Interesting Story I heard

[Malice]

I was talking to someone who knows the owner of the property involved.

OK...
In NorthWest Houston there is a big enclosed "flea market" called Traders Village. It has a bunch of shops that sell all sorts of things there. Kinda an interesting place.

The owner of Traders Village was contacted by a "regional" director of the Obama Campaign. They asked him if they could put a booth up just outside the entrance to sign people up to vote.

The owner, has never allowed politics to involve his business in the past and states he does not want to support a candidate...

She says she will not support a candidate, but strictly wants to get people signed up. The owner agrees, and gets a FAXED signature that they will not endorse any candidate, its SIMPLY to get people registered.

Two days later...the Owner gets a call, from a friend who says goto X-website. He goes and see's something like this:

"NorthWest Houston Obama Registration Headquarters"
Traders Village Parking Lot

The owner, pissed as hell, call them up and talks to the director. He asks her, I thought we agreed, no signs endorcing anyone, not endorcing of candidates as a whole, regardless who.

Needless to say, a 30 minute argument ensues and the owner orders them off his property. She says she will sue....and he says...go ahead.

This story was not to really "endorse" a candidate, or down another...

This is getting ridiculous on what is transpiring.

 

[SuBe]

That type of thing is going on everywhere. Unfortunate that you can't take most people on their word anymore.

 

[Malice]

That type of thing is going on everywhere. Unfortunate that you can't take most people on their word anymore.

Exactly....
The guy was willing to let them register people, as long as it didnt get "political" on his place of business

Then to see the "HQ announcements" it was appaulling to be blatantly lied to.

 

[lazur]

Exactly....
The guy was willing to let them register people, as long as it didnt get "political" on his place of business

Then to see the "HQ announcements" it was appaulling to be blatantly lied to.

And didn't you hear that ACORN is a non-partisan organization that receives federal funding to the tune of 500 million a year?

More of the same from the Obama camp. It's not at all surprising to me.

 

[Paradoxium]

My biggest problem with ACORN was never the voting fraud thing, but THAT (federal funding) and the fact they are strong arming banks into giving out bad loans. You cannot afford this problem in this current climate, and there are barely any reports of this.

 

[lazur]

My biggest problem with ACORN was never the voting fraud thing, but THAT (federal funding) and the fact they are strong arming banks into giving out bad loans. You cannot afford this problem in this current climate, and there are barely any reports of this.

And Obama gave them 800,000 of his campaign's money to 'get out the vote' - something he still hasn't explained...

 

[SuBe]

And Obama gave them 800,000 of his campaign's money to 'get out the vote' - something he still hasn't explained...

No, he gave OVER $800,000 for Lighting and Sound Stages, which ACORN doesn't do...

 

[DeaDheaD]

Obama: Burying ACORNs


The ad says that "Obama's ties to ACORN run long and deep" – that he "taught classes" for the group, paid a "front" $800,000 for get-out-the-vote efforts, and was endorsed by ACORN for president. That last one's true – ACORN's political action committee did offer an Obama endorsement. It's also true that Obama has worked with the group in the past. In 1995, Obama helped represent ACORN in a successful lawsuit to require the state of Illinois to offer "motor voter" registration at DMV offices. Obama has said that this is his only association with ACORN, but that's not the case – he has had other, though less direct, interactions with the organization.


When Obama was on the board of directors of the Woods Fund, the foundation gave grants of $75,000 in 2001 and $70,000 in 2002 to ACORN's Chicago office. The McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee cite an additional grant of $45,000 in 2000. The Woods Fund has not responded to our calls about their 2000 grants.

The Obama campaign also paid Citizens Services Inc., a group affiliated with ACORN, more than $800,000 for get-out-the-vote (not voter registration) efforts during the primary election. The nature of CSI's services was initially misrepresented on the Obama campaign's disclosures to the Federal Election Commission, which the campaign describes as an oversight. The Obama campaign says it has not been involved with ACORN during the general election.


In addition, after law school, Obama may have had contact with ACORN when he directed a Chicago registration drive for Project Vote in 1992. According to Sanford Newman, who was the program’s national director at the time, ACORN may have been one of dozens of organizations that participated in registration drives that year with Project Vote personnel like Obama. But Project Vote didn’t begin contracting exclusively with ACORN until after Obama worked for the group in 1992. “Working for Project Vote at the time was by no means working for ACORN," Newman told us. ACORN had no influence on Project Vote policy and no representation on its board.

As for "teaching classes" for the group, the McCain campaign cites a March 2008 Newsday article, which says that ACORN organizer Madeleine Talbot "initially considered Obama a competitor" when both were working to get asbestos insulation removed from a Chicago housing project, but that "she became so impressed with his work that she invited him to help train her staff." Newsday does not say whether Obama accepted the invitation. An article by Chicago alderman Toni Foulkes says that "we [ACORN] have invited Obama to our leadership training sessions to run the session on power every year" between 1992 and 2004, when the article was written. The Obama campaign says that Obama participated in two, one-hour trainings in a volunteer capacity. Foulkes could not be reached for comment.

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/acorn_accusations.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/09/acorn.fraud.claims/index.html

 

[Malice]

My biggest problem with ACORN was never the voting fraud thing, but THAT (federal funding) and the fact they are strong arming banks into giving out bad loans. You cannot afford this problem in this current climate, and there are barely any reports of this.

That wont happen I would imagine for a little bit, because banks right now want freaking blood samples...fingerprints and DNA to get any kind of a loan.

 

[DeaDheaD]

Me and my Fiancee were able to get approved for any amount we wanted from a local bank as long as we have a 5% down payment......We only needed $47,000 for the house, but it was pretty easy to get.

 

[Malice]

Me and my Fiancee were able to get approved for any amount we wanted from a local bank as long as we have a 5% down payment......We only needed $47,000 for the house, but it was pretty easy to get.

Do you guys have jobs and have a stable background?

 

[DeaDheaD]

Do you guys have jobs and have a stable background?

Well of course, both of us are college graduates with degree-related jobs.......I made this point to a co-worker, it seems like the people who can't get a loan right now, probably shouldn't be getting loans anyway.

 

[Paradoxium]

It needs to go back 18-20% down at a high interest, about 40% of people got mortgages 0 down. Then you use this to leverage up on a ton of BS they can't afford, let alone the house. The artificial interest rate set by the federal reserve with the faulty annual inflation figures (closer to 10% a year, not 1%, they color the books) actually produces a negative percentage.

More to the point, this is one of the many root causes. It needs to be nipped at ASAP. It cost nothing to do this. You keep this in place and you are asking for trouble in the future; if things get better.

 

[DeaDheaD]

Adjustable rates and loans to questionable people need to stop.

 

[Malice]

Well of course, both of us are college graduates with degree-related jobs.......I made this point to a co-worker, it seems like the people who can't get a loan right now, probably shouldn't be getting loans anyway.

Absolutely...but I am supprised it was that easy for you with all the things I have heard.
Good for you!

 

[Paradoxium]

That wont happen I would imagine for a little bit, because banks right now want freaking blood samples...fingerprints and DNA to get any kind of a loan.

Not now, they are smart enough to do this out of self preservation. All we need is some stupid piece of legislation mandating they fill some quota out. Considering who is in power and the constituents he is trying please, this would not be a big leap. Even the Bush administration did something similar in insuring houses be lent out to (non-asian) minorities. It is not a product of the Democrats only.

 

[Malice]

And my comments were not geared to a party...just current circumstances...

 

[Malice]

And my comments were not geared to a party...just current circumstances...

 

[Paradoxium]

I know, I am saying this is like a gateway drug of sorts.

 

[DeaDheaD]

Absolutely...but I am supprised it was that easy for you with all the things I have heard.
Good for you!

Well, again, we only borrowed what we needed and could afford for right now, its not the dream house, but it's good to start out with, plus it gets us out of renting and actually starting to build equity.

I think the media has made this to be worse than it really is, again it seems that only the people really effected by this are those with questionable credit.

 

[lazur]

It needs to go back 18-20% down at a high interest, about 40% of people got mortgages 0 down. Then you use this to leverage up on a ton of BS they can't afford, let alone the house. The artificial interest rate set by the federal reserve with the faulty annual inflation figures (closer to 10% a year, not 1%, they color the books) actually produces a negative percentage.

More to the point, this is one of the many root causes. It needs to be nipped at ASAP. It cost nothing to do this. You keep this in place and you are asking for trouble in the future; if things get better.

I don't believe this is as black and white as that. There are plenty of people who are capable of making their housing payments, and who do, faithfully, every month, despite not putting any money down on the house.

Rather than coming up with universal 'benchmarks' as loan qualifiers, each person should be examined on their own merit. There's no reason in the world why someone making 80k a year, but who doesn't have 20k to put down on a house, can't get a home loan that can be accommodated by that salary.

 

[Paradoxium]

I don't believe this is as black and white as that. There are plenty of people who are capable of making their housing payments, and who do, faithfully, every month, despite not putting any money down on the house.

Rather than coming up with universal 'benchmarks' as loan qualifiers, each person should be examined on their own merit. There's no reason in the world why someone making 80k a year, but who doesn't have 20k to put down on a house, can't get a home loan that can be accommodated by that salary.

Maybe the way things are heading house prices are going to get so low 20% won't seem much. While I agree with you on the rationale it should be evaluated on merits, you need these universal benchmarks or people will advantage of this fact: they can proclaim it as discrimination, despite the fact, it isn't. Hell banks have been sued for this. Did I mention to you guys that Obama himself actually sued Citibank to lower their mortgage standards towards black people?

But since this is privately regulated issue, it doesn't matter; eventually most companies will find out which method is more effective through trial and error. The beauty of the market t: (unless the gov't tries ****ing things up again).