This is interesting...

This is A condensed timeline from the Investor's Business Daily
explaining "What Caused the Loan Crisis": I't's the best, short but full
accounting I've read yet.

This is quite a time line. Bush urged reform 17 times.

1977: Pres. Jimmy Carter signs the Community Reinvestment Act into
Law. The law pressured financial institutions to extend home loans to those
who would otherwise not qualify. The Premise: Home ownership would
improve poor and crime-ridden communities and neighborhoods in terms of
crime, investment, jobs, etc.

Results: Statistics bear out that it did not help.

How did the government get so deeply involved in the housing
market? Answer: Bill Clinton wanted it that way.

1992: Republican representative Jim Leach (IO) warned of the danger
that Fannie and Freddie were changing from being agencies of the public at
large to money machines for the principals and the stockholding few.

1993: Clinton extensively rewrote Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's rules
turning the quasi-private mortgage-funding firms into semi-nationalized
monopoies dispensing cash and loans to large Democratic voting blocks and
handing favors, jobs and contributions to political allies. This potent mix
led inevitably to corruption and now the collapse of Freddie and Fannie.

1994: Despite warnings, Clinton unveiled his National Home-Ownership
Strategy which broadened the CRA in ways congress never intended.

1995: Congress, about to change from a Democrat majority to
Republican, Clinton orders Robert Rubin's Treasury Dept to rewrite the
rules. Robt. Rubin's Treasury reworked rules, forcing banks to satisfy
quotas for sub-prime and minority loans to get a satisfactory CRA rating.
The rating was key to expansion or mergers for banks. Loans began to be
made on the basis of race and little else.

1997 - 1999: Clinton, bypassing Republicans, enlisted Andrew Cuomo,
then Secretary of Housing and Urban Developement, allowing Freddie and
Fannie to get into the sub-prime market in a BIG way. Led by Rep. Barney
Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd, congress doubled down on the risk by easing
capital limits and allowing them to hold just 2.5% of capital to back their
investments vs. 10% for banks. Since they could borrow at lower rates than
banks their enterprises boomed.

With incentives in place, banks poured billions in loans into poor
communities, often "no doc", "no income", requiring no money down and no
verification of income. Worse still was the cronyism: Fannie and Freddie
became home to out-of work-politicians, mostly Clinton Democrats. 384
politicians got big campaign donations from Fannie and Freddie. Over $200
million had been spent on lobbying and political activities. During the
1990's Fannie and Freddie enjoyed a subsidy of as musch as $182 Billion,
most of it going to principals and shareholders, not poor borrowers as
claimed.

Did it work? Minorities made up 49% of the 12.5 million new
homeowners but many of those loans have gone bad and the minority
homeownership rates are shrinking fast.

1999: New Treasury Secretary, Lawrence Summers, became alarmed at
Fannie and Freddie's excesses. Congress held hearings the ensuing year but
nothing was done because Fannie and Freddie had donated millions to key
congressmen and radical groups, ensuring no meaningful changes would take
place. "We manage our political risk with the same intensity that we manage
our credit and interest rate risks," Fannie CEO Franklin Raines, a former
Clinton official and current Barack Obama advisor, bragged to investors in
1999.

2000: Secretary Summers sent Undersecretary Gary Gensler to Congress
seeking an end to the "special status". Democrats raised a ruckus as did
Fannie and Freddie, headed by politically connected CEO's who knew how to
reward and punish. "We think that the statements evidence a contempt for
the nation's housing and mortgage markets" Freddie spokesperson Sharon
McHale said. It was the last chance during the Clinton era for reform.

2001: Republicans try repeatedly to bring fiscal sanity to Fannie
and Freddie but Democrats blocked any attempt at reform; especially Rep.
Barney Frank and Sen.Chris Dodd who now run key banking committees and were
huge beneficiaries of campaign contributions from the mortgage giants.

2003: Bush proposes what the NY Times called "the most significant
regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and
loan crisis a decade ago". Even after discovering a scheme by Fannie and
Freddie to overstate earnings by $10.6 billion to boost their bonuses, the
Democrats killed reform.

2005: Then Fed chairman Alan Greenspan warns Congress: "We are
placing the total financial system at substantial risk". Sen. McCain, with
two others, sponsored a Fannie/Freddie reform bill and said, "If congress
does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous
risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall
financial system and the economy as a whole". Sen. Harry Reid accused the
GOP ;of trying to "cripple the ability of Fannie and Freddie to carry out
their mission of expanding homeownership" The bill went nowhere.

2007: By now Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee over HALF of the $12
trillion US mortgage market. The mortgage giants, whose executive suites
were top-heavy with former Democratic officials, had been working with Wall
St. to repackage the bad loans and sell them to investors. As the housing
market fell in '07, subprime mortgage portfolios suffered major losses. The
crisis was on, though it was 15 years in the making.

2008: McCain has repeatedly called for reforming the behemoths, Bush
urged reform 17 times. Still the media have repeated Democrats' talking
points about this being a "Republican" disaster. A few Republicans are
complicit but Fannie and Freddie were created by Democrats, regulated by
Democrats, largely run by Democrats and protected by Democrats. That's why
taxpayers are now being asked for $700 billion!!

If you doubt any of this, just click the links below and listen to
your lawmakers own words. They are condeming!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68D9XrqyrWo&feature=related#

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIgqfM5C8lY#

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9juJr8CSY4&feature=related#

Postscript: ACORN is one of the principle beneficiaries of Fannie/
Freddie's slush funds. They are currently under indictment or investigation
in many states. Barack Obama served as their legal counsel, defending their
activities for several years.

Kinda Scary.

This is the pastor that Obama has been going to for the last 20 years. The one that married he and his wife. The one that will be advising him as President if he wins (since we have had two terms with Republicans, he probably will). More than kinda scary.



Almost makes me rather have Hillary. It's a toss up.

We have a new President and Prophet!

Our Daughters

The scene is a middle school auditorium, where girls in teams of three or four are bopping to pop songs at a student talent show. Not bopping, actually, but doing elaborately choreographed re-creations of music videos, in tiny skirts or tight shorts, with bare bellies, rouged cheeks and glittery eyes.

They proceed to dance in a way that I will not let my teenage sons see let alone allow participation from my middle school age daughter. Why do the parents, teachers, and school districts allow such activity to be displayed as a talent? They not only allow it, they encourage it. It required costumes, dance lessons, and permission from the school. What kind of talent were they trying to show? Lap dancing, pole dancing... Don't the adults surrounding this situation realize that this can't lead to anything good? These kinds of things are why I am glad that my children are happy homeschooling. The girls obviously worked hard at their "talent":

Their faces are locked from grim exertion, from all that leaping up and lying down without poles to hold onto.

It's a good thing their parents didn't see this toy before it was removed from the toy section. At the end of the editorial he says:

Suburban parents...allow the culture of boy-toy sexuality to bore unchecked into their little ones’ ears and eyeballs, displacing their nimble and growing brains and impoverishing the sense of wider possibilities in life. ...And it’s a cramped vision of girlhood that enshrines sexual allure as the best or only form of power and esteem.

The only way for this type of situation to be changed is for parents to do some parenting. We have to make the change by doing what we can to not allow our children to wear these types of clothes or dance or act in these ways. We can refuse to buy immodest clothing, refuse to pay for lessons to dance inappropriately, not allow inappropriate music to be played in our house, and encourage our daughters to see the beauty within. "Everyday Mommy" (on her blog) is trying to make a difference. She has come up with the Moms for Modesty Mission Statement to try to unite parents against stores and manufacturers that sell immodest clothing for children. It says:

Moms for Modesty Mission Statement

• As a Mom for Modesty I believe in common-sense modesty for girls and young women.
• I believe in refraining from sexualizing our girls and young women.
• I believe that it is unwise and unfair to taunt boys and young men by permitting my daughter(s) to dress in an immodest manner.
• I believe that true beauty comes from within and I strive to teach my daughter(s) this truth.
• I will loyally shop at retailers that provide girls' and young womens clothing that is modest, affordable and stylish.

If you agree with this click here and sign the petition, and add their button to your blog if you have one.

Teacher's Union President can't do 6th grade math

Talk about a high-stakes test.

The radio audience was live and the question for teachers union
president Randi Weingarten involved sixth-grade math: "What's 1/3rd plus
1/4th?"

He couldn't do it. ::snicker:: But could you? Is this something you use in everyday life to be able to practice and remember it? I know I use this type of math in cooking. Maybe she doesn't cook. Maybe she needs more hands on learning so that she can remember. ::grin::

"I do it the old-fashioned way," she said. "You take your paper, your pen, you add it up and get the fractional whatever."

"And you show your work," Pesca offered.

"And you show your work," Weingarten agreed. "A good teacher will look at it and talk to you about what went right and what went wrong, like they do in Singapore."

I believe that they do more mental math in Singapore. That is one of the things Singapore Math is known for--and Singapore Math (the one we are using for elementary) is actually the program that was used in Singapore when they came first in the world in 1995, 1999, and 2003 for 4th and 8th grade Math and Science.

Bible Classes in Public Schools?

Georgia is requiring their public schools to come up with Old and New Testament history and literature classes as electives (story here). They are not allowed to bring religion into it though (what?). They are to teach it as a history or literature study only. How can it be taught as a history unless it is accepted as true?

State Sen. Kasim Reed...was troubled that the department would not provide a list of suggested reading materials — other than the Bible, which the law states must be the "basic text" — and had not worked with legal scholars to develop the courses.

"We never believed that this was something ... that you could do easily because of the constitutional issues," Reed said. "But we believe at the end of the day that the value in exposing our young people to this was worth it.

So they are trying to teach religion in school--at least "exposing our young people" to it. But what about Jewish, Catholic, Muslim, Buddhist, and every other religion out there (or lack thereof). Doesn't that mean they have to teach classes on them also? Do we want just anyone teaching all these things? It might be better to teach these things in an atmosphere where we can oversee what our children are being taught and choose the teachers ourselves.