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	<title>Citypaper Blogs &#187; Crash Course</title>
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	<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com</link>
	<description>City Paper&#039;s Blogs, Updated Daily</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Thu, 23 May 2013 19:04:00 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>Mortgage fraud appraiser sentenced to 15 months</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/04/mortgage-fraud-appraiser-sentenced-to-15-months/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/04/mortgage-fraud-appraiser-sentenced-to-15-months/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 19 Apr 2013 20:57:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Edward Ericson Jr.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Crash Course]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The News Hole]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=16108</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The appraiser who was crucial to an east side mortgage fraud scheme was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison this afternoon as more than 30 supporters looked on, some sobbing. “Oh my God,” someone in the packed courtroom shouted as the judge, James K. Bredar, sentenced David C. Christian to a sentence well below what’s called for by federal guidelines, which range toward four years. Christian admitted his role in 16 loans that cost lenders—most bailed out by federal taxpayers—nearly $2.5 million. The fraud was masterminded by a mortgage broker named Joshua Goldberg who, with his husband, has since fled to Israel. Goldberg was indicted in January but it is unclear when or if he will be extradited. Both the prosecution and defense agreed that Christian was “browbeaten” by Goldberg into providing bogus appraisals for small, unrenovated rowhouses in the Upper Fells Point neighborhood between 2004 and 2008. As City Paper revealed in a 2008 story, the houses were worth about $120,000 at the market’s peak. Christian’s appraisals valued them at $300,000. In some cases, photographs of renovated interiors were included in the appraisals in order to fool the lenders. Another central figure in the scheme, Ken Koehler, received [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<title>Josh Goldberg charged with mortgage fraud</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/01/josh-goldberg-charged-with-mortgage-fraud/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/01/josh-goldberg-charged-with-mortgage-fraud/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 22 Jan 2013 22:41:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Edward Ericson Jr.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Crash Course]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The News Hole]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fannie mae]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Freddie Mac]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[investigation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[joshua goldberg]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ken koehler]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mortgage fraud]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[scam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[shell game]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Taylor bean]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[upper fells point]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=15231</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A federal grand jury indicted mortgage broker Joshua S. Goldberg today, alleging he helped steal $2.5 million from various lenders through a mortgage fraud scheme in Baltimore. City Paper first outlined the scheme in this 2008 story. As the financial crisis worsened Goldberg and his husband, Bayardo Alvarez, continued to get big mortgages and not pay them back, apparently applied for a federal loan modification and, in the summer of 2011, emigrated to Israel, where they became a big deal in gay rights circles.  Alvarez’s citizenship was eventually confirmed under Israel&#8217;s &#8220;right of return&#8221; law, which does not always recognize gay, non-jewish spouses. According to the indictment Goldberg, operating what he called a “boutique” mortgage brokerage called Worthington Mortgage Group in Upper Fells Point, conspired with neighbor Kenneth Koehler, appraiser David Christian and several others obtain loans that they would never pay back. The indictment says Goldberg committed wire fraud by way of false and misleading appraisals, false HUD-1s (that’s the ur-document in mortgage lending), “fictitious employment information and false monthly income figures, which resulted in multiple loan defaults, foreclosures and losses to mortgage lending companies and financial institutions in excess of $2.5 million.” According to the indictment, Goldberg helped [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<title>Vote Obama Out—or You’re Fired!</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2012/10/vote-obama-out-or-youre-fired/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2012/10/vote-obama-out-or-youre-fired/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Oct 2012 20:58:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Edward Ericson Jr.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Campaign Beat]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Crash Course]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The News Hole]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=14572</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Gawker has a letter (also authenticated by our sister paper, Orlando Weekly) from Central Florida’s palace-building time share mogul, David Siegel, to his 8,000 employees. In it he tells them that if President Obama is re-elected, he’ll fire them all: &#8220;You see, I can no longer support a system that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, so will your opportunities.&#8221; Siegel tells his story of success, founding the company 42 years ago and driving an old car, working hard from his garage while his neighbors worked 40 hours and “spent every dime they earned.” It’s an inspiring story. It contrasts, however, with the story he told me and Jeff Billman in his office in the summer of 1999 as he tried (erroneously, it turned out) to evict the tenant in his $22,000-per-month house. That was quite an interview, and the link is still live. Siegel, 1999, recalling the rent-to-own store he opened in the early ‘60s in Miami: Soon Siegel had a store in Liberty City and a fleet of Volkswagon vans. His salesmen offered the refurbished sets to the area&#8217;s African-American residents for [...]]]></description>
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		<title>“Without Actually Doing Anything”</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2012/09/without-actually-doing-anything/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2012/09/without-actually-doing-anything/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 19 Sep 2012 15:36:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Edward Ericson Jr.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Crash Course]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The News Hole]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=14508</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[MoJo has an interesting vid of Mitt Romney laying it out to his base.  You’ve probably seen or heard about it. Most of the attention so far has been focused on his remarks about the “47 percent who are with [President Obama], who are dependent on government.” But later in the speech Romney says something a lot of right-wing rich guys think about The Markets: They&#8217;ll probably be looking at what the polls are saying. If it looks like I&#8217;m going to win, the markets will be happy. If it looks like the president&#8217;s going to win, the markets should not be terribly happy. There is something true about this, in a self-fulfilling, racist-asshole way. Circa 1991 I watched with amusement as Carrie Saxon Perry, who had been mayor of Hartford, Connecticut for some time, engineered the ouster of the city council members who opposed her (council&#8211;actually the deputy mayor&#8211;had the power there and then). The reaction to Perry&#8217;s election victory was additional capital flight&#8211;of the type that had been extant since the city became minority white around the early the 1980s. I believe NYC saw something similar when David Dinkins took the reins, and Harold Washington&#8217;s election as Chicago&#8217;s [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Baltimore vs. Banks</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2012/07/baltimore-vs-banks/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2012/07/baltimore-vs-banks/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 11 Jul 2012 13:24:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Edward Ericson Jr.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Crash Course]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The News Hole]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=14088</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The New York Times&#8216; Dealbook says Baltimore&#8217;s City Solicitor is &#8220;leading a battle in Manhattan Federal Court&#8221; against banks involved in the LIBOR scandal. &#8220;As unemployment climbed and tax revenue fell, the city of Baltimore laid off employees and cut services in the midst of the financial crisis. Its leaders now say the city’s troubles were aggravated by bankers’ manipulation of a key interest rate linked to hundreds of millions of dollars the city had borrowed.&#8221; There&#8217;s not much detail about the specific suit (who are the defendants? When was it filed? etc.) but never mind that for now, because you might not know what LIBOR is. LIBOR stands for London Inter-Bank Offered Rate. It&#8217;s the rate of interest that banks charge to lend each other money over night, or for loans up to 90 days. LIBOR is also a foundational interest rate on millions of other financial deals with sliding rates. Typically a person with, say, an adjustable rate home loan, will pay LIBOR plus two percent, or five, or whatever. Here&#8217;s a primer from last week&#8217;s The Economist magazine to get you up to speed on this. Turns out the banks told London regulators that they were offering [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Even on Labor Day, the Media Neglects Labor</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/09/even-on-labor-day-the-media-neglects-labor/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/09/even-on-labor-day-the-media-neglects-labor/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 06 Sep 2011 15:35:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Edward Ericson Jr.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Crash Course]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[labor day]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=10235</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[No news. No news about labor, on Labor Day, when unemployment is 9-plus percent and U-6 unemployment&#8211;which counts not only people without work seeking full-time employment, but also those who&#8217;ve become discouraged and stopped looking as well as those working part-time for economic reasons&#8211;is 16-plus percent. Lots of news about Sept. 11, 10 years later. News about the Grand Prix. (Which was certainly awesome!) News about European banks, &#8220;global gloom.&#8221; The Wall Street Journal has a feature story about Jeff Immelt of General Electric. And one about how wealthy &#8220;campers&#8221; are hiring crews to set them up at Burning Man. No news about labor. But some opinion pieces in The Washington Post. (And stupid opinion at that: &#8220;The middle-class &#8216;squeeze&#8217; long alleged by politicians is finally becoming reality. In the past it’s been hyped.&#8221;) Mother Jones has at least something. This chart idea is good, though the charts themselves aren&#8217;t all great. At some point in the not too distant past, &#8220;labor&#8221; became, to the media, a special interest group; some small and shrinking subset of people with grievances that don&#8217;t really matter to &#8220;us.&#8221; How that happened&#8211;when &#8220;us&#8221; is people who work, or want to work&#8211;is one of the great [...]]]></description>
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		<title>The End</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/05/the-end-2/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/05/the-end-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 03 May 2011 20:42:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Edward Ericson Jr.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Crash Course]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bailout]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[derivatives]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[foreclosure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fraud]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[market]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[poverty]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=9197</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[At the start of this blog, I predicted that the financial crash would cause the government to spend huge money bailing out the people who caused it, adding a great deal to the national debt and sparking a crisis of confidence in the country’s ability to repay it, which would lead to a policy of inflation so that all those dollars we have to pay back will be worth much less. That was in early September 2008, and the thing has played out just about that way. As of this writing there’s a nonsensical debate in Congress about whether we should raise the nation&#8217;s “debt ceiling,” with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner dourly warning that default would be the direct result of failure to do so, and ugly for us humans. Coupla weeks back, Standard and Poor’s even downgraded its “outlook” on U.S. government debt, triggering much tongue-clucking at least.  (Yet essentially no mention of the irony. These guys are down-rating our debt? Aren’t they the ones who told us&#8211;as they were paid to&#8211;that subprime mortgage debt was, always and everywhere, AAA? Aren’t they the ones who, whenever states tried to curb the criminality at the core of the subprime business [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Wall Street Don’t Give a Damn ‘Bout Its Bad Reputation</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/04/dont-give-a-damn-bout-my-reputation/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/04/dont-give-a-damn-bout-my-reputation/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:43:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Edward Ericson Jr.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Crash Course]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[joan jett]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[New York Times]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[steven davidoff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wall street]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[yves smith]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=9091</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Steven Davidoff at the Times’s dealbook comes through with an obvious, 20-years-late observation that Wall Street firms’ “reputations are dying” in the rubble of the bust and revelations of rampant, systematic chicanery. Fortunately, we have Yves Smith to put this in a corrective context. Far from “dying,” investment banks&#8217; reputations died decades ago amid the wholesale conversion of the conservative partnerships into publicly traded, quarterly results-oriented megafirms. Combined with the inevitable rise of the low-life, frat-jock bond trader mentality and a simultaneous, wholesale withdrawal of regulation, you get a crime spree the breadth of which is still not quite understood by, well, most folks at places like the New York Times. The comments under Smith’s post offer further insight, with one of her readers likening the Wall Streeters to addicts: “And so they hate their actions, they hate the world that lets them act, and they dehumanize the victims who suffer from it as a third means of rebellion — in that instinctive blood-level way that the strong hate the weak.” Joan Jett said it best, I think, just about the time this trend was getting legs: [youtube_embed]]]></description>
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		<title>Lender CEO Guilty in $3 Billion Fraud</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/04/lender-ceo-guilty-in-3-billion-fraud/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/04/lender-ceo-guilty-in-3-billion-fraud/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 20 Apr 2011 17:39:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Edward Ericson Jr.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Crash Course]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fannie mae]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Freddie Mac]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[joshua goldberg]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lee farkas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mortgage fraud]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[taylor bean and whitaker]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=9008</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A federal jury on Tuesday found the flamboyant founder and CEO of bankrupt Florida mortgage lender Taylor Bean and Whitaker guilty of fraud. Lee Farkas appears to be the first CEO convicted of a crime in the five-year-old mortgage crisis. He faces life in prison at his July sentencing. Farkas, a college dropout, founded Taylor Bean&#8211;TBW for short&#8211;in 1991 with $75,000. Despite sloppy accounting and lax underwriting that moved Fannie Mae to stop buying its loans in 2002, the company grew to become the 12th largest mortgage originator in the United States, with 2,400 employees and a corporate jet, before collapsing under the weight of alleged accounting frauds totaling at least $2.9 billion. In the end, prosecutors alleged, the company sold the same mortgages to three different entities. &#8220;It&#8217;s very common in our business to sell loans that don&#8217;t exist,” Farkas said on the witness stand last week, according to the Ocala Star Banner.  “It happens all the time. Mortgage banking is more an art than a science sometimes.&#8221; Freddie Mac, Fannie’s smaller brother, kept the company afloat during the housing bubble. In May, 2008 it called TBW its “number one lender in affordable housing products.” Fannie and Freddie are now [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
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		<title>Budget “Seriousness,” Defined</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/04/budget-seriousness-defined/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/04/budget-seriousness-defined/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Apr 2011 13:46:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Edward Ericson Jr.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Crash Course]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[budget]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[glenn beck]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[paul ryan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[spooge]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=8820</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As I write this, the countdown to government shutdown proceeds apace, with Republicans performing rhetorical double Luntzes to try to pin blame on Democrats. Amidst that pathetic kabuki we have what passes for “seriousness” in the budget proposal of one Paul Ryan, congressman from Wisconsin and chairman of the House Budget Committee. Ryan’s plan, cynically titled the “Path to Prosperity,” would give $125,000 tax break to everyone who earns a million per year, with much, much more due to those who skim off more . . . like this cow flop who made an estimated $32 million last year. “I love you,” Glenn Beck told Ryan, in introduction, on his radio show Tuesday. And why wouldn’t he? Ryan is proposing to give Beck $4 million in annual tax relief. (Beck, of course, may make quite a bit less next year as Fox canceled his TV gig, but he’ll still “earn” millions touting conspiracy theories and oozing anti-Semitism.) According to Beck, unions = “communists, socialists, and revolutionaries.” I don’t think even ol’ Joe McCarthy ever got his head that far up his own rectum. But Glenn Beck and Paul Ryan were made for each other. What is shocking is how much [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Taylor Bean Criminal Trial Underway</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/04/taylor-bean-criminal-trial-underway/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/04/taylor-bean-criminal-trial-underway/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 05 Apr 2011 21:26:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Edward Ericson Jr.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Crash Course]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=8764</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Many words have been written about the alleged fact that &#8220;nobody goes to jail&#8221;  for the giant theft perpetuated on us all. But one guy—Taylor Bean and Whitaker  founder Lee Farkas—is now on trial for fraud in Virginia. According to testimony from just one of the lender’s executives who has already pleaded guilty (and&#8211;YES!&#8211;faces five years in the can), the Florida-based fraud factory should’ve been dead in 2002, when Fannie Mae dropped it like a bad habit. But Freddie Mac had faith. As we mentioned quite some time ago,  Taylor-Bean’s collapse dragged down the then-giant Colonial Bank. Forbes’ Walter Pavlo puts an Auburn-vs.-&#8217;Bama twist on that, and the Crimson Tide remains very high. Though Taylor Bean was Freddie Mac’s “number one lender in affordable housing products,”  in Baltimore’s Southeastern neighborhoods it was also the source of easy money for at least one ring of, let’s say, remarkably overoptimistic house-flippers. Mostly bankrupt but still un-indicted, they continue to chase the American Dream. One apparently has a home for sale on Guilford Avenue&#8211;just $464,000.]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
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		<title>Insanity and its Malcontents</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/04/insanity-and-its-malcontents/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/04/insanity-and-its-malcontents/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 01 Apr 2011 21:18:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Edward Ericson Jr.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Crash Course]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bloomberg]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[general electric]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[poverty line]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[taxes]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=8752</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I keep doing the same basic post over and over, hoping something will change. I know what that makes me, so this is one of the last posts I’m going to do in this blog (though you can still find me over here occasionally). It’s had a reasonably good run, made its point. Time to move on. But still. Holy crap, every day. Here are three more stories that, once again, underscore the, uh, score. The Times comes out with this piece taking stock of the wages necessary for any kind of decent life in the United States of America. It surely won’t surprise many to learn that the figure for a single adult is about $30,000. The official poverty line, by contrast, is just north of $10,000. But the higher figure, ginned up by the nonprofit group Wider Opportunities for Women, includes such extravagances as savings—you know, for the future?—of $1,776. If we eliminate those, and arbitrarily remove “taxes&#8221; from the equation (‘cause everyone knows the poor don’t actually pay taxes—everyone on the right anyway), we arrive at a figure of $24,000 per annum, still considerably more than twice the poverty rate. What percentage of working Americans currently earn [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Enron E-mails Teach Reading Machines</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/03/enron-e-mails-teach-reading-machines/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/03/enron-e-mails-teach-reading-machines/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 07 Mar 2011 17:29:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Edward Ericson Jr.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Crash Course]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=8339</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The New York Times has a story Saturday about computer programs that not only read, but analyze millions of documents to determine the relationships between the folks mentioned in them and even the writers’ criminal intent. It’s not news that computers are reading—and acting on—written documents. The Asshole Class is automating its cash harvesting operations by just these means. The Times piece is about programs that read e-mails and other documents pried loose by lawsuits. Given that a computer can read more documents than 100 junior associates, the story focuses on the threat computers pose to lawyers’ employment prospects. This is not surprising, considering how important lawyers are to journalists. Check the front page of a few newspapers and note the stories that originate in court. You think reporters stake out every court and sift through all filed cases searching for the juicy ones? But anyway. The remarkable part of the piece comes near the end, where University of Massachusetts Amherst computer scientist Andrew McCallum says the new computer programs are largely based on a cache of more than five million Enron e-mails he bought in 2003 and made available to other researchers: Since then, it has become the foundation [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/03/enron-e-mails-teach-reading-machines/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Financial Meltdown Caused by Subversion, Pentagon Contractor Supposes</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/03/financial-meltdown-caused-by-subversion-pentagon-contractor-supposes/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/03/financial-meltdown-caused-by-subversion-pentagon-contractor-supposes/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 01 Mar 2011 21:02:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Edward Ericson Jr.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Crash Course]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[kevin d freeman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[washington times]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=8272</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Washington Times reports that a man whose job is finding outside threats to national security has located one—in the current near-depression. Kevin D. Freeman concluded in a 2009 report “obtained by the Washington Times” that such threats of economic sabotage do, indeed, deserve more study: In an interview with The Times, Freeman said his report provided enough theoretical evidence for an economic warfare attack that further forensic study was warranted. He suspects Chinese or Islamic fundamentalists. The WaTimes: &#8220;The reality of the situation today is that foreign-based hedge funds perpetrating bear raid strategies could do so virtually unmonitored and unregulated on behalf of enemies of the United States,” the report says. That Greenwich or Manhattan-based hedge funds (operating on behalf of heroes of the new economy) might have done it in return for gigantic profits is not discussed in the report, possibly because the Pentagon does not dispense contracts to those who seek national security threats on Wall Street. The WaTimes article is getting a lot of cites around the web, presumably because it feeds some deep need. I can’t find too much about Freeman other than this report, so I suppose my initial theory—that the Pentagon will perpetually [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/03/financial-meltdown-caused-by-subversion-pentagon-contractor-supposes/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<title>Foreclosing on the Bank</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/02/foreclosing-on-the-bank/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/02/foreclosing-on-the-bank/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 24 Feb 2011 22:50:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Edward Ericson Jr.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Crash Course]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[respa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wells fargo]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=8232</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Come the revolution, this guy will be leading legions. Try to picture that.]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Sachs Appeal</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/02/sachs-appeal/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/02/sachs-appeal/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 17 Feb 2011 20:44:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Edward Ericson Jr.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Crash Course]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[budget]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[jeffrey sachs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[taxes]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=8133</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Twenty years ago he was counted (incorrectly, he maintains) among the neoliberal shock doctrine folks. Now he’s a raving lunatic (by Manhattan/Washington, D.C., standards, anyway). Here’s Jeffrey Sachs talking about President Obama’s proposed federal budget and the Republicans’ more antisocialist response (pdf), basically saying that they both cut too much while refusing to raise taxes. Key point: In December 2010, Obama gave $900 billion in revenue to the richest 1 percent of Americans, by extending the Bush tax breaks for those who make more than $250,000 a year. Two months later: crisis in revenue and the “need” to cut spending for things poor people rely on. As if tax breaks for the wealthiest weren’t an inalienable Constitutional right! Like I said: kah-RAY-zee!]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>The Hacks (Part One)</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/02/the-hacks-part-one/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/02/the-hacks-part-one/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 15 Feb 2011 20:08:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Edward Ericson Jr.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Crash Course]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dodd-frank act]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[economics]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=8099</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As an uncredentialed observer of the politics of macroeconomic policy, I have often wondered just how transparently cheesy the supposed smart guys will get before someone calls them on it. The answer came yesterday as I looked at this (PDF) alleged research report launched by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on behalf of the derivative market’s most influential compulsive gamblers. The report—all seven highly academic and technical pages of it—claims that the mild rules proposed by the Dodd-Frank Act will cost between 100,000 and 130,000 American jobs. It’s absurd on its face, and Simon Johnson at his blog The Baseline Scenario called them out and then Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times’ DealBook committed journalism.  He called up the alleged “advisors” of the company—Keybridge Research—that published this laughable lobby effort masquerading as independent research. One of these supposed advisors was the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz. Sorkin: “This is the first I have heard about it,” said Mr. Stiglitz, who just returned home on Sunday after a five-week trip abroad. He said he was surprised to be listed on the group’s Web site. After reading the study, he said, “It’s not a very good report.” Within a few hours, [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/02/the-hacks-part-one/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<title>Education to Win the Future!</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/02/education-to-win-the-future/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/02/education-to-win-the-future/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 12 Feb 2011 00:51:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Edward Ericson Jr.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Crash Course]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=8054</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[So if we’re gonna “win the future” (in the president’s winning phrase) we’re all gonna need s’more book-learnin’, according to just about all the important economists in the United States. Just a few months back, one of them, employed at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Va., told me just that to my face as I was stuffing it on the bank’s dime. So you know it’s settled consensus. Why anyone would question this obvious wisdom is anyone&#8217;s guess. But two new articles do. First, consider Remapping Debate’s longish discussion of the Education über alles meme and what it means to economic policy. The piece says that more higher education is not a “magic bullet”—which is itself a bold achievement in these days of near unquestioned fealty to the education mantra. But then the story goes a bit further, exploring how and why the “It’s Education, Stupid” idea has been sucking all the oxygen out of economic policy discussions for a generation. Turns out making expanded higher education the be-all, end-all conveniently puts the blame for failure on ordinary idiots, while drawing attention away from stuff like the destruction of unions, the shrinking minimum wage, and a whole host of [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Krugman Needs a Weatherman</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/02/krugman-needs-a-weatherman/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/02/krugman-needs-a-weatherman/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 07 Feb 2011 21:21:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Edward Ericson Jr.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Crash Course]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[commodities trading]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[global climate change]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hedge funds]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[New York Times]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[paul krugman]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=7995</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Times’ Paul Krugman had a boffo column yesterday on the link between high global food prices and global warming. “Boffo” because it’s sure to piss off the global warming deniers and so get lots of traffic and links, while it simultaneously bolsters his sensible centrist credentials. Krugman has centrist credentials, you ask? Yeah. Krugman is a Keynesian standard-bearer who thinks the economic system is pretty good, and can be perfected with just a wee bit of regulatory tinkering. Part of that belief centers on his faith—oft repeated—that crazy price spikes in commodities markets can be explained by supply and demand. The converse—that speculative shenanigans are distorting the market—Krugman bats away as the bleating of conspiracy theorists and French presidents. In Krugman’s world, it simply cannot be true that speculative interests regularly bend entire markets. Because if that were true, reform might demand something more muscular than regulatory tinkering. It’s unthinkable. So Krugman goes on today (as he has previously here and here and here and here) about how fundamentals rule every market and “what really stands out is the extent to which severe weather events have disrupted agricultural production,&#8221; then sums up his greenhouse theory succinctly: As always, you [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/02/krugman-needs-a-weatherman/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<title>The Official Report of What Happened</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/01/the-official-report-of-what-happened/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2011/01/the-official-report-of-what-happened/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 27 Jan 2011 22:40:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Edward Ericson Jr.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Crash Course]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[alan greenspan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bill mcbride]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[calculated risk]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[financial crisis inquiry commission]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=7838</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Report is published. Get yours here. I’m going to take my time and read it, but in the meantime, check out what Bill McBride at Calculated Risk says. He saw this coming and is way smarter than I am—as evidenced by his frequent hiking vacations and deft blogging ability, at least. McBride was ringing regulators’ phones half a decade ago to ask what gives. He says he was told the (now familiar) refrain, that then President George W. Bush’s political appointees were preventing grunt-level regulators from doing their jobs—and, of course, the Godfather: . . . one person told me &#8220;Greenspan is throwing his body in front of all efforts to tighten standards.&#8221; The report apparently pulls few punches citing the failure of credit rating agencies, banks, over-the-counter derivatives, and a systemic breakdown in accountability and ethics. . . . For example, our examination found, according to one measure, that the percentage of borrowers who defaulted on their mortgages within just a matter of months after taking a loan nearly doubled from the summer of 2006 to late 2007. This data indicates they likely took out mortgages that they never had the capacity or intention [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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