The Atlantic has a fascinating article describing how neighborhoods hollowed out by foreclosures quickly become slums.
Unkempt lawns, squatters, etc. lead to a downward path toward unsustainable neighborhoods.
It leads one to wonder if at some points municipalities will use eminent domain to seize and demolish the homes, as has been going on in Detroit for some time.
Not a pretty picture.
Brad Delong points to a series of very interesting critiques Walt and Mearsheimer’s book, The Israel Lobby. Specifically, he cites a quote from their original paper, “The mere existence of the Lobby suggests that unconditional support for Israel is not in the American national interest. If it was, one would not need an organized special interest to bring it about.”
This would of course apply to NOW, NARAL, the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Humane Society, etc.
They must necessarily be acting against the interests of the US, because otherwise they would not need an organized special interest to bring it about.
It is utilitarianism taken to absurd extremes.
It is the idea that the national best interest is immediately apparent to any policy maker, and so the only time one needs a lobbyist is when one wishes to make the government operate in a member contrary to government interest.
This is tremendously naive at best.
Hillary Clinton is finally going after Barack Obama’s dishonest right wing attacks on health care reform.
This is going to make any health care plan nigh-impossible if Obama gets elected. Thanks.
Universal Healthcare is more than a core Democratic Party value. It’s essential to save this nation.
What’s more, it will change the dynamic of governance in the US for decades to come, and will create a Democratic majority nationwide for decades to come.
And Barack Obama is campaigning against it, because he thinks that he’s just so awesome that he will get Republicans to support him in slitting their own throats politically.
2½ months ago, I commented on a peculiar foreclosure case, where the judge had halted a foreclosure because the holder of the title could not be confirmed.
The title had not been properly processed as the mortgage was packaged and repackaged.
Well, it looks like this problem may be far more widespread than previously anticipated:
Joe Lents hasn’t made a payment on his $1.5 million mortgage since 2002.
That’s when Washington Mutual Inc. first tried to foreclose on his home in Boca Raton, Florida. The Seattle-based lender failed to prove that it owned Lents’s mortgage note and dropped attempts to take his house. Subsequent efforts to foreclose have stalled because no one has produced the paperwork.
“If you’re going to take my house away from me, you better own the note,” said Lents, 63, the former chief executive officer of a now-defunct voice recognition software company.
Seven years of no payments on a million dollar plus mortgage for two years, because the creditors cannot prove that they own the mortgage.
They simply cannot find out where the paper that says, “I own the mortgage”, is, and how to assign it to the proper entity.
This means that there may be trillions of dollars in which there is no note, and hence no way to enforce the mortgage.
It should be noted that the WSJ dishonesty editorial page was one of the prime media outlets enabling this:
Extortion and money laundering are usually the province of gangsters, not Western Congressmen. That changed yesterday with the indictment of GOP Representative Rick Renzi of Arizona on charges that he used his seat on the House Natural Resources Committee to enrich himself through a trail of payoffs on land deals.
…
Yep, McConnell and Mukasey are at it again claiming that intelligence is being lost because there is no Telco Immunity, except of course for this:
But hours later, administration officials told lawmakers that the final holdout among the companies had relented and agreed to fully participate in the surveillance program, according to an official familiar with the issue.
The Telcos broke the law and surveilled people without warrants, startinb 7 months before 9-11, and they would like to be excused, but it is not stopping them from cooperating new.
Banks are now cancelling or freezing existing home equity lines in areas with formerly frothy markets, because they believe that the homeowners owe more than they can pay.
So, the FEC has said that McCain has opted in for the primary, and that unless the FEC approves his petion to pull out, which it cannot because it lacks quorum, he cannot opt out. (here and here)
The WaPo story has the money quote’
This is serious,’ agreed Republican election lawyer Jan Baran. Ignoring the matter on the grounds that the FEC lacks a quorum, Baran said, ‘is like saying you’re going to break into houses because the sheriff is out of town.’
As I’ve said before, if Barack Obama wants an out for the general election, all he has to do is explain that McCain is already violating campaign finance law.
In the matter of inappropriate dealings with lobbyists and their clients, we have broadcast station owner Lowell “Bud” Paxson directly contradicting McCains “no meetings’ statement, and we have letters from McCain threatening the FCC regarding a loophole in regulations that benefited Glencairn Ltd. and Sinclair communications. Glencairn’s lobbyist? Vicki Iseman.
I do not believe that John McCain screwed Vicki Iseman, but I do believe that McCain and Iseman did screw the American public.
Finally, we are starting to see coverage regarding how the national media is in the tank for McCain.
It’s only been 9 years for someone to recognize that.
Nader to run again.
Has this self centered, sanctimonious, rat-f&^% done anything useful over the past 8 years?
It’s all about him, I guess.
The SEIU-UHW has, over the past 10 years, negociated contracts with nearly 200 hospitals and nursing homes in california so that they expire all at the same time.
This means that they can negotiate with all the institutions at once, and that if any one of them cut a contract, they can use it for pattern bargaining, and that in the event of a strike, the institutions in question cannot simply shift resources to institutions that are not struck.
This is a very savvy move.
Full press release follows:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
August 11, 2007WORKERS PREPARE FOR LARGEST COORDINATED HEALTHCARE BARGAINING CAMPAIGN IN HISTORY
Event Bringing Together Caregivers from Several States to be Covered by Blogger
OAKLAND — A delegation of 700 healthcare workers from six states will gather in Oakland on Saturday to plan for a coordinated bargaining campaign in 2008, when contracts at more than 200 hospitals and nursing homes will expire, creating an opportunity for caregivers to achieve unprecedented victories for working people across the United States.
The convention in California, to be hosted by SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West, represents the first time that healthcare workers will coordinate their bargaining campaigns on such a massive scale. Caregivers from California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Minnesota and Connecticut will participate in the event.
“This meeting represents an unprecedented opportunity for healthcare workers from around the country to work together for improved standards such as the right to stand up for our patients and residents,” said Sal Rosselli, president of SEIU UHW. “Healthcare workers do the same work everywhere in the country, and it only makes sense that we come together to work toward our common goal.”
Healthcare workers at several SEIU local unions plan to coordinate their bargaining campaigns next year, in order to maximize their ability to improve quality care for their patients, raise industry standards and win a voice on the job. More than 150,000 caregivers will benefit from this coordination by achieving the ability to advocate for improved patient care through their union.
Adding a unique twist to the proceedings will be the presence of netroots blogger Elliott Petty of the progressive online California group Courage Campaign, who plans to post live updates to his site, http://couragecampaign.org/page/community/blog/elliottpetty, as the meeting progresses through the day. He will also post at MyDD and Open Left, two major national political blogs.
“I am delighted to have the opportunity to observe, participate, and interact with UHW’s members at this meeting,” Petty said. “The best way to build bridges between labor and the online communities is to engage in actions with each other. Progressives win when we are united, which this effort will help us to be.”
Petty’s participation is an outgrowth of UHW’s involvement with the YearlyKos convention earlier this month, in which UHW leaders met with numerous members of the progressive blogosphere to discuss ways that their online activism can dovetail with the grassroots worker and political organizing of labor unions. The union plans to hold a retreat for progressive bloggers in the fall.
“Our values of member democracy, openness, and dialogue and debate are mirrored by those of the netroots community,” Rosselli said. “We look forward to continuing to work with online activists who share our goals and values.”
Rosselli and several healthcare workers will be available for interview throughout the week and on Saturday.
The 140,000-member SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West is the largest hospital and healthcare union in the western United States and represents every type of healthcare worker, including nurses, professional, technical and service classifications. Our mission is to achieve high-quality healthcare for all.
######
SEIU United Healthcare Workers—West, with more than 152,000 members, is the largest and most powerful hospital and healthcare union in the Western U.S. We represent every type of healthcare worker, including nursing, professional, technical and service classifications. Our mission is to achieve high quality healthcare for all.
Video, with ads, courtesy of 60 Minutes.
A B-2 bomber crashed on takeoff at Guam today. Both pilots have ejected safely, though one is still in hospital, listed as “stable”.
$1.2 billion, and 1 of only 21 of the stealth bombers in an instant.
This is why the Air Force’s fascination with silver bullets is so counter productive. You could get 95% of the performance, and many times the numbers, for less than half the price.
Too true. Too Funny.
A University of Minnesota study indicates that cat owners are less likely to die from heart attacks or strokes.
Non-cat owners, including people who kept dogs as pets, were 30-40% more likely to die of these conditions.
I, for one, appreciate the benefits of my feline overlords.
According to El Reg, New Scientist descriped it as looking like the great eye of Sauron
Clico image for big honking version (2400 x 3000, around 1 meg)
A week or so ago, I sent an email to my Senators regarding the FISA update and Telco immunity.
I congratulated Ben Cardin, and castigated Senator Barbara Mikulski for their votes on telco immunity, which is really all about covering up the misdeeds of the Bush administration.
Here is her response, and my comments, which I’m not sending, because it won’t do any good:
Thank you for getting in touch with me to express your concerns about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). I appreciate learning of your views about this important matter.
As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I am very aware that terrorists plan and intend to harm the United States and the American people. I hear about these threats every day – and I take them very seriously. Yet I agree with you – that even as our nation faces new threats, Constitutional protections must be safeguarded.
Which is why she decided to allow the phone companies to Hoover the records of every call in the US and all the internet traffic.
To quote Keith Olbermann:
Mark Klein is the AT&T whistleblower who appeared on this newscast last November, who explained, in the placid, dull terms of your local neighborhood I-T desk, how he personally attached all of AT&T’s circuits — everything carrying every phone call, every e-mail, every bit of web browsing — into a secure room…
…Room Number 641-A, at the Folsom Street facility in San Francisco — where it was all copied so the government could look at it.
Not some of it; not just the international part of it; certainly not just the stuff some truly patriotic and telepathic spy might be able to divine had been sent or spoken by or to a terrorist.
Everything.
Every time you looked at a naked picture, every time you bid on eBay, every time you phoned-in a donation to a Democrat.
“My thought was ‘George Orwell’s 1984,’” Mr. Klein told me, reflecting back, “and here I am, being forced to… connect the Big Brother machine.”
You know, Mr. Bush, if Mr. Klein’s “Big Brother Machine” — the one the Vice President conveniently just confirmed for us — if it was of any damn use at all at actually finding anything, you could probably program it to find out who started that slanderous e-mail about Barack Obama.
Your actions are inexcusable and unforgivable.
The FISA Act was created in 1978 to regulate how electronic surveillance was conducted in the United States . This law needs to be updated to account for changes in communications technology over the last thirty years.
I’ve yet to see any reason for this. What FISA says is, “if you think that there is an issue with foreign communications, you get the tap, but a judge has to approve it within 72 hours.
That’s why I voted for a bipartisan bill that updates a number of problems with the existing law. This new legislation (S. 2248) strengthens national security while protecting civil liberties. The bill also strengthens the role of the FISA Court by requiring greater judicial review and improves oversight and accountability of the entire FISA process. The Senate passed S. 2248 by a vote of 68 – 29 on February 12, 2008. One key provision I fought to include in this bill was a requirement that a warrant must be approved by the FISA Court to monitor a U.S. person anywhere in the world. This new protection means that the Constitution travels with you – even beyond the borders of the United States.
Under FISA, you need a warrant within 72 hours for anyone. How is this “stronger”.
I understand your concerns about providing limited liability protection to telecommunication companies who assisted the government’s efforts to disrupt terrorist plots in the days following the attacks on September 11, 2001. While the Bush Administration wanted full retroactive immunity for these companies and any White House employee or government official involved in the warrantless wiretapping program, S. 2248 provides a more narrow, focused, and limited liability protection . I strongly supported an amendment offered by Senator Feinstein that would have required the FISA Court to determine if liability protection should be afforded to these telecommunications companies. Unfortunately, that amendment failed to get enough votes to become part of the bill.
Your ignorance astonishes me. This program did not start, “the days following the attacks on September 11, 2001”, it started in February, 2001, a full 7 months before the attacks, and it is clear now that the administration used threats of retribution on government contracts, as in the case of Qwest to get compliance.
When the Senate debated this bill, I supported this protection because those companies were acting in good faith under assurances from the President and the Attorney General that what they were being asked to do was legal. You should know that I also support holding accountable those Bush Administration officials who disregarded the law under the President’s secret wiretapping program.
These companies have legal departments. They know the law. And they are already protected when they follow the law. If they were told that a FISA warrant was in process, they would be indemnified.
Your claim that you, “support holding accountable those Bush Administration officials who disregarded the law under the President’s secret wiretapping program”, is a lie.
Whats more, in your capacity as a member of the intelligence committee, YOU are one of those people who allowed him to disregard the law.
I have heard from many Marylanders on this important issue and I appreciate hearing of your concerns. While we may disagree on some parts of this reform, we both share the same goal of strengthening national security while protecting our civil liberties.
No, you are interested in covering your ass, in one of the bluest states in the nation against Republican attack ads. That;s why you, and about 1/3 of the Democratic Senatorial caucus folded like broccoli to George W. Bush, who is less popular than hemorrhoids.
Again, thanks for keeping in touch with me. Please let me know if I may be of assistance to you in the future.
Sincerely,
Barbara A. Mikulski
United States Senator
Just so you know, I will never vote for you in a primary or general ever again, nor will I give to an organization that endorses you.
In local finance, we have King County, Washington potentially losing all of a $207 investment, the county claims that they will “only” lose 83 million, the state says all of it.
This will be repeated, and given that the auction rate bond market has collapsed, and localities are fleeing that instrument, their ability to issue bonds will be significantly diminished.
Don’t expect any new money to spent on roads, schools, water, sewer, fire, or police for the next 5-10 years.
In real estate we should note that 8.8 million homeowners, or 10.3% of all home owner are under water. They owe more than they can sell their houses for.
Gas prices hit are way up, which is an ill wind for consumer spending, which counts for 70% of the US economy.
Analysts are warning of risks to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which makes the decision to allow them to finance even larger mortgages appear even stupider.
Fitch Ratings is saying that life insurance companies may take an $8 billion dollar hit on subprime and alt-A real estate investments.
It also looks like we will be seeing downgrades on the monoline insurers within a week or so.
And in hedge funds, we have D.B. Zwirn & Co. seemingly on the path to shutting down. It has shuttered its Special Opportunities Fund, a $4 billion hedge fund. Once it unwinds this, and it may take a while, they have less than $1 billion under management.
We also have Clifford Asness’ AQR Capital Management showing that mathematics based strategies are not working:
Asness’ AQR Capital Management has notified investors that its Absolute Return Fund, long one of Wall Street’s most stellar performing quantitative hedge funds, lost 15 percent of its value through mid-February. The slide follows an 11.9 percent drop through the end of November.
Bloomberg reported Friday that AQR flagship hedge fund now manages $2.9 billion, down from $4 billion.
I think that its clear, and should have been clear after LTCM went belly up nearly a decade ago, that these model based hedge funds don’t work.
The models break down when you get significant swings.
I’m so totally not surprised. Sill makes me wrong on my prediction though.
it looks like they got a firestorm of criticism, so they have reversed their earlier decision to close the economic stats site.
Michael Isikoff has the goods: McCain’s claims of never talking to anyone from Paxson Communications is false:
A sworn deposition that Sen. John McCain gave in a lawsuit more than five years ago appears to contradict one part of a sweeping denial that his campaign issued this week to rebut a New York Times story about his ties to a Washington lobbyist.
On Wednesday night the Times published a story suggesting that McCain might have done legislative favors for the clients of the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, who worked for the firm of Alcalde & Fay. One example it cited were two letters McCain wrote in late 1999 demanding that the Federal Communications Commission act on a long-stalled bid by one of Iseman’s clients, Florida-based Paxson Communications, to purchase a Pittsburgh television station.
Just hours after the Times’s story was posted, the McCain campaign issued a point-by-point response……
But that flat claim seems to be contradicted by an impeccable source: McCain himself. “I was contacted by Mr. Paxson on this issue,” McCain said in the Sept. 25, 2002, deposition obtained by NEWSWEEK. “He wanted their approval very bad for purposes of his business. I believe that Mr. Paxson had a legitimate complaint.”
…
McCain’s subsequent letters to the FCC—coming around the same time that Paxson’s firm was flying the senator to campaign events aboard its corporate jet and contributing $20,000 to his campaign—first surfaced as an issue during his unsuccessful 2000 presidential bid. William Kennard, the FCC chair at the time, described the sharply worded letters from McCain, then chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, as “highly unusual.”
So, what we have here at best is what he did with Charles Keating, and now he is lying about it.
You have more details on his ties to lobbyists and wealthy pay-to-play campaign contributors here and here.
The Washington Post notes that McCain’s paid campaign staff is full of lobbyists, which kind of means that when AP Reporter Glen Johnson heckled Mitt Romney about not having lobbyist on staff, he was being unfair and unprofessional.