the good old days

We wanted to refinance our existing mortgage with Wells Fargo, but despite very polite and helpful customer service reps who assured us a broker would get in touch and sympathized that it was taking so long, nobody from them has gotten in touch with us about refinancing in the five months we’ve been inquiring. (Yesterday we phoned to get the exact payoff balance, and the customer service rep asked if we were interested in refinancing. Buzz politely declined.)

In order to refinance in sometime before 2036, we had gotten in touch with a mortgage broker who was extremely eager to work with us. We got through the initial qualification, were constantly assured we could get the rate we wanted without needing to buy-down points or whatever weird mortgage magic makes house sales work. But we weren’t going to refinance unless we got a good enough change in rates, and Buzz had made that clear. So it was rather odd when Mortgage Lady flipped out when he declined to get the house appraised until rates were what we wanted.

Mortgage Lady: You need to get the appraisal done!
Buzz: We don’t want to do the appraisal until the rates are where we want.
Mortgage Lady: The rates are going down! They’re on the way down right now!
Buzz: Who has to pay for the appraisal if we just never go forward with the loan?
Mortgage Lady: The rates are going down!
Buzz: Umm… who pays or the appraisal, us or your company?
Mortgage Lady: The rates are going down!
[Repeat conversation two or three times.]

She told Buzz to talk to me and see if I agreed with his decision. I laughed and told him to tell her something rude. To his credit, he kept it polite.

Despite that, we still got to the point that we were going to close on the refinance this morning. South Carolina requires attorneys for closings, and so a nice attorney named Jason came to our house, documents in hand. Documents with closing costs thousands more than we’d expected, all bundled into the vague category of “Points Buydown” or something like that. Jason was happy to sit and chat while we tried to reach Mortgage Lady on the phone. Eventually Mortgage Lady called us back, but wouldn’t/couldn’t explain how she’d calculated the closing costs.

Mortgage Lady: I’m not making any money on this.
Buzz: I just want to know where the number came from.
Mortgage Lady: I’m not making any money on this.
Buzz: When you say “you’re not making any money” — no offense, but I don’t care whether it’s you or your employer getting the money.
Mortgage Lady: I’m not making any money on this! It’s a good loan! It’s a good rate!

It may forever remain a mystery just who was going to be making the money, if it wasn’t us and it wasn’t the attorney and it wasn’t Mortgage Lady…

I feel pretty bad for people who either aren’t thorough about reading what’s put in front of them, or are so desperately in need of refinancing that they’ll swallow whatever crap companies like this try to pull.

In the spirit of finding another broker who isn’t quite so… erratic, we’d like to share with the charming 1959 The Road to Better Living. It’s 24 minutes long, but I strongly recommend it…

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The Truth About Taxes, that is.

• Everyone pays taxes, not just rich people! AAAAAAH! [*]
• Léon Blum brought France a New Deal and they were promptly conquered. [**]
• All this New Deal Debt is not giving us enough tanks.
• Your wife puts on taxes instead of stockings, and taxes come with you to the movies.
• A “male fist of centralized bureaucracy that knocks at democracy’s door” — I don’t really know what this one means, but it goes well with rhetoric such as “holy crusade”.

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It’s an odd combination of “taxes are horrible and wasteful” and “we need to pay taxes to build up defense and protect our freedom.” As there has not been a President Wilkie, the ad obviously wasn’t enough to convince the public. (I do like the imagery of a ghostly hand grabbing money from paychecks and bread from the family table, though. It’s a good visual.)

One other thing mentioned in this film is that only approximately 7 billion dollars were spent over 7 years for national defense… something over 100 billion in modern money.

* I will note that the income tax structure has changed quite a bit over this century — rates change, income levels to qualify for tax change, exemptions change… and I’m not nearly interested enough in tax law to research who was paying what in 1940.

** Geez, why do we hate the French so much?

In 1947, the US Chamber of Commerce released a film called Education is Good Business. Gov. Mark Sanford was born in 1967, meaning he probably got stuck watching anti-drug and anti-sex mental hygiene films rather than this one. Maybe he should try taking a look at this, though…

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• Graduates of economically supported schools earn their way more profitably in the community.
• Better schools pay for themselves through larger incomes to more productive people, whose families in turn buy a greater volume of goods and services.
• Educationally, the community gets what it pays for.
• [Russia's education budget] is approximately four times greater than that of the United States. (OK, that’s more of a Scary Communist statistic than a useful fact.)

The alternative to funding your own citizens’ education is hoping that educated adults from other states will decide to move to your backwater community of ignorants and thereby raise the standard. Also, you have to hope the few educated adults you do manage to raise don’t get fed up with the community and leave for better opportunities elsewhere. (Neither of these trends have ever been noticed.)

Having a to-be-kindergartner in the family should be exciting. She’s certainly looking forward to school, but I’m just worried about whether she’ll actually have a teacher next year. Plus Buzz works in academia, and I’m currently a student — three quarters of our family is in a position that’s much shakier thanks to South Carolina Governor Sanford’s repeated insistence that he won’t take stimulus money. (Luckily, we’re not the only residents of the state disgusted by the idea; a high school student is asking the state Supreme Court whether such budgetary choices are solely the Governor’s responsibility. Good for you, Casey Edwards.)

Sanford keeps saying it’s all about saving the children, won’t somebody please think of the children and their horrible, horrible future debt load:

In the end, I just don’t believe a problem created by too much debt will be solved by piling on more debt. — Gov. Sanford’s opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal

So we’re going to solve the problem of too much debt by not adequately instructing our children on, among other things, the basics of economics and how to budget their own money? Oh, except Sanford’s children go to private school, so their educational quality stays constant whatever happens to public schools. That explains why he seems disproportionately interested in the next generation’s debt load — it’s the only burden his kids are taking on.

At least payday lenders love South Carolina; just drive along any street in greater Columbia and count how many TITLEMAX stores you see. One SC industry is certainly flourishing.

Going Places, from 1948, teaches us the basics of capitalist manufacturing through the example of one soap-maker who was inspired to make the best soap ever thanks to his childhood chores. At first, Freddie simply wants to make good soap quickly so he can have time off to ogle passing women; once he becomes a success, he is convinced by his main competitor that they should engage in price-fixing.

The devil wins that little argument, but Soap Company #3 quickly defeats their monopoly by selling inexpensive soap — and then the government steps in. After that point, the movie glosses over their illegal monopolizing… the free market fixes everything!

The movie also discusses the benefits that the profit motive (and thereby a successful business) will bring to its worker and to the community.

Operating at a profit, a business can provide the employee with comfortable, colorful working conditions; high wages and steady employment; first aid and health protection; accident and life insurance; time off for vacations.

I’ll illustrate their example with a brief case study… Visteon, my former employer, went through years of trimming health insurance benefits and taking back as many other benefits as they could. Then they closed our factory last year. Strongly correlated with benefit cuts and plant closures was a string of announcements of dismal performance (dressed up as “we lost $12 million less than expected, only $150 loss this quarter!”), as well as fat firing bonuses for managers who left about as quickly as they were hired. And that sort of executive malfeasance doesn’t get any real coverage in Going Places.

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I like how everything ends with the promise that, if we embrace the profit motive, future generations of small children will be able to build jetpacks for themselves.

According to the end credits, this film was made by (with?) Harding College (now Harding University). Seven years later, they would bring us Responsibilities of American Citizenship, even more anti-Communist than this movie.

It should be simple math: when more people are unemployed, the total cost of unemployment benefits will be higher. Because you’re paying more people. And more people getting paid means you pay more money total.

Duh, right?

Instead:

South Carolina Commerce Secretary Joe Taylor has added a new wrinkle to the nation’s third-highest unemployment rate by saying drug use is keeping people from getting jobs. — The State

… yeah. The unemployment crisis is caused by all those drug users who can’t get jobs because they’re on drugs. By that logic, I couldn’t find a job for a year-and-a-half because I was on drugs. Or, at least, all those companies that got my resume never called me because they just assumed I would fail a drug test.

At least that’s a step better than Governor Mark Sanford, who said on NPR a few months ago that unemployment rates would be lower if people would just get up and go back to work. Wow, he’s right, why didn’t I think of that — I should just go somewhere and do work and that way I will get a paycheck! Silly me, assuming I had to be hired.

I know, I’ll work at the governor’s office… smacking him over the head with a CLUE STICK.

(This isn’t the cake-related stuff I mentioned earlier. I just got annoyed by Sanford. Again.)

Feeling the pinch of the Depression? Let’s cook some more with Clara and you won’t feel so bad. I seriously love these videos.

What I found interesting about this was that I typically associate Egg Drop Soup with Chinese cooking (or, at least, Chinese restaurants). Apparently there are European versions as well, which isn’t surprising considering it is basically just soup with eggs mixed in somehow. Clara’s version, which includes Parmesan cheese, looks most like the Italian variant (stracciatella), although it’s not completely accurate.

In any case, the recipe is simple. Sauté diced potatoes and onions. Do it in a pot big enough to make soup, to save on dishes later. (Economical AND efficient!)

Add water (or broth) to cover. Boil for a while to cook the potatoes some more.

Drizzle in scrambled eggs (which will almost immediately cook), then add whole eggs to poach (which will take a few minutes to cook).

Serve over toasted bread and sprinkle with Parmesan. Ignore the fact that it looks kinda lumpy and weird, it tastes really, really good.

It’s straightforward and could easily be expanded on — add vegetable or chicken broth instead of just water, scramble the eggs with some spices (nutmeg?) before adding them, sauté some bacon with your potatoes and onions, and so on. Or, if all you can afford is a potato, onion, and egg, just do it this way Don’t forget some salt and pepper, though; with only three fairly bland ingredients, you’ll need some flavor enhancers.

The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book: Twelve Steps to a Happy Marriage, from 1938 (reprinted 1949) has an inauspicious title if I ever heard one. It’s definitely going to be all about giving in and being a good cook and sewing your children’s clothes from scratch, snarked my feminist side. Just goes to show I don’t know everything. It had a neat essay from Eleanor Roosevelt… which rather shows just how far we have left to go.

This is not a case of whether you prefer marriage or a career. It is a case of marriage and work together, or no marriage and work alone. Work must go on in either case. For most women there is something so satisfying in creating a home that they do it frequently by themselves….

I know one young couple who were married when the boy was getting twenty-five dollars a week and the girl was getting the same as a stenographer. Both of them went on working. Everything seemed to be going very well, and she managed her two jobs quite successfully. The most successful part of it was the fact that she induced her husband to feel an equal responsibility for the house. I remember that when I dined with them, he put on an apron after dinner and helped wash the dishes as naturally as if that were the normal occupation for a man. When a marriage works out this way, it is very successful, especially if the man has a knack for doing things about the house, because it keeps him busy when his wife is busy.

So often these days, the question of whether women should work outside the home is framed entirely from the viewpoint of married, middle class families, who have the luxury of choosing between one or two incomes.

Of course, when it comes to the mothers of families who work in mills, factories, and stores, we know quite well that there is no question of choice—poverty drives them, and they work because they have to, and only a few would hesitate if they were offered an opportunity to stay at home and look after their home and their children.

I remember visiting a mill town once, and as the women came off the night shift—for there were no laws at that time in that particular state against women’s working on night shifts—they met their husbands going to work on the day shift. We followed one woman home. Tired from the hours in the mill, she nevertheless had to set to work immediately to get the children fed and off to school. Then she had her house to set to rights, washing and ironing to do, and dinner to get for the children and supper to be left for the man when he came back from work as she went on. In the afternoon she snatched a few hours of sleep, and the children who were not in school played unwatched and uncared for. She knew that her home life was not satisfactory, and she did not work long hours in the mill because she wanted to, but simply because there was not enough food to go around unless her earnings supplemented those of her husband.

At least today we have day care available.

The guilt trips from the “should women work” debate are laughably old. There are advantages and disadvantages to each, and it’s tiresome to hear each side snark at the other.

The whole thing is worth reading if you’re interested. The rest of the book isn’t all that bad, either.

One out of every 10 people in America is employed in a service that is related to the U.S. auto industry.

That’s a statistic from the Center for Automotive Research, via GM Facts and Fiction. It’s actually plausible; there are factories around the nation, not just in Detroit, that are somehow related to putting a car together. (I will note, though, it’s not clear how many of those sub-suppliers also work for Honda, Toyota, BMW, or “foreign” companies with US operations.)

The “Big Three” will never simply vanish — they (and the extended support structure of dealerships, suppliers, mechanics, etc.) are simply too large and too integral to the country’s manufacturing landscape. The job loss, health care loss, and tax income loss would be spread over the course of a few years. And it’s also worth noting that, to a large extent, the American Auto Maker crisis is largely of its own making; the recession is simply pinching them harder and sooner than expected.

I’m not against bailing out the auto industry, because the ripple effect around the country would be incredibly bad. At the same time, I haven’t decided if I’m in favor enough to write to my elected officials about it. (Yes, Visteon, when you fire loyal employees, they’ll hold a grudge and not help YOU out when the time comes. Payback’s a bitch, ain’t it.) But I am in favor, just enough, to mention it here. The issue is worth awareness and discussion and thought. And perhaps a large dose of nervous worrying as well.

If it is decided that they deserve a second chance, then the automakers need to be held to a much higher standard than they currently are. It would be inspiring to see them remade into an industry that is a leader in sustainable design and manufacturing, rather than grudgingly hoping global warming is a passing fad. But given the firmly entrenched old-style industry and infrastructure they have, I’m not holding out much hope.

Since the New Depression is upon us and we’ll all be eating our own shoes for the foreseeable future, here’s a joke to help you enjoy the lean times.

Old Man Clackett was getting pretty long in the tooth. Sensing that his dying day was near, he figured it was time to confess his wrongdoings to those he’d sinned against.

“Maw Clackett, you come on in here,” he called to his beloved wife of 61 years. “I got to talk to you.”

Maw Clackett wheeled into the room. “What are you carrying on about, Paw?” she asked.

“It’s time I told you about my old pebble jar, Maw. You see, every time I was unfaithful to you I put a pebble in this here jar.” He showed her the jar, which held three pebbles.

“Well, old man, I reckon that ain’t too bad. To tell the truth, I got a jar of my own. Every time I stepped out on you, I dropped a bean down in it.” She wheeled over to her dresser, opened the top drawer, and pulled a jar out from under the clothes.

Old Man Clackett winced. He hadn’t expected this. “Well then, let’s see it, woman.”

The old man smiled when he saw it. “I have to say I’m a little relieved. Nothing but two beans in that there jar. I can’t carp at you much about that.”

“Well,” said Maw Clackett, “That’s what was left in there after that mess of beans we had during the Depression.”

– via Slashfood