Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Websites and blogs I recommend
Blog Archive
-
▼
2008
(22)
-
▼
December
(14)
- What I'm Reading As One Year Ends and Another Begins
- Another Guy Who's Usually Right
- America Has Lost a Moral and Intellectual Giant
- Ho! Ho!! HO!!! Merry Christmas To All!
- Ha! Ha! Ha!
- All The News That's Fit To Share!
- Well, Doctor, What Have We Got...
- Let Me Make This Perfectly Clear...
- If You're Like Me...
- Please Allow Me To Introduce...
- December 2008 Reading List
- A Liberal Bailout Proposal
- The Inmates Are Running The Asylum - INTO THE GROUND!
- What I'm Reading - What I Suggest You Read (Vol. 2)
-
▼
December
(14)
About Me
- William R. Barker
- Pearl River, NY High School Class of '81; Northeastern University, Boston, MA Class of '87.
22 comments:
Starting off with the WSJ op-ed pages...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123069003507444659.html
Excerpts:
-- Like all regulatory schemes, Congress's hallowed Corporate Average Fuel Economy rules froze in place a conception of the auto industry as it appeared to the simple minds of Congress in the early 1970s, when three manufacturers dominated the U.S. market, making full lines of vehicles. Today, more than 25 companies sell vehicles here, and the corollary of such diversity, normally, is specialization. The Big Three, left to their own devices, would surely specialize in those vehicles on which they make money - i.e., those with hefty price tags and markups relative to their man-hour content. Even at the peak of gas prices, half the vehicles sold in the U.S. were light trucks. In November, amid a collapsed home construction industry and with $4 gasoline fresh in mind, what were the two top sellers? Pickups by Ford and Chevy - and the Dodge Ram was No. 7. Shouldn't this be telling us something about how to make the Big Three "viable?" --
* Yep. In a nutshell... eliminate CAFE standards.
(*SHRUG*)
* Hey. We've TRIED them. They haven't worked. Let's get rid of them and see what happens. If such an "experiment" doesn't work... well... Congress can always legislate CAFE standards back into existence.
-- The fuel-economy rules apply equally to foreign brands, of course, some of which also specialize in big, powerful vehicles. But they afford themselves an out. BMW paid $230 million in CAFE fines from 1983 to 2007 to avoid building small cars at a loss to please Washington. Volvo paid $56 million. Daimler paid $55 million. Why don't the Big Three take this out? Explains the Government Accountability Office, because they fear the political repercussions of being tagged with "unlawful conduct." --
* I did not know this! I did not know that foreign auto makers simply paid the fines - considering them "a cost of doing business" - and thus basically got around them.
* See... that's the kind of info I read the WSJ for. (*WINK*)
-- They must be laughing up their sleeves in Stuttgart, having unloaded Chrysler in the nick of time. Democrats had just taken over Congress the previous November, vowing tough new mileage standards. One week before the Chrysler sale, candidate Barack Obama gave an environmental speech harshly critical of the Detroit auto makers. Three weeks after, the Big Three ran up the white flag and agreed not to oppose new fuel economy rules. This year, Daimler paid one of the biggest CAFE fines ever, $30 million -- or $118 per car, a pittance to Mercedes buyers. By dumping Chrysler, meanwhile, it avoided its share of an estimated $100 billion in unremunerative investments the Big Three will have to make to meet the new fuel-mileage rules. --
* Again... I read this and I think to myself... "They're INSANE in Washington! They're absolutely out of their frigg'n minds! They're suicidal - or rather, homicidal, considering that in the end these clowns all seem to be getting rich playing the system while the rest of us are getting killed... figuratively (financially) speaking.
BILL
Bill, A most Happy New Year to you and yours! Congrats on the blog launch! Glad I was able to "inspire" you finally to plung full throttle into the blog world("WINK!")!
Best,
Robert A. George
Happy New Year!
I don't much do "articles and op-eds"--but my New Year's reading is described here.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123085986972148021.html
The link above is to a WSJ editorial titled, "Treasury to Ford: Drop Dead
The GMAC rescue plays favorites"
Yep. (*SIGH*)
Excerpting...
-- Treasury is now helping GM again by giving it a credit pricing advantage against Ford in the marketplace....With $5 billion in taxpayer cash in its pocket, GMAC quickly decided to offer 0% financing on several of its models. "I think it would be fair to say that without this change . . . we would not be able to do this today," explained GM Vice President Mark LaNeve in a conference call with reporters this week. GM said it will offer 0% financing for up to 60 months on the 2008 Chevrolet TrailBlazer, GMC Envoy and Saab 9-7X sport utility vehicles through GMAC. The Saab 9-3 and 9-5 sedans also qualify for 0% financing. The car maker is also offering financing between 0.9% and 5.9% on more than three dozen other 2008 and 2009 models, including many trucks and SUVs. The deal runs through January 5, and no doubt GM is hoping for a booming sales weekend. --
(*SIGH*)
First point: Yes. We're all now forced "investors" in Bush's socialist utopia. Apparently "we're" backing GM - backing GM against Ford, not to mention foreign auto manufacturers.
(Hey, Ed... how do government subsidies fit into your idea of "free trade?")
SECOND point: "We're" now subsidizing putting more trucks and SUVs on America's highways.
(*SHRUG*) (Weren't "we" supposed to be doing the exact opposite...?!?!) (*SNORT*)
-- [W]ith the cost of financing often crucial to buyer decisions, the feds have now put the muscle of the state behind one company's products....Ford - and for that matter Honda and Nissan and most others - makes cars with American workers. President Bush justified the auto bailout in the name of saving jobs, but apparently GM's jobs are more valuable than others. And with the taxpayers now having a stake in GM and Chrysler success, the Washington temptation will be to take other steps to help the two companies gain market share at the expense of their private competitors. Never mind that Ford is still struggling and Toyota recently posted its first full-year loss in 70 years. This is always what happens when politicians decide to muck around in private industry. Even when made with the best intentions, their policy decisions have unintended consequences that help some companies at the expense of others. Meanwhile, your neighbor who buys a GM SUV this weekend with 0% financing should thank you when he pulls into the driveway. He did it with your money. --
BILL
Here's a twofer!
http://spectator.org/blog/2008/12/31/another-awful-bush-precedent-f
http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=20524
The Constitution means nothing - ABSOLUTELY NOTHING - to your average politician.
We're SO screwed.
Links within links... TRY THESE:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/31/bailout-ghosts-to-come/?page=2
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm2170.cfm
Folks. Put ideology aside. Lay partisanship the side. President after President, Congress after Congress, Court after Court, each prone to trash the Constitution apparently without a second thought...
(*SIGH*)
BILL
re: Rob; January 1, 2009 11:43 a.m.
I just finished off Ruth Downie's "Medico" on December 31 and am currently reading one of my Christmas presents, Bill O'Reilly's "A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity."
(*WINK*)
I gave lots of books as presents this year, how'bout you, Rob? Care to share gifts you gave as well as gifts you received?
Anyone else...? (*WINK*)
BILL
I'll do you one better, Bill. Check out this site
http://www.scribd.com/
Now you have no excuse (cost-wise) or sharing your Magnum Opus on all things political with the world. When you get on C-Span with your tome, just remember us li'l folk ...
Be afraid.
Be VERY, VERY afraid.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/31/AR2008123102778.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns
Excerpting...
-- Health care, says the man most concerned with that 17 percent of America's economy, can be "a nation-ruining issue." As Michael Leavitt ends four years as secretary of health and human services, he offers this attention-arresting arithmetic: Absent fundamental reforms, over the next two decades, the average American household's health-care spending, including the portion of its taxes that pays for Medicare and Medicaid, will go from 23 percent to 41 percent of average household income. --
Hmm... two decades... I'll be 66.
My kid BETTER marry Trust Fund rich! (*CHUCKLE*)
-- By curtailing revenue, today's recession will bring closer the projected exhaustion of the Medicare Part A trust fund, from early 2019 to perhaps 2016. That should get the president-elect's attention. --
-- When Medicare was created in 1965, America's median age was 28.4; now it is 36.6. The elderly are more numerous, and medicine is more broadly competent than was then anticipated. Leavitt says that Medicare's "big three" hospital procedure expenses today are hip and knee replacements and cardiovascular operations with stents, which were not on medicine's menu in 1965....In the 43 years since America decided that health care for the elderly would be paid for by people still working, the ratio of workers to seniors has steadily declined. And the number of seniors living long enough to have five or more chronic conditions -- 23 percent of Medicare beneficiaries -- has increased. Many of those conditions could be prevented or managed by better decisions about eating, exercising and smoking. The 20 percent of Americans who still smoke are a much larger percentage of the 23 percent who consume 67 percent of Medicare spending. Furthermore, nearly 30 percent of Medicare spending pays for care in the final year of patients' lives. --
This is REALITY, folks. These are the numbers. (*SIGH*)
-- Medicare is a price-fixing system for upward of 12,000 procedures and drug codes - and for hundreds of categories of equipment, the providers of which tenaciously oppose competition. Leavitt began implementing a tiny program of competitive bidding covering just 10 products in 10 cities. Based on the 15 days it lasted before Congress repealed it, savings were projected to be substantial. That is why equipment providers got it repealed. Rather than ruining the new year by dwelling on Medicare's unfunded liabilities of about $34 trillion (over a 75-year span), ruin it with this fact: In the next 50 years, Medicaid, the program for the poor - broadly, sometimes very broadly defined - could become a bigger threat than Medicare to the nation's prosperity. This is partly because of the cost of long-term care for the indigent elderly, some of whom shed assets to meet Medicaid's eligibility standard - sometimes as high as income under 200 percent of the federal poverty level. And many states, eager to expand the ranks of the dependent with the help of federal Medicaid money, use "income disregards" to make poverty an elastic concept. For example, they say: A person who gets a raise that eliminates his eligibility can disregard the portion of his income that pays for housing or transportation. Governments with powerful political incentives to behave this way will play an increasingly large role in health care. As is said, if you think health care is expensive now, just wait until it is free. --
BILL
Yes. It's clear that only the deserving rich should be allowed to live beyond their productive years. We need to work on that. If they've fallen and can't get up, they should be left there for the birds. It's their own damned fault.
Care to share gifts you gave as well as gifts you received?
Imo, talking about giving isn't in the spirit of having done so. I'll remain mute on that.
I will say,however, that the books I received were Roberto Bolano's novel, 2666; The Collected Poems of Jane Kenyon; and Wake Up - a Life of the Buddha by Jack Kerouc.
O.K., one more time...
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=315792191143684
Excerpting...
-- Congress is ready to ram through a half-baked stimulus package costing as much as $1 trillion. But if it's stimulus we need, why not make it effective stimulus — tax cuts, say, instead of wasteful spending? The massive new spending program that is being pushed by congressional Democrats emboldened by their newly enhanced majorities may come up as soon as Tuesday, when they return from their holiday breaks. Unfortunately, they've picked the least effective way to give the economy a boost. Those who argue for hundreds of billions of dollars for infrastructure projects and "green jobs" have it all wrong. We've tried those remedies before and found them wanting. --
To the (figurative) video tape...
-- In the 1930s, for instance, we went on an infrastructure binge, building new roads, dams and schools; electrifying the rural south and enlarging our ports, among other major tasks. Granted, some infrastructure improvement was called for. But all that activity didn't pull the the country out of depression — not by a long shot. Unemployment averaged 17% in the '30s, and it wasn't until 1941 — the start of World War II — that GDP returned to its 1929 level. Japan followed the same Keynesian game plan after its real estate bust of 1989. To the applause of many American liberals, hundreds of trillions of yen were spent on infrastructure, raising outlays on big projects from 6.5% of GDP in 1990 to 8.3% in 1996 — even more than contemplated under Obama's plan. That didn't work either. The 1990s were a "lost decade" for Japan's economy, and the country is still stagnating. Its infrastructure boom did have one lasting legacy, however: Japan is now the most heavily indebted nation in the OECD. --
Reality matters. At least... it should. The lessons of history are called lessons for a reason. To ignore these lessons is by definition insane.
Continuing...
-- If President Obama and his fellow Democrats get their way, the U.S. may soon be trudging down the same path. Next year, reckons budget expert Stan Collender, the deficit may hit $1.3 trillion, or 8% of GDP, as Congress tries to spend its way out of recession. That's roughly $13,000 for every taxpayer. --
* Bill The Ref throws a flag:
Let's not forget THE REPUBLICANS!!! Let's not forget PRESIDENT BUSH!!! Let's not lose track of the damage the RINO Congresses of 2001 thru 2006 did in terms of spending. (*SIGH*)
Yes. All of a sudden Mitch McConnell seems to be talking the talk, and perhaps you can say that when push came to shove he actually decided to walk the walk with regard blocking (temporarily I fear) legislative authority to shower GM and Chrysler with my tax dollars and yours. Still, the fact that the Republican leadership in Washington MIGHT now be turning against socialism when the banner is carried by Obama and the Democrats rather than Bush and themselves isn't all that comforting - not to me anyway. (*SIGH*)
Moving on...
-- In the '20s, '60s, '80s and again this decade, new presidents also faced grim economic conditions. Each time, the president — be it Coolidge, Kennedy, Reagan or Bush — cut taxes. And each time the economy boomed. --
Again, Bill The Ref throws a flag:
Ahh... but to return back to the top of the page of excerpts... unbridled deficit spending and debt ad infinitum is as irresponsible and counterproductive as excessive taxation. There's got to be a balance between revenues and spending!!!
No. I'm not saying "all" debt is bad and all debt is "the same." What I'm saying is that there are - and should be - limitations to deficit spending and debt accruement.
Concluding...
-- Simply handing blank checks to Congress and the White House, and letting them pass an ill-considered stimulus plan with little transparency and no checks on spending is a very bad idea. --
Yep. (*SIGH*)
BILL
God help us... (*SIGH*)
http://libn.com/blog/2008/12/30/keating-an-energy-policy-that-is-the-stuff-of-nightmares/
Excerpting...
-- ...the main reason for the decline in energy prices is that the United States and many other nations are in recession. A decline in economic activity means a decline in the demand for oil, and prices fall. Unfortunately, no part of this energy price decline can be traced to smart policy steps. Nor can it be linked to anything that the incoming Obama administration is signaling on the future of energy policy. --
Yep. (*SIGH*)
-- Instead, based on President-elect Barack Obama’s energy proposals and the individuals appointed to lead his energy team, future energy policy seems purposefully focused on driving up costs. --
Why does Obama hate me...?!?! (Not that that idiot McCain was much better...) (*SIGH*)
-- Apparently, it is not the cost of energy or enhancing domestic energy production that will serve as the guiding principle of energy policy during the Obama years. Instead, it will overwhelmingly be about battling so-called man-made global warming. --
(*HEADACHE*)
-- Both Carol Browner, Obama’s choice to lead a White House group on environmental and energy policy, and Steven Chu, the selection for energy secretary, are big-time global warming activists. Browner, who led the Environmental Protection Agency under President Clinton, is a disciple of the globe’s leading global warming alarmist, former Vice President Al Gore. Meanwhile, Chu, a Nobel winner in physics, also seems to be on more of a crusade than an intellectual inquiry when it comes to global warming and energy policy. Chu was quoted by the Washington Post in 2007 supporting a cap-and-trade regulatory system to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, and declaring that U.S. electricity costs were “anomalously low.” And according to the Wall Street Journal, Chu declared in a lecture at Berkeley, “Coal is my worst nightmare.” Well, if you want to get rid of coal and jack up electricity costs, then a cap-and-trade regulatory scheme is a surefire way to do so. President-elect Obama’s objective is reduce carbon-dioxide emissions to 1990s levels by 2020, and cut them by another 80 percent by 2050.
(*TEARS WELLING UP*)
-- It’s important to keep several points in mind on this issue. First, scientific opinion on man-made global warming is far from settled. Consider, for example, a Dec. 11 report issued by the minority staff on the U.S. Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee. It noted: “Over 650 dissenting scientists from around the globe challenged man-made global warming claims made by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and former Vice President Al Gore.” Interestingly, Ivar Giaver, another Nobel winner for physics, was quoted: “I am a skeptic. … Global warming has become a new religion.” More than 31,000 scientists have now signed on to the Global Warming Petition Project as well. The petition states in part: “There is no convincing evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.” Second, coal is a critical source of energy in the United States. In 2006, the nation generated 59 percent of its electricity from coal. Third, most economic studies show that capping and reducing greenhouse gas emissions will require a dramatic reduction in energy consumption, brought about through huge increases in energy prices via regulations and/or taxes. It’s a major concern if energy policy is being run by individuals who fear coal, believe the price of electricity is too low and want to impose a massive and costly regulatory scheme on U.S. consumers and businesses in the name of a highly disputable assumption. In fact, it’s a nightmare. --
(*WALKING SLOWLY TOWARDS MY BAR*)
BILL
How many of those 650 scientists would be left if you eliminated all those who are either directly or indirectly on the payroll of energy-related corporate concerns?
There were plenty of scientists available to assure you that smoking was no health hazard, and that there was no proven connection between smoking, lung cancer, or any other serious health problem.
The aggregate number "650" means nothing.
Actually, Rob, the "aggregate number" (*SNORT*) (*CHUCKLE*) of 650 means... err... 650.
(*SMILE*)
Rob. I know you can do better than throwing out non sequiturs based upon nothing more than character assassination.
(*GRIN*)
Anyway... other than snark and innuendo... any facts you'd like to share with the class - anything specific you'd like to add, either as an addition to what I've posted or as a refutation to specific info I share here on Usually Right?
Rob. I just HATE being wrong! For God's sake... correct any factual errors I make. (If you can...)
(*SHRUG*)
I'm always open to new facts. Feel free to post some.
(*WINK*)
BILL
Give us a run-down of who is paying your 650 "scientists." You are the one citing the number. It's up to you to support that number by demonstrating the objectivity of the "scientists" YOU claim refute global warming.
Or, give me five random names, and I'll do the googling.
As it is, I know nothing about your 650 scientists. They could all be clinical psychologists, for all I know. Who are they? Who pays them?
Re: Rob; Jnuary 5, 2009 4:21 p.m.
(*SMILE*)
(*SIGH*)
Is it TRULY that you don't understand the point I was making?
SERIOUSLY...???
Rob. I only consider myself above average in the sense that... well... the "average" is so damned piss poor.
I'm certainly not a genius - not even close! I'm guessing I'm comfortably within the "top 20%" based upon nature and nurture... (*SMILE*)... but that places me far, far down the intellectual pyramid. (*WINK*)
My point is... surely you can't be this far below me that you simply don't see the complete disconnect between my point and your... err... response. (Can you...???)
Anyway... (*SHRUG*)
Once more... with feeling:
If you can cite evidence that anything I've stated as fact isn't... err... fact... then go for it. PLEASE!
(Again... from my point of view... I seek to be corrected whenever I'm wrong - that way I can cease being wrong!) (*GRIN*) (I HATE being wrong!!!) (*HUGE FRIGG'N GRIN*)
BILL
It noted: “Over 650 dissenting scientists from around the globe challenged man-made global warming claims made by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and former Vice President Al Gore.”
My point is: so what?
As for using coal, at this point it only makes sense to do so. It's cheap and, especially around where I live, it will mean more jobs. But coal only as a bridge until greener technologies come on-line.
File Under: Pass Me That Bottle!
http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2009/01/05/wall-street-bonus-oped-cx_jk_0106kotkin.html
Excerpting...
-- ...I would suspect most of America thinks Wall Street, and New York's financial community, has not suffered enough. Industry bonuses are still expected to total well over $20 billion--small compared to last year's stupendous $33.2 billion, but not an insignificant New Year's present for the very people who have played a crucial role in wrecking the world economy. By one calculation, this sum breaks down to $137,000 per banker. For middling executives with eight years on the job, bonuses could average $625,000, 15 times the average income for American households. Without the infusion of taxpayer cash, it seems certain that these numbers would have been significantly less. Feel better now, America? --
Sub-file Under: Pass Me That Shotgun!
Continuing to excerpt...
-- It appears AIG is handing out bonuses ranging from $92,000 to $4 million to some 168 employees. --
Suicidal...? Nah! Homicidal!!! This obscenity is the fault of the Dempublicans and Republicrats who supported the bailouts.
-- ...this state of affairs is not likely to encourage much faith in the capitalist system here or abroad. If free enterprise is worth anything, it should be about performance, risk and reward. By that standard, there is no justification for any bonuses on Wall Street this year. "It's hard to believe they are still getting bonuses after wrecking so many lives," marvels Susanne Trimbath, a financial analyst at STP Advisors. "This no longer has anything to do with performance but has become an entitlement." Critically, Trimbath reminds us, we need to remember that some of these same bonus babies are primarily responsible for the housing meltdown that helped undermine the rest of the economy. It was Wall Street's slicing and dicing of mortgage securities--not just McMansion-hunting suburbanites--that created the financial bases for the sub-prime loans and other excesses in the first place. --
Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Let's not forget Bush, Dodd, Franks, and the Republicans who controlled both Houses of Congress for much of the period between 1995-2006 and the Democrats who have controlled Congress since January 2007.
Without the Fannie/Freddie gamesmanship and bait and switch "Wall Street" wouldn't have been able to create anywhere near the sized bubble that was created.
-- The whole bonus mania, Trimbath adds, contributed to the problem. It encouraged investment bankers to "push the [mortgage securities] crap out the door, because that's how they could earn bigger bonuses." --
Blame the tax code in large part! Blame the focus on short term capital gains vs. long term growth and dividends!
-- A populist rube from the Atlanta exurbs or the Great Plains might even come up with the bright idea to stamp out new bonuses and expropriate some of the ill-gotten gains made in previous years. --
Hey! Who ya call'n a rube...?!?!
(*MIRTHLESS CHUCKLE*)
-- The biggest push back will likely come from Robert Rubin disciples like Timothy Geithner, who will soon take over the Treasury, and the new National Economic Council chief, Larry Summers. Rubin will surely see the logic of Wall Street's compensation system, since apparently he made over $115 million at Citigroup (where he serves on the board) while the firm has lost more than 70% of its value. --
Yep. Clinton. Bush. Republican. Democrat. At a certain level we're talking Republicrats and Dempublicans - the foxes guarding the hen houses. (*SIGH*)
-- Along with Bloomberg and Sen. Charles Schumer - aided, perhaps, by the star power of their proposed puppet Caroline Kennedy - these worthies will fight off any attack against the bonus babies. No doubt they will argue such action would harm New York's economy. Think of what smaller or no bonuses will mean to the dog-walkers, toenail painters, personal trainers and high-end travel and real estate agents of Manhattan. ProPublica's frequently updated map of financial bailout recipients reflects a massive transfer of money from the rest of the country to New York. A few other places - Chicago, Minneapolis, San Francisco - also have licked clean the seemingly bottomless federal ice cream bowl. What about the rest of the country? --
(*SIGH*)
-- Once a city of capitalist aspiration, New York's economy has devolved into a plutonomy where, in 2007, financial services employees gained a remarkable one-third of all income, much of it in the form of bonuses. Meanwhile, the city's middle-class ranks shrink. The Big Apple now has the smallest percentage of middle-class residents--barely half--of any major urban center. Perhaps even worse, the flow of bonus checks has persuaded successive city governments that it's not necessary to diversify the economy or cut exorbitant costs. Maybe it is time to end the whole way Wall Street operates--for the good of America, New York and indeed the reputation of capitalism. An insane system that overly rewards a few for being in the right place at the right time has outlived its usefulness. A more reasonable way of rewarding performance--and punishing missteps--needs to be put in its place. --
RUBES OF AMERICA UNITE! DOWN WITH THE PLUTOCRACY!!!
(And yeah... I'm more serious than not!) (*GRITTING TEETH*)
BILL
...You're starting to get it?
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090107/D95I8DF00.html
Global...
(*SNORT*) (*SNICKER*)
Warming...
(*SIGH*)
BILL
File Under: Why Hasn't Dodd Been Indicted?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123128800174259195.html
Excerpting...
-- With the opening of the 111th Congress yesterday, all of Washington is tingling with the allure of a fresh start. Not so fast. We've got some leftover business from the 110th Congress -- namely, Chris Dodd's July 2008 promise to release the details of his sweetheart loans from Countrywide Financial. The Connecticut Senator got favored treatment from the subprime mortgage purveyor, even as he was a power broker on the Banking Committee that regulates the industry. When the news broke, the Senator first denied that he sought or expected preferential treatment. He later admitted that he knew he was considered a VIP at the firm but claimed he thought it was "more of a courtesy." He also promised the Connecticut press that he'd come clean with the documents and details of the loans. But six months later - nada, zip, nothing. --
Listen. I'm assuming accepting the bribe... err... "VIP status" wasn't in and of itself an actual "crime" in the sense of an indictable offense.
Pity.
Seriously... what Dodd did SHOULD have been a crime; if laws making such behavior haven't been enacted in the past, they should be enacted now.
BUT aside from the actual lack of a crime in accepting the bribe... err... sweatheart deal in the first place... what about the LYING about it aspect...???
(Bill Clinton? Scooter Libby? If either of you are lurking here at Usually Right, feel free to comment - after all... you're both experts.) (*WINK*) (*CHUCKLE*)
Continuing...
-- The rest of the press corps may have moved on, but we'd still like to know. All the more so because former Countrywide Financial loan officer Robert Feinberg told us last fall that Mr. Dodd knowingly saved thousands of dollars on his refinancing of two properties in 2003 as part of a special program for the influential. Mr. Feinberg also reported that he has internal company documents that prove Mr. Dodd knew he was getting preferential treatment as a friend of Angelo Mozilo, Countrywide's then-CEO, and Mr. Feinberg has offered to provide those documents to investigators. Just before Mr. Dodd made his promise, Bank of America closed its acquisition of Countrywide and Mr. Dodd has continued to oversee BofA and the rest of the mortgage industry as Chairman of Senate Banking. He will now play a lead role in drafting legislation affecting the very business that gave him preferential treatment, yet he still refuses to release the mortgage documents that would illuminate this treatment. As the Senate Ethics Committee examines this case, Mr. Dodd's office reports that he is cooperating with the investigation and that he still intends to make good on his six-month-old pledge. But nothing in the Senate ethics process prevents Mr. Dodd from coming clean with the public whenever he wishes. --
(*SHRUG OF AGREEMENT*)
Concluding excerpt...
-- We suspect there's at least one habit of the 110th Congress that won't change in the 111th: The Members think they can get away with anything -- and usually do. --
(*SIGH*)
Yes. And this should be UNACCEPTABLE to ALL of us.
We're in DEEP trouble, folks.
BILL
File Under: It's So Damned Depressing
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=316136273054046
Excerpting... (By Thomas Sowell)
-- Two centuries ago, when there were plans to create a huge fund of money to pay off Britain's national debt, the great classical economist David Ricardo objected on grounds that — no matter what the money was said to be for — politicians could spend it on whatever they wanted. Two centuries later, we have not yet caught up to that plain reality, even though the $700 billion that was supposed to be used to rescue financial institutions has already begun to be spent on other things. Regardless of what President Bush or Secretary of the Treasury Paulson may have had in mind when they promoted this huge bailout package, with all due respect to these gentlemen, what they had in mind will not matter in the slightest after January 20th. All that money is just a gift to the Democrats to spend in whatever ways will advance the interests of their constituents and of the Democratic Party. --
Yep. (*SIGH*)
-- It was not just a gift of money — huge though that is — it is also a gift of exemption from Republican criticism, even for the bailout of General Motors, which President Bush began, even when Congress refused to give GM the money without preconditions. It is a political get-out-of-jail-free card that can cover whatever disasters the Democrats create on their own in the years ahead. --
YEP!!! (*GRITTING MY TEETH*)
-- The whole idea behind the "stimulus" package begins to look more and more dubious as the outlines of the policy begin to take shape. Take the idea that much of this money will be spent on "infrastructure." This certainly sounds good — until you stop and think about it. So do most political notions. Does spending on infrastructure mean that the money is going to be spent filling potholes and repairing bridges? Or will it be spent creating new things? One of the key reasons why infrastructure gets neglected, in the first place, is that there is very little political payoff to filling potholes and repairing bridges, compared with spending that same money creating community centers, bike paths and other things. These new things create opportunities for ribbon-cutting ceremonies that give politicians favorable free publicity in the media. But nobody holds ribbon-cutting ceremonies for filling in potholes or repairing bridges. The whole process is biased toward doing new things, even if the repair and maintenance of existing infrastructure would serve the public interest better. --
Makes a lot of sense, doesn't he? Sowell puts into words what we all know to be true. (*SIGH*)
-- Someone once said that Congress would take 30 days to make instant coffee — and Congress is just the beginning of the delays, as all sorts of competing interests jockey for position at the public trough. Just putting together an environmental impact report for something new to be built can be a long process, especially if its findings are challenged by environmental extremists, who pay very little price for challenging, even if the delays caused by their challenges cost others millions of dollars. In short, it can be years before the money that is supposed to stimulate the economy actually gets into the economy. And nobody knows what the economy will be like when that money finally gets into circulation. A common problem with government economic policies in general is that it is very hard to predict how long it will be before the policy actually affects the economy. An economic stimulus policy created during a contraction in demand can take effect during an inflationary expansion of demand — and fuel still more inflation. A trillion dollars or so, created out of thin air by a government that already has a huge deficit, can set off another round of inflation that can take some very painful new policies to bring under control — or can have even more painful effects, if it is not brought under control. --
Doomed... doomed... doomed... doomed... Doomed... doomed... doomed... doomed... Doomed... doomed... doomed... doomed... Doomed... doomed... doomed... doomed...
BILL
Post a Comment