THOUGHTS AND PIECES OF LOGIC
for the individual woman
and the individual man
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THOUGHTS AND PIECES OF LOGIC
for the individual woman
and the individual man
by
Victor Edward Swanson,
Publisher
The Hologlobe Press
May 23, 2009
(Version 13)
copyright c. 2009
The document entitled Thoughts and Statements about the United States of America for the individual woman and the individual woman was originally published and placed on the Internet in April 2005, and a little after I published and posted the document, I felt I should not add to it as I had planned, since the document was long, but I felt I should expand on one of the sections of the document--the section called "Thoughts"--by creating another document that I could add material to from time to time. This document Thoughts and Pieces of Logic for the individual woman and the individual man is the follow-up document or the sequel to Thoughts and Statements about the United States of America for the individual woman and the individual man, which you should read before you read this document, and a link to that document is given at the end of this document. The goal of Thoughts and Pieces of Logic for the individual woman and the individual man is to present "Thoughts" about the United States of America that you analyze and can use to improve the United States of America.
* * * The Main Section * * *
Thought Number One: A Collection of Nitwits and their Nonsense
Here are thoughts and events that I must remember, and the thoughts and events make up the base thought on which to add other information about other events in the future (and the piece is a work in progress, and the first version was posted on September 29, 2008):
In the week of Monday, September 15, 2008, a number of financial problems in the country came to light. For one, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (two semi-related-government entities) were shown to be financially troubled, and they were taken over fully by the federal government. (In addition, at least one big bank was not bailed out by the federal government and was set on a course to be broken apart, and a big insurance agency was to be given financial help from the federal government.) During the week, I learned through The Mark Levin Show (hosted by Mark Levin), which is a nationally syndicated radio show, reasons why Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae became troubled. He noted how, in 1977, the roots of the problem started to grow through the creation of a federal-government act entitled the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977--the act started to get financial institutions to provide weaker mortgage loans to the community (the loans suggested were loans that might not be capitalized in a way that a good business person might stipulate at the time though good business practices). Mark Levin noted that, in 1995, the Bill Clinton administration began to push through rules that forced financial institutions to provide even more risky loans, and that was when the "subprime loans" idea came into existence as something to be offered in the marketplace by financial institutions (who were, in essence, pressured by the new rules to offer the loans); it would come to be during the Bill Clinton presidency that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were able to exist with only a 2.5-percent capital backing structure. In 2003, the George Bush administration tried to get legislation passed to get Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae secured before a big financial problem occurred, but because Democrats and a few Republicans in Congress blocked the proposed fixes, no changes were made, and, in 2005, the George Bush administration tried again to put rules in place to secure Freddie Mac and Fannie Mac financially. During the week of Monday, September 15, 2008, I caught television news organization reports that gave unclear reasons about why the problem occurred; for instance, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams (a news show of NBC-TV) presented a short report about why the financial problems made public over the previous several days came about, and the report gave no information about federal acts and dates or gave any substantial thoughts about why the problems came about, and I thought the report was highly defective, and I think it kept viewers uninformed about the problems and causes.
History notes:
1. It was in 1938 that Fannie Mae (officially known as the Federal National Mortgage Association) was created by the federal government, and it was in 1968 that Fannie Mae was divided into two parts--Ginnie Mae (or GNMA or the Government National Mortgage Association) and the current Fannie Mae, which was made a government-sponsored entity that could make mortgage loans and would make guarantees on mortgage loans.
2. It was in 1970 that Freddie Mac (officially known as the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation) was created by the federal government, and it was designed to make mortgage loans, mortgage-loan guarantees, and create through "bundling" of mortgage loans purchased in the secondary marketplace investment vehicles known as mortgage-backed securities (which are bought by all types of investors--companies and individuals).
3. It was the Federal Housing Enterprise Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 that created the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (or the OFHEO), which was given the duty of overseeing the capital adequacy and financial safety of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. In 1989, the federal government created the Federal Housing Finance Board, which was designed to oversee the credit operations of twelve regional Federal Home Loan Banks; the Federal Housing Finance Board was created through the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 (which was made a law on August 9, 1989), and the act was created after a time of trouble in the financial-institutions industry. It was through the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (which was made law on July 30, 2008) that the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (or the OFHEO), which was a unit of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, was merged with the Federal Home Finance Board to form the Federal Housing Finance Agency (the first director of which would be James B. Lockhart III). (Officially, the Federal Housing Finance Board was not scheduled to disappear till July 30, 2009.)I note a bit more information. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (both of which are Government Sponsored Enterprises or "GSEs") were created to help make more money available in the marketplace for mortgage loans. In essence, financial institutions make home loans, and then loans are sold to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (and the money gained by the financial institutions by selling the loans gets the financial institutions money in which to loan for more loans), and loans are grouped to create mortgage-backed securities, which get sold to investors, who hope to make money by receiving interest payments. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae ended up getting involved in buying up the more risky loans (the loans that were taken out by people who were higher risks or less likely to pass back the loans). One reason the more risky loans were picked up by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae was that the upper managers could get better or bigger bonuses based on the "on-paper" assets of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (which were not good assets), and, ultimately, big pay outs went to managers.
Some players in the events that have to be pointed out:
1. Leland Brendsel, who was the chief executive officer of Freddie Mac from 1987 to 2003.
2. Christopher Dodd, who was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1980, who heads the banking committee of the U.S. Senate, and who is a Democrat from Connecticut.
3. Barney Frank, who oversees the Financial Services Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, which is supposed to oversee all financial matters of the federal government, and who is a Democrat from Massachusetts.
4. Jamie Gorelick, who was the vice chairman of Fannie Mae from 1998 to 2003.
5. Jim Johnson, who was the managing director of Lehman Brothers from 1985 to 1990, the Vice Chairman of Fannie Mae from 1990 to 1991, and was the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Fannie Mae from 1991 to 1998. He was a part of a three-person team to recommend a vice-presidential candidate to Barack Obama, doing that from June 4, 2008 (at least) to June 11, 2008; he left the team after statements from The Wall Street Journal had noted that he had received favorable mortgage rates from Countrywide Financial Corporation.
6. Henry Paulson, who is the head of the U.S. Treasury Department or the U.S. Department of Treasury and is often called the "treasury secretary" (he has held the job since 2006).
7. Franklin Raines, who was the vice chairman of Fannie Mae from 1991 to 1996, was the director of the Office of Management and Budget (of the federal government) from 1996 to 1998, was the chief executive officer of Fannie Mae from 1999 to December 21, 2004 (when he took "early retirement").The sequence of main events:
1. In 1977, the federal government (under the urging of U.S. President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat) enacted the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, and one purpose of the act was to get more money through Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae into low-income communities for housing.
2. Bill Clinton (a Democrat) took office as the president of the United States of America in 1993, and, during his early months or years as the president, he was instrumental in having changes made to the Community Reinvestment Act, and he was instrumental in creating the National Homeownership Strategy in 1994, which was a plan, which involved the Department of Housing and Urban Development, to get housing "...to a record-high level over the next 6 years."
3. In 1995, the federal government, under the direction of U.S. President Bill Clinton (Democrat) rewrote rules about Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and the work was done through the Department of the Treasury (headed by Robert Rubin), and during Bill Clinton's tenure, the capital-reserves percentage for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae was lowered to 2.5 percent (private-sector banks and such were required to be no lower than 10 percent).Here is a special aside. It was on September 30, 1999, that The New York Times published an article written by Steven A. Holmes entitled "Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending," and it talks about home mortgages for low and moderate income people and subprime mortgages, and, in essence, the article noted that Fannie Mae was expanding its work to get banks (particularly 24 in 15 markets) to issue more mortgage loans that could be considered high-risk mortgage loans. One line of text noted--it was extending credit to people who were "generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans." Another early line in the article was--"Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Adminstration to extend mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits." Another line noted: "In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressuring Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers." And yet one more set of text from the article that I will present here was: "In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of savings and loan industry in the 1980's."
4. In 2003, George W. Bush (the President of the United States of America) attempted to pass a bill to reform Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, but the initiative never got through the U.S. Congress.
5. In June 2003, an accounting problem related to Freddie Mac became public knowledge, and three executives--Leland Brendsel, David Glenn, and Vaughn Clarke--left Freddie Mac, and the event was related to five-billion dollars in unreported money, and the event would be settled in September 2007.
6. In November 2003, Freddie Mac was fined $125 million by the federal government (the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, the director of which was Armando Falcon) for several reasons, such as for ignoring proper accounting rules and for making improper transactions, and a new chief executive officer was hired for Freddie Mac.
7. On December 19, 2003, the Los Angeles Times reported that the OFHEO would seek fines and forfeited severance and benefits related to Freddie Mac of about $33.9 million from Leland Brendsel, who had been the chief executive officer for Freddie Mac, and it was reported that the OFHEO would seek $3.9 million from a former chief financial officer of Freddie Mac named Vaughn Clarke, and it was noted that Freddie Mac had understated earnings by about five-billion dollars for three years, a period of time that began in 2000.
8. In mid-2004, the chief risk officer of Freddie Mac, who was David A. Andrukonis, sounded warnings that Freddie Mac's buying risky mortgage loans would lead to trouble, and, at the time, Richard Syron was the chief executive officer of Freddie Mac and disregarded the warnings.
9. In 2004, by the way, there were federal government hearings in which David A. Andrukonis, who was a "federal regulator," reported problems about Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, but members of the committee, for one, praised Barney Frank and pushed the issue that there were no problems (I heard audio from the hearings on The Rush Limbaugh Show, which is a syndicated national radio program, on Monday, September 29, 2008).
10. In September 2004, the OFHEO reported that, for 1998, which was a part of Jim Johnson's time as chief executive officer of Fannie Mae, Fannie Mae had improperly deferred $200 million in expenses, which had resulted in big bonuses for executives of Fannie Mae.
11. In September 2004, it became public knowledge that Fannie Mae had an accounting scandal.
12. In 2005, George W. Bush (the President of the United States of America and a Republican) once again attempted to pass a bill to reform Freddie Mac and Fannie Mac, but the initiative never got through the U.S. Congress.
13. It was in 2006 that housing prices started to drop quickly; the average price of houses had been going up greatly and at unreasonable amounts since about the late-mid-1990s after it had become easier for people to get mortgage loans, while, generally speaking, the increase in the population and the rise in the cost of materials to build homes had risen a little or slowly. (Incidentally, around this time, Japan was into an already six-year-long deep recession, which had been brought on by a real-estate boom and real-estate bubble burst of the late 1980s, and during the 1990s, Japan tried several times to end the recession through government-created economic "stimulus" laws or programs, all of which failed to end the recession, which lasted more than a decade).
14. A 2006 report from the OFHEO noted that Fannie Mae had under reported the compensation given to Jim Johnson, formerly the chief executive officer of Fannie Mae.
15. In April 2006, the Federal Election Committee fined Freddie Mac for violations of rules related to raising money for political campaigns, and the fine was $3.8 (the violations occurred when Leland Brendsel was the head of Freddie Mac).
16. In May 2006, Fannie Mae reached a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (or the SEC) and the OFHEO in the accounting scandal that began in September 2004, and Fannie Mae was to pay fines of about $400 million, and the scandal was related to $11 billion in accounting problems.
17. In September 2007, Freddie Mac (the second-largest financier of home mortgages) was ordered to pay $50 million in fines and restitution in relation to securities fraud, and four former executives of Freddie Mac were ordered to pay fines and restitution, and the total amount related to the four persons was $515,000 in fines and $275,548 in restitution; the four persons were David Glenn (a former chief operating officer), Vaughn Clarke (a former chief financial officer), Robert Dean (a former vice president), and Mazir Dossani (a former vice president). At this time, Richard Syron was the chief executive officer of Freddie Mac. By the way, the scandal had come to light in June 2003, and, at that time, Leland Brendsel (the chief executive officer), David Glenn, and Vaughn Clarke left the company, and the scandal involved the years 2000, 2001, and 2002.
18. Around November 2007, a settlement became public knowledge that Leland Brendsel (a former chief executive officer of Freddie Mac) would pay about $16.4 million in fines related to a case involving the OFHEO (the charges against Leland Brendsel had been filed in December 2003).
19. It was public knowledge on April 18, 2008, that the OFHEO had come to a settlement in a civil-charges case related to and with Franklin Raines (the former chief executive officer of Fannie Mae), J. Timothy Howard (the former chief financial officer of Fannie Mae), and Leanne G. Spencer (the former controller of Fannie Mae), and the settlement was that the three individuals would pay three-million dollars in fines.
20. It was in June 2008, that The Wall Street Journal presented information that suggested Franklin Raines had received special treatment in his quest for mortgage loans from Countrywide Financial Corp.
21. In July 2008, the U.S. Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson (a Democrat), reported that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae should be taken over by the federal government.
22. On August 5, 2008, The New York Times published an article entitled "At Freddie Mac, Chief Discarded Warning Signs," and the article noted a number of things. It noted that, in mid-2004, David A. Andrukonis, the chief risk officer, reported or gave warnings to Richard F. Syron, the chief executive officer of Freddie Mac, that the buying of bad mortgage loans was going to be trouble for Freddie Mac, and the warnings went unheeded (David A. Andrukonis left Freddie Mac in 2005). It noted that Richard F. Syron had made $38 million in compensation from Freddie Mac since 2002. It noted that, in 2004, Freddie Mac noted to federal regulators that it would have to take on riskier loans to meet federally mandated affordable housing goals. It noted that Richard Syron said that Richard F. Syron and David H. Mudd, who was the chief executive officer of Fannie Mae, had reported that the federal government had pushed for them to buy mortgage loans related to low-income persons, which were considered risky loans, for years. It noted that housing prices started to drop in 2006.
23. In July 2008, Morning Edition, which is related to National Public Radio, presented information (dated July 15, 2008, through an Internet article) that Freddie Mac spent $3.5 million for political lobbying in the first three months of 2008, and it noted that, in 2006, Freddie Mac spent about $600,000 for lobbying, Fannie Mae spent about one-million dollars for lobbying, and Countrywide Financial Corp. spent about $250,000 for lobbying..
24. On Sunday, September 7, 2008, the federal government--specifically the Federal Housing Finance Agency (or the FHFA)--took what was called temporary control of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (both went into "conservatorship"), and one of the many rules that were changed was that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were to discontinue lobbying and political activities, such as giving donations to political figures. On this date, Richard Syron was replaced by David Moffett as chief executive officer of Freddie Mac, and Daniel Mudd was replaced by Herb Allison as chief executive officer of Fannie Mae (by the way, Richard Syron had received $38 million in compensation since 2002).
25. On September 9, 2008, CNNMoney.com reported, based on information from the Center for Responsive Politics, that Freddie Mac used about $94.8 million for lobbying since 1998 and that Fannie Mae used about $79.5 million for lobbying since 1998. Also it was noted that, since 2004, Barack Obama received $123,000 in contributions as a combined total from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.A special note 1: kmorrrison33 at Purple People Vote (a Web site that I found in late September 2008) had a piece entitled "Obama Receives Big Money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac" for September 17, 2008, and here were the top-ten recipients of campaign money from roughly 1989 to 2008 and they were either U.S. House of Representatives or U.S. Senators: 1. Christopher Dodd (a Democrat of Conneticut), $133,900; 2. John Kerry (a Democrat of Massachusetts), $111,000; 3. Barack Obama (a Democrat of Illinois), $105,849; 4. Hillary Clinton (a Democrat of New York), $75,550; 5. Paul E. Jorski (a Democrat of Pennsylvania), $65,500; 6. Robert Bennett (a Republican of Utah), $61,499; 7. Tim Johnson (a Democrat of South Dakota), $61,000; 8. Kent Conrad (a Democrat of North Dakota), $58, 991; 9. Tom Davis (a Republican of Virginia), $55,499); and 10. Christopher Bond (a Republican of Missouri), $55,400.
A special note 2: CNNMoney.com reported on September 9, 2008, that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac spent $174 million on lobbyists over the past ten years.A statement: What bothers me is why Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (quasi-federal government entities) had been allowed to make political contributions to politicians (till September 2008).
Another statement: Some people blame "Wall Street" for the financial problems of the country, but the problems were caused, as shown in this section of the document, by the federal government and "Wall Street," big members of which were quasi-government entities known as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and other members of which were financial institutions, which were involved in, for instance, the buying, selling, and holding of mortgage loans and mortgage-backed securities or involved in credit default swaps, and also, as I learned through a report on 60 Minutes on Sunday, September 28, 2008, securities-rating firms did a poor job in rating securities (given that some AAA-rated instruments went bad).
The big statement: In 2008 (at least), Barack Obama had as advisors: Jamie Gorelick (who has been involved in scandals, one of which was at Fannie Mae), Jim Johnson (who was involved in a scandal at Fannie Mae), and Franklin Raines (who was involved in a scandal at Fannie Mae), and Barack Obama had received political contributions from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, two mismanaged entities that had a big effect on the financial troubles of the country in 2008, and Barack Obama's having Jamie Gorelick, Jim Johnson, and Franklin Raines shows Barack Obama has bad judgement and associates himself with defective thinkers.
A statement from a useless/dangerous/foolish man: In the 2008, during the U.S. presidential campaign season and the two months after the campaign season, Democrats kept quiet about what sparked the economic crisis of 2008, which was caused mostly by socialistic policies upheld by the Democratic Party, and then, finally, on Wednesday, January 7, 2008, Barney Frank (who was a Democrat, and who was the chairman of the Committee of Financial Services of the U.S. House of Representatives, as he had been since 2007, and whose job it was to watch over Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and help keep the finances of the country in good shape) said (when on The Joe Scarborough Show of MSNBC) in response to a question about how do we stop the next big bust on Wall Street: "...Not deregulation that was the problem. It was a failure to adopt new regulation for a new phenomenon--the securitization. The biggest part of this problem was subprime loans, money lent to people to make them homeowners who couldn't afford the loans, who should not have been considered to be in many cases capable financially of home owning. You got to recognize reality. We have begun to adopt legislation to prevent that. We can stop the last problem from reoccurring. Nobody can know what the next problem will be." (I wonder if Barney Frank has ever considered--When the Bill Clinton administration pushed for more weak loans to be issued in the 1990s, more people got into the home-buying marketplace, and because of supply and demand, the cost of homes went up (more people were competing for product), and that helped lead to a rise in the prices of houses, and the country ended up with a housing bubble--that burst.)
Thought Number Two: Naked Women, Sex, and Like Minds
Over the years, I have seen some women that I would like to see naked on a regular basis, and I believe the gals would find themselves safe and comfortable in my presence, and the topic includes sexual intercourse, an intimate event that can happen when there is shared caring and two persons feel safe and secure and respected. Some of the gals that appeal to me are Emma Samms, Fujiko Kano, Ema Hayasaka, and Barbi Benton, and I have others in mind that I do not know the names of. A problem comes here--I do not know what is in their minds at this moment. I know a dead mind or a stupid mind in a gal can make even an attractive gal (as described by me) as unattractive and sexually off limits, since I have to worry about my safety and well being. Contained with this document on the Web Site for The Hologlobe Press are many documents that show what is in my mind and what my mind is able to do, and if the data disturbs such gals as Emma Samms, Fujiko Kano, Ema Hayasaka, and Mariah Carey and makes them want to run from me--even before meeting me--I have to conclude I would not want them around.
I have a rule--Like minds get together.
The rule can be shown through a number of examples. Good people get together with good people, because they cannot stand to be with bad people, such as crooks and thieves and dishonest people, and bad people like thieves cannot get together with good people because the good people will not want to be associated with criminal plans and the like. People of the same religion may only associate with others of the same religion, because like ideas--even if foolish ideas--can be shared. People of the same political persuasion are very likely to get together in marriage. And honest business people only like to be associated with honest business people.
Incidentally, I do not consider ethnicity in this discussion, because I still think people of different ethnicity can get together as friends and sexual partners and married couples for as along as there is the "like mind" tie.
By the way, over the years, Vanessa L. Williams and Natalie Cole have exhibited nice and pleasant physical form in my mind.
So, when you think about "like minds get together," you should think about what is in the mind and what thoughts are thought and what beliefs are held and not think about physical appearance, especially skin color.
Let me talk about some persons who I would not want to be associated with in business. In the previous section of this document ("Thought Number One"), I talk about such persons as Jamie Gorelick, Jim Johnson, and Franklin Raines, who have been involved in big financial scandals and have shown through their actions that they are at least unethical and not to be trusted. My reseach and what I have learned shows me that Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who led a church in the Chicago area for many years, is a person I would not want to be associated with--He will forever be linked in my mind to his statement--"God damn, America." In addition, I would not want to be associated in any way with William Ayers, who was certainly linked to a terrorist group that was involved in criminal activities in, for instance, the 1960s and 1970s; for instance, he was a member of the SDS (or the Students for a Democratic Society) and the Weatherman (or the Weather Underground), which had communistic themes. (By the way, members of the Weathermen or the Weather Underground were involved in terrorist bombings in the United States of America.)
Here is a logic statement--Since like minds get together and since Barack Obama associates with or has associated in public for years with such persons as Williams Ayers, Jamie Gorelick, Jim Johnson, Franklin Raines, and Reverend Jeremiah Wright, then Barack Obama is of the same mind set as Williams Ayers, Jamie Gorelick, Jim Johnson, Franklin Raines, and Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
Barack Obama chose to be associated with and was not forced to be associated with Williams Ayers, Jamie Gorelick, Jim Johnson, Franklin Raines, and Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and since he chose to be associated with the persons after the persons had been associated with scandals or bad events, which were widely publicized, Barack Obama shows himself as a person who does not exhibit sound judgement or have good judgement skills. (It seems he may speak well with help of a teleprompter, may make women swoon and faint, may be sexy, and may have a nice smile. Wow!)As a radio man, I hear in my head right here a song made popular during my disc-jockey days in the early 1970s--"Smiling Faces Sometimes" (the version released in 1971 by and performed by The Undisputed Truth, which was based in the Detroit area).
Thought Number Three: "Notes to the self about Obama and Communism and Socialism"
Since April 10, 2004, I have published monthly Internet-only publications entitled T.H.A.T., which stands for "Television History and Trivia," and in the fifty-third edition, I talk a bit about "news" in the United States of America (to see T.H.A.T. #53 now, you can use this link: T.H.A.T. #53). In the last year or so, I have heard or seen how television and radio have covered or have not covered the people who have been running to become the president of the United States of America. Because of radio reports, I have been able to hear how Barack Obama is unable to speak well when not given support by a teleprompter unit--he stammers and stalls and presents sentences that are defective and it shows how he often has a difficult time thinking on his feet (I have not seen television reports that show examples of the defective speaking that he makes, meaning television avoids showing them; by the way, over the last year or so, The David Letterman Show makes a big deal of the minor misspeaks done by President George H. Bush, trying to hint to the audience, it seems to me, the president is dumb or stupid). Through radio shows, I have been able to hear comments by other political figures that do not get covered on television.
Let me note the main sources to which I refer. I have listened regularly to The Rush Limbaugh Show, The Sean Hannity Show, and The Mark Levin Show on WJR-AM (in Detroit, Michigan); all three shows are nationally syndicated radio shows that WJR-AM picks up from their syndicator (I have also used WTCM-AM in Traverse City (Michigan) to catch the shows), and I have caught The Bill Carpenter Show, a nationally syndicated radio program. I have listened to The Frank Beckmann Show and The Mitch Albom Show, both of which are locally produced programs on WJR-AM, and I have listened to The Ron Jolly Show and The Norm Jones Show, which are locally produced shows of WTCM-AM. I have caught such nationally broadcast network television shows as Meet the Press (of NBC-TV), Face the Nation (of CBS-TV), and This Week with George Stephanopoulos(of ABC-TV). I have also caught the television program entitled The McLaughlin Group, which is a weekly show that is available on WCMU-TV (in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan) and WTVS-TV (in Detroit, Michigan), both of which are affiliates of PBS. In addition, I have watched some of the talk-type programs offered through WHPR-TV (the lower-power television station on Channel 33 in Detroit, Michigan), each of which is usually hosted by a single person.
Through the information that has reached me, I report that I understand Barack Obama has communistic and socialistic beliefs--he has beliefs tied to Saul Alinsky (1909-1972), a "community organizer," who had written the communistic-themed book entitled Rules for Radicals (published in 1971)--and, for years, I have known communistic and socialistic societies create nothing!
By the way, my monthly Internet-only publications entitled Michigan Travel Tips have evidence of the many museums and such in Michigan that have examples of what individuals of the United States of America have created over the decades and have done over the decades (the catalog for the Michigan Travel Tips publications can be reached by hitting this link: Travel).
I am unable to gather up all the facts that show why I believe Barack Obama is bad for the country and bad for individuals, because that is not my job and I have no team to help gather up the necessary facts to prove my thoughts, but I can note something for myself--I can note what performers, such as television actors, who try to use their "star power" to influence political beliefs, are supporting Barack Obama, so that I will remember them in the future and forever.
On September 18, 2008, I did research to see what performers, especially performers who have ties or have had ties to television, have endorsed or do endorse Barack Obama for president of the United States of America, and what I found were articles from Web sites and information from a Web site called "EndorseObama.org," which listed and showed photographs of people who have been or do endorse Barack Obama, and the performers that I found who I recognized easily were: Jessica Alba, Tatyna Ali, Jennifer Aniston, Tyra Banks, Angela Bassett, Maria Bello, Halle Berry, Sophia Bush, Sheryl Crow, Sean Combs, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Kristin Davis, Robert Di Niro, Morgan Freeman, Jennifer Garner, Jasmine Guy, Tom Hanks, Dennis Haysbert, Hulk Hogan, Kelly Hu, Ice Cube, Samuel L. Jackson, Kim Kardashian, Regina King, Scarlett Johansson, John Legend, John Leguizamo, George Lopez, Leonard Nimoy, Ed Norton, Kal Penn, Ryan Reynolds, Chris Rock, Susan Sarandon, Maria Shriver, Andrew Shue, Russell Simmons, Will Smith, Crystal Stewart (Miss Texas USA 2008), Charlize Theron, Aisha Tyler, Mario Van Peebles, Kate Walsh, Oprah Winfrey, Stevie Wonder, Alfrie Woodard, and Jay-Z. It was in Switzerland--in August 2008--that George Clooney hosted a fundraiser for Barack Obama.
Given what I have heard about Barack Obama, I have to wonder if the actors listed in the previous paragraph are dumb, are poorly informed about Barack Obama and what he stands for, or endorse the ways of communism and socialism.Here is a side note, information that inspired me to put this "third thought" together: In mid-September 2008, I was able to catch an interview on WJR-AM, Detroit, in which Frank Beckmann was conducting an interview with a staffer of the Barack Obama election team--Dr. Susan Rice. Frank Beckmann (whose show is called The Frank Beckmann Show) and Dr. Susan Rice got on the topic of taxes. One comment that Susan Rice had about taxes and companies was that roughly "...they can afford it" ("they" are companies that make money and have profit or are what she considers "rich people"). The statement was said with impersonalness and reminded me of communists or socialists and showed me that, for instance, the underlying theme of Obama and his associates was tax, tax, tax, and tax to support social programs--Take money from businesses and give the money to others entities or groups of people. And Dr. Susan Rice was another example of the type of person that Barack Obama associates with closely (and I know like people or people with like beliefs get together or associate--such as crooked people associate with crooked people or socialists associate with socialists or good people associate with good people).
Hold it! On Monday, September 29, 2008, I heard reports on radio that Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds got married to each other. It does seem like minds got together in marriage.
If you do not notice the communistic and socialist thoughts yet, I have to add a clear piece of information that adds to the discussion. On Thursday, October 2, 2008, there was a nationally televised program called a "vice presential debate" between Joe Biden (a Democrat) and Sarah Palin (a Republican). During the debate, Joe Biden, who was associated with Barack Obama, of course, said that Barack Obama and Joe Biden liked the idea of having bankruptcy courts (which are federal courts) work out ways in which people who are having a hard time paying off mortgage can have the "principal" of their mortgages reduced. Joe Biden's thought was and is nonsence thought, and it is socialistic thought. (For more nonsense thought from Joe Biden, you should see "Thought Number Five" of THOUGHTS AND STATEMENTS ABOUT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA for the individual woman and the individual man, which can be reached by hitting this link Thoughts.)
And here is a fact that shows Barack Obama is dangerous to the individual woman and the individual man, and the individual should never forget what is presented. It was on Monday, October 13, 2008, that I heard an exchange between a man (a plumber informally known as "Joe") and Barack Obama that took place in public on Sunday, October 12, 2008, in Ohio (the comments were presented in actual audio on The Mark Levin Show), and, a short while later, I was able to see the written text of what I heard Barack Obama say. Here is the essence of the exchange (as presented in an article that I saw on FOXNews.com):
The man ("Joe the Plumber") asked, "Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?"
Barack Obama noted, "It's not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success too. My attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody ... I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."
To have government "spread the wealth around" or take money from some individuals so that the money can be given to others is a communistic and socialistic idea, and the individual should never forget those words of Barack Obama--words that no president of the United States of the America or an other candidate for president of the United States of America has ever said in public.
Thought Number Four: Credit Default Swap or Credit Default Swaps (defined and explained somewhat)
Because of a segment about credit default swaps that was presented on 60 Minutes on Sunday, October 5, 2008, I had to add this section to this document on October 6, 2008; the segment on television was a shallow presentation about the 2008 financial crisis in the country, and the segment did not mention that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and bad mortgage loans were the underlying cause, though the bad mortgage loans could be associated with credit default swaps.
In essence, a credit default swap is a private insurance contract. Some type of financial thing, such as a corporate bond, a municipal bond, or a mortgage-related financial instrument, is involved, and, really, an insurance contract will involve a group of things. The reason for the insurance is to protect someone or some entity who has invested in a financial product from loss of investment money, and loses can come in such ways as the issurer of bonds goes into default or bankrupt, an entity that issues bonds and has not defaulted refuses to pay off on outstanding bonds, bonds pay off earlier than the maturity dates, or a company or entity that issues bonds gets restructured.
It was in the mid-1990s when the credit-default-swap idea got started. Generally speaking, banks, such as JPMorgan, started to get involved in selling credit default swaps (insurance) related to bonds. Later in the 1990s, credit default swaps that had ties to mortgage-loan-related products began to appear. (Remember: In the late 1990s, more and more potentially bad mortgage loans entered the marketplace--pushed into the marketplace as the result of federal laws and often tied to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae).
Let me note one way in which the credit-default-swap idea can work. A company issues bonds, and some entity decides to buy the bonds on first issue. To protect the investment money, the buyer then buys insurance on the bonds from an insurance-selling-type entity, such as a bank. If the bonds go into default, the buyer of the bonds, who had bought insurance, will receive a payout from the seller of the insurance, such as cash, or the face value of the bonds, or a discount on the face value of the bonds.
When a contract is made, the contract is only valid if there is "consideration," and, in the case of a credit-default-swap contact, the buyer of the insurance pays "consideration" or periodic amounts of money over the life of the contract to the seller of the insurance.
Remember: As long as the entity that sold the insurance is solvent (or has money to pay off in case the asset being insured becomes defective), the buyer is covered and can feel happy.
When a contract for credit-default-swap insurance is set up, the contract exists for a certain lifetime, such as five years, so a buyer has to be aware, over the life of the contract, the seller of the insurance or the asset being covered by the insurance could become defective.
For this report, I am unable to report on how credit default swaps get traded in the secondary marketplace and how credits default swaps are used in the gamble about whether or not companies or other entities (such as governments) will fail.
Here are some general facts. The seller of the insurance may or may not own the assets being covered by the insurance, and a buyer of the insurance may or may not own the assets being covered by the insurance. The credit-default-swap products involve assets or whatever from throughout the world and are not related to only assets or things within the United States of America. Often, the products involved in the credit-default-swap idea are "derivatives" (which will not be explained here). Some of the issuers of insurance are banks and hedge funds. A payout to a buyer is triggered by a "credit event," such as one of the ways noted in the paragraph that is five paragraphs above. As noted in articles listed in the bibliography of this document, the credit-default-swap business involved about $900 billion in 2000, $28.9 trillion in December 2006, $62 trillion at the end of 2007, and $54.6 trillion on June 30, 2008. An entity that sets some selling standards is the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, but the entity is not a government entity.
The credit-default-swap marketplace is international business, and you may hear some people say that it was the credit default swaps that were the problem for the economic crisis, but, remember, credit default swaps related to mortgage-loan-related products, such as mortgage-backed securities (which are based on mortgage loans), become useless or go bad only if the basic underlying products--mortgage loans--go bad (mortgage loans go bad if the borrowers of the mortgage loans do not pay their monthly mortgage payments).
Thought Number Five: A Mess That Must Be Remembered
In the first section of this document, also known as "Thought Number One," there is information about the problems with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae that became public knowledge in 2008, and you should see that section before you read this section so that you will see evidence about corrupt business practices of executives of those entities and fines levied out to individuals who were managers. Actually, it might be good to see the first two sections, and even the third section has some related information. Either see or review what has preceeded this section or read on.
1. In the first half of 2008, it became public knowledge that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were financially troubled, and, for instance, in mid-2008, the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Department was recommending that the two federal-government associated organizations be taken over by the government--at least temporarily. On September 7, 2008, the federal government took management control and more of both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Soon after the take over took place, politicians began to push for legislation to help the economy, and, in late September 2008 and in early October, federal politicans were working on and trying to pass some type of emergency "bailout" plan for the country, and often politicians were talking about the "bailout" as a $700 billion plan. At first, politicans tried to push a bill through the U.S. House of Representatives, and the bill was voted on on Monday, September 29, 2008), and it did not pass, and then on Wednesday, October 1, 2008, the U.S. Senate passed a revised version of the bill, and the bill would then be submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives. In essence, by October 2, 2008, it was public knowledge that the bill passed by the U.S. Senate was full of "pork," which, for one, is a category of law that relates to spending that is considered nonsense to the main purpose of a particular bill--for example, the bill passed by the U.S. Senate offered money for such things as to provided tax incentives for the use of bicycles by employees of companies and for movie making (at least, there was no money offered to an entity called "ACORN," a non-government entity that had already gained a defective reputation in the field of getting people registered to vote). On Friday, October 3, 2008, the U.S House of Representatives voted on the bill that had been approved by the U.S. Senate, and the bill was passed, and, on the same day, U.S. President George W. Bush signed the bill, and the bill became law--the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.
2. In 2008, there was trouble in the private sector, resulting in changes to some really big companies, and, by the way, the trouble had ties to bad investments related to bad mortgage loans. On March 16, 2008, JPMorgan Chase & Company agreed to purchase Bear Stearns for $2.00 a share, and the federal government was involved in setting up the deal, and the Federal Reserve (or "The Fed") agreed to provide financing for billions of dollars of "less-liquid assets"; Bear Stearns had been involved in credit default swaps as part of its business. On July 11, 2008, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (or the FDIC) took control of the Independent National Mortgage Corporation (or IndyMac Bank) and created a bank informally called IndyMac Federal Bank, which was designed to be a temporary entity. On September 14, 2008, Bank of America Corporation agreed to buy Merrill Lynch & Company. Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection on September 15, 2008. On Tuesday, September 16, 2008, American International Group (or AIG), which was an insurance-related company, which, for one, insured mortgage loans, was bailed out of financial trouble by the federal government; from the federal government, the company got a $85-billion loan, which was set to be a two-year loan, and the federal government got a 79.9 percent stake in the company; not long thereafter, AIG announced it was selling some assets to pay back loaned money. On September 25, 2008, it became public knowledge that JPMorgan Chase and Co. was acquiring much of the assets of Washington Mutual Inc. (which is also known as WuMu) ; the federal government had ceased and put Washington Mutual Inc. up for sale, and the federal govenment (the FDIC) would buy some of the assets of Washington Mutual Inc. In early October 2008, Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup Inc. both made claims to acquire Wachovia Corp.
3. Although the "bailout" issue was a big news story in at least September 2008 and October 2008, such entities as NBC-TV and CBS-TV never did provide television viewers with a clear indication about how the financial problem had come about--financial institutions had been pressured through federal law or rules, especially those of the mid-1990s, to create mortgage loans that were high-risk loans, especially those defined as "subprime" mortgage loans (which are loans that are given out to people who seem not so likely to live up to the loan contracts), and Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae ended up holding a lot of bad loans, and financial institutions were saddled with a lot of "investment vehicles," such as mortgage-backed securities, related to bad mortgage loans.
4. Adding attachments to bills being considered in the U.S. Congress (both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate) is a commonplace practice, and one reason attachments are made is to, in essence, bribe some members of each "chamber" who would otherwise not vote on a certain bill to vote favorably for the bill by having something given to them in exchange or by having something given to their constituant areas; for example, a funding bill for a certain construction project in Maine might not become law, if certain attachments unrelated to the main purpose of the funding bill are not added to the bill (an attachment could be to provide funding a bicycle path on a glacier in Alaska). The bill voted down by the U.S. House of Representatives on September 29, 2008, had many attachments; for example, the bill, which was developed out of a short document called the "Troubled Asset Relief Program," had a provision to provide money to ACORN. The bill that received a "yes" vote by the U.S. Senate had fewer attachments than the version of the bill that had been voted down in the U.S. House of Representatives. If it was so necessary for the federal government to pass what was like an emergency "bailout" bill, why were any extra provisions put in the bill that was signed by the U.S. Senate, and, if the bill was a good bill, why was it not easy to get enough persons in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate to pass the bill quickly and pass the bill on to the president of the United States of America?
5. The version of the bill that was not passed by the U.S. House of Representatives and the bill (made up of 451 pages) that was passed by the U.S. Senate did not address any thought about changing how Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae did business, especially the rules that allowed for the lending money for mortgage loans, covering, for example, rates or stipulations that were imposed on borrowers. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae or bad mortgage loans held by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and other bad mortgage loans in the markeplace were a big cause of the what was the money problem of 2008, and a number of other things contributed to the money problem. And then the bill that had been passed by the U.S. Senate was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives and then signed by U.S. President George W. Bush. And the law did not take away the pressure that financial institutions had had on them--by federal laws--to write mortgage loans that were risky mortgage loans, and, as a consequence, the law did not really reduce the number of risky loans that would end up in the marketplace in the future as part of "investment vehicles," such as mortgage-backed securities.
6. I have other general thoughts about the money problem of 2008. In 1970s, people began to think--sometmes rightfully so--that foreign-made cars were better than U.S.-built cars, and since the 1970s, the "Big Three" lost market share, and little factories and shops have disappeared, especially since the late 1990s, and, of course, since the 1970s, jobs related to the auto industry have been disappearing. (Ever-rising health-care costs and the growing number of EPA rules imposed on the making of cars made doing business harder for U.S.-based automakers everyday, and it could be argued that concessions made to unions made doing business harder for U.S.-based automakers everyday.) Since the 1970s, more and more goods have been coming from other countries, and manufacturing jobs have been disappearing in the U.S.; by the way, since the 1990s at least, the quality of many goods has been going down because the goods have been coming from other countries, which have lower standards and are trying to make the "cheapest" goods possible. The big rise in the price of oil throughout the world in at least 2007 and 2008 caused some businesses to layoff or fire workers, which caused some people to default on mortgage loans.The problem for the future: The federal government spent money on "pork" that had nothing to do with the financial crisis (the extent of which was never made clear to the public) and the federal governmet did not change the rules about how Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae do business, so, in the future, an individual woman or individual man must expect another crash of sorts will come.
Thought Number Six: "The 'Dumbing Down' of Libraries"
This "thought" was originally put in this document in August 2005, and what now exists here is an updated version (posted September 18, 2005). I begin by giving you the original "thought." At the end of the "thought" is a paragraph that updated the "thought."
Although the world is in what many people like to think is the "information age" because so much information is available on or through computers or the Internet, I contend the world is in a "pseudo information age." I am unable to give a full discussion about why the world is now in a "pseudo information age," because I believe it would take the amount of space available in a book to tell, but I can present a discussion about one sign that the world is in the "pseudo information age." The discussion focuses on two events related to two library systems in the city of Dearborn, Michigan.
Event number one is related to the Dearborn Public Library. In the late 1990s, I was well underway in my work to create a manuscript for a big forthcoming book. During that time, I was using all types of books in the library system of Dearborn, and some of the books were volumes of a set of books known as The New International Year Book. Each book of the set presented an overview of news for the previous year; for instance, the edition published in 1911 covered events that had taken place in 1910 or gave details about things, such as earthquakes, French Indo-China, hospitals, music, railway construction, and universities. Really, each book was like "a compendium of the world's progress." One day in 1998, I went to the main branch of the Dearborn Public Library (which is the Henry Ford Centennial Library) and did not find the set of books on the shelves where it had been stored for a long time, and I considered that bad news. I wrote the management of the Dearborn Public Library, and I tried to persuade the management to return the set of books to the shelves, but the management did not return the books to the shelves, and the management felt, as noted in a letter sent to me, there was no real reason to return the books to the shelves, since the library had a fairly new set of books--two books--that sort of covered the same material. (By the way, I wrote the mayor of Dearborn, too). On June 3, 1998, there was a book sale at the main branch of the Dearborn Public Library, and I happened to get to the book sale in time and was able to buy 45 volumes of The New International Year Book for $22.50. The books covered the years from 1909 to 1964, and, in essence, I bought 45 books, ranging from about 500 pages in length to 840 pages, that would no longer be available to anyone else. What the management of the Dearborn Public Library did was get rid of 45 books in favor of two books, or the management went from having a collection of 45 books, each of which had information about events that was published shortly after the events had happened, to having two books, which had only recently been published, and what the management did was create more bare space on the shelves of the main branch of the Dearborn Public Library. Later, over the next few years, the management did remove some shelves so that more computers could be set up for patrons to use. If you were to walk around inside the main branch of the Dearborn Public Library today, you would see a lot of bare space on the shelves, much more bare space than you would have seen in the mid-1990s. And, so, today, the main branch of the Dearborn Public Library has a lot of bare space on the shelves, which could easily hold all the editions of The New International Year Book that I have and hold many other books, such as a number of other books that should not have been thrown out, and I have 45 editions of The New International Year Book, which you do not get to see and which could be helpful to you.
Event number two is related to the Mardigian Library of the University of Michigan, Dearborn Campus. Since the mid-1990s, I have used the Mardigian Library to find information to create the manuscript for a big forthcoming book, and some of the important materials that I have used have been the microfiche collection, the paper indexes for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, the volumes of books that make up the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature, and the volumes of books that make up the Business Periodicals Index. By the way, the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature and the Business Periodicals Index are indexes of articles that were published in magazines, such as in the mid-1900s, and the indexes do not cover the same magazines or articles. Over the last year or so at least, I have noticed more bare space was being created on the shelves of the Mardigian Library, hinting to me the management of the library was reducing the size of the book collection, and, then, on Sunday, August 14, 2005, I went in to the library to use the Business Periodicals Index, wishing to do research on a topic pertaining to 1964, and discovered the Business Periodicals Index was gone, and the volumes of books that made up the paper version of indexes for The Wall Street Journal were also gone. I discovered, later, the Business Periodicals Index and the indexes for The Wall Street Journal had been move to where they could not be easily found by students and shown off to students as things that can be useful and are useful, and the indexes were in places where other books had been (it seemed the other books were now gone).
Let me presents some facts. A few years ago, ProQuest began to create electronic indexes for such publications as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and, today, the Mardigian Library does provide access to the database of articles for The New York Times and the database of articles for The Wall Street Journal. The Mardigian Library gives people access to other databases of articles or journals and to material on the Internet.
There are just some things you cannot do with computers and computer databases. Paper indexes can give a person the ability to discover the development of an event or topic through chronological order. Paper indexes can give a person that ability to accidentally learn about a topic or event that is unknown to the person, because the person can by chance stumble upon the topic or event, such as by casually flipping through pages, and that idea of learning relates to a statement that I have used for a number of years to talk about the process of finding information through computer databases--"It is hard to call up what you don't know."
Now, put the pieces of this logic puzzle together. Two libraries got rid of books that were irreplaceable; for instance, the books were not fiction books, which were damaged or passé and might be replaced by newly published editions. Two libraries have more open shelf space than they had in the late 1990s--Is it not one goal of a library to protect and preserve books and information?
I may soon find a library system that will accept my volumes of The New International Year Book and promise to keep them safe for decades and decades to come, and the management of the Mardigian Library may return the Business Periodicals Index and the paper versions of The Wall Street Journal index to the shelves of the library, and even if both events happen, there is yet trouble in the library industry--the managements of libraries are throwing away or removing from circulation books that are valuable and irreplaceable, and that is not good, especially if they think there is no need for the books because computer systems can do so much more.
By the way, it seems to me you should be aware whether or not your library is throwing away books to make more open space on the shelves, especially if the books have information about events that took place decades in the past and were published around the time that the events had taken place.This paragraph was added on September 18, 2005, and it passes along extra information about the Business Periodical Index and paper index for The Wall Street Journal. On September 6, 2005, I received a letter from the director of the Mardigian Library, Timothy Richards, who was answering a letter that I had sent to him and who noted, "...The indexes that you mentioned in your letter, Business Periodical Index and the Wall Street Journal Index were not discarded, they were shifted to our compact shelving section, which is located on the library's first floor, next to the index shelving...." A little over a week after receiving the letter, I went to the Mardigian Library and discovered the two indexes were indeed located in new locations, packed into shelves with other old books--shelves that few people think to look at because, to see the books on the shelves, a person has to push buttons to make the shelves spread apart so that temporary aisles are made. What the library now has is the Business Periodicals Index and the paper index for The Wall Street Journal filed far from the paper index for The New York Times and the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature, which is poor organization, and, in essence, the Business Periodicals Index and the paper index for The Wall Street Journal are now hidden from view, unlike the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature and the paper index for The New York Times. A new problem has been created. Since the Business Periodicals Index and the paper index for The Wall Street Journal are no longer out in the open for people to see, people will be less likely to stumble across them, learn about them, and use them, and the publications will slowly be forgotten. That old rule of mine comes up--You are unlikely to use what you cannot see. In relation to most of the people who will use the Mardigian Library from now on, it will be as if the publications were tossed out or as if the publications do not exist at the library.
* * * The Bibliography * * *
This bibliography not only contains materials, such as newspaper articles, that are directly associated with the thoughts presented above but also contains materials that are indirectly related to the thoughts presented above. Almost all the materials that are listed were used to acquire dates and facts, and you will be able to find these materials through Lexis/Nexis, Proquest, or InfoTrac databases (and services) or, in some cases, through Web sites. If you read through the list of materials in this bibliography, you should learn a bit more beyond what is presented in the thoughts above.
Articles:
"Actor Tom Hanks endores Barack Obama." Huffington Post (online article), 3 May 20008, at 10:40 p.m.
"ACORN Responds to Attack on Community Organizing." MarketWatch (of The Wall Street Journal Digital Network), 4 September 2008, at 6:57 p.m EDT.
"AIG And The Trouble With Credit Default Swaps." Morning Edition (of National Public Radio), 18 September 2008, p. NA.
"Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now." Wikipedia.com, September 2008 (the time during which the information was found).
"Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)." DiscoverTheNetworks.org, 2 October 2008 (the date on which the information was acquired).
"Bill Ayers." Wikipedia.com, September 2008 (the time during which the information was found).
"Belgium passes gay marriage law." Agence France Presse, 30 January 2003, International News.
"Bond Basics. What Are Credit Default Swaps and How Do They Work?" Pimco (Pacific Investment Management Company, LLC), June 2006.
"Community Reinvestment Act." Wikipedia.com, September 2008 (the time during which the information was found).
"Credit Default Swap." Wikipedia.com, 4 October 2008.
"Credit Default Swap - (CDS)." Investopedia, c. 2006 (the information was acquired on October 5, 2008).
"Dodd Questions Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Takeover." An article related to Morning Edition of National Public Radio, September 9, 2008.
"Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008." Wikipedia.com, 4 October 2008 (the date on which the information was acquired).
"Fannie Mae." Wikipedia.com, September 2008 (the time during which the information was found).
"Federal Housing Finance Board." Wikipedia.com, September 2008 (the time during which the information was found).
"Feds take over mortgage giants." DailyTribune (Macomb County, Michigan), 8 September 2008, p. 9A.
"Film-maker Moore endores Obama." Current (a..k.a. Current.com), 21 April 2008.
"Franklin Raines." Wikipedia.com, September 2008 (the time during which the information was found).
"Freddie Mac." Wikipedia.com, September 2008 (the time during which the information was found).
"Freddie Mac Ex-CEO to Face Fines of $34 Million." Los Angeles Times, 19 December 2008, p. C-3.
"Freddie Mac settles accounting-fraud charges." The Associated Press, 28 September 2007, at 7:48 a.m.
"Henry Paulson." Wikipedia.com, September 2008 (the time during which the information was found).
"IndyMac Federal Bank." Wikipedia.com, September 2008 (the time during which the information was found).
"James A. Johnson (businessman)." Wikipedia.com, September 2008 (the time during which the information was found).
"Lehman bankruptcy shakes world financial system." Yahoo! News, 15 September 2008, at 6:07 a.m. EDT.
"Lehman Brothers latest victim." Detroit Free Press, 16 September 2008, p. 11A.
"Living On Obama's Collective Farm." Investors.com (of Investor's Business Daily), Editorials and Opinion, 2 August 2008, p. NA.
"Michelle Obama Used Lines From Saul Alinsky's Book, 'Rules for Radicals,' In Last Night's Speech." Hyscience, 26 August 2008.
"Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight." Wikipedia.com, September 2008 (the time during which the information was found).
"Ryan Reynolds: Vote Barack Obama. " Justjared.com, 8 April 2008, at 9:31 a.m.
"Saul Alinsky." Wikipedia.com, 4 October 2008 (the date on which the information was acquired).
"Step by Step, How Subprime Mortgages Have Hurt the Economy." Detroit Free Press, 16 September 2008, p. 11A.
"United States House Committee on Financial Services." Wikipedia.com, September 2008 (the time during which the information was found).
"United States housing bubble." Wikipedia.com, 13 January 2009.
"U.S. to rescue giantic insurer." Detroit Free Press, 17 September 2008, pp. 1A and 6A.
Alden, Diane. "Saul Alinsky and DNC Corruption." NewsMax.com, 7 January 2003.
Barnes, James A., and Lisa Caruso, Brian Friel, Shane Harris, Margaret Kriz, John Maggs, Marilyn Werber Scrafini, and Bruce Stokes. "Obama's Inner Circle." NationalJournal.com, 31 March 2008.
Biggadike, Oliver, and Shannon D. Harrington. "Fannie, Freddie Credit-Default Swaps May Be Settled (Update3)." Bloomberg.com, 8 September 2008, at 09:53 EDT.
Blodget, Henry. "Fannie Mae CO Franklin Raines, Don't Blame Him for the Mortgage Giant's Scandal...Yet." Slate, 7 October 2004, at 5:57 p.m.
Brodsky, Adam. "BAM'S LAND OF LOSERS: HIS PATHETIC ADVICE TO GRADS." New York Post, 30 May 2008, p. NA.
Bruno, Joe Bel. "Lehman Brothers goes up for sale." Detroit Free Press, 11 September 2008, p. 2D.
Chernoff, Allan. "Fannie & Freddie: Buying Friends in D.C." CNNMoney.com, 9 September 2008 (last updated).
Corsi, Jerome. "Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac execs now offering advice to Obama. Senator's links to mortgage giants include campaign contributions." WorldNetDaily, 17 September 2008, at 9:10 p.m.(Eastern).
Dash, Eric, and Stephen Labaton. "Fannie Mae settlement reported." International Herald Tribune (the global edition of The New York Times), 23 May 2006, p. NA.
Duhigg, Charles. "At Freddie Mac, Chief Discarded Warning Signs." The New York Times, 5 August 2008, p. A1.
Felsenthal, Mark. "Feds Fine Freddie Mac $125 Million." Reuters, 10 December 2003.
Goldfarb, Zachary A. "FHFA Appoints New Fannie and Freddie Chairmen." The Washington Post, 17 September 2008, p. D07.
Gordon, Marcy, and Sara Lepro and Daniel Wagner. "WaMu buy a deal for JPMorgan." Detroit Free Press, 27 September 2008, pp. 1A and 9A.
Hakim, Danny. "New York to Regulate Credit Default Swaps." The New York Times, 22 September 2008, p. NA.
Holmes, Steven A. "Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending." The New York Times, 30 September 2009, p. NA.
Houston Securities Fraud Lawyers Shepherd Smith & Edwards. "Ex-Freddie Mac CEO Leland Brendsel Will Pay $16.4 Million Fine to Settle OFHEO Action." StockBroker Fraud Bog, 15 November 2007.
Hyde, Justin. "Bailout becomes law, aims to ease the pain." Detroit Free Press, 4 October 2008, pp. 1A and 6A.
Jacobson, Gary. "Surprise, Maria Shriver endorses Obama." Muckety (online entity), 3 February 2008, at 10:27 p.m.
Jones, Terry. "How A Clinton-Era Rule Rewrite Made Subprime Crisis Inevitable." Invesator's Business Daily, General News, 24 September 2008 (the date posted on the Internet).
Kapp, Bonney. "Obama to Plumber: My Plan Will 'Spread the Wealth Ariond'" FOXNews.com, 13 October 2008, p. NA.
Kocieniewski, David. "Obama Enjoys Actor's Nod and Spirit of Upset." The New York Times (online article), "City Room" section, 4 February 2008,
Lepro, Sara. "Wells Fargo muscles in to buy Wachovia." Detroit Free Press, 4 October 2008, p. 9A.
Martineau, Jarrett. "Jay-Z, Russell Simmons Endorse Obama, Mos Def Responds." Now Public (online entity), 3 march 2008, at 8:25 p.m.
McLean, Renwick. "Spain gives approval to gay unions; 3 nations now allow same-sex marriage." The International Herald Tribune, 1 July 2005, NEWS, p. 3.
McLeod, Judi. "Saul Alinsky's Son: 'Obama learned his lesson well." CanadianFreePress.com, 2 September 2008.
Morgenson, Gretchen. "Arcane Market Is Next to Face Big Credit Test." The New York Times, 17 February 2008, p. NA.
"Morgenson, Gretchen. "Credit default swap market under scrutiny." International Herald Tribune (The Global Edition of The New York Times), 10 August 2008, p. NA.
Morrissey, Janet. "Credit Default Swaps: The Next Crisis?" Time (Business & Tech), 17 March 2008, p. NA.
Neuman, Johanna. "Barack Obama advisor Jim Johnson quits under fire." Los Angeles Times, 12 June 2008, p. NA.
Onelove. "Actor George Clooney to Host Fundraiser for Barack Obama in Switzerland." Zimbio (online entity), 6 August 2008, at 10:47 a.m.
Overby, Peter. "How Fannie, Freddie Became Kings Of The Hill." Article related to Morning Edition of National Public Radio, 15 July 2008.
Palmoni, Christopher. "JPMorgan Chase to Buy Washington Mutual." BusinessWeek.com, 28 September 2008, at 12:01 a.m. EST.
Phillips, Kate. "Home Mortgage Giant to Pay $3.8 Million in Fines to F.E.C." The New York Times,19 April 2006, p. NA.
Phillips, Matthew. "The Monster That Ate Wall Street." Newsweek (Economy section), 27 September 2008 (magazine issue: October 6, 2008), p. NA.
Raum, Tom, and Jeannine Aversa "Bush unveils 500-billion plan to end loan crisis." Detroit Free Press, 20 September 2008, pp. 1A and 9A.
Ross, Brian, and Rehab El-Buri. "Obama's Pastor: God Damn America, U.A. to Blame for 9/11." ABC News, 13 March 2008.
Sahadi, Jeanne. "Bailout 101: What new law says." "CNNMoney.com, 4 October 2004, at 12:12 p.m. ET.
Shin, Annys. "Freddie Mac to Assist Probe of Ex-Executives." The Washington Post, 13 September 2005, p. D04.
Shiver, Kyle-Anne. "Obama's Alinsky Jujitsu." American Thinker, 8 January 2008.
Sinclair, Andrea. "Cannon, Penn to visit Kent States, endorse Obama." Kentnewsnet.com, "News" section, 18 February 2008.
Singh, Anita. "Sean Penn endores Barack Obama at Cannes Film Festive opening." telegraph.co.uk, 15 May 2008, at 8:31 BST.
Slevin, Peter. "For Clinton and Obama, a Common Ideological Touchstone." The Washington Post, 25 March 2007, p. A01.
Sorkin, Andrew Ross, and Jenny Anderson and Erc Dash. "JP Morgan Pays $2 a Share or Bear Stearns." The New York Times, business section, 17 March 2008, p. NA.
Varchaver, Nicholas, and Katie Benner (of Fortune mangazine). "The $55 trillion guestion." CNNMoney.com, 30 September 2008, at 12:28 p.m. ET.
Yoon, Al. "Fredie Mac Moves to Ease Capital Strain." Reuters, 10 December 2007, at 6:01 p.m. EST.
Zibel, Alan. "Fannie Mae posts big loss." Detroit Free Press, 9 August 2008, p. 15A.
Special Material:
1. On Septembers 17, 2008, I received information from: EndorseObama.org.
2. "Leland C Brendsel." NNDB, acquired from the Internet on September 28 2008.
3. Celebs101 staff. Text noting information about Crystle Stewart's endorsing Barack Obama. Celebs101.com, 14 july 2008.
4. kmorrison. "Obama Receives Big Money from Fannie Mac and Freddie Mac, Purple People Vote, 17 September 2008.
5. Mark Levin, host of The Mark Levin Show, the syndicated radio show
6. Rush Limbaugh, host of The Rush Limbaugh Show, the syndicated radio show.
7. "Urban Policy Brief, Number 2." Department of Housing and Urban Development, August 1995.
8. The Web site for the Obama-Biden presidential campaign, and information was obtained from the Web site on Friday, October 3, 2008, and some of the information was contained withint a document entitled THE BLUEPRINT FOR CHANGE: Barack Obama's Plan for America.
9. "Xavier University Commencement Address." Xavier University, 11 August 2006.
* * * Contact information * * *
Victor Edward Swanson, publisher
The Hologlobe Press
Postal Box 5263
Cheboygan, Michigan 49721
The United States of America
To see an another related document--entitled
Political Lessons for the Individual Woman
and the Individual Man in the United
States of America--click on this link: Lessons.
To get to the main page of The Hologlobe Press,
click on: www.hologlobepress.com
To get to THOUGHTS AND STATEMENTS
ABOUT THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA for the individual woman and
the individual man, click on: Thoughts
For further reading, you should see the document
entitled A Collection of Words--Just Words--
That Show Dangerous People, which can be
reached by hitting this link: Words.
For further reading, you should see the document
entitled Nonsense Statements and Quotations
of Barack Obama, which can be reached by
hitting this link: Quotes.
To see a page with "Writing Advice,"
click on: Writing
To see the catalog page for Michigan Travel Tips,
click on: Travel
To see the catalog page for T.H.A.T.,
click on: T.H.A.T.
Note: Version one of this document was published on August 10, 2005.
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