Category Archives: Sub-prime Loans

You Can’t Handle The Hot Air!

Gaming The Game

It’s not often I like, respect, or even tolerate being in the same room with a big player in the high finance industry. Economists, business professors, money managers, investment bankers and the like are, by and large, glorified door-to-door salesmen.

From "Pee-Wee's Playhouse"

They sell hope. They swear up and down their primary interest in life is to serve you, the customer. They purport to foresee the future. Smugly and with stunning hubris, they convey the notion that they and they alone can understand the global economy. In that sense, they are as priests.

So, here’s a shocker: I really dig and respect a fellow named Steve Eisman.

Eisman

Steve Eisman

He gained a modicum of fame with his appearance in the Michael Lewis book, The Big Short. At the time Lewis wrote of him, Eisman was a financial analyst who studied the health and well-being of outfits like Household Finance Corporation and other reprobate entities that suckered millions of people into taking out subprime loans then turned around and peddled those loans to other suckers looking for a quick and easy buck. You know, the industry that nearly brought down the world economy six or so years ago.

While studying these firms, Eisman came to understand long before most other so-called experts that not only was the game rigged, it was designed to fuck the greatest number of participants possible. Its practitioners made hundred of millions — nay, billions — capitalizing on the ignorance, greed, and credulousness of others.

At one point, Eisman attended a luncheon conference at which the featured speaker would be the CEO of a big savings and loan. Eisman told Lewis someone in the audience filled with industry insiders and reporters asked the CEO what he thought about the free checking that many banks used as a come-on.

And he said, ‘Turn off your tape recorders.’ Everyone turned off their tape recorders. And he explained that they avoided free checking because it was really a tax on poor people — in the form of fines for overdrawing their checking accounts. And that the banks that used it were really just banking on being able to rip off poor people even more than they could if they charged them for their checks.

Eisman said to Lewis: “That’s when I decided the system was really, ‘Fuck the poor.'”

Now there’s a priest who’s looking to be defrocked.

Anyway, Eisman now works for a Morgan Stanley-owned subsidiary. He’s a senior portfolio manager specializing in shorting subprime home loans. But dig: He also works tirelessly to stem the growing tide of for-profit colleges and universities.

He said this to attendees pf a 2010 conference:

Until recently, I thought that there would never again be an opportunity to be involved with an industry as socially destructive and morally bankrupt as the subprime mortgage industry. I was wrong. The for-profit education industry has proven to equal to the task.

Tell it, preacher.

Zeeda Explains It All

This dame is a beaut!

Miss Zeeda Andrews

He-e-e-ere’s Zeeda!

Miss Zeeda Andrews is one of the organizers of that failed Million-Trucker March that was s’posed to shut down Washington and the fed gummint (sorry, boys and girls, the Me Party-ers beat you to it). Turns out she makes the Birthers look like, well, sane people.

Miss Zeeda Andrews believes…, ready for it? Can you handle it? Sit down now!

Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden are the same person!

Woohoo! This is the freaking best conspiracy theory of all time!

Jesse Ventura — hang up your magnifying glass, meerschaum pipe, and your official Sherlock Holmes Double-Brimmed Detective Cap®! You ain’t got nuffin’ on Miss Zeeda Andrews!

Man, that’s seven exclamation points in the first ten sentences (and here’s another one)! This breaking news deserves five million EPs (shorthand for exclamation point, duh!) Hey, how ’bout if we change the name of this communications colossus to Exclamation Point!? Same initials and all, no?

Maybe not. Anyways, like all conspiracy theorists everywhere, Miss Zeeda Andrews adds two plus two and comes up with some number ju-u-u-ust about as long as the latest calculation of pi by those eminent math geeks Alexander Yee and Shigero Kondo, which, BTW, is 10 trillion digits. Yeah, that’s about the size of the figger that Miss Zeeda Andrews comes up with. To wit: Here she is referring to the tragic helicopter crash that killed a bunch of Navy SEALs not terribly long after other such highly trained Mission Impossible-y type dudes carried out the contract on ObL. Natch, the crash was a set-up so that…, oh, lemme let her explain it:

The fact that these soldiers were set up to die in a no-return operation is obvious; they had knowledge that Obama didn’t want leaked. This is the SEALs that killed Osama bin Laden. I don’t believe this story. He is alive. Call me crazy but Osama bin Laden is our President Obama. Do your research! The CIA has been preparing for this since he was a boy. They have the same height, bone structure, hand and ears. Both are left-handed. The Osama face was created by Hollywood. The fox is in the hen house.

Busted! You know, these arch-villain conspirators keep on forgetting that the Wingnut-iverse is chock full of the sharpest-eyed folks in the whole gol-durned world.

Miss Zeeda Andrews, who (we are told by Greta Van Susteren) is also a country singer, told The Fox News legal affairs correspondent the other day what the Zillion Trucker March would be all about:

We want the President of the United States removed from office. He is a threat to our national security. He is a threat to our way of life. He is a threat to our future generations.

So, by the time you read this sometime today (Sunday), former Prez Barack Osama bin Obama will be locked up in some max-security cell for the criminally brown, awaiting trial by the Posse Comitatus set up by none other than Jillion Trucker March organizer (and country singer) Miss Zeeda Andrews.

Before his trial begins, though I have some questions. The fox is in the hen house? WTF? Does this mean all good, white Murricans are lady chickens? And Barack Adolf Stalin bin Laden John Gacy Obama is a fox? And is that fox used in the 1970s, Burt Reynolds/Robert Redford sense? Is Miss Zeeda Andrews telling us that she gets turned on by the world’s most famous Kenyan? Can’t be, can it?

I did a little digging and found this on Miss Zeeda Andrews’ Facebook page:

Deranged Meme

She’s also a big fan of a fellow by the name of Joel Skousen, a survivalist who is certain that members of the US Gummint are aiding the Russkies and the Chinese in a plot to launch a nuclear attack against this holy land. He’s also the nephew of Cleon Skousen, who was a big John Birch-er and end-times fanatic.

Birds of a feather, y’know.

Fellow liberals, progressives, and coffeehouse radicals, this is the opposition! If we can’t beat these basket-weavers, we are a sorry lot indeed.

Miss Zeeda Andrews invites us to call her crazy. We are more than happy to comply.

[Big Mike Note: I cleaned up some of the grammar, usage, and punctuation of Miss Zeeda Andrews’ YouTube comment represented above. Apparently, Christian American is her second language.]


The Pencil Today:

THE QUOTE

“Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.” — Robert A. Heinlein

A NOTE TO MY READERS

If I seem a little cynical today (okay, a lot cynical) don’t blame me. I’m only the messenger.

MEET YOUR BOSS

Make no mistake now. There is no longer any argument.

This holy land is not led by a president or a Senate or House. Nor is it run by Democrats or Republicans. Not even the combined forces of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines rival the most powerful entity in the United States today.

Kids Stuff

These Great United States, Inc. are ruled by the investment banking firm and criminal enterprise known as Goldman Sachs.

And that would make the emperor of this nominal democratic republic an unindicted hoodlum by the name of Lloyd Blankfein.

Dear Leader

The capo Blankfein and his underlings yesterday got a huge return on their investments in political bribery and economic blackmail when the Obama Justice Department announced it won’t be pursuing charges against them.

See, Goldman Sachs had been engaged in the selling of subprime mortgage securities for years, earnings ungodly amounts of money. Only Blankfein’s syndicate then went out and bet against the performance of those securities.

In other words, Goldman Sachs sold its clients — including retirement funds, states and municipalities, hospitals, and the like — a pile of shit and then went out and set up a sham insurance safety net protecting itself against the shit smears that would inevitably follow.

The original “Mob” used to have this scam down to an art. A couple of crooked-nosed Charlies would visit a restaurant owner and advise him he needed “insurance” should, god forbid, anything calamitous happen.

Aw, D’at’s Too Bad. Y’See What Can Happen?

The only flaw in the Mob’s plan was its inability to hold off the dogs of justice indefinitely. By and by, some squeaky clean prosecutor would slap the bracelets on the big boys and their underbosses.

But Lloyd Blankfein won’t be a guest of the state any time soon. In fact. the state is now his guest.

This is, after all, his country. Lock, stock, and barrel.

PROBLEM SOLVED

You know how Barack Obama is a socialist? And the Clintons before him?

Real red-underwear-wearing types, right?

At least that’s what the Right would have us believe.

So why is it that the number of people receiving cash assistance from government social welfare programs has fallen a full two-thirds since Bill Clinton’s 1996 welfare reform? And the number of American families who get government subsidies for trivial things like food and heat has fallen by a half?

The answer, if you believe the Right, is they’ve all gone from the lazy poor to the self-sufficient middle class. Because, after all, it was their own fault they were poor.

The great thing about living in these United States is the fact that we don’t need complicated solutions to baffling problems. The answers, my fellow citizens, are simple.

Oops. I mean simplistic.

ANOTHER SIGN OF THE COMING APOCALYPSE

Everybody and anybody who had a hand in making this monstrosity a reality should have the living shit kicked out of them:

This is the brand spankin’ new high school football stadium in Allen, Texas.

You read right: High-freaking-school.

The new home of the Allen Eagles cost $60M. It seats 18,000. It has a 75×45-foot video screen scoreboard.

The story about this crime against humanity in Time magazine’s online newsfeed quotes some little bastard defensive back as saying, “We just have to [be] blessed and humble and not take it for granted.”

Go Eagles!

Yeah. Like the god that doesn’t exist gave it to you in lieu of doing anything about the flooding in India.

Texas, by the way, last year cut $5B from the state public schools budget..

Anyway, the best part of the story is the little teaser in red about halfway down: “MORE: Catastrophic Brian Injuries at All-Time High in High School Football.”

Nothin’ like seeing your boy’s cerebrum concussed into so much gray goo down on the field in a shiny new stadium, is there?

LIFE LESSONS FROM FOOTBALL

Yep. Football’s back.

Remember when Ma & Pa America were all aflutter over teenaged athletes using steroids and human growth hormones to build muscle mass?

The Horror

Heaven forbid our precious scions should risk the devastating side effects of performance enhancing drugs. Like acne.

No. It’s much better for them to suffer permanent disability due to head injuries suffered on the gridiron.

Oh, and thanks to our changing climate (which, I’d bet, plenty o’Texans think is the liberal bunk anyway) more and more high school football players are suffering serious injury and death from practicing in full pads through the August heat.

SCIENCE TAKES ANOTHER HIT

We don’t have cable anymore at Chez Big Mike but if we did, Animal Planet would be on all the time. The Loved One digs critters and I’m partial to two or three species myself.

The bad news is, Animal Planet is slipping and sliding away from real animals this coming season and becoming more about, well, bullshit.

Two of the cable networks big shows will be “Finding Bigfoot” and “Mermaid — The Body Found.”

According to the Washington Post’s TV columnist Lisa de Moraes, critics pounded Animal Planet reps when the network held its pre-season news conference. One asked if AP “had run out of real animals.”

When it comes to TV, though, no one can argue with the numbers. AP’s audiences love shows about creatures that don’t exist.

THE POWER OF MYTH

Great. As if I’m not discouraged enough by the direction in which this nation is headed, this poll comes out:

The site I Fucking Love Science opines: “Well, this is a little bit scary. Come on America, sort it out. You just landed on Mars!”

To borrow a term from the god-fetishists, Amen!

Here’s how I waste my time. How about you? Share your fave sites with us via the comments section. Just type in the name of the site, not the url; we’ll find them. If we like them, we’ll include them — if not, we’ll ignore them.

I Love ChartsLife as seen through charts.

From I Love Charts

XKCD — “A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.”

SkepchickWomen scientists look at the world and the universe.

IndexedAll the answers in graph form, on index cards.

I Fucking Love ScienceA Facebook community of science geeks.

Present and CorrectFun, compelling, gorgeous and/or scary graphic designs and visual creations throughout the years and from all over the world.

Flip Flop Fly BallBaseball as seen through infographics, haikus, song lyrics, and other odd communications devices.

Mental FlossFacts.

Caps Off PleaseComics & fun.

SodaplayCreate your own models or play with other people’s models.

Eat Sleep DrawAn endless stream of artwork submitted by an endless stream of people.

Big ThinkTapping the brains of notable intellectuals for their opinions, predictions, and diagnoses.

The Daily PuppySo shoot me.

Tiny, From The Daily Puppy

Electron Pencil event listings: Music, art, movies, lectures, parties, receptions, games, benefits, plays, meetings, fairs, conspiracies, rituals, etc.

The Venue Fine Art & GiftsOpening reception: “Articulture” by Marco Zehrung; 6-8pm

Lake Monroe, Paynetown SRANational S’mores Day celebration, recipe competition and other activities; 6-10pm

Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural CenterWorkshop: Depression and Buddhism, presented by Ani Choekye; 6:30pm

◗ IU Fine Arts Theater — Ryder Film Series: “Kumaré: The True Story of a False Prophet”; 7pm

Muddy Boots Cafe, Nashville — Mizfitz; 7-9pm

◗ IU CinemaFilm: “To Rome with Love”; 7pm

Bloomington SpeedwaySprint cars, UMP super stocks, UMP modifieds; 7pm

◗ IU Woodburn Hall Theater — Ryder Film Series: “The Pigeoneers”; 8pm

Cafe DjangoSad Sam Blues Jam; 8-10pm

The Comedy AtticTim Wilson; 8 & 10:30pm

◗ IU Fine Arts Theater — Ryder Film Series: “Polisse”; 8:30pm

Bear’s PlaceChris Wilson & Planet Earth, Charlie & the Groove Factory; 9pm

The Bluebird The Revivalists, Three Story Hill; 9pm

Max’s PlacePhoenix Down; 9pm

Muddy Boots Cafe, Nashville — Amanda Webb; 9:30pm

Max’s PlaceHead Bread; 10:30pm

Ongoing:

◗ Ivy Tech Waldron CenterExhibits:

  • “40 Years of Artists from Pygmalion’s”; through September 1st

◗ IU Art MuseumExhibits:

  • Qiao Xiaoguang, “Urban Landscape: A Selection of Papercuts” ; through August 12th
  • “A Tribute to William Zimmerman,” wildlife artist; through September 9th
  • Willi Baumeister, “Baumeister in Print”; through September 9th
  • Annibale and Agostino Carracci, “The Bolognese School”; through September 16th
  • “Contemporary Explorations: Paintings by Contemporary Native American Artists”; through October 14th
  • David Hockney, “New Acquisitions”; through October 21st
  • Utagawa Kuniyoshi, “Paragons of Filial Piety”; through fall semester 2012
  • Julia Margaret Cameron, Edward Weston, & Harry Callahan, “Intimate Models: Photographs of Husbands, Wives, and Lovers”; through December 31st
  • “French Printmaking in the Seventeenth Century”; through December 31st

◗ IU SoFA Grunwald GalleryExhibits:

  • Coming — Media Life; August 24th through September 15th
  • Coming — Axe of Vengeance: Ghanaian Film Posters and Film Viewing Culture; August 24th through September 15th

◗ IU Kinsey Institute Gallery“Ephemeral Ink: Selections of Tattoo Art from the Kinsey Institute Collection”; through September 21st

◗ IU Lilly LibraryExhibit, “Translating the Canon: Building Special Collections in the 21st Century”; through September 1st

◗ IU Mathers Museum of World CulturesClosed for semester break, reopens Tuesday, August 21st

Monroe County History CenterPhoto exhibit, “Bloomington: Then and Now” by Bloomington Fading; through October 27th

The Pencil Today:

THE TRUTH ABOUT MOLLY

“I believe that ignorance is the root of all evil. And that no one knows the truth.” Molly Ivins said it. I wish I could have had the pleasure of spending a long night drinking beer and raising hell with her. She was my kind of gal; she had a dog named Shit. She died of breast cancer in 2007.

TOO DUMB TO SUCCEED

Maybe the hyenas who run the big outfits that foisted that flood of sub-prime loans upon us, driving us into a world of underfunded schools, unemployment, lost retirement nest eggs, and such are right when they say they’re special because they’re smart.

After all, these eels created “financial instruments” that were inscrutable, made them gobs of dough, and collapsed several investment banks and other financial institutions. Still they roam the streets free.

They are smart. Immoral, bestial, craven, and nefarious, sure. But smart.

As opposed to the man who stole a tuba, valued at $3500, from the University of Evansville. WFIE Channel 14 in the southern Indiana town reports that Kevin Neal called a local music store saying he had a tuba he wanted to sell. The music store owner said come on over. While waiting for Neal, the storekeep got a call from the music director at the U of E, saying — you guessed it — the school’s tuba had been stolen.

This Is Not A Financial Instrument

Too bad for Neal; the music store proprietor had recently sold the tuba to the school so he knew exactly what it looked like. It was, the music man concluded, too much of a coincidence.

The cops were called. They staked out the music shop, ID’d the alleged thief from security videotapes, and slapped the bracelets on Neal. He spent last night in the Vandenburgh County lockup.

He has now spent more time in jail than any of the smart baboons who bilked the planet out of trillions.

LEO & THE GIANT GILA MONSTER

Celebrity bartender and man-about-town Leo Cook has scored a gig catering for that remake of “The Giant Gila Monster” being shot in Franklin.

Vogue Cover The Month After Hell Freezes Over

Leo brought some fab chicken tenderloins marinated in a secret sauce into the Book Corner the other day and broke the good news.

He is a fortunate man to be associated with such an august production. The moviegoing public has been clamoring for an updated version of the 1959 sci-fi classic for decades now.

WOULDN’T IT BE NICE…

…To start your day with some great pop?

COMIX & BOOKS

Exercise your link finger here:

WE DO FACEBOOK SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO

Susie Bright of Santa Cruz, California is one of the cool ones. The writer/entertainer essentially created the category “sex-positive feminist” back in the 1980s as a reaction to the joyless prigs who seemed to be ruling the feminist world at the time.

Susie is not happy about the new federal regs concerning the Plan B One-Step birth control pill. Nor is essayist Katha Pollitt happy. Susie links to Pollitt’s piece in The Nation about the Obama administration’s endorsement of new rules that turn women into children who need to be lectured about their naughty urge to fuck.

By pandering to religious fetishists who view sex as icky and men who are scared of women, Barack Obama is demonstrating that he wants to keep his job in the worst way.

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