On What's Goin' On
(Thanks for the nudge, tlhinganhom!)
As it is for Colin, long-time readers of this blog may have noticed that I don't fucking post worth a fetid pair of dingo's kidneys any more. In this highly charged political climate, wouldn't my usual commentary be at least entertaining (if not informative)? Damn right.
But first, where the hell I've been.
I used to post a lot. The frequency for this was largely facilitated by doing it from work. I would skim the news, find something about the Bush administration that would piss me off, and put it up and/or comment. I had one job that didn't mind because I was still very productive. But I left that job for another, one that I was afraid would be less understanding. I admit that I might have spent more time doing that than I should have, but I left that job too for one that was higher-paying.
BUT they also had strict Internet policies. Anything that wasn't blocked was monitored. No more WPR online for me. No cell phone reception either. They threatened that anyone found using the internet excessively would be fired one the spot. My project started to slow down, so sometimes all I could do was bop around on the net while the department we were working with caught up. The bosses knew this, and didn't mind, but all the same I didn't risk it. It broke me of this arguably bad habit. Even though I can take it up again, I find I'm (for once) too busy to be much interested in it. And when I get home it's the last thing I think about.
I have, however, developed the habit of saving interesting news stories in a text file. I think I've been doing this for over a year now. I've almost never reported any of them. I think the last batch included the implosion of the DOJ and the (long-overdue) resignation of Alberto Gonzales. That was just shy of a year ago.
Clearly a lot has happened, but since Bush is now a lame duck and most of the crap that could have happened has happened long before I was in a condition to comment on it, I didn't feel like there was any pressing need to jump back into the fray. What would I say?
I think I've figured it out. The presidential primaries for each side are over. The running mates are picked. And I'm pissed off.
I liked Obama since he started appearing on the Daily Show while I still lived in Illinois. I figured I needed to know who my senators were (Durbin is the senior one, right)? I didn't realize but wasn't surprised by the idea that he was probably gearing up for a Presidential run. Still, I was cautious to call myself a supporter, and wanted to see how the primaries would go. After the first three contests, I'd made up my mind. I defended him and balked at the notion that Hillary Clinton could ever erode his slow, inexorable growth of support. I was ultimately right.
That's why it burns me so much that, after securing the nomination, he immediately let me and a lot of other people down. He completely switched tactics and started making obvious moves toward the middle. He supported immunity for the telecoms and voted for an unnecessary amendment to the FISA law (that we didn't even know about until Bush criminally broke it and the court came out of hiding to let everyone know) AFTER he said he wouldn't do that. His message got lost. Many would question if he had one to begin with.
Palin's selection was genius on McCain's, and the Obama camp has so far been unable to deal with it.
First, McCain was able to hide behind her. People like my father -- a man who hadn't voted Democrat since Regan first ran in 1980, and was considering Obama because he disliked McCain -- took a second look. Because he liked Palin. Because she's hot? I don't know.
Second, I've heard more than one Obama supporter slam her for her lack of experience. But she has more executive experience than Obama! And McCain for that matter. At the same time, McCain found his own rockstar for the ticket, so her lack of experience doesn't matter and he can use some of the same tactics Obama has. And I fear they're working. Exposing that hypocrisy might start making people think twice about Obama, though.
It's gotten better. The focus is back on McCain, mostly because he's made a few mistakes and obvious shifts in position lately. Mostly because his voting record shows he supported many of the deregulations that helped make the current financial system meltdown possible. However, Obama hasn't said much about his philosophy and what would work better. He's mostly pointing out what I just pointed out (which was first pointed out to me by him). But just saying how terrible McCain's past decisions have been, making Obama's strongest argument "I'm not McCain" isn't enough. When did he become John Kerry?
He's gotta come out with a comprehensive list of ideas. Top of that list? Government bailout for individuals. The current administration (and arguably Republicans in general) pay lip service to the "free market" only so long as it benefits the huge corporations that donate to their campaigns. And when those huge corporations get themselves in trouble? Let "Uncle Sam" help you.
What about all the people saddled with mortgages they never should have gotten with terms that even someone in more ideal financial standing would have difficulty paying? The market only allowed it, not because they wanted to start letting more people be home-owners, but because there was a growing market for mortgage-backed securities. There was lots of money to be invested in this area, but a dearth of supply in mortgages. So how do you create more mortgages? Lower the standards until there were NO STANDARDS. And these muckity-mucks used computer models based on good mortgages (the ones with standards) to convince themselves that this new crop of mortgages couldn't fail more than 8% (12% a worst).
Then the bottom fell out. You hear plenty about WaMu, AIG, Fannie and Freddie, Bears Stearns, the Lehman Group, and on and on. But few are talking about the holders of the loans. Not every one is a victim, but they should have been rightly denied a loan and now have ones they can't afford. In some extreme cases the mortgage brokers -- desperate for the business -- outright falsified income to get the deal sealed and the mortgage passed up the chain. They have been sold and re-sold so many times that in many cases you can't find out who has the liability. Other than the lendee, of course.
Check out This American Life episode 355: The Giant Pool of Money for a pretty comprehensive look at how this whole mess started. There's even a new podcast by called Planet Money by Alex Blumberg -- the main reporter for Planet Money. I haven't heard it yet, but the most recent episode is "Naked Short Selling", which is touched upon in last week's episode of This American Life. Did you know that you can sell a stock? Of course you did. Did you know that you can sell stocks you don't even know? It's true. It takes three days for the fraudulent sales to be found out, and up to two weeks before anyone will do anything about it. Plenty of time to have made a transaction that "never happened".
Anyway, with all that, what can Obama do? Offer a bailout to individuals. Let them refinance in more reasonable terms... if they can. If not, some might have to foreclose. At any rate, don't believe for a second that these people are the criminals, even though they will be painted as such. If they weren't foreclosing in such vast numbers, we wouldn't have this problem. Bailing out the companies and NOT punishing the executives and individual brokers means that the cause will not get fixed. Mortgages will still continue to be defaulted, and our next priority has to be preventing as many of those as possible.
~Sean
As it is for Colin, long-time readers of this blog may have noticed that I don't fucking post worth a fetid pair of dingo's kidneys any more. In this highly charged political climate, wouldn't my usual commentary be at least entertaining (if not informative)? Damn right.
But first, where the hell I've been.
I used to post a lot. The frequency for this was largely facilitated by doing it from work. I would skim the news, find something about the Bush administration that would piss me off, and put it up and/or comment. I had one job that didn't mind because I was still very productive. But I left that job for another, one that I was afraid would be less understanding. I admit that I might have spent more time doing that than I should have, but I left that job too for one that was higher-paying.
BUT they also had strict Internet policies. Anything that wasn't blocked was monitored. No more WPR online for me. No cell phone reception either. They threatened that anyone found using the internet excessively would be fired one the spot. My project started to slow down, so sometimes all I could do was bop around on the net while the department we were working with caught up. The bosses knew this, and didn't mind, but all the same I didn't risk it. It broke me of this arguably bad habit. Even though I can take it up again, I find I'm (for once) too busy to be much interested in it. And when I get home it's the last thing I think about.
I have, however, developed the habit of saving interesting news stories in a text file. I think I've been doing this for over a year now. I've almost never reported any of them. I think the last batch included the implosion of the DOJ and the (long-overdue) resignation of Alberto Gonzales. That was just shy of a year ago.
Clearly a lot has happened, but since Bush is now a lame duck and most of the crap that could have happened has happened long before I was in a condition to comment on it, I didn't feel like there was any pressing need to jump back into the fray. What would I say?
I think I've figured it out. The presidential primaries for each side are over. The running mates are picked. And I'm pissed off.
I liked Obama since he started appearing on the Daily Show while I still lived in Illinois. I figured I needed to know who my senators were (Durbin is the senior one, right)? I didn't realize but wasn't surprised by the idea that he was probably gearing up for a Presidential run. Still, I was cautious to call myself a supporter, and wanted to see how the primaries would go. After the first three contests, I'd made up my mind. I defended him and balked at the notion that Hillary Clinton could ever erode his slow, inexorable growth of support. I was ultimately right.
That's why it burns me so much that, after securing the nomination, he immediately let me and a lot of other people down. He completely switched tactics and started making obvious moves toward the middle. He supported immunity for the telecoms and voted for an unnecessary amendment to the FISA law (that we didn't even know about until Bush criminally broke it and the court came out of hiding to let everyone know) AFTER he said he wouldn't do that. His message got lost. Many would question if he had one to begin with.
Palin's selection was genius on McCain's, and the Obama camp has so far been unable to deal with it.
First, McCain was able to hide behind her. People like my father -- a man who hadn't voted Democrat since Regan first ran in 1980, and was considering Obama because he disliked McCain -- took a second look. Because he liked Palin. Because she's hot? I don't know.
Second, I've heard more than one Obama supporter slam her for her lack of experience. But she has more executive experience than Obama! And McCain for that matter. At the same time, McCain found his own rockstar for the ticket, so her lack of experience doesn't matter and he can use some of the same tactics Obama has. And I fear they're working. Exposing that hypocrisy might start making people think twice about Obama, though.
It's gotten better. The focus is back on McCain, mostly because he's made a few mistakes and obvious shifts in position lately. Mostly because his voting record shows he supported many of the deregulations that helped make the current financial system meltdown possible. However, Obama hasn't said much about his philosophy and what would work better. He's mostly pointing out what I just pointed out (which was first pointed out to me by him). But just saying how terrible McCain's past decisions have been, making Obama's strongest argument "I'm not McCain" isn't enough. When did he become John Kerry?
He's gotta come out with a comprehensive list of ideas. Top of that list? Government bailout for individuals. The current administration (and arguably Republicans in general) pay lip service to the "free market" only so long as it benefits the huge corporations that donate to their campaigns. And when those huge corporations get themselves in trouble? Let "Uncle Sam" help you.
What about all the people saddled with mortgages they never should have gotten with terms that even someone in more ideal financial standing would have difficulty paying? The market only allowed it, not because they wanted to start letting more people be home-owners, but because there was a growing market for mortgage-backed securities. There was lots of money to be invested in this area, but a dearth of supply in mortgages. So how do you create more mortgages? Lower the standards until there were NO STANDARDS. And these muckity-mucks used computer models based on good mortgages (the ones with standards) to convince themselves that this new crop of mortgages couldn't fail more than 8% (12% a worst).
Then the bottom fell out. You hear plenty about WaMu, AIG, Fannie and Freddie, Bears Stearns, the Lehman Group, and on and on. But few are talking about the holders of the loans. Not every one is a victim, but they should have been rightly denied a loan and now have ones they can't afford. In some extreme cases the mortgage brokers -- desperate for the business -- outright falsified income to get the deal sealed and the mortgage passed up the chain. They have been sold and re-sold so many times that in many cases you can't find out who has the liability. Other than the lendee, of course.
Check out This American Life episode 355: The Giant Pool of Money for a pretty comprehensive look at how this whole mess started. There's even a new podcast by called Planet Money by Alex Blumberg -- the main reporter for Planet Money. I haven't heard it yet, but the most recent episode is "Naked Short Selling", which is touched upon in last week's episode of This American Life. Did you know that you can sell a stock? Of course you did. Did you know that you can sell stocks you don't even know? It's true. It takes three days for the fraudulent sales to be found out, and up to two weeks before anyone will do anything about it. Plenty of time to have made a transaction that "never happened".
Anyway, with all that, what can Obama do? Offer a bailout to individuals. Let them refinance in more reasonable terms... if they can. If not, some might have to foreclose. At any rate, don't believe for a second that these people are the criminals, even though they will be painted as such. If they weren't foreclosing in such vast numbers, we wouldn't have this problem. Bailing out the companies and NOT punishing the executives and individual brokers means that the cause will not get fixed. Mortgages will still continue to be defaulted, and our next priority has to be preventing as many of those as possible.
~Sean