It appears that the golden state is gonna need to find a lot more gold to pay for all the new mortgages that people are taking out. 82% of new loans are interest-only or "option-ARM".

I really have a tough time at parties. Everyone wants to talk real estate, but I always manage to make some comment about crazy interest-only loans. Inevitably, at least one person says, "hey, I have one of those" or "honey, don't we have one of those?"... that pretty much ends the real estate conversation, as everyone kinda wanders away to get another drink, etc.

Investment weekly Barrons suggests impeachment of the very wall-street friendly president. Bush's friend list is getting shorter every day. I guess he'll just have to find some new friends.

Maybe Barrons is just trying out the impeachment story on for size; apparently there are a lot of Republicans about to get into deep shit with the Abramoff scandal; Bush will have to figure out a way to avoid losing control of congress, etc.

Barrons is owned by Dow Jones, whose biggest publication is the Wall Street Journal, known for its bitterly disgusting editorials (and good reporting on other pages). I think if the WSJ starts calling for impeachment, I just might have to get dizzy and fall down.

-Keith

Here's the news story and here's the full lecture. This guy doesn't mess around. Sounds a bit like a pissed off Chomsky...

On Wednesday his lecture, entitled Art, Truth and Politics, studied the importance of truth in art before decrying its perceived absence in politics.

He said politicians feel it is "essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives".

Pinter said the US justification for invading Iraq - that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction - "was not true".

(America) has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. "The truth is something entirely different," Pinter added. "The truth is to do with how the United States understands its role in the world and how it chooses to embody it."

Pinter said that since World War II the US government "supported and in many cases engendered every right-wing military dictatorship in the world". "I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador and, of course, Chile."

He added: "You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good."

Referring to Blair's support for the US-led war on Iraq, Pinter described the "pathetic and supine" Great Britain as "a bleating little lamb tagging behind (the US) on a lead".

Neal Bush and the Moonies, new album out soon... a guy's gotta make a living some how, why not build a Peace Tunnel?

PS - Moon has said in the past that Caucasians are descended from polar bears.

PPS - Wait a minute, what about Asians, like Koreans? I need to know more.