Archive for August 19th, 2011

Georgetown’s “goodwill” basketball game vs. China ends in brawl … no kidding

August 19, 2011

According to SI …

A wild brawl broke out between Georgetown and a Chinese men’s basketball team Thursday night, putting an immediate end to a supposed goodwill game that coincided with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to the country.

The benches cleared and fights erupted all over the court with about 9½ minutes left in the fourth quarter.

Georgetown is in China on a 10-day trip which has been cited by the U.S. State Department as an example of sports diplomacy that strengthens ties between the two countries.

Full article & video

Question (after viewing the video): With a population of 1.3 Billion (with a “B”), don’t you think the Chinese should be able to fill a high school gym for a game against the Hoyas?

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Locker room sign: “Excuses are for losers”

August 19, 2011

The sign over the door to my high school’s football locker room reminded players that “excuses are for losers”.

Obviously, Pres. Obama didn’t play football for the Maple Heights Mustangs … or, I imagine, any of the thousands of HS or college teams that paste the slogan in their locker rooms.

Why is that a safe bet?

In “Did Bo (Obama’s Dog) Eat The Recovery?”, IBT has a nice recap of the people and events that te President wants to blame for the bad economy

In his inaugural address 2 1/2 years ago, President Obama called for a “new era of responsibility.” Yet lately, his main goal in life seems to be escaping any responsibility for the lousy economy.

It’s getting so you have to keep a list of everyone and everything Obama wants to blame for the anemic economic recovery.

So far, it includes:

• President Bush: Obama continues to blame Bush for the mess he inherited, despite the fact that the recession had pretty much bottomed out by the time Obama took office and was officially over a mere four months after he was sworn in.

• ATMs: In June, Obama blamed automated teller machines and airport check-in kiosks for the lack of jobs, saying that “businesses have learned to become much more efficient, with a lot fewer workers.”

• Republicans: On Monday, Obama said that because “some in Congress would rather see their opponents lose than America win, we ended up creating more uncertainty and more damage to an economy that was already weak” — a thinly veiled attempt to blame the GOP for the economic malaise.

• Gridlock: Obama goes after partisan impasses. What he’s really complaining about is that lawmakers haven’t enacted his latest “stimulus” plan — spending hikes, gimmicky tax breaks and a massive tax hike — that has already been tried and failed.

• The media: In July, Obama said the “splintered” press was in part to blame for Washington’s failure to boost the economy. “If you never even have to hear another argument,” he said, “then over time you start getting more dug in into your positions.”

• Businesses: Obama has often blamed companies needlessly sitting on massive piles of cash. In May, he insisted that firms should “step up” and start hiring.

• Misfortune: “Over the last six months, we’ve had a string of bad luck,” he said at a town hall on Monday, citing the Arab Spring, the Japanese tsunami and Europe’s debt crisis. “So there were a bunch of things taking place over the last six months that were not within our control.”

At a press conference this summer, Obama said: “I’m not interested in finger-pointing.”

But that’s all he’s been doing for months.

Wouldn’t it be nice if Obama instead were to live up to his inaugural credo and start his own “era of responsibility” by admitting his role in the country’s economic slump?

As the sign says “excuses are for losers” …

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Revenge of the appraisers …

August 19, 2011

Worth-read article posted by RCP summarizing the history of residential appraisers … and the impact of attempts by the gov’t to regulate them.

Punch line:

Among the many guilty co-conspirators in the housing bubble were appraisers who succumbed to pressure from loan officers, buyers and real estate agents eager to get deals done. Wary of losing business, these appraisers submitted home valuations that were unrealistically high, contributing to an upward spiral of prices that was unsustainable.

Appraisers’ lack of independence brought calls for reform once the market melted down, including a spate of new federal regulations commencing in 2009, the latest in a long string of efforts by the government over the last half century to reform the business. Now, ironically, those new regulations are being blamed for some of the housing market’s current struggles, as exceptionally low home valuations kill deals, including those between highly qualified buyers and eager sellers.

Some real estate agents and lenders estimate low appraisals are killing from 20 to 40 percent of deals. Even allowing for a certain amount of exaggeration endemic to the real estate business, low valuations have become a significant problem in the market’s struggles.

Ken’s Take: I’ve heard some stories about low valuations killing deals … and low valuations working out to buyers’ advantage as sellers cut prices to conform to the valuations..

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