Buffett buys subprime mortgages, freezes resets

Sure, they probably bought the mortgages cheap. But the best way to get mortgages paid is to insure people can afford to stay in their homes. That’s why they didn’t raise the rates even though they could. This was done by Clayton Homes, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway that makes and finances manufactured homes. So, in a very real way, they are providing huge support to one of the most vulnerable group of homeowners, those owning manufactured home bought with subprime mortgages. This is a good thing, indeed.

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However it now appears that our house in CT may not be selling on schedule. We will now for sure in the next few days. If it doesn’t, then we will have to scramble for the next couple of months until the house sells.

Onward.

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The reason why Mugabe has been able to hang onto power for so long, despite naked repression and economic meltdown, long after the exhaustion of his brand of nationalism, is that the politics of the opposition leadership has genuinely been underwhelming.

Perhaps. Mugabe did attempt to institute badly needed land reforms. But he broke the law in doing so and then parcelled out the land to cronies, so this is hardly exemplary. Once a thug has installed himself in power, he can be difficult to remove. So, rather than blame the opposition, who routinely get jailed and tortured, I say, blame Mugabe.

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“Bob Marley in 1976 — an anthem for 2008″ says Climate and Capitalism, who has the full lyrics

Them belly full but we hungry.
A hungry mob is a angry mob.
A rain a-fall but the dirt it tough;
A pot a-cook but the food no ‘nough.

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… Long live the King.

That would be the euro.

George Bush, the Iraq War, and a spineless, supine “opposition” have all contributed mightily to the steady fall of the US as a world power respected by many and the dollar as the de facto world currency. But thanks to the zealots in the White House and a Democratic Congress that consistently over time has refused to grow a spine, well, eight years ago, no one would have predicted the dollar would have fallen so far and so badly. Yet it has.

Will it come back some? Sure. But it’ll never be the undisputed champ again.

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Instead, I’d say he was an unrepentant, calculating sociopath trying to manipulate and control yet another situation and group of people.

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