Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, March 15, 2011


In solidarity!
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7 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704758904576188640816094376.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

[President Obama's] federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau...is trying to extend its reach by extorting billions of dollars from private mortgage servicers, regulating their business by fiat, and stalling a U.S. housing market recovery.

[The] real policy goal is to impose by fiat a measure that was roundly rejected in 2009, when a Democratic Congress defeated a "cramdown" measure that would have allowed bankruptcy judges to force servicers to do principal write-downs.

* YES... YOU READ THAT CORRECTLY - EVEN PELOSI AND REID'S DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS COULDN'T CROSS THAT RUBICON!

That law was rejected because rewarding delinquent borrowers at the expense of responsible borrowers encourages bad behavior.

* DUH!

This brouhaha started last year when mortgage servicers - J.P. Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and other banks - were accused of mishandling foreclosure documentation.

[M]ost of the infractions were technical while very few borrowers lost their homes without cause, but state Attorneys General and White House special assistant Elizabeth Warren have spotted a political opening to smack the banks one more time and dole out $20 billion to potential voters in 2012.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

They've sent a proposed 27-page "settlement" to the banks that would, among other things, force mortgage servicers to submit to the bureau's permanent regulatory oversight; impose vast new reporting and administrative burdens; mandate the reduction of borrowers' mortgage principal amounts in certain circumstances; and force servicers to perform "duties to communities," such as preventing urban blight.

(We warned during the Dodd-Frank debate that the new consumer bureau would become a political tool for credit allocation, and here we already are.)

(*SIGH*)

Homeowners and bank shareholders will ultimately pay for the compliance burden and the $20 billion to reward delinquent borrowers as servicers pass on the costs.

(Never mind that these banks didn't originate many of those loans and typically don't own them now.)

(*SIGH*)

* LET'S HOPE THAT REPUBLICANS IN THE HOUSE - ALONG WITH SANE DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS - CAN STOP OBAMA.

March 15, 2011 at 8:58 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704893604576198881896338372.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion

Living on the harsh, wind-swept northern Great Plains, North Dakotans lean towards the practical in economic development. Finding themselves sitting on prodigious pools of oil - estimated by the state's Department of Mineral Resources at least 4.3 billion barrels - they are out drilling like mad. And the state is booming.

Around 650 wells were drilled last year in North Dakota, and the state Department of Mineral Resources envisions another 5,500 new wells over the next two decades.

(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

Unemployment is 3.8%, and according to a Gallup survey last month, North Dakota has the best job market in the country. Its economy "sticks out like a diamond in a bowl of cherry pits," says Ron Wirtz, editor of the Minneapolis Fed's newspaper, Fedgazette.

(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

Drilling in both Alaska and the Gulf, for example, is currently being restrained by Washington-imposed regulations.

[P]rogressives in California - which sits on its own prodigious oil supplies - abhor drilling, promising "green jobs"...

(*SMIRK*)

...while suffering double-digit unemployment, higher utility rates and the prospect of mind-numbing new regulations that are designed to combat global warming and are all but certain to depress future growth.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

Oil also is the principal reason North Dakota enjoys arguably the best fiscal situation in all the states. With a severance tax on locally produced oil, there's a growing state surplus. Recent estimates put an extra $1 billion in the state's coffers this year, and that's based on a now-low price of $70 a barrel.

(*GRIN*)

North Dakota, however, is no one-note Prairie sheikdom.

Thanks to global demand, North Dakota's crop sales are strong...

(*THUMBS UP*)

North Dakota is also attracting high-tech.

(*DOUBLE THUMBS UP*)

Between 2002 and 2009, state employment in science, technology, engineering and math-related professions grew over 30%, according to EMSI, an economic modeling firm. This is five times the national average.

North Dakota now outperforms the nation in everything from the percentage of college graduates under the age of 45 to per-capita numbers of engineering and science graduates. Median household income in 2009 was $49,450, up from $42,235 in 2000. That 17% increase over the last decade was three times the rate of Massachussetts and more than 10 times that of California.

What accounts for the state's success?

Dakotans didn't bet the farm, so to speak, on solar cells, high-density housing or high-speed rail.

Taxes are moderate - the state ranks near the middle in terms of tax per capita, according to the Tax Foundation - and North Dakota is a Right-To-Work state, which makes it attractive to new employers, especially in manufacturing.

(*NOD*)

But [ultimately] the state's real key to success is doing the first things first - such as producing energy, food and specialized manufactured goods for which there is a growing, world-wide market. This is what creates the employment and wealth that can support environmental protection and higher education.

(*NOD*)

* NOW THE BAD NEWS: PERHAPS A FEW HUNDRED THOUSAND PEOPLE - PROBABLY LESS THOUGH - WILL READ THIS EXPOSE.

(*SHRUG*)

March 15, 2011 at 11:52 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703363904576201192988972556.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsThird

Harvard Maintenance Inc., a national janitorial company, will lose over half its Minnesota work force after an immigration audit, making it the second major business in that state to be hit by an Obama administration crackdown on employers of illegal immigrants.

(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

* GOOD FOR OBAMA! HIS ADMINISTRATION... HE GETS THE CREDIT!

The audit by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will result in about 240 workers losing their jobs, the Service Employees International Union said on Monday.

* OR... AS I WOULD PUT IT... "THE AUDIT...OPENS UP 240 HONEST JOBS TO AMERICANS SEEKING WORK!

Harvard Maintenance gave workers 90 days to rectify irregularities in their employment-eligibility documents before informing them they could no longer work there, the union said.

* SOUNDS FAIR AND REASONABLE TO ME.

The Obama administration has made employers the cornerstone of its immigration crackdown that began in 2009.

Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc., which owns and operates nearly 1,100 outlets across the U.S., was recently forced to dismiss 450 workers in Minnesota amid an immigration investigation that began last year and has spread to other states.

* AND I'M GIVING OBAMA CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE!

Last month, ICE said it was demanding that 1,000 companies across the country turn over their employment records for inspection.

(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, ICE conducted audits of more than 2,740 companies, nearly twice as many as the previous year. The agency levied a record $7 million in civil fines on businesses that employed illegal workers.

(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

About 11 million illegal immigrants live in the U.S., according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group. Without illegal immigrants, business executives in industries like construction, agriculture and restaurants say they would be forced to radically change how they operate.

* BY THIS THEY MEAN "PAY AMERICANS FAIR MARKET-DRIVEN WAGES." (*SMIRK*)

"Our community is traumatized," said Javier Morillo, president of SEIU Local 26 in the Twin Cities.

* HMM... NOT THAT I'M SHOCKED - OR EVEN SURPRISED - THAT SEIU WOULD BASICALLY ADMIT TO FACILITATING UNION MEMBERSHIP FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS, BUT THIS RAISES A POINT: IT SEEMS TO ME THAT ICE SHOULD START INVESTIGATING UNION ROLLS AS A MEANS OF ENSURING THAT JUST AS BUSINESSES AREN'T ALLOWED TO EXPLOIT ILLEGAL ALIEN LABOR AT THE COST OF LOST JOB OPPORTUNITIES FOR AMERICAN CITIZENS, NEITHER SHOULD UNIONS BE ALLOWED TO BASICALLY CONSPIRE WITH ILLEGAL ALIENS TO VIOLATE U.S. LAW AND TAKE JOBS AMERICANS DESPERATELY NEED.

March 15, 2011 at 12:18 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2011/03/15/president-obamas-trivial-pursuits-2/

The Middle East is afire with rebellion, Japan is imploding from an earthquake, and the battle of the budget is on in the United States, but none of this seems to be deterring President Obama from a heavy schedule of childish distractions.

This morning, as Japan’s nuclear crisis enters a potentially catastrophic phase, we are told that Obama is videotaping his NCAA tournament picks and that we’ll be able to tune into ESPN Wednesday to find out who he likes.

Saturday, he made his 61st outing to the golf course as president, and got back to the White House with just enough time for a quick shower before heading out to party with Washington’s elite journalists at the annual Gridiron Dinner.

With various urgencies swirling about him, Saturday’s weekly videotaped presidential address focusing on “Women’s History Month” seemed bizarrely out of touch.

* FOLKS... PERHAPS THE AUTHOR SIMPLY HATES OBAMA. THING IS... LOOKING AT HIS BIOGRAPHY/RESUME... HE DOESN'T COME ACROSS AS A RIGHT-WING HATCHET-WIELDING CHARACTER ASSASSIN. (http://www.whitehousedossier.com/about/)

* I FEAR OBAMA ACTUALLY IS AS CLUELESS AND IRRESPONSIBLE AS PORTRAYED.

March 15, 2011 at 4:44 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/03/15/morning-bell-no-bureaucrat-left-behind/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

President [Obama] crossed the Potomac yesterday to visit an elementary school in Arlington, Virginia, where he pushed for reauthorization of the...No Child Left Behind (NCLB) program.

It was a classic President Obama performance.

First he denounced the “stale debates” over whether education needed “more money” or “more reform.”

Then - surprise - he said what the country really needed was both.

“We need more resources for the schools, but we’ve got to reorganize how our schools are doing business in order to assure success for our young people. … Let’s seize this education moment. Let’s fix No Child Left Behind.”

(*ROLLING MY EYES*)

NCLB is actually the eighth reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA).

* I DID NOT KNOW THIS!

Passed as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty, this first federal intervention into what was originally a state responsibility included just five titles in 32 pages.

* AH... 32 PAGES; THOSE WERE THE DAYS!

The effect of the ESEA was felt quickly across the country - but not by the nation’s school children. After passage of ESEA, state education bureaucracies doubled in just five years. Now NCLB spans more the 50 programs, 10 titles, and 600 pages.

(*MASSIVE MIGRAINE HEADACHE*)

According to the GAO, in 2010 there were 151 K-12 and early childhood education programs in 20 federal agencies totaling $55.6 billion annually.

NCLB alone cost states an additional 7 million hours in paperwork at a cost of $141 million.

* OH... AND GET THIS...

A 1999 GAO study of 10 federal education programs found that by the time a taxpayer dollar reached a local school district, up to 17% of the funding had been drained by administration.

* AND THAT WAS BACK... er... BEFORE THE TURN OF THE CENTURY! (*SNORT*) (*SNICKER*)

President Obama has only made the problem worse.

* YEAH, YEAH... I KNOW... HARD TO BELIEVE. (*SMIRK*)

Forty-one states wasted millions of taxpayer dollars and administrative man hours trying to persuade Obama Education Department bureaucrats to give their states Race to the Top stimulus money. Louisiana’s application alone was 260 pages with a 417-page appendix. (And in the end, the Obama Administration just wound up giving the cash to their government union political allies.)

And what have federal taxpayers gotten for all this federal education spending? (Federal education spending has more than tripled since 1970, yet academic achievement has remained flat.)

Since 1965 our nation has chosen to direct more of its education dollars through Washington, D.C. This has empowered bureaucrats, weakened parents, and been a disaster for our students. We need to change course.

States should have the freedom to opt out of federal education programs and should be allowed to consolidate federal funding to direct resources to any lawful education purpose they see fit. Bottom-up education reform will only really occur when local governments are free from federal paperwork and don’t have to beg federal bureaucrats for education dollars.

March 15, 2011 at 5:34 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/262210/anti-nuclear-press-puts-japanese-lives-risk-robert-zubrin

Dr. Robert Zubrin is the president of Pioneer Astronautics and the author of Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil. He holds a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering.

* SO ONE MORE TIME... PAY FRIGG'N ATTENTION, PEOPLE!

Japan currently faces a real emergency. As a result of the earthquake and the ensuing tsunami, thousands of people are dead, and tens of thousands more are missing...

* AND THERE'S A POSSIBILITY OF ANOTHER EARTHQUAKE AND ANOTHER TSUNAMI!

There are over 500,000 people without shelter, with a blizzard on the way, and even the as-yet unscathed could soon face death from epidemics caused by thousands of unburied corpses.

* I TEND TO HAVE FAITH IN JAPAN AND HER ALLIES (INCLUDING THE U.S.) BEING ABLE TO LIMIT THE EFFECTS OF ANY EPIDEMIC.

At such a time, nothing could be more scandalous than the current campaign by much of the international press to spread panic over trivial emissions of radiological material from several disabled nuclear power stations.

* AND SINCE I WATCH A GREAT DEAL OF FOX NEWS, LET ME SLAM THEM FOR THEIR IRRESPONSIBILITY. (GLENN BECK HOWEVER HAS BEEN A BEACON OF RESPONSIBLE INFORMATION SHARING...)

Let us be clear. Compared to the real disaster at hand, the hypothetical threat from the nuclear stations is zero. The reactors in question were all shut down four days ago. The control rods have been inserted, and the cores have been salted with boron. It is physically impossible for them to sustain a fission reaction of any kind at this point, let alone cause another Chernobyl. Only the fission-byproduct decay heat remains, and it is fading fast as the short half-life material (which accounts for most of the radioactivity) performs its decay reactions and ceases to exist. At this point, the total heating power in the reactors is only about 0.3% of what it was when the reactors were operating. That means that a system previously capable of generating 1,300 megawatts of heat would now yield 4 megawatts thermal - about the same as that emitted by a dozen 100-hp automobile engines. The Japanese engineers can certainly deal with that with water cooling. And even if they were to stop, there just isn’t enough heating power in the system anymore to generate a dangerous plume of radioactive materials, which is doubly impossible at this point since all the more active short half-life stuff is already gone.

No, the threat does not come from the power plant, but from panic spread by press misinformation. By diverting people from the real emergency at hand, this radiation scare could kill thousands.

After Three Mile Island, the press spread hysteria as well, but at least there conditions in the rest of society were normal, and so the only victim of the press campaign was the nuclear industry.

But there is a real emergency in Japan right now, of epic proportions, which has to be dealt with as effectively as possible.

That emergency is not nuclear radiation, but the need to rescue the trapped and the injured, shield the homeless from the elements, and to prevent an epidemic.

March 15, 2011 at 6:18 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/116819/

[President Obama]: “The best economic policy is one that produces more college graduates.”

* VERSUS...

Reynolds’ Law: “Subsidizing the markers of status doesn’t produce the character traits that result in that status; it undermines them.”

Here’s the original passage [describing Reynolds' Law]:

"The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle-class people. But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits - self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. - that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them."

(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

* MAKES SENSE, RIGHT?!

March 15, 2011 at 7:36 PM

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