Bob Lord

Bob has mostly wound down his 39-year career as a tax and business lawyer (with a 1-year interruption to run for Congress in 2008 (CD3), when he tried to unseat John Shadegg. Bob now serves as the senior advisor on tax policy for the Patriotic Millionaires, a group of wealthy Americans who believe the light taxation of America's rich is destabilizing our democracy, and as an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. Bob has been writing for Blog For Arizona since late 2011, concentrating mostly on federal issues, with an occasional foray into Arizona state politics.

Pathetic Justice Department Proves Wall Street Fraud by Accident

by

It’s no secret that the Justice Department’s handling of Wall Street fraud has been pathetic.

Less noticed has been the Fed’s vigorous prosecution of borrowers for mortgage fraud. If you didn’t know better, you’d be sure that a bunch of average Joes got together and tanked the economy be all lying on their mortgage applications, tricking those innocent banksters.

So, why were a group of those ne’er do well borrowers acquitted recently on charges brought by the Justice Department in a Sacramento case? Because they proved that it was the lenders who were committing the fraud.

If you’re interested in the subject, Thomas Frank’s piece in Salon today, Finally, Wall Street gets put on trial: We can still hold the 0.1 percent responsible for tanking the economy, is a must-read. There’s more to it than this, but essentially the defense prevailed by arguing, successfully, that fraud is more than an untruthful statement, it’s an untruthful statement that is intended to and actually does deceive. So, if a mortgage lender doesn’t care whether the contents of a mortgage application are true, no fraud. Frank:

Read more

Thucky: One More Lie for Old Time’s Sake

by

I promised myself (and my wife) that I’d written my last Thucky post. Oh well, you know what they say promises were made to be. This one was too much to pass up. I’ve written before about Thucky’s lies, but now he’s broken all his own records. In a “post-mortem” interview with Greg Patterson, the … Read more

Sorry, Henry, the Demise of Home Ownership is Not a Good Thing

by

Lots has been written about the declining rate of home ownership in America.

Henry Grabar at Salon sees this as a good thing, as he explains in America is so over homeownership: Why the shift to a renting economy might actually be a good thing:

This is bad news, insofar as it demonstrates that Americans are struggling to buy homes. It’s bad news for the housing industry, whose greenfield development machine has less fuel. But as a long-term development, it signifies an emerging model of American life released from the cult of homeownership. It would make Americans more mobile (as we once were), and more able to adapt to economic changes. Jordan Rappaport, a senior economist at the Kansas City Fed, elucidates some benefits of the shift from single-family to multi-family housing (which is closely related to the owner-renter shift):

“It will shift consumer demand away from goods and services that complement large indoor space and a backyard toward goods and services more oriented toward living in an apartment. Similarly, the possible shift toward city living may dampen demand for automobiles, highways and gasoline but increase demand for restaurants, city parks and high-quality public transit.”

I generally find the posts at Salon thoughtful, but this one is way off the mark. Being “released from the cult of home ownership” is made to sound appealing, but here’s what’s really happening:

Read more

Palestine: Why Hope Springs Eternal (At Least for Me)

by

This is one Tammy urged me to write. And she was right to do so.

As awful as things get in Israel – Palestine, I cling to hope. The reason? If my views could change as dramatically as they have, the views of others can as well. And maybe, just maybe, we’re starting to see that happen.

I traveled to Israel in 1995. I was on the plane from Phoenix to New York the moment Yitzhak Rabin was shot. Too late to turn back, I spent six days in Israel with other guests of a pro-Israel charity. Israel was in mourning, as this country was after JFK’s assassination. Yet the people we met welcomed us. And we of course saw only the best Israel had to offer. No West Bank. No Gaza.

I boarded the El Al flight back to New York very much the Zionist. Then, ironically, on the America West trip to Phoenix from New York. I shared a row with West Bank settlers on their way to Los Angeles, who didn’t do much to conceal their radical views, their hatred of Palestinians, and, yes, their near elation over Rabin’s death.

Nothing changed in me immediately, but perhaps seeds of doubt had been sown.

Fast forward twelve years or so. 

Read more

Proof Positive Ducey is Pure Scum

by

You can tell a lot about a person by the company he keeps. That’s certainly the case with Doug Ducey: Sean Noble; Joe Arpaio; Cathi Herrod.  You get the picture. But you can tell even more by what he does or, in this case, fails to do. We’ve all either seen the Republican Governors’ Association … Read more