Saturday, May 1, 2010

Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., May 1 & 2


A cheery start to the weekend...
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6 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703871904575216444241140032.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop

A new TV ad is up in Mr. Reid's home state praising the Democrat...courtesy of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America...

* IT'S CALLED CRONY CAPITALISM, FOLKS; THE BIGGER THE "BUSINESS," THE MORE "FAVORS" IT REQUIRES FROM "BIG GOVERNMENT."

If it seems odd that drug makers are working to re-elect the Senator who passed legislation to rule the health-care industry, welcome to post-ObamaCare politics. Big Pharma and health insurance companies are betting on short-term rent-seeking from legislation that subsidizes Americans to use more of their products... With their business model in the hands of government, the drug makers have to make sure the government doesn't squeeze them in the bottom line.

The new ad follows news that America's Health Insurance Plans, the insurance trade group, has also teamed up with Families USA to promote ObamaCare. Thus do sweeping government programs produce their own special-interest advocates. Lost in this palm-greasing are the customers who ultimately will pay for ObamaCare in higher prices and politically rationed medical care. Another reminder, if one more were needed, that powerful government serves the powerful.

* EVEN IF ONE REFUSES TO ACCEPT THE ANALYSIS, THE FACTS ARE INCONTROVERTIBLE... "BIG PHARMA" AND "BIG INSURANCE" ARE NOT THE ENEMIES, BUT RATHER, THEY ARE THE "BITCHES" (AS THE KIDS SAY!) (*GRIN*) OF "BIG LIBERALISM."

* HEY... I THINK I'VE JUST COINED A NEW PHRASE! "BIG LIBERALISM...!"

May 1, 2010 at 10:23 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704093204575216530213580458.html?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTWhatsNews

The U.S. government's massive share of the nation's mortgage market grew even larger during the first quarter.

* WELCOME TO THE AGE OF OBAMA, BABY... (*SMIRK*)

Government-related entities backed 96.5% of all home loans during the first quarter, up from 90% in 2009, according to Inside Mortgage Finance. The increase was driven by a jump in the share of loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac...

* WHY DO I FEEL THAT I'M CAUGHT IN A REAL LIFE "GROUNDHOG DAY?"

"Fannie and Freddie have to get smaller and less relevant in order to revamp them, and instead, every day they're getting bigger and bigger and bigger," said Paul Bossidy, chief executive of Clayton Holdings LLC, a mortgage analytics firm.

* ANYONE THINK THIS IS BY "ACCIDENT...???" (*SNORT*)

The collapse of the mortgage market in 2007 steered more business to the Federal Housing Administration, which insures loans, and Fannie and Freddie, which were taken over by the government in 2008 as rising losses wiped out thin capital reserves. Congress also increased the limits on the size of loans that Fannie, Freddie and the FHA can guarantee, raising the ceiling to as high as $729,750 in high-cost housing markets such as New York and California.

* YES... BY ALL MEANS... WE MUST SHOW COMPASSION FOR THE PEOPLE IN... er... $729,750 "SHACKS."

* FOLKS... THE DEMOCRATS DID THIS. (*SHRUG*)

By the end of 2009, the share of jumbo loans that were sold or backed by government entities exceeded the non-government jumbo share of the market.

May 1, 2010 at 10:36 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=532045

It's bad enough that sanctions won't do much if anything to stop Tehran from going nuclear. Now the White House is pressuring Congress to soften its proposed slap on the wrist into a love tap.

The long-delayed "Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act" as it's called, has been bottled up for months after the Senate and House passed their separate versions. The White House wanted to wait until the president's charisma worked its magic on the U.N. Security Council before the U.S. intensified our own sanctions. But of course no such rabbit was pulled out of the hat.

The Chinese and the Russians remain opposed to doing something real about letting weapons of mass destruction fall into the hands of a jihadist regime that finances and arms terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, helps al-Qaida terrorists blow up U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and eagerly awaits an apocalyptic holy war between the forces of Allah and the West.

Since Moscow and Beijing both helped Iran build their nuclear facilities, we're not surprised.

[BTW...] Last week, Jane's Defense Weekly reported that China is building a plant in Iran that will make anti-ship missiles.

President Obama [now] insists that Congress water down the sanctions that are already very far from the economic warfare necessary to turn the screws on Tehran's mullahs.

The bill, which must go through a House-Senate conference committee to iron out differences between the two versions, penalizes companies that sell gasoline or petroleum-refining equipment to Iran and forbids foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies from doing energy-related business with the country.

The president now wants an exemption from those penalties added to the bill for "cooperating countries." (Read: Russia and China, if they support sanctions.)

What that means is that any business with a Russian or Chinese connection that would otherwise be hit by the bill will instead get a pass.

May 1, 2010 at 4:13 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=532029

[Did you know that] the National Academy of Sciences reported in 2003 that...roughly 47 million gallons of crude released in North American waters each year comes from natural seepage from the sea floor?

Only 1% comes from offshore oil and gas development.

In fact, offshore drilling can reduce this natural seepage by extracting crude and relieving geological pressure from below.

The damaged rig in the Gulf, one of 3,000 offshore oil and gas platforms operating in the Gulf of Mexico that survived Hurricanes Katrina and Rita without major damage, is said to be leaking 210,000 gallons of oil per day. This is serious - but rare.

President Obama on Friday announced the suspension of all plans for new offshore oil drilling...[m]eanwhile, other forms of energy get an environmental pass.

Ethanol takes 1,700 gallons of water to produce one gallon of ethanol. Each acre of corn needed to make the ethanol requires 130 pounds of nitrogen and 55 pounds of phosphorous.

Increased acreage to produce ethanol means increased agricultural runoff, which is creating aquatic dead zones in our rivers, bays and coastal areas.

Wind and solar power face hurdles aside from the obscene amount of land required. Wind turbines can dry out nearby productive agricultural areas and have been referred to as "Cuisinarts of the air" for the hazard they pose to birds and endangered species.

Plans for solar arrays throughout the Southwest require huge amounts of water in a water-starved region. Solar panels accumulate dust, dirt and sand and have to be continually cleaned with water. Not much thought has been given to finding enough water to wash down potentially thousands of square miles of solar panels.

The irony is that the nonfatal accident at Three Mile Island in 1979 and the 1986 Soviet disaster at Chernobyl conspired to deprive the U.S. of a nonpolluting form of power generation - nuclear power. A danger exists that similar overblown fears of offshore oil production will doom the U.S. to being the Bangladesh of domestic energy production.

We need the energy, the jobs and the economic growth. Can we produce enough domestic energy from all sources safely and in sufficient quantities to achieve genuine energy independence?

Yes we can.

May 1, 2010 at 4:14 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100501/D9FDNILO0.html

A computer system that the Census Bureau needs to manage its door-to-door count of the U.S. population remained buggy and prone to crash a day before enumerators were set to begin their work, government officials said Friday.

The bureau's Paper Based Operations Control System did not function reliably in tests and, despite hardware and software upgrades, "may not be able to perform as needed under full operational loads," the U.S. Government Accountability Office said in a report.

"So far, it is not as stable as it needs to be," GAO Strategic Issues Director Robert Goldenkoff said before the start of a congressional hearing on the census.

The paper-based system's hasty design began in early 2008, after the census bureau scrapped plans to use a handheld-computer method that ended up costing more than $700 million but did not operate adequately.

Returning to paper-based method boosted the cost of the census by about $3 billion that using the handheld computers was supposed to have saved.

May 2, 2010 at 10:24 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://preview.bloomberg.com/news/2010-05-02/banks-buying-treasuries-help-keep-interest-rates-low-amid-lending-drought.html

Bank are increasing purchases of U.S. government securities to pump up profits while lending to businesses languishes near the lowest levels since credit markets started to freeze almost three years ago.

* IN OTHER WORDS, FOLKS, THE GOVERNMENT (USING OUR MONEY) IS CONSPIRING WITH THE BANKS TO INCREASE THE BANKS' PROFITS AT TAXPAYER EXPENSE.

Holdings of Treasuries rose each of the past five weeks, an increase of $63.2 billion to $1.5 trillion, according to Federal Reserve data.

* FOLKS... DO THE MATH. (*SNORT*)

Banks, facing increased regulation after posting $1.78 trillion of writedowns and losses since the start of 2007...

* BTW... A WRITE-DOWN PRETTY MUCH IS A LOSS. (*SMIRK*)

[These banks] are taking advantage of the record gap between their borrowing costs and yields on U.S. debt instead of lending, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

* REMEMBER THAT SCENE FROM CASABLANCA WHERE RICK LETS "THE KID" WIN ALL THAT MONEY AT THE ROULETTE TABLE SO THAT HE AND HIS NEW BRIBE CAN ESCAPE CASABLANCA...??? (*SMIRK*) WE'RE TALKING THE SAME SORT OF RIGGED GAME HERE.

* TO THOSE OF YOU SCRATCH YOUR HEADS... THE GOVERNMENT LENDS BANKS MONEY AT SAY 0.75% INTEREST AND THEN BORROWS THIS SAME MONEY THEY JUST LOANED OUT TO THE BANK BACK FROM THE BANK ONLY NOW THEY PAY THE BANK 1.5% INTEREST VIA TREASURY YIELD. (YEAH... NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT, HUH? ASK YOURSELF... WHAT INTEREST RATE ARE YOU PAYING ON LOANS YOU'VE TAKEN OUT...)

Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co., beneficiaries of $140 billion in taxpayer funds, had combined first-quarter profits of $13.4 billion, the most since the second quarter of 2007 before the crisis began, bolstered by fixed-income trading.

* FUNNY HOW THAT WORKS, HUH... (*SMIRK*)

Buying longer-term debt is reminiscent of Japan, where banks increased their holdings of government bonds to record levels during the country’s so-called lost decade of economic stagnation that began in the 1990s, according to Michael Cheah, who manages $2 billion in bonds at SunAmerica Asset Management in Jersey City, New Jersey.

May 2, 2010 at 11:04 PM

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