patrick.net

I am in the crowd that opposes raising the debt ceiling. Wasn't raised to be a debt slave to special interests, government cronies needs to start cutting the umbilical cords by which they are attached to the lobbyists.

Sean7593 says

I think ERs are *required* to treat, regardless of insurance status.

required to stabilize life-threatening conditions, or forward a case to a hospital that will.

actual treatment, no.

Who made that law?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Medical_Treatment_and_Active_Labor_Act

rubyrae says

I agree Klarek. I also put an offer in on a house that was listing for 279k extremely distressed home. I offered 220k. Listing agent said her seller wasn’t considering offers under 269k. We had to strong arm (threaten) her to deliver the offer. She said she delivered it and her sellers refused. Just found out yesterday the house went for 210k. WTF. Like I said I see this all day long. I lost a house that was bank owned to a contractor. My offer was 260k His was 230k He won the bid. It was bank owned and he was working with the listing agent.

This is why you have to mail a hardcopy of the offer to the owner. It's not easy and it probably won't land you the sale (you'll probably deter the seller's attention if they think you're arguing with them). But if it results in one scumbag realtor losing their license or even a future commission, you'd be doing God's work.

ChrisLA says

I’m still in certain disbelief that so many people out there think government forcing me to buy private product is good.

This is an incorrect understanding. You are perfectly free to not carry coverage under PPACA. There will be penalty for that, payable to the IRS, something like 1-2% of gross, capped to $2000/yr per family.

Mandated insurance is how the rest of the world operates -- though mostly with a more regulated singe-payer system -- and their health costs are much lower than ours.

The nice thing theoretically about mandated insurance costs is that (as people here might know) I think they come out of rents and land values.

We generally/ideally bid on our housing expense based on our after-tax income not gross, so the more social services we can front-load into taxes the less we have left to bid land values and rents up.

PPACA is a compromise intended to give free market competition a chance. The actual Medicare-for-all ("public option") approach was demagogued all to hell and never got through the Senate's process.

If PPACA doesn't work better than the current system then we can look at further changes, like the public option.

"debt slave to special interests"

again with the talk radio thought-terminating cliches. . .

The cuts that are coming are going to hit the poor and powerless and not the "special interests".

Without 1) raising the debt ceiling or 2) raising taxes, we will be forced to cut from four spending pots:

1) growth in social security payouts

2) medicare/medicaid

3) defense

4) welfare

The front half of the baby boom is aged 55 - 65 now, so social security payouts are going to start skyrocketing.

As are medicare payouts.

Defense is the $900B gorilla in the room that can't be cut.

That leaves the $500B/yr welfare pot.

Some of it is pure fat, like the $70B in housing subsidies.

But there's only $300B or so to cut here, and every dollar you cut is going to be a hit on a community somewhere.

Every $50,000 you cut is going to be somebody's government job gone.

The alternative to being a "debt slave" is to actually raise taxes to cover the cost of government services we are providing to people and the world at large.

In the absence of spending cuts, I consider raising taxes to be essential.

This is why you have to mail a hardcopy of the offer to the owner. It’s not easy and it probably won’t land you the sale (you’ll probably deter the seller’s attention if they think you’re arguing with them). But if it results in one scumbag realtor losing their license or even a future commission, you’d be doing God’s work.

Funny I insisted on doing that at one point and the realtor representing me did not like this idea at all and decided he did not want to work with me. Actually worked out for the best.

ChrisLA says

This takes away my free market choice of not buying it which would lower the price down.

Ah, yes, cite the libertarian economic theory, and ignore the reality.

People have had this choice not to insure for about, I don't know... forever? And they still do. And what's happened to the price of health insurance?

Haha! Based on klarek’s definition, you used to be a scumbag (realtor), and you agreed with what he said. Hmm, wouldn’t that make him a scumbag too since you guys think alike? Interesting

I actually left the business because the way business was being conducted left a bad taste in my mouth and I made more money with my formal education than swindling people out of their money. The day I went to the office I felt like I was "swimming with the sharks" I'd say 95% of them were extremely unethical. So Klarek was right "scumbag" is the correct term.

Hey E-man but you sound like you might be seasoned just by your tood.

N

errc says

Section 8 voucher program for needy individuals
Since when are landlords considered needy individuals?

They're not. The vouchers were intended to go to the needy families, to use for payment to a landlord who's registered under the program to accept those vouchers.

What she did was register the property as section 8 housing, and then gamed the system so that instead of obtianing tenants and accepting their voucher from HUD as rent, she had HUD send her the payments directly, and then without getting any tenants, used the HUD money to pay the mortgage on the property.

She basically set herself up to receive subsidies based on her providing low-income families housing....took the money, and didn't provide housing to anyone. Class act. I hope she gets throttled in prison.

vain says

Guilty of fraud and I bet all she got was a 3 month suspension with the NAR and after that, she must meet some education requirements to stay in the clan.

The irony here is that she'll probably go into the binder for NAr's next "ethics" seminar, as a case-study in "what not to do". Of course, more than half the assholes in that class will be sitting there like, "Damn...that's a good idea." Kinda like they tried to get us to "Just Say No" in grade school by explaining the horrors of cocaine by telling us side effects include, Euphoria, Feeling of Power/Invulnerability, Mental Alertness, Increased Energy, Increased Sexual Appetite, Weight-Loss, Decreased Appetite, Hallucinations.

rubyrae says

I actually left the business because the way business was being conducted left a bad taste in my mouth and I made more money with my formal education than swindling people out of their money. The day I went to the office I felt like I was “swimming with the sharks” I’d say 95% of them were extremely unethical. So Klarek was right “scumbag” is the correct term.

The cartel by design chases away most people who have honesty and competence. I would never have the patience or the ability to restrain myself were I to be in that line of work. Good for you for getting out.

E-man says

Haha! Based on klarek’s definition, you used to be a scumbag (realtor), and you agreed with what he said. Hmm, wouldn’t that make him a scumbag too since you guys think alike? Interesting :)

Not sure I'm getting the joke here, but a lot of people think that realtors are scumbags. Not sure what kind of circular logic makes those who think (realtors are scumbags) scumbags themselves.

Scumbag is a pretty strong term. I had one friend in the business who was a sweetheart and very ethical, he had a lot of repeat business with people who took choosing a realtor very seriously. However his business was slow to build and you could tell the other sales people were definitely not in agreement with his philosophy. It's driven by the industry itself. One of our top salespeople was extremely unethical but she dragged in huge commissions so she was the belle of the ball and was put on a pedestal for everyone to emulate. That's about when I cut my losses. It seemed like the value system was completely upside down. I found that to be the general consensus.

klarek says

Not sure I’m getting the joke here, but a lot of people think that realtors are scumbags. Not sure what kind of circular logic makes those who think (realtors are scumbags) scumbags themselves.

I believe the message is, "Klarek agreed with someone who turned out to be a realtor. Since realtors are "scumbags" in his opinion, ageeing with one makes klarek a scumbag too."

Kind of like how Schizlor is a Nazi, because he agrees with this statement:

How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think.

-Adolf Hitler

rubyrae says

Scumbag is a pretty strong term.

Their level of scum is stronger.

rubyrae says

Scumbag is a pretty strong term. I had one friend in the business who was a sweetheart and very ethical, he had a lot of repeat business with people who took choosing a realtor very seriously.

The REA industry is broken and has not much transparency when dealing with the public.
They base their interaction on misinformtion and speculation with the public. Much the same way
Wall Street operated pre-1929 crash. People bought and sold shares in companies which never disclosed their revenues and earnings.

Your friend like many other REA may well be the most honest people, but the industry isnt overall honest.

Oldy but Goodie... There is no RE bubble...

"The market is much better than you might hear or read," says Tom Stevens, NAR's president. "Consumers should take advantage of this perfect alignment of low rates and extraordinary inventory before market conditions change," November 3, 2006

"This email is in response to the many inquiries that NAR Research has received from state/local associations since I delivered my presentation at the Leadership Summit in Chicago last week. As promised, NAR Research will be distributing anti-bubble reports for many of the metros across the nation to all state and local associations."

klarek says

rubyrae says

Scumbag is a pretty strong term.

Their level of scum is stronger.

"The scum is strong with this one"

I was not extolling the virtues of China. I have been there on business and I will stop here.
I only mention that Apple products are coveted anywhere.
I was also in a small city in Mexico last December. In the Starbuck's I saw iPods, iPads, Apple laptops.
In airports last fall I saw Macbook airs all over the place.
I think Apple has sold about 59 million iPhones so far, but I am not sure.
Either way, I do not really have the strength of my convictions, I have the vast majority of my financial investments in mutual funds, and I hope to leave them alone for 15+ years.

clambo says

I was not extolling the virtues of China. I have been there on business and I will stop here.

I only mention that Apple products are coveted anywhere.

I was also in a small city in Mexico last December. In the Starbuck’s I saw iPods, iPads, Apple laptops.

In airports last fall I saw Macbook airs all over the place.

I think Apple has sold about 59 million iPhones so far, but I am not sure.

Either way, I do not really have the strength of my convictions, I have the vast majority of my financial investments in mutual funds, and I hope to leave them alone for 15+ years.

I understand. I just kinda was ranting about China anyways to someone else while I stumbled on this thread again ;)

I just did. In fact, the same source one of your Liberal govt-loving peers referenced, but didn't read it correctly. He referred to Whitney Ross's excellent site: www.theaffordablemortgagedepression.com but did not read it as carefully as I have for the past 2 1/2 years. The orchestrated program by BJClinton and his ilk like Barney Frank who railed on banks for 20 years before, was a program designed to increase home-ownership to poor people, by 8million or actually more, using requirements for banks and backstops by Freddie and Fannie. Thanks boys, for starting the housing bubble with all your directives and programs!! Thks for doing so much 'good' !

sbourg says

Until the mid-1990s, lenders did not make loans to people with bad credit in large numbers because such borrowers were unlikely or unable to repay those loans. Why suddenly during the mid-90s did lenders begin to ramp up subprime mortgages in a large and growing capacity?

No--the obvious answer is that the MBS market emerged allowing them to sell these loans as AAA rated securities.

Listen--you can believe whatever you want. If you look dispassionately at the data, there is absolutely no way to conclude that the CRA had any more than a VERY minor effect. If anything it probably helped mitigate the crisis:

1. Loans in CRA approved areas actually defaulted at lower rates than the rest of the market.
2. As Mark showed earlier, the major players in the subprime market were not regulated by the CRA
3. Freddie and Fannie were actually very late into the subprime game

I know the CRA theory is Fox News wet dream, but it's just not true...

Maybe you all should read Whitney Ross's excellent website just a littttttle bit more carefully. And why don't you do your OWN research like I did in early '09 to find the ACTUAL regulations to the CRA, regulations that were effective 7/1/95 and I READ THEM in '09 and they were TOUGH on banks, requiring them to lend to poor people for home loans. FIND THEM YOURSELF BEFORE YOU CALL ME A LIAR. I read the exact regs.

Better yet, why don't you pontificate your navel a little more, and maybe design new and better ways to tax 'the rich' to turn our economy into nirvana. Maybe you can send your ideas to Paul Krugman -- he'll love it if you're creative and it won't matter to him that it won't actually help the economy. Oh, wait, you all actually think taxing the 'rich' more and more has some way of helping the economy because somehow it gets into the paychecks of lower-paids, or lowers rents, or some such nonsensical hypothesis.

Go bash another Republican. It's time for you to squabble amongst yourselves, who has the best ideas for your magic formula of more and more federal govt interference into everything and more and more money to them, for, as Democrats believe, for the 'common-good'. Argue amongst yourselves. Clearly you started bashing me again before you actually read Whitney's website theaffordablemortgagedepression.com that you quoted to disprove me, but it turns out I knew her writings much better than you all, and she knows that I know what she's describing and I agree with her. So study up chums. And happily pull the lever for Obama in '12 as I know you will -- lemmings, all of you. Towards the economic cliff. But you're dragging your children too.

Why suddenly during the mid-90s did lenders begin to ramp up subprime mortgages in a large and growing capacity?

Because they were MAKING TONS OF MONEY DOING THIS.

Why is this hard for you to understand? In an up market, home mortgages are just printing money for the banks with literally zero risk to them. Defaults/short-sales were impossible because a year down the road even a 100% loan would have 90% LTV or more.

Here's a graph of the bubble:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=to

The red line is total national real estate valuation. Up, up, & away!

Blue line is total household real estate borrowing.

Green line is 30 year mortgage rates, which is somewhat deceptive since in the 2003-2006 period negative-am became common so the downward trend of interest rates actually continued from 1990-2007, with only two brief checks in 1994 and 1999.

Additionally, employment was booming in the 1990s:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=tp

greatly expanding the pool of borrowers who had capacity to pay but perhaps had shitty credit.

This CRA bullshit is one of the bigger lies of the right, and it's really quite odious in both its ignorance of the true perpetrators of this financial disaster (rich white wallstreeters, real estate industry pumpers -- agents, loan brokers, appraisers, everyone -- and the Republican regulators running the whole scam 2001-2008) and pegging poor minority people as a cause of the problem.

Blaming Clinton/CRA is just a naked attempt at CYA, and shame on you for pushing this utter pack of lies.

It was the entirety of the US -- everyone -- who bought into the housing bubble boom/bust. CRA/subprime were caught up in it, but not drivers. The core driver was the suicide lending that was allowed to go on 2002-2006.

Negative-am, interest-only, stated-income -- these are the products that killed us and are banned now.

CRA lending and subprime were & are different in nature to that.

sbourg says

And happily pull the lever for Obama in ‘12 as I know you will — lemmings, all of you.

LOL. This is kinda like the ink a squid leaves as he's trying to slip away from the argument.

You're wrong regarding the 'chicken and the egg" debate. The requirement to lend to basically non-qualified buyers came first, in 1995 due to the CRA Regulations. Then the realization by lenders that they could off-load the crap to GSEs and other creative loan selling, ESPECIALLY because it was seen by everyone that property-values were skyrocketing, and everyone was 'winning'. So the loans multiplied. But the start, the 'impetus' was the govt-edict requirement to lend to non-qualified buyers. So the lenders also figured how to make money off it and then offload the junk.

sbourg says

Maybe you all should read Whitney Ross’s excellent website just a littttttle bit more carefully. And why don’t you do your OWN research like I did in early ‘09 to find the ACTUAL regulations to the CRA, regulations that were effective 7/1/95 and I READ THEM in ‘09 and they were TOUGH on banks, requiring them to lend to poor people for home loans. FIND THEM YOURSELF BEFORE YOU CALL ME A LIAR. I read the exact regs.

Or you could just post the regs yourself since you are so familiar with them.

Of course you won't though because you are full of shit.

I can't post the 7/1/95 Regulations cuz it wasn't easy to find in '09 when I was researching this issue profusely. But I read the thing -- it was only 30 pages or so and it was HARD-BALL. It was not playing around.
Listen fellas -- you quoted Whitney Ross's website yourselves -- I've been reading that site since '09 when the S_IT was hitting the fan, and in all my researching I found the Regulations. Whitney thought it was Congressional action to put teeth in the CRA, but it was not. It was an amendment by regulation.
To read the entire, pretty darn good story by Whitney, read her site, many of her chapters:
www.theaffordablemortgagedepression.com and you'll see that the Clinton/Frank/Cisneros/Cuomo edict by the govt 7/1/95 took on a life of its own that had all the effects that you all describe, including GSEs who were also required to take on the 'junk', and the creative buying/selling/insuring/collateralizing of the poisonous loans -- loans that weren't so poisonous as long as the home values were rising. As long as they would rise, the problem was nonexistent -- all the sharks and even homeowners who were re-selling, were making money. But it was a house of cards.

Those who shorted microsoft a while ago were the right ones.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zEQhhaJsU4

sbourg says

I can’t post the 7/1/95 Regulations cuz it wasn’t easy to find in ‘09

It's linked from wikipedia:

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?position=all&page=22156&dbname=1995_register

But it was a house of cards.

We're not denying that. We're saying CRA and subprime wasn't a major driver of that.

CRA/subprime refers to borrowers with subpar credit scores and histories.

The lending boom got out of hand from too much leverage and the introduction and popularization of suicide lending, much if not most of which going to PRIME borrowers and RICH people.

The fancy word for suicide lending is basically "Alt A" -- it was the rise of Alt A lending -- largely 2001-2006 and not subprime that caused the overextension, since rising valuations allowed borrowers to take cash out of their places to support their borrowing, a horrific feedback loop.

Stated income and negative amortization loans to the masses were the things that enabled the system to go out of whack, and these got rolling AFTER Clinton.

Of course, COMMERCIAL valuations zoomed up more and crashed more than the housing market during the Bush Bubble, and CRA didn't have anything to do with that. Commercial loans often explicitly included a little extra to cover interest payments for two years, a wonderful way for speculators to leverage up.

A generally falling interest rate environment of the 1990s, skyrocketing employment set up the bubble in 2000, but it was deregulation and laissez faire-enabled control fraud among the real estate industry that blew things up 2003-2005. By 4Q05 the market topped out and for all of 2006 and 1H07 the market was just running scared.

We'd done screwed up.

sbourg says

Clinton/Frank/Cisneros/Cuomo edict by the govt 7/1/95 took on a life of its own

It must have been a hell of a life, it managed to cause a world wide housing bubble and bust. How did the CRA regulations manage to jump over international borders? Pretty strong stuff. Even more amazing was that the vast majority of the subprime lending and bust was in CA, FL, AZ, and NV in area's that don't even come close to being subject to the CRA. Don't let pesky facts stand in the way of a good opinion.

to terriDeaner - Dude or Dudette I can view a site many times without having to make a comment. Duh

For starters, you should read theaffordablemortgagedepression.com more slowly. That policy of Clinton and Cisneros his HUD director, to want 10 million more homeowners starting in 1995 was frightening as an actionable federal policy -- and yes folks GSEs Fannie & Freddie were an important part of it. Still being used by the way. If we don't default on the national debt, our children will be paying for that crap, plus Obama/Reid/Pelosi's overspending for decades. Guess you all would rather think about taxing the 'rich' though. That's an obsession for you folks. I'm not saying the 'rich' shouldn't be taxed a bit more, but it's a spit in the ocean to close-up the $1.7T/year deficit we have now. It's not a means to actually fix it, OR to do any good for the economy. Period.

sbourg says

It’s not a means to actually fix it, OR to do any good for the economy. Period.

Actually, not period. We had a very good economy when the top marginal rate was 90%. You don't have the facts or logic on your side, just wishful thinking.

Raising rates on the top 2%, won't, in fact, close the deficit. But if we're not going to cut spending we're going to need to raise taxes on people, and the top 2% are the only ones with rising real incomes these days.

and yes folks GSEs Fannie & Freddie were an important part of it.

No they weren't. The bubble went far above the conforming limit, and it was the loans the GSEs WEREN'T making that was causing much of the bubble valuation increase 2002-2003 -- the stated income loans to flippers and the pay-option loans that let them and everyone else lever up, and the cash-out refis that bled out into the wider economy giving us a feedback loop of fake prosperity until the credit ran out.

Cisneros had nothing to do with this, though, since you like conspiracy theory, you should in fact read this:

http://www.vdare.com/sailer/080928_rove.htm

Should be right up your alley, assuming you're just racist and not a Republican partisan.

plus Obama/Reid/Pelosi’s overspending for decades

LOL, Pelosi only controlled 2 Obama budgets, and much of that deficit spending served to keep the system together and turn things around in 2009 -- TARP ($25B or so) and the ARRA ($300B in tax cuts and $500B in spending).

If we were looking for overspending, we'd have to look at the Bush crew, with their $1.2T war, plus increase of the defense budget from $366B in 2001 to $800B/yr in his last budget -- more than $5T in total on defense the previous decade. Talk about overspending! At least will get some bridges, infrastructure, and new trains for the ARRA.

Plus $66B for Medicare Part D this year alone, a simple transfer payment from the US Treasury to big pharma, which already is into us for tens of billions of profit each year.

It's really amazing how clownishly reality-challenged your partisan attempts at argument here are. You fit right in with the other conservatives here. Wish we could find some actual intelligent conservatives. Or honest ones, for that matter.

sbourg says

If we don’t default on the national debt, our children will be paying for that crap

Our debt is not "crap". It is the money we spent on government services. We were irresponsible to run it up like we did 2002-now and we're going to need to find the maturity to buckle down and start getting our house in order.

This largely means much higher taxes, but if you've got any spending cuts to propose to Congress they'd love to learn what you think about that too I bet.

At the peak of the capitalism, you need to pay to breath.
This will move GDP to a new level !

shrekgrinch says

So what?
That’s poll is meaningless.
The only thing that matters is how people poll in EACH congressional district. We don’t fill up the seats of Congress via national elections…we do it with nationally coordinated elections at the state and district levels.

You may find this hard to believe--but there seems to be a correlation between national polls and local polls.

tatupu70 says

What freedom did you lose exactly?

We are loosing our freedom of choice Comrade Tatupu70, are one step closer to a fascist dictatorship corporatocracy.

What is really behind all this is the move to control information that is on the internet through the back door. The free flow of information is the death knell to all governments that wish to rule rather than simply govern. Powerful governments operate best under the cloak of secrecy. There was a time when American’s access to information was limited to the three major networks and the major print media. It was very difficult back then to verify what was being promulgated to us as “news & facts.” The internet has dramatically changed all that, and much of what government is doing and how it operates is being exposed for all to see. This is anathema to politicians that are addicted to power. I look for an increased effort by the government to continue along these lines in an attempt to drastically limit access to uninhibited information.

How about increase the capital gain tax from 15% to a higher rate? This is where the meat is. Famous Buffet's line, not the exact, "My secretary pays more tax than I do!". He fails to mention his secretary does not have millions or billions in capital gain. Raising income tax will solve only small part of the revenue issue, congress should take a serious look at the capital gain tax rate. I guess Republicans in congress will jump off the bench if this is mentioned.

The government should sell all these bank and GM stocks, reserved gold and oil, CA lands, and green cards to corrupted Chinese/Indian government officers.

Problem solved.