One year anniversary since Lehman and Ike

Yes, Hurricane Ike also hit Ohio with $553 million in losses, the second most expensive storm to ever hit. But unless you live here, you probably don't remember. The Lehman crisis you may recall--lots of news stories about it yesterday. WSJ (9-15) our nation's most liberal newspaper (can't find a thing to report about ACORN) had several related comments, op-eds and observations:

Speeches were made which the authors (By John Cochrane and Luigi Zingales) paraphrase tongue in cheek: "The financial system is about to collapse. We can't tell you why. We need $700 billion. We can't tell you what we're going to do with it." from "Lehman and the financial crisis" "One year, 2 CEO's and $82 billion since the government rescue of AIG, monsters are still rattling in the closet." Dennis K. Berman, "The Game." "At the height of the [housing] boom, just 20% of Universal Lending [Denver] mortgages were backed by FHA, which guarantees loans to borrowers who can't afford big down payments. Today FHA accounts for more than 80% of his business," more government, more paper work, but more sales. It's no longer free enterprise for Peter Lansing. "Today I think of my self as a government contractor. . . Plan B is to sell pencils on the corner." John Helsinrath, "No easy exit." Gee, I hope all those doctors who think a public option is OK for health insurance are paying attention to Mr. Lansing's business.

Keep in mind FHA always had a higher rate of foreclosure, so don't expect that to change, except to climb higher, like your taxes. Also notice that the same non-profits that funnelled people (for a handsome fee skimmed from the government, the agent, the buyer and the lender) into homes they couldn't afford, are now (for a handsome fee) offering foreclosure workshops and tax advice. Meanwhile, yesterday we were treated to the most tepid good economic news by Gregory Zuckman (for rich people who gamble) I think I've ever seen in the Wall Street.

1. Stocks are up nearly 50% since early March. 2. Housing markets are stabilizing. 3. So are auto markets. (Sorry Chrysler dealers and pension plans) 4. Consumer confidence was higher in mid-September than was originally forecast. 5. Labor markets, although grim, are stabilizing. 6. Global trade is rebounding. 7. Durable goods orders are climbing. 8. Core inflation rates are trending lower in many countries. 9. Inflation seems to be under control. 10.Risky bonds are climbing.

Wow. I'm underwhelmed.

A heads up for Christians

I recently watched a few minutes of an anti-Wall Street, anti-Federal Reserve, anti-U.S. government film called, "The Obama Deception." If you believe this film, you're in trouble.

“The Obama Deception is a hard-hitting film that completely destroys the myth that Barack Obama is working for the best interests of the American people.”

O.K. I agree. Yes, about 50% of the electorate realized he is a socialist and/or marxist. (And about 40% of those who voted for him did so for the novelty and guilt factor, never even looking at his politics, only his ethnicity.) But that’s a long way from believing this. . .

“The Obama phenomenon is a hoax carefully crafted by the captains of the New World Order.

“The Obama Deception is not about Left or Right: it's about a One World Government. The international banks plan to loot the people of the United States and turn them into slaves on a Global Plantation.”

Covered in this film: who Obama works for, what lies he has told, and his real agenda, and how his initial appointments and actions prove he serves the corporate oligarchs, not the American people. If you want to know the facts and cut through all the hype, this is the film for you."

The films claims Obama works for the same interests that George Bush I & II worked for. The film claims to be non-partisan. However, “new world order” has always been code for “the Jews did it.” Or, in the 19th century, "watch out for the pope." Tarpley can say it’s the “Anglo-American” world order, but we’ve certainly been hearing this conspiracy theme since--well, during my entire lifetime. “Military-industrial complex” (warned by Eisenhower) in the 50s; and we were railing against this in the 1970s. “Oligarchs,” “Wall Street fat cats,” “international bankers,” call it what you will, but remember, we've heard it all before--and not all that long ago, either.

Update: Ted Anthony, AP: "Here's an incomplete list from the history books: Indians, Quakers, witches, Englishmen, the federal government, Southerners and Northerners, Chinese "Celestials," Tammany Hall Democrats, Germans, Jews, Japanese, North Koreans, communists, socialists, Vietnamese, liberals, conservatives, gays, lesbians and Muslims. The Evil Empire and the Axis of Evil.

Now, a fresh group has been dropped into the cultural dunk tank. Bin Laden? Back-burnered, at least for now. Saddam? Gone and forgotten. Instead, in these jumbled days of economic uncertainty, fairly or unfairly, America's newest Snidely Whiplashes bear faces like those of Bernie Madoff, AIG executives and the private jet-flying heads of the Big Three automakers.

The Obamacons

No, Barack Obama is not to blame for the years and years of marxists and socialists with which we have peopled our Congress [beginning in the 1920s], but he has given them permission to act like fools. First, he appointed a tax cheat as Secretary of Treasury, Timothy Geithner, who skipped ethics class and church, to lead us out of a mess created by years and years of government tampering with the economy to the tune of trillions and trillions in bad paper. Second, by having zip-nada-zilch business experience and being the titlular head of ACORN, President Obama helped create the mob mentality in Congress and in front of the AIG execs' homes, the very people the Obamacons hired to get us out of the mess. Creating and inciting mobs to violence (someone had to pay for the bus, the meals, the driver, the "community organizer" to gather them up from street corners and bars) is resorting to the old USSR and Chi-Com tactics of decades past. Worked then, why not today?

In today's WSJ, Hernando de Soto says something very important about contracts--something so key to this trumped up AIG bonus frenzy, he probably didn't even realize it, since I don't think he's that sympathetic to capitalists, and writes about the disparity between the poor and wealthy.

"Ever since humans started trading, lending and investing beyond the confines of the family and the tribe, we have depended on legally authenticated written statements to get the facts about things of value. Over the past 200 years, that legal authority has matured into a global consensus on the procedures, standards and principles required to document facts in a way that everyone can easily understand and trust.

The result is a formidable property system with rules and recording mechanisms that fix on paper the facts that allow us to hold, transfer, transform and use everything we own, from stocks to screenplays." WSJ article

What he left out is that Congress has violated this long tradition of honoring a contract. Everyone (at least on their staff) from Obama on down through the newest elected Representative, like Mary Jo Kilroy from Ohio, knew that the people getting the "bonus" (i.e. a salary due at the end of a service) were not the people who ran AIG into the ground. They were the people hired to fix the mess. Now, given how they were treated, how mobs were hired and their families threatened by the likes of Barney Frankenstein in trumped up phony televised hearings, would you want to sign on for government service to help your country?

If the contracts with AIG are worthless, so are your mortgage, your college transcript, your bank CD certificate, your credit card interest agreement, your auto lease, your pension plan payout and the menu at your favorite restaurant.

Protest in Fairfield, Conn.

"The identities of most current and former AIG employees remain private, for now, but for those executives whose names are known, life now includes security guards at their homes, reporters in their driveways, and vehicles invading their neighborhoods. Nobody was hurt and the protest went off without incident, but the event should serve as a dire warning for anyone even thinking about participating in Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s new Public-Private Investment Program. Morning Bell, March 23, 2009"

Thanks, Barney Frank. One more notch in your belt. You just didn't get it when accused of "McCarthyism." It's the techniques--smear, innuendo, fear, blame by association, and you have them all. But you're the one, with your Congressional colleagues who signed the AIG bonsus contracts.

Through its power to subpoena witness and hold people in contempt of Congress, HUAC [formed in 1938] often pressured witnesses to surrender names and other information that could lead to the apprehension of Communists and Communist sympathizers. Committee members often branded witnesses as "red" if they refused to comply or hesitated in answering committee questions. In perhaps its most famous investigation, HUAC-member Richard Nixon, after weeks of dramatic hearings, was, at the final hour, able to reveal that Alger Hiss, a former State Department official, had lied to them about having "ever been a Communist." More importantly, however, the questioning style and examination techniques employed by HUAC served as the model upon which Senator Joseph McCarthy would conduct his investigative hearings in the early 1950s. Following Senator McCarthy's censure, however, and his subsequent departure from the Senate, the American public grew increasingly wary of the "redbaiting" techniques employed by HUAC and others. The work of the committee continued to decline in importance throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s until the committee itself was renamed the House Internal Security Committee in 1969, prefiguring its eventual abolition in 1975. GWU site

Call in the reserve team

Why can't you find a single government official who will claim responsibility for those bonuses? Now it's Holbrooke, in addition to Dodd, Frank, Pelosi, Bernanke and Geithner who didn't know. Tweet! Is there anyone left on the bench to call to the floor?

WASHINGTON (AP) — Obama administration special envoy Richard Holbooke was on the American International Group Inc. board of directors in early 2008 when the insurance company locked in the bonuses now stoking national outrage.

Holbrooke, a veteran diplomat who is now the administration's point man on Pakistan and Afghanistan, served on the board between 2001 and mid-2008. During that period, AIG undertook the aggressive investment strategies that led to a near-collapse and forced a multibillion-dollar federal bailout.

President Barack Obama has insisted his administration was not responsible for AIG's financial woes, and a White House spokesman said Thursday that Holbrooke was unaware of AIG's decision to award retention bonuses to key employees.

"Mr. Holbrooke had nothing to do with and knew nothing about the bonuses," spokesman Tommy Vietor said.

Will Congress stop the mob mentality and accept the blame?

Little in our congressional history can match the ridiculous behavior of this past week's hearings and mob scene over these bailout bonuses, written into a contract Congress hastily made in the final months of the Bush administration and early weeks of Obama's. They have embarrassed the entire country and the new President acting like gangs of thugs looking for blood. The bonuses are "retention contracts" to save AIG--or does Congress want to destroy a company it just bought? And $165 million is pennies next to the trillions they are sprinkling around, including to the willing hands of my own wealthy suburban government here in Ohio, and the combined losses to our retirement funds and other investments. The phony outrage is cover for the fact that neither Geithner or Paulson nor Congress or Bernacke have a clue about how to "bailout" the economy--they should have just let it recover on its own with the laws and regulations already in place and stop trying to "save" bad investments and failed government programs. A decade of failed programs in the 1930s and 40s taught them nothing except how to throw good money after bad.

“WASHINGTON - Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner confirmed yesterday that his department urged Sen. Chris Dodd to water down the executive-bonus limits included in last month's stimulus bill, a move that allowed the payment of $165 million in bonuses to American International Group employees.

As the House readied legislation to crack down on the outrage-inspiring bonuses, Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat who chairs the Banking Committee, and Geithner appeared at odds over who was really responsible for Congress' failure to prevent them in the first place.

Dodd, on the defensive over a loophole that enabled the bonuses to go forward, claimed the Obama administration insisted he modify his proposal to rein in bonuses at companies getting billions of dollars in financial bailouts so that it would only apply to payments agreed to in the future - thus clearing the way for the AIG payouts.” From Combined News Services report.

I hope the President enjoyed looking silly on Jay Leno's program; I awoke for a moment and heard him stammering at one soft ball questions, and pushed "click" for the 1970s reruns. Apparently the teleprompter (i.e. TOTUS) wasn't allowed on stage. See his blog for more on Obama's ad libs and the embarrassment it causes TOTUS.

Congress runs amock and violates the Constitution

Special tax on AIG bonuses after Treasury and Fed agreed to the contracts for the bonuses last fall. Link. Why is Congress trying to destroy AIG after they bought it with our money? Obviously, they want it to fail, right?

Bills of Attainder prohibited by the Constitution. Have any members of Congress ever read the Constitution?

Tim Geithner created the problem. Time for Tim to go!

Who's next? Beware the awful precedent this after-the-fact 90 percent tax grab will set. Michelle Malkin.

While the beltway sinks, the President flees to the Left Coast to appear with a comedian. Figures. What a classy guy.

If Congress would stop acting pious

maybe I could get my trip log finished. Today WSJ confirmed the "outrageous" bonuses that members of Congress have received from AIG in the form of campaign support, with Chris Dodd being the all time leader. Also, the "bonuses" that executives at the failed Fannie and Fred have received while helping prop up people who should have never bought homes. If ever a government official should fall on his sword behind Geithner, it ought to be this phony, pious, pompous player. He's chair of the Senate banking committee and was taking money from the people he regulates. That's a wide rest room stance, don't you think? A bit more serious than overtures from a gay guy in the next stall for which "outraged" Dems tried to push out a Republican. Dodd was receiving payments from the very executives of the financial products division of AIG (the one that lost so much) he was castigating.

If Republicans are supposed to be the evil, rich guys, the greedy capitalists, why do large companies contribute so heavily to the Democrats? AIG used to distribute campaign money evenly to both parties--but since 2004 according to WSJ, like many corporations, have been swinging over to the Democrats. Capitalism doesn't need a party or a government system to survive except for the small guy--the big capitalists do well in China, in Russia and in Sweden. Al Gore is making money on this global warming scam in all countries. The idea is to make money. George Soros for all his communist drivel, is an ardent capitalist. The guys at the top of ACORN probably have fat investments and they've invested heavily in Democrats too--especially the President who is indebted to them for their success in getting out the bussed-over-state-lines vote. Power and wealth know no party loyalty.

What capitalists need in the USA are legal ways to destroy the competition, and what better way than through regulation and tricky tax codes? (cap and trade, pollution, safety, set-backs, green spaces, etc.) That's where the Democrats excel and they do it by hyping the taxpayer with phony outrage and classism, pitting lower against upper class, rich again poor. "Working people" against--who; certainly not against those who don't work--that would be the welfare class--but against the successful who paid through the nose for their educations and work 80 hours a week to get to their $250,000 a year jobs.

Campaign contributions by AIG

I haven't checked the sources, but noticed this on Newsmax about other "bonuses" received by politicians

". . . the $101,332 that the Obama campaign received [from AIG] was larger than the amount AIG donated to any other candidate except Sen. Chris Dodd, according to Opensecrets.org.

Newsmax reported on Tuesday that the Connecticut Democrat, who received $103,100 from AIG, inserted language in the $787 billion stimulus bill that allowed all bonuses awarded before February 11, 2009, to be paid to AIG executives.

AIG contributed to 18 Democratic members of the Senate in the last election cycle, including Hillary Clinton ($35,965) and Joe Biden ($19,975), and 34 Democratic House candidates.

The insurance firm also contributed $59,499 to the Republican presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain ($59,499), 14 other GOP senators and 21 Republican House candidates."

Rather than say this is bogus because Newsmax reports it, check it out. Lobbying and earmarks matter, dear fellow taxpayers, no matter which party is the recipient. But some parties, i.e., a certain party, tries to claim a holier than thou stance in that stall. So yesterday's hearings, another waste of taxpayers' dollars, could have been avoided if Chris Dodd had just been honest about why the bonuses were left in place for the bailout agreement. Next to The Barn (Barney Frank) and The Tax Cheat (Geithner), Dodd is looking like the Dopiest of the Dems.

Even so, I'm far more worried about Obama's indebtedness to George Soros and ACORN than to AIG.

Maybe the problem is Geithner?

“Obama said that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is trying to resolve the matter with AIG's CEO, Edward Liddy. "This is not just a matter of dollars and cents. It's about our fundamental values," the president said.”

Or maybe he didn’t just hire a tax cheat, but a complete incompetent who isn’t up front with his boss on anything. Geithner arranged the first bailout when he was with the Fed. The contracts for bonuses were well known then. Why did Obama have to learn about this “outrage” from the newspapers? Why call it greed when it is government incompetence? These are the Stooges we want running our economy? Democrats expected Bush to be able to anticipate the severity of a hurricane, but ignore that the Secretary of Treasury can't read an employment contract and anticipate what will happen in the public eye if they are met.Link.

Buyer's Remorse

Sorry, Mr. President and Mr. Frank. You agreed to this deal. You just had to bail out AIG, and you did so knowing about those contracts. Are you going to set aside the union contracts? Of course not. Now, are you going to just say other contracts aren't binding or just those who create money for the economy? This outrage about the bonuses for AIG is outrageous. We own it; we bought it as is, and we knew all about it--assuming the "we" are the political whiz kids we elected. You guys are the proverbial bulls in the china shop and don't want to pay for the damage you've done.

Live blogging Liddy’s testimony

Obama spends trillions, frets about millions, and defends Geithner‘s duplicity in passing him the buck. Can this guy even make change? Link to WSJ blog.

"1:41: Kanjorski recognizes the repayments, but still wants to know why the details haven’t been provided earlier. Liddy basically calls it a business and legal judgment to prevent the FP unit from collapsing. “There’s risk that that would blow up,” he said. “If it were to blow up,” he adds, it would cause “irreparable damage.” In the big picture, Liddy suggests $165 million was a good trade-off to keep that from happening.

Liddy, upon questioning about who knew what and when, says “everything we do we do with the Federal Reserve,” which sits in at board meetings and compensation committee meetings. He says he’s been discussing the issue with the Fed for three months, and assumes the information went to Treasury via the Fed. “There was no intent to deceive or hide anything,” Liddy says.

1:47: Rep. Scott Garrett (R., N.J.) asks more about the timeline. Liddy said that talking last week to Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, Geithner indicated he learned about the bonus issue the prior week. That appears to conflict with the timeline put forth by the Obama administration, saying Geithner only learned last Tuesday (March 10)."

So let's see. Talked last week to Geithner who said he knew the prior week--that's before we left for the Holy Land. Wonder why it's just an outrage now? Besides, Geithner was with the Fed when AIG got its first bailout. Did this tax cheat guy even graduate from college? Did he pass math?