Couldn’t Help But Notice (022808)
The New York Times is shocked and amazed that not everyone is in favor of bailing out financially troubled homeowners — even in liberal mecca Seattle:
Not only are people in Seattle relatively prosperous, but they have a reputation for being nice, too. Yet no sooner had Mayor Greg Nickels announced the program than opposition surfaced.
Imagine that.
While I’m on this: Plenty of folks have made the point that current homeowners who bought and borrowed wisely during the past five years, or who are doing all they can without government help to make their payments (e.g., getting second jobs, selling assets, etc.) are receiving disparate treatment compared to troubled owners getting breaks. Others have pointed out the potential negative impact on homeowners who are new to the market, as they are likely to find their loans more expensive than they would have been and tougher to get.
But I haven’t seen anyone make the point that those who might have bought during the past five years, could easily have qualified for a loan (given that having a pulse was often sufficient), yet prudently decided not to get in over their heads, and are still renting. These folks, who are not benefiting from mortgage interest deductions, are seeing their higher taxes subsidize those who inadvisably bought.
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I wonder if the people who were pretending (in some cases hypocritcally, BTW) during its early days that the Bush administration was allowing industry to poison us with arsenic are at all upset about this?
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Michelle Malkin’s passionate column on Emma Beck’s suicide over aborting her twin babies in the UK is a must-read.
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Duncan Hunter’s concerns are vindicated, and there’s one more reason to be relieved that Mitt Romney has suspended his GOP presidential run (HT: China Law Blog; Wall Street Journla link requires subscription after the first two paragraphs):
A closely watched Chinese investment in a U.S. network-technology company has fallen to political pressure in Washington, revealing new limits for deal makers who expected foreign buyers to invigorate a fallow deal market.
The tech company, 3Com Corp., which agreed in September to be acquired by private-equity firm Bain Capital LLC and China-based Huawei Co. for $2.2 billion, said the three had withdrawn an application from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., or CFIUS, a 12-agency government panel that reviews the national-security implications of foreign-led deals. The decision signaled the government likely wouldn’t have approved the deal, according to people familiar with the matter, fearing that Huawei’s influence could put government secrets at risk.
Romney, of course, built his fortune at Bain, and is still a Bain investor.
Former presidential candidate Hunter raised the security issue revolving around the deal during the campaign, demanded a response from Romney, who is still a Bain investor, regarding the advisability of the deal, and got no response.
Bain’s advocacy of the deal would appear to reflect a culture that is indifferent at best to US security interests. Would a President Romney, who is from that culture, have made sure that a deal like this went through, despite the fact that it would involve, as Hunter said, “forming a business partnership with a corporation known to have direct ties with terrorists and dictators while, at the same time, openly seeking to acquire a major U.S. corporation that performs vital cyber security work for the Department of Defense”?
That’s one more reason why Objectively Unfit Mitt was, and remains, a risk not worth taking.
