The anger knoweth no limit?

First we’ve got liberals who stop buying their wine fav-or-eet, Palin Syrah, because the name is too close to that of She-Whose-Name-Must-Not-Be-Spoken.

Now we’ve got death threats against a a Maine news anchor because she looks too much like our ‘cuda to forgive.

I must admit, I did give a mighty hoot at this reply to the ‘pundit post:

Considering that the libs would like nothing better than to see all of us wearing identical North Korean-style quilted suits and trudging off in unison to work the collective-farm paddies, this anger of theirs towards someone who resembles Palin is quite extraordinary.

Bishop on September 23, 2008 at 10:04 PM

What’s next, girls called Sarah required to wear a red S?

Obama ad lies about Obama’s infanticide vote

Hor Air—Blog Archive

More reading at The Sadim Touch

How the Democrats created the financial crisis

by Kevin Hassett

The financial crisis of the past year has provided a number of surprising twists and turns, and from Bear Stearns Cos. to American International Group, Inc., ambiguity has been a big part of the story.

Why did Bear Stearns fail, and how does that relate to AIG? It all seems so complex.

But really, it isn’t. Enough cards on this table have been turned over that the story is now clear. The economic history books will describe this episode in simple and understandable terms: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exploded, and many bystanders were injured in the blast, some fatally.

Fannie and Freddie did this by becoming a key enabler of the mortgage crisis. They fueled Wall Street’s efforts to securitize subprime loans by becoming the primary customer of all AAA-rated subprime-mortgage pools. In addition, they held an enormous portfolio of mortgages themselves.

In the times that Fannie and Freddie couldn’t make the market, they became the market. Over the years, it added up to an enormous obligation. As of last June, Fannie alone owned or guaranteed more than $388 billion in high-risk mortgage investments. Their large presence created an environment within which even mortgage-backed securities assembled by others could find a ready home.

The problem was that the trillions of dollars in play were only low-risk investments if real estate prices continued to rise. Once they began to fall, the entire house of cards came down with them.

Turning Point

Take away Fannie and Freddie, or regulate them more wisely, and it’s hard to imagine how these highly liquid markets would ever have emerged. This whole mess would never have happened.

It is easy to identify the historical turning point that marked the beginning of the end.

Back in 2005, Fannie and Freddie were, after years of dominating Washington, on the ropes. They were enmeshed in accounting scandals that led to turnover at the top. At one telling moment in late 2004, captured in an article by my American Enterprise Institute colleague Peter Wallison, the Securities and Exchange Comiission’s chief accountant told disgraced Fannie Mae chief Franklin Raines that Fannie’s position on the relevant accounting issue was not even “on the page” of allowable interpretations.

Then legislative momentum emerged for an attempt to create a “world-class regulator” that would oversee the pair more like banks, imposing strict requirements on their ability to take excessive risks. Politicians who previously had associated themselves proudly with the two accounting miscreants were less eager to be associated with them. The time was ripe.

Greenspan’s Warning

The clear gravity of the situation pushed the legislation forward. Some might say the current mess couldn’t be foreseen, yet in 2005 Alan Greenspan told Congress how urgent it was for it to act in the clearest possible terms: If Fannie and Freddie “continue to grow, continue to have the low capital that they have, continue to engage in the dynamic hedging of their portfolios, which they need to do for interest rate risk aversion, they potentially create ever-growing potential systemic risk down the road,” he said. “We are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk.”

What happened next was extraordinary. For the first time in history, a serious Fannie and Freddie reform bill was passed by the Senate Banking Committee. The bill gave a regulator power to crack down, and would have required the companies to eliminate their investments in risky assets.

Different World

If that bill had become law, then the world today would be different. In 2005, 2006 and 2007, a blizzard of terrible mortgage paper fluttered out of the Fannie and Freddie clouds, burying many of our oldest and most venerable institutions. Without their checkbooks keeping the market liquid and buying up excess supply, the market would likely have not existed.

But the bill didn’t become law, for a simple reason: Democrats opposed it on a party-line vote in the committee, signaling that this would be a partisan issue. Republicans, tied in knots by the tight Democratic opposition, couldn’t even get the Senate to vote on the matter.

That such a reckless political stand could have been taken by the Democrats was obscene even then. Wallison wrote at the time: “It is a classic case of socializing the risk while privatizing the profit. The Democrats and the few Republicans who oppose portfolio limitations could not possibly do so if their constituents understood what they were doing.”

Mounds of Materials

Now that the collapse has occurred, the roadblock built by Senate Democrats in 2005 is unforgivable. Many who opposed the bill doubtlessly did so for honorable reasons. Fannie and Freddie provided mounds of materials defending their practices. Perhaps some found their propaganda convincing.

But we now know that many of the senators who protected Fannie and Freddie, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Christopher Dodd, have received mind-boggling levels of financial support from them over the years.

Throughout his political career, Obama has gotten more than $125,000 in campaign contributions from employees and political action committees of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, second only to Dodd, the Senate Banking Committee chairman, who received more than $165,000.

Clinton, the 12th-ranked recipient of Fannie and Freddie PAC and employee contributions, has received more than $75,000 from the two enterprises and their employees. The private profit found its way back to the senators who killed the fix.

There has been a lot of talk about who is to blame for this crisis. A look back at the story of 2005 makes the answer pretty clear.

Oh, and there is one little footnote to the story that’s worth keeping in mind while Democrats point fingers between now and Nov. 4: Senator John McCain was one of the three cosponsors of S.190, the bill that would have averted this mess.

*********

“The Democrats and the few Republicans who oppose portfolio limitations could not possibly do so if their constituents understood what they were doing.”

Now we know.

NYC bus driver leaves child two miles from his home

A New York City bus driver has dropped a five-year-old child off, despite it being the end of the line, two miles from his home and without an adult to collect him.

The New York Daily News reports an unnamed bus driver, who now is said elsewhere to have been suspended, “ordered” the child off the bus he wasn’t supposed to be on to begin with as he lives across the street from his school.

It all started when someone–unidentified at this point–placed the child on a school bus instead of walking him to his after-school program, as per his usual routine. At the end of the line the driver, who according to DOE regulations should have brought the little boy back to his school, instructed the child to get off the bus. The first grader wandered around and then asked someone for help.

“A DOE spokeswoman said this could be a case of driver misconduct.”

Could be?

Sure, most of us are aware that we don’t want to jump on someone’s case without adequately investigating what happened. We also know that young children’s hyperbolic accounts–the boy said he was made to get off the bus–ought to be looked into before either side is dismissed. In this instance, especially given some of the snarly blog comments aimed at the mother, it is my opinion that we also need to re-examine our critical thinking skills.

It’s painfully easy to jump onto the race issue. At least one comment I saw implied the driver was negligent and uncaring because the child is a minority. Another ranted about the mother’s use of the word “replace” in her response to the school’s standard issue apology. Still another wanted to blame the mother for not being there to collect her son.

At the time this story was released no one knew who the driver was (although I agree I find it hard to believe the school district could be included in this general population), let alone race. Even if that fact was known, what does that imply? Does knowing the driver’s race even change anything regarding how he or she ought to be disciplined? The suggestion is racist itself, in my opinion, no matter what skin color the person has.

And all this blaming the mother hatefulness indicates that some people didn’t read the story quite carefully enough, lack critical reading skills, or are unfamiliar with after-school programs. All of these possibilities are good reasons to ask questions, but not to attack the child’s mother.

Since after-school programs generally exist to care for children whose parents work or are travelling from work after school lets out, I would guess the mother was pretty much where she was supposed to be–at work. Her expectations were reasonable: that the school program act in a responsible manner towards her child and keep him from harm until she can reach him. When she responded to the school district with a sentiment I think most of us would agree is the first fearful possibility that came to our minds as well, I think it is reasonable to excuse her less-than-perfect word choice given that she was probably pretty shocked and distraught. Moreover, as a “literature type,” I could probably make an argument that compares the implication of her word with the shoddy treatment her son received at the hands of a complete moron. And that’s being nice.

If any dear reader gets the idea I’m taking this personally: I am. I am at a complete loss as to how someone could possibly believe that it was OK to drop a kid off two miles from his home. OK, I get that he or she may not have known that. But signing on the dotted line after the statement “I understand and will abide by all rules and regulations that govern the serious business of transporting children to and from school” means that the person was fully aware he or she was not to leave a child off the bus without an adult there to receive him. End of the line or not. Whether the child was asked nicely to get off or not.

I have a five-year-old child myself, and the thought of him wandering the streets here makes me absolutely nauseous. I would probably be spitting with rage if this had happened to him; improper word choice might be the least of the school district’s worries. Given that this–from what I have seen online today–is not as rare as one would hope, the school districts need to get their acts together. I realise mistakes happen, but when we say that, we mean things like “the newspaper didn’t get dropped off in the classroom” or “I forgot to run some extra copies.” Not, “I misplaced your child.”

Fifth grader suspended for anti-Obama t-shirt

I have to admit to mixed feelings about putting campaign buttons, t-shirts, etc. of any stripe on children. A fifth grader might fall into the age range I have in mind of minors who aren’t mature enough in mind, emotion and intellect to be able to come to some sort of reasonable conclusion, but then again I might be recalling too closely me at that age. Like my classmates, I was exceedingly immature. Or maybe engaging in escapism.

There’s a succinct analysis of the legality behind this issue here, so I won’t get into that (at least not yet). Suffice to say the person who commented that the school should break out their checkbook probably is spot on.

If girls can come to school wearing jeans that have the word “Angel” embroidered across their bottoms, or kids with t-shirts that joke about (even advocate?) drug use, what gives with this? At most this kid is probably guilty of sloppiness so my advice would be to go buy a smaller shirt, re-do the message and get back to class. The message being political, and that being a reason to silence it, strikes me as hypocritical and biased. And if the students there get worked up enough from such a t-shirt that they lose control in a big way, then there are higher-order problems at that school than difference of opinion.

This reminds me of a headline I saw recently re: a professor who assigned an anti-Palin essay, which was later “broadened” to include all candidates. While many are so critical of people who allow their children to wear political slogans, I have to ask: Why we are allowing schools and teachers of being in the business of political indoctrination?