Category Archives: Debt

Brown Bastardgate

Barack Obama, Britain, Debt, Elections, IMMIGRATION, Morality, Politics

“He [Gordon Brown] was smiling when he spoke to me but he was thinking that! What else is he thinking when he smiles…” ~Gillian Duffy.

Remember when Obama was exposed in all his contempt for small-town America, depicting potential voters as clinging to their guns, god and other “bigotry”?

At least Obama was generalizing about a perceived prototype, and not badmouthing a flesh-and-blood human being; a constituent just encountered.

Trust Britain’s Gordon Brown with that bit of cruel, callous conduct.

People seem surprised that Brown would harbor contempt for the typical Briton revealed in the person of Gillian Duffy. After hearing Mrs. Duffy’s worries over deficits and immigration, the pompous, two-faced ponce retreated to his limousine, and mic on, proceeded to berate this perfectly decent lady, calling her “horrible,” “old woman,” and “bigoted.”

Poor woman; how hurt and shocked she looked when a reporter first confronted her with Brown’s wicked words.

When the real boor in this electioneering farce came calling, asking her to forgive him on camera, Mrs. Duffy refused to play along. She forgave the bastard as a kindly person would, but refused Gordon’s demand for a public display of affection.

A reminder of BHO’s disdain:

Mr Obama had, before an audience in the liberal bastion of San Francisco, tried to explain his trouble winning over white, working-class voters, the fabled “Reagan Democrats” who will be crucial in the general election.
He said: “You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And it’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Summers Time

Business, Debt, Democracy, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Political Economy, Uncategorized

LAWRENCE SUMMERS, director of the White House’s National Economic Politburo, says “[m]istakes on Wall Street in the mortgage area led to the subprime bubble that led to houses appreciating, that led to the situation where millions of people got loans that they were no longer able to service and faced foreclosure.”

Credit errors made on Wall Street brought financial institutions to the brink of insolvency that left no choice but to commit taxpayer funds.

Summers has the podium and the power. He does not have to be honest about the exuberance on Wall Street being part of a creative response to crippling legislation. He could come clean, but he does not have to.

And if he wishes to remain in office, he dare not admit to the force that propels the banks and the bandits in office. In the words of Bob Higgs:

“[T]he American people have little interest in liberty. Instead, they want the impossible: home ownership for those who cannot afford homes, credit for those who are not creditworthy, old-age pensions for those who have not saved, health care for those who make no attempt to keep themselves healthy, and college educations for those who lack the wit to finish high school. Moreover, they want it now, and they want somebody else to pay for it.” …

Aiming For … Argentina

Capitalism, Debt, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Free Markets, Political Economy, Regulation

“Argentina did not become relatively poor because of having been involved in destructive conflicts. It became poor because it has had a series of both democratically elected leaders and non-elected dictators who never missed an opportunity to make the wrong economic decisions,” writes Richard W. Rahn of the Cato Institute.

“A century ago, if you had told typical citizens of Argentina (which at that time was enjoying the fourth-highest per capita income in the world) that it would decline to become just the 76th richest nation on a per capita basis in 2010, they probably would not have found it believable. They might have responded, ‘This could not happen; we are a nation rich in natural resources, with a great climate for agriculture. Our people are well educated and largely descended from European stock. We have property rights, the rule of law and an open free-market economy.’

[Ilana Aside: You’re a naughty boy, Mr. Rahn. Do you mean to infer that the fact of European extraction is an argument for economic prosperity?! What a bad boy! ]

“But the fact is, Argentina has been going downhill for eight decades, and it has the second-worst credit ranking in the entire world… the Argentine government increased its interventions in the private economy. Juan Peron took over in 1946 and ended up nationalizing the railroads, the merchant marine, public utilities, public transport and other parts of the private economy. For much of the past half-century, Argentina has engaged in a series of erratic monetary policies, often resulting in periods of very high inflation and economic stagnation. Because of their political power, the unions have been coddled, resulting in unsustainable wage-and-benefit programs. Excessive government spending has caused recurrent fiscal meltdowns, where both foreign and domestic debt-holders have lost many of their investments.

According to the Economic Freedom of the World Annual Report (published by the Fraser Institute in cooperation with the Cato Institute and others), Argentina ranks 105 out of 141 countries surveyed. Similarly, the 2010 Index of Economic Freedom (published by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal) ranks Argentina 135 out of the 179 countries surveyed. (The U.S. is No. 8 and falling.) ….”

Read the complete article at The Washington Times.

Updated: A Political Takeover Of The Entire Financial Sector? (CHINA)

Barack Obama, Business, China, Debt, Economy, Government, Uncategorized

Writes Robert Bidinotto on Breitbart’s “Big Government” (the proprietor that was infinitely more forgiving about Bush’s big government):

As long as the Democrats continue to control Congress, we’ll have to endure an endless procession of initiatives for the federal government to take over industry after industry. Health insurance and college loans went under federal hegemony with passage of a single bill, known as “ObamaCare.”

Now, a new bill, referred to by the name of its chief sponsor, the ethically challenged Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, aims to consolidate a federal takeover of the nation’s entire network of financial institutions.

As Peter Wallison of the American Enterprise Institute notes:

Does the bill, as [Republican Senate leader Mitch] McConnell said, “institutionalize too big to fail?” Of course. There can’t be any reasonable doubt about this. The bill authorizes the Fed to regulate all non-bank financial institutions that are “systemically important” or might cause instability in the U.S. financial system if they failed. . . .

The market will see immediately that the government has created Fannie Maes and Freddie Macs in every sector of the financial system where these large companies are designated for Fed regulation, including insurance companies, hedge funds, finance companies, bank holding companies, securities firms, and any other kind of financial institution the government wants to regulate. Since these firms will be too big to fail, they will be seen in the market—as Fannie and Freddie were seen—as ultimately backed by the government and thus safer firms to lend to than small firms that are not government backed. This will permanently distort the financial market, favoring large companies over small ones, and eventually force a consolidation of each market where these firms exist into a few large competitors operating under the benign supervision of the government.

In other words, this is another huge step toward fascistic corporatism, completing a de facto government takeover of today’s nominally “private” financial firms. These corporations would be reduced to the status of politically managed public utilities.

Professor Brad Smith of Capital University Law School stressed that latter point to me:

It’s important to note that this is not just about more bailouts, but it will be bailouts for the politically connected and favored. If the President and Congress think you are a “savvy businessman” (which means you support his party) you’ll be in the pink. But if you are a “corrupt Wall Street Titan” (meaning you don’t support his party) well .

Absolutely true. This is not only a federal takeover, but more specifically a political takeover of major financial corporations. Smith adds: “Republicans can rally public opposition if they get this message out there consistently.”

Ah, but therein lies the rub. The Dodd bill faces a cliffhanger vote in the Senate, perhaps as early as next week. And whether it passes in its current form may come down to the vote of a single Republican “centrist,” Susan Collins of Maine, who could thwart a successful GOP filibuster.

The repercussions of this legislation are as significant as ObamaCare. But even some Democrats are wavering on it. It can still be defeated.

I urge you to contact your two U.S. senators today. (And while you’re at it, make sure to send a copy of your message to Sen. Susan Collins of Maine.) Tell them to oppose the pending financial reform legislation, the so-called “Dodd bill.” Tell them it represents “crony capitalism” at its worst, putting taxpayers on the hook for guaranteed bailouts of any and all financial institutions deemed “too big to fail.”

Tell them that this will give unfair market advantages to big, politically connected corporations over smaller, politically unfavored competitors. And that, in turn, will completely distort the financial-services marketplace, creating the false impression that large, government-backed institutions—like AIG, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac—are inherently safer for investors and lenders than their smaller rivals. That can only encourage the consolidation of the financial-services sectors into a few gigantic monopolistic institutions, adding to the “moral hazard” problem of rewarding irresponsible businesses at the expense of their responsible competitors.

And you might want to add that we, the voters, will have the last word if power-craving members of Congress continue to imagine that they are “too big to fail” in November.

[SNIP]

Follow the links in Robert’s blog post HERE.

Update (April 19): Glenn Beck’s next milestone will be to quit the ranks of American Sinophobes, who “are fond of saying that the strength of the Chinese economy is derived from that government’s exploitation of its people.”

From “US In The Red And Getting Redder”:

The Chinese are ditching Mao for Milton, as Americans trust Oprah to pick their literature and leaders. Indeed China is changing. It is “out of the red” in more ways than one. The US is changing too: It’s in the red and getting redder. …
China has undergone considerable economic restructuring and market reforms, the consequence of which is a 300 million strong Chinese middle class. Poverty levels have receded from “53 percent in 1981 to 8 percent in 2001. Only about a third of the economy is now directly state-controlled. [Like the US] As of 2005, 70 percent of China’s GDP was in the private sector.” The Chinese financial system is duly being liberalized—banking is diversifying and stock markets are developing. Protections for private property rights are being strengthened as well.