from breadwithcircus.com

People don’t seem to understand the conditions that have led to what is being called the “Credit-Crisis.” I’ve been doing a lot of research on this and I think that I have a pretty good handle on what really happened here, so I’m going to try to explain it in a way that people unfamiliar with the disastrous practices of Wall Street can easily understand. Its complicated, but bear with me.

First, banks and other agencies began issuing what have been called sub-prime loans. These were mostly mortgages with really low interest rates. The loans were structured so that the people who took them out would have very low payments for the first eighteen months or two years of the agreement, but much higher payments after that. In many cases these loans were given to people who had no income, no job, no assets, and no ability to make payments once the higher rates kicked in. However, because of the time-lag between the issuing of the loans, and the day when payments would inevitably stop, firms realized that they had a brief window of opportunity to turn temporarily valuable loan papers into billions of dollars.

Enter the Collateralized Debt Obligation. (CDO) (more…)

Alaska: rape capital of America

The things you learn these days. So it turns out that Alaska is the forcible rape capital of the United States, by some distance in fact, with 76 instances per 100,000 inhabitants. The state-by-state list from the FBI is here.  http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/data/table_05.html

So today ABCNews.com moves a piece by Justin Rood reporting that the Palin administration has done very little about this.

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McCain camp prays for Palin wedding

The marriage of the vice-presidential candidate’s pregnant teenage daughter could lift a flagging campaign

Sarah Baxter in Washington

September 28, 2008

In an election campaign notable for its surprises, Sarah Palin, the Republican vice- presidential candidate, may be about to spring a new one — the wedding of her pregnant teenage daughter to her ice-hockey-playing fiancé before the November 4 election.

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“Under Sarah Palin’s administration, Wasilla cut funds that had previously paid for the medical exams and began charging victims or their health insurers the $500 to $1200 fees.

Although Palin spokeswoman Maria Comella wrote USA Today earlier this week that the GOP vice presidential nominee “does not believe, nor has she ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test…To suggest otherwise is a deliberate misrepresentation of her commitment to supporting victims and bringing violent criminals to justice,” Palin, as mayor, fired police chief Irl Stambaugh and replaced him with Charlie Fannon, who with Palin’s knowledge, slashed the budget for the exams and began charging the city’s victims of sexual assault. The city budget documents demonstrate Palin read and signed off on the new budget. A year later, alarmed Alaska lawmakers passed legislation outlawing the practice.”

One small step for McCain; one giant leap backwards for women.

Sarah Palin: Phyllis Schlafly with Better Make-Up?

A couple of weeks ago, Gloria Steinem wrote an op-ed worrying about Sarah Palin’s views on so many issues that are crucial to progressive voters — reproductive choice, the teaching of the Bible vs. science in public schools, global warming, gun control, and sex education for our kids.

And she compared Palin, rightly, I think, to Phyllis Schlafly.

It’s scary enough to think about Palin in those terms.  Not because they both share a love of outdated up-dos.  But because of their shared commitment to an extreme conservative view of what American government should look like.

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