19 Feb 2009
Octuplets' family reportedly faces foreclosure

I want to send a personal "thank you" to this stupid bimbo, who's not only become a poster child for personal irresponsibility, but who with this latest bit of lunacy is well on her way to becoming the public perception of everybody facing housing trouble as well.

You can bet your bottom dollar, assuming you have any dollars left at all, that the Republicans and their banker buddies will bounce on this big time. "This is who your tax money is going to bail out!"

My mortgage is in trouble - no, I'm not delinquent and I'm not (yet) facing foreclosure, but with it consuming over 50% of my net, there is that distinct possibility. Why? I had the bad sense to insist that my job get shipped overseas a year after I bought the place. That set off a cascading chain of events that left me upside down with a 10.75% interest rate on my housing. Which the banks won't renegotiate, even though they're currently getting money at 0% and have every economic incentive to do so. They can't renegotiate because I was so irresponsible to stay in a country that began to allow banks to slice and dice mortgages into long term bonds, driving up the price of housing in the process and making it impossible for a bank to make any adjustments to any loans thus sold lest they impact the terms of the bonds themselves.

Have I done some dumb things? Sure, who hasn't? I can assure you that one of them was not losing my job. I can also guarantee you that I did not personally pass the new regulations that made it impossible to run the business I started after that.

Do I want "bailed out"? No. Do I want a lower interest rate (and consequent lower payment)? You betcha. Even if the "taxpayers" have to pony up for it - because those same taxpayers, wearing their voter hats, are as responsible for the mess I'm in as I am.

If the taxpayers (voters) don't care to pay for the mess they helped create, I have another suggestion. Undo the mess. Immediately declare derivative securities illegal and unenforceable contracts, which would allow banks to reassert their ownership over mortgages and stop foreclosing on folks they know are worth it. Of course, that would really hurt investors in those securities, some of whom are banks themselves. But isn't that what last September's TARP was supposed to cover? Oh, my mistake, that was just a gimme to failed investment bankers.

I for one am getting heartily sick of government creating problems for me. But I'm even sicker of the stakeholders in said government (voters/taxpayers) blaming me for any attempt by government to fix the problems they helped to create in the first place.

The California home where Nadya Suleman plans to raise her 14 children is at risk of foreclosure, CNN affiliate KTLA reported Wednesday.

(link) [CNN.com]

09:49 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

New iPod listening study shows surprising behavior of teens

Teens being oppositional-defiant? Showing rebellious streaks? Asserting their independence? Who'd have thunk it?

I wonder how much this Study in Stupidity cost? And if the taxpayers bore the brunt of it?

A new study involving iPods and teenagers by the University of Colorado at Boulder and Children's Hospital Boston indicates teenagers who receive pressure from their peers or others to turn down the volume of their iPods instead turn them up higher.

(link) [EurekAlert!]

09:15 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

No Way, No How, Not Here

Very encouraging indeed...

There are nine bodies — all of them young men — that have been lying in a Mumbai hospital morgue since Nov. 29. They may be stranded there for a while because no local Muslim charity is willing to bury them in its cemetery.

(link) [New York Times]

09:06 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Delphi at Delphi
Dave At Delphi with Delphi

OK, so you can't see it too well, but I'm holding a copy of RAD Studio 2007 edition. This is of course a version of Delphi - and I'm standing in front of the city limits sign at Delphi, Indiana. Click the image to load a bigger picture - by the way the photo was taken using an RCA EZ209 Digital Camcorder, which uses software written in Delphi as a management tool on the PC. I oughta know - I wrote it!

This little road trip (Delphi is about 40 miles from where I live) was prompted by this post on David I.'s Codegear blog.

01:27 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link