Detour

There is a horrible piece of journalism in ‘The USA Today’ today (I love saying today twice I a row) with the title ‘Foreclosure crisis has ripple effect’ by Haya El Nasser.

Haya relies on a survey of 1240 politicians, with only 211 responses, by the National League of Cities. Not exactly an unbiased scientific sample…but this isnever mentioned by the writer.

“The American dream for individuals has now become the nightmare for cities,” says James Mitchell, a Charlotte councilman and head of the group’s National Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials.

Foreclosed homes are the target of vandalism, he says, and there’s been an increase in police calls.

In Peachtree Hills, one of the many neighborhoods of starter homes that sprouted around Charlotte this decade, 115 of the 123 homes are in foreclosure, Mitchell says.

What does Haya think city fficials are going to say. Cities are in a revenue squeeze looking at a likely recession. They have a vested interest in hyping a crisis in the hopes that the sugar daddy, the US Federal Govt., will ride in to the rescue with piles of money to throw around.

A quick Google search of Peachtree Hills in Charlotte hits on the following from The Charlotte Observer December 10, 2007 labeled New suburbs in fast decay

In Peachtree Hills, police are summoned nearly 300 times a year, mostly for property crimes in the 147 homes. But the 4-year-old neighborhood, near Sunset Road, has also seen robberies, shootings and gang displays more commonly associated with violent urban areas — not new subdivisions.

Sounds like a place I would walk away from even if I had money coming out of my ears. The article continues…

She bought a home in Peachtree Hills for $129,000 early last year, and moved in with her 3-year-old son. Houses were still being built and her street looked good. She didn’t know builders were selling homes to investors from California and New York and New Jersey, or that a handful of homeowners had defaulted on their loans.

Hall also didn’t know crime was rising, or that gunshots would sometimes wake her.
“I was born and raised in Queens, in the middle class, and I never had these problems,” Hall says.

But Hall’s fighting to change things.

After months of trying, she finally revived Peachtree’s homeowners’ association.
Its first move was to persuade Duke Power not to cut off the street lights. Peachtree was $4,000 behind on its electric bill.

Next, a letter went out to all property owners: Pay your dues or we’ll put a lien on your home.

So investors and people that cant afford the payment on a $100,000 home are the people that are at risk. I say, so what?

If speculators in from California and New York lose their shirts no one should cry a tear. They knew the risk when they took the negative amortization zero down interest only loan. They gambled trying to make easy money and bet incorrectly. Too bad…so sad!

The average rent in Charlotte is $725 according to rent.com. The payment on a $130,000 house with a 30 year mortgage @ a rate that has increased to 10% (which is not realistic…most people in ARM pay far lower rates) is $1141 a month. If they re-finance to a 6% fixed rate,available at this very moment is just a few dollars more than the average rent. If you can’t afford these reasonable payments than you SHOULD NOT be a homeowner. No one lied to you! You could have done the math and you can afford payment at 10%. If youcan’t afford this than you never should have been a homeowner and you were living on a borrowed American Dream thatwas never yours in the first place. Sheesh.

Who is on top…Obama or Hillary? I really can’t answer the implied question here. I mean Obama is the man….but so is Hillary. I think if the two had to figure out the answer to this question the battle to win would be even bloodier than the fight for the Democratic nomination. Either way, Obama loses…even if he figures out how to get on top…which Hillary will never give to him easily.

Haven’t news personalities been in hot water for making this error?

A post I wrote three years ago is still getting me a couple of comments/emails a day in regard to obtaining copies of solution manuals. In response I have set up a bulletin board to help facilitate the trading, begging for, and bartering of solution manuals. I am hoping that the site can become a solutions manual trading post on the net for needy graduate and undergraduate students to find eachother and offer whatever value they can to those lucky few that are in possession of the holy grail for students. Happy searching.

I have solutions manual to the following:
1.MWG.(hrd n soft copy)
2.ROMER.(hrdcopy)
3.SIMON AND BLUME (soft copy)
4.CASELLA AND BERGER (soft copy)
5. WILLIAM GREENE (soft copy)
6.JEFF WOOLDRIDGE (soft copy)
7.SARGENT AND LINQUVIST.(soft copy)
8.STOKEY AND LUCAS (hrd n soft copy)

I am looking for the complete solutions manual to Robert Feenstra’s book on International Trade. Please contact me at mranon1976@gmail.com, if you would like to trade any or ALL of these manuals for the one above. Please do not mail with any other offers, you will be wasting ur and what is far worse, my time.

Update: There are many more offers for trades that can be found here. I posted this trade as its own post because this guy has an entire graduate program worth of solutions. Happy trading

Top 10 differences between prison and work:

IN PRISON: You spend the majority of your time in a 10X10 cell.
AT WORK: You spend the majority of your time in an 8X8 cubicle.

IN PRISON: You get three meals a day.
AT WORK: You get a break for one meal and you have to pay for it.

IN PRISON: You get time off for good behavior.
AT WORK: You get more work for good behavior.

IN PRISON: The guard locks and unlocks all the doors for you.
AT WORK: You must often carry a security card and open all the doors for yourself.

IN PRISON: You can watch TV and play games.
AT WORK: You could get fired for watching TV and playing games.

IN PRISON: You get your own toilet.
AT WORK: You have to share the toilet with some people who pee on the seat.

IN PRISON: They allow your family and friends to visit.
AT WORK: You aren’t even supposed to speak to your family.

IN PRISON: All expenses are paid by the taxpayers with no work required.
AT WORK: you get to pay all your expenses to go to work, and they deduct taxes from your salary to pay for prisoners.

IN PRISON: You spend most of your life inside bars wanting to get out.
AT WORK: You spend most of your time wanting to get out and go inside bars.

IN PRISON: You must deal with sadistic wardens.
AT WORK: They are called managers.

Linda Wertheimer over at NPR neglected to bring her racism and sexism detector to an interviewed aired April 9th, 2007 on the show All Things Considered.

The premise of the story reads as follows…

Sen. Hillary Clinton is the first woman frontrunner for president in either party. But right behind her looms Sen. Barack Obama, the most competitive black candidate for president ever. What conflicts might this pose for black women in Democratic primaries?

The answer is it should create no dilemma for black women…or black men…or white women…or green Martian US Citizens…the color of your skin and the type of genitalia you have between your legs shouldn’t matter one ounce when a person decides who should lead one of the most influential country’s in the world. To base such an important decision on such a trivial basis is stupid and by its very nature racially and sexually discriminatory on the most base level.

If I were to say that as a white male my choices in the democratic primary are between Joe Biden and John Edwards because they are white males…with an outside shot for Hillary becasue at least she is still white…I think Don “nappy-headed hos” Imus, Michael - Cosmo Kramer - Richard’s, and Trent “Thurmond would make this country a great place” Lott would breathe sighs of relief that they hadn’t said that. Surely if I was being interviewed on NPR I would be called on to justify my obviously racist attitude…and rightly so.

But when Sally McMillan, a black female student at Morgan State University one minute and 50 seconds into the story is asked what she would be making her decision on when deciding between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton she states that her decision will be based on the merits. What are the merits you ask? The candidate has to…

…know how to influence others properly to get the desired results. I think that’s something Hillary Clinton, as a women, will be able to do.

As is only women have that power. Someone get JFK and Ronald Reagan out of their graves and interrupt Bill Clinton from the campaign trail to let them know that women ultimately have the ability to influence others to get the desired results. Sheesh!

3 Minutes and 30 seconds into the story Linda Wertheimer interviews Dawn Walker, a chemistry major at Morgan State University, who has this gem of wisdom to share…

So she’s [Hillary Clinton] a women…but because she’s not a black women though, you see what I’m saying? See the hierarchy is

white man

white women

black man

black women

I guess my teachers forgot to explain that in Racism/Sexism 101 my freshman year of college. She continues,

So she’s a white women…and I’m a women…but, I’m like two doors down from her…even still. Yeah she’s all about women’s rights and da da da, and pro-choice, and this and that…but I’m still black and she knows that she’s white. So, it’s like…she’s not really thinking about us. She’s not thinking about us and I know that Barrack is thinking about us…and he’s a man, but because he’s black it’s just going to be like that, you know? You have to think about that when we go to the election and vote.

So white people just don’t think about blacks? Or is it just white women? Or is it just Hillary Clinton that is not thinking about black people? And how can she be so certain that Barack Obama is thinking about these things? Was there a talking points memo disseminated? Was I off the list because I am a white male? Should everyone always vote according to who is closest to their background on the Dawn Walker hierarchy of race/sex? Would that only be racist for white males to admit to using…why does Dawn Walker get a pass when making an utterly bigoted remark such as this?

6 minutes and 30 seconds into the story, Nelly Montaine, a Catholic Choir Singer at the St. Margaret of Scotland Catholic Church in Maryland was heard stating…

Some people will be voting for Barrack Obama because he is black, but we still live in white America ladies and you know it.

uh-huh…what’s that mean? It sounds as if she is insinuating that white Americans would not vote for a black man. She continues,

When the majority of America, which is white, looks at Barack Obama they see a black man. They don’t see a man of mixed racial heritage, all they see is a black man. Like I said, this is till white America. I think the reality of the thing is he’s going to have a struggle.

It sounded to me that all the sweet old choir lady saw, when she looks at Barack, was his skin color. If white America will never vote for a black man, is that a bad thing in Nelly’s mind? If so, and I hope that it would be a problem in her mind, why isn’t it a problem that she seems to know people that will vote for Barack simply because he is a black, or mixed race, person? Listen to the interview…the tone of her voice shows no disgust at the idea of people voting for Barack based on his skin color…but much annoyance that she believes white America would probably vote against him for the same reason.

In the immortal words of Ayn Rand ‘A is A’ and likewise racism is racism, regardless of the color of the speaker of racist ideas. The same goes for sexism. In this hypersensitive world we live in the idea that multiple racist and sexist remarks could go unchallenged by a tax payer funded journalist is just unbelievable. That is it’s unbelievable until I tell you that black women are speaking the bigoted remarks and the venue is NPR.

Skeptical Brotha when will you denounce these racist remarks as strongly and as loudly as you did the Imus idiotic remarks?

Vox ex Machina where is your denouncement?

Unrepentant Marxist…I am waiting for your thoughtful post on this issue.

Lean Left…will you add these people to those we need to leave behind?

Pat Dollard…will you denounce this?

Some shaming on this NPR peice can be found at Elephant Biz and at Logical Meme. That’s it for now. We will see if any of the above mentioned blogs find it worthwhile to denounce all racisn/sexis…or just the stuff that fits the conventional wisdom about what a racist/sexist comment is defined in todays society.

Update: As I suspected all of the blogs that screamed bloody murder a couple of days ago about the racism/sexism of Don Imus have nothing to say about this issue when the racist is not a white male. I will update thi post if any of the people I put ‘on blast’ (see comments for explanation) actually respond to the NPR report.

Update II: Vox has responded here. In a nutshell the story has a racist sexist premise but for the most part the individuals in the story do not appear to have made much of any racist/sexist statements. A good read.

My friend Travis has a funny post about refridgerator breeding on the steep hills of San Francisco. I guess there are more alternative lifestyles than I could even imagine in the city by the bay.

As corporate taxes wind down, personal taxes come to crunch time, and another midterm looms large…my baby has a way of making me forget about all the stress in my life.