This is a very good article on what the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems is, and how it is a corrupt it is as an enterprise.
The gist can be gathered by the sub-head, “Hint: It Holds 60% of All Mortgages, But Has ZERO Employees.”
Go read it.
Category: Good Writing
The Last Word on Juan Williams
Of course, it’s Jon Stewart and The Daily Show:
NPR — you just brought a tote bag full of David Sedaris books to a knife fight.
My favorite bit was their entirely accurate characterization of Washington, DC traffic.
A warning: Don’t drink anything while watching this, you will spew!
Here is a Primer on Mortgage Backed Securities, REMICS, and Mortgage Frauds
This is fairly long as blog posts go, but it hits all the bases, and makes it clear just how f%$#ed the system actually is.
Even if this does not save a single homeowner, it is clear that these problems have the effects of rendering almost every major financial institution in the US insolvent.
Go read.
If You Read One Article on the Fraud and Corruption in MERS
The title says it all, “What Is MERS and What Role Does It Have in the Foreclosure Mess? (Hint: It Holds 60% of All Mortgages, But Has ZERO Employees).”
Just go read it.
How to Pet a Kitty
Too True
You can read the rest at the Oatmeal, and I highly recommend that you do so.
A Good Comment on Junk Science
Paul Munro of XKCD gives us this cogent take-down of much of the junk science out there.
If this sh%$ worked, not only would business be all over this like white on rice, but they would be patenting the hell out of it as well.
I am not a Witch, I’m You, Except With Bigger T%$s
Elvira takes on Christin O’Donnell, and amazingly enough, it’s safe for work:
Just Read This
Yves Smith again:
The Obama Administration is entirely predictable. It ever and always sides with large corporate interests, while trying to create the impression that it is actually concerned for the welfare of the average citizen. Admittedly, the occasionally tough talk with little follow through feeds a perverse spectacle of plutocrats sulking, pouting, and claiming that they are really, really badly treated.
……
There are so many people on the internet who write, and think, gooder than I do.
My only addition on this is her there are limits to looting without productive activity, and when we run down that string, things will get very ugly very quickly.
Normally I Don’t Like Andy Borowitz’s Humor…
But his take-down of Ginny Thomas’s “drunk dialing” phone harassment of Anita Hill, is truly an thing of beauty:
Three Things to Do When Clarence Thomas’s Wife Calls You
Posted by Andy BorowitzLike many Americans, over the past several years I have been the recipient of multiple unwelcome voicemails from the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. These calls have come in the middle of the night, at the crack of dawn, even at the dinner hour favored by telemarketers. Regardless of the time of day, all of these voicemails have one thing in common: she always sounds like she’s drunk-dialing me, except she appears to be completely sober.
………
One final note: if you get a call in the middle of the night and there is silence on the other end, that is not Virginia Thomas. That is Clarence Thomas.
A very well deserved take-down of a classless and corrupt, she is clearly playing on her marriage to a Supreme Court justice to secure large donations for her AstroTurf group, woman.
Go read Borowitz. He is very funny here.
Stop Drinking and Watch
Jon Stewart on unforced campaigning errors.
If you drink, you will spew:
Not Enough Bullets
So, once again, Congress refuses to act, so billionaire hedge fund managers can continue to pay less in taxes than the janitors who clean their offices:
Once again a key piece of news has passed virtually without comment.
While the entire nation argues over nonsense like the WTC Mosque, Rick Sanchez, and, yes, blue-red culture war stuff like the Tea Party, congress yesterday quietly took a knee on the “carried interest” tax question. In doing so they decided not to take a vote on changes already approved by both houses that would scale back perhaps the most preposterous tax break in the entire federal code, one that leaves hedge-fund gazillionaires like Stevie Cohen and John Paulson paying less than half the top tax rate paid by most middle and upper-middle class Americans.
In case you don’t recognize the writing style, it’s Matt Taibbi, and I suggest that you read the whole article, because he communicates the disgust that I feel far more cogently that I ever could.
Quote of the Day
Vast forests have already been sacrificed to the public debate about the Tea Party: what it is, what it means, where it’s going. But after lengthy study of the phenomenon, I’ve concluded that the whole miserable narrative boils down to one stark fact: They’re full of sh%$.
–Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone
($# mine)
He had a conversation with a man who has worked as a tax assessor his whole life, and hence is being paid by our tax dollars, and whose wife is on Medicare, and has a scooter funded by the program, but they aren’t the problem, it’s the other who is sucking the marrow out of our society.
Just go read it.
I Can Now Retire as a Blogger
All I have to do is to outsource my political analysis to Jon Stewart, and use this article by Martin Robbins for science:
This is a news website article about a scientific paper
In the standfirst I will make a fairly obvious pun about the subject matter before posing an inane question I have no intention of really answering: is this an important scientific finding?
In this paragraph I will state the main claim that the research makes, making appropriate use of “scare quotes” to ensure that it’s clear that I have no opinion about this research whatsoever.
In this paragraph I will briefly (because no paragraph should be more than one line) state which existing scientific ideas this new research “challenges”.
………
This paragraph contained useful information or context, but was removed by the sub-editor to keep the article within an arbitrary word limit in case the internet runs out of space.The final paragraph will state that some part of the result is still ambiguous, and that research will continue.
Related Links:
The Journal (not the actual paper, we don’t link to papers).
The University Home Page (finding the researcher’s page would be too much effort).
I think that there is a Dilbert cartoon in which Dogbert sells a “forever” newspaper, but this is better written, and the article is better drawn as well, or at least the, “picture has been optimised by SEO experts to appeal to our key target demographics,” is.
Quote of the Day
Same as it ever was
This really does encapsulate Washington, DC, or at least the White and Federal part of the District:
When you can read an entire column by the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz and never once feel the urge to cut out your own heart with a dull knife, you know that you no longer have the sense of outrage that is essential to reporting from our nation’s capital.
–Now former Washington, DC editor for Harpers Ken Silverstein, explaining why, though he will still write for the publication, he can no longer be their Washington Editor.
Basically, he has realized that if you don’t go native, you will go insane, and Mr. Silverstein has chosen to get out of Dodge.
He notes how little that things have changed:
I moved to Washington in 1993, when a young, new Democratic president replaced George Bush and promised to reform politics and be a transformative leader. Backed by huge majorities in Congress and with public opinion squarely in his corner, he had the opportunity to shake things up and change American politics. Instead, he and his party squandered their chance through timidity, weak leadership, a lack of any original ideas and their refusal to confront special interest groups.
Here we are seventeen years later and there’s a young, new Democratic president who replaced George Bush and promised to reform politics and be a transformative leader. Backed by huge majorities in Congress….
Well, by now you can probably guess where this is heading.
I also appreciate his observation that, “The [Obama Health Care] bill is widely unpopular, and not only because of the hyperbolic attacks on it by Republicans and Fox News. It’s unpopular because it’s a terrible piece of legislation.”
He will be working for a foundation doing long form journalism.
Go read his swan song. It’s a great piece of work.
That Will Leave a Mark
Leon H. Wolf reviews Meghan McCain’s book Dirty, Sexy Politics:
This article, of course, is not about capital punishment. It is a book review of Dirty, Sexy Politics by Meghan McCain. However, the above discussion is relevant because I initially had reservations about writing this book review at all. After all, it is clear to everyone who has read Meghan McCain’s twitter feed, her “articles” on The Daily Beast, or her ill-fated campaign blog that Meghan is not a paragon of clear reasoning, exemplar of familiarity with facts, nor a model of English language expertise. And after subjecting myself to 194 continuous pages of her “writing,” it became clear that none of the above-described works truly plumbed the depths of mental vacuity in which Ms. McCain aimlessly and cluelessly drifts.
This presented a dilemma.
It is impossible to read Dirty, Sexy Politics and come away with the impression that you have read anything other than the completely unedited ramblings of an idiot. This being a professional website for which I have a great deal of respect, I searched for a more eloquent or gentle way to accurately phrase the previous sentence – but could not find one.
Sometimes a bad review is a joy, though I would argue that this one is a longer than it needs to be.
Go read.
H/t Ken Silverstein.
Jon Stewart on Religious Tolerance
Well really, it’s less about tolerance than it is an equal opportunity slam at the extremists in general, noting that when you take the Tanakh, Christian Bible, or Koran literally, you see violence, and hatred, and perhaps the problem is that taking the text literally.
There is also the prize line, “Who’s funding these radical Christian clerics?”
It Looks Like a Commenter on the Blog Will Become Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors
Austan Goolsbee, who I’ve posted about a dozen times or so, objected to a post of mine, and I (with permission) posted his response to my blog.
Well, Goolsbee has written extensively suggesting that things like Obama’s proposed R&D tax cut don’t offer a whole bunch of bang for the buck, though he has argued that he thinks the current situation **cough** incipient deflationary spiral **cough** create a somewhat different dynamic.
Well, the scuttlebutt is that Dr. Gooolsbee is going to replace Christina Romer as the chairman of the President’s CEA, and J.W. Mason has the best line that I’ve heard in a while about this:
Looks like Goolsbee is the perfect pick to succeed Romer — his advice is already being ignored even before he’s been hired.
It’s a reference to the fact that Romer’s thoughts on the stimulus were not even passed on to Barack Obama for review, and the point being made is that in a choice between economists and the economy (Goolsbee, Volker), and shills for finance and the finance industry (Summers, Geithner), that Obama will go with the latter unless absolutely forced to do so.
It’s a great line.
Dummies on 51 Park and Religious Tolerance
Not The Daily Show, but close.
It had to be put up on September 11.
BTW, watch the entire thing. There is this bit at the end that is prize.
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf Speaks
Now that he is back in the country, he has written a New York Times OP/ED.
It is very thoughtful and conciliatory, and I recommend reading it.
Were I were in such a position, what I would write would involve the term “bigot”, and likely the phrase, “inbred c%$#suckers,” which is why I am not a member of the clergy.
What Michael Moore Said
He riffs on Rahm Emanuel’s “F%$# the UAW” comment, which was reported by former Car Czar, and corporate criminal Steve Rattner.
Damn good, if somewhat profane, writing.
I will be so f^%$ing glad when that f^%$ingchicken sh$# pissant coward Rahm is gone from public service.