New reg lets banks ignore actual value of “underperforming” loans

It is only fitting that on Halloween the Federal government is increasing the number of zombies among us. Federal bank regulators issued guidelines allowing banks to keep loans on their books as "performing" even if the value of the underlying properties have fallen below the loan amount. The rationale? While CRE (commercial real estate) borrowers [...]

HOORAY? Sub-prime mortgages “back to pre-crisis levels”

The Fed says sub-prime mortgages again make up more than 20% of the nation’s outstanding mortgages. After plummeting in early 2008, the share of borrowers with FICO credit scores lower than 660 has returned to just higher than 20 percent, the same share as when subprime securitization peaked in 2006. Once upon a time this [...]

Bank fails after taking “Jesus saves” literally

Riverview Community Bank of Ostego, MN, whose founder said God told him that He “would take care of the bottom line,” was closed by the FDIC last Friday. Chuck Ripka, one of the bank’s founders, once told the Star Tribune that God spoke to him and said, "Chuck, if you pastor the bank, I’ll take [...]

Someone at Toyota, Saatchi thought cyber-stalking was a good marketing idea

In order to market its then-new Matrix model, Saatchi & Saatchi proposed and Toyota OK’d a campaign whereby people who “opted-in” would get “e-mails for five days from a fictitious man called Sebastian Bowler, from England, who said he was on the run from the law, knew [the person] and where [he/she lived] and was [...]

A basic rule marketing people can’t remember: Nazi = bad

Latest example: A wax museum opening next month in Thailand put up posters of mass murder Hitler with a slogan that said: "Hitler is not dead." Museum director Somporn Naksuetrong said the billboard had been covered up after "a lot" of complaints poured in, including from the Israeli and German embassies. "We didn’t choose Hitler [...]

Lawyers allege being a woman not a “Pre-Existing Condition”

A bunch of lawyers, in an attempt to provoke a SOCIALIST TAKEOVER of the great and beneficial insurance industry, are claiming that having a uterus is no reason to be charged HIGHER INSURANCE PREMIUMS. The lawyers, working for the thoroughly unbiased National Women’s Law Center, even talked The Whimpernator –  COMMIE-SYMPATHIZER & SELLOUT Gov. Schwarzenegger, [...]

Store owners shoot congenial, hairy beer customer

Owners of the Marketplace Foods in Hayward, Wis., decided to call in the law when a 125-pound male entered the store and, without bothering anyone, walked to the beer cooler and sat down. The customer then waited patiently for an hour. To this reporter’s eyes it seems clear he was waiting for a staff member [...]

Red Bull gives a shout out to its favorite Nazi

Red Bull beverages produces a magazine called The Red Bulletin (which sounds like a communist publication, but never mind), billed as “news from the world of Red Bull.” It is the usual slick, vapid type of magazine filled with people and things that you’ve never heard of because you’re a grown up. In the current [...]

If Obama can win a Nobel for not being Bush, why can’t I?

What did this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner spend today doing? Deciding how many troops to send into combat. Mrs. CollateralDamage called it this morning: Obama got the Peace Prize for being anyone but GW. It is an absurd award. The President, as he himself would probably point out, has yet to do anything to [...]

Afghanistan: Worse than Vietnam?

Why are we there? Ostensibly to prevent the Taliban/Al Qaida from training terrorists to attack us. Other unspoken reason 1: To try to prop up the nuclear armed government of Pakistan by denying those same groups bases to attack Paki from.Other possible reason: Have a nearby base from which we can launch a mission to [...]