30 September 2008

Smoking Gun - Freddie Mac Spared by Democrats


Here it is, the smoking gun we've been looking for. The proof that everyone needs to see the real cause of the Housing Crisis. How Democrats let bad loans spread like a cancer throughout the financial system bringing it to utter ruin. I've already written about how this all started, back in the Clinton Era, but here's just to show you that it wasn't something where no one kn
ew what was going on, and people were clueless. There were willing and able accomplices to keep the scam on America going. Where's the coverage. Where's the spotlights. Where's CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC and their Coverage?
I've seen some of the reviews on this video on YouTube and I
was pretty shocked, there are some saying that Obama knew nothing of this and was clueless. First of all, the video shows his own economic adviser defending Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Second, who do you think was first put in charge of finding his VP? Third, Obama was the largest recipient of Political Contributions from these Organizations.

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The Proof is clear. Democrats defended these guys so they could rake in their bonuses, then turn around and kick some cold hard cash back to them. Will anything be done about this? With Democrats in charge of congress I doubt it.
McCain knew about this 3 years ago, he led efforts to try to stop it, but with Democrats in charge of Congress, it was practically impossible. Fox News is the only network doing stories on this. Where is everyone else?

26 September 2008

Broward Teachers Are Asking Too Much


Teachers Are Asking For Too Much

BY MARTY RUBINSTEIN
Guest Columnist  
 
  Last year, while the Teacher contract really wasn’t up for dispute, I went to bat for the Teachers of Broward County Schools. 
 What I posted here a year ago wound up not only as a published Letter To The Editor in the Sun-Sentinel, but likewise as an Editorial produced by the Sentinel Editorial Board as well after their investigation of the information I exposed.
Nice to know that I was ahead of the pack even then. 
This year I say NO.
Don’t be bamboozled by the hype that Broward Teachers are getting no raise this year, or the School Board is offering Zero percent.  Teachers have already received a 3 percent raise as of July 1st.
From the BTU Negotiation news posted July 8th:  “BTU-EP Chief Negotiator Dane Ramson said the requested information (School Board finances) was to help the union’s team identify possible “pots” of money during such difficult economic times. The funds could be utilized for the salary increases of instructional staff.”
“District negotiators flatly rejected the union’s salary increase proposal above the negotiated step movement that took place effective July 1, 2008.”
Don’t swallow the mis-information that Teachers are underpaid.  They aren’t.  Give that a moment to sink in and then read on…
Let me debunk some common myths.
Teachers need to be paid like professionals.  Broward Teachers start at $38,500 while most professionals start at $24,000.  Broward Teachers top out at $72,000 while most professionals top out at $55,000. And with Master’s, PHDs and other certifications, there are many Teachers in Broward making upwards of $92,000.  Hardly slave wages.
Teachers don’t get paid vacations.  Most professionals get two weeks off each year for the salaries they earn. Teachers get thirteen weeks.  Two weeks for winter break, one week for spring break and ten weeks for summer break.  Most professionals get five sick days each year, use them or lose them by December 31st. Teachers not only get ten sick days per year, but they can accumulate unused leave year to year.
Teachers don’t get paid holidays.  Yes they do.  While not defined as holidays in their contact, holidays are defined as days off through school closing. Even though Teachers don’t work on Columbus Day, they still get paid for the day as though it was a regular work day.  Ditto with New Year’s Day.  July 4th, too.  And just how many professionals are required to work on those days for no extra pay?
Teachers work long hours.  Yes they do.  So do most professionals.  60 and 70 hour weeks with weekends are not uncommon in either the professional or teaching world.
As I mentioned, teachers have already received a 3 percent raise as of July 1, negotiated LAST YEAR. 
 But that’s not enough for some, despite the fact that the voters have mandated reductions in cost of government and lower taxes. 
 TEACHERS HAVE GOTTEN THEIR RAISES THIS YEAR DESPITE THE MANDATE, but the union wants more.  Everybody else is suffering in the current economy.  Miami Dade is getting no raise as of this writing, but the BTU wants more.
The issue last year and the year before as a School Board Member was not one of percentages, but of equitable distribtuion.  The Union distribution of raises was and still is a JOKE.  It’s called a step system and MUST be dismantled at all costs. 
 The joke is that Teachers with less than 18 years get next to nothing, while Teachers with 18 years or more get 10, 17 and even 20 percent raises.  And that’s exactly the case with this year’s raises.  Just go to btuonline.com and take a look at the contract salary schedule.  $50, $75, $100 raises.  Not per week.  Per year.  Enough for a tank of gas.  Maybe.
That changed in 2006 with my leadership and again in 2007.  In 2006, Teachers received 6.3 percent ACROSS THE BOARD, not distributed according to the step scale.  Every teacher received a $2,050 raise and in 2007, that raise was $1,725.
The bottom line here is that while Teachers are feeling the pain with rising prices as are the rest of us, they’ve already gotten something that most of us haven’t. Demanding more is just plain piggy.
Me?  Like Will Rogers; “I’m not a member of any organized party.  I’m a Democrat.”
 (Marty Rubinstein is a former Broward County School Board member.  See more of his views on martyrubinstein.com)

23 September 2008

The Root of All Evil

It's interesting to see the candidates trying to bloody each other over who's at fault for this Housing mess. The real root of the Problem is Bill Clinton, the problem however, is that most American's are so short sighted that they can't believe that someone who served so long ago, is still having an impact on our economy. Consider this though, before Bill Clinton's policy changes, if a bank was going to underwrite a loan to you or anyone else, it had to make the vast majority of these loans out to strict policy guidelines set by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Income had to be verified, if there were no W2's there had to be at least 2 years of Tax Returns verifying your income. Credit had to be at least reasonably good and a strong 5 to 10% or better down payment was generally required (depending on Credit). If there was no income verification, and no tax returns, the only way it could be done was with a hefty 25% down payment. The reasons behind this was simple, if the bank could not sell the loan to investors, the bank was stuck with the loan for the life of the loan. Most banks had Community Reinvestment programs where they would allocate possibly 1% of local profits to go to low income families or no doc type loans, but generally these types of loans were very few and far between. Also, if you had a good relationship with the bank, they might do Investment loans for you, since they figured you would sell the home in a fairly short period of time and they would get their cash back. Finally, cities often put together Community Development loans offered to first time home buyers that often required no more than 1 to 3% down and were generally available at reduced interest rates. The vast majority of these "risky" loans though were simply not forwarded to Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and Investors. They knew that these types of loans would undermine confidence in the system.

Clinton Chages the Game:
The Clinton Administration had a goal of making housing affordable to more people and so they made some very basic and fundamental changes at Freddie Mac and Fannie mae that basically said that these two companies could now start taking these types of "No Doc" loans that would usually only be available with a significant down payment The argument was that there were a lot of people that were self employed as Painters, Tile Setters, and other service professions making decent money, but writing off a lot of their personal expenses as Business expenses. These people could definitely afford to keep up with their mortgage payments even if they didn't have w2's. While that may have been the target audience, the abuses that happened when people thought they could buy homes for the sole purpose of flipping them was an unintended consequence. For nearly a decade after these regulation changes were made, they seemed to be working just as intended, but at some point the abuses started and as Wall Street saw money to be made, they jumped in with both feet into the bandwagon.

The last banking crisis 18 years ago (the Savings and Loan Mess) taught investors that the only S&L's that were saved from the mess were the ones who invested most of their cash in Home Mortgages, so they figured that this time would be the same thing. Unfortunately, they didn't realize that the rules had changed and this was now a different game.
The biggest problems came when the very same institutions that were supposed to be monitored by Congress started becoming some of it's biggest campaign contributors. These guys basically started cooking the books to make sure the Companies hit targets required to trigger their Bonuses. McCain began to blow the wistle on this 2 years ago, but of course no one listened, since they were doling out cold hard cash to practically everyone in Congress that had anything to do with thier oversight. Obama was one of the biggest beneficiaries of this money and he now acts as if McCain is somehow to blame, when McCain is the only one on record trying to stop these guys!

You Want It, We've Got It

There are those who say that the Bible says that Money is the root of all evil, but that's not what it says in the Bible. What it says is that "The Love of money" is the root of all evil. Well this love fest got just a bit out of control didn't it.

21 September 2008

Barrack Obama - The Media Love Fest Continues

I was poking around the Internet when I stumbled across this video by 60 Min. and my jaw nearly dropped to the ground. In an interview with Barrack Obama, 60 min. highlighted the fact that Joe Biden hammered on his lack of experience, Hillary Clinton hammered on his lack of experience and now John McCain is hammering on his lack of experience. 60 min. then went on to say "does the fact that he chose someone as his vice president someone who has less experience than you take that weapon out of his arsenal?"
I couldn't believe what I was hearing!! I had to rewind that several times to make sure I heard it correctly! The interviewer is talking to a man who has done absolutely nothing with his life. Well, other than spend about a Million a day of your money on Pork and his trying to get money for his wife's Hospital (where she received a hefty raise thank you very much). He hasn't run any companies, hasn't run a town a city a state, absolutely zero executive experience and the man is actually suggesting that a sitting governor somehow has less experience than he has!?!

Not only is Sarah Palin a sitting Governor, but in the short time she's been running Alaska, (a state with a population fairly equal to Joe Biden's State) she's cut wasteful spending in Alaska even though the state's awash in Petro Dollars. The type of fiscal conservative needed in Washington. In addition, Palin has eliminated fraud, busted up scams and hasn't been afraid to take anyone on, including members of her own party. What has Obama done? Nothing, absolutely nothing, other than his ethics bill of course. However, let's examine Mr. Obama on Ethics. Did his ethics bill stop him from taking massive amounts of Cash from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae? Is that why he didn't want to go along with John McCain when McCain called for their reform 2 years ago? Apparently Obama talks about ethics reform, while McCain actually tries to make it happen. McCain's bill was defeated, but apparently he was right.

You Want It, We've Got It

15 September 2008

Woopie Goldberg - A Slave To Her Ignorance

It amazes me that people accept the one sided bias of the media with their usual sheepishness, such as how Michelle Obama goes on to The View with a list of topics she won't discuss, and gets the soft ball treatment from them. McCain on the other hand goes on the view and he gets the Major League treatment, but not only that, gets downright outrageous comments and accusations lobbed at him.

In response to McCain asserting that he would appoint judges that would not "legislate from the bench", in other words make up their own laws and instead stick to interpreting our constitution, Ms. Goldberg asked the question, "Do I have to worry about the return of Slavery". What?!?! Is she
really that dim?

First, let's explore the history of slavery a bit. Slavery was not an institution suffered only by blacks, throughout the history of mankind, many societies such as Greece, the Baghdad Caliphate (Iraq) and Rome were constantly invading their neighbors to fill an unending appetite for slave labor. Just like the spectacle of the Colosseum, with it's "to the death" battles, is no longer considered a civilized event that no civilized society would partake in any longer, slavery as well is a barbaric thing of the past.

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Next, let's go on to the conditions that allowed slavery. In the early days of the Colonies, slavery was allowed by our British masters and so land owners especially in the South utilized these rules as a way to farm their vast land holdings. When the colonies wanted to break away from the rule of England, they needed the South to help out in the effort, so as a compromise, in order to bring everyone together, slavery was basically put off by the constitution for 20 years, to give states time to transition their societies away from slavery, this is what happened in the North where slavery was officially ended without federal intervention in most states. The South however, saw things differently and wanted slavery to continue. Clearly, Democrats were not up to the task of ending slavery and it took
a Republican and the religious right to make it happen. The first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln ended slavery, while the Democrats fought to keep it alive. Ms. Goldberg, why do you think the Civil War happened? There are the revisionist out there that say that it was fought over some other issue, but let's take a look at the facts shall we? Lincoln's major campaign theme was the campaign against the expansion of Slavery, he claimed that Slavery was unconstitutional and that Science had taught us that Blacks were not "Three Fifths" of a person as we were told by the Democrats (it took another Republican law to end Democrat Primaries counting "Negro" votes as Three Fifths a vote too), upon the Republican victory, seven souther states declared their succession and independence from the U.S. After the south attacked the north at Fort Sumter, 4 more slave holding states declared their independence. Any student of history will tell you that Slavery was the ONLY issue that the Civil War was fought over, all other issues were nothing but peripheral instances that could have easily been resolved without a war.

So the short answer is, No Whoopi, you don't have to worry about the return of Slavery, Slavery is unconstitutional. The definition of rights, true rights, basically ends at the beginning of another person's rights. Science has also shown us that people of color are every bit as human as the rest of us and therefore not subject to the Democrats "Three Fifth's" rules where they could be enslaved, deprived of voting rights and so on.

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