Beware the Button Police :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, Views and Jobs

Beware the Button Police :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, Views and Jobs: "Sporting an Obama or McCain button? Driving a car with one of the campaigns’ bumper stickers? You might need to be careful on University of Illinois campuses.The university system’s ethics office sent a notice to all employees, including faculty members, telling them that they could not wear political buttons on campus or feature bumper stickers on cars parked in campus lots unless the messages on those buttons and stickers were strictly nonpartisan. In addition, professors were told that they could not attend political rallies on campuses if those rallies express support for a candidate or political party. Faculty leaders were stunned by the directives. Some wrote to the ethics office to ask if the message was intended to apply to professors; they were told that it was. At Illinois campuses, as elsewhere, many professors do demonstrate their political convictions on buttons, bumper stickers and the like."
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Yes, they do "demonstrate their political convictions." But the University of Illinois faculty's political convictions are about 99% on one side: the left. So what we are really talking about is suppression of Obama buttons, Obama bumper stickers, and attendance at Obama rallies. And many professors also demonstrate their convictions in the classroom, which I noticed didn't pop up on the list, presumably because of legitimate concerns about the professors' academic freedom. So, the hard question is, who, if anybody, makes sure professors respect the students' freedoms? How do you address that concern without trampling on the professors?

Brad Setser: Follow the Money » Blog Archive » Some ballpark math on the US financial sector (i.e. just how big is $700b?): "The Federal Reserve’s flow of funds data indicates that US households have $11.2 trillion in outstanding mortgage debt on non-farm homes, another $2.4 trillion in outstanding “other mortgage debt” (a category that includes corporate farms, who knew … ) and $2.5 trillion outstanding consumer credit."
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Not so big after all?

PETA Urges Ben & Jerry's To Use Human Milk - News Story - WPTZ Plattsburgh: "PETA officials say a move to human breast milk would lessen the suffering of dairy cows and their babies on factory farms and benefit human health."
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When did the press start doing PETA's bidding here? When a cow reproduces, the offspring is called a "calf," not a BABY. And pardon me for being squeamish, but I'm not buying human breast milk ice cream. Besides, I'd say this whole milk gig is good for cows when you consider the alternative. If we don't use cows to produce milk, why not shoot them and turn them into meat? While on the subject of unpleasant alternatives, I think if you surveyed the nation's cows, they would vote about 9 to 1 that they would rather be milked daily than have their hind legs eaten by a pack of wolves while their front legs are still trying to run away.

Americans reluctant to fund bailout, poll finds - Los Angeles Times

Americans reluctant to fund bailout, poll finds - Los Angeles Times: "Asked whether the government should use taxpayer dollars to rescue financial firms whose collapse could have adverse effects on the economy, 55% of the poll's respondents said they did not believe the government should be responsible for funding a bailout plan."
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The precise working of the questions would determine the results in this situation, because most of the respondents probably think Fannie Mae is a candy store.

FinancialRx: Credit Default Swaps Now Total $283 Trillion: "Last week the International Swaps and Derivatives Association said that at the end of June, the outstanding nominal value of swaps and derivatives was $283.2 trillion. As the New York Times pointed out over the weekend, that's a lot of money, vastly superior to the combined gross domestic products of the U.S., European Union, Canada and China -- a paltry $34 trillion -- or the value of all U.S. homes, which is about the same amount. 'To be sure, notional value is an exaggerated term as it greatly overstates the amount at risk in many contracts,' the Times noted. 'But the growth rate is real, and in the fastest-growing area of swaps -- credit default swaps -- notional value is closer to the amount at risk, because such swaps promise to make up the losses if a borrower defaults on the notional amount.'"
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This is a link to a blog post. The chart that accompanies it will blow the mind of anybody who looks at it long enough to understand it. Then look at the date of the post: September 28, 2006.

And now we are reading about how the financial sector of the US economy is melting into a puddle of goo because of...credit default swaps.

Freddie Mac's new chief to get $900,000 salary - Sep. 23, 2008: "WASHINGTON (AP) -- Mortgage finance company Freddie Mac says its new chief executive is earning a base salary of $900,000 a year, a 25% pay cut from his predecessor who also received sizable bonuses and stock options."
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Nice to see all this belt-tightening at Freddie Mac, now that we the taxpayers have taken it over and all. A mere 900K for the base salary, while his full salary package is being determined, mind you. This is just to tide him over. Isn't that special?

FOXNews.com - FBI Investigating Potential Fraud by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman, AIG - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News: "Over the past year as the housing market cratered, the FBI has opened a wide-ranging probe of companies across the financial services industry, from mortgage lenders to investment banks that bundle home loans into securities sold to investors. Mueller has previously said the FBI's hunt for culprits in the nation's subprime mortgage crisis focused on accounting fraud, insider trading, and failure to disclose the value of mortgage-related securities and other investments. The investigations revealed Tuesday come as lawmakers began considering whether to approve emergency legislation that would give the government broad power to buy up devalued assets from troubled financial firms."
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Pardon my skepticism, but I can't help wondering if this is a conveniently timed leak intended to convey the impression that the Bush administration isn't just showering the financial industry with taxpayer largesse, but investigating...seeking to find and punish the bad guys who created this mess, whoever they may be (and I should emphasize that I am not blaming any particular individuals for the economic debacle--I'm just talking about the way this leak makes things look).

Fort Lauderdale condo association has dog fight -- South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com

Fort Lauderdale condo association has dog fight -- South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com: "Michael Colyer lost his cool with his condominium board's president, so now the condo association wants a judge to order him to get lost when it comes to future meetings."
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No sooner do I blog about dogs than up jump a couple of schnauzers and nip a Shih Tzu, leading to a big row at the condo association meeting, with F-bombs thrown around, and next thing you know the association wants a TRO barring the hurler of the F-bombs from meetings and "other condo functions," which I assume amounts to shunning.

CARPE DIEM: Size of U.S. State Economies vs. Foreign Countries: "We often lose sight of: a) how big the U.S. economy is, b) how productive American workers, and how much we produce vs. other countries. After all, who can get their mind around $13 trillion, the size of the U.S. economy measured by GDP ($13,000,000,000,000)?

World GDP is about $47 trillion according to the CIA World Factbook, so the U.S. economy produces more than 30% of world output every year, with just 5% of the world's population."
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A little perspective helps to get a sense for the kind of money this bailout represents. The map that accompanies the post is astounding. Russia=New Jersey???

Home, small home: 250 square feet in SoMa / New condo development targets young first-time buyers without too much stuff

Home, small home: 250 square feet in SoMa / New condo development targets young first-time buyers without too much stuff: "It's about the size of seven ping-pong tables - and all yours starting at $279,000. A San Francisco design and development firm has begun marketing 98 tiny condominiums - ranging from 250 to 350 square feet - at the Cubix Yerba Buena building in SoMa."
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And the condo dues are $270 per month. Thanks to Kimberly Cane for this link. What a deal. Maybe they just wall you up in it like The Cask of Amontillado.

Bailout Prevents Great Depression 2.0 - Capital Commerce (usnews.com): "What would be the dollar cost of not bailing out Wall Street? Try a number north of $30 trillion. (The awful math is detailed below.) That's why Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke were so scared last week."
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That number will get your attention in a hurry. How much money is there in the world?

FEATURE-For many U.S. Christians, it's God before mortgage | Markets | Bonds News | Reuters

FEATURE-For many U.S. Christians, it's God before mortgage
For some Christians, tithing to their church takes precedence over paying their mortgage. Shorting the bank is one thing, but if you ask me they had better pay those HOA fees.

Woman whose dogs mauled neighbor gets 15 to life: "SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A judge has sentenced a dog owner to 15 years to life in prison, seven years after her canines fatally mauled her neighbor in an upscale San Francisco neighborhood."
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This is a highly unusual sentence. Normally the owner of a dog that attacks somebody gets a small fine and maybe a civil suit. In this case, these dogs were huge, vicious beasts raised by white supremacists, and the owners were attorneys who represented the creeps and acquired the dogs from them. The woman who died was opening the door to her apartment and the dogs were in the hall with their owners. They attacked her and the owners couldn't get them off her. It was a horrific incident.

Apparently this was in an apartment building, but the issue that comes to mind is the presence of potentially dangerous dogs, such as those Presa Canarios, pit bulls, etc., in condo and hoa developments. Most condos have rules on the number and/or size of pets. Many HOAs are much less restrictive. I have been consulted by people who had problems with their neighbors' dogs, which were legal under existing rules but scaring the daylights out of everybody. Of course, the owners say the dogs are harmless and just look scary. Seems to me that this is a difficult situation where there are generally two sides to the story. There is no easy solution. Do you ban certain breeds, and if so, besides pit bulls, which ones? Do you give the dogs disposition tests? Do you go by weight? Give them one free bite? How much power should people have over the neighbor's choice of pet? Not an easy issue to be fair about.

(PS: would the pit bull lovers please spare me the lectures about what wonderful misunderstood animals they are? I've heard it all before and it is nonsense. I could fill this blog with stories of people mangled by pit bulls. I know some of them are great dogs, but they are unpredictable time bombs and should all be sterilized.)

Business & Technology | WaMu loaned millions to California home flippers convicted in fraud scheme | Seattle Times Newspaper

Business & Technology | WaMu loaned millions to California home flippers convicted in fraud scheme | Seattle Times Newspaper: "In July 2007, Vijay and Supriti Soni of Corona del Mar, Calif., paid $440,000 for a home at 2129 W. Civic Center Drive in Santa Ana. Five weeks later, they resold the house to Javier Hernandez, the family gardener and handyman, for $660,000. That's a 50 percent gain in 38 days — at a time when real-estate prices in Santa Ana were plunging. But the lender that financed both mortgages, Washington Mutual, took a bath. Last March, Hernandez's loan went into default and in July the bank foreclosed. On the trustee's deed, the bank listed the home's value at $377,137 — $220,000 less than the outstanding loan...The Soni family's transactions with WaMu indicate it continued making risky loans long after its underwriting standards were supposedly tightened in mid-2007, said James Barth, a senior finance fellow at the Milken Institute in Santa Monica."
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Ah, the good old days. Can I be excused for politely asking why WaMu should not bear the full financial consequences of making loans like this? In other words, why should a single penny of tax dollars go to absolve WaMu of whatever loss they suffer here? Why is it even a public policy question at all? People are free to do dumb things with their money. When I do dumb things with mine, I lose it. WaMu spent years aggressively advertising their willingness to lend money to just about anybody. It seems that they meant it, so give them points for honesty. But it is still dumb. I'm not saying the whole bailout package is a bad idea, because I don't know at this point. But I hope banks that just did incredibly stupid things don't get bailed out.

Science unveils hidden drivers of stock bubbles and crashes

Science unveils hidden drivers of stock bubbles and crashes: "'In standard economic theory, the way that prices in all markets are meant to be set depends on people being rational and having access to all available information,' says David Tuckett of the Psychoanalysis Unit at University College London.

'This way of looking at things is almost completely wrong,' he said. 'Markets are operated by human beings.'"
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This is worth reading. The people who really need to read it won't. That would be the libertarians and other free-marketer zealots who insist that we should model public policy on the assumption of rationality.

City bylaws torpedo pirate ship tree house - USATODAY.com

City bylaws torpedo pirate ship tree house - USATODAY.com: "Architect Andrew Dewberry and a crew of friends spent Saturday dismantling the pirate ship tree house he's had in his Vancouver yard for two years. He said he had no choice after a court ordered it to be removed for not complying with city bylaws."
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Arrrrrr. Prepare to repel boarders, ye scurvy bilge rats!

Do you owe more on your home than it is worth?

Do you owe more on your home than it is worth?: "Its study extrapolated national trends that showed 17 percent of home loans between 2002 and 2007 were subprime and that 30 percent of all mortgages during that time would be upside down. In Pima County over that same period, 38 percent of home loans were subprime.
That and rapidly falling property values lead the council to project that a third of all mortgages in Pima County could be more expensive than the property they back.
A subprime loan is one made to a borrower who doesn't qualify for a home loan under Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac lending guidelines."
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That is a heck of a lot of subprime loans. How much of this mortgage crisis is caused by deregulation of the lending process, and how much by government policies that basically forced lenders to make loans to people who couldn't afford to buy any house at all? I don't know, but when this whole debacle is studied it will be interesting to see how the under-regulation vs. over-regulation balance comes out.

Man vows to fight garden gnome arrest threat | Mail Online

Man vows to fight garden gnome arrest threat | Mail Online: "A man vowed to keep a glowing garden gnome on display today in defiance of a police notice. Gordon MacKillop even faces possible prosecution over the offending ornament. He was woken in the night by two police officers who warned him that the solar-powered gnome, dressed in full police uniform, was offensive to his neighbours. They served him with a notice under the Protection From Harassment Act 1997 for 'placing a garden gnome with intent to cause harassment to Mr John McLean'. The notice, issued on August 30, also accuses Mr MacKillop of intimidating potential buyers of former policeman Mr McLean's £209,000 cottage in Treovis, near Liskeard, Cornwall. It warns the 46-year-old that he could be arrested and prosecuted."
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So, what is the verdict on this gnome? Take a look and decide.

I say not offensive, definitely not intimidating, but probably irritating. What say you?

Palin Bags a Bigfoot | Weekly World News

Palin Bags a Bigfoot | Weekly World News
You heard it here first.

Killer's ex-girlfriend may lose house - UPI.com: "CLOVIS, Calif., Sept. 19 (UPI) -- The California woman who became notorious as the girlfriend of convicted wife-killer Scott Peterson may lose her house to foreclosure.

Amber Frey, who testified against Peterson during his 2004 trial, bought a house in Clovis in 2005, taking out a $431,000 mortgage, the Fresno Bee reports. Court records show that in May she owed $16,000 in overdue payments."
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This makes me wonder how Kato Kaelin is doing these days.