Year: 2008

Zimbabwe, the Votes are Finally Officially Counted

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And to no one’s surprise, they are saying that there has to be a runoff between Tsvangirai and Mugabe.

No surprise here. The amount of vote fraud for Mugabe to win was simply not possible, but the amount to take it to a runoff, not so much a problem. 47.9% Tsvangirai, 43.2% Mugabe.

The opposition is saying, with decent justification, that they won outright, and are threatening not to participate in the runoff, which would give Mugabe exactly what he wants.

I would note that while Mugabe is promising to respect the results of a runoff, the fact is that a fair election and a fair campaign are simply not possible while Mugabe and ZANU-PF continue their campaign of terror and intimidation against the MDC.

UN voices reluctance to act on Zimbabwe – International Herald Tribune

And in the same old, same old category, South Africa is the major stumbling block to the security council doing anything.

I expect this to continue until Thabo Mbeki leaves office. He’s a bigger cheerleader for Mugabe than GW Bush was for the Yale Baseball team.

Georgia on My Mind

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Nope, we’re not talking about the southern state, but the birthplace of Josef Stalin.

We are having problems. It appears that NATO is warning Russia not to interfere in Georgia, and Russia is warning NATO not to interfere in Georgia.

Fundamentally, this is an outgrowth of NATO’s disastrous policy of expansion, which was driven by post Berlin Wall euphoria and the lobbying of the various national defense industries, who saw a move to NATO as being a way to sell some expensive toys to the former Warsaw Pact nations.

Before the fall of the USSR, one of the conditions that Russia placed on the reunification of Germany was that NATO expand no further eastward. The fact that it has, and that the countries added no use for NATO but as a sword against Russia, contributes to the current bellicose and paranoid nature of Russian foreign relations.

The FDIC is Proposing a Home Loan Program Run Directly by the Treasury

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It’s called the Home Ownership Preservation Loan program.

Looking at the program, I think that it is directed primarily at the people who should have known better, mortgage lenders and home builders, with benefits “trickling down” to ordinary programs.

So once again, we see socialism for the fat cats, and capitalism for the tax payers.

As Tanta of CR notes, this would be at little cost to the government, at least if the borrower does not walk away from the home, and there are incentives to prevent that, but the lender (more accurately the holder of the loan) may not be willing to make the concessions to qualify.

If the borrower is at low risk of default, why should the lender take a haircut, if it they are at high risk, do they want to be at the behind the US Treasury in line?

Tants’s take, and mine, is that it’s PR more than a serious program.

The FDIC proposal from their web page:

Home Ownership Preservation Loans

The FDIC is proposing that Congress authorize the Treasury Department to make loans to borrowers with unaffordable mortgages to pay down up to 20 percent of their principal. The repayment and financing costs for these Home Ownership Preservation (HOP) loans would be borne by mortgage investors and borrowers. This approach is scaleable, administratively simple, and will avoid unnecessary foreclosures to help stabilize mortgage and housing prices.

This proposal is designed to result in no cost to the government:

  • Borrowers must repay their restructured mortgage and the HOP loan.
  • To enter the program, mortgage investors pay Treasury’s financing costs and agree to concessions on the underlying mortgage to achieve an affordable payment.
  • Treasury would have a super-priority interest — superior to mortgage investors’ interest — to guarantee repayment. If the borrower defaulted, refinanced or sold the property, Treasury would have a priority recovery for the amount of its loan from any proceeds.
  • The government has no continued obligation and the loans are repaid in full.

Mortgage Restructuring:

  • Eligible, unaffordable mortgages would be paid down by up to 20 percent and restructured into fully-amortized, fixed rate loans for the balance of the original loan term at the lower balance. New interest rate capped at Freddie Mac 30-year fixed rate.
  • Restructured mortgages cannot exceed a debt-to-income ratio for all housing-related expenses greater than 35 percent of the borrower’s verified current gross income (‘front-end DTI’). Prepayment penalties, deferred interest, or negative amortization are barred.
  • Mortgage investors would pay the first five years of interest due to Treasury on the HOP loans when they enter the program. After 5 years, borrowers would begin repaying the HOP loan at fixed Treasury rates.
  • Servicers would agree to periodic special audits by a federal banking agency.

Process:

  • Mortgage investors would apply to Treasury for funds and would be responsible for complying with the terms for the HOP loans, restructuring mortgages, and subordinating their interest to Treasury.
  • Administratively simple. Eligibility is determined by origination documentation and restructuring is based on verified current income and restructured mortgage payments.

Funding:

  • * A Treasury public debt offering of $50 billion would be sufficient to fund modifications of approximately 1 million loans that were “unsustainable at origination.” Principal and interest costs are fully repaid.

Eligible Mortgages:

Applies only to mortgages for owner-occupied residences that are:

  1. Unaffordable – defined by front-end DTIs exceeding 40 percent at origination.
  2. Below the FHA conforming loan limit.
  3. Originated between January 1, 2003 and June 30, 2007.

    Switzerland Fighter Competition

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    Basically, the Swiss have been operating F-5E/Fs in 1976, and they are looking towards replacing them.

    In the competition were Boeing (F/A-18E/F), Eurofighter (Typhoon), Dassault (Rafale), and my favorite SAAB (Gripen).

    Boeing has now pulled out of the competition, even though they would appear to have a leg up, as the Swiss already operate the F/A-18C/D. The official word was that their withdrawal was based on “Thorough review of Switzerland’s requirements for partial replacement of its Tiger fighter aircraft,” which I tend to agree with.

    The F/A-18 is about two sizes larger than the F-5, and would require modifications to the facilities to accommodate their size.*

    My guess would be that SAAB is at an advantage in this competition:

    • Range is not an issue, Switzerland is a small country.
    • It is far less expensive than any of the alternatives, being around 1/3 that of the Rafale and Typhoon.
    • It’s short field characteristics are probably the best, being designed, according to Swedish doctrine, to operate from stretches of roads.
    • It’s designed for austere maintenance by conscripts.

    One wonders if the Swiss would be interested in the base C/D model of the Gripen, or if they would want the upgraded variant.

    Considering their needs, I would expect them to go with the lighter original, as I’ve said, they do not need the payload/range, which is already far in excess of the F-5s that are being replaced, though the AESA radar might be a part of an upgrade.

    *It probably did not help when, earlier in the competition, Boeing claimed that it would kick ass in short field capabilities relative to the competition.
    While the aircraft does take off in a remarkably short distance from an aircraft carrier, that involves the use of     catapults and arresting gear.
    With the lowest power to weight ratio and highest wing loading of the competitors, they may have had representatives of the Swiss government laughing in their face.

    Telco Immunity Update

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    Well, first it appears that Bush and His Evil Minions™ are coordinating with the Telcos to lobby, and are trying to move heaven and earth to make it so.

    I can only conclude that in addition to evidence of illegal wiretaps, that the telcos have information of something much worse, my guess would be that there was specific spying done on political opponents.

    If they mutter terrorism to a jury, it is unlikely that a jury would convict them, or that a judge would give them anything more than a slap on the wrist, but if, and there are indications of this, that there is evidence of spying on their opponents, it becomes a whole new ballgame.

    If it is discovered that Bush, Cheney, and Rove were spying on Democrats communications, we just might see that impeachment that is “not on the table”, or serious prosecutions starting in 2009.

    There have always been rumors that they wiretapped Kerry’s senior adviser for national security affairs, James Rubin, by surveilling his wife CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour for “national security reasons”, and using the inevitable of intercepts of him for political purposes.

    My guess is that these activities were far broader and deeper than just one reporter or one candidate.

    The Democrats victory in 2006 may very well have been helped along by the NY Times finally breaking the story on the wiretapping, and the telcos getting skittish enough to stop asking “how high” when Bush asked them to jump.

    It may all be moot however, as Steny Hoyer and Jay Rockefeller appear to be doing their level best to create full immunity for the phone companies, which would prevent the real story from coming out. Ever.

    I’m simply not clear on why Hoyer and Rockefeller are so gung ho about this, unless, of course they were in some way criminally complicit with the program.

    What is interesting is that, for now at least, the Vichy Blue Dog Democrats have been remarkably uninterested in getting immunity passed.

    As I’ve said before, I think that they headed home after it did not pass the house, and instead of the storm of criticism they expected, they got high fives from the voters, which gave them some backbone.

    Bummer of a Birth Mark, Hal: Microsoft Edition

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    Bummer for Steve Ballmer not only has the XP SP3 update been delayed because it breaks an obscure piece of Microsoft software, but it also delayed Vista SP1.

    What’s more, Dell, HP, and Lenovo will be offering a free “downgrade” to XP on their systems.

    I can’t remember a product that was more of a disaster than Vista.

    What’s more, in addition to issues with Norway, it now appears that the high court in the UK has decided to review the British Standard Institution’s decision to vote for OOXML as an ISO standard.

    Because Dick Cheney Likes Death

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    Dick Cheney is a busy, busy man.

    In addition to outing a CIA agent, authoring torture policy, selling out the nation to oil companies, shooting people in the face, and taking payments from Halliburton, it’s nice to know that he can still taking time out to kill whales:

    Another internal document shows that the officials working for the Vice President also raised spurious objections to the science. According to this document, the Vice President’s staff “contends that we have no evidence (i.e., hard data) that lowering the speeds of ‘large ships’ will actually make a difference. NOAA rejected these objections, writing that both a statistical analysis of ship strike records and the peer-reviewed literature justified the final rule. In its response to the objections from the Vice President’s staff, NOAA reported that there is “no basis to overturn our previous conclusion that imposing a speed limit on large vessels would be beneficial to whales.

    Is there even the smallest bit of evil that is done by Bush and His Evil Minions&trade has to have Cheney’s finger prints all over this?

    I feel like stunned like that cow that just stepped on it’s own udder.

    Economics Update

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    First, initial unemployment insurance claims increase, ba by 35K to 380K. Note that this is an inherently noisy figure, but it’s been bad for over a month, which indicates a trend.

    Becasue of the Fed’s signals regarding future rate cuts, as na ga na do it, the dollar has strengthened, and oil has fallen a bit.

    That being said, the Euro zone appears to be under increasing stress from the different economic trajectories of its members.

    Citi appears to need more money, so it’s raising it through a $4½ billion stock offering, further diluting its stock holders equity.

    Seriously, it’s like a dog chasing its own tail…down the drain.

    We have a number out of San Diego, with house prices off dropping 19.2% since February 2007.

    This means that if someone bought a 30 year fixed mortgage, with 20% down, that they would be under water on the loan if closing and broker costs are included.

    Update on Indian MMRCA Competition

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    Proposals for the Indian Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) competition were sent in recently. See my earlier post here)

    A good rundown on the competitors is at the link, though I count the IAF’s familiarity with Russian equipment as a plus, not a minus.

    The competitors are the MiG-35 (a Mig-29 derivative), Gripen, Rafale, Typhoon, F-16 and F-18E.

    I think that the US fighters may be ruled out because of the effects of possible sanctions in the future, the US is much more aggressive in these actions than the French or British.

    The Rafal and Typhoon are too pricey.

    This leaves the MiG-35 and Gripen, with the former being cheaper to buy but more expensive to operate. The upgraded Gripen closes some of the gap in payload and range, but both are far superior to the MiG-21s that they would replace.

    Then again, we know how good my predictions are.

    Tanker Update

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    It’s been a while, so we need to feed that tanker dispute Jones.

    First, we have a press release from Northrop Grumman saying the obvious, that “Compared to the KC-767, the KC-45 can deliver more fuel at equal ranges (decreasing the number of aircraft required to meet mission requirements) or the same fuel load from greater distances (increasing potential Air Force basing options),” which is at this point in the “well duh” category, but a few lines down, they say, “Furthermore, the Air Force added that the KC-45’s greater refueling capability “Enables it to execute (the mission) with 22 fewer aircraft than Boeing’s … an efficiency of significant value to the government.”

    22 Aircraft ain’t chicken feed.

    By way of a very small cloud on the KC-45 Horizon, the Australian A330 MRTT is getting some new parts and modifications, some of which probably involve the boom.

    The bottom line on the boom, however, is that while it was invented by Boeing, it was also designed from a clean sheet by McDonnell Douglas for the KC-10, and it’s been around for 50 years. It is not rocket science.*

    *Full Disclosure, in 1999-2000 and 1996-1998, I worked as a mechanical engineer for what is now Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, and I have some claim to actually being a rocket scientist.