Politically Correct Bedtime Stories–The Three Little Pigs

Posted on September 12, 2013 by Michigoose

Once there were three little pigs who lived together in mutual respect and in harmony with their environment. Using materials that were indigenous to the area, they each built a beautiful house. One pig built a house of straw, one a house of sticks, and one a house of dung, clay, and creeper vines shaped into bricks and baked in a small kiln. When they were finished, the pigs were satisfied with their work and settled back to live in peace and self-determination (NB: Sounds positively Libertarian, doesn’t it?)

But their idyll was soon shattered. One day, along came a big, bad wolf with expansionist ideas. He saw the pigs and grew very hungry, in both a physical and an ideological sense. When the pigs saw the wolf, they ran into the house of straw. The wolf ran up to the house and banged on the door, shouting, “Little pigs, little pigs, let me in!”

The pigs shouted back, “Your gunboat tactics hold no fear for pigs defending their homes and culture.”

Bu the wolf wasn’t to be denied what he thought was his manifest destiny. So he huffed and puffed and blew down the house of straw. The frightened pigs ran to the house of sticks, with the wolf in hot pursuit. Where the house of straw had stood, other wolves bought up the land and started a banana plantation.

At the house of sticks, the wolf again banged on the door and shouted “little pigs, little pigs, let me in!”

The pigs shouted back, “Go to hell, you carnivorous, imperialistic oppressor!”

At this, the wolf chuckled condescendingly. He thought to himself: “They are so childlike in their ways. It will be a shame to see them go, but progress cannot be stopped.”

So the wolf huffed and puffed and blew down the house of sticks. The pigs ran to the house of bricks, with the wolf close at their heels. Where the house of sticks had stood, other wolves built a time-share condo resort complex for vacationing wolves, with each unit a fiberglass reconstruction of the house of sticks, as well as native curio shops, snorkeling, and dolphin shows.

At the house of bricks, the wolf again banged on the door and shouted, “Little pigs, little pigs, let me in!”

This time in response, the pigs sang songs of solidarity and wrote letters of protest to the United Nations.

By now the wolf was getting angry at the pigs’ refusal to see the situation from the carnivore’s point of view. So he huffed and puffed, and huffed and puffed, then grabbed his chest and fell over dead from a massive heart attack brought on from eating too many fatty foods.

The three little pigs rejoiced that justice had triumphed and did a little dance around the corpse of the wolf. Their next step was to liberate their home land. They gathered together a band of other pigs who had been forced off their lands. This new brigade of porcinistas attacked the resort complex with machine guns and rocket launchers and slaughtered the cruel wolf oppressors, sending a clear signal to the rest of the hemisphere not to meddle in their internal affairs. Then the pigs set up a model socialist democracy with free education, universal health care, and affordable housing for everyone.

Please note: The wolf in this story was a metaphorical construct. No actual wolves were harmed in the writing of the story.

From Politically Correct Bedtime Stories © 1994 by James Finn Garner

Filed under: housing, Humor, Politically Correct Bedtime Stories | Tagged: | Leave a comment »

Morning Report – Richard Cordray speaks to mortgage bankers 09/12/13

Posted on September 12, 2013 by Brent Nyitray

Vital Statistics:

Last Change Percent
S&P Futures 1688.5 -0.3 -0.02%
Eurostoxx Index 2863.1 -0.3 -0.01%
Oil (WTI) 108.4 0.8 0.78%
LIBOR 0.254 0.000 0.00%
US Dollar Index (DXY) 81.64 0.126 0.15%
10 Year Govt Bond Yield 2.89% -0.03%
Current Coupon Ginnie Mae TBA 103.8 0.1
Current Coupon Fannie Mae TBA 102.5 0.1
RPX Composite Real Estate Index 200.7 -0.2
BankRate 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage 4.56
Markets are flat this morning on no real news. Initial Jobless Claims printed below 300,000 for the first time since May 2007 on a technical glitch. Bonds and MBS are up small.
CFPB Chairman Richard Cordray spoke to a conference of mortgage lenders yesterday and told them that the new QM rules will give responsible lenders an advantage. One of the things he pointed out was that the CFPB intended to level the playing field between banks and non-banks (the banks are more highly regulated). Cordray stressed that the QM rules were intended to provide legal protection for lenders:  “You should keep this perspective in mind if you hear people dreaming up hypothetical factual disputes in an effort to sow anxiety about potential litigation,” he said.
Now that Richmond, CA has decided to go the eminent domain route, the court challenges begin. Blackrock, PIMCO, and other bondholders have asked a federal judge to halt the city’s plans to force bondholders to sell their mortgages at a discount to appraised value to a hedge fund that will modify and refinance the borrowers. The city will have to run the table on court challenges.
As the refi boom ends, banks are laying off people in their mortgage operations. J.P. Morgan is laying off 2,000, Bank of America is cutting 2,100 jobs, Wells has let 3,000 go… the list goes on. That said, while the MBA mortgage applications index fell by 13.5% last week, the purchase index fell by only 2.6%. As home price appreciation gives people equity in their homes, purchase transactions will undoubtedly increase as people can finally move. Existing home sales are just approaching historical norms of 5.5 million / year, but the difference is that 60% of these sales are cash, as estimated by Goldman Sachs. Pre-bubble, cash sales were about 20% of all sales. So, in the past, you were looking at an average 5.5 million run rate, with 80% non-cash (i.e. a mortgage), which meant roughly 4.4 million purchase mortgages a year. So far in 2013 we have averaged a 5 million run rate and with only 40% involving a mortgage, you are looking at 2 million purchase mortgages a year. In other words, purchase finance activity has to more than double just to reach normalcy. So while housing has recovered according to the home price indices and the sales volume indices, we are still in nuclear winter for the mortgage banking business. Negative equity is undoubtedly driving a lot of this, and as prices rise, this phenomenon will reverse.

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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.

Filed under: Humor, Politically Correct Bedtime Stories | Leave a comment »

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.

Filed under: This Day in History | 17 Comments »

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 »

Politically Correct Bedtime Stories–Little Red Riding Hood

Posted on September 10, 2013 by Michigoose

As I was unpacking, cataloging, and shelving my old friends which I hadn’t seen in two plus years, I came across a couple of little gems by James Finn Garner: Politically Correct Bedtime Stories and Once Upon a More Enlightened Time (More PCBS). I thought I’d share them with you, as some of them strike me as even funnier now than when I first bought the books back in the late 90’s.

There once was a young person named Red Riding Hood who lived with her mother on the edge of a large wood. One day her mother asked her to take a basket of fresh fruit and mineral water to her grandmother’s house—not because this was womyn’s work, mind you, but because the deed was generous and helped engender a feeling of community. Furthermore, her grandmother was not sick, but rather was in full physical and mental health and was fully capable of taking care of herself as a mature adult.

So Red Riding Hood set off with her basket through the woods. Many people believed that the forest was a foreboding and dangerous place and never set foot in it. Red Riding Hood, however, was confident enough in her own budding sexuality that such obvious Freudian imagery did not intimidate her.

On the way to Grandma’s house, Red Riding Hood was accosted by a wolf, who asked her what was in her basket. She replied, “Some healthful snacks for my grandmother, who is certainly capable of taking care of herself as a mature adult.”

The wolf said, “You know, my dear, it isn’t safe for a little girl to walk through these woods alone.”

Red Riding Hood said, “I find your sexist remark offensive in the extreme, but I will ignore it because of your traditional status as an outcast form society, the stress of which has caused you to develop your own, entirely valid, worldview. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must be on my way.”

Red Riding Hood walked on along the main path. But, because his status outside society had freed him from slavish adherence to linear, Western-style thought, the wolf knew a quicker route to Grandma’s house. He burst into the house and ate Grandma, an entirely valid course of action for a carnivore such as himself. Then, unhampered by rigid, traditionalist notions of what was masculine or feminine, he put on Grandma’s night clothes and crawled into bed.

Red Riding Hood entered the cottage and said, “Grandma, I have brought you some fat-free, sodium-free snacks to salute you in your role of a wise and nurturing matriarch.”

From the bed, the wolf said softly, “Come closer, child, so that I might see you.”

Red Riding Hood said, “Oh, I forgot you are as optically challenged as a bat. Grandma, what big eyes you have!”

“They have seen much, and forgiven much, my dear.”

“Grandma, what a big nose you have—only relatively, of course, and certainly attractive in its own way.”

“It has smelled much, and forgiven much, my dear.”

“Grandma, what big teeth you have!”

The wolf said, “I am happy with who I am and what I am,” and leaped out of bed. He grabbed Red Riding Hood in his claws, intent on devouring her. Red Riding Hood screamed, not out of alarm at the wolf’s apparent tendency toward cross-dressing, but because of his willful invasion of her personal space.

Her screams were heard by a passing woodchopper-person (or log-fuel technician, as he preferred to be called). When he burst into the cottage he saw the melee and tried to intervene. But as he raised his ax, Red Riding Hood and the wolf both stopped.

“And just what do you think you’re doing?” asked Red Riding Hood.

The woodchopper-person blinked and tried to answer, but no words came to him.

“Bursting in here like a Neanderthal, trusting your weapon to do your thinking for you!” she exclaimed. “Sexist! Speciesist! How dare you assume that womyn and wolves can’t solve their own problems without a man’s help!”

When she heard Red Riding Hood’s impassioned speech, Grandma jumped out of the wolf’s mouth, seized the woodchopper-person’s ax, and cut his head off. After this ordeal, red Riding Hood, Grandma, and the wolf felt a certain commonality of purpose. They decided to set up an alternative house hold based on mutual respect and cooperation, and they lived together in the woods happily ever after.

Filed under: Humor, Politically Correct Bedtime Stories | 3 Comments »

Today in history – September 10

Posted on September 10, 2013 by ScottC

1897 – London cab driver George Smith becomes the first person to get arrested for drunk driving after slamming his taxi into a building wall. Although no scientific test exists to establish a blood alcohol level, Smith proclaims himself to be drunk, leading to his arrest. He is eventually fined 25 shillings.
drunk

1833 – President Andrew Jackson announces that he will remove all federal funds from the Second National Bank of the United States, effectively ending central banking in the US and opening an era of “free banking”. The successor to the First National Bank of the US, the Second National Bank was chartered from 1816 – 1836, and was 20% owned by the federal government, but was controversial both constitutionally and with regard to its policies, which many saw as favoring monied interests in the urban northeast. The populist Jackson was opposed to the bank’s existence, and it became a focal point of the 1832 presidential election. Upon being re-elected in 1832, Jackson vetoed congressional efforts to extend the bank’s charter beyond 1836, and eventually used executive power to withdraw federal funds and prevent the bank from taking new deposits. Although the bank continued to exist as a private corporation following the end of its charter, by 1841 it was liquidated.
jackson

1776 – Captain Nathan Hale of the Continental Army answers General Washington’s call for someone to gather intelligence behind enemy lines, becoming America’s first known spy against the British. Hale spent several weeks gathering intelligence, but is eventually detained aftyer being caught on Long Island Sound trying to get back to Colonial controlled territory. In possession of incriminating documents, British General Howe quickly orders Hale to be executed. Although there are no contemporary accounts to establish it, Hale’s legendary last words before being hanged are said to have been “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.”
hale

Filed under: This Day in History | 8 Comments »

It’s over

Posted on September 10, 2013 by novahockey

82 wins.

I was 14 the last time the Pirates had a winning season. What’s weird about it is a bunch is I found my old Pirates hats in a box this past weekend when I was getting my glove out to have a catch with the little guy. Who is not, apparently, going to be a lefty. My dreams of raising a LOOGY* are over.

*Left-handed one out guy.

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Morning Report – Increasing employment / decreasing earnings?

Posted on September 10, 2013 by Brent Nyitray

Vital Statistics:

Last Change Percent
S&P Futures 1680.0 10.9 0.65%
Eurostoxx Index 2843.9 45.6 1.63%
Oil (WTI) 107.4 -2.1 -1.96%
LIBOR 0.256 0.000 0.00%
US Dollar Index (DXY) 81.91 0.119 0.15%
10 Year Govt Bond Yield 2.96% 0.05%
Current Coupon Ginnie Mae TBA 103.2 -0.3
Current Coupon Fannie Mae TBA 102.6 -0.1
RPX Composite Real Estate Index 200.7 -0.2
BankRate 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage 4.56
Markets are higher on the possibility of a peaceful resolution to the Syrian crisis. Overnight, Syria has accepted a Russian framework of surrendering chemical weapons to international authorities. This has sent oil down and stock index futures up. Bonds and MBS are weaker
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index came in at 94, a touch weaker than expected. Interestingly, the plans to increase employment increased 7 percentage points to a net 16%, however, earnings trends fell 13 points to -35%. So profitability is falling, but companies plan to increase headcount anyway? Surprising result. This survey also shows that while things are going well for the big cap S&P 500 names with international exposure, small businesses are still struggling.
Speaking of stock indices and struggling, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is making some changes. Out: Hewlett-Packard, Alcoa, and Bank of America. In: Goldman, Nike, Visa.
Higher interest rates are beginning to dampen people’s expectations for future home price appreciation, according to the latest Fannie Mae Housing Survey. The expected home price appreciation for the next 12 months has fallen to 3.4% in August from 3.9% in May.
The National Association of Homebuilders Improving Markets Index reached a record high in September as a total of 291 metro areas now qualify as improving markets. Here is a map of the improving areas:

Filed under: Morning Report | 16 Comments »

Today in History – September 9

Posted on September 9, 2013 by lmsinca

1971 – John Lennon releases “Imagine” album.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCX3ZNDZAwY

1965 – Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Sandy Koufax pitches the eighth perfect game in major league history, leading the Dodgers to a 1-0 win over the Chicago Cubs at Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles.  (I grew up going to Dodger games with my dad and remember seeing one of Koufax’s no-hitters but don’t remember if it was this one or not)

Sandy Koufax was a talented all-around athlete from Borough Park in Brooklyn, New York. His first love was basketball, and he attended the University of Cincinnati on a basketball scholarship. His impressive left arm, however, attracted the attention of major league ball clubs and in 1954 he was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers. Despite his promising talent, Koufax won just 36 games to 51 losses from 1955 to 1961, and was incredibly inconsistent, blowing hitters away one game and walking in runs the next. Finally, advice from veteran catcher Norm Sherry turned Koufax around. As Koufax recounted in his autobiography, Sherry told him to “take the grunt out of the fastball.” It worked: From 1962 to 1966, Sandy Koufax executed what are arguably the five greatest seasons by a pitcher in baseball history. His new found control limited his walks from 4.8 per game to just 2.1, and he pitched no-hitters in three consecutive years–1962, 1963 and 1964.

1850 – California is admitted as the thirty-first U.S. state.  Mexico had reluctantly ceded California and much of its northern territory to the United States in the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. When the Mexican diplomats signed the treaty, they pictured California as a region of sleepy mission towns with a tiny population of about 7,300-not a devastating loss to the Mexican empire. Their regret might have been much sharper had they known that gold had been discovered at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma, California, nine days before they signed the peace treaty. Suddenly, the greatest gold rush in history was on, and “forty-niners” began flooding into California chasing after the fist-sized gold nuggets rumored to be strewn about the ground just waiting to be picked up. California’s population and wealth skyrocketed.

1776 – The Continental Congress formally declares the name of the new nation to be the “United States” of America. This replaced the term “United Colonies,” which had been in general use.

In the Congressional declaration dated September 9, 1776, the delegates wrote, “That in all continental commissions, and other instruments, where, heretofore, the words ‘United Colonies’ have been used, the stile be altered for the future to the “United States.”

A resolution by Richard Henry Lee, which had been presented to Congress on June 7 and approved on July 2, 1776, issued the resolve, “That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States….” As a result, John Adams thought July 2 would be celebrated as “the most memorable epoch in the history of America.” Instead, the day has been largely forgotten in favor of July 4, when Jefferson’s edited Declaration of Independence was adopted. That document also states, “That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES.” However, Lee began with the line, while Jefferson saved it for the middle of his closing paragraph.

Filed under: California, This Day in History | 102 Comments »

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