I'd love to give a hat tip, but the illustrator of this humorous image is unknown.
This, however, is the real debt star (click to zoom).
Graph: Washington Post.
This, however, is the real debt star (click to zoom).
I'm not sure that's the kind of stimulus Democrats were going for, but they'll take credit for anything at this point.


Give up? ![]() | ![]() |
Walpin-gate opens wider: Times
Welcome to the ObamaCare Emergency Help Line!The Director of National Intelligence [Dennis Blair, pictured at right] wants to ask job applicants and current employees in the U.S. intelligence community to identify their “ancestry” and “ethnicity” to enable personnel officers to assess their progress in recruiting and retaining U.S. citizens with knowledge of certain languages, cultures and societies.
Applicants and employees will be asked to identify their “country of origin” from a list of 58 different countries (plus “Other”); their “ethnicity” from a list of 71 possibilities – ranging from the familiar, such as Arab, Chinese, Jewish, Kurdish, Serb and Ukrainian, to the distinctly unfamiliar, such as Azeri, Banyakole, Dagestani, Kikuyu, Oromo, Tigre and Zhuag – and their “cultural expertise” from a list of 113 countries or ethnic groups, including relatively obscure ones, such as Circassian, Fulani, Hausa, Kpelle, Peuhl, Sara and Yezidi.
Republicans like Senator Lindsey Graham are accusing the President of being timid."Young men and women taking to the streets in Tehran need our support. Their signs are in English. They're basically asking for us to speak up on their behalf, and I appreciate what the President said yesterday, but he's been timid and passive more than I would like," Senator Graham said.
Former Republican presidential candidate John McCain is also urging the President to take a tougher stand.
"I'm not for sending arms, I'm not for fomenting violence - nothing, except to say that America's position in the world is one of moral leadership and that's what America's all about," Senator McCain said.
After initially trying to pat himself on the back by crediting his Cairo speech with the rebellion ("We are excited to see what appears to be a robust debate taking place in Iran and obviously, after the speech that I made in Cairo, we tried to send a clear message that we think there’s a possibility of change..."), the President suddenly went deaf, dumb and mute rather than support freedom.We were trying to get a contract on a foreclosure that is owned by Fannie Mae.The asking price for the home was $290,000. The home had no appliances, holes in the walls, exposed wiring, etc. We fell in love with the home and most of the things wrong we could repair ourselves. So we made some offers on the home. Our final offer was $278,500.
Well, they [Fannie] declined all of our offers wanting $290,000 for the home (all of this took place over the last few weeks).
So I later went and looked to see if the home is still up for sale (we are under contract on another home now) and they are asking $268,900 for the home!
This is almost $10,000 less than our last offer. We were already pre-approved for more than what we were offering on the home, but Fannie Mae obviously has some kind of problem on accepting offers on this particular home.
It has been on the market for almost two years and they decline offers on the home but then turn around and drop the home's price to below that of the last counter-offer!
Is this discrimination? We are a white "middle-class" Military family. Why would Fannie Mae decline an offer of $278,500 and then turn around and lower the price to $268,900?
Kind of makes you wonder how many other families they have done this to just to keep homes on their books.
No wonder they needed a Federal Bailout!
To top this off I have been trying to contact Fannie Mae to find out the reason behind this... but of course you never get to speak to a representative and they never return phone calls! Something is obviously very fishy with Fannie Mae.
Maybe the government needs to take an even closer look!
A message from the boss: STACLUFather’s Day Winner: The Role Model A toast to the man who has taught us so much.
...Democratic lawmakers are calling on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to relax recently tightened standards for mortgages on new condominiums, saying they could threaten the viability of some developments and slow the housing-market recovery.
...In a letter to the chief executives of Fannie and Freddie, Reps. Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and Anthony Weiner (D., N.Y.) warned that the 70% sales threshold "may be too onerous" and could lead condo buyers to shun new developments. The legislators asked the companies to "make appropriate adjustments" to their underwriting standards for condos.
The political push illustrates the balancing act facing the two government-controlled mortgage-finance giants as they struggle to keep the housing market afloat without losing more money.
The two companies, along with the Federal Housing Administration, purchase or guarantee the vast majority of mortgages in the U.S. That means that any toughening of lending standards could have an outsize impact on the housing market. But setting guidelines that are too lax could saddle the companies with risky loans that ultimately stick taxpayers with a bigger bill...

It also establishes a "National Coordinator of Health Information Technology" to monitor the database.
Daschle praises Europeans for accepting "hopeless diagnoses"; he also criticizes Americans for expecting world-class treatment from the U.S. health-care system.
But we can see it in this country as well. Oregon's socialized medical program is an utter disaster. Just days ago, it was discovered that Oregon's health plan covers covers assisted suicide, but not drugs, for certain cancer patients. The drugs are too expensive, but the suicide is deemed cost-effective.
In Britain, CE is specifically employed as a deadly tool to deny advanced drugs to patients suffering with breast cancer, Alzheimer's and Multiple Sclerosis under the banner of cost.
And where is the AARP? Too busy raking in dough from its various affinity programs, it would seem, to be all that concerned with the fate of its members.Each [subterranean] dwelling would take one of seven designs, some of which include lap pools, wine cellars, libraries, outdoor fireplaces and/or courtyards... More than half of the dwellings would be built below a ridge southwest of the golf course. A handful would be nestled between fairways.Mr Hill last week told The Southland Times he was looking forward to building the "world-beating" homes... He said the design shied away from the resort-style courses that were popular in the United States... "The Americans put a big colonial clubhouse at the back of the 18th and fill the fairways with homes.
"For me, that spoils everything. We want it to be like a Scottish course, where you see nothing. These homes will be invisible."
CHARLIE ROSE: And you think maybe more bad news is to come.
MICHAEL LEWIS: I do think that. I think that the scope of the losses has not been completely acknowledged by the government. I think that the approach that they’ve taken has been to sort of -- it has been -- you know, it works, up to a point. The Obama administration especially has been very good at creating false confidence, they have been very good at talking up the financial institutions, and it is true that.
CHARLIE ROSE: But it’s not just the Obama administration, I mean, it’s outside the Obama administration. I mean, I saw a ticker go today, "Bank CEOs suggest recovery by end of year."
MICHAEL LEWIS: Right.


In recent years, lenders relaxed underwriting standards because they could pass on loans to upstream investors. The GSEs (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) and the FHA supported this framework by securitizing and insuring these low-quality loans.






Defaults in "above subprime" loans continue to rise at a frightening rate. The current unemployment situation, of course, is not helping.
A huge percentage of Alt-A (just above subprime) and Option ARM (a dangerous adjustable rate package with "pick a payment" options) loans are underwater, meaning the homeowner owes more than the home is worth. The default rates on underwater mortgages continue to rise.
The biggest block of Alt-A and Option ARM defaults are still ahead of us.

HELOCs (Home Equity Lines-of-Credit) were often used to purchase cars during the boom years. Now that HELOCs are defaulting, it bodes poorly for both the financial services and the automobile industries.





We appear to be a deflationary spiral: foreclosures are increasing, which continue to drive prices down, which turn more loans "underwater", which increase foreclosures.



President Barack ("We're open to new ideas -- except ones that work") Obama could have blunted much of this mess with massive tax cuts. This would have freed up capital for investment, mortgage payments and the like.