…the rich have stopped paying the mortgage at a rate that greatly exceeds the rest of the population.

By “rich” they mean people with a wealth of assets or high earnings, right? Wrong. They mean people with million-dollar mortgages, i.e., seven figures worth of debt.

If you’ve been following the mortgage mess you’ve doubtless heard that a big part of the problem was people buying homes they couldn’t really afford with little-to-nothing down and an interest rate poised to reset. The playbook was to capitalize on skyrocketing home prices, refinance before the interest rates rose and pocket the home’s appreciation.

Once home prices crashed, these buyers found themselves with a mortgage they could barely afford for a home that was no longer worth what they owed on it and a likely interest-rate hike in the offing.

So why are high-end homeowners defaulting? Well, they can’t prove it, but the NY Times believes it’s because these people rich with debt are “ruthless” and unconcerned with the “civic good.” The Times demonstrated this by quoting a woman who said she and her husband had just lost their jobs and could no longer afford their mortgage. As if we’re supposed to believe that. This is recovery summer, baby. And if that’s not enough to convince you, there was also this:

At a vacant house with a pool, where the lender was seeking $1.27 million, a raft and a water gun lay abandoned on the entryway floor.

Nothing says ruthlessness like an abandoned water gun.

Of course, there are other explanations for why high-end homes would see higher delinquency rates. First off, super jumbo loans are lot more risky to begin with: high-end homes tend to drop more in price during a downturn and they’re also harder to sell in a down market. Super jumbo loans have higher interest rates than FHA-backed mortgages, but, up until 2007, ARMs helped make homes in this price-range more affordable. The credit squeeze especially affected jumbo mortgages, increasing the required LTV which made it a lot more difficult to get one — or refinance one — of these loans. If you had an ARM, this was a big problem. In other words, all the chaos we’re seeing in the housing market has been exacerbated at this level. Lastly, none of these borrowers are eligible to participate in the government’s loan modification or refinancing programs (not that they should be).

But I can’t blame the New York Times for failing to mention any of this. I didn’t stand face-to-face with that squirt gun. It may have scared me senseless, too. Besides, it’s not like they made total jackasses of themselves.

Needless to say, this sign is proof that any socialized health care system eventually becomes a pain in the butt.

[Hillary] Clinton zeroed in on Obama’s remark that his “strongest” foreign policy experience came from living in Indonesia as a child.

“Now voters will judge whether living in a foreign country at the age of 10 prepares one to face the big, complex international challenges the next president will face,” Clinton said in a speech to an audience in Iowa.

Obama’s response?

I know, I know… they’re “just words.”

A recent article in Time linked to a review of the Top 25 blogs. Although undated, the permalink suggests the reviews were written last year, which makes one wonder why Time linked to them as if they were still current, but I digress.

In its review of Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish, Time had this to say:

He endorsed George Bush in 2000, John Kerry in 2004, and seems to be leaning toward Barack Obama this year.

For anyone who didn’t follow Sully’s descent into hysterical madness, he ended up “leaning” so far over he fell into Barack Obama’s lap. In addition to repeatedly titling posts and signing them off with the oxymoronic phrase “know hope,” Sully had to this to say the night of Obama’s convention speech:

I’ve said it before – months and months ago. I should say it again tonight. This is a remarkable man at a vital moment. America would be crazy to throw this opportunity away. America must not throw this opportunity away.

Know hope.

He also became so fanatically driven to try to smear Sarah Palin that he perpetuated the unfounded rumor that Trig wasn’t really her baby and repeatedly called on her to release her medical records to prove she was his mother — even after the election!

If Time is going to continue linking to that review they may want to update it. In the meantime, it still gave me a good laugh to see Sully portrayed as a moderate.

More to the point, the worst financial crisis in seventy years is really not the time to see if you can brighten up the CEA offices with a nice, decorative matched set of X chromosomes. Goolsbee has been advising Obama since the beginning; presumably, this is some sort of testimony to the esteem in which Obama holds his competence. Throwing him overboard now makes this look like less of a “plus factor” and more like Obama is much less concerned with competence than painting a pretty picture for voters. Given the stakes, that’s more than a little irresponsible.

And that’s coming from an (increasingly dismayed) Obama supporter. Megan’s blog is a is great place to get an informative take on events without the partisan spin. But on this one I have to blame her disappointment on willful ignorance. I mean, come on… it’s not like she wasn’t warned. As a Libertarian, she should have known that supporting a Democrat would only lead to regret.

CNN (via Hot Air) provides a choice example of this. First, the original report:

The only fact here is that Bush walked by world leaders without shaking their hands, while others were shaking hands. But CNN’s Rick Sanchez puts it in context for us: it’s sad; Bush is unpopular; he’s being snubbed, maybe as retribution for all his years of bullying. Sanchez then tries to legitimize his commentary by backing it up with Google hits as if that’s proof.

But how truthful was it:

Kudos to CNN for correcting Sanchez’s bogus report, but unfortunately as the saying goes (and their follow-up notes) a lie can travel halfway round the world before the truth even gets its pants on. Since Sanchez’s report, if you Google Bush and bully now you get over 6 million hits. You can bet the story of Bush getting snubbed will live on.

That said, (putting a little twist on Ed’s idea), if you Google Sanchez and hack you get 1.56 million hits. But don’t expect Sanchez to run a story on that.

As part of promoting a documentary entitled How Obama Got Elected about the media’s biased coverage during the ‘08 election, conservative commentator John Ziegler commissioned Zogby International to conduct a poll testing the knowledge of Obama’s supporters:

Results to 12 simple Multiple Choice Questions:

57.4% could NOT correctly say which party controls congress (50/50 shot just by guessing)

71.8% could NOT correctly say Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism (25% chance by guessing)

82.6% could NOT correctly say that Barack Obama won his first election by getting opponents kicked off the ballot (25% chance by guessing)

88.4% could NOT correctly say that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket (25% chance by guessing)

56.1% could NOT correctly say Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground (25% chance by guessing).

And yet…..

Only 13.7% failed to identify Sarah Palin as the person on which their party spent $150,000 in clothes

Only 6.2% failed to identify Palin as the one with a pregnant teenage daughter

And 86.9 % thought that Palin said that she could see Russia from her “house,” even though that was Tina Fey who said that!!

Ziegler’s point isn’t that this reflects on Obama’s supporters, as much as the fact that the media spent a lot more time and effort carrying damaging stories about McCain and Palin while ignoring those about Obama and Biden.

Here are some clips. My favorite part is their reaction to the question about which candidate won their first election by tossing their competition off the ballot.

Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.

There’s another argument to make: if the automakers receive a bailout, they won’t be the last industry to come begging to Uncle Sam. It’s time to stop this bailout parade.