Disqus - Latest Comments for somercet

Re: White Noise : Home

somercet — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 01:08:58 -0000

Bad Lawler hurt the pretty. No biscuit!

Re: White Noise : Home

somercet — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 17:39:21 -0000

YES! MOAR! :-D

Re: White Noise : Home

somercet — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 03:16:59 -0000

Lawler's teal-black makes an interesting contrast to Wren's ruddy-brown.... or shall I say, a slashy contrast, heh. Actually, seeing their hair together would probably burn my eyes, which is odd as Lawler's coat looks good on him.

*sigh* I'm bisexual, so I'm a slut, but have never had a good color sense. Weh!

Re: White Noise : Home

somercet — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 16:21:36 -0000

Lawler's a Crest kid.

Re: White Noise : Home

somercet — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:13:20 -0000

This is some of the... ah, hell... prettiest art of Wren I've seen yet. Especially the three panels in the second page.... Lovely.

Re: White Noise : Home

somercet — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:12:05 -0000

Good point. ;-)

But come on, though, that is *not* her hair, unless she *just* left a salon... Unlikely. Come on, guys, get moar serius!!

Re: White Noise : Home

somercet — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 03:59:39 -0000

3 gets you 1 we're about to see Winter. :-)

Re: White Noise : Home

somercet — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 20:41:58 -0000

Sorry, aunt. And I would recommend you my diagnosis; that should not be done to an eight year old.

Re: White Noise : Home

somercet — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 20:00:37 -0000

Comedic brilliance. If this were anime, she would shout "GOOD ADVICE SNEAK ATTACK!" while light rays shot out from her fist.

I love how she's looking sideways in the lower left; it adds action and time to the still. She's also looking for eavesdroppers, I imagine.

I love her hair color, BTW: I had a girlfriend who tried blond hair. When that didn't work for her, we went to the store for some brunet color and I pushed for "Espresso." It turned out a lot like this shade and I was enthralled. Sadly, she did not agree. :-(

Re: White Noise : Home

somercet — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:15:06 -0000

Doh, she's so sweet.

And I dunno, Wren has a lot on his mind, but I would think the wink would turn that blush UP.

And he looks so young in that last insert panel.

Re: White Noise : Home

somercet — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:10:40 -0000

Eyu. Poor you. So, your mom's insane, huh?

Heh, Wren. Such exquisite agony.

Re: Through the Looking-Glass With Andrew Sullivan

somercet — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 02:20:26 -0000

Chris: This is glorious foolery. Thank you.

Re: Investing in Communal Failure: The Current Economic Crisis as a Result of Regulation

somercet — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 16:25:05 -0000

Ummmm. Still no facts or figures. Just more spilled ink.

Right back atcha, Kimmie.

I don't think CRA destroyed the biggest, most stable housing market in the world. But it was a piece in the political machine that did.

How many global markets closed when Enron went under? Bear Stearns? Lehman Bros.? Now that Fannie, a government entity with an implicit government guarantee, had to be taken over, the Russian market closed and several banks in Europe have failed or gotten emergency help.

Re: Investing in Communal Failure: The Current Economic Crisis as a Result of Regulation

somercet — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 04:01:39 -0000

I forgot to add: bonds in Fannie itself were used as collateral by other banks and investors. Those are now worthless (Fannie is the company that falsified its earnings, which might have let the rest of the world know the ride would come to an end). Also, lots of institutions used the Fannie-guaranteed MBSs as investments.

This is why everything came apart. It's so pervasive, so weak, and it all looked great until just before it exploded.

Re: Investing in Communal Failure: The Current Economic Crisis as a Result of Regulation

somercet — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 03:55:57 -0000

Redlined neighborhoods? How did the government know which neighborhoods were redlined if the banks did it secretly? Obviously, the government measured the income and ethnicity of borrowers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvest...

"He further states that Gordon's statistic ignores that independent mortgage companies are middlemen who sell subprime loans to banks that are in turn regulated by the CRA." Which no doubt counted as a good CRA score.

I love the quote by Ellen Seidman. Basically, if a bank has a low CRA score, then it suffers a ban on mergers, acquisitions and opening and closing new branches. If they become overloaded with risk, they get -- a lecture from Ellen! Wow, what an incentivization package, there, Ellen!

http://www.newamerica.net/blog/asset-building/2...

So, she says it was created in 1977. Wow. She fails to mention how it was amended in 1995 (Yes, it used to be a local-only law until then). That version lasted until 2005, when Republicans had 55 seats to force the Senate Democrats to action.

The problem is not necessarily the CRA. Alone, it might have been perfectly benign. Another part of the problem was (I hate typing this anthropized name) Fannie, which began keeping its mortgages instead of selling them. Then it used them as collateral for money to get, yes, more mortgages. No one ever destroyed an economy by going broke; they do it by going broke while super-leveraged, called "dying with someone else's money in your pockets." It's considered rude.

Basically, several factors combined to honeycomb the mortgage traders, insurers and holders with risk. As soon as the market went south, the entire market went south like a termite-ridden house. It did not help that the Dems sat on it for ages, afraid to call an exterminator lest the neighbors think badly of them.

Re: Investing in Communal Failure: The Current Economic Crisis as a Result of Regulation

somercet — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 03:35:15 -0000

McCain tried to strengthen oversight on Fannie/Freddie. Which "THEM" are you talking about?

CRA is a regulation. If anyone has an open lawsuit under housing discrimination law, CRA says that mergers, opening or closing branches and all sorts of stuff is off limits until the suit is settled. Which most banks did.

CRA is a massive price-fixing scheme: the thing whose price was controlled was risk: businesses were forced to acquire tons of risk as the cost of doing business. As soon as the market went south, sure enough, everything went to hell.

Go to http://delicious.com/somercet/subprime_market and read some of the links I've saved. It's an eye-opener.

Re: Republican Study Commitee plan now best viable alternative

somercet — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 03:23:03 -0000

Is Nancyf a socialist bot who comments on every post?

The problem is not the bad housing stock. The problem is that if the borrower defaults, then the bank is stuck with an illiquid asset: the house. A government insurance policy would use the house as collateral: if the owner defaults, the government would buy the house from the lender and then sell it.

It would get the money from the premiums paid by lenders eager to cover their oversized risk.