Re: OT: US Pres election
 

Sounds like you're a dedicated member of the Republican Party. I didn't accuse Bush as being an idiot. I actually think he and his administration are smart people who knew exactly what they wanted.

With all due respect, it sounds like you misapprehend the whole dynamic of mortgage backed securities. In the late 1990's and through 2006 (maybe even 2007), there was a dramatic shift in lending practices once the whole mortgage-backed securities concept was developed. The entities that were initiating the mortgage loans did not intend to keep the loans. They were to be sold to Wall Street, and then sold to more investors. So, the initial lenders had little worry about whether the borrower could afford the loan or was trustworthy. (Compare this to the more traditional arrangement of a bank lending money to a home buyer and retaining a mortgage for the life of the loan.)

As these loans became more and more profitable (because there was *a lot* of money to be made), there was increased pressure from the free market to find more borrowers. After the sources of responsible, reliable borrowers were tapped out, the mortgage industry needed to lower their standards for qualifying borrowers for loans (e.g., shifting from documentary proof of income to no such requirement). Again, there was no concern for the loan originator, because they planned to sell the loan to Wall Street. They just wanted to collect their initial financing fees, which were substantial.

To keep the customers coming, the industry devised inventive types of loans to get less loan-worthy borrowers into higher priced homes (e.g., adjustable rate mortgages and interest-only mortgages) that eventually trapped borrowers who bought homes that they probably should never have purchased. For example, the adjustable rate mortgage would have a 2-year teaser rate that was more affordable, and when the rate eventually adjusted after 2 years, the monthly payments would jump up substantially. (I think it is a two way problem. The home borrower was not paying attention to what he/she could afford, and the loan originator was pushing to lend as much as possible (to get higher fees) while disregarding the likely ability of the borrower to repay.)

In the end, we're now facing a crisis of millions of defaulted loans that are the basis of huge Wall Street investments. The problem was exacerbated by the runaway housing market and the difficulty in fully understanding and keeping tabs on the investments, because numerous parties would have fractional shares in the bundled up mortgage backed securities. Again, the pressure was from the free market. It was *not* from any regulators forcing Wall Street investment banks into buying mortgage loans.

Thus ends my second rant.

Pasha

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

considering that the arctic ice cap GAINED mass over the last year I think that the US position on GW might end up the most prudent.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

I think the problem is exactly as you've stated, and exists at an institutional level in America. We have a system focused on shareholders, not stakeholders; so there is an incentive ONLY to make profit, regardless of the results. That is the reason we have crisis after crisis after crisis.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

what? we don't really know what's going on? so let's just keep plugging away? maybe we can think of some sham stuff to keep people distracted long enough for us to rape the earth a little more? who cares about the future, we're rich and getting richer, so our grandkids don't have to worry about the place getting trashed. family values... for our family, not yours.

I think even those who held out the 'ice caps' growing stuff realized it was a complete fallacy to the actual situation; a simple distraction. ice caps growing because the warmer seas create increased moisture and increased snowfall on the icecaps.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the Northwest Passage open up this year? Like, the Northwest Passage through the arctic that we've never been able to pass before without using giant ice breakers?

Ah, here we go. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/mai...aarctic131.xml

Again, please do correct me if I'm wrong about this, I've only spent a couple of minutes looking at this particular issue.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

Hmm, ok, a few minutes more yields this:
http://www.dailytech.com/Arctic+Sees...ticle12851.htm

which is more ambivalent in its findings.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

We can't predict the weather a week in advance accurately. Yet we're expected to believe the "projections" that are months or years in the future. I'm all for alternative energy and such, but more because of foreign oil dependence than the global warming hysteria. Besides, if you look at history, warming trends show up all the time, and have often lead to great prosperity. It really doesn't help that those who are always telling people how to treat their land DON'T ACTUALLY LIVE ON IT!! Some Berkely professor (no offense intended) thinks he's a better steward of the land than the farmer who actually lives on it.

Aside: Sorry Pasha for making assumptions about you.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

Who am I going to vote for? Simple: Cobra Commander. The problem with America isn't that the leaders we elect are too evil, it's that they're not any good at being evil. The man could stamp out terrorism forever via a network of satellite-mounted mind-control lasers, protect American foreign interests with robot snakes that shoot knockout gas from their mouths, and he's got vast amounts of experience commanding actual armed forces, as well as several brief tenures as overlord of various island nations and sections of the US.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

I don't know where you got this from, but it's outright false. The Arctic sea ice has been consistently losing overall mass, even if there has been some localized increase in isolated places. The Greenland glaciers are receding at an alarming pace.


As far as the US elections go, a vote for McCain can most charitably be characterized as utter irresponsibility. His campaign promises aside, a closer look at his actual platform has made it clear that he intends to continue the same policies Bush and Cheney used for the past 8 years to drive the US to the ground. He has run a campaign of outright lies and character assassination while avoiding giving any kind of factual positions on issues. He is old and in poor health and stands to leave Palin as president if he croaks. Palin's record as the mayor of Wasilla and later as governor of Alaska is a record of division, mismanagement and cronyism cast from exactly the same mold as the Bush administration. She just happens to be a hockey-mom and to possess the "just like us" factor, which is going to sway more gullible voters.

The problem with the "just like us" factor is that ideally the leaders of a country shouldn't be like Joe/Jane Sixpack, but more intelligent, more educated and more aware of the world around them.

The recent financial crisis is just one more mark against the neocon and Invisible Hand of the Free Market risk socialists who have been at the helm for the last 8 years. The Republicans pushed complete deregulation of the financial industry through in 1999 and now that all of the profits of the last few years have been privatized while they built up the current mess, they seek to socialize all of the losses on the taxpayers. They even had the audacity to put it in the draft that the Treasury Secretary (aka Paulson, a former investment banker) would have sole authoirty to act as he saw fit (mostly in the interests of his Wall Street buddies) and that anything he did would not be subject to ANY judicial review.

There is also one factor to the "world leader" and international relations aspect of this election: The US touts itself as the leader of the free world and assumes that it is regarded as such. The current administration's idea of international relations has been "We expect unquestioning obedience and you will do as we say or else!", which has not gone over very well with the rest of the world. Electing McCain would be seen as a deliberate decision to continue Bush policies.

Up until now the rest of the world has made a pretty marked distinction between regarding the current US administration as a bunch of corrupt, venal screwups but not extending that same assessment to the American people. Americans are considered good guys oerall, but with a bad government. Elect McCain and the international opinion will start shifting in the direction that all of the negative perceptions of the current American government will be largely transferred on the American people as a whole. That would mean that Americans would be assumed to be navel-gazing, warmongering, belligerent morons by default and only once an individual American had proved himself to be otherwise would they be extended the benefit of the doubt. That's how bad perception of the US currently is, even among the populations of many allied nations. The governments of those allied nations will never say this out loud, of course, but private citizens do not need to hold their tongues the same way.

These are just some of the reasons I would like to see Obama win the elections. He has shown competence and he would go a long way toward mending the strained and torn relations between the US and the rest of the world. He also has a substantive platform on the issues that is not geared toward benefiting the rich at the expense of the poor and the middle class (which is pretty much an endangered subspecies of the population due to Bush's policies).

This is one view from abroad, though I daresay that I am fairly well informed on what goes on in American politics.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

The media goes for the throat whenever they they find weakness in either Party. The media frenzy over Palin is simply because you can put her in an interview and embarrass her with almost no effort (for example, when tossed the softball question "what do you think of the Bush Doctrine" and she didn't even know what it was... that was comedy gold, even after she is on record stating "I don't know what a Vice President does" just a month before her nomination).

The fact that the Republican Party tries to demonize the press as the "biased liberal media" every time the press catches them doing something embarrassing ... well, it is very sad that this kind of rhetoric works on the American people.

Feel free to Google "mccain pastor", "mccain terrorists", and "mccain socialist". There are some choice links to articles on the first pages of each of those searches.

---------------

In case you didn't notice, I prefer Obama. He believes in the rule of law and is not trying to take away my civil rights (like Palin's confessed desire to reverse Row v. Wade).