It is with regret that I report Joe did NOT win Home Coming King. Jack Bradley was crowned.
I do believe that had Joe mentioned his time as a Salad Bar Stocker/Host at Sister Sarah's along with his other accomplishments he would have been a shoe-in.
Jack Bradley? I can't believe it! Who is Jack Bradley anyways? Joe4 is a "king" to us! :-) Wow...Ellen looks amazing...what a beautiful bride. Love the bridesmaid dress too. Betty delivered 68 Sarah's Holiday Letters today...took over 3 hours...she did a wonderful job. Thanks Betty. :-) Eli's ankle is getting better and so is Liam's wild-n-weird rash. I don't think that Eli will play football this weekend...but, probably/hopefully next.
Lisa, You asked about the newspaper coverage of GHS homecoming. There was a 4 page supplement to the paper. The "royalty" were all shown as well as a photo of the entire FB team. Nancy, you asked who Jack Bradley is. He lives on a farm outside of Burt and is in St. John's parish, Bancroft. His father is Jim Bradley and I forget his mother's first name. Her last name is Rowlet. Jack's grandparents are Pat and Vera Bradley and they live in Bancroft. But they used to live on the farm outside of Burt where Jim and his family now live. Pat and Vera have been friends of ours for over 40 years and our older kids will remember visiting the Bradleys on their farm occasionally. Jack is a very fast tailback on the GHS football team and is a good friend of Joe's. After it was all over, I had the feeling that Joe was not too disappointed that he did not win. Dad
Kelli, I tried to email you a pic but your email address had fatal errors. Mine is mollyrose825@aol.com, email me and I'll reply you the picture of Betty:-)
Good article Des. I am so sick of McCain and his band saying Obama is going to raise everyone's taxes. They are such liars! ANd now SP won't cooperate with troopergate investigation. She sucks.
What is Claymore?
Today we went to IKEA which I love. I didn't go to buy anything, but I can drop Jude off for an hour for free and he loves it. They have a room full of balls for kids. Sam and I cruise around and look at stuff, then we pick up Jude ande we went to lunch. He had a 99 cent bowl of mash pots and gravy and I had a chic wrap and all in all we had a pleasant two hours and only spent six dollars. I really do love IKEA. I might take Jude there every week this winter.
des/em, the guards at buckingham palace are going from the bearskin to synthetic big hats, due to animal rights group protests. i bet you can get a used one for cheap. just watch out for ceiling fans.
Oh, when we were in the cafeteria at IKEA there was this really old man in a wheelchair. The guy had to be in his late 90s or older. Anyway, Jude said very loudly, "Hey that's a dead guy. He died, right?" I am not sure where he even heard the words dead and died.
Ha! Em, that is too funny. Here's another one...when my sister was 2 she rode the MTC bus downtown with my Mom. She had never seen an african american before. An african american lady steps into the bus and she had really bad acne. Ann said LOUDLY (while pointing wildly), "Lookee, Mommee! Lookee,lookee,lookee, lookee,lookee!" The horror, my mother felt, for sure.
Don't underestimate Palin. I'll bet Joe Biden isn't - he's trying to figure out how to handle her in a debate and score killer points without looking like a bully. And she didn't get where she is without some political instincts. She can toss off cheap-shot one-liners all night and her fans will eat it up.
Oh, wait....how long was I going to abstain from political posting?
Re: Your question to Ed on the two-handed or basket handled claymore... our goggle must have landed us on the same address because I looked it up, too and wondered the same thing.
too funny!
have fun, everyone, at homecoming! Go Bears!
Today is St. Albert's homecoming. Mary Laurel had to wear green and/or gold. I taught her the "We have spirit yes we do we have spirit how bout you?" cheer.
I realize I’m going to sound a bit like Ted Kaczinski (spelling?) when I say this but….as I was leaving HyVee the other day and lamenting the high cost of EVERYTHNG I had a thought. I said to myself that maybe it wouldn’t be a bad thing if we had to endure another great depression. That our country, for many and varied reasons, needs to relearn some values. I think back in the day so many people had so little. In fact, all they had of value was their word. And they protected it by living an honorable lifestyle. Today’s "urban street punk" attitude (meaning many things – but greatly values “getting over” on everyone else no matter what the cost) has become pervasive and destructive.
Maybe we need to be more self reliant again. And most of all we need to lose the notion of entitlement.
I think I have enough ground to grow a pretty nice potato patch if I had to. I could protect it well with my small arsenal.
I'm interested to see how they do it. They are buying up all the "bad" mortgages, right? What financial structure or group will they administer it through? Do they plan to resell those mortgages when the real estate market picks up? Are they going to continue with the introductory low or no interest rates? If they can pull it off, it might save us from a really bad recession or depression. Now is the time for the candidates to step up with some smart talk about all the implications of this.
Possible printing more money to cover the tie-up of funds over these deals (like that won't further devalue the dollar) and...
Possible removing the no-interest or low-interest loans. I think that what they need to do is: Check out the potential buyer! My gosh, the other night on the news they interviewed scores of people facing bancruptcy and unpaid debt who were solving their housing problem by buying another house (at a much lower price) just before their house was foreclosed upon... moving in to the new home and letting the old house go to the bank. How'd they get the second loan? This is crazy!
Forgive my rage. This is more than a problem with moral-less borrowers. This involves an entire lending industry... such as getting commissions on loans made, slopply investigative practices, etc.
One thing that happened in the Depression was that people who had little fed people who had nothing. Now we give away relatively little out of our abundance. But what we don't hear about is the kids who left school to work, or the fathers who left their families to look for work, or the wives who endured beatings from bitter frightened men in silence because the culture didn't protect them. I agree with you that people have and support too much crap they don't need, but I don't think losing everything will teach them that things don't buy happiness. Also, just as history is written by the winners, we see the images of white culture enduring the depression, farmers losing their farms or white men riding the rails, but meanwhile, the people on the lowest rungs of the social ladder (blacks, poorest whites) couldn't read or write to tell their stories. During the Depression many children STARVED TO DEATH or died for lack of medical care and nutrition or from accidents working in dangerous jobs. There's nothing noble about not knowing how you will feed your kids or being too exhausted or worried to read to them. Instead of being more "self" reliant we need to realize how intertwined all our fortunes really are. In the Depression many men learned that it didn't matter how hard they worked or how well they obeyed the rules, they were basically helpless in the face of awful circumstances. One good thing it would do is teach us to stop blaming people for being poor because it could happen to anyone. Meanwhile, I'm going to get that planter box behind my garage repaired and plant food in it next summer.
Have you ever been so deep in the hole that you bought stuff you didn't really need or could afford because it didn't matter anyway, just add it to the list? That's our govmint right now. I'm not saying this bailout is bad, it may be necessary, but I think the attitude is "What's another trillion at this point?"
I can still remember the lesson taught in one of my earliest history classes – probably 3rd or 4th grade. The teacher thought it so important that it was a test question. It was something like this…
“What was the rule regarding eating for the settlers of Jamestown, the first English settlement on American soil?
Answer - “If you don’t contribute you don’t eat.”
I wonder if today’s teachers impress this upon kids. Time to get back to basics?
Tom, did anyone notice that you were talking to yourself as you were walking out of HyVee...I mean, I'm soooo embarrassed if they did. I'll have to go to Fareway (did you talk to your self at Fareway?) I have to show my face at the game tonight!
It's bad but not armageddon bad. We may not be able to walk up to our bank and get a subprime loan, but the ATMs will work just fine. Go buy something.
Hi, I just got an email from my friend and classmate Al Sullivan, who is perhaps the most anti-conservative person I know. He was passing on a message he got from another friend who heard it from a state senator who heard it from someone on the democratic national committee. Senator Biden will step down right after his debate with Sarah Palin, citing health reasons (an aneurism) and Hillary will replace him on the ticket. The DNC also decided to encourage supporters to spread the information around the country. Dad
Hello Everyone! We just wanted to say thanks a bunch and hope you all had a great time at the wedding. We both did, as well as the last week in San Fran and Napa. It's so cool up there. Oh yes, also a bunch of thanks for putting up with the big group picture. I'm sure it will turn out ok- hopefully! I am sorry I missed footloose. Such a good song.
Just a thumbnail explaination of what happened to the economy:
1) Lending practices became less strict allowing (in some cases) for people to buy a house with no money down and no proof of income. Also allowed were loans in which the buyer would not pay any principle and sometimes only a portion of the interest payment that would have otherwise been due. The idea here was that the price of the house would go up over time and the buyer would be able, at a later date, to either sell the house for a profit (and thereby pay off all accumulated interest) or refinance when they had built equity (by way of rising hosing prices) then get a more affordable interest rate sine they would then become a “prime” borrower (owning a 20% stake in the house with a good credit score). 2) The big brokerage firms bought the loans from the banks and packaged them into pools. They then split the pools into pieces and sold each tranche to investors. These are the “mortgage backed securities”. Pension funds, endowments, hedge funds and mutual funds bought them up. Some of the pools held low-risk loans; these consisted of borrowers who made 20% down payments on traditional 30-year 6% fixed-rate mortgages. But other tranches consisted of the new “subprime” mortgages — obtained by high risk borrowers who managed to borrow more than the house was worth, paying less than the monthly payment and with little or no assets or income that might enable them to keep doing so. But on paper, the loans were profitable, and the big brokerage firms found them easy to sell to investors looking for the high returns they offered. And to give the illusion of safety, firms creating these securities had them insured. This is where AIG got into trouble because AIG offered guarantees on many of these products sold to investors. 3) Ok – then the crap hit the fan. Interests rates rose and housing prices started declining. The borrower who had counted on the fact that their house would rise in value was no longer able to sell their house for a profit and no longer able to refinance that variable rate mortgage they got because lending practices had tightened. As interest rates rose and the monthly payments become unbearable for these borrowers. This is essentially what is causing the defaults. When the borrowers default this causes problems with the securities that the brokerage firms sold in #2 cause they do not have the money to pass on to the investors (the owners of the “Mortgage Backed Securities”). 4) Many of the brokerage firms were party to this whole mess on several different levels. Because of the huge decline in value of these securities these firms are facing difficult times.
We went to free concert last night. There were a couple of 3 or 4 yearolds running back and forth in front of the stage. Peter was sitting on my lap trying to keep warm and he looked at them and said wistfully, "I wish I was young"
Thanks Ed....good explanation. Another interesting part of this regarding the "interest only loans"...these were not necessarily sub-prime borrowers. We saw it in Omaha alot...corporate transferees, knew they would be in town for maybe 3 years would get those interest only loans, knowing that in three years when they moved on the corp. relocation pkg. would but their home, if it didn't sell! (Homes in the $300,000+ range)
Well, back in the land of sun, cement, and surf. Thanks so much to Cathy and Steve for throwing that fabulous birthday party for Josh (jk), to mom and dad for all the meals out, to Mary for driving me back to Omaha even though she'd been there about 4 times in the past 8 weeks. To Lisa and Randy for having us at their house for two days. Sorry, Liam for not making your football game. It was about an hour too early, and plus since Emily had driven down with her kids I wanted time to talk with her. Did his team win? That would be VERY interesting if Hillary came aboard.
That's okay Pat...it WAS early! We left for Albert City at 7:30am, his game started at 9am and then, had to wait until Eli's game which began late at 12:30. Eli didn't play, but Tom's an Assistant Coach and Eli was there to support his teammates. Liam's record is 3-0 and Eli's is 0-3. Liam had a great game. He tackled some poor kid and as Liam was coming at him...he made a gnarly face and growled...the kid was laid out flat and had to be helped off the field by two men.
I still have my doubts about that Biden story. I would think it would be all over the internet. On the other hand, Biden has been pretty quiet lately and Obama looks preoccupied.
Here's an interesting story, bearing in mind that the Huffington Post is what it is....but Sarah Palin is no more Catholic than James Dobson or Tammy Faye. She's sca-a-a-ry.
Like Ben Franklin said - people get the government they deserve.
Maybe we should just take our economic lumps on this crisis instead of laying more debt on our children and grandchildren. Just because we were asleep at the switch doesn't mean they deserve to pick up the tab.
We pay our law makers a relatively paltry wage. I say increase it to at least a million a year and get some decent people in there. We have chumps leading us from one meltdown to another.
Has a bipartisan commission been arranged to deal with the Miley Cyrus crisis? What are the candidates saying? Need we send in the super collider monkeys to remedy the situation? It's time for some real leadership.
I'm watching these hearings with very little confidence. They are being chaired by Chris Dodd. He's the one that got a "favored low interest loan" from Country Wide.
In his opening statements it took him about 30 seconds to infer some wrong doing on the part of the Administration.
Go figure - I always operate from that assumption. It wouldn't take me 30 seconds. I have to work on my persistently negative outlook. Truthfully, I blame it on Reagan.
Hey, BOTH parties have been in the pocket of Fannie and Freddie. Many took contributions and the aforementioned "favor". All the while housing prices are doubling in some parts of the country within a couple of years.
Someone, somewhere should have been saying "wait just a minute". It HAS been a democratically controlled congress. No one heard a peep out of them when all this was happening.
And yes, Bush should have said/done something as well.
Welcome to the Family Andy!
65 comments:
Nice pics.
It is with regret that I report Joe did NOT win Home Coming King. Jack Bradley was crowned.
I do believe that had Joe mentioned his time as a Salad Bar Stocker/Host at Sister Sarah's along with his other accomplishments he would have been a shoe-in.
Tom
Who is Jack Bradley? Who are his parents?
Emma is almost as tall as Lisa and Lisa has heels on in that picture.
She's going to tower over you someday soon Lisa.
Monica
Jack Bradley? I can't believe it! Who is Jack Bradley anyways? Joe4 is a "king" to us! :-)
Wow...Ellen looks amazing...what a beautiful bride. Love the bridesmaid dress too.
Betty delivered 68 Sarah's Holiday Letters today...took over 3 hours...she did a wonderful job. Thanks Betty. :-)
Eli's ankle is getting better and so is Liam's wild-n-weird rash. I don't think that Eli will play football this weekend...but, probably/hopefully next.
Lisa, You asked about the newspaper coverage of GHS homecoming. There was a 4 page supplement to the paper. The "royalty" were all shown as well as a photo of the entire FB team.
Nancy, you asked who Jack Bradley is. He lives on a farm outside of Burt and is in St. John's parish, Bancroft. His father is Jim Bradley and I forget his mother's first name. Her last name is Rowlet. Jack's grandparents are Pat and Vera Bradley and they live in Bancroft. But they used to live on the farm outside of Burt where Jim and his family now live. Pat and Vera have been friends of ours for over 40 years and our older kids will remember visiting the Bradleys on their farm occasionally. Jack is a very fast tailback on the GHS football team and is a good friend of Joe's.
After it was all over, I had the feeling that Joe was not too disappointed that he did not win. Dad
Kelli, I tried to email you a pic but your email address had fatal errors. Mine is mollyrose825@aol.com, email me and I'll reply you the picture of Betty:-)
OK Des, Joe K, Ed - What do you want for Christmas? I think men are really hard to buy for.
Yes all - the gift list is published at the right of the webpage: giftor to the left and giftee to the right
Emily - being in that Scottish building really made me want a Calymore and a bottle of Scotch.
that's claymore, not calymore.
Great wedding Ellen and Andy and Jayjacks. So much fun. My girlfriend had a blast, too. I'm glad all of you got to meet her.
Christmas, let's see... A killer stocking cap? My bald head gets cold. Something that looks like my head is an eagle or something.
Check this out. Looks like Palin Power is wearing off. I wonder what the next can of spinach will be:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/18/palin.appeal/
Good article Des. I am so sick of McCain and his band saying Obama is going to raise everyone's taxes. They are such liars! ANd now SP won't cooperate with troopergate investigation. She sucks.
What is Claymore?
Today we went to IKEA which I love. I didn't go to buy anything, but I can drop Jude off for an hour for free and he loves it. They have a room full of balls for kids. Sam and I cruise around and look at stuff, then we pick up Jude ande we went to lunch. He had a 99 cent bowl of mash pots and gravy and I had a chic wrap and all in all we had a pleasant two hours and only spent six dollars. I really do love IKEA. I might take Jude there every week this winter.
des/em,
the guards at buckingham palace are going from the bearskin to synthetic big hats, due to animal rights group protests. i bet you can get a used one for cheap. just watch out for ceiling fans.
Oh, when we were in the cafeteria at IKEA there was this really old man in a wheelchair. The guy had to be in his late 90s or older. Anyway, Jude said very loudly, "Hey that's a dead guy. He died, right?" I am not sure where he even heard the words dead and died.
Ed, do you want a two-handed claymore or a basket hilted claymore?
Ha! Em, that is too funny.
Here's another one...when my sister was 2 she rode the MTC bus downtown with my Mom. She had never seen an african american before. An african american lady steps into the bus and she had really bad acne. Ann said LOUDLY (while pointing wildly), "Lookee, Mommee! Lookee,lookee,lookee, lookee,lookee!"
The horror, my mother felt, for sure.
Don't underestimate Palin. I'll bet Joe Biden isn't - he's trying to figure out how to handle her in a debate and score killer points without looking like a bully. And she didn't get where she is without some political instincts. She can toss off cheap-shot one-liners all night and her fans will eat it up.
Oh, wait....how long was I going to abstain from political posting?
That's what kills me - that people are eating it up. Did you see how Chuck Hagel ripped her? I really like Chuck.
See some of you tomorrow at the parade! Can't wait.
Sarah Palin says...
I love moose meat sammiches.
WooHoo! The Holiday Letters have begun to pay off. KOFAB booked their Holiday Party, on a Sunday, in December for 85ppl!
Em-
Re: Your question to Ed on the two-handed or basket handled claymore... our goggle must have landed us on the same address because I looked it up, too and wondered the same thing.
too funny!
have fun, everyone, at homecoming! Go Bears!
Today is St. Albert's homecoming. Mary Laurel had to wear green and/or gold. I taught her the "We have spirit yes we do we have spirit how bout you?" cheer.
lisa
lisa
Great!! Betty should have bargained for percentage of parties booked!!
I, of course, want the two handed claymore cause that is what Braveheart used.
Also - can't believe you didn't get that swedish meatballs at Ikea.
Woo hoo! Look like the gubament goona bail us banks out!
yes. hard to tell if it's GREAT or SCARY. we will be paying for it for a LONG TIME.
lisa
I realize I’m going to sound a bit like Ted Kaczinski (spelling?) when I say this but….as I was leaving HyVee the other day and lamenting the high cost of EVERYTHNG I had a thought. I said to myself that maybe it wouldn’t be a bad thing if we had to endure another great depression. That our country, for many and varied reasons, needs to relearn some values. I think back in the day so many people had so little. In fact, all they had of value was their word. And they protected it by living an honorable lifestyle. Today’s "urban street punk" attitude (meaning many things – but greatly values “getting over” on everyone else no matter what the cost) has become pervasive and destructive.
Maybe we need to be more self reliant again. And most of all we need to lose the notion of entitlement.
I think I have enough ground to grow a pretty nice potato patch if I had to. I could protect it well with my small arsenal.
Tom
I'm interested to see how they do it. They are buying up all the "bad" mortgages, right? What financial structure or group will they administer it through? Do they plan to resell those mortgages when the real estate market picks up? Are they going to continue with the introductory low or no interest rates? If they can pull it off, it might save us from a really bad recession or depression. Now is the time for the candidates to step up with some smart talk about all the implications of this.
This I have heard:
Possible printing more money to cover the tie-up of funds over these deals (like that won't further devalue the dollar) and...
Possible removing the no-interest or low-interest loans. I think that what they need to do is: Check out the potential buyer! My gosh, the other night on the news they interviewed scores of people facing bancruptcy and unpaid debt who were solving their housing problem by buying another house (at a much lower price) just before their house was foreclosed upon... moving in to the new home and letting the old house go to the bank. How'd they get the second loan? This is crazy!
Forgive my rage. This is more than a problem with moral-less borrowers. This involves an entire lending industry... such as getting commissions on loans made, slopply investigative practices, etc.
lisa
One thing that happened in the Depression was that people who had little fed people who had nothing. Now we give away relatively little out of our abundance.
But what we don't hear about is the kids who left school to work, or the fathers who left their families to look for work, or the wives who endured beatings from bitter frightened men in silence because the culture didn't protect them. I agree with you that people have and support too much crap they don't need, but I don't think losing everything will teach them that things don't buy happiness. Also, just as history is written by the winners, we see the images of white culture enduring the depression, farmers losing their farms or white men riding the rails, but meanwhile, the people on the lowest rungs of the social ladder (blacks, poorest whites) couldn't read or write to tell their stories. During the Depression many children STARVED TO DEATH or died for lack of medical care and nutrition or from accidents working in dangerous jobs. There's nothing noble about not knowing how you will feed your kids or being too exhausted or worried to read to them. Instead of being more "self" reliant we need to realize how intertwined all our fortunes really are. In the Depression many men learned that it didn't matter how hard they worked or how well they obeyed the rules, they were basically helpless in the face of awful circumstances. One good thing it would do is teach us to stop blaming people for being poor because it could happen to anyone. Meanwhile, I'm going to get that planter box behind my garage repaired and plant food in it next summer.
Have you ever been so deep in the hole that you bought stuff you didn't really need or could afford because it didn't matter anyway, just add it to the list? That's our govmint right now. I'm not saying this bailout is bad, it may be necessary, but I think the attitude is "What's another trillion at this point?"
I can still remember the lesson taught in one of my earliest history classes – probably 3rd or 4th grade. The teacher thought it so important that it was a test question. It was something like this…
“What was the rule regarding eating for the settlers of Jamestown, the first English settlement on American soil?
Answer - “If you don’t contribute you don’t eat.”
I wonder if today’s teachers impress this upon kids. Time to get back to basics?
Tom
I've been enduring my own little depression for a few years now.
Obama is running spanish language ads saying McCain and Limbaugh favor the same immigration policies. This is patently untrue.
So much for doing away with the "old style" politics as usual. What a @#$%^!
Tom
At this point I'm not sure why either McCain or Obama would want the presidency. Whomever is the winner will inherit a mess.
I was telling my girlfriend just today..."It's insane to wanna be Pres. or VP. I'm not voting for either of them 'cuz they must be nuts."
BUT...you gotta vote!!!! We can't teach that to our children...talk about entitlement.
There are lots of slackers...
Tom, did anyone notice that you were talking to yourself as you were walking out of HyVee...I mean, I'm soooo embarrassed if they did. I'll have to go to Fareway (did you talk to your self at Fareway?) I have to show my face at the game tonight!
Mary - I also would be ashamed to show my face around town if I were YOU.
Tom
fart, fart, faaaaaaart!
iI don'y think e=any of you realize this but we we were one week of walking up to our ATM machine and not being able to get any cash,
Does this mean that Cyberdine systems has become self-aware and is taking over the blog?
"iI don'y think e=any of you realize this but we we were one week of walking up to our ATM machine and not being able to get any cash,"
It's a good thing I took out $100 the night of the wedding! Here's a little something to calm your inner door barricader:
http://www.kiplinger.com/features/archives/2008/09/how_the_financial_crisis_started.html
It's bad but not armageddon bad. We may not be able to walk up to our bank and get a subprime loan, but the ATMs will work just fine. Go buy something.
Yes, I'm voting...I was being funny. I am voting for McCain. :-)
Hi, I just got an email from my friend and classmate Al Sullivan, who is perhaps the most anti-conservative person I know. He was passing on a message he got from another friend who heard it from a state senator who heard it from someone on the democratic national committee. Senator Biden will step down right after his debate with Sarah Palin, citing health reasons (an aneurism) and Hillary will replace him on the ticket. The DNC also decided to encourage supporters to spread the information around the country. Dad
Hello Everyone! We just wanted to say thanks a bunch and hope you all had a great time at the wedding. We both did, as well as the last week in San Fran and Napa. It's so cool up there. Oh yes, also a bunch of thanks for putting up with the big group picture. I'm sure it will turn out ok- hopefully!
I am sorry I missed footloose. Such a good song.
Just a thumbnail explaination of what happened to the economy:
1) Lending practices became less strict allowing (in some cases) for people to buy a house with no money down and no proof of income. Also allowed were loans in which the buyer would not pay any principle and sometimes only a portion of the interest payment that would have otherwise been due. The idea here was that the price of the house would go up over time and the buyer would be able, at a later date, to either sell the house for a profit (and thereby pay off all accumulated interest) or refinance when they had built equity (by way of rising hosing prices) then get a more affordable interest rate sine they would then become a “prime” borrower (owning a 20% stake in the house with a good credit score).
2) The big brokerage firms bought the loans from the banks and packaged them into pools. They then split the pools into pieces and sold each tranche to investors. These are the “mortgage backed securities”. Pension funds, endowments, hedge funds and mutual funds bought them up. Some of the pools held low-risk loans; these consisted of borrowers who made 20% down payments on traditional 30-year 6% fixed-rate mortgages. But other tranches consisted of the new “subprime” mortgages — obtained by high risk borrowers who managed to borrow more than the house was worth, paying less than the monthly payment and with little or no assets or income that might enable them to keep doing so. But on paper, the loans were profitable, and the big brokerage firms found them easy to sell to investors looking for the high returns they offered. And to give the illusion of safety, firms creating these securities had them insured. This is where AIG got into trouble because AIG offered guarantees on many of these products sold to investors.
3) Ok – then the crap hit the fan. Interests rates rose and housing prices started declining. The borrower who had counted on the fact that their house would rise in value was no longer able to sell their house for a profit and no longer able to refinance that variable rate mortgage they got because lending practices had tightened. As interest rates rose and the monthly payments become unbearable for these borrowers. This is essentially what is causing the defaults. When the borrowers default this causes problems with the securities that the brokerage firms sold in #2 cause they do not have the money to pass on to the investors (the owners of the “Mortgage Backed Securities”).
4) Many of the brokerage firms were party to this whole mess on several different levels. Because of the huge decline in value of these securities these firms are facing difficult times.
We went to free concert last night.
There were a couple of 3 or 4 yearolds running back and forth in front of the stage. Peter was sitting on my lap trying to keep warm and he looked at them and said wistfully, "I wish I was young"
Monica
Thanks Ed....good explanation. Another interesting part of this regarding the "interest only loans"...these were not necessarily sub-prime borrowers. We saw it in Omaha alot...corporate transferees, knew they would be in town for maybe 3 years would get those interest only loans, knowing that in three years when they moved on the corp. relocation pkg. would but their home, if it didn't sell! (Homes in the $300,000+ range)
Is Joe Biden starting to get headaches???
Let's help wag the dog!
Well, back in the land of sun, cement, and surf. Thanks so much to Cathy and Steve for throwing that fabulous birthday party for Josh (jk), to mom and dad for all the meals out, to Mary for driving me back to Omaha even though she'd been there about 4 times in the past 8 weeks. To Lisa and Randy for having us at their house for two days.
Sorry, Liam for not making your football game. It was about an hour too early, and plus since Emily had driven down with her kids I wanted time to talk with her. Did his team win?
That would be VERY interesting if Hillary came aboard.
P
I would not vote for a Biden-less Obama. That story that dad sent is not true. It doesn't make any sense. Why would they wait until after the debate?
Because 2 women battling would probably play better for the GOP....Biden will de-throne her and then step down. There is only one veep debate.
That's okay Pat...it WAS early! We left for Albert City at 7:30am, his game started at 9am and then, had to wait until Eli's game which began late at 12:30. Eli didn't play, but Tom's an Assistant Coach and Eli was there to support his teammates. Liam's record is 3-0 and Eli's is 0-3. Liam had a great game. He tackled some poor kid and as Liam was coming at him...he made a gnarly face and growled...the kid was laid out flat and had to be helped off the field by two men.
John and Cindy McCain own 13 cars ...Michelle and Barack Obama own one car.
"Lay-em out Liam"
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=PREP_INSIDER
Wow.
I still have my doubts about that Biden story. I would think it would be all over the internet. On the other hand, Biden has been pretty quiet lately and Obama looks preoccupied.
Here's an interesting story, bearing in mind that the Huffington Post is what it is....but Sarah Palin is no more Catholic than James Dobson or Tammy Faye. She's sca-a-a-ry.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-wilson/sarah-palins-churches-and_b_124611.html
Yeah, I don't think the Hillary thing will really happen either. But it's a fun rumor.
Liam grew a LOT since I last saw him. Not just taller, looks a lot older. He must be one of the biggest kids out there.
p
Like Ben Franklin said - people get the government they deserve.
Maybe we should just take our economic lumps on this crisis instead of laying more debt on our children and grandchildren. Just because we were asleep at the switch doesn't mean they deserve to pick up the tab.
We pay our law makers a relatively paltry wage. I say increase it to at least a million a year and get some decent people in there. We have chumps leading us from one meltdown to another.
Tom
Of greater concern is that Miley Cyrus is apparently acting up on the set of Hannah Montana.
Has a bipartisan commission been arranged to deal with the Miley Cyrus crisis? What are the candidates saying? Need we send in the super collider monkeys to remedy the situation? It's time for some real leadership.
Tom
I'm watching these hearings with very little confidence. They are being chaired by Chris Dodd. He's the one that got a "favored low interest loan" from Country Wide.
In his opening statements it took him about 30 seconds to infer some wrong doing on the part of the Administration.
Tom
Go figure - I always operate from that assumption. It wouldn't take me 30 seconds. I have to work on my persistently negative outlook. Truthfully, I blame it on Reagan.
Hey, BOTH parties have been in the pocket of Fannie and Freddie. Many took contributions and the aforementioned "favor". All the while housing prices are doubling in some parts of the country within a couple of years.
Someone, somewhere should have been saying "wait just a minute". It HAS been a democratically controlled congress. No one heard a peep out of them when all this was happening.
And yes, Bush should have said/done something as well.
Tom
Just blame it on Reagan. He can't argue with you.
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