Just a joke.....

A friend sent this to me -- I don't know who authored it, but I thought I would share.

Sarah Palin was seated next to a little girl on an airplane trip back to Washington.

She turned to the little girl and said "Let's talk. I've heard that the flights go quicker
if you strike up a conversation with your fellow passenger."

The little girl, who had just opened her book, closed it slowly and said to Palin, "What would you like to talk about?"

"Oh, I don't know," said The Palin. "How About ‘What changes should I make to help America"? And she smiled.

"OK," the little girl says. "That could be an interesting topic. But let me ask you a question first¦

A horse, a cow, and a deer all eat the same stuff - grass.

Yet a deer excretes little round pellets, while a cow turns out a flat patty, and a horse produces clumps of dried grass. Why do you suppose that is?"

Palin, visibly surprised by the little girl's intelligence, thinks about it for a second and finally says, "Hmmm, I really have no idea."

To which the little girl replies, "Do you really feel qualified to do anything for America when you really don't know SHIT?"

Maybe I was just not paying enough attention...

What did Bush know and when did he know it?

Oh, not about weapons of mass destruction….. No this is about the mortgage / banking / insurance fiasco. We are all guilty – people were trying to tell us, and until it hit in our own neighborhood most of us did not pay any attention.

I have found information that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was trying to get people to listen about the mishandling of funds when Spitzer was brought down – this article was from February 14, 2008.

As a reminder of history – Elliot Spitzer was disgraced by being discovered in a hotel room with a very expensive call girl. He left office and the people did not have the benefit of what he was trying to say.

Elliot Spitzer, a Democrat, was previously in the DA’s office of NYC, moving up to District Attorney. In that capacity he took on the .coms, the stock market, financial organizations – and did it like prior organizations took on organized crime.

Here’s a Wikipedia link to some basic information about Elliot Spitzer.

But I am starting to think that the “people who watch people” were keeping a close watch on Mr. Spitzer in order to discredit him and shut him up. He wrote an opinion piece for the Washington Post, February 14th, 2008, in which he said:

“Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. Some were misrepresenting the terms of loans, making loans without regard to consumers' ability to repay, making loans with deceptive "teaser" rates that later ballooned astronomically, packing loans with undisclosed charges and fees, or even paying illegal kickbacks.”

He goes on to point out that state attorneys generals in 49 states tried separately and together to prosecute issues relating to sub-prime loans. He says not only did Bush and his cronies do nothing – they worked together to try to protect the deceptive practices and keep restrictive laws from being placed on the books.

The administrations handcuffed the local prosecutors using a federal agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). Here is how they did it, says Spitzer:

“In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government's actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.”

Read the whole article by Spitzer ends with this prophetic sentence:

When history tells the story of the lending crisis and tells of the effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners, the Bush folks will not be judged well.

Another writer did an article for the Baltimore Chronicle, Greg Palast, on March 14, 2008. The author is firmly slanted away from the Bush administration, but his facts do check out. His article was about Ben Bernake, Federal Reserve Board Chairman, secretly handing over $200 billion to mortgage bank industry speculators during the first week in March, 2008.

The point of this article is that up until about the 5th of March, there was one person making trouble for them with these risky loans – that person was Elliot Spitzer. Mr. Spitzer was making too much noise by ‘following the money’.

Here is his short form description of what happened:

“Since the Bush regime came to power, a new species of loan became the norm, the ‘sub-prime’ mortgage and it’s variants including loans with teeny “introductory” interest rates. From out of nowhere, a company called ‘Countrywide’ became America’s top mortgage lender, accounting for one in five home loans, a large chunk of these ‘sub-prime.’”

“Here’s how it worked: The Grinning Family, with US average household income, gets a $200,000 mortgage at 4% for two years. Their $955 a month payment is 25% of their income. No problem. Their banker promises them a new mortgage, again at the cheap rate, in two years. But in two years, the promise ain’t worth a can of spam and the Grinnings are told to scram - because their house is now worth less than the mortgage. Now, the mortgage hits 9% or $1,609 plus fees to recover the “discount” they had for two years. Suddenly, payments equal 42% to 50% of pre-tax income. Grinnings move into their Toyota.”

He discusses that instead of policing the banks, Bush’s OCC people went after Spitzer and anyone else that tried to get in the way of these predatory loans. The government made use of something called “federal pre-emption” (which will have to be studied on its own) – Bush’s government ordered the states to not enforce their consumer protection laws! They actually filed a lawsuit to stop Spitzer from investigating mortgage practices.

Then the poop started hitting the fan – Countrywide’s stock fell 50%, Citygroup was down 38% -- neither of which pleased the ‘sheiks of Arabe” who controlled the biggest portion of the stocks in these two businesses.

The second week in March 2008, the Carlyle Capital Group, went bankrupt! I didn’t know who the Carlyle Group were but it is apparently headed by former Bush(1)’s Senior Counsel James Baker – with partners like George Bush, the Bin Laden family and lots of other greedy disreputable people.

Michael Moore, (I know not always a reliable reference), alleges that Bin Laden family actually were forced to liquidate their interests in the Carlyle because they were causing embarrassment to the group. Moore states that the Carlyle is the 11th largest defense contractor in the USA and has line by line evidence of his information website. – I did look at the site; I did not do any fact checking. This information looked pretty interesting though.

As a result of the Feds $200 billion bailout in March, the mortgage companies’ stocks went up in price ---- Countrywide’s stock went up 17% in one day. Citygroup’s stock went up $10 billion in one afternoon!

Spitzer was arrested on the same day that the bailout occurred. Wow – what a coincident! Amazing.

On February 13th Spitzer signed papers that said in part:

“Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.”

Then he went to a hotel and apparently ordered take out food and a call girl. He was arrested. Well that did shut him up, and apparently scared off everyone else who was looking into this…..and it took about a half year to get in so deep that they had to give even more money…..

Now I have to figure out why they had to do this in the light of day this time. Was it the amount of money – was it because every place a good accountant could ‘hide’ $700 ‘KaTrillion’ dollars was used up already? Was it because an election was going to put its spin on this – and they had to do it first? Let’s find out. Please give me your input on this information.

Related Subjects:
Short Sales
My take on short sales (selling a house for less than its mortgage) – and why banks will drag there feet on many of the homes that are at risk with the subprime debacle.

Big one and one I have not heard anyone talk about is MORTGAGE INSURANCE. Many lenders have required this insurance for new buyers, people with less than 20% down payment – FHA loans – people with bad credit scores ----- unsophisticated borrowers…. You know, exactly the same borrowers who are at risk now for losing their homes with the housing market crash and burn.

Why on earth would a mortgage holder ever negotiate with a borrower to take less than then mortgage face (even if the market has reduced the price to half its price)? The home is insured for full price. The borrower was forced to purchase mortgage insurance (about $200 per month on a $200K home) as a condition of purchase; this insured the mortgage holder’s interest in the property.

So, John Schmuck, the marginal, first time, home owner pays a much higher monthly payment than his neighbor because he does not have the resources to pay more, (does that make sense?); Then when situations change - ARM adjusts up, property taxes increase, HO insurance increases – anything that makes it impossible to meet the increased payments. The bank “bye bye” we can get our whole mortgage repaid by the insurance the home owner had to buy!

So, don’t expect to find them renegotiating any loan that has mortgage insurance on it.

Secondly, if the buyer is still making full payments on the house while they are talking to them about renegotiating the mortgage – why would they do anything? The homeowner will have to be in severe default in order to get the banks to even sharpen their pencils or ask their supervisor about this.

Another thing to consider is that banks leverage themselves and sell stock. In order to borrow money at good rates they have to have strong balance sheets. The value of stock is determined by investor confidence and that is strongly determined by the value of their assets. As long as the house (asset) is on the books at mortgage value it has a value on the books that that is fixed. Whether the house is worth less does not matter – what matters is the value of the paper (mortgage). When the banks reduce the value of an asset for the borrower, they change their assets --- if they do that for a lot of borrowers, it really screws up the bottom line.

Of course, if borrowers just throw in the keys, don’t have mortgage insurance, and walk away -- Then they have a multifaceted problem. Now they own a home that is what ever value the market will pay, and they have to pay taxes, insurance, maintenance – At that point they are probably in a position to make a deal. A little too late for the displaced homeowner.

Get rid of this woman --

This crazy woman has a seat in our Senate ... She is Republican Michelle Bachmann -- she has been on everything saying just horrible things about Democrats of all kinds. Her seat is up for grabs -- please contribute to her competitor by clicking on the box below -- or visit Mr. Tinkleberg's site by clicking on it.

I can't afford much but donated $2.00! Every little bit helps!

Here is a good article from the Star Tribune about this woman -- "Bachmann, Tinklenberg in virtual tie in KSTP poll" this is a pretty unbiased article -- although it is hard for a writer to talk about her without her sounding like she is a nut.... she does that to herself though.

Animated McCain series......

Who do we blame....

Okay –so, I guess an article is circulating around the internet blaming Clinton and minority poor people for the debacle in finance that precipitated the crap going on in the financial world right now.
The whack-job, fear mongering, parrots of no-change are viral emailing this information around … and most of the senders never seem to do any of their own research.

The story appears to have been agitated by a FAR right wing, Republican, Evangelical Christian, radio talk show host and writer named Joseph Farah.

( BTW Farah is so right wing, he does not approve of McCain because he remembers that McCain is not too picky about his beliefs [as long as they get him elected to something]. Farah has spent a good part of his life involved in bringing down Bill Clinton and has been involved in forming something called the Arkansas Project.”)

To support his case he uses an article that was in the New York Times called Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending from 1999, written by Steven A. Holmes. Now, I am not sure if he (and the people who forward this information) are using this information to shift the blame from Republicans to Clinton or to poor minority borrowers. But it is an obvious move to shift the blame away from the GOP.


To shift the blame away from the GOP requires readers with complete ignorance about the 1990’s and too lazy to do their own research before sending on this babble to others as if it had some validity.

( Reminder – I am not a Democrat. I am a registered Republican who is an Economic Republican that has not been able to vote for a Republican since the Reagan era – when the party was hi-jacked by religious nutcases.

I am no champion of Bill Clinton because of his boorish behavior to his wife and family after infidelity ordeal; And the amount of embarrassment that they had to endure because he did not deal with that matter quickly, decisively and honestly.

I have always felt that he just should have said – “This is a private matter between my wife and I – I will not answer any questions about this matter”. Instead, the lie, though understandable, put the family in a very bad situation.

Now, since his wife and he have apparently dealt with it and comparing it to the president we have had since – I have dropped it from problems with Mr. Clinton.)

To review the salient history, Bill Clinton and the current financial situation.

When President Clinton was in office the Republicans controlled the legislative part of our government. The 104th US Congress, in 1995, controlled everything for the first time since the 1950’s. The Speaker of the House was Republican Newt Gingrich. The President Pro Tempore of the Senate was Strom Thurmond (who was a Democrat, then a Republican).


Even if “Fannie Mae has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans” as the article in the NY Times states – so, what? The Clinton Administration was not in a position to do one thing - the Congress had the power.

If not Clinton then, who was the power for financial change at that time? Number one on my list is, Republican Phil Gramm of Texas. Gramm was Texas Senator from 1985 until 2002 (also served as the Democratic Congressman from 1978 – 1983 and Republican Representative from 1983 until 1985). Senator Phil Gramm is also the holder of a doctorate in economics from the University of Georgia and taught Economics at Texas A & M.


The good Senator served on the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee and Senate Budget Committee from 1989 until leaving office in 2002. Significant to this discussion is the fact that Gramm authored the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999. This Act removed safeguards that were put in place in the 1930’s (Glass-Steagall Act) to separate banking, insurance and brokerage industries.

Glass – Steagall Act of 1933 – formed the FDIC, changed banking and tried to end speculation that had factored in the Wall Street Crash of 1929. This Act stopped banks from owning things like mortgage companies, insurance companies other financial businesses. The Gramm-Leech-Bliley Act reversed this law. Gramm was not alone in this debacle though – the vote was 362 to 57 in the (Republican controlled) House and 90 to 8 (Republican controlled) Senate .

– Clinton signed it into law.

Back to the viral information being passed on like gospal.

According to Farah “ Who pushed the button? Bill Clinton did. He has an uncanny knack of emerging unscathed from the scandals he creates. So far, this is another one.” He does go on to say there is “plenty of blame to go around.” But then says “It's clear who made that decision initially, who got the ball rolling down the cliff, who pressed the wrong financial button. It was Bill Clinton”.

Can anyone say “Vendetta” -- - I bet you can Ven-det- ta……

……….watch out folks. When you buy into other people’s crud - maybe even mine, folks, this is the internet - we can say anything we want … do your own research.

Nose picker - Bush

Georgie Porgie Pudd'n and Pie - Flips us off and makes us die........

He just makes you proud - doesn't he?

Interesting tidbit from the Portland Business Journal

George Halvorson, CEO of Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente, the second largest insurance company on the West Coast, spoke with the Porland Business Journal --

If you want Universal Health Care sooner rather than later - this industry insider gives a good reason to vote for Barrack Obama for President.....

QUOTE:

PBJ: What are the prospects in the short term for health reform in the United States?

GH: There is a high likelihood that we will get some level of health reform out of Washington as early as next year. But that possibility depends on which presidential candidate gets elected. If Sen. John McCain is elected he won’t have his own party in charge of Congress, so reform will be a bit more difficult. It is a priority for the McCain campaign to get something passed, but it is a higher priority for Sen. Barack Obama. There’s a high likelihood he would get something done relatively early in his administration.

For the rest of the story please go to the Portland Business Journal site.

Our son sent me this one....

Back on September 26th, CNN's Jack Cafferty let us into his thoughts about Sarah Palin and her threat to our country...... "One 72 year old's heart beat away from the Presidency"





The go to CNN.com/CaffertyFile Scroll down to September 26th, and read the comments - if the world were not in so much peril from this woman's placement on the brink of 'leadership' I would be tickled by this quote "She’s no more qualified than Marge Simpson." said Jennifer in Winnipeg - then again Marge would present herself much better.

The man who forgot how to ride a bicycle....

DeWayne McKinney died last week ….. I remember this guy because he was on 20/20. I was so shocked and impressed by his ability to just move on. The tragedies in most of our lives are very slight compared to Mr. McKinney’s.

Here I will just give the essentials – please read this article for the ‘rest of the story’.

McKinney was being raised by his single mother. In Orange County. California; this was interrupted by her death when he was 12.

Young DeWayne started surviving, and getting into trouble - Mostly really small stuff. But when a hamburger stand was robbed, the manager was killed and in a “round up the usual suspects” photo line up set. His photo was included – and with his luck his picture picked out of the line up.

A young assistant district attorney let the case against him and he was convicted. He went to prison.

Twenty years later – he was exonerated! Two other men admitted their guilt and those that identified DeWayne took back their testimony. So, twenty years later he got out of prison. The State of California gave him a settlement and said “Bye Bye.”

Rather than being bitter, DeWayne – stood on the steps of the court house and said he didn’t hold anything against anyone. Later on 20/20 he said it again.

Then he put if “money where is mouth is” he invited the judge who convicted him to officiate at his wedding.

From a man who had not seen a cell phone, who had gone to jail before he even had a bank account – he moved on to success in business. I don’t remember why they said he was in Hawaii – but he was and he noticed there were not enough ATM’s for tourists. He formed a business to fix that and became one of the biggest (maybe the biggest) owner of ATM’s in Hawaii.

McKinney died last week in Hawaii in a car accident. I would like to say ‘Bravo!” for a life well lived.

Oh – and the bit of trivia from the 20/20 interview….. Mr. McKinney said he had to relearn everything – including how to ride a bike. So, if someone tells you that “it is just like riding a bike – you never forget……” think of DeWayne McKinney


Here is a link to a man who knew him personally and writes in detail about more of his Mr. McKinney’s life and where I heard about his dealth.

What to they want?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Of course, They want a woman who is

"just like me!"

"Every morning I wake up and tease my hair 'till it's big enough to hide a rabbit in, tell my knocked-up teenage daughter that a marriage by shotgun is better than not getting married, have someone fired 'cause gosh darn it, I don't like them very much........ and then go shoot a moose for lunch."

"Then after I get Trig up from his nap and do his enrichment exercises - by screeching about 'terrorists' close to his ear; About 3:00pm I will meet with reporters, pose for some pictures - not answer any questions that I have not been fed the answers to -- and get home in time to remind my husband to 'smile - and not speak to anyone - ever. Double so about Troopergate.'"

McCain would call these "gotchas" we will just "Oh Sarah - say it isn't so..."

Cars - Planes - Houses, Condominiums......

Mainstreet USA - who can we relate to?

McCain cars = 13 -- 10 are American, 3 are Foreign. Some of which are: 2004 Cadillac; a 2008 Jeep Wrangler; a 2007 half-ton Ford pickup truck; a vintage 1960 Willys Jeep; 2007 Lexus; a 2000 Lincoln; and a 2001 GMC SUV; three electric called GEM's 2005; Volkswagen convertible and a 2001 Honda sedan. (Quote McCain to Detroit television station WXYZ-TV, "I've bought American literally all my life and I'm proud.").



McCain jets = 1 - Cessna Citation Excel, a midsize corporate jet that seats eight

McCain houses = 8 (4 are condos that may be rentals)



Obamas cars = 1 -- 2008 Ford Escape Hybrid.


Obama jets = 0


Obama houses = 1

McCain grew up the son of a successful military man (Admiral McCain) - went to West Point as a result - miltary pilot - worked for his wife Cindy's father for a little while -- then went to work for the Senete. Always had benefits (usually governmental), always had a preferential lifestyle. (Okay there was that 5 years in the POW camp -- )



Obama - absent father that provided no support, mother who put herself through college - grandparents who helped in his rearing. Scholarships and worked his way through college.

I think only Obama can relate to people I know.