Nothing's the matter with KANSAS

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

My apologies for breaking copyright law, but you libs need to pay attention to Red America bacause we've had just about all your crap we can tolorate...

Here in the heart of Kansas, the sky isn't falling and Chicken Little isn't running around without a head. Community banks like mine are still making loans and serving the needs of customers.

I used to worry about competing in the world of mega "too-big-to-fail" banks. But now I know community banks offer something the monsters can never offer -- real personal service. Many financial-type businesses say they offer the same thing, but they usually don't list personal numbers in the phone book and probably aren't driving the volunteer fire truck. My father always told me that character repaid many more debts than collateral ever would. Community banks form long-term relationships with customers.

During the farm crisis of the 1980s the over-line credits we had placed with the city correspondent banks were called. A community bank used to rely on participating loans with large metro banks. For example, if my bank had a regulatory loan limit of a million dollars and I made a two million dollar loan, I would "sell" the over-line to a large bank. These large banks suddenly suspended and called all rural credits. This is probably similar to what is happening to borrowers who use super-large banks in today's panic environment. There was nothing wrong with these loans but every small bank suffered from this irrational wrath.

A group of fellow bankers formed an ad hoc loan-pooling arrangement and we traded loans. Not a dime was lost, no borrowers were sold out and we didn't need a government bailout. It did instill a fierce sense of independence and self reliance.

Today we are reacting to a crisis that absolutely everyone knew was going to happen. Can you tell me that the entire congressional delegation from California didn't read a newspaper or watch any TV when unregulated brokers were offering 100% loans and allowing borrowers to make up their income?

Appraisal rules were established after the savings-and-loan debacle. The brokers and packagers weren't regulated so some appraisers really had a field day being creative. And now the government thinks we need new rules? They didn't enforce the existing ones.

Community bankers get really ticked off when Treasury can, with the stroke of a pen, guarantee $50 billion in money-market mutual funds, including the tax exempt funds. These funds didn't participate in generating the guarantee dollars, weren't regulated, and aren't subject to Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) rules. Why does that not surprise me? The CRA was passed in 1977 to ensure that banks meet the credit needs of their local communities but in effect practically compelled some regulated lenders to make loans to people and projects that have limited ability to repay them. Billions of these loans have been made, with a large percentage of the housing loans ending up at Fannie Mae. Community banks feel that if we must follow these CRA rules to comply with deposit insurance regulators, then anyone else receiving government guarantees should as well. Banks paid for all of the FDIC fund dollars as well as the operating costs of their regulators. We have been competing with these money-market funds for years, they mess up and now are handed a "get out of jail free" card.

All of the media pressure about this terrible crisis has really worried people. We community bankers must spend time reassuring folks that everything will be fine. The best way I have found to do that is to make more loans this September than we made a year ago, offer new products, and serve a fantastic group of customers with home loans at our bank where all is well and none are facing foreclosure.

If the government really wanted to help banks stimulate this economy, all that would be needed is a bonfire eliminating redundant red tape. While starter homes may cost a half-million dollars in some parts of this country, they are one-tenth of that here. So why does the borrower sign but three pieces of paper to process a $50,000 auto loan but needs two dozen-plus documents (which are never read) for a home purchase of the same amount? All that extra paperwork sure didn't protect anyone in this crisis.

Can anyone tell me why my small bank headquartered in a town of 1,100 is subject to the onerous rules of CRA, HMDA, CIP, FACTA, Red Flag and others? We have no red-lined areas or stop lights and everyone is making a low or moderate income. We were probably at the hospital when the borrower was born.

I am really concerned about my grandchildren's future being mortgaged by a $1 trillion porked-up bailout. But our small bank, along with many others, is alive and well and still making loans. To paraphrase the late great Kansas newspaperman William Allen White: What's right with Kansas are the more than 300 local banks taking care of Main Street.

Mr. Wyckoff is president of Labette Bank in southeast Kansas.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122307498894303825.html

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

Just as U.S. credit markets this week were close to the edge of the cliff, threatening capital-starved businesses large and small, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stepped in front of reporters and offhandedly announced:

"One of the individuals in the caucus today talked about a major insurance company. A major insurance company -- one with a name that everyone knows that's on the verge of going bankrupt. That's what this is all about." The next day, share prices fell sharply across the insurance industry.

Let us stipulate we do not think it necessary for even U.S. Senators to understand the internal mechanics of credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations. But if we have learned anything amid the panic over Bear, Lehman, Merrill and adventures in naked short-selling, it is that rumors can obliterate economic value, instantly.

The SEC has been issuing subpoenas for an investigation into rumor-driven market manipulation. Of course, Harry Reid stood up in broad daylight to talk about a troubled insurer "with a name that everyone knows," so his contribution was merely obtuse. And predictably destructive. The steep drop in the share prices of insurance companies Thursday destroyed wealth for uncounted middle-class investors holding onto stock in companies still considered healthy.

Some analysts said Senator Reid's remark didn't produce the entire sell-off in insurance stocks, just some of it. Markets were also under downward pressure from uncertainty about the financial-markets legislation in Congress. Still, did Mom and Pop shareholders of Met Life, Hartford or Prudential need Senator Reid belly-slamming onto their already fragile assets?

It calls to mind Senator Chuck Schumer's public suggestion in July that troubled IndyMac Bank "could face collapse." It did, after a deposit run. Senator Schumer said criticizing his action was akin to blaming "the fire on the guy who called 911." The nation's shareholders would sleep better at night if some Members of Congress enrolled in Arsonists Anonymous.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122307428150903783.html

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

George Bush's Democrat Wall Street Financial Guru yelled WMD's and the Democrats came running for votes again...





Yeah obama...




He promised the Black Caucus that he would tell bankruptcy judges to change principle and interest to keep, specifically, black home loaners solvent, rinse, repeat...,

...in order to get their votes for this.

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

Out of the West Comes an Alaska Cowgirl

It's Frontier Woman vs. Metrosexual Chic! Hold your breath -- who is going to win this clash of the archetypes? This is not just a matter of style -- Frontier Woman triggers a host of very real American associations -- self-reliance, strong family bonds, courage in the face of danger, moral strength, independent thinking.


On the other side, Metro Chic has its own hold on our Effete Elites. It all comes down to the Western Enlightenment versus Metro Socialism.


Sarah Palin is a mythic figure out of the American imagination. That why she scares the Effetes and Corruptocrats. She's John Wayne and Annie Oakley all rolled into one. Governor Palin is America's Everywoman, who faced and defeated the Corruptocrats in Alaska. Now she is heading up Main Street along with maverick John McCain, the Arizona sheriff, as the comfortable townsfolk are hiding scared under their beds.


And that big cattle baron on the hill? He's sneakily trying to undermine and destroy the Girl Deputy. He controls the newspapers and spreads vicious rumors, just his usual way of doing business. That's the meaning of the Credit "Crisis" and the packed hog sausage Congress just made, supposedly to save us from the Fraud Crisis. We have just seen the cover ripped off an open Washington DC secret --- the blatant ongoing exploitation by Democrats of Freddie and Fannie Home Fraud, which you and I will be paying for, for years to come.


Nothing could better symbolize the clash between our values and theirs. There's Franklin Raines, the 90 million dollar slickster, who told Congress a few years ago that Fannie and Freddie just made free money. Home loans carried no risk! Just open the spigot and it's beer and hog bellies for everybody.

James Lewis


http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/out_of_the_west_comes_an_alask.html

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

*chirp* *chirp* *chirp*



All my love, all my kissin’
You don’t know what you’ve been missin’, oh boy,

It’s palin to see,

OH! BOY!

(((LIPSTICK)))