NY Times: Return of the Predators
I wanted to share an editorial from this morning's New York Times about the predatory loan-modification companies that have sprung up in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis. "Predators of every sort have regrouped and returned to their old ways," the editorial board writes, "this time as loan-modification companies, inserting themselves between hard-strapped homeowners and banks, offering to work deals --- for cash up front."
Although it's true these nefarious companies are to blame for the schemes they try to pass off as great deals to homeowners in foreclosure, they are filling a hole left by banks and the government. We have not been sufficiently aggressive in helping people restructure their mortgages and stay in their homes. As the editorial puts it, "the good actors in this bad drama need to get better at working around that problem, before more good money is thrown after bad."
J C
You don't expect the sharks to leave after having open end filet mignon. do you?
It seems though ,to be on the order of the day., those that do the worst jobs ,are being rewarded , and those that bring these discrepancies to light are being persecuted!
Oh and if you didn't notice, your boy seems to be getting a cabinet of war drummers together!
He needs some guidance,but I guess that you aren't it!
Keystone Kongress -- Return of the Feeder Fish
Return of the Feeder Fish
Predators. Right. And who is feeding them (again).
Look. This is all bs. We know that the good cop, bad cop routine is wearing thin when the Republicans do the deed and the Democrats refuse to fix it. This isn't exactly a no-brainer, but it's close enough.
But let's refocus. Which is easier to recover from, an economic collapse or the collapse of the US Constitution. (If it's not obvious I don't care to belabor the issue. Think about it.)
John,
If you want to be any help at all in your last days in office help us out here.
Help us fend off the attacks on the Deadbeat Democrats in the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mack scandal.
Know why I think this will be a big issue coming up?
Because we did NOT defend against the accusations adequately, and now the rightwingers are suddenly silent.
That's not the style of the rank and file Repub pit bulls and barracudas. It's the style of their masters.
In about a year and a half, the full impact of the meltdown on Sept 27 should hit full force. That's just about in time for the Republicans to make another House sweep, and if you're still running for an office of PUBLIC TRUST, guess what?
AnybodyButDems! might just win this time, unless you and the rest of the Deadbeat Dems have more money to pay off the voting machine vendors by then. ???
But let's assume you are honest as well as "Honorable", whatever that means anymore.
Help. [Translation: "Yopp!"]
How in the world, do the Democrats avoid RIGHTFULLY PLACED BLAME in that mess?
I do know how, by the way. But you'd have to toss Bill Clinton to the sharks, wouldn't you. And some of the other Deadbeat Dems as well, I would think.
Sheep, put your trickle down raincoats in the closet marked "Wolves", pls.
So if you have another strategy what's our next move, Cap'm?
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For anyone that's interested in this BIG SURPRISE about the predators, pls see Marcie Kaptur's House Record entry under "the latest reality game", in the 110th.
Personally, I think "leaders" should be ahead of the masses. She clearly was. What the hell is a leader you have to drag along by a chain? And if we people know how to run things better than our asshole Representatives, why is this is Republic instead of a direct democracy?
(Socrates in Plato's Republic was right, so don't be too quick to answer this -- but you, John Conyers, and you, Nancy Pelosi, and you Henry Waxman, and you other deadbeat dems are not the the balast for that imbalance problem. In fact at present, you are nothing but a front line of minions to prevent meaningful correction.)
For what it's worth, I was in favor of the bailout. It's worth a couple grand per man, woman, and child to show them for what they really are.
Cheap at half the price, but a day of reckoning is coming, one way or the other. Maybe both.
And I WOULD bail out GM (at least) and perhaps the other two, on the condifion that....
The CEO's are fired. I mean duh.
Nobody could see that we were diving into an empty pool, right? Are we to believe that nobody (from the ghetto to the top of the Empire State Building) could see that these high tech gaz chuggling machines with programmable planned obsolescence embedded in silicon chips would be worth less than you could get for them at the plastic recyclers in record budget breaking time?
Is the bail out really just "marxist/soacialist" bad medicine?
Here's the problem and it's under the heading of "general welfare" if not "common defence".
1. What did the workers do to lose their jobs? Isn't that a little like hanging the Nazi soldiers and letting Goering go free?
2. Meanwhile foreign auto manufacturers are thriving on US soil with no worker protection. Why should they care about health care, or our system of government. We don't care about theirs. We don't even know what theirs is, obviously. Their workers aren't union, no, that's true. But the workers in Japan ARE protected -- by their government so that they don't need to be unionized.
That's NOT the ideal, of course because it gives too much control to concentrated centers of power (such as government, which should have represented the people and which must be at least as big as it's biggest enemy, whether militarily or economically) and it DOES open the door for assholes like our Congress to screw everything up by passing the buck AND the ball to the executive branch; scoundrels like BushCo who are always more than ready to usurp as much power as they are given, "take full responsibility" with the power to pardon and executive immunity to nullify that "responsibility", and therefore have NO INCENTIVE to ever give power back to our astronomically foolish reprehensitives.
It's so much easier to just create new enemies for the mil-industreal complex in order to ordain and establish their own job security. And here comes "family values".
Firemen with gasoline. America's love of democracy military-style. And "Titles of Nobility" that are not.
Go figure.
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Congress is the bottom. The President is the top. Where does change come from and go to?
So, evidently, you're TOAST, John. Oh, the smoke... never looked so good.
And I'd NEVER let a privatized government agency (nevermind the oxymoron), whether it's the Federal Reserve, Fanny Mae, or the CIA refuse to give Congress ALL the information it wants IMMEDIATELY or face being taken over until an honest management for these agencies can be found.
RIGHT JOHN?
http://usconstitution.net/const.html#A1Sec8 [50 percent is not an outstanding grade.]
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Judge: What is your verdict?
Foreman: Guilty, by reason of insanity.
Predatory Elections
John,
Now that we won, how can we restore some degree of elections integrity?
Are we obligated to honor all of Bush's disastrous brain-attacks? Diebold? ES&S? Is it even possible to guarantee they can't be tampered with?
What one right, that you can think of, may be even more important than the 1st Amendment?
Congress switchboard (202) 224-3121
Toll free (some may not work): 1-800-828-0498 or 1-800-4591887 or 1-866-340-9281 or 1-877-851-6437