Free Republic

Revised Rules on Mortgages Are Scuttled By JENNIFER BAYOT The rules on closing home loans are evidently so knotty that a federal agency yesterday withdrew a proposal to overhaul them because of opposition from both the mortgage industry and consumer groups. The Department of Housing and Urban Development said its plan required additional vetting and would be made available for public scrutiny at some unspecified time. "Once we get those comments, we can better decide the best approach for the re-proposal of this rule," Alphonso Jackson, the department's acting secretary, said yesterday in a conference call. "The most prudent thing...

Most businesses - and several business associations - were carefully silent on Measure 30 [a massive increase in income and business taxes to be voted on next Tuesday]. Intel, a bellwether as the largest private employer in the state, kept mum. Associated Oregon Industries was equally coy. And high profile Nike joined the recently created Oregon Business Association to campaign actively for the tax. On reflection, we shouldn't be surprised when businesses don't fight for good economic policies, and at times even fight in favor of bad ones. There's no reason to think business people are much wiser or much...

Oregon has a long tradition of open, decentralized government with ample opportunities for public participation and guidance in agency decisions. -- the first sentence in the new Oregon dot gov webpage. (OMED: if you doubted my frequent warnings about the direction our state has been taking, the italicized statement above should rid you of that fantasy. Decentralized government? Oregon?) "This bill represents the largest tax increase in the history of Oregon!" -- Lars Larson Wednesday, August 20, 2003 – We have heard the local broadcasters say, “Republicans are responsible for the education funding shortfall.” Like just about everything except the...

NEW YORK — Sophisticated cyber-scammers are ripping off hundreds of online auction buyers and sellers through bogus escrow services in the latest variation of Internet fraud. Buyers of expensive cameras, computers and cars, including one man who paid $50,000 for what he thought was a new BMW sport-utility vehicle, have been taken in the auction hustle, which emerged on the Internet last fall. Similarly, sellers of expensive jewelry and other items, including a man who sold a used Rolex Presidential watch for $14,000, also have been victimized. The polish on the scam includes elaborate Web sites with names like Premier-escrow.com,...

Will President George W. Bush allow Iraqi troops to come to America, enjoy better welfare and health care benefits than our own soldiers, and endanger national security? It has happened before. After Gulf War I, the first Bush administration and the Clinton administration recklessly opened our borders to former Iraqi prisoners of war -- from conscripts to elite Republican Guardsmen. The resettlement program was launched in response to pressure from the United Nations, the Saudi government (which balked at taking in the captured soldiers), and our own feckless State Department (which has, and always will, act like a hostile foreign...

<p>All those beleaguered widows, complaining chief's sons and yowling high-ranking government officials don't want your assistance in getting a large sum of money out of Nigeria anymore.</p> <p>Now they want to buy your stuff.</p> <p>Yes, there's a new twist in Nigeria's thriving Internet-based scam operations. This time, the scammers pose as potential buyers for big-ticket itemslike cars, listed for sale online.</p>