Elydog writes:

Andrew's expert says "80% of loans are securitized" - I just don't quite understand what he is saying. Is the deed, or the mortgage, or a loan on the eventual payment of the mortgage securitized? I doubt the deed is, nor the actual mortgage itself, only a third layer of loans based on the payment of the mortgage. So they seem to be 'seperable.'

Everything is part of the securitization package. The paperwork may change from state to state (in New York you might be signing a mortgage, while in California it's called a Deed of Trust), but ALL of your lender's rights and privileges are assigned to the "new" lender, who issues securities backed not only by your mortgage, but also by several thousand other mortgages. Your original lender retains nothing. It may have a contractual agreement with the new lender to continue to act as "servicer", but it has no ownership of the loan -- no personal risk, essentially. In fact, it makes more money for itself by foreclosing on you, since the servicing fees are higher.

In this day and age, I'm surprised the 80% figure is so low -- I would have guessed a higher percentage are now securitized.

Full disclosure here: I used to work at a law firm where we put together the paperwork for securitization deals, including mortgage-backed securities. This was before the Republican Jihad took over and deregulated the universe. We would spend hours on conference calls with the SEC examiners, who would grill all the players (original lenders, investment bankers, lawyers) about absolutely every aspect of the deal. We had disclosure statements filed under oath with the SEC that ran hundreds of pages. The reason these securities became so popular was because they were profitable, and the reason they were profitable was because the SEC kept a close watch on everything that went on. And, we NEVER securitized sub-prime loans ... ever.

That was then. This is now. Deregulation doesn't have to involve the SEC changing the rules; it can just be a mindset that the SEC examiners should back off, show a little more deference, etc.

In 1992, once the Republicans realized they were never going to win the election, they turned instead to the tactic of desabilizing and delegitimizing the inevitable Clinton victory and new administration, in advance. By poisoning the village well, the RNC ensured the new president would be facing rabid obsessive opposition from day one. It worked. I recall an incident, early in Clinton's administration, when military personnel were publicly saying that Clinton's life would be at risk if he even visited a U.S. military base. Clearly, compromising the authority of the commander-in-chief was contrary to America's best interest. But, the RNC wanted to ensure that Clinton inherited an America that was so divided as to be ungovernable.

They're doing the same thing now.

When you see those angry crowds being driven to a frenzy at the direction of McCain and Palin, you have to understand -- this is not a tactic that will win new votes. The sole point of all this is to ensure that the political environment is a toxic waste dump the day Obama is sworn in.

Not racist.

Yup.

You gotta love these people.

Okay, I've read through the letters here, and I think it's pretty obvious that McCain's understanding of the issue is limited to some Republican talking points that he's overheard -- but he has never in his whole life questioned these talking points, or subjected them to even the slightest trace of skepticism.

As a lawyer, my bottom line question will always be, if you sit down and craft this law you have in mind, are you actually making any situation better? Many people disapprove of abortion generally, but if you really try to sit down and write a law that works, you find the unintended consequences of your law are worse than the situation you were trying to correct in the first place. This is why anti-abortion laws backfire. They drive women to unsafe, illegal abortions which save neither the fetus nor the woman. They don't make the fetus' situation any better. If the woman has other children, it makes them orphans.

So the truth is, McCain just doesn't believe women's health is threatened every time they claim their health is threatened. Here's what he hasn't thought out: ALL pregnancies threaten a woman's health. No doctor is able to predict with any degree of certainty how serious a health consequence will become. This is simply not information that is knowable, end of discussion. They'll tell you there's a threat ... but no doctor will ever give you the actual odds that your pregnancy might end your life or destroy your health. And, even if they do, there's no public agreement on how serious a threat to a woman's life has to be to justify an abortion. Should she get an abortion if there's a 5% chance she'll die? What about if there's a 25% chance she'll die? Does the doctor have to certify that it's at least a 65% chance of death?

What about health risks. What kind of health risk would be serious enough to justify an abortion? How do you expect the doctor to quantify the risk? How do you expect the doctor to quantify the possible damage? There isn't a doctor on earth who'd be willing to go there. McCain doesn't like the flexibility built in to the Supreme Court's standard, but what standard does he propose?

Inquiring lawyers want to know.

There's no way to sit down and write this law that McCain has in mind, without getting deeper and deeper into the micromanagement of complex decisions and judgment calls that go on in the real world. It can't be done. Or to be more specific, it won't create a situation that's better than the one we have when women and their doctors talk and simply use their own judgment.

That's what he hasn't thought out.