Bydio

Bob Barr Interview With Denver’s 9News

“If you subscribe to the theory that…the most important thing is to avoid getting someone in office that we perceive as worse than the other guy, in other words, vote for the lesser of two evils, guess what you’re still going to get: someone evil,” Barr said in an interview at the University of Denver after he spoke to students on campus. “I’m not calling McCain or Obama evil, I’m saying if that’s the philosophy, go in there and vote for the lesser of the two evils, you’re still voting for somebody you don’t believe in, who is not going to move our country and move it in the right direction.”

I honestly don’t know if I’m the 100th monkey, or if people pick up on my writing… I’m betting it’s the former (meaning I’m a monkey). In 2004 I was talking about this lightly — voting FOR a candidate, not against a candidate — and this year’s election cycle, I’ve been saying it more.  Now I’ve never read or heard ANYONE else say what I say, but I put a blog post up about Bill Quick voting FOR a candidate and days later I read about that candidate now talking about voting FOR a candidate instead of against a candidate (which means you vote for the person most likely to defeat the candidate you actually don’t want in office, even if the candidate you vote for isn’t who you’d want in office either, just less offensive to your sensibilities).

I like to think I’m important, and that what I write and say is heard, but the 100th monkey meme is — unfortunately — far more likely.

[And by 100th monkey, I mean that I'm somehow picking up on what others think and say, not them picking up on what I think and say. I don't believe in the reported paranormal event.]

Hawaii ends universal child health care program just months after adopting it

2,000 kids bankrupt the system. Only 2,000! And a lot of you want “Universal” Health Care for 300 million? Morons!

Walk away from the Socialism. Just walk away. It’s not your money to spend, so don’t even think about it. Walk… Away….

Bill Quick of Daily Pundit votes for Bob Barr, Libertarian.

I was pleasantly surprised to read that, because he’d been talking about voting for McCain simply because he had a chance to beat Obama. I do understand the tactic, but I think this type of thinking is what’s put us in this political morass we’re experiencing now. People aren’t voting FOR a candidate, they’re voting AGAINST a candidate they don’t like by voting for their closest opponent. In my opinion, this is basically abrogating your responsibility to vote for a candidate who you think will be the best leader for this country.

When I tell people I’m voting for Barr, most say I’m wasting my vote because it takes a vote away from McCain, and McCain is the only man who can beat Obama. It’s just the opposite; I’m using my vote to vote FOR a candidate I’d want to see in office, because I don’t want McCain in office simply because he has a few differences of opinion with Obama. McCain is just as bad as Obama in most respects, and he’s not representing me or my views of how this country could be better run. He’s typical, just as Obama is typical, because they’re politicians without principle — they only know political expedience, not national values.

I am far more Libertarian than Republican or Democrat, and I’m going to vote for the Libertarian candidate because he’s the only candidate I’d want in office. I’m not going to vote for McCain because Obama’s a racist Marxist, and I’m not going to vote for Obama because McCain is a tax-and-spend religious-right lover; Bob Barr is my candidate because he’s running on a platform of priciples with which I mostly agree.

Snot - Snooze Button

Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture explains:

Nothing in any of these Bush speeches that pushed for more lending to minorities and increased lower income home ownership caused the problem. Neither did any similar Clinton speeches. Nor did related the legislation related to the Bush speeches, nor did the CRA, nor Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Indeed, none of these actions required the sort of reckless lending that we saw from 2002-2007.

Understand this simple fact: In an ultra-low rate environment, where prices are appreciating rapidily, and mortgaes are being securitized, ALL THAT MATTERS IS THAT THE BORROWER NOT DEFAULT IN 90 days (or 6 Months). The goal was to make a loan that did not default in that period of time, it cannot be put back to the originator.

As a mortgage salesman, you only lose your a fee if a borrower defaults within 3 or 6 months. What do you do to maximize your returns? The best way to do that — to put people in houses that would not default in 90 days — was the 2/28 ARM mortgages. Cheap teaser rates for 24 months, then the big reset. By then, it was no longer your problem.

Can you grasp what a monumental change this was? Instead of making sure that borrowers could pay back ALL OF THE 30 YEAR FIXED MORTGAGE, you only had to find people who could afford the teaser rate for a few months. THIS WAS AN ENORMOUS AND UNPRECEDENTED SHIFT IN LENDING.

This is the key to the hosuing boom and bust, anbd ultimately underlies the entire credit freeze. And, it would not have been possible without the Greenspan ultra-low rates, which made the teaser portion (the “2″ of the 2/28) of these mortgages so attractive.

~~~

Those who continue to blame the CRA, Fannie Mae, etc. reveal their fundamental misunderstanding of how credit operates in general, what the financing process was like from 2002-07, and how this situation came to pass. Or worse, they understand it, and choose to lie about it anyway for partisan political purposes.

You either understand these simple facts, or you don’t. If you cannot comprehend this, well, then, I am at a loss as to what that says about your cognitive functioning. But if you understand this, but spit out the nonsense anyway, then you are merely a partisan with no respect for the truth.

And that seems to be the main people blaming the CRA and Fannie/Freddie for the credit/housing crisis — those folks who either can’t think — or wont.

Now I personally think there may be some contribution to our poor economy from such programs, but they didn’t cause the crash — the derivatives are to blame.  Go read Barry’s blog and sign up for his feed; he’s smart and explains things very well.

The Big Picture

Boston - More Than A Feeling

For the McCain video, I hear one guy shout “Terrorist” (12 seconds in):

For the Palin video, I hear people shouting “U.S.A.” (39 seconds in):

I think people are hearing what they want to hear in these videos. Shouting “terrorist” isn’t correct of that supporter, but McCain leads the crowd down that path — I think unintentionally because you see him wince at the audience reaction.

Still, I think Obama’s character is questionable at best, and bringing up people who support him — people he didn’t denounce until he was called to task for his associations with them, and for whom he still makes excuses — is appropriate. But McCain and his speechwriters need to be a bit smarter with how they write and speak if they’re going to go into Obama’s past. Don’t lead people to incorrect conclusions.

McCain, Palin, kill him, lies

Lots of people complain about W being incompetent, yet attribute amazing feats of governmental skill to him as well.

I often wonder WTF he’s thinking when he makes policy. We know Sharia law is anathema to our own values, yet we prop up so many countries with Sharia law as their basis of law that it boggles the mind. Hell, we even promote it, with both of the new governments of Afghanistan and Iraq basing their laws on Sharia. These Sharia examples lead me to wonder if W knows something we don’t know. I mean, how could he be THAT stupid?

Could it be that he knows that people under Sharia will get their asses handed to them and therefore force the populace to turn to another means of governance? Maybe, because it’s so backward, he knows that governments who base their law on Sharia will eventually collapse and will be forced to adopt trade with the West, leading to better ties and understanding and hopefully more eventual cessation of hostilities?

Is W an evil genius on the grand scale of Reagan, a la Phil Hartman on Saturday Night Live? I don’t think so, but one can hope.

http://www.khow.com/pages/caplisreport.html

Thanks to Snapped Shot

And, of course, showing off his Marxist tendencies:

8. OBAMA SAYS WHITES ARE PHANTOMS TO BE EXPUNGED FROM DREAMS

 

“Questions of competition, decisions forced by a market economy and majoritarian rule; issues of power. It was this unyielding reality-that whites were not only phantoms to be expunged from our dreams but were an active and varied fact of our everyday lives-that finally explained how nationalism could thrive as an emotion and flounder as a program.” Pg 202

It’s that evil competition, market economy and majoritarian rule — a.k.a. free markets and democracy — that makes white people evil and leads to Nationalism.

Seriously, people like this guy? They want him to lead our country with this freakish attitude? WTF?!

Flobots - Handlebars (Obama’s Theme?)

Seems a lot of people are wondering why being “Elitist” is bad for a politician. As Jon Stewart from The Daily Show said, he wants his leaders to be smarter than him.  Thing is, this is not about people simply being smarter than others; elitist means they think they’re superior to their constituents, and therefore above the rabble.

In essence, being elitist is being a pompous dick.

Do we want smart people in office?  Of course we do, but the social engineers and do-gooders who act like mommy when she says, “just do what I say, I know better” are the kind of people you don’t want anywhere near a political office.

Let’s keep mommy out of office, and then maybe we can have some budget surpluses because we haven’t spent millions of dollars on guilt alleviation.

I’m not against the Federal Reserve (well, maybe a little), but I am against the overregulation and meddling that know-nothing politicians force on our economy, usually to benefit “the poor”, and it ends up helping unscrupulous businessmen who often times are former or soon-to-be government functionaries.  All of the boondoggles foisted upon the public out of guilt and a “need to do something, anything” end up biting us in the ass, and I’m sick of it. This is one of the reasons why I don’t like any of the popular politicians because they will just keep going with the poor policy choices and looting of the treasury that’s been going on for so many decades.

Regulation is inevitable, but pushing policy on quasi-gov’t agencies, which then force a whole financial system to go into paroxysms is completely unacceptable. Check out this: http://norris.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/27/wall-street-says-thanks/ and follow the link to read the whole thing.  Hell, here’s the link to the whole thing: http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/09/uncle-sam-the-e.html — and here’s the PDF: http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/files/a_memo_found_in_the_street.pdf

And if you dare to delve into the true gloom and doom, check out Nouriel Roubini’s site: http://www.rgemonitor.com/blog/roubini/

Aussie Dave, who writes the blog Israellycool.com, agrees with a commenter who says Richard Silverstein selling his children’s photos equals pedophilia.

“I am not stupid enough to suggest Richard Silverstein - as loathsome as his views and his treatment of people with whom he disagrees are - is a pedophile. But I do find it offputting that he would be offering for sale personal pictures - including those of his children - given the very real risk that pedophiles could purchase them.”

Wow, I didn’t know Aussie Dave was that stupid. So now all pictures of children are used for child molesting purposes? Better tell all those news outlets and magazines that use pictures of children to enhance a story about things involving children that they are just evil smut peddlers.

Aussie Dave is now flying the dumbass flag.

I don’t like Richard Silverstein’s positions, but his selling pictures of his kids — fully clothed, no less — does NOT equal pedophilia or any encouragement thereof.  Seriously, you have to be brain damaged to think like that, or agree with a position supporting that thesis. I hope it was just Aussie Dave being angry with Silverstein and therefore overreacting, because if this is actually Aussie Dave’s position, he just lost a lot of credibility.