Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

Discussion in 'SBAF Blogs' started by purr1n, Dec 26, 2018.

  1. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    THE MORTGAGE CRISIS ACCORDING TO MERV PART II

    'll have to admit, I was peeved when I saw this because I was thinking to myself "why couldn't I get approved like this Porker?" The truth is that I never tried. I had moved back to California in 2002 from Michigan after the first dot-bomb and was looking to buy a home in 2005. The prices were ridiculous and it turns out that I stayed out of the market until 2010 - one of the benefits of being a banker and knowing what was really going on - talk about patience and not succumbing to stupidity. It wasn't easy to sit on the sidelines for nearly eight years.

    Ten years before in 1995, I obtained a conventional 30-year mortgage loan in Michigan via the standard rules. That meant 20% down payment and no more than 28% of income going toward the mortgage payment and 36% of all other debt (auto, credit cards, etc.) This is known as the 28/36 rule. Call me a dumb ass traditionalist that eschews "brave new worlds" such as a crowd-sourcing*, but there is a reason why this old-school stuff which had been around for a while works.

    Just put yourself in the shoes of the bank or investor, assuming you had money lying around and you wanted a decent return. Would you have lent this hypothetical Juan Valdez the $550k with low interest, with barely any money down, where Juan would have had to refinance - not refinance since that's just a vehicle - but rather make the balloon payment for the rest owed after five years? I most certainly would have not. Especially considering the fact that the salary was a lie!

    The loan underwriting process requires the lender to obtain accurate information to be able to make an informed decision. Part of making sure the information is accurate is validating it. Were any pay stubs or W2s collected? Probably not. In fact, the loan origination officer likely advised Juan to put $88,000 on his annual income when it was more like $37,000 (it's the Bay Area, so let's assume janitors get paid a more). When it came to home loans during this time, all sorts of shit happened.

    So basically, at the most fundamental level, the first stage of the process, the controls in place to mitigate stupid things happening were not working at all. Basic underwriting rules were thrown out the window. Loan officers were complicit in inflation of annual income on the applications.

    So how and why could this even be possible? It's understandable that banks would try to cheat so they would issue more loans. But it makes absolutely no sense that any bank would intentionally hurt itself by taking on bad bets. Also, aren't the banks heavily regulated in the United States? If so, how did the regulators not pick up on this?

    Stay tuned...

    P.S.

    FWIW, I wasn't at that particular bank for a credit review or a mortgage credit review per se. I just peeked around because I was curious. My bad.


    *cough, cough, any of you guys received your LHLabs Wave yet?

    ** As an aside, the process bounced totally other direction when I finally applied for a mortgage in 2010. Even though I was putting a 58% down payment, I had to make all sorts of phone calls to the credit agencies and banks on credit cards with zero balance that I had not touched for eight years. That was stressful.

    Continued: https://www.superbestaudiofriends.o...incorrect-audio-blog.7261/page-28#post-298493"]Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog
     
    Last edited: Jan 7, 2021
  2. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    I'm jumping ahead, but the solution is simple: do not try to violate the laws of the universe. I'll be going on a few different tangents to arrive at this conclusion.
     
  3. mscott58

    mscott58 Friend

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    If you're a geek and want to learn a lot more about the dangers and risks of the private debt markets (across the last two centuries no less) I've read sections (not all - I'm not that big of a geek) of this book which were quite good:
    [​IMG]
    A Brief History of Doom
    Two Hundred Years of Financial Crises by Richard Vague

    - https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15996.html.

    Cheers

    PS - Thanks Marv for your informative series!
     
  4. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    So @purr1n people will inflate their credit apps no matter what. I still see it on my end daily....
     
  5. ergopower

    ergopower Friend

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    Banks have no intention of taking on bad bets. Mortgages are just contracts that are resold at a profit as soon as possible.
     
  6. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    That was sort of a trick question. Practically all the big Thrifts: Washington Mutual ('memba them?), Countrywide, IndyMac, went under.
     
  7. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    THE MORTGAGE CRISIS ACCORDING TO MERV PART III

    In 2005, four agencies regulated banks: the FRB (Federal Reserve Board), the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation), the OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency), and the OTS (Office of Thrift Supervision). I'm intentionally leaving out the regulator for Credit Unions as they don't count for the purposes of this discussion.

    The OCC is a part of the Treasury department, and the FDIC is also the deal that insures our deposits so there are no banking runs like what happened in the Great Depression. You may know of the FDIC through the signage prominently displayed throughout at the teller windows "Each depositor insured to at least $250,000 (it used to be $100,000 back then and this signage is required by regulation.) If this isn't confusing enough, the regulator of any bank is dependent upon its charter. If we wanted to start a bank under a national charter, we would have to go to the OCC. If we wanted to start a bank under a state charter, we would either go to the FDIC or FRB. Because California loves to have its own government institutions in parallel with the Feds, California banks would also be subject to regulation by the California Department of Financial Institutions***. However, all savings and loans, or thrifts were regulated by the OTS.*

    Like people, these institutions have their different personalities. In my experience, the OCC was the toughest. Tough, but fair. They weren't unreasonable, but they'd make you think about why you would be taking certain risks. If you could make an intelligent case, they'd let you slide. If you couldn't, they'd "write you up"**. The FRB seemed to care about the brainier stuff, the investments, a top down approach, rather than pick apart the little technical stuff. The FDIC being the largest, was more all over all the place, but it was a solid regulator with strong supervisors, and who would tear you apart on consumer regulations. The OTS? Those who may have done some reading may have heard the word "lax". Let me tell you this: Those guys were a f'ing joke. I'm not saying this in hindsight.

    The way the regulators oversaw the community banks was this: 1) examination visits every two or three years, depending upon how badly they thought you sucked in terms of regulatory compliance and risks that you posed to society at large; 2) annual internal audits, where the detailed work performed - this was were my firm came in with specialized knowledge to help out the smaller banks. The regulators would read our firm's various audit reports; and vice versa, we would also read the regulators' reports. I remember coming in doing audits reading OTS reports and just shaking my head. Either their examiners were incompetent or just didn't give a shit. Everybody in the banking business knew that if you wanted to start a financial institution and get away with murder, you'd want to start a Thrift and be regulated under the OTS.

    This is exactly what happened at Countrywide, the nation's largest mortgage originator at that time. Around 2006, they were able to extricate themselves from their national OCC charter and convert themselves into a savings bank, to be regulated by the OTS. Let me say that the OCC was pissed about this! They knew shenanigans were going to happen. The FDIC even tried to get involved, warning their OTS of funny stuff that they saw throughout the years, only to be rebuffed by the OTS.

    In the end, Countrywide imploded and took the head of the OTS, John Reich with it. Years later after the worse passed, the OTS, deemed ineffective, was folded into the OCC. Good riddance! John Reich was blamed for a lot of shit and all of it is true. However, I don't think he was solely to blame. The OTS was a joke before he came on board in 2005.

    As to the question "Aren't the banks heavily regulated in the United States? If so, how did the regulators not pick up on this?" Now you know the answer. There was one lax regulator, the OTS. And all of the big savings banks which failed (Countrywide, Washington Mutual, IndyMac, and Downey) had the OTS as their regulator. A secondary reason would be turf wars among the regulatory agencies, namely the OTS, who wanted to be different and didn't want to play ball with the other agencies, which do tend to play well together.

    --

    *This mess is the reason why the CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) was created. I understand the reasons for this. If consumers can not easily determine the regulator of the bank, then how could consumers file a complaint? Personally, I was against the creation of the CFPB for several reasons: 1) we didn't need yet another government entity performing duplicate functions; 2) a newer agency will have a more likely chance of being nerfed politically - we've already seen this happen; 3) it was mostly a matter of a communications issue with consumers - the FDIC could have simply been appointed to serve as point for this function; 4) ultimately, fix what's slightly broken instead of adding a new part.

    A buddy of mine got screwed with a credit card payment deferment by Bank of America where they promised him his credit rating would not take a hit. It turned out not to be true. He asked me for help. I found out that BoA was regulated by the OCC. I wrote a letter to the CEO of Bank of America and copied the OCC, FDIC, and the California DFI. The FDIC was copied because they dealt the most with consumer-related compliance issues. In a matter of days, my friend received a letter from the CEO's office with a promise to rectify the situation. After the situation was fixed, BoA politely asked for a letter back confirming that everything was set right with the credit agencies. They directly admitted that they needed this to satisfy the FDIC since we copied the FDIC! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

    As an insider, I used my knowledge to get a big bank, one that doesn't give a shit about you and the $27 in your checking account, to respond and fix things in a matter of days. With the CFPB in place today, I'm concerned that I wouldn't be able to get such things done. I worry that the FDIC or OCC would go tell me to file a complaint with the CFPB, where it would languish in eternity, since these guys, not being the regulators of the banks, might not have the power to do anything.

    **Bank audit speak. If stuff was minor, there was always the option of delivering the findings verbally. "Write 'em up" for minor stuff happens when someone at the bank pisses off the examiner or auditor. Auditors are people too. Feed them coffee and donuts, be prepared, and take them seriously, and they will be happy.

    ***California DFI. Colossal waste of state taxer payer's money. I was onsite at at bank who was undergoing an Information Security examination by the California DFI. The DFI examiner, being injured or disabled was conducting this examination remotely. I'm not sure how it's possible to conduct an Information Security examination solely through the phone and emailed paper documents without inspecting computer systems, routers, firewalls, core processing, etc. The DFI always seemed to be one of those weird state agencies based in San Francisco that hired only disabled minorities or immigrants who were barely not qualified to do the job. In other words, welfare for friends of friends. My guess is that the pay was shit.

    ****You guys may want to take note of who the Senators were in the banking committees throughout this time and who they accepted money from for their campaigns. It's pretty ugly and why I think that people who vote on party or advertised idealistic grounds are misguided. The only reason the USA doesn't suffer from corruption is because we've legalized it, codified what is permitted. We need term limits and prohibition of lobbying activities post-term.
     
    Last edited: Apr 28, 2020
  8. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    Man this sounds too much like my job. Stop it man.
     
  9. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    THE MORTGAGE CRISIS ACCORDING TO MERV PART IV

    So why was the OTS, the regulators of the savings banks, a joke? I would lay the blame at successive US Presidential administrations and Congress. We're talking both sides of the aisle. Their goals were laudable: ensure that Americans be able to live the American Dream - that is "own" their own home. It started with the Clintons and continued along with Bush 2. I seem to recall a Bush 2 State of the Union address where he specifically spoke about this.

    The regulatory agencies, driven by political agendas, started to loosen their lending standards to ensure that underprivileged communities were adequately served. You see, there is this piece of regulation called the Community Reinvestment Act; however much I hate to say this, compliance with the CRA can be kinda subjective. In a nutshell, the CRA maintains that if you operate a bank, you can't refuse to serve poor or dark-skinned people in the area. For banks, this can be problematic as banks can't put a gun to peoples' heads and force them to bank with them! I recall being the Compliance Officer a startup bank that had a branch in Pleasanton and being freaked out the night before the day of the examination regarding our compliance with the CRA. The reason is that the city of Pleasanton was part of Alameda County, and Alameda County included the city of Oakland, which was about 20-25 miles northwest. Pleasanton is very white. Oakland not so much so. We passed. The reason we did was that we drew our assessment area as to include Oakland, and just flat out admitted we maybe only had one or two customers from Oakland. I guess the examiner was satisfied that we weren't being dickheads, pulling off crap like intentionally excluding Oakland from our assessment area in our CRA binder (which by regulation needs to be stored at every branch. The next time you are at your bank, ask for a copy of the CRA file for kicks, especially if you are not white.)

    Without getting too much into the details, from the Clintons onwards, there was a little bit of back and forth with loosening and tightening of lending standards trending toward loosening in the longer term. The heads of the regulatory agencies (discussed in Part III) are appointed by the executive branch. Since these regulatory agencies are bureaucratic, it usually takes about three to four years for the desired policy to take effect. I used to say that how strictly they regulate depends upon which way the wind blows in Washingon, with Republican administrations tending to loosen up on consumer and financial compliance and the Democratic administrations going the other way, except when it came to servicing minorities. I always felt that things were most right about two years after the White House changed hands from one party to the other. As I like to say, not too tight and not too loose. The middle path: Not hard objective like ASR. Not pure subjective like HF.

    By 2005, keeping in mind Bush 2 was also part of the "every American should own their own home" act, it was pretty much anything goes in terms of down payment and lending standards. I'm pretty sure my cat could have owned a home. Every other person I knew who bought a home around this time had a no money down ARM loan.

    I had intended this to the last point of this series, but I think it's best to bring it up now.
    The problem with extending homeownership to everyone is not everyone should be "owning" a home or taking out a home mortgage. Saving up for a deposit takes enormous discipline, and if you live in an expensive state, some innate qualities. These qualities could be rich parents, getting lucky in DotCom 1.0 or 2.0, or being able to make a lot of money. I know it's not fair, but that is life. It's not going to be very popular to say this, but some people should just never be able to own their homes. And to set forth a plan so that all Americans own their own homes is just violating the laws of the universe. It's like saying all Americans should be able to do at least one pull up. It just ain't gonna happen.

    Every time we try to violate the laws of the universe, the universe bites back - hard.
    [​IMG]

    For context, going back further in time to 1985:
    [​IMG]

    BTW, the universe is biting Americans back hard with SARS-2 because of our never seen before economic growth with no end. The universe always finds a way.

    continued: https://www.superbestaudiofriends.o...incorrect-audio-blog.7261/page-28#post-298548
     
    Last edited: Jan 7, 2021
  10. penguins

    penguins Friend, formerly known as fp627

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    MFW when housing prices don't come back down despite charts :(

    In all seriousness, IMO the 2 biggest problems here would be what I half ranted/alluded to about regarding
    1) general lack of human ability to intrinsically* (*keyword) grasp exponential growth and it's implications. Even those who work in finance or stats all day I think sometimes don't quite get it. I think Albert Bartlett explains it very well.

    2) A little hesitant to say as I've encountered a lot of resistance from people all over the spectrum for saying this - but overpopulation may be an even bigger issue. When I was in HS and first thought this, I would say I was still a little more naive and thought it was only an issue due to excessive consumption in the developed world or say China, but as time has gone on, I'm starting to think that is a much smaller part of this problem.

    If we could resolve both of the above, most other problems wouldn't be too hard to solve - including housing, world pollution, borked financial system. The only things that would remain would be stupidity of governments, but maybe this is just something man kind is doomed to permanently.
     
  11. Superexchanger

    Superexchanger Friend

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    Nice to see some of the curtain pulled back on the regulatory behavior leading up to the crash. I was pretty young in the run-up and collapse of the broader housing market, but I remember numerous people my family knew being impacted. To see the fluctuation in home ownership over the 2005-2015 period representing only about 6% decline is interesting.

    To look at this closely, it seems like some kind of mean reversion was already happening a few years before the subprime mortgage crisis spiraled out and affected other markets, and that passing through that recession didn't accelerate the ownership decline (at least, by the data above).

    Any insights as to what was happening there?
     
  12. dmckean44

    dmckean44 In a Sherwood S6040CP relationship

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    Marv's retelling for the Mortgage Crisis doesn't really start early enough. The reason the OTS was so lax was because the thrifts that were left and somehow managed to survive the S&L Crisis were in extremely poor shape financially.
     
  13. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    THE MORTGAGE CRISIS ACCORDING TO MERV PART V

    The concept of the thrift should have been thrown away decades ago. Under thrift restrictions, they just couldn't compete with banks. I guess the idea behind thrifts was slow and steady, hold on to consumers' savings and give them mortgage loans, but this just doesn't work, because the people who run them do want to make money commensurate with their investment. They most certainly won't work now given today's near-zero interest rate environment. I don't know too much about the details of the 80s S&L scandal other than what I read. I was young and only remember various savings banks, where I had savings accounts, disappear around this time: Glendale Savings and Loan, Crocker Bank (the one with the Cocker Spaniel mascot), etc. It also taught me that esteemed Democrats such as Senator Alan Cranston could also be corrupt.

    The funny thing with these savings and loan banks is that over time, none of them held on to their mortgages. They just sold them off on the secondary market and in essence, only acted as the originator and clearinghouse for the loans, and in some cases, the servicer. The mortgage statement that you get from your bank today doesn't hold your mortgage loan. They just send you your statement, accept your payment, take care of your impound account for taxes and insurance, and provide customer service.

    Before the mortgage crisis, Countrywide was a bank at first, regulated by the OCC. It's fearless leader, seeing how lucrative the home mortgage market was in the mid-2000s, decided to convert it to a savings bank, which also came with the benefits of being regulated by a lax OTS. Countrywide went all out, opening-up mortgage branches all over the country, hiring tons of people, expecting that this expansion would last forever.

    I asked an older colleague who specialized in credit how the heck these savings banks went out of business if mostly what they did was originate the loan and sold it off to the investment banks. Other than overexpansion, the reason is that they acted as a temporary clearinghouse for the mortgage loans until they could be sold 30-90 days later. In many cases, the investment banks themselves fronted these savings banks some of the money to cover the funds to be paid upon closing. The thing is, when the shit hit the fan, it happened very quickly. Practically overnight, the investment banks suddenly told the savings banks: we ain't buying more of your shit and we ain't loaning you any money so you can fund these shitty mortgages.

    So basically, these savings banks ended up sitting on a bunch of turds. The panic then spread, and these turds ended up as flaming turds. It would appear that the bigger the savings bank, the more turds they held. I guess win big also means lose big. A few smaller savings banks that I worked with actually survived and are still around today.

    Many other reasons contributed to the mortgage crisis: asset bubbles brought about after dot-com 1.0 because Greenspan held interest rates so low to aid in the recovery; Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac, the quasi-governmental corporations who guaranteed these loans; to a small extent, repeal of Glass-Stegall (CitiBank comes to mind as one that started dipping into investments); politicians who not only spoke publicly about the need for all Americans to own their home but were pressured paid to close their eyes and cover their ears by entities with short-term interests; strange financial instruments, which I still don't totally understand today, credit default swaps, sold by AIG.

    It was a colossal mess on so many levels. Maybe you guys can now better understand why I don't take sides and see all politicians, as particularly full of shit, and totally corruptible as how they are portrayed in Stanley Kubrick films. And how I get mad when people simply point to one source as the cause, e.g. "banks are evil", "corporations are evil", "Glass-Stegall", "it's Clinton's fault", it's Trump's fault", etc. It's never this simple. However, it always comes down to a common denominator: trying to violate the laws of the universe.

    Now I'd like to run for Senate in California when Feinstein retires. I vow that I will make college education free for everyone and make all cars run on renewable energy by 2035. Who wants to vote for me?
     
    Last edited: Apr 30, 2020
  14. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Lag time. It takes a while (years) for banks to foreclose and it takes people time (again years) to realize that their investment was shit. I've been guilty of the latter myself, hence why I put in limit orders with my stocks to immediately dump them when they lose 10-20% depending upon their speculative nature. Better to lose 10-20% instead of 50%.

    Yes, it actually did take that many years for the flaming turds to clear out.

    In the years leading up the crisis, no banker I knew bought a home. That is no teller, no credit analyst, no bank auditor, no branch supervisor, no back-office operations, etc. Some people who hawked mortgage loans did, but I didn't consider them real bankers. They were ar stupid as their customers. After all, you have to believe in the product that you sell.
     
    Last edited: Apr 30, 2020
  15. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    Just a FYI not all Banks/Credit Unions sell their mortgage loan from the beginning to the end. The Bank I work for have plenty of Mortgages where not all of them are later sold off to the secondary market. They been inhouse for decades, which is crazy if you think about it. Like any other bank, they will sometimes sell the mortgage to someone else or they will acquire one. Some banks are so focused on customer service that depending on the mortgage they will keep it until the end.

    One of the biggest Credit Unions locally are very famous for not selling any of their mortgages. They want to keep everything inhouse so you can do all your banking with them. Of course they want your business, cross-collateralization is one of the biggest weapons the Credit Union have if you file Bankruptcy on their ass. It's easier to file Bankruptcy on a Bank than on a Credit Union since almost all the different financial products with a Credit Union has that infamous cross-collateralization clause where everything is tied up. File BK with a $20,000 Car Loan, $15,000 Credit Card, and $25,000 Line of Credit against the Credit Union? Well if you want to keep that car you have to repay $60,000 because that clause includes everything! I love my Credit Union but I'll never do a Mortgage with them. I'm not going to lose the rest of my shit and get banned from doing business with that Credit Union most likely ever again (Credit Unions like Bank can ban you from doing business with them for life, but Credit Unions are more strict on this than Banks of course).


    Humans are a sucker for a security blanket and safe spaces for generations.

    You are not Jewish enough. You guys had Hayakawa* in the Senate years ago, and I dunno if Cali are tolerate enough for another Asian in the Senate. I heard the more pale white looking you are, the higher the chances you can get elected nowadays. I heard being Jewish gives you an advantage.

    *Merv is a borderline reincarnation of S.I Hayakawa. Because if we had Hayakawa speak his way in our PC environment today, everyone would lose their f'ing minds! And the sad thing is, Hayakawa is right on certain points!!!!!!

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/arch...s-at-85/761fdf45-6557-4b88-99fc-1a66d5628e43/
     
  16. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Yeah. CUs are different. I do highly recommend that people bank with CUs. But yeah, need to be careful with cross-collateralization which they love. It is a union of borrowers after all so they want to ensure that everyone is protected. Enforced socialism - no f**k ups allowed.

    --

    Hayakawa hated hippie protestors? So do I.

    I almost lost it at UC Davis when my everybody in my English class bailed to attend to protest against small rate UC hikes. I could care less for the UC system, but they just wanted to skip class. Dipshits.
     
  17. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    Yep, I have almost everything with my CU except for something like a Mortgage. f**k that. Back when I did BK work the BK attorneys almost have everything with a Credit Union except for a Mortgage and maybe a Car Loan. Cross-collateralization is no f'ing joke. Credit Unions get you with a service and a smile, but no one reads their agreements. Like my local Credit Union has a simple policy: You f**k us up once you are done. No losses. And yes, it's one of the few examples that "Socialism" works.

    Hayakawa is f'ing amazing, but I guess his mouth and attitude was too much for the Senator with regards to getting shit done. Here's some of my favorites from him:

    "Although he later supported the treaties giving Panama ultimate control of the Panama Canal, he delighted conservatives during the campaign when he said that the United States should keep it, because "we stole it fair and square." On another occasion, when asked for his views on a referendum on dog racing, he replied that he didn't "give a good goddamn about greyhounds one way or another."

    "He angered many others when he defended the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II as "perhaps the best thing that could have happened," because it helped integrate them with the rest of society later."

    "In later years, Dr. Hayakawa sponsored a constitutional amendment to make English the official language of the United States, claiming that a command of English was "the fastest way out of the ghetto." He opposed bilingual education in public schools and bilingual ballots as "foolish and unnecessary.""

    "“What my colleagues seem to be forgetting is [that] we also have an obligation to the 17,500 or more students—white, black, yellow and brown—who are not on strike and have every right to expect continuation of their education.”"

    When told that McDonald’s restaurant chain operated 100 franchise restaurants in Japan, he replied, “What a terrible revenge for Pearl Harbor.”

    Hayakawa wrote an essay for Harper’s Weekly in which he gainsaid the wisdom of his own appointment to the Senate Budget Committee. “This was ironic because I have the greatest difficulty balancing my own checkbook, and my wife handles our investments,” Hayakawa noted. “Putting me on the Budget Committee when I don’t understand money at all seemed to me to be appallingly irresponsible on the part of the United States Senate.” He added, though, that after being on the committee for several months, he discovered that work on a committee that he described as being comprised of free spenders only involved simple math. “It’s all simple addition,” Hayakawa deadpanned. “You don’t even have to know subtraction.”

    When student radicals heckled him at a campaign appearance, he asked the crowd, “Do the rest of you want to hear my speech?” When the crowd replied resoundingly that they did, Hayakawa shot back, “Well, would you tell those bastards to shut up?”



    Yeah, funny shit that is mostly true IMO he said. However, not a great Senator. Discover your inner Hayakawa Merv.
     
  18. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

    Staff Member Pyrate BWC
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    It's more like I'm not a member of one of the powerful San Francisco based political families. A lot of people in California don't realize this, which was the basis of my disliking Gavin Newsom. This is European monarchy shit in another form. Feinstein and Boxer are members of the elite SF club too. Harris paid her dues and has recently been admitted. Fellow Democrat Loretta Sanchez who ran for the Senate seat against Harris had no chance. Sanchez is from down south here - she's not part of the SF / Sacramento club.

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: May 1, 2020
  19. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

    Pyrate Slaytanic Cliff Clavin
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    What happens when a guy named William shows up and says he owns it all because he's king now and it's good to be the king?
     
  20. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    A guy named Gavin already did that. There wasn't much opposition.
     

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