Quote of the Year

by folkbum

Zbigniew Brzezinski to Joe Scarborough:

You know, you have such a stunningly superficial knowledge of what went on that it's almost embarrassing to listen to you.

I'ma copy that into the clipboard and just paste it everywhere in the right Cheddarsphere.

Dusting the Recession for GOP Fingerprints

By Keith R. Schmitz

Of course GOP politicians, right wing pundits and those who enable them will deny that their worshiping at the free market alter -- as they see it -- had anything to do with the current economic problems. Paul Krugman had been warning us or years about the pending collapse of the Bush pumped economic bubble but hey, who the hell is he, besides a Nobel prize winning economist.

Much of the malaise has been propelled by the subprime debacle. After the credit collapse, bear in mind the next domino to fall was the auto industry, whose prospective customers couldn't get loans to buy cars.

But of course the right acts like the rotting was bi-partisan. Why not? That's their job. They have been blaming all this going back to Carter. Why not pin it on Truman?

But a post on this blog lays out the case why the right owns this recession.

• Did the 1977 legislation, or any other legislation since, require banks to not verify income or payment history of mortgage applicants?

• 50% of subprime loans were made by mortgage service companies not subject comprehensive federal supervision; another 30% were made by banks or thrifts which are not subject to routine supervision or examinations. How was this caused by either CRA or GSEs?

• What about "No Money Down" Mortgages (0% down payments) ? Were they required by the CRA? Fannie? Freddie?

• Explain the shift in Loan to value from 80% to 120%: What was it in the Act that changed this traditional lending requirement?

• Did any Federal legislation require real estate agents and mortgage writers to use the same corrupt appraisers again and again? How did they manage to always come in at exactly the purchase price, no matter what?

• Did the CRA require banks to develop automated underwriting (AU) systems that emphasized speed rather than accuracy in order to process the greatest number of mortgage apps as quickly as possible?

• How exactly did legislation force Moody's, S&Ps and Fitch to rate junk paper as Triple AAA?

• What about piggy back loans? Were banks required by Congress to lend the first mortgage and do a HELOC for the down payment -- at the same time?

• Internal bank memos showed employees how to cheat the system to get poor mortgages prospects approved that shouldn't have been: Titled How to Get an "Iffy" loan approved at JPM Chase. (Was circulating that memo also a FNM/FRE/CRA requirement?)?

• The four biggest problem areas for housing (by price decreases) are: Phoenix, Arizona; Las Vegas, Nevada; Miami, Florida, and San Diego, California. Explain exactly how these affluent, non-minority regions were impacted by the Community Reinvesment Act ?

• Did the GSEs require banks to not check borrowers credit?
  

The right wing has been telling us for years that we have to unleash the American economic engine. So they did it in Congress and with the regulatory bodies within the Bush administration. And it bit us in the behind.

More failure from the right

by folkbum

Much of the month of December was cold and snowy. What do the bloggers on the right do? Suggest that "global warming" was disproved! Hurrah! Algore's a moron!

However, this week, we had near-record highs. From the right? Not a peep. FAIL.

Yet Republicans blame Fannie and Freddy

by folkbum

Here's another story about how all those poor black people crashed the housing market by getting risky loans through the Community Reinvestment Act. Or not:

Interviews with two dozen former employees, mortgage brokers, real estate agents and appraisers reveal the relentless pressure to churn out loans that produced such results. [. . .] According to these accounts, pressure to keep lending emanated from the top, where executives profited from the swift expansion--not least, Kerry K. Killinger, who was WaMu’s chief executive from 1990 until he was forced out in September.

Between 2001 and 2007, Mr. Killinger received compensation of $88 million, according to the Corporate Library, a research firm. He declined to respond to a list of questions, and his spokesman said he was unavailable for an interview.

During Mr. Killinger’s tenure, WaMu pressed sales agents to pump out loans while disregarding borrowers’ incomes and assets, according to former employees. The bank set up what insiders described as a system of dubious legality that enabled real estate agents to collect fees of more than $10,000 for bringing in borrowers, sometimes making the agents more beholden to WaMu than they were to their clients.

WaMu gave mortgage brokers handsome commissions for selling the riskiest loans, which carried higher fees, bolstering profits and ultimately the compensation of the bank’s executives. WaMu pressured appraisers to provide inflated property values that made loans appear less risky, enabling Wall Street to bundle them more easily for sale to investors.

“It was the Wild West,” said Steven M. Knobel, a founder of an appraisal company, Mitchell, Maxwell & Jackson, that did business with WaMu until 2007. “If you were alive, they would give you a loan. Actually, I think if you were dead, they would still give you a loan.”

One of the most amazing aspects of watching the present financial crisis unfold, for me, is the degree to which conservatives and Republicans refuse to place any share of the blame for the calamity on the people who actually caused it. The private sector is holy, and the saintly CEOs are mere victims of a grand scam perpetrated by the people who are now living in homeless shelters or cardboard boxes. Privately held banks and mortgage brokers were mere rubes in a fantastical scheme concocted by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (who were not even making subprime loans for most of the boom time) via Jimmy Carter and the aforementioned CRA. Truth is, there was big money to be made, personally and institutionally, by aggressively pursuing risky loans and securitzing them. The private sector followed that trail of money with abandon, and now, with tight credit throughout all markets, we are seeing the results.

I do not understand Republicans' refusal to recognize reality. I suppose that is one of the long-running themes of this blog, though.

The Fake War On Christmas

by capper

In his most recent column for the misnamed Waukesha Freeman, Owen Robinson continues to hype the faux War on Christmas.

This is something the right wing feels they need to hype every year. The chief complaint is that some Freedom From Religion type of group protests governmental facilities used to promote the holiday. I have yet to hear of any of these groups that want to keep people from celebrating their religious beliefs in their homes or churches, just not using taxpayer funded facilities.

Owen's other complaint are the stores that chose to be inclusive of all of their customers, using the phrase "Happy Holidays" or "Seasons Greetings" as opposed to the exclusive, Christians only "Merry Christmas."

Nick Schweitzer does a pretty good job at refuting Owen assertions. He gives a history of this so called war, and then makes this excellent point:

Should a Jewish clerk be forced to say Merry Christmas to his/her customers? We seem hell bent on allowing Catholic pharmacists the right to not only refuse to give out birth control, but not even forward the prescription onto another pharmacy, so why should a Jewish or atheist clerk be forced to acknowledge your religion? And more importantly, why do you have the need to have others acknowledge it? I mean, it's nice when they do, and Owen tells a nice story of being wished Merry Christmas by a waitress. But he's not just talking about those random well wishes in the spirit of the season. He's also suggesting that the lack of those wishes constitutes a war on the season itself!

To paraphrase Nick's last paragraph, it appears that those asserting that there is a war is satisfied with the right to celebrate their holiday, but are demanding that others acknowledge and follow in line, at least for the season. In other words, they are asking for the equivalent of Affirmative Action for their religion, even though they are in the majority in this country.

I don't see anyone wanting to end the national day of celebration of Christmas. And trust me, outside of vital services like hospitals, firefighters, police and the such, the only places open from Christmas Eve afternoon to the day after Christmas are gas stations and movie theaters, and not all of those are either. However, I don't recall ever getting off of work, with pay, for Yom Kippur or Channukah. The banks don't close for Tet or Samhain.

If you practice any of these other religions, and you want to have the day to celebrate or worship in your fashion, you have to use your own vacation time, and the rest of the world carries on. However, if you are atheist or a non-Christian, and you want to do your grocery shopping or banking or whatever on December 25th, well, you're just SOL, fella.

I wonder how loudly the Christians would scream if they were required to use their own vacation time to celebrate Thanksgiving or Christmas. The outrage would be deafening, to be sure. But if someone of another religion, or an atheist, would wish to have those equal rights to their beliefs (or nonbeliefs), well, that would be just absurd to them, or they would feel threatened by it.

There is no War on Christmas. At best, it could only be called a War for Equal Standing, which is what I thought this country was supposed to be all about.

Haiku for the Holidays, 12/26

by folkbum

The Poetry Club I advise at school is embarking on a "Haiku for the Holidays" project--dozens of holiday-themed haiku papered all around the building. Between now and the new year, I'll be occasionally posting some of mine.

A question, looking
At December's calendar
What's Boxing Day for?

He Saw His Sole

By Keith R. Schmitz

At least Bush has helped out one sector of the economy and has created jobs to boot (pardon the pun):

The footwear that robbed George W Bush of his dignity and landed its owner Iraqi journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi — who hurled them at the US President at a press meet in Baghdad — in prison, has yielded an unexpected bonanza for its maker. Ever since the incident, Ramazan Baydan, the owner of the Istanbul-based Baydan Shoe Company, has been swamped with orders from across the world.

In fact, Baydan has recruited an additional 100 staff to meet orders for 300,000 pairs of Model 271, more than four times the shoe’s normal annual sale, following an outpouring of support for Zaidi’s act, ‘The Guardian’ reported. Orders have come from the US and Britain, and from neighbouring Muslim countries, he said.

RIP, Harold Pinter

by folkbum

I'm a little behind, but I'm not on the internet much this week what with the holidays and the endless snow shoveling. But it seems Harold Pinter has died:

Harold Pinter, the Nobel Prize-winning playwright and screenwriter whose absurdist and realistic works displayed a despair and defiance about the human condition, has died, according to British media reports. He was 78. [. . .] Pinter, who had been suffering from cancer, died on Christmas Eve, according to the reports.

It may in part have been Beloit College's resident theatre folks' obsession with Pinter, but I read a whole lot of his plays in my young, formative years. I acted in a dramatic reading of The Homecoming and one of his shorter plays. I have enjoyed Mamet and Stoppard and all the other playwrights that followed Pinter, influenced by that distinct style of writing. Pinter's is a voice that will be sorely missed.

Haiku for the Holidays, 12/25

by folkbum

The Poetry Club I advise at school is embarking on a "Haiku for the Holidays" project--dozens of holiday-themed haiku papered all around the building. Between now and the new year, I'll be occasionally posting some of mine.

Kwanzaa, Eid, Christmas,
Haunukkah, Tet, others:
Rejoice a little.

Mortally Shamed

by capper

From Pundit Kitchen:



But remember, it is only when a Democrat may have lied (even if they have to lie to prove the supposed lie) that matters!

Haiku for the Holidays, 12/24

by folkbum

The Poetry Club I advise at school is embarking on a "Haiku for the Holidays" project--dozens of holiday-themed haiku papered all around the building. Between now and the new year, I'll be occasionally posting some of mine.

No one wants to be
The last one awake Christmas
Morning. Gift tags move!

Haiku for the Holidays, 12/23

by folkbum

The Poetry Club I advise at school is embarking on a "Haiku for the Holidays" project--dozens of holiday-themed haiku papered all around the building. Between now and the new year, I'll be occasionally posting some of mine.

In my neighborhood,
Some guy breaks in at midnight,
He’s dead, not Santa.

Outrage Fatigue 2: The Amateurs

by folkbum

But, again, there's voting, so go have fun. (Although eye-aversion will be required on occasion, I'm sure.)

Festivus

by folkbum

This whole blog is just one long airing of the grievances. The feat of strength is getting through the conservative Wisconsin blogroll without retching.

Where's my pole?

A Point Of Interest

by capper

Just a bit of trivia for Jay to be thankful for. This happened almost exactly in the same place that this did.

Let's be careful out there, shall we?

2008: Reflections, 2

by folkbum

We had to put up with a lot of crap this year. But that's another post. This post is about some things that I have enjoyed in the past year.

• Sidral Mundet. This stuff is liquid crack.
• Kodiak Cakes. Just add water, but the ingredients list is pure, natural stuff. No funny preservatives or additives. And they make durn tasty pancakes.
• "Leverage." Earlier in the year, my wife and I were complaining that it had been a long time since the last good, fun heist-caper movie (the last one being The Bank Job). Then along comes this show. You should be watching it.
• Susan Werner, Live at Passim, and Girlyman, Somewhere Different Now. It's rare that live albums accurately reflect the real nature of a performance, but, if I may speak as someone who has seen these acts live repeatedly, these do. Somewhere, in particular, could be verbatim any one of a number of Girlyman shows I've seen.
• iPod Touch. For those of us who want the music and games of an iPhone, but don't use the phone enough to warrant this gadget's more expensive cousin.
• Barack Obama kicked John McCain's ass. It wasn't even close.
• This paragraph:

  In any case, it’s certainly weird that the areas most affected by the crisis are centers of populations and finance. You’d think the deep South would be the first to crash, with the Franklin Mint bubble taking out Waffle House and Cracker Barrel, whose collapse would wipe out the rustic knick-knack manufacturers, dropping the floor out from under the Beanie Baby speculators, and so on down the line until you reach John Deere, at which point it’s game-over for Amway, Carhartt, Philip Morris, Mary Kay, QVC, Bob’s Big Boy, and the whole line of dominoes leading from Bally/Midway and the rest of the video poker manufacturers to Winn-Dixie and Piggly Wiggly, and from there to one Branson concern after the next, wiping out Winnebago before toppling various Indian tribes and their casino buffet and dream-catcher keychain suppliers, landing subsequently on Disney itself, at which point the coastal elites would notice something missing but not be able to put their finger quite on what it was, until 3AM one night when they sat bolt upright in bed, saying, “Oh my God, whatever happened to the Jonas Brothers?”

  It's so much better in context, but I felt it needed to be preserved here for posterity.
• Paste magazine. I feel hip by association reading it. Plus there's free music.
• Classic Slice Pizza. Best pizza in metro Milwaukee. Period.
• Nothing Like the Holidays. I didn't see Four Christmases, but I am quite sure this movie kicks its ass. Go see it while it's still the holidays.

This is far from a comprehensive list, of course. But tell me--what was good in 2008 for you?

Driving a Dumb Bargain

By Keith R. Schmitz

How numb are we to the financial bailout?

The Bush administration has handed out $350 billion in emergency money to help out financial organizations in peril and to save our economy from supposedly going over the cliff.

Now what? The AP has inquired into where the money has gone -- something probably not done by our government to date -- and are hearing from the banks...nothing.

But we shouldn't be surprised. Regulation by the Bush administration of practically anything over these past eight years has been non-existent. Yes we can't.

$350 billion. It took the Bush administration about three years to painstakingly blow that much money in Iraq.

But here's the really amusing part.

Outrage II. The Big Three hat in hand approach Congress ask for dough to carry them over their financial troubles. True, these operations could have been better managed but what ran them on the shoals? Tight credit.

Why? Brought to you by...the financial meltdown -- perpetrated by the banks and financial houses propped up by the huge bailout. Your money as the local TV stations like to point out.

The circle will not be unbroken.

Here's where the irony thickens. Congress fell all over itself to help out the fat cats who produce essentially nothing and get rewarded billions for their so-called work.

The American auto industry -- and their unions -- get hauled up on the dissecting table with demands that every dime gets an accounting. These operations manufacturer something. We as a country have been falling behind in that category over the past few years as many of you know.

Blasted the most was the "bloated" union wages. Jim Cramer on Hardball has just pointed out that the pay given out to any one off the heads of the Wall Street firms is as much as a whole factory full of union laborers.

And we fretted after 9/11 that irony was dead.

Haiku for the Holidays, 12/22

by folkbum

The Poetry Club I advise at school is embarking on a "Haiku for the Holidays" project--dozens of holiday-themed haiku papered all around the building. Between now and the new year, I'll be occasionally posting some of mine.

The season demands
Peace on earth, good will t’wards all.
I demand a nap.

2008: Reflections, 1

by folkbum

Last January 2, I made a bunch of predictions. How'd I do? Remarkably well. In particular, I very proud of #10. My predictions, with commentary in bold.

1. An embarrassing number of these predictions will be wrong. Nine out of 29 (not counting this one) were wrong, so I would say RIGHT!
   
2. Some conservative Cheddarspherean will misconstrue a cold snap as evidence that global climate change is imaginary, which will really just provide evidence of his or her scientific illiteracy. Here's one from recently. RIGHT!
   
3. A Milwaukee-based conservative talk show host will say something worthy of a suspension--or dismissal--even in the eyes of many conservative fans. He will probably not suffer any consequences. Mark Belling has been a bad boy. His publisher had to make a significant retraction. RIGHT!
   
4. One or more anonymous Wisconsin bloggers will un-anonymize themselves. Meet Tom Foley. RIGHT!
   
5. One or more conservative Wisconsin bloggers will claim that Democrats stole one or more elections. Here's a current post doing exactly that. RIGHT!
   
6. That particular widely-linked and widely-read conservative blogger that shall remain nameless (but Patrick McIlheran thinks he's interesting!) will continue to write posts that are racist, sexist, anti-muslim, or all three at once, and the right will keep reading him and thinking he's interesting. A lefty will slip up once and call somebody a name and suddenly the same righties will turn into the propriety police, citing that as an example of "the hate left." I know--deja vu. Boy, was I right on this one--kind of. This time, many on the right actually took what he wrote to be too far over the line. But he blew up his old blog(s) and is now blogging away again from a well-linked new home. I don't recall any left slip-ups, though. Still, point in may favor--RIGHT!
   
7. The Iron Man movie will be universally panned. I based this on the trends. I was WRONG. I am anxious to see what they did to Watchmen, though.
   
8. The Wigderson-Boots and Sabers feud will finally boil over. I don't know what will happen, but rest assured, Wiggy will be smirking when he types the tale. Here, for example, James blames Owen for every Wisconsin traffic fatality that will happen this year. RIGHT!
   
9. Dennis Troha won't have Jim Doyle's smoking gun. RIGHT!
   
10. Everyone will have a good laugh at how stupid some beauty queen is. I just didn't expect it would be the Republican vice presidential candidate. Wow. RIGHT!
    
11. Ben & Jerry's will once again decline to name an ice cream flavor in honor of me. (And we all know "folkbum's bananas and nuts" would have been a hit.) Sadly, RIGHT!
    
12. Party control of both houses of the legislature, both federally and in Wisconsin, will not change. WRONG, as I noted here I underestimated the Democratic wave here in Wisconsin.
    
13. The Democrat will be elected president in November. Happily, RIGHT!
    
14. Google will buy something else big and unexpected. Perhaps a small country. Hasn't been a great year for Google, what with Chrome tanking and all. WRONG.
    
15. Steve Kagen will be re-elected, causing Kevin Binversie to nearly stroke out. RIGHT! on Kagen. Haven't seen Binversie around lately, so maybe ...
    
16. Louis Butler will also be re-elected. Or, rather, elected, as he was appointed. WRONG. Biggest disappointment of the year.
    
17. I will continue not to give a rip about any Wisconsin sports teams. RIGHT!
    
18. George W. Bush will pardon fewer people than you expect, mostly because he's done such a good job obstructing prosecutions that not many people have been convicted. However, most of this list will get pardons in their Christmas stockings. The pardons haven't really started yet. WRONG.
    
19. Eventually, every lefty blogger in Wisconsin will work for me. I still have time on this.
    
20. I will continue not to be invited as a panelist on "Sunday Insight." RIGHT! And Sunday mornings are poorer for this.
    
21. Milwaukee Alderman Michael McGee, Jr., will be convicted on most if not all state and federal charges. RIGHT!
    
22. Tom Barrett will be re-elected--by a lot. RIGHT!
    
23. Once again I will find myself too busy working this summer to respond to complaints about how I get my summers off. RIGHT!
    
24. By the end of the year, we will still have very serious people telling us that "the next three months" in Iraq will prove to be the most critical. I haven't seen any of that lately, although Joe McGraham have just reassured us that 2009 is the pivotal year. WRONG.
    
25. I will be able to eat solid food again. (So far in 2008, it's been iffy. Ugh.) RIGHT!
    
26. Ryan Adams will put out three or four more records this year. It was just one. He's slowed down since he got clean. WRONG.
    
27. The person I hope will win "Top Chef" won't. They never do. I'm like the kiss of death. Stephanie won! Glad to see her win, sad to be WRONG.
    
28. The WGA writer's strike will eventually end, but only after people remember how stupid "American Gladiators" is. RIGHT!
    
29. "The Simpsons" will continue to suck nowadays. RIGHT!
    
30. The United States will win more gold medals than any other country at the Olympics this summer. WRONG. China won more gold, but we won more medals overall.

Profile Picture

By 3rd Way

I've never been a big fan of using a picture of yourself in your Blogger profile. But I have always been tempted to use a some what funny picture I have where I thought it looked like I was doing a Limbaugh impression. After the ultra schmoove college pictures of Obama were released this week I decided the resemblance between myself and Barry was too uncanny and I had to bite the bullet and include my picture in my profile.