Congressional Hypocrisy

From Dilbert, wouldn't this be hilarious:











Too funny!

Foobs Yet Again

How many times can American taxpayers be chumps, let us recount the ways, in chronological order:

Bailout and Dividends

Taxpayers are Chumps Cont.

Taxpayers Continue to Be Treated as Chumps

Taxpayers are Foobs

And yet again. Read The New York Times, I Ponied Up for Sheryl Crow?

We foobs let Northern Trust of Chicago, "which got $1.5 billion in bailout money and then laid off 450 workers, flew hundreds of clients and employees to Los Angeles last week and treated them to four days of posh hotel rooms, salmon and filet mignon dinners, music concerts, a PGA golf tournament at the Riviera Country Club with Mercedes shuttle rides and Tiffany swag bags . . . had a lavish dinner at the Ritz Carlton on Wednesday with a concert by Chicago (at a $100,000 fee); rented a private hangar at the Santa Monica Airport on Thursday for another big dinner with a gig by Earth, Wind & Fire, and closed down the House of Blues on Sunset Strip on Saturday (at a cost of $50,000) for a dinner and serenade by Sheryl Crow," stick it to us again.

So, how many time? Not once, not twice, not thrice, but more. (FYI: Once, twice, thrice...what comes next? Nothing comes next, as there are no more terms in this sequence.)

Home Sweet Home

Would the world be a better place without America? Think about it. Then read The New York Times, Paging Uncle Sam.

Since the economic crisis, it has become clear that America plays an important role in the world.

May America be worthy of God's blessing.

What is the Fiscally Responsible Thing to Do?

I've blog before about Republi-Con hypocrisy on federal deficits and debt. But in the mist of the economic mess left by bankrupt Republi-con ideology, what is the fiscally responsible thing to do?

Listen to Robert Reich's thoughts on the matter at NPR, Marketplace, Reducing ratio of debt is the real issue.

I Scream In Honor of Past and Current Presidents

Another email from Mike, General Manager of 1330 AM WEBY:

Ben & Jerry's wanted to create an ice cream flavor in honor of past and current Presidents.

For George W., here are some of their favorite responses:

Grape Depression
The Housing Crunch
Abu Grape
Cluster Fudge
Nut'n Accomplished
Good Riddance You Lousy Motherfucker... Swirl
Iraqi Road
Chock 'n Awe
WireTapioca
Impeach Cobbler
Guantanmallow
imPeachmint
Heck of a Job, Brownie!
Neocon Politan
RockyRoad to Fascism
The Reese's-cession
Cookie D'oh!
Nougalar Proliferation
Death by Chocolate... and Torture
Freedom Vanilla Ice Cream
Chocolate Chip On My Shoulder
Credit Crunch
Mission Pecanplished
Country Pumpkin
Chunky Monkey in Chief
WMDelicious
Chocolate Chimp
Bloody Sundae
Caramel Preemptive Stripe
I broke the law and am responsible for the deaths of thousands...with nuts

And in honor of the new President:

Baracky Road - - - half chocolate and half vanilla surrounded by fruits and nuts.

Got any humorous suggestions to add to the list.

The NOT Headline: Dumb Politician Has Lost Touch With the Common Man

An email from Mike, General Manager of 1330 AM WEBY, regarding alleged media bias:

"Biden is dumber than McCain.

Remember how the media portrayed McCain as such an idiot for saying "The Google"?

Well now Biden wants to know "The Website Number". Uh, hey, Joe, do you mean "The Web address?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJnJKE8kkmM

What an idiot!

I won't hold my breath waiting for media coverage of this blunder.

Mike"

First, I don't remember that "the media portrayed McCain as such an idiot for saying 'The Google,'" or even the statement by McCain Must have missed that one.

But what would Mike proposes as the headline: "Politician Dumber Than Dirt" or Politician Has Lost Touch With the Common Man?"

Give me a break, that is not news, everyone knows that.

Time to End the Bailout Bull

Time to admit that Wall Street had just become a Ponzi scheme.

Time to kill the zombie banks and other financial institutions.

There isn't enough money in the whole world to save Goldman Sacks, the former firm of former Treasury Secretary Paulson, the focus of an initial bailout proposal that never made sense, beneficiary of over a hundred billion bailout dollars, and then a hundred billion more.

Obama should just say no to more money for AIG and nationalize insolvent banks.

Is Crist a Traitor?

Florida's Gov. Charlie Crist was on McCain's short list for vice president before Palin was picked to be his running mate. Crist is also said to be considering a run for the Senate seat held by Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.), and perhaps the White House some day.

Crist isn't make any fans with the rabid Republi-con bunch though.

Week before last he had kind words to say about Obama and the stimulus bill. To Crist, it is not "about partisan politics. It's about rising above that, helping the American people and reigniting our economy."

Now Crist want Obama "to succeed, I want him to do well because I love my country."

Guess he didn't get a copy of Rush's song, 'Barack the Magic Negro,' or the word that the Republi-con position is to "hope Obama fails."

Is Crist a traitor to the Republi-con Taliban-inspired insurgency against America?

Thankfully, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is keeping a list of other traitors to the Republi-con jihad cause.

BS Watch

Did you get an email like this:

"WOW !!! President Obama reported to the nation this week that there is not one earmark or pork funding in the so-called economic stimulus bill. Pick your state and town and see who is pulling the wool over who."

The web site in the email is StimulusWatch.org. You can also find projects by state or territory.

First, I don't deny the stimulus bill contained earmarks.

But StimulusWatch.org is not a list of earmarks in the stimulus bill. The website is a list of "proposed 'shovel-ready'" projects in cities and states. Anyone can submit a project to the list. The state specific list includes "projects the mayors of this state submitted in the 2008 U.S. Conference of Mayors report."

But let me ask, would you prefer the government spend near a trillion dollars without a shopping list?

Only a Republi-con would want that.

No Class Today at NoBullU on WEBY

Usually on Fridays you can listen to me, the voice of wisdom and reason in a wilderness of partisan rhetoric -- no political insanity, no conservative hypocrisy, no liberal foolishness -- just straight talk, straight at you, and that’s no bull!!

But I can't make it today so Ken will substitute. Until the next show, post a comment or two.

Problem, Causes and Professor NoBull's Solution for the Economic Mess

UPDATE: Watch PBS, Frontline, Inside the Meltdown and/or CBS, 60 Minutes, World of Trouble.

What a mess!

The Problem

The problem is two-fold: Main Street and Wall Street.

On Main Street, people are out of work or worried about losing their jobs (government workers excluded) and their assets, including homes and stocks, are losing value.

On Wall Street, it turns out that a substantial part of the financial sector was a fraud so parties can't trust one another. More problematic, the value of assets, particularly collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), are indeterminable. Most credit default swaps (CDSs) are worthless.

(Previously I described CDOs or CDSs? Imagine taking paper debt like mortgages, subprime mortgages, car loans, credit cards loans, and pretty much anything you can imagine. Now combine and mix the paper in a blender, spiking it with worthless rhetorical hyperbole that derivatives are the new paradigm of investments. Then pour the mixture in a pyramid of champagne glasses, to represent the varying levels of return (and risk), with the higher the glass, the lower the risk return and risk. That represents the CDOs. Now as you sell the mess, insure against the risk of the CDOs decreasing in value with CDSs. Presto, $1 trillion of bad loans is transmuted into $62 trillion in faux wealth. An alchemist would be proud.

Since that time, estimates are that there are close to $600 trillion in outstanding CDSs. Whether it is $60 trillion or $600 trillion, the government doesn't have enough money or credit to save zombie banks like Paulson's Goldman Sachs.)

At the center of it all is the declining value of houses. If housing is fixed, many other problems will resolve themselves.


The Cause

The cause is/was greed in an environment of deregulation and oversight failures leading to 'irrational exuberance' and outright fraud. There is plenty of blame to share, the only debatable point is how to apportion the blame.

For more details, read or watch the following:

The New York Times, The Reckoning series,

Washington Post, The Crash: What Went Wrong?

Village Voice, What Cooked the World's Economy,

Barry Ritholtz, The Big Picture, Bailout Nation,

CNBC, House of Cards, Global Economic Collapse, and

Time, 25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis,

Personally, I think the Republi-con party's reckless faith in markets and war against the middle class are the fundamental causes of the economic crisis. To repeat a previous post:

"Read The New York Times, Six Errors on the Path to the Financial Crisis. According the writer, the six errors, in chronologically order, omitting mistakes that became clear only in hindsight, and limiting to those where prominent voices advocated a different course at the time, were:

"WILD DERIVATIVES In 1998, when Brooksley E. Born, then chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, sought to extend its regulatory reach into the derivatives world, top officials of the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission squelched the idea. While her specific plan may not have been ideal, does anyone doubt that the financial turmoil would have been less severe if derivatives trading had acquired a zookeeper a decade ago?

SKY-HIGH LEVERAGE The second error came in 2004, when the S.E.C. let securities firms raise their leverage sharply. Before then, leverage of 12 to 1 was typical; afterward, it shot up to more like 33 to 1. What were the S.E.C. and the heads of the firms thinking? Remember, under 33-to-1 leverage, a mere 3 percent decline in asset values wipes out a company. Had leverage stayed at 12 to 1, these firms wouldn’t have grown as big or been as fragile.

A SUBPRIME SURGE The next error came in stages, from 2004 to 2007, as subprime lending grew from a small corner of the mortgage market into a large, dangerous one. Lending standards fell disgracefully, and dubious transactions became common. Why wasn’t this insanity stopped? There are two answers, and each holds a lesson. One is that bank regulators were asleep at the switch. Entranced by laissez faire-y tales, they ignored warnings from those like Edward M. Gramlich, then a Fed governor, who saw the problem brewing years before the fall. The other answer is that many of the worst subprime mortgages originated outside the banking system, beyond the reach of any federal regulator. That regulatory hole needs to be plugged.

FIDDLING ON FORECLOSURES The government’s continuing failure to do anything large and serious to limit foreclosures is tragic. The broad contours of the foreclosure tsunami were clear more than a year ago — and people like Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Sheila C. Bair, chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, were sounding alarms. Yet the Treasury and Congress fiddled while homes burned. Why? Free-market ideology, denial and an unwillingness to commit taxpayer funds all played roles. Sadly, the problem should now be much smaller than it is.

LETTING LEHMAN GO The next whopper came in September, when Lehman Brothers, unlike Bear Stearns before it, was allowed to fail. Perhaps it was a case of misjudgment by officials who deemed Lehman neither too big nor too entangled — with other financial institutions — to fail. Or perhaps they wanted to make an offering to the moral-hazard gods. Regardless, everything fell apart after Lehman. People in the market often say they can make money under any set of rules, as long as they know what they are. Coming just six months after Bear’s rescue, the Lehman decision tossed the presumed rule book out the window. If Bear was too big to fail, how could Lehman, at twice its size, not be? If Bear was too entangled to fail, why was Lehman not? After Lehman went over the cliff, no financial institution seemed safe. So lending froze, and the economy sank like a stone. It was a colossal error, and many people said so at the time.

TARP’S DETOUR The final major error is mismanagement of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the $700 billion bailout fund. As I wrote here last month, decisions of Henry M. Paulson Jr., the former Treasury secretary, about using the TARP’s first $350 billion were an inconsistent mess. Instead of pursuing the TARP’s intended purposes, he used most of the funds to inject capital into banks — which he did poorly."

Note that with the exception of the first error, they all occurred under Bush. Senior "Clinton administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers, joined by the Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan, and Arthur Levitt Jr., the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, issued a report that instead recommended legislation exempting many kinds of derivatives from federal oversight." Republi-con Senator Phil Gramm was only too happy to help pass, in the Republi-con-controlled Senate and House, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which deregulated credit default swaps, the real cause of this economic collapse.

And a historical not-so footnote, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act included the so-called "Enron loophole," which exempts most over-the-counter energy trades and trading on electronic energy commodity markets. The "loophole" was drafted by lobbyists for Enron working with Gramm to create a deregulated atmosphere for their new experiment, "Enron On-line." You might also recall that Gramm's wife, Wendy Lee Gramm, was on the board of directors of Enron when it collapsed.

So remember this as you listen to the newly self-righteous Republi-cons praise the false gods of less taxes and less government, they are largely responsible for the mess, they have no, zero, zilch, nadda credibility with me, and I haven't heard a better idea from them yet. Have you?"

The cause was certainly not Carter and the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) of 1977. Only a Republi-con would tell you otherwise.


The Solution

Who knows, a Japanese proverb states: "An inch ahead is darkness." Pretty prophetic for this situation.

The solution certainly is not a repeat of Hoover's initial response to the Great Depression.

But history does offer some guidance, Roosevelt's New Deal, the S & L Crisis in the late 1980s,

(Historical footnote: Neil Bush, son of then Vice President of the United States George H. W. Bush, was Director of the Silverado Savings and Loan, which collapsed in 1988, costing taxpayers $1.3 billion.)

Japan's banking crisis and subsequent 'lost decade,' and Sweden's banking crisis.

In a previous post in early October I suggested:

The 1929 depression offers a valuable lesson. A recent article in Time, Are Paulson and Bernanke Running Out of Options? states that:

"After the 1929 collapse, which at its worst left a quarter of the workforce jobless, the U.S. instituted safeguards to ensure liquidity, confidence and trust in the U.S. financial system. There were four pillars: insuring the bank deposits of everyday Americans, allowing access to government funds in case of a panic, providing a regime for the orderly failure of badly run companies and limiting how much credit could be leveraged off a particular asset."

The government should do the same now, defend depository institutions and provide a regime for the orderly failure of badly run non-depository financial institutions and insurance companies. In the process the government and the public will have to make some tough choices and learn to live within a budget.

In addition to that I would set short and long term objectives:

In the short-term:

• Suspend the collection of all payroll taxes for 1-2 months,
• Extend unemployment compensation and other assistance programs,
• Invalidate all CDSs, and
  
• Nationalize insolvent banks.

In the long term:

• Remortgage America,
• Complete government reform, which would include:

• Regulatory, organizational, and tax reform as I have described in the past as GRAC,
  
• Reduce/cut all government salaries, assistance payments, etc. by 10% of the first $100,000/year and 50% thereafter,
  
• Reduce all retirement and disability payments by 30%.

• A $1/gallon gas tax,
• An Incompetence Tax, and
• Ban the Democratic and Republican parties from future office.
  

OK, the last measure might require a Constitutional amendment, but I can dream can't I.

This is a work in progress., your suggestions are welcome.

Deadly Republi-Con Ideology

Q: How are the Republi-con party and Peanut Corporation of America the same?
A: They are both bankrupt and deadly, and neither will accept responsibility for its actions.

Have a little peanut butter with that Republi-con deregulation ideology:




And remember it was the Republi-con party that got us into this mess:

Not So Funny Humor About the Stimulus

From the Internet:

"Sometime this year, taxpayers will receive an Economic Stimulus Payment. This is a very exciting new program that I will explain using the Q and A format:

Q. What is an Economic Stimulus Payment?
A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.

Q. Where will the government get this money?
A. From taxpayers.

Q. So the government is giving me back my own money?
A. No, they are borrowing it from China. Your children are expected to repay the Chinese.

Q. What is the purpose of this payment?
A. The plan is that you will use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy.

Q. But isn’t that stimulating the economy of China ?
A. Shut up.

Below is some helpful advice on how to best help the US economy by spending your stimulus check wisely:

If you spend that money at Wal-Mart, all the money will go to China.
If you spend it on gasoline it will go to Hugo Chavez, the Arabs and Al Queda
If you purchase a computer it will go to Taiwan.
If you purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala (unless you buy organic).
If you buy a car it will go to Japan and Korea.
If you purchase prescription drugs it will go to India
If you purchase heroin it will go to the Taliban in Afghanistan
If you give it to a charitable cause, it will go to Nigeria.

And none of it will help the American economy. We need to keep that money here in America. You can keep the money in America by spending it at yard sales, going to a baseball game, or spend it on prostitutes, beer (domestic only), or tattoos, since those are the only businesses still in the US."

This would be funny if it wasn't true.

Class Today at NoBullU on WEBY

Listen to the voice of wisdom and reason in a wilderness of partisan rhetoric -- No political insanity, no conservative hypocrisy, no liberal foolishness -- Just straight talk, straight at you, and that’s no bull!!

NoBullU will be on air Friday from 4:05 to 6 p.m. at 1330 AM WEBY and on line, courtesy of Cyber Smart Computers.

Topics:

Local and state: TBD, and

Nation and international: Who is to blame for the economic mess, the proposed stimulus plan, and Valentine's Day, is it a day for love or commerce.

And call in to tell me your story of long lost love.

But I'll discuss anything. (Disclaimer: the host reserves the right to end any discussion and hang up on you.)

So tune-in, call-in, but only if you can handle the truth!

Neo-Roosevelters Unite

Time to unite against the Neo-Hoovers. Read about Herbert Hoover and his initial response to the Great Depression.

Then read The New York Times, Escaping the Bust Bowl.

To be discussed during class at NoBullU tomorrow.

Til then.

Examples of Republi-Con Statesmanship

So many examples of Republi-con statesmanship, so little time. Here are a few:

Republi-con patriotism:



Republi-con bipartisanship:



Republi-con frugality:



Republi-con playfulness:



Republi-con principles:



With countrymen like Republi-cons, who needs enemies.

Humor Test for Valentine's Day

Who needs roses or candy this Valentine's Day, show her how much you love her with this gag:





Of course, before you play this trick on your loved one, you might want to know that the name of the video is: Why husbands die first.

If you live, come back and tell us how she liked it.

Republi-Con Hypocrisy on Federal Deficits and Debt

REPOSTED: First posted in January. Reposted in response to Joe's op-ed in the Pensacola New Journal, Can't keep spending money we don't have.

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. In this case it is an animated editorial cartoon. See Washington Post, What Was That About Burdening Kids?

On the day Bush took office, the National Debt stood at $5,727.776.738,304.64. That's about $5.7 trillion dollars if you take away $27+ billion. Now, as Bush prepares to leave office the national debt is over $10 trillion. Here is a nice graph showing the national debt as a percent of gross domestic product:



















And Republi-cons would have you believe that they are the fiscal conservatives!!

UPDATE: At the risk of offending drunken sailors:

There's a Naive-ocrat Born Every Minute

"There's a sucker born every minute" is a phrase often credited to P.T. Barnum, an American showman. It is generally taken to mean that there are (and always will be) a lot of gullible people in the world. And these suckers must all be Democrats.

John McCain calls the stimulus bill is 'generational theft.' But remember that in October he voted for a bank bailout, calling it a "rescue effort not just for Wall Street but for Main Street," which was used to pay dividends to shareholders and bonuses to employees.

Such hypocrisy.

It is clear that the Republi-cons, who are largely responsible for the economic mess (beginning about the sixth paragraph), want the Naive-ocrats to take the blame for the stimulus bill. The Republi-cons see it as a win-win, and Obama is stupid enough to play along. Even if the stimulus bill works, Republi-cons will claim it was coincidence and say that the government should stay out of the markets.

The Naive-ocrats should demand that Republi-cons accept responsibility for the mess they created, and vote against the current bill. Then wait until the Republi-cons agree to cooperate.

When economic circumstances deteriorate more, the Republi-cons will concede. Then craft a sensible stimulus package.

What is sensible? Coming soon, the NoBullU economic stimulus proposal.

UPDATE: See this animated editorial cartoon, : Washington Post, McCain's Theft.

The Republi-Con Cult

Couldn't have said it better myself with a thousand words.