Emotional Abuse
Posted by Kevin

Sickening.

And this monster made his 13 year old record this, even participate in it.

September 18th, 2007 | Legal Issues, Culture | no comments

The House of Cards
Posted by tgirsch

As if we needed any more evidence that the housing bubble is bursting, today we get this report:

The number of foreclosure filings reported in the U.S. last month more than doubled versus August 2006 and jumped 36 percent from July, a trend that signals many homeowners are increasingly unable to make timely payments on their mortgages or sell their homes amid a national housing slump.

A total of 243,947 foreclosure filings were reported in August, up 115 percent from 113,300 in the same month a year ago, Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac Inc. said Tuesday.

There were 179,599 foreclosure filings reported in July.

…snip…

The national foreclosure rate last month was one filing for every 510 households, the company said.

[Bold mine.]

I’ve blogged about this before, and it’s only getting worse. But what I wonder is, does this really surprise anyone? Further, is it really a good idea for the Fed to cut interest rates at this time, thereby encouraging even more borrowing in an economy that’s already too heavily loaded with debt? (Yes, I know that the prime interest rate doesn’t directly impact consumer interest rates, but it does indirectly, and a great deal of consumer debt is tied to it.)

In the absence of strict regulation, this is what laissez-faire economics gets you: irresponsible borrowers and predatory lenders potentially taking the entire economy down, all in the interests of short-term profits. There will doubtless be Libertarians who object that this is simply one of the risks of free-market capitalism, and that the borrowers and lenders should have known the job was dangerous when they took it. But with the whole economy potentially at risk, I fail to see how that’s supposed to be any comfort. In fact, I’m beginning to believe that this sort of Libertarianism is utterly incapable of concerning itself with anything other than short-term profit; anything beyond next quarter is irrelevant. Is that really good for the long-term health of our economy and our society? I don’t think so.

I stand by my previous remarks. A sizable chunk of the lending industry is just shy of a criminal enterprise, making a few billion quick bucks at the low, low cost of ruined lives and a ruined economy. But hey, that’s what “freedom” is all about, right?

September 18th, 2007 | Politics, Economics, Libertarian Problem Solving | 16 comments

Restore Habeas
Posted by Kevin

Do your good deed for the day:

This week, we have a critical opportunity to restore habeas corpus.

The Habeas Corpus Restoration Act gives us a chance to reverse one of the Bush Administration’s many assaults on our civil liberties.

We all want to make America safe from terrorism, but becoming a nation that sanctions the unlawful detention of its own residents — detaining and jailing them without the chance to appear before a judge — does not make us safe. Instead, it violates a value that we have held dear for centuries — safeguarding our individual freedom before arbitrary state action.

Please sign-on below as a citizen co-sponsor to the bipartisan Leahy-Specter-Dodd Habeas Corpus Restoration Act.

The right to challenge the government’s ability to detain you is fundamental to freedom. In a very real sense, no freedom can exist without it. Without it, the government can lock you away for ever and ever, with no hope of ever getting out, with no requirement that they justify that detention. The destruction of habeas corpus is the goal of men like Pinochet and Hussein. And our government willingly voted it away for a class of people. That’s not something to be proud of whatever the GOP frontrunners may tell you. The name for people who would vote away their foundational freedom is serf, not citizen.

Be a citizen, today, and help Dodd restore habeas corpus.

Link via Digby.

September 18th, 2007 | Legal Issues, Terrorism, Torture | one comment