Blogs For Victory

From Housing Story:

A leading mortgage analyst predicts over 11 million homeowners will default and lose their home if the government fails to take more radical intervention.

Amherst Securities Group LP, one of the most respected names in mortgage research, has trumpeted an ambitious call-to-government arms in its October mortgage report.

“The death spiral of lower home prices, more borrowers underwater, higher transition rates (to default), more distressed sales and lower home prices must be arrested.”

The authors dismiss recent talk of mortgage performance improvement as statistical sleight-of-hand magically conjured by modifications…

Normally, an “ambitious call to government arms” is to be avoided – but, in this case, it will take government action. If you go in to the linked article, you’ll see some suggestions (including forced reductions of principle balance), not all of which I agree with. Back in July I put out what I think is the best plan possible, though I am sure others can be devised.

To nutshell my idea, I would have foreclosed houses being placed in a pool to have them leased out for two to five years, if at all possible to the people who were foreclosed on. The idea here is to keep the houses off the market, thus allowing a bit of stability to come to the housing market – while also allowing people to stay in their homes, resume paying for their residence (while going through foreclosure, a person doesn’t pay at all – while once foreclosed, the rent would be significantly less, in most cases, than the previous mortgage payment), and rebuild their credit so that in a few years they can re-enter the home buying market. The key thing to understand here is that while the economy is down, demand cannot recover – so, as we can’t help demand, we must reduce supply.

I would also change a few other things to redress the balance of power between borrowers and lenders. Right now, lenders pretty much run the show, especially as they can afford pricey legal counsel while most borrowers can’t. As a for-instance, I would allow genuine “deed in lieu of trust”, so that a borrower could surrender the property to the bank with no adverse credit and no residual balance to pay – this, I think, would make the banks more willing to actually work with distressed borrowers who really can continue to make at least some payments (a lot of people have reduced income rather than no income in this economy). There are other things along this line which can be done.

Housing in America has utterly collapsed. The only reason houses retain any value at all is because we’re essentially pretending that they do. Given the real inventory of unsold homes in America and the paucity of demand, everyone’s house is pretty much worthless except at fire-sale prices. Eventually this will all catch up with us and the resumption of the housing crash would be devastating to an already very weak economy. Better to act pro-actively to find new solutions to a problem which was decades in the making.

We can’t allow things to drift, nor can we count on the banks to fix it, nor dare we allow liberals to run a class-warfare program where foreclosures are just stopped (that would be even more disastrous than allowing them to continue – if there is a moratorium on foreclosures, a lot of people would stop paying just because of that). We have to think about what we want, and then have the courage to act. Right now, I doubt we have anyone in charge who has either courage or intelligence – but that may change soon.

That definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result – applies. From Bloomberg:

The Bank of Japan may have acted first in a new round of central bank action to prop up the global economy as recoveries in industrial nations falter.

The unexpected decision by the Japanese central bank yesterday to drop its interest rate to “virtually zero” and expand its balance sheet follows the U.S. Federal Reserve’s move toward more unconventional easing. Bank of England officials will consider further stimulus tomorrow, while the central banks of Australia, Canada and New Zealand are among those now holding fire on further interest-rate increases…

To translate from the MSM-ese:

“Governments around the world poured trillions of dollars over the past two years in to the bankrupt global financial system to revive the economy. It didn’t work. They are going to do it again.”

This is sheer insanity – the world is already over burdened with debt, and now we’re going to see massive printing of money and other fiscal tricks in order to buy up yet more worthless assets from a completely insolvent global financial system. The only way out of this is to admit that we’re broke and that a great deal of debt won’t get repaid – if we do this right, and balance our budget, then we can at least keep from defaulting on our own sovereign debt…but no matter how you slice it, the “too big to fail” banks must fail (well, strictly speaking, we must admit that they have already failed and let the free market take its course).

This is not to say there is a painless way out of this. In fact, it is an admission that we must have some pain. Printing up money and buying worthless assets is an attempt to say we can get out of this painlessly. We have to understand that we screwed up – an economy based on services and fueled by debt simply can’t work. An economy must be based on producing things and investing carefully saved money – that is what we used to have, and its the only way to fix the problem. It will take 10 to 20 years to really set things right, and two or three years just to revive wealth creation…but the longer we wait before starting, the bigger will be the ultimate crash and the longer it will take to get out of it.

And, once again, here is another reason I’m a revolutionary – the fools governing us and running our financial system are simply too blind and too compromised to do what is right..only an overturning of the Ruling Class will allow new leadership to arise which might have a clue on what to do.

HAT TIP: Mish’s

Even the presidential seal knows Obama isn’t worthy of the title.

The presidential seal has fallen off President Barack Obama’s podium and clattered to the stage as Obama delivered a speech to a women’s conference.

The president was joking with the audience and getting some laughs when he realized what happened. “All of you know who I am,” he quipped.

Obama told the audience that somebody in the back was really nervous, referring to the staffer who hung the seal on the front of the lectern so precariously.

The seal fell about halfway through the president’s remarks to Fortune magazine’s “Most Powerful Women Summit” Tuesday at Carnegie Mellon Auditorium in Washington.

There’s symbolism for you.

The news from the AP:

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie rallied conservative activists in Iowa late Monday, saying his success in a Democratic state shows his tough-talking, smaller government message resonates with all voters.

Fanning speculation that he’s considering a 2012 presidential bid, the Republican spoke to about 700 people at a fundraiser for former Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, who is challenging the Democratic incumbent for his old job back…

Ok, Governor; you’ve said you weren’t interested in being President, and that is fine…but now that you’ve gone to Iowa, it’ll take a Shermanesque denial in order for anyone to ever believe you don’t have Presidential ambitions.

As for me, I’m cool with this – and it would be interesting to have Christie in the race for 2012. Here may be the man who could win 60% of the vote…

From Fox News:

Republican Sharron Angle seems to be solidifying her support in her bid to unseat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada.

In the latest Fox News battleground state poll of likely voters, Angle drew 49 percent to Reid’s 46 percent. As voters make up their mind with four weeks to go until Election Day, Angle seems to have the edge…

You non-Nevadans just can’t imagine the level of vituperation launched against Angle by Reid and his minions over the past two months. She’s been hammered relentlessly by a series of lies and half truths, all designed not to make anyone like Harry Reid, but hate Sharron Angle. And after all this, Reid is still faltering.

The reason is that people have had enough of Harry Reid and the Ruling Class. No matter how much slime Reid its Angle with, the fact remains that Nevada is currently an economic basket case, and Harry Reid has been at the top of our political class for far too long to not bear responsibility for it.

Meanwhile, Angle has clearly articulated the most important point: she’s one of us. Angle will go to DC to represent the people and State of Nevada, and no one and nothing else. Often in Carson City the vote in the State legislature was 41 to Angle…she being the only dissenter for whatever crack pot, big government programs and taxes the Ruling Class was imposing on the people. We are confident that if push comes to shove, in the Senate it will be 99 to Angle…she will not break faith with us and I think the people of Nevada are coming to realize this, and thus she’s going to win.

Right now, in the form of a BBC commenter:

Television pundit Virginia Ironside prompted outrage yesterday after saying she would suffocate a child to end its suffering.

Shocked BBC viewers complained after the agony aunt said she would hold a pillow over the face of a child in pain.

Minutes earlier the controversial writer said ‘a loving mother’ would abort an unwanted or disabled baby, and praised abortion as ‘a moral and unselfish act’…

Hatred of children is a prime mark of the diabolical – Chesterton pointed this out long ago in his “The Everlasting Man”; asking us to understand that the ancient frenzy against witches was impelled by a belief they were preventing the birth of children. Ms. Ironside is doing no more (and no less) than advocating the sacrifice of children on the altar of our new Moloch – the false god, “Choice”. She is our modern witch, telling us that children are a curse and life is an unbearable weight.

Despair as a worldview is a terrible thing, and we can see that it leads to a woman seriously saying that it is an act of love to kill a child. Orwell in his worst nightmares never thought of this – Peace may be War, but even in his terrible vision, Murder was never Love.

Our world is an ailing place – sick at heart and unwilling to live. Christ came that we might have life and have it more abundantly, the modern secular materialist demands that we have no life, unless it is deemed worthwhile by detached, rich false intellectuals.

It will be a long road back to morality and rationality – but as people like Ms. Ironsides plumb the depths of depravity, the path out of the nightmare becomes ever more clear, and I do believe we will take it…and one day people like this will be as forgotten as the ancient priests of Baal or the Aztec murderers are today.

This has got to be disturbing news for our Democrats – from the LA Times:

A new Gallup Poll this morning finds his approval rating for September was 45%, almost the same as August’s 44%. Obama’s not exceeded the crucial 50% level in a single month so far this year…

…Democrats (79%) and liberals (75%) still like Obama a lot.

But after that, his approval percentage goes to the deep south. Support among even young people is down: 57%. Hispanics: 55%. Moderates: 54%. Unmarrieds: 53%. Easterners: 52%. Women: 47%. Midwesterners and Westerners: 45%.

Men: 43%. Southerners: 41%. Independents: 40%. Marrieds: 39%. Seniors: 38%. Whites: 36%. Conservatives: 23%.

Amazingly, among Republicans Obama still manages to hold the support of 12%…

Which indicates to me that its an over-weighted for Democrats poll. Can’t see more than 1 or 2% of GOPers accidentally – while drunk, or something – being in favor of Obama.

Bottom line, though, is that this is a disastrous poll for Obama and his Democrats – the only demographic group which is still absolutely behind Obama is black Americans, and even their support has slipped a little bit. As the linked article notes, a President with this sort of approval rating before the mid-terms tends to suffer some pretty significant losses.

Whether this will work out to a big GOP majority in the House remains to be seen – clearly, the GOP will do well, but politics is a strange thing. Better, of course, to be the party running ahead before the election – and the GOP clearly is that.

So much for manufacturing leading us out of the recession – from the Wall Street Journal:

U.S. factory orders dropped more than expected in August, marking the third decline in the last four months…

…U.S. manufactured goods orders decreased by 0.5% to $408.94 billion, the Commerce Department said Monday.

So, when does the stimulus kick in? The Recovery Summer doesn’t seem to have worked out – will it be the Recovery Next Spring Or So? How about the truth: we won’t recover until we start creating wealth, and we can’t create wealth with an albatross of debt, funny money and high taxes ’round our necks?

Expressed by Shannon Love at Chicago Boys:

Glenn Reynolds doesn’t come out and say it, but in his “The Tea Party Dominance Was Inevitable” editorial he skirts the idea, so I will just say it: The American left needs its own Tea Party movement. Ordinary Americans with leftist values need to launch an insurgency against the Democratic establishment just as the Tea Party has launched one against the Republican establishment.

The Founders well knew that the primary political dynamic in any free society was never faction against faction but the people versus the state. We have forgotten this essential insight at the heart of American governance. Distracted by the struggle of left versus right, we have let a political class form that serves no faction but itself. It is The Combine…

Which is all very true. Of course, I doubt that the full blown, leftist program would sell well even if presented by people on the left who were actually fighting against the Ruling Class – but the basic idea here is correct: Americans mistrust government, and are especially dismayed with the government we currently have. Anyone who in any way, shape or form is identified with the current Powers That Be is doomed.

On the other hand, a rational left would both be valuable as well as having a chance at winning from time to time. To become rational, the left will have to purge itself of the pro-abortion fanatics and roundly turn on everyone who seeks to use the courts to impose new laws. But much hay could be made by such a purged left in a campaign to continue to spend large amounts on social programs – though it would also be wise for any such leftist desire to insist that local people should actually control where the money for such spending goes.

It is quite a circle to square for the left – but a liberal TEA Party would be healthy for American politics and I hope it happens.

…if she just keeps this theme going: