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Fred Dungan
Unity Member
Post Number: 2023
Registered: 10-2002

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Posted on Sunday, February 17, 2008 - 06:50 pm:

I want to warn you at the outset that if you continue to read this message, you are in for a long political rant that will not do anything to improve your day. For those of you who came to this thread looking for light-hearted banter or some such diversion, I suggest you click the "Back" button on your toolbar and then choose another topic (Hrothgar's Mead Hall comes to mind).

The sub-prime lending crisis has political scientists debating the future of capitalism. As you have probably heard, sub-prime loans differ from A-loans in that they are supposed to be targeted at buyers who do not qualify for VA, FHA, and other traditional sources of loans and therefore must pay additional interest to cover the additional risk. Actually, I have no problem with that. What ticks me off is that 53 percent of subprime loans went to blacks who could have qualified for an A-loan, while subprime loans were given to only 13 percent of qualified whites. In other words, the subprime loan crisis could have been avoided if the lenders had done their jobs correctly. The chief reason they didn't was because they received more money from subprimes. Also, they got kickbacks in the form of Caribbean cruises and luxury watches for meeting quotas. Not only did this precipitate a world-wide economic crisis (some are calling it a recession), but it also constituted the largest transfer of wealth from working class minorities to leisure class whites since Reconstruction.

But the problem with home loans goes much deeper. If you own your home, you may remember that you had to purchase Title Insurance to obtain the mortgage. Title Insurance is supposed to pay off when the previous owners owed taxes or the property turns out to be encumbered by undisclosed debts. This rarely happens and the title insurance companies only pay 5 cents to claimants of every $1 they receive. Contrast this with other insurers such as State Farm and Geico who pay out 70 cents on claims of every dollar that they receive. Title insurance is entrenched and heavily restricted, i.e. there are laws against State Farm and Geico getting into the game. All states function pretty much the same and you can expect to pay upwards of $1,000 for title insurance when you get a loan. The sole exception is Iowa, where the an agency of the state government took over title insurance. Consequently, Iowa's citizens pay appoximately 2/3 less for title insurance than people who live in other states.

What bothers political scientists is that the real estate business is one more in a growing number of industries that have abandoned capitalism, i.e. free market competition, in favor of cronyism where the good old boys decide in advance how much to charge and who gets a share of the pie. This corruption of capitalism has spread to gasoline, books, cellphones and cable television. It's the reason you don't have a contract despite having written five novels. You can't get published because they won't permit you to submit manuscripts.

The Iron Curtain collapsed because the communists became corrupt and no longer adhered to their own principles. It's a lesson that we have yet to learn. The Western democracies are not immune to corruption. And if they don't start practicing what they preach, they could suffer the same fate as the Soviets.

Civilizations rise and fall. Some last longer than others. The Pax Americana has accomplished great things. I think capitalism is an admirable system, but in order to survive it has to work in practice the way it works on paper.

Some of you have given up on bringing Publish America to justice and reforming the publishing industry. That's sad. Publish America is emblematic of what is wrong with how things are done in the publishing industry. Change is in the offing. The only question is whether it will be a change for the better or a change for the worse.

http://www.fdungan.com/bushwhacked.htm

Joyce Scarbrough
Unity Member
Post Number: 1227
Registered: 03-2004

Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!)

Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 06:41 am:

I haven't given up, Fred. I wrote my third book (SYMMETRY) because it has enormous marketing potential, and I want to use it to get attention for me and my other two books. When that happens and I have some credibility (i.e. when anyone will actually give a flip about what I think) I fully intend to speak out about the unfairness of the publishing business, and all my future books will still be offered to small independent publishers.

I have three agents looking at SYMMETRY, and I have appointments with one more agent and an editor at a conference I'm going to in April. If I don't get an offer for it by then, I'll let AIB publish it and do the promotion myself. (I offered it to LA from the start and she said to go for a bigger publisher because of the sales and marketing potential.) I don't have time right now to explain exactly what makes this book different, but I'll post it later in the registered area of the forum.

I agree with you, Fred. I really do. I'm just taking a different route to change.

~Joyce Sterling Scarbrough
True Blue Forever
ISBN 0-9722385-9-X
Different Roads
ISBN 0-9722385-3-0
Authors Ink Books
http://www.authorsinkbooks.com

Read the first chapters: http://www.authorsden.com/joycelscarbrough1
Waste time on Joyce's Blog: http://joycescarbrough.blogspot.com
Watch the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kztz5e3XZeo

Tom Elkins
Wisdom Member
Post Number: 910
Registered: 01-2005

Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!)

Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 08:27 am:

Fred - You forgot Congress, which actually kicked off the whole mess by passing enabling legislation, then virtually ordering lenders to make subprime loans. That was done under the guise of helping out the "little guy". Talk about cronyism! And large institutions like Citibank which bought up bunches of subprimes, then tried to spin them off when they saw trouble looming. True capitalism didn't fail. That's the way it's supposed to work. When you ignore sound business practices, you pay the price. (eventually...usually.)

Joyce - I have a second book I'm sitting on. The working title is An Old Guy's Take - Where we've Been, Where we're Going. The title pretty much describes it. It's too short, but it says what I wanted to say. I no longer have the energy for the promotional merry-go-round.

Tom Elkins
NORTH of TEXAS
www.authorsden.com/tomelkins

Fred Dungan
Unity Member
Post Number: 2024
Registered: 10-2002

Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!)

Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 09:06 pm:

Of course you are right, mine isn't the only way, nor necessarily the right way. The important thing is to keep going -- even if you have to beat the door down. It irks me to watch someone with more connections than talent make the New York Times bestseller list on the first poorly written try.

Tom, you aren't too old. It's the struggle that keeps writers thinking young. And the odds are far better than playing the lottery. Hillary had a hit with It Takes A Village. Surely, we can do better than that.

http://www.fdungan.com/police.htm

Tom Elkins
Wisdom Member
Post Number: 911
Registered: 01-2005

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Votes: 0 (Vote!)

Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 - 10:39 pm:

Anybody can do better than that.

Tom Elkins
NORTH of TEXAS
www.authorsden.com/tomelkins

Stephen Lodge
Wisdom Member
Post Number: 631
Registered: 06-2004

Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!)

Posted on Tuesday, February 19, 2008 - 04:56 am:

"Hillary had a hit with It Takes A Village."

And she didn't even write it ~

http://www.stephenlodge.com
Novels by Stephen Lodge:
"Charley Sunday's Texas Outfit!"
"Nickel-Plated Dream"
"Shadows of Eagles"

Fred Dungan
Unity Member
Post Number: 2025
Registered: 10-2002

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Votes: 0 (Vote!)

Posted on Wednesday, February 20, 2008 - 06:40 pm:

The manuscript was commissioned by Simon & Schuster. The title comes from a 1994 children's book by another author who developed the concept for the book from an African proverb. Barbara Feinman, a journalism professor at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., spent seven months on the project and was paid $120,000 for her work. Feinman, however, was not mentioned anywhere in the book. Clinton's acknowledgment section began: "It takes a village to bring a book into the world, as everyone who has written one knows. Many people have helped me to complete this one, sometimes without even knowing it. They are so numerous that I will not even attempt to acknowledge them individually, for fear that I might leave one out."

In all fairness to Clinton, the line between heavy editing and ghostwriting is ill-defined. However, not mentioning by name someone who did seven months of work on a book is, to say the least, discourteous. Most authors have no issue with giving credit where credit is due. It is a fact of life that big people use little people as stepping stones to get where they want to go, but that does not mean that we have to vote for them.

http://www.fdungan.com/such.htm

Stephen Lodge
Wisdom Member
Post Number: 633
Registered: 06-2004

Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!)

Posted on Wednesday, February 20, 2008 - 08:05 pm:

I've read that John Kennedy's "Profiles in Courage" was also ghost-written. Does anyone know if he gave someone credit for this?

http://www.stephenlodge.com
Novels by Stephen Lodge:
"Charley Sunday's Texas Outfit!"
"Nickel-Plated Dream"
"Shadows of Eagles"

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