Reason Morning Links: Surge in FHA Foreclosures Looms, Moonlighting CIA Agents, Fannie and Freddie To Be Wards of the State for Years

• NY Times: Federal deficit threatens any future domestic programs, U.S. standing in the world.
• Obama budget includes modest cuts in farm subsidies. Farm state senator cries "too much!"
• Fannie, Freddie and their $3.9 trillion off-the-book liability likely to remain in federal government's custody for the foreseeable future.
• Concern on Capitol Hill over CIA policy allowing agents to moonlight in the private sector.
• Number of FHA delinquents jumped by a third last year. Taxpayers may have to bail agency out after new wave of foreclosures.

Comments

[DJF]

"could undermine standing in the world. "

Since our "standing in the world" seems to be nothing but a liability which costs us money I don't see the problem with this. I would rather have a lower standing and keep the money. Maybe we would no longer have Presidents and Secretaries of State traveling the world handing out US taxpayer dollars and giving various costly guarantees to every country they travel too

[Pablo]

+1 DJF--I only wish we'd quit being seen as the sugar daddy of the world. Maybe like the ostentatious family who lives beyond their means, finally declares bankruptcy, and stops being the envy of the neighborhood when they start living within their means.

[Rich]

Squirrel!

First link!

[Suki]

Ha!

In other news, San Francisco contemplates more freedom. Just kidding: Thank you Nanny, may I have another?

Happy Groundhog Day! Six more weeks of glorious winter.

[Plague Dog]

Ask yourself, How dangerous is Grondhog Day?

The Reckoning

[Pro Libertate]

Grond, the Hammer of the Underworld, wielded by Morgoth? That day is a fell day indeed.

[Not a Libertarian]

In perusal of your site I found the following:

Feministing
As If Sex Dolls Weren't Enough Creepy, Now There is One That Talks
1 hour ago

Now of course, traditionalist women would be horrified by this, but are sexually progressive women upset by "sex dolls"

Surely everyone is aware that men will have sex with anything and everything; household appliances, farm animals, trees, whatever.

[Atanarjuat]

Surely everyone is aware that men will have sex with anything and everything; household appliances, farm animals, trees, whatever.

Right, cuz only men would stimulate their genitals with an inanimate object.

[Suki]

One of the reasons I have Feministing on my blog list is for the lulz. Leash toss to SugarFree for mentioning them enough here for me to notice.

[Untermensch]

Wow, that NYT Firewall extends all the way to Reason and overpowers it.

[SugarFree]

The time foretold is upon us. The animal uprising has begun!

[Rich]

Calm down, SF.

The article notes that "Fatal attacks are unusual."

[Fist of Etiquette]

Yeah, and terminator attacks were unusual before Skynet. Wake up.

[Rich]

I retract my comment. Thanks.

[Fist of Etiquette]

You retra- You retract your comment??? Is that even allowed at Hit & Run?

[Rich]

Apparently not.

I retract my retraction.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Infuriating.

[Suki]

They are practicing while they lulz us into a false sense of security.

[Kyle Jordan]

"Ice skating bear kills Russian circus hand"

The title alone is outstanding.

"Russia has a long-standing tradition of training bears to perform tricks such as riding motorcycles, ice skating, and playing hockey."

Hmmm. I need to see some video of the hockey one. If it's true, then we need to train some eagles to drop micro nukes. The Red Bears will eat us alive with no defense.

[Warty]

The most deadly animal circus of all

[Rich]

Kyle, please see link below.

[SugarFree]

I mainly want to know how many skates the bear had on. If just on the hind legs, that's one thing... but if it was a bear on all fours with skates... fighting off a bear is bad enough, imagine doing it when it has foot long knives on it's paws.

[Warty]

APOSTROPHE FAI'L

[SugarFree]

Well... there is no apostrophes in the phrase "Warty is a nitpicking whiny little bitch boy."

[Warty]

Silence, hypoendocrinical fool. Do you fuck up all the apostrophes in your Suki fanfiction, too?

[SugarFree]

Yes. I do. So that hypergrammaical punctuation fascists like you miss a beat while stoking off and wind up punching yourselves in the nutsack.

[Jersey Patriot]

there isare no apostrophes in the phrase

FTFY

[Slut Bunwalla]

Oh no bear is skating how can this be???

[brotherben]

The bear was distraught over PETA protesting his wearing of a costume with fur on it.

[SugarFree]

Nicely done.

[iron my dress]

"It is unclear what caused the bear to attack Potapov, 25, nearly severing one of his legs while dragging him across the ice by his neck." Let me clear it up for them: Bears don't want to skate.

[Suki]

"Ha, pass me a leg man"

[Rich]

They may not *want* to, but they're not too bad at it.

[Rhayader]

Firefox can't grok that first link.

[brotherben]

The NYTimes link is down. The federal deficit has caused the shutdown of the Domestic Propaganda Office.

[Johnny Longtorso]

Globe and Mail: Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams is scheduled for heart surgery in the United States, a move that throws into question his province's and his nation's health-care system.

Financial Times: US Housing Bubble v2.0

The second one really pisses me off. Those government assholes, after 2 years of "the free market caused the housing crash because they didn't have to answer to Us Smart People who would never be so short-sighted as to keep housing prices artificially high", are simultaneously saying "look, we're keeping housing artificially high for you, love us, love us." Look at the graph in the article and tell me that's not a PERFECT description of the government's actions in creating Housing Bubble v1.0.

Where is MNG so I can kick him in the nuts?

[Johnny Longtorso]

Rhetorical nuts, that is.

[JW]

I think most of us are OK with the first set of nuts.

[Rich]

Would someone kindly remind me why the government is in the house financing business?

[J sub D]

Because without Fannie and Freddie only gazillionaires would be able to afford homes. The rest of us would be living in tent cities or tenements just like Haitians.

Or something like that.

[JW]

Can we call them Frankvilles? Or Doddtowns?

[DJF]

Because years ago evil banks would not lend people who could not afford a house the money to buy a house.

However this is was corrected in the last decade when evil banks would lend money to those who could not afford a house. But this caused the evil banks to lose lots of money so the government gave the evil banks lots of taxpayer money which they then used to make lots of money trading government debt and since they were making money trading government debt and stopped lending money to house buyers who can't afford a house the government has to continue to lend money to those who can't actually afford to buy a house or the entire unaffordable house market will collapse.

[Invisible Finger]

Would someone kindly remind me why the government is in the house financing business?

Sure. Government involvement in housing is the solution to the housing bubble bursting of 1930-1945. IOW, an attempt to create another, larger bubble.

[SugarFree]

Why are there no fat vampires?

Well, I have never checked into the "nutrition facts" for a blood only diet, but I am guessing it might accord to the Atkins/BellyFatDiet/SouthBeach diet crazes. I am assuming blood would be low in carbohydrates (and those dreaded sugar carbs) and high in protein? Could one be fat on a blood only diet?

[Rich]

It seems there are. However, to be fair, he may have been sucking down *lymph*.

[Warty]

We must feed, per se.

[Suki]

Grandpa wasn't exactly thin.

The lady may have a point. not fat, but not waifs either (May not be safe for work).

[Suki]

I may have found a Halloween costume researching this.

[WWJGD]

Here, in an image that is supposed to be funny, the vampire-hunk Edward has morphed into a fat twinkie-fanatic. Interestingly, his body is markedly feminized in this fat rendering of his corporal form ? he has what are colloquially known as "bitch tits" (now there's a hateful phrase if ever there was one) and the saggy belly associated with females who have "let themselves go"and are "in need" of a tummy tuck (or a "mom job").

Had to pull out this gem to share with everyone.

[Ska]

A mom job did not have the meaning I was hoping for.

[T]

Moobs and a spare tire are feminine? Even when they're covered in hair?

[Pro Libertate]

The fact is, there are very few real vampires. The reason for this is self-evident, if sad.

[Johnny Longtorso]

Would someone kindly remind me why the government is in the house financing business?

To buy support for themselves, and to create crises that can be used to stampede people into accepting more govt power over their lives.

[Barney Frank]

What business?

[Joe M]

The first link goes something like this:

The video weirdly freezes for the first several seconds. But stick with it. Pretty much the best dog trick ever. Unless I can figure out how to train Daisy to mix me a Manhattan.

[Joe M]

From the new, functional first link:

Beyond that lies the possibility that the United States could begin to suffer the same disease that has afflicted Japan over the past decade. As debt grew more rapidly than income, that country's influence around the world eroded.

If anyone didn't happen to notice, we've already had a "lost decade" in the stock market.

[Mike M.]

Largest ever federal government payroll to hit 2.15 million.

[Citizen Nothing]

That's more than twice the total votes any LP candidate for president has received. I think we're in big trouble.

[Pro Libertate]

Now there is a statistic.

[P Brooks]

But the cuts will be a tough sell for Congress with mid-term elections looming. Senate Agriculture Committee chairman Blanche Lincoln, Arkansas Democrat, said she will oppose "cuts that will harm farmers, ranchers and rural communities."

"It is Congress's job to write the annual budget, and based on my conversations with House Leadership, no one is interested in making cuts to the Farm Bill after the battle we just fought to pass it a year and a half ago," said House Agriculture Committee chairman Collin Peterson, Minnesota Democrat.

Rinse.

Repeat.

[JW]

"But the cuts will be a tough sell for Congress with mid-term elections looming. Senate Agriculture Committee chairman Blanche Lincoln, Arkansas Democrat, said she will oppose "cuts that will harm help farmers, ranchers and rural communities consumers."

There ya go Blanche. All better.

[Pablo]

But cha are Blanche! Ya are in that chair!

[P Brooks]

In other housing news:

D.R. Horton expects to report a profit for each quarter of 2010 because it has 5,600 homes ready to sell to shoppers seeking to take advantage of federal tax credits, Chief Executive Officer Donald J. Tomnitz said Dec. 9 at an industry conference. Those incentives, which had been scheduled to expire Nov. 30, were extended and expanded to allow credits of $8,000 for first-time homebuyers and $6,500 for other buyers who close sales by June 30.

The same law enabled companies to use losses in 2008 or 2009 to recover taxes paid for profits going back as many as five years. Normally, companies can only carry back losses two years. The refund may total $2 billion for publicly traded homebuilders this year, according to Fitch Ratings. Horton has filed for an additional $352 million tax refund, which it expects to receive in the current quarter, it said today.

Bloomberg

Subsidies for everybody!

[P Brooks]

That's more than twice the total votes any LP candidate for president has received. I think we're in big trouble.

If you want votes, you're going to have to get them the old-fashioned way; buy them.

[JW]

Unfortunately, people don't want to hear that not only that we aren't giving them free ponies in exchange for their vote, but we're going to shoot the ones they already have.

[T]

No, we're going to sell the ponies on the free market. If you can afford your pony, that's great. If not, Buttercup is going to the Alpo factory.