The mortgage fraud continues

This is, of course, shocking news given that the banks had promised – cross their heart – that they would stop doing what they originally claimed wasn’t happening:

Mortgage industry employees are still signing documents they haven’t read and using fake signatures more than eight months after big banks and mortgage companies promised to stop the illegal practices that led to a nationwide halt of home foreclosures. County officials in at least three states say they have received thousands of mortgage documents with questionable signatures since last fall, suggesting that the practices, known collectively as “robo-signing,” remain widespread in the industry.

The documents have come from several companies that process mortgage paperwork, and have been filed on behalf of several major banks. One name, “Linda Green,” was signed almost two dozen different ways. Lenders say they are working with regulators to fix the problem but cannot explain why it has persisted….

In Guilford County, N.C., the office that records deeds says it received 456 documents with suspect signatures from Oct. 1, 2010, through June 30. The documents, mortgage assignments and certificates of satisfaction, transfer loans from one bank to another or certify a loan has been paid off.

It’s a mystery, to be sure. In other news, car thieves announced that they are working with insurance companies to fix the problem of automotive theft, but cannot explain why it has persisted.

Sovereign debt expanding

The centralizers always believe that going big will be a solution, but all it means is that the postponed bust will be bigger.

What this chart shows is the way that governments have attempted to arrest the ongoing debt deleveraging by swapping private debt for theoretically more secure “sovereign debt”.  However, as the incipient defaults of Greece, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, and possibly Italy demonstrate, sovereign debt is no more intrinsically secure than any other form of debt; there have been hundreds of sovereign debt defaults in the last 200 years.  This chart shows that the explosion of government debt in the last two years is not limited to the USA, which is why the coming contraction is going to be a) worldwide, and b) an order of magnitude larger than the 1929 – 1940 depression.

WND column

The Third Bush

The president, who has at times been known as Barack Obama, is clearly in trouble. No president except FDR has ever been re-elected with an unemployment rate higher than 9 percent. The erstwhile Barry Soetoro was an anti-war candidate who currently presides over no less than six foreign wars (three of them of his making), he has betrayed practically every campaign promise he made while running for president and he has apparently never met a Goldman Sachs executive he didn’t want to nominate to his cabinet. The only surprise about his low approval ratings, 42 percent according to Gallup and -15 as per Rasmussen’s Presidential Approval Index, is that they aren’t even worse.

It is clear that a Republican candidate should have little problem beating Obama in the 2012 presidential election, assuming he even decides to run for re-election. (I have been skeptical of the assumption that Obama would even be on the 2012 ballot since July 2010.) Gallup has the generic “Republican candidate” leading Obama by an 8 percent margin, 47 to 39. Unfortunately for the Republican Party, they cannot put forward a generic candidate, but must select a specific one.

The subjective unicorn

In which I both praise and criticize the esteemed publisher of Black Gate’s recent blog post concerning The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction and the balance of sex with regards to Black Gate contributors. First, I believe it is entirely admirable to investigate one’s motivations underlying one’s actions. Second, in a free society, a publisher is, and should be, free to publish whatever and whomever he wants. I take no exception to all-female anthologies, neither am I troubled by collections of stories that are entirely devoid of female contributors. Third, I entirely support John in his efforts to strike what he considers to be a reasonable balance between excellence in fiction and equitable sexual contributions primarily because it is clear that his modified approach has not caused the quality of the magazine to suffer. As an early subscriber, I think the magazine has grown consistently stronger under his direction.

Read the rest at the Black Gate

The danger of Wikipedia

The nice thing about Wikipedia is that you can always find a quote for every subject. The dangerous thing about it is that you can easily find yourself applying such quotes incorrectly when you clearly don’t know a damn thing about the subject:

The easy thing now might be to proclaim that debt is evil and ask everyone — consumers, the federal government, state governments — to get thrifty. The pithiest version of that strategy comes from Andrew W. Mellon, the Treasury secretary when the Depression began: “Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate,” Mellon said, according to his boss, President Herbert Hoover. “It will purge the rottenness out of the system.”

History, however, has a different verdict. If governments stop spending at the same time that consumers do, the economy can enter a vicious cycle, as it did in Hoover’s day.

The minor point that David Leonhardt omitted from his article is the small fact that Hoover didn’t listen to Mellon. Mellon’s strategy was never enacted. Hoover overrode the objections of his “liquidationist” Secretary of the Treasury and embarked upon a spending program that was increased faster, in percent of GDP, than anything that FDR subsequently did. The failure of Herbert Hoover was not a failure of austerity, it was the same failure of Keynesian interventionism that FDR repeated.

There are 112 comments from the educated readers of the New York Times following the article. Not a single one points out this fundamental error. So, it appears that the old adage about those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it is more than a little applicable to the present situation.

Captain Underoos makes two bad hires

Dean Baker, who is among those who foresaw the 2008 meltdown, notes that Romney’s economic advisers didn’t:

That’s right, the Washington Post told readers that the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination is relying on two economists, Greg Mankiw and Glenn Hubbard, who completely missed the $8 trillion housing bubble whose collapse wrecked the economy. Unfortunately the Post neglected to mention this fact to readers.

Since Romney is making his ability to manage the economy the centerpiece of his campaign it would have been worth noting that his two top economic advisers were unable to see the largest asset bubble in the history of the world. This might raise some questions about Mr. Romney’s competence.

It probably won’t, since there is practically no one in the media, still less the opinion pages, who knows the first thing about economics. But it certainly should.

The imitation of Man

Susan Walsh highlights a fundamental feminist deceit to which far too many women subscribe:

As you can see, there is considerable confusion about the concept of the feminine among contemporary young women, as well as decidedly different political philosophies….

I’m not qualified to give advice on how to be feminine. I’m guilty of having nurtured the feisty tomboy persona myself. That’s why I’m all ears when men describe what femininity is and why they value it. It’s clear they know it when they see it. In closing, I’ll share with you reader detinennui32′s first of 10 Commandments for Women:

1. Thou shalt cultivate a feminine demeanor and bearing. Thou shalt not try to be, look like, or act like a man. Thou shalt observe and obey this Commandment above all others.

First and foremost, it is important to understand that the vast majority of men are not attracted to men or male qualities. Around two percent of the male population is and those men are called “homosexuals”. Logic therefore dictates that cultivating an attitude and behaving in a manner that appeals to a very small minority of men who are not sexually interested in women will be counterproductive for the woman who wishes men to find her attractive.

One of the core components of feminism has been to provide social incentive for women to imitate male behavior. This is reflected in the increasingly androgynous female attire over the last fifty years as well as the increasingly masculine appearance of women who are held up as paragons of female achievement in the media. (Also, so few women genuinely look good in jeans that it’s really best to avoid them altogether.) Consider Madonna, who is one of the leading examples of female accomplishment, and yet was likened to “a piece of gristle” by her ex-husband, Guy Ritchie.

Now, since what is feminine is by definition the opposite of what is masculine, one can readily determine feminine traits by considering masculine ones. Confidence, courage, independence, ambition, strength, decisiveness, straightforwardness, simplicity, and self-reliance are all core masculine traits.

Therefore, it is incumbent upon the woman who wishes to be perceived as feminine to avoid exhibiting these traits. This doesn’t mean that a woman needs to be cowardly or weak, only that she should avoid projecting her manly fearlessness even in the unlikely case that it is genuine and not the customary false female bravada that crumbles the moment it is challenged. Of course, since even the most masculine woman is less masculine than the average man, the attempt to imitate these masculine traits tends to ring false, hence the inherent humor in young women who march about asserting how strong and independent they are as they visit their therapists on Daddy’s dime.

Get the feminine attitude right and the superficial aspects will eventually follow. Men are attracted to women who smile, who bat their eyelashes, who blush, who are supportive rather than challenging, who trouble to make themselves pretty, and above all, who appeal to their sense of play rather than their sense of work.

And finally, since it’s been reported that about a third of tomboys grow up to be lesbians, it should be apparent that imitating male behavioral patterns is likely to send unintended messages to men and women alike.

Black Democrat plays race card

And in other news, grass is still green, water is still wet, and Republicans are still going to cave under the media pressure:

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) on Friday strongly suggested that members of Congress are making it difficult for President Obama to raise the debt ceiling because of his race.

That’s right, Sheila. They raciss! Everything is raciss! The sun rose this morning and it was raciss! The White Man don’t like it when it’s DARK outside. He raciss!

Here is a suggestion for Rep. Lee. In the event you do not wish people to believe you are genetically inclined to sub par intelligence, it might be useful to avoid publicly demonstrating a complete inability to identify the relationship between cause and effect.

The end of the public school

It is becoming increasingly difficult for parents with even a vestigial respect for traditional morality to sentence their children for 12 years of gay and feminist propaganda complemented by intellectual lobotomization:

Public schools in California will be required to teach students about the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans starting Jan. 1 after Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday signed a controversial bill to add the topic to the social sciences curriculum. Textbooks now must include information on the role of LGBT Americans, as well as Americans with disabilities, though California’s budget crisis has delayed the purchasing of new books until at least 2015….

Gay rights advocates said they will be vigilant about making sure schools across California comply.

Again and again, the wicked are forced to learn the hard way that the fact that God is slow to anger does not mean that He can be safely mocked. I wouldn’t be surprised if those gay textbooks are never printed.

It’s certainly informative to know that in a time of educational crisis, when many California schoolchildren can’t read, write, or even speak English, they will be well-trained to serve as fodder for the California chickenhawks.

Ten years ago, I argued that the public school system should be outlawed, the school buildings dismantled, and the grounds sown with salt. I suspect that not a few of those who disagreed with me then are finally beginning to come around and realize that the purpose of public school is not education.