I wonder if there would be wider systemic repercussions if people started to do this more? Courson does mention that a contract default is not without its ugly consequences, but he doesn’t go into a lot of detail. This certainly sounds more appealing than giving a lot of cash to big banks, especially if it would effectively create incentive for the banks to renegotiate underwater loans. That’s something that I’ve heard is not happening much because–surprise!–there is little incentive for the banks to renegotiate.
.
I think our gov’t should encourage this by making a law that your credit rating and other property (cars, savings) cannot be harmed *IF* you default on an underwater loan (i.e. make a smart business decision). Would that be the equivalent of giving money to the big Wall Street corp’s in hopes of bringing them back to life?

Then things got interesting…

[Update] originally I had credited, by name and a link to his Facebook profile, the person who responded to my comment above. However, he has asked for his name to be removed from this blog, and said that “while in many ways [he'd] love to engage in further debate online, [his] available time and several other factors really do prevent [him] from doing so.” Here is his original response:

Ahem, I’m an investment banker in an area (asset backed securitization) significantly impacted by the financial crises of the last several years. In response to this article and the above response to it I must say that the “blame the bankers” mentality in the press lately is bothering me a great deal, especially since the hugely oversimplified analysis appears to be spilling over into the public at large. The fact is that the mortgage problems are a societial problem, not a problem of the banks vs the people. Most of the lax loan underwriting that contributed to the real estate bubble was done by independent finance companies, most of which are now bankrupt. Regulators, politicians, monoline insurance companies, MBS and CDO investors (incl. most people’s 401Ks), real estate and mortgage brokers, Fannie Mae, rating agencies, and, yes, homeowners (many of whom took on too much leverage and often speculated on home prices) are all complicit in the current mess, not just the “big bad [investment] banks”.

Before you further espouse the idea that somehow it is acceptable for you as an individual to walk away from your personal obligations, please consider (i) whatever moral value base you personally operate from, (ii) the fact that you probably are an indirect investor (most bond funds and mixed funds are heavily invested in MBS and CDOs), and so losses in real estate will hurt you personally, not just the banks, (iii) the reality that if people in this society no longer live up to their obligations, neither banks nor other lenders and investors will be willing to make credit available, or at the very least the cost of credit, incl. mortgage rates will rise to reflect the increased risk of providing credit, and (iv) that your failure to meet your financial obligations will and should be reflected in your credit score, which will affect your access to credit well into the future. Lastly, I find it interesting that no one seemed to complain about the benefits of the real estate bubble while they were profiting from it (whether in the form of increases in the equity in their personal homes or otherwise). In other words, people were quite happy to pocket the benefits from rising home prices several years back. Note that the upside did not go to the lenders, but to the homeowners. But now that the downside of homeownership is there, you think the lender should be stuck with the loss? And if you bought a stock that subsequently went down, you probably would want your stock broker to cover the loss for you, too, right (though you’d retain the profit if it went up? Please…

I started to write a response to his comment on Facebook, which turned into a book. I decided post it here since I think the points are relevant to the public discussion and may be useful beyond the walled garden that is Facebook.

Thanks for your response [name removed]. Your position as an investment banker gives you a slight bias on this subject, but I’ll try to overlook that in this case. I don’t think you quite understand the position that I am advocating. I will try to address each of your points.

(i) The argument that moral values somehow make the homeowner obligated to do something that would otherwise not make good business sense was addressed by the article, so I won’t spend much time other than to ask: Do you think Morgan Stanley is justified to stop paying for the office buildings in San Fran? It seems that your value system (and indeed our financial system) gives a huge advantage to those willing to “cheat” by espousing lenient moral values… The playing field must be level for everyone involved, regardless of their size, otherwise the “honest” guy gets raped by the “dishonest” one.

(ii) I don’t really hope to see much from my investments (employer-matched retirement plan) since the people making the money there are the organizations who manage the plan “for me.” I only participate because my employer matches my contribution, which yields a better return than any honest investment I could make on my own.

(iii) You’re getting at the heart of the problem, but you’ve forgotten that we are (were?) in systematic failure. Notice first that my proposed government intervention would only apply to underwater loans (I’ll add another condition: primary residence only). The credit system will not collapse because people will continue to make smart investments and the banks will give credit where credit is due (to people who deserve it). That is, unless our system is so dependent on overextended credit that it can only continue toward certain disaster in a propped-up state of denial. Then I say bring on the failure now rather than later. Why should we put it off for our kids to reap the “benefits” and bear the inevitable consequences of our bad stewardship?

(iv) I would make an exception for the credit score, cars, savings, etc. (sorry don’t know the technical term for this type of non-collateral property)–anything not written into the agreement with the bank as collateral for the loan. Note that the homeowner still undergoes significant loss in foreclosure. He loses a down payment, and every penny put into the house that would not have covered rent in an equally valued house. He’s starting at ground level, but at least he’s no longer under water.

On the contrary, I do not find it interesting that no one was complaining when times were good. Who in their right mind would do that? The Wall Street firms were making lots of cash in the good times too, it wasn’t just the homeowners. Sure some people sold at the right time and got lucky, but we’re in this together and now we’ve got to pay. If the organizations that got us into this mess are all bankrupt, where did they go and why can’t they get us back out? (rhetorical question) The fact is that those CEOs and investment bankers can go get another job and continue to rake in the dough while our system crumbles. This is a testament to the fact that the system is broken and needs intervention. If you give a break to the homeowner with an underwater loan, you’ll help him get into a position where he can buy a new home at a reasonable price (a home is a necessity in most places). If you give a lot of cash to a Wall Street bank you’ve got to make it really unattractive for them to keep it or you’ll never see it again. That is one thing that the Feds did right in the whole bailout fiasco. But back to the point, the lenders should definitely share the loss since they agreed to underwrite a loan for more than the house was worth, and they certainly made money in the transaction as well (PMI or title insurance anyone?).

I would think it is better for the bank to keep the current owner in his house, making payments (even at a reduced rate) than to have him foreclose and have the house sit empty. My proposal is really more of a stick to give the lenders incentive to renegotiate than a get-out-of-jail-free card for the homeowner (which it certainly is not).

Your comment about stocks losing value is off base–an asset such as a primary residence is a necessity for life and cannot be compared to stocks, which are essentially a gamble on whether a business will profit.

I will also note that I own a home on which I still owe money, and I intend to make good on my agreement with the bank. I own my home because I need a place for my family to live, not as an investment with which to acquire personal wealth.

It was  a recipe for disaster. My brother-in-law comes to our house for dinner once a week. I spend a lot time in preparation for this once a week occurrence – even if it is just mental preparation. Not b/c I feel a need to impress him w/ my less than wonderful cooking skills, mostly b/c I need to feel like I have a good, well-rounded meal planned ahead of time so I will not be caught offering last week’s leftovers, although he has endured them on occasion – and eats as heartily as any other meal I serve. Also, I admit, I’m a sucker for his never ending praise of “that was delicious” each time he comes – he’s a bachelor with not much in the frig other than beer—not too hard to please.

Anyway, a recent trip to our local discount grocery store had me walking away w/ 2 pounds of thinly sliced Italian ham for around $4 – a good buy in my book,  and had also jump started my mind into flipping through recipes which require such an amount of meat. Of course – a stromboli, which I have made many times since getting married almost 7 years ago, although my husband might argue not enough times to satisfy his appetite. In fact, my sister-in-law seems to be the stromboli queen. We may have eaten more stromboli at her house in the past 2 yrs since she was married then we have at our own. And she makes a good stromboli – with 3 (or 4 – I forget) different kinds of meat and tomato sauce, a key ingredient which I have been omitting for way too long. The last time we were there to eat stromboli, my arrogance got the better of me. She had undertaken making 3 strombolis to feed a large crowd of ravenous people – a feat which being the sleep deprived mother of a 4 month old and almost 3 yr. old can hardly fathom. I was exhausted just watching her roll out her dough, and sadly to say – very sadly to say – I was almost a little satisfied  to know that she wasn’t Martha Stewart when her dough stuck to the countertop for her first stromboli,  resulting in very small holes in the end product where the dough could not be stretched back together. (Why are women always competing with one another – can’t we just give each other a break?)

All that to say that when I started my own stromboli making endeavor this afternoon, I knew I could be Martha – I could have a perfect stromboli. I could picture it sitting on the table – Italian ham and roast beef, mozzarella and parmesan cheeses, green and red peppers, black olives and mushrooms baked together in a delicious, soft, golden-brown healthy whole wheat curst…. whole wheat crust? Where did that come from? Recently, I’ve been experimenting with using whole wheat flour in recipes and decided that stromboli dough could also be whole wheat flour worthy. So even after I had mixed up my dough and let it rise for 30 min., I was unthwarted by the fact that it hadn’t risen a centimeter during that time. Was it the whole wheat flour? Was it old yeast? Who knows…Who needs puffy dough anyway? You just end up flatting it out when you roll it. Thus I proceeded to roll out my dough after thoroughly spraying my countertop with Pam so my dough wouldn’t stick. It was beautiful – all the layers of meat and vibrant vegetables intermingling. Wouldn’t Martha be proud, I thought to myself. Oh yes, she would have been too – if it weren’t for that next step of peeling the dough off the counter and sealing up all that glory. Now sometimes I am not a very careful person – in fact I get frustrated with fine details rather easily, as my husband can attest to… especially when things don’t go the way I feel they should. Instead of simply peeling the dough off the counter in one big sheet like I have done so many times before, I very soon realized my dough was stuck – not coming off without giving me a good fight… which of course, made me want to fight. The dough won. I did a reasonable job getting the the bottom sealed up – yes, there were some very small holes comparable to my sister-in-law’s, but hey – it was the bottom, and only I would know they were there. However, when it came time to flip the whole stromboli from countertop to baking pan so that the bottom would be in the pan, my patience failed me as it has so many times before. The top of the stromboli was stuck fast, and my fingers clawed at the dough, ripping huge holes until the whole mess was beyond recognition.

My anger flared, my pride wounded – the meal I had so carefully planned, imagined looking so nice, looked forward to hearing one more time “that was delicious” – would not meet any of these expectations. I considered throwing it out – getting rid of the evidence of my humanness. My mind searched the freezer looking for any meal that I might throw together in less than 20 min – but to no avail. Even if my SIL did have small holes in her stromboli, I’m sure she NEVER had any cooking experiment gone so awry. I could imagine my BIL telling my MIL, who IS Martha Stewart, about the horrible concoction I made him eat, while my FIL shook his head at the failure of a wife his son had married.

But I decided against all this, and pictured my hard working husband coming home to a wife w/ a vendetta against stromboli, which would probably be directed at him. Instead, I did something I have so rarely done in the past 3 or 4 years. I turned on the music… I found the perfect CD of the Cranberries, mad and angry at the world, and let them do it all for me. While I sang the words “You’re so pretty the WAY you are” to give my self-confidence an extra boost, I put my beautiful flop-oli into the oven for the last step before I would have to serve my failure – naked and vulnerable – to not only my husband, but also to my BIL. His words to me this evening as we sat down to supper…. “Was this a casserole gone wrong?…. This is delicious.” Victory.

- Natalie

Yes, I’m mostly ignoring the comments on the ThunderBayes posts these days due to a lack of time to even do everything I want to do, let alone what other people want me to do. To be truthful, I don’t even use ThunderBayes anymore because all of my email accounts have been switched to gmail and the spam filtering there is Good Enough for now. That is not to say that ThunderBayes did not work for me when I did use it (it did everything I wanted it to do, and even did a good job at that). However, ThunderBayes is a bit of a kludge and certain parts of it need to be rewritten to be more usable by the average, non-hacker user. Unfortunately I do not have the time nor the will to fix it at this point. If someone else wants to pick up the project I’d be willing to talk (email me).

I do hope some people can still get some use out of the add-on, but at this point I am declaring it unsupported by me. Maybe I will find time sometime in the future to do more work on it, but don’t hold your breath. Others are free to share their solutions to problems of course. Ideally a forum should be setup somewhere because blog comments are not a good place have support discussions, so please refrain from doing that here. Does the Mozilla add-ons site have any type of forum or Q/A section for the community to provide support?

To those of you who are still brave enough to try it out, I would encourage you to first try the default setup with the internal SpamBayes filter. If that does not work, try installing and configuring SpamBayes separately and use the ThunderBayes Add-On options to make ThunderBayes talk to that manually installed copy of SpamBayes. I know that sounds ugly, but it might help some people to continue to use the extension even if it has a few flaws. (Most of the recent problems have been related to the internal SpamBayes config.)

With sincere regrets for not being able to answer every question and fix every problem related to ThunderBayes, I wish everyone who tries it out all the best.

Daniel

Download ThunderBayes 1.0.1

UPDATE: ThunderBayes 1.0.1 is now available.

Download ThunderBayes 1.0

Overview

ThunderBayes provides a toolbar button similar to Thunderbird’s Junk button with which email can be classified as Spam or Ham. Clicking the button causes two things to happen: (1) it sends the source of the selected messages to SpamBayes to be classified and (2) it optionally moves the messages to a folder of your choice (this can be configured in the extension options). It includes a custom version of SpamBayes, and provides a simple preference page in the Thunderbird Account Settings where the SpamBayes POP3 proxy and message filters can be configured.

Changes in this version

• Added integrated SpamBayes proxy server (can be disabled/bypassed).
• Added ThunderBayes configuration in Thunderbird Account Settings (POP3 accounts only).
• Implemented REST API for SpamBayes, which allows more efficient training and automatically updates the SpamBayes review page when training in Thunderbird.

Requirements/prerequisites

Everything needed to run ThunderBayes on Windows is included in the XPI file.

Non-Windows users must have Python 2.2 or later (2.3 recommended) installed. It works great with the Python 2.3.5 that ships with Mac OS X 10.4 (it should work fine with earlier versions of Mac OS X as well).

Recommended configuration:

• On the main menu bar select Tools->Account Settings…
  • Select the “ThunderBayes” pref page on any POP3 account with which you would like to use ThunderBayes spam classification and filtering.
  • Check “Enable ThunderBayes proxy for this account”. This will copy the real hostname and port for this account from the Server pref page to the ThunderBayes page. The Server page will be populated with the proxy hostname and port for this account. Note: this may not work if you are using an externally configured version of SpamBayes (i.e. not the internal version that ships with ThunderBayes).
  • Enable and configure filters if desired (you may want to do this later after you have trained SpamBayes and are confident that it is filtering mail correctly). WARNING: renaming the filters created by the ThunderBayes pref pane will prevent them from being edited from the pref pane–you will need to use the Message Filters list to edit them if you rename them.
• Enable the “Spam Status” column in your Inbox and other folder views by clicking the right-most column header (you should see a menu). Select the “Spam Status” item so there is a check mark beside it. The Spam Status column uses four icons to denote message status:
  • Spam – red circle with slash
  • Unsure – yellow question mark
  • Ham – gray dot
  • Unknown – gray question mark (this means the message did not have a “X-Spambayes-Classification” header, which probably means it did not pass through the SpamBayes proxy)
• Add the ThunderBayes “Spam” button to the toolbar. To add the button to the toolbar, right-click the toolbar and select “Customize…” Then drag the “Spam” icon into your toolbar and click “OK” on the “Customize Toolbar” dialog.

Migrating to ThunderBayes 1.0
(from any previous version)

As of version 1.0, ThunderBayes ships with a Python interpreter (Windows only)
and SpamBayes 1.0.4. This makes it very easy for anyone with Thunderbird to get
ThunderBayes installed and operational. Previously it was necessary to install
and configure SpamBayes before ThunderBayes actually did anything useful.

If you are one of the early adopters of ThunderBayes and went through all the
nuisance of setting up and configuring SpamBayes in addition to installing the
ThunderBayes extension then this section applies to you. Everyone else may skip
ahead to the next section.

These are the steps to migrate the data from your externally configured
SpamBayes to ThunderBayes’ internal version of SpamBayes. Read all of the
instructions before you start the migration process.

1. Shutdown Thunderbird.
2. Shutdown your SpamBayes proxy (disable automatic start as well).
3. Backup your Thunderbird profile. It’s easy. Instructions here: http://www.mozilla.org/support/thunderbird/profile#backup
4. If you skipped the previous step, go back and do it…really, you might need it if you do something wrong in the following steps. I usually like to make a zip archive of my profile so I don’t accidentally delete or change any of the files contained in it. That, and it’s easy to move around when it’s a single compressed file.
5. Make a new folder in your Thunderbird profile named ’spambayes_data’. The path should be something like this (the ‘default.xyz’ part will be different): <…>/Thunderbird/Profiles/default.xyz/spambayes_data
6. Find out where your existing SpamBayes data is stored. On Windows it might be
   C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\SpamBayes\Proxy
   On Mac OS X it might be in /Library/SpamBayes. If you can’t find it just search for some of the files in the next step–that should lead you to the right place.
7. Copy the following files and folders from your existing SpamBayes directory:
   • _pop3proxyham.mbox
   • _pop3proxyspam.mbox
   • bayescustomize.ini
   • hammie.* (i.e. any files that start with ‘hammie.’)
   • pop3proxy-ham-cache/* (folder and all files inside it)
   • pop3proxy-spam-cache/* (folder and all files inside it)
   • pop3proxy-unknown-cache/* (folder and all files inside it)
   • spambayes.messageinfo.db
8. Mac OS X and other Linux/Unix users: edit the bayescustomize.ini file and change each port listed on the line beginning with listen_ports to something higher than 1023. Then change each account in Thunderbird to use the new port assigned to that account (after the next step). Explanation: on Unix ports lower than 1024 are privileged and cannot be used by non-root users.
9. Start Thunderbird
10. If you haven’t already, install ThunderBayes 1.0 and restart Thunderbird

If everything went as planned you should have a fully functional ThunderBayes setup with the same SpamBayes configuration that you had before, except its now running the internal version of SpamBayes distributed with ThunderBayes.

After all that, I will tell you that migrating the SpamBayes database to use the internally bundled version of SpamBayes is not strictly necessary–the internal version can simply be disabled, and you may continue to use your externally configured version of SpamBayes. However, there are a few (minor) features in ThunderBayes that will not work correctly:

1. The ThunderBayes server name/port configuration in Thunderbird’s Account Settings will not work. Filter configurations will work, although you’ve probably already configured your own which will continue to work as well.
2. ThunderBayes ships with a patched version of SpamBayes that automatically updates the “Review” page in the SpamBayes proxy web interface upon training with a given message. If you don’t know what that is you don’t have to worry about it. However, if you opt to use an external version of SpamBayes this feature will not work in ThunderBayes 1.0. It did work in ThunderBayes 0.3, which was never formally released. The feature was reimplemented in ThunderBayes 1.0 as a custom extension to SpamBayes, which is much more efficient and makes the code much simpler.
3. ThunderBayes will not automatically start/stop SpamBayes when Thunderbird starts/stops (obviously).

To disable the internal SpamBayes shipped with ThunderBayes go to Tools->Add-
ons->Extensions->ThunderBayes->Preferences. Uncheck the “Use internal SpamBayes
proxy” checkbox.

Finally, a simpler option is just to disable your old SpamBayes proxy and install the new version of ThunderBayes. Configure your accounts in Thunderbird, and train from scratch. This will of course be a pain at first because you have to re-establish all of your training data, but it is very easy to get going
quickly. NOTE: when you configure your accounts you will need to set the server name and port in Server Settings back to the real server name and port BEFORE you configure the ThunderBayes page in Account Settings.

Download ThunderBayes 1.0rc4

• Re-implemented save routine in ThunderBayes Account Settings to respect the Cancel button after switching away from the ThunderBayes prefs page.
• ThunderBayes now recognizes localhost and 127.0.0.1 as being the same host name.
• The prefs page now displays the proxy host/port in addition to the real server/port.
• Updated migration guide to include note about privileged ports for Unix users.

Download ThunderBayes 1.0rc3

Download ThunderBayes 1.0rc2

Download ThunderBayes 1.0rc1 now and give it a try.

NOTE: for those already using ThunderBayes, please read the migration instructions before installing the new version.

This is a huge usability milestone. ThunderBayes now takes care of all the dirty work involved in installing and configuring SpamBayes, and it even makes it very simple to configure filters to move unsure/spam messages to folders of your choice. These new features are integrated into the Thunderbird Account Settings dialog, so you can configure ThunderBayes for each account at the intuitive place, with all the other account settings. Under the covers ThunderBayes also uses a new training API that allows more efficient training.

Migrating to ThunderBayes 1.0 (from any previous version)

As of version 1.0, ThunderBayes ships with a Python interpreter (Windows only) and SpamBayes 1.0.4. This makes it very easy for anyone with Thunderbird to get ThunderBayes installed and operational. Previously it was necessary to install and configure SpamBayes before ThunderBayes actually did anything useful.

Note for users on Mac OS or Linux: ThunderBayes will try to detect the pre-installed version of Python that came with your OS. If it doesn’t find it you’ll need set the Python executable in the ThunderBayes extension options (which can be found in the Add-ons list).

These are the steps to migrate the data from your externally configured SpamBayes to ThunderBayes’ new internal version of SpamBayes. Read all of the instructions before you start the migration process.

1. Shutdown Thundirbird.
2. Shutdown your SpamBayes proxy (disable automatic start as well).
3. Backup your Thunderbird profile. It’s easy.
4. If you skipped the previous step, go back and do it…really, you might need it if you do something wrong in the following steps. I usually like to make a zip archive of my profile so I don’t accidentally delete or change any of the files contained in it. That, and it’s easy to move around when it’s a single compressed file.
5. Make a new folder in your Thunderbird profile named ’spambayes_data’. The path should be something like this (the ‘default.xyz’ part will be different):
   <…>/Thunderbird/Profiles/default.xyz/spambayes_data
6. Find out where your existing SpamBayes data is stored. On Windows it might be C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\SpamBayes\Proxy. On Mac OS X it might be in /Library/SpamBayes. If you can’t find it just search for some of the files in the next step–that should lead you to the right place.
7. Copy the following files and folders from your existing SpamBayes directory:
   • _pop3proxyham.mbox
   • _pop3proxyspam.mbox
   • bayescustomize.ini
   • hammie.* (i.e. any files that start with ‘hammie.’)
   • pop3proxy-ham-cache/* (folder and all files inside it)
   • pop3proxy-spam-cache/* (folder and all files inside it)
   • pop3proxy-unknown-cache/* (folder and all files inside it)
   • spambayes.messageinfo.db
8. Mac OS X and other Linux/Unix users: edit the bayescustomize.ini file and change each port listed on the line beginning with listen_ports to a port number higher than 1023. Then change each account in Thunderbird to use the new port assigned to that account (after the next step). Explanation: on Unix ports lower than 1024 are privileged and cannot be used by non-root users.
9. Start Thunderbird
10. If you haven’t already, install ThunderBayes 1.0 and restart Thunderbird

If everything went as planned you should have a fully functional ThunderBayes setup with the same SpamBayes configuration that you had before, except its now running the internal version of SpamBayes distributed with ThunderBayes.

After all that, I will tell you that migrating the SpamBayes database to use the internally bundled version of SpamBayes is not strictly necessary–the internal version can simply be disabled, and you may continue to use your externally configured version of SpamBayes. However, there are a few (minor) features in ThunderBayes that will not work correctly:

1. The ThunderBayes server name/port configuration in Thunderbird’s Account Settings will not work. Filter configurations will work, although you’ve probably already configured your own which will continue to work as well.
2. ThunderBayes ships with a patched version of SpamBayes that automatically updates the “Review” page in the SpamBayes proxy web interface upon training with a given message. If you don’t know what that is you don’t have to worry about it. However, if you opt to use an external version of SpamBayes this feature will not work in ThunderBayes 1.0. It did work in ThunderBayes 0.3, which was never formally released. The feature was reimplemented in ThunderBayes 1.0 as a custom extension to SpamBayes, which is much more efficient and makes the code much simpler.
3. ThunderBayes will not automatically start/stop SpamBayes when Thunderbird starts/stops (obviously).

To disable the internal SpamBayes shipped with ThunderBayes go to Tools->Add-ons->Extensions->ThunderBayes->Preferences. Uncheck the “Use internal SpamBayes proxy” checkbox.

Finally, a simpler option is just to disable your old SpamBayes proxy and install the new version of ThunderBayes. Configure your accounts in Thunderbird, and train from scratch. This will of course be a pain at first because you have to re-establish all of your training data, but it is very easy to get going quickly. NOTE: when you configure your accounts you will need to set the server name and port in Server Settings back to the real server name and port BEFORE you configure the ThunderBayes page in Account Settings.

In plain English: it was a minor issue. Your error console will have less junk in it now.

Download: ThunderBayes 0.2.2