women don't matter, remember silly?

Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA official, said in 2005 that while he hoped the Iraqi constitution would protect women as much as possible, "women's social rights are not critical to the evolution of democracy." He added that 100 years ago, the United States was a democracy but women did not have the right to vote, and said, "If Iraqis could develop a democracy that resembled America in the 1900s, I think we'd all be thrilled."

Huh. So...a democracy is really that, a democracy, even if half the people in it can't vote. So even if half the people in Iraq live in fear of ending up dead in a dumpster for wearing lip gloss, we can still say "things are better!" cause the other half is doing swell.

is it really edgy to objectify an insectoid mostly naked young woman in order to sell overpriced clothes? "edgy", to me anyway, means something is on the precipice of a new trend or idea, or has completely taken established mores and norms and turned them upside down. leonard nimoy's pictures of rubinesque women seems edgier than this--who else is photographing nude obese women? nobody i know of. who is photographing half-naked starving adolescents? everyone. so which is really edgier?

and it comes as no surprise to me that we are in the situation that we're in.

i have story after story after story. the pressure they put on us to sign loans, any loans, was nothing short of astounding. if you didn't sign your loan within 24 hours of getting loan docs, it was taken away. if you didn't order an appraisal (at an expense of $475 to the borrower) within 24 hours of getting a lead, it was taken away. if you didn't get a certain amount of loans signed and appraisals ordered within a week, you had to work a full day saturday.

it was like a sweatshop. a very nice sweatshop in a high-rise in irvine, where billy zane and dennis rodman and cuba gooding junior would come over and hang out every so often, but a sweatshop nonetheless.the directive was clear: sign loans. any loans. one of my freinds was sent to hospitals to get signatures from borrowers who had found themselves in the ER. another was sent to a rehab facility where her client was detoxing from crack. still another signed a loan with a schizophrenic who thought that her husband was bin laden's allergist.

if a loan didn't make the cut, but we needed the number on the board, it was taken to the underwriter to be "adjusted" the underwriters' jobs, in daniel's own words, were to approve as many loans as possible, and find ways to approve loans that didn't fall within lending guidelines

at the peak of the business, daniel had an enzo, a bentley, a 500SL mercedes, a yacht, a gulfstream jet, a home in newport beach, and a condo in vegas. now, i heard he moved either to france or lebanon. i'm sure he'll be fine though. he'll just ride the foreclosure wave, and resettle in some other niche. after all, nothing has happened to him for all the bad loans he approved of and all the laws he broke before. why wouldnt he do it again?

as i've mentioned on previous posts, i was a loan officer for two years, one of which was spent at the most notorious subprime chop shop of them all: quick loan funding. i can assure you that the borrowers had no idea what they were getting into. i know this because the loan officers that sold them these loans, for the most part, had the dimmest of ideas as to what the borrowers were getting into. many of my colleagues, in fact, took out similar loans to buy homes of their own. QLF, and subprime bankers like QLF, purposefully hired the young and uneducated to sling these loans, telling them that the market would rise ad infinitum, assuring them that all would be well and that these borrowers would come to them for their financial needs evermore.

some of my colleagues definitely knew what they were doing, and lied and then lied and lied some more to get borrowers to sign shaky loans, neglecting to mention that the rates weren't fixed, giving nothing but glowing forecasts as to the future of their property values.

the head honchos at the banks who made the decision to purchase these risky loans also most likely knew what they were doing. but didn't care. why should they when their severance packages include paid country club membership fees, use of the company jet, and a pension in the millions?

i highly doubt that i'm the only person who saw the writing on the wall. if i did, i can assure you that the CEOs of citibank, countrywide, and bank of america did; they just didn't care.

i don't get the problem--it IS a diet and lifestyle book. if you do as the book suggets, and cut out processed foods, refined sugar, corn syrup, aspartame, dairy, and meat, and work out a few days a week--you'll lose weight. i know because i read it and i have. the book does happen to be vegan, yes, but i don't understand why it's "hiding" as a diet book and even if it is, why that's a problem.

so it doesn't state on the cover that it recommends veganism. but atkins, sugarbusters, the perricone prescription, somercise, or any other inane weight loss book doesn't put its central idea on its cover either--that's why you buy the book, dummy. if the information was on its cover, well, we wouldn't need to read it.

i never would have considered being vegan before i was "tricked" by this book. but i tried it, and liked it. i feel better, have lost weight, and am doing right by the environment. so what. stop whining.