Of Trump, Locker Rooms, and Woulds vs Haves

In the wake of Trump's Access Hollywood video, I've been trying to figure out which of Trump's defenders are more ridiculous: those who say Trump's comments are indefensible but still support him, or those who maintain his comments are no big deal.

The Giuliani vs the Walsh:
Which is worse?

 This idiot
- [Sexual assault] is what he's talking about... and ...men at times talk like that:

 ...or this idiot:

A man who talks dirty about women or a woman who tries to destroy the life of rape victims to protect her abusing husband?

— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) October 9, 2016

If women are so outraged by Trump's dirty talk, then who the hell bought the 80 million copies of "Fifty Shades Of Grey?"

Grow up.

— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) October 8, 2016

Both of these fools are leaning on two flavors of misdirection: dirty talk (Hey, stop being such a prude!) and the locker room argument (Hey, when a bunch of guys get together, they sometimes sexually objectify women).

Both of these are complete and utter bullshit. First off, as has been pointed out by wiser folks than myself, Trump could have used purely medical terms to describe the anatomies he was violating and it would change nothing about the central offenses he is admitting. Namely, he has - repeatedly - made sexual contact with women without their consent. Moreover, he asserts that his fame allows him to do this without suffering consequences.

And, lest there be any confusion about his mental state over this conduct, "and when you're a star, they let you do it" tells you he knows this conduct is wrong, but he can get away with it.

You can do anything.

It's the locker room/guy talk argument that is truly offensive, though. And this isn't the "not all men" outrage of Chuck Todd or other self serving hogwash. Engaging with this argument on that level is accepting the misdirection that is its central goal.

The takedown it deserves (at least) is to point out the two key differences between the kind of locker room banter Trump wants to hide behind, and what he was actually doing.

Let's take an example of locker room banter and compare it with Trump, shall we? Say a group of guys who know each other are using crass language to talk about women they know/have heard of. Man, did you see Alycia in homeroom today? She is fine... I would so want to get into that. 

The first key difference is one of familiarity - and this is clearly the lesser point to be made, but I think it matters. It is one thing to bring up sexual topics with a group of men you know and hang out with on a regular basis - and the fact that they are friends doesn't absolve them of bad behavior. But in Trump's case he is not meeting up with some of his buddies from the club and talking smack - he is not tight with Billy Bush - the guy's a freaking talk show host, and most of the people on the bus are going to be strangers to him. Trump is not wandering into lewd topics with a group of friends, he is introducing himself to a group of people he does not know as - "This is what you should know about me."

He is boasting in front of an audience, because he believes what he's saying will impress them. I've been in many social situations where guys new to a group feel like they need to advertise their heterosexuality by launching into crass talk - FYI, I'm straight, just so you know - but Trump is way past that. Most insecure hetero guys will fly the flag once and move on. No, Trump wants to earn the admiration of his new social circle, and he's convinced that lengthy discussions of sexual conquest and his impunity is the way to do it.

But the capstone to the awful is the item central to all the outrage - and rightly so. Trump is voluntarily describing things he claims to have actually done. I've assaulted women - and I get away with it. That is horrid beyond description and a universe apart from the "I would..." or "If I could.." locker room bullsh!t of your garden variety male. Trump is saying "I have done this..." and no amount of pretend is going to make that the same as some jackoff at the club rhapsodizing about how the waitress had a nice butt.

This admission - this boast - about actual behavior is what separates Trump's transgression from anything else in the news cycle.  He did this, he's freaking proud of it, and he wants these guys to know it, so they are impressed by how he can do bad things and get away with it.

That is who the GOP is running for president - in his unvarnished glory.

And no, Donald, you cannot apologize "if people were offended," you f*cking monster.  YOU CANNOT APOLOGIZE FOR OUR REACTIONS TO HOW HORRIBLE YOU ARE. You can only apologize for what you've done and said. If you had any humanity, you've have conceded the race already - but we know that's never going to happen.

The die hards in Trumpworld are trying mightily to minimize and distract - but there is just no way to avoid the cold truth: in 2005, Donald Trump told us exactly who he was.

This election cannot punish him or his defenders enough.

Ryan vs. Bryan

All I Do is B!tch About Telcos

...but only because they so totally suck.

I've tried to take the larger view and say that - yes, in fairness to AT&T - the number of outages I've experienced while paying for their service has been very close to zero.

I'm sure the legion of engineers who work tirelessly at all hours of the night would like to be acknowledged. And they should be. Modern data networks are a hell of a thing. And the one I've been paying for has been there for me with (so far as I remember) total uptime.

And they somehow even find time to route all my data to the DEA. Impressive.

But the squeaky wheel principle applies here. I pay for a utility, I expect it to work. If it doesn't work - why am I paying for it?

24/7 uptime is Par.

So those noble and nameless AT&T engineers need to understand something:

Every other customer touchpoint with AT&T is gutting your company's reputation.

Ask me what I think of AT&T and you're going to get both barrels of pent up resentment.

*    *     *

I'll illustrate this with two personal contacts with AT&T.

And then I'll supplement it with web and phone follow ups.

First, the people. I'll call them Ryan and Bryan.

Bryan arrived on my doorstop unannounced. Bryan was in sales, so if I had known he was coming, I wouldn't have answered the door. But he sung the praises of AT&T uverse with the passion of a new convert to the faith. He smiled. He was funny. And though I believed he was totally full of it - I let him talk, took his materials, and then did my own research on prices and packages.

Ryan on the other hand, was expected.

Ryan's first contact with me was over the phone. He was calling me to let me know he'd be late for the appointment with me.

To appreciate how bad a first impression this is, you'd need to understand some things:

• This would be the appointment Bryan had scheduled for me two weeks earlier
• This would also be the appointment I'd been asked to confirm via text the previous day. And I had.
• This would also be the appointment I'd been asked to confirm via phone the previous day (after I'd confirmed by text). And I had.
• This would ALSO be the appointment I'd been asked to confirm via email the previous day (after I'd confirmed by text and phone).
• This would ALSO be the appointment my wife had been asked to confirm via text and email and Godknows what else.
• And... this would be the appointment I had elected to stay home all morning (unpaid) because my attendance was required.
• FINALLY - it needs to be understood that when I say "appointment" I mean a two-hour block of time. Meaning Ryan could arrive anywhere between 9am and 11am and still be considered "on time."

Ryan was calling me - at 10:45 - to let me know he wasn't going to make it before 11am. He was in another town and was currently an hour away.

Awesome. I could have been working and getting paid until just before lunchtime, but hey, I'm at your service, Ryan. Whatever makes your day easier.

Back to Bryan. Weeks ago, Bryan promised to return after our initial meeting and did (although I was out) so he came back a few days later and I signed up. Bryan assured me that my free installation would cover multiple TVs (even though I only needed one) and that the installer would run Cat-5 anywhere it needed to go in my house. "Plus, your DVR will be wireless, so you can move it around your house if you decide to add a TV or rearrange your house."

Fan-tastic!

When I reacted badly to the $50 activation fee, Bryan whipped out some rebate forms to offset the charges. "Just fill these out and give them to your installer and you'll be set."

See? That's a guy trying right there. Exeunt Bryan.

*Cheers*

Let's return to Ryan.

*Boo!*

Yes, Ryan has royally screwed up first impressions. He does arrive an hour after his phone call, a full 45 minutes after my install window was supposed to end. He's in a truck, wearing a baseball cap and looks irritated.

I point him to all the particulars in my house. The TV case (which I'd helpfully cleared out) the phone setup and where the lines hit my wireless router.

I asked him about running wire to the finished side of the basement. Ryan looked at me like I was talking Greek. "Just the one TV, right?"

Uh, I was told you could run wire to other rooms in my house. 

"I'll run it anywhere you need it to connect to the one TV."

Now, I know sales guys are full of it - and sales guys from AT&T doubly so. So this wasn't much of a shock. I'd asked because it would be nice, but once I confirmed that wiring for uverse TV was just running Cat-5, I knew I could do it (with help). I ask Ryan about the gateway they'll be installing and if I'll be able to keep my current router (which I love). He says he'll try, but that he typically doesn't install a device inside the house and hasn't had much luck when he tried in the past.

*Sigh*

I point out what I currently have for Ethernet and DSL. Ryan scratches his head figuring out where the wires needed to go and I get out of his way. In about an hour he's drilling a hole in the side of my house and telling me he's going to run a new wire from the pole to my house.

"Don't worry, though. In seven to ten days, some guys will come by and bury the cable. I'll leave plenty of slack in case you need to mow."

*Sigh*

So, now there's a black cable snaking around my back yard - with "caution" flags tied to it every few feet so it's extra visible and unsightly.

And then Ryan shows up with the hardware and starts hooking up the TV. He unpacks an impressively compact device that I think might be the wireless DVR.

Is that the wireless DVR?

"It's the DVR, yeah."

This is AT&T, so I ask again to make sure I heard that omission correctly.

It's a wireless DVR?

"No. It's wired to Ethernet."

I was told I'd get a wireless DVR.

"We do wireless DVRs only if we have major issues running the wires in the house. I don't have one in my truck."

*Sigh*

Honestly, at this point - I'm not sure a wireless DVR is truly a plus. The signal could be worse for all I know. All I do know is that Bryan told me I would get one, and now I won't.

At 1:30pm (that would be five an a half hours of missed work, for those of you keeping track) Ryan calls me in to show me that the TV is connected. I channel surf and managed to screw up the input settings and Ryan has to show me how to change inputs using a button combination I wouldn't have thought of (for the standard remote: Hit "TV" then quickly hit "TV/Video" to move between inputs).

By the time I've managed to realize that I'm subscribing to over 300 channels, but my TV is connected to 678 channels (meaning half my channels connect to a "You are not subscribed to this channel" message), Ryan is back with paperwork.

Ah, yes! I need to give him my rebate paperwork!

I quickly dig out the rebate forms Bryan gave me and give them to Ryan.
Ryan looked at them like they were written in Greek.

"I've never taken paperwork from a customer. I have no idea what to do with those."

*Sigh*

Ryan gives me paperwork, though. Owners manuals, legal stuff, channel guides and an info sheet about my AT&T Gateway device. Turns out he was able to get it connected just fine. My old router is still up and running (meaning none of my devices have to have their network settings changed - SCORE! I'm looking at YOU, Canon wireless printer...).

Better still, Ryan has copied down the Byzantine collection of codes, IPs and other network voodoo that I can use to configure my AT&T gateway like it was my 2nd router. SCORE!

I check my network download and upload speeds, they're where they're supposed to be. SCORE!

Ryan apologizes again for being late and about the rebates. He writes down two numbers to call about them and suggests trying one of them first "I've had better luck with them."

And then he shakes my hand and is off to his next install.

It's 1:50.

I've missed most of a workday (unpaid) and I have a single TV connected and high speed internet.

Let's review. Who was the bigger fail here, Bryan or Ryan?

No contest really. Bryan.

Bryan promised a bunch of things that were never going to happen. Running wire all through my house (hah!), the wireless DVR, and the rebates being handled by the installer.

The rates and channels came through, but I'd confirmed them with AT&T over the phone, so I knew those were going to happen. All the other stuff Bryan promised turned out to be hot air.

Ryan, on the other hand, was late. But he gets jobs from the AT&T mothership that (for some reason) decided to give my install to a guy 50 miles away 15 minutes before the install window was up.

That's not on Ryan. Ryan's just the guy holding the bag when AT&T (per usual) does something stupid. Further, Ryan listened to my request to keep my old router running and made it happen. Then he followed up with all the admin information I needed, made sure I understood what I was looking at and even gave me a 2nd remote.

He made good out of a bad situation. Yes, I missed a half day of work, but Ryan's not the guy to scream at for that. AT&T's mothership screwed that up royally.

*    *     *

I called Bryan the following day to check on my rebates. The installer guy didn't take them. What do I do?

Bryan was unhelpful. "Oh, yeah. They changed how those work right before your install, so now you have to send them in."

Except Bryan forgets that I can read. One form is from Starz, the other is from Showtime. Both forms say that they should be mailed in along with three months worth of bills showing you are a paid subscriber.

There is no possibility that I was going to get my installer to take these forms, because my installer would not have had three months of bills to send in with them.

Bryan is not good at customer service, because he does not have to be. But he has clearly mastered what he needs to sell subscriptions: Bryan is good at lying.

I hung up on Bryan, because there was no way to fix that. Sure, I'll complain to AT&T about this, but they'll echo Ryan's dismissal of the problem "The sales guys are contractors, they don't even work for AT&T."

No, but they show up to your house wearing shirts that say "AT&T." And their voicemail says "This is Bryan with AT&T," so I can't see why people would blame AT&T for their crappy service...

*    *     *

A few days after my install, I was robo-called out of the blue by AT&T to ask how my install went. It was a tedious IVR menu and took way too long, but I believe in feedback.

I graded my installation taking care to point out that my installer was fine as a person, but that I was dissatisfied with my install because it began 45 minutes later than it was supposed to. I asked to be called personally to offer follow up details.

Naturally, this being AT&T - I was called by Ryan's supervisor who wanted to know the details of why I thought Ryan was a terrible installer.

I explained that Ryan was a total pro - and that my problem was with the overall scheduling process and with the sales person promising me stuff that didn't materialize.

I could tell this was not what this guy was calling me for. I was only supposed to be grading Ryan and this call was all about the performance of him as an individual.

And this is where I lost it (because, with AT&T, you always get to this point eventually). I'm not sure of my exact words, but I tried to hit three main points:

• When you only ask for feedback on a SMALL part of a user experience, you make your customers feel like you don't care about their problems.

• When you discard negative user feedback because it falls outside of your intended question - you are allowing problems to persist.

• Repeatedly reminding customers to be on time when your employees arrive late tells customers they need to care about your time more than you need to care about theirs.

The man was nice, sympathetic even... but I doubt those comments will filter out of a channel that is only designed to provide the mothership with Ryan=Good or Ryan=Bad.

Ryan? If you get hosed, I'm sorry. I tried to make it clear to your boss.

*    *     *

But it's done. Right? I spend about 20 minutes manually hiding the 300+ channels that I don't subscribe to, yet still appear as selectable options on my receiver.

Then I spend another half an hour hiding BS channels like Home Shopping Network and anything that starts with "uverse"

And finally, I dial in the parental controls for the phalanx of age inappropriate material that my set now has access to.

Sidebar: I miss TiVO's KidZone. KidZone created two pools of access. One for kids, one for adults. When you started using the TV, TiVO assumed you were a kid and filtered accordingly. If you wanted to see all content, you entered a code - once - and weren't bothered again until you turned the machine off or manually re-entered KidZone. 

Uverse does the exact opposite: You lock categories of content (TV MA, PPV, R rated movies) and anytime you try to access them, you are prompted for a password. Which means adults browsing their channels soon wish they are dead - as each new movie channel demands a password just to display a title. Never mind the fact you just entered the same password 15 seconds ago for ENC, oh no, ENC-WEST won't show you its stuff until it knows who you are...   

Being AT&T, though they cannot leave awful alone. They have to go for maximum user pain. 

Here's the unlock sequence for AT&T uverse:

• Select Channel
• See message saying "This Content is Locked"
• Hit "OK"
• See passcode prompt "Enter Passcode"
• Enter 4 digit passcode
• Hit "Enter"
  
  -that should be it, right? But no.
   
• See prompt "Unlock this content?" Don't Unlock / Unlock
  
  and here's the kicker....
   
• "Don't Unlock" is the default selection!!

Yes, Having selected a channel repeatedly and having entered in a 4 digit passcode correctly AND hitting ENTER, it's a good assumption that I DON'T WANT TO UNLOCK THIS CHANNEL 

WHOEVER CODED THAT NEEDS TO BE PUT IN SOLITARY WITH AT&T UVERSE WHERE EVERY CHANNEL MUST BE UNLOCKED. 

Seriously. 

Oh but there's more!!! If you unlock a channel and leave it, it will re-lock in 30 minutes, meaning there's a good chance if you're bopping back and forth to check on the box score, you'll have to unlock the same channel repeatedly.
WAY TO FAIL, UVERSE!!!

JEEZUS.

Allright. Rant over.

....

...

..

.

Well, not really.

I'm trying to get ahead of the family finances and I'm trying to schedule my bill payments for the next month. I log in to att.com and (I will spare you the story of how annoying it was to set up my 2nd AT&T email account AND connect my uverse account to my existing att.com account - the nicest thing I can say is that it ultimately did work.)

I logged in and initially, I couldn't see my bill amount. Which made some sense, since I'd only just connected my uverse account to my other services on the att.com website.

But I came back a few days later and saw that my bill had been updated to $201.29. I scheduled the payment and went on my way.

But it later occurred to me that might not be correct. I mean, I'm supposed to be getting billed $110 for my cable/phone/internet WITH a $49 activation (but NOT installation!) fee. So, I should be getting $160 or so just from cable/phone/internet and there's no way my wireless bill is just $40.

I log back in to see if my bill has been adjusted.

It has. It's now $384.38.

Ah, that's better...

Wait, what the screaming hell?

Now anyone who is currently an AT&T customer knows what is going on here, and I had a reasonable suspicion. But until I actually confirmed it, somehow I refused to think it was actually happening.

I got my uverse install on September 4.

Looking at that portion of my bill I'm seeing stuff that makes sense:

That's my uverse bill that starts on 9/5.

Here's the portion for my phone line:

I'm being billed $31.39 for my uverse phone line.

Looking elsewhere in my att.com account, I find I'm still being billed for my old phone service, which was supposed to end and be replaced by the new bill on 9/4. But it hasn't...

Being AT&T, they've done this for my internet service as well. So I'm being billed $38.16 for uverse internet and $37.98 for my old DSL internet.

Way to go, AT&T!!

Again, the hard-working install guys and AT&T engineers need to gang up and beat the crap out of the billing, scheduling, sales and web folks in their company. Because those folks are seriously ruining any chance they have of working for a respected company.

(Well, that and the whole collusion with the NSA thing, but y'know - one thing at a time...).

I called AT&T to get this sorted out and - get this - their suggestion was to pay the bills and they would credit my account after the fact.

The "Pay us more than you owe, and we'll get back to you" plan.

Screw that.

Then the AT&T rep suggested that an adjusted bill would be coming the next month, but that I might see late charges if I waited until then.

I suggested - politely - that that was utter bullsh!t.

I believe I said "if you can tell me what the bill should be, I could pay now."

Naturally, they couldn't. So they logged a dispute on my bill so there wouldn't be a late fee (they said) and now I will pay just my wireless bill and wait for the real bill to show up.

Incredible.

A system that is perfectly capable of adding a pro-rated bill to an account cannot adjust an existing bill when that account has services discontinued.

Because - Stupid. That's why.

If it doesn't involve maintaining wires - AT&T stinks at it. Technical proficiency with ZERO people skills.

Wait, they're just like...

-like an engineer!

...

..

.

You don't suppose...

Nah, couldn't be.






It would make too much sense.

Cutting the Cord

One more follow up to my previous post:

I'd called my cable company and TiVO to discontinue service - because I've taken leave of my senses and have signed yet another contract with AT&T. (Shoot me now)

Both of these companies (understandably) have scripts for these kinds of calls. They're about to lose a customer - they want to try and win you back.

I thought the contrast between TiVO and my cable company was pretty striking.

The cable guy ignored what I was saying and kept to his script "Who are you going with?" "Have you seen our latest offerings?"

Over and over. I'm saying. "I'm done. I've already made this decision." And Cable Rep is still all up in my face. "We have some great deals..."

TiVO Rep started a similar script, but as soon as I said I'd already signed a contract - he just said okay. I respect that.

And I felt respected. Even as a departing customer. Points for TiVO.

*  *  *

Yesterday I found there was one other distinction between these two companies.

I'd asked for my service to be ended on September 4th, the day I was going to get Uverse installed.

TiVO Rep had a problem with that - My billing cycle started on the 1st of the month, and rather than bill me for another month they'd end my service at the end of August.

Not seamless, but I could deal.

Cable Rep was different. I explained I wanted the service stopped on the 4th and he never missed a beat. "Okay."

I was irritated with him over the sales pitch crap, and having to listen to him type my cancellation in - but once I explained what I wanted he got to work.

Boom, done.

*  *  *

But there's a catch. With data utilities - there is always a catch.

The catch arrived yesterday. I'm working on fettuccine alla boscaiola and E's looking out the window.

"I think the cable guy was just in our back yard."

Now - I'm ashamed that this did not immediately provoke me into a full on sprint into the backyard to demand what in the hell this man was doing on our property. But I didn't. I continued with dinner - under the (laughably naive) assumption that there was some prep work the cable company needed to do on site before they stopped my service.

I know, I know... but there was a lot going on at the time.

By the time I get stuff sorted - the cable guy is gone. I don't give it another thought until E and I sit down to watch our stories and-

Yeah. The cable's been disconnected.

That was yesterday. A quick look at my calendar shows yesterday is TWO WEEKS earlier than the September 4 cutoff I asked for.

Set aside the irritation at not having cable. Set aside the irritation that they've not done what I asked them to do.

What genuinely p!sses me off is the fact that they never said a word about it to me.

TiVO Rep said right up front "We can't cut you off on the 4th, we need to do the 1st."
That's respecting your customer, right there. Telling them what is going to happen before it does.

Cable Rep hears my request for a specific date and says nothing. Cable Guy coming to cut off my service never even rings my doorbell. He just shows up, cuts the cord, and drives off in a cloud of smoke.

So now I'm in a stupid position. What to do? Call them and ask them to re-install it for two weeks? They'd probably charge me installation.

But since I want to confirm my rebate status (we pay a month ahead, naturally) I call them anyway.

Today's Cable Rep tells me that my service was discontinued as of yesterday (really? I wondered why I was calling you). When I point out the early disconnect was not what I wanted - TCR tells me that once they put the disconnect order in the system, it gets scheduled for the next available technician in the area (whenever that might be).

Before making it clear that I'm not personally angry with TCR, I vent my spleen at this idea.

If you can't do something the customer asks - TELL THEM.
If you're going to do the opposite of what the customer wants - TELL THEM.

I get that handholding customers who are on the way out doesn't have a lot of ROI, but here's a thought: the first Cable Rep I spoke to could have said "Sir, if you don't want your service disconnected before the 4th, I'd suggest calling back on the 4th and we'll take care of you then."

Boom, done. No additional expense for them and the customer gets what they want.

Instead, the rep acted like they were listening to me - and then did the same thing they did in all other situations -

-what cable companies and telcos have been doing since they realized their customers were at their mercy...

-they did whatever the hell was easiest for them.

Just Steal My Freaking Car Already

The law of unintended consequences means a lot of different things to different people.

To me, it means that somewhere in the 'verse a Honda engineer owes me an explanation.

Failing that,  they need their ass beaten. Badly.

The story begins with lunch. At my new gig, the noon hour and parking restrictions coincide to put me in my car looking for something to eat.

This is not a bad thing.

I hit a local food cart and bop back to the car before the meter expires. It's a killer day - all sun and I'm tempted to just sit outside instead of heading back to the cave to work on shell scripts.

At this moment - a horribly loud noise blasts all tranquil thought out of my head.

It's hard to remember exactly, but I think my train of thought went like this:

What the F%&* is that noise?
Holy God, that is annoying!
It's a F%&*-ing car alarm!
Whoever invented those needs to die from an overdose of red-hot pokers…

And so on.

The peculiar thing about car alarms is that they are hard to localize. Something that loud should be easy to isolate, but at a distance the sound seems distorted and up close your mind is too occupied with DEARGODMAKEITSTOP to give a crap about looking for the car with the flashing lights.

I'm at exactly the MAKEITSTOP range and I nearly drop my lunch to cover my ears. My thoughts were something along the lines of:

GODIHATETHATSOUND
ISOEFFINGHATECARALARMS
MAKEITSTOPMAKEITSTOP
ITSOLOUD ITS LIKE ITS COMING FROM MY CAR AND-

Okay, don't even act surprised. You know full well it was coming from my car.

And I think everyone's had that experience with their car's alarm.
Annoyance followed by bewilderment. Why is my car honking?

And I am SO at that stage. I have just unlocked my car - WITH my key - and the car alarm is blaring.

WTF??

Beautiful day, blue sky, happy office lunchers out lunching… me standing in front of a car that's at DEFCON-1.

Is now a good time to point out (yet again) that the public reaction to a car alarm is to forcefully ignore it?

No one cares if my car is being stolen - I'm literally a block away from a parked police officer.

Soon as the klaxon sounds, I become the un-person. Everyone wants me gone.

I want me gone, for F%&*'s sake.

Getting into my car is so automatic, I'm seated and putting the key in the ignition and willing the car to shut the hell up before I've fully realized what is going on.

The car starts.

MY CAR IS RUNNING WITH THE KEY IN THE IGNITION - and the alarm keeps going.

Exhibit A to the unknown Honda engineer: What. The actual. F%#*?

I shut off the car. The alarm keeps going.
I turn the key to "On." The alarm keeps going.

At this point, the urgency of the situation begins to limit my imagination. I think I'm justified in not seeing the obvious way out.

------
Sidenote -  Another reason I was confused about what to do:

My key is a valet key. Which means it only unlocks the door and starts the car (I guess car design logic is that a valet wouldn't think to pull the trunk release lever beside them as they're tooling away in your car. I digress). I have a valet key because of the weight of my keyring.

For a good long while, I had every key in my life on a D-ring attached to my car keys. Over time, the weight of this keyring pulled on the keyfob case to the point where it separated.
So, I glued it, and re-glued it - and one day it fell apart and spilled its electronic innards all over the floor.

As anyone with a modern car knows- replacing a key these days is a stupid hassle.

Mind you, I have a economy car.

Yet replacing a single key on my budget compact costs $120 and requires that I bring the car and ALL of its keys to the dealership for recoding.

I have not been eager to take this step as I have better uses for $120 and an entire afternoon during business hours.

All of this is a long winded way of saying: I'm less than confident that my key has the capabilities of its full fledged brethren.
---------

Horn blaring, lights flashing, engine RUNNING - I cannot come up with the obvious solution - so I go for the surefire plan B.

I open the trunk (despite my valet key status, hah!) and get out the toolkit. I pop the hood and using vicegrips (the only essential tool) I disconnect the battery terminal.

Silence. Blessed silence.

At this point. I do what anyone would do. I sit the F%&* down and I eat my F%&*-ing lunch.
And it's a good lunch, too. On a nice day, no longer sullied by angry bullish!t car alarms.

My meter's about done, but I figure the cop who has ignored me thus far will continue to do so.

Guy sets off car alarm, opens the hood, disconnects battery and eats lunch. Nothing odd there...

Lunch done (it was yummy)-  I opened my glovebox to figure out what the F%&* I should do about the F%&*-ing alarm.

I keep the car manual in the glovebox and after five minutes of flipping pages and scanning the index, I find it.

Not under "Alarm" or "Car Alarm" or "Security" (although there's a section on the Radio's security system, which was completely unhelpful) - but under "Features."

Three pages into features, I see a security system reference and find the obvious solution.

You see, my mistake was getting into the car.

Disabling the security system/ear-splitting klaxon requires being outside the car and unlocking the driver's door using a key.

Exhibit B to the unknown Honda engineer: What. The actual. F%#*?

I get why unlocking the driver door would disable the alarm. I do. But why is it the ONLY way to shut off a system that (as we have all seen) is RAMPANT with false starts?

More to the point, where in the manual does it tell me how to shut off the car alarm for good because I hate the damn thing so much?

Because - F%&* it. Steal my Effing car, already. You want to take my car from my driveway? Just don't wake me the F%&* up when you do, 'kay?

I'm insured - and I need my sleep.

Having read the obvious solution - I re-attach the battery cable, shut the hood and get back in to-

HOOOOONNNK! HOOOOONK!!!

I sh!t you not, some vestigial notion of "I'm being stolen" lingered in the car's RAM just long enough to set it off again.

Armed with the obvious solution, I unlock my driver door and the car shuts up for good.

Having ruined everyone's lunch hour silence, I slink off to find a new parking place.

-Only to encounter the second annoying security feature of the day: My radio - having been separated from its power supply for more than 10 seconds - demands I supply a passcode, or else it will refuse to activate the radio and dash clock.

*sigh*

Against all probability, I'm actually ready for this scenario. Honda radios have a passcode on file with the dealership. If you call them, give them your VIN number and radio serial number, they will give you the passcode to access your radio.

A few years ago, I had a dead battery long enough to trigger this scenario. When I called, I didn't have my serial number, just the VIN. The guy on the other end gave me the code anyway.
So, a thief with my car could read the VIN, call for the code, and get it - no questions asked.

I put this code into Evernote, so I could have it for later.

Now is later and I log into Evernote and punch in the code. The radio springs to life and I'm back to normal again.

*sigh*

Even if I still have no idea why my alarm went off.
Even if my alarm does nothing to protect my car.
Even if my radio code does nothing to protect my radio.
Even though the odds are I'll remember none of this the next time my alarm goes off and I'll try (like this time and the time before) to disable the alarm by starting the car.

And then - yet again - I'll be looking for answers from some Honda engineer.

L'esprit de L'escalier - Vol. 6,021

Pain in my ass.

People, that is.

I'd taken a long lunch and made a plan to hit a local cafe that is totally awesome. These days, the thought of just hanging out in a cafe with the time to relax is the height of luxury.

I'd planned to convert some of my audio notes to text using my iPhone and bluetooth keyboard. Y'know, like those annoying people do. I was hoping to annoy some people. But mostly, I was looking forward to just kicking back for awhile.

Work has been beyond insane lately.

Ruby's gone. So that leaves just Stimpy and I. One of my former teammates popped by (they'd since gone off to do full time coding. Wisely, since every fulltimer who stayed got canned.) Anyway, former UX guy comes by to rib me about being the last of the Mohicans. I pointed out they were the last fulltime to still work at CorpWorld, so technically, they were the last of the Mohicans.

Ruby called a meeting to hand off all the digital detritus left by our former UX team. A website that still said "Contact us" and listed my former boss as if they still worked here. A network share chock full of projects long since cancelled. A slew of ideas, good and bad.

A series of personal directories. Each one mapping to a person who was now out looking for work.

MP's file directory - the capstone on the sad proceedings. I wonder what they'd say about our sad little troika. Something too accurate to be comfortable, no doubt.

But that was last week. The Boss was moving out of town, so everyone got together one more time - and it was awesome.

I got to see Sensei again. They were the whole reason I got to be anything at CorpWorld. I congratulated them on having the good sense to bail before the big purge. They laughed and said, "yeah, I sure dodged that severance package."

Hadn't thought of that. But I try not to dwell on the downers. Most folks seem to be doing well. Sensei seems tired, but looks well. I miss them awful.

And then I had to go. Little E was promised ice cream and suddenly all the camaraderie was over. I hugged the Boss and left.

And I went back to work without them. We're winding down a big chunk of the project, and it's been time for the victory lap demo. I enjoy demos, so I've been tapped to do them this time around. Feels rather like taking a bow for other people's work-but this is the job.

In a repeat worthy of holiday network, I'm asked to present in the auditorium to the IS managers. The PM has me demo for them so they can tell that I'm not going to disgrace them in front of the brass. Just like how it was when I started. Only this time I know they are coming, I know it will be a big crowd.

Before I go up, the PM pats me on the shoulder and tells me I'll do fine. It is obvious that they are far more nervous about this than I am. I came in early to check the room, get a backup powerpoint deck in case the environment dies on me. I got this sh!t, kay?

I totally crushed it. Had 'em rolling in the aisles. Veni, vidi, vicci, baby.

So now, it's time for my victory lap. I can finally take time to kick back, and I know just where to go. A rippingly awesome new place whose motto graces a whiteboard outside their door:

Roses are red,
bacon is red.
Poems are hard.
Bacon.

How can you not love that?

I order a latte and their killer Cuban. They just started lunch, and they're filling up fast - but there's one table left. Score!

I order my food "for here," and the guy gives me a table marker and offers to make my latte while I'm there. Cool.

I'll kick back, convert my audio notes to text and maybe even...blog.

It's practically pornographic.

I'm holding my table marker and watching some serious latte-fu.

...And then I look up and see some lady plop a bag on the far end of the one remaining table.

Wha...? There was nobody in front of me, I'm certain. This is someone who just came in. Now, this place is small, and I've seen people share tables before. My latte's not done, so I walk over to the table and put my flag on the far left side.

I'm down with sharing, but my food is ordered, paid for, and about to arrive ready for a table. I don't want somebody else to poach the other end of the table before it does.

I'm headed back to pick up my latte, and Some Lady steps in front of me. She points imperiously at where I've just come from. "Excuse me, but that's our table."

It begins to dawn on me that she wasn't intending on sharing. She went into a cafe with one open table, people ahead of her in line and plants her bag on a table before she even orders.

It takes a second to process this, I would happily have shared the table. It's a big table. I'd have my earbuds in anyway. I'd be typing and probably wouldn't even notice them. I'm so put off by her Bitchmove, I skip the diplomacy and reply with:

"I've already ordered my food."

The implication being, What do I do with a plate and saucered mug when they arrive?

But Some Lady digs in. "Well, our bags are already there."

"That's nice," I say. Then I collect my drink and sit down.

I mean, really...f#*k her and her f#*king handbag. You want to share? Fine. You want to call "dibs" at a cafe? You can seriously go f#*k yourself.

So I sit at the end of the table, as planned, and begin working on my audio file. At some point, Some Lady comes to collect her bag, and says something pithy. Tragically, I have my earbuds in - so it's wasted on me. No doubt it was cutting , and will feature prominently in her version of events.

Somehow Some Lady and her manfriend transport a table from the neighboring restaurant and manage to sit down without me.

But f#*k them. This isn't about them. This is about how a moment's respite after a month of total sh!t gets magically transformed into a rant about table dibs because people suck.

I mean, one lousy lunch hour was all I was asking. No fireworks, no magic, just good food, good portable internet, and the luxury of time.

But no, instead I get to vent about bad restaurant flow. About how too few tables leads to bad manners on all sides. How Some Lady is a total witch - her and her bullsh!t handbag. How her mancandy can't be bothered to step in, how...

...or how badly I just need a vacation. I need to go somewhere for a week and not look back. When sh!t this weak can put you over the edge, you know you are on the ledge.

E and thee kids are coming back today and it's just been silly what a hole that leaves in the world. I need to hang out with my kids for about a year solid. We need to do some fun stuff. Not just the necessary evils, but goof off. A lot. We did some of it at the reunion and with E's uncle, but not nearly enough.

We're out of the tunnel these days. I just want to soak up some sun before we go back in.

So, Some Lady? If you're out there - it's nothing personal.

But from the heart - F#*k you.

Eighteen Digit Number

There's an obvious irony in this - but all I can see right now is suckage.

Like the rest of the country - I seized upon the falling mortgage rates to refinance. I missed a historically low interest rate by a day - thank you very much - but I got a rate that should make a difference in our finances.

The refi guy at the bank was email only - so buried under applications that they only processed them via the web, and promised to call you within two weeks. I was happy to snag the low rate, so I did what they said.

So it's the day of the closing and I'm looking at the paperwork and I see a name that gives me the creeps.

MERS.

Yes, that MERS. The one who holds more than 60 million of the country's mortgages, yet ignores state laws on the registration and foreclosing of mortgages. The company that breaks chain of title and damages the property rights of adjacent property holders.

Those guys.

I asked the title insurance employee (who was the only one there) if MERS had any role on our loan. They were like "No, no - they're just there to save you money on filing the paperwork."

And they do this in what capacity, relative to my loan?

The title insurance employee gave an answer that established that they had no idea what role MERS played on our loan - but that they were "certain" that everything was fine.

Now, you're the consumer with a bad feeling about this - but you know that the MERS voodoo causes problems when other problems emerge. If I pay my loan, MERS, role does not matter. But then you wonder what happens when my loan gets sold and re-sold? Will I know where to send my payments? Will the servicer stay the same?

And because the alternative is to scrap your re-fi - the one with the sweet rate - you sign. Because, scrapping the deal means you lose a good chunk of your closing costs - and you honestly don't know if your chosen lender has any options that don't include MERS.

So... y'know. F$&#!

But in the back of your head, you're thinking. MERS is seriously in the news lately. Losing cases left and right. Telling its members to list MERS in an alternate role.

Maybe it won't be like that - and again - I pay my bill, things will be fine, right? 

Enter the Loan Servicer - a company called PHH. PHH?

Never heard of them.

Googling, I find:

David beats Goliath: Homeowner wins $21MILLION payout from mortgage firm in dispute over credit rating 

In which an Army NCO paid PHH by direct deposit every month - until PHH decided to ignore the fact they had his money and notified the credit agencies that he was a deadbeat.

This is the kind of thing that gets me all worked up. Not that my loan will go this route, but my state has two lawsuits this year against PHH where PHH botched the paperwork and asked the courts to let them take people's homes anyway.

I call PHH to make sure they have my first payment and they've never heard of me. Even though their name is on the paperwork, even though I give them my loan number and SSN - they have no idea who I am. Mind you, this is over a month after our loan closed.

Anybody ever had an argument with a bank where you were trying to convince them that you owed them money? Pretty freaking surreal.

PHH insist I call my previous lender, because they have no record of me.

My prior lender agrees that the paperwork is backed up, but that I should send my first payment and PHH will "hold onto it" until the loan gets set up in their system. Because, hey, what could go wrong, right?

Then I go poking around and find a search engine for MERS properties. And yes, my property is listed in it.

There's a note date, a listing of my prior lender and an long string of digits that make up my MIN: My  MERS Identification Number.

I have been assimilated.

My local customer-friendly bank has sold me to the corporate wolves.

Great.

Just great.

Do You Feel Lucky?

So, it's open enrollment and (as tradition dictates) I'm in the final hours of the window reading the help files and wracking my brain to remember what we do and don't have as a household.

My employer outsources the process to a webservice which is (workflow wise) pretty impressive.

They give you a progress meter ( 1, 2, 3 steps and you're done!) and they offer you every single option imaginable. You're required to waive or accept each and every plan, twice - so there's no single misclick can sentence you to unwanted benefits.

Getting you through the process in a few minutes speaks to a process that is well formed. Having online validation makes sure you don't submit bad choices - so I'm sure it's win-win for the employee and their employer.

There are even tutorials on what the various plans do for you -  which is pretty freaking important, seeing these are year long commitments to plans that can be the difference between maintaining your current lifestyle and total catastrophe.

While some of the tutorials nicely illustrate the broad concepts of things like flex spending accounts - there are also moments like this one detailing the reasons a person might get disability insurance:

I mean - the chances are "very good" that I will become disabled? Really? This is for a plan whose benefits start on the 15th day of disability, supplemented by another plan whose benefits start on the 151st day of disability.

And this is for a business whose employees work in information technology.

Thinking back to my closest brush with disability - surgery and in hospital for five days. Still nowhere near qualifying for the short term disability coverage.

But it's not like I'm getting any younger.

Do you listen to the merchant trying to sell you stuff...?

Smartmoney says there is a good chance, so now you're comparing your own experience against the odds.

How does a person make an informed choice about getting this kind of coverage? 

Arrgh.

Entire Eastern Seaboard Destroyed: NYC Now an Extinct Ruin

...At least that's what the media outlets have been leading me to believe.

In other news, Lower Manhattan got a lot of rain.

Now we begin the walkback.

Dodged a bullet.

Not as bad as we told you feared.

Oh fer crying out loud...

Late Edit:
CJR's The Observatory would like to take folks like me to the woodshed. Fair enough.

Later Edit:
And then there's this, which I believe encapsulates a good portion of the irritation that spawned this post. Complain like you invented the sh!t. Makes you all the more deserving in our eyes.

Oregon Legislature Rick Rolls...Everyone?

There's all kinds of suckage in the news lately, so I'm going to just call a Friday perrogative and post something that is jaw droppingly strange.

A video of the Oregon Legislature dropping Rick Astley lyrics into the public record - with the ultimate goal of creating a Rick Roll video:

Unringing a Bell

(Via The Wheeler Report)

Wisconsin just keeps on with the crazy. You would think there would be little ambiguity about how a piece of legislation goes into effect.

The bill is passed, signed and becomes law.

But there's more procedure than that and the bill is not law until it is published.

And (following a complaint) Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi issues a temporary restraining order

I do, therefore, restrain and enjoin the further implementation of 2011 Wisconsin Act 10.

Judge Sumi schedules a hearing for March 29, and goes out of the state.

As everybody now knows, the State's Legislative Reference Bureau publishes the Act with this disclaimer:

* Section 991.11, WISCONSIN STATUTES 2009−10 : Effective date of acts. “Every act and every portion of an act enacted by the legislature over the governor’s partial veto which does not expressly prescribe the time when it takes effect shall take effect on the day after its date of publication as designated” by the secretary of state [the date of publication may not be more than 10 working days after the date of enactment].

† Pursuant to section 35.095 (3) (b), Wis. Stats., the secretary of state designated March 25, 2011, as the date of publication for this act. On March 18, 2011, the Dane County Circuit Court enjoined the secretary of state from publishing 2011 Wisconsin Act 10 until further order of the court. Section 35.095 (3) (a), Wis. Stats., requires the Legislative Reference Bureau to publish every act within 10 working days after its date of enactment.

Litigants rush to court and demand a temporary restraining order be issued to the LRB, making them “un-publish” and bizarrely, the GOP Majority leader makes multiple statements that the LRB publication puts the law in effect.

With Judge Sumi unavailable, it falls to Dane County Circuit Judge Sarah B. O’Brien to release a statement denying a temporary restraining order – because – as she puts it:

There will likely be questions raised in the underlying lawsuit about the significance of the “publication” by the Legislative Reference Bureau in light of the existence of the restraining order issued by Judge Sumi. I am not taking any position on whether the LRB has effectively “published” the act, nor on the effect of the LRB’s action in regard to a potential effective date of the bill. However there is no critical urgency to resolving those questions. Restraining orders are issued to protect the status quo. As Judge Sumi said in issuing the temporary restraining order enjoining publication of the bill on March 18, 2011: Finally, the necessity to preserve the status quo. I think relief is essential to preserve the status quo, which is what exists here and now. The bill has passed. But it has not been published.

1 I am using quotation marks around the word “published” to make clear that this is not a ruling on whether the Act has now been legally published.

Whatever the significance of it may be, the LRB acted today by putting the bill on its website. That bell cannot be “unrung”. Ordering that the bill be taken off the website, as I believe Attorney Ozanne would like to request, would have no legal significance. Therefore I am declining to hold a hearing in this matter

The judge is studiously avoiding the publication issue, but is implicitly saying that Judge Sumi's order preserved the status quo "which is what exists here and now." i.e. Ain't nothing changed, so I'm not issuing another order that will in no way affect the legal status of Act 10.

Taken as a whole you have a series of things that just don't follow each other so good:

• Judge Sumi restraining further implementation of Act 10
• a state agency doing something it is legally obligated to do and that has no implementation significance, 
• GOP leadership claiming that the law has been implemented
• and the WI Department of Administration Secretary saying his department is moving forward with implementing the Act

A very generous soul might excuse Sen. Fitzgerald's statements as mere grandstanding, but I would think the WI DoA would be flirting with contempt.

Madness.

If You Strike, We Won't Help You Eat

Are you F*&%#-ing kidding me?

Buried Provision in House GOP Bill Would Cut Off Food Stamps to Entire Families if One Member Strikes

H.R. 1135 contains this provision:

That's a family wide ban, for the actions of a single working member.


GOP to American Workers: "You'll take what we give and like it...and what we're giving - is taking."

(H/t Naked Capitalism)

Late Edit: Joke's on us, I guess... The law has read this way since 1981. Which raises the obvious question - if this is current law - why is this in the House bill?

Equal Justice

Just read this:

David Weidner has an excellent column on the unfortunate case of Sergey Aleynikov, better known as the guy who stole computer code from Goldman Sachs.
Last week, a federal judge handed Aleynikov got eight-plus years in prison for the theft. The fact is, Aleynikov is a thief, and Weidner makes sure you know he’s not minimizing that fact. But he contextualizes it, and it’s enlightening:

On March 18, the same day that U.S. District Judge Denise Cote handed down Mr. Aleynikov’s sentence of eight years and a month in prison, a different judge sent William J. Cannon, 22, of Ukiah, Calif., to prison for seven years. Mr. Cannon was convicted of the attempted rape of a 16-year-old girl.

Rodney Williams, 42, was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in Norfolk, Va., for shooting his victim eight times in a fight outside a sports bar, got 12 months in prison and a $2,500 fine.

Moral: Work for Wall Street, you're above the law.

Steal from Wall Street, and you are going down harder than rapists and killers.

WI GOP Legislators Come Clean

WI GOP before Today - "These provisions gutting workers rights are necessary to balance the budget. This is financial legislation"

WI GOP Today -  "This is not about the budget, so we'll pass it without a financial quorum (that we can't get)."

And just in case there's any doubt this was about a political power struggle, here's WI Majority Leader Fitzgerald fessing up (emphasis added):

FITZGERALD: Well if they flip the state senate, which is obviously their goal with eight recalls going on right now, they can take control of the labor unions. If we win this battle, and the money is not there under the auspices of the unions, certainly what you’re going to find is President Obama is going to have a much difficult, much more difficult time getting elected and winning the state of Wisconsin.

Badgers, get your recall pens ready. These people have to go down - hard.

Siege and Standoff

(Via The Wheeler Report)

Okay, there's an awful lot of stuff hitting the wire about the Wisconsin State Capitol building.

Image via WaxingAmerica

Supposedly, the building is being locked up, people are being denied entrance, barriers have been erected, and windows are being bolted shut. (the bolted windows story appears to be crap)

This, apparently in defiance of a court order that the building be open.

What the hell is going on?

Well, if you read the WI DofA memo - whoever is calling the shots has decided to get the last remaining protesters out of the capitol by denying them essentials and waiting until they leave.

All access to the capitol in the meantime is strictly controlled until these holdouts give up the ghost. On the one hand you could say this is good policing - certainly preferable to going in and dragging people out. On the other hand, there are reports that state GOP legislators do not seem subject to these new access procedures, nor are attendees to a party for the Joint Finance Committee (this per State Rep. Mark Pocan's open letter).

Trust between the sides is nonexistent.

So, the position of the administration that is essentially "Leave, and then we'll let everyone back in" is a very hard sell. Apparently a judge has ordered the capitol open by Monday, March 7 - (but even then, there's noises from Dems like it will be open tomorrow) after the protesters are removed.

So we could have arrests, or other confrontation with the remaining capitol protesters. Or not.

And to top it all off - we have the WI Senate issuing orders to detain the missing Democratic State Senators.

Which is an interesting escalation, since (at least according to law firm Cullen, Weston, Pines & Bach) it is illegal to do so (emphasis added):

Members of the legislature shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest: nor shall they be subject to any civil process, during the session of the legislature, nor for fifteen days next before the commencement and after the termination of each session.

This is not an absolute bar against sanction - Wisconsin Statues Section 13.26 spells out a brief list of things that the legislature can punish "...contempt, by imprisonment, a breach of its privileges or the privileges of its members..."

Here's the first item on that list:

(a) Arresting a member or officer of the house, or procuring such member or officer to be arrested in violation of the member's privilege from arrest.

And, thus we have an interesting dilemma for WI State troopers.

And Wisconsin is no closer to ending this mess anytime soon.

Late Edit: Dane County Circuit Court Judge John Albert has ruled that the state's restrictions on access are illegal- and that the protesters must leave the capitol when the building is closed.

Which seems very reasonable.

It remains to be seen if the new restrictions on capitol access that follow this order are equally reasonable. Restricting protests to the ground floor seems very unreasonable.

Well, That Pretty Much Explains College Athletics, Then...

I'll just quote this directly, because it's just too perfect:

Which reminds me of another tax issue, this one with college sports. The New York Times reported this in a story this weekend:

Federal law permits taxpayers to deduct annually 80 percent of a donation for premium seating or luxury suites. All other contributions, including those for scholarships and capital projects, are 100 percent deductible.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

Anybody who thinks the plutocrats haven't captured the tax code is living in fantasyland.

Shot Across the Bow

(Via Felix Salmon and The Big Picture)

Mary Williams Walsh (and by extension, the New York Times) would like you to think that states may try to declare bankruptcy in the foreseeable future.

That such things are illegal now does not seem to be an issue, nor does the absence of a Congressional bill making such a thing legal.

People are talking about it, Ms. Walsh warns us - and we should be afraid.

More accurately, public employees should be afraid (emphasis mine):

Bankruptcy could permit a state to alter its contractual promises to retirees, which are often protected by state constitutions, and it could provide an alternative to a no-strings bailout. Along with retirees, however, investors in a state’s bonds could suffer, possibly ending up at the back of the line as unsecured creditors.

And Ms. Walsh is using "alter" in the same way that Darth Vader uses it:

I wish to alter your pension. Pray I don't alter it any further.

It doesn't exactly sound likely, and it cannot be terribly popular - Welching on a pension promised to workers who have upheld their part of the deal?

You've paid us with years of your life - years that are now gone. I know we'd promised you money, but....well...

Who is leading the push for this?

Let's see:

Discussion of a new bankruptcy option for the states appears to have taken off in November, after [Newt] Gingrich gave a speech about the country’s big challenges, including government debt and an uncompetitive labor market.

“We just have to be honest and clear about this, and I also hope the House Republicans are going to move a bill in the first month or so of their tenure to create a venue for state bankruptcy,” he said.

I get that the GOP is dusting off the brass knuckles with labor, post election - but does the NYT really have to be their bullhorn for their threats?

What crap.

Why Was There a Crisis? GOP: Well... "Bubbles Happen"

(Via CJR)

It's hard to know where to begin after you read the primer conservative defectors from the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.

Krugman gives us the primer's origin story:

Last week, reports Shahien Nasiripour of The Huffington Post, all four Republicans on the commission voted to exclude the following terms from the report: “deregulation,” “shadow banking,” “interconnection,” and, yes, “Wall Street.”

When Democratic members refused to go along with this insistence that the story of Hamlet be told without the prince, the Republicans went ahead and issued their own report, which did, indeed, avoid using any of the banned terms.

Here's a sample from the primer:

Bubbles happen. In retrospect, they always seem easy to identify, but as they are building, experts debate whether they exist—and, if so, why. The recent housing bubble was no different. Despite national home price appreciation well above the historical trend for almost a decade, and local markets with even more pronounced price swings, most homeowners and mortgage investors believed there were sound fundamentals underpinning their investments.

We will likely never have a complete explanation for why there was a housing bubble, but we have some clues. First, even without a big change in the costs of building a home, a sharp increase in demand for homes can cause rapid price increases until new homes are built, bringing prices back down.

Got that? We will likely never have a complete explanation....

Geez guys, couldn't you have just said No one could have conceived...?

CJR's Ryan chittum does us all a solid and directs us to Bethany McLean's column over at Slate.

She calls the primer what it is - bullshit.

...get ready for a few of the primer's breathtaking conclusions. "Put simply, the risk of a housing collapse was simply not appreciated." Shit happens. ("Bubbles happen" is, in fact, the first sentence in the report.) How about some exploration of why consumer advocates—who in the 1990s began warning the Federal Reserve and members of Congress that people were getting loans they couldn't pay back—were ignored? Here's another genius insight: "The panic ended when confidence returned." That one inspired me to check the definition of panic (a "sudden overwhelming fear") to make sure I wasn't wrong to find this a bit redundant. Daylight appeared when the sun rose. War ended when the armies stopped fighting. Hurt went away when the pain subsided.

In a way, we should be greatful to Vice Chairman Bill Thomas and commissioners Peter J. Wallison, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, and Keith Hennessey for so clearly illustrating who they work for.

They wrote a report about the financial crisis and agreed to avoid using the words "Wall Street."

Ye gods.

MERS, the Black Hole of the Title Transfer World

In reading about the ongoing foreclosure mess, one acronym keeps coming up: MERS. That would be the Mortgage Electronic Registration System, Inc. - a Delaware based company that (for a fee) will agree to be listed as the mortgage owner in county records.

If that sounds odd to you - you don't know the half of it.

By way of Felix Salmon - I started reading a paper by the University of Cincinnati Law Review's Christopher L. Peterson: Foreclosure, Subprime Mortgage Lending, and the Mortgage Electronic Registration System.

Yeah, yeah, I know - but it's actually fascinating reading.

Here are the highlights. MERS is basically an umbrella corporation that interposes itself between normal title transfer registrations (and their resulting fees), maintains its own records of those transactions, and allows lenders to assume the role of MERS employees when they need to foreclose.

Here's a visual aid (from the paper):

This is a normal series of title transfers for a mortgage.
At number 1 is the original mortage where the homeowner and the loan originator make a deal.
At 2 - is where that bank sells the loan to some other bank or broker
At 3 is where that bank or broker sells the loan to Trust or special purpose vehicle (SPV) so it can be sold to large numbers of investors.

At each of these steps you'll notice that the transfer of the note (the actual contract saying what property is involved and who owes what to whom) is recorded in the county register (each time requiring a fee).

It should suprise no one that county records are frequently written ledgers on dusty old shelves.
But they are public records and rigorously maintained to avoid conflicting claims on the same piece of land.
Prof. Peterson goes on at length about the notoriously anal retentive standards of title registration. Title insurance exists to cover what error remains - but as anyone who as been to a real estate closing will tell you - these folks sweat the details.

This takes time, and annoys bloated financial industry types - who want to avoid paying fees and having to wait for the clerk's office to process their transfer.

So, they created a go between - MERS.

In its ultimate form, picture above, MERS is listed on the mortgage. They track subsequent transfers of the title (which are not recorded by the county) and no further fees are paid to the county no matter how many times the title changes hands. MERS remains on county record of the sale.

This is problematic for lots of reasons, but you can see why at first this system worked. The county and the homeowner see nothing unusual - because from where they are sitting nothing changes. The county records the original sale - and never sees the later deals. The homeowner is told to send checks to a servicing agency at the time of the deal, and that does not change.

MERS has served its primary purposes: cutting transaction costs and speeding up the process. It's been wildly successful:

With the rating agencies' stamp of approval, the use of MERS exploded in the early 2000s. By late 2002, MERS had recorded its name, instead of the actual assignee or mortgagee, in ten million residential home mortgages. As the subprime mortgage refinancing boom took off, MERS registered an average of 21,000 loans on its system per day. Only a year later, the total number of loans recorded in MERS's name doubled to twenty million. By May of 2007, this number had tripled again to sixty million loans. Sixty percent of all new mortgage loan originations are recorded under MERS's name, and more than half of the nation's existing residential loans are recorded under MERS's name.

MERS maintains a database of the subsequent transactions, which is available to its member institutions (but not to the public).

And that's the first problem. State laws require that subsequent sales of a property be recorded in THEIR records - and MERS is making that not happen.
MERS would (and does) say that this is not necessary, that MERS is still on the mortgage of record and that has not changed.

Peterson points out that this is bull$hit - because the laws are looking for the role you actually play - not what you call yourself. In other words, you can call yourself the mortgage holder - but unless you lent the homeowner money, are owed payments, or have the right to foreclose on their property - you're nobody. Here's Peterson again:

In thousands of cases around the country MERS's counsel continues to recite the statement that "MERS holds legal title to the mortgage" as though it were the fmance equivalent of some tantric mantra. Yet any meaningful economic analysis of this claim exposes it as a simple falsehood. MERS does not own the lien because it does not own the proceeds of the sale rendering disposition of the property seized in exercising the lien.

That's why MERS is increasingly in the news these days. The MERS system works well when loans get paid, even when a few don't. But when loans start to blow up left and right - sooner or later somebody's going to ask "Who the hell are these MERS guys? And how come they don't have the note?"

And that's when MERS guys will show up and say they're here to foreclose on a property. What will be weird about them is that they will look exactly like the guys who work for the XYZ Trust that the loan was sold to. This is because the MERS guys aren't MERS guys at all. Oh, they'll say they are employees of MERS, they'll even have paperwork that will say they are a "Secretary and Vice President of MERS" - but they've never been paid a cent by MERS. The opposite is true. They pay MERS so they can (and I'm not making this up - read the paper) enter their names into a web form on MERS's website and print out credentials for the express purpose of appearing in a foreclosure proceeding as agents of MERS.

Why would they do this?

Primarily, because MERS is listed on the mortgage of record. If a foreclosure proceeding was begun by XYZ Trust, they'd have to explain why XYZ trust isn't listed on the county register as owning the property. MERS does.

Better still, XYZ Trust - were they working as MERS legal designates under their own name - would fall under federal regulation for debt collection. Crucially, federal debt collection regs do not apply to original creditors. By pretending to be MERS agents at time of foreclosure, the XYZ Trust can assert they are the original creditor and go at a homeowner with hammer and tongs without fear of federal intervention.

So MERS operates as a flag of convenience for lenders at two critical points in the deal: first, as a way to avoid paying fees - and second as a way to avoid regulations when it comes to foreclosure proceedings.

Peterson points out another unfortunate service MERS affords its less than savory members:

When thinly capitalized originators churned out more and more securitized loans, claims against those lenders accumulated, while their assets did not. Once the projected costs of disgruntled investor recourse demands and borrower predatory lending lawsuits exceeded the projected costs of bankruptcy and reformation under a new corporate guise, originator management would predictably discard their corporate identity. 206 MERS made this easier by . offering a super-generic placeholder that transcended. the aborted life of lenders. MERS reassured investors that even when an originator goes bankrupt, county property records would remain unaffected and foreclosure could proceed apace. By serving as the true mortgagee's proxy in recording and foreclosure, MERS abetted a fly-bynight, pump-and-dump, no-accountability model of structured mortgage fmance.

All of this is over and above the lack of paperwork foolishness> The MERS database of transactions may assist creditors and homeowners in figuring out what loans went where - but only if they are permitted to see it.

More to the point - the appearance of MERS in county records as the mortgage holder of record is essentially a roadblock to public inquiry. Somebody sells you a house and the former owner was listed as MERS - your title insurance company is going to have a harder time figuring out if MERS really holds title, or if they've sold it to someone who has since gone bankrupt or resold it, or god knows what.

Which is not to say the end is nigh, but as Prof. Peterson points out in detail - when a private record system is used to supplant a public one - all kinds of bad things can occur.

I'll leave a summation of some of those things to wiser minds like Barry.

Reading the Fine Print

Okay, first off - if you haven't seen this, watch this as a warm up.




Mortgages were written with crap paperwork that are now being used to foreclose on people's houses. Stewart presents this as a "Sophie's Choice" scenario: we could allow the banks to foreclose using BS paperwork - or we could stop foreclosures and blow huge holes in the finances of the companies who sold securities that were supposedly backed by this paperwork.

That's the soundbite version, complete with flashy visuals.

Here's Yves Smith for the dry, analytical version:

That puts a cloud over the entire US RMBS market, the biggest asset class in the world. This paper was sold as secured; the ability to offset the cost of borrower defaults by seizing and selling his house is critical to the value of the instruments. And if no assets were conveyed to a particular trust by closing, an even uglier possibility exists: under New York law, which was elected by RMBS as governing law for the trust, it would be considered to be “unfunded”, which means it does not exist.

But Yves Smith has a marvelous pushback on they way Stewart (and the financial press) are framing this (emphasis mine):

Now the rather sick irony is that this monster screw-up probably affects Fannie and Freddie paper only indirectly; presumably, it will a given that this will be treated as if the government guarantee covers this little mess. The Obama Administration is the last bunch of folks that will look into the fine print to see if Fannie and Freddie ought to eat this liability.

I’ll admit I have not looked into the Fannie/Freddie procedures on this one, but I’d have trouble believing their rules would include having the government guarantee extend to operational screw ups that prevent losses on guaranteed mortgages being relieved by foreclosures. I’d have to believe they have putback procedures which will not be applied because the consequences would be too devastating to Team Obama’s best friend, the banking industry.

So Frannie and Freddie not pushing the losses related to foreclosures back to the banks would be yet another back door bailout.

In other words:

• If a consumer doesn't read the paperwork, they are bound by the unbreakable bonds of the contract they signed. Tough bounce.
• If a corporation is rescued from bankruptcy owes bonuses to is employees - those bonuses must be paid. There was a contract.
• But if a financial institution ignored proper paperwork in a rush to make money, and everything blew up in its face - the contracts that it signed with secondary lenders (like Freddie and Fannie) that require underwriting and due diligence must be ignored - because otherwise it would end up costing a corporation money.

And banks apparently have veto power on contracts that cost them money.

What a crock of sh!t.

Brace for another backdoor bailout.

(H/t Felix Salmon and if you're in the mood to have your mind blown, by all means read the NC posts he links to. They are simply incredible.)

How Old is Your Gas Pipeline?

Why do I ask? Oh, I don't know...

San Bruno, CA: 4 dead and counting

But here's another question - when was the last time your gas lines were evaluated by professionals?

Which is not to say this sort of thing should be on homeowners. It shouldn't. Unseen batallions of quiet professionals should be keeping this off your worry radar by making sure everything is maintained properly.

But here's something to jolt you out of that safe mental picture:

the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the federal agency that regulates 2.3 million miles of oil and natural gas pipelines, largely relies on standards written by the oil and gas industry. It has about 100 inspectors, leaving industry a great deal of latitude with inspections. (Even after the blast, state utility regulators ordered PG&E to inspect its own network of gas pipelines.)

And according to The Washington Independent, federal regulators are required to inspect only about 7 percent of the country’s natural gas pipelines. That percentage is based on how populated the surrounding area is, and not the actual conditions of the pipelines.

Regulating agency dependent on industry expertise? Check. Regulator's resources laughably inadequate to the task it is given? Check.

Now where have I seen that pattern before?