Found a bit of interesting old business earlier today. Obama (with is pal Ayers) is exactly the kind of lefty who insisted that bankers be compelled to give low-interest loans to people who have no business owning homes. Never let anyone tell you this was cause by unfettered capitalism... This was like demanding that doctors proscribe entire bottles of aspirin as the dose for a single headache.

That link is worth following just for learn the meaning of the term 'ninja'.

On the other hand, if you want to rant about capitalists, this article is a great place to start. (It's a repeat from an exchange a few days ago with Jerry, but it's a brilliant article, even excluding the coda.) Note that the regulatory forces (ratings agencies) were behaving horribly. I don't understand why they're not in jail.

(The words "low-interest" should probably be struck from the comment above, and replaced with "high risk". It's kind of the same thing, but the absolute, spotless truth is plenty damning enough.)

Thanks, Crid, for posting that. An essential bit from the quote from the first link, from an IBD story:

Obama, who once represented ACORN in a lawsuit against the state of Illinois, was hired by the group to train its community organizers and staff in the methods and tactics of the late Saul Alinsky. ACORN would stage in-your-face protests in bank lobbies, drive-through lanes and even at bank managers' homes to get them to issue risky loans in the inner city or face charges of racism.

In the early 1990s, reports Stanley Kurtz, senior fellow at the Ethics and Policy Center, Obama was personally recruited by Chicago's ACORN to run training sessions in "direct action." That's the euphemism for the techniques used under the cover of the federal Community Reinvestment Act to intimidate financial institutions into giving what have been called "Ninja" loans — no income, no job, no assets — to people who couldn't afford them.

CRA was designed to increase minority homeownership. Whenever a bank wanted to grow or expand, ACORN would file complaints that it was not sufficiently sensitive to the needs of minorities in providing home loans. Agitators would then be unleashed.

Chicago's ACORN used Alinsky's tactics against institutions such as Bell Federal Savings and Loan and Avondale Federal Savings. In September 1992, the Chicago Tribune described the group's agenda as "affirmative action lending."

I am disgusted by the star-worship of politicians -- politicians in general. Yet, I see the same people who were vitriolic in going after people who liked George Bush because they thought he seemed a good guy to have a beer with being slavish in their devotion to the Great And Powerful Obama.

And I have to say, George Bush does seem like a guy you could have a beer with, and as Hitchens put it in a recent Atlantic, Obama seems like a cool "cat," personality-wise. But, too many people take the personality bits and party affiliation and run with them and ignore flaws in character, experience, and where a politician is coming from politically, economically, and otherwise.

Before the election, I asked fellows at work if they were ready for President Obama to be treated like President Bush.

Now they are furious, and hide when they can, when the policies he is promoting are mentioned. They are easily convicted of hypocrisy.

People don't want to believe me when I tell them that the genesis of this whole real-estate boom and bust came from the actions and policies of the Democratic party and their various agitators.

Now that the media isn't covering for them, buyer's remorse is setting in.

Who's ready for President Biden?

Doogie Howser? No way!
Macalay Culkin, maybe.

Beavis: exact fit if you ask me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beavis

Let's faced it -- between both parties -- US society is fucked. We became fucked when it became more beneficial to lie than be honest. When misdeeds were rewarded and good behavior and personal responsibility shunned.

If one more person lectures me on being too honest for my own damned good. If I get screwed for it one more time.

I can barely walk but am turned down for our handicapped bus program by the city buses because I struggle to get to the bus and get to work. In other words because I'm being responsible enough to take care of myself until when and if I get to the point that it becomes utterly impossible (something that's gonna happen faster on the regular street bus) instead of throwing my hands up in the air and declaring I can't even work a desk job.

Oh, and 3 guesses everyone what the disability advocate's telling me to do? Over my protests that I can't lie because I'm so freaking uncomfortable with lying that it's rather obvious when I am.

The American people remain on his side, but he has to be careful that the gathering judgment of the Bigs doesn't trickle down to the rest of us.

All I can think in response to this is "What you mean 'We', Kemosabe?" I haven't been on his side ever. I haven't really liked any president since Bush Sr., and I was young at the time.

We are just so screwed.

Cargo Cult Economics

The government attaches the word "simulus" to its spending and people are fooled. Calling something a rose doesn't make it a rose. What is a "stimulus" anyway? I know what a "handout" is, and the government is expert at that. Where is an example of a "stimulus" and who exactly was stimulated? Obama said (paraphrase) "They say this is a spending bill, not a stimulus bill. Of course it is a spending bill. That is the whole point."

Government spenders and casual observers see personal and business spending, and the associated employment and prosperity. They come to the wrong conclusion: that the spending created the prosperity.

Sad to say, this is a type of Cargo Cult centered around money. The late economist John Maynard Keynes is the shaman of this cult.

. Cargo Cult - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult
. Keynes - easyopinions.blogspot.com/2008/11/political-dictionary.html#keynes

Stimulus would be great, except the government which promises to spend money is also promising to take that money away from the people who are already spending and investing. No investment or asset is safe from the government, so people are not risking their effort and savings.

The economy is bad because no one can predict the future with a big government elephant stomping around. The elephant can't solve the problem, and it scares away the elves who can solve the problem. The elves are small, but they are smart and there are a lot of them.

The spending and the saving of taxpayers is just as "stimulative" as when the government takes the money and spends it. Politicians make a shameful, distorted argument for raising taxes so that they and their supporters can benefit from the money. This is a crazy, economic defense of robbery.

With all the problems Obama has had you'd almost think he didn't have the experience for the job.

Nahhhh, that can't be it. He was a "community organizer" after all. Once he starts applying that skillset to the almost identical position of "leader of the free world" everything will be wonderful.

Bernie Goldberg's new book about the Media's love affair with obama is a good read. One chapter almost knocked me out of my chair. He describes an interview of Tom Brokaw by I think, Charlie Rose, a week or so before the election. The 2 of them are talking about Obama and China and Brokaw notes that "they really don't know where Obama stands on China, or a lot of things for that matter". No shit sherlock! And who's job was it to find out those things????