George Will Spreads Some Lies About the Economic Crisis | Beat the Press

George Will Spreads Some Lies About the Economic Crisis | Beat the Press
It really is incredible to see such a concerted effort to rewrite history in front of our faces. There is not much ambiguity in the story of the housing bubble. The private financial sector went nuts. They made a fortune issuing bad and often fraudulent loans which they could quickly resell in the secondary market. The big actors in the junk market were the private issuers like Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Lehman Brothers. However, George Will and Co. are determined to blame this disaster on government "compassion" for low-income families.
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That's the start of Dean Baker's demolition of George Will's latest Tory pontificating in the Washington Post.

Vietnam War Veteran Wins Fight to Fly American Flag on Front Lawn

Quigley's fight was buoyed by an outpouring of popular support. Sympathetic fellow citizens in the U.S. rallied to his cause, but people all around the world took his side. His plight got worldwide coverage. He heard from supporters in London and in India. "I've gotten calls from Macedonia," the surprised retiree said. "I don't mean from Macedonia, Ohio. I mean from Macedonia."

According to ABC News, the American Legion will return to Quigley’s home on July 4 at 11 a.m. to conduct a second flag-raising. "We expect quite a large turnout," Legion commander John J.C. Sullivan said. "A lady called from California who's a singer of patriotic songs. She'll be there [to] sing."

"Somebody should have been a little smarter about it, in particularly the homeowners association. They brought tremendous negative publicity upon themselves," said John Sullivan, president of the American Legion Post 801.
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Another HOA flag flap ends as the HOA wilts in the hot glare of global media attention and outrage.

HOAs and Hawaiian shirts

And while you can expect a judge to keep a straight face while you describe how the neighbor kids like to congregate at 2:30 a.m. at the basketball hoop next door to dribble and carom the ball off the rim hard and loudly 315 times in a row, it’s quite difficult to expect the same when you testify that your neighbor’s phony saguaro is keeping you up nights.

Playing the property values card is pretty silly even during times of rising home prices. Few if any real estate appraisers are willing to state for the record that they downgraded a house’s value because the people across the street had a metal saguaro in the front yard.

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But the HOA nevertheless sees that metal saguaro as the first step on the path to neighborhood ruination.

Mistake costs Leisure World Seal Beach nearly $273,000

The retirement community was penalized after its management company failed to pay the majority of a total of $3.5 million in property taxes on time.
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Ouch..

The story of Dune, recreated with Gummi worms

The story of Dune, recreated with Gummi worms
This has nothing to do with anything, but it is cool beyond belief.

Villaraigosa Ignores Outcry, Will Build 6-Foot - Flash Player Installation

Villaraigosa Ignores Outcry, Will Build 6-Foot - Flash Player Installation
LOS ANGELES (CBS) — Despite the objections of his neighbors, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has ordered city officials to proceed with a plan to erect a six-foot wall around the mayor’s mansion.

The wall — which would flank the sides of Getty House in Hancock Park — recently drew the ire of local residents in February when Villaraigosa filed a request for a local variance that prohibits any fencing that exceeds 42 inches in height.
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Interesting post-apocalyptic approach to home security for a lefty mayor who is trying to force people to move back into downtown LA, despite their fears about crime.

UIC News - Homeowner associations failing, expert says

UIC News - Homeowner associations failing, expert says
This is some home-cooked publicity from the UIC News, our campus newspaper.

Private Community Associations: Boon or Bane for Local Governance?, Recorded on 6/30/2011 urbaninstitute on USTREAM. Other Events

Private Community Associations: Boon or Bane for Local Governance?, Recorded on 6/30/2011 urbaninstitute on USTREAM. Other Events
Watch it for yourself--yours truly and economist Robert Nelson.

Condo HOA employs fecal forensics to crack down on dog doo

JUPITER — If your pooch poops, you pay.

Plagued with pets that do business in all the wrong places, dog owners in the Village of Abacoa, a condominium association of 458 units, must pay a $200 fee starting Aug. 1. The money will pay DNA Pet World Registry to take the dog's genetic fingerprint and keep the information on file.

Doggie droppings found in condo common areas will be collected and mailed in a plastic tube to the Knoxville, Tenn.-based company.

If the poop matches the pooch, the owners can be fined up to $1,000. If they don't pay, a lien can be placed on their home, said Susan Nellen, property manager for Versa Property Management, which manages the condo near Roger Dean Stadium.
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Humans have a symbiotic bond with canines built over millenniums. Modern day co-existence however can be difficult, particularly when humans and their animals live in close quarters such as condo complexes. Watch where you walk.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman opposes foreclosure deal | Democrat and Chronicle | democratandchronicle.com

AG Eric Schneiderman opposes foreclosure deal | Democrat and Chronicle | democratandchronicle.com
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman expects to lead opposition to what he called a "quick, cheap settlement" of a 50-state investigation into foreclosure practices. Schneiderman put the monetary settlement being discussed with the largest U.S. mortgage servicers at $20 billion to $25 billion and said he will take "the hardest line" against it.
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Sock it to them.

The Courier - Zombie planning — undead hordes no threat to Dundee City Council

The Courier - Zombie planning — undead hordes no threat to Dundee City Council
It's nice to see that at least one local government is taking steps. Sadly it is in the UK. Everybody knows the zombie invasion will start here in the US, probably in a state where they think Michelle Bachmann would make a great president.

The Urban Institute | Events Versus -- Private Community Associations: Boon or Bane for Local Governance?

The Urban Institute | Events Versus -- Private Community Associations: Boon or Bane for Local Governance?
...in which yours truly will be debating libertarian economist Robert Nelson, Thursday at 9:00 am Eastern Time. It will be webcast live! Tune in.

Muni Defaults Still Coming, But Timing Unclear: Whitney - CNBC

Muni Defaults Still Coming, But Timing Unclear: Whitney - CNBC
With the clock ticking on her prediction that scores of municipalities would default on their bonds, analyst Meredith Whitney both amped up the rhetoric and backed off on the timing for her highly controversial call.
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I gather that many people think she is wrong about this, but it does seem possible that if this sort of thing got started, it could take on momentum.

The next mortgage bombshell

Private mortgage insurance companies to go belly up?

The private insurers that cover $700 billion of U.S. mortgages are facing an onslaught of foreclosures. The big three—MGIC, Radian, PMI—are at risk.
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Can anybody say that the federal government has done a good job restoring the health of the housing market? I'm not saying that they have all the answers, but really--can't we expect three years into this debacle that we would have seen the last of the major institutional failures?

Tampa retiree says he lost belongings in foreclosure blunder - St. Petersburg Times

Tampa retiree says he lost belongings in foreclosure blunder - St. Petersburg Times
Santiago's attorney, J. Scott Murphy, said in the complaint that agents from Field Asset Services were hired by Countrywide Home Loans to carry out janitorial and cleanup services to a condominium next door — at 4255 W Humphrey St.

Santiago lives in a single-family home at 4205 W Humphrey St.

In the fall of 2009, when Santiago and his son, Benjamin Santiago Jr., returned to the northwest Tampa home after spending time in New Mexico, they discovered a big sign posted on the house that read Field Asset Services.

The locks were changed and a padlock was left on the front door. Everything was gone.
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This is another bogus foreclosure outrage situation. Wrong house. They took everything he had, including the photos of his dead wife. And the attorney for the people who did this of course denies any wrongdoing.

Thanks to Mystery Reader for the link.

HOA gets new chance to bar yard sculpture

HOA gets new chance to bar yard sculpture
The first time around the HOA lost because the governing documents didn't specifically mention sculptures. Now they get a chance to show that the sculpture is unsightly, which could be difficult given that old saying, de gustibus non est disputandum. Thanks to Mika Brainy for this link.

New Zoning Laws Allow for New Neighbors—Meet the Goats Next Door

First came the chickens, then the bees. So what’s the next animal that may be residing in a backyard next to you? Maybe goats. As the small-scale urban animal husbandry movement becomes a force in everyday urban life, more and more jurisdictions are being forced to revamp their laws to allow residents to hatch their own eggs, keep their own hives and—now—tend their own goats.
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So suburbanites will be raising their own chickens, growing their own corn, and maybe butchering their own hogs. Sounds like we are sliding back into the 19th century. But not if you have an HOA...

Indiana's bumpy road to privatization

Though the $1.37-billion project proved disastrous for many of the state's poor, elderly and disabled, it was a financial bonanza for a handful of firms with ties to Daniels and his political allies, which landed state contracts worth millions.

The disparate effects underscore the risks of handing control over public services to the private sector. Whether the approach will ultimately improve services and save money remains a matter of fierce debate in Indiana. But the state's experience shows that without adequate safeguards, privatization can compound the very problems it is designed to correct: bureaucratic burdens, perceptions of influence-peddling and a lack of competition.

It's an issue that is likely to persist, as Republicans in statehouses nationwide turn to private companies as they seek to shrink government and weaken the hold of public-sector unions. 
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While this blog focuses on the problems that come with wholesale privatization of local government in the form of mandatory membership HOAs, apparently there are problems with privatizing discrete government services as well.

Jerry Brown says Proposition 13 could be tested if budget talks fail

Gov. Jerry Brown hinted Thursday that if the budget talks with Republicans break down, the initiative fight that would follow would not be limited to Brown's plans to raise sales, vehicle and income taxes. He said he expects labor groups to pursue changes to Proposition 13, tweaking the current caps on commercial property taxes, if no bipartisan deal can be reached.
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First the good perfessor (that killjoy McKenzie guy) gets some press accompanying his latest book, Beyond Privatopia: Rethinking Residential Private Government with early media accounts honing in on the book's suggestion that HOAs are unsustainable and could face extinction.

Now comes California Gov. Jerry Brown -- who has predicted a ballot box mother of all initiative wars (Brown prefers the term "war of all against all") -- as the state remains mired in a partisan fiscal standoff and unable to enact a budget for the fiscal year starting July 1. Brown told a gathering of 250 apartment owners and developers today that sacred political cows such as Proposition 13 may be put up for alteration by the electorate in this bellum omnium contra omnes. (The audience is notable given that apartment owners provided much of the support and funding for the successful 1978 initiative).

What does Prop. 13 have to do with HOAs? By sharply limiting property tax increases, the ballot initiative spurred local governments to find creative ways to protect property tax revenue while limiting services. As self financing privatized local governments, HOAs nicely accomplish that objective since the HOA property owners pay property taxes but require fewer services.

In the current economic/political climate, I'm betting voters wouldn't think twice about carving out commercial properties from Prop. 13's provisions limiting ad valorem property tax increases. If Prop. 13 is changed to provide more property tax revenue to California local governments, one of the major drivers of privatized local government in the form of mandatory HOAs could be reduced. And what happens in California (like the property tax revolt of Prop. 13) tends to influence other states.

Homeowners’ Associations Becoming Unavoidable and Quasi-Governmental - Rachel Alexander - Townhall Conservative

Homeowners’ Associations Becoming Unavoidable and Quasi-Governmental - Rachel Alexander - Townhall Conservative
Homeowners’ Associations (“HOAs”) are losing money due to the high numbers of foreclosures and are scrambling to make up for it by assessing additional fees on the remaining homeowners.
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This is what happens when a conservative gets mugged by her HOA. Suddenly all the great virtues of the "private sector" and "freedom of contract" turn into oppression. And it is OK to hate them, because they are really "governmental"! Thanks to Shu for the link.