Predators Still Roam the Housing Industry

The types of folks who tend to gravitate toward tea party beliefs have consistently believed the housing crisis was the fault of people not paying their mortgage payments.  Indeed, the name "tea party" came from a CNBC analyst's screed that there should be a tea party against "losers' mortgages."  Regular people don't want to believe that there have been predatory lending companies who feed on homeowners, particularly those with poorer credit, and go to great lengths to concoct reasons to charge extra fees and threaten homeowners with foreclosure.

The story linked below shows this behavior is still going on.  New York state regulators and a group of homeowners charge that Ocwen Financial "has been charging marked-up and illegal fees as well as engaging in deceptive business practices."  Ocwen is one of the country's largest mortgage servicers.  Regulators and homeowners involved in a class-action lawsuit say that Ocwen has found reasons (read: excuses) to charge extra, sometimes illegal, fees for small issues.  One couple mentioned in the story borrowed $98,000 and now owes $150,000 after making payments for ten years due to the fees.

The blame-the-victim mentality of many people allows this kind of phenomenon to exist, blunting any movement to put pressure on Congress to crack down on predators because, after all, it's just a bunch of losers trying to get something for nothing.

http://www.npr.org/2014/11/18/364131391/firm-accused-of-illegal-practices-that-push-families-into-foreclosure

The Wageless Recovery and the Choice for the Left

I came across this article via Truthdig, written by Robert Reich and explaining artfully why the 2014 midterm elections went badly for Democrats.  It wasn't that the Obama Administration didn't tout its accomplishments sufficiently as the President said; it was what Reich called the wageless recovery that makes most people feel as if the recession is still ongoing.

Reich wrties "If you want a single reason for why Democrats lost big on Election Day 2014 it’s this: Median household income continues to drop. . . . The stock market has boomed. Corporate profits are through the roof. CEO pay, in the stratosphere. Yet most Americans feel like they’re still in a recession."  Reich points out that in this recovery, 100 percent of the recovery's gains have gone to the top 10 percent in this country - 95 percent have gone to the upper 1 percent.

That language may turn off some as overtly political instead of statistical.  But Reich contends that this is the way that the political left must go to win, by coming out swinging in favor of middle class issues and reigning in Wall Street excesses.  He points out that in four so-called red states, minimum wage increases won at the ballot even as Democratic candidates lost.

President Harry Truman once said "Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time."  Reich appears to be applying the principle in reverse, taking the position that if Democrats advocate forcefully for their core positions, the forgotten middle class will hear through the din that someone is speaking for them and gravitate toward the party not afraid to stand for them.

Here's the link to the original article on Reich's own website, entitled The Choice of the Century.

When Expertise Becomes Mere Opinion

I would wish that anyone with a smidgen of education read the Federalist article linked below, for the good of our society and our political process.  Tom Nichols expresses the view that we are witnessing the death of expertise, "a Google-fueled, Wikipedia-based, blog-sodden collapse of any division between professionals and laymen" where everyone presumes to be an expert on anything.  Without acknowledgment of experts -- labeled derisively as elites, authoritarians, and stiflers of democracy -- we get events like the resurgence of whooping cough because that medical authority Jenny McCarthy says vaccine causes autism.  Nichols writes with convincing rationale of how the less learned are more confident and aggressive with their assertions (the Dunning-Kruger Effect), how not assuming a baseline of collective knowledge makes debate (or even conversations) on issues of the day exhausting and unproductive, and how essentially not having gatekeepers in public discussions is both bad and good for democracy.

http://thefederalist.com/2014/01/17/the-death-of-expertise/

From a Social Media Conversation

This came from a social media conversation about why many people vehemently defend President Obama.  I commented:

"I'm a bit past my 20s and have the benefit of perspective IMHO. Never have I witnessed this degree of enmity, bile, political selfishness and disregard for the country's well-being. The analogy sometimes used of driving the nation over a cliff is the most apt; the rabid opponents of Obama see nothing but their hatred and care for nothing else."

Fox News Channel: Chicken or Egg

A new poll by Brookings and PRRI sheds light on the state of Fox News Channel and its impact on conservatism - at least some light - and the New Republic story linked below reinforces what many have long believed: Fox News does not serve its audience well, giving it the red meat to inflame existing viewer bias but sorely lacking in accuracy.

The poll showed 53 percent of Republicans trust Fox for their news, with 47 percent trusting other sources.  The "Fox News Republicans" in the survey showed themselves more conservative than the "Non-Fox Republicans," and they also were less informed on issues than their Non-Fox counterparts, particularly on immigration (in fact, the Non-Fox Republicans surveyed more in line with independents and Democrats).

Inaccurate information disseminated by Fox (many say deliberately so) has caused a perception problem among their viewers in particular and Republicans in general - witness election night 2012 when Fox viewers and many Republican regulars fully expected a Romney victory (the Karl Rove meltdown when Ohio went for Obama is now the stuff of legends).

But does Fox cause conservatives to be, well, ignorant?  Or do uninformed conservatives gravitate to Fox as a home of kindred souls?  From the survey: “It is not possible from this data to offer a precise solution to the chicken-and-egg question — whether the more important fact is that those with very conservative views are already attracted to Fox or whether Fox turns its viewers into conservatives.  What is clear is that conservative are drawn to Fox, and that Fox may, in turn, reinforce and perhaps harden conservative views.”

If the question of cause or effect is not answered by the survey, the observable impact is not only a viewership that is convinced of Fox's alternate reality but a Republican party.  Quoting the New Republic, viewers and GOP Congress members "may not consider Fox News an extreme news source. They may think it represents the center of the GOP."  But the extreme conservatism of Fox and its viewers is called "a hazard for the party. It creates extreme candidates under the guise that they are electable, builds up a false narrative that they are in fact electable and then acts surprised when that narrative doesn’t play itself out. In 2012, this storyline was on full display."


http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118066/brookings-survey-fox-news-home-most-conservative-republicans

Catching Cares Off Guard

How free are we to enjoy living where we are?  I started thinking about this when I caught myself taking in a view in my hometown that I'd seen many times over, a look down a particular street at a different time of day than usual.  I saw not the sight down the street as much as the nature on the horizon, not the functional thoroughfare but the shapes and textures and colors that are always there but not always seen.

Our cares and responsibilities color the way we see the physical world.  They refract and narrow how much we let in, and we may not know how much until we are somehow caught off guard, casting aside for a moment our visual fatigue.  That glimpse of the world as it is can be fleeting, gone the moment we reassume our chosen yokes and trudge on.

It's tempting to think that a change in location would make everything better.  But every place you may live, rural or urban, has its benefits and drawbacks.  Small town or rural living has an idyllic, harmonious reputation where everyone is your neighbor and everyone is neighborly.  The flip side is a greater disposition for limited thinking, bigotry, and religious dominion cloaked in polite expectation.  Urban areas have amenities, culture, and the freedom of expression that comes with anonymity; they also have more crime, more cheek-to-jowl living areas, more concrete and asphalt and less green to let a soul breathe.  As with most of life, where you live involves tradeoffs.

The external forces that batter everyone no matter where we live -- bills, bad luck, ornery bosses or relatives -- can dull our senses to where we don't let ourselves let the world in.  It takes a certain inner strength to shake our cares off, to protect the being inside us all that makes us wonder and allows a thrill to overtake us.  Whatever feeds that inner strength, whatever lets us be caught off guard, whatever stops us from becoming ossified and jaded -- that is what we have to find for ourselves, and keep finding for ourselves as we get older.

The Threads of Self-Congratulation and Resentment

I came across the Daily Kos article linked below which offered a most comprehensive and encompassing viewpoint on what several generally socially conservative groups -- creationists, gun enthusiasts, opponents of same-sex marriage, and the wealthiest 1 percent -- have in common.  The threads that connect each of these groups are self-congratulation and resentment.  The author puts forth a solid case describing the characteristics of each group and how the members of each group feel both special and put upon.


I cannot improve on the narrative that's offered, and it is worth reading in its entirety.  The gist, however, is found in this passage: "Indeed the whole Tea Party™ "movement" started with a rant by Rick Santelli on CNBC in which he asked his audience if they, the good and decent and responsible people who paid their mortages and didn't borrow beyond their means, wanted to "bail out" the "losers" who didn't, and did.  That's been the recurring motif on issue after issue, in speech after speech, in Fox News segment after Fox News segment, ever since. We are the Good People who have done everything right and believe in all the right things, They are the Bad People who wrongly benefit at our expense and don't deserve our help. Not only that, but We are not getting the respect and admiration we deserve. . . .They "hate" Us, when They should admire Us."


Therefore, creationists feel their special status in being chosen by God to lead all creatures is threatened.  Marriage exclusivists (to use the author's term) feel their self-viewed elevated place in society of being married would be cheapened by same-sex married couples.  Second Amendment lovers are rankled by the idea that the right to keep and bear arms is grounded not in liberty but in property rights.  The so-called 1% want no contradiction from their view of deserving their status: "The wealthy are being criticized, vilified and persecuted when they should be thanked, admired and celebrated for being who they are and doing what they do."


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/02/16/1278019/-A-Common-Thread-Among-Young-Earth-Creationists-Gun-Enthusiasts-Marriage-Exclusivists-and-the-1?detail=email#