Read it, and weep ...

[Swingman]

>>>>> age-lending.html?pagewanted=1

Even worse than that ... give me control of printing your money, and it makes no difference who you elect, in any branch of government.

[Revivul]

I was in mortgage banking at the time.

The banking industry wanted the noose off, from around their necks, so they could be free to make as MANY LOANS and as MUCH MONEY as humanly possible.

They lobbied ... fiercely ... for the repeal of Glass-Steagall Act, among other things, and the passage of Gramm?Leach?Bliley Act, among others.

Clinton was an idiot for going along with the notion, but -- make no mistake about who pushed for every single bit of at least this part of the meltdown.

We privatized profits, and we socialized loss.

[Swingman]

Good way to put it ... so damn true it makes you want to scream in frustration.

[Leon]

And still worse, let the federal government control the education system and it will control our kids minds.

Rick Perry finally did something good by turning down the $750,000,000 offered by the feds to take control of our education system in Texas.

Had he taken the money he would have traded what little control we have left in our childrens educations for "2" days funding of the education system in Texas.

[Leon]

Good for the both of you.

[Ed Pawlowski]

If you were good parents, you'd have bought her a boat and let her go out to sea.

[upscale]

Yeah, but they should have done it 8 years ago.

[krw]

Likely learned from their parents.

Absolutely! ...learned from her parents.

[Phisherman]

Folks bought too much home for too little income. Shame on the government for encouraging this financial irresponsibility. Ginnie Mae bonds, AAA rated, very good. Fannie and Freddie are basically high-risk junk.

[dhall987]

If you want to believe it was turned down for such altruistic reasons, I guess that is your right. However, all of the school districts and even states saying that they are "turning down" the federal money are in fact accepting theTeacher Union's demands that they not be subjected to any evaluations or any significant measurement of individual performance. I really am not a fan of Obama, but his attempt to inject at least a little tiny bit of accountability into the teaching "profession" through this "race to the top" giveaway deserves some props.

Dave Hall

[Larry Jaques]

On Fri, 15 Jan 2010 23:16:03 -0500, the infamous "Ed Pawlowski" scrawled the following:

>>> Read every SINGLE word!!

Ditto the first sentence. All I can say is

"CHRIST, NOT AGAIN! Didn't they !@#$%#$ learn the first time?" Then I saw the 1999 date on the thing.

[RonB]

I guess that is hard not to do if you live too far east or west. I am amazed, when we watch the real estate shows on HGTV. They are selling an older California or Massachusetts home and I'm thinking "that's a $170,000 home. Then they show the $750,000 price. We are still selling new $300,000 homes in the plains states for around $300,000, not $1.5M.

RonB

[Ed Pawlowski]

Some years ago a Cambridge MA resident was going to retire and move to Alabama. He put his house on the market and called a realtor in his soon to be new home town to set up appointments. When she heard the price range he was looking for, she replied "I don't think we have anything in that range". He ended up with a huge house on few acres on a river (dock and boat included) with fancy gardens and still put a few hundred thousand $ in the bank.

[Markem]

Chicago though is on a coast and prices were getting surreal.

Mark

[krw]

...and his property taxes likely were a quarter of what they were in MA. We bought 2x the house in Alabama, and the taxes are 25% of what they were in Vermont.

[Mark & Juanita]

along those lines:

Somebody in that school district, starting with the Vice Principal needs to sued, prosecuted, and/or fired. Stupidity *should* hurt.

The parents won't be prosecuted, but should receive counseling. Why in heaven's name do *they* need counseling. The Vice Principal who wet himself over a science project at a school that *specializes" in technology is the one who needs counseling.

What if the firefighters had found a can of gasoline or a propane bottle in the garage? Were the police then going to arrest someone?

[Swingman]

The "educated beyond their intelligence" doing the educating ...

[RonB]

During the mid 70's home prices in Wichita, Ks skyrocketed for a while. We turned a home at nearly 100% gain in price in about four years (with about 20% of original cost in improvements). It has settled to a "healthy" pace since then. Even with the aerospace job losses the local market has not been crushed like other places. It is slow, but still some building and selling.

RonB