Couldn’t Help But Notice (080707)

Without citing specifics, because there are too many examples, it’s amazing how lenders are catching all of the blame for subprime loans going bad, when, as noted here back in February, it’s “government sponsored enterprises” (GSEs) like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that lowered the bar on what they were willing to buy and securitize. Specifically, quoting that post (first bullet near the end):

Those two GSEs lowered the credit scores and relaxing related documentation standards for “conventional” and sub-prime mortgages to the point where clearly unqualified borrowers were getting “conventional” treatment and borrowers who barely had a pulse credit-wise were getting sub-prime applications approved. A contact of mine in the lending industry told me in mid-2005 that the threshold for conventional approval was lowered from a credit score of about 670 to about 630, and for sub-primes dropped from about 630 to 590.

“590″ is a credit score that, when translated, means “accident waiting to happen.”

Though lenders aren’t blameless, I don’t doubt for a minute that there was a mentality that said, “If we don’t approve this loan, we know that the guy down the street will, and it’s Fan’s or Fred’s problem after we sell it.” Fan and Fred are getting no grief for having relaxed standards too much. They deserve lots of it.

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Deposed Home Depot CEO Bob Nardelli’s appointment to head Chrysler by its new private owners may not be the disaster it appears to be. In theory at least, a private-company board of owner-directors should ensure that there isn’t a misalignment between shareholder and management interests. But if everyone’s in it to gut the company (not inconceivable, given Nardelli’s appointment and well-known history), look out below.

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The (New York) Times, it is a-shrinking. So are the company’s ad revenues.

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A boo-boo by BOOHOO (Barack Overseas “O-bomba” Hussein “Obambi” Obama) has consequences (HT Michelle Malkin). Of course, stories about the protests in Pakistan are almost non-existent in the US press (rare exceptions here and here).

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Speaking of boo-boos, this is a really bad ad move by Intel (HT Plunderbund), which it has apologized for. It looked to me like a white guy enjoying his dominance over 6 slumped-over, exhausted black men, almost as if a slave master. Believe it or not, they’re supposed to be sprinters posting in starting-line position, which I didn’t “get” until I read it.

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Japan Today reports that a “Nissan car catches drunk drivers through sweaty palms.”

A JT commenter wryly observes, “Nice try — The theory is that drunks will be too drunk to remember to wear their drinking gloves.”