So, I am finishing waking from the comfy nap that was my vacation and I am finding that, perhaps predictably, people did not get smarter while I was gone.
*sigh*
Let’s take a cursory glance at a couple of national, local, and not-quite-news stories from the past few days.
People Who Are Too Stupid Read Things Face Housing Woes
Certainly, everyone by now has heard that the housing market is circling the drain and that late mortgage payments and foreclosures are on the rise, especially among sub-prime borrowers, now that people’s adjustable-rate mortgages are beginning to “reset.”
Duh, motherfuckers.
I mean, come on. You have crappy credit, or don’t make enough to easily afford to buy a too big house in Whitehaven or some other exurban hellhole, so to get what you want you take on some incredibly stupid and risky loan. THEN, instead of addressing the problem by rebuilding your credit or selling a kidney or something, you expect a miracle to come along and fix your problem for you. Because, yeah, double digit percentage growth in home values is an historically common occurrence.
Look. I’m sure there are scumbags who lied outright about the terms of these loans. I am certain to my toes that there were tons of irresponsible mortgage brokers/loan officers/bankers/loan sharks who sold these loans to unsuspecting rubes without adequately explaining the terms. That said, though, who signs a document promising to repay tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars without at least a cursory understanding of the terms?
It’s not important that you know what the “LIBOR index” to which your fully-indexed mortgage rate will be tied is, but it is pretty fucking important that you get that your sweet “teaser rate” will only be guaranteed for five years, and that after that it is going be tied to this other rate, which is almost certainly going to cost you a metric crap-ton of additional greenback dollars every month.
Back when I was married, and we had ARMs on our houses, I had a decent grasp on what was going on with my home loans. I knew the time frame for the expiration of the teaser rates (one was five years, one was 7); I knew the adjustment periods after that (one was once a year, one was six months); I knew the adjustment caps (2% max upward adjustment for each); I know that the 5/2 could be locked after the first adjustment into a 30-year fixed (which would have still left us forever with an APR below 7.5%); and I never intended to have the stupid loans that long, anyway (and didn’t).
How many people didn’t even attempt to grasp any part of that fairly simple information? When I worked at a mortgage broker, how many times did I hear her explain to people to whom we were giving subprime loans that they needed to rebuild their credit so they could get out of those loans at the conclusion of two years? How many times did I see the words go into one ear only to drift, like dandelion fluff on an April breeze, out the other?
Whatever. Yes, it’s a shame that folks are getting into trouble, and I’m sure that some have been legitimately deceived. Self-deception doesn’t count, and an inability to see the writing on the wall is not a legitimate handicap. It’s just stupid.
St. Louis City Schools See Writing On the Wall, But No One Can Read It
The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has revoked the accreditation of the St. Louis City Schools. No one who has been paying the least bit of attention is the tiniest bit surprised.
There was a protest at the DESE meeting, complete with some teenager shoving a cop, then running, then getting maced, which makes me think this kid’s social studies’ teachers probably did an inadequate job covering civil disobedience and non-violent protest.
After the melee was quelled, the DESE Board predictably voted to, I don’t know, draw and quarter the school board and replace them with Muppets or whatever. Yes, this is terrible. The alternative? Immeasurably worse.
So, what’s noteworthy about this? Two things.
A current St. Louis board member called the decision, among other things, a move toward “regentrification” of the city, an attempt to make it more white. Huh? First of all, I don’t think “regentrfication” is a word (and neither does Microsoft Office). Second, saying that the district is grossly failing students and needs to do better—that’s a white thing? This woman should be forced to sit in room and write her inane statement 500 times as punishment for her all-encompassing idiocy.
Then, because I had not suffered NEARLY enough on my morning commute, the leader of the union that represents the St. Louis teacher’s union stood up and said that their primary concern was making sure that the state didn’t do anything to alter the current teachers’ contract.
Oh. My. God.
I hope this woman’s face rots and her brain falls out *splat* onto the sidewalk. That has got to be the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard said by anyone who wasn’t trying to talk me into taking off my panties. Shouldn’t, oh I dunno, the miserably failing students be the teachers’ primary concern? Just maybe? Just a thought . . .
(This link might include the two above statements...like I said, I was yelling at my car stereo. Listen to the MP)
Mom Apparently Fattening Son For Slaughter; State Intervenes
I’m sure that you all saw the link to the video of the woman in West Virginia who is at risk of having the state take her 7-year-old son from her because he weighs more than 250 pounds. Okay, um, wow. I usually don’t watch these things, but this one got my attention. I gave it a gander.
Jay-sus. One of a few things is going on here:
1. This woman suffers from some neo-Krispy Kreme- Munchausen-by-proxy abuse thing. She’s intentionally fattening this kid up for some twisted purpose of her own. Sometimes, folks is just CRAZY.
2. This woman is a serious idiot, who despite what she has been told by the various doctors to whom she has dragged this poor kid, just doesn’t understand the basic principles of nutrition.
3. She’s dim, and the doctors she’s seen have been either weak-willed morons educated in offshore backwaters who have either failed to adequately educate this woman, or have failed to test this kid for some kind of awful disease or hormonal imbalance or something. Let’s not rule that out as a possibility.
I’m leaning towards numbers 1 or 2, and here’s why: If you watch the video, it shows at least a partial list of what she feeds this kid in a day. First is breakfast, which consists of “ 4 eggs” and some other stuff.
What? WHAT? FOUR eggs? This kid is SEVEN. I’m 30. I’m 5’10, and curvy, and even at my most hung-over; plummeting blood sugar; been-out-all-night-drinking-and-dancing so feed-me-before-I-gut-you morning time starvation the most I can choke down is three.
For a moment, let’s give this woman the benefit of the doubt and assume she’s not fattening this kid up for slaughter or something. If that’s the case, before the state further screws up this kid by yanking him from his mom, they should do the following (clearly, I feel all list-makey today):
1. Send a nutritionist to his house who will throw away all processed foods of any kind and re-teach Mom how to cook.
2. Hire a trainer to Mousercize this kid’s ass.
3. Repo the video games and disconnect the cable.
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