Everybody is trying to capsulize what caused this credit crisis, and both political sides are trying to minimize their role. Here are some simple facts.
In the 1990's some congresscritters, mostly Democrats, noticed that many inner city people could not qualify for mortgages because they could not provide a record of income sufficient to justify a mortgage. So they passed a law with some Republican votes requiring banks to provide so called "no document" mortgages without checking the borrowers income. Furthermore the law required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy those mortgages from the banks. A former law had established Fannie and Freddie as quasi arms of the government, which allowed them, in turn to borrow money from the Treasury and from others at lower interest rates than usually required for such things as mortgages. The Federal Government thus became sort of responsible for the debts of Fannie and Freddie.
If congress had just restricted such "no doc" mortgages to cheap housing in the inner cities all would have stayed manageable. But noooooooooo! The congresscritters, Democrats and Republicans, quickly figured that it would be unfair to only let poor people take advantage of the system like that - so they quickly raised the limit on such mortgages to middle class and even wealthy people. After that it became all the rage for banks to offer everybody who couldn't or didn't want to prove their income "no doc" mortgages.
As a result pretty soon banks were writing big mortgages on first homes and even on second and third, fourth and fifth home mortgages on a "no doc" basis. This all resulted in a very enjoyable party wherein folks were buying and selling homes like sausages, especially in Florida and California. If you doubt this you can turn on the TV and find a show called Flip That House which is all about how everybody can get rich by buying houses, fixing them up a bit and then selling them for big profits. Naturally all this game playing drove the price of housing up to the sky in the hot markets.
It all worked quite nicely while home prices continued to go up fast because people could take out a new mortgage to pay their old mortgage. But then in the early part of this decade the nasty old Grinches, like Warren Buffet, tried to spoil Christmas by pointing out the old Chinese proverb that "No tree grows to the sky."
So, in 2005, some congresscritters (mostly spoil sport Republicans this time, including John McCain) noticed that Fannie and Freddie were writing an awful lot of bad mortgages, and they were also fostering a market in blindingly complex bonds and betting pools called "derivatives" which were being sold and kept in bank and insurance company vaults as assets just as though they were real money. The Republicans were shouted down in 2005 because they were gutless wimps and because nobody wanted to leave off drinking the champagne and eating the caviar that came of writing and trading and betting on all these interesting new "derivatives" even though nobody could really understand them.
So there you have it. High finance in a few paragraphs. That is what brought us to where we are now, when even the smartest financial wizards don't know what those "derivatives" are worth, and when if the government doesn't bail out all the dumb banks and insurance companies the whole shebang will come apart.
As an aside, practically every well known congressman and senator except John McCain was on the Fannie and Freddie payroll to keep the party running as long as possible. And even McCain is not blameless because he should have shouted his concerns from the rooftops in 2005 instead of letting the Democrats kill the bill which would have at least moderated the crisis. But, of course, if he had done that he wouldn't have been able to run for president because nobody likes a Grinch. His opponent, Barack Obama, is trying his darndest to wriggle out of his share of responsibility for all of this, but that's pretty hard when it's a simple fact that he took the third biggest money envelope Fannie and Freddie handed out last year.
Showing posts with label John McCain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John McCain. Show all posts
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Friday, September 12, 2008
Ouch! That has to smart
It turns out Barack Obama is only in favor of women getting equal pay for equal work when it comes to women who work for somebody else; or maybe it's just that Obama has problems with the idea of hiring women for positions of responsibility.
Obama pays the women on his staff 83% of what he pays the men on his staff.
McCain, on the other hand, pays the women on his staff better than he pays the men by a few percentage points, mostly because he has female staffers who are allowed to do more than serve the men coffee and attend to the typing and filing.
But I'm a partisan, so you shouldn't just trust me. You can look it up yourself. Deroy Murdock at National Review lays out the facts in nice order. And, just in case you don't trust him either, he gives his sources so you can check them yourself.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NmEzMTZmNTk5MDI0NTZmNjUwMjllN2ZlZTc0MWFmYzY=
Obama pays the women on his staff 83% of what he pays the men on his staff.
McCain, on the other hand, pays the women on his staff better than he pays the men by a few percentage points, mostly because he has female staffers who are allowed to do more than serve the men coffee and attend to the typing and filing.
But I'm a partisan, so you shouldn't just trust me. You can look it up yourself. Deroy Murdock at National Review lays out the facts in nice order. And, just in case you don't trust him either, he gives his sources so you can check them yourself.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NmEzMTZmNTk5MDI0NTZmNjUwMjllN2ZlZTc0MWFmYzY=
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Wow! That's a turnaround jump shot
Barack Obama is the basketball player in this race, but he seems to have had his guard down when John McCain pulled off an impressive turnaround jump shot from outside the three point line a couple of weeks ago by picking Sarah Palin to be his VP running mate.
The odds on McCain as the next president are now up to 51% on Intrade, while the odds on Obama are down to 48%. The odds on McCain were well below 40% seven days ago.
Intrade is a website for legal gambling, in case you didn't know, just like Hialeah Park, the New York Stock Exchange and the PA State Lottery. If you buy a share of McCain for $51 today they will pay you $100 on November 4th, if he wins. So he's like a horse running in the fifth race at Hialeah who goes off at a little under two to one. Last week his payoff was somewhat over five to two; and a month ago his payoff was over three to one.
Uh, Oh! Joe Biden can't like this trend. The odds of him being replaced on the Democratic ticket are up to twelve to one today. The odds of him being replaced were over thirty to one a week ago. I wonder if some members of Obama's staff are placing a few bets on the side, selling old Joe short, so to speak.
I think I have all that odds stuff right. If Pop were still with us I would ask him. He could explain it with great certainty. Mom also. They both knew a lot about the odds on lots of things.
http://www.intrade.com/
This all brings back fond memories of a long running conversation I had with Pop about the possibility of developing a system for beating the horses based on Pop's knowledgeably held belief that most punters tend to be biased toward longs shots and thus increase the payoff odds of favorites above the actual probability that they will win the race.
This bettor bias belief of Pop's was deeply ironic and interesting in that the only person he knew with certainty to be a long term winner at the track was Doc. Doc's investment methodology was to watch all the various factors closely and patiently until he identified a particular long shot horse who was ready to win a particular race based on his history, the running conditions and the histories of the other horses in the field of competition, about all of which he maintained encyclopedic knowledge.
And Doc was also disciplined. If doc happened to go to the track with the boys and no such special pick was running that day, or if the conditions were not exactly right for a horse he had picked, say because it was raining, or because another horse had been scratched from the field, Doc would content himself with $2 bets all day. "Discipline and patience," Pop used to say, "Doc has the patience to wait and the discipline to withhold his bet unless everything is perfect." Not that Doc's horse would win every time; but enough of his twenty and thirty and fifty to one longshots won to return his overall investments and more. Pop knew this because Doc, as his best buddy, shared his picks, and Pop would send a few bucks to the track with Doc when he went, as he did a few times a year, to take advantage of a special situation.
After saying that over the long run he had won some money on Doc's picks, Pop would always mention that Doc would chide him at the track when they went together and Pop wagered a five or ten dollar bill on some horse because he liked the name or whatever. "Why do you do that, Johnny," Doc would say, "You, of all people, know that you can't win at gambling."
Pop and Doc, those were a prize pair to listen to, and if Norfi was with them. . . heavens, the conversations you could hear.
But back to my long running conversation with Pop about betting systems. Pop knew a lot about betting systems because a lot of people he knew were firm believers in a wide variety of betting systems. Pop believed that the betting bias in favor of longshots was real, but that it was was not sufficient to make it possible to beat the track's fifteen percent vigorish by betting regularly on favorites. And, he would always say, "What the hell's the fun of betting on a five to four favorite and then going up to the window to collect twelve fifty on a ten dollar bet. "
Near the end of his life Pop was tickled pink when I brought him a long and pretty careful news article about a scholarly paper by a group of college professors who not only proved the theory that the track odds could be beaten by betting on favorites, but who actually presented the reasoning and the sequence of bets they had made to prove the theory. As I recall it their system depended on identifying and taking advantage of certain kinds of odds spreads over the field of horses in a race combined with the running times of those horses in prior races.
I haven't looked it up online, but you can if you want to, I expect. It would be a scholarly paper written in the mid to late 1980's. And if you look it up you can apply the system yourself, although I'll warn you that it required a lot of study over some weeks before Pop agreed that it might work, resulting in a couple of percentage point edge beyond the track take for the bettor in those specific races where the stars aligned perfectly.
Also, unfortunately, the system itself appeared to me to be massively time consuming to work, although today I imagine you could set it up on a personal computer, if you know a lot about Excel or any of the Mathlab type packages, and if you're ready to do a lot of work learning about downloading betting and odds history, and the time performance histories of a lot of horses.
Then too - The fact that it can work means that many people have probably already perfected automated versions of that system, which in turn means the odds edge it can provide will have dropped since the professors published it.
The odds on McCain as the next president are now up to 51% on Intrade, while the odds on Obama are down to 48%. The odds on McCain were well below 40% seven days ago.
Intrade is a website for legal gambling, in case you didn't know, just like Hialeah Park, the New York Stock Exchange and the PA State Lottery. If you buy a share of McCain for $51 today they will pay you $100 on November 4th, if he wins. So he's like a horse running in the fifth race at Hialeah who goes off at a little under two to one. Last week his payoff was somewhat over five to two; and a month ago his payoff was over three to one.
Uh, Oh! Joe Biden can't like this trend. The odds of him being replaced on the Democratic ticket are up to twelve to one today. The odds of him being replaced were over thirty to one a week ago. I wonder if some members of Obama's staff are placing a few bets on the side, selling old Joe short, so to speak.
I think I have all that odds stuff right. If Pop were still with us I would ask him. He could explain it with great certainty. Mom also. They both knew a lot about the odds on lots of things.
http://www.intrade.com/
This all brings back fond memories of a long running conversation I had with Pop about the possibility of developing a system for beating the horses based on Pop's knowledgeably held belief that most punters tend to be biased toward longs shots and thus increase the payoff odds of favorites above the actual probability that they will win the race.
This bettor bias belief of Pop's was deeply ironic and interesting in that the only person he knew with certainty to be a long term winner at the track was Doc. Doc's investment methodology was to watch all the various factors closely and patiently until he identified a particular long shot horse who was ready to win a particular race based on his history, the running conditions and the histories of the other horses in the field of competition, about all of which he maintained encyclopedic knowledge.
And Doc was also disciplined. If doc happened to go to the track with the boys and no such special pick was running that day, or if the conditions were not exactly right for a horse he had picked, say because it was raining, or because another horse had been scratched from the field, Doc would content himself with $2 bets all day. "Discipline and patience," Pop used to say, "Doc has the patience to wait and the discipline to withhold his bet unless everything is perfect." Not that Doc's horse would win every time; but enough of his twenty and thirty and fifty to one longshots won to return his overall investments and more. Pop knew this because Doc, as his best buddy, shared his picks, and Pop would send a few bucks to the track with Doc when he went, as he did a few times a year, to take advantage of a special situation.
After saying that over the long run he had won some money on Doc's picks, Pop would always mention that Doc would chide him at the track when they went together and Pop wagered a five or ten dollar bill on some horse because he liked the name or whatever. "Why do you do that, Johnny," Doc would say, "You, of all people, know that you can't win at gambling."
Pop and Doc, those were a prize pair to listen to, and if Norfi was with them. . . heavens, the conversations you could hear.
But back to my long running conversation with Pop about betting systems. Pop knew a lot about betting systems because a lot of people he knew were firm believers in a wide variety of betting systems. Pop believed that the betting bias in favor of longshots was real, but that it was was not sufficient to make it possible to beat the track's fifteen percent vigorish by betting regularly on favorites. And, he would always say, "What the hell's the fun of betting on a five to four favorite and then going up to the window to collect twelve fifty on a ten dollar bet. "
Near the end of his life Pop was tickled pink when I brought him a long and pretty careful news article about a scholarly paper by a group of college professors who not only proved the theory that the track odds could be beaten by betting on favorites, but who actually presented the reasoning and the sequence of bets they had made to prove the theory. As I recall it their system depended on identifying and taking advantage of certain kinds of odds spreads over the field of horses in a race combined with the running times of those horses in prior races.
I haven't looked it up online, but you can if you want to, I expect. It would be a scholarly paper written in the mid to late 1980's. And if you look it up you can apply the system yourself, although I'll warn you that it required a lot of study over some weeks before Pop agreed that it might work, resulting in a couple of percentage point edge beyond the track take for the bettor in those specific races where the stars aligned perfectly.
Also, unfortunately, the system itself appeared to me to be massively time consuming to work, although today I imagine you could set it up on a personal computer, if you know a lot about Excel or any of the Mathlab type packages, and if you're ready to do a lot of work learning about downloading betting and odds history, and the time performance histories of a lot of horses.
Then too - The fact that it can work means that many people have probably already perfected automated versions of that system, which in turn means the odds edge it can provide will have dropped since the professors published it.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
We deserve better!
The Demos are trying to sell Joe Biden as a po' boy from Scranton. If Barack Obama bought Joe Biden as a coal miner's daughter type Pennsylvania native scion he's a lot less smart than he appeared when he rolled over Bill O'Reilly on taxes last night.
Here's a random thought that struck me while watching Obama swish O'Reilly around on the floor like a dust mop and then unscrew his head and slam dunk it.
After this election we're going to have to look at either Obama's big wart or McCain's turkey wattle neck for the next four years. Not pleasant. And then there's that thing with the tongue Palin does behind her lower lip when she's thinking.
And if that's not enough; all three of the above pale next to the thought of listening to Biden talk out of both sides of his mouth for four years. What a supercilious asshole. Caligula's horse is a lot more believable as a popular favorite for a Senator's stall and trough, and he didn't get re-elected 6 times. At least half of the three or four dozen voters down in Delaware must be brain damaged from smelling all that chicken shit.
Anyway, after eight years of putting up with George W's earnest Alfred E. Neuman imitation we deserve better.
Here's a random thought that struck me while watching Obama swish O'Reilly around on the floor like a dust mop and then unscrew his head and slam dunk it.
After this election we're going to have to look at either Obama's big wart or McCain's turkey wattle neck for the next four years. Not pleasant. And then there's that thing with the tongue Palin does behind her lower lip when she's thinking.
And if that's not enough; all three of the above pale next to the thought of listening to Biden talk out of both sides of his mouth for four years. What a supercilious asshole. Caligula's horse is a lot more believable as a popular favorite for a Senator's stall and trough, and he didn't get re-elected 6 times. At least half of the three or four dozen voters down in Delaware must be brain damaged from smelling all that chicken shit.
Anyway, after eight years of putting up with George W's earnest Alfred E. Neuman imitation we deserve better.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Obama will say Ouch! when he reads this
Over at Commentary Magazine's Contentions blog a poster took on the issue of why Barack Obama continues to trade punches with Sarah Palin even though his real opponent is John McCain.
I'm betting the writer is a graduate of a top notch college which has a Womyn's Studies Department. Alternatively, this is such a pitch perfect example of it's genre that the writer may even be Camille Paglia posting under a pseudonym.
"Joe NS Says: September 6th, 2008 at 2:50 PM
The Democratic campaign is not in a meltdown. The proper image, I believe, is that of a long metal chain the links of which are one by one sliding off the edge of a bench. One can see what is happening, very slowly at first and then accelerating, with horror or glee depending on party affiliation; but it’s very definitely underway.
It is nearly impossible to credit it, but the Palin pick has caught the Democrats so flat-footed that they have clearly decided the only counterpunch they have is to argue that Sarah Palin cannot be a mother and a vice-president at the same time. That is a flat-out incredible position for a Democrat to take. It is unvarnished surrealism. And I fear it might even work. The truth, however, is that they really have no other option at this point. Largely because of the psychology of BO himself, I believe.
In any sensible assessment of his current predicament, Obama MUST IGNORE Sarah Palin. To have the Democratic presidential nominee fencing on almost a daily basis with the Republicans nominee for vice-president is only a little short of insane. Palin was wrong on one matter: the longer the jousting between them continues, the more voters will notice that the proper level of comparison of Obama and Palin is not between Obama as community organizer and Palin as mayor, but between Obama as community organizer and Palin as a member of the Wasilla, Alaska, PTA. Obama should put Sarah Palin out of his head. So why can’t he?
It’s simple: She’s sexier than he is.
One of the things that has always seemed to me creepiest about the 2008 presidential campaign has been its erotic - I would even say homoerotic - atmospherics. Sheer celebrity, of course, tends to push things that way, to be sure; but with Obama something else has been going on, something that is often referred to as “narcissism” or “self-absorption” or, more honestly, as “seductiveness.” Though others may take offense, I think it was always more the self-fascination one sees in a young girl posing in front of a mirror. Edwards displayed the syndrome as well, but once he left the race, Obama had the enchantress slot all to himself. McCain? Hillary?? I don’t think so.
Now here is Sarah Palin, who directly threatens the male narcissist’s amour propre because she seems to be reorienting the eroticism in the campaign toward its “traditional” locus in ordinay life: toward the female. Sarah Palin is amazingly erotic. But even more amazing: It’s perhaps the least important thing about her? Like a belle who meets an unforeseen competitor for the title of most alluring, Obama has reacted badly and, let’s be honest, a little bit cattily.
In sum, hell hath no fury . . . ."
I'm betting the writer is a graduate of a top notch college which has a Womyn's Studies Department. Alternatively, this is such a pitch perfect example of it's genre that the writer may even be Camille Paglia posting under a pseudonym.
"Joe NS Says: September 6th, 2008 at 2:50 PM
The Democratic campaign is not in a meltdown. The proper image, I believe, is that of a long metal chain the links of which are one by one sliding off the edge of a bench. One can see what is happening, very slowly at first and then accelerating, with horror or glee depending on party affiliation; but it’s very definitely underway.
It is nearly impossible to credit it, but the Palin pick has caught the Democrats so flat-footed that they have clearly decided the only counterpunch they have is to argue that Sarah Palin cannot be a mother and a vice-president at the same time. That is a flat-out incredible position for a Democrat to take. It is unvarnished surrealism. And I fear it might even work. The truth, however, is that they really have no other option at this point. Largely because of the psychology of BO himself, I believe.
In any sensible assessment of his current predicament, Obama MUST IGNORE Sarah Palin. To have the Democratic presidential nominee fencing on almost a daily basis with the Republicans nominee for vice-president is only a little short of insane. Palin was wrong on one matter: the longer the jousting between them continues, the more voters will notice that the proper level of comparison of Obama and Palin is not between Obama as community organizer and Palin as mayor, but between Obama as community organizer and Palin as a member of the Wasilla, Alaska, PTA. Obama should put Sarah Palin out of his head. So why can’t he?
It’s simple: She’s sexier than he is.
One of the things that has always seemed to me creepiest about the 2008 presidential campaign has been its erotic - I would even say homoerotic - atmospherics. Sheer celebrity, of course, tends to push things that way, to be sure; but with Obama something else has been going on, something that is often referred to as “narcissism” or “self-absorption” or, more honestly, as “seductiveness.” Though others may take offense, I think it was always more the self-fascination one sees in a young girl posing in front of a mirror. Edwards displayed the syndrome as well, but once he left the race, Obama had the enchantress slot all to himself. McCain? Hillary?? I don’t think so.
Now here is Sarah Palin, who directly threatens the male narcissist’s amour propre because she seems to be reorienting the eroticism in the campaign toward its “traditional” locus in ordinay life: toward the female. Sarah Palin is amazingly erotic. But even more amazing: It’s perhaps the least important thing about her? Like a belle who meets an unforeseen competitor for the title of most alluring, Obama has reacted badly and, let’s be honest, a little bit cattily.
In sum, hell hath no fury . . . ."
Sunday, August 31, 2008
About Sarah Palin and "experience"
There has been a lot of commentary about whether Sarah Palin is qualified to be President should she and John McCain be elected, and should something then happen to McCain.
Elizabeth I became Queen of England in 1558 when she was 25 years old. She did fairly well by her country.
From what I’ve seen and read of Sarah Palin so far she’s got as good a prospect as any of the four in the running to do okay if she should suddenly become President at 45 years old. Aside from her experience in government, a woman who has successfully juggled a full time job and five kids ranging in age from one year old to late teen age while staying on good terms with a 20 year husband knows quite a bit about delegation, decisionmaking and practical crisis management.
Very few of our presidents have been anywhere close to “qualified” by experience for the job. The good ones have exhibited good judgement. Some of the worst ones have been the best qualified on paper.
Update - Jonah Goldberg at National Review posted a great letter from a reader on this issue:
"Who would you hire?
To borrow from Ross Perot (not always a good idea), would you hire any of these people as a manager at your company?
Palin you'd offer the job to right away, and then you'd sweat until she accepted it.
McCain would seem like a decent choice, but wouldn't make or break you either way.
You'd wonder how Obama possibly thought he was qualified, and you'd leave him to be hired by some other company where they fall for people who say all the right things.
And you'd be telling stories about Biden's interview, and making jokes about it, for years."
Elizabeth I became Queen of England in 1558 when she was 25 years old. She did fairly well by her country.
From what I’ve seen and read of Sarah Palin so far she’s got as good a prospect as any of the four in the running to do okay if she should suddenly become President at 45 years old. Aside from her experience in government, a woman who has successfully juggled a full time job and five kids ranging in age from one year old to late teen age while staying on good terms with a 20 year husband knows quite a bit about delegation, decisionmaking and practical crisis management.
Very few of our presidents have been anywhere close to “qualified” by experience for the job. The good ones have exhibited good judgement. Some of the worst ones have been the best qualified on paper.
Update - Jonah Goldberg at National Review posted a great letter from a reader on this issue:
"Who would you hire?
To borrow from Ross Perot (not always a good idea), would you hire any of these people as a manager at your company?
Palin you'd offer the job to right away, and then you'd sweat until she accepted it.
McCain would seem like a decent choice, but wouldn't make or break you either way.
You'd wonder how Obama possibly thought he was qualified, and you'd leave him to be hired by some other company where they fall for people who say all the right things.
And you'd be telling stories about Biden's interview, and making jokes about it, for years."
Friday, August 29, 2008
Maybe McCain got the idea of picking Palin from this
Maybe Senator John McCain got the idea of picking Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate from this video. It's pretty funny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh-lW2opLyQ&feature=related
And, it turns out that way back when she competed in the Miss Alaska beauty pageant after being selected as Miss Wasilla. She also won the Miss Congeniality award in Wasilla. Apparently she hasn't always been congenial since then; her Alaska political opponents call her Sarah Barracuda. She can probably go one on one with Barack Obama on a basketball court, she hunts, she fishes and she's married to a part Eskimo who's a union member and a champion snowmobile racer. Oh, one other thing, she returned to work three days after having their fifth kid. The Democrats will be making a big mistake if they underestimate this woman, especially since their presidential candidate isn't a lot more experienced than she is.
This 2006 newspaper article gives her whole history.
http://dwb.adn.com/news/politics/story/8334949p-8231037c.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh-lW2opLyQ&feature=related
And, it turns out that way back when she competed in the Miss Alaska beauty pageant after being selected as Miss Wasilla. She also won the Miss Congeniality award in Wasilla. Apparently she hasn't always been congenial since then; her Alaska political opponents call her Sarah Barracuda. She can probably go one on one with Barack Obama on a basketball court, she hunts, she fishes and she's married to a part Eskimo who's a union member and a champion snowmobile racer. Oh, one other thing, she returned to work three days after having their fifth kid. The Democrats will be making a big mistake if they underestimate this woman, especially since their presidential candidate isn't a lot more experienced than she is.
This 2006 newspaper article gives her whole history.
http://dwb.adn.com/news/politics/story/8334949p-8231037c.html
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Ouch! Hell hath no fury like a playgirl scorned
I suppose John McCain knew there would be pushback after he started running that celebrity ad, but I think he expected the pushback to come from Barack Obama. Now it seems Paris Hilton has taken exception to the ad, and she's now running for President. In her first campaign ad she takes on McCain where it hurts most.
Al R was out ahead of the curve on this issue but I would say Ms Hilton's presentation is more persuasive.
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/64ad536a6d
Al R was out ahead of the curve on this issue but I would say Ms Hilton's presentation is more persuasive.
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/64ad536a6d
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