From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V16 #748 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Friday, October 10 2008 Volume 16 : Number 748 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Universal health care [Christopher Gross ] Re: Perspex Island, politics, and the wife ["Miles Goosens" ] Re: Universal health care ["kevin studyvin" ] R+RHOF [HwyCDRrev@aol.com] Re: Another econo-politicalish note [Christopher Gross ] RE: Master Debaters ["Bachman, Michael" ] Re: Feels Like 1974 ["Sumiko Keay" ] Re: Master Debaters ["kevin studyvin" ] Re: Master Debaters ["Nectar At Any Cost!" ] Re: Master Debaters [2fs ] Re: The "Eye" debate... [2fs ] Re: abbrev. qry. [2fs ] Re: Master Debaters [FSThomas ] Re: Miles on BSDR (I know - I keep changing thread names...) [2fs ] Re: Universal health care [2fs ] Re: Another econo-politicalish note [2fs ] Re: The "Eye" debate... ["kevin studyvin" ] Re: Master Debaters [Christopher Gross ] Re: Miles on BSDR (I know - I keep changing thread names...) ["kevin stud] Re: Master Debaters ["Miles Goosens" ] Re: Master Debaters [FSThomas ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:24:14 -0400 (EDT) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: Universal health care On Fri, 10 Oct 2008, Sebastian Hagedorn wrote: >> I was >> shocked when I found out how much medical insurance was in the US - am I >> right in thinking it's over $200 a month? Blimey... > > It's *much* more than that in Germany if you earn as much as I do - which is > not bad, but keep in mind that I'm a public servant, i.e. in the private > sector some people earn many times as much as I do. I don't have the actual > numbers handy, but my HMO charges 14.2% of my gross income per month. In my > case that's more than $600 a month. Note that I only pay half of that. The > other half is paid by your employer. Unfortunately $200/mo is a serious underestimate for many Americans. Not everyone pays as much as Eleanore, but still.... As it happens my employer just released next year's insurance rates. We actually have a very good plan. Single, childless losers like me will only pay a little over $50 a month. To cover yourself plus one person will cost around $215 a month, while yourself plus family (spouse/partner and 1+ dependents) will cost about $350 a month. This is for a plan that has a $750 deductible and only pays 80% of most expenses other than yearly checkups. Dental is separate -- that's another $40/mo for a single person, over $100/mo for a family. Note that these rates are what the employee pays, NOT including the employer's share. Most employers don't pay as large a share as mine does. Note also that they're flat rates, not a percentage of your income. A single guy who makes three times what I do will still only pay $50 per month. (However, there is a discount for staff with salaries under $30K/yr.) Note also that when we pay for private medical insurance, part of each payment goes for a staff whose job is to look for reasons NOT to pay on your claims.... - --Chris ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:31:47 -0500 From: "Miles Goosens" Subject: Re: Perspex Island, politics, and the wife Somehow I hadn't glommed onto the fact that it was Egyptians-only rankings until now. OK, I'll play, and yup, I'm one of those folks who doesn't count live and odds-n-sods albums for these porpoises: Globe of Frogs Fegmania! Perspex Island Element of Light Respect Queen Elvis All of them are darn good, but for me, there's a quality gap between the first four and the last two. And I want super-bonus cred for being a longtime PI advocate. I thought it was bland and iffy for my first three plays of it in 1991, but then I totally got it and have adored it ever since. I had a conversation with David Rawlings a couple of years ago where I found out he's as geeky about Hitchcock as any Feg; his pick is GLOBE OF FROGS. And at one of the Robyn Hitchcock's Jug Band Christmas shows here in Nashville, he and Gil picked "Luminous Rose." It was ironic to me that the best Hitchcock songs performed at that show (granted, I wasn't keen on that show in the first place since SPOOKED in its entirety was performed) were sung by Gil 'n' Dave. later, Miles On Thu, Oct 9, 2008 at 10:54 PM, Tom Clark wrote: > Egyptians albums ranking: > Element of Light > Fegmania! > Globe of Frogs > Queen Elvis > Perspex Island > Respect > > EoL beats out Fegmania due to overall strength and breadth of the material. > Diminishing returns since then though; not so much songwriting but > production. > > -tc > - -- now with blogspot retsin! http://readingpronunciation.blogspot.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:48:02 -0400 (EDT) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: Master Debaters Ferris, your whole argument seems to be based on the premise that it's poor minority borrowers who are defaulting on their mortgages now. As I posted the other day, that's simply not true. A large part of these bad loans went to middle-class or even rich borrowers who simply borrowed too much. (And then cashed in on their equity to buy fifty grand worth of granite countertops.) CRA and that terrifying 800-pound gorilla known as ACORN had nothing to do with these people. Likewise, CRA didn't invent the creative mortgages that you rightly criticize, nor did it cause the bubble in prices over the past few years, nor did it force anyone to pretend that the bubble wasn't a bubble. Most importantly, the boom in repackaging and reselling mortgages so that no one could tell how much risk they included was Wall Street's very own CRA-free invention. > No, all of the blame can't be put on the legislation, but the start of the > whole ball rolling can be. Maybe, but starting a ball rolling is only a big deal if the slope it's on is long and steep. The "long and steep" here is overpriced houses and hidden risks. >> what i'd >> like to know is whether limbaugh was warning, a few years ago when the >> market was at its height, of the impending CRA-impelled doom? > > That I don't know, but McCain was. I'm willing to believe you, but do you have a citation? - --Chris ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 09:49:02 -0700 From: "kevin studyvin" Subject: Re: Universal health care > Note also that when we pay for private medical insurance, part of each > payment goes for a staff whose job is to look for reasons NOT to pay on your > claims.... > Sadly true. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:05:22 EDT From: HwyCDRrev@aol.com Subject: R+RHOF http://www.rockhall.com/induction2009 my blog is "Yer Blog" http://fab4yerblog.blogspot.com/ http://robotsarestealingmyluggage.blogspot.com/ **************New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out (http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000002) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:19:11 -0400 (EDT) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: Another econo-politicalish note On Fri, 10 Oct 2008, Sebastian Hagedorn wrote: >> but clearly the author of Shufflepuck Cafe ... >> >> Stewart >> (who just installed Mini vMac on Catherine's new iMac just so she can >> play Crystal Quest ...) > > Ah, memories! I guess every Mac used to have those two games installed back > in the day ... Crystal Quest was such a great game, especially the sounds. I > never understood why it wasn't updated for newer systems. Oh, I loved Crystal Quest! Those sounds you mention are ear-worming me now as I type. I don't remember ever playing Shufflepuck Cafe, though. (Despite, umm, apparently having created it. Maybe I did it while on a bender.) I did play another 1987-era alien-cafe-themed game where, instead of shufflepuck, you played this weird thing where your opponent built up tiles toward you while you knocked them out with a little mortar-like gun. You played against various aliens seen standing around the cafe, including one that looked like a potted plant until its turn to play came. Does anyone remember what that game was called? My favorite games of the era were the point-and-click adventures Deja Vu, Shadowgate and The Uninvited; the Mac version of Rogue; the Dungeon Revealed; and later Tetris. Fortunately Civilization wasn't released until a few years later, or I probably never would have graduated college. - --Chris ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:38:02 -0400 From: "Bachman, Michael" Subject: RE: Master Debaters - -----Original Message----- From: owner-fegmaniax@smoe.org [mailto:owner-fegmaniax@smoe.org] On Behalf Of Christopher Gross Sent: Friday, October 10, 2008 12:48 PM To: Squidmaniax! Subject: Re: Master Debaters Chris wrote: >Ferris, your whole argument seems to be based on the premise that it's poor minority borrowers who are >defaulting on their mortgages now. As I posted the other day, that's simply not true. A large part of these bad >loans went to middle-class or even rich borrowers who simply borrowed too much. (And then cashed in on their equity >to buy fifty grand worth of granite countertops.) Add to that the squeeze of wage freeze, doubled co-pays for health care, higher costs for groceries, gas, and the loss of a higher income in a dual income family. Some people have cut discretionary spending to the bone and it's still not enough to pay the mortgage bill, and with the house worth a lot less then they owe they default as a last resort. Michael B. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:10:57 -0400 From: FSThomas Subject: Re: Master Debaters Christopher Gross wrote: >>> what i'd >>> like to know is whether limbaugh was warning, a few years ago when the >>> market was at its height, of the impending CRA-impelled doom? >> >> That I don't know, but McCain was. > > I'm willing to believe you, but do you have a citation? McCain was a co-sponsor of The Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005 (S-190, http://tinyurl.com/3jr9f8). When addressing the floor of the Senate McCain said (http://tinyurl.com/6aazzj): - --- For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac--known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs--and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO's report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO's report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay. I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole." - --- The Reform act came on the heels of President Bush's attempt at regulatory reform two years earlier. From the NYT, 9/11/2003 (http://tinyurl.com/6lp5qu): - --- The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago. Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry. The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios. The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt -- is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates. ... "/These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis," said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts/, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. "The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing." Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed. "/I don't see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,/" Mr. Watt said. - --- ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:36:07 -0500 From: "Sumiko Keay" Subject: Re: Feels Like 1974 Yeah, it debuted last night - but I bet it's up on Hulu or on the ABC website. It really followed the original - almost word for word. I think that they kept the same camera angles and everything. However, I hear from people who saw the original US pilot that this is a HUGE improvement over that one. The moment when he turned and saw the Twin Towers still being built was very powerful. And when it looked like he was seriously going to shoot the kid who grows up to be the serial killer? Also - v. powerful. The music - it was good but didn't always seem as well integrated into the show as on the original. Keitel - man - he just seems old and frail and O'Mara doesn't get the vulnerability across that John Simm did and that might just be a matter of O'Mara being a bigger man. (That scene where Sam confronts Hunt in the bar - I mean -it's like O'Mara is getting ready to beat up his grandpa.) Sumi On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 7:54 AM, Jeremy Osner wrote: > Aargh, or maybe it premiered last night and I missed it... > > On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 7:45 AM, Jeremy Osner wrote: >> A TV show is premiering tonight that might be of interest to some of >> the readers of this mailing list: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0787490/ >> J >> >> If we do not say all words, however absurd, we will never say the >> essential words. -- Josi Saramago >> http://www.readin.com/blog/ >> > > > > -- > If we do not say all words, however absurd, we will never say the > essential words. -- Josi Saramago > http://www.readin.com/blog/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:49:19 -0700 From: "kevin studyvin" Subject: Re: Master Debaters > The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of > Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which together have issued more than $1.5 > trillion in outstanding debt -- is broken. A report by outside investigators > in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead > investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge > against rising interest rates. > And thank goodness the free-marketeers have been so vigilant in protecting us from the Satanic evils of regulation. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:40:33 -0700 From: "Nectar At Any Cost!" Subject: Re: Master Debaters no, it can't. about 20% of subprime loans were covered by the CRA, and the *defaults* have been primarily from exurban loans. > uh-huh. for that one and only piece of legislation (whose enforcement was, at any rate, curtailed after bush came in to office)? and with no bitching about an "up or down vote"? > <> the point is that, tight market or no, the "mandated" risky loans to minority communities should still be being made. that's just logic. why would that be so? institutions were so furious at being "compelled" to make bad loans to niggers that they decided to do the same thing the world over, just for spite? <> citation? and, again, why, instead of engaging in orgiastic cheerleading, wasn't wall street issuing warnings of the bad tidings which would result from clinton's folly? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:43:06 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Master Debaters On 10/10/08, FSThomas wrote: > > > McCain was a co-sponsor of The Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform > Act of 2005 (S-190, http://tinyurl.com/3jr9f8). When addressing the floor > of the Senate McCain said (http://tinyurl.com/6aazzj): > > --- > > For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs > Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac--known as Government-sponsored entities or > GSEs--and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in > the housing market. OFHEO's report this week does nothing to ease these > concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO's report > solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay. > > I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform > Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE > regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers > will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie > Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the > economy as a whole." > > --- > Of course, dig around long enough you'll probably find McCain saying the opposite, too - he's like the Bible, and nearly as old. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:46:51 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: The "Eye" debate... On 10/10/08, kevin studyvin wrote: > > I turned round and glared at him again, but he just grinned back and kept >> on hitting the drums. >> >> Tony L. >> > > Bruford! > Or was this in the Mastelloto (sp?) era? - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:08:41 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: abbrev. qry. On 10/10/08, craigie* wrote: > > DTAS is the NASDAQ abbreviation for Digitas... who were touted as a rival > to iTunes... > Okay...so why would it be on three or four songs but not the rest? On 10/10/2008, 2fs wrote: >> >> This is the second time I've seen iTunes' ID a track on a CD with a >> parenthetical "DTAS" appended (in this case, it was on several tracks on >> Nick Heyward's _The Apple Bed_). >> >> WFT? Am I supposed to know what that stands for...and why it's there? >> (Can't >> remember the other disc I ran into this with...) >> >> -- >> >> ...Jeff Norman >> >> The Architectural Dance Society >> http://spanghew.blogspot.com >> > > - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:08:56 -0400 From: FSThomas Subject: Re: Master Debaters 2fs wrote: > Of course, dig around long enough you'll probably find McCain saying the > opposite, too - he's like the Bible, and nearly as old. The same could be said for Obama. It's interesting that in 1995 Obama was all about suing Citibank under the CRA to force it to make ... what? The same bad loans he would rebuke them for thirteen years later when running for President. (http://tinyurl.com/4gfmcw) Maybe not a lie directly, but certainly hypocritical. Like McCain/Bible line, though. Clever. - -f. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:09:30 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Miles on BSDR (I know - I keep changing thread names...) On 10/10/08, kevin studyvin wrote: > > On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 2:44 AM, (0% rh) wrote: > > > > i love "the lizard". and it's really funny if you think it's about > > jim morrison (is that what everyone thinks that song is about, or do i > > just think everything thinks that?) > > > > > I've thought for a while it would be fun to get Manzarek & Krieger's Doors > cover band to play it, but since Manzarek appears to have nothing remotely > approaching a sense of humor... You don't think "Perfumed Garden" is hilarious? - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:15:55 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Perspex Island, politics, and the wife On 10/10/08, Miles Goosens wrote: > > Somehow I hadn't glommed onto the fact that it was Egyptians-only > rankings until now. OK, I'll play, and yup, I'm one of those folks > who doesn't count live and odds-n-sods albums for these porpoises: > > Globe of Frogs > Fegmania! > Perspex Island > Element of Light > Respect > Queen Elvis > > All of them are darn good, but for me, there's a quality gap between > the first four and the last two. > Hmmm... Tough call, but mine would probably go: EoL Fm GoF R QE PI The first three are neck-and-neck most of the time. Some songs on _Respect_ are among my favorites, some are not. QE somehow never quite works for me as well. PI certainly has some good songs, but some that I can never remember, and I'm not a fan of the production (which I will forbear from naming in terms of decade). Plus - _Fegmania! was the first RH album I heard, so bonus points for that. Please note that I like all of these albums a lot - the question is relative rank. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:17:05 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Universal health care On 10/10/08, Christopher Gross wrote: > > > Unfortunately $200/mo is a serious underestimate for many Americans. Not > everyone pays as much as Eleanore, but still.... As it happens my employer > just released next year's insurance rates. We actually have a very good > plan. Single, childless losers like me will only pay a little over $50 a > month. Your employer offers a losers' rate? Damn - I wish I'd known to ask! - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:18:32 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Another econo-politicalish note On 10/10/08, Christopher Gross wrote: > > > > I don't remember ever playing Shufflepuck Cafe, though. (Despite, umm, > apparently having created it. Maybe I did it while on a bender.) > Get the hell off my shiny metal ass! - -- - --Bender ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:33:37 -0700 From: "kevin studyvin" Subject: Re: The "Eye" debate... The sextet (or "double trio," if you prefer) that was around briefly in the 90s featured both of them, and they were awe-inspiring in concert. See the "authorized bootleg" B'Boom. On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 12:46 PM, 2fs wrote: > On 10/10/08, kevin studyvin wrote: > > > > I turned round and glared at him again, but he just grinned back and kept > >> on hitting the drums. > >> > >> Tony L. > >> > > > > Bruford! > > > > Or was this in the Mastelloto (sp?) era? > > > -- > > ...Jeff Norman > > The Architectural Dance Society > http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:34:05 -0400 (EDT) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: Master Debaters On Fri, 10 Oct 2008, FSThomas wrote: > It's interesting that in 1995 Obama was all about suing Citibank under the > CRA to force it to make ... what? The same bad loans he would rebuke them for > thirteen years later when running for President. (http://tinyurl.com/4gfmcw) Okay, for the third time: "risky loans" and "loans to minorities" are NOT the same thing. Not, not, not. Plenty of loans made to minority members worked out just fine. And a whole fuckload of loans made to non-minority, non-poor people are going belly up. BTW, from the very court case you linked to: "Plaintiffs alleged that the Defendant-bank rejected loan applications of minority applicants while approving loan applications filed by white applicants with similar financial characteristics and credit histories." They weren't suing to foce Citibank to give mortgages to unemployed welfare mothers on crack. They were suing because of rejected applicants who had the *same* ability to pay the loan as white applicants who were accepted. - --Chris ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:35:10 -0700 From: "kevin studyvin" Subject: Re: Miles on BSDR (I know - I keep changing thread names...) I don't know it but I'd lay money if Ray did it, it ain't funny-on-purpose. Ever hear The Golden Scarab? On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 1:09 PM, 2fs wrote: > On 10/10/08, kevin studyvin wrote: > >> On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 2:44 AM, (0% rh) wrote: >> > >> > i love "the lizard". and it's really funny if you think it's about >> > jim morrison (is that what everyone thinks that song is about, or do i >> > just think everything thinks that?) >> > >> >> >> I've thought for a while it would be fun to get Manzarek & Krieger's Doors >> cover band to play it, but since Manzarek appears to have nothing remotely >> approaching a sense of humor... >> > > > You don't think "Perfumed Garden" is hilarious? > > -- > > ...Jeff Norman > > The Architectural Dance Society > http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:49:11 -0500 From: "Miles Goosens" Subject: Re: Master Debaters I just want to say that whenever Feg gets this political, my thought is always "man, why isn't Chris Gross president"? Seriously, even when I don't agree with Chris, his opinions are always well-thought out, his debating skills are formidable. and he's always civil. Gross '08! A Whedon in every pot! later, Miles, who will say something about the Jazz Butcher in that other thread but needs more time to compose his thoughts - -- now with blogspot retsin! http://readingpronunciation.blogspot.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:07:57 -0400 From: FSThomas Subject: Re: Master Debaters Christopher Gross wrote: > On Fri, 10 Oct 2008, FSThomas wrote: > >> It's interesting that in 1995 Obama was all about suing Citibank under >> the CRA to force it to make ... what? The same bad loans he would >> rebuke them for thirteen years later when running for President. >> (http://tinyurl.com/4gfmcw) > > Okay, for the third time: "risky loans" and "loans to minorities" are > NOT the same thing. Not, not, not. Plenty of loans made to minority > members worked out just fine. And a whole fuckload of loans made to > non-minority, non-poor people are going belly up. > > BTW, from the very court case you linked to: > > "Plaintiffs alleged that the Defendant-bank rejected loan applications > of minority applicants while approving loan applications filed by white > applicants with similar financial characteristics and credit histories." > > They weren't suing to foce Citibank to give mortgages to unemployed > welfare mothers on crack. They were suing because of rejected > applicants who had the *same* ability to pay the loan as white > applicants who were accepted. And what was the outcome of the case? Voluntarily dismissed for an out-of-court settlement. No blame was assumed by Citi. I find the below piece from the WSJ from Oct. 3rd interesting. I just don't see how you *cannot* link -- at least to some extent -- "loans to minorities" *and* loans to would-be investors to the whole mess. A bad loan -- an ARM, for example -- to an investor or to a traditionally unqualified (were more traditional lending practices applied) is a bad loan is a bad loan. It doesn't matter. If you read the numbers detailed in the article below, though, it seems that the numbers for poor purchasers (who wouldn't ever be purchasers were it not for HUD and the CRA) really jumped under Clinton's watch. http://tinyurl.com/3na3ms - --- Many believe that wild greed and market failure led us into this sorry mess. According to that narrative, investors in search of higher yields bought novel securities that bundled loans made to high-risk borrowers. Banks issued these loans because they could sell them to hungry investors. It was a giant Ponzi scheme that only worked as long as housing prices were on the rise. But housing prices were the result of a speculative mania. Once the bubble burst, too many borrowers had negative equity, and the system collapsed. [How the Government Stoked the Mania] David Klein Part of this story is true. The fall in housing prices did lead to a sudden increase in defaults that reduced the value of mortgage-backed securities. What's missing is the role politicians and policy makers played in creating artificially high housing prices, and artificially reducing the danger of extremely risky assets. Beginning in 1992, Congress pushed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase their purchases of mortgages going to low and moderate income borrowers. For 1996, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) gave Fannie and Freddie an explicit target -- 42% of their mortgage financing had to go to borrowers with income below the median in their area. The target increased to 50% in 2000 and 52% in 2005. For 1996, HUD required that 12% of all mortgage purchases by Fannie and Freddie be "special affordable" loans, typically to borrowers with income less than 60% of their area's median income. That number was increased to 20% in 2000 and 22% in 2005. The 2008 goal was to be 28%. Between 2000 and 2005, Fannie and Freddie met those goals every year, funding hundreds of billions of dollars worth of loans, many of them subprime and adjustable-rate loans, and made to borrowers who bought houses with less than 10% down. Fannie and Freddie also purchased hundreds of billions of subprime securities for their own portfolios to make money and to help satisfy HUD affordable housing goals. Fannie and Freddie were important contributors to the demand for subprime securities. Congress designed Fannie and Freddie to serve both their investors and the political class. Demanding that Fannie and Freddie do more to increase home ownership among poor people allowed Congress and the White House to subsidize low-income housing outside of the budget, at least in the short run. It was a political free lunch. The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) did the same thing with traditional banks. It encouraged banks to serve two masters -- their bottom line and the so-called common good. First passed in 1977, the CRA was "strengthened" in 1995, causing an increase of 80% in the number of bank loans going to low- and moderate-income families. Fannie and Freddie were part of the CRA story, too. In 1997, Bear Stearns did the first securitization of CRA loans, a $384 million offering guaranteed by Freddie Mac. Over the next 10 months, Bear Stearns issued $1.9 billion of CRA mortgages backed by Fannie or Freddie. Between 2000 and 2002 Fannie Mae securitized $394 billion in CRA loans with $20 billion going to securitized mortgages. By pressuring banks to serve poor borrowers and poor regions of the country, politicians could push for increases in home ownership and urban development without having to commit budgetary dollars. Another political free lunch. Fannie and Freddie and the banks opposed these policy changes at first through both lobbying and intransigence. But when they found out that following these policies could be profitable -- which they were as long as rising housing prices kept default rates unusually low -- their complaints disappeared. Maybe they could serve two masters. They turned out to be wrong. And when Fannie and Freddie went into conservatorship, politicians found out that budgetary dollars were on the line after all. While Fannie and Freddie and the CRA were pushing up the demand for relatively low-priced property, the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 increased the demand for higher valued property by expanding the availability and size of the capital-gains exclusion to $500,000 from $125,000. It also made it easier to exclude capital gains from rental property, further pushing up the demand for housing. The Fed did its part, too. In 2003, the federal-funds rate hit 40-year lows of 1.25%. That pushed the rates on adjustable loans to historic lows as well, helping to fuel the housing boom. The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 and low interest rates -- along with the regulatory push for more low-income homeowners -- dramatically increased the demand for housing. Between 1997 and 2005, the average price of a house in the U.S. more than doubled. It wasn't simply a speculative bubble. Much of the rise in housing prices was the result of public policies that increased the demand for housing. Without the surge in housing prices, the subprime market would have never taken off. Fannie and Freddie played a significant role in the explosion of subprime mortgages and subprime mortgage-backed securities. Without Fannie and Freddie's implicit guarantee of government support (which turned out to be all too real), would the mortgage-backed securities market and the subprime part of it have expanded the way they did? Perhaps. But before we conclude that markets failed, we need a careful analysis of public policy's role in creating this mess. Greedy investors obviously played a part, but investors have always been greedy, and some inevitably overreach and destroy themselves. Why did they take so many down with them this time? Part of the answer is a political class greedy to push home-ownership rates to historic highs -- from 64% in 1994 to 69% in 2004. This was mostly the result of loans to low-income, higher-risk borrowers. Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, abetted by Congress, trumpeted that rise as it occurred. The consequence? On top of putting the entire financial system at risk, the hidden cost has been hundreds of billions of dollars funneled into the housing market instead of more productive assets. Beware of trying to do good with other people's money. Unfortunately, that strategy remains at the heart of the political process, and of proposed solutions to this crisis. ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V16 #748 ********************************