Random March 23 15

Another argument for a Sunday post

Europe
-Defense Spending, Development Bank Fray US-UK Special Relationship
-Hillary Clinton: The US Should Emulate Socialist Germany and Pay Companies to Keep On Unneeded Workers
-Britain Surrenders | FrontPage Magazine
Executive Transformation
Beware The Obama – Final Stages Of Fundamental Change….
Regime Change: America's Failing Weapon Of International Deception
Surviving Socialism: Considerations For American Patriots
Don’t Get Distracted . We Still Have 22 Months Left of Obama’s Presidency.
Executive
Justice Department Rolls Out An Early Form Of Capital Controls In America
FEMA to deny funds to warming deniers
Fast and Furious Cover-up Rewarded in Appointment of New ATF Director
Think
Gutcheck: In Praise of the Unheard Musician - Breitbart
Stop Equality-Mongering Before It Destroys Us
The Great American Racial Divide
Republicans Should Stop Promoting ‘Laboratories of Democracy’
Hugh Hewitt’s Defense Budget Litmus Test Misses The Point 
Let’s Be Two Americas: The Case for Federalism
The Gawker Veto
Check Your Privilege Theory
The Mess
Breitbart Chairman: Glenn Beck is Right in His Bill of Indictment of the GOP
H-1B Immigration Battle: Ignorance Has A Severe Penalty
Higher Education Arrogantly Ignoring its Problems

Stimulus Bill Passes, Now Wrong on Even More Levels

I am not going to link to every thing. Google it your selves. So to the best of my knowledge.

"The measure was passed on a 246-183, with no Republican "yes" votes. It will now go to the Senate, where a vote is expected later Friday. "

Congress Ready to Vote On 1,073 Page Stimulus Bill That Was Only Released at 11 PM Last Night.

"Democrats made the bill available at 11 p.m. on Thursday night.
At 9 a.m. Friday morning, the House begins debate on the bill.
If members of Congress actually took the time to read the bill, they would have to read through the night at a rate of 626 words per minute before heading to the House floor. What are the odds of that happening?"

I am also hearing that there was still hand written changes to the bill still in the bill when they voted on it. There is also a movement to get this signed today before the news tonight. I is becoming apparent that some of this push is from Pelosi. Pelosi has a flight to Rome? tonight. Her office is not denying it. They are running as fast as they can. It can wait till Monday. What the hell is in this thing. The Religious Oppression provision was removed with the school funding.

Some of the school funding is back. Is the Religious restriction back?

Can it wait till Monday?

No One has read the bill. It is not even TYPED.

No Bipartisanship.

Health Care Intervention (they haven't convinced me that is not)

Religions Repression.

The proses is beyond corrupted(CNN saying repub. just don't like it)

Spending only fixes it for a while.

IT makes work not jobs.

Tax cut in this bill are a joke.(no rate cut just rebate)

Some of this comes from Colbern on Beck today. Colbern Is PISSED. Talking of pitch forks an revolution. WAIT TILL MONDAY. It is at least common courtesy.

The plane crash is sucking the air out of the news cycle. Plane crash is bad but this is far more important.

The next two years the Leftist/Marxist/Socialist/Communists are running the show. SAY GOOD BUY TO THE AMERICA YOU KNOW. I would never say that lightly but its over. If the Republicans can't get together to stop this. They can't stop anything. AT least wait till Monday. At least sunset the welfare expansion.Congress is getting over whelming calls against and they do not listen. Wait, Lead, GET THE PEOPLE ON BOARD. NO IT IS OVER. Next the gun ban and Censorship.

FREEDOM IS DIEING FAST AND GOVERNMENT IS NOT LISTENING

Killing The Banks with TARP

The second version of TARP or what ever you call it is unclear to me. Your going to encourage private money with borrowed leveraged money? Didn't they already get burned by assets that where backed by the government. If they get out of the way wouldn't someone find a way to make some money out of this mess? Instead everyone sits on the side lines waiting to see what the government is going to do. What are they doing? Confusing the issue more and borrowing more money collateralize by borrowed money. I don't trust them. I am not sure they really want fix the problem. At lest until they pass everything they want behind the veil of fear.

From A PLAN TO KILL BANKS TREASURY'S DEADLY 'KINDNESS'

"The new Treasury plan continues to put most of the emphasis on pushing banks to make more loans to over-indebted consumers, homeowners and firms. Unlike last year, however, Geithner now believes, "Our policies must be designed to mobilize and leverage private capital, not to supplant or discourage private capital. When government investment is necessary, it should be replaced with private capital as soon as possible."
That's a laudable goal - but contradictory. In reality, government capital replaces ("crowds out") private capital, leaving taxpayers holding a bigger and bigger bag. Call that nationalization by default. "

The leverage idea has been around from the start of this mess. It is not a bad idea but the way it is being done now really is not leveraging anything.

"TARP-afflicted firms will have to pay dividends to the Treasury for its preferred shares before any remaining crumbs fall to common shareholders. Treasury will be first to get any dividends or capital gains if the firm does well, and first to get repaid in the event of bankruptcy.
Once a bank or insurance company gets in bed with the government, the property rights of that company's stockholders become uniquely insecure. When the government jumps into the cockpit, smart stockholders bail out.
And depressed stock prices deflate the banks' capital cushion, regardless of Treasury investments - making them more likely to fail and therefore less likely to lend. In other words, government "help" achieves the opposite of Geithner's declared goal."

The government should NEVER be this in bed with any company. If you bail them out that should be it. Give them the money and treat it as a loan, take common stock or just walk away. There is no risk to the government if they are first to get payed in all cases. In this case it was public outrage that there was no guarantee the money would be payed back. The people needed a clear explanation of what this was going to lead to "incremental nationalization of banks and insurance companies". The "people" where wrong. Why? They are not taught these things (I really wasn't either), NO one explains it to them(sometimes if you look around enough) and they are often used. Think for yourself (that's usually what I have to do).
It may be a good sized hill to understand the bank mess. The basic are not that hard. You don't need an economics degree, library of books or really a class on economics. The last one might help but is not necessary. A little logic and some quite time and you should be fine. If it still doesn't make sense. Get a book on logic.

Health Care Rationing for the United States In the Stimulus Bill

This is one of those Bad Little Things tucked away in the stimulus bill. It is Now gaining traction. Again the web seems to be ahead of everyone else Fox was just talking about it. It appears when this good enough light of day it set off a whole new round of out rage against this. What set it off?

Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan

"But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.” "

The mistake is that they cleared up the language. From the How the Stimulus Bill Could Kill You

'Section 9201 of the stimulus package establishes the "Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research." This body, which would be made up of federal bureaucrats will "coordinate the conduct or support of comparative effectiveness and related health services research."'

I talked about it here some days ago. SCHIP and A Heath Care Nanny Board, We Will Be Boxed In

"It sounds exactly like the last part of socialized heath care, just before the socialized society kicks in. Pass the little expansions of heath care like SCHIP til every one covered. Then start with the food taxes, weight checks and screens in all rooms waking you up and watching to make sure you do your exercise"

This is exactly how you get 1984 in modern times. I am glad this is getting attention. Lets all hope this will push the "what else is buried in this" storyline. This should give the politicians in the senate the cover to kill this bill hear and now. If they want Socialized society(Marxist? Communist?) they should put it in the light of day. Be very aware that they are taking us in a very different direction and playing like its just a little different.

First Obama Press Conference

He is who he is. It when well. He is a collectivist hack. We have gone from realizing there are true socialists in our government to socialists idealist.

Stop Helen Thomas. Don't call on Hufpost people. Do you really want to talk baseball when yo say the sky is falling. I am just going to do a few quick hits in this. Just not in the mood to burn straw men all night.

Japans lost decade? Not an economist. 6 Trillion in spending and that didn't fix it? Their are arguments all over on it. My question is do you want to multiply the debt by four and what didn't work

FDR? Your surprised he was wrong. That belief is spreading fast. When was the Great Depression over? After the war?

Not enough credit and its number two. #1 fix it before the stimulus. Fix the problems first and quickly. then massive stimulus. Can it wait for 2? 3? 4? months?

Economist and both sides say we need stimulus? True but not all of them think this package is it.

Tarp 2 as it looks will not work. You have to directly buy up the toxic assets. They can be auctioned off almost immediately. We might lose some money in the deal but it is the source of the problems.

The return to failed policies? wtf? The tax cuts? NO pushing housing? Capitalism? That is the most dishonest statement he has made and he makes it over and over.

The comments on Iran And the rest I am ignoring for the time. The super nova of government is more important.

No earmarks do not mean no pork.

Electronic records of fine. They create some jobs. The saving will not show up for years. They need to be stored offline(thumb drives), updated electronically and protected from government snooping. Not a bad idea but how stimulative is it?

Schools have been state responsibility. With federal money comes Federal strings. I really don't want anyone that believes in over blown social justice any where near schools.

How partisan is it to keep implying that the alternative to this bill is doing nothing. It is not. Very few, if any are saying do nothing.

Bipartisanship? If someone disagrees with you are you sure they are just doing it political reasons or do they know your wrong.

He at time plays at being pragmatic. I don't think he is. Government is the only one that can fix this? They do need to get out of the way. Fix the systemic problems that government made. It is not that capitalism is failed. It is that government that stuck there hand in and played around.

This bill is a massive government expansion. There is no sunset on any of the programs in it. If parts of the bill would not pass on their own, many of them wouldn't, why do we want to let them run on forever.

Bush spun at times he did it more than he should. He was wrong at times. Fine. But Obama, is whistling past the whole argument. Straw men and red herring are not only breeding at an exponential rate they are much bigger than I ever imagined. At some point they blot out the truth. Truth is hard enough to see and usually it takes time to become clear. What he is doing is at least intellectually dishonest. Spinning this much is telling lies. I have made the some argument for people on the other side as well. They make good points at times and at others they lie.

Breaking the Stimulus Package

I am getting sick of all of this the misleading focus on the "pork". The bill is fundamentally flawed. I hope the republicans are not just being obstructionists. I don't think they are. I don't want to paint them as saviors, but it is a two party system after all.

The package has five main parts with some over lay and bad little bits. The US first ideas about purchases is a bad little bit. Focus and the main parts is imperative. First the pork. Things like the fountains in Washington state and water parks in Florida. That overlaps with the so called stimulative spending. That is the road spending and well that is really it from where sit but some include school improvements and the like. That then overlaps into what i call regulatory spending. The green jobs, efficient buildings, carbon reduction demonstration, std education and weather stripping type programs. The more distinct sections are the tax cuts. The other is the social safety net expansions. That is the 65% payments of COBRA, food stamp and unemployment extensions and blanket medicare cover for the unemployed?

The Pork. Pork is Pork do you need and argument against it? The bill way to expensive. We already carry to much dept. Let it go.

The Stimulus. There is going to be some in this bill. They have to be labor intensive, can start this year, the finished product helps the economy and the project will be there for 10+ years. Stimulus is not better than tax cuts as follows.

The Regulatory. Dump it all. This is not the time to tinker with everything. None of it meets the criteria of the Stimulus section, it applies here to. Do we need any more panels and commissions? More bureaucracy.

The Safety Net. It is more Social engineering. That in part is what got us into this. People need help now. Fine. That cannot become the base line for next years spending. If we spend less next year on them it cannot be allowed to be called cut. There must be an iron clad sunset of these expansions.

The Tax Cuts. Is it More stimulating to give a business a 1000 in tax cuts or 1000 in sales? Sales in the end puts only the profits in there pockets and then they pay taxes on it. The cuts as I know them now they are just gimmicks. 1000 to individuals will do nothing. People will save it and when things come back it will be there to go back into the economy and spur inflation. Fast write off are just giving money to companies now instead of two years or so from now. What is that going to do as we recover? Both of the cut are doing more harm than good. The cuts have to rate cuts and they have to be certain. People can't think that they can be raised in a couple months.

Not In the Bill

1. Bad asset fix( the original TARP would have done it)
2. A housing fix. Encourage interest cut till the loans are solvent. No cram down
3. Reverse the mark to market and up tick changes
4. Clear path to get business out from under the Government
5. Clear statement that we will let everyone fail after one or two round of help( bad but it's where we are)
6. Clear statement of capitalism
7. Sunsets for everything, Anything not spent in the next 2 years is taken back.

The bill is fundamentally wrong. It has to be stopped. Filibuster. STOP Talking pork. It is just spin and is unbelievably stupid. It is the least of the problems. Filibuster!

Making Work not Creating Jobs

Flipping through A discussion on Fox caught me. A rerun of Hannity. I avoid him, he make some good points but spins far far to much. Megyn Kelly said some thing to some effect that making work( bridges, roads, ect.) is not the same as making jobs. ( I looked for the vid, but I guess I am not that good)

That exactly sums up the problem of this stimulus. Perfect. A company gets hired to build a bridge. They hire a bunch of people. They have work. But if the company can't find more work they have to lay off those people. What are all the people hired going to do when all the "stimulus work" is gone. You have to bust business growth so people have jobs not just some work for a while.

I can see an argument that the stimulus work will help restart the cycle. But why not do it through more direct means like real tax rate cut, some stability in what Washington does and capital gains cut to move money off the side lines. Then spend on the roads and the thing we really need when things start coming back.

Giving work to the people in this amount is artificial. There is nothing to build new jobs on after the stimulus work is gone. Government can't create new jobs through spending just work. Except for those work in the government. Government can however get out of the way and let business create jobs.

McCaskill's Idiotic Red Herring Executive Compensation Bill

I am from Missouri. Senator McCaskill should be called the senator for St. Louis and Kansas City. I am hoping we can oust her next time around. With the state having to carry the a fore mentioned cities it will be difficult. Those areas motto should be "show me the money" unlike the rest of the Show Me state. I have said that I am not going to shed a tear if the whole place burns to the ground and no one dies. The end result, the pit that is St. Louis is gone. I gave some examples in the rant about St. Louis in my election prediction. Prediction wrong, rant is still right.

McCaskill on capping pay of CEOs who take TARP money: “These people are idiots”
Senator McCaskill

"If you’ve run your bank well and don’t need a bailout, pay your chief exec whatever you like. If you haven’t and are now on your knees begging taxpayers for a lifeline, prepare to have your CEO capped at $400,000, the same salary The One gets as president. It won’t mean much in terms of savings but it does create an incentive to run a tight ship if you want another seven-figure payday in 2009"

The Urban senator for the Show Me the Money areas of MO




I should say she has lots of company pushing this idiocy. (and still can't get CNN embed to work)
If we force them to give all the money back for the last 4 years will it solve the problem? NO

Was their pay any of Washington's business before they got tax money? NO

Did all the companies ask for TARP money that got it? NO

Where some companies that TARP money doing fine? Yes

Where some companies at beast brow beaten into taking money? Looks Like

Should those companies be punished with compensation restricted? NO

Are all "bonuses" rewards for good performance? NO

Are most "bonuses" at the lower levels actually part of salaries? Yes

Is this a government mandate to cut salaries? Yes

Will contracts (good and bad) have to be broken? Yes

Will there be any good workers left after this? Not Many

I wish I had a good way to explain my problems with this. We need to set aside the anger and look at what we are doing. There are CEOs and others at the top that should be in jail and investigated to with in an inch of their lives. The people in the middle and at the bottom need to be left alone. They really don't get bonuses. They get payed funny compared to the rest of us. The deal going in is say 150 thousand a year. They get payed 50 thousand a week at a time and the rest at the end of the year. That is just the way it is done. Silly as it is. That 100K is not a bonus. It is money those people depend on. They will be need in the recovery.

As stupid as it sound what kind of hit will the economy take if they do this. She said 18 billion? You cut it to what? 6 billion. A lose of 12 billion, some of that wouldn't have gone into the economy any way. So a net lose to the economy of about 7-8 billion?

Is this a so called maximum wage? Who else will it apply to when all is said and done.If they set the cap at 1-2 million and there is an iron clad sunset on it in say 2 years I would go along. My fear is that you are going to cripple small companies at the top and cripple medium size companies in the middle. They need to be as flexible as possible when the recovery comes.

Free market anyone? No TARP investment in companies? Buy the troubled assets and leave them alone?

US Leadership and the world

Call it what you will but i thought we are supposed to lead the world. Leaders take action in crisis. WWII and the Cold War just for a start. Not that democracy was original to us, but why has it spread so much in the past 200 yrs. i guess it was a just good idea. Our culture is pretty pervasive, a great thing to have so many ideas talked about all over the world. It used to be that way. So why isn't there a call to lead any more.

Why is their this need to think the rest of the world has it all figured out? They don't . We don't. We were ahead at one time in trying to find what works. did we find capitalism and decide that was good enough? It has problems. the biggest of which is the unknown long term stability, it needs a certain amount of growth and inflation to keep growing.

Why do we keep looking back at what we should have already rejected. Communism and fascism, isn't freedom too important? Did they fail? Socialism, has it really worked for anyone? Cuba, do you want everyone to live at a substance level? Great art, literature, philosophy, music and science come out of societies that have some leisure time. What came out of the dark ages? Very little. What has come out of 200 yrs of democracy. A lot.

We should lead and except that that is our place in the world. It's not that the rest of the world should look exactly like us. If Iran wants Islamic law fine. Have an election every few years that everyone gets to vote in and let those that want to leave, leave.

Either we lead or we shut ourselves in. Is it not clear that the shut in approach will not work. If you say we should go into Sudan to stop the horrific things there than you should agree that we should have gone into Iraq to stop the horrific things there(not the reasons given). It leads to a long list of places that need us to lead in what ever form that takes.

I want to be able to walk to all four corners of the earth as a free man and not have to worry about being kidnapped, tortured, or killed. That doesn't happen on its own. I want to be around what the next revolution in political and social thought comes. That will only happen here and if we stop thinking that the world always knows best.