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$700B Doesn't Add Up

Posted by Sapper on Tuesday, September 30, 2008 5:09:34 PM
$700 Billion is the figure commonly thrown out there as the "bail out" number required to restart our credit markets.
 
The problem with this number is that its several times the value of ALL of the foreclosed mortgages that Wall Street claims is the anchor on the Credit Industry's neck.  If there are 1 million foreclosed homes currently unsold (as I'm told by those in the business), bought at an average $250,000 that can only be unloaded for an average of $100,000, not including what PMI covers, the banks should only be out about $150 Billion (I, know, "only"?).
 
Where does the $700 Billion come from and who's getting the extra $550 Billion?
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Gov't Could shore up the housing market with $125 Billion

Posted by Sapper on Tuesday, September 30, 2008 3:31:03 PM
(Updated)
 
If the federal government (or the state governments independently) bought an average of 10,000 foreclosed homes for $250K in each state's worst housing market and demolished them, guess what would happen to the plummeting value of every other home in the country?  (Note:  That would take care of 500,000 of the upper limit estimated 1,000,000 foreclosed homes).
 
That's right, we would have equity again, homes could be refinanced, people could borrow, banks would stop failing and the housing industry could start moving again.  Instant wealth!  The reason your home is worth next to nothing right now is not because your home is worth next to nothing.  It's because the banks and the fed conspired to give a loan to a moron down the street that couldn't pay his bills or was too dim to realize that his variable interest rate might vary UPWARD!
 
Instead of giving more money to the failures on Wall Street and the deadbeats on Main Street, why won't they help out the rest of us who have lost tens of thousands of wealth because other people were stupid?
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And They're Off! (Post-bailout Market-watch)

Posted by Sapper on Sunday, September 28, 2008 4:26:45 PM
Sunday - I am predicting Monday will be a race-day in the Markets as an agreement has been reached in Congress on the Great 2008 Banking Bailout.  Credit goes to the Administration and Nancy Pelosi in brokering the distasteful, yet needed deal. (H/T: Hugh Hewitt)
 
Monday am:  Stocks start the day down.  Shows what I know.  I guess the traders are still jittery over the deal being concluded.
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Global Warming: Reality or quasi-Religion

Posted by Sapper on Sunday, September 28, 2008 3:44:03 PM
First, I have to admit one thing:  I don't know a thing about a reported phenomenon called "global warming" except what I am told.
 
But the fact of the matter is this:  No one else does either.  And anyone who tries to tell you that they "know" that global warning is a "fact" is a liar or a fool.   The vast majority of us have done absolutely nothing directly, that is actual controlled scientific observation, to scientifically determine if either A. "global warming" is a real phenomenon or B. it is largely human-caused.  Even the scientists who claim to have "proven" that it is a real, human-caused phenomenon through their own work cannot possibly know with certainty because the question involves so many separate fields of study, i.e. astronomy, geology, climatology, archaeology, etc, that no one person could have all of the answers.  In order to determine the truth, a body of scientists and researchers would need to colaborate for there to be any hope of determining the truth of the matter.  More importantly, those researchers would have to conduct their research in an atmosphere (no pun intended) of objectivity and reason rather than what seems to exist today.  Today "global warming" is taken to be the Truth and research performed only to validate preconceived notions.
 
Lord Monckton
(Lord Monckton)
 
Not only is the science seemingly skewed toward a particular outcome, so does it's reporting.  The BBC, one of the culprits is currently under investigation, according to the UK's Daily Mail Online, for making skeptics out to be fools with no data of their own.  People like Lord Monckton, a former Thatcher adviser, are upset by being cast as "potty peers" in the global warming debate.  Politically, global warming is mostly championed by the left's confederation of anti-capitalists, anti-Americans, anti-Westerners, environmentalists, vegans, anarchists, and atheists in need of a new religion.
 
My own inclination is skepticism for two reasons:
 
1.  Based upon what little I know of climate changes through the ages, this one, if really caused by humans would be the first in the 5-billion year history of the world to be caused by something other than geologic or solar forces.  Earth's most recent "mini Ice Age" that lasted though the period of the bitterly cold winters of the American Revolution, was most likely the result of volcanics and reduced solar radiation.  My intuitive sense is that if there is a period of warming occuring, it is largely natural and out of our control.
 
2.  For me, the safe money is that anything the Left believes to be fundamentally true, likely is false.  I know that this is an intellectual cop-out but, seriously, from Confucianism to Marxism to Stalinism to Castroism, has the left ever done anything right?
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House Republicans: Bad Time to Rediscover Your Principles

Posted by Sapper on Friday, September 26, 2008 12:14:58 PM
Hugh Hewitt has put to paper (or electrons) my sentiments on the House Republicans' whiney do-nothing-but-get-in-the-way posture during the critical -- some would say most critical -- negotiations on how to solve the current American, and now global, economic crisis.  Some GOP congressmen would have us stand by and watch the nation's markets, banks and economy implode rather than commit taxpayer money to Wall Street and see government step into what they think should be a purely private-sector arena, that is the capital markets.
 
Guess what guys, the government helped create this mess and it was done on your watch.  Past Congresses had turned our lending institutions into tools of social experimentation and greedy short-sighted opportunists fed at the trough of junk-assets you helped to create (with the Democrat's help of course).  I am glad you have finally rediscovered your principles of non-intervention in the private sector.  However, your timing could use some work. 
 
Where were you guys when Bill Clinton's Administration and Barney Frank were forcing Fannie and Freddie to hand out mortgages like food-stamps?
 
Unfortunately, the taxpayers you claim to be representing, unless they have they're life savings in gold ingots stuffed under their matresses, are already on the hook.  The culprits have largely already bailed themselves out with their golden parachutes or are still sitting across the aisle from you and will never acknowlege their role in this debacle.  A bailout is both distasteful and necessary to start up the credit markets our economy depends upon to move.  So, unless you would like to enter another global Depression, either lead or get out of the way!  Get serious, or get out.
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Obama's Record of "Success" in Chicago Investigated

Posted by Sapper on Thursday, September 25, 2008 6:00:00 PM
(H/T: Drudge)
The Chicago Sun Times is (reluctantly) reporting that Illinois State Attorney Lisa Madigan is formally investigating what happened to funds awarded to contractors who are linked to Obama's campaign. 
 
Funds secured by?  You got it, State Senator Barack Obama. 
 
Status of Project?  Never built. 
 
Location of Money?  Um, that's what we're trying to find out.
 
Turns out that the Newsbusters.org website already had exposed this story months ago.  (Where was the media?)
 
ObamaGarden0708
(Google Maps image of Obama's "Garden Sanctuary" from the Newsbusters.org website)
 
If this is a foreshadowing of how an Obama government would be run, we should pray this man is never again put in charge of anything more important than a PTA bakesale.
 
Update: Michelle Malkin takes notice.
 
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Vote for Obama or You're a Big Fat Racist Pig

Posted by Sapper on Thursday, September 25, 2008 3:33:06 PM
That's pretty much the message I am hearing from some folks like Democrat Congressman Alcee Hastings:
 
"If Sarah Palin isn’t enough of a reason for you to get over whatever your problem is with Barack Obama, then you damn well had better pay attention," said Hastings. "Anybody toting guns and stripping moose don’t care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks. So, you just think this through."
 
(This Caribou was probably a Democrat.  He may vote with ACORN's help.)
 
So hunters are anti-semitic racists? Uh, Ok.  You might as well throw in all Republicans, white men, white women, or anyone else that disagrees with your political agenda.  Jonah Goldberg has more:
 
"The news media have been shamefully stoking the idea that the only way Barack Obama could possibly lose the presidential election is if American racists have their way. Indeed, the fact that Obama isn't leading in polls by a wide margin “doesn’t make sense ... unless it’s race,” says CNN's Jack Cafferty.

Slate's Jacob Weisberg says Obama is losing among older white voters because of the "color of his skin," in an article subtitled "Racism is the only reason McCain might beat him."

an articleMany journalists are so convinced that racism is the only possible explanation for an Obama loss that they are beginning to see any effective anti-Obama ad as an attempt by John McCain to "viciously exacerbate" America's "race-fueled angst," in the words of one New York magazine writer...."
 
(Read the whole thing here.)
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Slow Joe, Gaffe-machine, Strikes Again

Posted by Sapper on Tuesday, September 23, 2008 2:31:29 PM
This quote from Joe Biden, being interviewed by Katie Couric -- no mental giant herself -- would be funny but for the fact that half of the country is actually stupid enough to want him as Vice President:
 
"When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the princes of greed. He said, 'look, here's what happened.'"
 
Un-freakin'-believable!
 
#1 Hoover was President when the stock market "crashed".
 
#2 Televisions were not commonly available for 2 more decades.
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Where would we be? 9/11/01 to 9/11/08

Posted by Sapper on Thursday, September 11, 2008 3:13:40 PM
It is fitting to remember the tragic events of 9/11 on the anniversary of the infamous acts carried out by evil men from half a world away on our own soil.  I think it is also fitting to remember what we have done since.  Just as Pearl Harbor awoke the "sleeping giant" Admiral Yamamoto so feared, 9/11 awoke in Americans a sense of mission, a sense of righteous outrage, and a fervor to set the free men and women of this nation in motion as one to fight that evil not seen in 60 years.
 
 
What have we accomplished?
 
-Free people are playing soccer on soccer fields in Afghanistan rather than watching public executions for political and social "crimes".
 
-A man who has terrorized his own country and killed hundereds of thousands of his own people and hundreds more thousands of his neighbors has been hanged and elected officials stand in his place.
 
-Girls are going to schools in countries where girls (and many boys) had no schools to attend.
 
-al Qaeda is dispersed, depleted and dismayed.
 
-Thousands of American soldiers, my brothers, have been killed and wounded in an ongoing war against terrorism, tyranny and evil and misguided men.  Tens of thousands more continue our fight while we sit safely in our homes worrying about bills and our kids and traffic and all of the things that we have the luxury to worry about.  REMEMBER THEM!
 
Give to the USO.
Tags: 9/11  
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Obama Flailing Under Heat

Posted by Sapper on Wednesday, September 10, 2008 1:29:59 PM
Barack Obama:  He's our man!  No, I mean it.  This cat is the best candidate the Democrats could have given us Republicans.  Thank you, Democrats.
 
John McCain was not the favorite candidate for the base of the Republican party so we appreciate the Democrats apparently taking pity on us and sending in Barack Obama as the booby prize.  In fact, Barack put the "boob" in booby prize.  He certainly is, you know, good for a laugh, um, you know, anytime he opens his mouth.  (BTW, I am told that if you put your ear to his mouth when he yawns, you can hear the ocean.)
(The Troubled Democrat Nominee)
Lately his campaign seems to be unraveling faster than a roll of red tape at the IRS.  First, the driveling droves of drones in the Big Media have stopped lapping up every word of his cliched babble to pay attention to the Republican Convention and rising star VP nominee, Sarah Palin.  And now he's been hit (h/t: Ben Smith's Blog) with McCain's campaign coyly using a play from the Democrat playbook and feigning offense at Barack's ill-timed "lipstick on a pig" comment.
 
This has become quite an amusing election season.  I can't wait to see Obama-Biden further implode in the days to come.  As Hugh has said, "If it's fair, we'll win."
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Obama Dropping Like a Rock

Posted by Sapper on Tuesday, September 09, 2008 2:46:46 PM
Barack Obama claims to be unfazed by his plummeting poll numbers but I hardly think he's happy to be falling like a stone less than two months before the 2008 Presidential Election.  According to Fox News:
 
Obama’s campaign has dismissed recent polls showing the Democrat losing ground to John McCain as “horse race” politics, not a troubling sign of things to come. Today Barack Obama addressed the numbers for the first time at a media availability in Ohio.

“I know that after our convention, we had a bump. After theirs, they get a bump. I think that what you’re going to see settling in is that the race is gonna be very close in most of the battleground states, which is really what matters,” he explained.

When asked about the latest Washington Post/ABC poll that 20% of white women swung to McCain after his veep announcement, Obama said the notion just “isn’t borne out.”

Like Hugh says, "If it's fair, we'll win."
 
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A "Stroke of Luck" in North Korea

Posted by Sapper on Tuesday, September 09, 2008 2:39:01 PM
Bloomberg News is reporting that Kim Jong Il of North Korea may have had a stroke.
RTÉ.ie News: Kim Jong-Il 'Dear Leader' may be gravely ill
                (Kim Jong Il)
If true, this may be a stroke of luck for Kim's starving people who have know nothing but misery and oppression under his and his father's reign.  If they're lucky, maybe they'll get a leader with less paranoia and more compassion.
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Obama Considered Military......uh, yeah OK

Posted by Sapper on Monday, September 08, 2008 3:26:04 PM
 
And I considered becoming a "community organizer" instead of joining the military but all the slots were filled by Democrats with ties to domestic terrorists, shady real estate dealers and labor bosses.
Barack Obama
"As you were, soldier!"
 
Barack, if you're going to make stuff up, please make it at least a little bit believable.
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Finally! Gov't Takes Over Freddie and Fannie

Posted by Sapper on Monday, September 08, 2008 11:31:07 AM
The federal government's reactions to the 2-year-long crisis in the economy can be summed up in one phrase: "Too Little Too Late".  From finally dropping interest rates last year in the face of a housing market grinding to a halt (and then going into reverse) to helping to staunch the bleeding in the banking industry, Bernanke and the Fed and the rest of the governments reactions to the crisis have been consistently too little, too late.  Not wanting to buck the trend, the government finally took over lending giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to try to help stabilize already-plummeted housing prices.
 
Worries that taxpayers will be asked to shoulder the burdens of poor lending practices and risky investment are real but, frankly moot.  Standing by that principal has already seen Americans wealth become evaporated as equity shrivels to nothing beneath peoples' feet with an avalanche of foreclosures flooding already strained housing markets across the country.  Pay one way or pay in another, but make no mistake, we're all paying for it anyway.
 
Hopefully, this move is not too late to salvage some sanity in the housing market where homes regularly are being sold for less than replacement costs.
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Democrats Discard American Flags when the Cameras Go Off

Posted by Sapper on Saturday, September 06, 2008 6:24:48 PM
Fox News is reporting that the McCain Campaign has received and plans on redistributing scores of American Flags bagged up and left with the trash after the cameras turned off at the Democrats' Convention.
(Fox News Photo of McCain Campaign Stop)
It was Ronald Reagan I think that said that the true measure of being good or bad is what you do when you think no one is watching.
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