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Dodd’s Mortgage Loan

Monday, August 3, 2009

If you need any more evidence that one Merrick Alpert is in the business of pushing right wing memes against Chris Dodd, look no further than this morning’s Day, where he is quoted on Dodd’s mortgage refinance:

And among the Democrats, the senator’s upstart primary challenger, Merrick Alpert of Mystic, slammed the “sweetheart deal,” calling it “disgraceful,” and “conduct unbecoming a senator.”

Of course, Alpert knows that there is no basis to that charge. As the article in the Day demonstrates, the overwhelming consensus of those who know anything about mortgage rates at that time, as well as statistics from the federal government, demonstrate rather conclusively that the rate Dodd paid on his mortgage was widely available to people just like us. Nor, as Dodd’s website, linking to this incontrovertible source makes clear, was the fact that Dodd paid no points unusual. Fully 65% of those whose loans were originated in those months were no-point loans. Remember, that includes all borrowers, not just people with Dodd’s excellent credit rating. Nor, despite the statements of one banker, was the waiver of junk fees all that unusual. This is from a June 2003 article in the Real Estate Mailbag at the Washington Post. (You have to pay for the full article. This is from the preview, which you can read here)

A mortgage “junk” or “garbage” fee is a loan charge that goes directly into the pocket of the mortgage lender or the mortgage broker. Examples include an escrow waiver fee, loan application fee, documentation fee, underwriting fee, administration fee, warehousing fee, production fee and preparation fee. When lenders run out of names, they use “miscellaneous fee.” If such fees were not disclosed on your good-faith estimate, which the lender gave you within three days of your application, you can usually negotiate these fees or eliminate them.

If the fees were waived in Dodd’s case, Dodd was engaged in “conduct unbecoming a Senator” if and only if he 1) was getting a benefit that no one else could get, and 2) he knew he was getting a benefit that no one else could get. There’s no proof of either. Sorry, but whether he was told he was getting VIP treatment or not doesn’t prove a thing. If someone told me that and I was getting market rates I’d assume that I was a VIP in the same sense that I was special because I have a Gold credit card.

The remaining charge is that Dodd got a free “float down”-a reduction in his interest rate to reflect the rate at the time of the closing as opposed to the rate at the time he applied. That is simply not true, as David Fiderer of the Huffington Post demonstrates, as he takes down Robert Feinberg, a former Countrywide loan processor who is making the charges:

More than a year ago, Feinberg, a loan processor laid off from Countrywide Financial, stole some confidential loan documents on mortgages extended to 17 Democrats, and persuaded Conde Nast Portfolio that he had evidence of a big scandal. His documents never demonstrated much of anything. The “sweetheart deals” or “VIP treatment” were mostly nickel and dime stuff, waivers of “garbage fees” that are only paid by suckers. Nothing in the paperwork suggested that anyone was paying a below-market interest rate on his loan.

So, in order to inflate the dollar benefit of the “sweetheart deals,” Feinberg made up some facts. He offered no written backup, but Portfolio, desperate to uncover a “scandal,” took his word for it. In fact, there was written documentation disproving Feinberg’s lie. But since Feinberg concealed that information, Portfolio was able to maintain plausible deniability.

“Portfolio calculated that lower rates and waived fees would save Dodd more than $75,000 over the life of the loans,” reported NPR and dozens of other media outlets. About $2,700 of those savings were traceable to written documents, and Feinberg made up the remaining $72,000.

Feinberg lied by claiming that Dodd received free “float-downs” when he refinanced the mortgage loans on his homes in Connecticut and Washington. The free float-downs purportedly reduced the interest rate on one $275,000 loan from 4.875 percent to 4.5 percent, and reduced the rate on another $506,000 loan from 4.875 percent to 4.25 percent. (For an analysis of why the calculation of a $75,000 savings was fraudulent, go here.)

But there never was any float-down. The truth is far more banal and obvious. When Dodd applied to refinance his mortgages in April 2003, the market rate was 4.875 percent. At the time of his application, Dodd did not lock in his rate. Instead, he assumed the risk that rates might rise above 4.875 percent or that they might decline further. When Dodd closed on his mortgages several months later, market rates had fallen, and he got the lower spot rates, which were same rates extended to any comparable borrower at the time.

…

Since Dodd never had a rate lock, he never had the famous float-downs that, according to Feinberg and Portfolio, saved Dodd $72,000. A float-down is a promise that you are entitled to the lower of your locked-in rate or the spot rate at the time of closing. If you don’t have a rate lock, you don’t have a float-down. Of course, Washington media types are not especially interested in things like details.

Nor are Republicans, and neither, it appears, is Alpert. Alpert e won’t get the Democratic nomination no matter what happens. Should Dodd step aside, someone like Blumenthal will step in. But he may contribute to keeping this sort of slime in the public mind and help elect a Senator Simmons. I’m not sure where he expects to go after that, but I believe our offer to run him for Town Council is now off the table


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Boston Pics

Sunday, August 2, 2009

My wife and I went to Boston this weekend to visit our youngest, which explains the fact that I didn’t post anything, except the drivel that precedes this post. Here’s a few pics, the first from the window of our hotel. We stayed at the Westin, which was definitely not our first choice, but it was a last minute thing, and the more ancient and interesting hotels were already filled.

We went to the Institute of Contemporary Art, which right on the harbor. Here’s the view from the rear of the building:

The lobby featured this really great installation of colored mirrors:

Right now there is a Shepard Fairey Exhibit (He of the iconic Obama image) centered on his “Obey” works, which, at least to my inexpert eye, appear to be at least in part a protest against mindless regimentation. The oft repeated directive “Obey” is clearly meant ironically. So, how should one react to the absurd museum regulation against taking photographs of what was originally intended as street art? Do I “obey”, or not? Well, I chose to mostly obey, but I sneaked one shot, which I managed to salvage with a bit of artful rotating and cropping.

The building itself is well worth seeing. The upper floors jut out toward the water. There’s a spectacular view, and the window plays some great visual tricks.


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In which I attempt literary criticism

Sunday, August 2, 2009

With some trepidation, I am about to venture beyond the political pastures to which I have largely confined myself, and venture into literary criticism. I am, after all, as well suited for punditry in the former area as I am in the latter. I leave it to the reader to decide the degree of suitedness.

But I stray.

The occasion for this foray is the fact that I am at present “reading” two early American literary classics. I put the term “reading” in quotes, for I am actually listening to one as I trundle my weary body back and forth to work, while I am truly reading the other in the old fashioned bound paper form that will soon be going the way of the dinosaur.

Lest you think that the spoken word book is at a disadvantage going into the comparison, I urge you to think again, for the opposite is true. In the hands of a good reader, a spoken book is more entertaining to the auditor and, at least in my own experience, sticks in the head longer than one that is merely “read”. Alas, the book in question is sufficient to drive any reader to distraction; we can only hope that the individual tasked with this audio performance was paid double for his time, for time must have stretched while he read it.

The books in question are these: The Last of the Mohicans, by James Fenimore Cooper, and A History of New York, by Washington Irving. I chose the first since it seemed to flow naturally from the last book I read in the car- Mayflower, by Nathaniel Philbrick. They are both about Indians, after all. I am reading Irving’s book as a prelude to another book, Knickerbocker, The Myth Behind New York, by Elizabeth Bradley. If you are like 99% of the people in this country, you won’t see the connection, but indeed it is there, for the imaginary narrator of Irving’s imaginary history is none other than Diedrich Knickerbocker, the source from which all other Knickerbockers have flowed.

The Last of the Mohicans is still read, while A History of New York lies mouldering on all shelves but mine. I am not going to try to explain that phenomenon; I will confine myself to posing the question: Why?

I’m sure there are Twain fans out there who are urging caution. That noble writer has already destroyed Cooper for all time, in prose so funny that he cannot be outdone. But have we learned from the Master? No!

We must cut Cooper some slack. Consider his origins as the son of a real estate developer. Nonetheless, we cannot, we must not, let his crimes against humanity and the reading public go unpunished.

The Last of the Mohicans is basically a pre-telling of the Dudley Do-Right stories, with an Indian cast in the role of Snidely Whiplash, and with an extra Nell Fenwick thrown in. The girls keep getting captured by this evil Indian and are just as often rescued just as the train is approaching just as the scalping knife is about to descend, each time by the fearless Natty Bumpo and his faithful Indian companions. Bumpo, by the way, seems as uninterested in the fairer sex as does his descendant, Dudley.

Let us pause to acknowledge the hopeless task of the audiobook reader, who manfully struggles through prose which would consider itself blessed to be called merely turgid. Here I must quote the great Hartford transplant. Recall his incredible ear for dialect. Is it any wonder that among the literary sins he would find most condemnable would be dialog that is inherently unbelievable. According to Twain (speaking of Cooper):

[W]hen the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject at hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say.

Needless to say, Cooper disdains such petty considerations. Consider this language, chosen more or less at random, that he puts into the mouth of the unschooled frontiersman, Natty Bumpo, as that valiant hero prepares to march once again to the rescue of the damsels:

Uncas is right! it would not be the act of men to leave such harmless things to their fate, even though it breaks up the harboring place forever. If you would save these tender blossoms from the fangs of the worst of sarpents, gentleman, you have neither time to lose nor resolution to throw away”! (Emphasis added, gagging noise to be supplied by the reader)

Read it out loud for the full effect, if you can. Now, consider again, the fate of the hapless audiobook reader, who has fourteen hours of this stuff to recite.

Now, consider the neglected Irving. A little on the long side for modern taste, considering our short attentions spans. But entirely readable, written in real English, and extremely funny. Why, Irving would have been a great blogger. He even provides links (known as footnotes in those bygone days) to support his facts, and where a good link is lacking, he makes one up, just like so many modern day pundits. Here we glimpse, as through a glass darkly, the very beginnings of the undying Boston/New York sports rivalries as he recounts the story of the (from Knickerbocker’s deluded vantage point) crafty Yankees driving the Dutch back to New Amsterdam from their outpost at what is now Hartford. To this day, Hartford is on the dividing line between the land of the just (Red Sox nation) and the Dark Side. It’s educational too. Did you know they once grew onions in Wethersfield?

Google tells me that there is no audiobook of The History of New York, though it’s dollars to donuts that it would be a better listen than Cooper, and a far more humane task to inflict on a no doubt underpaid reader.

I now arrive at the end of my peroration (that’s a word Cooper must surely have loved, and would without a pang of conscience have put in poor Natty’s mouth), seeking a fitting conclusion as desperately as Natty and Uncas kept seeking Cora and Alice. Alas, it seems unlikely I’ll pull off a dramatic rescue of either my point or Washington Irving’s book sales. I can only say, in conclusion, that the fact that Cooper’s stuff is still in print is yet more proof that there is no justice in the world, that talent does not win out in the end. In short, life isn’t fair.

Postscript: I will, by the way, keep with Natty, Uncas, Cora and Alice to the bitter end. I am a stubborn person, and will not give up until those simpering maidens have been safely stowed, the evil Indian vanquished, and the faithful Uncas goes down in history as the last in his noble line. Yes, I already know how it ends, since when I was a mere lad I read the far more entertaining and better written Classic’s Comics edition.


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Friday Night Music-The Drifters

Friday, July 31, 2009

Well, there hasn’t been all that much sun, but as I’m sitting here right now I can honestly say it’s sticky enough to make this song appropriate for the season. This is going up early today, since I may not have an opportunity to post it tonight.

A great song.


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Poor Obama… and why they didn’t have wine.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Mel Brooks may have been right about how good it was to be the King, but it’s not always that great to be the President. Consider today’s meet and greet among Obama, Gates and Crowley. Crowley had “Blue Moon”, a more than respectable brew that I personally foreswore only when I learned it was a product of the evil Coors corporation. Gates had Red Stripe, a Jamaican beer with which I’m not familiar, but which I would daresay is worth drinking. What did Obama have?

Bud Lite!

The only thing one can say in its favor is that it passes unaltered through the human body, exiting in the very same state in which it enters.

Why did Obama choose the worst of all brews? Could it possibly be that he actually prefers to drink that abominable concoction? Never believe it!

Consider his dilemma, however. This is the guy who was criticized during the campaign for using a reasonably decent mustard, instead of good old American French’s. (I know that sounds odd, but you know I’m right). Had he chosen a decent brew the story of the day would have been Obama’s elitism. Sure, it’s okay for a Cambridge cop to drink Blue Moon, but for Obama, only the lowest common denominator, and I do mean both lowest and common, will do.

And this brings us to the question of wine. Many commentators mentioned that Gates was more a wine than a beer guy. But wine was out of the question. When you drink wine with someone you share a bottle. Poor Gates and Crowley would have had to drink whatever Obama had on offer, and I’m not sure you can still get either Ripple or Boone’s Farm.


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A Media Mystery

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Why does Bill Kristol go on the Daily Show, not to mention Stephen Colbert? Is he a glutton for punishment. The poor fellow is hopelessly outclassed, as his latest round with Jon Stewart proves.

Why must we turn to a “comedian” if we want to see one of these guys called to account? As a certified “serious” pundit, Kristol normally enjoys the luxury of unaccountability. He can pontificate freely about anything, secure in the knowledge that no one will ever point out that he is always wrong. He can make any assertion, secure in the knowledge that no one will pursue a point far enough to make him look like the hypocritical pompous ass that he is.

So, I guess we should give him credit for his willingness to expose himself to someone like Stewart, who can unmask him for what he is. The interview is well worth watching. I’m not posting it here because it’s quite long in the unedited for TV version. Stewart deftly gets him to admit that the military gets the best health care in the country, in a government run program that none of the rest of us, according to Kristol, deserve. This from a guy who wants to assure us that the quality of our health care will surely deteriorate if we have the option of getting our health insurance from the government.

Getting back to my original question, perhaps the only reason Kristol goes on the Daily Show is that, despite taking a shellacking, he can spread his lies secure in the knowledge that, unless Stewart is forearmed, he won’t be able to catch him up. I call my wife to attest that I said “That’s not true!”, when I heard Kristol say this:

“One reason the price of health care is going up so fast is because of government programs. The price of Medicare and Medicaid have gone up faster than private insurance. That’s well-documented.”

Stewart didn’t have the facts as his finger tips, but as Ezra Klein well documents here, the statement was totally false.


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Good-bye Jim

Monday, July 27, 2009

Jim Bunning is hanging up his glove. He won’t be running for re-election to the Senate.

This is a good thing. I have never liked Jim Bunning.

When I was just a wee lad I spent many a day in front of the black and white tube watching the Red Sox, and many a night listening to late games with a transistor radio under my pillow. I stuck with them when all was dark, when the Fenway park that is now always filled sometimes drew crowds in the hundreds.

One dismal day, I watched as Jim Bunning no hit them. I was quite young, and had no patience with the idea that a no-hitter was a great thing to watch, even if it was against your own team. My agony increased as each Sox batter walked back to the dugout. To add insult to injury, my hero, the greatest hitter in the history of the game, Ted Williams, made the last out, which if memory serves was a puny pop-up. My misery was complete.

Well, not quite complete. Besides being a Sox fan, I was already a confirmed Democrat. It would have made it even worse had I known that the perpetrator of this monstrous act was a Republican. But then, maybe only a Republican could commit so foul a deed.

Now Bunning leaves the Senate, where he has proven that there actually are standards that even Republicans feel bound to enforce. It’s alright to be a climate change denier, a birther, a diaper wearing john, or a hush money paying philanderer, but it’s not alright to be just a little (well, actually, a lot) senile. At least it’s not okay to be senile and a flop at raising money.


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Now that’s catering to the base!

Monday, July 27, 2009

Great video from the Huffington Post

During the election campaign I had the dubious honor of appearing on a talk radio show in which I was paired against some looney tune author of a scurrillous email that had made the rounds of the nutjobs. I didn’t know who the guy was when I agreed to go on the show, and I was amazed when a number of callers brought up this birth issue, which I had never heard about before. I remember I said that I wasn’t interested in paranoid fantasies and preferred to talk about actual issues.

There may be more than just fear of the base that motivates these Republicans to play cute with this issue. It may be that they feel there’s some points to be gained over the long term by questioning Obama’s legitimacy, even in so ludicrous a fashion. That’s what they did to Clinton, after all, from day one. It doesn’t matter, really, whether any individual allegation has merit. The accumulation of charges, endlessly repeated, does its work. And of course, this particular meme has the added attraction of raising the race issue sub silentio, since it pushes the theme of Obama as the “other”.

In the short term, if they can get people talking about Obama’s birth certificate, they can get them to stop talking about health care, and the thousand unnatural shocks to which Republicans have exposed the body politic. Democrats are notoriously bad at controlling the conversation, and so far they have been unable to make the Republicans pay any price for catering to people who are certifiably insane. Perhaps that’s changing a bit. Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI), is introducing a resolution in the House congratulating Hawaii on its 50th year of statehood and stating as fact that Obama was born there. Michelle Bachmann (R-nutcase) objected to a vote on the measure due to the lack of a quorom. That presents an opportunity for Democrats, since they can force a vote be getting a quorom. It would be interesting to see how many Republicans make themselves scarce by absenting themselves from the proceedings.

It is somewhat dispiriting, speaking as a member of the Democratic base, that while Republicans will do almost anything to avoid offending the crazies who are all that’s left of their party, Democrats often embrace the opportunity to offend the progressives to whom they turn to fill their coffers when election time rolls around.


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Dodd Speaks at GTDC Fundraiser

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Chris Dodd came to Groton yesterday, to speak at a Town Committee fundraiser. I took a number of pictures, which you can view at the link here, or at the link on the upper left on my home page. Since I had the chore of sitting by the door taking money I couldn’t take in the speeches nor could I take any video. However, Terri Roper took video of the whole thing, along with interviews of some of the attendees, who included Ned Lamont, Dan Malloy, Nancy Wyman, and State Representative Gary LeBeau, who told me he is forming a gubernatorial exploratory committee. I hope all those explorers don’t get completely lost. Terri will be putting it up on the local cable network, and when she does I may try to put some of it on youtube.

We had a little more than a hundred people there, judging by the financial proceeds, maybe a bit more since not everyone paid to get in.

I didn’t get to hear all of Dodd’s speech, since I had to duck out to mind the table, but I was very gratified that he expressed his appreciation to me for penning the resolution the Committee adopted back in May.

Here he is, with Liberal Drinkers and Waterford Democrats Atul Shah and Jessica McLaughlin.

You can read Ted Mann’s account of Dodd’s appearance here. As Ted mentions (perhaps too much-why do these nutjobs deserve so much press?) there were assorted teabaggers outside. As I pointed out to Ted, one of them was an old man holding a sign opposing “socialized medicine”. Had I been in the mood for pointless argument, I would have asked him if he had spurned his Medicare benefits and social security checks, consistent with his principles. It is an odd thing that in this country we simply re-define popular programs that are socialistic as “not socialism”, thus maintaining our ruggedly individualistic purity by definition, if not in fact. If Obama’s system passes, and if it does indeed drive private insurance out of the mix (we can always hope) future generations of teabaggers will no doubt redefine socialism to exclude the medical benefits they will, at that point, not want to give up.

We were happy about the turnout. My wife, who organized the whole thing (along with Ruby Silva, Natalie Billing, Liz Duarte, and Town Chair Betsy Moukawsher) can now relax, we have a few more dollars for our treasury, and we are in good shape going in to the fall elections.


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Friday Night Music-New Riders of the Purple Sage

Friday, July 24, 2009

I’m not sure I want to make a habit out of this. Old rock stars, whether of the top or second tier, are dropping off with some regularity, so this feature could start to resemble the obituaries.

John “Marmaduke” Dawson of the New Riders of the Purple Sage died recently, so it seemed appropriate to scour youtube for an appropriate video. I couldn’t find any live performances from the early seventies, when Jerry Garcia played with them. This one is from 2002.

I apologize if this video is a bit herky jerky, I imagine that lot’s of people are watching it at present so it might get hung up a bit.


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