Month: June 2009

Obama’s New Rules

Senior Obama administration officials on Monday said in a newspaper op-ed piece that a landmark financial regulation reform plan to be released this week will target capital requirements, securitization and other problem areas blamed for the global financial crisis.

One proposal, said Geithner and Summers, will be “raising capital and liquidity requirements for all institutions, with more stringent requirements for the largest and most interconnected firms.”

In addition, large and interconnected firms whose failure could threaten the stability of the system “will be subject to consolidated supervision by the Federal Reserve, and we will establish a council of regulators with broader coordinating responsibility across the financial system.”

New reporting requirements will be urged for issuers of asset-backed securities, as well as a rule saying securitizers must “retain a financial interest” in the performance of the asset-backed securities they issue, they said.

Reduced reliance on credit-rating agencies will also be proposed, said the piece.

Addressing another market implicated in the crisis, the plan will urge “oversight of ‘over the counter’ derivatives,” an unspecified “harmonizing” of futures and securities regulation, and stronger payment and settlement systems.

“All derivative contracts will be subject to regulation, all derivatives dealers subject to supervision, and regulators will be empowered to enforce rules against manipulation and abuse,” according to the op-ed piece.

It said the proposals will call for “a resolution mechanism that allows for the orderly resolution of any financial holding company whose failure might threaten the stability of the financial system.”

New rules……same game…different rules……not much will change.

Get The Crapper Out Of The Yard

The AP has had a great story:

The planters in Tina Asmus’ front yard aren’t too pleasing to some of her neighbors, and village officials in Lakemoor have told her to remove them, or face a fine. Asmus, who likes to recycle discarded items, created the planters out of two old toilets and a pedestal sink. Mayor Todd Weihoffen, who is a plumber by trade, said he stands behind police who have given Asmus 30 days to remove the toilets.He said she faces a fine of $25 to $500 if she doesn’t comply by June 15.

Asmus, though, said she will not remove what she calls her “art pieces.” She said each toilet planter cost about $100 to make and holds an assortment of daisies, angel’s breath, lilies and other flowers.

Would not this be a form of recycling?  Kept a bunch of broken porcelin out of a local landfill.

How To Pay For Health Care?

The newest battle raging on Capitol Hill is the one for qualkity health care of ALL Americans.  Dems are moving in a public option direction and the best the Repubs can do is to try and rein in frivilous lawsuits.

But there are other ideas on the board.  One idea is:

A first-ever tax on employer-provided health benefits also figures prominently among options under consideration in Congress, but Obama campaigned against that last year and its inclusion in the bill would require him to reverse course.

Rep. Pete Stark, a leading congressional author of health reform legislation, called Thursday for a 2 percent income tax surcharge to pay for the health insurance program he predicted Congress and President Obama would enact later this year.

“If you wanted me to bet how would I pay for this, I would tell you not to bet against a surtax,” the Fremont Democrat said. “None of us like to talk about that.”

Stark predicted that when it comes down to paying for health care reform, “it’ll be, ‘Swallow hard, take the tough vote.’ ”

Most Dems say that health care will become a reality…but like the Repubs…NO ONE knows how we will pay for it.  The debate will be fascinating to see who comes up with what….it will be paid for…but how is the best question to ask.

Sorry guys…but all the schemes I have heard are nothing more than leaving the insurance companies in control of health care.  In other words it would be similar to bailing out Wall Street….they remain in control of the financial system and nothing is changing….they keep playing the same game with the lives and cash of ordinary people.  Insurance companies will be doing the same things they are allowed to do now.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., in an interview on CSPAN spoke of his single-payer bill S-703. The private health care system in the U.S., he charged, “is geared to making money for the private insurance companies,” not providing quality health care for the people. He decried the $2.3 trillion spent on health care each year, 18 percent of gross domestic product, or more than $8,000 for each man, woman and child.

The main sticking point for the health care bill is where will the money come from to pay for the program.  Many ideas….many arguments….but so far nothing that either side is offering adds up to a payment for the program.  So…the question remains….how will we pay for the health care improvements?

Did Hell Freeze Over?

I awoke yesterday to a report that Israel’s hard line prime minister, Netanyahu has stated that he is open to the idea of a separate Palestinian state.  My first reaction was, “did hell freeze over?”

After I did some research I found that he had said he would accept a Palestinian state but wioth a few conditions.  These were:

1–No military

2-Must accept Israel’s right to exist

3–An undivided Jerusalem as capital of Israel

4–Israel’s right to build settlements in Occupied territory

Those were the main points of his speech, but after reading I as where is anything new?  These are the same conditions that have been thrown around for decades.  So any reporting on this as somehow a new path to a Middle East peace is just stretching things a bit far.

Now where is the incentive for Palestinians to come to the table with Netanyahu?  There is nothing new.  Israel will have all the benefits and the Pals will be left out in t he cold, yet again.

Basically, it is just a ploy to keep the US off their collective butts….for now….this is NOT a realistic offer.

How Bad Is AIG?

Do you remember the “Miracle on the Hudson”?  You know the smart plane captain who made a splash landing in the Hudson River in NYC and saved the lives of all aboard the flight?  Remember?

Now, do you remmber AIG?  You know the massive Wall Street entity that gets lots of government cash to help save it from failing?  Or the massive Wall Street entity that paid millions upon millions of taxpayer money to the execs?  You know the massive Wall Street entity that was one of the main players at causing the economic meltdown we are in now?

Now you are asking just what the hell do those two occurances have in common.  Well hang on to your butt.

AIG’s  property and casuality business is balking at paying claims that were filed by passengers on the ill fated flight.

“It’s like telling me, ‘We aren’t responsible for this. This is your trauma. You deal with it,’ ” Ms. Sosa said.

In one exasperated conversation with an A.I.G. claims official, she invoked the taxpayer bailout, saying she doubted Congress and the Obama administration would approve of the stonewalling. The official “told me their division didn’t get a cent from the bailout,” she said.

“They really cannot row their own boat, totally, because they’ve got other people that they are making decisions for,” he said, explaining that an aviation liability policy typically spreads the risks among 8 or 10 insurers, with one lead underwriter — in this case A.I.G. — handling claims on behalf of the group. (Although A.I.G. is not the lead underwriter on the missing Air France flight, it is part of an insurance pool with potential liability.)

“Even though they’re giving the passengers a hard time, eventually they will be compensated to some extent,” he said. “There’s no big pot because there’s no death. But there’s still mental distress, and it is a compensatable illness which, eventually, in my opinion, they deserve. They went through hell.”

Sounds like a typical ploy by an insurance company….drag their feet and the people will settle for whatever they can get…it worked for them after Katrina so why not try again?

It Is Tobacco Again

The Philly Inquirer reports:

The tobacco-control movement celebrated another milestone yesterday as the U.S. Senate easily passed a bill giving the government unprecedented power over the making and marketing of tobacco products.

Supporters say the law will enable the Food and Drug Administration to protect children from the addictive lure of cigarettes, make tobacco products safer, and, ultimately, save some of the 400,000 lives lost annually to tobacco-related illness.

But like every victory in the decades-long battle to curb the tobacco industry, the latest one comes with limitations, compromises, and inherent conflicts. Even many antismoking activists doubt the law will have the intended public-health impact.

Tobacco companies will have to disclose their product research and ingredients – secrets previously revealed only in court cases – and seek approval for new products. The FDA will publish an annual list of harmful ingredients by brand and can ban the most dangerous of the estimated 6,000 chemicals in cigarettes, except nicotine, the key to addiction. Nicotine, the bill says, can only be reduced.

How flippin’ wonderful….the US will now dictate to an industry more so than in the past.  Tobacco MUST comply.  In the same vain….why not go to more extremes?  Force car companies to make cars that get 50 mpg by next model year.  Or dictate to the Insurance comnpanies what their price sand pay outs should be.  Pick anything….and let the government dictate to it….the conditions of their business.

Smoking is a bad habit…but it is just that a habit…..everyone who smokes knows it could kill, them at anytime….that it is extremely unhealthy…anti-smoking people have won…now move on to anything industry and sure and control them….okay?

It Is Flag Day!

Today, June 14th, is designated as National Flag Day.  The day that is commemorated as the day that the flag was adopted as a national symbol.

The USA Today has a good piece on the evolution of the flag:

Most Americans know only the U.S. flag that features nine, neatly arranged rows of alternating stars, but the flag changed 27 times in the nation’s history with designs that included stars in circles, stars in squares and even stars in the shape of an hourglass.

Legally, the flag was born June 14, 1777, after the Continental Congress adopted this resolution: “That the Flag of the united states be 13 stripes alternate red and white, that the Union be 13 stars white in a blue field representing a new constellation.”

Today’s flag is far removed from the wild star patterns that adorned previous banners through history.

The flag of 1818, for example, had 20 stars that formed one great star. The banner of 1876 had 38 stars arranged in an hourglass shape. Other patterns include diamonds, double circles, crosses and even a meteor.

The most unique feature of the flag is its five-pointed stars. Americans were the first to put the stars on a flag in 1777, said Whitney Smith, executive director of the Flag Research Center in Winchester, Mass.

“The idea of using a five-pointed star was unheard of,” Smith said. “Putting stars on a flag is an American invention.”

The 50-star flag became official in 1960 and is the longest flying banner in our nation’s history, he said.

Now you know about the symbol of our country.  Display it with pride!

Is The Deficit Really Of Concern?

While surfing the other day I came across a piece written by Megan McArdle for the Atlantic.  She had some interesting perspectives on the Deficit Blame Game.

I am a long-time believer in the notion that nobody cares about the budget deficit.  People say they care about the budget deficit, but people say they care about a lot of things.  Almost everything, in fact.  What people flogging the budget deficit actually care about is the programs it goes to pay for.  Every time the presidential party turns over, I get the pleasure of watching deficit-hawk Democrats suddenly discover that borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars actually has no moral or economic implications, especially when compared to national health care.  Meanwhile, Republican scientists who presumably spent the last eight years locked in a vault in the basement of Heritage run out into the metaphorical street screaming that they have just made a shocking, horrible, and totally unexpected new discovery:  budget deficits will make the economy melt down into a pool of manufacturing-depleted sludge, and also, cause rabies.

Economically, much of the talk about deficits is hysteria.  A budget deficit of less than 4% of GDP is not a good thing, but it rarely results in catastrophe either, because inflation and GDP growth steadily erode the value of past debt.  As long as the deficit is less than inflation + GDP growth, the government is unlikely to get into much trouble.  It’s possible that this borrowing may crowd out private borrowing, but at least over the last decade, this has obviously not been the case.

But more importantly, the deficit now is not what matters.  Any Republicans who are using it as a political tool to bash Obama should be ashamed of themselves; whatever you think of the stimulus package, one year of massive borrowing is not going to kill us, and the impact on future generations will be small.

The problem with the budget deficit is not any particular program, or even any particular tax cuts.  It is not that George Bush or Obama is a bad person who does bad things.  The problem with the budget deficit is that, unlike the deficits George Bush ran, the deficits projected under Obama (and beyond) are actually large enough to potentially precipitate a fiscal crisis.  If our interest rates suddenly spiked up, perhaps because lenders were worried about the size of our budget deficits, we’d find ourselves in the kind of nasty fiscal jam that regularly plagues third-world countries.  The difference is, no one has enough money to bail us out.

McArdle made some very fine points and should be read:

http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/06/the_deficit_blame_game.php

Wall Street Wins Yet Again

Patrick Martin recently wrote a very good article and it brings forth some questions that beg to be answered.

The Obama administration announced Wednesday that it opposed any government-imposed limits on the salary and bonuses of the CEOs and other top officials of major banks that have received trillions of dollars in federal handouts and guarantees over the past eight months.

Coming only nine days after the White House forced bankruptcy on General Motors and major cuts in auto workers’ pay and benefits, the green light for CEOs to continue to award themselves eight-digit compensation packages is further evidence of the grotesque double standard of American capitalism. Workers, retirees, young people and small businessmen will all see their living standards and future prospects devastated, but nothing can be allowed to interfere with the pursuit of personal wealth by the financial aristocracy.

Neither Geithner nor any other Obama administration official has explained why it is wrong and “counterproductive” to limit the multi-million-dollar salary and bonus packages awarded to bank executives, but absolutely necessary to slash the wages, pensions and health benefits of workers at General Motors, Chrysler and their supplier plants.

Everything that the Treasury does is geared to helping Wall Street……while workers are crapped on daily by this administration.

2009 Anal-Ocity

My old friend is back…..Minnesota’s Rep. Michele Bachmann, you know she needs to fire the person who gives her her talking points.  Why?  She has been a wealth of anal-ocities this year.

She recently addressed the Congress on the economy and compared the US to the Titanic.  And then she said this:

We will always be a superpower. But one thing that has kept us a superpower
has been freedom, free market economists. We are in the process of watching the deconstruction of free market economists before our very eyes, something we have never seen.

Destruction of free market economists?  Is there an economic Appian Way I do not know about?  Are we sending them to Gitmo?  Is there random firing squads?  Just how are we destroying them?

Economists?  I believe the word she was laboring to use should be ….economics.

Maybe someone on her staff wants her to look like an idiot…if not she needs to shut up and educate herself on issues and such before she shoves a foot into her mouth.