Quote of the Day

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Quote of the Day

Somebody had to make the conscious decision to apply for a loan that they couldn’t possibly afford. Somebody had to make the conscious decision that approving that loan was a Good Idea. Somebody had to make the conscious decision that buying up a whole bunch of these bad loans Made Perfect Sense.

They were wrong. Those conscious decisions they made were bad decisions, and Bad Decision Have Consequences.

Unless, of course, the Federal Government gets involved.

LawDog, “Meditations on The Bailout”

Aw, Damn

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Aw, Damn

Death in the (extended) family. Tam’s cat Mittens passed today. When people ask me if I prefer cats or dogs, my answer is always “Yes.” Cats are lower-maintenance than dogs. You don’t have to walk them, and (if you’re lucky) you don’t have to clean up after ’em much either. But you have to provide service to cats. Dogs, on the other hand, worship you.

I’ve had both, and loved both. And losing them sucks.

Drop by Tam’s and leave a note of condolence, would you?

“These out-of-town internet dudes are another matter.”

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In a follow-up to last Thursday’s “They mostly seem like ordinary folks” piece on the decision by California’s North Coast Journal to publish the names of CCW permit holders in Humboldt County (and the associated “They seem so normal!” story), we have a post at CalGuns (h/t to reader John):

I just received a call from HANK SIMS, the editor of the North Coast Journal (707) 826-2004. It came across my Caller ID, so it MUST be “public Information”

He wanted to verify that I had indeed submitted a “Letter to the Editor” online (not comments to the article, but an actual letter submission which I assume they have printed, or may print.)

The conversation started out pleasantly, but quickly turned into a heated debate. I told him that he should be able to glean from the 137+ NEGATIVE comments about posting the names of CCW holders, that it was the wrong thing to do. He refused to see it that way.

He told me that MY reading of the public information act, that the info is there for anyone who wants to go get it but purposefully publishing it from a data fishing expedition is wrong, is flawed. He saw NOTHING wrong with compiling the list of CCW holder names and publishing them on the front page. His defense? He didn’t publish their addresses or anything potentially damaging!

He said that the names alone give no usable information, but I told him that from Heidi Walters’ name ALONE, I have her PO Box mailing address, former residential addresses, work history, DOB, husband’s name, EX-husband’s name, the names of their current and former neighbors and a lot of other “public information” I have been able to gather by simply surfing the net. I haven’t even bothered to find out what car she drives, the names of her children if any and so forth. I have more important things to do, but I darned sure could find out a lot more with little effort.

RTWT.

So, needless to say, editor Hank Sims [(707) 826-2004], has gotten an ear- and an inbox-full of irate mail from gun owners. In fact, AAN, the “Association of Alternative Newsweeklies” has discovered our interest:

North Coast Journal Story on Weapons Permits Causes a Stir

The Humboldt County alt-weekly provoked an angry response last week with a cover story revealing the names of citizens who have permits to carry concealed weapons in the county. The cover illustration of a handgun was composed of names supplied by the county sheriff’s office of 641 individuals holding such a permit. The story has caused an “internet shitstorm,” editor Hank Sims tells AAN News, as evidenced by the comments on the story itself and various online forums and blogs. Sims notes that the reaction online has been much harsher than his face-to-face encounters. “A number of local people called or came into the office last week a little bit angry, wondering how we got their name or why we should be allowed to publish the list. They were all very cool, and I had some great conversations,” he says. “These out-of-town internet dudes are another matter.”

THR, Calguns, and this blog were linked in the blurb. Interestingly, the report was credited to “AAN News.” I guess whoever was responsible for actually typing the words didn’t want to risk an “internet shitstorm” themselves.

You know, it’s remarkable that the local response has been so low-key, seeing as how gun owners and especially CCW permit holders only appear to be ordinary folks. But journalists know that, deep down, they’re really bloodthirsty killers who need to be exposed! It’s only with the anonymity of the Internet (yeah, I’m anonymous as hell) that our true bloodthirstyness can be released!

In the form of harshly-worded missives!

I am, once again, reminded of the words of Dr. Michael S. Brown. We’re tired of the decades-long slow motion hate crime against guns and gun owners. This is another piece of evidence that we’re not taking it quietly anymore.

Quote of the Day

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Quote of the Day

From this House of Eratosthenes post, Party Like it’s 1999 wherein there is a link to Neal Boortz who has a clipping from the Sept. 30, 1999 edition of the New York Times (Paper of Record, y’know) that says:

Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending

By STEVEN A. HOLMES
Published: September 30, 1999

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets — including the New York metropolitan region — will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation’s biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

Yes, boys and girls, Bubba gave us a real nice going-away present!

But that’s not the quote of the day. It’s just a setup. Continuing:

In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates — anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.

Y’see, this is how the MARKET WORKS. If you’re a higher risk then the lender had better see a higher return on his risk, or you’re not worth the risk.

But Fannie Mae (and Freddie Mac) removed the risk (so everyone thought). As Franklin Delano Raines famously said in House testimony, “These loans are almost riskless!”

And who doesn’t like free money?

But that wasn’t the QotD either. From the House of Eratosthenes piece, here is your QotD:

If the cause-and-effect is still a mystery to you . . . well then, you just might be a liberal democrat.

Following close on its heels is this from that same NYT piece – a bit of, shall we say, foreshadowing?

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980’s.

“From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,” said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.”

Please do read the whole piece. It’s chock-full of crunchy goodness! Nine years to the day. Who’dathunkit?

Obviously George Bush is at fault for not Nipping. This. In. The. BUD!

Mr. Wallison published American Enterprise Institute paper on the topic of “Regulating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac” in May of 2005 that you might also find interesting.

(*Ahem*) I hereby nominate Peter Wallison to the position of Secretary of the Treasury.

Trust Us: There’s Nothing Worng!

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Trust Us: There’s Nothing Worng!

Instapundit had this YouTube video. Since I’ve posted other stuff on the topic, I thought I would post this one, too:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs&hl=en&fs=1&w=425&h=344]
My favorite quote from the video by Don Manzullo, (R-IL):

Mr. Raines: $1.1 million bonus on a $526,000 salary. Jamie Gorelick: $779,000 bonus on a salary of $567,000. This is… What you state on page 11 is nothing less than staggering. “The 1998 earnings per share value turned out to be three dollars and twenty-three cents and nine mills ($3.239) – a result that Fannie Mae met the max, the EPS maximum payout goal right down to the penny.

“Fannie Mae understood the rules and simply chose not to follow them, if Fannie Mae had followed the, the practices, there wouldn’t have been a bonus that year.”

(6:20-7:08 in the video.)

Watch the whole thing.

(I love C-SPAN. AND YouTube!)

Quote of the Day

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Quote of the Day

Paraphrased from this Mostly Cajun post:

Taxpayer: A title much of the Democrat Party’s core constituency fails to acheive

Because it’s never a good idea to vote against your own economic best interests, and who doesn’t like “free money”?

Here’s a couple of associated quotes:

A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.

—

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.

Both of those by Alexis de Tocqueville.

The $700 Billion Kidney Stone

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The $700 Billion Kidney Stone

Bill Whittle publishes at NRO once again, with Pain. Who knew all we had to do was pay him?

Excellent as always. And, having suffered a kidney stone myself, I was unable to refrain from wincing (and laughing out loud) at his description. The only difference, the EMT was given permission to give me morphine in the ambulance but he couldn’t find a vein. Mine passed apparently much faster than Bill’s, but I think it was made on the same production line in the same Bulgarian factory.

(h/t to DJ for the pointer.)

Alger, Hayek, Hoffer and Porretto

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Alger, Hayek, Hoffer and Porretto

I’ve quoted Eric Hoffer from his seminal book True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements before. Here’s one that I’ve quoted at least twice previously:

Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all unifying agents. It pulls and whirls the individual away from his own self, makes him oblivious of his weal and future, frees him of jealosies and self-seeking. He becomes an anonymous particle quivering with a craving to fuse and coalesce with his like into one flaming mass. (Heinrich) Heine suggests that what Christian love cannot do is effected by a common hatred.

Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil. Usually the strength of a mass movement is proportionate to the vividness and tangibility of its devil. When Hitler was asked whether he thought the Jew must be destroyed, he answered: “No…. We should have then to invent him. It is essential to have a tangible enemy, not merely an abstract one.” F.A. Voigt tells of a Japanese mission that arrived in Berlin in 1932 to study the National Socialist movement. Voigt asked a member of the mission what he thought of the movement. He replied: “It is magnificent. I wish we could have something like it in Japan, only we can’t, because we haven’t got any Jews.”

Francis Porretto has written a piece that I think everyone should read, Hatings.

I honestly wish I could say that I thought Francis was wrong, but I can’t. My only quibble: the Republicans aren’t innocent, either.

I’m further reminded of a post no longer available on the web, written by Ironbear, who still comments here occasionally:

It would be a mistake to paint the conflict exclusively in terms of “cultural war,” or Democrats vs Republicans, or even Left vs Right. Neither Democrats/Leftists or Republicans shy away from statism… the arguments there are merely over degree of statism, uses to which statism will be put – and over who’ll hold the reins. It’s the thought that they may not be left in a position to hold the reins that drives the Democrat-Left stark raving.

—

This is a conflict of ideologies…

The heart of the conflict is between those to whom personal liberty is important, and those to whom liberty is not only inconsequential, but to whom personal liberty is a deadly threat.

At the moment, that contingent is embodied most virulently by the “American” Left. This is the movement that still sees the enslavement and “re-education” of hundreds of thousands in South Vietnam, and the bones of millions used as fertilizer in Cambodia as a victory. This is the movement that sees suicide bombers as Minute Men, and sees the removal of a brutal murder and rape machine from power as totalitarianism. This is the movement that sees legitimately losing an election as the imposition of a police state. This is the movement that believes in seizing private property as “common good”. That celebrates Che Guevara as a hero. The movement who’s highest representatives talk blithely about taking away your money and limiting your access to your own homestead for your own good. The movement of disarmament.

The movement of the boot across the throat.

Think about it. When was the last time that you were able to engage in anything that resembled a discussion with someone of the Leftist persuasion? Were able to have an argument that was based on the premise that one of you was wrong, rather than being painted as Evil just because you disagreed?

The Left has painted itself into a rhetorical and logical corner, and unfortunately, they have no logic that might act as a paint thinner. It’s not possible for them to compromise with those that they’ve managed to conflate with the most venal of malevolence, with those whom they’re convinced disagree not because of different opinions but because of stupidity and evil, with those who’s core values are diametrically opposed to what the Left has embraced. There can be no real discourse, no real discussion. There’s no common ground. There can be no reconciliation there – the Left has nothing to offer that any adherent of freedom wants. The only way they can achieve their venue is from a position of political ascendancy where it can be imposed by force or inveigled by guile.

And all adherents of freedom have far too many decades of historical precedent demonstrating exactly where that Leftward road leads – to the ovens of Dachau.

And no, that’s not hyperbole.