the mortgage crisis – lets break it down, shall we?

Alright, so I’m getting political, but I can’t help myself. I think that it’s important for my reader(s) to be educated. I also believe that this article is of interest to anyone who pays taxes - Republicans and Democrats alike. I will say that I’m hoping you read this with an open mind, as open as it can get. I’m not pointing fingers, I’m stating facts. Cold. Hard. Facts.

Today, the “bailout” bill was voted down 228-205 in the House. Regardless of the fingers being pointed and who is at fault for the “failure”, I know just one thing – I couldn’t be more excited about the “failure” of this bill.

Here’s why.

Boys and girls, I’m going to take you back in time to the days of good ol’ Willie in the White House. Don’t stop reading, that’ll be the last snark you hear from me about him.

At least, it’ll be the last intentional snark. He really just makes it so easy.

Ok seriously, done.

Those of you who have ever worked in a bank or for a credit card issuer probably have some generally understanding of Regulation B or the Equal Opportunity Credit Act.

For the most part this regulation is about discrimination regarding religion, race, gender, blah, blah blah. But the sneaky little line in there that has cause so much chaos is:

The Equal Credit Opportunity Act [ECOA], 15 U.S.C. 1691 et seq. prohibits creditors from discriminating against credit applicants on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, age, because an applicant receives income from a public assistance program, or because an applicant has in good faith exercised any right under the Consumer Credit Protection Act. (source)

Did you read that? Do you understand it? “….because an applicant receives income from a public assistance program…..” That means welfare. Or unemployment. Seems silly, right? Why can’ta bank refuse to issue a mortgage/loan/credit card to someone who’s sole or even partial income is that of welfare or unemployment? It’s not their money to begin with! But, enough yahoos in Washington thought it was a brilliant enough idea that it was passed.

Fast forward about 20-ish years. To the Clinton era. (That bill was initially passed in the 70’s) See, Regulation B’s portion about lending to people on welfare wasn’t exactly being followed by banks. Because it’s a stupid idea. But Clinton didn’t like that. He wanted these unqualified people to have loans and mortgages that they couldn’t afford. And so…..

Under Clinton, the entire federal government put massive pressure on banks to grant more mortgages to the poor and minorities. Clinton’s secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Andrew Cuomo, investigated Fannie Mae for racial discrimination and proposed that 50 percent of Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s portfolio be made up of loans to low- to moderate-income borrowers by the year 2001.

Instead of looking at “outdated criteria,” such as the mortgage applicant’s credit history and ability to make a down payment, banks were encouraged to consider nontraditional measures of credit-worthiness, such as having a good jump shot or having a missing child named “Caylee.” (not my snark)

Threatening lawsuits, Clinton’s Federal Reserve demanded that banks treat welfare payments and unemployment benefits as valid income sources to qualify for a mortgage. That isn’t a joke — it’s a fact.  (source)

Do you get it? Clinton and his cronies forced lenders to give mortgages to these under/un qualified people, or else. What’s worse, he wanted 50% of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s entire portfolios made up of these unqualified buyers. Initially, the market wasn’t affected. It’s the whole “supply/demand” thing.

Making it possible for otherwise unqualified people to buy homes increased demand and increased the price of houses. As long as housing prices rose, the problems inherent in not requiring down payments or relaxing other standards were hidden. While prices rose, no one had to default. Instead, if someone was unable to pay the mortgage, the obvious option was to sell the house at a profit. As long as prices continued to rise, people could accurately claim that the new standards did not have an appreciably different default rate than the old standards. (source)

This is basically saying that, as long as the housing market was hot! hot! hot! this lowering of the standards relating to lending money wasn’t an issue. People could just sell the houses they couldn’t afford (for profit!) rather than defaulting on their mortgage. The problem is, that market never lasts forever. Real Estate is cyclical like that. Sometimes it’s a buyers market, other times, it’s a sellers market. Sometimes the market is crappy for both, like it is now. Otherwise known as “the bubble has burst”.

So now, the houses can’t be sold at all, much less for profit, and now these people who shouldn’t have been allowed mortgages in the first place have defaulted, and banks have had to foreclose, which has caused our current predicament. Because it’s not just one or 2 people who have defaulted. It’s many.

This situation, try as you might, cannot be blamed on President Bush. It’s not his fault at all. He is not responsible for the Equal Opportunity Credit Act and he is certainly not responsible for it’s specific enforcement in the Clinton Era. 

Shift your blame elsewhere - To the man who enforced it and then got out of office unscathed, and is now watching the rest of us writhe and wriggle uncomfortably, as we live from paycheck to paycheck from the comfort of his, no doubt, multi-million dollar home.

dear military deployment decider people

While I appreciate what a difficult job you have, I must say that I am a smidgen annoyed with you.

I’ll start with the obvious.

You took my husband away from me after we had only been married a year. I’m sure that somewhere out there, there is a couple who were separated the day after they got married, and while I’m sympathetic, let’s be honest, I’m a little more concerned with my own marital well being. When my husband and I had our 2 year anniversary earlier this month, we were not together to celebrate it, and now we’re getting to the point where my husband will have been away for half of our entire marriage. I know that the divorce rate in the military is some astronomically high number, but my husband and I actually like each other, and while I’m certain that you’re more than willing to change this, I’d like to keep it the same.

Moving on.

I’m sure you’re aware of the current “dip” in the real estate market. I know this is super-sucky for current homeowners who are trying to ditch their current digs to move up in the world, but for first-time home-buyers, this market is like heaven on earth. My husband and I, upon his return, will be first-time-home-buyers. I know you’re wondering why I’m complaining. I’m not done. Y’see, as it turns out, when you took my husband away from me, he was seconds away from receiving a job offer in a field in which he wants to work. However, he didn’t take it because you were taking him away and so therefore, he is stuck in the same civilian job he had that he hates which pays him half of what you’re paying (at least you’ve managed to get one thing right!) him and incidentally what he should be making in a regular civilian job. This means that upon his return home, he’ll have to start the job hunt/apply all over again in this same field. A field which is hard to just jump into. A field that takes about a year and a half-ish from initial application submission to hire. Ergo, we will not be able to take advantage of this terrible real estate market without a decent paying job. So, we’d love to have you over for dinner at our shack once the market inevitably climbs out of this pit of despair at the precise moment my husband gets hired for his perfect civilian job.

Almost finished.

Now, it seems that you’ve managed to sink your nasty claws into my little brother. He joined the Navy and soon, you will be taking him away from me for 4 very long years. Four years in which there will be Thanksgivings and Christmases, summer vacations and maybe, just maybe, the birth(s) of 1 (or more?) niece(s)/nephew(s). You managed to promise him everything but Donald Trump’s fortune to join, and I’m here to tell you that if you even think about reneging on any of these promises, I will go all Cindy Sheehan on you, ya hear?

By the way, since you now have my husband and my brother, you’re not getting anyone else. Not one more person. Not a cousin, a nephew, or a son. And you’re certainly not going to be getting my other little brother. I don’t care if he wants to be a marine. He can just keep playing football, it’s kind of the same, right?

Love,
Me

P.S. Oh! And thanks for possibly letting my hubby come home a little earlier than planned. You know, gotta mix a little good in with the bad!

when I grow up, I want to be a teacher

Mused the kindergarten-aged me. In fact, I’m pretty sure that I held those hopes until I was well into my teens. And had some sense knocked into me. No offense to you teachers, but that ain’t no job I want the parts of. (Just to clarify, I never actually wanted to be an English teacher)

I also don’t want you to think that I don’t like kids. Because I do. So very much. As a matter of fact I think that if one more person in my church has a baby before me, I’m going to scream! They’re all just so cute and cuddly. And yeah, I know they puke and poop, and eventually talk back and after that they abandon you to go off and pursue a life of their own, but right now all I want is to have a little 7-pounder to hang out with. (ok, if I’m being realistic, it’ll probably be a 10-pounder. my husband and I are giants)

So anyway, I used to want to be a teacher. And guess what dear internets? Today I had the priveledge of being just that. A teacher! There is, of course, a background story to all of this.

Y’see, the associate pastor at my church (also the man who was at one time my youth pastor) and his wife are adopting an adorable little baby from another continent. I’m not so sure how much information I can disclose, so that’s all your getting outta me.

Well, adoption is a pretty crazy procedure. There’s tons of paperwork and politics, especially with an international adoption. So, the wife teaches a couple of co-op classes every Thursday for our home-schooled kids, and today she also had to turn over the last of the important paperwork. In person. Now, she is the associate pastor’s wife, but I’m here to tell you, even she can’t be in two places at once. So, she asked me to fill in for her, or you know, substitute. And I did.

The first class was my cup of tea. It was US Geography and Presidents. I’m super-into History and the like, so I was all about it. Her only major rule for me? “Don’t let any boys sit next to each other.” Because they are Junior-Highers. This is, for all intents and purposes, the worst age group ever invented. I won’t even want my own children at this age. They’re rammy, rude, and just plain disrespectful. Ick. I’m also pretty sure that they have cooties.

But I dealt just fine. During the class, I had to deal out a few “Shhhh” and “Pay attention” and “Wes, stop talking to Hunter!”, but other than that, it wasn’t too bad.

The afternoon class was a completely different story. And it wasn’t even the kids who were the problem, it was the class itself. Y’see, while I enjoy going back in time and learning about how democrats have been idiots pretty much since the inception of the party, I don’t so much enjoy other classes, like say, art. And that was the second class of the day.

Art is subjective. I don’t do well with subjective. Anything that you have to “interperet” or have talent for (with the exception of scrapbooking), I pretty much suck at. So when kids would come up to me and ask how to take a picture of “form” I was just as good to them as a peer. It’s a good thing one of their peers did sort of know what was going on, because without him, they were otherwise screwed.

As happy as I was to fill in for my friend, I don’t think I’ll be running out any time soon to pursue any kind of teaching degree.

Unless I could teach “Stupid Democrats – Subjective Subjects were clearly their idea – and other issues”.

too amused to be ashamed

This is what happens when you give 2 of my brothers and 1 of my cousins a camera and too much time. It is pretty funny though. What do you think?

i should start charging

On Tuesday, I received a call from my very good friend SaintRAV requesting my personal shopping expertise. (I’ve decided to call it expertise, since 2 people call on me as their fashion guru. Plus myself. And I like the way I dress me, too)

He asked that I take him shopping, but also to come take a look at his closet first, just to see what he had to work with. There is the potential that SainRAV will be leaving our tiny state to go take a big job at his company’s HQ in Columbus, Ohio. And, he has meetings with them all next week and needed some of my fashion guruness. (I really just like the word guru, I think) So, last night was the big night.

As soon as I got off of work, I made my way to his place where we started the closet raid.

Do you remember that show on that network where they would go into people’s closets and put together outfits that they didn’t even realize they had? Clearly I don’t either, I mean I can’t remember the name or network or anything. But it was a show. And I saw it once or twice.

I’m that show! Now, I will say this. SaintRAV is, and has the potential to be, a great dresser. He had some excellent pieces in his closet, all of which we turned into some great outfits for his time in Columbus next week. We didn’t need to purchase one thing. Amazing, huh? I’m thinking I may need to do the same thing for myself at some point. I am, after all, one of those women who is always saying that she has nothing to wear, and yet my closet and dressers (yes, dressers plural) are always filled to capacity.

Anyway, enough about me.

So SaintRAV is all set for next week. We even wrote down which outfits were for which days, so he wouldn’t forget. (which he immediately transferred into his new iPhone as he can’t be bothered to carry paper around anymore) While we were sitting there he mentioned how this must be how people in Hollywood feel. They certainly don’t plan out their own outfits (except for MaryKate Olsen who is in serious need of my professional help) for the week, do they?

I need to start making some money off of my business!

just call me hannibal

One of my most favorite parts about my job, is that during this time of year, at any point in any day, there could be upwards of 10 or so toddlers running around the office. Seriously.

I love their little voices, their cuddly hugs and big smiles. It definitely makes a poopy day not so poopy. Yesterday was one of those days. “Juanita’s Mom” over at The Adventures of Hiccup and Wink is in the office a little more frequently now that little guy has started preschool. I just love my visits with them, however short they may be at times.

Yesterday I was holding little gal and tickling her when she flashed her huge smile and adorable dimples. I just couldn’t stand it! “You are so cute, I could just eat you!” I said.

“No Mrs. Angert!” came the protests from little guy, “Little gal is not food, she’s people!”.

dear brides of 9/6/08 (on the east coast)

Today is your wedding day and I know that you must be thrilled. You’ve spent countless hours pouring over every detail of your big day, and it’s finally here.

I too, made similar preparations 2 years ago (my anniversary was September 2) and even now, i can remember the “day of” jitters as I embarked upon a brand new chapter in my life. I couldn’t wait.

But,  we overlooked one tiny detail didn’t we? While we were discussing cakes and flowers, and colors and dresses, and even the moment when we finally decided on a date, we overlooked the most important of details; the mother of them all – the weather.

I know what you non-September brides are thinking. “You can’t predict the weather.” you say “It’s all chance – anyone could have a rainy wedding day!” To a certain extent, you’re right. We certainly cannot predict the weather and anyone could have a rainy wedding day.

But we September brides aren’t that fortunate. No, in fact we would kill for a rainy wedding day.

Because mother nature only bestows a certain special gift on September brides – the hurricane.

This year, it’s name is Hanna. Today, brides all over the East Coast are scratching the name Hanna (and different versions thereof) off of there “potential baby names” list just as I did with Ernesto 2 years ago. (Okay, Ernesto was never actually on my list, but still)

She’s ruining all of your plans – outside photos, carriage rides, hair that doesn’t frizz – it’s all gone now. Your plans have had to change at a moments notice.

I can sympathize. I too had plans that fell through. My reception was here and should have looked like this or even this. Instead, we had closed tents and gale force winds.

But it’s ok, because at the end of the day, you’re still married to your prince and one day, you’ll be able to look back on this day and laugh.

Right now? Right now, some stupid insanely insensitive bridesmaid/family member/guest is reminding you that it’s a sign of good luck to have rain on your wedding day, and you’re trying not to cry. Do me a favor will you? Punch them square in the face, once for yourself, and then once for me because I didn’t and I have lived to regret that day. Then, fly off to your honeymoon and drink a margarita for the both of us, we deserve it.

change of…..heart?

While still unsure about my “feelings” for McCain, I will say that I am just about head over heals for his running mate.

I might actually vote because of her.