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The Human Zoo/September 28, 2011
By Gaylon Kent
The Writer's Shack
Notes from around The Human Experience...
BULLET POINT: Our government announced this week that it was going to lower the size of home mortgages it will guarantee.
Dry, Technical Matter: It turns out that our government, through a variety of programs, now guarantees upwards of 90 percent of new mortgages in this country, a figure we found surprising. It's an astounding figure for a democratic society.
Get Your Official Writer's Shack Policy Right Here: Actually, any figure above zero is an astounding figure because the purpose of government is to provide for the liberty of its citizens, not to guarantee its home loans.
We Are Not Making This Up: We would prefer the government not back any home mortgages, except those for veterans, for whom the government decided, on behalf of a grateful nation, to provide this benefit to. This is because, current policy notwithstanding, the US Treasury is not a cornucopia from which special interests can take whatever subsidies or grants or other benefits they want. It is a depository of our money, with money dispensed for projects associated for our common good, and our government is not responsible for ensuring its citizens are able to buy homes.
Hell Hath No Fury Like A Lobbyist Scorned: The following comes from Beth L. Peerce, the president of the California Association of Realtors, a state that is expected to be hit rather hard by this decision:
"This is just going to kill us. You don't want the real estate market to get any worse than it is, and it surprises me that our congressmen and senators don't understand that."
Yay! Oh baby, we do enjoy this: whining from a single issue zealot because the government is not yielding to their every whim. Too bad. A mortgage is a private business transaction between a lender and a borrower. It has as much business being guaranteed by the government as my stock portfolio does.
Speaking Of Which: We've mentioned our portfolio from time to time here. One stock, a gaming stock, we sold at a nice profit. Another, BEHL, is now worth .0002 cents. This is down from our buy-in of .0085 cents, so it's not as if expectations were sky high, but still.
Someone smarter than us said that just because a stock is trading two-ten thousandths of a penny doesn't mean the stock is worthless - although that seems like a pretty good indication to us - but rather that there simply isn't a market for it right now. We're counting on that. A lot.
Back On Message: The ramifications of the governments decision will probably mean very few investors will want to buy mortgages that aren't backed by the government.
So what? This amounts to a governmental guarantee on a return on a private investment, something else it is not government's responsibility to provide. This is wrong, too. If you want a guaranteed return, buy a Treasury bill.
YOU KNOW, THEY'RE JUST GOING TO VOTE HOWEVER THEIR HUSBANDS TELL THEM TO VOTE ANYWAY: Women in Saudi Arabia were given the right to vote by King Abdullah this week. They will also be allowed to run for office and to be appointed to the king's advisory council.
Don't Hold Your Breath: But not yet. Women will not be able to cast ballots until the 2015 municipal council elections, and don't go thinking this is just a first step because municipal elections are the only elections in Saudi Arabia.
Oh Yeah: Only half the municipal council seats are elected anyway. The rest are appointed by the king.
Nice Work If You Can Get It: While mindful that people and nations are different, it's funny to note that these changes - in the second decade of the 21st century - come from a king who is generally considered to be a reformer.
WE THE PEOPLE: The Continental Congress votes to send the newly completed Constitution to the several states on this date in 1787. Delaware would be the first state to ratify the new Constitution in December, and the Constitution would take effect the following June following ratification by the ninth state, New Hampshire. The thirteenth state, Rhode Island, would not ratify the Constitution until 1790, mainly as a formality because the government established by the Constitution had been in power since March, 1789.
Please Pass The Dry, Technical Matter: Also on the Congressional docket that day was dealing with the matter of Sir John Temple, Britain's consul general, who was inquiring as to whether he would have to pay State of New York duties on some silk and tea he had been sent. In essence, Sir John claimed, that as a member of a diplomatic mission, he didn't have to.
The Continental Congress thought otherwise. Absent a 'Treaty of commerce subsisting between his Britannic Majesty and these States' the Continental Congress decided the British consul was neither minister nor ambassador, and was not entitled to a waiver of the duty.
And You Thought Congress Was Dull: The meter is defined by the International Conference on Weights and Measures in Paris on this date in 1889.
Really Dry, Technical Matter: The meter was defined as the distance between two lines on a bar that contains 90 percent platinum and ten percent indium, measured at the temperature at which ice melts.
And They Wonder Why They Didn't Get More Dates: Other action items at the first conference included firming up the definition of the kilogram, the metric system's standard unit of mass, and some probably rather dull work on the centigrade scale.
Play Ball: The New York Giants and the Philadelphia Phillies play the fastest game in major league history on this date in 1919. The Giants won 6-1, in the first game of a doubleheader in Philadelphia.
The game, all nine innings, took 51 minutes. While specific details were hard to find, some research does show this was the last day of the regular season, and neither team was going to be burdened with playing in the World Series, so it is not unreasonable to presume there was a lot of swinging at the first pitch and base running tactics designed to get the game over with quickly because there was another game after that one that no one wanted to play either.
Dude: Britain outlaws pot on this date in 1928. Since that time, no British subject, not rock stars or poets or a prince or a member of Parliament, has smoked pot.
Thought For The Day: And yet I knew that what I saw wasn't as simple and good as it appeared. There was a price to be paid for it al, a general falsity that could easily be believed, and could be the first step down a dead-end street. - Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: Ty Cobb was the first major league player to hit a home run as a teenager and after his 40th birthday.
Today's Stumper: This century, what other nations have given women the right to vote? - Answer next time!
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