Letters to the Editor

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gradysu

Published Letters: 156     Editor's Choice: 40

  • No, I wouldn't endorse a bailout under a Democrat either

    [Read the article: Lining up for the mortgage rescue plan]
    [Read more letters about this article: Here]

    In fact, I hope the Democrats don't endorse something that goes even further. Let's review your friends' scenario again:

    "The loan officer looked at their credit history and incomes and told them yes, they could buy the condo. All they had to do was take a loan at 8% and a piggyback loan at 11%. My friends knew this was at a high rate, and that it was an ARM that would adjust, but the loan officer reassured them. He said that they could refinance before it reset and that they would be okay. My friends trusted this banking professional because mortgages were his business."

    Did they look at their OWN ability to pay, independent of what the mortgage broker -- whose business is to SELL MORTGAGES -- told them? Did they consult a lawyer? Did they say, Jeez, if we have to take a loan at 8%, which is way above prime, and also a piggyback loan at 11%, maybe that's a red flag? Did they decide to do something really extreme, like, say, WAIT, until they qualified for a better deal? In what direction did they think the ARM would adjust, and did they investigate how much it could adjust, ie pretty much infinitely? Why did they feel the need -- or the entitlement -- to buy immediately?

    Your friends, I'm sorry to say, are pretty much the poster children for people who shouldn't have taken out a mortgage, and don't deserve a bailout.

    Any bailouts should be reserved for people who were defrauded, or suffered undue unforeseen hardships, not people who believed what they wanted to believe and ignored every (and there were a lot of them) red flag.

    Monday, December 10, 2007 01:56 PM

  • Maybe they're just trying to remind us we still have national parks, despite their best efforts

    [Read the article: "Come here, Barney. Yeah, you come here"]
    [Read more letters about this article: Here]

    I found the best way to watch this thing was to have a big drink handy (it helps if you have a large carafe -- not to pour out of, just to drink out of). And try to enjoy the scotties and ignore the politicos, especially poor, pathetic Tony Blair (insert lapdog joke here). And God bless that park-ranger woman who allowed herself to be videotaped from the ground up, just about the most unflattering angle imaginable. I was relieved to see, later in the video, that she has only one chin and normal-sized thighs.

    I was also disappointed that, in Bush's second-grade dissertation on the national parks, he didn't mention all the keen oil and gas drilling he's allowing in the parks, to say nothing of the logging and snowmobiling. It would have been fun to have Barney chat with the Sierra Club, which could have told him that "the Bush administration has bent over backwards to help its friends in the oil and gas industry even when the facts showed that its policy would harm national parks."

    Maybe that's where he was trying to run off to when Bush corralled him back.

    Thursday, December 13, 2007 09:11 AM

  • Rudy on Valentine's Day:

    [Read the article: Incorrigible]
    [Read more letters about this article: Here]

    "Ever since 9/11, I've always made sure that on Valentine's Day, I tell [FILL IN NAME OF CURRENT WIFE HERE] how much I love her." (This is sort of a variation on something he's already done, when he explained that he takes cellphone calls from Judi even while he makes speeches because ever since 9/11, they never miss a chance to say "I love you." Forget the fact that he was still married to Mrs. Rudy Number Two at the time...)

    Another one:

    How about this warm weather in New York today, Rudy? "It was warmer on September 11."

    Tuesday, January 8, 2008 09:00 AM

  • Chris Matthews' mancrushes no no bounds

    [Read the article: Even in defeat, Chris Matthews says, Obama "incredibly attractive"]
    [Read more letters about this article: Here]

    Imagine how he would have dismissed FDR, with his legs withered from polio. And with a homely wife with bad teeth, to boot. And Winston Churchill would've looked pretty frightening in a flightsuit, provided they could scrounge up enough material for it during the war.

    Abe Lincoln's looks could've peeled the wallpaper. And his wife was dumpy and, as Chris certainly would have put it, shrill.

    Could any of these folks have made it in the "Chris Eye for the Straight Guy" era?

    Wednesday, January 9, 2008 06:42 AM

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