Bailout failure: They call it Democracy!

"A bipartisan rebellion in the House killed a $700 billion rescue plan for the nation's financial system yesterday, "- Washington Post

Funny how the Post like some of the polititans in Washington is calling this a "rescue" when the American people overwelmingly know this is a bailout of the idiots of Wall Street. Speaking of idiots. How about that Nancy Pelosi? here are some of the money quotes:

"The Democratic side more than lived up to its side of the bargain," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). "

Bargain my ass! Creating legislation to spend $700 billion of taxpayer money is not a bargain this was a bailout of Wall Street. The American people know it and they let their representatives know it in know uncertain terms.


"What happened today cannot stand," Pelosi said. "We must move forward, and I hope that the markets will take that message."


What can not stand ,Nancy? The will of the American people? Who flooded the offices of their Representatives with calls that this plan sucked? They call it Democracy for better or worse you and everyone else in Washington had better remember that!

BAILOUT: Hola suckers!

Nancy Pelosi said "The Party is over." but, for some the party has just begun. Nowhere in this trillion dollar bailout bill do I see that those sub prime homeowners who will be helped and bailout along with the banks have to prove that they are in this country illegally. Michelle Malkin

pulls back the curtain to show the 800 pound Gorilla sitting in the room where this bailout scam was negotiated here are the money quotes that will cost the American taxpayers:

It’s no coincidence that most of the areas hardest hit by the
foreclosure wave – Loudon County, Virginia, California’s Inland Empire,
Stockton, San Joaquin Valley, Las Vegas, and Phoenix, for starters — also happen
to be some of the nation’s largest illegal alien sanctuaries. Half of the
mortgages to Hispanics are subprime (the accursed species of loan to borrowers
with the shadiest credit histories.

I’ve reported on the rapidly expanding illegal alien home loan racket.
The top banks clamoring for their handouts as their profits plummet, led by
Wachovia and Bank of America, launched aggressive campaigns to woo illegal alien homebuyers. The quasi-governmental Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority jumped in to guarantee home loans to illegal immigrants.

The Washington Post noted, almost as an afterthought in a 2005 report:
“Hispanics, the nation’s fastest-growing major ethnic or racial group, have been
courted aggressively by real estate agents, mortgage brokers and programs for
first-time buyers that offer help with closing costs. Ads proclaim: “Sin
verificacion de ingresos ! Sin verificacion de documento !” — which loosely translates as, ‘Income tax forms are not required, nor are immigration papers.’”

Yes, Nancy Pelosi had it right "The Party is over. But, for groups like La Raza and the illegal immigrants and banks who have these sub prime loans the party has just begun. Meanwhile we American taxpayers are the ones who will be left to clean up the mess thanks to this bailout bill. Hola suckers!

Wall Street is selling it's sh$t! Guess who is buying it?

From today's Washington Post:

Congressional leaders and the Bush administration this morning said they
had struck an accord to insert the government deeply into the nation's financial
markets, agreeing to spend up to $700 billion to relieve Wall Street of troubled
assets backed by faltering home mortgages.

Yes Wall Street is selling it's sh$t and we tax payers are buying it! Hello suckers!

Full details of the plan were not immediately available.

That's because the devil was busy looking at it and try to find a way to climb into it.

There was at least one good piece of news the Republicans seemed to have been able to get the Democrats to drop their demand that suspect "social services" groups like A.C.O.R.N don't get hold of any taxpayer money since their record of corruption and voter registration fraud is one of the under reported scandals in this whole mess. Here is the money quote:

They also agreed not to dedicate a portion of any profits from the bailout
program to an affordable housing fund that Republicans claimed would primarily
assist social service organizations that support the Democratic Party, the
official said

Only time will tell how badly we taxpayers are being screwed by this legislation and those who negotiated it want this passed before the opening bell of Wall Street. So it looks like our time is up!

Bailout Barney Frank to the rescue! Of who?

As the saying goes "Fools rush in where wise men never go" so it was the Democrats and Bush administration officals like Henry Paulson who tried to rush this Wall Street bailout plan cooked up by the banks themselves through Congress this week. Now comes this irritating comment from Bailout Barney Frank in today's Washington Post:

"I am convinced that by Sunday we will have an agreement people will understand." -Barney Frank

Oh we understand Congressman Frank. We understand we taxpayers are about to be screwed by a bailout orchestrated by the banks and financial institutions like Bank of America to save their butts because of the bad sub prime loans THEY made.

No Boo Hoos for WAMU!

As the Washington Post reports:

"Federal regulators last night seized the massive, troubled mortgage lender Washington Mutual in the largest bank failure in U.S. history,"

J.P. Morgan submitted the highest bid in an auction regulators held Wednesday night, buying Washington Mutual's 2,200 branches, its $135 billion in remaining deposits -- and its vast portfolio of troubled investments in mortgage-related securities.

My my how could this have happened? As Diggers Realm reported a while ago here is an example of the kind of sub prime mortgage that Washington Mutual gave out:

"Soledad Aviles, an immigrant from Mexico with a 6th grade education who can't read or write English and makes $9 an hour, was approved for a mortgage of $615, 000 by Washington Mutual. It should be noted off the bat that Washington Mutual is one of many banks that accept the Matricula Consular ID card as proof of identity and which is easily forgable."

"Referred to a local loan broker by a trusted friend, he borrowed the entire purchase price of $615,000 from Washington Mutual at a high interest rate typical of sub-prime loans. The monthly payment, as he says he understood it, would be $3,600 -- steep for a glass cutter who made $9 an hour"-

Gee, What could go wrong here? Meanwhile Congress and the mainstream media continues to ignore exactly who these banks like Washington Mutual were giving mortgages to and why we should not be surprised how things turned out and why these banks deserve to fail and not a penny of taxpayers money should be spent to save them.

BAILOUT: The fix was in...

This BCP post from February is going into the I told you so file. All the hoopla about the administration officials coming up with this plan to buy up the toxic mortgages and bad sub prime debt and make us U.S. taxpayers pay for it is a bunch of B.S. The fix was in many months ago as I correctly predicted in February. It always seemed curious to me why the Bank of America would buy a failed mortgage broker like Countrywide with all it's bad sub prime debt. The answer is now clear Bank of America had a plan to unload that bad debt from the Countrywide purchase on us taxpayers from the begining. With the recently announced plan to have the government spend 700 billion dollars to purchase these subprime loans it looks like they succeeded. Here is exhibit A from my Post in February 2008:



"Bank of America, which is in the process of acquiring Countrywide Financial and has potentially huge exposure, has circulated a proposal to create a new federal agency that would buy vast quantities of delinquent mortgages at a deep discount and replace them with fixed-rate federally guaranteed loans."-New York Times 2/2008



That sounds very similar to what is being railroaded in in Washington this week. Just remember I told you so.

Stupid money and the common sense of mainstreet.

The Washington Post had an article today that looked at the feelings of some people in suburban main street communities who like me are not in foreclosure, who lived with in their means and did not borrow more money than they could afford when they bought their homes. Here are the money quotes:



"Ed Merkle, 58, as he pointed to the "for sale" signs lining his street.
But Merkle, a defense contractor, said he has lived within his means in an era of easy credit. He didn't take on a huge loan even when his bank encouraged him to dream bigger.
"I've been financially responsible with my own money. Why should I now be responsible for the fact that you were not?" he said. "



""If I spent more money than I have, I don't deserve to have somebody bail me out," said John Owens,"



"This may be a Main Street bailout backlash in the making. The details of the financial crisis are still hard for most people to follow -- what with talk of exotic "derivatives" known as "credit-default swaps" and so on -- but the central fact of the matter hasn't been lost on anyone in this Northern Virginia community: The taxpayers are on the hook for the bad judgment of others. "



Backlash indeed! I say bring it on and take it to Washington and Wall Street.

I woke up this morning and...

I woke up this morning and found this note on my pillow.

Somehow I don't think this is good news.

Media bias exhibit A: Jill Greenberg

When the Republicans want to provide evidence of bias in the mainstream media. They need look no further than photographer Jill Greenberg who was hired to do a photo shoot of McCain for an Atlantic Monthly article. Instead of doing the job she was assigned Greenberg went out of her way to make McCain look bad in the photos using various lighting techniques and then bragged about what she had done in her blog. There are many stupid people on the left you can now add Jill Greenberg's photo to that gallery. Here is the money quote:

“I left his eyes red and his skin looking bad…He had no idea he was being lit from below."

An Atlantic staff writer Jeff Goldberg had it right when he wrote that Greenberg had:
“disgraced her profession.”

Meanwhile Atlantic Editor James Bennet said Greenberg behaved improperly and will not be paid for the session. He said the magazine is also considering a lawsuit. As for Greenberg she last night published some of the worst photos of McCain on her website which is appropriately known as manipulator.com. However this idiot has now taken down the photo from her site. So much for the courage of her convictions.

Monday Morning do you know where your money is?

News today that Bank of America is going to buy Merrill Lynch both were participants in the sub prime mortgage meltdown that we tax payers are now paying for. How did this thing start? Bob can explain it.

Socialism comes to Wisconsin Ave.

So much for the Republican idea of free markets. Now that the Bush administration is using our taxpayer dollars to bailout Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the mainstream media refuses to look any deeper than the headlines to find out how this happened. This has all the look of a problem that is attempting to be swept under the rug. Here are some of the money quotes:

"There is no guarantee that the takeover will work, and it comes at a potentially massive cost to taxpayers. The government has pledged to inject money in the companies in any quarter in which they would otherwise be insolvent -- up to $100 billion in total for each company. "

How nice! No guarantee that after spending up to 200 billion that this may not work. If somebody in congress proposed such legislation would Bush sign it?

"Paulson also announced a separate program in which the government will start buying securities backed by mortgages -- $5 billion worth, initially. That will, in effect, subsidize the purchase of homes by lowering the interest rate that buyers must pay for a mortgage."

Why do we taxpayers have to be the only ones to buy these mortgage backed securities? Paulson should have made all those banks and institutions who gave out the loans to unqualified home buyers and illegal immigrants and then bundled them into securities be required to buy these mortgage backed securities on a 50 50 basis. Why not they caused this problem in the first place they need to share the pain of the recovery not just us taxpayers.

U.S. Taxpayers about to get smacked in the Fannie Mae

I traveled from St. Paul to Washington on Friday and opened the paper Saturday to bad news. It had all the earmarks of a taking out the trash news release. News that the U.S. Government aka the U.S. taxpayers were going to take over and bailout the two quasi private mortgage agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This is real bad news that's why it is in the Saturday papers and on a day when a tropical storm was heading up the east coast. Hold on to your wallets as once again more money is flowing out to bailout people like illegal immigrants and others who should not have gotten a mortgage but, should not have been in this country in the first place.
Here are some of the money quotes:

"For years, they played high-profile roles in the political and civic life of Washington, hiring armies of lobbyists to help protect their unique status and, through foundations, giving vast amounts of money to charities large and small. That began changing with a series of accounting scandals beginning in 2003. The housing crisis raised more questions about their structure and operations."

Were was the in depth reporting of the mainstream press when this was going on? Following the antics of Britney Spears no doubt!

"It's a case where market psychology became more important than the fundamentals, and that's why they had to act," said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee"

Huh? Fundamentals are good but, investors are scared so let the taxpayers pay billions to make sure these "investors" sleep well tonight but taxpayers will be paying for years. I smell something fishy going on.

Report from the Republican Convention

I've been here in St Paul for a week and have not had much time to blog or even do more than some walks around the XCEL convention center. Now that the Republicans have arrived and the convention begining there will be even less time. Things are starting to heat up on a number of levels. Security is getting tighter and we were advised yesterday to hide our credential when leaving the building because there were reports the more radical protesters aka anarchists were macing people and cutting the credentials from around there necks in an attempt to gain access to the convention. Stay tuned to see if they do succeed. I the meantime here are some images I took in the last week:

You knew security was tightening when last week you began to notice things like workers welding the manhole covers around the EXCEL center welding the manhole cover shut.

Last week the convention floor was filled with bags of ballons 100,000 of them before they lifted them up to the ceiling . I think one of the highlights for me at this convention will be when they drop them from the rafters it should be quite a show.

ALERT THE MEDIA!

The media has arrived! That's CNN's Wolf Blitzer with Bill Bennet and Donna Brazil.

Yesterday the delegetes began to arrive. It's about time to get this party started!