Robert Reich on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

This morning, I heard former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich give this commentary on Marketplace Radio--Sweeping up Fannie Mae.

Marketplace Radio's introduction:

Now that Fannie Mae has just agreed to clean up its accounting and operations, it might be attractive for political leaders to put the mortgage financier's scandal behind them. But it may be tough to sweep it under the carpet, as commentator Robert Reich tells us in this edition of The Public's Business.

Here is a Robert Reich column about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from November, 2003. It seems they have run up a debt of over 2 trillion dollars since 1995 and they have been caught making billion-dollar accounting mistakes.

Unlike most corporations, if Fannie or Freddie ever went belly up, American taxpayers would foot the bill. These two giants are just too big to fail. Since 1995, the two have tripled their combined debt to more than $2 trillion. At this rate, they'll soon exceed the debt of the entire federal government. And because financial markets assume that the federal government guarantees their debts, Fannie and Freddie can borrow money at a discount and use the cash pretty much as they want.

You don't have to be a Wall Street wizard to know that when taxpayers bear the downside risks, and executives and shareholders get the upside gains, there may be a temptation to take undue risks with money. Remember the savings and loan debacle?

And these government chartered companies have executives with multi-million dollar salaries and connections to both of the major political parties. Lovely mess.

I'll post a link to Mr. Reich's current commentary when I find it on-line.
[Originally posted September 29, 2004.]

Update October 7, 2004 6:45 am

Fannie Mae has been in the news. Here is the link to Mr. Reich's Marketplace commentary: Getting tough with Fannie. Here is the link to the report mentioned in Mr. Reich's commentary: Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight--Report of Findings to Date Special Examination of Fannie Mae (PDF) And here are some links to stories in the SCLM:

• WP September 22, 2004
• NYT October 3, 2004
• 
  NYT October 6, 2004
and today's story, on yesterday's hearings:
• 
  NYT October 7, 2004

Notice the bipartisan support of and attacks on Fannie Mae.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Howard Zinn on The Optimism of Uncertainty

Found at Padacia (notes from a pad in Oslo)--this commentary by historian Howard Zinn: The Optimism of Uncertainty at Z Magazine Online. Go read the whole thing, but here are a couple of good excerpts:

I am totally confident not that the world will get better, but that we should not give up the game before all the cards have been played.

The metaphor is deliberate; life is a gamble. Not to play is to foreclose any chance of winning. To play, to act, is to create at least a possibility of changing the world.

There is a tendency to think that what we see in the present moment will continue. We forget how often we have been astonished by the sudden crumbling of institutions, by extraordinary changes in people's thoughts, by unexpected eruptions of rebellion against tyrannies, by the quick collapse of systems of power that seemed invincible.

And here are the concluding paragraphs:

An optimist isn't necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something.

If we remember those times and places--and there are so many--where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

These are words to engrave in our hearts.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Hippie Chick Pie Wagon Watch

When I first saw this, I thought this interview with Ann Coulter was a joke:

Amazon.com: How important is this presidential election in the larger context of the Republic and its history?

Ann Coulter: Insofar as the survival of the Republic is threatened by the election of John Kerry, I'd say 2004 is as big as it gets.

Amazon.com: Is there one standout issue, and why does it make a difference? What are the most crucial issues?

Coulter: I repeat: The survival of the Republic is threatened by the election of John Kerry. I'd say that's the big one.

[snip--read the Bible and my books]

Amazon.com: What's the closest parallel from American history to this year's race?

Coulter: 1864. Bush is Lincoln and Kerry is General McClellan--who, I note, was a great military leader.

Amazon.com: What is the most important lesson from President Bush's term so far?

Coulter: Peace through strength is an idea that never goes out of style. Also, some people can’t be negotiated with but have to be crushed; e.g., the Taliban, al Qaeda, possibly North Korea and Iran, Pat Leahy, Carl Levin, Richard Ben-Veniste...

Amazon.com: What would a Kerry administration mean?

Coulter: Quite possibly the destruction of the Republic.

Here is the Hippie Chick Pie Wagon preparing to vote from the rooftops, crush the enemies of the Republic and turn them into Christians. 

Ann Coulter is possibly the only person on the planet that thinks George W. Bush is like Abraham Lincoln.

And notice the eliminationist rhetoric that conservatives aim at liberals: Democratic senators and Richard Ben-Veniste should be crushed, not even talked to.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Another take on the debate

A commentary by Ciro Scotti in BusinessWeek on the first presidential debate:

But in Coral Gables, Fla., last night, Bush looked -- at least for the first half of the debate -- like Elmer Befuddled, a commander-in-chief not in command.

Perhaps what was so unnerving was that Bush found himself in a foreign-policy debate with a seasoned politician who was espousing the same sort of measured, internationalist approach to a dangerous world that was the hallmark of his father's Presidency. Debating the security and future of the nation on live national television isn't easy -- but debating your Dad is downright scary.

Another piece:

The poignancy of a man ill-prepared for and overwhelmed by his job was never more apparent than when Bush said, "I never wanted to commit troops. When we were debating in 2000, I never dreamed I'd have to do that."

The message that Kerry hammered home was that, in fact, Bush did not have to "do that," did not have to send our soldiers -- at least not to Iraq.

He never dreamed he'd have to do the job of the President? Let's get him out of the job he's not prepared for.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Post-debate Post

The presidential John Kerry won the debate on foreign policy. The unpresidential Bush smirked through his misleading talking points.

I note that the newspaper in Crawford Texas (Bush's hometown) has endorsed John Kerry:

Kerry has a positive vision for America, plus the proven intelligence, good sense, and guts to make it happen.

I pulled the plug on cable TV just a week ago. I regret not seeing the debate on split-screen on C-SPAN.

Here are the two faces of Bush:

No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which one is true.
--Nathaniel Hawthorne

It was painful listening to Mr. Bush trying to remember the lines he was trying to parrot. Bewilderment is the essence of Mr. Bush. At least he didn't claim that God told him to attack Iraq.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

John Eisenhower, son of President Dwight Eisenhower, to vote for Senator Kerry

Noticed at Eschaton: John Kerry gets another endorsement (from the Union Leader)--Why I will vote for John Kerry for President by John Eisenhower:

Responsibility used to be observed in foreign affairs. That has meant respect for others. America, though recognized as the leader of the community of nations, has always acted as a part of it, not as a maverick separate from that community and at times insulting towards it. Leadership involves setting a direction and building consensus, not viewing other countries as practically devoid of significance. Recent developments indicate that the current Republican Party leadership has confused confident leadership with hubris and arrogance.

More on the black box voting in Florida, 2004 and Polls with GOP bias and the SCLM

Pregnant chads, vanishing voters... the election fiasco of 2000 made the Sunshine State a laughing stock. More importantly, it put George Bush in the White House. You'd think they'd want to get it right this time. But no, as Andrew Gumbel discovers, the democratic process is more flawed than ever.

Read Andrew Gumbel's report from today's Independent here: Something rotten in the state of Florida.
Mr. Gumbel revisits some of the problems of the 2000 election, and the millions spent on flawed technology that doesn't even fix the problems.

The best thing about this story: people are fighting back:

Some people believe the best strategy is to keep fighting. There are high hopes of introducing a voter-verified paper trail before the 2008 presidential election, and there are signs that a grassroots movement to restore ex-felons' voting rights is finding support beyond Florida's boundaries.

"We're trying not to get bogged down in negatives," said Monica Russo, a state co-ordinator for the service workers' union. "If you do that, everyone will slit their wrists. We're union workers - we're used to having the deck stacked against us. It's about helping people to get through the process."

Well, having the deck stacked against us is normal. A good example of this are all the recent polls supposedly showing President Bush in the lead against Senator Kerry. Let's be logical:

1. There are more Democrats than Republicans in the electorate.
2. It is highly unlikely that voters for Mr. Gore in 2000 will be switching in large numbers to vote for Mr. Bush.
3. It is highly likely that at least some voters for Mr. Bush in 2000 have been disappointed by his performance in office--the failure in Iraq, the sluggish economy, and the fiscal irresponsibility of massive deficits--and will vote for Senator Kerry.

Therefore, something is wrong with the polls, in particular, the Gallup poll, which is probably the most publicized and yet the most obviously wrong:

It is pathetic and unacceptable for a "non-partisan" polling firm to be produce the outlying poll in favor of Bush in fourteen of its last sixteen polls. The odds of this happening at random are around one in 14,000. Considering those odds, the far more likely explanation for all these outliers is that Gallup's polling methodology is inherently structured in favor of Bush. Whether or not it is intentional, I do not know. However, I do know that Gallup's polls are connected to the largest news outlets in America of any poll, both in terms of print (USA Today is the largest circulation newspaper in the country) and cable news (CNN has more viewers than Fox, they just watch for shorter periods of time). I also know that sensational headlines sell. I further know that Gallup's chairman is a Republican donor.

Dear reader, perhaps you need more evidence of Gallup's faulty methodology? Check out this: Gallup Is At It Again - Yesterday's National Poll Had 12% GOP Bias by Steve Soto at the Left Coaster:

Here is the text from the email I got from Gallup this morning outlining the party ID breakdown in their likely voter samples from their two most recent national polls:

Likely Voter Sample Party IDs – Poll of September 13-15
Reflected Bush Winning by 55%-42%

Total Sample: 767
GOP: 305 (40%)
Dem: 253 (33%)
Ind: 208 (28%)

Likely Voter Sample Party IDs – Poll of September 24-26
Reflected Bush Winning by 52%-44%

Total Sample: 758
GOP: 328 (43%)
Dem: 236 (31%)
Ind: 189 (25%)

Looking at this, again I have a simple question: how can anyone, especially USA Today and CNN, let alone the rest of the media take a Gallup national poll seriously when Gallup knowingly puts a poll out there for consumption with a 12% GOP bias in its likely voter sample that everyone knows does not exist in the country today or at any time in the last three presidential elections?

Yet this flawed poll showed a narrowing Bush lead from their similarly flawed poll of two weeks ago. So if a poll with an unsupportable GOP bias of 12% in its likely voter sample, shows an 8% Bush lead amongst likely voters when a poll they used two weeks ago with a 7% GOP bias showed a 13% Bush lead with likely voters, then how can anyone not conclude that Kerry is doing much better than Gallup would have you believe?

The cynic in me wonders whether the So-Called Liberal Media lets the pollsters get away with this so they can legitimate the stealing of the election this time.

[conspiratorial whisper] Maybe if we keep drumming up the lie that Kerry doesn't have a chance, enough Democrats will sit on their hands and won't bother going to the polls?[/conspiratorial whisper]

Don't count on it. Any methodology that assumes Democrats are not as likely to vote as Republicans this time is baloney. The pollsters are going to goof up like they did in 1948 when they predicted President Truman's loss.

In researching this post, I noticed that the Left Coaster has even more on Gallup's bias and the SCLM's collusion with the pollsters.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

What can be more liberating than chaos?

Found at Fafblog [winner of Ghost Town Orange's Laugh Out Loud Award], a post by the Medium Lobster (that wondrous being 'who transcends the limitations of what you refer to as "space" and "time," sees not merely what has occured, but what will occur, what might occur, and what might have occured, had only the flow of history gone differently.') It starts--

Despite the malicious and obviously wrongheaded criticisms of partisan hacks like John Kerry, John McCain, Chuck Hagel, and the National Intelligence Estimate, George Bush remains "pleased with the progress" in Iraq. And so he should be - for that country's bright, steady march towards civil war and impending anarchy offers hope to the rest of the world.

It is here that we see the administration's plan for Iraq coming together. As George Bush himself has always pointed out, the United States invaded Iraq in order to liberate it - to give it freedom. And indeed, freedom is spreading like wildfire throughout the Mesopotamian countryside.

That Iraq has been freed from the tyranny of an evil dictator is obvious. But it has been freed from basic utilities such as electricity and clean water; freed from stability by growing clusters of Iraqi insurgents; and one day, when American troops leave - or are forced to leave - Iraq, America will have freed Iraq from liberation itself.

Some point to indicators like the latest National Intelligence Estimate and claim that George Bush is behaving like a deluded fool, that Iraq is not headed for a democracy, that instead it is barreling towards a civil war. But the Bush Administration has always had a much loftier goal in Iraq than the building of a "democracy"; it is, in fact, spreading Freedom. And what, the Medium Lobster asks, can be more liberating than chaos?

But the Medium Lobster desires more:

Yes, Iraq is becoming Free, and Afghanistan, caught between rival warlords and Taliban guerillas, has been free for years. But when will the Bush administration bring this level of Freedom to the rest of the world? China, Russia, Norway, Australia, England - none of these countries have been liberated from the constraints of stable government. Indeed, even the level of Freedom within the United States of America seems to pale before the bright future of warring Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish factions that seems to welcome Iraq. The promotion of Freedom must begin at home, after all. The Medium Lobster expects the establishment of a federally-funded American Mahdi Army to be George Bush's top priority in his second term. Freedom, after all, is spreading like a sunrise.

Now that the 'assault weapons ban' has lapsed in this election year, the American Freedom Fighters can arm themselves properly for 'hunting' and 'target practice.'

When all else fails...VOTE from the rooftops

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Church Folks for a Better America

Church Folks for a Better America:

We grieve that our nation is not standing for 'liberty and justice for all,' nor treating Iraqis as we would be treated. We believe that accountability begins at home, that wise leaders know their mistakes, and that honest leaders admit them. Fear and resentment will never guide us to a just and lasting peace. Any nation that hopes to be 'under God' must live for a positive vision of world community, not a blind response to terrorism that tragically makes others see us as if we were terrorists ourselves.

Amen.

Mountain Boomer

An Eastern Collared Lizard (Crotaphytus collaris collaris), photographed on Elk Mountain trail at Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge on Saturday September 18, 2004.
[Click image to enlarge] 

For more about fringed lizards, see these websites:

• Acclaim Images
• McMartinville
• a German website by Robert Schumacher
• a Dutch website by P.J. Bloemberg

These colorful lizards are often found on lichen-covered rocks. I thought some joker left a toy plastic lizard by the side of the trail, but it was alive!

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

TV Time

1812 on the History Channel...

When through, remember to check this out.

Father, let me dedicate All this year to you
In whatever earthly state You will have me be
Not from sorrow, pain, or care Freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer: Glorify Your name.
--from New Year's Hymn by Lawrence Tuttiett, 1864 (alt.)

Tim painted this today.