"Pet Who Wants to Kill Itself" Of The Day

The caption is priceless. Read the rest of this post...

The next subprime market — Made-to-fail used car loans

Lindsay Beyerstein has a great catch in an article at Hillman Foundation website — car loans designed especially for the no-credit desperate types who need a vehicle to keep a job.

The car "dealer" is also the lender, and it's a perfect scam. The worse your credit, the better the deal for the lender, since the car is then repo'ed and resold, often many times.

The business is called "Buy Here Pay Here" used car dealerships, and they're a first cousin to payday lenders. Beyerstein (my emphasis):

[T]he Buy Here Pay Here business model [is] sign, drive, default, repossess, and resell.

Faced with the choice between getting hosed buy a used car dealer and sleeping on the street, buyers will pay any price and accept financing on any terms. The dealers know it. Cars are priced above their Blue Book value and financed at an average interest rate of 20.7%, triple the national average.

Buy Here Pay Here dealerships are only nominally selling cars. Their real business is financing. And because they write their own loans, they are exempt from most forms of regulation. The "Pay Here" part of the name indicates that the buyer delivers payments in cash to the dealership.

Preying on the desperate is profitable, says Beyerstein; the average "dealership" makes 38%. The cars are outfitted especially for this business; they "come standard with hidden GPS trackers and remote ignition locks for easy repo." Sweet. (Maybe they could design a car that drives itself back to the lot at the push of a button. That would cut down on the night crew.)

And guess what? Wall Street is starting to repackage these loans as derivatives — just in time for Christmas. As the economy worsens, the market for no-credit car loans is bound to soar. What better gift for the union pension fund that has everything (else) — shares in a made-to-fail car loan package. (And what better product for the banks to bet against with those ever handy Credit Default Swaps? All you need is a dumb-enough counterparty.)

Beyerstein's article is based on an excellent series of stories running in the LA Times and written by Ken Bensinger. Part 1 is here, with a link to Part 2 at the bottom.

A stunning read, and an excellent catch by Beyerstein. This is something to watch out for; it has "scandal waiting to happen" written all over it.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Mega church pastor asks for donations for sick wife to be delivered in a limo

So not only is the church financially bankrupt, it's morally bankrupt as well.

Some members of a bankrupt Orange County, Calif. megachurch are expressing outrage after fielding an email request for congregants to deliver food to waiting limos so that it can ferried to the founder's sick wife. The appeal comes weeks after a lawsuit charged that the founder of the Crystal Cathedral house of worship, Rev. Robert Schuller, and his family had been paying themselves lavish salaries and other benefits while the church was in financial straits.

"They've completely depleted the church's funds," one member, Bob Canfield, told the Orange County Register. "But they have shown that they have absolutely no remorse for what they've done. They're still being chauffeured around in limos. We, the congregants, have nothing."

An email sent recently by Crystal Cathedral administrators said that Schuller and his wife, Arvella, "would appreciate meals over the next three to four weeks." It added: "They are to be sent to the church in order to be transported to Arvella. The limo drivers could pick up the dinners or meet in the Tower Lobby around 4:30 p.m."

There's a reason Orange County was the home of the Reagan revolution. Read the rest of this post...

Second Iraq war vet in intensive care after brutal police beating at Occupy Oakland

It's apparently what they do. The Guardian (h/t an alert email correspondent; my emphasis and reparagraphing):

Kayvan Sabehgi in intensive care with a lacerated spleen after protests in Oakland, a week after Scott Olsen was hurt. He says police beat him with batons ...

Sabehgi told the Guardian from hospital he was walking alone along 14th Street in central Oakland – away from the main area of clashes – when he was injured.

"There was a group of police in front of me," he told the Guardian from his hospital bed. "They told me to move, but I was like: 'Move to where?' There was nowhere to move. Then they lined up in front of me. I was talking to one of them, saying 'Why are you doing this?' when one moved forward and hit me in my arm and legs and back with his baton. Then three or four cops tackled me and arrested me."

Sabeghi, who left the army in 2007 and now part-owns a small bar-restaurant in El Cerrito, about 10 miles north of Oakland, said he was handcuffed and placed in a police van for three hours before being taken to jail. By the time he got there he was in "unbelievable pain".

The rest of the article details the horror of Sabeghi's time in jail. Sample: "I was vomiting and had diarrhoea," Sabehgi said. "I just lay there in pain for hours."

He's now in intensive care with a lacerated spleen.

There's a word for this stuff, and it describes a crime in most Western countries — just not in ours.

Here's Rachel Maddow on the Oakland PD and their history, just in case you didn't think this was part of the culture.

My guess is we should brace for more news like this. The defenders of liberty will not go gentle into that good night; they'll go kicking and screaming, if they leave at all.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Lawyer of Cain accuser speaks, say there’s no value in releasing the details

LA Times:

Joel Bennett, whose client is one of two women that lodged written sexual harassment complaints against Cain during his three-year tenure leading the group, did not identify the woman. He said she felt "there is no value of revisiting the matter now or discussing it further publicly or privately. In fact, it is extremely painful to do so."

I can see how the woman doesn't want to relive this. I got sexually harassed once, while working in the Senate, by a female secretary to a political appointee in the Bush administration. It was a bizarre incident. I had to call the woman to get a hold of of her boss, a deputy assistant secretary who handled the issues I worked on, so she knew me. One day I called to talk to him, he was on the phone, and asked her "do you mind if I hold" to talk to him. She responded, "that depends, what are you holding?" I remember at the time thinking, "did she just make a crude sexual joke?" So I told her, you know I've got work to do, just have him call me. Well, that's when things got really bizarre.

She called me back a few minutes later, I was working again and had let the incident go, and remember being surprised to hear her calling me - she never called me, her boss called me. I tried to play innocent, and ignore what she had said previously, figuring naively that this was a work call, and asked her something stupid like "what's up?" Which got me another sexual reference. And I might have said something about needing to get back to work, what did she want, and she responded, "I wanted to call and breathe heavy for you on the phone - are you ready?" then she did, 3 long heavy sexual breaths.

I froze.

It was bizarre. I couldn't speak. I couldn't hang up. I just sat there as this freak was breathing heavy to me on the phone. Finally, she finished breathing and then said, "did you like it?" I finally spoke up and said, simply, in a rather low voice, "stop it, HER NAME, stop it." She giggled and hung up.

I was blown away. It's odd, but it doesn't sound nearly as bad until it happens to you. I was simply blown away. My assistant was, I think, sitting next to me in my cubicle, she saw my face after I hung up and asked me "what's wrong?" I told her. And she said to me, "let me guess - you feel violated, and you feel like it's your fault." And she was right. All I could think of was why didn't I just hang up? Why did I let her go through three long and heavy slow breaths and THEN let her ask me how I liked it before I told her to stop? The simple answer is that I was so shocked I was frozen, while at the same time I literally couldn't believe what was happening. I kept trying to rationalize it in my head as something I was misunderstanding.

That's when I understood how benign sexual harassment can look, and how bad it really was.  I felt totally violated, and I can't really tell you why, it was just far worse an experience in practice than it could ever read on paper.  I called her boss, the DAS, and he thought it was funny. He actually laughed. I lost it. Told him I was calling the Assistant Secretary, and suddenly he sobered up. So I also got to experience guys blowing off the incident as a joke. And finally, I understood why women might not speak up right away, why they let it continue, and how it didn't necessarily mean that it didn't bother them.

So I get why the woman doesn't want to speak up. But the man is running for the president and he's the lead in the GOP polls. The lawyer of the woman allegedly harassed by Cain is right in saying that it would be extremely painful for his client to have this issue revisited. But he's flat out wrong when he says "there is no value of revisiting the matter now or discussing it further publicly." The man is running for president. If what he did is so bad that the woman still can't bear to have the details released 12 years later, then, sadly, the voters need to know the details. It doesn't have to be her explaining it publicly. But the details need to be made public so long as Herman Cain is running for president, and especially since he's leading the GOP pack. Read the rest of this post...

Bachmann: The Founding Fathers chose to have the NYSE in NYC rather than DC

Bachmann quoted today by MSNBC's First Read:

"You see, there's a reason our Founding Fathers decided to establish our political capital in a different city than our financial capital, because it's time for us to reaffirm the wisdom of that decision by getting Washington D.C., out of free markets. And I'm running for president of the United States because I understand the difference between free markets and a Bernie Madoff style of government."

Personally, I blame George Washington for Internet porn, even though most experts blame Jefferson.

Okay I just googled it.  Even when her dates aren't that off she's flat out wrong. The NYSE was established in the early 1800s in NYC.  So, age wise, it's possible that one of the Founding Fathers had a hand in all of this 35 years after the Revolutionary War.  But according to the history of the NYSE, there's no such mention.

The origin of the NYSE can be traced to May 17, 1792, when the Buttonwood Agreement was signed by 24 stock brokers outside of 68 Wall Street in New York under a buttonwood tree on Wall Street.[8] On March 8, 1817, the organization drafted a constitution and renamed itself the "New York Stock & Exchange Board." Anthony Stockholm was elected the Exchange's first president.

Then we look to the history of our nation's capital and the capitol building.

Before 1791, the federal government had no permanent site. The early Congresses met in eight different cities: Philadelphia, Baltimore, Lancaster, York, Princeton, Annapolis, Trenton, and New York City. The subject of a permanent capital for the government of the United States was first raised by Congress in 1783; it was ultimately addressed in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution (1787), which gave the Congress legislative authority over "such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of Particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States. ..."

So at the time of the Founding Fathers we had no set city where Congress met. It wasn't until 1787 that they picked DC for the Congress. And it wasn't until 1800 that they moved the capital to DC.  And if you really get into the details, then the origin of the NYSE can be traced back to 1792, after DC was already chosen as the capital.  But the folks who founded the stock exchange were all stock brokers - there doesn't appear to be a political hand in all of this.

The real question is whether the Founding Fathers intentionally chose DC as our capital because they wanted to have it separate than our financial capital.  And there's a great explanation here of the back and forth in choosing the capital, and none of it has anything to do with making the financial capital a different place. Read the rest of this post...

Shouldn’t we idolize Bill Gates more than Steve Jobs?

It's an interesting blog post on the Harvard Business Review site. I like Apple products a lot when they work but somehow have had an enormous (and costly) amount of bad luck with their products. I've also worked alongside of Microsoft since the mid-1990s and have seen all sides of that company, good and bad. What has impressed me about Gates is how bad his reputation was for charity back when I first started and how good it is today.

Jobs no doubt was impressive for what he did with Apple but for me, I count myself in the camp of Gates who has done a lot more for the world with his riches. In the big picture is there really a serious comparison of helping the poor with billions or creating a cool new toy that created billions for a business? Not for me.

Bill Gates stepped away from Microsoft in 2006 and, despite the company's growing troubles in the face of the mobile disruption, has devoted his genius to solving the world's biggest problems, despite the fact that solving those problems doesn't create profit or fame.* Gates committed his talents to eliminating diseases, increasing development standards, and generally fighting inequality.

Since 1994, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation amassed an endowment of over $31 billion in funds to fight the world's most difficult issues. But it hasn't merely accumulated funds, the foundation has already given away over $25 billion. Those aren't trivial numbers. In seventeen years, the foundation has raised and given away more than one-tenth of Apple's extraordinary market capitalization. While the developed world takes things like clean water, basic healthcare, and the availability of food for granted — there are billions of human beings that don't have such fundamental resources.

Read the rest of this post...

Neat stop motion video

Judging by the ending, I think this is filmed in Moscow.  It's short and very cool. Read the rest of this post...

"Anonymous" to Mexican drug lords: Release kidnapped hacker or we'll publish your secret operatives

UPDATE: At one point, Anonymous had called off the operation. But apparently it's back on, and Anonymous has already found some interesting information. From CNET:

Earlier today, Brown tweeted: "Just hours into gathering secondary intel, we have the name of a U.S. DA and evidence of his involvement." That was followed by "Requesting the assistance of any journalist who is willing to look into a DA with potential ties to organized crime."

Law enforcement officials are likely bracing for the worst. Mike Vigil, the retired head of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, told the Houston Chronicle that the Anonymous threat was a "gutsy move." "By publishing the names, they identify them to rivals, and trust me, they will go after them."

And others have echoed that warning. "If Anonymous carries out its threat, it will almost certainly lead to the deaths of individuals named as cartel associates, whether or not the information released is accurate," Stratfor, a global intelligence firm, wrote in a report late last month. "Furthermore, as Mexican cartels have targeted online journalists and bloggers in the past, hackers could well be targeted for reprisal attacks."

_____________
It's not every day that you hear of anyone making threats against one of the deadly Mexican drug cartels. Geeks fight back:

"You made a huge mistake by taking one of us. Release him," says a masked man in a video posted online on behalf of the group, Anonymous.

"We cannot defend ourselves with a weapon … but we can do this with their cars, homes, bars, brothels and everything else in their possession," says the man, who is wearing a suit and tie.

"It won't be difficult; we all know who they are and where they are located," says the man, who underlines the group's international ties by speaking Spanish with the accent of a Spaniard while using Mexican slang.

Watch the video here.  According to CNet, "The video demands the return of the alleged kidnapping victim by November 5 and threatens to release information on the organization, as well as police, journalists, and cab drivers whom the video claims have collaborated with the cartel." Wow. Read the rest of this post...

Newt’s daughter’s non-denial denial of Gingrich confronting 1st wife in hospital over divorce

The fruit doesn't fall far.

Newt Gingrich's daughter from his first marriage (he's had 3 marriages) claimed she wanted to "correct the record" earlier this year when she published an article denying that Newt served his first wife divorce papers RIGHT BEFORE SHE DIED. And the Washington Examiner picked the story up again two days ago, claiming that the daughter has now denied the story, thus supposedly showing that it's not true.

But of course, she denied something that wasn't even the story.

The story wasn't that mom was dying. The story was that Gingrich confronted his wife about the divorce while she was in the hospital having cancer surgery. Some reports say he served her papers, others say he confronted her to haggle over terms. But all the stories I've seen, see below, are about him confronting her in the hospital after cancer surgery. They don't talk about her dying.

But that's what Newt's daughter's denial says. Mom didn't die. Okay. But the daughter admits that mom was in the hospital for cancer surgery (confirming a key part of the story). And she doesn't confirm or deny that Newt confronted mom, or served her the final papers, in her hospital bed right.

I researched this story too, and I distinctly remember the sources I read never said that mom had died. They said that mom was in the hospital having cancer surgery and Newt served her divorced papers. Here's what I wrote in February of the year:

the man who told his first wife he was divorcing her while she was recovering from cancer

And here's how Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly described it in 2006 - again you'll note, no "deathbed" reference:

Gingrich obtained his first divorce in 1981, after forcing his wife, who had helped put him through graduate school, to haggle over the terms while in the hospital, as she recovered from uterine cancer surgery.

Nothing the daughter said today contradicted any of this. Here's what TPM said about this story last year:

Before marrying Marianne, Gingrich presented his first wife, Jackie Battley, with the terms of their divorce as she lay in a hospital bed recovering from surgery for uterine cancer.

Again, no deathbed.  Now, the daughter does say that mom and Newt had already talked about the divorce before she went into the hospital, so if that's true I was incorrect in saying he sprung the divorce on her at the hospital - meaning, it was the first time mom knew about the divorce.  But that was my mistake only, and in any case it doesn't negate the rest of the story, that something happened regarding his divorce over his hospitals cancer surgery bed. The other stories, including the original story where all of this came from (below), are about Newt confronting the wife about the divorce in the hospital after she had cancer surgery.  The daughter doesn't deny that anywhere.

Let's look at the original story from Mother Jones in 1984 that started the alleged "rumor" - you'll note that there's no mention of a deathbed.

The divorce turned much of Carrollton against Gingrich. Jackie was well loved by the townspeople, who knew how hard she had worked to get him elected-as she had worked before to put him through college and raise his children. To make matters worse, Jackie had undergone surgery for cancer of the uterus during the 1978 campaign, a fact Gingrich was not loath to use in conversations or speeches that year. After the separation in 1980, she had to be operated on again, to remove another tumor. While she was still in the hospital, according to Howell, "Newt came up there with his yellow legal pad, and he had a list of things on how the divorce was going to be handled. He wanted her to sign it. She was still recovering from surgery, still sort of out of it, and he comes in with a yellow sheet of paper, handwritten, and wants her to sign it.

A number of reporters fell for Gingrich's daughter's "denial" earlier this year, including just this week the Washington Examiner. But as I've shown above, the daughter simply denied one aspect of the story that no one serious was alleging. The rest of the story, as described by Mother Jones in 1984, hasn't been denied at all - least of which by Gingrich's own daughter.

Now let's look at the rest of the story, and why it was, and has been, a scandal that's haunted Gingrich for 30 years - again from Mother Jones:

Despite the solid family-man advertising pitch, however, some of Gingrich's associates could sense what was coming On election night, several of them took bets on how long his marriage would last. Unknown to them, the Shapard campaign staff was doing precisely the same thing. It seemed plain to many that while Gingrich had used his wife to get elected, he would now consider her a liability. "Jackie was kind of frumpy," explains Lee Howell, who asked Gingrich to be his best man in 1979 but pulls no punches about his friend's divorce. "She's lost a lot of weight now, but she was kind of frumpy in Washington, and she was seven years older than he was. And I guess Newt thought, well, it doesn't look good for an articulate, young, aggressive, attractive congressman to have a frumpy old wife."

The winning bet, as it turned out, was 18 months. In April of 1980, the candidate who had promised to "keep his family together" told his wife he was filing for divorce. According to sources in whom Gingrich confided at the time, he was already having an affair with the woman he later married.

So the story is that Gingrich dumped his first wife while she was undergoing cancer treatment because she had gained weight and wasn't the appropriate trophy wife that a congressman should have. Then, to add insult to injury, he came to her hospital bed with a notepad to haggle over the divorce.

That's the story. Nowhere does the daughter deny any of this. Next time a Gingrich says something isn't true, perhaps the media will actually look into the story before taking him, or his daughter, at their word. Read the rest of this post...

Obama: consumer protection 'held hostage' by GOP

A more combative attitude would have been better during the Elizabeth Warren days but it doesn't hurt that Obama is fighting for something now. Everyone knows that the Republicans are soft on Wall Street abuse so more Democrats should be pressuring the GOP on this issue.

The White House charged on Thursday that the nomination of President Barack Obama's choice to head a new consumer financial protection agency was being "held hostage" by Republicans as it sought to tap into public anger at Wall Street excess.

Trying to ratchet up pressure on Republicans who have blocked Richard Cordray's Senate confirmation, administration officials insisted Americans would be denied full safeguards against abusive business practices until he is in place as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Obama and his aides have struck an increasingly populist tone as he steps up his 2012 re-election campaign against the backdrop of protests against corporate greed and economic inequality that began weeks ago in New York and have spread to other cities.

Read the rest of this post...

Does the "anyone but Romney" vote now go for Newt?

One constant of the GOP nomination campaign is that the only electable candidate they have on offer just can't make it above 30% in the polls.

So far almost every candidate in the field has had a surge. First it was Bachmann, then Perry and then Cain. And as each candidate has their moment in the Klieg lights, their flaws are exposed and they sink back to rejoin the also-rans.

The fact that this keeps happening makes me think that maybe this has less to do with policy, and more to do with the fact that Republican primary voters just cannot stand Mitt Romney. And maybe what they dislike is not so much the policies that Romney advocated in the past, as the transparent fact that he will say anything to anyone to get elected. A sample from today's Post:

The abortion rights supporters came away from the meeting pleasantly surprised. Romney declined to label himself “pro-choice” but said he eschewed all labels, including “pro-life.” He told the group that he would “protect and preserve a woman’s right to choose under Massachusetts law” and that he thought any move to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision would be a “serious mistake for our country.”

Once he decided to seek national office Romney did a U turn and became Pro-Life. But what is the real Romney position, Pro-Choice or Pro Life?

With Bachmann, Perry and Cain all discredited, it could well be Gingrich's turn to surge. For all his abundant faults and liabilities, he does at least understand things that a President might need to know, like the fact that China has nuclear weapons and that Uzbekistan is one of America's principle allies in the Afghan campaign. Speaker of the House is second in the line of succession after the Vice President, after all.

Recent polling has been trending Gingrich's way:

The North Carolina poll was conducted from October 27-31, with the big story breaking on only the last day of polling. The numbers: Cain 30%, Gingrich 22%, Romney 19%, Perry 10%, Bachmann 4%, Paul 4%, Santorum 2%, Huntsman 2%, and 0% for Gary Johnson.

If Gingrich can capitalize on Cain's downfall he may well have a shot at winning. If Romney cannot take at least some votes from Cain it is a pretty sure bet that anyone-but-Romney is going to win it in the end.

Update: My bad, turns out that GOP support for Cain has actually increased since the scandal. After all, what does a little sexual harassment matter to them? Or maybe they could believe the allegations if the alternative was not giving Romney the nomination. Read the rest of this post...

Murdoch’s paper may have hacked nearly 5,800 celebrities, politicians, athletes, more

This is very interesting with an election year coming up here in the states. So far we've not heard any connection to Murdoch's properties here in the US, FOX and the Wall Street Journal. But it's hard to imagine that the growing scandal won't impact those operations at some point, if just to throw them somewhat into turmoil in terms of their leadership. From the Daily Mail:

Nearly 5,800 celebrities, politicians, sports stars and others may have been targeted in the News of the World hacking scandal, it was claimed last night.

The latest figures suggest the practice was far more widespread than has previously been admitted.

One of the problems that both Fox and the WSJ are going to have is with their respective reputations. At some point, this scandal may so weaken the Murdoch brand that a news operation (even a fake one like Fox) can longer afford to be part of a media family that includes a burgeoning criminal conspiracy. Democrats should be doing more in this country to use this scandal to tar the overall Murdoch brand. Read the rest of this post...

Greek PM agrees to resign following referendum victory

It's been a challenging few years for Greece, with the most recent weeks being especially difficult. Since the first bailout, many wondered why the EU was kicking the can down the road with the economic crisis in Greece. This week it sounds as though the EU leaders finally are coming around to the reality that Greece may leave the euro. There was never any good route to take for Greece but at least there's now an increasing consensus that the least bad route is about to be chosen.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou has struck a deal with ministers to step down and hand power to a negotiated coalition government if they help him win a confidence vote on Friday, government sources with knowledge of a cabinet meeting said.

They said the ministers involved in the deal were led by Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos.

"He was told that he must leave calmy in order to save his party," one source told Reuters on condition of anonymity. "He agreed to step down. It was very civilized, with no acrimony."

Next up, the much more serious problem of Italy or Spain. Read the rest of this post...

Number of poor reaches record high

As we've been saying for quite a long time, yes, there has been class warfare in America but it's not the way Republicans like to spin it. The new numbers - 1 in 15 - are staggering, but not surprising. When the country was drunk on credit, people were more willing to overlook the hard reality of the class warfare that started during the Reagan years. Now that the credit allusion is gone, many of the 99% people are demanding a new model. This has to change.

"There now really is no unaffected group, except maybe the very top income earners," said Robert Moffitt, a professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University. "Recessions are supposed to be temporary, and when it's over, everything returns to where it was before. But the worry now is that the downturn — which will end eventually — will have long-lasting effects on families who lose jobs, become worse off and can't recover."

Traditional inner-city black ghettos are thinning out and changing, drawing in impoverished Hispanics who have low-wage jobs or are unemployed. Neighborhoods with poverty rates of at least 40 percent are stretching over broader areas, increasing in suburbs at twice the rate of cities.

Once-booming Sun Belt metro areas are now seeing some of the biggest jumps in concentrated poverty.

Read the rest of this post...