The researchers found that rising home prices up to 2003 could be explained by economic fundamentals, such as low unemployment rates, expanding household incomes and population growth. These factors fueled housing demand and, in turn, increased U.S. home prices. During this time, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac actively issued and purchased conventional, conforming mortgage-backed securities.

But in 2003, political, regulatory and economic factors – including accounting irregularities that led to their senior officers’ resignations and the capping of their retained loan portfolios – forced the two entities to significantly slow their lending volume. Private funding in the form of asset-backed securities and residential mortgage-backed securities replaced conventional, conforming mortgage-backed securities as the prevalent source of mortgage capital.

The new credit environment allowed looser underwriting standards and increased tolerance for riskier, high-yield loan products. Such products included adjustable-rate mortgages with low initial “teaser” rates, Alt-A loans that did not require income verification and nonowner-occupied investor products. This borrowing climate provided previously marginal borrowers with additional access to credit. The credit market shift led to a record increase in total mortgage volume and pushed up home prices with momentum characteristic of a bubble.

The researchers also determined that interest rates did not significantly affect house prices. The finding defied conventional wisdom that ties interest rates directly to the monthly cost of housing and assumes an effect on purchase prices.

“These findings help us understand that the government can have a major role in affecting the mortgage and housing markets,” Vandell said. “It’s important policymakers consider this influence when they attempt to shape the markets in the future.”

Subprime lending not main trigger of real estate bubble

I find this article somewhat amazing. On the one-hand, you have a DEA agent who is clearly trying to do his best to combat the opium crop in Afghanistan. He wants to do good by the world. He has many trials and tribulations, and his mission to eradicate opium from Afghanistan is ultimately a failure due to narco-corruption at the highest levels of Afghani government. Up to and including the current president. And a good dose of American bureaucracy and political infighting.

On the other hand, you have everyone, including the government of Afghanistan, much of the US government, and most of the US Military, EVERYONE except this guy refusing to do anything about the opium crop because they know it will hurt the poor Afghan farmer and destabilize the government. He does not believe this. He goes on and on about how they aren't growing the plant because they are poor, but because they are rich, and he has some UN report that agrees with him.

But in the end I find him unconvincing on that point, and so his entire argument breaks down. He is a DEA agent, and by definition they do not care about hurting the poor to enforce drug policy. War on poor addicts is DEA policy back home, and he has no trouble applying it to Afghanistan and writing off the suffering of the Afghan farmer wholesale. In fact, he expresses moral outrage that the military objects to our extending the same kind of poverty-persecution that we have in American cities to the poppy fields of rural Afghanistan. Its just the rich guys farming, he says. We need to really show Afghanistan who is boss and eradicate the poppies.

So they can grow some place else. Personally, I think it shows HOPE that Afghanistan is not repeating our mistakes and I wish them well on their poppy capitalism. I only hope that we achieve a sane drug policy that will drive the price down enough that they will grow enough wheat to be self sufficient.

Is Afghanistan a Narco-State? - NYTimes.com

Here's the thing about John McCain, and it's never easy to tell whether this is a good quality or a bad one. He's a shitty liar. He may be willing to change his position on anything from immigration to torture to campaign finance at the drop of a hat to win votes, and he may have no problem aiming below the belt — below the knees even — to impugn an opponent's patriotism. But this is not a guy who can get up in front of a churchgoing crowd in Asscrack, Arkansas, and start weeping to Jesus. In fact, he appears to deeply resent the implication that he needs to genuflect to the baby savior at all. As in, "Hell, I already lived through five years of torture! You want me to do more?"null

John McCain can't stand sucking up to the Christian right. Is this the end of the GOP's unholy alliance? | The Smirking Chimp

W. is directed by Oliver Stone (Platoon, Wall Street, JFK, Nixon, Alexander) with a screenplay written by Stanley Weiser (Project X, Wall Street). Lionsgate recently picked up the distribution rights to W. and will be releasing it on October 17th just before the election.

Hahahaha

Must Watch: Oliver Stone's W. Teaser Trailer � FirstShowing.net

"Mr. McCain is running the absolute most pathetic campaign I have ever seen in my whole life," Stein said in his unmistakable monotone delivery. "His campaign is just heartbreakingly pathetic. He is a very impressive guy. He is a brave guy, but he is running the most lackluster campaign I have ever seen in my entire life. I would have thought Bob Dole's campaign would have set a record for poor campaigns, but this one is even worse. I mean it is shocking."

Thus Stein's answer to turn it around is Rove -- architect of Bush's back-to-back presidential victories -- who he describes as "about the smartest in the country in terms of politics."null

Except... how can you have Rove and not lose as Bush 2.0?

Preston on Politics: Bueller? Bueller? -- McCain needs Rove - CNN.com

Adults should keep the phone away from the head and use the speakerphone or a wireless headset, he says. He even warns against using cell phones in public places such as a bus, because it exposes others to the phone's electromagnetic fields.

What alarmism! Give me a BREAK. I'm not a physicist, but isn't there something called the Inverse-square law of light/EM intensity that would protect the other passengers of the bus? Or are we all so allergic to the EM we've been exposed to for about 100 years now that a tiny dose of EM from several feet away is going to hurt us?

Cancer expert unaware of Inverse Square Law

Some combination of all of these things is going to comprise the so-called "national debate" this fall. Now, we live in an age where our media deceptions are so far-reaching and comprehensive that they almost smother reality, at times seeming actually to replace reality — but even in the context of the inane TV-driven fantasyland we've grown used to inhabiting, this year's crude cobbling together of a phony "national conversation" by our political press is an outrageous, monstrously offensive deception. For if, as now seems likely, this fall's election is ultimately turned into a Swan-esque reality show where America is asked to decide if it can tolerate Michelle Obama's face longer than John McCain's diapers, it will be at the expense of an urgent dialogue about a serious nationwide emergency that any sane country would have started having some time ago. And unless you run a TV network or live in Washington, you probably already know what that emergency is.

...

Sanders got letters from working people who have been reduced to eating "cereal and toast" for dinner, from a 71-year-old man who has been forced to go back to work to pay for heating oil and property taxes, from a worker in an oncology department of a hospital who reports that clinically ill patients are foregoing cancer treatments because the cost of gas makes it too expensive to reach the hospital. The recurring theme is that employment, even dual employment, is no longer any kind of barrier against poverty. Not economic discomfort, mind you, but actual poverty. Meaning, having less than you need to eat and live in heated shelter — forgetting entirely about health care and dentistry, which has long ceased to be considered an automatic component of American middle-class life. The key factors in almost all of the Sanders letters are exploding gas and heating oil costs, reduced salaries and benefits, and sharply increased property taxes (a phenomenon I hear about all across the country at campaign trail stops, something that seems to me to be directly tied to the Bush tax cuts and the consequent reduced federal aid to states). And it all adds up to one thing.

It's a Class War, Stupid: Election season will be packed with distractions, but the real issue is a matter of life and death | The Smirking Chimp

interview conducted by the tenacious Carol Coleman of Radio Television Ireland was not aired on American television, and Bush's press officers apparently complained vociferously about the rigorous questioning.nullnull

Bush's Banned Interview | Vidz King - King Of Videos

"Don't tell him I said this, but he is an impressive fellow in many ways. He has inspired a great many Americans, some of whom had wrongly believed that a political campaign could hold no purpose or meaning for them," he said in Cincinnati, Ohio. Video Watch McCain offer praise for Obama »

"His success should make Americans, all Americans, proud. Of course, I would prefer his success not continue quite as long as he hopes."

McCain's comments were well-received, met by applause and laughs from the crowd.

"Whatever the outcome in November, Sen. Obama has achieved a great thing -- for himself and for his country -- and I thank him for it."nullnull

McCain says something nice about Obama.

McCain praises Obama in NAACP address - CNN.com

It seems to me that these citywide gun bans are as ineffective as many other gun policies are for reducing gun crime. It is extremely difficult to legislate or regulate guns when there is an active black market and a huge stock of existing guns. When the people who value guns the most are the ones who use them in the drug trade, there is next to nothing you can do to keep the guns out of their hands.

My view is that we should not be making policies about gun ownership, because they simply don’t work. What seems to work is harshly punishing people who use guns illegally.

For instance, if you commit a felony with a gun, you get a mandatory five-year add-on to your prison sentence. Where this has been done there is some evidence gun violence has declined (albeit with some substitution towards crimes being done with other weapons).

These sorts of laws are attractive for many reasons. First, unlike other gun policies, they work. Second, they don’t impose a cost on law abiding folks who want to have guns. null

No More D.C. Gun Ban? No Big Deal - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog