More free money: Our morning giggle

The Federal Housing Administration to the rescue.

The victim is a fellow who signed up for a mortgage he couldn't afford, especially after his $400,000 house became a $200,000 house, the transmission fell out of his nothing-down Escalade, and his local taxing authorities decided hiking his property taxes was a sterling idea.

So he declares bankruptcy after the bank starts foreclosing on his house.  Enter the forces of virtue, led at this point in history by one Barack Obama and Benjamin Bernanke, screaming the battle cry of the early 21st Century: "Buck up Boy; we gawn hep y'all."

The FHA is directing this foray. Get a foreclosure notice on your underwater house, declare Chapter 13 bankruptcy, and Uncle Washington will see that you get to keep living in your McMansion essentially free.

"The plan under review by the Federal Housing Finance Agency would call for the mortgage financing companies to allow bankrupt homeowners who owe more on their housing debt than their homes are worth to pay zero per cent interest for five years..."  


Zero per cent is a handsome deal for  these folks in the early years of  30- or 40-year mortgage when the interest eats up about 99 per cent of the monthly payment. You get to keep enjoying your travertine and water view for -- what? -- fifty bucks a month or so, whatever the payment allocation to principle happens to be. Plus property tax, of course.


This is utopia and we should all be for it. Only soreheads would remark that banks,  being what they are,  would demand someone replace five years of lost interest and that politicians would shout, "Yes. Too Big to Fail."  So the discount window at the Fed would open wider, shoveling money (so to speak) to  them and to Freddy and Fannie.




But, errrr, the Fed doesn't have any money, Mr. Sorehead observes. What a fool he is. Who in his right mind would Wiki-Wander through entries  such as "fractional reserve banking" and "high-speed printing presses" and "Wiemar,"  and so forth. Only subversive bastards, that's who.


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A qualification: This may be very slightly too harsh on Mr. Foreclosed Consumer. After all, he just did what his government and the great financiers told him he should, going back at least as far as the time of Monica Lewinsky and the Community Development Reinvestment Act. And continuing right down to the present day of  His Ineptness the President, John Corzine,  and  sidekick Ben. 


Mr. Consumer had,  just as you and I do, a complete, sincere, and child-like trust in the wisdom of his betters. 

The joy of bachelorhood

Wardrobe malfunctions plague me lately, so I got out my dainty sewing basket and went to work. All is well. I sewed the buttons on conventionally, but stitching the long tear in my favorite work shirt seamed* too tedious. The alternative solution is working fine so far. If it stands up to a few wash cycles I will enthusiastically endorse Gorilla tape for purposes of fashion.

-0-

*Hush up. It' a gift.

Let's be careful out there; an informant has reported the Hubris Gang is on the streets

Another morning note to my buddy, dealing with a more practical aspect of the final two weeks in the corn fields and hog lots:

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Hi Dick,

At this moment Paul may be the clear favorite here. This exposes him to dat ol'debbil game of expectations.

1. In the two weeks remaining he will suffer unremitting negative attacks. They will center on general goofiness and advanced age with a strong undertone of alleged racism and anti-semitism.

2. These will have some effect, perhaps enough to deny him victory or even a strong second-place finish.

3. If that happens he will enter New Hampshire weaker, and his small but increasing support in South Carolina and Florida will deteriorate. Super Tuesday will be a Newt Romney walkaway.

The other danger here is really energized preachers pounding their KJVs. There's still time for them to coalesce around one of their own.  Bachmann, in particular, is running a near-perfect end-game race.

Jim

The Great Debate -- Iowa Caucuses 20112

My pal Dick is my old high school debate partner, and I immodestly report we tucked a bronze or two in the trophy case. This post is a little obscure for anyone not familiar with formal debate, but, what the Hell. Some readers are. Others are free to move on until I get back to my favorite hobby, posting retro cheesecake and gun porn. :)

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Dick emailed me a positive Christian Science Monitor  piece on Ron Paul. The reply:

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Scene: The National Forensic League national final in traditional debate. PBS teevee cameras are rolling:

Paul is the first-negative speaker who spends his first three minutes admitting "need" but criticizing the  affirmative's analysis of the nature of the need. In his seven remaining minutes he presents an alternative solution, a counter-plan. Even if somewhat faulty, it boasts internal consistency, unheard of in either academic or political disputation.

Discombobulated, the second affirmative stumbles through disjointed short takes about the unfairness of trick cases. Second negative reestablishes the logic and real-world pertinence of its program. First affirmative has had time to recover a semblance of coherence as that term is understood by, say, Kingman Brewster and Teddy Kennedy. 

This is enough for the judges who, by training and experience,  have never in their  lives faced a problem to which the solution was not government-inspired. The  remaining rebuttals are largely  ignored. Decision for the affirmative. 

But the nature of debate is forever changed.  

:)