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Sorry, Ta-Nehesi: The Root's Dayo Olopade agrees there's "something to" the argument that Obama--as "a sort of vessel, the ultimate mannequin for black male [identification]"--is helping to change hip hop fashion away from saggy jeans and toward something new. ... 10:54 P.M.
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The Good Andrew again: Playing the Wallace Shawn role in My Dinner with Bob .... See also. ... 1:58 P.M.
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Weird that Kate Hudson never seems to fall for a man who's not a Bold Faced Name. .. .1:51 P.M.
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Monday, April 20, 2009
Ezra Klein, Cheap Date: Head Juiceboxer Ezra Klein
climbs on the Spitzer Rehab wagon, finding a muddled 2004 attack on "predatory lending" in the
New Republic "pretty prescient stuff." Sample prescience:
Unfortunately, our belief in the importance of equal opportunity and nondiscrimination is too often forgotten when it comes to the debate over whether and how to police the market for home mortgages. In poor and working-class communities across the nation, predatory mortgage lending has become a new scourge. Predatory lending is the practice of imposing inflated interest rates, fees, charges, and other onerous terms on home mortgage loans--not because the imperatives of the market require them, but because the lender has found a way to get away with them. These loans (which are often sold as refinance or home improvement mechanisms) are foisted on borrowers who have no realistic ability to repay them and who face the loss of their hard-won home equity when the all-but-inevitable default and foreclosure occurs. ...[snip]
In these circumstances, government must step in to curb predatory lending and encourage the flow of fairly priced capital to sectors where it is needed and will be well-used. Filling a gap left by federal inaction, state enforcement efforts in this arena have centered on identifying the valid economic criteria considered in mortgage underwriting and compelling lenders to focus on those factors--not on preconceptions, prejudices, or predatory instincts--in determining how to price home mortgage loans. The point is not to protect people from their own bad decisions or, conversely, to guarantee that mortgages be granted to specific persons or groups on specific terms--that would violate the principle of market freedom. The point is to support equal opportunity and to ensure that borrowers are charged rates and fees based upon their status and qualifications as economic actors in the mortgage market, not upon their diminished access or market savvy or their race.
You make the call ... but I say Klein's easily impressed. What's Spitzer saying here? Is he saying the lenders shouldn't make these loans or that they should make these loans on more favorable terms--in which case the loans would have been even bigger money losers, leading to a bigger meltdown, no? Spitzer invokes the threat of action against "race" discrimination without any sense that official pressure toward affirmative-action style lending would help cause the subsequent mortgage collapse....
P.S.: I'm not saying Spitzer shouldn't have an official, public role. Prosecuting bailed out Wall Streeters who take more money than they're entitled and won't give up their fancy cars would be a good fit, for example--Spitzer's
bitter resentment, his self-promoting, accusatory, legalistic bent and his antipathy toward New York financiers would work in the public interest. But Klein seems to be suggesting New York take him back as a general political leader-- e.g., mayor, governor. It's not as if Spitzer's tenure as governor
before Ashley Dupre was a huge success--unless you count as a success almost derailing b
oth Dem frontrunners for president with an ill-conceived plan to give drivers' licenses to illegal immigrants. ...
7:10 P.M.
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"We need President Obama and his auto task force to stand up for the interest of workers and retirees in these restructuring negotiations," according to the message, posted on uaw.org. [link added]
Translation: Bail us out again, please! ...
Also: Maybe this means Obama really is seeking significant bankruptcy-style sacrifices from the UAW. Or maybe this is just a campaign the UAW was always planning to stage at crunch time. ...
P.S.: Why are the labor concession negotiations focused on reducing payments to the health care fund that pays for UAW retirees' medical needs? Isn't it fairer to save money by cutting the base wage of those still working (currently
about $29/hour)? The retirees are hapless sitting ducks who arguably have earned their benefits. UAW members still working, on the other hand, have at least
some ability to adjust to lower wages over time--by seeking other work, once the economy recovers, or working more hours, or building better products, etc. ...
Update: Of course, it's possible that the goal is to ultimately stick the government with the bill for the health benefits--as suggested by Peter Boyer's
evocative-but-inconclusive New Yorker piece. That would explain why the union would prefer to tap that form of "savings" first. ...
More: Boyer also suggests vaguely that Obama's task force wanted to dismiss the UAW's Ron Gettelfinger but "believed it didn't have the option of firing" him. ... The UAW may not quite have lost the
New Yorker, yet, but
they've lost Tina Brown's Daily Beast aggregators ("How the Unions Killed Detroit") ...
7:08 P.M.
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Jorge's Razor: Former Mexican foreign minister (and
Slate contributor) Jorge Castaneda's recent
Newsweek piece-- claiming that two officials removed by Raul Castro "were apparently involved in a conspiracy, betrayal, coup ...to overthrow or displace Raul"--was
met with widespread skepticism, to say the least. Castaneda bolstered his case by saying
"I have no way to substantiate any of this ... I have no evidence of it."
But Castaneda challenged his critics to "offer a better explanation." ... How about that Raul was, in the manner of strongmen everywhwere, simply removing two popular officials who might pose a threat to his power? ... 7:03 P.M.
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Saturday, April 18, 2009
Vote of confidence: Auto czarito Rattner "not likely" to face charges, says Obama spokesman. ...
Update: Henry Blodget calls Rattner's payment to a "placement agent" a non-issue, because of the "additional information" that Rattner made the payment to the agent before meeting with the state official who could steer pension money to him, rather than after the meeting:
Quadrangle retained the placement agent who received the $1.1 million finders fee prior to the first meeting with the state official. The SEC complaint says that the finder's fee was negotiated after the original meeting. This difference is important. The SEC's version of the story makes it sound like an after-the-fact, pay-to-play deal. If Quadrangle actually retained the placement agent prior to meeting the state official for the first time, this is more likely a case in which the firm employed multiple placement agents. The latter is a common practice in the industry, and it would not be a concern here. [Emphasis not added.]
Huh? Blodget seems impressively clueless at best here. The "placement agent" in question was Hank Morris, political consultant for now-disgraced N.Y. State Controller Alan Hevesi, whose office controlled the pension funds. If the allegations against Morris are true--that private equity firms in effect had to pay Morris to get access to the pension money--why does it make a difference whether Rattner took care of Morris before or after he met with the relevant "state official"? It's not as if Rattner would have hired Morris and then happily discovered, hey, he's the guy you have to pay to get N.Y. pension money! What luck! Rattner knew who Morris was. Of course, even if the full acccusations are true none of this may amount to a crime, on either Morris' or Rattner's part. But it still stinks. If Rattner weren't at this very moment deciding the fate of the American auto industry, he'd be under intense pressure to quit, no? ... P.S.: I'd just as soon Rattner got to finish the GM and Chrysler restructuring. Then he can quit--and become a columnist for Slate! If current columnist and former N.Y. governor Eliot Spitzer moves on, the Slate rehab slot would be open. It's worked for Spitzer, and it can work for Rattner! Ask Henry Blodget. ...
More: You knew Bill Richardson's New Mexico couldn't be far behind. A private invesment firm (not Rattner's) appears to have been suspended by that state for doing essentially what Rattner's firm is accused of doing.. ... WSJ mostly exonerates Rattner on the grounds that this was a "shake down." But there are those who have shaking down thrust upon them and those who seek shaking down (perhaps because paying someone off is easier and cheaper than competing in the regular application process). It's not clear that this latter group of shakees is clean. [via Insta]...
Bonus Question: How plausible is the following, regarding the efforts of Rattner's firm, Quadrangle, to get New Mexico business?
A Quadrangle spokesman said the company worked with Morris’s firm, Searle & Co., but said there was no payment.
See also. ... 3:18 P.M.
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