genius

[unbibium]

Twitter listed "ACORN" as a hot political topic. I still don't know why, but I created the tinyURL http://tinyurl.com/acorn08 -- it leads to an acorn flour recipe that was on BoingBoing this week.

I linked to the BoingBoing post itself, instead of the recipe it linked to. I wonder if that's good or bad, because a lot of angry folks are going to click that link.

Comments

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

ACORN is a community service organization that, among other things, does voter registration in poor neighborhoods. Sometimes they pay people to do this, and they've had problems with their recruits faking the registration lists in various ways to get paid. Consequently, it's been an article of faith on the right for some years that ACORN is a giant voter-fraud machine, though as far as I can tell there's no good evidence that they ever actually delivered fake voters to the polls.

The latest twist is, people are going around blaming ACORN for the global financial crisis, saying it all happened because ACORN pressured banks to make bad Community Redevelopment Act loans to minorities; never mind that CRA loans are not in fact unusually bad.

How and why ACORN forced financial institutions to repackage these loans as AAA securities is, as far as I know, not explained in this theory. But it does provide a way of rescuing the CRA explanation from the fact that the CRA was passed under Jimmy Carter; evidently ACORN was the real trigger.

Anyway, part of McCain's latest tactic of bringing up every bottom-of-the-barrel attack that could rile his base is that he's got an ad out saying ACORN is going to try to steal the election. I don't know if it's a real TV ad or one of these web-only ads designed to get free airplay on news shows talking about the controversy. But it is laying the groundwork for efforts to delegitimize the election, at least in the minds of the most hardcore Republicans, if Obama wins. It also ties into the whole contempt-for-community-organizers angle.

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

I had heard that ACORN was going to be a recipient of some bailout money, and that they were being investigated in several states for turning in fraudulent registration cards. ACORN notes that many states require such a card, once filled-in, to be submitted (so that no side will register a bunch ofpeople and then chuck out the cards from opposition voters), and ACORN says they flag the ones that're obviously crap, but sometimes the flags get ignored.

ACORN doesn't pay by the registration, but they do enforce quotas, so while the organization doesn't endorse the creation by their employees of fraudulent registrations, they do create an incentive in the case of workers who are either lazy or failing.

Matt, you're right that those views are probably held by a few crazier members on the right, but inasmuch as any side is plotting to delegitimize the election, both are doing so, and watching out for black helicopters at the same time.

While the left can point to this as evidence of bad republicans trying to limit the number of poor voters, the right can point to the many instances of overtly fraudulent registries that're around, like Indianapolis, which has 105% registration among eligible voters, which is to say about 30,000 people registered who aren't eligible. Or Connecticut, where journalism students discovered 8500 dead voters still on the roles.

As for the financial crisis, I'm blaming overregulation and the special laws protecting Fannie and Freddie from proper market forces that affect their competition, and frankly resulting in insulating Fannie and Freddie from any fiscal responsibility. The banks that engaged in such thoughless risk management deserve to take a massive hit, but the so do the laws that created the big incentives for them to do so.

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

It's true that the mainstream right is asserting that ACORN deliberately engaged in voter fraud, largely by exploiting states' reluctance or, timewise, inability to confirm registrations or voter identities. (I don't believe they're being deliberate on the organizational level, but I believe ACORN leadership won't be losing sleep over the failure of states to eliminate the falsies, and anyway, probably few enough of the falsies will be voted-with anyway.)

Also, the mainstream right and McCain are working hard to tie ACORN to Obama-- evidently he worked with them in Chicago during his "Community Organizer" period, giving leadership classes and possibly a contribution from his campaign.

Beyond that, I'd say the claims Matt refers to are held by a minority of righties, an extremist bunch.

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

This is why I wish Darwinian evolution were still politically correct to talk about, because it seems to explain what's happening.

Because, fraudulent registrations seem to be a survival mechanism that evolved out of a necessity created by fraudulent disenfranchisement, which has been getting worse over time.

Of course, the people shouting "terrorist" at McCain rallies probably wouldn't buy that even if they believed in evolution.

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

I see where you're going with it, but what you need to do is read more economist blogs instead of talking about "survival mechanisms" you use cool phrases like "perverse incentives," like I do. :^)

But it's not natural selection because the pressures that one must cope with in the business or economic world, and the opportunities and incentives that keep people and businesses going, are artificially tinkered with constantly-- regulation. In short, regulation is attempts at artificial selection, and creating artificial versions of a free, i.e. natural, market.

I'm not against all regulation, because as far as I can tell, trusts and monopolies are elements of a free market (I've read several trained economists who disagree with that statement, so maybe I need to get a degree or something) -- trusts and monopolies destroy it, but the incentives in forming them outweigh the drawbacks for the customer, and hence regulation that obliterates these monsters should remain in place.

At any level of regulation, business will go on-- with any change, someone will benefit and someone will lose out. Conspiracy theorists credit the winners with creating the change in the first place. Oh, and the wealthy and powerful write the regulations. So there's that.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

As for the financial crisis, I'm blaming overregulation and the special laws protecting Fannie and Freddie from proper market forces that affect their competition, and frankly resulting in insulating Fannie and Freddie from any fiscal responsibility.

Fannie and Freddie didn't own the really bad debt until recently, when they acquired a lot of it in an earlier attempt to control the problem.

In fact, that article argues that the dangerous situation from about 2003 was in part caused by Fannie and Freddie financing fewer mortgages because of a regulatory crackdown on them, whereupon companies subject to less oversight moved into the gap.

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

I keep hearing about various post-Depression laws and restrictions being repealed in the last nine years or so. This makes me think that deregulation is the issue. But nobody who works for a corporation can say that we have less regulation now than when Enron failed.

Probably more to the point is that the amount of regulation stayed constant, but wasn't focused on where the problem was. I'm most worried that we're ending up with laws that will protect us from small, rare problems, but cultivate large, systemic problems.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of demagoguery going around on all sides here. Democrats blame the repeal of the Depression-era Glass-Steagal law frequently (in part so they can stick it to Phil Gramm, who is associated with the McCain campaign), but I get the impression that Glass-Steagal repeal wasn't really much of a contributor. The most important provision there, the lifting of the ban on full-service banks also being investment banks, didn't matter much because nobody actually took advantage of it--until the early stages of the meltdown, when Bank of America bought the hemorrhaging Merrill Lynch. Granted, that decision may yet cause trouble for BoA, so that might have some effect yet.

And then there's the whole fight over which candidate has more Fannie/Freddie lobbyist connections (probably McCain, but I doubt it matters much since Fannie/Freddie didn't really cause the problem in the first place).

It was more that there wasn't enough regulation of these particular kinds of practices in the first place.