tapped!

Eureka!!!

ES!

Hello, Dick and George.

tapped!

As long as the bill is paid.

Hiya ES.

Gangs of NY on usanetwork. Bad movie. Got to switch.

a lovely ballad, indeed!

Its Elvis

Does anyone know whether the government is currently still able to spy on everybody in lieu of the fact that I read that they didn’t pay the bill to the telecom companies, so they quit providing the service. In other words, the telecoms won’t let the NSA play with their toys anymore? Is that still operative?

GET A WARRANT!

Glad this thread came up. didn’t want to say what was on mind last topic :)

Without a basket..)

Hey NSA, DFWMF

I’m in drive by mode so a few tunes fer yer pleasure
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQOF_XzsWz0

Hi Christine.

Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien.

I have something on my mind.
Why would Rupert Murdoch’s paper break the Sibel Edmonds story in the UK ?
How weird is that….

Oh no She’s (((back))) Watch out everyone!! Duck

Glad to see you here!

or impunity!

directed to NSA, not the pups

They had a new & different source. Listen to this. I was double tasking, so I can’t explain it in simple terms.
http://antiwar.com/radio/2008/01/21/luke-ryland-2/

Heaven is a Halfpipe

I don’t think they can listen in until the check clears at AT&T.

Speaking of which, wouldn’t that make a fantastic scene in a future episode of “24″?

Jack Bauer, listening in on a tapped call:

“We’re all set, Osama! The nuke is set to go off tomorrow at noon! I’m going to commit suicide right now, so no one can torture me for information! They’ll never find out that the code to disarm the nuke is 9-1-1! And even if they knew that, they’d still have to FIND the bomb in time! And no one would ever suspect that the exact location of the bomb is…”

[CLICK]

“The number you have tapped can no longer be eavesdropped on. Please pay your illegal wiretapping bills and try again.”

oh, Christine, now I must warn you – I have gotten the dogs off the couch but now they are out playing in the rain…

I suspect the smell of “wet dog” is an acquired, erm… taste…

cause…. he’s in the money, he’s in the money

I know … but just in case :>)

Digging this ES!

tis the odor du jour up here – and expected to rain here until thur or so of next week

dugg, newton, thanks for the reminder

Nice new facebook drawing, my fav color combo :D

margot makes lovely eye candy

I’ll take a fith for that one!

yes, talented artist!

my young pup has finally figured out it isn’t necessary to clamp her ears shut and that crouching down doesn’t necessarilly keep you dryer when dancing around outside… this is her first winter with actual rain falling from the sky…

geez! another week!?!

Oh no, am I using it too much?
(and no this is not a “Is my butt too big” kind of question!)

Grew up with collies OC — just push them off and make stinky comments about them (but LOVE them).

no

lol!

No I think it is great! I lover your drawings.

oh, well – then you understand! At least mine have short hair though… a paper towel is enough to blot up most of the moisture…

And now for a Traffic report
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k1JyRLiDgE

“The number you have tapped can no longer be eavesdropped on. Please pay your illegal wiretapping bills and try again.”

Heh, heh!

eCAHNomics, thank you. I’m on dial up but I’ll take that over to civilization tomorrow and get informed.

My family of two parents and four kids and countless animals, used to joke about who had the worst breath… dogs or people.

The number you have tapped can no longer be eavesdropped on. Please pay your illegal wiretapping bills and try again.”

Please bring cash and a $1,000 security deposit to our business offices during Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays between noon and 1:30. Closed Tuesdays, Thursdays for staff meetings. No chairs allowed in line.

Thanks, you guys.

I mostly laugh that I have no heating bills to speak of… now, dog food bills is a whole other matter…

Hey Margot,
We just found that Andy Stewart is playing in Bellville ,Ohio on Feb. 29. Is this near you? “Pumpkin Hollow Cafe.”
Do you like Scottish music?
Chris

Replying via f/b;)

A little motivation for tomorrow nite

Hi ES, Your FB photo is so cool — can you tell us anything about it? It looks like you are at Asheville or some really wonderful resort place.

Back in the 90s and before, I worked with the nuclear activist James L. Acord a lot. Whenever he stayed at the house for more than 48 hours, we had to assume the phone was being illegally tapped. Either by DOE or by Wackenhutt, who does a lot of contracting in security in Alaska. I’ve found out since that we were being tapped without a warrant on at least three occasions.

I heard it was a billing problem, but was resolved. So the answer is “Hi NSA…1+1=3, really! Julia did it, not me JULIA!”

Well the drive by is over… Tucker is making my bed ready. I guess he is hinting.
G’night all good firepups catch up with you when I can
one more for the night
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIupB4tr4Z0
Be sure to support Dodd and his endevors tomorrow.. I will be there in spirit!!

ET – Interesting. How did you find out about the three occasions?

g’nite nahant and i’ll be thinking good thoughts tomorrow for you

Been so long since I have been to my profile page, I had to double check..) That photo was taken in Eureka Springs.. (Better than Asheville)

from a woman who had worked for Wackenhutt.

Well, I’m totally in love with Asheville, so this must be bliss.

goodnight, pups… keep dry!

g’nite oc

I heard it was a billing problem, but was resolved. So the answer is “Hi NSA…1+1=3, really! Julia did it, not me JULIA!”

Bummer!

I thought everything was blamed on the Clintons?

Thanks for the answer, Cinnamonape. Must be time for bed, gettin awful tired, so ‘nite all.

OC It is quite dry here at 20 degrees (heat wave) and we are waiting for 3 inches of snow. Yea!

Good night, Nahant.

Night OC and Ann!

We have had one or two dustings of snow this year.. Just today I declared we are having a winter drought.

ET – Back in the day I had similar experiences but was never able to verify. (I had no insider on the other side – darn) Thx

g’nite ann

howdy!

wow, did i miss out today… and i thought fisa wasn’t coming up until next week.

tsk tsk. *g*

Does anyone know whether the government is currently still able to spy on everybody in lieu of the fact that I read that they didn’t pay the bill to the telecom companies, so they quit providing the service. In other words, the telecoms won’t let the NSA play with their toys anymore? Is that still operative?

Would that it were so.

IIRC, the disconnected wiretaps were FBI.

The NSA is the agency hard-wired into the internet backbone. And the agency “asking” for access to phone networks (at Qwest) only days after Shrub came to office – nine months before 9/11.

On the bright side:

The same clever cryptographer who devised PGP to hide your email from spooks has come up with a program to mask our phone calls from spooks.

And – in 2006 – Wired shared a way to see if your email is routed through the ATT backbone – the one the NSA is known to have hooked into.

On the dark side:

For over a decade, the spooks have been able to turn your (non-rotary) phone line into a tap.

Modern communications systems are virtually transparent to the advanced interceptions equipment which can be used to listen in. Some systems even lend themselves to a dual role as a national interceptions network. For example the message switching system used on digital exchanges like System X in the UK supports an Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) Protocol. This allows digital devices, e.g. fax to share the system with existing lines. The ISDN subset is defined in their documents as “Signalling CCITT1-series interface for ISDN access. What is not widely known is that built in to the international CCITT protocol is the ability to take phones ‘off hook’ and listen into conversations occurring near the phone, without the user being aware that it is happening. (SGR Newsletter, No.4, 1993)

And for decades, the US/UK/Aus/NZ have all spied on one another’s domestic (business/private party) communications and shared the results, allowing each nation’s spooks to evade national laws barring domestic spying simply by having the other spooks do it and hand over their results.

Within Europe, all email, telephone and fax communications are routinely intercepted by the United States National Security Agency, transferring all target information from the European mainland via the strategic hub of London then by Satellite to Fort Meade in Maryland via the crucial hub at Menwith Hill in the North York Moors of the UK. The system was first uncovered in the 1970’s by a group of researchers in the UK (Campbell, 1981). The researchers used open sources but were subsequently arrested under Britain’s Official Secrets legislation. The ‘ABC’ trial that followed was a critical turning point in researcher’s understanding both of the technology of political control and how it might be challenged by research on open sources.(See Aubrey,1981 & Hooper 1987) Other work on what is now known as Signals intelligence was undertaken by researchers such as James Bamford, which uncovered a billion dollar world wide interceptions network, which he nicknamed ‘Puzzle Palace’. A recent work by Nicky Hager, Secret Power, (Hager,1996) provides the most comprehensive details to date of a project known as ECHELON. Hager interviewed more than 50 people concerned with intelligence to document a global surveillance system that stretches around the world to form a targeting system on all of the key Intelsat satellites used to convey most of the world’s satellite phone calls, internet, email, faxes and telexes. These sites are based at Sugar Grove and Yakima, in the USA, at Waihopai in New Zealand, at Geraldton in Australia, Hong Kong, and Morwenstow in the UK.

The ECHELON system forms part of the UKUSA system but unlike many of the electronic spy systems developed during the cold war, ECHELON is designed for primarily non-military targets: governments, organisations and businesses in virtually every country. The ECHELON system works by indiscriminately intercepting very large quantities of communications and then siphoning out what is valuable using artificial intelligence aids like Memex. to find key words. Five nations share the results with the US as the senior partner under the UKUSA agreement of 1948, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia are very much acting as subordinate information servicers.

19

Each of the five centres supply “dictionaries” to the other four of keywords, phrases, people and places to “tag” and the tagged intercept is forwarded straight to the requesting country. Whilst there is much information gathered about potential terrorists, there is a lot of economic intelligence, notably intensive monitoring of all the countries participating in the GATT negotiations. But Hager found that by far the main priorities of this system continued to be military and political intelligence applicable to their wider interests. Hager quotes from a”highly placed intelligence operatives” who spoke to the Observer in London. “We feel we can no longer remain silent regarding that which we regard to be gross malpractice and negligence within the establishment in which we operate.” They gave as examples. GCHQ interception of three charities, including Amnesty International and Christian Aid. “At any time GCHQ is able to home in on their communications for a routine target request,” the GCHQ source said. In the case of phone taps the procedure is known as Mantis. With telexes its called Mayfly. By keying in a code relating to third world aid, the source was able to demonstrate telex “fixes” on the three organisations. With no system of accountability, it is difficult to discover what criteria determine who is not a target.

Note – for the sake of the servers, please do NOT quote this comment :)

I think tomorrow morning is the time for a last round of phone calls and hope for the fight to last another day.

wow and thanks for the note, kirk :)

warrantless and illegal surveillance by governments and industry aren’t new. the pervasiveness and brazeneness of it since Bush took office is, of course, quite new.

ATT according to MSNBC

I agree.

great historical perspective kirk, thanks. so much for being a member of the “free world” – hah.

can anyone catch me up or direct me to a post anywhere on what is expected tomorrow procedurally-wise? i’m a little confused on the “dodd will filibuster” thing… didn’t that bit already happen? and it ended by UC. now it’s time for the amendments to be considered and voted on and then the underlying bill.

Their credit’s good with corporate America.

there was some stuff on cspan 2 this afternoon right before KO aired (pacific time) but I caught the end of it. It was Dodd talking about fisa – maybe someone can say if that was the pre-fillibuster that I remember from last time.

Love it.

AT&T will start monitoring “to stop crime”.

The audacity of corps.

All you really need to know is that Harry Reid is controlled by Dick Cheney.

since corporations now have personhood status, does that mean they can be sworn in as cops?

Thank you, Suz – it was the least I could do.

Hey selise – good to see you! Thanks.

Hey – oppression – it’s part of the at whole White Man’s Burden thing.

Tally ho!

can anyone catch me up or direct me to a post anywhere on what is expected tomorrow procedurally-wise?

Don’t know of a good post on that. Hopefully CHS in the a.m. It all happened so fast today.. at one point we thought the filibuster might start Tues. evening.

i really do wonder about this. what is held over harry and nancy’s head that prevents them from doing their jobs? or are they just greedy forkers?

All you really need to know is that Harry Reid is controlled by Dick Cheney.

that’s what i used to think.

not any more… i think when it comes to sides, reid lines up with cheney and not us. there’s no explanation i can find that is more consistent with the evidence.

Dang. Wall Street folks are thinking the fed will lower rates another 3/4 point next week.

In fact, neither are torture, death squads, mercinaries, illegal armaments, renditions, pre-emptive bombings, sanctioned assassinations, everything. But his father and the presidents before and after him made an attempt, however feeble, to hide it. W had to stick our noses in it. He forced us to accept it as business as usual, which we sort of knew already, damn him. The bulk of Americans were willing to accept what they always knew was so. We are the freaks who weren’t willing to accept it as business as usual. And, strangely, the electorate in general agrees with us. But the mainstream press is holding out, because they should have been reporting on what was happening all along.

oh sure, that will help – inflation (eyes rolling)

Ain’t irony grand?

at one point we thought the filibuster might start Tues. evening.

but that’s just my point. what filibuster? last time dodd insisted on the 30 hours of debate after the cloture vote. that end prematurely when reid pulled the bill and there was a UC that ended debate. i think all that remains before an immediate vote on the bill is consideration of amendments already submitted. if reid and the Rs think they have the votes to defeat the dodd/feingold amendment without filibustering it (this was the issue, i think, last go around – they didn’t know if they would have the votes without a filibuster), then what filibuster?

am sticking it up next in the news ticker, loo hoo. thanks

But it won’t help with mortgage rates.

Hi selise! Where have you been?

Ah, well, I thought there was some sort of agreement that allowed Dodd to renew his filibuster when the whole affair returned to the senate floor. You are the procedure queen.. so I am sure you are correct.

Their personal NSA files?

ack. my own damn fault for not being around….

well, i’ll be here bright and early tomorrow. to make another round of phone calls.

i better go hook up my brand new c-span2 cable tv line to my computer so i can rip all the exciting events… and post youtubes.

Not as bad as Kissinger’s Nobel, but close….

no, no! don’t think i’m right… especially when there is a question mark after my sentence – that makes it a question, and not a statement. at least that’s what i meant!

i’m all questions… it’s a learn as we go process, and only after the fact i’ll probably really understand it.

i’ll go look for the UC i’m thinking of and post it here to see what you-all think.

Calling it an early evening myself.. I want to be up and on the phones in the morning.

Sorry the song wasn’t great tonight. I thought the spirit made up for other shortcomings.

Good night all.

g’nite es, sleep well

Selise, here’s a comment from two threads back from folks I truly admire:

Steve-AR January 23rd, 2008 at 7:08 pm
84
In response to Hugh @ 43

That’s my understanding. Reid had lots of options. He could have respected the hold. He could have put forward the SJC version as the base bill. He could force the Republicans to mount real filibusters. His power to affect the Senate’s agenda was evident in how he was able to pull the FISA bill at a moment’s notice in December.

I am sitting here with a copy of the Rules on filibusters and Cloture….With the Thugs and the Bush Dogs he doesn’t have the votes to stop it. What pisses me off is he could play chicken and make them spend weeks grinding it out hour by hour vote by vote. (BTW there really is no special thing called a “hold”) The Thug “holds” are “honored” because he doesn’t have the votes to bring the bill to the floor.

no, no! don’t think i’m right… especially when there is a question mark after my sentence – that makes it a question, and not a statement. at least that’s what i meant!

i’m all questions… it’s a learn as we go process, and only after the fact i’ll probably really understand it.

Good evening, selise.
Your lack of iron-clad certainty is the most refreshing thing I’ve heard all day.
Brava!

howdy loo hoo!

missed all you guys.

just ended up working on other things, kinda OD’ed on the primaries which was all rage throughout the blogosphere and thought i’d take a short break to spend the time on a couple of other things.

but with the fisa fight starting again tomorrow, i’ll definitely be here all day to watch events unfold.

Hi Selise: What’s a “UC,” and what is its significance? Thanks.

yep. that’s consistent with my understanding.

maybe it would have been better to just go ahead and vote on the dodd/feingold amendment in december… before the vote whipping for a majority vote was insisted on by dodd (good on on dodd).

newt – i’m quite certain that i’m not sure. *g*

i’m an asshole, sorry.

UC = unanimous consent

UC = Unanimous Consent Resolution.

calling bullshit on your first – you are one of the least assholeish persons i know
and saying thank you on the second

Actually the above should be “unanimous consent agreement”, not resolution.

unanimous consent – A Senator may request unanimous consent on the floor to set aside a specified rule of procedure so as to expedite proceedings. If no Senator objects, the Senate permits the action, but if any one Senator objects, the request is rejected. Unanimous consent requests with only immediate effects are routinely granted, but ones affecting the floor schedule, the conditions of considering a bill or other business, or the rights of other Senators, are normally not offered, or a floor leader will object to it, until all Senators concerned have had an opportunity to inform the leaders that they find it acceptable.

ES, you’re right. The spirit of the song could not have been better. It is perfect! Good night.

night ES! thanks for the heads up on FISA fireworks.

I’ve been following this somewhat closely from Glenn Greenwald column, and here is the impressions I’ve gotten:
— Reid could/should have honored Dodd’s hold, as he does those of the GOP; it’s a Senate tradition.
— Reid could/should have put forward the Judiciary Committee’s version of the bill, which did not contain telco/BushCo immunity.

Beyond that, it’s best to let Glenn speak for himelf: http://www.salon.com/opinion/g…..index.html

Sleep well, ES. Thanks for the tunes!

Earlier today I found myself, for no particular reason I suppose, thinking about cargo cults. Turns out Wikipedia has an impressive set of materials on the subject. From the disambiguation page here are two resonant entries.

Cargo cult, a group of religious movements occurring in Melanesia

Cargo cult science, a term coined by Richard Feynman to describe something that appears to be science but that lacks scientific integrity

if reid had really wanted to do the right thing, imo, he would have brought the house bill to the floor and allowed members to propose both the intelligence and judiciary committee’s bills as amendments.

… looking for the UC i think remember from december. damn. i am so unprepared for tomorrow.

since when after taking the leadership position in the senate has harry done the right thing?

Thanks for that, wigwam.

Just what I was thinking.

‘Nite, folks.

Right! OOPS! I neglected to mention that option.

g’nite, neurophius – sleep well.

g’nute, pups.

Are you suggesting Bernake is using Cargo Cult-magical thinking-wrt our entire economy???!

ps – prostrate dragon, visions of our economists’ cargo cult will carry me off to bed.

[oh dear - Alan Greenspan in a grass skirt. I may not get much sleep, pups…]

am i blind, or is there no entry for the senate on dec 17 in the c-span archives listing?

well, i found it using the search function… but they don’t have the read player stream posted, just the wmv format – which has never worked for me in c-span’s archives. but does tonight! it’ll take a while to down load….

Is Harry automatically, or procedurally, or whatever leading the senate in the 111th? Or (hopefully) do they choose a new leader each time?

lol, we’ve learned to have low expectations and not expect much (anything?) from reid and most of the senate dems.

Sweet dreams.

Night, good doctor!

When it comes to economics, my bench-mark is Paul Krugman, and he doesn’t seem to be all that unhappy with Bernake, especially compared to Alan “Bubbles” Greenspan.

Not him, actually, the folks who keep badgering him, some of whom Wed. reacted as if they’d got their blessing.

I don’t think Ben himself is nearly as far behind the curve as many seem to, though I do think he didn’t grasp (until recently I’ll bet) the importance of housing in the economy and the ways in which the mortgage credit industry changed in the last few years. His job might turn out to be impossible, especially without something fiscal (a bridge in Minnesota, anyone?).

g’nite neuro

(((suz))) thanks, even though it’s only been a few days, i’ve missed everyone. love the front pagers, but i love the firepup commenters even more. and of course the mods and are the best, making it all possible to hang out here without a troll infestation.

g’nite kirk

well, while the file is downloading… i better go get my c-span line hooked up so i can catch some video tomorrow. hope my 6 year old imac can handle it!

see you-all for the fireworks in a few hours.

(((selise))) i’m all three!

crap, my last was in reply to 135

They had to see this meltdown coming. Anyone with a spreadsheet could look at the home sales and the cost of servicing all those mortgages and compare it to the income of the aspiring home buyers and see that a limit would be reached and that defaults would ensue. That that’s the most elementary of economic calculations; it ain’t rocket science. Old saying: “What can’t go on forever won’t.”

Strangely, I learned about housing bubbles in my junior-year English class on the American novel: You Can’t Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe, set in the late 20s and early 30s. I recommend it. A whole chapter on a housing bubble.

Thanks selise. Sleep well.

Prostratdragon, I could have told you this business of loaning people money on homes they couldn’t afford was bad business, but I just had no idea that so many people were accepting these loans. I would have given regular folks more credit. I remember getting into a screaming match with one loan officer about a year ago. He was telling me how stupid I was that I wouldn’t take one of these loans so I could buy another in Phoenix as an investment. Glad I followed my semi-conservative instincts.

You’re right, of course, but it all rests on the greater-fool theory of economics, which never works. The pitch to the borrower is that “you’ll have equity in U.S. real estate, which is ever appreciating.”

As one of my very intelligent but right-wing friends ironically put it: “What the hell is the country coming to when a man can take out a second to pay his mortgage?”

True, but still funny!

WaPo editorial tells us to Take a Deep Breath.

Hhhuuuummmm.

didn’t see anything about exhaling in that article

not headed to bed yet… just got the cables hooked up and now the silly thing need to spend a few minutes figuring out exactly what channels it’s seeing and tune to them.

… i don’t think the problem is primarily one of people buying houses they couldn’t afford. it’s that when prices dive by 20% or more, then people are screwed who bought near the top.

say i put 20% down and took out a mortage for the remainder. all is well for a while, then i get laid off…. but immediately i get a great job offer a couple of hours away. only thing between me and the job is selling the house. but prices have dropped so much that i’m in negative equity land.

what do i do?

Those who were planning to retire on the appreciation in the value of their homes are fucked. Those prices won’t likely be seen again in their lifetimes. Sigh! It almost never hurts to exhale.

This is the brilliance we get when we read the pros at the WaPo:

One way to preserve cash is to cut down on expenses.

“I wouldn’t take a vacation around the world right now,” said Alexandra Armstrong of Armstrong, Fleming & Moore in the District.

it’s not so much that we live in such different worlds… it’s that they don’t even know that we do.

Wolfe, eh? I must read that; seems to me it was an optional assignment in one of my hs classes, and I chose another book. One day I’d like to find or start a list of American business and real estate literature.

My biggest objection is that many people, including Greenspan, had to recognize where the break-up of the lending industry into lots of unregulated, rent-seeking little cells was going to lead, especially since it was just a rearrangement of what had already happened on a smaller scale in the 1980s. And the Fed had enough regulatory authority, as well as the best bully pulpit in the country, to put the problem on the front burner if it wanted. Then to that you add the way interest rates were held down too long after the last slowdown. But my guess is that without the industrial structure and the deliberate failure of supervision, you don’t get hundreds of thousands of ARM loans rolling over to validate the bubble prices.

Besides, putting the problem that way deprives them of some side issues, because while they can whine and cavil about the precise level at which booms become bubbles, they can’t do either about allowing predation, just no one is yet calling them on it.

Of course they knew, and it should be actionable, but it would just be so hard to prove.

I don’t know selise. Rent the house out and then go rent a room in someone’s house in the town you move to?

I know what you mean, it’s not the buyers fault. The mortgage companies/banks were being preditors and they can be really slick. Plus, a lot of people got into panic mode and just decided to buy before the prices went up further.

ES you make the all time top ten list for the most apropo blog song in Big Brother’s violation of our rights and freedoms.

Now I understand Dubya’s close relationship with Putin head of the no rights Communist Russia. What a wonderful song “Get a warrant!”

Remember the little Irish Elf that got tanked at the tavern and spilt the beans…he had a pot of gold under a tree with a yellow bandana so he could find it. (he put bandanas on all the trees)

So all those code word that the world wide spy ring is looking for couls become standard language throughout the netroots like the yellow bandana.

Bad idea great song. Thanks bushels…no pun intended.

Many bought with adjuatable-rate mortgages. Or perhaps short-term mortgages with a baloon payment. Both are very bad.

But there’s another end to this. The creeps who were arranging these unaffordable, real-estate backed mortgages were then selling them to investors, e.g., retirement plans, who hold worthless paper now that real-estate prices have dropped.

*sigh* every day i get more discouraged about the little cottage by the creek in the redwoods ever selling.

So far as I can tell, it was a racket. Arrange an ARM that the client can’t service long-term. Then sell it to a retirement plan or a bank in Hong Kong, and use the proceeds to make another loan, pocketing the commissions and the markup.

if housing prices hadn’t fallen so much, people who found they couldn’t keep their house – either because of an unplanned job change or because they couldn’t afford it – would be able to sell and recover. it wouldn’t be a disaster.

likewise, people who took out an ARM, with the intention of refinancing in a few years, would be ok because their homes would appraise high enough to be able to do that. but now, what are they to do when the appraisal comes back at less then their outstanding mortage? they’re screwed too.

i’m not trying to say that people don’t make stupid (and not stupid) mistakes… it’s just that i think we underappreciate the issue of falling prices in our search for who’s to blame.

imo, the biggest blame is on those who either inflated to bubble or who let it happen. ‘cuz it may be fun on the run up… but there’s hell to pay on the downside. and many times it’s people who can’t afford it who are caught in a situation (of falling prices) that they did not create.

in short. i blame greenspan.

“Prices are only going one direction folks. This may be your last opportunity to buy into the American Dream. The only question you have to ask yourself is: can I afford not to take advantage of this opportunity. Pretty soon the prices will be out of sight and you’ll be sitting here on the ground if you don’t move quickly.”

I think (sad to say) that it will probably be a while Suz. I’m sure you’ve thought of all of the possibilities and risks. I know you are not interested in renting, but I have to say, this is the perfect rental market for the landlord. Look at all of the people foreclosing and looking for a place to rent. You can get top rental income now, but it would mean you would have to rent rather than buy, which might be a good thing because you would have a chance to get to know an area before you settle permanently.

Loo Hoo’s story is funny indeed —getting into a shouting match with someone trying to get you to “take” money!

I first learned some things about mortgages and such while working as a grader for a B-school professor about 12 or 14 years ago. Way back then, piggybacks (taking a 2nd to cover the downpayment), IOs on single family properties, teaser-rate ARMS, and all these things were still comparatively rare, and frankly considered borderline unethical in most cases.

Well, except for the teaser loans, which were way ‘cross the border. Late 2006 when I realized how prevalent these things had become my face practically fell off, I really couldn’t calm down for several weeks. We’re really going to be in those history books!

Update: So far as I can tell, it was a racket.

I have tried to see it another way. I can’t do it. The implications are considerable.

adjustable rate mortgages are not always very bad.

there’s lots of good reasons people do them… and when prices do not fall there is no problem.

for example, the family that is expecting to stay in their home only about 5 years before moving out of state. for them an ARM is a wise choice. until prices crash.

choices and decisions that are wise in a market of stable home prices (they don’t even have to go up), are deadly in a market of falling prices.

It’s a tragedy on both ends. So far, we are only hearing about the folks who are losing their homes. But we’ve not yet heard about the folks who, directly or indirectly, bought all of that worthless paper, i.e., the resold loans that are not being defaulted. We are talking about people’s retirements. And I don’t think that shoe has dropped yet.

I don’t understand what you mean.

something modern day conservatives do that really irks me is that they looks for reasons to blame people for the bad things that happen to them.

for example, if you’re poor it must mean you’re lazy. or stupid. it’s always the victims fault. i hate that.

i’m suggesting making the mistake on the other side of the coin -and thinking that nothing is anyone’s fault.

… it’s just in this situation, it seems to me that we are looking too hard to blame the victims for choices that would have made a ton of sense if there housing prices were not now falling…. and not putting enough focus on the fundamental problems of bubbles – who inflates them, who benefits and who pays.

agree about retirements being a hugh issue.

and in that one regard there is a big difference between obama and clinton. clinton’s plan of private accounts is, imo, a back door method of undermining social security.

with people’s retirement savings disappearing, we’re going to need social security more than ever.

I agree totally, and I’m sure we will be seeing regulations back in place. I know some really smart people who fell for the teaser rate scenario, and fortunately refinanced to fixed before the problems were insurmountable.

I once heard a story about man asking Baron Rothschild if he knew what stock prices were going to do. Rothschild replied, “I know exactly what they’re going to do.” The man asked, “And what, pray tell, is that.”

“They will fluctuate, young man; they will fulctuate.”

And so it is with housing prices. Someone taking out an ARM is takig a risk. They may be lucky or not.

But at the level of society, they’re not a good idea on a massive scale for exactly the reasons we are watching now.

selise, what is Clinton’s plan of private accounts?

Unfortunately, many conservatives don’t distinguish between the following two statements:

– Anybody can become rich.

– Everybody can become rich.

The first statement is pretty close to true, but the second is blatantly false (or ambiguous).

time for me to head out, folks. gotta rest up if i’m gonna pull an all nighter tomorrow night with the good senator dodd.

Sweetest dreams, Suz. Me too.

adjustable rate mortgages are not always very bad.

We used to distinguish “teaser rate” from ordinary ARMs. The latter are not for everyone or every economic climate, being basically a sharing of the risk of interest rate changes between the borrower and the bank; as a borrower, they’re usually a more sensible deal when rates are higher than has been normal. Normal ARMs have an introductory period that is long enough to provide the borrower some stability, often something like 5 yrs., so in effect the bank takes on some of the risk of changing rates. The interest rate is based on some normal market rate for bank loans of similar maturity, e.g. a 5-yr LIBOR or Treasury, say. And most important, the lender qualifies the borrower for the whole payment profile, not just for the intro period, so there is no presumption that when adjustment time comes, the only way the borrower would be able to stay in the home would be to refinance. The last feature is most important, because it’s where suspicion of predatory lending behavior is likely to begin.

A “teaser” ARM has short intro periods, in 2005–7 often 2 years; there were some unbelievably nasty variants that readjusted every 6 months. In the old days iirc the teaser was just a junk rate or fiction, basically, set at something well below anything an individual would normally be able to borrow at; hence the tease. So you can see how more recent lenders could exploit the Fed’s 1 percent interest rate policy they were running for a while. Also, it came out within the last year that many teaser ARMs were let without verifying the borrowers ability to pay resets; the bubble market was supposed to allow a troubled borrower to refinance. (Of course, many of these loans were being made in parts of the country that did not have anything really resembling a bubble.)

looks like housing prices are going down more than they have in a couple of generations. this is more than fluctuations. this is the deflation of a massive housing bubble.

scarecrow did a post on it a few months back – although i don’t think he saw it in the negative light that i do. will go looking….

i like your distinction between teaser and standard ARMs.

It may be semantics, but I don’t see “fluctuation” as implying some sort of bound. Where I live, housing prices have risen by say 10x to 20x over the last 40 years (two generations). I doubt prices will fall anywhere near that far, but if they do, I’ll lose a lot of money, but will upgrade to an awesomely fine house.

I’m much more worried about where my retirement plan invested.

1,735 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

Citizen Selise and the firepup Freedom Fighters:

Well fer heaven’s sake…look whose back!! Where ya been Sister Selise, we missed ya here in the virtual land a the free and home a the brave?

As for O’Lieberman puttin’ the hex on Mrs. Clinton and cagin’ his supporters, I for one think we got a twofer, he’s jest statin’ the obvious and he’s exposin himself as a Lieberman kinda politician which gives Edwards a real boost and may jest drive a stake through the heart of the Clinton machine. So we get rid of Clinton for good and cast a real bright light on the Republicrat from Chicago…South Carolina may be the beginnin’ of the John Edwards “surge” – who’d a thunk it??!!

KEEP THE FAITH CUZ NOW THAT THEY GOT ALL OUR MONEY THEY’RE AFTER OUR SOULS!!

clinton’s proposal for private retirement accounts in the nyt, and from her website. can’t find scarecrow’s post and i’m too tire to search more.

20 billion or more to private accounts instead of social security? not something i’d support. just a boondoggle for wallstreet (they get to have their percentages for managing all that money).

Edwards/Gore for the next eight years…heads will explode before they get ‘em ta jail, don’tcha know

make it gore/edwards and i’m with you.

20 billion or more to private accounts instead of social security?

The linked-to article didn’t say that this is intended to be replacement for Social Security. (And I hope that’s not what she had in mind.)

I’d be damn happy either way (but would prefer Gore first).

not replacement. but it’s not like we have a budget surplus. money that is spent on one thing can’t be spent on another. every choice to spend is an opportunity cost somewhere else.

i don’t like seeing private accounts being the central focus of a clinton administration’s retirement policy. i remember the ’90s when another clinton did a better job than republicans in undermining important goverment programs.

“I don’t think Ben himself is nearly as far behind the curve as many seem to, though I do think he didn’t grasp (until recently I’ll bet) the importance of housing in the economy and the ways in which the mortgage credit industry changed in the last few years. His job might turn out to be impossible, especially without something fiscal (a bridge in Minnesota, anyone?).”

Bernanke would have to be the dullest tool in the economoic shed not to know that investment banks have to make reserves…ie if housing prices retreat their is something like a margin call as the banks cannot cover for the lost equity on the balance sheet and they need to get capital on the books asap. Economist know that real estate has peaks followed by troughs. Gambling is not supposed to be the FED game it’s the market’s the feds are supposed to control risk.

Second point: Mr. B has commited to Big Corporation ala Murdoch at WSJ, the hedge funds and big banks and WH to go “All In” with rates and fed finance. That turned the stampede around in Asian markets today. The dollar may become worth the paper it is printed on.

This and the stimulus package is more bubble econ 101. Sucks and is a quick fix to run the clock out until the new adminstration is in and the “hot potato” is out of their hands and Mr. B resigns.

holy crap, look at the time. i better try again to sleep before it’s time to start calling (and watching c-span) tomorrow.

Hi Selise: Paul Krugman is my hero: Mandatory, single-payer healthcare.

i’m with you and paul on that.

but on trade, stiglitz is my hero.

The economy was tanking in the beginning of the Bush administration or somewher abouts.
The sub prime housing bubble kept the construction industry booming…that was the bush economy at home.
The war was keeping them in the White house. The war was easy to get in hard to get out…to many fingers in the pie looting our/their treasury.

But the involvement of investment banks in the mortgage market, to the great extent that they are now, is something new. It’s not particularly a thing to be proud of not to have known about it, but Bernanke is far from alone. I would expect that behind the scenes a big activity at the Fed these days is taking apart the various research and reportig functions of the agency.

Furthermore, the IBs are precisely the less-regulated part of banking (one reason so much activity has migrated there, you may count on it); their reserve positions are notmonitored by the Fed or any other government agency that I’m aware of.

Interesting…so why the mad scramble for capital infusion at the IBs? The desparate search for capital.

The kicker for me was the creation of securities based on mortgages…. that were upside down…no value… when that paper is called your f*cked. Remember the French bank that closed their doors rather than pay up the CDOs?

So Prostratedragon I strongly suspect your defense of Bernanke puts you in the neocon rethug camp. While reserve requirement may or may not be relevant it is a shell game. Not respectable business for sure. Also remember the the creative financial instruments when Enron and some telcos had to restate their bottom lines occurred after the company executives dumped massive quantities of stocks before they dropped. I guess you could say that kind of coggling sneak thieves and con artist like Bush gets me pissed off.
Trillions were lost hitting pension funds hard and other retirement accounts in company funds. Retirees have been hammered since Silverdao and Keating American savings and Bolski the guy that did in Orange county and others with junk bonds.
There is no goddam defense for the three decages of unhamperd strealing of peoples hard work,
If you so and sos want to obfuscate these activities you are complicit. Do not screw with me I have been watching for those decades and more. Thr real estate industry is as crooked as a corkscrew.

Who got hurt…old folks who could not recover. That was the Bush Family Silverado and the defunct resolution trust left the taxpayerts without loopholes holding the bill… the Cheney family…his campaign supporter Ken Lay the star of scam that laid waste to one of the biggest hottest industry leaders, their stockholders, employees and the scamsters that followed Lay’s lead.
Laissez faire economics…caveat emptor with no bankruptcy relief protects the criminals. Yellow is not a color becoming color.

WHOA! Tsonga over Nadal in straight sets! (I just got up) The young man is officially playing out of his mind.
It is going to be a nerve-racking day today. I have to marshal the rational arguments from where I put them.

MLK said something very early about “the glory of American democracy is the right to protest for right”.

I hope you guys will bear with me, but we have Israelis in both the men’s and women’s doubles finals. I am very proud. I have just learned that both Erlich and Ram are from South America originally. You had to suspect they did not get it from the Israeli sports program *g*

Sania Mirza of India is a Muslim, but I can’t think of any Arabs at this level. I don’t actually know why. Most of the Arabic countries are involved in Davis Cup.