Callahan’s Cleveland Diary

Barney Frank seems to think so.

(h/t Ed M at BFD)
JP Morgan Chase has announced that it will stop filing new foreclosures for the next 90 days against mortgages it owns outright, and will urge “investors” (i.e. owners of shares in securitized mortgage pools) for which it acts as servicer to agree to the same policy.  It’s getting covered as big [...]

Real Clear Politics summary of recent polls.
The chart below includes about the last six months.  The last point where the blue line crosses the red line and keeps rising is the end of September.

Update 11/1: Ohio tracking polls for the last three days, from TPM Election Central:

Oct 30 Natl. Journal: Obama (D) 48%, McCain (R) [...]

Kevin O’Brien is the Plain Dealer’s deputy editorial page director.
Kevin O’Brien asserts that Barack Obama is an “admitted socialist”.
Is this because someone has caught Obama saying: “I admit it, I’m a socialist. I believe in government ownership of the means of production”?  Or is it because Obama voted to let the Federal Government buy hundreds [...]

Cuyahoga County Treasurer joins in the call for Common Pleas judges to declare an immediate 90-day freeze on foreclosure cases involving occupied homes.  (Click on image for larger photo.)
Other elected officials speaking in support of the Foreclosure Freeze: Cleveland City Council members Jay Westbrook, Tony Brancatelli and Phyllis Cleveland, Garfield Heights Councilman Michael Dudley, and [...]

4 o’clock today at the Justice Center, Ontario and Lakeside..  See you there!

From the Washington Post this morning (h/t Tim Ferris):
U.S. banks getting more than $163 billion from the Treasury Department for new lending are on pace to pay more than half of that sum to their shareholders, with government permission, over the next three years.
The government said it was giving banks more money so they could [...]

Posted late this afternoon at the Washington Post Economy Watch (h/t Calculated Risk):
Officials with the Treasury and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. are crafting a plan under which the government would guarantee the mortgages of as many as 3 million homeowners now struggling to avoid foreclosure, according to three sources familiar with the discussions. [...]

Does it get any sillier than this?  From this morning’s PD story about Issue 39, the proposal to link the size of Cleveland City Council to 25,000-resident wards:
[Westlake/Lakewood businessman Tony] George warned that should Sweeney’s effort fail, he and others will push some more.
“If it fails on this ballot, we’re going to go [...]

Joe, Jody and Jose the Plumbers from Toledo have something to say.
(h/t Ohio Daily)