
and if and... only if ...violence has been used by despots to destroy the lawfull authority AND all other democratic and republican means have failed
(all other means) ps emphasis i am not a proponent of force or violence as a first, second or third alternative...people must do everything reasonably possible to avoid violence
i hate to say it but I think people should at least get their facts right. This meme that Afghanistan is ungovernable as taken hold without any kind of serious study. For a period of 40 years from 1930 to the late 60's they were at peace and had a king- I went to school there in the 50's. Although have few memories my father who was a diplomat remembered the Afghans as a gentle and friendly people. It is only when it became the battle ground of the super powers (along with Angola, Somalia) that things went south. BTW Alexander did conquer what is today Afghanistan although then known as Bacteria- in fact there was a Greek influence in that region long after Alexander. Also the Mongols had no problem subjugating that part of the world- admittedly they used tactics that would be unthinkable.
However, Afghanistan as it presently constructed - another legacy of the British Empire is an artificial state- with more Pashtun's on the Pakistani side of the Durand line then there in Afghanistan. I do know one thing - the United States can't want stability more than the Afghans. We can stick all the troops into Afghanistan for whatever reason we want to make up - if we don't have Afghan partners (either a central or regional player) that the people trust we will bleed to death. The problem we have is that as a Democracy we can't do the things that are necessary to achieve military subjugation - heck even the Soviets couldn't be a brutal as they needed to be. Thus without a partner our troops will stuck in the middle unable to do what it takes militarily and unable to do anything politically. Having McCain/Cheney complain about dithering just goes to show that beyond being bombastic they have no comprehension of the world.
"Yes and in his 5 months on the ground he was able to become one of the top US leaders of a dangerous Afghanistan province?"
YSLP, As I wrote, above, I can't evaluate his ideas. I don't know enough about Afghanistan, and I've never been there. It seems to me though that we can't just leave, at least not now.
I think there will be an attempt to apply the strategy that worked fairly well in Iraq: co-optation.
mock turtle,
The manipulation and/or creation of a perceived external threat becomes an increasing actual creation of an external threat when civilians are killed in the occupations...
Obama is a good pitch man and he can convince us at first maybe he is trying to curb Empire but the anti-war Left are losing their patience with his carefully crafted teleprompter speeches that sound soothing and reassuring but the message is lost when the actual policies are being implemented...basically more troop surges...and stay the course...
????? It really doesn't matter. She took a lot of heat for it though as did she not possess the power to change that approach or perhaps someone elsewhere with the need to prove their manhood ran roughshod over her. humm. This is interesting, thanks for sharing that.
If Scrooge was evil, "evil Scrooge" would be redundant.
The very best con games are the ones in which the players in the middle, like the young mortgage man discussed above, don't even see the con, and the ones at the top can easily rationalize their own participation: "can't bring down the house of cards, now..."
mock turtle - you are absolutely right. An all volunteer army is the death knell of Democracy. There should be a simple law - all military action must be paid for with a tax. Only with the two can be make sure that politicians don't use military action for political purposes.
BTW if people think the Patriot act was set up to combat Islamic terrorism- I have bridge to sell you. It was done so as to preclude the possibility of any kind of violent domestic revolution. Having gutted the political process the PTB had to ensure that the other avenue for people to get out of their oppression had to be closed of .
All I'm saying is she kept Clinton in line, and succeeding
to power that way is just not at all consistant with what I knew of
her character. Hmmm, do I mean Waco?--like Nanoo I get confused.
If I confuse Waco with Ruby Ridge, Bactria can be confused with
Bacteria.
The draft was generally hated when people could see no 'progress' was being made in Vietnam (stalemate?) and it was becoming an 'endless war' like the 'wars' we have now...with no prospects of 'victory' in the foreseeable future...just more surges and 'stay the course'...
Someone brought up Fidelity on the prior post. A small OT tidbit is that Fidelity will begin managing GE's 401(k) program beginning Dec 7th. No mention of fees but I will assume Fidelity will take a larger slice than GE did. Owners of GE common will be given shares in a Fidelity GE fund created for the purpose.
Also - salaried employees and dependents of GE will lose their PPO insurance program which will be replaced by an annual deductible program. Thus costs and risks are being transferred from GE to it's employees (hard to quantify but why else would GE do it?).
I actually recall when benefits improved each time GE union's contracts were re-negotiated. Pre-Reagan, pre-Welsh.
1 currency now -yogi (profile) wrote on Sat, 10/31/2009 - 2:41 pm
The very best con games are the ones in which the players in the middle, like the young mortgage man discussed above, don't even see the con, and the ones at the top can easily rationalize their own participation: "can't bring down the house of cards, now..."
The shark is just another mark to a shark with more authority/energy/knowledge...
"On the day that Oak Park-based Park National Bank received $50 million in federal tax credits from the U.S. Treasury for use in its work to build low-income housing on the West Side, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was seriously threatening to take over the bank's parent company, First Bank of Oak Park Corporation.
The irony was played out at a West Side press conference this morning attended by everyone from Timothy Geithner, the U.S. Treasury secretary, to U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, U.S. Senator Roland Burris [and others]. The confab was part congratulatory and part a bottom-of-the-ninth swing to save the bank from being taken over by the feds, possibly as early as close of business today...."
mock Turtle- the absurdity of our position is best illustrated by the campaign against poppy. The argument goes that because the Taliban makes their money from the drug trade we have destroy the poppy fields. Essentially we take it out on the guy just trying to make it- the person whose heart and mind we are trying to win. Smarter policy would be allow them to grow all the poppy they want to providing that they sell it all to us.- that has a far better chance of working than convincing them that they need to grow wheat in desert. Ironically because there are so many NGO handing out food aid the farmers can't get a fair price for their crop.
I would add that it is our stupid war on drugs which is at the core of the illegal money funding these terrorist organizations. If we legalized drugs it would the quickest and most expedient way of cutting of the money flow. It is our basic problem we want an empire , we want to behave like an imperial power but we don't want the responsibility or criticism or guilt from doing morally dubious things.
Wow, Thanks...I was way, way busy with life during that time and didn't know all the details (and thus my confusion over particular events). I also didn't know that was the reason for the OC bombing. I had to serve jury duty for a federal criminal case in downtown Atlanta 1 year after that. Needless to say the federal building access made jury duty an even bigger pain in the rear than normal.
In the mortgage con some of the highish players obviously believed their
own lies, they bought even more leveraged real estate with their ill gotten
gains and many of them lost everything.
This madness affected huge swathes of the population. Some of my clients
quietly made money for years and years, buying houses in bad repair, fixing
them and selling for a profit. And, there was NOTHING wrong or evil about that.
The problem was that everybody else tried to get into the same game,
and didn't know what they were doing and the ones that had been doing it
for many years if not decades didn't perceive that their long time business had
become unviable.
Some of my clients go into it at the worse possible time 2005-2007.
Some were stupid and greedy, some put down a lot of money and
obviously had no bad intentions. It didn't matter. I'm sure there were
Dutch who had been in the tulip bulb business for years with moderate
success. . . and then. . . . s
mock,
Don't forget that Obama has 'advisors' or maybe even 'handlers' but 'advisors' is the more accepted and popular term...Presidents have these 'advisors' to help them decide policy as is common knowledge and is not surprising...he has 'Czars' to help him decide and implement policy...'Czars is obviously an unfortunate term and you have to wonder why this 'loaded' description is even being used...
In the mortgage con some of the highish players obviously believed their
own lies, they bought even more leveraged real estate with their ill gotten gains and many of them lost everything.
"eep, eep"
(the world's smallest violin playing the world's shortest sad song)
Ending the "war on drugs" is most strenuously fought by Prosecutors and LE officials. It's job security. Screweder the victims.
Doesn't look like more air pressure will help much.
Yowee!
place.
The brave reinflationista feedom fighters...
anecdotal: bumped into a young man, works for a national mortgage firm out of Dallas
they buy mortgages, accumulate enough and then sell off to Bof A and others like them
he says business is rocking along
no let up in securitization?
He went on to say that BofA et al are becoming quite particularly sticky over the paperwork, rejecting anything with missing anything (including punctuation).
I suggested to him that many attorneys will make a lot of money for the rest of what we call our lives representing clients in land title disputes.
Looking at the local RRE listings the majority have no furniture in them. No problem here either! Buy now or loose you $8K! They will be worth a lot less next spring.
barfly (profile) wrote on Sat, 10/31/2009 - 8:45 am
Watched it last night and it was a good show.
But I think the second guest put me to sleep - can't imagine why.
Is that a septic tank truck?
re: Volker
Maybe they buy the mortgages from the FDIC? Why am I thnking there was some large operation based in Dallas (LLC perhaps?) that makes their bread and butter buying loans from the FDIC... couldn't find a link.
The brown deer fatten on acorns
Before the first frost
Their coats darken to a dull gray
Prepare for the white frost
The hard ground
And the open windy glades
Winter comes to an end
But who will be there
When the first buds swell?
Pavel
October 31, 2009
Re: Discussion on last thread, Sheila v. Timmy
I don't know how much experience the Treasury has in use of taxpayer funds... however it seems apparent that the government from now on whenever they bailout private corporations require that the entity getting bailed out raise private money; and the government will match 1:1 whatever private money is invested (sounds like the P-PIP?).
Again, its clear this is a Congressional failure. No one said, "Hey, lets not bail the banks out completely, lets at least require them to raise private investment money to match... if the private sector can'd get behind industry than why should the government?"
sportsfan, LOL, yeah. I was more interested in the Galbraith segment, and in particular, the FDR clip towards the end. Have you seen this?
The Presidents: FDR | American Experience | PBS Video
Perhaps the inflatable house needs a new type of patchwork quilt?
Robert Frost, 1874-1963 - Milne Special Collections - University of New Hampshire Library
and memorabilia – such as Frost’s Pulitzer Prize diploma for New Hampshire (1923) and a patchwork quilt made from his academic hoods. (patchwork quilts made from 26 academic hoods he has received along with honorary degrees).
I think the FDIC closed loan sales page is amusing.
Non-performing commercial loan
Book value: $12.7M
Sales price: $2.5M
Performing commercial loan
Book value: $12M
Sales price: $6M
Both sales from 9/30/09. There are some with lesser haircuts.
Government needs to worry about trying to reinflate income/jobs rather than pushing more debt on already overburdened households.
And for those looking to raise their blood pressure, Geithner will be on Meet the Press tomorrow for your viewing displeasure.
barfly
as you recommended, i just watched the lead story in
bill moyers journal
Bill Moyers Journal . Watch & Listen | PBS
the interview with james galbraith was stunning
very tough on obama for not going for the refform necessary
and scathing against the banking oligarchy
a must see for those on either the right or left
to understand why and how we are headed for political revolution in this country
if we dont get it right ...and soon
barfly wrote:
Not sure if I have seen the FDR piece on American Experience. They all sort of run together.
The 1944 FDR speech I saw last night was definitely new to me (and rather profound I thought).
I used to use the Chrysler bailout under Carter as an example -- a clear precedent as to how TARP should have been dealt with, but when Paulson was allowed by congress to abuse his power and set a new precedent of unlimited abuse .... I gave up, because we have the mafia or some coup in control now, and the future is not looking too good!
Winter comes to an end
But who will be there
When the first buds swell?
How that question kept our ancestors focused, generation after generation. The survivors are our grandpappys after all, and we have that in us.
So after thousands of generations, all predating the invention of CDS, it only took a couple decades before we lost our capacity for feeling frostiness?
Looks like it. In my time zone, the children's one day of indulgence has been spent on a milk dud and malteezer orgy!
Try as I might I just cannot get the comment I want to make down to even "NC-17" never mind "R."
YLSP wrote:
YLSP, it might be that you're thinking about someone who is doing quite well buying troubled loans, but not from the FDIC. He and his bank were in the news lately:
The Banker Who Said No - Forbes.com
Not sure this is what you were thinking about, but I remembered this story from your description.
Edit: actually this story:
FDIC Sells $234 Million Of CRE Loans At 30% Discount, Beal Bank Largest Bidder | zero hedge
After Apple-Picking - A poem by Robert Frost - American Poems
Doc Holiday; that was before my time.
This is what I found about those terms (for others who may not have been a twinkle in their parents eye)
Despite Chrysler's immediate enthusiasm, the Treasury package falls far short of what the company sought. It does not give Chrysler the $1 billion cash aid that some analysts insist is the minimum it needs to keep going until late next year....
Treasury aides were understood to be thinking of $500 million to $750 million over a limited period. With those guarantees, the company would be able to borrow from private bankers who would otherwise turn down Chrysler as an unacceptably high risk. In case of default, taxpayers would be left holding the bag, and the Government would probably have to take over Chrysler and hope to sell off its vital parts....
The combination of squeeze and sacrifice is expected to meet the Treasury's conditions, but Congress will be harder to sell. The aid package will go before the banking committees of both the Senate and the House. Their chairmen, Senator William Proxmire and Representative Henry Reuss, both Wisconsin Democrats, opposed aid to Lockheed. "A terrible precedent," said Proxmire of the proposed Chrysler deal. Reuss expressed distaste for guaranteeing loans for Chrysler to build "gas guzzlers that nobody will buy." ...
Congress can also consider that if Chrysler fails, the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. may have to assume responsibility for about $800 million in insured but unfunded pension obligations to the auto company's employees. "That would be catastrophic," warned one agency official. To pay the bill, the PBGC would have to get special congressional approval to raise the fees that it charges for insuring other companies' pension funds....
That was more than 30 years ago.
ylsp: no, in fact he said they would buy mortgages from small independent types without enough volume for the BofA types. They accumulated, then sold to Bof A. He was low level type with no discernment for what was truly going on macro wiise. It was a brief encounter, but one where I sensed that the whole charade is still chugging along, maybe at a lower volume, but still going.
Made me think again that we weren't close to having the problem behind us, if anything, it's getting worser and worser and bigger and badder, and more concentrated as well within the FRE and FNMA arena.
Of course, I could be wrong.
mock turtle wrote:
I can see it from here.
sportsfan,
Yes it was Beal.
Here's an example of recent loan portfolio they bought from the FDIC:
9 performing residential/RE loans, book value $1.8M, sales price $143.8k.
I wonder if this loan sales information is FOIA'able?
This is far funnier than the cartoon:
Henry Merritt "Hank" Paulson, Jr. (born March 28, 1946) served as the 74th United States Treasury Secretary. He previously served as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs. In 2008, Time named Paulson as a runner-up for its Person of the Year 2008, saying, with reference to the Global Financial Crisis of 2008: "if there is a face to this financial debacle, it is now his.
YLSP wrote:
I can't imagine why it wouldn't be available. All sales are public and supposedly to the highest bidder.
still recalling snippets from conversation: he mentioned something about a loan to risk number, this of course escaped my fund of knowledge
he also said he was seeing packages with credit scores in the 620 to 650 range
another marker to tell me that we are getting screweder by the day
when will the madness end?
Sweet stuff:
'It came from Downing Street,' said Paulson . . . - Times Online
“Good luck,” McCarthy said curtly.
Geithner ended the call and rushed into Paulson’s office, where the secretary and Chris Cox were speaking, and recounted the conversation.
“I asked him if he was saying no,” Geithner said, “and he kept saying that he wasn’t saying no.” But clearly, Geithner complained, that’s exactly what he was saying.
Paulson was beside himself. “I can’t believe this is happening now.” After a brief discussion of strategy, Paulson ordered Cox, who was the only regulator in the room with legal authority over Lehman Brothers, to call McCarthy. Cox, Paulson thought to himself with a sense of annoyance, was supposed to have prewired these very regulatory issues. “I don’t want to be left here holding Herman,” the Treasury Secretary said, glancing at his zipper in case the joke wasn’t clear.
volker,
Why wouldn't you expect the current wild-fire low-end housing sales to be securitized and sold? That practice wasn't the problem it was the poor underwriting and due diligence of the buyers.
BEWARE THE ZOMBIES!!!
RockyR wrote:
again anecdotal: the anger is simmering and increasing
I see the process as much like grief, in stages;
Fear
Frustration
Anger
Bitterness
Resentment
ylsp: not in total disagreement, but once the securitization occurs, then the swaps happen, next the swap against the swap and the next thing you know ....
of course I could be wrong
He and I also talked a bit about CDS action and he was aware that the pyramiding was still going on.
That is the real problem, isn't it? the greed and corruption and total disregard for the bad effect it works on the whole system
I mean, one could sell hotcakes for a dollar apiece until one has most of the money and screw the next guy, perhaps a poor analogy, but what is the problem if not that? I really don't know because I'm an idiot.
Is Obama listening?
When you discover you are riding a dead horse, best strategy is to dismount. - - Dakota proverb
An H1N1 update. We had gone to the doctor, and our daughter had an ear infection. Two days later, she gets more symptoms, and they diagnose H1N1 over the phone. Younger brother has similar symptoms. They said not to bother to come in.
km4: YouTube - Bill Hicks on Presidential Agendas
km4 wrote:
I think the old boy changed horses in mid-stream. well, actually, just as he entered the water, to test it, he "changed" course.
BTW, YLSP, I do admire your tenacity in following congressional activity and other events related to the current meltdown. It's clearly a labor of love for you.
At your age I might have done the same thing, because I really did care about what was going on.
There actually even was a time when I charged windmills.
Since then, though, I've come to the realization that all it did was increase my blood pressure.
Hence, the 'modified limited dropout' that is now a decade old.
My goal for today is to go buy some candy for there will be kids coming around tonight.
Doc Holiday wrote:
unless he changed horses after watching the video
When was the last time sheep revolted? Even in Animal farm it was the pigs. The MSM and political accomplices have successfully distracted the sheep with irrelevant issues. Nuclear power on the left and gay marriage on the right.
sportsfan wrote:
That is why they are using printed money and taxpayers bodies to fill it back up.
This article from the WSJ was interesting for the whole extend and pretend game and why all these banks are going down the zombie route:
Banks Get New Rules on Property - WSJ.com
volker the viking wrote:
I was always amused (if that is the right word) how Obama and Palin's date, never came to grips with the reality of the economy and they both danced around the meltdown like it didn't exist -- primarily, because all their talking points and rhetoric were based on pre-conceived strategies that were at least two years behind what was going on! Now we have Obama, still in a daze and ignoring unemployment, as he cheers the jobless recovery on -- in a style that looks and sounds like what Bush was doing for 8 F'ing years (of hell)!!!
not clear why legitimate mortgage securitization is charade? The fact that it exists doesn't mean its not legitimate. My guess is that the private stuff is probably quite attractive right now. Without the benefit of a AAA rating the dumb money has left that leaves smart money to pick up assets at realistic prices. My guess is that the crap is in the FHA stuff and perhaps even stuff sold to FRE/FNM where buyers are depending on the US government explicit/implicit guarantee rather than their own due diligence.
If anybody hasn't given this a read yet, it's well worth it, and not really OT at all:
Asset inflation, price inflation, and the great moderation.
Interfluidity :: Asset inflation, price inflation, and the great moderation
Here's a snip:
This tale of two inflations helps to explain how we arrived at the unequal, credit-centric economy we have today. Central bankers are notoriously allergic to "wage pressure" as a harbinger of rising prices. Wages have two distressing properties: First, they are sticky. They represent repeated and persistent cash flows that cannot be downward adjusted en masse except during a serious crisis or dislocation. Second, a substantial fraction of wages goes to lower quintiles of the income distribution, who have a high marginal propensity to consume. Central bankers are not evil scrooges — they have nothing against consumption by poor people. But funding that consumption by wages limits the effectiveness of monetary policy. They'd prefer that the marginal dollar bound for consumption flow from a more malleable source...
The Obama agenda is very much like the Bush agenda:
"You know what the three most exciting
sounds in the world are?
It's A Wonderful Life
Script - transcript from the screenplay and/or Jimmy Stewart movie
Teacher says every time a bell rings,
an angel gets his wings.
Effective Demand wrote:
Subject of KDs latest rant. To be fair there are no ALL CAPS, very few bolds and only one ROTFL icon.
Rob,
KD? I'm drawing a blank, I'm sure once you spell it out I'll slap my head for being stupid.
volker the viking (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Sat, 10/31/2009 - 11:44 am
I see the process as much like grief, in stages;
Fear
Frustration
Anger
Bitterness
Resentment
Me too, volker, but as long as their own little bubbling view of the world remains more or less intact, folks are largely insulated from any of this process. The goal of TPTB from a PR standpoint is to do whatever it takes to ensure very few people have to acknowledge the reality beneath their bubble of complacency on a personal level.
Treasury & Fed still making money on their "investments, at CIT at least"
"Under the prepackaged plan, bondholders would receive about 70 cents on the dollar for their claims. The government’s $2.3 billion investment would likely be wiped out."
there has been a concentration of wealth at the expense of the middle class
there is a growing awareness
the pot boils
the voodoo dancers distract
fewer and fewer attend the party
the party, always with the party
Re: collectibles. The only reason to own them is because you love them. The only reason to deal in them is to fund the expansion of your collection. If you value a collectible for it asset value on the open market, sell it now. I strongly believe that their value will (continue to) drop -- partly because of the financial situation, partly because collecting is generational.
Objects collected by one generation are not valued by the next, especially as they're dumped on the market as the older generation ages. The only exception are those things which are true rarities, and those are affordable to few of us. (Edit: I make an exception for guns. People will collect guns forever. Go figure.)
And "old" is not "rare." Got a necklace downstairs an antiquarian friend bought from the British Museum made out of 5000-year-old Sumerian stone beads. You could replace it for a couple of hundred. Lots of old stone beads out there.
:bankerheadsonpikes:
YouTube -
KD? I'm drawing a blank,
Karl Denninger.
Keeping
producers employed 24x7 
My goal for today is to go buy some candy for there will be kids coming around tonight.
Some Georgia state legislator is trying to pass a bill that requires sex offenders to post "No Candy" signs on their lawns on Halloween.
KD has the award for most realistic looking hair piece, most histrionic exposition, and largest ego without need for improvement
Effective Demand wrote:
It was a good article. I realize a lot of people use 'extend and pretend' as a criticism or pejorative term, but I really don't see any other alternative that is viable at this time.
The 'extend' part is guaranteed. Whether the 'pretend' part will be realized in the future will depend on how many of these loans actually fail in the future.
In my simplistic mind any loan that is current on monthly payments is still a good loan.
crazyv,
It's way more than that. It's stuff like the argument between Fox News and Obama; political bickering over health care while ignoring the real debate. Death panels seem so far-fetched; however the government taking away children because their parents don't give them the H1N1 vaccine? But it's beneficials to both parties that these distractions take place.
It is true that issues like gay marriage and abortion are divisive, but that's only because a large number of the country hold pro/con positions that are essential core values and non-negotiable. Many Pastors I know say "I'll never vote for a candidate who is for abortion." Quite simply they should realize in holding this position they are limiting their options; additionally when is the last time there was a significant political debate or question on abortion? Maybe the health care debate will include one; but it seems the country is split enough. It seems more viable to support medical people who work on making fetuses more viable into the 1st tri-mester might be a better strategy than placing hope in politicians... additionally there are numerous other activities that can be focused rather than simply expecting a political solution to pop up. I don't think God cares much about the American political process; He cares more about people's hearts and character and relationship with Him and each other. How does supporting politicians from either party; who are scumbags and publicly exhibit such poor character that no matter if they go to church one has to doubt that they are "Christian"?
Sorry, is there an OT rant tag?
Oh yes, because we know that sex offenders typically target children on Halloween night, not. Hysteria is so much easier.
Ford workers say: (slice, there goes the nose) TAKE THAT, YOU FACE!!!!
No thanks on the cost cuts, guys... BK instead, please
ad at bottom of page: 16 monitors, two guys etc etc
hototcaction everyday
all they need is a tart in a tight sweater/short skirt/spiky heels perched on the desk
The 'extend' part is guaranteed. Whether the 'pretend' part will be realized in the future will depend on how many of these loans actually fail in the future.
In my simplistic mind any loan that is current on monthly payments is still a good loan.
Do you really believe that?
I mean.... if you were going to buy bonds based on those loans, would you pay par?
sportsfan wrote:
But the rules are about restructuring loans, cash flows will fall, I'd have to read the rules but it sounds like they get to take the monthly loss on cash flows but still consider the collateral value at the original value. Even though it has clearly fallen and the loan isn't performing under the original terms.
The banks will know how bad their book of business is and won't be doing any new lending. It isn't helping anyone but the FDIC, they get to take over the banks later instead of now as they should.
The Decoder: Jobless Recovery-Minyanville
The term “jobless recovery” is relatively new. Its first appearance in the media, according to a Factiva search, was in the New York Times on October 12, 1991. The story was pegged on sluggish retail sales, and the conclusion was that the economy was expanding because of productivity, not employment.
Again. Here's the problem (Denninger has correctly pointed out the problem, and that no one is willing to solve it beyond extending).
- America is dependent on borrowing, not only publicly but privately.
- How many businesses require borrowing to go forward with their business? It's not just companies with horrible business plans; but companies that are completely genius and awesome, world changing ideas.
- Its American policy, ie. Congressional policy that we need borrowing to continue in order to help foster our pro-business environment. So even if all sorts of capital is wasted on bad ideas, and non-viable companies; there's a benefit to our economy in developing disruptive/amazing world changing technology. This is not public borrowing; but private borrowing.
- If private borrowing dries up our economy dries up.
- Hence, in order to ensure America doesn't collapse every effort must be made to ensure banks and non-banks are loaning money and able to continue loaning money. Even if it requires artificially subsidizing these loans with public money (TARP).
- There's no concept that the consumer is dead, and any business with debt now is dead in the water; this is such an anathemic thought to American leaders, both politically and in business.
(Okay, here's where the CRE 'extend and pretend' comes in).
- When loans start to be impaired it impacts banks abilities to loan further money as money is tied up in loss reserves (I'm not exactly sure but I think this is why the regulators are involved).
- If money is tied up in ensuring capital reserve and other regulator ratios are met, that money cannot be used to give out loans to businesses of America.
Isn't this the whole reason we've had TARP and all the other programs of the past year! Why is any of this a surprise?
Compaining about the law, requirements and "shalls" is futile. We no longer live under "rule of law", but "rule of political will"; gee, why are there 10 million+ illegals in America? (I'm sure there are various other examples of 'rule of law" vs. 'rule of political will' in fact I'm sure someone can write a profitable book on the subject).
We are right to be upset that the American political leaders assume this is our countries will... or they just assume whats best for the country is that we don't suffer from economic collapse (or economic collapse is staved off by 5-10 years).
sportsfan wrote:
I suggest "cleanse and remand." "Extend and pretend" is the fiscal equivalent of drinking seawater.
People are upside down in their mortgages. Their mortgages are worth more than the houses that they live in. And that doesn't mean that they're going to default or millions will be foreclosed, but many millions more simply can't sell, can't move, can't change their circumstances, don't have a cushion. And that is a factor that will bring stress into their lives over time.
Perhaps I'm being picky, but isn't this statement incorrect. A collateralized debt can never be worth more than the collateral. The problem is for the lender, not the borrower. The mortgage has lost just as much value as the property...if not more.
Okay and now back to what volker was saying re: securitization. My concept is something like this, it might be wrong and I may have missed a number of issues on CDS, etc.
So basically:
"Lender of America" makes a loan to John Smith. Say its a $50k loan fixed over 5 years.
"Lender of America" decides that they want to sell off the last 4 years of payments (securitization).
They sell off the last 4 years of payments to "Buyer of loans".
Buyer of loans buys some type of insurance (CDS?) that will ensure if the payer cannot pay for those 4 years, they will get paid.
They eventually sell off the last 3 years of loans to "2nd buyer of loans". However, they still hold insurance on the 3 years which they no longer will lose money on.
The 2nd buyer will buy insurance on the final 3 years.
If this process repeats itself you'll have 2 claims on the 3rd year payments, 3 claims for the 4th year payment, and 4 claims on the 5th year payment. The problem is the insurance can only cover 1 claim; as there was only 1 year of payments.
Is this right, or am I confused? Why isn't someones job to crack down and regulate on the insurance sales? Who has authority to regulate on the insurance sales?
said Rob dawg
"extend and pretend is the fiscal equivalent of drinking seawater"
i couldnt agree more
Let me pick up on your rant- the same people who have a strong view on abortion also have a strong view on government provided health care. If these people were honest or even moral in their pro- life position they would be advocating for pre and post natal care, improved education funding for college a living wage etc- all things that make it more likely that a woman would choose to have a baby. Ironically many women today don't have a real - "choice". The extra child is more than what they can afford. For too many right wing Christians ( it is not the Christian Right because there are left wing Christians) Christian thought is more important that Christian action. While there are many criticisms that can be leveled against the Vatican they at least are morally consistent - anti abortion, anti death penalty and pro social programs to take of the poor.
BTW the folks that I think are gutter slime are the so called moderates on abortion- those who would oppose abortion except for rape or incest. Is the fetus so conceived not worthy of life? Since when did how you were conceived determine your humanity? These gutter slime would put into law the equivalent of the original 3/5th person.
mock turtle wrote:
Sure you could. You could go all Karl on us.
I COULDN'T AGREE MORE!!!!!
See?
YLSP wrote:
I think we need to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water. Consumption is not bad only consumption financed with debt is. Borrowing is not evil and in fact is perfectly appropriate if invested in productive assets.
YLSP wrote:
pretty cool beans, huh?
unregulated means the pyramid grows and we get screweder and screwder
crazyv wrote:
well, that sums it up nicely
the conundrum resides in the second sentence
the world economy would be about half what it is now were it simply so
curious
sure the mortgages are worth more than the underlying value of the houses...on paper, the bottom original notional value
but of course we all know about jingle mail
and so galbraiths point is that the underpinnings of the old ways have fallen out
Eric wrote:
I mean.... if you were going to buy bonds based on those loans, would you pay par?
First of all, yes, I believe that. Secondly, I would never buy bonds based on loans. That is debt squared.
Every loan buyer or maker wants a good LTV ratio. When making a loan, that's easy. When buying a loan, evaluation of the collateral and calculation of a discount is all that's required to accomplish that.
Effective Demand, sure the FDIC benefits if fewer banks foreclose fewer loans and recognize fewer losses and thus don't go belly up.
As to what the modifications might entail, I really don't know what the banks will do. I do know there are lots of construction loans never converted to permanent financing that aren't being foreclosed because the borrower is still making interest only payments.
I think the big issue in the FDIC release yesterday was that the value of the collateral won't in itself cause a loan to become troubled if payments are current and the borrower is creditworthy and whatever else they said. I don't have any problem with that concept.
crazyv,
To be fair its far from us Christians who hold compromising positions and illogical thought action inconsistencies.
Thanks, barfly, and others for linking the galbraith interview. It's all you said.
YSLP
If it was categorized as insurance then you would be exactly correct. But CDS were never categorized as insurance they were "financial products". Your argument could also be extended to put or call options on stock. If you own a stock and buy a put then sell the stock the subsequently buyer buys puts etc. you would end up with the same situation far more put contracts than the outstanding stock. I would point out that if the language of many state statutes was literally interpreted than virtually every financial transaction becomes insurance along with the person who locks in your heating oil prices or the person whom you agree to pay a flat amount tor the season to plow your driveway. The point being somewhere an arbitrary line needs to be drawn.
Rob Dawg wrote:
I'VE DECIDED THAT I"M GOING TO BE KD FOR HALLOWEEN!!!
GODDAMNIT, WHY WON"T THIS UNDERLINE WORK!!!!!!!111!!11!! IT"S A DAMNED CONSPIRACY TO KEEP ME FROM UNDERLINING AND KCOOP IS THE MASTER OF THIS UNDERLINING CONSPIRACY, CURSED BE HIS SOUL!!!!
mock turtle wrote:
I thought seawater was tasty?
The temptation to drink seawater has always been greatest for sailors who have expended their supply of fresh water, and are unable to capture enough rainwater for drinking. This frustration is described famously by a line from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner:
"Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink."
Seawater - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
So my example is true re: securitization and CDS? Albeit a simplification, maybe?
YLSP- you are absolute correct hence my distrust of all organized religions. The test to me is not what you believe in but what you.do.
YSLP- your example is correct but unrealistic. It costs money to have bought insurance and most people will dispense with the insurance when they have no further use for it.
This cartoosnist is frequently off-mark...
the house should be fully inflated still, but with multiple patches, on a extra-hi foundation labeled FHA
In closing, this story seems to fit:
Navy destroyer's gun fired at Poland - UPI.com
A visit by a US Navy destroyer to Gdynia in Poland ended with a crew member accidentally firing three machine gun rounds ..
viking, I kind of like your locution... "screweder"
Maybe kcoop can make us a :screweder: icon
How much wood would a wood screw screw in a wood screw could screw wood?
no mention of 9 banks closed on yahoo news top stories
Somali pirates
Obama touting stimulous job creation
search for mid air collision
clinton makes personal bid to resume mideast talks...
A great outfit tonight for a couple of friends going out would be black sweats, 2 sided tape or clear packaging tape reversed around body, lots of cotton balls, a black ball nose, signs with slogans like (i didn't know I needed a downpayment for a home), (my credit score is 580 and I just got a 500K home), (that no interest home loan is the bomb)
A Flock of sheeple...
No, not correct. A home is not a productive asset in an economic sense.
Borrowing is not evil and in fact is perfectly appropriate if the lender has reasonable basis to believe the borrower can repay and the borrower has intent and clear ability to repay, without using further borrowing or speculative investing for repayment.
"We do not want churches because they will teach us to quarrel about God.......We do not want to learn that. We may quarrel with men sometimes about things on this earth. but we never quarrel about God." Chief Joseph, Nez Perce
some above say there is not difference between bush and obama (or obama and bush)
we will see...i can think of several...but heres a biggie
what if obama winds down both wars quickly (two years or less) and halves the costs pulling us forces back to safe bases?
note from the presentation below stiglits estimated a 3 trillion dollar number back then
he has revised that figure up an addition trillion or so since then
the 3 trillion dollar war...joseph stiglitz and linda balmes presentation at harvard more than a year ago
excerpt from harvard gazette
"The five-year-old Iraq conflict is America’s first “credit card war.” And like anyone who has run up a huge credit card bill knows, a credit card debt can turn into a crushing burden with long-term consequences. This, too, will be a legacy of the Iraq War.
That was the sobering assessment of an April 2 seminar at Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Business and Government as presenters — who included an Iraq veteran — attempted to estimate the true cost of the Iraq War both in dollars and in human lives.
“There were two decisions in this war: one, to go into Iraq in the first place,” said Linda J. Bilmes, Kennedy School lecturer in public policy. The second was that “we would fund this war by borrowing — putting the whole thing on the credit card. This is the first war in American history that has been funded this way.”
Contrary to long-standing impressions that “wars are good for the economy,” the Iraq conflict will have multiple negative economic effects both on the micro and macro level, claimed Joseph E. Stiglitz, Columbia University economics professor and Nobel Prize winner. “This war has been a particularly bad war for the economy.” Oil prices have increased, and resources that could have been spent here went elsewhere, Stiglitz said. Moreover, “this war has been totally funded by deficits, and deficits do have consequences.”
Prewar estimates put the cost at $50 billion, but already close to $1 trillion has been spent on the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan with no end in sight, Stiglitz said. The real tally is reflected in the title of Stiglitz and Bilmes’ new book, “The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict” (W.W. Norton, 2008).
After listening to the Moyer interview, you realize how tainted Obama has already become by his association with Geithner, and how much more tainted Obama probably will become before he wakes up.
In some ways, Obama is a transparent fool.
We sure do step up for everyone else in the world...yet the homeless grow, more children go hungry, families live in tents...the pigmen and all the cronies in govt. need a prodding...
I can't believe 10 million people can't get together an walk on dc to show the PTB who can seize control whenever..
they did in the 60's without the internet...amazing...
Yahoo! 404 - Page Not Found
Remember though, that in the Kubler Ross model, the last stage is "Acceptance".
/rant on
Bush's attempt to avenge the planned but not executed hit effort on his father's life, will at the end cost a few hundred thousand lives and ~3Trillion dollars. Nice work fellas. Roman Empire all over again!
/rant off
rich...a transparent fool?
like bush (dubya), or clinton or reagan...ok knda sorta like that
looks more to me he has been threatened or seduced...but i guess not fooled
Go for it Dawg. I'm sure your scatology will be elegant.
He won't. In fact, within two weeks, he'll deliver a "major address" in which he reaffirms America's commitment to see the fight in Afghanistan through until Al Qadea is eliminated. He won't say "until the Taliban is defeated" of course. He won't go that far.
You remember the defining characteristic of Obama that was pointed out by several people with first-hand knowledge of his character during the election? He's incapable of hard decision-making.
you realize how tainted Obama has already become by his association with Geithner, and how much more tainted Obama probably will become before he wakes up.
Timothy Geithner = Donald Rumsfeld 2.0
Let's call this credit what it is, The Home 'Seller' Tax Credit. Here in SoCal, the buyers end up paying much more than the $8,000 credit due to frenzied buying prompted by the tax credit.
It's the sellers that are making out with all the gains. That is, the banks and the former subprime mortgage brokers turned flippers who pay cash at the court house and flip the home in days to the some dumb first time FHA home 'buyer'. The flippers are making more money now than ever!
mock, I'm inclined to see a little bit of the fool in him. His whole campaign was mostly about issues other than the economy. By the day of the election the economy was in free fall mode and he was blind-sided by something he had not anticipated. So he went with the guys he thought knew how to fix it. He didn't choose well.
Early on I said Geithner was a transition choice and would be gone in a year. We'll see.
Later, folks.
Jack,
I talked to friend who supplies RMCR's to mortgage companies and he says that is the big thing right now in so cal, making 50-70K per deal.....amazing we circled back to 05
volker the viking wrote:
The insurance industry got organized for DC control very early on. By law, the Feds cannot regulate insurance companies since the insurers wanted only state regulation so they could control the action with more maleable regulators (aka easier and cheaper to buy).
Their is no federal agency that can control insurance company practices (except, SEC for securities/fraud issues, I believe, and they own the SEC as well cough Chris Cox **cough).
Unbelievable, but true. Incidentally, this history is a large part of the health insurers opposition to health care reform, because for the first time they'd have a federal regulator.
unregulated means the pyramid grows and we get screweder and screwder
Saw a yard sale sign. First thing on the list was 100 swords.
Got to be a collection.
Hmmm, a sword might be useful when the ammo runs out.
Snark/
crazyv wrote:
distrust of all religions (fixed it for ya)
rich
we will see, as with the geithner appointment...where i ate crow on these pages...i will admitt if im wrong
my prediction is obama will make every reasonable effort to wind down war spending
btw are you saying above that taliban equals alqaeda ("...until Al Qadea is eliminated. He won't say "until the Taliban is defeated" of course. He won't go that far...."
mark my words , you , we will never eliminate taliban from afghanistan unless we are willing to carpet bonb, commit mass murder and genocide
the afghan people are a regional tribal people...not even a country...and see americans as invaders
we had 8 years to kill bin laden and i wish we had...our time is up... and the odds are we will be facing similar fate of all the other empires that got bogged down in afghanistan where they have lived war almost non stop for more than a generation
on the flip side, you've got ERISA preempting state regulations of insurance that are actually effective.
Any way we can get political parties classified as religions? I guess there's no way to organize if any attempt at organizing and raising money to further political goals was considered a religion... so if a religion attempted to have a political party they might be successful at arguing they are organizing and furthering political goals related to their religion.
Amen.
rich
sportsfan
others
thanks for being willing and able for us to argue without descending into name calling and anger
i will keep my mind open to your criticism as the future unwinds...ready to change my opinion as experience demands
Perhaps amen wasn't quite the right word to use.
Basel Too wrote:
Right, Basel Two. Biz hates fed. regulation (that has teeth), until the little teeth in the states start to hurt, and then they love the Feds. It's like the GOP hates deficits unless they finance war and biz giveaways. Principles are fungible.
YLSP wrote:
Is there any way we can get religions classified as businesses?
why not
we already classify corporations as people
how much more tainted Obama probably will become before he wakes up.
Tainted?, I think not. Groomed, trained, and faithful to his masters?, Yes.
Not only did he choose Geithner, but gave Bernanke another term. Has Summers and Shapiro. Plus Rubin and Levitt as early advisors. Gary Gensler, and the recent appointment of Adam Storch (29yr old from Goldman). Rahm And Eric Holder, Mostly from the Clinton years most popular for the demise of Glass Steagall, WTO, and NAFTA. to name a few off the top of my head
ot- have to rub it in, bought 2 tickets to see U2 in Athens, Greece next year....only drawback is I could lose the girlfriend to some Greek Adonis guy though
'Cooling out marks is how institutions persuade people to accept things they think are wrong...Did the economy cheat you, fire you...Listen, the motivational speaker explains, it's not the economy's fault...'
Cooling the Mark Out (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought)
In 1952, sociologist Erving Goffman's 'On Cooling the Mark Out, Some Aspects of Adaption to failure' appeared in Psychiatry
Madoff's recent comments from jail that the SEC was never aware that anything was wrong with Madoff's ponzi operation is a way to 'cool the marks out' by making it possible to accept losses because of the ineptitude of the regulators which made the scam inevitable. It shifts the responsibility for the Sting on to the SEC in the minds of the marks and makes it possible for them to accept their losses. If the marks do not accept their losses, they will 'squawk', 'beef' or be angry and not accept their losses and maybe come after the operators.
When the theory that our administrators and leaders are simply 'idiots' and inept and the economy simply spiraled out of control...this is a form of 'Cooling the Mark Out' so that losses can be accepted because they were inevitable or an 'accident' that couldn't have been prevented because nobody knew what was happening as they were simply 'idiots'...
VtV @ 11:04 am
Also anecdotal, but I have a neighbor who is in the mortgage brokerage business. He says BoA has always been particular about what they buy. He always went to others when he had something edgey. FWIW
Politics OT: (but amazing: the Republicans don't have a candidate now in the race for NY-23 congressperson)
Dede Scozzafava, the Republican and Independence parties candidate, announced Saturday that she is suspending her campaign for the 23rd Congressional District and releasing all her supporters.
The state Assemblywoman has not thrown her support to either Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party candidate, or Bill Owens, the Democratic candidate . . .
Election is 3 days away...
Being particular is no big help if what you buy goes down 40% in
value. Even honest appraisers can't just ignore a whole series of
comps that seem to validate the sales price. Since stuff has gone
down 55% or more in value in South Florida, and about 30 % in Brevard
(I'm told), the only wise thing to have done was to simply shut down
business, or almost shut down, for a few years. Big corporations
are not able to do that.
I could lose the girlfriend to some Greek Adonis guy
Say a Aristotle Onassis lookalike....lots of body hair, ear hair, nose hair and squat.......shudder. Even that amount of $$$$ couldn't make me blind. Don't know how Jackie O did it........bleh
rps wrote:
that comment assumes that he wasn't tainted to begin with. I think many of us who voted for him were misled ( like all good cons we needed to believe after the Bush years) and he has turned out to be just another crooked Chicago politician. For those who still have the rose colored glasses there are three questions they need to ask themselves (a) why were GM bond holders wiped out but Citicorp bond holders and shareholders protected (b) why were WAMU bondholders wiped out (c) how come the Treasury didn't get the same terms as Buffet from lending money to GS? I am sure that there are convoluted theories to explain those but then again in keeping with Occam's Razor there is a simple explanation- the GM bond holders were average Joe - a hold over from when it was a widow and orphans company while the bond holders at Citicorp and the financial institutions were the "master of the universe".
Ethan wrote:
Explains why they tookover Countrywide.....snark/
MoF:
Yep, that's just the blunt truth. I wonder when it will dawn on the American public that they've been taken. A germ of the idea has taken root, but it is not really mainstream, being still restricted to the smarter folks watching PBS and reading blogs, ahem, and younger activists less concerned about the politics of protesting.
Incidentally, the link posted by MoF above is well worth reading. I recognized two of the nastier episodes of my working life as having fitted in with the model described. Once again, the only way to win is to refuse to play the game.
Maybe Ari was masterful in bed and charming in person, so
you forgot how ugly he was.
Not to worry, cclt. I read recently
The Greeks invented sex.
Centuries later the Italians invented sex with women.
anon bosch-
no wonder I hang out with Italians!
I just looked at craigslist vacation rentals in greece and hit the goldmine....
mock,
It is the Taliban we are fighting in Afghanistan, not Al Qaeda.
The Taliban has a military, a hierarchy, commanders, tanks, a few airplanes, etc.
Yet, you will never hear Obama's lips move and say that we are at war with the Taliban.
How can you invest this much taxpayer money and this many lives in a war, and never tell the American people exactly whom you are fighting against? The purpose of any war in Afghanistan should be to defeat the Taliban army. But Obama won't define it and can't say it.
As I mentioned on another thread...'A related prodedure for cooling the mark out is found in what is called stalling...'
But when the cooling out and the blow off does come...''An attempt is made to define the situation for the mark in a way that makes it easy for him/her to accept the inevitable and go home.'
On Cooling the Mark Out
Believing that this whole clustermess was caused by 'idiocy' or ineptitude is a way for people to accept their losses(cooling out) in the stock market, housing, pensions, 401Ks, their jobs, etc. If any of this could have been prevented because some of the leaders knew what was happening and went ahead anyway with failed policies, the marks would not accept their losses and may be angry and want justice(squawking).
What if he wasn't masterful in bed and ugly as a ogre, obnoxious in person, and so you never forgot that you married for $$$$$? I think Jackie married him for security for her kids after JFK and RFK were murdered.
rps-that makes sense..I betcha his security team was top notch....
He would have made a better human shield if he'd been a bit taller. Perhaps platform shoes...
Jonathan,
Yeah...And when people start to think through the fog and 'cooling out' period, the economy will tank even more and then just making ends meet will be the priority, rather than trying to figure out what actually happened...
Punk scene in Boston has always had all the answers.
YouTube - Human Sexual Response - Jackie Onassis
I had the album (an ancient technology also known as licorice pizza).
Now, don't make break out Father Christmas lyrics.
joe in flyover wrote:
that's with the grief gig
anger has a final stage as well, and it is not acceptance
The Bankers, on Halloween night,
Are careful to stay out of sight,
For fear they'll be seen
In the hideous mien
That's different from that in the light.
Re: Jobless Recovery (JR): YouTube - Elton John Teacher I Need You - Live in Sydney 1984
The end, amen...
No wait, read that again:
New job numbers from businesses, contractors, state and local governments, nonprofit groups and universities
This also implies that jobs were lost at universities, because some people that have moved on, are replaced by new students that get new workstudy jobs, so this statistic of job creation, needs to be clarified and put into perspective in terms of new jobs....
crazyv wrote:
That was rich's opinon. Mine is that he was groomed. I was never under the illusion Obama was anything but the new lap dog. He was too young, inexperienced, and a mediocre senator. Only thing he has going is his ability as the speechifier. He reads well from the blue monitor.
The wars will on until we realize there is no Afghanistan. There are Iran, Iraq, India, Pakistan, and Other.
On one's ever conquered them, much less pacified them. Lately the CCCP learned this lesson the hard way. But apparently the Masters of the Universe don't learn lessons from others.
Cool.
crazyv
i absolutely agree that we have been ripped off, robbed , screwed and what ever similarly appropriate terms you want to put on it...by the bankstas and that obama is in bed with the banking oligarchy
i suspect he chose his bed partners and enemies with some degree of calculation
he chose to take on the petrochemical-oil coal -complex, the medical insurance industry, and try to curb the military ambitions of empire, and move towards reducing the growth in CO2 emissions....
his calculus may have been that he needed to court , date and couple with the financiers
i dont know these things...obviously im on the outside looking in
"Kubler Ross" is not the correct script. Think more "Les Miserables."
One good thing coming from the Unemployment Bill re: TARP.
Corker-Warner Amendment has been agreed to. This will create three trustees to watch over the US stake in bailed out companies.
`designated TARP recipient' means any entity that has received, or will receive, financial assistance under the Troubled Asset Relief Program or any other provision of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (Public Law 110-343), such that the Federal Government holds or controls, or will hold or control at a future date, not less than a 20 percent ownership stake in the company as a result of such assistance;
The "good" Roman Emperors often conducted wars personally,
and risked death, and did die in them. Sometimes they were
foolish wars too.
On the other hand, dying in your bed was usually not very pleasant,
and Roman doctoring, though better than medicine was for more than a
thousand years, was not at all good at chronic diseases of the
elderly. And you got to be elderly way sooner than now, tho lifespans were
relatively high after childhood.
I'd like to see our presidents occasionally go in harm's way.
AB: I was trying to snarf down some late soup for lunch...now I need to clean that mess up! LOL.
YLSP wrote:
Well, that means that the TARPists will find a way to get the gov't share under 19% for existing and new giveaways.
Anonymous Bosch wrote:
Go Spartans. All those football teams named after a.....well, ah, most apropos.
YLSP wrote:
There are still some of us who remember when this was a constitutional republic and stuff like this needed to specifically allowed by the laws of the land and there used to be people who respected and defended those concepts.
rps wrote:
No wonder those coaches are so popular with the players. They call it 'mentoring'
rich wrote (in reply to...) on Sat, 10/31/2009 - 11:33 am
mock,
"....It is the Taliban we are fighting in Afghanistan, not Al Qaeda...." (and obama wont say it)"
rich i dont agree that obama views the war in afghanistan as necessarily against the taliban
i suspect obama has delayed funding and troup decisions until the rigged karzi election issue is resolved
because to have the people view us as supporting an unpopular puppet regime would be the kiss of death for our forces
yesterday, secretary clinton challenged the taliban to put down violent insurgency and run as a legitimate political force in national elections
if the taliban agreed to expell AQ(which i dont think they will agree), but if...and exchange politics for violence then the us would not engage the taliban militarily
i can give testimony and links re people who see us taking a live and let live reaction to taliban in certain tribal areas where insurgency is not active
bottom line...the wars in iraq and afghanistan and the 800 plus foreign bases usa has around the world etc is at least an equal part of bankrupting our nation as social - welfare programs...and maybe more because
both wars have been funded with credit cards where as
social security, however wobbly and medicare, have taxes levied and assigned to them...
so shouldnt we have a war tax to level the field?
a war tax and a draft that excludes nobody but the totally mentally
or physically incapacitated, and includes people up to say 35, both
men and women (who haven't served already) and a war tax should
suffice to eliminate all but the most truly necessary wars.
Who cares what you call the people? We are fighting with the people of Afghanistan, period.
I think Obama should listen to Matthew Hoh. There's no one else I would trust on commenting on the Afghan war, than someone who has been in the boots on the ground.
Economic inertia...and the creation of perceived external threats...
'Organizing Societies for War'
Societal militarization and international violence
(The author)...'conceives of militarization as a process that is driven by several factors. Some, such as international technological development, external threats, and political and economic inertia are quite standard in the literature...contributions to militarization are...the manipulation or creation of a perceived external threat by national elites.'
JSTOR: Mershon International Studies Review, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Oct., 1995), pp. 266-268
lawyerliz wrote:
double Booh Ya
Also, anyone up to say 40 who has ever has a bonus of 1m or more
gets to spend at least a couple of years eating sand.
"i can give testimony and links re people who see us taking a live and let live reaction to taliban in certain tribal areas where insurgency is not active"
Which would leave the central government in Kabul where?
i absolutely agree to mandatory, universal ,military service required of every american citizen
you could elect to serve before, during or after post secondary education, trade school 4 year or community college etc
but everybody gives a minimum of 2 years and in war time there would be extensions
You mean like the Swiss?
"a war tax and a draft that excludes nobody but the totally mentally
or physically incapacitated, and includes people up to say 35, both
men and women (who haven't served already) and a war tax should
suffice to eliminate all but the most truly necessary wars. "
Better yet, require military service (or other hard, dangerous national service) to vote, like in Starship Troopers.
I love a good limerick, barfly.
+10
Totally OT but my all-time favorite.
Ethnologists out with the Sioux
wired home, "Send two punts, one canoe."
The reply came the next day,
"The girls are on the way,
but what in the world is a panoe?"
Ok and older people who have never served get to answer phones
or something after retirement.
Nobody escapes, except the totally incapacitated. And if you escaped
already, you get pulled in. Legislators too, after they retire.
I'm signing up to roll up doobies for the troops, liz.
Congressional Medical Care for everyone.
One level goddamned playing field.
(meant as agreement with to the present tangent of the discussion)
lawyerliz wrote:
Read an article sometime back about two strategies in nature for breeding the next generation -- the rabbit method and the elephant method. Rabbit method = having a lot of offspring, pushing them out into the world; if most of them get slaughtered, still some survive since you had so many. Elephant method = have few but nuture them, put a lot of time and energy into raising them over a long time. The argument was that human reproduction had been a little closer to the rabbit model throughout history -- have as many children as possible, expect to lose some. But the advanced countries have lately gone elephant -- few offspring, major investment in each, not expecting to lose any.
Our "all-volunteer" army harvests the remaining rabbits, the ones who haven't been invested in, the ones who are disposable. And a few patriots. Damned few of the privileged. When the elephants have to send their children to war, there will be no discretionary war.
Your contribution is welcome.
I don't think hard dangerous service is necessary to earn voting--just
your 2 years, but should be to run for office.
Amazing how Heinleins ideas stay current, at least as ideas.
*
*
It might be an even better strategy to: (1) make sure girls have something more to look forward to/things to do, then getting pregnant--have things they want to do and the ability to be able to do them or work towards doing them: (2) easy & educated access to various methods of birth control; (3) if they get pregnant anyway, then access to good pre-natal care, and affordable day care afterwards so, at a minimum, the mother can finish highschool, if not continue on to a trade/vocational or community college.
Wouldn't hurt to educate males regarding the facts of life either, since it seems so easy for them to father & walk away.
I continue to think it'd be useful to put every since anti-choice person on the list of those willing to adopt at least 3 children, of any race, either sex, no matter how many developmental or other problems that child might have. Let them live with the results of no choice or poor choices that they wish to mandate for others.
universal service might be just the ticket to impel society to act against the system
could make it more interesting too
Closed poll results for "Is the Recession Over?":
Yes. The numbers don't lie. 5% (2 votes)
No. Subsequent revisions will erase recent positive indicators. 41% (17 votes)
Doesn't matter. This is the new economy. Get used to it. 54% (22 votes)
"There's no one else I would trust on commenting on the Afghan war, than someone who has been in the boots on the ground."
Without evaluating his assertions, I would observe that he was in Afghanistan for five months, as I understand it as a foreign service officer.
'(Obama) he chose (to) curb the military ambitions of Empire.' Really? Using drone bombing.
Pavel said, "Which would leave the central government in Kabul where?"
i hate to say it but afghanistan may be ungovernable by any quasi western style federal system located in kabul or anywhere else... assuming means less than that of a tyrant
afghnaistan is not a country... it is a collection of tribal areas
we have managed to unite them once again, in their hatred for foreigners
we should have killed osama bin laden and wiped out his forces 8 years ago in the mountains of torra borra
but rumsfeld directed the us military to back off
i guess
because the bush administration needed bin laden to live on... to fuel the hate and fear necessary to per sue the war in iraq
Obama has resurrected the 'anti-war' movement since he reversed himself on 'war policy' after getting elected...
Scrooge was not evil, before his transformation. Just a banker.
It should be 23 votes, I thought about it that 22nd is a hanging chad so the voting methods were too arcane for a real election...snark/ The real truth is that we live in a nation ruled by smelly old people (vs the real old folks like me who don't smell so bad) who sold out a long time ago, the rest of us are collateral damage in maintaining their status.
1 currency now -yogi wrote:
Read the story. Scrooge was originally a quite pleasant and generous fellow turned evil by banking.
I'm honestly waiting for some unknown group from the mountains of Utah to make life more interesting in the not too distant future. Seriously.
Now that I've cleaned up my soup mess I'm typing: Right now the bankers resembling the Snidley Whiplash and Nell unable to pay the rent, only problem is, we don't have any heroes to come galloping in to save the day.
Funny how cartoons and comedians often get it right more than historians.
This poster unreservedly supports the Patriot Act.
I think mandatory service is a horrible idea, especially under a corrupt government.
Utah? way too nice a folk, think Appalachians or Cascades or North Georgia
Link to the NY-23 story
Scozzafava Suspends Congressional Race - Politics News Story - WPTZ Plattsburgh
I never did understand Ruby Ridge.
Those people were nutz, but they were keeping to themselves,
and no threat to the republic. I have never heard an explanation
of the firepower employed.
merchants of fear
partially quoted me at- 12:12 pm
as follows
'(Obama) he chose (to) curb the military ambitions of Empire.' ... and then added a question
Really? Using drone bombing.
my complete quote was
he chose to take on the petrochemical-oil coal -complex, the medical insurance industry, and try to curb the military ambitions of empire, and move towards reducing the growth in CO2 emissions....
let me repeat
and try to curb the military ambitions of empire
the key word is try
i dont think he has been successful, yet and may not be (edit not successful so far)
drone warfare should be outlawed and is repugnant
carpet bombing is ugly and repugnant and horrific
war is hell ..and...all who played any significant part in a war of choice will have to answer to a higher authority with consequences i believe
OK...then West Virgina-I come from Deliverance country, (Smoky mountains) no offense meant but surely you have some feral people up that way?
Read the story.
Scrooge believed his worker Cratchit should be paid according to the letter of the contract: no welfare just because it was Christmas. Do Republicans now call that evil?
I'm still waiting for you to put up complaints about Brad Sherman, or ...
lawyerliz
I never did understand Ruby Ridge.
I believe it was "resisting arrest", liz. That's fatal, no matter where or when.
See: Tazer deaths.
That thing was a power trip I think Liz. Yeah there was some nasty stuff going on there with kids I think but the firepower was so over the top. Janet Reno broke a whole bunch of constitutional laws that day.
Yeah, but couldn't they just have had a siege?
"Those people were nutz, but they were keeping to themselves,
and no threat to the republic. I have never heard an explanation
of the firepower employed."
They failed to respect someone' s ay-thar-ay-tay.
Like at Waco?
pavel, re: Hoh
Yes and in his 5 months on the ground he was able to become one of the top US leaders of a dangerous Afghanistan province? What are the people who have been over there longer doing? Certainly not getting out and understanding anything about Afghanistan, right?
- Afghanistan is not in a 35 year old long civil war?
- Does US presence and support of the government work against the goals of the Pashtun insurgency, which causes them to figure and oppose us?
- Is it not true that to follow logic of US intervention that US should occupy Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, and Pakistan areas as well?
- Is our involvement worth the costs borne by America's armed forces?
ewww, I got Ruby Ridge and Waco confused, I do things like that. sorry.
Giving guns and money to the government is like giving whisky and car keys to teenagers." P.J. O'Rourke
(or words to that effect)
feralpig wrote:
Sound money also has this quality. The inability of the government to counterfeit currency is indispensable in preventing unnecessary wars. I refer you year to Antal Fekete's latest essay, describing how the elimination of sound money in 1909 lead quickly to the War to End All Wars. Recall that this followed the most peaceful century in modern European history.
link
Liz,
Randy Weaver - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The thing is I know Janet Reno a bit. The hub worked under her,
and he found her intimidatingly intelligent and very honest, and not
particularly pressurable by political power. She only held office for
a month or so when it happened. I doubt if she planned anything
nefarious, and if she had, it would have been well done.
I think that something else was going on there.
'Central bankers are not evil scrooges.' Cooling the mark out.
RATM (profile) wrote on Sat, 10/31/2009 - 12:20 pm
I think mandatory service is a horrible idea, especially under a corrupt government.
i respectfully disagree
universal service is an obstacle to tyranny...everybody has skin in the policy decision to go to war
its not perfect obsticle and we have seen it abused
but professional armies are a greater risk
thats why our constitution for bids the maintenance of standing armies
but we have let our government violate this constitutional pricipal since the civil war
the framers believed in an armed population that was drilled( regulated) on a state level
and every citizen owned their fire-arms and brought same to the formations of the militia
ie
the second amendment is not about defending my sorry ass as i walk at midnite thru the park
(although it protects that right too)
its about maintaining military power in the hands of the people... to overthrow a government like hitlers nazi germany or stalins russia (ussr) where
and if and... only if ...violence has been used by despots to destroy the lawfull authority AND all other democratic and republican means have failed
(all other means) ps emphasis i am not a proponent of force or violence as a first, second or third alternative...people must do everything reasonably possible to avoid violence
i hate to say it but I think people should at least get their facts right. This meme that Afghanistan is ungovernable as taken hold without any kind of serious study. For a period of 40 years from 1930 to the late 60's they were at peace and had a king- I went to school there in the 50's. Although have few memories my father who was a diplomat remembered the Afghans as a gentle and friendly people. It is only when it became the battle ground of the super powers (along with Angola, Somalia) that things went south. BTW Alexander did conquer what is today Afghanistan although then known as Bacteria- in fact there was a Greek influence in that region long after Alexander. Also the Mongols had no problem subjugating that part of the world- admittedly they used tactics that would be unthinkable.
However, Afghanistan as it presently constructed - another legacy of the British Empire is an artificial state- with more Pashtun's on the Pakistani side of the Durand line then there in Afghanistan. I do know one thing - the United States can't want stability more than the Afghans. We can stick all the troops into Afghanistan for whatever reason we want to make up - if we don't have Afghan partners (either a central or regional player) that the people trust we will bleed to death. The problem we have is that as a Democracy we can't do the things that are necessary to achieve military subjugation - heck even the Soviets couldn't be a brutal as they needed to be. Thus without a partner our troops will stuck in the middle unable to do what it takes militarily and unable to do anything politically. Having McCain/Cheney complain about dithering just goes to show that beyond being bombastic they have no comprehension of the world.
"Yes and in his 5 months on the ground he was able to become one of the top US leaders of a dangerous Afghanistan province?"
YSLP, As I wrote, above, I can't evaluate his ideas. I don't know enough about Afghanistan, and I've never been there. It seems to me though that we can't just leave, at least not now.
I think there will be an attempt to apply the strategy that worked fairly well in Iraq: co-optation.
LIz,
Reno just plain old blew through centuries of Federal constraints to power. There are words for that. None of them pleasant.
mock turtle,
The manipulation and/or creation of a perceived external threat becomes an increasing actual creation of an external threat when civilians are killed in the occupations...
Obama is a good pitch man and he can convince us at first maybe he is trying to curb Empire but the anti-war Left are losing their patience with his carefully crafted teleprompter speeches that sound soothing and reassuring but the message is lost when the actual policies are being implemented...basically more troop surges...and stay the course...
lawyerliz wrote:
????? It really doesn't matter. She took a lot of heat for it though as did she not possess the power to change that approach or perhaps someone elsewhere with the need to prove their manhood ran roughshod over her. humm. This is interesting, thanks for sharing that.
If Scrooge was evil, "evil Scrooge" would be redundant.
The very best con games are the ones in which the players in the middle, like the young mortgage man discussed above, don't even see the con, and the ones at the top can easily rationalize their own participation: "can't bring down the house of cards, now..."
crazyv
i agree with almost all of what you said just above
and i was suggesting ungovernable using western federal gov principals
however
a kingdom recognized by the people......i tip my hat to you
and i defer to you greater knowledge of the afghan people as you have direct experience and i have only book learning
I thought Janet Reno had nothing to do with Ruby Ridge?
mock turtle - you are absolutely right. An all volunteer army is the death knell of Democracy. There should be a simple law - all military action must be paid for with a tax. Only with the two can be make sure that politicians don't use military action for political purposes.
BTW if people think the Patriot act was set up to combat Islamic terrorism- I have bridge to sell you. It was done so as to preclude the possibility of any kind of violent domestic revolution. Having gutted the political process the PTB had to ensure that the other avenue for people to get out of their oppression had to be closed of .
I got it confused with Waco. sorry.
You mean Bactria, of course.
She didn't gain power as a result, I don't think.
All I'm saying is she kept Clinton in line, and succeeding
to power that way is just not at all consistant with what I knew of
her character. Hmmm, do I mean Waco?--like Nanoo I get confused.
If I confuse Waco with Ruby Ridge, Bactria can be confused with
Bacteria.
The point is the same.
The draft was generally hated when people could see no 'progress' was being made in Vietnam (stalemate?) and it was becoming an 'endless war' like the 'wars' we have now...with no prospects of 'victory' in the foreseeable future...just more surges and 'stay the course'...
Wiki - Ruby Ridge
Someone brought up Fidelity on the prior post. A small OT tidbit is that Fidelity will begin managing GE's 401(k) program beginning Dec 7th. No mention of fees but I will assume Fidelity will take a larger slice than GE did. Owners of GE common will be given shares in a Fidelity GE fund created for the purpose.
Also - salaried employees and dependents of GE will lose their PPO insurance program which will be replaced by an annual deductible program. Thus costs and risks are being transferred from GE to it's employees (hard to quantify but why else would GE do it?).
I actually recall when benefits improved each time GE union's contracts were re-negotiated. Pre-Reagan, pre-Welsh.
Jim
1 currency now -yogi (profile) wrote on Sat, 10/31/2009 - 2:41 pm
The very best con games are the ones in which the players in the middle, like the young mortgage man discussed above, don't even see the con, and the ones at the top can easily rationalize their own participation: "can't bring down the house of cards, now..."
The shark is just another mark to a shark with more authority/energy/knowledge...
Wrong thread but of possible interest:
http://wednesdayjournalonline.com/main.asp
"On the day that Oak Park-based Park National Bank received $50 million in federal tax credits from the U.S. Treasury for use in its work to build low-income housing on the West Side, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was seriously threatening to take over the bank's parent company, First Bank of Oak Park Corporation.
The irony was played out at a West Side press conference this morning attended by everyone from Timothy Geithner, the U.S. Treasury secretary, to U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, U.S. Senator Roland Burris [and others]. The confab was part congratulatory and part a bottom-of-the-ninth swing to save the bank from being taken over by the feds, possibly as early as close of business today...."
I would say Bair has won a round against Geithner.
mock Turtle- the absurdity of our position is best illustrated by the campaign against poppy. The argument goes that because the Taliban makes their money from the drug trade we have destroy the poppy fields. Essentially we take it out on the guy just trying to make it- the person whose heart and mind we are trying to win. Smarter policy would be allow them to grow all the poppy they want to providing that they sell it all to us.- that has a far better chance of working than convincing them that they need to grow wheat in desert. Ironically because there are so many NGO handing out food aid the farmers can't get a fair price for their crop.
I would add that it is our stupid war on drugs which is at the core of the illegal money funding these terrorist organizations. If we legalized drugs it would the quickest and most expedient way of cutting of the money flow. It is our basic problem we want an empire , we want to behave like an imperial power but we don't want the responsibility or criticism or guilt from doing morally dubious things.
Merchants of fear
wrote in part
"...Obama is a good pitch man and he can convince us at first maybe he is trying to curb Empire but..."
you might be right
i pray to God you are honestly mistaken
or we are in more dire straights than even i imagined thus far
and i already lie awake at night
Wow, Thanks...I was way, way busy with life during that time and didn't know all the details (and thus my confusion over particular events). I also didn't know that was the reason for the OC bombing. I had to serve jury duty for a federal criminal case in downtown Atlanta 1 year after that. Needless to say the federal building access made jury duty an even bigger pain in the rear than normal.
In the mortgage con some of the highish players obviously believed their
own lies, they bought even more leveraged real estate with their ill gotten
gains and many of them lost everything.
This madness affected huge swathes of the population. Some of my clients
quietly made money for years and years, buying houses in bad repair, fixing
them and selling for a profit. And, there was NOTHING wrong or evil about that.
The problem was that everybody else tried to get into the same game,
and didn't know what they were doing and the ones that had been doing it
for many years if not decades didn't perceive that their long time business had
become unviable.
Some of my clients go into it at the worse possible time 2005-2007.
s
Some were stupid and greedy, some put down a lot of money and
obviously had no bad intentions. It didn't matter. I'm sure there were
Dutch who had been in the tulip bulb business for years with moderate
success. . . and then. . . .
George Clooney and Oprah Winfrey as well as key lobbyists and fundraisers were some of the first to visit the Obama White House, records show.
BBC NEWS | Americas | White House visitor list revealed
YouTube - BankersBallProtest
Bob Dobbs,
wonderfully said. Thank you.
mock,
Don't forget that Obama has 'advisors' or maybe even 'handlers' but 'advisors' is the more accepted and popular term...Presidents have these 'advisors' to help them decide policy as is common knowledge and is not surprising...he has 'Czars' to help him decide and implement policy...'Czars is obviously an unfortunate term and you have to wonder why this 'loaded' description is even being used...
crazyv
you make good points
and
i simply believe
the so called war on drugs is a sham
the rain just let up here in south puget sound...going out to cut fire wood
best to you all
Ruby Ridge was a Daddy Bush op.
In the mortgage con some of the highish players obviously believed their
own lies, they bought even more leveraged real estate with their ill gotten gains and many of them lost everything.
"eep, eep"
(the world's smallest violin playing the world's shortest sad song)
Ending the "war on drugs" is most strenuously fought by Prosecutors and LE officials. It's job security. Screweder the victims.
merchants of fear
quick response, yeah the entire czar meme is a non starter with me too
bush had so called czars and so did clinton and on back
Well, I used to believe the war on drugs should simply be abolished.
Then my son went to work for a methadone clinic and observed extremely
ruined lives caused by drugs.
But not pot. I suggest we legalize and tax pot and see what happens.
And buying the whole poppy crop wouldn't be a bad idea.
The thing is, I think all those powerful people meet at the top, and
legalization would end monopoly profits.
After reading the wiki article on Ruby Ridge, it sounds like a nightmare come true. Scary.
oooh a flatulent AND Fraudulent housing market. hehehee
liz,
There's a saying in the 'drug recovery' community that one can graduate 'from weed to speed'...
What's so important about a NY state senate race? I've seen it popping up in multiple places.
mock turtle wrote:
genau
merchants of fear wrote:
exactly why a draft is a good idea, BTW, the only thing
I agree with Charlie Rangle about
OT somewhat, but there is a good book (might have been a long article somewhere) about Beale and his run at Vegas poker.....