baldilocks

Consequences of Enforced Equality

Are we screwed? And, if so, how did we get here?

Let’s see if an amateur can get the facts straight (mostly) off the top of the head.

The government “encourages” banks and loan organizations to grant mortgage loans to persons whose incomes would normally be judged as too low to afford the house-note. Many (most?) of these persons are not required to make a down payment.

Quasi-governmental mortgage guarantors Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae buy up the loans—the goods ones and the bad ones—bundle them into securities, and sell them back to the banks.

As a result of the housing boom of early this year going bust and an economy gone rocky due to the energy crisis, many of these home-owners found themselves unable to pay their notes and lost their houses. In turn, the banks, who understandably assumed that Freddie/Fannie guaranteed securities were low risk, were left holding the bag.

And now, in case of further mass defaults, the government wants to shore up the banks to the tune of $700 billion.

In short, the government wants to take the taxpayers’ money to get the banks out of a mess which that same government virtually forced the banks into in the first place. And if the answer is no, we all make like Humpty Dumpty. Maybe. But if the answer is yes, the same may happen.

And the Legislative Branch was warned but refused to take action.

Do I have this correct?

UPDATE: The screwers.

Hmmm...who to vote for?

(Thanks to Ace of Spades HQ)

An Absence Felt

Happy Birthday, Uncle.

New Territory

I'll be filming an episode of Pajamas TV this afternoon. Live for the very first time! Please no fat jokes (I'm working on it.)

BTW, I'm riveted by the political and economic goings-on as the next American over and, at some point, when I think I can contribute something useful to the conversation, I will. :::Yeah, I know. That's never stopped me before.:::

UPDATE: If you watched, you saw me freeze up a couple of times. Maybe I ought to have a shot of vodka before the next time, should they invite me back. Hey, it always works for the Russian oral DLPT!

Coolness factor: I got to sit next to Bill Whittle!

Thank you so much, good folks at Pajamas Media.

21st Century Missile Crisis?

Peter the Great is headed for Venezuela:

Russia flexed its muscles in America’s backyard Tuesday as it sent one of its largest warships to join military exercises in the Caribbean. The nuclear-powered flagship Peter the Great set off for Venezuela with the submarine destroyer Admiral Chabanenko and two support vessels in the first Russian naval mission in Latin America since the end of the Cold War. [SNIP]

The voyage to join the Venezuelan Navy for operations came only days after Russian strategic nuclear bombers made their first visit to the country. Hugo Chavez, the President, said then that the arrival of the strike force was a warning to the U.S. The anti-American Venezuelan leader is due to visit Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in Moscow this week as part of a tour that includes visits to Cuba and China.

Peter the Great is armed with 20 nuclear cruise missiles and up to 500 surface-to-air missiles, making it one of the most formidable warships in the world. The Kremlin has courted Venezuela and Cuba as tensions with the West soared over the proposed U.S. missile shield in Eastern Europe and the Russian invasion of Georgia last month.

Missiles are equal to a missile shield in Vladimir Putin’s universe (as if the deployment of the warships has to be an equitable move on the part of the Soviets Russians).

Last week Russia deployed two TU-160 BLACKJACK strategic bombers to Venezuela in order to take part in military exercises with Hugo Chavez's forces. The bombers returned home Friday but not before they took a “stroll” around the Caribbean. Additionally, Russia is set to participate in naval exercises with Venezuela in November. So why is Russia's Navy down south right now?

The Russian military hasn’t deployed to the Western Hemisphere since the USSR broke up.

RUSSIA'S OTHER ISSUE: Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili calls for an international investigation into the origins of the Georgia-Russia conflict, saying that the West cannot allow the breakup of his country to stand. Good luck with that, Mr. President. As you well know, Russia is an old hand at manufacturing facts; creating the idea that Georgia was at fault for its own invasion and the annexation of its territory must have been like falling off of a log for our friend Vlad. In the West, we call this 'astroturfing.'

(Thanks to Hot Air)

Not Just About You, Part Two

A member of an American minority group urges his fellows to think for themselves and break their 'addiction' to the Democrat Party.

[S]top being slaves to the Democratic Party.

If only.

RELATED: The owned wonder why the owner is not trying to buy them.

Neat Trick

My very first one act play...

******

Democrat: You’re racists!
Republican: No, we’re not!

Democrat: Then why’d you bring up the topic of race?
Republican: We didn’t bring up the topic, you did!

Democrat: That’s because we knew you were thinking about it.
Republican: Wait. You just accused us of bring up the race topic. You lied.

Democrat: Your racism got me so angry that I got confused.
Republican: That seems to be a chronic problem for you.

Democrat: See? You all are racists!
Republican: What did that have to do with race?

Democrat: You think black people are confused!
Republican: But, but, but…you’re white!

Democrat: I’m going to tell everybody how racist you Republicans are and we’re going vote for Obama because of you racists!
Republican: …

[The End]

Make Safe the City

Bill Whittle on Theoden and Eowyn McCain and Palin:

I sit with others in darkened rooms, watching films like Redacted, Stop-Loss, and In the Valley of Elah, and see our brave young soldiers depicted as murderers, rapists, broken psychotics or ignorant dupes –visions foisted upon me by bitter and isolated millionaires such as Brian de Palma and Paul Haggis and all the rest.

I’ve been told this story in some form or another, every day of every week of the past 30 years of my life. It wasn’t always so.

But it is certainly so today. And standing against all this hypnotic power — the power of the mythmakers in Hollywood, the power of the information peddlers in the media, the corrosive power of America-hating professors on every campus in America… against all that we find an old warrior — a paladin if ever there was one — an old, beat-up warhorse standing up in defense of his city one last time. And beside him: a wonder. A common person… just a regular mom who goes to work, does a difficult job with intelligence and energy and grace and every-day competence and then puts it away to go home and have dinner with the family.

Against all of that stand these two.

No wonder they must be destroyed. Because — Sarah Palin especially — presents a mortal threat to these people who have determined over cocktails who the next President should be and who now clearly mean to grind into metal shards the transaxle of their credibility in order to get the result they must have.

Think he's exaggerating? Enduring legends endure for a reason--because un-transcendent human nature--for which power is the ultimate goal--doesn't change.

Civilizations do not fall because of the barbarians at the gates. Nor does a great city fall from the death wish of bored and morally bankrupt stewards presumably sworn to its defense. Civilizations fall only because each citizen of the city comes to accept that nothing can be done to rally and rebuild broken walls; that ground lost may never be recovered; and that greatness lived in our grandparents but not our grandchildren. Yes, our betters tell us these things daily. But that doesn’t mean we have to believe it.

As is usual for Whittle's essays, this one is a keeper.

High-Tech Looting?

John McCain on the recent takeover of quasi-govermental mortgage guarantors Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac:

Two years ago I warned this Administration and Congress that regulations for our home loan agencies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, needed to be fixed…
But nothing was done.

Senator Obama talks a tough game on the financial markets but the facts tell a different story. He took more money from Fannie and Freddie than any Senator but the Democratic chairman of the committee that regulates them. He put Fannie Mae’s CEO who helped create this disaster in charge of finding his Vice President. Fannie’s former General Counsel is [sic] a senior advisor to his campaign. Whose side do you think he is on? When I pushed legislation to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Senator Obama was silent. He didn’t lift a hand to avert this crisis. While the leaders of Fannie and Freddie were lining the pockets of his campaign, they were sowing the seeds of the financial crisis we see today and enriching themselves with millions of dollars in payments. That’s not change, that’s what’s broken in Washington.

(Links inserted by me.)

The leaders (CEOs) spoken of are James Johnson and Franklin Raines. Raines, who worked for Presidents Carter and Clinton, served as CEO of Fannie Mae from 1999 to 2004, upon which time he took a scandal-precipitated "early retirement." (I cannot find a reference to a 'former Fannie Mae General Counsel' who advises Obama.)

Why would any candidate for president ask such men--one of whom should be in prison--to advise his campaign, men whose mismanagement of Fannie Mae in the previous decade put the entire taxpaying nation on the hook for the company?

(Thanks to Mark Levin and Byron York)

Is That What You Really Want?

"I want you to argue with [your Republican and Independent friends and neighbors] and get in their face."

--Barack Obama, as oblivious to the concept of cause-and-effect as ever.

Obama takes time to remind his troops of the Jedi Mind Trick tactic:

"And if they tell you that, 'Well, we're not sure where he stands on guns.' I want you to say, 'He believes in the Second Amendment.' If they tell you, 'Well, he's going to raise your taxes,' you say, 'No, he's not, he's going lower them.' You are my ambassadors. You guys are the ones who can make the case."

This sort of thing will surely solidify the base--the conservative base.

Not Just About You

In an after-action report of the McCain Campaign’s excellent summer offensive, J.B. White warns black Democrats about their own “navel-gazing narcissism” when it comes to the elitism and bigotry hurled at Sarah Palin.

I keep asking black people, and will continue to do so, have you called George W. Bush a Hitler? A chimp? Stupid? Have you laughed at the outrageous slandering of Sarah Palin? Every far left liberal who has thrown out that kind of foolishness about the Governor of Alaska (the kindest thing many of them have grudgingly said is "empty suit") has telegraphed to black people exactly what they truthfully think of your grandmother, your aunt or your cousin, etc. Especially if they step off the [Democrat] plantation.

As I've tried to point out before, those who would allow the phrase "white trash" to easily roll off of their tongues with respect to a Republican white woman who didn't marry her way into high office would just as easily Photoshop a Republican black senate candidate in minstrel makeup. (And isn't it interesting that sociologist Max Weber described "white trash" as persons in the Old South who didn't own slaves?)

Read the whole thing—a deft attempt at “deflating the identity politics balloon.”