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ROGULSKI:Why are you here ? Woman: To get some money ROGULSKI: What kind of Money ? Woman: Obama money ROGULSKI: Where’s it comin; from ? Woman: Obama ROGULSKI: And where did Obama get it from ? WOMAN: I don’t know, his stash. I don’t know. I don’t know where he got it from, but he’s givin’ it to us. And we love him. That’s why we voted for him. O-ba-ma. O-ba-ma. (…) ROGULSKI: Did you get an application to fill out yet? WOMAN: I sure did. And I filled it out, and I am waiting to see what the results are going to be. ROGULSKI: Will you know today how much money you’re getting? WOMAN: No, I won’t, but I’m waiting for a phone call. ROGULSKI: Where’s the money coming from? WOMAN: I believe it’s coming from the City of Detroit or the state. ROGULSKI: Where did they get it from? WOMAN: Some funds that was forgiven (sic) by Obama. ROGULSKI: And where did Obama get the funds? WOMAN: Obama getting the funds from… Ummm, I have no idea, to tell you the truth. He’s the president.

Video and audio here: http://www.unitedliberty.org/articles/thousands-mob-downtown-detroit-for-free-government-money

Original URL: http://bamatone.livejournal.com/276787.html

Shit's gettin' sour in the state of Alabama.

The Irondale City Council passed an ordinance promising to jail or fine Jefferson County officials if they impose a fee on those who are not sewer customers to help save the debt-ridden county from bankruptcy.

In other (also sour) news...

The Alabama Prepaid Affordable College Tuition trust fund is in trouble. The Birmingham News reported today that the trust fund backing Alabama's prepaid college tuition program has lost more than 45 percent of its value in a year and a half -- including 20 percent lost to the recent stock market collapse -- and program managers are scrambling to find ways to keep paying students' tuition. The money paid into the fund by the parents and grandparents of thousands of current and future students is uninsured, authorities said Monday. The Alabama Prepaid Affordable College Tuition trust fund currently has assets totaling $484 million, said Gregory Fitch, chairman of the Alabama Commission on Higher Education. In September 2007 the fund had assets totaling $899 million, according to program documents. In September 2008 the fund totaled $606 million.

My dad starting paying into PACT when my sister and I were kids. It was a very good investment, and I definitely got more money out of it than we put in. All I can do is shake my head and thank God it's not affecting me.

It makes me angry, though. It should make you angry, too. How did we get into this mess? I've written about it some before, but it's all just drops in the bucket. I read something over at Fortune Magazine today that gives a really good snapshot of the beginning of this financial collapse. (Thanks, Jason.) I'm not going to get into it, but it's really scary to think just a handful of people could bring down a Fortune 500 company that never had a losing quarter in its 85 year history. And from that point on, it was just dominos. The best quote is the very last paragraph:

So should these men share in any blame for what happened to the capital markets in the wake of Bear Stearns' collapse? Former Bear CEO Alan Schwartz has told friends that he sees their role this way, "These things happen and they're big, and when they happen everybody tries to look at what happened in the previous six months to find someone or something to blame it on. But, in truth, it was a team effort. We all fucked up. Government. Rating agencies. Wall Street. Commercial banks. Regulators. Investors. Everybody."

And even if we actually figure out how all of this happened... What to do about it now?

Original URL: http://bamatone.livejournal.com/272339.html

"There is no disagreement that we need action by our government, a recovery plan that will help to jumpstart the economy." -- President-elect Obama, Jan. 9, 2009

With all due respect, Mr. President, that is not true.

Notwithstanding reports that all economists are now Keynesians and that we all support a big increase in the burden of government, we do not believe that more government spending is a way to improve economic performance. More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. More government spending did not solve Japan’s "lost decade" in the 1990s. As such, it is a triumph of hope over experience to believe that more government spending will help the U.S. today. To improve the economy, policy makers should focus on reforms that remove impediments to work, saving, investment and production. Lower tax rates and a reduction in the burden of government are the best ways of using fiscal policy to boost growth.

This is a full page ad run in the New York Times by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in D.C. that accepts no government funding. Below the message are the signatures of over 200 economists, some of whom are Nobel laureates.

You can see the ad itself here.

What makes this (and the libertarian message in general) so special is that it doesn't just harp about lower taxes. (The GOP has been playing that tune like a broken record for years.) You have to combine lower taxes with "a reduction in the burden of government." The federal government was not created to be a nanny for the American people.

Original URL: http://bamatone.livejournal.com/263262.html

I was on the local news last night talking about the Iron Bowl. I spoke with a very lovely Nicole Wyatt, who works for CBS 42 in Birmingham.

President-elect Obama will send his kids to private school.

According to the AP, President Bush has issued 171 pardons (turkeys notwithstanding), plus eight commutations. That's less than half as many as Presidents Clinton or Reagan - both two-term presidents - issued during their time in office. We know he's not done yet, but it seems unlikely Bush will get anywhere close to his predecessors in that department.

Game. Set. Match:

Notre Dame fans have piously and pugnaciously insisted for four years that their school dealt with Ty Willingham fairly in firing him after three seasons. Well, it's time for deeds to back up words, and for Weis to be treated to the same fairness Willingham was. After all, heading into what appears to be another slaughter against USC Saturday, Weis' winning percentage in South Bend is .583. Exactly the same as Willingham's.

Oh No! Gasoline Prices Are Falling!

Just last winter, gas at $4 a gallon was said to represent a super-ultra emergency, and ExxonMobil profits were said to be obscene. Now gas is $2 a gallon and this is bad, according to CNBC economics bobbleheads, who last week warned the lower pump price will depress oil-company profits. Just last winter, rising consumer prices were said to represent a super-ultra emergency -- now that consumer prices are falling, that's supposed to be bad too, owing to the possibility of deflation. But innovation and rising labor productivity are supposed to drive down prices. Lower prices are a core goal of capitalist economics! These points should serve as reminders that the mainstream media always present all economic news as bad. Higher interest rates? Bad for borrowers. Lower interest rates? Might cause inflation. Normally, the media's penchant for spinning all economic news as bad doesn't matter -- but right now it does, as pessimism more than logic seems to be driving the weak economy. Speaking as someone who pulled the election lever for Barack Obama (and whose daughter worked for the Obama campaign round the clock for months), I agree with John McCain's statement, "The fundamentals of the economy are strong." They are. McCain was right! Innovation is high. Labor productivity is high. There are no shortages of any resource or commodity. Pessimism is driving the downturn, and that pessimism is advanced by relentless media negativism.

Filed under the "sad, but true" category

And finally, why bankruptcy is the best option for GM according to Michael Levine, "a former airline executive and distinguished research scholar and senior lecturer at NYU School of Law."

Original URL: http://bamatone.livejournal.com/256088.html

Currently, you're seeing a lot of anti-Bush this and that regarding the financial crisis. And most of the finger pointing is being done by Congressional Democrats. I've about had enough of it.

Fact Number One: It was liberal Democrats, led by Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, who for years— including the present year— denied that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taking big risks that could lead to a financial crisis. It was Senator Dodd, Congressman Frank and other liberal Democrats who for years refused requests from the Bush administration to set up an agency to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It was liberal Democrats, again led by Dodd and Frank, who for years pushed for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to go even further in promoting subprime mortgage loans, which are at the heart of today's financial crisis. Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury, five years ago. Yet, today, what are we hearing? That it was the Bush administration "right-wing ideology" of "de-regulation" that set the stage for the financial crisis. Do facts matter? We also hear that it is the free market that is to blame. But the facts show that it was the government that pressured financial institutions in general to lend to subprime borrowers, with such things as the Community Reinvestment Act and, later, threats of legal action by then Attorney General Janet Reno if the feds did not like the statistics on who was getting loans and who wasn't. Is that the free market? Or do facts not matter? Then there is the question of being against the "greed" of CEOs and for "the people." Franklin Raines made $90 million while he was head of Fannie Mae and mismanaging that institution into crisis. Who in Congress defended Franklin Raines? Liberal Democrats, including Maxine Waters and the Congressional Black Caucus, at least one of whom referred to the "lynching" of Raines, as if it was racist to hold him to the same standard as white CEOs. Even after he was deposed as head of Fannie Mae, Franklin Raines was consulted this year by the Obama campaign for his advice on housing! The Washington Post criticized the McCain campaign for calling Raines an adviser to Obama, even though that fact was reported in the Washington Post itself on July 16th. The technicality and the spin here is that Raines is not officially listed as an adviser. But someone who advises is an adviser, whether or not his name appears on a letterhead. The tie between Barack Obama and Franklin Raines is not all one-way. Obama has been the second-largest recipient of Fannie Mae's financial contributions, right after Senator Christopher Dodd. -- Thomas Sowell @ Jewish World Review

Here's the proof of Barney Frank's idiocy: http://www.peteholiday.com/2008/09/failed-economic-policies/. For the record, Pete gets his data straight from the New York Times.

”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

Then we have this bit here: "We also hear that it is the free market that is to blame. But the facts show that it was the government that pressured financial institutions in general to lend to subprime borrowers, with such things as the Community Reinvestment Act and, later, threats of legal action by then Attorney General Janet Reno if the feds did not like the statistics on who was getting loans and who wasn't."

The Community Reinvestment Act, first passed in 1977 under Jimmy Carter, was intended to increase minority homeownership. It grew out of charges that banks were "redlining" entire inner-city neighborhoods as bad credit risks. Banks now were forced to perform outreach to these areas. In the '70s and '80s, banks could show that they were trying to do that by advertising in minority newspapers and having representatives sit on the boards of local groups. In other words, they were rated on the effort made and not on the results achieved. Creditworthiness still mattered. In 1995, as Howard Husock pointed out eight years ago in City Journal, "the Clinton Treasury Department's 1995 regulations made getting a satisfactory CRA rating much harder. The new regulations de-emphasized subjective assessment measures in favor of strictly numerical ones. Bank examiners would use federal home-loan data, broken down by neighborhood, income group, and race, to rate banks on performance." Creditworthiness and due diligence no longer mattered. As a 1999 New York Times editorial observed: "Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Bill Clinton administration to expand mortgage loans among low- and moderate-income people and felt pressure to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits." On Frank's and Clinton's watch, the Community Reinvestment Act was changed to force the issuance of bad loans. Banks would be rated on the number of loans, not on their soundness. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were then encouraged to buy them up. It was all about affordable housing, even if the housing was unaffordable. In the vice presidential debate, Sen. Joe Biden said that "what we should be doing now — and Barack Obama and I support it — we should be allowing bankruptcy courts to be able to re-adjust not just the interest rate you're paying on your mortgage to be able to stay in your home, but be able to adjust the principal that you owe, the principal you owe." To get this bill passed, Obama made a lot of phone calls — particularly to members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including caucus chief Rep. James Clyburn — assuring this would happen. Those paying their mortgages on time don't get that break. Rep. Elijah Cummings said Obama told him that, if elected president, he would direct a Treasury Department official to work with homeowners in foreclosure to restructure their loans. Cummings said Obama also told him he'd seek changes in bankruptcy laws allowing judges to reduce what borrowers owe on their home loans. Section 110 of the rescue legislation has the Orwellian title of "Assistance to Homeowners" — but only for the deadbeats. It describes somebody called a "Federal property manager" who "holds, owns or controls mortgages, mortgage-backed securities, and other assets secured by residential real estate." Section 110 speaks of "modifications" that this manager can make to these mortgages including not only the reduction of interest rates but the reduction of loan principal. Not only is Uncle Sam now the world's largest landlord. He can also arbitrarily set the value of property and the amount owed on it at will, thus distorting the free market. The vast majority of homeowners who pay their mortgages on time get the shaft. They're the ones who'll take up the others' slack. -- Investor's Business Daily

What's my point? Nobody knows wtf they're talking about in Washington. If they keep playing politics as usual, this economic "crisis" is going to become an economic meltdown of epic proportions. LET THE FREE MARKET BE FREE. If people were dumb enough to get into bad mortages, they lose their houses. If banks were shady/predatory in their lending practices (and they were), they should be 1) prosecuted and 2) allowed to go bankrupt. Wanna know what happens when you, as American taxpayers, allow the government to bail out companies who weren't only financially corrupt, but now we see morally corrupt as well?

A few days after the federal government unveiled an $85 billion bailout package for the insurance company AIG, executives from one of the firm's subsidiaries went on a week-long retreat to the St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, Calif. The tab: $443,000. Most of the attendees at the convention between Sept. 22 and Sept. 30 stayed in premium "pool view" rooms at the 400-room hotel, with 47-inch LCD TVs and marble bathrooms furnished with a "Deep Roman" bath and shower. The rate: $375 per night. The group also booked 17 "ocean view" rooms, at $425 each, and one "presidential suite," discounted from its usual $3,200 a night to $1,600. Another $9,982 was spent on food and drinks at the StoneHill Tavern, the Monarch Bayclub, in-room dining and the lobby lounge; $6,939 on golf; $1,488 at the Vogue Salon; and $1,450 on no-show and cancellation fees. The itemized bill does not show what executives specifically ordered at the spa and salon, but a look at the hotel's spa menu (PDF) shows 75-minute "intuitive massages" at $215 a pop (most of the executives spent $210 each for a spa treatment on Sept. 25) and men's and women's haircuts and styles starting at $50 and $75, respectively. Executives also spent $147,302 on banquets at the hotel and $23,380 at the Spa Gaucin, which features three-story waterfalls and a "Well of Desires, where symbolically all your cares will be left behind." -- Washington Post Investigations