Pathetic, Mr. President!

Let me get this straight. President Obama is going to spend 4 trillion (4 thousand billion) dollars this year, but being a frugal money manager, he is going to get his cabinet heads to save a collective 100 million dollars? Are you joking me? Not even the press is buying this load of crapola, and if the press isn't buying it, then you KNOW it's pathetic. As the article notes:

The thrifty measures Obama ordered for federal agencies are the equivalent of asking a family that spends $60,000 in a year to save $6.

Torture and the Bush Administration

This short article makes it very clear that we were torturing prisoners. I call anyone who disagrees (including John Yoo, author of the infamous "Torture Memo") to undergo what these guys did and say it is not torture.

What we can say with certainty, in the wake of the Red Cross report, is that the United States tortured prisoners and that the Bush administration, including the president himself, explicitly and aggressively denied that fact.

AIG Vaporizing (Even More) Money

Wow! I must say, I am shocked! Shocked! that the government is handing AIG even more money (up to 150 billion now...and there will be more). What is delicious about this article in Bloomberg is the way it is spun, it will "allow the government time to make some money on the deal." Hahahahahahahaha. Very funny. The terms of the deal were extended because it was obvious to all parties that AIG wasn't going to meet the original terms. Yahoos!

``It makes a lot of sense to renegotiate the terms,'' said Andrew Kligerman, a New York-based analyst at UBS AG, in an interview before the disclosure. By giving AIG more time to sell units, the government ``has a better opportunity to recover its capital,'' he said.

Yeah, right. Let me offer you some swampland in Florida to "recover your capital" Mr. Bush.

A New New Deal?

Finally! Someone is questioning the received wisdom that government intervention is going to "fix" all of our problems. Amity Shales even uses things like facts, evidence, and data to support his argument, unlike the Bush (and now Obama) administration that operates on hope and a money gun on full auto.

I Am Shocked, Shocked!

That 700 billion dollar bailout bill, that Congress passed in like, a week? Apparently, the administration is using it in ways that Congress never intended. Wow! I am so shocked at this. Who would have thought that an administration that has proven itself beyond accountability in any number of areas would run with this money and dole it out any way they pleased? This was so unexpected!

Support Consumption At All Costs

Let me get this straight. The first "bailout" package did not work, so let's see, what should we congressman do? Um...something has to work. I know. Let's just have another "bailout" package. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. This is nothing more than a desperate effort to support consumption at all costs. In other words get us to buy more stuff we don't need so we can go even further into debt. Makes sense to me.

More (Possible) Nitwittery from the Administration and Congress

So...nothing is working thus far in repairing the damage that our overconsumption has caused. What is Congress and the Administration to do? I know, how about Stimulus Package II, since the first one worked so well (not). From the article:

"We have to prop up consumption," Representative Barney Frank, a Newton Democrat and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said in an interview in which he revealed some of the details the party leadership was discussing.

Earth to Barney. Earth to Barney. Over-consumption and over-spending are what got us here in the first place. Nice to see you learned something from the meltdown.

The rationale for another stimulus package, particularly one that helps the states and cities, is compelling for many economists. The nearly $1 trillion that Congress and the Federal Reserve are making available to the financial system is intended to make credit more available. That props up the supply side.

Is this writer serious? Does he understand history and/or economics. If you have to "prop up" something, you are propping it up only so that down the road it will collapse further. What you must do is return to balance, i.e. teach Americans to spend no more than they earn.

I expect that when this gets passed, Bush will go along as he always has because he is totally a fiscal conservative...except when he isn't.

John McCain's Empty Promise

Does anyone believe this? Has John McCain been smoking ganja weed? Only a politician could promise to balance the budget as we blow billions and billions on bailouts and wars.



Apparently he has been smoking ganja weed because he refers to "his fellow citizens" as "my fellow prisoners."

A Day That Will Live in Infamy

Yesterday, October 3, 2008, a day that will live in infamy, our (idiotic) congressman handed off to the executive branch even more power than they've already allowed President Bush to grab in the past eight years. These are simply more steps down the Road to Serfdom. Thanks so much Congressmen.

CNET has a good summation of the mess that this bill is, which included more power for the IRS to snoop on Americans in the name of "terrorism." Didn't hear about that, did you? Let's see, I think we've experienced this before. Oh yeah, The Patriot Act.

As noted by CNET the true cost of all of this mess so far is somewhere around $17,000 per American household. The Treasury Department can now "guarantee" home mortgages (i.e. make the taxpayer pay for other's foolish decisions) and even reduce a mortgage a "reasonable amount" if it so chooses. So much for ten centuries of contract law, vaporized by cowards. Oh, and former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson can come up with "appropriate standards" of executive pay for companies that dump their toxic waste on us. Yeah, I'll bet he will reign in their pay.

Nice to know that King Paulson will implement this bill as quickly as possible. I'll bet there won't be any fraud waste and abuse in that!

Henry Paulson: King of America

Apparently Henry Paulson (and whoever his successor is in a new administration) is about to be crowned "King of America" and by Congress at that. He will have essentially unlimited power to do whatever he wants with money supplied by Congress. His decisions will NOT be reviewable by the courts. Wow, sounds like a king to me. Nothing like a catastrophe to make Congress act quickly and without realizing the implications of their actions. Goodbye Democracy. Welcome Emperor!

The Bush administration seeks ``dictatorial power unreviewable by the third branch of government, the courts, to try to resolve the crisis,'' said Frank Razzano, a former assistant chief trial attorney at the Securities and Exchange Commission now at Pepper Hamilton LLP in Washington. ``We are taking a huge leap of faith.''

We are indeed. These guys can be trusted...can't they? Also notice George Bush's proclamation that he is all for the free markets and capitalism...except when he isn't. Consistent. Very consistent.

Who Will Bailout the Government?

Mark Knoller of CBS asks the question, and a good question it is. George Bush (Conservative that he is, LOL) has led us from being 6 trillion in debt to 9.6 trillion in debt, not counting the 5 trillion in liabilities Henry Paulson took on with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Makes me happy we're blowing 2 billion a week in Iraq and Afghanistan!

Stick a Fork in Lehman...It's Done

Lehman Brothers, the oldest firm on Wall Street, is experiencing a run on the bank, much like Bear Stearns last March. These runs begin to feed on themselves for the simple reason that, if I'm a financial manager and I have a lot of money stashed away at Lehman, if they go under, I am going to lose at least some of it. What to do? Pull your money and business. The more people that pull their money and business, the less money Lehman has to do business. Thus the run.

The federal government does NOT want to bail out Lehman because they realize they've already set a precedent with Bear-Stearns and Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac. Most of the bidders for Lehman are saying, "we want the deal that Bear got." So far the government is resisting, who knows what they'll end up doing. I do know 2 things: 1. It will be another long weekend for Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke; and 2. The more bailouts they have, the more risk they pile onto taxpayers, while only putting off the day of reckoning (maybe to the next administration?). Good luck being the next Herbert Hoover, whoever wins the election.

The Problem with a Two Front War

The only thing we learn from history is that we do not learn from history. One would think the powers that be in the Administration might have known enough not to start a two front war (on terror). Now we are without enough troops to prosecute both fronts. A classic mistake that destroyed the Germans.

Charging Down the Road to Serfdom

While we would hope that some politician besides Ron Paul would read The Road to Serfdom by Frederik Hayek we are not holding our breath. The New York Sun has the best analysis of the expropriation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac of anyone. The Sun makes a fascinating—and to my mind accurate—point when they say:

What the federal regulators acknowledge they are objecting to in actuality was not the companies' recklessness with capital but their care with it. "Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, in order to try to build capital, have continued to raise prices and tighten credit standards," Mr. Lockhart said. And what exactly is wrong with that? Had that been done a few years ago, there might be fewer foreclosures now. Mr. Paulson, the nation's newly crowned chief mortgage lender, even announced plans to expand the companies' portfolios of mortgage-backed securities through the end of 2009 — taking on even more risk.

Essentially what the government is doing is taking over Fannie and Freddie so they can offer more loans at cheaper prices and thereby entice more unqualified people to take on housing loans which they cannot afford and make taxpayers take the risk for all of this. Meanwhile, they've set the gold standard of government expropriation of firms that it deems appropriate. Hugo Chavez would be proud.

Fannie and Freddie Nationalized

No surprise here. I've been predicting this for some time. The question is whether or not the housing and credit crisis will be resolved by the expected government bailout. I predict it will not be. Paulson and Bernanke also have their eyes on the stock market since it is tanking so badly. Inevitably when government gets involved in this stuff they only make it worse. Read about John Law and fiat money in France. This is also the story of the Great Depression. Hoover's attempts to "fix" things only made matters worse. When both presidential aspirants and both parties agree on something, you can be sure more disaster is coming.

Another Step Towards Dictatorship

The federal courts have in essence agreed with President Bush that he can detain anyone, anywhere, indefinitely (with safeguards of course! Yeah, sure). The danger is not what Mr. Bush will do with this power, but what future presidents will do with it. If Christians are declared enemies of the state, then bang, they can be arrested and held indefinitely without charges. I predict that this will happen in the future. From the article:

This decision means the president can pick up any person in the country — citizen or legal resident — and lock them up for years without the most basic safeguard in the Constitution, the right to a criminal trial,” Mr. Hafetz said.

Sad. Another hole in the foundation of liberty.

Waterboarding IS Torture

Christopher Hitchens has been a supporter of the Bush "War on Terror" from the beginning so it's pretty significant that he undergoes waterboarding himself and declares in no uncertain terms that it is torture:

I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.

I've always said that if our fearless leaders (Bush, Cheney, Gonzalez, Rumsfeld) felt that waterboarding was not torture that they should lead by example and undergo it themselves. So much for our moral leadership in the world...

The New New Bush Doctrine

The newest version of the Bush Doctrine appears to be that democracy is just fine, unless we think that it won't get us what we want, then it's not fine. Thus they administration does not want to put the secret deal by which we stay in Iraq for 100 years to an Iraqi vote, fearing the people will vote it down. Hmm...I thought Congress made treaties. Oops, my bad.

The Dangers of Being a Talking Head Without a Knowledge of History

This is a pretty funny interview. The goofball (Conservative) who is on Hardball needs to read a book on history before he weighs in. Chris Matthews traps him quite well.

Bush and Going to War

This story rings true even though it takes one's breath away. I hope it isn't true. From the article:

The former Palestinian foreign minister Nabil Shaath says Mr Bush told him and Mahmoud Abbas, former prime minister and now Palestinian President: "I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.' And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George go and end the tyranny in Iraq,' and I did."

And "now again", Mr Bush is quoted as telling the two, "I feel God's words coming to me: 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East.' And by God, I'm gonna do it."