Free kibbles

ECONOMY:

How government has set up the new mortgage fraud to get rid of visible bailouts except for Fannie and Freddie.

"The actual closing took place this September, and within 10 days of closing, a letter of notification of assignment from none other than Fannie Mae was mailed to me. This letter was sent to inform me that; "the ownership of your first lien mortgage loan has been transferred by Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. to Fannie Mae." Look carefully at this part: "The transfer of ownership of your mortgage loan to Fannie Mae has not been publically recorded." Also included; "Fannie Mae is a shareholder owned company with a public mission. We do not make mortgage loans but instead provide funds to lenders by purchasing the mortgage loans they make." You will have to excuse me here while I laugh out loud! This statement not only is ludicrous and false, but also is based on the assumption that all of us in the public are idiots! Oh, I see, they just hold and own all the loans and take full responsibility for them, but they don’t do the initial paperwork. First, where in the world does Fannie Mae get its money? They are trillions in debt, and are losing billions, so how can they do this? Does anyone dare to guess?

This situation gets even better for the banks. The bank in question here, Wells Fargo, not only got paid up front to do the loan, but also gets paid by Fannie Mae for the life of the loan to service it. All this takes place without any risk of default whatsoever to the bank. In essence, they handle the paperwork, get paid up front, and continue to get paid for the life of the loan, and the particular loan is off their books immediately. Their reserve requirements are never altered, and all risk is eliminated and transferred to Fannie Mae. Talk about "stimulus" potential! This is in essence simply a transfer of risk to us lowly taxpayers."

The mafia is small potatoes compared to Washington aristocrats.

"The effect of this is many fold, but the bottom line is that banks will look healthier than they really are and continue to pass off all risk, the losses and debt at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be mostly hidden from the public, and the real estate markets will appear to be better off than is actually the case. This will probably continue at least until the "free" fiat money runs out and interest rates rise to where they should. At that time, watch out, as trillions of dollars in losses will be revealed. In other words, we will all pay for this one way or another!The federal government now owns and controls most of the U.S. mortgage market, so will the banks involved in this charade go bankrupt when this con game falls apart? No. But Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will. So who will end up being responsible for all these losses that are sure to come? We will, you and I, but the banksters will still have their wealth, their massive homes, their yachts, and their private planes, while all the rest of us suffer in order to pay for it all!"

I keep saying our apparent wealth is an illusion. We are very near the end of the road to serfdom.

This might be a clearer description of the mortgage fraud crisis:

"We now have a new "gate" – foreclosuregate. The big banks have played fast and loose with the paperwork on loans and titles. It looks as though millions of home mortgages could not be successfully defended in a court of law, and even if they can be defended, the entire court system would shut down if every underwater mortgage debtor demanded to see the paperwork, which the lenders cannot supply. "I'll see you in court!" will cease to have any meaning. Hardly anyone will get into court.

Here's the problem. We have been trained to view the courts as a free resource. But when anything is free, it is rationed by standing in line. The courts cannot function, once millions of people say, "I'll see you in court."

Word is getting out that the lenders cannot prove that they possess valid title to the homes. This means that home owners cannot legally be evicted if they stop paying. They need only demand proof that the agency to which they are making payments holds title.

I wrote about this over a year ago. Now the day of reckoning is here. The escape route is becoming visible to underwater mortgage payers: "Stop paying until the lender can prove that he holds legal title." The lender must make property tax payments despite the nonpayment by home owners.

The best hope that the lenders have is the fear of foreclosure by the tax man. But if home owners pay their property taxes, this threat goes away. People can live rent-free except for paying property taxes. At some point – maybe soon – this is going to dawn on desperate, underwater debtors.

The dam looks like it is about to burst. The mainstream media are sensing that the illegally handled paperwork (digitswork) is a Huge Story, one that Americans will read about or watch on the Evening News. That means there will be added coverage. Then more people will find out."

So people may just stop paying their mortgages. But the previous article tells us Fannie and Freddie ultimately own nearly all mortgages. So bankers only risk might be political because taxpayers ultimately own the mortgages.

TAX AND SPEND:

Paul Krugman still claims that Obama didn't spend enough, was too conservative, and the Fed didn't print enough to fix our economy. In Krugman's world, it's never enough. I bet he says the same thing about Zimbabwe and the Weimer Republic. I think he's a candidate for a padded cell.

REGULATION:

Rumor that Obama is targeting Google for an anti-trust attack. How's working with Obama paying off for you, Google? This is wonderful reminder that government is god to corporations, no matter how big or well connected. Like petty Greek gods, the Washington aristocrats may favor a corporation one day then, no matter how much tribute they've paid, they may send a lightening bolt its way. Or several. Or just crush it like a bug. There's always more tribute to be had from others.

Tom Smith's Incredible Bread Machine.

The case against the FTC in a nutshell.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

The governor of the Bank of England entertains the idea of abolishing fractional reserve banking in favor of Misesian-style 100 percent reserve banking. Don't expect to hear that out of Bernanke's mouth.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Yet another former climate fraud switches gears and calls for honest science.

Carbon offsets in America aren't worth a nickel. Literally. It's nice to see this attempt at expanding the political economy failed. So far.

I bet we see this polar bear in lots of future alarmist articles.

Since 2005, we've experienced a very unusual low in hurricanes.

POLICE STATE:

Brazilian authorities arrest, arraign and take away the passports of two US air marshals for assaulting a woman. The marshals then used fake passports apparently supplied to them by the US government to leave Brazil illegally. Apparently they didn't want their day in court. Imagine if any one of us tried to the same. Laws don't apply to the ruling class. They only apply to us, and the ruling class uses them as weapons against us.

Suggestion that the religious right is driving libertarians out of the tea party. You know, I used to be optimistic about the tea parties, but now I'm not. However nobody drove me out. The last Dayton Tea Party really finished it for me. Everybody there worshiped government. Maybe that's why there were only half the number of people at the first Dayton Tea Party I went to a year and half ago. But my optimism left when the tea party candidates all talked like Republicans always talk when they're out of power. Republicans always say they're for constitutional government, smaller government and free markets. They're always lying. The tea party candidates are parroting those same slogans with no specifics. Nothing is going to change. The same government worshiping Republicans will be in power and no Republican other than Ron Paul will be for constitutional government. We're about to arrive at the endpoint on the Road to Serfdom. We're going to wake up one day and have nothing, and stupid partisans will look at each other in disbelief then point fingers at each other and continue to vote for the same sociopaths who brought us to this point because the other party's sociopath is supposedly worse.

POLITICS:

The chairman of the Philadelphia Democrat party admits they pay people "street money" to vote.

In order to win re-election, incumbent Democrat claims he voted for McCain. He didn't take a lie detector test though. It probably wouldn't work on these sociopath liars anyway.

All these people who complain that congressmen have no knowledge of the Constitution are barking up the wrong tree. It's obvious their constituents don't care. Blame them. There's no one congressman in Congress who supports the Constitution with the exception of Ron Paul.

MEDIA:

Here we go again with that old canard about lack of bipartisanship. If only it were true and Congress would stop passing bills. According to Congress's website today, this Congress has passed 284 bills into law so far. The aristocrats and their accomplice press want us to believe they're not working together, but it's a bunch of bull. Gridlock is a myth. It's a fantasy. Continuing the fantasy, Obama wants a "greater spirit of cooperation" after the election. Passing ~300 bills into law in two years isn't good enough for our chief government worshiper. Every law is an act of violence against the American people. Obama wants to do more damage.

LOCAL:

Ohio state government is making it easy for cities to become surveillance cities. Oh, boy!

"“We value the civil liberties of Ohioans,” Vedra said. “We’d be using cameras that are already in use, and there would be many safeguards in place.”"

What a bunch of baloney.

MISC:

I'm glad to see these kinds of questions suddenly popping up:

"Earlier, Jeffrey Tucker observed, “It’s too bad that everyone can’t just agree to let people alone to do and believe what they wish provided they do not impose on others.” The question this raises is a simple one that libertarians sometimes overlook: What drives the interventionist (or the statist)?"

He answers his own question:

"The answer is best conveyed by the phrase “social norms.” Whether leftist or rightist, the interventionist is motivated by the desire to establish — or change — the perception of what is socially “normal.” I distinguish interventionist from statist here, because many interventionists do not advocate full state control; they do, however, believe the government can normalize — or “nudge” people towards — certain social behaviors."

I disagree. It's a reflection of our instincts. It's often easier to take something from somebody else, through deception or force, than it is to obtain it through hard work and trade. Therefore natural selection has ingrained in every animal on earth the instinct to use coercion to intervene in the lives others. Being human, with our big brains, we rationalize every instinct, but we still follow them. Any rationalization will do. Focusing on the rationalizations is a distraction from the root cause: instinct. Some have it more or less than others. Libertarians have overcome it more than other people who follow other ideologies. Rational arguments don't work against instinct. We have to make arguments that engage the instinct: i.e. we have to emphasize how government victimizes the vast majority of people, even those who think they are benefiting.

Great description of Washington D.C. in this essay:

"Their job was inspecting the railroad tracks for cracks, which they did with a magnetometer aboard a caboose, in which they lived for long stretches. That caboose was home for them. It sounded like a pretty good life to me, better than being another sorry-ass lawyer in the cubicle orchards of Washington. The city is like a damn crossword puzzle, with little squares you fill in with people."

I call it Frankencity.

We need a storm classification system. A storm just blew through Dayton, and it was hyped like it was the biggest storm in history. The hurricane ratings work. No matter how much they hype them, a storm is a category something. You know what that means. If the hurricane rating system didn't exist, news agencies would treat every tropical storm like it was a class five hurricane, and people wouldn't know the difference. That's how regular storms are treated.

Praise for The Social Network.

"It is not only a super exciting and wonderful movie on its own terms; it is probably the finest movie about free enterprise made in our times. It gets entrepreneurship in the real world exactly right. It deals brilliantly with all the important issues from the motivational drive behind web startups (it is not necessarily money) and the impossibility of slicing and dicing ideas into ownership units."

"The Social Network shows how the commercial marketplace gave a code geek a chance to do that and how he did it. It is a film that celebrates the good guys, ridicules the bad guys, shows the reality of what any successful person will face, makes the legal system look like the pathetic enemy of enterprise that it truly is, and provides a tribute to entrepreneurship that is long overdue."

High praise.

Five possible countries to use as a haven from the collapse of the US.