Gangs of DC: White House -vs- Congress

Rival Warlord Gangs Fight Over the Spoils: Harry and the Pelosicrats at war with strongman Hussein al Hope bin Change

Dispatches from the fighting:

Under legislation that has rapidly gained support, GM and Chrysler would have to reinstate more than 2,000 dealerships that the companies had slated for closure.

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and several other congressmen spoke in support of the dealers. More than 240 House members have signed onto the bill, supporters said.

The administration, however, did force GM and Chrysler to streamline their operations before it invested more money in them, and it was the president's auto task force that spoke out for dealer closures. (Source: Washington Post)

The Strongman Speaks:

July 15 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama “strongly opposes” an effort in Congress to require General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC to restore relationships shed during bankruptcy proceedings, while stopping short of a veto threat.

This is a government not only at war with the private sector, but more importantly, at war with itself. Congress and the Obama Administration are two rebel factions that, after joining forces to loot, pillage and plunder, turn on one another over who gets the spoils.

Harry and the Pelosicrats in a power struggle with the strongman Hussein al Hope bin Change. Meanwhile, American refugees hunker down hoping the warring factions eventually attrit each other.

WaPo
Bloomberg

Spreadin' It Around

Obama and the Democrats in Congress are buying votes with your money

Counties that supported Obama last year have reaped twice as much money per person from the administration's $787 billion economic stimulus package as those that voted for his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, a USA TODAY analysis of government disclosure and accounting records shows.

The reports show the 872 counties that supported Obama received about $69 per person, on average. The 2,234 that supported McCain received about $34. (Source: USA Today)

In their defense, maybe it was just a coincidence that those Democratic areas needed the most help. After all, the failed, blighted areas are spilling over with liberals waiting for a government handout, and they all voted for Obama. Meanwhile, the self-sufficient areas tend to vote conservative and take care of themselves...

...Government-Sponsored Reverse Darwinism?

Picture courtesy of Chicago Ray
News: USA Today

Government Bailout Q & A: The Lighter Side

The NY Times, the toilet paper of record, has a government bailout Q&A. Here are some excerpts:

Q: Will Chrysler and GM be owned by the US Government now?

A: Of course not. Barack Obama owns them, and as all enlightened people know, he transcends life itself, standing astride history and above all nations. Like the song says, "He's got the whole world in his hands." See? It's all OK, so relax, and leave the driving to Barack.

Q: Since the auto industry is technically part of the government now, can they stop paying taxes like the other Obama cabinet members?

A: That's an unfair question. Not all Obama staffers are tax cheats. And these things sometimes happen in the hurly burly world of big government. 31 year olds with no experience end up running auto industries, people who can't fill out tax forms end up running the IRS... Hey, these are crazy times!

Q: Is the Federal Government qualified to be meddling in the car industry?

A: I guess you're not listening. Referring back to my last answer, inexperience is no obstacle! Look, city and county governments all over this land have been making busy citizens wait in line for hours and days for drivers licenses and car tags. It time to take that to the next level: National government complicating the entire vehicular experience.

Q: Will all these new czars wear those cool-looking WW I-era helmets with the spike on top?

A: You're confused. Kaisers wore those, not czars.

Q: Oh! Right you are. Will Obama's czars wear big furry hats and grow bushy Stalin-esque moustaches? Janet Napolitano would look bad-aaaaaas!

...

NYT - Bailout Primer

Double Dip With A Swirl

The Feral Government is a giant self-licking ice cream cone, a perpetual motion money-gobbling machine.

Here's a headline from Reuters:

FBI to Investigate Tarp, Stimulus Fraud

A chain of events has led to a downward spiral

Congress put laws in place that socialized losses but privatized profits for the financial industry, creating economic collapse.

In response, Congress and The White House borrowed trillions from China and gave it to the same irresponsible people who drove our economy over a cliff.

We now have Tarp- and bailout-related fraud, which will keep the FBI and legions of other alphabet soup agencies at full employment for a decade or more.

The economy will sputter along, necessitating more government intervention, more laws, more spending, more fraud, more investigations, pointing to more government solutions...

Feel your head spinning? It's caused by the swirl of our country being flushed down the toilet.

Reuters

The TARP Trap

TARP is a trap, built by a private entity (The Federal Reserve), implemented by President Bush's Dirty Hank Gang, and now used by Obama administration tax cheats to control the banking industry. It's all about the power, according to Stuart Varney at WSJ Online.

He actually says it more tastefully than I do, but not by much:

The banks are at the core of the administration's thrust: By managing the money, government can steer the whole economy even more firmly down the left fork in the road.

If the banks are forced to keep TARP cash -- which was often forced on them in the first place -- the Obama team can work its will on the financial system to unprecedented degree. That's what's happening right now.

Varney tells a story of a big bank, which shall be left nameless to protect the innocent and guilty, that wants to give the TARP money back but can't because the government won't allow it.

But the Obama team says no, since unlike the smaller banks that gave their TARP money back, this bank is far more prominent. The bank has also been threatened with "adverse" consequences if its chairman persists. That's politics talking, not economics.

Think about it: If Rick Wagoner can be fired and compact cars can be mandated, why can't a bank with a vault full of TARP money be told where to lend? And since politics drives this administration, why can't special loans and terms be offered to favored constituents, favored industries, or even favored regions? Our prosperity has never been based on the political allocation of credit -- until now.

Uncle Sam, why do you have such a big TARP? All the better to smother you with, my dear.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123879833094588163.html

Caracas on the Potomac

President Obama and the Democrats in Congress rammed through an irresponsible $1 trillion bailout and now feign outrage, outrage! that AIG is paying out bonuses as provided by the law they crafted. They now attempt to cover this wrong with another wrong. Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do. Their steering wheel is permanently jerked to the left, so they are now going in circles.

Congress has just voted to claw back the AIG bonuses. I could care less about the AIG whizz kids, but I do care about the Constitution, which our politicians, like a herd of swine, routinely trample. Their taking aim at the AIG bonuses sure looks like a bill of attainder, which is prohibited by the constitution. From Tech Law Journal:

The Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 9, paragraph 3 provides that: "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law will be passed."

Definition: A legislative act that singles out an individual or group for punishment without a trial.

"The Bill of Attainder Clause was intended not as a narrow, technical (and therefore soon to be outmoded) prohibition, but rather as an implementation of the separation of powers, a general safeguard against legislative exercise of the judicial function or more simply - trial by legislature." U.S. v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437, 440 (1965).

"These clauses of the Constitution are not of the broad, general nature of the Due Process Clause, but refer to rather precise legal terms which had a meaning under English law at the time the Constitution was adopted. A bill of attainder was a legislative act that singled out one or more persons and imposed punishment on them, without benefit of trial. Such actions were regarded as odious by the framers of the Constitution because it was the traditional role of a court, judging an individual case, to impose punishment." William H. Rehnquist, The Supreme Court, page 166.Federalist Number 44, 1788.

"Bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, and laws impairing the obligations of contracts, are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation. ... The sober people of America are weary of the fluctuating policy which has directed the public councils. They have seen with regret and indignation that sudden changes and legislative interferences, in cases affecting personal rights, become jobs in the hands of enterprising and influential speculators, and snares to the more-industrious and less-informed part of the community." James Madison,

Our constitution is so accreted with the decrees of judicial mullahs that this clause probably now means the opposite of the founders' intent. Findlaw has good commentary on this clause if you want to read more about it.

Congress has violated the spirit of this document by inciting wild-eyed, pitchfork and torch anger against a singled-out group of people who have broken no laws. The President has insisted he is not a socialist, but Hugo Chavez must be envious. He had to pack the government with his Bolshevik cronies to get such results; President Obama is doing it with freely elected politicians.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/article01/47.html#1
http://www.techlawjournal.com/glossary/legal/attainder.htm

The Wrath of Khan-gress

Admittedly the executives of AIG receiving bonuses is distasteful and idiotic, but so is government involvement in private industry. This is what happens when preeminently unqualified individuals from government step in and try to legislate how business runs or fails. Now don't get me wrong... I am not, nor have I ever been in favor of AIG execs getting bonus paid for by the American taxpayer, but I would like to point out to the 328 frothing mouthed representatives in congress the following line from the US Constitution:

No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed.

Seems to me that if you are the fools who did not negotiate the bonuses away as part of your illegitimate bailout (Might be me, but I can find no legitimate basis for your bailout in Section 8 delineating the powers of your esteamed (sic) branch), that the people who should be held accountable for this outrage might be found by a quick glance into a mirror, or talk to Chris Dodd, who's staff seems to have authored the changes unbeknownst to him... well "unbeknownst" in the sense that "We wrote it together at the time, at the request of the Treasury". Since you gave them the money, they handed out bonuses, then you decide to tax those bonuses at 90%, that might constitute a kindergarten level intellectual example of "ex post facto", but it does line up nicely with the extraconstitutional powers of the IRS though...doesn't it?

The actions and activities of AIG is the direct result of you simpering fools who don't read the legislation you vote for: "A one-paragraph provision tucked into the thick bill modified the cap to apply it only to future bonuses, not those that might have already been legally contracted." Meanwhile the House's "please cover my ass" bill to tax the bonuses at 90% passed 328 to 93, which should create some interesting and entertaining constitutional law cases, for now we are not only taxing people based on income, but employer.

I am not saying that anything the AIG executives did was right, including the bonuses, but last time I checked there were no laws against poor business decisions, planning, or running your company into the ground regardless of its size. My simple interpretation, a non-lawyer, is that congress is in essence passing a "bill of attainder", that is declaring the executives guilty (of what, other than stupidity, only god knows), and penalizing them accordingly. Now the government has its own rights to decide what it does with its money, and can and should legitimately negotiate what may be done with government "bailout" money... however before, not after the fact.

It would seem pretty straight forward that if I have a contract clause, not tied to performance, that says if I show up for 40 hours a week, attend all the board meetings, and only wear blue socks that I get a $100,000 bonus and I meet all the criteria in my contract for award... that it is irrelevant if the company has been run into the ground or not. If you did not want money going towards bonuses there should have been specific wording in either the legislation or agreement with the company that "government" money could not be used to pay bonuses. Even then, that does not mean that if there is 1,100,000 dollars in the company coffers, and 1 million of it is government money, that I would not get my $100,000 bonus. It might not be ethical for me to take it, but it certainly wouldn't be illegal. You retroactively singling me out and jacking up my tax rate because I am an executive of that company and received a bonus certainly seems extremely questionable if not tyrannic.

The proper response to a business being mismanaged into the ground is the bankruptcy or dissolution of that business, those are the consequences, when government steps in it simply mucks up the works. Chrysler, for example, should have failed on December 21, 1979, the first time the government bailed them out to the tune of 1.5 billion dollars. Move the decimal point one place to the right and you get the current Chrysler bailout cost. The government is perpetuating the problems in the auto industry by supporting unprofitable and mismanaged companies. As distasteful as it sounds, allowing one of the big 3 to fail on their own will improve the markets and profitability of the others, provided they learn from the death of their competitor and successfully adjust to compete against the foreign automakers. It is not the function of government to ensure the profitability or survivability of any business.

Liberals screamed bloody murder about their constitutional rights being trampled by Bush's warrantless wiretapping order (questionable, yet dismissed by the Supreme Court I might add), yet seem perfectly content to throw the entire frigging Constitution out the window simply to cover their sorry asses and buy a few votes (along with quite a few Republicans I might also add). Having spent 25 years supporting and defending the Constitution against Communists, Socialists, Fascists, Terrorists, and a wide variety of other 'ists' and 'istas', I find myself for the first time in my life truly disgusted by the actions of my elected government.

To close on a subject completely off topic:

Not to be heartless, and honestly my sympathies go out to the family and friends of Natasha Richardson, but can any of you socialized medicine supporters explain why an Irish actor flew his British wife who was injured in Canada to a hospital in the United States? Instead of availing himself of the fine socialized medical system in Canada, Ireland, or the United Kingdom? After all, aren't you all arguing socialized medicine good... free market medicine bad?

Think about it.

... and no, I am not an employee of nor do I do business with, AIG. I don't own stock, shares, or am in any way affiliated with that company.

~Finntann~

The Looting of America: An Inside Job

The most galling aspect of this Obama-Rama-Ding-Dong Progressive Porkapalooza celebration is that people calling themselves conservatives got this socialist boulder rolling.

This latest Kabuki theater over AIG bonuses only makes it worse. Then-Senator Obama, Senator Dodd and Congressman Barny Frank all voted for the bill that had Dodd's provision in it authorizing those bonuses, but nevermind. Manufactured outrage plays well with the ignorant boobs who vote for these charlatans.

President Obama had this to say when a reporter asked him if he was a socialist as his critics charge:

"I did think it might be useful to point out that it wasn’t under me that we started buying a bunch of shares of banks. It wasn’t on my watch. And it wasn’t on my watch that we passed a massive new entitlement -– the prescription drug plan -- without a source of funding."

Touche', Mr President, even if it did take you two hours of consulting with advisers to craft this riposte.

The Bush White House ("I had to destroy capitalism to save it," or something like that) started the multi-trillion-dollar run on the treasury. The Wall Street banksters needed to restock their portfolios, so they called their buddy Dirty Hank, a Wall Street investment bankster himself. They then carried out their brazen plan to loot the treasury in broad daylight.

Grab a Plunger!

I got so tired of hearing about the "bad debt" clogging the system. I kept thinking of toilets and plungers... These financial instruments were clogging the system because they were now worth 20 cents on the dollar. In free-market capitalism, the owner sucks it up or goes under. In our Wall Street welfare queen system, nobody was willing to settle for that when Uncle Sucker raised the possibility that he would buy it for the ridiculous price of a dollar on the dollar.

If you were holding these assets, wouldn't you sit on them if you believed the government would bail you out by paying an above-market price?

But what if the US government came out and said in effect "tough luck, we're not bailing anybody out," what would you do? You'd sell for 20 cents on the dollar. You'd make some meager but productive lemonade out of those lemons, which would spur some economic activity and plunger those those turds down that were clogging the system.

President Bush and a band of cowardly Republicans got the bailout bandwagon rolling, providing a golden opportunity to President Obama and the liberal Democrats to usher in a new age of redistributionist liberalism that would make FDR blush. They've grabed it with gusto. They will blame Republicans, Reagan, and Bush all the way to a permanent majority, harvesting votes from an entitlement class addicted to government handouts. At least they seem willing to entertain the masses with some liberal agitprop.

We missed a real chance to learn a once-in-a-lifetime lesson. Unfortunately, all we learned was that when you dirty your diaper Uncle Sam will change it for you, at the expense of those who have learned to care for themselves.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/business/economy/27policy.html?_r=2&hp
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-budget-assess27-2009feb27,0,5874116.story
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120511125873823431.html
http://washingtontimes.com/weblogs/joe-curl/2009/Mar/08/obama-makes-oval-office-call-reporters/

Ruins of the Self-Esteem Society

Kevin Hassett nails the Wall Street whiz kids. He draws a bead on the toxic mixture of Ivy League education and cocksure self-esteem that reduced Wall Street to a discredited, ruined wreck.

Twenty or 30 years ago, it was common for the best and the brightest to be doctors or engineers. By the 2000s, they wanted to be investment bankers.

When Wall Street was run by people randomly selected from the population, it was able to survive everything. After the best and brightest took over, it died the first time real-estate prices dropped 20 percent.

Wall Street is gone because its firms did a terrible job assessing the risks of the positions they took. The models these firms used to evaluate risks failed.

Back when Wall Street was run by individuals without fancy degrees, they had a proper skepticism toward fancy models and managed their risks with a great deal more humility and caution. Only when failed models became canon did catastrophe strike.

Computer models and fancy degrees are great, but they can't replace humility and judgment based on experience. Read the whole article here.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_hassett&sid=a_ac69DqFutQ

Spreadin' It Around

Jennifer Rubin critiques President Obama's plan to "spread it around."

From a political standpoint, the idea that we should bail out irresponsible home buyers or incompetently run auto companies is proving to be very unpopular. Rasmussen polling revealed that 64% of Americans oppose further car company bailouts and only 38% back the president’s mortgage bailout plan.

...the very policies which they intend to implement are proving to be unpopular both on Wall Street and on Main Street.

Read the whole article here.

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/mr-president-turn-back-while-theres-still-time

Dance, Little Doggie!

When the CEOs come begging, they'll dance to any tune, even a discordant, nonsensical one played by foolish jesters gone stupid by a decades-long, taxpayer-funded bacchanalia. It is shameful how far these once brave captains of industry and self-made businesspeople have fallen.

WASHINGTON (AP) -Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., opening the new Congress' first hearing on the threats from global warming, said inaction on the climate issue is causing uncertainties that make it more difficult to emerge from the recession.

To dramatize the business community's growing consensus that the climate issue must be confronted, Waxman invited to the first hearing 14 corporate executives and environmental leaders who have pressed for an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050.

Dealing with climate change "will not be cheap and not be easy," warned James Rogers, chairman of Duke Energy Corp. But he said coupling a short term stimulus package with a long-term climate plan, "we have the ability to stimulate greater confidence ...(and) put the recession in the rear view mirror."

This is why Congress will never eliminate "Corporate Welfare" and other taxpayer-funded incentives to businesses and individuals.

You can't get the doggie to dance on his hind legs if you don't have sausages to dangle in front of him.

Thank God our great nation was not cursed with such pusillanimous milquetoasts and craven bat-winged bloodsuckers at its founding.
The US would be confined to the city limits of New York City, if it survived at all.

Atlas has shrugged, folks.
He's a flaccid, shriveled little welfare queen now, begging at the foot of a degraded Mount Olympus and its idiocracy of fatuous, incontinent demi-gods.

The US Military is the only institution left in this country with any cojones.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D95NNE8O0&show_article=1

New Year Resolution: Learn From The Past

Can we learn anything from our current economic situation? With Uncle Sam throwing his protective tarp over the investment bankers who got us into this mess, you know those pirates won't learn anything other than, "let's do it again!"

We commoners must be content with nothing but good advice. WikiHow provides us with seven steps for applying lessons from the Great Depression:

1. Stop using credit
2. Nurture positive relationships with family and friends
3. Do it yourself
4. See Frugality as a virtue
5. Treat food with respect
6. Reuse, reuse, reuse
7. Be thankful

Those of us who grew up in a working class family already have these steps emblazoned upon our consciousness. Do it yourself is the only answer for those who have more time than money. As for #5, I learned as a child that wasting food is a sin and calling food "crap" was considered an insult to God that earned swift retribution.

So leave the tarp to the rich and powerful, it'll likely blow away in a windstorm anyway. These effete bankers have probably never heard of bungee cords. We're better off with the advice. It's worth more than all the money that used to be in the US Treasury.

Happy New Year!

NYT: Irresponsible Lending Caused Economic Crisis

An amazing admission from the official paper of the Democratic Party, the New York Times: Loaning money to people who couldn't pay it back caused the financial crisis. Of course they don't say it just like that. They faithfully lay out the facts, assign blame to the wrong people, then draw the wrong conclusions. This is why readership is dwindling at the Senile Old Lady.

They also admit that government is a guilty party. Of course, Barny Frank, Chris Dodd, and Chuck Schumer are never mentioned. No, in the Toilet Paper of Record's version, President Bush is the only villain.

The NYT propagandists start by weaving the fantasy that President Bush invented the idea of pushing homeownership on more Americans. He did not; this initiative was started by President Carter, greatly bolstered by the Clinton administration, and indeed enthusiastically embraced by President Bush.

Eight years after arriving in Washington vowing to spread the dream of homeownership, Mr. Bush is leaving office, as he himself said recently, “faced with the prospect of a global meltdown” with roots in the housing sector he so ardently championed.

There are plenty of culprits, like lenders who peddled easy credit, consumers who took on mortgages they could not afford and Wall Street chieftains who loaded up on mortgage-backed securities without regard to the risk.

But the story of how we got here is partly one of Mr. Bush’s own making, according to a review of his tenure that included interviews with dozens of current and former administration officials.

He pushed hard to expand homeownership, especially among minorities, an initiative that dovetailed with his ambition to expand the Republican tent — and with the business interests of some of his biggest donors. But his housing policies and hands-off approach to regulation encouraged lax lending standards.

The Bush critics go on to explain how the president and his staff failed to recognize what was causing the housing market to tank and why foreclosures were increasing. Then they pile on some tired rhetoric about not enough regulations. Note the lack of praise for the president's big-hearted generosity; that doesn't fit the storyline. No, helping poor minorities was a mere unintended byproduct of lining his political cronies' pockets and grabbing more power. Do these people actually believe the crap they write?

What this slanted piece of writing inadvertently shows is that by the time we recognized the housing bubble, the seeds of destruction had already been sewn. Government had already forced lending institutions to irresponsibly loosen time-tested standards. That's how unqualified borrowers ended up getting mortgages, which in turn explains the high foreclosure rates. The mortgage industry had previously done a good job predicting who could and who could not pay back a loan. Uncle Sam stepped in, made them lower the bar, and, just as night follows day, foreclosures increased. That's the deregulation that wrecked the market.

Missing in all of this drivel is the cautionary tale of government intervention, no matter how good-hearted or well intentioned, and the lessons we can learn from it.

Just as giving a society the trappings of democracy does not make it democratic, giving people the outward signs of financial solvency does not make them financially secure. Democracy and financial security cannot be imposed. They are outward manifestations of an inner attitude. Democratic institutions and thrifty homeownership are the tangible and beneficial fruits that spring from those noble inner motives.

But this type of inductive reasoning is beyond the New York Times, which is why they now find themselves on the ever growing junk heap of national failures. It is much easier to draw a "Bush is Stoopid" cartoon than it is to provide a balanced analysis that could actually educate people.

Blame Bush, blame congress. They all had a share in creating and crashing this economic lead balloon. More important than fixing blame (nobody in DC pays for their mistakes anyway) is to learn the right lesson. Presidents and legislators intervened in a previously-rational market and forced it to make irrational decisions, causing that market to fail. Now we are all paying the price.

You can pound a square peg into a round hole if you're the government and you have a big enough hammer. Just watch out for the splinters and the sparks.

Got Liberalism? Before The Crash

As we celebrate this Christmas looking into the abyss of total financial collapse, we need to recall how we got here. Yes, Demicans and Republicrats spent like crazy in pursuit of our votes, and we egged them on. Now we're $10 Trillion in the hole, $50 Trillion of you count all future liabilities.

But what crashed our economy? Democrats.
Led by Senator Chuck "Schmucky" Schumer and Congressman Barny "Frankenstein" Frank. Their unholy alliance with Fannie and Freddie caused this economic nightmare: Fannie and Freddie paid them campaign contributions while senators and congressment kept shoveling government money back at them while ignoring their ineptitude, mismanagement and outright fraud.

That, coupled with government coersion of financial institutions to drop prudent lending practices, is what pushed us over the edge.

Who warned of a crash and tried to stop it? Republicans.
Led by President "Compassionate Conservative" George Bush and Senator John "I'm too honorable to win" McCain. In a rare fit of conservatism, these two men tried to put the brakes on this unholy politico-financial-cluster-alliance, but were unsuccessful.

Here is a Fox News timeline on YouTube, courtesy of Proud To Be Canadian.



It is important we not forget how this happened. Every time some phoney baloney BDS sufferer opens his or her mouth about how George Bush wrecked the economy, we need to shove these facts back at them. They've got all the megaphones now, but that doesn't stop conservatives from speaking the truth.

Government Helps Those Who Won't Help Themselves

This is the stupidity that government intervention in markets engenders: Cerberus Capital Management LP, which owns Chrysler, is refusing to put more money into its failing company because competitors Ford and GM are not taking similar measures to save their rotting empires. This is an absurdity, and our tax dollars should have no part of it. Here's a snippet from CBS News:

Congress urged Cerberus to infuse Chrysler with capital earlier this month, but the company rejected the plea, noting that Ford and GM were not being asked to inject more capital into their flailing operations, the Journal reported.

Here's a simple question from a simple man: If the Big Three's own investors are refusing to put more money into their operations, why should the government contemplate putting taxpayer money into it?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/18/business/main4675171.shtml?tag=topStory;topStoryHeadline

The Nationalization of America

Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merril Lynch, to name some of the more recognizable institutions that you, the American taxpayer now own part of, Federal investments for the above institutions range from 10-25 billion each.

Ask most people what the bailout is, and chances are they won't answer with: The partial nationalization of the banking system. To speed the plan through congress the administration said the money was needed to purchase bad mortgage-related assets, and said nothing about direct stock purchases.

Most of the Treasury's investments so far have been in preferred bank stocks and most of them thus far have been losing investments.

The government has thus far given Citigroup 45 billion dollars, aside from preferred stock at $1000/share, the government deal included warrants for 210 million shares at $17.85 and 254 million shares at $10.61, Citigroup closed today at $7.02, a potential loss of over 3 billion dollars.

Today, the President offered a 17.4 billion dollar bailout to the auto industry, declaring, in a gesture worthy of Hugo Chavez, Public Law 110-342 to be 'non-binding'. The bailout demands concessions similar to those rejected by the Senate a week ago.

If you'd like to read what the law says:
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ343.110.pdf

Some of the terms include a requirement to cut compensation for rank-and-file workers, executive compensation restrictions, sale of aircraft or interests in aircraft, detail spending on holiday parties, travel and new real estate, and get White House approval for asset sales and other transactions of more than $100 million. Nothing like a free market, eh?

The question that remains, is why is this all silently passing by?

Socialism by any other name...

~Finntann~

Government's Golden Rule

It's a sad state to which our society has fallen. And saddest of all is that our government has led this descent into craven pandering. Like starving third-world refugees fighting over bottled water and bags of rice, we witness bankers, union workers, auto executives, business owners, homeowners, community activists, governors, and mayors shove and trample one another in slavering pursuit of government largess. So much for the pioneer spirit of the New World.

And in true entitled recipient fashion, the beggars curse the benefactors all the while...

I realized we had abandoned the realm of sanity when something the Reverend Al Sharpton said on TV yesterday actually made sense to me. He lambasted Bank of America for for laying off thousands of workers after accepting government money. I just wasn't right, he maintained. They took government money so they should be saving jobs, not destroying them.

More vitriol is aimed at GE for taking a government handout and using it to buy Chinese airplanes. Savagely elbowing their way to the front of the line, Angry UAW members (has anyone ever heard of a happy UAW worker?) demand to know why congress shovels trillions to Dirty Hank's Wall Street bandit buddies but denies Detroit a mere $15 Billion?

I stand with Reverand Al and the UAW: Our government has acted in an unfair and immoral fashion. It's all legal mind you, if you ignore the original intent of the constitution, but it stinks of immorality to us commoners. It violates that vague, secular American sense of fairness.

This is what happens when a government becomes disconnected from its founding principles. What are the rules of this damned bailout? It's just one rule: The Golden Rule: They who have the gold make the rules. Our constitution should be our moral code for governance, but it's being used as a doormat right now. Reverend Sharpton, union workers, and underwater homeowners can all rightly cry "foul."

If you're going to pick winners and losers you better have a clear set of rules that all the players understand or you are wide open to charges of fraud and favoritism. Better yet, why doesn't our government tend to getting its own fiscal house in order and leave picking winners and losers to the consumer?

Unbalanced

The GM Chief Financial Officer obviously hasn't seen the government's balance sheet...

DETROIT -(Dow Jones)- General Motors Corp. (GM) expects the federal government, possibly in the form of an oversight board charged with overseeing the auto maker's turnaround, to have a key role in restructuring the company's debt.

"It is very, very evident from the government's perspective that we're going to have to restructure the balance sheet to make sure we have a viable enterprise going forward," Chief Financial Officer Ray Young said Wednesday. He added that the government will have a say on how this restructuring gets done. (Read Entire CNN Article)

Now, can we get someone to come in and force our government to restructure its balance sheet "to ensure we have a viable enterprise going forward?"

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500200812031112DOWJONESDJONLINE000680_FORTUNE5.htm

Blind Leading The Blind

GM CEO Wagoner optimistic after Senate Hearing

Would you be optimistic if someone who had burned down their house playing with matches offered to light your furnace for you?

General Motors Corp. Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner emerged Thursday from a six-hour hearing before the Senate Banking Committee optimistic that a deal can be reached in Congress to help his company survive a critical cash shortage.

Ever heard the phrase "brilliant minds think alike"? Well, so do dumb minds:

Wagoner said many of the questions and suggestions from committee members were compatible with the viability plan GM submitted to Congress on Tuesday in an effort to obtain up to $18 billion in federal loans.

GM and congress agree on a plan? It's doomed.

May a Plague of Bankers Descend Upon You

Beware swarms of failed bankers descending upon the heartland from the east.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Bankers and brokers looking to escape the financial meltdown are scrambling to relocate their families, possessions and rarified talent far from Wall Street to places such as Florida, Chicago, Milwaukee, Virginia and Asia. Read the article...

They've gotta patronize local stores, hire movers and various tradespeople in the process of getting settled in that new house. I hope Joe the handyman and Jill the plumber gouge the crap out of them...

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081026/D942BR8O0.html