Yearly Archives: 2012
Reader Query: What Sleazy Con Artist Does the Obama “Greatness” Campaign Evoke?
Just when you think things have gotten as bad as they can, whether in matters of great import of small, they manage to get worse. I should be inured to relentless Obama propagandizing by now, but to make sure the public doesn’t miss the fact that they are lucky enough to be governed by someone possessed of true genius, the pre-election PR is now taking on heavy-handed cult of personality overtones. As if Obama has enough in the way of personality for anyone to notice.
Read more...Latest Borrower Trap? Trial Mod Offers With No Permanent Mod Terms
We’ve been focusing on the bigger picture scams in mortgage land, and realized it might be helpful to also provide occasional examples of what is happening on the ground level.
Despite the fact that the Treasury-sponsored mortgage modification program known as HAMP has been roundly decried as a disaster. Not only were too few mods done but banks also lied about program features, including that many borrowers were assured foreclosure efforts were not moving ahead when they were, with the result that quite a few program participants wound up losing their homes.
Given the program’s sorry history, struggling borrowers have good reason to be wary. Lisa Epstein of Foreclosure Hamlet, points out a new wrinkle that she worries may be a harbinger of bad things to come, namely, that HAMP trial mod offers, which once described in some detail what the permanent mod would look like if the borrower made all the trial mod payments and was approved, have suddenly gone silent on the back end terms.
Read more...Links 3/9/12
Gillian Tett Exhibits Undue Faith in Data and Models
I hate beating up on Gillian Tett, because even a writer is clever as she is is ultimately no better than her sources, and she seems to be spending too much time with the wrong sort of technocrats.
Read more...Philip Pilkington: Student Debt in the US Continues to Blow Up
By Philip Pilkington, a writer and journalist based in Dublin, Ireland. You can follow him on Twitter at @pilkingtonphil
Perhaps the most obvious indicator that the US has become a society of debtors is the ever-expanding market for student loans.
Read more...Fukushima’s Last Resident
Naoto Matsumura is the only person living inside the exclusion zone and he has no electricity or running water. Reader Martha R recommended running this video as a way to commemorate the anniversary of the disaster.
Read more...GAO: Almost Half of Bailed Banks Repaid the Government With Money “From Other Federal Programs”
By Matt Stoller, former Senior Policy Advisor to Rep. Alan Grayson and a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. You can reach him at stoller (at) gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at@matthewstoller
The Government Accountability Office continues its subtle war on the talking point used by Treasury that “TARP made money”.
Read more...Links 3/8/12
Philip Pilkington: Policing the Economists from Within Their Own Minds – ISLM as a Model of Intellectual Control
By Philip Pilkington, a writer and journalist based in Dublin, Ireland. You can follow him on Twitter at @pilkingtonphil
We want structures that serve people, not people that serve structures!
– Graffiti in Paris, May ‘68
Recently there has been a bit of debate about MMT knocking around the blogs. To a large extent it has been rather superficial. This was not the fault of those involved – despite a few displays of pomp and bluster from some of the cruder economic bloggers (no names!). The superficiality of engagement was mainly due to the nature of the medium itself. For all their accessibility blogs don’t allow, or should I say, don’t generally encourage the scholarship that is required before considering a new theoretical approach. Indeed, the very nature of blogs is restrictive in that it demands that authors engage with a new theoretical approach only in a cursory manner. After all, there will always be something new to write about tomorrow.
Better, I thought, to engage with one of the participants more directly.
Read more...On Andrew Schiff’s “Middle Class Lifestyle” in New York City
Felix Salmon has been bending over backwards listening to and reporting on Andrew Schiff’s claim that he’s suffering making ends meet on $350,000 a year and only wants to give his kids a “middle class lifestyle” in New York City. I offer an sanity check as a long standing Manhattan resident and financial services industry denizen/scorekeeper.
Read more...Guest Post: Legal Experts Destroy Rationale for Obama’s Assassination Policy … And Slam Democrats for Supporting It
Obama Expanding Program Started by Cheney
Read more...Lynn Parramore: Schools Without Toilet Paper? The Pain in Spain Falls Mainly on the Plain Folks
By Lynn Parramore. Cross posted from Alternet
Lately, European elites have been congratulating themselves for averting disaster in the eurozone. But who, exactly, is breaking out the champagne?
Read more...Links 3/7/12
Video Demonstrates How to Circumvent TSA Body Scanners
This is a bit O/T for this blog, except I hate the body scanners, since they are security theater and looting all rolled into one. The few times I’ve had to deal with them, I’ve made the gate agents pat me down.
Jonathan Corbett, who filed a suit against the TSA, has just released this video to annoy them further and with any luck, get the ineffective, intrusive scanners shut down.
Read more...