Politically Correct Bedtime Stories–The Emperor’s New Clothes

Posted on September 11, 2013 by Michigoose

Far away, in a time long past, there lived a traveling tailor who found himself in an unfamiliar country. Now, tailors who move from place to place normally keep to themselves and are careful not to overstep the bounds of local decency. This tailor, though, was overly gregarious and decorum-impaired, and soon he was at a local inn, abusing alcohol, invading the personal space of the female employees, and telling unenlightened stories about tinkers, dung-gatherers, and other trades people.

The innkeeper complained to the police, who grabbed the tailor and dragged him in front of the emperor. As you might expect, a lifetime of belief in the absolute legitimacy of the monarchy and in the inherent superiority of males had turned the emperor into a vain and wisdom-challenged tyrant. The tailor noticed these traits and decided to use them to his advantage.

The emperor asked, “Do you have any last request before I banish you from my domain forever?”

The tailor replied, “Only that your majesty allow me the honor of crafting a new royal wardrobe. For I have brought with me a special fabric that is so rare and fine that it can be seen only by certain people—the type of people you’d want to have in your realm—people who are politically correct, morally righteous, intellectually astute, culturally tolerant, and who don’t smoke, drink, laugh at sexist jokes, watch too much television, listen to country music, or barbecue.”

After a moment’s thought, the emperor agreed to this request. He was flattered by the fascist and testosterone-heavy idea that the empire and its inhabitants existed only to make him look good. It would be like having a trophy wife and multiplying that feeling by 100,000.

Of course, no such rarefied fabric existed. Years of living outside the bounds of normal society had forced the tailor to develop his own moral code that obliged him to swindle and embarrass the emperor in the name of independent craftspeople everywhere. So, as he diligently labored, he was able to convince the emperor that he was cutting and sewing pieces of fabric that, in the strictest objective sense of reality, didn’t exist.

When the tailor announced that he was finished, the emperor looked at his new robes in the mirror. As he stood there, naked as the day he was born, one could see how years of exploiting the peasantry had turned his body into an ugly mass of puffy white flesh. The emperor, of course, saw this too, but pretended that he could see the beautiful, politically correct robes. To show off his new splendor, he ordered a parade to be held the next day.

On the following morning, his subjects lined the streets for the big parade. Word had spread about the emperor’s new clothes that only enlightened people with healthy lifestyles could see, and everyone was determined to be more right-minded than his or her neighbor.

The parade began with great hoopla. As the emperor marched his pale, bloated, patriarchal carcass down the street, everyone loudly oohed and ahed at his beautiful new clothes. All except one small boy, who shouted:

“The emperor is naked!”

The parade stopped. The emperor paused. A hush fell over the crowd, until one quick-thinking peasant shouted:

“No, he isn’t. The emperor is merely endorsing a clothing-optional lifestyle!”

A cheer went up from the crowd, and the throngs stripped off their clothes and danced in the sun, as Nature had intended. The country was clothing-optional from that day forward, and the tailor, deprived of any livelihood, packed up his needle and thread and was never heard from again.

Being a clothing optional person myself, I find this one particularly amusing.

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Today in history – September 11

Posted on September 11, 2013 by ScottC

9/11 – On what will prove to be one of the most significant days in United States history, members of the Islamic terrorist organization Al Qaeda successfully attack the US on its own soil, sending shock waves throughout the world. Four teams teams of terrorists board and hijack 4 early morning cross-country flights departing from Boston and New York, with the goal of flying them into various landmark buildings in New York and Washington. Two of the planes are flown into the Twin Towers of New York City’s World Trade Center in southern Manhattan, resulting in the eventual collapse of both and killing nearly 3,000 people, including over 400 NYC firefighters, policemen, and paramedics. A third plane flies to Washington D.C, crashing into the Pentagon, killing nearly 200 passengers, civilians, and military personnel. The fourth plane fails to reach its destination when passengers, made aware of the other crashes after making calls to the ground to report their own hijacking, stage their own attack on the hijackers. Upon breaching the cockpit, the hijackers dive the plane into a field in western Pennsylvania, killing all 45 passengers.

Much of the day’s events are played out in front of a live and captivated television audience, including the second plane hitting the WTC, the collapse of both towers, and perhaps most disturbingly, the sight of desperate office workers, trapped on floors above the infernos caused by the two crashes, making the horrific choice to leap more than a thousand feet to their death rather than be incinerated in the growing flames. The traumatic events of the day immediately enter the national consciousness, to be forever known as, and immediately brought to mind by, the simple numbers, 9-11.

Within a month of the attacks, America will retaliate, with President Bush initiating Operation Enduring Freedom, a military operation aimed at destroying AQ’s terrorist network in Afghanistan and ousting AQ’s Afghani hosts, the Taliban regime. Over the ensuing years the US will capture or kill many high ranking AQ operatives, an effort that will continue even into the presidency of Bush’s successor, Barack Obama, culminating in a 2011 raid on a Pakistani housing compound resulting in the killing of AQ founder and leader, Osama Bin Laden.

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Morning Report – CA City decides to go the eminent domain route 09/11/13

Posted on September 11, 2013 by Brent Nyitray

Vital Statistics:

Last Change Percent
S&P Futures 1681.2 -1.2 -0.07%
Eurostoxx Index 2858.5 7.1 0.25%
Oil (WTI) 107.6 0.2 0.18%
LIBOR 0.254 -0.002 -0.59%
US Dollar Index (DXY) 81.76 -0.059 -0.07%
10 Year Govt Bond Yield 2.94% -0.03%
Current Coupon Ginnie Mae TBA 103.3 1.0
Current Coupon Fannie Mae TBA 102.5 -0.2
RPX Composite Real Estate Index 200.7 -0.2
BankRate 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage 4.58
Markets are flattish on no real news. Bonds and MBS are up small, which means that Syria wasn’t figuring in anyone’s market analysis.
Credit isn’t tight for everyone – Verizon just did a $49 billion bond offering at the 10 year + 225. Low interest rates – get ’em while they last. The issue is looking 2x oversubscrbed.
Negative equity took a dive in Q2, according to CoreLogic, with 2.5 million homes dropping below the 100% LTV mark. 7.1 million homes (or 14.5% of homes with a mortgage) still have negative equity. The average LTV of all homes with a mortgage is 62.5. They caution that the recent home price appreciation may not continue at the rapid pace we have been seeing over the past year.
Mortgage applications fell 13.5% last week, primarily due to the Labor Day holiday. Refis were down 20%, while purchases were down 2.6%.
Richmond CA has voted to go the eminent domain route. They intend to use the threat of eminent domain as a club to force lenders to sell the underlying loans at a deep discount to the city. SIFMA has already said that any locality that uses eminent domain will find loans originated in that locality to be ineligible for TBA trading, which makes them more or less unsecuritizable. The mayor is a Green Party Wall Street basher, so this could get interesting. For the hedge fund to be able to make money on this trade, they have to be able to buy the mortgages at a discount to appraised value, which will undoubtedly be a non-starter for the banks.

Filed under: Morning Report | 45 Comments »