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2010
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March
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- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, March 31, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, March 30, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, March 29, 2010
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., March 27 & 28, 2010
- None Of Your Goddamn Business!
- A George Will Column Deserving Its Own "Dedicated ...
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, March 26, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, March 25, 2010
- Barker's Newbites: Wednesday, March 24, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, March 23, 2010
- Regarding No Newsbites Since Friday...
- Tip of the Hat to Oli Mackson
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, March 19, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, March 18, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, March 17, 2010
- Annie (and Andy!) Get Your Guns...???
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, March 16, 2010
- This "Newsbite" Deserves A Separate Posting
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, March 15, 2010
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., March 13 & 14, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, March 12, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, March 11, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, March 10, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, March 9, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, March 8, 2010
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., March 6 & 7, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, March 5, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, March 4, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, March 3, 2010
- The Anti-Bunning Twenty-One
- Partial Kudos to President Obama
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, March 2, 2010
- Egomaniacal... or simply yet another example of my...
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, March 1, 2010
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March
(34)
About Me
- William R. Barker
- Pearl River, NY High School Class of '81; Northeastern University, Boston, MA Class of '87.
10 comments:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g-YziTsAJw1ofv-BiXk2MoSXknwQD9EBVD6G0
The government ran up the largest monthly deficit in history in February...
* RE-READ THAT A FEW TIMES...
...keeping the flood of red ink on track to top last year's record for the full year.
* NICE... REAL NICE...
The Treasury Department said Wednesday that the February deficit totaled $220.9 billion, 14% higher than the previous record set in February of last year. The deficit through the first five months of this budget year totals $651.6 billion, 10.5% higher than a year ago.
* GETTING THE PICTURE, FOLKS...???
The Obama administration is projecting that the deficit for the 2010 budget year will hit an all-time high of $1.56 trillion, surpassing last year's $1.4 trillion total. The administration is forecasting that the deficit will remain above $1 trillion in 2011, giving the country three straight years of $1 trillion-plus deficits.
* THE AGE OF OBAMA...
The administration says the huge deficits are necessary to get the country out of the deepest recession since the 1930s. But Republicans have attacked the stimulus spending as wasteful and a failure at the primary objective of lowering unemployment.
* TWO POINTS: 1) YES... THE PORKU... er... "STIMULUS" SPENDING HAS BEEN WASTEFUL AND A FAILURE BY ANY OBJECTIVE MEASURE - INCLUDING (AND SPECIFICALLY!) USING THE PRESIDENT'S OWN PAST STATEMENTS ON HOW THE SPENDING WOULD REIN IN UNEMPLOYMENT; 2) THE STAGFLATION (MISERY INDEX) OF THE MID-LATE 1970's UNTIL PRESIDENT REAGAN GOT THINGS UNDER CONTROL STARTING IN 1982 WAS FAR WORSE THAN ANYTHING SUFFERED SINCE.
Through the first five months of this budget year, net interest payments totaled $86.5 billion, up 15.3% from a year ago.
* ALMOST NINETY BILLION DOLLARS PISSED AWAY... IMAGINE WHAT WE COULD HAVE DONE WITH THAT MONEY!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703701004575113613432894650.html?mod=WSJ-hps-MIDDLEForthNews
A former top official overseeing New York state's $129 billion pension fund pleaded guilty to a felony charge, the strongest evidence yet that the fund's investments were tainted by corruption.
David Loglisci, a deputy comptroller and chief investment officer of the New York Common Retirement Fund from 2004 until 2007, pleaded guilty Wednesday in New York state Supreme Court to a Martin Act felony.
Mr. Loglisci and Hank Morris, a political adviser to onetime New York Comptroller Alan Hevesi and a former top Democratic fund-raiser, were both indicted last March on allegations that they effectively required money managers to pay Mr. Morris before they could win lucrative contracts from the New York fund.
* "...AND A FORMER TOP DEMOCRATIC FUND-RAISER..." (*SMIRK*)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704784904575112144130306052.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop
President Obama used his January State of the Union speech to promise "a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants" and "new offshore areas for oil and gas development." Judging by its recent decisions, we'd say his Cabinet hasn't received the memo.
Mr. Obama has promised an $8.3 billion loan guarantee to build two nuclear reactors in Georgia. However, Mike Morris, the CEO of American Electric Power, explained at a recent Wall Street Journal energy conference that while loan guarantees were a "nice thing," they were meaningless in the absence of regulatory certainty. Only five of 50 states have what Mr. Morris calls nuclear-friendly "enabling" legislation that might convince corporate boards to commit capital to a long-term project. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, despite adopting a streamlined licensing process in 2005, hasn't issued key rules.
The Administration also sent mixed signals last week by putting the kibosh on Yucca Mountain for nuclear waste disposal. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has convened yet another "blue ribbon" panel on nuclear waste, which will probably have the half-life of uranium. Companies are already suing the feds for failing to meet legal obligations to collect waste, and the end of Yucca is one more reason for utilities to avoid making large capital bets amid uncertain government policy.
The President says he wants new supplies of home-grown energy, but the government's actions suggest continuing hostility to oil drilling and nuclear power.
Congress's ban on offshore drilling expired in September 2008, and a Bush Administration plan for leasing the energy-rich Outer Continental Shelf was due to begin this year. Yet within a month of taking office, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar halted leasing by extending the public comment period by six months. When that period ended last September, Interior said it would take "several weeks" to analyze the results. It has yet to release a summary.
Newt Gingrich's American Solutions group used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain Interior emails suggesting that the public comments ran 2-to-1 in favor of drilling. Instead of acknowledging this, Mr. Salazar last week informed Congress he was scrapping the Bush plan and that leasing will not begin for at least another two years.
The Administration failed to meet a deadline last month for submitting a court-ordered analysis of the environmental impact of new leases off the Alaskan coast. And in January, Mr. Salazar rebuffed Virginia's request—endorsed by its governor and legislature—to allow drilling offshore. Sensing a pattern?
Onshore, meanwhile, Interior canceled oil and gas leases on 77 parcels of federal land in Utah (a handful have since been reinstated). Mr. Salazar also yanked eight parcels from a lease sale in Wyoming. Several weeks ago a leaked Interior Department memo disclosed plans to have Mr. Obama use executive power—under the Antiquities Act—to designate 10 million acres of western land as "monuments," putting them off-limits to energy development as well as current timber or mining work.
http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/local_news/new_york_state/chefs-call-proposed-new-york-salt-ban-absurd-20100310-akd
[A] bill introduced in the New York Legislature [would,] if passed, ban the use of salt in restaurant cooking.
"No owner or operator of a restaurant in this state shall use salt in any form in the preparation of any food for consumption by customers of such restaurant, including food prepared to be consumed on the premises of such restaurant or off of such premises," the bill, A. 10129 , states in part.
The legislation, which Assemblyman Felix Ortiz , D-Brooklyn, introduced on March 5, would fine restaurants $1,000 for each violation.
* FOLKS... YOU JUST CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP!
* TWO PARTER -- (Part 1 of 2)
http://article.nationalreview.com/427508/obamacare-cooked-books-you-can-believe-in/deroy-murdock
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could [flash] a $100 bill [at the clerk] to buy groceries...
(*SMILE*)
...and then deposit that same Benjamin in the bank to help pay your monthly credit-card statement?
(*SNORT*)
Regular Americans would call this either magic or fraud. Washington Democrats call this “health-care reform.”
The health-care-reform bill that Senate Democrats passed last Christmas Eve...would drain $464.6 billion from Medicare’s coffers to underwrite Obamacare.
However, if “these Medicare cuts are improving the solvency of Medicare,” Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) explained, “then you can’t use that money to spend on the creation of another government program.” Ryan, the House Budget Committee’s top Republican, said on February 28’s Fox News Sunday: “You can’t count it both for paying benefits and reducing the deficit.”
* MAKES SENSE!
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office likewise warned last December 23 that Obamacare’s putative savings “would be received by the government only once, so they cannot be set aside to pay for future Medicare spending and, at the same time, pay for current spending on other parts of the legislation or on other programs. . . . To describe the full amount of [Hospital Insurance] trust fund savings as both improving the government’s ability to pay future Medicare benefits and financing new spending outside of Medicare would essentially double-count a large share of those savings and thus overstate the improvement in the government’s fiscal position.”
Consequently, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) predicts: “Taxpayers will be left holding billions in debt bonds to the Medicare Trust Fund that must be repaid.”
* US... OUR KIDS... OUR GRANDKIDS... (*SIGH*)
* To be continued...
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 2)
The Senate’s Obamacare bill would take $52 billion in anticipated Social Security revenues and divert them to offset Obamacare’s overall net cost. But wait: Those who have been promised future Social Security payments expect that $52 billion to be available to prevent their pension checks from bouncing.
(*HEADACHE*)
This bill also includes something called Community Living Services and Support. This “CLASS Act” would offer long-term-care insurance with premiums invoiced immediately, but with benefits commencing in 2016. In the interim, the CBO expects a $72 billion surplus to accumulate. Congressional Democrats already have dedicated that sum to counterbalance and thus lower Obamacare’s perceived cost. But the Treasury needs that same $72 billion to finance the CLASS Act’s medical services. So... which is it?
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D., N.D.) described this scam in the Washington Post as “a Ponzi scheme of the first order, the kind of thing that Bernie Madoff would have been proud of.”
Conrad is right. At its core, Obamacare relies on Madoff-style accounting. The convicted swindler routinely took cash belonging to one group of investors and used it to pay off a different set of stakeholders. When the investors requested their money, it already was gone.
Future retirees similarly will demand their Medicare benefits. But much of that money already will have been swiped for Obamacare. And that’s when this double counting will sparkle in all its crooked splendor.
So what would uncooking Obamacare’s books do to its price tag?
The CBO says the Senate bill would reduce the federal deficit by $132 billion in its first ten years. Congressman Ryan disputes this figure without blaming CBO. Like a scale that dutifully measures something as weighing twelve ounces, whether gold or lead, CBO loyally accepts the assumptions in the bills it analyzes, no matter their luster.
“If you take all the double counting out of the bill,” Ryan told Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace, “this thing has a $460 billion deficit in the first ten years, a $1.4 trillion deficit in the second ten years.”
President Obama claims his proposal “does not add one dime to the deficit.” In truth, Obamacare just keeps the red ink coming. And it does so as deviously as possible.
* FOLKS... YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND THIS! THIS ISN'T POLITICS... THIS ISN'T PARTISANISM TALKING... THIS IS MATH!!!
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=526845
During the recent summit on health care reform, Republican leader John Boehner told President Obama that he and his colleagues believe the central funding mechanism underlying the president's latest reform proposal — the individual mandate — is unconstitutional.
This language would require every American to purchase a product — health insurance. If it eventually becomes law, it's sure to be challenged before the ink on the president's signature is dry.
The president's response was that Rep. Boehner was resorting to "talking points" rather than substance. It would have been far more instructive if the president, a former lecturer at Chicago Law School who as a candidate opposed the mandate, had given Boehner and the Republicans — not to mention the American public watching on C-Span — his own analysis in support of his current belief that this unprecedented requirement is constitutionally permissible.
* YOU KNOW... THAT IS A VALID POINT. I MEAN... THE PRESIDENT IS A LAWYER; HE WAS A LAW PROFESSOR. I'D CERTAINLY LIKE TO HEAR HIS "PROFESSIONAL OPINION" INCLUDING HIS SPECIFIC REASONING CITING THE APPROPRIATE JUDICIAL SOURCING.
The underlying question is as simple as it is fundamental: Can federal law mandate that an individual must purchase a good or service, whether he or she wants it or not, in order to fund a massive social program perceived to be for the larger public good?
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1971237,00.html
The financial crisis was supposed to ring the death knell for companies that make loans to people who have had problems with debt. But a year and a half later, so-called subprime lending is alive and well.
The percentage of auto loans going to people with poor credit, for example, has been increasing. And while a number of banks have stopped offering credit cards to the debt-challenged, there are still companies handing out subprime plastic. First Premier Bank, for one, just tweaked the fees on its credit cards aimed at individuals with low credit scores to comply with recent legislation, and its business proceeds apace.
Slightly more than 36% of the car loans made by banks and finance companies in the fourth quarter of 2009 were to subprime borrowers, according to Experian Automotive, up from 34% in the third quarter.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/86203-house-gop-approves-conference-wide-earmark-ban
House Republicans approved a conference-wide moratorium on earmarks on Thursday, one day after a House committee enacted a ban on for-profit earmarks.
The Republicans' moratorium is more extensive than the House Appropriations Committee's ban in that it applies to all earmarks for all members of the caucus.
* IN AN EFFORT TO PUT THE DISCREPENCY BETWEEN WHAT THE DEMS DID AND THE REPUBLICANS DID IN CONTEXT, SEE:
http://thehill.com/blogs/twitter-room/other-news/86037-demint-slams-for-profit-earmark-ban
House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey's (D-Wis.) decision to ban for-profit earmarks is a "fig leaf, not real reform," Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said Wednesday. The [conservative Republican] senator, who has proposed a one-year moratorium on earmarks in the upper chamber, took to his Twitter account: "House Appropriations Chair David Obey's partial earmark ban wouldn't apply to 90% of earmarks. That's a fig leaf, not real reform."
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) also panned the [Obey] effort, saying that it is unfair to for-profit companies and assumes that non-profits are not corruptible.
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/11/morning-bell-bigger-government-is-not-the-solution-to-big-government-problems/print/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell
The final details of the financial regulatory reform bill being negotiated by Sens. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Bob Corker (R-TN) are still being hammered out, but the underlying contours are clear: more government bureaucracy layered on top of our existing impenetrable and unaccountable financial regulatory system. Specifically, the Dodd/Corker plan reportedly still contains these elements:
1) The Consumer Financial Protection Agency – There is still debate over whether this new entity will be a stand alone agency, housed in the Department of Treasury, or housed in the Federal Reserve. Wherever the new entity ends up, the bottom line will be the same: a massive new bureaucracy afforded ambiguous grants of almost unlimited power. Although intended to help consumers, the net result of such a move would be to stifle the innovations that would bring them improved, lower-cost financial products.
2) Permanent TARP – Details are sketchy here, too, but reports are that federal bureaucrats, possibly the FDIC, will be given new “resolution authority” powers backed by a permanent $50 billion slush “resolution fund.” If this new power is given to the FDIC, it would be the first time the FDIC’s authority was extended beyond the banks that it directly insures. But more importantly, these provisions would establish a permanent TARP – the radioactively unpopular $700 billion Wall Street bail out slush fund.
3) The Agency for Financial Stability – Sold as purely a monitoring and information gathering entity, without the proper limiting language, a new systemic risk agency could essentially draft any financial firm into the federal financial regulatory system and subject it to a wide variety of restrictions that could include compelling large financial firms to sell off portions of themselves, drop lines of business, break up, or otherwise reduce the “risk” that the regulators believe they may impose on the financial system.
Instead of allowing for risky behavior to be properly priced by the marketplace, taken together these new bureaucracies would almost guarantee more big bank bailouts costing taxpayers untold billions of dollars. The new regulators could declare any problem with a major financial institution to be a potential systemic risk and tap into the fund to bail it out.
A better approach to preventing another crisis [according to Heritage fellow David Jones] is to modify U.S. bankruptcy law to accommodate the special problems of resolving huge financial firms and to allow the courts to appoint receivers with the specialized knowledge necessary to best deal with their failure. By creating an open process controlled by an impartial judiciary guided by established statutory rules, financial firms, investors, taxpayers, and others would have the advance knowledge that large financial firms that were once known as “too big to fail” can now be closed if necessary without risking disaster. In addition, requiring all larger financial services firms to hold significant amounts of capital to cover losses would greatly reduce the systemic risk that they could pose to the financial system. Higher capital levels would enable many firms that would fail under today’s capital levels to survive a crisis, saving shareholders and bondholders their investments, employees their jobs, and taxpayers billions of dollars in federal bailouts. Congress and the Administration need to learn and heed the lessons of 2008, or a repeat crisis will just be a matter of time.
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