A Parody of Stupidity

Unfortunately one of these articles is real, and it is the first one. As this one combines finger pointing, shirking responsibility and involving lawyers it's stupidity factor is off the charts.

California, Illinois File Lawsuits Over Countrywide's Practices
By RUTH SIMON

June 25, 2008 12:25 p.m.

California's attorney general has filed a civil lawsuit alleging that Countrywide Financial Corp. engaged in deceptive advertising and unfair competition by pushing borrowers into risky loans. The 46-page complaint also names Countrywide chairman Angelo Mozilo and the company's president David Sambol.
"Countrywide exploited the American dream of homeownership and then sold its mortgages for huge profits on the secondary market," California attorney general Edmund G. Brown said in a statement.
The lawsuit alleges that Countrywide "viewed borrowers as nothing more than the means for producing more loans" and originated loans "with little or no regard to borrowers' long-term ability to afford them and to sustain homeownership." These practices "were created and maintained with the knowledge, approval and ratification of" Mr. Mozilo and Mr. Sambol, it alleges.
The Illinois attorney general's office, which began an investigation into the business practices of Countrywide last fall, also filed a civil suit against Countrywide and Mr. Mozilo on Wednesday. In a draft of the Illinois complaint obtained Tuesday, the state alleges that Countrywide engaged in "unfair and deceptive practices" in the sale of mortgage loans. The 78-page document says the company loosened its underwriting standards, structured loans with "risky features" and engaged in "marketing and sales techniques" that incentivized employees and mortgage brokers to push loans whether or not homeowners had the ability to repay them.
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan says she is asking that all Countrywide loans originated using "unfair and deceptive" practices be rescinded or modified in some way, even if Countrywide has to repurchase the loans. She is also asking that her office be given 90 days to review any loans that are currently in foreclosure or that are moving toward foreclosure.
The suits came as Countrywide shareholders approved Wednesday the company's takeover by Bank of America.
Write to Ruth Simon at ruth.simon@wsj.com

California Files Suit Against “Stupid Residents”

By John Manfrintinginson, A.P.

July 1st, 2008

California's attorney general has filed a civil lawsuit alleging that thousands of residents conspired to accept mortgage loans that were unaffordable and of questionable value to those who ultimately assumed ownership of them as part of Collateralized Debt Securities. The 150 page complaint lists numerous defendants throughout the state and investigators are close to proving collusion, the attorney general’s office said.

“The three or four hundred hard working residents of this state are embarrassed by the stupidity of some of our residents. We believe that the massive scope of this operation indicated collusion on the part of stupid people in this state and across America,” Edmund Brown said in a statement.

“The Attorney General has had it,” said Michael Westfield, a low lever staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity. “We think that these stupid people got together and planned out how to do this to Wall Street. It appears to us that many of them met at Wal Mart and they may have exchanged secret messages during television shows such as The View and Dancing With the Stars. It was a widespread conspiracy and though these people are stupid, they appear very organized.”

Celebrating the Truly Stupid Cost of Government

Hooray! Wake up tomorrow and go make money for yourself for the first time all year.

Stupid Factor: 4/10.

July 16, 2008
Happy Cost of Government Day

By Grover Norquist

This year Americans have worked until today, July 16, to pay for the total costs of federal, state and local government. This is 197 days of the year consuming 53.9 percent of national income. Over the past 22 years, in only four years (1982, 1983, 1991 and 1992) did Cost of Government Day fall later in the year.

Federal spending will consume 83.7 days. State and local spending will consume 50.5 days effort. Federal regulations cost 4l.7 days and State regulations cost 20.9 days. The spending data is precise, the regulatory burdens are understated.

Compared to when George W. Bush assumed the presidency in 200l, federal spending now consumes an additional three days of your life in 2008. The burden of federal regulations increased by one day after having remained stable as a percentage of the economy for the previous four years.

State and local spending increases cost Americans six additional days since 2003. Since the election of more liberal governors and state legislators in 2006, state spending has increased by 13.5 percent relative to the general economy.

Not all states are the same. Connecticut citizens with a more expensive state and local government burden will have to wait an additional two weeks for their cost of government day: July 31. Virginians work two days longer than the average American and Maryland citizens toil a full work week more until July 21.

Federal spending has increased $867 billion from 2001 to 2008 or stepping past September 11, federal spending has increased $570 billion dollars from 2003 to 2008. Since the 2003 tax cut on capital gains and dividends, the economy has grown by $2.9 trillion, federal revenues have shot up $785 billion. But had the federal government limited federal spending to grow only as rapidly as the economy since 2000, the budget would have been in balance by 2006 and in surplus today.

Politicians and pundits tend to focus on the federal deficit. But the deficit is the uninteresting and unimportant number that is the difference between two very interesting and important numbers: total government spending and total taxes raised. A government that costs one hundred dollars of spending where ninety dollars are taken in taxes and ten are borrowed is as expensive and burdensome as one where the government takes and spends all hundred. No money is freed up for the economy by taking an additional ten in taxes. The true cost of government, whether paid for today through taxation or borrowing, is total government spending plus the regulatory burden paid by consumers in higher prices.

The last fifteen years have been a unique period in American history. Since the 1993 Clinton tax increase that passed without a single Republican vote--there has not been a net tax increase passed by Congress and signed by the president. Fifteen years without a legislated tax hike.
That is the longest period in American history going back to George Washington. Since 200l, there have been 15 tax cuts. Some small. Most temporary.The pro-growth tax cut of 2003 created economic growth that by2008 increased the number of American jobs by eight million, real per capita income grew $2,887, the stock market increased by $3.7 trillion in value and federal revenues jumped by $785 billion. Those tax cuts lapse in January 2011 and already the markets are anticipating losing those gains.

The next president and Congress will not only need to maintain the relatively pro-growth lower tax rates on individual income and investments, but -- as Cost of Government Day painfully reminds us - deal with the true costs of government: total government spending and the regulatory burden.

Norquist is president of Americans for Tax Reform and author of Leave Us Alone " Getting the Government’s Hands Off Our Money, Our Guns, Our Lives.
Page Printed from: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/07/cost_of_government_day.html at July 17, 2008 - 08:35:40 PM PDT _uacct = "UA-31527-1"; urchinTracker();

Thanks Grover for ruining my Tuesday but making my Wednesday that much sweeter.

Wishful and Stupid Thinking?

A baseless tirade of whining about how bad things are as the author drinks a latte and taps away on his Mac. Hope he was sitting at one of the Starbucks that is closing down.

Stupid Factor 6.5/10

Americans may be losing faith in free markets



Things are hard all over the financial landscape, and politicians and experts are now looking with favor at more, not less, government involvement in the economy.



By Peter G. Gosselin, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer July 16, 2008



WASHINGTON -- For a generation, most people accepted the idea that the core of what makes America tick was an economy governed by free markets. And whatever combination of goods, services and jobs the market cooked up was presumed to be fine for the nation and for its citizens -- certainly better than government meddling.



Spurred by the continued housing crisis, turmoil in financial markets, spiking oil prices, disappearing jobs and shrinking retirement savings, the nation and its political leaders have begun to sour on the notion that the current market system is the key to a fair, stable and efficient society. Yeah, forget a couple hundred years of free markets bringing us from itinerant farm workers to 40 hour a week whining babies with flat screen satellite television in high definition. That was an abysmal failure based on the last 12 months.





"We're at a hinge point," said William A. Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington who helped craft President Clinton's market-friendly agenda during the 1990s. "The strong presumption in favor of markets, which has dominated public policy since the late 1970s, has been thrown very much into question."Now, to a degree not seen in years, politicians and outside experts are looking with favor at more, not less, government involvement in the economy.Of course, Americans always grouse during troubled times. And as market advocates are quick to point out, the current run of bad economic breaks has yet to result in the throwing over of free-market principles in favor of some drastically different approach -- such as a government-directed economy.





"There may be a backlash against markets at the moment," acknowledged Kevin A. Hassett, economic studies director at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington and an advisor to presumed Republican presidential nominee John McCain. "But the backlash doesn't seem to be informed by any alternative view of how the world works."





Yet the sheer volume of setbacks that people have been dealt has sent consumer confidence to some of its lowest levels in half a century, according to Reuters/University of Michigan surveys. A remarkable 84% of Americans are convinced that the nation is on the "wrong track," according to a recent Gallup poll. In just the last week, the financial markets have provided ample new evidence that markets are not working smoothly. Washington had to ride to the rescue of two government-chartered mortgage giants -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which hold or guarantee nearly half of the nation's $12 trillion in mortgage debt -- after investors all but extinguished the pair's market value amid fears that falling home prices would push them into insolvency. Meanwhile, federal regulators seized IndyMac Bancorp, a $32-billion mortgage lender based in Pasadena, in what regulators called the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history. And the already battered stock market took another sharp dip. The fact that experts keep pushing back the date when conditions may improve and the failure thus far of any national leader -- including either of the major-party presidential candidates -- to offer a convincing vision of how America will make its way back to sustained prosperity suggest that the current crisis will probably be very different from other recent economic bad patches. So may Americans' reaction to it. Even the Bush administration, which took office arguing that the Social Security crisis could be solved, in part, by tying some of retirees' future benefits to Wall Street, has begun advocating more government regulation of financial markets.





When Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are government-chartered but investor-owned, began to teeter last week, the administration quietly went to work on possible government action. "If the pendulum swung away from government toward much greater confidence in markets during the last generation, the pendulum is clearly swinging back again now," said Daniel Yergin, whose 1998 book with coauthor Joseph Stanislaw, "The Commanding Heights," chronicled the worldwide spread of the free-market credo."Everything is weighing in at the same time, and that affects how people view markets and government," Yergin said."Nobody in this country really believes in unfettered free markets, and nobody really believes in socialism," said UC Davis historian Eric Rauchway, but economic crises of the past have produced constituencies favoring the reining in of markets and regulation of the economy -- constituencies that ultimately grew large enough to produce change.





Consider just a few of the things that are pushing people in that direction now: The price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline has nearly doubled in the last year, while that for a barrel of crude oil has more than doubled, cutting short Americans' love affair with gas-guzzlers and driving the nation's trucking, auto and airline industries into deep trouble. Most mainstream economists assert that these increases are simply the logical outcome of booming global demand meeting limited global supply. But the price run-ups seem out of whack with demand, which has increased only about 1% worldwide. Hey stupid, this is not a one for one relationship. Since production (supply) is practically static in the short term, prices must rise enough for 1% of consumers to stop buying it. 2-3 cents a gallon doesn’t logically seem like that kind of number does it? Please America, be smarter than this.





The mismatch has fueled suspicion among many Americans and their political leaders that the third financial bubble of the decade -- after tech stocks and housing -- is underway, this time in energy. Both presidential candidates have fingered market speculators, rather than the forces of supply and demand, for helping drive up prices. What about the doubling of steel prices? Must be those speculators at work again right? Oops, turns out there is no futures market for steel. Anyone want one guess why prices are rising? Say it with me stupid presidential candidates: supply and demand.





At a recent hearing, Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) cornered the federal official whose agency regulates the market where oil futures are traded. "How is it that the market isn't working to the benefit of the consuming public?" the lawmaker demanded. Hey Dingle, how is it you managed to get elected with such a limited knowledge of economics and such lousy people skills? The agency has launched a number of studies to discover whether speculators are behind the price increases, the official answered."Don't tell me you're doing studies!" Dingell shot back. "You've spent more than a year sitting idly by" while oil prices jumped. And so have you. Thankfully.





At least half a dozen measures have been introduced in Congress to limit speculation or to tax oil company profits. Similar anger -- and similar legislative efforts to intervene in the marketplace -- can be seen in housing. While Americans have been accustomed to some fluctuation in the value of their homes, most expected their houses to rise in value over time. And for much of the last several decades, that's what happened. But not this year! Scandal! Betrayal! Lock the doors and find the perpetrator of this madness! How dare the price of my home decline in a year, this might be the end of television shows such as “Flip This House”.



But starting in mid-2004, the upward arc of house prices began to flatten, and by 2007 it was falling -- sharply. Prices, especially along the West and East coasts, have skidded as much as 16% during the last year alone, their steepest decline in two decades. Many analysts predict further slippage. In large part, the rise in house prices and the recent plunge grew out of an almost unregulated corner of the mortgage market -- the one for riskier loans. As with fuel, "the message that Americans are getting is that something went wrong with the markets and you got hurt," said economist Robert E. Litan of the Brookings Institution and the Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City, Mo. Yes, we tried to lend to some crappy credit risks because everyone said what a wonderful world it would be if everyone owned a home. Turns out many of you aren’t responsible enough and can’t be trusted. I’d like to take you all out and shoot you but I think we just won’t lend to you anymore. Oh well…





"With energy, it's the speculators. With housing, it's predatory lenders or crummy credit-rating agencies or stupid banks. We're not ready to throw out markets altogether," he said, "but we want government to do something about the excess." Stupid banks? How about stupid people asking for loans they can’t afford? Or is that a little too Phil Gramm for you? Let me also add my own scourge to the list-the stupid media. A similar pattern of hopes raised and hopes dashed shows up in global trade and retirement investing. Americans entered the new century convinced that "we had a new economy built on services and information technology that would let us win globally," said Harvard economist Robert Z. Lawrence. "The whole premise of globalization in the year 2000 was that it worked well for us and the other developed countries but that the developing countries would need help," Lawrence said.Today, virtually all those optimistic assumptions have been turned on their heads. Life sucks, go home and watch it unfold on your flat screen TV. "We've seen unprecedented growth in the developing countries, while the developed countries are being led into a slowdown by the United States," Lawrence said."We've found out that instead of services and information technology, it's all about oil and other commodities" that are not the nation's strong suit.





Finally, when it comes to investment, especially for retirement, recent years have brought unsettling disappointments as the stock market has failed to regain and maintain the peaks that it reached in 2000. An investor who put a dollar in a broad market index fund early in this decade not only would have made no money by today but would have lost a little of his initial amount.That's a far cry from the 1990s, when people told pollsters that they expected to make 15% annual gains indefinitely. That was equally as stupid as believing it will return nothing for the rest of time. Historians watching the nation's current economic and financial troubles say that just because Americans don't throw up their hands about markets and rush to an opposite pole, such as socialism, it doesn't mean that change isn't underway. As UC Davis' Rauchway pointed out, the devastating panics and depressions of the late 19th century eventually resulted in the progressive reforms of the early 20th century and, later, the New Deal of the 1930s. Today, Americans are not ready to throw out markets altogether, said economist Litan, but "what people may be demanding is New Deal lite." Nah, I demand that you all stop crying and go to work or school or whatever will make you stop believing that the last few months are bringing on Armageddon.

"When the going gets tough...the tough get, get, get a going"
-Billy Ocean

Snake Oil for the Stupid

The following is commentary from the author. Stupid factor 0/10.

What Barrack Obama Thinks…Of You.

Much was made during primary season of Barrack Obama’s seemingly elitist view of Middle Americans who “cling” to guns and religion in an effort to deal with the changing world around them. Elitist? Maybe. But Obama’s problem isn’t that you are “clinging” to something, it is that you are “clinging” to the wrong things, at least in his mind.

In 2001 Obama made the following comment: “…I would argue that affirmative action is important precisely because those who benefit typically rise to the challenge when given an opportunity."[1] Note the use of the word “given”. In order for something to be given, someone has to also be the giver. Someone must bestow opportunity on another. To Obama, opportunity is not seized, taken, grasped or won. Opportunity is not the prize at the end of a long struggle or journey. To him, opportunity is a gift from someone else, a reward for simply hanging in there. Sure you can “rise to the challenge” but someone needs to tell you what that challenge is, right? You as an individual cannot possibly be counted on to get off the couch and seize the day, so someone needs to knock on your door, get you dressed and make sure you use the bathroom before our big trip to prosperity-ville. Its nonsense, of course, but it sells.

It sells, precisely because of the prosperity that Obama denies exists. The prevalence of flat screen TVs, cell phones and personal computers among the middle class not only demonstrates how far we have come as a society in the last 100 years, it gives people serious alternatives to work. My grandfather didn’t have American Idol to come home to so putting in overtime or going to school on the GI Bill at night were legitimate ways to spend his time. Today, we are so distracted with the niceties of life that we the ambition drive in neutral and wait for government to step in and provide the opportunities we used to go out and seek. At least, that is what Mr. Obama believes.

Where does Obama develop such beliefs? From us, of course. He extrapolates stories of struggle and personal failure to us as a nation. When a woman in Michigan says “…I have been poor, and I have had to struggle, so I should get special treatment." [2] Obama doesn’t ask, what have you done to improve your life? He asks, how can we help? How can we give you what you need to succeed? What kind of special treatment should your government provide that it hasn’t? One of my favorite comedian’s was the late Sam Kinnison who famously asked the starving people of Ethiopia why they lived in a desert and didn’t “go where the food” was? Shouldn’t the same question apply to those who are struggling in high tax, low employment areas like Ohio and Michigan? While we feel your pain, perhaps we should determine what is causing it before we try to fix it. Obama is a modern day snake oil salesman prescribing the cure for you symptoms without fully understanding the disease.

Obama doesn’t think there is any real fix to problems like those of people suffering in Michigan other than government programs. A recent Wall Street Journal interview summarized his thoughts: “While Sen. McCain has argued that tax cuts -- particularly on business -- spur growth, Sen. Obama rejected that as flawed economics. "I've seen no evidence that...would actually boost the economic growth and productivity," he said.” [3] Really? No evidence? Did Mr. Obama happen to swing through Texas at any point in the last couple of years? Has he noted that low tax Texas is gaining employers and residents while high tax states like the aforementioned Ohio and Michigan are losing both? Has the junior Senator from Illinois traveled abroad recently? Has he seen the prosperity in Ireland that has been driven by the lowest corporate tax rate in Western Europe? Did his Harvard education teach him to view these as mere coincidence?

The answer is that, very likely, Obama knows better. But he believes that you don’t. He thinks that you are oblivious to the real world experiments that show how high taxation drives away jobs and business. He believes that you feel like you are owed something and he is more than willing to promise it to you. Its easy to play Robin Hood this political season, promising to take from the wealthy and give to the poor. Because Obama can’t win if we cling to guns and religion. But he can and will win if we cling to big government.



Will Rogers said it best-“Even if you are on the right track you will still get run over if you just sit there.”

[1] http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB121340482731674019.html?mod=special_page_campaign2008_leftbox

[2] IBID
[3] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121365641014879041.html?mod=Leader-US