4
POPSAccidental Landlords - Fannie's "Deed for Lease" program What this does is guarantee a steady negative cash flow for the banks, further weakening their financial outlook and giving Obama yet another reason to tighten his grip on them. Fannie Mae caused this mess, and their fix will only make things worse.
3
POPSThe Home Buyers’ Tax Credit: What You Need to Know To curb fraud, the legislation also requires taxpayers to provide documentation proving that they purchased a home and requires taxpayers to be at least 18 to claim the credit. There had been reports of people as young as 4 years old claiming the original credit
6
POPSJewish Settlers Move Into East Jerusalem Home, Evict Arab Family Israel has built homes for more than 180,000 Jews in new east Jerusalem neighborhoods since the 1967 annexation. The U.S. and others have criticized Israeli settlement in east Jerusalem and urged Israel to stop evicting Palestinians and demolishing their homes there, saying such moves disrupt peace efforts.
10
POPSACORN's Corporate Donors Backing Off Banks and other financial institutions have given millions of dollars and other forms of support to ACORN for decades in response to boycott threats from the organization, as well as accusations of racism and other forms of discrimination in granting personal loans and mortgages. The ACORN campaigns followed passage of the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which was designed to pressure financial institutions to loosen lending standards in order to increase home ownership among poor and minority communities. Legislation strengthening CRA during the Clinton administration greatly encouraged such ACORN activities. Dissident current and former officials of ACORN claim that donations made to AHC and other affiliates are often misappropriated. “There’s no guarantee that any donations are going where they are supposed to be going,” said Ron Sykes, treasurer of the Washington D.C. ACORN and a member of the ACORN 8.
6
POPSReader's Digest plans to file for bankruptcy
"The Chapter 11 filing will apply only to the company's U.S. businesses. Its operations in Canada, Latin America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia-New Zealand will not be affected. "Restructuring our debt will enable us to have the financial flexibility to move ahead with our growth and transformational initiatives," said President and Chief Executive Officer Mary Berner, in a statement." The Pleasantville, N.Y., media company said the bankruptcy would help facilitate an agreement with lenders to exchange a portion of its $1.6 billion in senior secured debt for equity, and transfer company ownership to the lender group. --- "The agreement, which is subject to court approval, also includes a commitment from some members of the senior lender group to provide $150 million in debtor-in-possession financing, which would help fund operations during the reorganization. The pre-arranged plan proposes to cut debt by 75 percent to $550 million, from the current $2.2 billion."
1
POPSGun Control Bill H.R. 45 Not a Hoax: Universal Licensing Requirement Updated. This article in a blog (inaccurately mentioning "Senate bill") was deleted, but the House Bill HR 45 is real (proof here at Thomas/Library of Congress) , not "an internet hoax", although not proceeding with any sponsors.. It was introduced on Jan. 6, 2009 before Obama's inauguration. This COULD happen, though it appears dead now. "Owning guns is not a right, but a privilege", will be their mantra--the 2nd amendment of the Constitution be damned. This was how your owning a car has been used against you too, first licensing, then collecting your SSN and other personal data, then attaching all kinds of other requirements (from draft registration to property taxes, child support payments, et al) in order to legally drive or even park a car that you purchased yourself as a "free American". Do not buy into this "privilege, not right" rhetoric which they will soon begin to parrot.
3
POPSromania's bran castle returned to the habsurgs wow- if these walls could talk...?....located on the border between Transylvania and Wallacha in central Romania, the Bran Castle is commonly referred to as "Dracula's Castle" and marketed as the home of the titular character in Bram Stoker's novel Dracula- however there is evidence that Stoker never knew anything about this castle- and Vlad the Impaler, never resided in the castle either.... it will be turned into a museum dedicated to the legend and history of Dracula.
7
POPSGreed Frosted With Recklessness "In short the current global financial crisis is a story about people who thought they were the smartest guys in the room and who turned out to be remarkably naïve, reckless or, in some cases, downright stupid."
7
POPSIn German Suburb, Life Goes On Without Cars From the article: "Levittown and Scarsdale, New York suburbs with spread-out homes and private garages, were the dream towns of the 1950s and still exert a strong appeal.But some new suburbs may well look more Vauban-like, not only in developed countries but also in the developing world, where emissions from an increasing number of private cars owned by the burgeoning middle class are choking cities."
3
POPSThe Birth of American Socialism Are freedom are about gone. I can't imagine living like this, unless you came up from the cesspool. I guess all the Obama Hussein voters will be right at home.
3
POPSDHS targets conservatives Seems all you have to do to be considered a right wing extremist according to Obama's DHS is disagree with Obama in any way whatsoever.
2
POPS Cheap Political Theater by Thomas Sowell . . . . including commonsense standards for making home loans. Politicians and bureaucrats micro-managing the mortgage sector of the economy is precisely how today's economic disaster began. Why anyone would think that their micro-managing the automobile industry, or executive pay across a wide sweep of other industries, is likely to make things better in the economy is a mystery. The real point is to pander to envy and resentment against people who make a lot of money. Envy is always referred to by its political alias, "social justice." But to put the lives of the wives and children of executives at risk for the sake of Beltway grandstanding shows how low our political saviors have sunk. We are not yet a banana republic, though that is the direction in which some of our politicians are taking us-- This political theater is in one sense cheap beyond words. In another sense, it is costly beyond words.
7
POPSIs home ownership the problem? Richard Florida's now-famous Atlantic article suggests that home ownership ties people to failing local economies and inhibits economic growth.
3
POPS Bottom Line Gateway notes its Bush’s fault the Dem Cong and Dem pres have been forced to jacked up spending on all their favorite agenda items. Blaming Bush has worked out pretty well for them so far. Why stop? Obama Sets Record By Nearly Tripling Deficit In 1st Month... Blames Bush Obama will announce a record deficit today. In one month Democrats have already nearly tripled the national deficit and could quadruple the deficit this year. The deficit they have racked up represents 12.3 percent of the U.S. economy-- its largest share since World War II and more than double the total from last year. Obama will also announce tax hikes and more government programs in his talk today. And, he will blame Bush for the deficit he's tripled. http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/02/team-obama-sets-record-by-tripling-debt.html
4
POPSSecond Amendment Under Fire: Gun Ownership in the Obama Era . . . . attempting to make it all but impossible for Illinois citizens to own firearms. It’s an insidious scheme which would force citizens to carry at least $1 million in insurance to own a gun. The kicker? There do not seem to be companies offering the kind of insurance Dunkin would require — something Dunkin presumably knew as he wrote his bill, since he is on the Insurance Committee of the Illinois General Assembly. It seems that Dunkin’s plan is to attempt to trap Illinois gun owners in a Catch-22 that would make it impossible for anyone in Illinois to legally own a gun because the insurance required doesn’t exist. Congressman Bobby Rush has introduced H.R.45, the Blair Holt’s Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009, Rush’s bill would dictate how firearms are stored in a gun owner’s home, essentially making it impossible to defend one’s home by making it illegal to store a gun where it can be readily accessed.
4
POPSBarack Obama's Savior-Based Economy GOP Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina said, "We're moving precipitously close to what I would call a savior-based economy." Tellingly, Obama chose Ft. Myers to drum up support for his wealth redistributionism. The area has been one of the hardest hit by foreclosures, as the president was quick to point out. But many of those homes are second or third homes and investment properties. And low housing prices are not a catastrophe for everyone. They've created opportunities for Americans who haven't been able to buy in an artificially inflated market. The median sales price of a home in the Ft. Myers area fell 50 percent to $106,900, from $215,200 in December 2007. Bargain-priced home sales are up 146 percent from a year ago. It's sacrilegious to say it in the Age of Obama, but it needs to be said: Home ownership is not an entitlement. Credit is not a civil right. Your property-value preservation is not my problem. Can I get an "Amen!"? michelle malkin
3
POPSThe President Explained Today "Spending IS Stimulus"
for the housing market from Washington. George Bush's push for an ownership society and the Democrats push to see FNMA and Freddie Mac extend home ownership to groups normally closed out of that part of the American Dream made it unlikely that any regulator would crack down on the mortgage market. This time the twin towers were "Housing always goes up" and "Washington will bail us out if it doesn't". The rest is history. My history, anyway. Wiliam Kristol advises the Republicans on how to counter-punch - separate the real stimulus from the longer-term investments in America. Republicans should stop trying to improve the unimproveable with small-bore amendments to the current legislative package. Instead, they can point out that Obama is supporting under the guise of emergency legislation a bloated catch-all of stimulus, pork and (often bad) policy. UPDATE: It's officially a "SPENDING" BILL, the President announced that "spending IS stimulus" and his minions "got it"
2
POPSThe Health Care Bailout of 2018 Instead of universal health care, we need free market reforms that reduce costs, reward individual responsibility, and respect individual rights. Some examples include eliminating mandatory insurance benefits, repealing laws that forbid purchasing health insurance across state lines, and allowing individuals to use Health Savings Accounts for routine expenses and to purchase low cost, catastrophic-only insurance for major expenses.
2
POPSNot My Financial Crisis -- I've Got Literally Nothing to Lose
CONTUNED: "I haven't heard much from or about people like me in the last month. Watching the media report on the crisis, you'd think the United States had achieved the Republican dream of becoming a full-fledged "ownership society" populated by an upwardly mobile class of home-owning day traders sitting on fat nest eggs. But it hasn't. So here's a news flash from the young-and-indebted demographic: Those of us without retirement plans or health insurance, who just barely make rent and buy food in the real economy, a lot of us aren't as scared as maybe we should be. We have our own gut take on the disappearance of $9 trillion in electronic NYSE casino chips. And that is, we could give a shit. ... "Scraping by will likely become even harder in the days ahead for people in my income bracket. But it seems to me that a decade of scraping by is good practice for whatever's coming. And it's just a fact that this particular era of capitalism hasn't been very good for those of us a
10
POPS“Joe the Plumber?” Here’s the real story of Dad the Mechanic. By the time my Dad’s cancer was killing him, he decided to spend $10,000 on a (futile and excruciating) chemotherapy regimen. Eight weeks later, he was dead. But before he died, he admitted that the government he had voted for absolutely didn’t care about people like him. “Joe the Plumber” This man supports anti-worker policies and then wonders why he can’t get ahead. He hasn’t undergone the training that is required to be a plumber, but claims that Democratic policies are what’s holding him down. Please, let's not get fooled again!
1
POPSDon't look now - Obama is tricking you If you don't want to know, then don't listen. If you want to like him, and his ideas anyway, then go vote your emotions. But, if you actually care to reason and think, if you are undecided because you really do want to know what's best ... then read
9
POPSFannie Mae & Freddie Mac not the cause of the subprime mortgage meltdown Between 2004 and 2006, when subprime lending was exploding, Fannie and Freddie went from holding a high of 48 percent of the subprime loans that were sold into the secondary market to holding about 24 percent, according to data from Inside Mortgage Finance, a specialty publication. One reason is that Fannie and Freddie were subject to tougher standards than many of the unregulated players in the private sector who weakened lending standards, most of whom have gone bankrupt or are now in deep trouble. During those same explosive three years, private investment banks — not Fannie and Freddie — dominated the mortgage loans that were packaged and sold into the secondary mortgage market. In 2005 and 2006, the private sector securitized almost two thirds of all U.S. mortgages, supplanting Fannie and Freddie, according to a number of specialty publications that track this data.
1
Pops
Newest Clips
Latest Comments
Most Pops
Print
Save
Turn on live update