Parable of Why Johnny Can't Borrow

I was in Las Vegas recently, after the November 2nd election. While having a casual dinner at the Trevi restaurant in Caesar's Palace, our waiter Ralph asked where we were from. We told him Oklahoma and he asked about our economy there and specifically the housing market. We chatted about that and then he told us he bought a house two years ago just north of the city of Las Vegas. He paid $256,000 and thought his property, usually in a hot market, would surely gain equity. Just the opposite happened, of course, and I began schooling him about Bill Clinton's Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), and Barney Frank and Chris Dodd's coddling of it. Had I had the Parable of Johnny, I would have been finished with Ralph before dessert.

Why Johnny Shouldn't Have Borrowed - Housing Crisis

Within a year, Ralph's home was worth not much more than $150,000.

So, I've talked about the reason for all of our economic woes on this blog many, many times.  Rather than go through it again, Michael Prell at The Daily Caller has a post today that simplifies the roller coaster that repeated itself over and over again, until everyone wanting a house had one, whether they could pay for it or not. This is how I should have explained it to Ralph:

The "Parable of Why Johnny Can't Borrow:"

One day, Johnny woke up and decided to buy a house. But Johnny did not have enough money to buy a house. So he went to someone who did have enough money: Mr. Capitalist.

“Mr. Capitalist,” asked Johnny, “could you please loan me the money to buy a house?”

“Do you have good credit, a down payment, or proof of income?” asked Mr. Capitalist.

“No,” replied Johnny.

The End

And the end of the Global Financial Crisis.

The good news is that rather than abandon his home, which Ralph and his wife seriously considered, they refinanced and got their monthly payment greatly reduced and are once again hoping for a rise in equity.

Prell's article, QE2 vs the Titanic is a short and pithy narrative of the meaning and importance of capitalism and what happens when the free market is under assault. Prell is a strategist for Tea Party Patriots and the author of the forthcoming book, Underdogma: How America's Enemies Use Our Love for the Underdog to Trash American Power (release date January 20, 2011)

Related and Background:
Tracking the Mess of Fannie and Freddie
Financial Crisis Timeline: Republicans Warned of Economic Crisis
Bulldog Maxine Waters and her Housing and Community Opportunity Subcommittee

Doin' the Barney Shuffle: Shuffling On Over to Sean Bielat

The Barney Funk Shuffle. See the story below the video.

The Barney Shuffle (video)

Thanks to Bobby at The Camp of the Saints!

The video is by Ladd Ehlinger, Jr. (New York Times), with Stacy McCain and DaTechGuy hanging out. The NYT actually had some very nice things to say about Sean Bielat, the former Marine who is attempting to send Congressman Barney Frank home to Massachusetts (along with his rude boyfriend). 

There's a great story, actually caught on video, of the dancing "Barney" in front of a green screen. You want to see it. The Other McCain has the story, and DaTechGuy has the green screen video.

Sean Bielat is vying for Frank's House seat for Massachusetts' District 4. There are many reasons to sack Barney. Chief among them? Frank is the prime instigator of the Housing Meltdown, and don't let anyone tell you differently without doing your own homework. 

Frank engineered a program known as the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). He and a cohort, through the authority of Congress, forced lenders to make mortgages with no down payment, no credit checks, no jobs. If you wanted a house, you deserved it, and Barney, by God, would get one for you.

Vast numbers of homeowners were selling, and vast numbers of unqualified people were buying what they could not afford. Sellers were flying high...prices moved unrealistically upward - all across the Nation. Appraisals meant nothing. Thousands owned homes they could not afford, long before home prices soared. And then it all fell apart. New terminology filled the airwaves: The "SubPrime Mortgage Crises" was upon us. If your neighbor was in crisis with his mortgage, and you were not, sooner or later the value of your neighbor's home would plummet, taking your property with it.

See the crisis timeline here, and note that Republicans warned it was coming over and over, but Barney could not be convinced. He was making homes available in his high-priced market for anyone who wanted one, and don't you think he was ensuring a vote to send him back to Congress? Please watch the video if you are a Massachusetts voter, and if you are not, please watch the video and donate something to Sean Bielat's campaign. Politics are no longer local. Every vote Barney casts, affects my family and loved one in Oklahoma. The whole Barney story is sordid. Read it here.

Sean Bielat

Calling the powerful Barney Frank an "ethically-challenged liberal icon," Sarah Palin endorsed Sean today. The Bielat website lays-out his views. Please donate anything you can to the campaign here. It's easy to do by credit card. Takes only about 3 minutes. Be part of making history and bring sanity back to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Posted by Maggie @ Maggie's Notebook

Dennis Cardoza Obama Spreading Fairy Dust

Democrat Representative Dennis Cardoza (C-18th) says the Obama administration is spreading "fairy dust" and slams Shaun Donovan, the Urban Development Secretary, for saying California's Central Valley has had improvement in foreclosure rates.

Dennis Cardoza

Donovan said thanks to Obama's "targeted tools," the housing market in the Central Valley is beginning to stabilize. Cardoza dares to differ:

Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Calif., noted that the three biggest cities in his district are ranked in the top 10 of RealtyTrac’s foreclosure list and claims Donovan has a “fundamental disconnect” between the reality on the ground and the fairy dust the administration is spreading."

Cardoza says that Donovan failed to note the delinquency rate in his district has risen to more than 16 percent when he touted the decline in foreclosure rates in the Central Valley.

"In most simple terms: things are not getting better in the Central Valley, they are getting worse," he wrote.

The Fresno Bee Opinion blog says Cardoza is trying to keep Donovan from traveling:

As Cardoza put it in a telephone interview with The Bee, his intention is for Donovan and his aides to "keep their sorry asses in Washington until they fix the problem." They do not understand the depth of the problem, Cardoza said.

Cardoza's amendments would wipe out HUD's $21 million travel budget. They would also prohibit HUD officials from traveling using funds designated for administration and operations.

Remember that the Central Valley's water was cut drastically to protect the Delta Smelt. Judge Oliver Wanger says the law "does not allow him to weigh economic factors against the preservation of a species." Read the Human Cost of the Central Valley's Water Crisis.

Bulldoze Maxine Waters and her Housing and Community Opportunity Subcommittee

An ethics watchdog is calling for Maxine Waters to give up her chairmanship of the Housing and Community Opportunity subcommittee. The House Ethics Committee says they will charge Waters with ethics violations for her cozy relationship with U.S. Treasury officials and the National Bankers Association involving the minority-owned bank, OneUnited Bank. Waters' husband served on the bank Board of Directors, was a "significant" shareholder. OneUnited received $12 million in TARP monies and donated $12,500 to Maxine's election campaign war chest.

Maxine Waters

Maxine is the Chairwoman of the Housing and Community Opportunity subcommittee of the House Banking and Finance Committee. She controls a type of housing affirmative action. Here is a portion of what Maxine's subcommittee does:

Committee Democrats place a high priority on fighting discrimination and expanding homeownership opportunities for minorities, low-income families, and those living in rural, urban and under-served areas. They support strong fair housing enforcement, the preservation of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA),

The CRA, a program mainly devised to make home loans to people perceived to have been discriminated against, and to force lenders to make loans considered riskier than usual, is the direct line to the housing market crisis. CRA likes to be known as enforcing fair lending standards. As Maxine crowed that Fannie Mae, especially, was as sound as could be, the house of cards came tumbling down, and none of it affected Ms. Waters and her husband Sydney Williams.

From Michelle Malkin via The Wall Street Journal:

Waters (along with Rep. Frank) participated directly in pressuring the feds for OneUnited’s piece of the bailout pie. She personally contacted the Treasury Department last December requesting $50 million for the company– and failed to disclose her ties to the bank to them. The government ended up coughing up $12 million in TARP funding for OneUnited — despite another government agency rapping the bank in October 2008 for “operating without effective underwriting standards and practices,” “operating without an effective loan documentation program” and “engaging in speculative investment practices.”

And directly from Malkin:

Oh, and get this: The favored bank of Maxine Waters was also penalized for alleged excessive executive compensation. The FDIC ordered the bank to “sell all bank-owned automobiles,” require reimbursement for executives’ car purchases (according to the Boston Business Journal, OneUnited CEO Kevin Cohee was cruising around in a 2008 Porsche SUV), and cease payments on a $6 million Santa Monica beachfront home purchased by Cohee, his wife who served as bank president, and others.

Responding to scrutiny of the bank’s special treatment, Cohee is now accusing critics of — yep, you guessed it — racism.

From LewRockwell.com 

The thousands of mortgage defaults and foreclosures in the "subprime" housing market (i.e., mortgage holders with poor credit ratings) is the direct result of thirty years of government policy that has forced banks to make bad loans to un-creditworthy borrowers. The policy in question is the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which compels banks to make loans to low-income borrowers and in what the supporters of the Act call "communities of color" that they might not otherwise make based on purely economic criteria.

The original lobbyists for the CRA were the hardcore leftists who supported the Carter administration and were often rewarded for their support with government grants and programs like the CRA that they benefited from. These included various "neighborhood organizations," as they like to call themselves, such as "ACORN" (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). These organizations claim that over $1 trillion in CRA loans have been made, although no one seems to know the magnitude with much certainty. A U.S. Senate Banking Committee staffer told me about ten years ago that at least $100 billion in such loans had been made in the first twenty years of the Act.

While the House Ethics Committee makes a shallow show of determining whether Maxine Waters, her relationships and receipts were illegal, let us think about razzing the Housing and Community Opportunity subcommittee. If we take back the House, can we do that? The first video below shows the timeline of the housing meltdown and the second is Maxine Waters saying "we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and particularly at Fannie Mae...."See links to background below the video.



Financial and Housing Meltdown Timeline (video)


Maxine Waters No Crisis at Fannie or Freddie Under the leadership of Barney Frank's boyfriend, Franklin Raines (video)

Related and Background:

Tracking the Mess of Fannie and Freddie
Three Ways the CRA Pushed Countrywide to Lower Lending Standards

The above article says CRA regulators believed the lax lending practices were the wave of the future, democratizing the glories of home ownership. 

Video of Maxine Waters saying the government will take over and run all the oil companies

Glenn Beck on Big Brother, Barney, Chris, Fannie, Freddie Video

In this video Glenn Beck points out that all of our financial troubles stem from the house crises, as orchestrated by Barney Frank (D-Mass-4th), Chris Dodd (D-CT), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Reminder: Senator Chris Dodd engineered the fatal financial reform bill. The entire video is good, but at about 8 minutes-in, it gets really serious. Between 8 min and 12 minutes is a must see. Beck is asking what we are all asking...or if you are not asking these questions, you should be. At 11 minutes in, you begin to see your future.

If you haven't seen the video, I hope you watch. It's important. Okay, the vid isn't working here. I'd deleted it, but you can view it at this link.

Michele Bachmann Dylan Ratigan: Someone Named Dylan Ratigan Doesn't Like Michele Bachmann or Her Tea Party Caucus

Someone named Dylan Ratigan doesn't like Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn-6th), or her Tea Party Caucus or her talk of "fiscal responsibility."  I'm searching for info on Mr. Ratigan as I "word process." Oh, here it is...oh my, he's a TV host on MSNBC and has a little show titled the Dylan Ratigan Show. Let me see... he averaged 330,000 viewers a day in May 2010! No wonder he's such a snark. See the video below.

 Michele Bachmann

Putting "Fiscal Responsibility" in the face of a liberal is like holding up a cross in the face of a vampire. "Fiscal Responsibility" is death to a Liberal. Without mad spending you can't create voters.

More on Ratigan's embarrassing ratings below. In the video, the obviously frustrated Ratigan and friends say Bachmann is "full of crap...soooo full of crap, she might be the Queen of Crap," the talking heads opine. Ratigan quotes Congresswoman Bachmann saying the Tea Party Caucus will be "dedicated to promoting Tea Party ideals like "fiscal responsibility and limited government...

"...then again, says Ratigan, Republicans were nowhere in the mass extraction on Wall Street."

For starters, Ratigan obviously views a House Caucus as 'big government,' even though the Caucus members are dedicated to the ideals of small government. This Caucus will not create government programs. If anything, they will be working to repeal, rework and trash existing legislation.

Ratigan doesn't touch Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Democrat criminal "mass extractions" that will never be paid back to taxpayers - orchestrated by Democrat legislators, Senator Chris Dodd (D-, and Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mich) and Maxine Waters (D-CA) . Fannie and Freddie were nowhere in the Democrat financial reform bill.

A Yale economics professor, Robert J. Shiller, says taxpayers who do not even own a home are forced to support others struggling to stay in their homes. Astonishingly, Shiller thinks that Fannie and Freddie should be severely cut back:

"so that they're not helping middle-class homeowners, [but] they're helping poor people get into the housing market."

That's a fine example of academia ignoring everything known about economics. How about making Fannie and Freddie successful and then helping the less fortunate?

Shiller tells the truth, though, about the woes of the evil Democrat twins, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and why the government took them over:

...to avert possible massive losses for banks, money-market funds and, perhaps, most importantly, foreign institutions that purchased billions of Fannie and Freddie debt because of its implied government guarantee.

Remember this when you plan to walk away from your home, and perhaps file bankruptcy. Don't blame Wall Street. Fannie and Freddie are what all the housing bankruptcies are about.
That's why some of your neighbors had to turn their homes over to the bank. The bank had to sell them for peanuts, and that's why your house is undervalued today. That's why you owe more on your mortgage than the house is worth in today's market.

Democrats are solely...solely to blame for the housing crisis. They bought votes and favorability with risky home loans, are still trying to buy votes today...and what they have done should be criminal. 

Before winding this up, Ratigan's show airs at 4 p.m. EDT. If 330,000 viewers are not embarassing enough, he averaged only 325,000 viewers in the preceding 6 months, and only 83,000 in the golden  demographic of 25-54 years old. The 83,000 most desirable demographic was down from 107,000 a year earlier. Check this out for a comparison of television success rates.

For the time slot, Ratigan comes in third behind first place Your World with Neil Cavuto. The headline for these statistics: Dylan Ratigan's Ratings Show a Loss for MSNBC.

So here's the thing about Dylan Ratigan and his cronies: he/they are terrified at the words "fiscal responsibility," and they are disturbed that Michele Bachmann insists on pounding home the importance of it.

Bachmann and the House Tea Party Caucus can promote fiscal responsibility while Ratigan tries to live-down his failures at MSNBC. Watch as Ratigan and his idiots, without a single fact about Michele Bachmann, stoop to kindergarten name calling. (Yes, I called Ratigan an "idiot," did some name calling myself, but I've offered-up the facts.)












Dylan Ratigan on Michele Bachmann (video)

Obama $50 billion for State Local Aid: Pelosi Hecklers Get Paid

Nancy Pelosi was relentlessly heckled in a recent speech. The hecklers were members of her usually adoring choir.  This time, her minions were unhappy with her. They wanted more state aid to fund her massive programs. It appears her own personal knight in shining armor, Barack Obama, has rushed to her aid and on Saturday (yes, on Saturday) asked Congress for a fast $50 BILLION for what he sees as "emergency aid." The emergency is placating Nancy Pelosi's voters. See a video below.

Projected Deficits and Debt Increases

2010 Budget (OMB) & CBO Historical Data

The Washington Post says Obama is "pleading:"

President Obama urged reluctant lawmakers Saturday to quickly approve nearly $50 Billion in emergency aid to state and local governments, saying the money is needed to avoid "massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters" and to support the still-fragile economic recovery.

In a letter to congressional leaders, Obama defended last year's huge economic stimulus package, saying it helped break the economy's free fall, but argued that more spending is urgent and unavoidable. "We must take these emergency measures," he wrote in an appeal aimed primarily at members of his own party.

Remember all those teacher and police jobs Obama's stimulus saved? Apparently, we are asked to save them again,  because...the money was sent...but didn't save anything.

House Minority Leader, John Boehner (R-OH) said he was at the White House on Thursday and there was no mention of a $50 Billion bombshell hitting the American people. He also reminds that there is no budget out of the House this year.

But House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) argued the president wants to use money already approved in the stimulus act to fund struggling state budgets. 

“The money that has already been appropriated in the Recovery Act, that has not been spent could be spent now,” Hoyer responded. “We can’t stimulate and depress at the same time. 

If the money is already tagged and approved for state aid, why is Obama asking for it? Something smells like dead fish:

White House chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel has said that the administration wants to both cut spending and stimulate the economy in the coming months. 

If Obama can accomplish this, with much of Congress up for re-election in November, then he is a wizard...or Congress is as more corrupt than we can begin to comprehend. But from a Democrat point-of-view, outraging moderate Democrats, Independents and Conservatives may be preferable to standing on principle against Unions. A note about the graphic above: without a Federal Budget, the CBO can hardly project debt or deficits on a downward path. Related information on Deficits and Debt at Seeking Alpha.

John Boehner on Obama's $50 Billion Bombshell

Linked by The Lonely Conservative - Thanks Karen!

Global Governance Needed for Financial Stability

The President of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, told Forbes that global governance is extremely necessary if we want to prevent another financial crisis. In his prepared printed and spoken remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations, Trichet emphasized that politicians, economists, and financiers must work across the Atlantic and collaborate on methods to create an international set of standards.

It is his belief that through global governance, the resiliency of the global financial system can be assured, noting that ultimately it was governments’ use of taxpayer’s money, equivalent to around 25% of GDP on both sides of the Atlantic, that prevented another catastrophic great depression from occurring. Read the entire story here.

Obama Measures Economy by his own Secret Recipe

The other worldly Barack Obama has no faith in economics, as we know them. He measures progress by "a different pulse," he says. My hubby says it's kinda like  "Obama's own secret recipe,"  for coming up with facts and figures. We've certainly had more than our fair share of the Obama administration's errant calculations. They always get it wrong. They haven't hit one prediction even close to the real result. How convenient. It's a little like teaching New Math in The Time of Obama, or Democrats rewriting history in text books, or dismissing the voter fraud case against the New Black Panthers because...well, because...uh, the Department of Justice wanted to.

Karen at Lonely Conservative has some excellent commentary on his "different pulse:"

First of all, the millions of Americans who can’t find jobs don’t really give a rat’s behind that GDP is up a little bit from the dreadfully low point. Second of all, WTF is he talking about? Measuring progress by a different pulse? What’s that all about? Will we finally have “progressed” once the economy is decimated by cap and trade and millions of formerly illegal aliens flood the welfare rolls?

Obama's "different pulse" on the Economy (video)

Less Depressing Financial News: Jobs Losses Rise: Home Mortgages Default

Never have Americans been so completely clueless about our country's financial health and our job-creation ability.  God help us. We believe in this country, but everyday it becomes clear that we have been lied to, and are being lied to, with a great deal of enthusiasm.

Home Mortgage Defaults

Fortune Magazine tells us the "long-awaited recovery is now underway." It's a slow, painful slog that has shifted from "dreadful to less depressing." Unemployment stands at least, at 9.7%. Home prices are in the toilet, but...corporate profits are up. Our job-makers have realized they can do more with less...and boost profits by being leaner. Earnings were up among the Fortune 500 by an astounding 335%, but sales are sluggish. "The largest part of the gain came from lower payrolls...and explains the "explosion" in Fortune 500 profits.

George Soros, the mover and shaker behind Barack Obama is warning of another market crash, but if we get lucky we have 8 years before the bottom falls out. Keep in mind that George Soros is as anti-America as one can be.

Jobless claims rose...again...it wasn't expected. Reports out yesterday said new requests for jobless benefits rose by 24,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 484,000. The second week in a row for increased claims. Economists predicted claims would fall.

As the Wall Street Journal said, if that were possible Russia, Cuba and North Korea would be economic powerhouses:

Currently, the mean government salary is fully twice the mean private-sector salary. That means every government job destroys or displaces two private-sector jobs. 

Home mortgage defaults rise among those who took advantage of Obama's wildly criticized "loan modification" program. Many have defaulted even after the government modified their payment amount. A NYT writer says if the trend continues the Obama plan may collapse on itself. The Treasury Department can't explain what is happening - other than the common sense that the people still can't afford their mortgages, and I'll point out that probably many have lost jobs since "modifying" their loans. Seven million households are behind on mortgage payments.

A senior policy counsel for the Center for Responsible Lending said she expects the post-modification defaults to continue to rise. "The current model for modifications doesn't necessarily produce sustainable results."

Readers, can you name one program this administration has launched that provides sustainable results? I didn't think so. Looking forward to "less depressing news" is not the American way. Let's get these job-killers out of Washington, D.C.

Linked by The Lonely Conservative

David Murrin Americas Decline - The East Rises:

Perhaps you heard this on Rush today. I caught just a few words and then stumbled on the video and some commentary [linked below the video]  while researching a piece on the SEC's Mary Schapiro and porn at the SEC. David Murrin, a co-founder of Emergent Asset Management, appeared on Squawk Box Europe, and he believes that America is the last of all the Christian empires - the last one of the Christian empires, and we are in decline. See the video below the partial transcript.

David Murrin

From Rush Limbaugh:

[MURRIN]

I think sometimes long term history impacts the now and we're in it like a schism, like two tectonic plates that suddenly shift after a hundred years of energy building up. And that's really the end of the western Christian empire. It's bigger than the British empire, the American empire. It's the sum of all the Christian empires for nearly 900 years. And America is the last one. And when the last one changes and declines, which it's in, it will be very rapid, it's the end of the whole system.

At the same time the system that rises challenges far quicker as it moves into the vacuum created by the old system, and that's the east. The surprise will be the rate of that change. And we view the new administration in America as new hope. Unfortunately, if you look at historical precedents of underclass and the mechanism of an underclass actually coming to the fore demographically, it is not new hope, it's the beginning of the end. And we're seeing that very quickly take place.

[COMMENTARY FROM RUSH]

Did you hear that? Did you understand what this guy said? He said that when the underclass, the mechanisms of an underclass come to the fore demographically. To translate this for you people in Rio Linda and Port St. Lucie, when the poor are expanded and more and more people become poor and become wards of the state, it's the beginning of the end. When the underclass -- that's a British term, underclass means the poor, it doesn't mean they're lesser people. 

When the poor become the dominant group, it's over, by definition it's over. Well, do I accpt this? I do not accept this yet. I do not believe that it is inevitable, but I do believe that the path we're on would lead to this if we don't stop this, absolutely. That's hot it works...if we don't stop this. We know what history says, that we're bound to repeat it if we ignore it.

[MURRIN]

The refusal of Obama to commit to the missile defense system in Poland was a terrible sign to the adversaries of America. They saw it as weakness. And, in fact, if you look at chinese policy since and articulation, it's been far more aggressive and expansive. So the moment that the incumbent shows its inability to project power and use the power it has, the challengers move forward very quickly, 56% of their society is male. In a normal society it's 51. That's 5% of extra risk capital and what that means is they are far more risk orientated than actually a society in the west.

[RUSH COMMENTARY]

...They've got 56% males which means they got a lot of guys they can afford to lose in battle. And they perceive Obama as weak. And they're acting on it. And so are the others of our adversaries, see Obama as weak. In other words, this guy is an unmitigated disaster no matter which way you slice it.... 

There's more than transcribed. Empire-building and empire-declines - worth a listen and look.








David Murrin on America's Future - History Repeating Itself (video)

Visit Sense on Cents for additional commentary

Three Reasons ObamaCare Will Not Reduce the Deficit

If anyone still honestly believes ObamaCare will reduce the deficit, this video is for you. These are points we've made many times, but if you are in the "believing" category, then you are not paying attention. Please pay some attention now. Nick Gillespie at ReasonTV explains:

"...underestimating expenses isn't a "bug," it's a feature of government health insurance plans."

In the video below, you'll hear about the 'DocFix." Read more on the 'DocFix' here. See other related links below the video. Thanks to HotAir and ReasonTV.

More from Nick Gillespie:

But not only will the legislation not cut one thin dime from the deficit, it will also certainly cost far more than the $940 billion in new spending already on the table for at least three reasons.

Three Reasons ObamaCare Won't Reduce the Deficit (video)

Related and Background:
Rep. Paul Ryan Explains Health Care Double Counting - Fuzzy Math - Video

John Boehner's Hell No! Speech

Health Care: Stopping at the Constitution - Not the White House - Not Congress

Twenty Ways ObamaCare Steals Your Freedom

Rep. Devin Nunes Health Care is the Ghost of Communism

Rep. Alcee Hastings in Health Care Debate - Rules?....We make 'em up as we go along.

Al Sharpton Organization Owes $1.5+M in Taxes: Sharptons National Action Network in Trouble?

Al Sharpton, Harlem's racial community organizer through the National Action Network, Inc. (NAN) allegedly owes "at least" $1,556,059 in FEDERAL TAXES and $108,489 in New York taxes. Remember when he was fined $497,000 for illegal campaign contributions when he ran for president in 2004?

Al Sharpton

From the  The Daily Caller we learn how community organizers create jobs:

In 2007 NAN took in $2.379,376 in revenue but spent $2,481,092...at the end of 2007 it owed $1,848,799 in "payroll taxes and related interest and penalties....

The flamboyant, scandal-prone Sharpton, who sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, is known for his taste for luxury and for his skill in ducking creditors. He once bragged to the New York Times that he didn't own any business suits but had "access" to some. He would admit only to owning his wristwatch and wedding ring. His group ran up huge bills with a limousine service in New Jersey and had a $51,939 civil judgment entered against it in 2003.

Critics say Sharpton is an incendiary racial demagogue who is among the most polarizing figures in the nation. He boasts that he stopped Rush Limbaugh from buying a stake in an NFL team and (temporarily) ran Don Imus off the airwaves for racially insensitive marks. He became a national figure in 1987 by participating in the Tawana Brawley case, a racially charged gang rape hoax. Sharpton falsely accused assistant prosecutor Steve Pagones of participating in the gang rape. Pagones won a libel judgment against Sharpton. [all emphasis mine]

Here's how screwed up our values are, and we just keep letting it happen:

Big corporations give him money. Presidential candidates seek his endorsement. He has influential friends in Congress and the governor's mansion.

Linked by Hillary and Me - Thank You!

Tim Geithner Knew About Lehman Accounting Gimmicks? $50B Lehman Accounting Shuffle

U.S. Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, was president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank at the same time Lehman-Brothers was using financial engineering (accounting gimmicks) to shuffle $50B in toxic assets off its books, before collapsing in September 2008. There is little doubt Geithner had to know, concealed the facts and failed to take appropriate action.

New York Federal Reserve Bank

No coincidence that the New York Times and Huffington Post fail to cite the Fed's, and Tim Geithner's, lack of action made clear from the 2200 page report.

Naked Capitalism takes a look at a new examiner's report into how and why Lehman failed, showing Tim Geithner is likely complicit in cover-up:

It also emerges that the NY Fed, and thus Timothy Geithner, were at a minimum massively derelict in the performance of their duties, and may well be culpable in aiding and abetting Lehman in accounting fraud and Sarbox violations.

We need to demand an immediate release of the emails, phone records, and meeting notes from the NY Fed and key Lehman principals regarding the NY Fed's review of Lehman's solvency. If, as things appear now, Lehman was allowed by the Fed's inaction to remain in business, when the Fed should have insisted on a wind-down (and the failed Barclay's said this was not infeasible: even an orderly bankruptcy would have been preferred....) the NY Fed at a minimum helped perpetuate a fraud on investors and counterparties.

Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism updated his post at 3 AM this morning after reading pertinent sections of the report.

Every page is stunning...the nonsense is mile high. Lehman had been doing this sort of things since 2001. No US law firm would give them cover via an opinion letter for their phony repo accounting...

So, let's get busy demanding release of items that will likely incriminate Tim Geithner, and the Federal Reserve.

Read it all at Naked Capitalism.

Others talking about Tim Geithner's culpability in the Lehman collapse:
LOLFed
Jr Deputy Accountant
The Daily Caller

War of the Earmarks: House Republicans Ban All Earmarks: Dems Ban Earmarks for For-Profit Companies

There is a war for the most dramatic earmark ban in the U.S. House of Representatives. Who takes the prize: Dems or Republicans? 

Democrats announced a ban on earmarks going to "private companies." Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) announced today that House Republicans are banning all earmarks for the rest of this Congressional year, in an effort to quash "back room deals" to buy votes for health care, including funds to nonprofits, such as universities:

Pence said Democrats were cutting "backroom deals" to persuade reluctant House Democrats to vote for the president's proposal, and said "the American people want us to change business as usual." Source: The Daily Caller

Democrats said their ban "is a key step in restoring trust in Congress. They think we are idiots.

It ensures that for-profit companies no longer reap the rewards of congressional earmarks and limits the influence of lobbyists on members of Congress. 

While the story seems to be that earmark spending has little to do with reducing spending, maybe the real story is what the GOP intimated: quashing back room deals to buy votes for health care. 

Andy Stern on Debt Deficit Panel: SEIU Andy Stern on Obama Debt Panel

Andy Stern, the president of the most powerful union in the U.S., the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has been appointed by President Obama to the so-called "Debt/Deficit Panel" with the fancy official moniker of The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (did I just hear you snicker?). See a video of Stern below.

 Andy Stern

The U.S. Attorney's office in the District of Columbia is reviewing a request by Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) to look into Andy Stern's frequent visits to the White House and the halls of Congress, for a possible violation of the Lobbying Disclosure Act. Stern is no longer registered as a lobbyist according to the Alliance for Worker Freedom (AWF) who joined the request for investigation with ATR. The President said he would have no lobbyists in his White House, so many lobbyists no longer register...they just lobby the old fashioned way...using the backdoor if necessary.

From BigGovernment:

Registered lobbyists can’t get stimulus money, can’t be White House advisors and are not allowed access to meetings and summits. So how does one get around that? It’s simple; you just don’t register as a lobbyist. That’s what Andy Stern did and it may come back to bite him.

Brian Johnson, executive director of AWF says backdooring Stern's influence opportunities is exactly what appointing Stern to the Debt Panel does:

52 days ago, Stern was on CNN and he promised to contact us and explain his situation and provide evidence that he has not been engaged in illegal lobbying,” says Brian Johnson, executive director of the Alliance for Worker Freedom. “Not only have we never been contacted by Stern, but now, the President is sneaking his friends and political supporters in the back-door with this no-show fluff panel to allow the lobbying to continue.

ATR believes Stern and SEIU's Secretary-Treasurer, Anita Burger, spent 20% of their time in a single quarter lobbying the White House and Capitol Hill. On November 16th, ATR and AWF delivered a letter to the House, the Senate and to U.S. Attorney Channing Phillips in Washington, D.C.

On February 1, CNSNews reports that a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office says they "continue to review the matter," but an SEIU spokeswoman says "the charges were meritless," and "We have been informed by the Senate that the complaining parties were notified." Apparently meaning that ATR has heard from the Senate, and the Senate thinks the charges are "meritless." Wouldn't you love to know the names of those Senators?

The key question is whether Stern or Burger, no longer registered lobbyists, spent 20 percent of the work time in a quarterly period lobbying lawmakers and whether they failed to report it.

This according to CNSNews:

Stern touted his visits at the White House and with other lawmakers on his Twitter account, with messages that include “cocktails with prez and VP,” “lobbying with Mayor Bloomberg,” and “great discussions last two days with Senators.”

Hot Air has more of Andy's tweets and he even uses the "L" word:

Lobbying with Mayor Bloomberg on health care. Leaving Senator Snowe. Mayor big proponent of keeping people healthy and the right public plan”
(https://twitter.com/SEIU_ANDYSTERN, 6/24/09)

“Great discussion last 2 days with many Senators. Complicated issue but commitment to change. All understand-longer we wait worse it gets”
(https://twitter.com/SEIU_ANDYSTERN, 6/17/09)

“Leaving White House. Serious , real discussion with great possibilities. Now work to be done by June 1 deadline. Glad we get start this.”
(https://twitter.com/SEIU_ANDYSTERN, 5/11/09)

 Here's a Stern tweet from the BigGovernment article linked above:

“just left White House where group from MoveOn to Chamber of Commerce but mostly progressives had cocktails with Prez and VP”

(https://twitter.com/SEIU_ANDYSTERN, 2/18/09)

Failing to register as a lobbyist is a crime act. The penalty can bring 5 years in prison and a $200,000 fine.

You'll remember that President Obama asked Congress to set-up a committee to come up with ways to solve the deficit. He asked that that Committee come up with ideas for reducing debt and reducing the country's deficit. The plan was, that once the Committee made the suggestions, Congress would be bound to voting on an up or down vote - yes, or no - with no amendments allowed.

Our wiley Congress was having none of that. Just because they are officially tasked with keeping the Nation's finances in order, doesn't mean they would allow the President to guilt them into actually doing their job. The legislation failed and so the President signed a non-binding executive order to form the Commission - which will not have much power unless Congress considers, accepts and enacts the panel's recommendations.

 The new panel will have 18 members.The President will appoint 6 members, four of whom can come from the same party. Congress will choose 12 members - three each appointed by Democrat and Republican leadership in both chambers. The goal of the Commission  is "to put forward proposals to balance the budget excluding interest payments on the debt (the primary budget) by 2015."

Obama has named his 6 appointees: Erskin Bowles, a former Clinton White House Chief of Staff, and a former Republican Senate Whip Alan Simpson will serve as co-chairs. The White House says these two men "will bring Republicans and Democrats together."

Others named by Obama are David Cote, CEO at Honeywell International, former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Alice Rivlin, former CEO of Young & Rubicam Brands Ann Fudge, and Andy Stern, President of SEIU and Chief of Staff of townhall thuggery and "legislative goodies."  Stern will no doubt bring his communist manifesto to the table. From Michelle Malkin's book Culture of Corruption a quote from Stern:

EXCERPTED FROM Chapter 7, “SEIU: Look for the union label,” Culture of Corruption
“The persuasion of power” - Asked about his organizing philosophy, Andy Stern summed it up this way: “[W]e prefer to use the power of persuasion, but if that doesn’t work we use the persuasion of power.”

Andy Stern wants YOU "organized" and "unionized." Now every minute he spends with the President can be logged to The National Commission of Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. As he lobbies for card check, he can log it to the Debt-Deficit Panel, after all, "Stern has openly bragged about the SEIU's $61 million investment in Barack Obama." - "we get heard" Stern said.

Related and Background:
Lobbyists Underground: When is a Lobbyist not a Lobbyist?



Workers of the World Unite - Andy Stern (video)

Mort Zuckerman Obama Deflation: NY Daily News Owner Slams Obama

Mort Zuckerman, the owner and publisher of New York Daily News says the "incredible deflation of Barack Obama" is underway. Zuckerman endorsed Obama for president, and lost, allegedly, some $40 million to Bernie Madoff and his Ponzi Scheme. He is not happy with his president.

There is some very cheeky analysis in his article in U.S. News and World Report, which he also heads. He referred to Obama's excess appearances on television as "promiscuity," and follows that up with "Now he faces the iron law of diminishing novelty."

Perhaps the inevitable outcome was disappointment—and on this Obama has not disappointed. Alas, he has accelerated the deflation of hope with his extraordinary volume of public appearances.

In his first six months, he gave three times as many interviews as George W. Bush, four times as many prime-time news conferences as Bill Clinton, and more interviews than both combined: 93 for Obama and 61 for his two immediate predecessors. He appeared on five Sunday talk shows on the same morning, followed the next day by David Letterman, the first-ever presidential appearance on a nighttime comedy show. In another week, he squeezed in addresses to the U.S. Climate Change Summit, the U.N. General Assembly, the U.N. Security Council, and a variety of press conferences.

Zuckerman moves from personality to substance:

Poor results. But Obama's problems are more than a question of style. There is doubt aroused on substance. He sets deadlines and then lets too many pass. He announces a strategic review of Afghanistan, describing it as "a war of necessity," only to become less sure to the point that he didn't even seem committed to the policy that he finally announced.

As for changing politics in Washington, he assigned the drafting of central legislative programs not to cabinet departments or White House staff but to the Democratic congressional leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid the very people so mistrusted by the public. Who could be surprised that the critical bills—the stimulus program and healthcare—degenerated under a welter of pork and earmarks that had so outraged the American public in the past?

Zuckerman hits Obama on legislation that had no time to be read by lawmakers (stimulus plan and health care). He hit him on the economy and Obama's ambivalence to the real creation of "jobs, jobs, jobs." He hit him for not recognizing the people's "distaste" for "big government, big spending and big deficits."

Instead of concentrating on jobs, jobs, jobs, he made the decision to "boil the ocean" and go for everything, from comprehensive health reform to global warming to a world without nuclear weapons ... and the beat goes on....

This was more than the Congress could absorb and more than the country could understand....

The result is a widespread concern that progressive taxation to pay for the "nanny state" will snuff out future opportunities that Americans believe they deserve for themselves and their children....

The consequence is that there isn't a single critical problem on which the president has a positive public rating.

Only a minority of Americans now believe the president will make the right decisions for the country.

Click the link above to read the entire article.

Paul Krugman Obama not the Great Progressive Hope: Not the One We've Been Waiting For

Liberal Paul Krugman threw Obama under the bus today with the headline "He wasn't the one we've been waiting for." Then he piles it on saying he is:

"...close to giving up on Mr. Obama, who seems determined to confirm every doubt I and others ever had about whether he was ready to fight for what his supporters believed in."

But friends, do not misunderstand his message. Krugman, who holds a Nobel Prize in economics, believes Obama did not spend enough on the stimulus and is specifically upset that The One did not get health care through, and now is running away from it.

In another column, he points out that his closest buddies in the high-science of economics missed all the signs of the coming financial meltdown. Last Fall, Krugman lamented the state of the "economics profession."

Few economists saw our current crisis coming, but this predictive failure was the least of the field’s problems. More important was the profession’s blindness to the very possibility of catastrophic failures in a market economy.

The article quoted above completely fails to address the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and the part that it, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and a Democrat Congress played in the tanking economy. What kind of economist would ignore the obvious? For all of his criticism of this administration, the answer is: only a far-left political hack. Really, it is an embarrasment to the profession, but not for the reasons Krugman lays out.

It is far more popular to blame Wall Street than to blame a program placing people into homes they could not qualify for - millions of people - in homes they could not afford. That's what happened to the economy. The Noble Prize winner for economics could not bring himself to mention the unmentionable.

I'll take Krugman's headline: He Wasn't the One We've Been Waiting For - from a Nobel Economics winner, no less, and chuckle at the obvious.

Al Gore on Capitalism, Disclosure, Incentives, Regulation and Responsibility

Former Vice President, and carbon-trading mogul, Al Gore, has an article in Financial Times advocating a new kind of capitalism which he terms "sustainable capitalism." To bring this about, he says, there is a need to reconsider the basic building blocks of commerce and markets: accounting, disclosure, incentives, regulation and responsibility - and he completely ignores the news of the Hadley Institute's hacked emails and manipulated data. See a terrific video below.

Al Gore

If that isn't a hoot to hear Al Gore talk about disclosure, incentives, regulation and responsibility, I don't know what is. Gore says?

The longer we defer the proper accounting for externalities such as global warming pollution, the greater the strain we place on our already fragile economies. For example, by ignoring the real risk-profile of high-carbon businesses, we are both allocating capital poorly and creating trillions of dollars of “subprime carbon assets”.

Just as widespread assumptions about the value of bundled and securitised subprime mortgages collapsed when tested by reality (thereby detonating the first stage of the financial crisis), the current widespread assumption in markets that it is perfectly fine to dump 90m tons of global warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet every 24 hours – as if it is an open sewer – is also now colliding with reality.

The only collision with reality is that Gore's climate data was cooked and the world knows it, and can prove it:

It was announced Thursday afternoon that computer hackers had obtained 160 megabytes of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in England. Those e-mails involved communication among many scientific researchers and policy advocates with similar ideological positions all across the world. Those purported authorities were brazenly discussing the destruction and hiding of data that did not support global-warming claims.

Professor Phil Jones, the head of the Climate Research Unit, and professor Michael E. Mann at Pennsylvania State University, who has been an important scientist in the climate debate, have come under particular scrutiny. Among his e-mails, Mr. Jones talked to Mr. Mann about the "trick of adding in the real temps to each series ... to hide the decline [in temperature]."

There is no accounting, disclosure or responsibility on the part of Al Gore's carbon credit business, and his efforts to reduce your tiny little carbon footprint, and mine, while expanding his own.

It is shocking to hear a Liberal hint that the housing meltdown was the beginning of the financial crisis, and I give him credit for his understated nugget of truth, but to the contrary, there was no widespread assumption agreeing to the "value" of subprime mortgages. There was only a Democrat scam to get constitutient voters into homes the buyer could not afford, with no credit check and no money down, resulting in a vote to return Maxine Waters and Barney Franks to the U.S. House and Chris Dodd to the U.S. Senate. The "scam" is known as the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). It was the single cause of the financial meltdown. Lenders were forced to grant these completely irresponsible loans, and this country is still paying dearly for the criminal and unconstitutional legislation - and it all began under the Clinton-Gore administration.

Gore and/or his co-author David Blood are cheeky enough to say "disclosure and transparency are critical to the optimal allocation of capital," and those words are even used in the same paragraph with endorsing the warped UN Global Compact. Undoubtedly, in Gore's world, "optimal allocation of capital," reduces to using capital first and foremost for "green" endeavors - even though there is no global warming and certainly no world-wide climate warming.

Gore invokes White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel's infamous comment that a "crisis is a terrible thing to waste." That quote from Stanford economist,Paul Romer, didn't mean creating a crisis to bring about a desired Liberal result.

The Apostle of Climate Change, Al Gore has all the momentum on his side though, as few are reporting on the recent discoveries of ClimateGate. When I search for certain words related to ClimateGate, I find none of the major newspapers reporting the story: The New York Times, the New York Post, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, the Houston Chronicle, the Denver Post or the Chicago Tribune. My apologies if my pertinent search words haven't I forced an existing article to pop-up. There is nothing about the story they want to profile. Isn't it noteworthy that the chief science center for climate change data, the Hadley Climate Research Centre and the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit, are  manipulating data to fit a need? Of course it is, but this Liberal cause, embraced and driven by Al Gore, will be championed, no matter the truth - and a publication such as Financial Times will deem this irresponsible article from this dangerously irresponsible politician fit to print. Read the background and the ongoing story of ClimateGate at ClimateDepot, and beware Al Gore's methods to revise capitalism.



Al Gore - Hide the Decline

Related: Hadley Hacked: Hadley Science Bogus: East Anglia Climate Research Hoax

Tim Geithner Out? Jamie Dimon In? Jamie Dimon Tim Geithner Replacement?

Last week, in a meeting of the Joint Economic Committee, Republican Kevin Brady (Texas) asked Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, if he would resign "for the sake of our jobs." Michael Burgess (R-Texas) told Geithner, face-to-face, "I don't think you should fired, I think you should have never been hired." And in a television interview, Democrat Peter DeFazio (Oregon) said America needs a new economic team.

Jamie Dimon

We have reports out from Bloomberg and the New York Post speculating that J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon might be a replacement for Geithner, although most believe such a move will be "a stretch."

People familiar with Dimon's thinking said he "would love to serve his country," and in recent weeks Dimon has had a noticeably higher profile in Washington, making frequent visits to government officials and earlier this month publishing an op-ed in the Washington Post that makes the case for letting large institutions that take big risks collapse rather than receive government aid.

It appears that Jamie Dimon has a close personal relationship with Barack Obama, has known him for a very long time, and is a "frequent" visitor to the White House, although the official White House visitor logs released recently, only shows Dimon on the premises twice.

From Bloomberg: Dimon’s Missteps

Not that he hasn’t stumbled. When the housing collapse started, for example, Dimon viewed it as an opportunity to expand in the California market for jumbo mortgages. He was also slow to exit the business of purchasing mortgages originated by outside brokers.

Nevertheless, Dimon has maintained a stronger stronger balance sheet than rivals. JPMorgan’s tangible common shareholders equity was 3.4 percent of assets at the end of last year. This has become a key measure of balance-sheet health for investors. While not necessarily stellar, JPMorgan’s level compares with about 2.7 percent at Wells Fargo Co., Isecond biggest after JPMorgan in market value among U.S. banks.