Laura Ingraham Mourns Momentary Loss of Spotlight on Politics

Here is a copy of the letter I sent Laura Ingraham… 

Last night’s rant about the trivial death of Heath Ledger was simply pathetic. I suppose I’m just one of the “stupid” people who chose to take a break from listening to news about a six year old war, a presidential campaign where we will be forced to choose the best of the worst, a struggling economy, and the middle east to find out why this actor died. I like millions of others world-wide was curious. I’m not a fan of his. I’m not a fan of any specific actor and like you I detest the attention given to out-of-control Hollywood chick-lets like Spears and Lohan. I could care less what they wore, where they were seen or who they are dating. But this is different. Someone died. Making fun of people because they choose to have a vigil for this young man is…even though I used it before, I can not think of a better word than…pathetic.

You were grateful when people took time away from their busy lives…and the Iraq war to write to you and reach out to you when you were fighting breast cancer. I lost one of my dogs in December and for a few days I couldn’t care less about politics or wars. As much as I can’t believe it some people out there would say, “It’s just a dog”. Intelligent people understand that what is important to them may be trivial to others.

I hope you have some small idea as to how cold and callous you sounded last night. Pretty harsh words from someone who wrote this on her website”Thank you all for your heartfelt emails expressing your empathy for the passing of Troy Ingraham, whose antics had been a regular part of the show since the beginning. He was a great dog, companion, friend during his 13 years.”

The Mortgage Crisis: Foreclosing on The American Dream

                          As long as I can remember I have been told that owning a home is the ultimate pinnacle of the American dream. Many are now finding out that the American dream came with an adjustable rate mortgage that is now turning the dream into a nightmare. Banks and lenders are circling around homes like reluctant vultures waiting for the last signs of life. I’ve listened to quite a few financial analysts explain the cause of the problem in terms that many people don’t understand. They tend to over-complicate the cause thereby justifying their status as “financial experts”. I am by no means a financial expert, I barely got by in high school math and to this day use a calculator for even the simplest math equations. My knowledge in this area is derived from listening to and observing my wife who worked as a real estate appraiser for the last few years. The financial experts will tell you that the reasons for this crisis are varied and complex. The crisis can be attributed to a number of factors, such as the inability of homeowners to make their mortgage payments; poor judgment by either the borrower or the lender; inappropriate mortgage incentives, rising adjustable mortgage rates and declining home prices that have made re-financing more difficult. Here is how the crisis has been explained by financial experts so that we better understand it.

Traditionally, the risk of default is assumed by the bank originating the loan. However, due to innovations in securitization, credit risk is now shared more broadly with investors, because the rights to these mortgage payments have been repackaged into a variety of complex investment vehicles, generally categorized as mortgage backed securities (MBS) or collateralized debt obligations (CDO). A CDO is a repacking of existing debt, and in recent years MBS collateral has made up a large proportion of issuance. In exchange for purchasing the MBS, third-party investors receive a claim on the mortgage assets, which become collateral in the event of default. Further, the MBS investor has the right to cash flows related to the mortgage payments. To manage their risk, mortgage originators (e.g., banks or mortgage lenders) may also create separate legal entities, called special-purpose entities (SPE), to both assume the risk of default and issue the MBS. The banks effectively sell the mortgage assets (i.e., banking accounts receivable, which are the rights to receive the mortgage payments) to these SPE. In turn, the SPE then sells the MBS to the investors. The mortgage assets in the SPE become the collateral.

Here is what they are really saying. You bought a home. You were given a loan by a bank or lending company. Shortly after moving into your new home you receive a letter telling you that your loan has been bought by another lending company who will in turn probably sell it to another company. You generally don’t care since the terms are the same and what difference does it make who you pay the mortgage to anyway? Yours and other loans are then grouped together as packages and put through a financial feeding frenzy where everyone that touches your loan gets a chunk of the action before they pass it along like a tasty piece of diseased meat. The largest reward goes to the last man holding the money bag. Unfortunately so does the risk.

Now lets go back and explore the initial process of buying a home. After finding the home of your dreams you apply for a mortgage to a mortgage broker. The broker usually assigns you to a mortgage associate who will be your guiding light through the complex maze of paperwork, services, processes, pimps, and ultimately the closing. The mortgage broker doesn’t get a dime unless you close on the house. He is financially vested in getting you a loan. That is his job. He is the person that needs to sell you to the lending company as a good risk. If you are not considered a good risk it is his job to try and repackage you and sell you to another lender. That could entail anything from cleaning up some credit issues, showing more income, crunching numbers, refiling taxes, selling blood or plasma, and flat out lying. While you are going through your Pretty Woman mortgage make-over you are also being convinced that you can indeed make the monthly payments on your American dream. To get the loan approved you may have to pay a little higher interest rate or get an Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM) that starts out at a relatively low rate and three years later adjusts to the current interest rate. That makes sense at the time of purchase because the dream is so close to your grasp that you only see blue-jeaned back door summers and swing sets. You allow yourself to be convinced that this is workable. That the American dream is attainable. It is often during foreclosure that you come to realize that you and your home are how everyone that helped and guided you along the way pay for theirAmerican dream…even if yours is taken away. 

I’m Not a Better Person.

This is my first blog of 2008 and the only thing I can think of to comment on was how disappointing 2007 was. At least for me. Many of the people I know personally also had a bad year. Prior to and after the first day of January advertisers remind us of our guilt ridden need to make a new years resolution. I thought about making a specific resolution but I chose to make a more general resolution to simply “be a better person”. I know that sounds like a cheap way out and I’d normally respond by telling you to piss off but I am now a better person. The wrapping paper has been gone for over two weeks now and I’ve been on the phone with DELL technical support virtually every day to resolve a problem with my new computer. I have only hung up on them once because I’m now a better person. The iPod I bought my wife which she loves has froze up three times. Cost of iPod $259.00. Cost of being able to watch boxing in bed while she watches Saving Grace on her iPod? Priceless. I did not get upset. I did not go on my usual “poor customer service” rant. Why? Because I’m a better person now. 

Being a better person means being more tolerant of others…even idiots.  Sorry. Thinking someone is an idiot is not being a better person. My bad. Hey this will take a little time. When you’ve spoken your mind for as long as I have it’s not easy to just shut it off. The old me would have allowed myself to become engaged in a verbal skirmish over what is right and what is wrong at the drop of a hat. The old me would have gone on forever about the steroid scandal in professional sports. The old me would have said that guys taking steroids to hit a baseball is about as useless as me taking steroids to participate in an AIDs Walk-a- Thon. The old me would have ripped Hillary a brand new sphincter for her transparent “ghetto talk” speeches in poor urban areas after growing up on one of the toughest cul-de-sac’s north of the country club next to the horse riding academy. But that was the old me.

The new me went to a new doctor today to see why I have problems with my breathing. The new doctor turned out to be a great guy. He looked like a burnt out surfer from the seventies. Long blond and slightly graying hair. Sweat pants hanging off his hips. And a T-shirt. The only thing about him that looked like a doctor was the stethoscope that hung around his neck. I wasn’t sure if he was going to examine me or take me to his fully carpeted van for bong hits, beer and Ted Nugent blasting through the cassette player speakers with all wires fully exposed. 

After having to fill out only one form in the waiting room. That’s right. One form. And only one side. I was sceptical to say the least. He didn’t ask the usual questions. By usual I mean the very same questions you spent the usual fifteen minutes filling out in multiple forms. Instead he told me that we need to knock this crap out of me so that I can breathe better. He looked down my throat and up my nose. He gave me some samples of medication he told me are given to him by Pharmaceutical sales people he referred to as slimy pirhanas. He gave me a referral to a specialist and told me to get over there and get this thing fixed. During our examination we discussed everything from the current presidential campaign and illegal immigration to childhood obesity and spineless parents. There was some discussion of a prostate exam but I waived that off for another day after shaking his hand which he described as a old football players hand. Why couldn’t I have found a former placekicker for a new doctor? As I was leaving he put out his hand in a fist looking for me to do the same. As our fists lightly cracked together he said in a gruff voice, “Don’t ever change brother. You’re a great guy. You get it man. You understand it all…and you’re almost as crazy as I am”. I assume he was talking about life and perhaps that you need to be a little crazy to understand it all. Either that or a lunatic just examined me and gave me a bag full of pills that will probably kill me.

On the way back from the doctor I stopped by my printer to get prices on some work I needed done. I asked the owner how her holidays and new year was. She told me that her husband had suffered a heart attack and wound up having quadruple bypass surgery. I asked how old he was. She told me that he was forty five years old. “Three years younger than I am,” I immediately thought. She went on to tell me the details of how the attack began. It turns out that her family doctor was the crazy guy I just left and that he was responsible for saving her husband’s life. She told me that he doesn’t have office hours on Thursdays because he makes house calls. She went on to tell me that when her daughter was hit by a car and fractured both her hips he made sure that she had the best care and was always available. She referred to him as a great guy. That was what he called me. Right after he told me to never change.  Was it a sign or merely a coincidence? My new year’s resolution was to be a better person. That’s about as non-committal and vague as you can possibility get and yet if it means keeping your mouth shut when you feel the need to speak out then is it really making you a better person? I will need to think more about this but until I can make some understanding of it all my resolution is postponed until further notice. Therefore…DELL customer service sucks and I’m switching back to my Commodore 64. The new iPod freezes up more than Hillary Clinton when she is asked to please give a direct answer to a direct question instead of boring us all with the “Hillary Shuffle”. And would someone please tell Barrack Obama that words like “change, hope, unity, peace and promise” are fine for the church but I’m looking for a President not a Pastor to run the country. Their I feel like a better person already.