Thursday, December 04, 2008
I call BS
****
As near as I've been able to figure, auto execs flying to Washington, D.C. in private jets doesn't cost me a dime I can't avoid by simply not buying their products. The cost of their private fleets are minuscule in the overall pricing of their products anyway.
The cost of the pinheads running the dog-and-pony-show in D.C. I can't avoid, and the show costs me a heckuva lot more than the flying habits of the CEOs of Chrysler, GM and Ford combined.
And then some.
And then some more.
It's probably a good thing I'm not the CEO of GM. I'd have told Pelosi & Co. to stuff their bailouts up their keisters and gone back to Detroit and filed bankruptcy and let the poseurs on Capitol Hill deal with the fallout, which is what needs to happen anyway. The auto industry can't get better until it reorganizes. Now is the chance.
As near as I've been able to figure, auto execs flying to Washington, D.C. in private jets doesn't cost me a dime I can't avoid by simply not buying their products. The cost of their private fleets are minuscule in the overall pricing of their products anyway.
The cost of the pinheads running the dog-and-pony-show in D.C. I can't avoid, and the show costs me a heckuva lot more than the flying habits of the CEOs of Chrysler, GM and Ford combined.
And then some.
And then some more.
It's probably a good thing I'm not the CEO of GM. I'd have told Pelosi & Co. to stuff their bailouts up their keisters and gone back to Detroit and filed bankruptcy and let the poseurs on Capitol Hill deal with the fallout, which is what needs to happen anyway. The auto industry can't get better until it reorganizes. Now is the chance.
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Just stop it.
Democratics like to take credit for balanced budgets in the '90's while Bill Clinton was president. In fact, this was a campaign meme for the Obamessiah. Of course, few people remember that House Republicans had to drag Slick Willy and the minority Dems kicking and screaming through multiple attempts to pass a budget. Remember when the federal government shut down? Oh glorious day! As I recall, the Republicans took the hit for that one due mainly to a complicit media constantly wailing about poor park rangers and family trips to national monuments put on hold all because of mean Republicans.
Hark back to 2000, when, following a Bush victory, it was magically revealed that the economy was in recession. The Democratics and the lapdog media did their damnedest to pin the poor economy on Bush, never mind that he inherited it from Clinton. Those pesky Arabs managed to make the electorate forget about the economy long enough to allow Bush and Company to get us into two wars, one justifiable. One not so much. And get Bush re-elected. Thanks pesky Arabs!
Now, it is 2008 and Bush has decided that handing off a recognizably crappy economy to the new Panderer-in-Chief is fair play. Unfortunately, the lapdog press is going to allow Obama to leave this pile on the porch where it really does belong while the Obamessiah proceeds to throw borrowed money down an ever-increasing black hole of bad debt in an effort to reinflate our flat economy. It won't work. FDR tried it in the '30's. Every damned Keynesian for the past 40 years has tried it and it doesn't work. Trouble is,the media and the Obamessiah's spin machine are going to maximize positive coverage of Obama's economic "solution" while ignoring inconvenient bad news. This isn't really new; I lived through stagflation and malaise and the worst economy in 100 years and all the spin I could stand. There's lots more where that came from, and from what I've been seeing for the past year, our leaders in DC are failing to learn anything from past failure and are desperately looking for a balloon to blow up.
The "solution" to our ailing economy isn't an increase in taxes. It isn't an increase in spending for public works. Giving our money - actually our great-grandchildren's money - to bankers makes bankers happy, but - just like in the Great Depression and the Great Malaise - the bankers parked on it once they got it. Credit is still tight. Bailing out failing business isn't the answer.
So what is the answer?
Stop it! Ummm, no, wait! Just stop it! *
This morning on Fox News, I heard Stephane Dion, the opposition Liberal Party leader from Canuckistan, make an extraordinary statement to the effect that a major reason his new opposition coalition was planning on usurping power from Prime Minister Stephen Harper - an unprecedented move - was because Harper's budget included next to no stimulus for the flagging Canadian economy. "Dion said the coalition would announce a robust economic stimulus plan that would include money for housing, infrastructure and the auto and forestry sectors." Well do tell. If true, then a politician has done precisely the right thing for the Canadian economy. Which is to say, nothing. This was undoubtedly an accident. Harper is after all a politician, and a Canadian politician at that. Of course, Harper caved; apparently the potential loss of power was stimulating enough to pump a little stimulus into the economy. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
*Not only is the Newhart sketch hilarious, our "leaders" in Washington should apply its lesson to the economy. Those three little words, "just stop it," could go a long way to making the world a better place.
Hark back to 2000, when, following a Bush victory, it was magically revealed that the economy was in recession. The Democratics and the lapdog media did their damnedest to pin the poor economy on Bush, never mind that he inherited it from Clinton. Those pesky Arabs managed to make the electorate forget about the economy long enough to allow Bush and Company to get us into two wars, one justifiable. One not so much. And get Bush re-elected. Thanks pesky Arabs!
Now, it is 2008 and Bush has decided that handing off a recognizably crappy economy to the new Panderer-in-Chief is fair play. Unfortunately, the lapdog press is going to allow Obama to leave this pile on the porch where it really does belong while the Obamessiah proceeds to throw borrowed money down an ever-increasing black hole of bad debt in an effort to reinflate our flat economy. It won't work. FDR tried it in the '30's. Every damned Keynesian for the past 40 years has tried it and it doesn't work. Trouble is,the media and the Obamessiah's spin machine are going to maximize positive coverage of Obama's economic "solution" while ignoring inconvenient bad news. This isn't really new; I lived through stagflation and malaise and the worst economy in 100 years and all the spin I could stand. There's lots more where that came from, and from what I've been seeing for the past year, our leaders in DC are failing to learn anything from past failure and are desperately looking for a balloon to blow up.
The "solution" to our ailing economy isn't an increase in taxes. It isn't an increase in spending for public works. Giving our money - actually our great-grandchildren's money - to bankers makes bankers happy, but - just like in the Great Depression and the Great Malaise - the bankers parked on it once they got it. Credit is still tight. Bailing out failing business isn't the answer.
So what is the answer?
Stop it! Ummm, no, wait! Just stop it! *
"So for the same reasons that Washington should not bail out General Motors, the world should not bailout America. Like GM, our economy is in desperate need of a restructuring. Spending must be replaced with savings, and consumption with production. The service sector must shrink and manufacturing must expand to fill the void. The dollar must fall, wages in America must be brought down to a competitive level, and hopefully government spending and burdensome regulation****
can be reduced.
This transformation will not be fun, but it is necessary. Our standard of living must decline to reflect years of reckless consumption and the disintegration of our industrial base. Only by swallowing this tough medicine now will our sick economy ever recover. By accepting a lower standard of living today, we will eventually be rewarded with a higher one tomorrow." (Peter Schiff)
This morning on Fox News, I heard Stephane Dion, the opposition Liberal Party leader from Canuckistan, make an extraordinary statement to the effect that a major reason his new opposition coalition was planning on usurping power from Prime Minister Stephen Harper - an unprecedented move - was because Harper's budget included next to no stimulus for the flagging Canadian economy. "Dion said the coalition would announce a robust economic stimulus plan that would include money for housing, infrastructure and the auto and forestry sectors." Well do tell. If true, then a politician has done precisely the right thing for the Canadian economy. Which is to say, nothing. This was undoubtedly an accident. Harper is after all a politician, and a Canadian politician at that. Of course, Harper caved; apparently the potential loss of power was stimulating enough to pump a little stimulus into the economy. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
*Not only is the Newhart sketch hilarious, our "leaders" in Washington should apply its lesson to the economy. Those three little words, "just stop it," could go a long way to making the world a better place.
Labels: bailout, humor, politics
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Joe Donnelly, Member of Congress
Finally got a response to the e-mail I sent to Mr. Donnelly (D - 2nd District) - nearly two months later!
November 26, 2008
Dear Mr. hoosiertoo,
Thank you for taking the time to contact me about the ongoing financial crisis. I value your views, and your input helps me to better represent the people of Indiana's Second District in Congress.
As your congressman, I believe it is my duty to do whatever I can to protect jobs, retirement savings, and economic growth in our communities. The financial crisis threatens them all. I am angry that Main Street was asked to step up and fix a mess that was caused by the greed and recklessness of Wall Street. The FBI is already investigating many firms for possible wrong doing, and I hope anyone who acted illegally lands in jail. However, I believe that the cost of inaction would have been much greater than the cost of the rescue package, and I could not stand idly by as your representative and do nothing as the crisis worsened. On October 3, I joined colleagues from both parties in the House of Representatives in passing H.R. 1424, The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, by a vote of 263 to 171. The bill was signed into law that same day.
One of the primary causes of these problems is that mortgage companies and lenders began several years ago to significantly expand the number of home loans they provided to Americans with questionable credit histories. Homeownership soared as
the number of "subprime" home loans increased. Many banks, investment firms, and other financial institutions got in on the housing boom by offering and trading incredibly complex "mortgage-backed securities" and other products whose values were, in theory, based on the value of the mortgages held by lenders. These were bought, repackaged and traded by an increasing number of financial companies, leaving many banks and firms exposed to huge unknown risks in their pursuit of bigger profits.
When the housing market crashed, so did the value of these complicated assets, and the result has been the worst economic crisis America has seen in several decades. In mid-September, lending activity began to freeze up. Reacting to the failures of major investment firms and fears that others were on the brink, banks slowed, or, in some cases, even stopped, their lending. These banks either did not have enough capital on hand to continue their standard lending practices or decided they were unwilling to assume the risk of possibly not being paid back.
Our economy depends on the availability of credit, and action was necessary to get the credit market to thaw. H.R. 1424 authorized the Treasury to use up to $700 billion to purchase shares of banks or buy existing mortgage-backed and other troubled securities over the next two years in an effort to ease the flow of credit and restore confidence in our financial system. The government would hold these assets temporarily, selling them back in a few years and earning most of the value back. The bill includes strong oversight mechanisms, prohibits any executive of a participating company from getting a golden parachute, and temporarily raises from $100,000 to $250,000 the amount per depositor the federal government will insure.
Much work remains to shore up our economy, protect retirement savings, and ensure that hard-working Americans can feel secure in their ability to provide for their families' needs and plan for the future. I promise to do everything within my power to ensure that smart regulation and oversight of our financial system is restored so that this kind of disaster never happens again, and as Congress considers future action to help the economy, I will always put the interests of Hoosiers first.
Thank you again for contacting me about this important issue. Please do not hesitate to write, call or email me again if I can ever be of assistance. Also, if you would like to receive regular updates on my actions on your behalf in Congress, sign up for my e-newsletter, The Donnelly Dispatch, at http://donnelly.house.gov.
Sincerely,
Joe Donnelly
Member of Congress
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
