Say Anything Blog

Interesting how Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Maxine Waters etc… are coming out smelling like roses.

Read the new issue of the New Yorker. Great article on how the two free market conservatives at the Fed, Greenspan and Bernanke, are the true culprits. The whole thing is hanged around the neck of free-market conservatism.

Did I just ask a bunch of brainstems to read a very long, complicated article in an intellectual magazine? Oh I’m sorry, that was cruel.

Of course it’s Bush’s fault.

It was Bush who wrote the CRA and signed it into law.

It was Bush who put Franklin Reines and Jaime Gorelick onto the board of Directors of Fannie Mae.

It was Bush who worked as a lawyer for ACORN while they were pressuring banks to make more subprime loans.

It was Bush who personally filled out the loan documents for low income individuals including illegal aliens and people on public assistance.

It was Bush who sued banks to force them to lower their lending criterea.

It was Bush who received millions of dollars of behing-the-scene contributions from sub-prime criminals Herb and Miriom Sandler.

It was all Bush’s fault.

Grrrrrrrrrr

Oh Mr. Bear:

The definitive article on the CRA and why conservatives are deluded:

Subprime Suspects

More for your enjoyment:

Edward Lotterman: Don’t believe the myth about the fiscal mess

See if you can comprehend this one:
Most subprime lenders weren’t subject to federal lending law

This one might make your head explode:

Misunderstanding Credit and Housing Crises: Blaming the CRA, GSEs

This one requires a higher level of understanding. Kind of academic. Get a kind liberal to explain it to you:
Fannie Freddie data

And last but not least, the reason why reining in F&F didn’t happen:

AP IMPACT: Mortgage firm arranged stealth campaign

Bush was responsible for the CRA 1977, don’t you know that.

Bill, is that you on the hook of conservative idiocy?

Investors Business Dailey:

The CRA coerces banks into making loans based on political correctness, and little else, to people who can’t afford them. Enforced like never before by the Clinton administration, the regulation destroyed credit standards across the mortgage industry, created the subprime market, and caused the housing bubble that has now burst and left us with the worst housing and banking crises since the Great Depression.

As we said, Clinton beefed up the CRA and used it to force banks to subsidize poor communities with close to $1 trillion in high-risk loans and other commitments that flouted underwriting rules.

Myth: The CRA could not have led to financial Armageddon, because the overwhelming share of subprime mortgages came from lenders that were not banks and not regulated by the CRA.

Fact: Nearly 4 in 10 subprime loans between 2004 and 2007 were made by CRA-covered banks such as Washington Mutual and IndyMac. And that doesn’t include loans made by subprime lenders owned by banks, which were in effect covered by the CRA.

What’s more, the biggest subprime lender, Countrywide, while not subject to the law, still came under federal pressure to make risky loans in minority communities.

Clinton created a separate department at HUD to police “fair lending” at Fannie and Freddie and also at lenders like Countrywide, which became Fannie’s biggest client. In 1994, Countrywide became the nation’s first mortgage lender to sign with HUD a “Declaration of Fair Lending Principles and Practices.”

As a result, Countrywide made more loans to minorities than any other lender — and not surprisingly, was one of the first lenders swamped by loan defaults.

Other lenders felt the heat from Reno’s Justice Department, which prosecuted them for failing to operate enough branches in black neighborhoods. Reno put the entire banking industry on notice about the CRA and her enforcement program.

Myth: The CRA did not force anyone to do subprime loans or take excessive risks.

Fact: Subprime loans were the vehicle banks used to satisfy CRA compliance, and Clinton and his regulators encouraged their use. Before Clinton took office, subprimes were virtually unheard of. By the time he left, they made up more than 9% of the market for mortgage originations. Today they’re 20%.

Myth: Greedy investment bankers, who securitized and sold subprime mortgages, drove us to the credit crisis, not government.

Fact: Clinton’s regulatory policies led to the creation of this new risk on Wall Street. His CRA amendments created the subprime market, and only after he pressured Fannie and Freddie to socialize the risk and guarantee the profit from the subprime loans did Wall Street get involved in a big way.

Grrrrrrrrrr

Dino,

Just read the Lotterman article you cited. Am I crazy, or does he end his article with the following:

Those who argue the Community Reinvestment Act is a root cause of subprime problems often also point to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lowering their standards in response to political pressure, especially during the Clinton administration. This criticism is very solid. But that is the subject of another column.

So the blame isn’t on the CRA… but still on the government?

Then I took a look at the Paul Krugman graph you cited.

Either I am crazy, or Paul Krugman is blind. His own graph shows that government-backed mortgages went from 0% to 40% of the mortgage pool since 1977 (isn’t that when the CRA was passed?).

Krugman then says that the fact that gov-backed mortgages dipped from 50% to 40% between ‘05-‘08, they cannot possibly be the cause of the housing bubble. HUH? This is year by year data. That means in ‘08, gov-backed mortgages still accounted for 40% of the mortgages taken THAT YEAR. That means of ALL the people who took out mortgages in ‘08, 40% of them still got their shit gov-backed. This is supposed to somehow show that gov-backed mortgages did not account for a HUGE (40%) of the mortgages taken during the housing bubble?

Yea, private-backed accounted for 20%—that’s still not 40%. If we go with the numbers, then Fannie and Freddie are still TWICE as culpable for the crash as private banks are.

Krugman’s analysis operates on the flawed assumption that an increase or decrease in percentage of the backing is what led to the bubble. I’m pretty sure that if a bank loans a STATIC amount every year, it is that STATIC amount that adds to its liabilities at the end of the year. So decreasing from 50% to 40% between ‘05 and ‘08 doesn’t change the fact that during each of those 3 years, Freddie and Fannie added 40% of the national mortgage debt PER YEAR to their TOTAL liabilities.

In sum, Krugman is a dipshit for lying to idiots that can’t think better. You’re a dipshit for being an idiot who can’t think better.

“Behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil… a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unision.” - Milan Kundera

It’s impossible to reach you brainstems on this topic. You simply refuse to believe the evidence that contradicts your deeply held beliefs that poor people are the root of all evil.

As I said on another post, read the story in the newest issue of the New Yorker and you’ll see the whole history of how free-market capitalism promoted by the Fed’s conservative economists caused this crisis.

I know you won’t because it’s long and complicated and can’t be reduced to a simplistic view of the world.

If we go with the numbers, then Fannie and Freddie are still TWICE as culpable for the crash as private banks are.

And even then, we have to look at what was motivating private banks to give bad loans.  The knowledge that Fannie/Freddie might buy up those loans, or that they might get a bailout, played a significant factor.

It doesn’t absolve them, but it does point to another factor caused by government invovlement.

The purpose of government shouldn’t be to do good, but simply to refrain from doing evil.

Dino,

You simply refuse to believe the evidence that contradicts your deeply held beliefs that poor people are the root of all evil.

I’m poor. I have a deeply held belief that rich people who want to keep me poor by giving me welfare instead of opportunity to show my merit are the root of all evil.

Trust-fund babies who write for the New Yorker, earn 30k/year (and therefore are unaffected by income tax) but live in Upper-East-Side Penthouses (on Trust-funds taxed at capital gains rate), fall into this category of evil people.

Saul Bellow does a great job of describing such people who are unaffected, and therefore blind to, what their high ideals actually do to real people who live in the real world below their penthouse windows. Mr. Sammler’s City by Saul Bellow (I highly recommend it). Oh, and it was very well reviewed in the New Yorker back in 1970—if that is what ratifies all your view-points.

“Behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil… a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unision.” - Milan Kundera

Dino:  According to your articles the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 did not contribute to the subprime mess.  But the 1999 NY Times Article “Fannie Mae Eases Credit to Aid Mortgage Lending” does not even mention the CRA, but does mention Clinton’s Pilot Plan, along with 24 banks, to put millions of poor people into subprime housing loans.  To say that the subprime mess was not the product of the CRA is not my arguement.  But Clinton’s program is.
DEFEND THE 1999 ARTICLE.

I’m poor. I have a deeply held belief that rich people who want to keep me poor by giving me welfare instead of opportunity to show my merit are the root of all evil.

I’m not particularly rich either.

It’s amazing how some on the left act as though anyone who espouses free market, pro-liberty principles is some sort of a plutocrat.

There are times in my life when going on welfare would have been a heck of a lot easier than going to work.  But I never did that.

The purpose of government shouldn’t be to do good, but simply to refrain from doing evil.

It’s amazing how some on the left act as though anyone who espouses free market, pro-liberty principles is some sort of a plutocrat.

That’s because if we’re not plutocrats, then we must be:

1) Insane, or
2) Stupid, or
3) Unfair for wanting our talents to give us an advantage over the untalented.

“Behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil… a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unision.” - Milan Kundera

Dino:

You simply refuse to believe the evidence that contradicts your deeply held beliefs that poor people are the root of all evil.

I think you refuse to accept any evidence that your beloved Democratic Party is responsible for this meltdown. 

Queue video footage from 2004 House Subcommittee on Government Sponsored Enterprises:

What’s to argue? Your side fought regulatory oversight of your sacred cows and now we all must pay the price for this.

Lessee….if I believe Dino, I must assume that the prospect of federal regulators shutting down banks for noncompliance with the CRA had nothing to do with them issuing risky loans in areas they used to spurn, and that the pleas of a Fannie boy-lover (ha ha ha) had nothing to do with the failure to adequately regulate Fannie and Freddie.

Yeah, regulators NEVER take note when the guys FUNDING them speak.  NEVER.  Government NEVER, EVER screws up financial markets, even when they admit as much.

There’s NO conflict of interest when Barney Frank takes a Fannie executive (ha ha) as his boy-lover.

Um, Dino, no matter how much the “experts” try to spin this one, it’s still planted firmly in the ground.  CRA was and is a disaster, as are Fannie and Freddie.

Carrick - Good Point.  I watched the clip.  Dino can not and will not defend this.  He doesn’t have too, since his intelligence trumps everything.

You can find a timeline of how liberal policy directly caused this financial crisis here.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/what_really_happened_in_the_mo.html

Grrrrrrrrrr

That’s because if we’re not plutocrats, then we must be:

1) Insane, or
2) Stupid, or
3) Unfair for wanting our talents to give us an advantage over the untalented.

Yeah. We’re real bastards for believing a meritocracy is a good thing.

The purpose of government shouldn’t be to do good, but simply to refrain from doing evil.

I’m poor. I have a deeply held belief that rich people who want to keep me poor by giving me welfare instead of opportunity to show my merit are the root of all evil.

You’re “poor”?!
Dang!
You are obviously eating on a semi-regular basis.
You have access to the internet, wheither through work or a personal IP.
Friend, you need a trip to the copper range in Mexico to truely appreciate the wealth you have.

Without an honest exchange of ideas, how can a mind grow?

One thing that needs to be stressed that CRA created a presumption of guilt when groups like ACORN accused banks of “redlining.”

The only way banks could prove their innocence was to make stupic and risky loans.

But banks were faced with a problem. They had to make so many bad loans to satisfy CRA, but not so many that would be swamped by the risk.

The Clinton administration made two changes:

1. It increased the number of bad loans a bank had to make to prove its innocence.

2. It directed Fannie/Freddie to buy those bad loans, repackage them as mortgage backed securities, and sell them back to the private sector.

Grrrrrrrrrr

Uhuh. I’m not a one-legged Somali boy either. I should just stfu and thank my lucky stars.

“Behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil… a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unision.” - Milan Kundera

Hairy,
I’m sorry that I didn’t make my post sound as I meant it to.
My point was that there is plenty of room for you or I to improve our finances.
We all enjoy some extras.
And we each set our priorities.

Without an honest exchange of ideas, how can a mind grow?

Sorry I misunderstood.

“Behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil… a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unision.” - Milan Kundera

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac curried favor with Congress by championing affordable housing—a mission that filled their balance sheets with risky subprime and Alt-A loans and allowed them to enjoy years of lax congressional supervision.

By late 2004, Fannie and Freddie very much wanted subprime and Alt-A loans. Their accounting had just been revealed as fraudulent, and they were under pressure from Congress to demonstrate that they deserved their considerable privileges. Among other problems, economists at the Federal Reserve and Congressional Budget Office had begun to study them in detail, and found that—despite their subsidized borrowing rates—they did not significantly reduce mortgage interest rates. In the wake of Freddie’s 2003 accounting scandal, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan became a powerful opponent, and began to call for stricter regulation of the GSEs and limitations on the growth of their highly profitable, but risky, retained portfolios.

If they were not making mortgages cheaper and were creating risks for the taxpayers and the economy, what value were they providing? The answer was their affordable-housing mission. So it was that, beginning in 2004, their portfolios of subprime and Alt-A loans and securities began to grow.

http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.28664/pub_detail.asp

Grrrrrrrrrr

No problems, Hairy
What’s your line?

Without an honest exchange of ideas, how can a mind grow?

Subsidizing my freelance journalism (some politics, mostly arts reviews) with a small law practice on the side. Unfortunately no trust fund here, so going to have to focus a bit more on the law practice now that ad-sales are down but bankruptcies are up

“Behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil… a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unision.” - Milan Kundera

Impressive, Hairy!

Without an honest exchange of ideas, how can a mind grow?

lol thanks. we are ny’s working stiffs :p

“Behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil… a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unision.” - Milan Kundera

I can empathize with you.
I have a ‘net friend on Manhattan & we routinely send novelites back & forth.
When I heard what rent was there, I thought it was a joke.
I could not bear it!
I’m used to a low cost of living down this way.

Without an honest exchange of ideas, how can a mind grow?

Lower cost, people are nicer and more likely to share my political views outside of New York. But you just can’t beat the food here.

“Behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil… a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unision.” - Milan Kundera

And Ya’ll have some pretty good lookin’ I-talian chicks up there!

Without an honest exchange of ideas, how can a mind grow?

So the convo seems to have went:

Dino: You’re all terrible humans. You’re also stupid. Here are a bunch of links to liberal sites that back me up.

Bear: Um, your links contradict you….

Dino: Screw you you’re stupid.

It’s all political bullshit. Liberals (and Robert108) lie and spin and twist and obscure and distract and cheat to protect their guys and hurt the opposing team. It’s like wrestling. They distract the ref while their team mate hits you with a chair. There’s no rule they won’t break, no law they won’t skirt, no crime they won’t forgive as long as they can win.

There. Did you all have fun pretending my evidence doesn’t exist? Did all you Nobel Prize winning economists come to the conclusion that the political party out of power and exPres Carter were responsible for the meltdown?

Great! Just what I expected from a bunch of brainstems!

Lower cost, people are nicer and more likely to share my political views outside of New York. But you just can’t beat the food here.

I’ve visited New York.  It’s nice, but I don’t think I could live there.

I’m a small town kind of guy.

The purpose of government shouldn’t be to do good, but simply to refrain from doing evil.

All I know is that my husband, a commercial lender for the last 25 years, is required to turn in his CRA Report every quarter so the bank isn’t penalized ... no one wants ACORN showing up, either.  My husband predicted this years ago based on some of the federal lending regulations which have been shoved down the banks’ throats.

The longest absence is less perilous to love than the terrible trials of incessant proximity.

Dino, while certainly Greenspan, Bernanke, and Bush have a share of blame for encouraging our credit culture, it’s also just as certain that mandating loans to poor credit neighborhoods and allowing welfare payments to be used as collateral bear a share of blame here.

Is that so complicated?  You allow Barack Steve Obama to sue banks for (allegedly) failing to abide by the CRA, you are going to get that bank modifying its policies to avoid future debacles.

Is.that.so.darned.complicated?

Now if we assume that banks are in business to make a “profit,” we would assume that whatever diversions from that mission are going to be in the direction of “less optimal” results.  Hence, absent a LOT of contrary evidence, we would expect that the CRA would yield a TON of foreclosures in the inner cities it was designed to “help.”

And that, my friend, is EXACTLY what is seen.  A friend of mine who looked into Minneapolis properties found that many of them were selling for 75% less than they were before the Barney Frank/Fed/Fannie (ha ha) bubble popped.

And Nobel prize in economics?  Look up Leonid Kantorovich; they awarded a prize for “optimal allocation of resources” to a guy who came from a place with bread lines (USSR).  Hayek only got one co-awarded with…another Communist.  So the Rijksbank prize doesn’t always mean much in terms of sound economics.

Well duh, of course many of you aren’t urban creatures. It shows in your backwardness and fear of anything and all things outside a narrow comfort zone.

That’s why cities and for the most part the media, are more liberal than the typical American. They’re exposed to more variety- in lifestyle, type of people, income levels, races. The more one is exposed to differences they more liberal you become. It’s sort of like education. The more you get the more liberal you become.

COoservatism has its roots in low-grade fascism, one of the defining hallmarks being fear of those who are different. However, the overriding characteristic of the garden variety con is authoritarian.

Dino:

I really love this straw man argument that the liberals are trotting out in defense of CRA, Fannie Mae, and other stupid government policies.

“If you criticize CRA than you’re blaming poor people and blacks.”

That BS. I think the CRA and all the other liberal policies that pushed banks to make loans to people with bad credit and low incomes was a disaster waiting to happen.  I’m not blaming the poor. You tell 200 welfare recipients that they can buy an Escalade with no money down and no payments for a year, 100 of them will sign the loan papers. Banks don’t give luxury car loans to people on welfare because they know the payments won’t ever be made. But CRA told banks that if they didn’t make loans to people with poor credit, Acorn was going f*** them over. So it was cheaper and easier in the long run to lower their lending standards.
Maybe CRA would have worked under other circumstances. Maybe of the was no Fannie Mae banks wouldn’t have been able to unload their bad paper and sell more. Maybe if there was no Acorn and La Raza threatening to bring the government down on their heads banks could have complied with CRA in a reasonable manner. But the combination of CRA, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Acorn, La Raza, and yes…corrupt lenders, has nearly destroyed our financial system.
I don’t blame the poor. Liberals wrote laws and regulations to give the poor loans before they were ready to buy a house.

For the record, I’ve been poor. My father walked out shortly after I was born, and I grew up without money. I know what it;s like to only have one pair of pants. I know what it’s like to work an extra shift on prom night because I needed the money and couldn’t afford a tux anyway.

I grew up around relatives who lived on welfare. Most of my cousins bought into the entitlement mentality and have accomplished nothing with their lives. Liberal policies helped keep them poor. I chose to make something of myself, and delay gratification. So I’ve gotten out of poverty, because I never bought into the liberal BS.

It’s sort of like education. The more you get the more liberal you become.

...

“Behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil… a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unision.” - Milan Kundera

Hey Geologist, I work with geos and they’re not nearly as think as you are. Keep believing what you want, the people with BRAINS know the truth.

Did you have time to find a liberal to read you the story in the newest issue of the New Yorker where it talks about how free-market, deregulatory, conservatism-based policies were the cause of the crisis? How Greenspan and Bernanke, both republicans, were warned things were going wrong and they ignored it?

No matter. We punished you at the ballot box TWICE now and your ideology is GONE for generations. Oh sure, it will still have its devotees but they’ll be laughed off as crackpots and jerks.

Oh and Hairy? Lay off the drama. You lost the election(s). We’re nowhere near building you work camps in the Gulag.

Yet.

Typo, that should be “.....as THICK as you are”.

And one more thing- Obama has appointed a La Raza head to his staff! Next up: Bill Ayers, Secretary of Education!

preview is your friend

Without an honest exchange of ideas, how can a mind grow?

COoservatism has its roots in low-grade fascism, one of the defining hallmarks being fear of those who are different. However, the overriding characteristic of the garden variety con is authoritarian.

Says the dude who promises to destroy his enemies.

Yea, OK, Adolph. I’ll believe your claims right after that tooth fairy shows up.

There. Did you all have fun pretending my evidence doesn’t exist?

Wang Chung quotes your sources to show you’re an idiot. That’s good enough for me.

Go back to being stupid in silence you brownshirted little jackass.

It’s all political bullshit. Liberals (and Robert108) lie and spin and twist and obscure and distract and cheat to protect their guys and hurt the opposing team. It’s like wrestling. They distract the ref while their team mate hits you with a chair. There’s no rule they won’t break, no law they won’t skirt, no crime they won’t forgive as long as they can win.

Dino, You are so insecure…  Keep it up Cpmrade!  I am sure your devotion will go far in the upcoming Obama administration. Good luck with that. IF you were able to take a more realistic look at History, You would know that authoritarianism is more a left wing impulse than conservative.

Dino:

Hey Geologist, I work with geos and they’re not nearly as think as you are. Keep believing what you want, the people with BRAINS know the truth.

Hahahahaha. What a complete retard.  Can’t even spit an insult without mucking it up.

And speaking of mentally “thick”, it’s ironic that a) Dino is relying on a reporter’s account of the facts rather than primary sources (demonstrating that he’s uneducated as well as being “thick”) and b) even those sources don’t say what he wants them to say.

It’s established fact who protected Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac when they started to melt down in 2004, ensuring that we would have the major conflagration that we have now.  It’s established fact which party is responsible for the CRA.  The CRA not only encouraged, it forced the market to go after higher risk loans.  And of course once that backfired, naturally liberal idiots like Dino blame an unregulated market for issuing the loans, in spite of the fact it was due to regulatory pressure to start with that they even got into that business.

There ain’t much to talk about when the only person arguing the point from the other side, Dino, ignores the facts, just parrots DNC talking points and slings half-witted insults as a substitute for his obvious inability to reason.

This would be funny if it weren’t so pathetic.

Dino, I grew up an hour’s drive from Chicago’s loop.  Sorry, for urban life and access to good educational institutions, this beats the tar out of Portland by a long shot.  (as does living near LA, near Denver, and in the Twin Cities…sorry, I’ve been in Portland, and it just doesn’t rank anywhere up there)

Some of us simply figure out that the reason that the U.of C. (and most of Chicago’s museums, and Portland’s entire downtown) is in a lousy neighborhood is because of all those liberal programs, and we sensibly move to where those programs are less of a problem.  They realize that the New Yorker is no more a bastion of economic thought than is Playboy.

Those indoctrinated by the Graduate School of Arts and Crafts stay to enjoy more of the crime, pollution, noise, and corrupt politicians.

And you have the nerve to suggest that liberals are smarter?

I know Chicago since I’m from St. Louis. An hour outside Chicago is where they have sex with farm animals. For that matter, an hour outside any major city is East Bumf*ck. It has nothing to do with being urbane or being exposed to people who might be different. In fact, you move to places “an hour outside Chicago” to escape those people and things you fear.

Living away from the urban culture (since rural culture involves attending the new WalMart sale) is what keeps people ignorant and conservative. Liberals ARE smarter, more mature and intellectual.

Here, let me post the article from the AP (no doubt a liberal nest of commie spies):

Bush administration ignored clear warnings
Under pressure from banking industry, U.S. government eased lending rules

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration backed off proposed crackdowns on no-money-down, interest-only mortgages years before the economy collapsed, buckling to pressure from some of the same banks that have now failed. It ignored remarkably prescient warnings that foretold the financial meltdown, according to an Associated Press review of regulatory documents.

Bowing to aggressive lobbying — along with assurances from banks that the troubled mortgages were OK — regulators delayed action for nearly one year. By the time new rules were released late in 2006, the toughest of the proposed provisions were gone and the meltdown was under way.

Outside Chicago is where they have sex with farm animals.

CHICKENS????

I live one hour from the city.  I love it here.  I miss Dakota.  Grew up there and lived there for 40 years.  Perhaps Rob when you are older and your Radio Career takes off you’ll be broadcasting from the studios of WLS radio leaving the grand prairie behind for the Chicken Lover’s country.

Could Happen.  Did to me.

Old Tigers are more dangerous when they believe this is their last hunt.

From , “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”
Old tigers, sensing the end,
they’re at their most fierce.       
And they go down fighting.

an hour outside any major city is East Bumf*ck. It has nothing to do with being urbane or being exposed to people who might be different.

You are so full of S***.

I’ve lived in LA and now live in rural CA. In both instances I lived and worked in/with majority Hispanic populations. The only difference is that in rural CA there’s more openess between cultures. Whites go to Mexican festivals, Mexicans show up a country music concerts, everyone drives a truck.

In LA, people are scared of each other and keep to their own more. All those cases where someone is murdered and all these people know and do nothing take place in big cities. If I was attacked in my home town, a dozen people would come to my assistance, some with brown skin, some with white.

Grrrrrrrrrr

”....some with brown skin, some with white.”

But all ignorant, fearful and backwards. Like I said, people move to rural CA out of fear and discomfort with diversity found in cities.

Interesting that the example used was “if I was attacked”. Even in your small, supposedly safe rural communities you conservatives are filled with fear and anxiety. You see danger everywhere. You live in constant fear.

Dino:

If rural people are so worthless, I’d suggest that you boycot food that isn’t grown INSIDE in an urban farm or processed in an urban plant. You might also want to boycot leather that comes from rural cows, cotton that comes from rural fields, wool that comes from rural sheep, and wood that comes from rural sources.

While your at it, you might want to avoid using energy because a lot of rural people work in the coal mines and on the oil platforms.

Grrrrrrrrrr

Yes, Dino, liberals are so smart, which is why the places they run are such dumps, including your hometown.  Sorry, but I’ve seen the commercial dead zone around your city’s highly praised light rail system, including no less than three rescue missions within a quarter mile of the convention center.  Nothing says “Welcome to Portland” like knowing that downtown is filled with bums.

If you liberals were so smart, you’d shut down the death train today and restore the street grid, allowing entrepreneurs to revitalize that part of town.  But you’re not, so you don’t.

I didn’t say they were worthless, I said they were often conservatives because they are rural, fearful of those who are different and largely ignorant. They have a very small comfort zone.

We manage to get our food here in the Pacfic Northwest from farms close to the urban core. We instituted urban growth boundaries that preserved farmland close to the cities such that I live 3.5 miles from the center of downtown and 5 miles from farms. Our farmers are often liberals. Besides, much of our food now comes from outside the country anyway.

We’re so far ahead of most cities we can’t even see them in our review mirror. There is no dead zone in Old Town, it is thriving and redeveloping so fast I can’t afford to live there. But we even have housing for low-income down there. We care about people here and that’s why Portland is always on the list of the world’s greatest cities.

All cities have poverty, indeed you people are the ones who cherish poverty as it makes you feel ahead of someone. Poor gather in cities because that’s where the services and resources are.

But rural poverty is even worse. Much of it concentrated in the rural south. The difference is that we try nad alleviate the suffering of the poor while the rurals reject them. I can post statistics on that.

No dead zone in Portland?

Bullshit.  I saw it with my own eyes, Dino.  It starts around the Convention Center and extends across the river into Chinatown, where…ahem…let’s just say I’ve had far better Asian food in the suburbs.  That’s also where the rescue missions are. 

Just because government has jacked up real estate prices by preventing development in outlying areas doesn’t mean that the area is thriving.  It means that they’ve artificially reduced supply, driving development across the Columbia into Washington.

But somehow those super-smart liberals seem to run into some difficulties reading a map, or looking into complex concepts like “supply” and “demand,” and somehow fail to figure out that it’s not exactly an environmental “win” for someone to live on the other side of the greenbelt and drive into the city every day for work.

Dino:

fearful of those who are different and largely ignorant.

That sounds like you, actually.

Example of Dino’s abysmal ignorance of the facts:

But rural poverty is even worse. Much of it concentrated in the rural south.

Bullshit again.

You have no fucking clue what you are talking about, and are largely just pulling shit out of your ass.

I’ve seen urban poor and I’ve seen rural poor, and if I had to make a choice, I’d choose rural poor any day.  That looks like owning your own home (modest size, one-bathroom) with AC,  one or more cars, a decent amount of land, etc.  That isn’t a contradiction with being poor: In the South for example, land is cheap enough and housing costs low enough, you can own your own home for about the price of renting a modest sized apartment so many people do….

Also rural poor don’t have that problem with apartment blocks taken over by drug lords, large scale gang activity, etc etc etc.

You’re just a clueless dumb fuck.

Dino:

ere, let me post the article from the AP (no doubt a liberal nest of commie spies):

Bush administration ignored clear warnings
Under pressure from banking industry, U.S. government eased lending rules

Nice link to a secondary source again.

Do you know the difference between primary and secondary sources?  If so, what’s this constant insistence on secondary ones, when primary ones exist?

Look, I’m fully happy to extend the blame to whoever is responsible for this mess, and am even willing to accept that the Bush administration screwed up on this, like they did so much else.  But the principle causes are the CRA itself and the distortions in the marketplace that it created, and the resistance of Democrats to reform of the GSEs.  Those are established facts.

Bush likely was not proactive enough to head off this crisis before it got to the full scale conflagration that we have now, but that’s a failure in leadership, not in fundamental philosophy or associated policy choices.

Bubba:

In LA, people are scared of each other and keep to their own more. All those cases where someone is murdered and all these people know and do nothing take place in big cities. If I was attacked in my home town, a dozen people would come to my assistance, some with brown skin, some with white.

It’s even more than that:  In large cities, the zoning is done to keep poor people out of rich people’s neighborhoods (if for no other reason than it devaluates the rich folks homes).  In rural settings there is often no zoning at all, and you will find very poor folk living literally right next to high-end neighborhoods.

And there is even some egalitarianism there:  If you ask Southerners why they don’t put in more zoning laws, the answer they give is “poor people have to live somewhere too”.

In rural settings there is often no zoning at all, and you will find very poor folk living literally right next to high-end neighborhoods.

Somebody’s got to do the lawn.  (And that is in fact a good thing.)

1% of Americans pay 40% of the income tax.
5% of Americans pay 60% of the income tax.
10% of Americans pay 70% of the income tax.

Bush likely was not proactive enough to head off this crisis before it got to the full scale conflagration that we have now, but that’s a failure in leadership, not in fundamental philosophy or associated policy choices.

President Bush had to deal with an obstructive bunch of Dems who were constantly trying to make him stop fighting terrorism, and he had to use a lot of political capital in order to do that.  Given a choice between protecting us from terrorism and dealing with Dem social engineering, he made the right choice.  With Dem support for fighting terrorism, he would undoubtedly have had more time and more focus on the Dem-caused loan debacle, not to mention SS reform.

If govt control of the economy were the way to go, the Soviet Union would be the richest, most powerful nation in the history of the world.

Thanks to Obama, America remains the only country where it is illegal to drill our own oil!

BDS

Telling one lie or even consistently lying about one subject…doesn’t make you a liar…

robert108 on May 18, 2009 at 03:23 pm

“You have absolutely no reason, none, to trust our word or our actions at this point.”

Titular gop Head Mr. Steele

Robert108, you make a good point about not having a lot of political capital.  That was in fact the root of the problem:  Bush had so much political capital tied up in the Iraq War that he was forced to let other things slide.

Had the Democrats been a bit more functional and less prone to simply being oppositional, things would have been different.  It clearly was a strategy on the part of the Democrats to put their party’s interests over that of the country, because they saw that as their way to regaining political power within the country.

Here’s the proof that rural poverty is a bigger problem than rural:

http://www.rprconline.org/

Persistent Poverty Counties are those that have had poverty rates of 20% or higher in every decennial census between 1970 and 2000.

340 of the 386 (88%) Persistently Poor Counties are nonmetro.
18% of nonmetro counties are persistent poverty counties, versus only 4% of metro counties.
The nonmetro South, with over 40 percent of the U.S. nonmetro population, has a significantly higher incidence of poverty. 82% of the nonmetro persistently poor counties are in the South.

Now go ahead, dismiss the data as too “liberal”. LOL

You people will never win an argument with me.

PS. Portland is what most other cities want to be.

That should read “rural poverty is a bigger problem than urban”.

But the end result is the same- YOU PEOPLE ARE WRONG AGAIN!

Being a bear, I of course have never been attacked by humans (not in LA, not in NYC, not in San Francisco, and not in Rural CA).

But living in LA I had 2 cars stolen within a 9 month period. I’ve also lived in apartment complexes that have been vandalized and had several units robbed. So urban crime is not something I’m paranoid about, it’s something that’s affected me.

Where I stayed in pre-Guliani NYC, graffiti covered the walls of every building as high as a person can reach standing on a chair. Every panel sided private vehicle in the neighborhood was covered in graffiti. None of the cars had hub caps because they would be stolen. And this wasn’t a bad part of NYC, this was Flushing.

Once I was in subway car when it came to a halt for about 20 minutes. The reason the subway shut down was because some “wilding” youths had thrown an elderly man off the subway platform.

Once it took me about 45 minutes in NYC to find a restroom that could be used by someone who wasn’t a customer. Because so many rest rooms had been vandalized, business owners reasonably excluded non customers from their rest rooms. It wouldn’t take anyone 45 minutes to find a restroom in Redding, CA or Bend Oregon or Fernley Nevada.

P.S. What the hell does all this have to do with mortgages either?

Grrrrrrrrrr

Oh, and Carrick? Bush not only sat on his hands and watched us go down the tubes, his REPUBLICAN CONGRESS did the same. Evene if you excuse that bush was “busy” with his illegal war, the CONGRESS RUN BY REPUBLICANS DID NOTHING.

REPUBLICANS CONTROLLED CONGRESS FROM 1994 to 2007. DEMOCRATS WERE SHUT OUT OF ALL POLICY-MAKING. THEY WERE IGNORED.

You people will never win an argument with me.

Only because you are an idiot, who spews predigested leftie propaganda pablum.  BTW, no one here is even slightly interested in your opinion, chew toy.

If govt control of the economy were the way to go, the Soviet Union would be the richest, most powerful nation in the history of the world.

Thanks to Obama, America remains the only country where it is illegal to drill our own oil!

DEMOCRATS WERE SHUT OUT OF ALL POLICY-MAKING. THEY WERE IGNORED.

Another outright lie from a lying chew toy.  Shouting your lies doesn’t make them any less false, chew toy.

If govt control of the economy were the way to go, the Soviet Union would be the richest, most powerful nation in the history of the world.

Thanks to Obama, America remains the only country where it is illegal to drill our own oil!

Here’s a question for you, chew toy:  When your sainted Dems won Congress in ‘06, why didn’t they immediately cure the home finance problem?  The reality is that they denied there was a problem, and have continued to do so for two years, while costing us billions in lost energy revenue, maybe trillions.  Whoops!  Smacked by the truth again.

If govt control of the economy were the way to go, the Soviet Union would be the richest, most powerful nation in the history of the world.

Thanks to Obama, America remains the only country where it is illegal to drill our own oil!

As usual, Dino is an idiot.

We weren’t discussing what percentage of people in rural areas meet the US governmental definition of living in poverty, which itself is a controversial definition, but whether for those who are in poverty, whether rural poverty is “worse” than urban poverty. (See this for a more complete exposition.)

The straight up answer is that it is not, and that the arbitrary definition of poverty in terms of mean national income artificially inflates the number of people who are in poverty in rural areas compared to urban areas.  Anybody with even a modicum of sociology exposure would know that. 

The problem is as follows:  For 2007, US government defines people who are “in poverty or at risk of being in poverty” as those who have an annual income less than $21,027.

This might be useful to assess national poverty levels, but it is completely useless as a metric for comparing urban versus rural poverty.  The reason is that the cost of living in cities is typically much higher than the cost of living in rural areas.  You can own a home on $20,000 in the country in the South, where the cost of a small house goes for around $60,000.  There is no way you could own a home in a city where housing costs might approach $200k for a similar home.

Any definition of poverty useful for comparing urban to rural poor would have to do it in terms of whether the person had access to adequate shelter, enough food to remained nourished, access to heating and cooling, etc.  When people look at the problem that way, the first thing they find is that instead of 30 million people living in full poverty, the number is closer to 1 million… and that rural poverty is virtually non-existent.

The reason for this again is simply that life is cheaper in the country, but salary levels are similar (and there is no differentiation for federal government support in terms of rural versus urban). 

So once again, Dino isn’t just wrong, he’s completely ignorant of basic facts that any student in an average high-school environment would have been exposed to.

Dino, all your link proves is that when we use a dollar measure for poverty, we find that there are a lot of people out in rural areas who are quite happy to live on not very many dollars.  Anyone who has spent much time out “in the sticks” knows very well that, from real estate to food costs, it’s cheaper to live in rural areas than in the suburbs, and cheaper to live in the suburbs than in urban areas. 

So to use the same dollar metric for poverty in rural areas as in urban areas is to measure two completely different things. 

Of course, if you can’t figure out that the death train has blighted Portland despite living there, then you probably also won’t figure out that a trailer in the country is a completely different than than an apartment in the projects, either.

The chew toy plays the leftie redefinition game constantly.

If govt control of the economy were the way to go, the Soviet Union would be the richest, most powerful nation in the history of the world.

Thanks to Obama, America remains the only country where it is illegal to drill our own oil!

This is what you typed Carrick:

Blah blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah blah.

Just a bunch of verbal nonsense to try and refute FACTS from a reputable source. But what else can we expect from a group who holds conservative nutjob beliefs?

Next time come back with something factual.

Dino styled fiction:

DEMOCRATS WERE SHUT OUT OF ALL POLICY-MAKING.

Fact: Not only were they not shut out, their active oppositionalism was key in preventing timely response to the GSE crisis in 2004.

You can flaunt your fantasies as much as you want, but I’ll just keep bringing the facts back into your face.

Dino:

Blah blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah blah.

Just a bunch of verbal nonsense to try and refute FACTS from a reputable source. But what else can we expect from a group who holds conservative nutjob beliefs?

LMAO.

Dino can’t even follow an argument.

Oh robbie, you are too much! Republicans broke the records for filibustering EVERYTHING from 2006 (actually, the new COngress isn’t in session until 2007 giving them one short year to fix the samage of 30 years of republican rule- with a republican president no less!) to now.

Face it. Your guys FAILED and were thrown out of office. I would have done far worse.

.. let alone have any hope of refuting it.

Which in this case is impossible because for him to do so, he would have to either prove that the US Government does not set the poverty level based on annual income below $21k (for 2007) or he would have to prove that the cost of living is not much lower in rural areas compare to urban ones.

There Dino…. I apologize for having so many words for an obvious simpleton like yourself.  Can you see the conflict now, or do we need to present it to you with crayons?

I’ve posted links time and time again about who was repsonsible, the media has pronounced republicans at fault but you’re still convinced that the minority party did it.

We could do this all day. But let’s just say you win and you can celebrate your victory like you did Nov. 4th when McCain/Plain won and the republicans took back Congress.

HAHAHA

Dino:

We could do this all day. But let’s just say you win and you can celebrate your victory like you did Nov. 4th when McCain/Plain won and the republicans took back Congress.

Once again you are a dumb fuck.

Just because I don’t drink DNC koolaid doesn’t mean that I voted for McCain.  I didn’t.

Republicans broke the records for filibustering EVERYTHING from 2006 (actually, the new COngress isn’t in
session until 2007 giving them one short year to fix the samage of 30 years of republican rule- with a republican president no less!) to now.

Any yet you deny the Dem filibustering from 1994-2006; interesting double standard.
Your other lie, chew toy, is that Republicans filibustered any Dem efforts to change the damage caused by their own social engineering bullshit.  The Dems denied there was a problem, so you lie again.

...30 years of republican rule…

Another lie from you.  Your govt indoctrination school didn’t even teach you to do simple addition and subtraction.
Stupid little chew toy.

If govt control of the economy were the way to go, the Soviet Union would be the richest, most powerful nation in the history of the world.

Thanks to Obama, America remains the only country where it is illegal to drill our own oil!

Bottom line: Republican President and Congress, republican Federal Reserve. Dead economy.

Only the insane would blame democrats or sunspots.

Still waiting for Dino to explain away the video of the Democrats oppositional behavior at the House Subcommittee on GSEs.  I’ll have to wait a really long time, because it’s obvious that he can’t, any more than he can justify the use of statistics intended for national assessment of poverty to compare rural versus urban poverty.

I’ve posted links time and time again about who was repsonsible…

Your information is wrong, which makes your premises wrong, which leads you to your wrong conclusions.  GIGO

Stupid, wrong little chew toy.

If govt control of the economy were the way to go, the Soviet Union would be the richest, most powerful nation in the history of the world.

Thanks to Obama, America remains the only country where it is illegal to drill our own oil!

Dino:

Only the insane would blame democrats or sunspots.

Power was shared between Republicans and Democrats over the time that this fiasco occurred (that’s how our representational democracy works), and the negative role played by Democrats is unassailable.

Only a koolaid drinker like yourself would try to argue against these basic facts.

HAHAHA

When a fool hears the truth, he laughs;
If he didn’t laugh, it wouldn’t be the truth.

Stupid, foolish little chew toy.

If govt control of the economy were the way to go, the Soviet Union would be the richest, most powerful nation in the history of the world.

Thanks to Obama, America remains the only country where it is illegal to drill our own oil!

FICO

1% of Americans pay 40% of the income tax.
5% of Americans pay 60% of the income tax.
10% of Americans pay 70% of the income tax.

Dino=diane?  It’s certainly stupid enough.

If govt control of the economy were the way to go, the Soviet Union would be the richest, most powerful nation in the history of the world.

Thanks to Obama, America remains the only country where it is illegal to drill our own oil!

Could be related….

1% of Americans pay 40% of the income tax.
5% of Americans pay 60% of the income tax.
10% of Americans pay 70% of the income tax.

Fools think alike.

If govt control of the economy were the way to go, the Soviet Union would be the richest, most powerful nation in the history of the world.

Thanks to Obama, America remains the only country where it is illegal to drill our own oil!

By the way, the number of Republican filibusters is partial the consequence of Democratic tactic of bringing them up to a vote, in order to register the filibuster on the official record. Many Republican initiatives were similarly shot down because they lacked a filibuster proof number of yes-votes.

This whole meme about record number of filibusters is just more DNC koolaid, nothing more.  And DIno obviously lacks the intellectual capacity to recognize that.

Republican President
Republican Congress
Republican Federal Reserve

Total republican control 1994-2007

Econommic meltdown

Republicans at fault.

Record for filibusters: Republicans in the 2007 Congress.

Previous record: Early 90s, republicans.

Republican President
Republican Congress
Republican Federal Reserve

Total republican control 1994-2007

Economic meltdown

Republicans at fault.

Republican President
Republican Congress
Republican Federal Reserve

Total republican control of Congress 1994-2007
Total republican control, Congress & Presidency 2000-2007
Totla republican control Federal Reserve 1980s to present

Economic meltdown 2006, 2007
Depression 2009

Republicans at fault.

Telling one lie or even consistently lying about one subject…doesn’t make you a liar…

robert108 on May 18, 2009 at 03:23 pm

“You have absolutely no reason, none, to trust our word or our actions at this point.”

Titular gop Head Mr. Steele

Killer graphic Bob!

Does it have a reference? I want to use it on other blogs to beat conservatives with.

“The strategy of being obstructionist can work or fail. So far, it’s working for us.”

Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.)

Telling one lie or even consistently lying about one subject…doesn’t make you a liar…

robert108 on May 18, 2009 at 03:23 pm

“You have absolutely no reason, none, to trust our word or our actions at this point.”

Titular gop Head Mr. Steele