Nice to see that the gubmint has everthing else fixed....

smackaholic · Post by **smackaholic** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 1:43 pm

as they are now going to waste time with baroid.

i guess he gets arraigned today.

the fukkers that need to be arraigned are the gubmint officials that waste 3 seconds on this shit.

i got no love at all for baroid, but the fact that this shit got a second of government legal attention, never mind congressional fukking hearings is an absolute joke. let mlb take care of mlb. if they fukk it all up and wanna have a 'roid freak show, it's on them.

wonder if anyone has a price tag on all this bullshit. Gawd knows they sure as hell did for the bubba impeachment procedings.

Goober McTuber · Post by **Goober McTuber** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 2:42 pm

Major league baseball is responsible for enforcing perjury and obstruction of justice laws? Or maybe if major league baseball had done anything at all to police their own, the feds wouldn’t have had to get involved.

Is Bill Clinton ever very far from your thoughts? Tard.

poptart · Post by **poptart** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 2:51 pm

Goob', present your very best reason why the gov. needs to get involved.

smackaholic · Post by **smackaholic** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 2:54 pm

yes the gubmint should be involved in perjury charges as it rightfully was with the slick willy debacle. my point is that the gubmint never should have stuck it's nose in it in the first place. i guess they use that good ole catchall "interstate commerce" as a justification.

i guess it's no more bullshit, than the other eleventy billion times they've gone to the interstate commerce card though.

Goober McTuber · Post by **Goober McTuber** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 2:59 pm

poptart wrote:Goob', present your very best reason why the gov. needs to get involved.

Maybe because he lied to a grand jury?

smackaholic · Post by **smackaholic** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 3:13 pm

Let's assume the gubmint didn't get involved. My guess is that the pressure from the press would have forced MLB to act. If not we'd have a league of 'roid freaks and 600 ft homers and 112 mph fastballs.

Big fukking deal.

Goober McTuber · Post by **Goober McTuber** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 3:23 pm

As far as I’m concerned, we already have a problem with tainted records, and we’ve had that problem for years. MLB did nothing about it. But this investigation was not about MLB, it was about BALCO.

The government was investing a criminal organization. They called Barry Bonds and a number of other witnesses to testify. Bonds allegedly lied to the grand jury. If you or I lie to a grand jury, chances are good we’re going to pay. Marion Jones has already pleaded guilty. Bonds isn’t the only one left on the feds' list either.

So you don’t think organized criminal enterprises are a big deal. Why do you hate America?

Dinsdale · Post by **Dinsdale** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 4:52 pm

Goober McTuber wrote:So you don’t think organized criminal enterprises are a big deal. Why do you hate America?

Why is it any of your business what anyone else puts in their body?

I mean, no one bitches at you when you take truckers' cocks into your ass in the airport restroom, so why would you bitch about other people using roids?

How, exactly, did it threaten your life, liberty, or persuit of happiness?

While everyone, Douchebag Selig included, truned a blind eye for years to the "problem," baseball fans were definitely starting to notice. Heck, one of my closest friends is an absolute baseball nut, and he refused to watch the Home Run Derby or the All Star Game because they invited Brett Boone, King of the Juicers(although Barry upped his game, and knocked him from his throne).

See... fans were beginning to have a problem with what was going on in baseball, BEFORE John McCain found a clever way to use taxpayer money to start a presidential campaign early(not sure it "backfired," but it sure didn't work).

See how that works? Fans were beginning to lose interest in MLB's product, and their viewership/expenditutes on baseball began to decline. With dwindling revenues due directly to the juice-show, do you really think that MLB wasn't going to act on its own?

There's this thing called "the free market," and it was in the process of sorting itself out, as it always does eventually, before John McCain decided he wasn't getting enough run as a "hero" with an election coming.

Yeah, that's the same John McCain who gladly turned a blind eye as millions of people illegally streamed across the border in the state he represents, while he instead chose to spend federal resources, time, and taxpayer money to try and make Jason Giambi a scapegoat.

Say it with me... "Free Market"(and yes, I realize MLB has an antitrust exemption, but that doesn't mean attention-whores need to start spending public funds on something so insignificant). Funny thing, ain't it? The fed doesn't consider guys travelling all over the country to play games in front of paying spectators for millions of dollars to be "interstate commerce," yet a company in california, selling roids to people in california clearly is subject to "interstae commerce" laws and federal prosecution.

Why do you hate America?

Dinsdale · Post by **Dinsdale** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 4:56 pm

BTW -- you realize that MLB implemented a steroid testing policy(which has been expanded and refined since then) before the BALCO investigation, and before John McCain decided to flap his goiter around for the taxpayer-funded publicity, right?

Goober McTuber · Post by **Goober McTuber** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 5:03 pm

You’re all over the board here, Dins, in more ways than one. My Libertarian tendencies would also favor people being able to put whatever they want in their bodies (‘sup Dinsdale sucking roommates crank – gee, this homosmack stuff ain’t that complicated (‘sup warren)). RACK my nested ‘sups.

But I was only discussing Bonds’ situation from a legal aspect. That he lied to a grand jury. And my understanding was that this discussion related to that grand jury proceeding, not some congressional grandstanding.

If you want to have a thread about personal freedom to ingest whatever you want, free markets, illegal immigration, John McCain, interstate commerce and truck stop gay butt sex, go ahead and start such a thread.

Why do you hate coherent discourse?

Dinsdale · Post by **Dinsdale** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 5:08 pm

Goober McTuber wrote:Why do you hate coherent discourse?

WHOA!

YOU were the one who threw down the "why do you hate America" bit. I was merely explaining why YOU hated America.

But yes... under our present unAmerican system, Bonds certainly shouldn't get a pass. While I don't think he ever should have been in front of a grand jury to begin with, once he was there, he's not allowed to make a mockery of the legal sytem and lie to suit his needs.

And if it's proven he did, lock the fucker up. Make an example out of the shithead.

Goober McTuber · Post by **Goober McTuber** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 6:45 pm

Dinsdale wrote:
Goober McTuber wrote:Why do you hate coherent discourse?

WHOA!

YOU were the one who threw down the "why do you hate America" bit. I was merely explaining why YOU hated America.

I guess this is where I’m supposed to accuse you of ducking and spinning. smackaholic and I were having a rather focused discussion on why the government should, or should not be prosecuting Barry Bonds for his crimes.

Not whether those activities should be criminal, not whether John McCain is a self-serving politician, nothing about illegal immigrants. smackaholic seemed to be defending the rights of criminals and those that would lie for them. Thus, I questioned his loyalties to this great country.

But then you launched into your off-tangent rant about points that weren’t being discussed, and assumed that I held a viewpoint that I hadn’t espoused, and that I don’t support. And on that basis you suggested that I hate America. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Once again, Dinsdale, you have gone off half-cocked. (I’m sure there’s a U&L barskank reference in there somewhere, but I’m far too lazy to go looking for it.)

smackaholic · Post by **smackaholic** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 8:41 pm

one more time, slowly.

i am not defending perjury. i am questioning the gubmint sticking it's nose into this whole fuggin' thing in the first place. if any state wanted to go after balco for pimping 'roids, fine. maybe even the fda doing it on the fed level would be cool. when it gets to congressional fukking ~~grandstanding~~ hearings, I got a problem with it.

Goober McTuber · Post by **Goober McTuber** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 8:50 pm

smackaholic wrote:one more time, slowly.

i am not defending perjury. i am questioning the gubmint sticking it's nose into this whole fuggin' thing in the first place. if any state wanted to go after balco for pimping 'roids, fine. maybe even the fda doing it on the fed level would be cool. when it gets to congressional fukking ~~grandstanding~~ hearings, I got a problem with it.

Horseshit. Your very first post started out complaining about his arraignment, and that it should have been handled by MLB. BALCO is not governed by MLB. Your reference in passing to congress was hardly the gist of your post. Just STFU already.

KC Scott · Post by **KC Scott** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 9:33 pm

Sorry, thought this thread was about the latest welfare program rolled out by our "conservative" administration:

NOW THAT PRESIDENT BUSH and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson have announced their plan to help troubled homeowners avoid foreclosure, the big question on many homeowners' minds is: Will I qualify?

The good news: The plan will reach far more struggling homeowners than housing counselors have been able to help so far (they've been negotiating with mortgage servicers on a case-by-case basis). That's thanks to the specific guidelines established by the American Securitization Forum, the organization that represents mortgage issuers, servicers and investors. Servicers will now be able to quickly determine which homeowners qualify for help and the type of help they will receive, based on specific factors like the type and size of their mortgage, their payment history and FICO scores.

An estimated 1.2 million homeowners could qualify for help under this plan, according to the Homeownership Preservation Foundation, which negotiates on behalf of consumers. Some will be able to refinance into loans with better terms, while others will qualify for a much quicker five-year freeze on their current mortgage rates.

However, many homeowners — particularly those already in trouble — will not be eligible for any help at all. Here are the criteria homeowners have to meet to qualify and the solutions available to them.

The basics
To qualify for assistance from your mortgage servicer — the company that receives your payments and disburses them to investors — you will have to hold a subprime adjustable rate mortgage, or ARM, that has an initial fixed-rate period of three years or fewer. (This includes the so-called 2/28 and 3/27 mortgages, which carry fixed rates for the first two or three years, respectively, that then reset to higher levels afterwards.)

Your loan must have originated between Jan. 1, 2005, and July 31, 2007. More importantly, your initial reset must occur between Jan. 1, 2008, and July 31, 2010. This leaves out the hundreds of thousands of homeowners who have already faced a rate reset this year, including those who took out 2/28 loans in 2005.

And, if you're already behind on your loan, you won't be eligible for any of the "fast" solutions outlined in the plan. Likewise, you'll be disqualified if your home isn't a primary residence. (This includes investors who are currently renting out their properties. When a landlord loses his home to foreclosure, meanwhile, the tenants living there typically face almost immediate eviction. For more on this, click here.)

The solutions
If you are current on your loan, have some equity in your home and your FICO score and payment history are good enough to qualify for a refinance, your servicer will most likely work with you on possible refinancing solutions.

The much-talked-about five-year rate freeze, on the other hand, will be available to anyone who doesn't qualify for a refinance, particularly folks with low credit scores and little or no equity in their homes. (Whether it will be effective in the long run is another question. Click here for more on that issue.)

To qualify for a rate freeze, the loan-to-value ratio on your home must be 97% or higher, which means you must have no more than 3% equity in your home. (This is the loan-to-value ratio during the origination of the loan, so the recent decline in housing values doesn't come into play here.) Then, mortgage servicers will apply a newly-created FICO test. Basically, if your FICO score is 660 or below (scores range between 300 and 850), and it hasn't increased by at least 10% or more since your score at the time you took out the mortgage, you pass the test and qualify for a five-year freeze.

If your score is above 660, or has improved by 10% or more since loan origination, the servicer will look into your financial situation more closely to determine if you qualify. They might consider your income, current debt levels, and any other factors the servicer may deem necessary. This, of course, will take time since such cases will need to be reviewed individually.

The potential problems
Coming out with such a wide-scale plan is no easy task and will certainly be an improvement over the current situation for many homeowners. But it does have its setbacks.

A loan-freeze might be a quick and easy solution, but even with a wholesale approach to determining who qualifies, mortgage servicers are likely to be overwhelmed with requests. "The merit of this proposal is it will allow servicers to process a big chunk of loans and get them out of the way on a wholesale basis," says Jack Guttentag, professor of finance emeritus at the Wharton School of Business who also runs a mortgage information site for consumers at mtgprofessor.com.

Action Plan for Homeowners
Think you might qualify for help from your mortgage company? Here's what you need to do:

1. Take action. Mortgage companies will aim to reach homeowners at least 120 days in advance of their rate resets, but your best bet is to take the matter into your own hands. Call the Homeownership Preservation Foundation's hotline at 1-888-995-HOPE. You'll be referred to a local housing counseling agency that will guide you through the process.

2. Prepare. Have all your mortgage papers ready, your credit score and reports, income statements, and ideally, a recent appraisal of your house. If your home has lost value and you're "under water" on your mortgage, you're in a better position to negotiate a loan modification, says Jack Guttentag, who runs the consumer mortgage information web site mtgprofessor.com.

3. Be persistent. Mortgage companies will likely be overwhelmed with requests from other borrowers, so it helps to make sure your case is moving along. Stay in touch with your servicer and keep records of all phone calls and other correspondence.

But that's little consolation to folks who don't pass the FICO test and will have to go through the individual review process. When it comes to loan modifications, "right now, servicers are moving at a snail's pace," says Guy Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance, an industry trade publication. "It's labor-intensive and that's going to be an issue going forward." On average, it currently takes two months to do a loan modification.

Meanwhile, servicers are by no means obliged to freeze interest rates or modify loans. The guidelines issued by the American Securitization Forum are just that — guidelines — and there's no guarantee that all servicers will jump on board. The Homeownership Preservation Foundation now represents 84% of all mortgage servicers, but that still leaves a significant number of homeowners out there who may not receive any help.

Servicers are concerned that they may face lawsuits from investors, says John Rao, staff attorney with the National Consumer Law Center. Servicers, after all, are obliged to act in the interest of the investors who own the loans. But not all investors have equal interest in the mortgage trusts, so when a loan doesn't perform as expected, some might get paid while others won't. "These investors might sue the servicer claiming that modification is not in their interest," Rao says. "Even though Secretary Paulson and President Bush have given their stamp of approval, I wonder if it will be enough to get the servicers to ultimately all agree to do this."

The guidelines issued by ASF today include a disclaimer that all proposed solutions are "subject to any specific provisions of securitization operative documents that may limit modifications, such as a provision limiting the total number of modified loans to a percentage of the securitized pool." In layman's terms, that means if the agreement between the servicer and investors says they can modify no more than a certain percentage of all loans, the servicer must comply. According to a recent Credit Suisse survey of mortgage servicers, one-third of agreements had a cap on the number of loan modifications permissible in the pool, typically no more than 5%.

But perhaps the biggest drawback to this plan is that it only provides temporary relief. Granted, five years might be enough time for most people to improve their credit, increase their income and get back on their feet. Those who don't? "These folks will be facing the same problem in a couple of years," Rao says.

What total horseshit.

Fucking people without verifiable income are allowed to buy houses they can't afford at teaser rates and now we're going to just freeze those rates?

There's a word for that particular group of folks and it's called renters.
But thanks to the euphoric ignorance of the subprime industry they're now property owners.
Welcome to the socialist states of America - this includes all you who aren't really even citizens!
Come on in, buy a house and finance the down payment, even the closing costs, into a property that you paid 20% too much for and will be underwater on in 6 months.
Maybe we'll just print a few more trillion in T-Bills and sell those to China to cover it.

Mikey · Post by **Mikey** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 9:53 pm

So, if you

*DIDN'T buy a house that you knew you couldn't afford
*DIDN'T refinance up to your ears to buy that new car and TV
*DIDN'T take out a loan that you knew you wouldn't be able to make payments on after a couple of years

*DID refininance at a fixed rate when rates were low
*DID make sure you retained reasonable amount of equity
*DID make sure you could make the payments you signed up for

Then you're

*SOL

Sounds like SOP to me.

Dinsdale · Post by **Dinsdale** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 9:58 pm

KC Scott wrote: Welcome to the socialist states of America - this includes all you who aren't really even citizens!

We thought it was crazy when a president said "it depends what your definition of 'is' is."

In retrospect, it's maybe not as crazy as "It depends what your definition of 'small government' is."

I wish I could buy shit I can't afford, and have everyone else pay for it.

What's even crazier, is there's elections coming up, and most people seem bound and determined to actually expand the socialism, rather than try and put it in check.

Fuck... these assclowns have made me agree with mvscal... I hate that.

BSmack · Post by **BSmack** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 10:04 pm

Mikey wrote:So, if you

*DIDN'T buy a house that you knew you couldn't afford
*DIDN'T refinance up to your ears to buy that new car and TV
*DIDN'T take out a loan that you knew you wouldn't be able to make payments on after a couple of years

*DID refininance at a fixed rate when rates were low
*DID make sure you retained reasonable amount of equity
*DID make sure you could make the payments you signed up for

Then you're

*SOL

Sounds like SOP to me.

Nah, you're still way ahead of the game. Especially if you bought in a market where values have remained stable through this latest downturn. I don't know about you, but I would rather sport a FICO over 700 and be able to pay my bills than have a sub 660 FICO and be begging for a handout.

Sirfindafold · Post by **Sirfindafold** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 10:21 pm

Dinsdale wrote:
Goober McTuber wrote:So you don’t think organized criminal enterprises are a big deal. Why do you hate America?

Why is it any of your business what anyone else puts in their body?

I mean, no one bitches at you when you take truckers' cocks into your ass in the airport restroom, so why would you bitch about other people using roids?

chuckle.

smackaholic · Post by **smackaholic** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 4:02 am

Mikey wrote:So, if you

*DIDN'T buy a house that you knew you couldn't afford
*DIDN'T refinance up to your ears to buy that new car and TV
*DIDN'T take out a loan that you knew you wouldn't be able to make payments on after a couple of years

*DID refininance at a fixed rate when rates were low
*DID make sure you retained reasonable amount of equity
*DID make sure you could make the payments you signed up for

Then you're

*SOL

Sounds like SOP to me.

you must be one of them chumps that refied at 4 and change a few tears back (4.625 here). Didn't you know there was 3.5 money to be had and uncle george would have your back when they tried to raise it up?

iodot.

here's an idear george, lets just pass a law that says fukk them banks, the place is yours.

Mister Bushice · Post by **Mister Bushice** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 6:08 am

[quote="Dinsdale"]

I mean, no one bitches at you when you take truckers' cocks into your ass in the airport restroom,quote]

Who knew there were gay truckers in airport restrooms?

You been piling up them frequent flyer miles dinsy, or just playing "spy" at the airport?