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POPS This Bailout Was A Terrible Idea! Here's Why
This lending was a wholesale abandonment of reasonable lending practices in which borrowers with poor credit characteristics got mortgages they were ill-equipped to handle. Talk of Armageddon, however, is ridiculous scare-mongering. If financial institutions cannot make productive loans, a profit opportunity exists for someone else. This might not happen instantly, but it will happen. The costs of the bailout, moreover, are almost certainly being understated. The administration's claim is that many mortgage assets are merely illiquid, not truly worthless, implying taxpayers will recoup much of their $700 billion. The bailout has more problems. The final legislation will probably include numerous side conditions and special dealings that reward Washington lobbyists and their clients. Anticipation of the bailout will engender strategic behavior by Wall Street institutions as they shuffle their assets and position their balance sheets to maximize their take.
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POPSNZ youth to be tried as an adult in Hawaii Bartley's lawyer, Jeffrey Hawk, hinted at a possible defense. "Every child is a product of his environment and his family," Hawk said. "And I think, hopefully, we can make that an issue in this case, that no child does these sort of things without good cause or good reason."
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POPSParents charged in death of 16 yr old Their case has focused attention on some laws that let parents rely on prayer to heal their children. Marci Hamilton, a professor at Cardozo Law School, who writes about religious issues, said the case may test Oregon's religious freedom laws and may prompt other states to re-examine their spiritual healing laws. "There was a time when we were willing to permit these children to be lost, but there are increasingly more prosecutions and lawsuits," she said. "Children should not be permitted to be the testing ground for their parents' faith or secular views if it's going to result in their death."
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POPSBash the Bailout: Government is Not the Answer ......banking crisis, they make things worse. This is a long paper, but see p. 4 in particular. 10. One of the oldest forms of government intervention in the financial markets has been deposit insurance. Yet globally it destabilizes capitalism, impedes innovation and makes a bad regulatory regime worse. British economist Andrew Lilico explains how. 11. Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron puts it bluntly: “The fact that government bears such a huge responsibility for the current mess means any response should eliminate the conditions that created this situation in the first place.” 12. Government has been becoming more intrusive when it comes to lending over the years. John Berlau looks at how they want to fingerprint anyone originating a home loan. The bailout bill is now law, but it does little or nothing to solve the problems government created. As long as they persist, the financial markets will be at serious risk. In the end, we may need to bailout the bailout.
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POPS Bailout Is Not The Right Answer This subprime lending was more than a minor relaxation of existing credit guidelines. This lending was a wholesale abandonment of reasonable lending practices in which borrowers with poor credit characteristics got mortgages they were ill-equipped to handle. Once housing prices declined and economic conditions worsened, defaults and delinquencies soared, leaving the industry holding large amounts of severely depreciated mortgage assets. The fact that government bears such a huge responsibility for the current mess means any response should eliminate the conditions that created this situation in the first place, not attempt to fix bad government with more government. The obvious alternative to a bailout is letting troubled financial institutions declare bankruptcy. Bankruptcy means that shareholders typically get wiped out and the creditors own the company. Bankruptcy does not mean the company disappears; it is just owned by someone new (as has occurred with several airline
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POPSU.S. Commanding General in Afghanistan: We Need More Troops More from this story; Saying that we need more troops in Afghanistan, but we cannot do this without redeploying a significant amount of troops from Iraq isn't news to anyone who reads/writes national security blogs. We've been discussing this for months if not years. Recently, it's become an increasing part of the public debate. This is mostly due to Afghanistan being more dangerous for U.S. troops than Iraq was at the most violent part of the war. As Brandon tells us, this isn't mere hyperbole. It's a statistical fact:
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POPSBill Gate's syndrome With Internet delusion, patients typically incorporate the Internet into paranoid thoughts, including a fear that the Web is somehow monitoring or controlling their lives, or being used to transmit photographs or other personal information. The delusions are fueling a chicken-and-egg debate in psychiatry: Are these merely modern examples of classic paranoia fed by the current cultural landscape, or is there something about media like reality television and the Internet that can push people over the sanity line? “There is the old saying that just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean there’s not somebody after you,” said Dr. Jeffrey A. Lieberman.
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POPSMcCain wants Glam McCain's campaign has been running an ad berating Obama for being a "celebrity" , yet the "original maverick" is enlisting the help of a big Hollywood agent? How typically hypocritical...
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POPSVoight Ignites A Blog Storm In Hollywood If I were a producer and I had to make a casting decision about hiring Voight or some older actor who hadn't pissed me off with an idiotic Washington Times op-ed piece, I might very well say to myself, ‘Voight? Let him eat cake.'" Voight seemed particularly taken aback by Wells’ blog postings, which many have interpreted as a call for blacklisting the actor. “It’s out of line to insinuate that we should blacklist people for speaking their minds,” Voight told Politico. “It’s a strange thing when people in this country can’t express their opinions without being attacked.” Voight also told Politico that his op-ed “speaks for itself” and he didn’t have much interest in getting on a soapbox or becoming a poster boy for right-wing Hollywood. “Listen,” he said, “I don’t want to make a big deal out of this. I made some very strong points, and you do expect that people are going to respond to it in a variety of ways. And that’s how it should be.”
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POPSArmy Intelligence Analyst Murdered Note the military editor's headline vs. mine. It could be significant that he was an intelligence analyst, and the investigation remains secret. This article is relatively light hearted considering its a homicide, and is short on details.
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POPSAnthrax Suspect Was Not the Culprit
Yet officially he committed "suicide" while he did not know that he was to be charged? (What was his motive for suicide if he did not know he would be charged?) His friends and key scientists vehemently reject and refute the FBI's fingering him (in a desperate attempt to close the case). That the anthrax letters (sent to only Democratic leaders in Congress, Daschle and Leahy) contained the words "Allah is great" also demonstrates this was a false flag action with clear intent to blame Arabs and "Islamic terrorists" to heighten the propaganda and fear campaign and coerce Congress to pass draconian legislation for the PATRIOT ACT, Homeland Security, and permit a definition less "war on terrorism" (all contrary to the Constitution) and cede all power to the Executive branch. The motive appears clear by the anthrax letters form and content, and the effects upon the country, which are inconsistent with the alleged motive of this good standing scientist that was trusted until now.
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