Well, nobody ever said a scapegoat had to actually, you know, exist.

Someone bound Ed Morrissey in his nutshell… then he can count himself a king of infinite space. Or he can king himself a count of infinite space. Whatever.

My bad everyone. The dep…ugh…recession is my fault.

Little-known fact: the Emancipation Proclamation caused the Great Depression, and Roosevelt worsened it by accepting votes from blacks.

This public service announcement funded by the Committee To Bombard The Public With Lies About Million-Dollar Projects In The Middle Of A Multi-Trillion Dollar Bailout (formerly North American Man-Penny Love Association).

The CRA helped cause the housing crisis in the same way that the leaky faucet in the aft galley helped cause the Titanic.

It simply must be the fault of poor, lucky ducky minorities, without whose dead weight this country would run perfectly!

Well, nobody ever said a scapegoat had to actually, you know, exist.

You got that right.

It’s comforting to know that in these turbulent economic times, the stupid factory is still cranking it out 24/7.

It’s comforting to know that in these turbulent economic times, the stupid factory is still cranking it out 24/7.

Surprising, though, because as abundant as that shit is, they pay an awful lot for it.

I think Perkins (This Modern World) got it exactly right when he characterized the current Republican strategy as building up a deeply insular mythology incomprehensible to laypeople. Unless this shit stops, and right soon, winning the Republican primaries will require a set of skills (openly lying and playing an economic idiot, blaming the Columbine shooting on spics, an openly overcompensatory hatred for the awful queers) which are exactly opposite to those necessary to win elections.

The funny thing is that they really think the problem with the 2008 campaign was the public’s unfed hunger for more actively accusing the black candidate of Marxism for no other evident reason. Why does the PC mafia refuse to acknowledge the horrible import of Barack Obama’s thug thizzle, as this Google search clearly illustrates???

Johnny Coelacanth said,

March 17, 2009 at 22:59

“I’ve heard good things about Austin”

I was born and raised in San Antonio. Texas would be nice, if it weren’t full of Texans. Austin is an island of sanity surrounded by a sea of redneck horseshit.

PDX? Seems like most of the people I know who leave this town go to the Pacific NW, going from not enough rain to too much rain. When do you plan on leaving Vegas? Maybe I can buy you a drinking liberally drink before ya go.

I was in PDX on bizness last week. (Flew in midniteish on 3/10, did all my work on 3/11, left for the airport before 6:15 AM on 3/12.)

It was sunny on 3/11, and I loved it. Spruce trees are cool. (And more about my bizness next comment, because it is topical.)
~

At least Pethokoukis limits himself to talking about the housing crisis. The idiot call-center manager cum expert on all things transforms this into the financial crisis, with all its bailout nonsense and economic upheaval.

This simple-minded desperation to blame anything and everything wrong on their political opponents is juvenile, and shamelessly dishonest.
Some facts:
– All subprime mortgages total only about $600 Billion
– Subprime ARMs only represent 6.8% of all U.S. mortgages
– The totally unregulated derivatives market is now well over $600 TRILLION, or about four times the total wealth of the entire world. Credit default swaps alone account for over $40 TRILLION.

It’s hard to imagine that even such dishonest partisans as these could believe, even in their deliberate and willful ignorance, that the collapse of the global economy is due, in any way, to the CRA.

Spruce trees are cool.

Spruce trees? Spruce trees?

Harumph.

Reader Comments
Read all 21 comments about this article
CRA loans have performed

You’re either ignorant, or a liar, James Pethokoukis.

The CRA had absolutely nothing to do with our real estate bubble and subsequent burst.

You are simply repeating right-wing propaganda that was intended for morons.

http://pubcit.typepad.com/clpblog/2008/11/comptroller-of-currency-responds-to-claims-that-cra-contributed-to-the-subprime-lending-crisis.html

Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan has rebuked all your claims.

Could you please find a little dignity, now?

~
ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© of OH
Mar 17, 2009 18:52:41 PM [permalink] [report comment]

I spent most of the last 40 years in Manhattan, Dr. Missus Marita.

Those big tall greeny things, is what I meant.

Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan has rebuked all your claims.

Then he was assassinated by ObamaThugs(tm).

If repeating a lie 1,000 times doesn’t make it the truth, the wingnuts will try it 10,000 times.

Once and for all: CRA did not force banks or mortgage companies to make loans to people who couldn’t repay them. All it did was forbid them from disqualifying, on the basis of location alone, people who were otherwise financially qualified. This practice was known as “redlining,” and it fell disproportionately on minorities because of the segregation in this country.

Now, what is so fucking hard to understand about that?

Bookmark ittdgy’s link, libs. It’s a pretty goddamn obvious conclusion, but partially it has to come from a Bush official for it to sink into their thick heads.

Of course, because right-wing history is modern ideology in cosplay, this won’t carry into the long term. Elite right-wingers who want to pretend they were radicals back in their Klan Democrat days just rattle off a long, selective list of Johnson-era mauvaises-nommées programmes, flatly assert a connection between them and whatever they believe coloreds are doing to wrong them these days, and claim to be older and wiser now. If that awful species even exists in 2020 (doubtful, given how violently anti-intellectual even the GOP assholes who fancy themselves thinkers have got), that list will doubtless include the CRA, ACORN, and Holder’s ropy dick as critical stimuli for Indian or Serbian or whereverian emigrés’ offenses against well-meaning, patriotic whites and illegal Guatemalans and other real Americans.

Yes, the Community Reinvestment Act Really Did Help Cause the Housing Crisis

You know, I clicked on the link thinking he would actually back up this statement with evidence. Instead, I find:

Yet the FDIC has turned up the heat on Petrucelli’s bank, giving it an apparently rare “needs to improve rating,” for not making more risky loans under the Community Reinvestment Act. Here is how the FDIC puts it: “There are no apparent financial or legal impediments that would limit the bank’s ability to help meet the credit needs of its assessment area. The FDIC examiners also faulted East Bridgewater “for not advertising and marketing its loan products enough. The bank, which does not have a Web site, offers fixed-rate mortgages.”

Game, set and match, loony libs…Uh, wait a minute, all that tells me is that one bank, which otherwise had an exemplary record, didn’t fulfill its obligations under the CRA. How is this evidence that the CRA “help(ed) cause the Housing Crisis?”

Confusion will be my epitath.

Other people, such as Janet Yellen, have also refuted the CRA nonsense

I bring up John Dugan specifically because:

The White House has nominated John Dugan, a partner in the D.C. office of law firm Covington and Burling who specializes in banking regulation, for a five year term as Comptroller of the Currency.

He was formerly Assistant secretary of the Treasury for Domestic Finance during the Administration of President George H.W. Bush, and before that was Republican General Counsel to U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

I’m sure Rush Limbaugh would like to cause John Dugan’s death by sitting on him and farting, but the fact is no one who works in real estate finance believes that the CRA had anything to do with our current problems. It is simply wingnut propaganda, spread by the usual liars (AEI,etc.).

Oh, and little-known fact: the so-called “supply shocks” or “stag-flation” of the 70s were actually a direct result of Dworkin failing to shave her armpits.

I’m sure Rush Limbaugh would like to cause John Dugan’s death by sitting on him and farting, but the fact is no one who works in real estate finance believes that the CRA had anything to do with our current problems. It is simply wingnut propaganda, spread by the usual liars (AEI,etc.).

I suspect it’s not so simple as that – for the last half-century there’s been a stark and growing divide in real-estate appraisal, banking, and sales between shameless greed-heads (who would have regarded the end of redlining as a good thing, because the status quo lost money) and wingnut castle-libertarian ideologues.

There’s problems with the former group, but it’s mainly the latter who imagine housing prices plummeting whenever Jesse Jackson farts. And they’re the ones with the most ready access to the newspapers.

The bright side here is that every minute James Pethokoukis spends writing for US News and World Report is one less minute for nym-switching trollery at S,N!.

I don’t consider wingnut castle-libertarian ideologues professionals, alec.

Wingnut welfare may pay their bills, but I’m not going to call them professionals.

The bright side here is that every minute James Pethokoukis spends writing for US News and World Report is one less minute for nym-switching trollery at S,N!.

Pethokoo-koo?

Let’s see if I can search through my memory here…

Private mortgage houses are writing fanciful loans on anything that doesn’t move. Their default rates are creeping up. Meanwhile, Fannie and Freddie, whose CRA loans have lower than avergae default rates, are pressured by their investors to write them hot new loan types of loan because goddamn it you’re losing market share so do whateverr the fuck it takes to compete.

Thus did CLENIS cause the global financial collapse! And CLENIS is the source and cause of the collapse of marriage. And gaybortions too!

Oops. That was me. Duh.

You left out Jimmy Carter, PeeJ.

“no one who works in real estate finance believes that the CRA had anything to do with our current problems”

The crazy thing about the wingnut fantasies on this and so many other scores is that no one who is in the slightest informed on the subject believes the fantasy. Even the merest acquaintance with the facts shows them to be full of shit. While they’re in a cocoon, howling at each other, that’s not a problem, but when their fantasy is “Iraq has WMD”, it gets out of hand. There’s nothing to worry about in “scary negroes caused the financial crisis” but plenty to worry about in “scary Iranians have a nuke and are going to attack Israel”.

Also, to a certain mr. snooty wooty too good for the rest of us unwashed masses, there are in fact bars open late in PDX and if you sneak in and out of town again without letting us drag you into one or ten well pPHTPTHTHTPTHTHTTTTHTT!! to you

“Wall street greed?” You mean congressional incompetence and corruption, adopting stupid laws, and encouraging stupid behavior. Chris Dodd and Barney Frank both have benefitted from financial favors in their positions. But they would have us ignore all the true facts.

Congress wanted banks to make risky loans (because housing prices only go up in the long run, right?) to encourage home ownership.

HUD/Freddie and Fannie/Federal bureaucrats/politcal operatives dreamed up a mechanism to make it profitable and risk free for the originating bank to make these loans–they dreamed up bundling these loans with other products to minimize the risk so they could be sold. But that just smeared it all together to make the risk almost impossible to evaluate. And they sold them to companies like Citi, Merrill, Bear Stearns, Lehman, AIG–who resold them to pension funds, towns, countries, etc.

Watch this video, libs, it tells your the real cause of the crisis:

http://www.mortgagesuccesssource.com/go/markmarket/

Meanwhile, CNN has its eye on the ball: ITTY BITTY DINOSAUR FOUND

Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to remind you – as a courtesy to anyone killfiling – to avoid saying word one about or to the troll unless the nym you use should start with “St. Jesus”.

Seriously, some people don’t want to have to listen to a coupla guys prodding a bed-wetter until he just says “a-boo-bloo-bloo, rhodesia” over and over.

It was Sarbanes-Oxley and other difficult to comply with big government regulations that hurt companies like AIG and started this downward spiral.

See, the Comptroller of the Currency is just taking hush money. You know, from Al Sharpton.

Who had sex with the pederast “Doctor” Martin Luther King Junior – you know, as a boy.

What, so it’s racist when I say ‘boy’???

I was going to comment earlier on the fresh aroma in here since the disemvoweller got to work. I’m seconding St. Jesus of Fucking God’s plea.

Activate the Disemvoweler, stat.

…they dreamed up bundling these loans with other products to minimize the risk so they could be sold. But that just smeared it all together to make the risk almost impossible to evaluate. And they sold them to companies like Citi, Merrill, Bear Stearns, Lehman, AIG–who resold them to pension funds, towns, countries, etc.

Congress did all this? I thought it was the James Galts of our Financial Industry. In fact, since I actually worked (at the same firms with) some of them, I can assure you that Barney Franks and Chris Dodd were not in the building.

Just goes to show what you can learn looking back through the coke-bottle lenses of gooper revisionism.

PeeJ – OT, but if you know anyone who is keen on getting beef this year, it would be cool if you let me know before too long. The folks are probably going to be sending some of the un-spoken for steers to auction in the next week, to avoid paying for even more hay. 🙂

“So who are you voting for?”

“Uh, I don’t know. What about you?”

“Palin. A real American and a maverick. Not like that fucking Chris Dodd, I tell you.”

“Who?”

“He did the financial crisis. You know, by having gay sex with that fag Barney Frank.”

“I don’t know much about fags, but that seems unlikely.”

“Fuck you, you fucking liberal elitist!”

“Again? You told me you only had twenty.”

“I said I only had twenty to spend on a Chinaman.“

Incidentally, Palin will win Pennsylvania once the Islamist Barack Hussein Obama gives three hundred trillion dollars to America’s forty million illegals and hnnnn spent

Pee J, re: the not notifying my presence in the PDX area.

My first time there ever! I did mention my timing, correct? So basically, the only time I could actually meet anyone was after I dragged my buttocks back from bizness in Woodward and McMinnville on 3/11…which got me right into the rush hour returning to my hotel near the airport.

Also, did I mention that I lost my driver’s license within one hour of landing in Oregon on 3/10?

That put me on a schedule of heading to the airport for a flight departing PDX at 7:15 AM on 3/12. Where upon arriving around 6:24 AM I immediately learned what SSSS on your boarding pass means. Then I got to Boston later that day, because BOS is directly on the path from Oregon to Ohio (RIGHT?)

And there I had to change gates, which meant going out through security.

Guess what kind of screening I had to go through, again, in Boston? So I got to Columbus around 11pm. And this just didn’t make me enthusiastic about going out on 3/11 evening, although I did know I shoulda done so.

*Sorry!*

More clear evidence we ought to have Obama’s Treasury hurled into the Potomac: Geithner’s people are trying to use Dodd as a sacrificial lamb over AIG to distract the public from the fact that Dodd’s plan for restrictions on executive compensation was more restrictive than that of, adamantly opposed and eventually torpedoed by, Geithner.

All of this talk about Portland and Sadly is making me nostalgic.

All of this talk of Portland is making me nostalgic too. Anyone in PDX know of someone who’d like to hire a PhD biochemist?

While we’re at it, how’s the market for dope-smoking slacker bookworms writers and editors in PDX?

While we’re at it, how’s the market for dope-smoking slacker bookworms writers and editors in PDX?

Oooh, good question. Because if this biochemist gets hired, there will be a pretty talented writer/editor available for hire as well.

yeah, in a NUTshell, all right.

I dunno, thunder.

The last time I was doing an extensive amount of travel ’03-’04, trade shows in Atlanta, Phoenix, Chicago, Vegas (3X), LA (3X) I didn’t have a Drivers License.

The deal is I have a LOT of trouble with government entities as there seems to be some kind of semi-under-the-table data sharing agreement whereby it is the sworn duty of all duly authorized bureaucrats to fuck with multiple convicted felons to the full extent of their abilities.

But anyway, it was post 9/11 and I didn’t have valid picture ID and I was flying Southwest all over gawds green earth.

Punchline:

Know what? It was a WIN! I had to go through “additional security screening” (Take off shoes and get wanded, mostly), but then they had a problem. What to do with said screened felon w/o picture ID? If they let me out of their sight, the whole process was stupid on it’s face (as opposed to stupid in reality), so there was only one option. They boarded me before the babies, before the cripples, before the “pre-board” passengers.

I got that good seat, the one by the exit door, of which there are exactly two, every single time.

Hee hee…

mikey

Dammit.

Gotta reset that whole nym thang…

mikey

I immediately learned what SSSS on your boarding pass means
This is not making me nostalgic at all.

I dunno bout the actual market, but the supply of dope-smoking slacker bookworms in PDX runs pretty high, as it does in SEA. Somebody has to be employing them… 🙂

Meanwhile, CNN has its eye on the ball: ITTY BITTY DINOSAUR FOUND

Itty bitty velociraptor relative is cute as a button! A vicious flesh-ripping button with veins in its little teeth.

Starbucks….

mikey

I immediately learned what SSSS on your boarding pass means

Ah yes, my husband and I learned all about this last year after I delivered a calm and measured assessment of the Continental Airlines staff’s competence when they were re-ticketing us after stranding us in Newark (and refusing to compensate for it). Nice to know that spite plays a large part in who they decide to single out, eh?

A vicious flesh-ripping button with veins in its little teeth.

My ex wife is fossilized?

mikey

Oh, and Dr. Missus Marita: are you looking for a postdoc, a teaching position, academic research, applied research, yadda yadda and in what specialty? Without knowing specifics, OHSU strikes me as your best bet…

@mikey: not just Starbucks (or Peets or Stumptown, for that matter 🙂 )… my firm employs at least one (and it isn’t me).

Huh. Just popped out to pick up some Harp to go with dinner. Did I mention how I corn beef my own self?

ittdgy: okay then. But NEXT FUCKING TIME!!!!!!

Dr. MM: (1) I thought there wsn’t going to be any beef until much later this year? I’ll check wit my frenz ASAP.

Dr. MM: (2) OHSU, as you probably know and which I would guess would be your most likely prospect, is having some woes so things aint real good. A friend is personal asst. to the Pres. over there and sez the rumors are rampant – things are either gonna get well or everyhting is going into the shitter. So I haven’t got a clue.

Mister Dr. Missus and JC: No clue there either. I’ll look into it if you like.

Now that someone mentions it though, many of the slacker dope smoking bookworms I know work at Powell’s. They don’t make much money doing it.

protected static: I’ll certainly check out OHSU (I’m not looking immediately actually, – maybe in a year or so), and I really enjoy academic research, but I’d consider industry or even consulting if it landed me back in Oregon. And teaching at a small college would be a blast. My current work is in cardiovascular research, but I’ve got a pretty broad array of biochemistry skills. The only thing I’d really want to avoid is another postdoc. I’d like to actually start getting paid for all this education-y stuff. 🙂

Dr. MM: (1) I thought there wsn’t going to be any beef until much later this year? I’ll check wit my frenz ASAP.

Oh yeah, this is the thing: there isn’t going to be beef ready to go until September, but, my folks are trying to streamline and not care for and feed for more animals than they need to all summer, so they’re going to send the steers that haven’t been spoken for to the auction in the next week or so. No worries if you don’t know anyone who wants to commit that far in advance, but I think that’s the current plan…

Do they got any oinkers, Doc?

Or sheeps?

‘Cause I’m really not much for beef, but y’know, a man’s gotta eat SOMETHING…

How bout bunnies?

mikey

@Dr. MM: yeah, being paid is good… We’re finally reaping some financial benefits after all those years of education (and post-education) ourselves. Good luck.

Sorry Mikey, no oinkers, and my father would sooner sell the farm than raise sheep. There’s a massive infestation of wild turkeys, but you can’t really sell wildlife, y’know?

But a righteous heirloom piggy, with all the fat and shit, the way it’s supposed to be but they wrecked it. Yuuummmm.

It’s the reason I still drag my old broken ass up the hill above Lake Pillsbury to kill a couple hundred pounds of original sin (pig).

I’d be delighted to do all my real pig hunting with a high caliber credit card.

Just sayin…

mikey

My sister’s house is overRUN with great big wild turkeys.

I go up there and take one now and then with a crossbow.

The place is in an oak forest, so they live on acorns and grubs.

Those are the fucking goddam BEST turkeys you have ever eaten.

You get a clean lung shot with a short steel bolt through the wings and above the breast and you’ve got forty pounds of delicious.

mikey

Oh, I agree on the wild turkeys, Mikey, my brother and father each get a turkey tag almost every year (nice to be able to hunt in your yard, huh?), and they’re super tasty. Still, you can’t exactly sell game meat. Not in Oregon anyway.

No, no.

If you sell it ur doin it worng!

You EAT it!!

Yum!

mikey

Doctor Missus Marita said,

March 18, 2009 at 3:00

Oh, I agree on the wild turkeys, Mikey, my brother and father each get a turkey tag almost every year (nice to be able to hunt in your yard, huh?), and they’re super tasty. Still, you can’t exactly sell game meat. Not in Oregon anyway.

I did pick up on the Oregon/PDX being pretty organic/crunchy.

It was the 55 mph speed limits as I headed south towards Woodward (late as usual) that tipped me off.

(But not having my driver’s license was somewhat unusual, so I tried to settle in with locals.)

There were enough fellow speedsters so that I could travel in my familiar manner.
~

ITTDGY, I’m guessing you mean Woodburn? IIRC, I-5 is only 55 mph where it goes through the cities (which is most of the way to Woodburn, since I think that goes as far as Wilsonville. It’s 65 in the more rural segments (most of the rest of the state). Except for trucks. They have to go 55 all the time. 🙂

Yes that’s right, DMM. Woodburn. Then off to McMinnville, then back to PDX which seemed like a Dr. Seuss impression of a city’s rush hour over a river.

I tried to take some windshield pics, but there’s only so far I’ll go while risking crashing into the 3mph traffic ahead of me.
~

mikey, surely you can grow your own bunnies?

Used to have a friend w/ a smoker, & he’d smoke Mr. Bunny Rabbit up every Easter.

Couldn’t bring myself to eat Mr. Bunny, but there he was.

sooner sell the farm than raise sheep

Sounds like Oklahoma! in Oregon.

We’re partially looking forward to going to Portland to avoid driving being obligatory – LV, by mixture of local geography and political horseshit (even if the political will existed, it’d probably take a city of 4-5+ million to justify tunneling through a layer of tuff to build a subway, to say nothing of the ventilation issues), has an absolutely hideous public transit system.

I don’t drive and the fiancee gets carsickness when being driven, so trains’n’buses is the only answer. And it saves on insurance, too.

Couldn’t bring myself to eat Mr. Bunny, but there he was.

A synopsis of so very much fursuited angst.

Ick ick ick!!! Stop that!!

frstd ngst, m ss!!

Your synopsis burned out my synapses.

I voted for bonuses for AIG before I voted against them!

God, I’m so fucked in 2010.

Help, Barack!

Heh indeed. Chris Dodd. Barney Fag, Blah blah blah mumble mumble.

Repeat until sated. Or nauseated.

Don’t worry Chris I know all about shady real estate deals. Here, let me give you Rezko’s number…

This + this = insanity

For the love of god, please do not gaze too long at the brink of this abyss.

Vacationing in Florida, to get an early jump on the summer weather.

Everything that’s fucked up in this country can be seen in Florida.

It’s nice to have hot weather again, though. It’s been too long.

mikey,
If we are going down the bunny route, let’s go fullly French. Frogs, horses, & unidetifiable small birds, yummy….

“many of the slacker dope smoking bookworms I know work at Powell’s. They don’t make much money doing it.”

Dope smoking slacker bookworm is more of a hobby, or a personality, than it is a vocation of mine. My background is writing and editing for consumer publications, with some DTP/technical/networking stuff on the side. Something tells me my skill set is not in short supply in the PacNW.

Johnny, if you’ve got decent design/user interface skills, just add Flash to your toolset and you’ll have plenty of work..

mikey

@JC: what mikey said… and if you aren’t averse to being subsumed by the Microsoft Borg, consider Silverlight, too…

Editing/writing isn’t in short supply, but in Seattle at least, demand outstrips supply if you know where to look.

If we are going down the bunny route, let’s go fullly French. Frogs, horses, & unidetifiable small birds, yummy….

Don’t forget the snails.

Someone please tell me that you are no longer talking about fursuits.

Not sure I like bunnies. I’m not sure what their anatomy is so I don’t know how to cook with them.

Best quote from the comments over at Morrissey’s place:

I dont care about communist err community re-investment
read you will loan money to poor blacks and hispanics even
if
THEY CANT READ
THEY CANT RIGHT

Mmmm. All this talk of animals is making me hungry. Now I wish I had saved some of the leftover black pudding from this morning’s annual family St. Patrick’s Day Breakfast for eating. I don’t drink alcohol but I wanted to feel like I was having a pint of Guinness while I listened to my Planxty 8-tracks you see so I threw it in a blender with some half and half and a little water. It did not turn out as well as you probably assume. Guinness is not really supposed to have a grainy consistency for one thing. I probably just need a better blender or I need to find some agent that will act as a solvent of sorts without killing me.

Best quote from the comments over at Morrissey’s place:

God I hate when I forget to take my meds before I post over there.

OMFG that was the best fucking corned beef EVAH! Since the last time I corned a brisket, that is.

G’night all.

Also, bunnies is tasty.

No, snailsuits.

‘I voted for bonuses for AIG before I voted against them’ is a nice way of making an issue out of the otherwise morally ambiguous Dodd’s fairly strong stand against Bush’s efforts to sneak finance-executive handjobs into the bank bailout under the table.

I mean, it’s a blatant lie and involves actively rooting for the villain in the confrontation – who are so busy fucking you over they can barely stop laughing at you to earnestly beg AIG for more executive dick – but hey, being a Republican you can’t help but fight for your good capitalist lieges as they rob you blind, can you?

Not sure I like bunnies. I’m not sure what their anatomy is so I don’t know how to cook with them.

The legs are kind of like chicken thighs. I usually cut the saddle (back) into 3 pieces. I usually braise it or grill it. It’s a fairly neutral meat so you can use most pork or chicken recipes for it.

I accidentally a whole housing crisis.
What should I do…Is this dangerous?

I accidentally a whole housing crisis.

Failing troll is failing.

Ugh.

Peckerwood’s list of other recent hits is just awful as well. This clown is one of the more useless depositories of recycled horseshit I’ve seen in a while.

I mean,

The Phony AIG Bonus Scandal Outrage
Who Really Won, Obama or McCain?

Blart.

Do NOT diss the snails. Only the French would be loony enough to see if it’d be good to chow down on those slimy wee buggers, & thank heavens they did. Escargots sauteed in garlic butter = religious experience without the neurosis.

Best bird I ever scarfed was wild duck … oily as hell but manna for the tastebuds.

In Reality Land™, the CRA was a bipartisan effort to end one of the most inexplicably blatant remnants of segregation; far from the bizarro-CRA the right has invented of late, it involved fairly small sums of taxpayer money and did almost nothing to offer the kind of high-risk loans considered necessary for inner-city development. As a sop to people who really, for whatever reason, believed in the goddamn practice, the solitary change made was forbidding redlining as a sole criterion for rejection. The only reason a bank would offer a loan it wouldn’t pre-CRA was that the loanee’s physical location was in a neighborhood the bank disliked.

And true to form, Reality Land CRA resulted in a low rate of default (proving any of its critics who actually worked in real estate wrong quickly) and a fairly modest level of solid investment. (But a very significant level for the poor, rural, and inner-sprawl communities in which aforementioned reinvestment took place.)

The overall effect was probably such that the financial crisis was delayed for about twelve business hours.

Had the reality pushed by Birchers and other Klan mouthpieces actually been the case, and had black people been a shiftless and thieving race who would quickly ruin any bank fool enough to give them money, the whole amount loaned out and subsequently blacked out (see what I did there?) under the CRA would represent around the amount of imaginary money the market moves in an hour.

So maybe it’d prolong the crisis by two business days.

But that’s not reality. It’s not the actual CRA, it’s not reflective of the behavior of CRA loan recipients, and it’s not supported by any fucking data. It’s a bald assertion which is only ever supported by other bald assertion. The only reason the right is blaming it rather than the jailing of OJ Simpson for the financial crisis is that Rush’s opiate-addled brain stumbled on a different hate target one particular minute. God knows they’d be trickling into AM radio lines yelling about a Romanian plot if he told them to. Ain’t got a thing in their heads but their master’s voice.

Allow me.

Escargots Anything sauteed in garlic butter = religious experience without the neurosis.

Happy to help.

Quiet, fool!

the current Republican strategy as building up a deeply insular mythology incomprehensible to laypeople

Done!

I can’t get religious about snails, or indeed much of anything, although I’ve been praying to Jesus Fucking Christ a lot lately.

And I should probably have posted this on the Blartyblartfast thread, but no-one will read it there because I’m behind the zeitgeist (galtgeist?). So I’m sticking it here: a nice bit of mindless, feel-good music from Bill Wyman.

Si si.

That was mindless. And almost 30 yrs. ago!!

You do know Bill W. was allegedly invited to join the band because he had the best bass cabinet around at the time.

About all that CRA stuff…correct me if I’m wrong, but who exactly was it who ballyhooed “the OWNERSHIP Society” for this past decade? Who told America that the way to defeat the terrorists was to “go shopping?” How come the CRA never caused any problems for 25 years, and then suddenly it made the whole economy blow up? Could it be that perhaps it wasn’t the best advice to tell the American people to go spend money they didn’t have to prove their “patriotism?” Because I don’t recall Barney Frank or Chris Dodd or Jimmy Carter exhorting people to go out and shop, for houses or anything else.

Funny thing how that “Ownership Society” turned out to actually be the “PWNERSHIP Society.”

It’s like all those jokes by bad Russian comics, except for this one, the punchline is: “In America, banks own YOU.”

The fact is, CRA caused the crisis by making banks loan to loosers and minorities, like Rick Santelli says. That is a fact anad you cant refute it.

Magna Carta led directly to the Black Plague.

True story.

How come the CRA never caused any problems for 25 years, and then suddenly it made the whole economy blow up?

Because the parasite class needs a smokescreen.

* President Bush expanded the federal budget by a historic $700 billion through 2008. President Obama would add another $1 trillion.
* President Bush began a string of expensive finan­cial bailouts. President Obama is accelerating that course.
* President Bush created a Medicare drug entitle­ment that will cost an estimated $800 billion in its first decade. President Obama has proposed a $634 billion down payment on a new govern­ment health care fund.
* President Bush increased federal education spending 58 percent faster than inflation. Presi­dent Obama would double it.
* President Bush became the first President to spend 3 percent of GDP on federal antipoverty programs. President Obama has already in­creased this spending by 20 percent.
* President Bush tilted the income tax burden more toward upper-income taxpayers. President Obama would continue that trend.
* President Bush presided over a $2.5 trillion increase in the public debt through 2008. Setting aside 2009 (for which Presidents Bush and Obama share responsibility for an additional $2.6 trillion in public debt), President Obama’s budget would add $4.9 trillion in public debt from the beginning of 2010 through 2016.

I destroyed the economy and ruined our relationships with countries around the world. My idiocy and carelessness made my administration a laughingstock. I alienated our allies and had the most corrupt criminal administration ever. I am the worst president ever. I left a possibly insurmountable mess for others to clean up. Now what this drive.

President Bush expanded the federal budget by a historic $700 billion through 2008. President Obama would add another $1 trillion

Well this certainly sounds ominous – it’d be nice to have a linkee to check this sort of thing.

Anyways, Bush’s federal budgets always excluded one small tiny item, which Obama has decided to add in. For 2008, this small tiny item accounted for $190 billion.

I inherited a budget surplus from the Clinton administration, and by declaring abominable unspeakable useless preemptive war that’s still going on six years later I ran up the hughest deficits in history, not to mention being responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people and thousands of our own troops. I am one of the worst people who ever lived.

Also I’m the one who started the outrageous bailouts of failing banks and financial institutions, not Obama. It’s up to the darkies to clean up after me. Now watch this drive.

It wasn’t the CRA, and it wasn’t subprime mortgages. It was a lack of oversight, a lack of due diligence and a surfeit of greed.

Go here:

http://www.minyanville.com/articles/index.php?a=17046

That link will take you to a very informative series of articles written by Mike Shedlock (“Mish”), who followed a real, honest-to-goodness mortgage pool (these were the groups of mortgages that got sliced up and sold off as securities) over the course of months as its underlying mortgages slowly turned bad and rotted.

These are the most important things to carry away from his articles:

1) The average credit score of the homebuyers in this pool was 704-705. These were not mortgages written to indigent people with shitty credit.

2) In April 2008, nearly 30% of the properties in this pool were at least 60 days delinquent. And the pool was still rated AAA.

3) In April 2008, nearly 1/7 of the properties in this pool were in foreclosure. And the pool was still rated AAA.

4) In April 2009, six percent of the properties in this pool were REO — meaning that they had been repossessed — and the pool was still rated AAA.

5) Given all that, would you be interested in buying some AAA-rated CDOs? How about investing in a company that owns a lot of shares in AAA-rated CDOs?

6) Investment banks eagerly bought up AAA-rated CDOs. Knowing what you now know from reading Mish’s articles, do you think those were wise investments?

7) The CRA didn’t force anyone to rate mortgage pools at AAA, and the CRA didn’t force any investors to buy any of them.

Obama is essentially doing everything Bush did, but more.

“most corrupt criminal administration ever”

*AHEM*

I mean, my FBI wiretapped Martin Luther King!

He kept screaming, “We didn’t fucking need a steering-wheel anyway!!”

Down I gooooooooooooo!

Looks like the Bear Market Rally is over!

And that’s when he threw it at you?

It’s S-H-O-E
My baloney has a second name
It’s L-I-M-P-Y

No, he threw it at me after I didn’t congratulate him for proving he could break it.

I used the Constitution for toilet paper. I allowed the worst terrorist attack in US history to happen. I played guitar and praised my worthless cronies while Katrina drowned New Orleans. My administration outed a CIA agent and then demonized her spouse for telling the truth. LBJ and Nixon?! HA! Pikers. No one in the history of the country could have possibly done more damage than I did through my idiocy, careless sociopathic indifference and callous disregard. I should be locked up forever. Now bring ’em on.

And when he drove off the cliff what was he shouting?

Oh noes! He outed a Northern Virginia soccer mom!

Surely much worse than Watergate or LBJ’s lies!

Dow Jones average goes up a little bit: whatever libs it’s just the dead cat bear bounce rally

Dow Jones average goes down a little bit: HA HA HA LIBS YOUR OBUMMER MANIA HAS DESTROYED THE COUNTRY WHAT NOW FAGGOTS

“I am John Galt! I can FLY!!!!!”

“Dow Jones average goes up a little bit: whatever libs it’s just the dead cat bear bounce rally

Dow Jones average goes down a little bit: HA HA HA LIBS YOUR OBUMMER MANIA HAS DESTROYED THE COUNTRY WHAT NOW FAGGOTS”

Heh, pretty much!

The year: 2012.

The Dow Jones is trading below 1,000.

Unemployment is at 20%.

Afghanistan has turned into a quagmire.

Barack Obama’s approval rating is at 25%.

Sarah Palin is leading in the polls for President.

Huh. I thought it was just us with the housing crisis. This is affecting everyone? Where have I been??? AHHHH!!!

It’s still S-H-O-E
My baloney has a second name
It’s still L-I-M-P-Y

via TPM, an Edward Liddy op-ed.

Mistakes were made at AIG, and on a scale that few could have imagined possible.

You stand accused of theft and grand larceny. How do you plead?
Mistakes were made!
Oh, well that’s all right then. All charges dropped. Also, no need to return all the stolen loot you worked so hard to acquire – the sight of it makes me sick, and I imagine that the rightful owners would feel much the same way.

My Word!

What about his passengers!?

They were already dead.

It was unquestionably a Murder-suicide…

Oh noes! He outed a Northern Virginia soccer mom!

Surely much worse than Watergate or LBJ’s lies!

She was an undercover intelligence officer working on nuclear nonproliferation issues. For an administration so worried about mushroom clouds to out such an agent is pretty much the definition of treason.

I’m not up to comparing one scandal with another, as this one is heinous all by iteself.

In summary, I hope you choke on your cheetos you fucktard.

Future Troll is a master of projection:
The Dow Jones is trading below 1,000.
Well, it’s a bit of a stretch. Perhaps if he had said that the DJIA would have lost a quarter of its value.

Unemployment is at 20%.
Again, a small stretch. More accurately, he should have claimed that the unemployment double under Obama’s watch.

Afghanistan has turned into a quagmire.
Ummm, no shit Sherlock. Bush marched troops into there at the end of 2001.

Barack Obama’s approval rating is at 25%.
Approval ratings in the mid 20’s? Gosh, that sounds familiar.

Sarah Palin is leading in the polls for President.
IOW, such a bad job would have been done that the American public would consider someone totally unexpected as a serious contender for Preznit.

Ah, “Mistakes were made.”

Among the most cowardly phrases in the English language.

Some sort of automatic robot hand really ought to just appear out of nowhere and slap the fuck out of anybody who uses those words.

“Mistakes were made” is the white-collar criminals’ version of “The gun went off.”

I just can’t help it, being a Greek-a-Billy and all, I see “AIG” and in my head I just think of what everyone else pronounces as “egg”. Ahh, the joys of being “one half hillbilly, the other half punk”. Long Live Lux!!

My solution –
Apparently about a dozen of those AIGFG shitbags taking retention bonuses, weren’t retained – they left for other corpses to loot. That’s a turnover of over 15%. Thus retention bonuses do not work, and any board of directors that approves them is clearly negligent in their behavior.

I would go after directors for the money. I would hold the actual members of the board PERSONALLY liable for every single fucking dollar of those bonuses – and drive each and every one of those fuckwads to bankruptcy.

Step Two: announce the formation of a new team that is specifically going to look at executive compensation in any publicly traded company. Deny any connection between the biblical shit-kicking delivered unto the board of AIG with the formation of this team, but wink and nod when doing so.

There appears to be some indication that AIG has been less than forthcoming in paying some of these supposedly ‘contractually-mandated bonuses’ in the past. Given that, I look forward to reading today’s transcript from the Congressional hearings this evening.

Someone made up that name. That’s his nom-de-plume for when he writes a letter to men’s magazines.

Dow Jones said,

Looks like the Bear Market Rally is over!

I do not think that means what you think it means, Troll.

Someone made up that name.

I still have fond memories of the Senate leadership including “Dick Armey” and “Harry Reed.” Fond memories of childish jokes about their names, of course, not of the crap laws passed in that era.

♫ Who’s sorryyyyy noooowwwwwww ♫

“Mistakes were made” is the white-collar criminals’ version of “The gun went off.”

He ran into my knife! He ran into my knife, ten times!

“Mistakes were made” is the white-collar criminals’ version of “The gun went off.”

I think the first time I heard this phrase was back during Watergate, along with “previous statements on this matter were inoperative”.

One must marvel at the abuse the English language can withstand. I miss Edwin Newman’s commentaries on this.

Politician, in March 2009: “I promise, I will pull out before.”

Politician, December 2009: “Mistakes were made and previous statements on this matter were inoperative. And no, I won’t provide child support.”

Housekeeping? Yes we have a troll’s nest in our room could you send up a disemvoweler as soon as possible, please?

I, um, fell on some bullets…

He ran into my knife! He ran into my knife, ten times!

Fosse!

Jazz!

Doctor Missus Marita said,
March 18, 2009 at 2:29

I immediately learned what SSSS on your boarding pass means).

Ah yes, my husband and I learned all about this last year after I delivered a calm and measured assessment of the Continental Airlines staff’s competence when they were re-ticketing us after stranding us in Newark (and refusing to compensate for it).

OMG, were you in that line too last September? The Worst.Customer.Service.Ever. There’s nothing like being treated as a moronic aggravation rather than a customer, to make you want to respond loudly. Is the staff perhaps engaged in an informal competition to see how many customers they can drive to hysteria or rage? Ah, the happy night we spent in a Super Eight at the intersection of a couple highways near the airport. At our own expense, of course. And lucky to get it.

Continental and Newark will not see our faces again if we can possibly help it.

Continental and Newark will not see our faces again if we can possibly help it.

I used to travel a *lot* in my work, and you just named my least-favorite airline and airport in the same sentence. I had a Continental OnePass account, just so I could collect the frequent flyer miles on the rare occasions I was forced to fly with them. But when I came off the road, I transferred those miles into my Amtrak account.

Preferring Amtrak to Continental — that ought to give you an idea of my opinion of Continental Airlines.

like Rick Santelli says

Santelli thinks a couple thousand to a mortgage holder is too much money to bail out losers, but millions to actual losers, people who lost billions plus, is no big deal.

about a dozen of those AIGFG shitbags taking retention bonuses, weren’t retained … I would go after directors for the money

I wonder if one could make a case that retention bonuses with no “you must remain for this many months” requirement or some sort of vesting procedure is misfeasance, as well as dumb as hell.

He ran into my knife! He ran into my knife, ten times!

I said “If you pop that gum one more time…”

I wonder if one could make a case that retention bonuses with no “you must remain for this many months” requirement or some sort of vesting procedure is misfeasance, as well as dumb as hell.

I was thinking more along the lines of Fraudulent Conveyance, myself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraudulent_conveyance

q.v. Mrs. Madoff

OB-GYN Kenobi said,
March 18, 2009 at 18:06

Continental and Newark will not see our faces again if we can possibly help it.

Preferring Amtrak to Continental — that ought to give you an idea of my opinion of Continental Airlines.

Wow. Tough call. I’ve been hating on Amtrack since they forced my daughter and her girlfriend to leave their station at 2 AM after delivering them to LA four hours late, which meant they lost their ride to their friend’s place to stay for the night. They were scheduled to fly out of LAX the next day, and just needed a place to be until daylight. But Noooooo!

Weird. Newark is my favorite airport, at least out of the NYC metro ones.

Then again, I used to live in a town that was only serviced by Northwest, so maybe I’ve got some sort of airline-Stockholm syndrome going on.

I’ve been hating on Amtrack since they forced my daughter and her girlfriend to leave their station at 2 AM after delivering them to LA four hours late

They must have been on the Coast Star-late. It’s notorious for being behind schedule.

http://www.amtrak.com/timetable/oct08/P11.pdf

He ran into my knife! He ran into my knife, ten times!

Well, he had it coming.

I was thinking more along the lines of Fraudulent Conveyance, myself.

Fraudulent Conveyance Airlines, we fly by nite!

Here at FCA, we know you hate waiting, so we don’t merely send you to the front of the line – we’ve eliminated the line altogether, and you get to go straight to the front.

Fraudulent Conveyance Airlines, let us take you for a ride!

Troll Feeders:

Fuck you all with a rusty tuna can.

Fuck you all with a rusty tuna can.

Dolphin safe!

Sorry for feeding the troll.

Back to my “crucify the directors” rant. Whenever Liddy opens his trap, the first line that comes out is that it weren’t his fault – he had nothing to do with setting up the whole bonus system. It was in place when he took over. Obama just gave a statement where he said the buck stops with him, but “nobody here drafted those contracts”.

Somebody drafted those contracts. And then a board (assuming that contracts for folks senior enought to warrant multi-million dollar bonuses need board approval) approved them. Unless you approve of the contracts as they were written and approved, then you have to agree that at best the board of directors at AIG were negligent in carrying out their duty of care to shareholders. As directors, they are PERSONALLY responsible for their actions.

You want to rein in ridiculously over-the-top executive compensation? Here’s where you start – you tell the folks who sign-off on executive compensation packages, that if they are too generous – their largesse will be coming out their personal funds.

Down I gooooooooooooo!

Looks like the Bear Market Rally is over!

Gosh!

Don’t I look foolish!

DJIA
7458.94
+63.24
+0.86%

NASDAQ
1479.89
+17.78
+1.22%

S&P 500
789.66
+11.54
+1.48%

“Mistakes were made” – every bit as classy as “but other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”

Anything sauteed in garlic butter = religious experience without the neurosis.

Like, oh, say, brussel sprouts?
In conclusion: TEH BUTTOCKS.

Looks like the Bear Market Rally is over!

Well, day to day obsessing over the DJIA is pretty fucking weak, but our good friend Dow Jones up thread probably should have waited at least until after lunch before opening his yap.

Hmmm, how did I miss this?

I blame Obama! And teh CRA!

PENIS.

You want to rein in ridiculously over-the-top executive compensation? Here’s where you start – you tell the folks who sign-off on executive compensation packages, that if they are too generous – their largesse will be coming out their personal funds.

Then they’ll just increase the dividend and have the company reimburse them, taking valuable retained earnings out.

My solution, as simplistic and off-the-cuff as it is, is to rewrite the tax laws such that you have to wait at least one year before paying out a particular bonus or dividend, subject to a review post-facto.

In other words, people who worked in 2007 will just now receive bonuses based on that performance. A stock which shot up in 2007 will have to maintain its level until now before a dividend is paid.

The potential for manipulating short-term earnings, as well as the temptation, is just too great to leave it to the whims of management.

My solution, as simplistic and off-the-cuff as it is, is to rewrite the tax laws such that you have to wait at least one year before paying out a particular bonus or dividend, subject to a review post-facto.

The potential for manipulating short-term earnings, as well as the temptation, is just too great to leave it to the whims of management.

Better yet, enforce the long view by tying variable/incentive compensation to long-term corporate performance. Want a bonus? Fine. For directors and above, require bonuses to be paid 100% in common stock, which vests at 10% a year over ten years. Leave the company, and all unvested options are forfeited (retirement and death would be possible exceptions to that rule).

For managers/supervisors and below, require bonuses to be half cash, half common stock, both to be paid out/vested in three equal parts over a three-year period.

Incentive compensation could be handled a bit differently for individuals who receive commissions (e.g. salesmen), but IMO their compensation needs to be spread out, too.

Agreed that there has to be a refocusing on a longer horizon for American business, which has not only become obsessed with the next quarter’s earnings, but with monthly numbers, the shit that Wall Street whispers about.

We used to do that, even if it was imperfect. We used to have companies that…granted not many…gave a crap about the community too.

While we’re at it, you shouldn’t be able to trade a company’s stock without divulging why you’re buying/selling. Of course, this would mean for large blocks of it, some holding that materially affects the price. Right now, you have to declare intent if you hold more than 5%. I’d like to see that dropped to one percent.

This has the fragrance of fired-but-not-fired about it:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/documents/2009/03/joseph-cassano-retirement-agreement-031108.php?page=1

The question I have now about Mr. Cassano is ‘did he fall, or was he pushed?’

Then they’ll just increase the dividend and have the company reimburse them, taking valuable retained earnings out.

Actually no. That also has to be approved by the board, and compensating a board member for penalties accrued due to their own negligence would also count under my scheme. Plus, the added bonus of now skirting very close to fraud and jail terms.

Here’s the deal – fuck the directors. Make it known that being a rubber stamp board carries real and significant penalties. The board of directors is supposed to provide oversight for the shareholders – the problems we’ve been having is because they haven’t been overseeing shit. Make them pay for that.

Following the Dow on a daily basis, as a measure of the markets health is just fucking stupid.
Yes, it has some bearing if you look at it in a trend scenario but jerking off on daily results will just make baby Jesus cry.
What would I know? ask Joseph Stiglitz

Some backing (sort-of) for my plot to bankrupt the AIG board of directors.

There’s nothing like legal liability and high-profile prosecutions and lawsuits to put the fear of God in people. And the Masters of the Universe badly need a little fear of God right now.