Problematic Words

[djd09]

Baghdad Bob of Freddie Mac Merits Mention As Mideast Erupts​

In true Baghdad Bob fashion, Scott Reuter leads Freddie Mac’s effort to ensure that no inconvenient fact is left uncensored.
For a brief time in April 2003, Saddam Hussein’s charismatic Information Minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, became a worldwide pop-culture icon. During the invasion of Iraq, al-Sahhaf faced reporters on the roof of a Baghdad hotel. All around him, columns of smoke billowed and sirens blared. Glide bombs shook the earth. American and British coalition forces poured into the city.

Denying reality, al-Sahhaf insisted: “There are no American troops in Baghdad!” The next day, Baghdad fell. But al-Sahhaf’s gift for bombastic metaphors and outrageous superlatives eclipsed his mendacity. He’d gained the nickname “Baghdad Bob.” (The British called him “Comical Ali” – a spoof on another of Saddam’s ministers ominously nicknamed “Chemical Ali.”)

More than two decades later, as troubles in the Mideast again mount, a government-sponsored purveyor of equal talent can be found much closer to home. Like Baghdad Bob, he, too, deserves to be featured on memes, fan pages, coffee mugs and T-shirts.

Unlike Baghdad Bob, he’s still on the job. His name is Scott Reuter. The results of his handiwork are buried in a portfolio of more than $2.2 trillion in mortgage-backed securities purchased by the U.S. Federal Reserve. While no one was paying attention, America’s central bank became Fannie and Freddie’s biggest customer. More on Reuter in a minute.

Since 2023, government-backed mortgage giant Freddie Mac has maintained a nonpublic and growing list of words it has expunged from appraisal reports with the help, and potentially the coercion, of vendors. The censorship has turned many appraisal reports into misleading gibberish and eliminated salient facts about properties that serve as collateral for trillions in taxpayer-backed mortgages. The distorted reports have been relied on by underwriters, lending institutions and ultimately purchasers of mortgage-backed securities – now largely the Federal Reserve.

Initially under the pretext of removing perceived “problematic” words and phrases somehow related to DEI, employees at Freddie Mac soon expanded the word ban to eliminate words that could cause any form of “transactional friction.” This friction is the very point of the appraisal, which serves as a consumer protection and a safeguard of the U.S. taxpayer – the deep pocket of last resort in the arrangement. It also serves as a bulwark against home-price inflation.

Freddie Mac has incentivized or arm-twisted vendors to incorporate textual analysis into third-party software. Independent real property appraisers are hired by lenders uniquely for their independence. They become the eyes and ears of the lending institutions. The appraisers have no relationship with Freddie Mac or the mortgage giant’s promiscuous big sister, Fannie Mae.

Freddie Mac’s answer to Baghdad Bob, the aforementioned Scott Reuter, has been the public face of the appraisal tampering. Because Freddie Mac’s unpublished list of banned words and phrases has been built into pre-approved third-party underwriting software, investors in mortgages purchased or guaranteed by Fannie and the Federal Housing Administration have also been affected by the doctoring of appraisals. This was the point all along.

The censorship has turned appraisers’ observations on such things as markets, submarkets, sales trends and school districts into gobbledygook by expurgating basic words in the English language. This wasn’t an accident. Appraisers report that some of the banned words are known to them. They include “good,” “bad,” “high,” “low,” “strong,” “weak,” “slow,” and “rapid.” Banned are other words and terms, much of the censorship clearly designed to mask economic realities relating to the properties being appraised. Banned words include “crime,” “school district” “neighborhood,” “blight,” “student,” “preferred,” “up-and-coming,” “well-kept,” “graffiti” and “desirable” and many puzzlingly innocuous phrases like “convenient to,” “walking distance” and “demographer.”

Ironically, Freddie Mac’s own public advice to home buyers uses many of the words and phrases that the mortgage giant requires to be censored from third-party appraisal reports. The difference? Freddie Mac executives want to push through loan originations to please their political bosses in Washington and members of the housing lobby – the lenders, Realtors and homebuilders. The housing lobby has wanted nothing more than to eliminate independent appraisers.

Baghdad Bob of Freddie Mac Merits Mention As Mideast Erupts

Like Baghdad Bob spinning fantasy, Freddie Mac's Scott Reuter leads quiet efforts to scrub appraisals of truths that might rock the boat.

appraisersblogs.com

...this is a constitutional problem

 

[glenn walker]

Solution ?

 

[nauthead]

So the word rapid is banned, but it is built into the URAR under neighborhood characteristics. Same thing with the words slow, high, low and neighborhood. They are words in the form itself.

I guess it's do as I say, not as I do.

 

[glenn walker]

The form will guide you...lol

 

[djd09]

AI Overview


"Rapid" isn't a formally defined term within mathematics in the same way "derivative" or "integral" are
. However, the concept of rapidness or rate of change is central to many mathematical areas, particularly in fields like calculus and differential equations.
Here's how the term "rapid" relates to mathematics

• Calculus and rates of change: In calculus, you study how functions change. A "rapid change" would refer to a high value of the derivative, indicating a steep slope on a graph. For example, when describing a rapid increase in a population or the speed of an object, you are dealing with a rate of change, according to Britannica.
• Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN): In research on mathematical learning disabilities, Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) tasks are sometimes used to measure processing speed. These tasks involve quickly naming a series of familiar items like letters, numbers, or colors. While "rapid" isn't a math term itself, the speed at which these tasks are completed correlates with mathematical abilities, particularly arithmetic fluency.
• "Rapid" in educational programs: The term "rapid" is also used in the names of math programs and resources designed to help students improve their mental math skills or catch up in math, like Rapid Maths or Rapid Calculations.

So, while not a formal mathematical definition, the idea of "rapid" is inherent in concepts like rates of change and is used in the context of mathematical skills and learning programs.

 

[Fernando]

In my coming cruise, I'm trying to be more sensitive and politically correct in LGBTQ teminology.

Say Transgender than Transsexual.
Queer is ok.
Lifestyle not ok.
Say Sexual Orientation than Sexual Preference.

 

[Tawfik Ahdab]

I quote the play Henry V (Act III)

“Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give
To sounds confused; behold the threaden sails,
Borne with the invisible and rapid wind,
Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow’d sea…”

If the word “rapid” was good enough for Shakespeare, it should be more than good enough for Fannie/Freddie.

The Bard rules, and the censors need edumacation.

 

[djd09]

AI Overview

Yes, "rapid" can be used as a descriptive term in mathematics to describe a fast rate of change or movement, particularly in the context of growth or decay.
For example:

• Rapid growth: This term is used to describe an exponential increase where the rate of growth itself increases over time.
• Rapidly decreasing functions: In advanced mathematics, particularly in functional analysis and Fourier transforms, there's a concept of "rapidly decreasing functions," also known as Schwartz functions. These are functions whose values and derivatives decrease faster than any polynomial as the input approaches infinity, according to Planetmath.

While "rapid" itself isn't a fundamental mathematical object like "function" or "derivative," it's a helpful adjective to describe the behavior of mathematical objects or quantities.

...

 

[DWiley]

So the word rapid is banned, but it is built into the URAR under neighborhood characteristics. Same thing with the words slow, high, low and neighborhood. They are words in the form itself.

Yes, those words are on the form. But, those words are not "banned" as the article asserts. But you know what some "journalists say, never let facts get in the way

 

[George Hatch]

Quality and condition ratings have defined parameters in the UAD, but many other types of ratings have no well-defined benchmarks; not without adding your own qualifiers.

The rental market in this zip area has weak demand when compared to other retail districts in the region. ​

Even if I don't fully articulate that characterization in my SR2 report that is still the basis for my SR1 conclusion of "weak demand". Weak compared to what?

Sale #1 is a low sale​

Sale #1 is a low sale when compared to the other sales. Same SR1 comparison, just with a little more SR2 written elaboration.​

The question comes in whether or not my reader understands the context when we're using the shorthand without the elaboration. Some of my clients and users read it that way, but others may have their own overlays which require spelling that context out so that it CAN'T be creatively ignored on the plausibly deniable basis - as is commonly employed by the critics.

At its most cynical application, defensive writing isn't a constraint or submission; its a counter-aggression against our critics. You're trying to crush their intent before they can even attempt to make the complaint. In boxing terms you're trying to "be first" in the exchange; to initiate contact. You're not trying to sit back with the intent to counter.