Tell me about Huckabee

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Oerdin


The number of legal immigrants allowed in the country per year through the regular INS system is actually fairly low. People can get around the regular INS system using a number of back door programs exempted from the regular system. They can be employer sponsored and have a highly technical skill the government says the US is short of. You can marry and American citizen or be a foreigner who is a family member of an American citizen (child, brother, parent, etc). If you are declared a refugee/political prisoner/other protected group. Or if you join the US military then you can get back doored and avoid the INS's main system. Just about everyone else has to use our broken regular INS system which literally only lets in a few thousand people per year legally.

A few thousand people per year is vastly, absurdly below even 1925 immigration levels. We let in about 2 million per year, which is around an order of magnitude greater then replacement rate immigration.

[ZEE]

Tell me about your Huckabee...

YOUR HUCKABEE!
tell me about him...



sorry i wanted to say that for 3 days. was going to make my own thread but just put it here. carry on please...

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Whoha


And it is only going to get worse as the government keeps trying to defer what is coming.

Not really. Only about 80,000 borrowers will qualify for Bush's highly restrictive PR attempt and most of them likely don't even know they're one of the few lucky lotto winners. The reality is the number of people who actually sign up for Bush's rate freeze on payments (while still letting lenders continue to add deferred interest to the loan balance) isn't going to be any where near the 80,000 who theoretically could because it just isn't that great of a deal. Compare that to the estimates of up to two million foreclosures in the pipeline and you see the government hasn't really deferred or bailed out anyone.

There will be a bailout eventually but it will strictly be for the banks & the financial companies who's speculation brought about the bubble and the crash to begin with.

[Whoha]

Absolutely, the crooks are going to get the lion's share of the bail out, and that is whats going to hurt and prolong the problem.

[Dinner]

I really wish I knew more about the exact process which starts with a subprime loan and turned it into bundled securities which were so complex and difficult to evaluate that even banks and brokerages in the industry, the supposed experts, are now finding they're exposure to risks/loses is much higher then they thought.

I think there are three steps 1) Loan broker gets sucker to sign loan papers for worst terms sucker will accept. 2) underwriter originates loan but immediately flips it on 3) loan gets passed through a number of jhands as part of the bundling process eventually ending up with lots of other loans from all over and rolled into a new type of security which is then resold to someone else (the end sucker if you will).

Is that about right? I understand that even industry experts have a difficult time figuring out what the grade & risk of the original loans & property evaluations are and how the math works out to the return:risk of the final security sold to investors. Especially as the terms of how the bundled loans got turned into new securities is itself subject terms of its own. In fact several financial institutions are now suddenly figured out they took on a lot more risk & debt then they imagined. If the big guys can't figure these things out Joe Public investing his retirement fund doesn't have a prayer.

[RGBVideo]

Originally posted by Oerdin
boohoo bush is to blame bush is to blame subprime loans will destroy US economy because i read it on slate.com boohoo

why don't you make your own thread about it and see who's interested?

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I really wish I knew more about the exact process which starts with a subprime loan and turned it into bundled securities which were so complex and difficult to evaluate that even banks and brokerages in the industry, the supposed experts, are now finding they're exposure to risks/loses is much higher then they thought.

I think there are three steps 1) Loan broker gets sucker to sign loan papers for worst terms sucker will accept. 2) underwriter originates loan but immediately flips it on 3) loan gets passed through a number of jhands as part of the bundling process eventually ending up with lots of other loans from all over and rolled into a new type of security which is then resold to someone else (the end sucker if you will).

Is that about right? I understand that even industry experts have a difficult time figuring out what the grade & risk of the original loans & property evaluations are and how the math works out to the return:risk of the final security sold to investors. Especially as the terms of how the bundled loans got turned into new securities is itself subject terms of its own. In fact several financial institutions are now suddenly figured out they took on a lot more risk & debt then they imagined. If the big guys can't figure these things out Joe Public investing his retirement fund doesn't have a prayer.

thats about right, they made loans that they knew would be bad, I think one was a 500,000 dollar 10% interest to a guy who made minimum wage.

[Apocalypse]

Actually I am the one that makes subprime loan threads and Oerdin participates.

The thread pretty much was won by me after it was proven that Bush and Hillary's whole lets keep housing prices up and reward bad credit is pretty much exactly what Mugabe did.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by VJ

why don't you make your own thread about it and see who's interested?

Who said Bush caused the mortgage crisis or mentioned slate? Get a grip man.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Apocalypse
Actually I am the one that makes subprime loan threads and Oerdin participates.

The thread pretty much was won by me after it was proven that Bush and Hillary's whole lets keep housing prices up and reward bad credit is pretty much exactly what Mugabe did.

OK, then I guess the real question is how do you best solve the situation we are currently in? Do you sit back and let a bunch of people go bust and then let the banks either sink or swim on their own? Do you bail out banks to prevent a financial sector crash but leave the homeowners to their own devices? Do you pretend you are the new socialist man and smite the evil capitalist banks for the prolitariate? Or do you take the Japan approach of trying to stretch the pain out over as long a period of time so that banks don't get hit with all those defaults at the same time? Break it into smaller pieces via government ordered loan modifications or something?

I'm truly curious which way is best. I sort of like the logic the Japanese approach of taking the pain in bight sized chunks but the record wasn't kind to the Japanese. In 1987 the American approach was to not help home owners but then to turn around and give banks $100 billion in cash to recapitalize/recover loses. This approach actually worked fairly well historically but then you have the problem of private companies sucking up subsidies and behaving badly because they know if they screw up bad enough Uncle Sugar will come to the rescue. Are there more options?

[Dinner]

I really like how agents/brokers in places like the UK are officially hired to represent the interests of the borrower. The US system has everyone acting as free agents but the main reason to go to a broker is to be advised on how to get a loan, figure out which options are best, and to guide the client/borrower through the process or maybe advise the client not to buy because they're just not ready.

In the current system no one advises the client/borrower other then any friends or family he might have or books he might read while the broker has a very clear potential conflict of interest. It seems like removing that conflict of interest might have stopped a lot of those bad loans from ever being finalized as the broker would have told his client what a stupid idea it was instead of the current system where the broker gets a nice commission and the house is in foreclosure court 6 months later.

[Apocalypse]

Basically the government loans the banks more money, and leave home owners on their own. Japan's housing market is much smaller than the US so it is difficult to compare.

[Dinner]

Huckabee's Frontrunner Status Tests His Authenticity

Heidi Przybyla Thu Dec 13, 12:07 PM ET

Dec. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Mike Huckabee has been ignored for most of this year, often getting less attention in Republican presidential debates than Ron Paul or Duncan Hunter.
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No more. At yesterday's candidate forum in Iowa, the last before the state's Jan. 3 caucuses, Huckabee was addressed as ``the frontrunner'' by another candidate and suggested he sometimes laments that he isn't so obscure anymore. ``I'm going to be a lot more careful about everything I say, because I find that it gets amplified to a new level,'' he said.

No other primary candidate in modern politics has shot from as far back in the field to the front as suddenly as Huckabee. He was mired with 2 percent to 3 percent support in polls until recent months. Now he has vaulted to the lead in Iowa and places second in most national surveys.

``This isn't just an Iowa thing,'' Huckabee said in an interview today. ``I'm either number one or number two in every national poll.''

This surge is due largely to the support of evangelical Christians and the appeal of a relaxed, amiable style that he displayed in the debate. Quick with a joke, eager to show off his guitar licks, Huckabee, 52, comes across as authentic.

``He's a fresh face who seems to be a straight shooter and a likable fellow,'' said Frank Donatelli, former White House political director under Ronald Reagan who is supporting competitor John McCain.

Shifting Positions

Now that he is a serious contender, Huckabee has begun to shift his positions on some of the issues most important to the Republican electorate, such as immigration, Cuba and taxes. His rapid ascent also is drawing new scrutiny to his record as governor of Arkansas.

``The question is, come Jan. 15 what information will people have on him?'' Donatelli said.

The most pronounced change has been in how he addresses immigration. Huckabee has tried to neutralize his earlier support for pro-immigrant measures, including granting in-state tuition to some high-achieving children of illegal immigrants and his support for President George W. Bush's guest-worker program. As recently as the Nov. 28 Republican debate, he defended the tuition program by saying, ``We are a better country than to punish children for what their parents did.''

Minuteman Endorsement

Now he is stressing his proposal that illegal immigrants be forced to return to their home countries. Earlier this week, Huckabee picked up the endorsement of the Minuteman Project, an anti-immigrant group that has sought to set up citizen border patrols in several states. He boasted about the group's support in a post-debate interview on the Fox News Channel, calling Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist ``probably the leading voice on immigration reform.''

Huckabee has also switched his position on Cuba. He opposed the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba in 2002, saying it was hurting agricultural interests in Arkansas. Earlier this week, he said he favored it.

Huckabee's tougher stances haven't diminished his attempts to portray himself as the kinder, gentler conservative in the race. In yesterday's debate, Huckabee noted he had come a ``long way'' from the little house where he grew up in Hope, Arkansas. He also said he believed in the ideal of the nation's founders that ``the people elected would not represent the elite, but would represent the ordinary.''

Club for Growth

Still, he is coming under increasing fire from the economic conservatives in the Republican Party, such as the Club for Growth, the Washington-based anti-tax advocacy group that has been hammering Huckabee for raising taxes as governor.

Huckabee oversaw tax increases, including 37 percent higher sales taxes, 16 percent higher motor fuel taxes and 103 percent higher cigarette taxes, according to Americans for Tax Reform in Washington.

Huckabee may face another problem with anti-tax advocates: his past pledge not to raise taxes. ``Tax increases are out,'' Huckabee said on Nov. 14, 2001, the Associated Press reported.

In the presidential race, Huckabee signed a similar pledge, drafted by Americans for Tax Reform. Grover Norquist, president of the anti-tax group, said he hadn't heard about Huckabee's earlier pledge.

``Americans for Tax Reform was and is critical of his tax- and-spending increases,'' Norquist said. ``This is not like being born again where it washes away the sins.''

Capital Gains

Huckabee said today he would extend Bush's tax cuts, ``try to cut capital gains taxes'' and expand the tax-deductibility of health-care costs.

``We need a tax code that doesn't make rich people poor but makes it possible for poor people to get rich,'' Huckabee said.

The core of Huckabee's support is social conservatives. An ordained Baptist minister, Huckabee talks openly of his religious beliefs and how they inform his policies.

That too has become controversial. Supporters of his chief rival in Iowa, Mitt Romney, 60, the former governor of Massachusetts and a Mormon, attacked a comment made by Huckabee in a New York Times Magazine article posted on the newspaper's Web site yesterday. In it, Huckabee said that he didn't know much about Mormonism and asked: ``Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?''

``I don't see any other way to read it other than an attempt to stir up bias against Mormons,'' said former Missouri Senator Jim Talent, who is supporting Romney.

Huckabee said on CNN that after the debate that he apologized to Romney. ``I don't know much about the Mormon faith,'' Huckabee said in an interview. ``I have enough trouble keeping up with Baptist theology.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Heidi Przybyla in Johnston, Iowa, at hprzybyla@bloomberg.net .

http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/ahcsjazrz_nk

[Dinner]

Huckabee Makes Classic Mistake

So, you're an outta left field candidate who has a campaign run well enough to surge you into several polling leads a few weeks out from Iowa, you're the talk of every pundit and show and some major parts of a shattered national party are starting to coalesce around you? what's the last thing you should do? Fire the architect who made it all happen.

Yet, that's what Mike Huckabee is effectively doing. Huckabee (henceforth called "Schmuckabee" for doing this) is bringing in Ed Rollins to supplant Chip Saltsman as Campaign Manager. Never mind that Saltsman is an unheralded genius. Never mind that without Saltsman Schmuckabee is in Duncan Hunter numbers. Never mind that Saltsman has turned this guy from a doofus into a contender-- he's bringing in the Old Guard and going with the GOP's most overrated operative because, well, he's the GOP's most overrated operative. Rollins has for years basked in the undeserved glow of Reagan's victory, which makes people forget a few other little missteps clearly more indicative of his talent level-- Ross Perot, Katherine Harris for Senate, paying off the NJ black Ministers, the Jack Kemp implosion, Ashcroft losing to a dead guy, etc.

Obviously Schmuckabee has succumbed to three pressures-- one, someone has convinced him he can't raise money without a bigger name like Rollins (false); two, someone has convinced him that Saltsman is out of his league (false, I mean the guy singlehandedly defeated Gore by winning Tennessee for Bush); three, he's diving blind into the party establishment because he thinks they're the key to legitimizing the polling data he's seeing (wrong again, Schmuckabee-- that comes later).

Shaking up a campaign that is running totally on momentum is almost always a disaster as you break the momentum while the establishment guy sets things up to run his way; doing it to bring in a dope with a huge reputation to supplant your "homegrown" forces doubly so. Schmuckabee's campaign isn't in trouble and in need of a superstar to turn it around-- it's running well and fast and is bringing in, if anything, the opposite of a superstar to run it.

He peaked a bit too early and then got dumb by listening to establishment types who most likely really want to see Romney win this thing. Maybe Subway or NutriSystem will hire him next year

Bob Kohm

[MrFun]

But it's good that Huckabee is ****ing up his campaign.