Obama votes pro-growth 0%; McCain 94%

Take a look at your portfolio if you are over 50. Does it have time to recover with a 0% growth President?

These are pro-growth issues. These issues are what will keep you and yours employed, traveling, attending good schools, enjoying a night out, redecorating your home, buying that new car, having a nice retirement, keeping the lights on, reading new books, buying the grandkids some great toys at Christmas and birthdays, choosing what you want to listen to on the radio or watch on TV, what indoor temperature you prefer, what doctor you’ll go to, how much of your parents’ estate you’ll inherit, and a multitude of other things perhaps you’ve forgotten you’ll miss if they are taken away.

1. Making the Bush tax cuts permanent
   
2. Death tax repeal
   
3. Cutting and limiting government spending
   
4. Social Security reform with personal retirement accounts
   
5. Expanding free trade
   
6. Legal reform to end abusive lawsuits
   
7. Replacing the current tax code
   
8. School choice
   
9. Regulatory reform and deregulation

Check out the Club for Growth

Americans for Tax Reform ask Obama

Here.

Most small business profits are taxed at the top marginal tax rate. Is now the time to raise this rate? In what way will your tax hikes on small businesses help Main Street?

The capital gains and dividends tax rate help set the value of the stock market. With the Dow under 10,000, is now the time to raise these tax rates?

Specifically, which of your policies will increase the value of the average American’s 401(k)?

Sen. Biden has said paying higher taxes is “patriotic”. Do you agree with him?

Historically, trade protectionism has served to cause and deepen economic recessions. As president, are you prepared to buck the labor unions and work for bilateral and regional free trade agreements?

Do you support the expansion and new creation of domestic nuclear power plants as a clean, safe and reliable source of energy?

As president, would you protect a worker’s right to a private, democratic ballot when deciding on whether or not to join a union?

As a top recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, do you feel that you have a conflict of interest in fixing the housing mess?

Looking into the camera, could you explain to the family of every police officer in America why it is okay to associate with William Ayers?

Just because the debate is over, you don't need to stop asking about his tax-us more plan.

Good source for conservative news

Check here for some headlines. OK, so they missed me, but I did get an offer the other day to join some blogger service for pay. I thanked him and said No. If I did this for pay it wouldn't be fun. Although if my Democratic dumbed down investments go further into the basement, I might have to reconsider. I wonder where I put that?

Annoyed Librarian has gone over to the other side. She's actually going to blog for ALA. Couldn't believe it.

Whose tax plan gets us where we need to go?

"According to the Tax Policy Center, around 78% of the McCain tax cut would accrue to the top fifth of income earners, with almost 30% going to the highest 1%. This seems inequitable on its face, a point the Obama campaign and the press focus on.

As it happens, the top fifth of earners currently pay 67% of all federal taxes -- including not just income taxes, but payroll taxes, corporate taxes and death taxes. The top 1% of earners pay 26% of all federal taxes.

If the McCain proposal were passed, the top fifth would actually pay a greater share of total federal taxes and the top 1%'s share would decline by only 0.3%. In other words, high earners carry the vast majority of the federal tax burden and, despite what the media portrays as a shift from Scandinavian egalitarianism to Latin American inequity, would continue to do so under Mr. McCain's plan. . .

As it happens, the McCain proposal would maintain current income tax rates and lower corporate taxes to help American businesses -- which ultimately provide American jobs and pay American wages -- compete in a global economy"


The Rich pay their fair share

No preconditions for the tea party with Ahmadinejad

And we’re not talking about misinformation passed out by Joe Biden at last week's debate, either. No, it's the religious Left (and some not so religious, and a few not so Left). The Christians, of course, were simply following their community organizer's command some 2000 years ago to "Go therefore and eat together and hold a dialogue, but forget about worshiping me and baptizing them; just use your own plan."

“In a fourth encounter over two years, American church officials shared an Iftar meal with the visiting Iranian president on September 28 in New York City. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad earlier in the day had delivered his usual rant against Israel and the United States at the United Nations. But hosting religious officials, anxious for dialogue, were undeterred. Nor were they were intimidated by boisterous demonstrators outside their Manhattan hotel, where some placards demanded: "No Feast with the Beast."

Who’s responsible for this travesty?

The Mennonite Central Committee, the Americans Friends Service Committee (Quakers), the World Council of Churches' UN Liaison Office and Religions for Peace. About 300 religious representatives attended, mostly American church officials, but also including the Council on American-Islamic Relations, leftist Jewish Renewal movement chief Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, a Zoroastrian priest, and former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Bondevik, a Lutheran minister.” . . .“The other denominations that sent representatives to the Iftar dinner included the United Methodist Church, Episcopal Church and Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), all of which, along with the UCC, have recently rejected anti-Israel divestment initiatives, thanks partly to appeals from American Jews.”

The National Council of Churches, in an unusually wise move for a left of center Christian group, boycotted the party for Amadinejad due to his hateful language, behavior, and screwed up views of history.

Then there was the usual, naive woman asking questions later.

“United Methodist Women's chief Harriett Jane Olson told Reuters afterwards that she wished Ahmadinejad had talked about "practical issues" such as the treatment of women and children in Iran instead of abstract theology."

Story at Weekly Standard.

Fritz Hoffman

The central Ohio art scene lost a wonderful friend Sunday with the death of Fritz Hoffman. Every day we enjoy two of his wonderful watercolors (he was AWS and OWS) that hang in our dining room and my husband was in an artist luncheon group with him as well as community organizations. In recent years Fritz had changed to oils, and my husband thinks they may even be better than his watercolors, but I find that hard to imagine. Here is the obituary from today's Columbus Dispatch. He will be greatly missed.

HOFFMAN Frederick R. Hoffman "Fritz", age 78, went home to be with his Lord and Savior on October 5, 2008. He served in the Army during the Korean Conflict, was Vice President of Burkholder Flint and Nichols Advertising Agency, was also active in C.O.W.S., A.W.S and O.W.S. Fritz is preceded in death by his parents Frederick and Susie Hoffman. He is survived by his loving wife, Joanne of 50 years; daughters, Betsy (Steve) Leitwein, Kathy (Jerry) Cutler; grandchildren, Steven (Ashley) Leitwein, Drew Leitwein, Jessica Cutler, Kaitlin Cutler; great-grandchild, Olivia Leitwein; sister, Barbara Hoch; nieces, nephews and many friends. Family will receive friends at SCHOEDINGER NORTHWEST CHAPEL 1740 Zollinger Rd., Friday, October 10, 2008 from 5-8 p.m. to celebrate Fritz's life. A private family service will be held at a later time. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the charity of ones choice.

John McCain's arms

I hate to watch John McCain. I usually have to leave the room or switch channels. My body just aches when I see his poor, damaged arms. I'm such a wimp. I should be asking myself, "I wonder how many hours or minutes Barack Obama would survive if tortured for his country and his beliefs?" When I see what McCain has given up in just being comfortable in his body, I wonder which pains him more, an electorate who thinks it doesn't matter if we run out again on our allies, or his own broken body.

Recommended by a Canadian!

"As a pro-America conservative Canadian, I enjoyed this book so much. Lots of answers to some very confusing questions like Public Health Care, Defense and Foreign Policies, role of the US in the world and many more. If you're a liberal, you should read this to understand more about our point of views. If you're a right winger, you still need this great handbook to defend yourself against the Lunatic Leftists. Highly Recommended!" [Amazon Review]

I haven't read too much of this title--already know a lot of it, but it's got some great notes, charts, definitions and web sites. Conservatives need something like this to come up against the in-your-face Alinsky-trained almighty Obamites. And can you believe this was actually at my very liberal public library branch? Throwing a bone to the conservatives in town who pay their salaries. I was so thrilled, but I noticed the titles with which it was keeping company (the ones not checked out but sitting on the new book shelf). I've probably missed a few left and right, but I'm going by cover and spine titles. It's a little like trying to take photos of all the out of state license plates where the Dems were registering voters this past week--gotta work fast.

The political mind

Right is wrong

The wrecking crew

The trainwreck

The last campaign

A time it was

Know your power

The good fight

Bush's law

Fire breathing liberal

Step by step

Against the tide

A time to fight

Who killed the Constitution

Your government failed you

Guantanamo diary

and then there were twenty-one "green titles," from gardening to jobs, too many to list, and not all worthless of course, but many hyping the human caused global climate change myth (it's very lucrative for business, but especially publishers).

I won't provide the links to these title--sometimes librarians just yawn and point when you ask a question (I never did, but I've seen it done). But in case you noticed how the list lists to the left, I'll remind you that among journalists, they are 5 to 1, liberal to conservative; out in Hollywood in the entertainment industry they are 11 to 1, liberal to conservative; but the library profession is 223 to 1, liberal to conservative. Dixie Chicks and Barbra Streisand have nothing on your local library staff selecting titles from LJ and PW while posting their banned books list.

The next bailout

says Sue Shellenbarger in today's WSJ is your adult children. Sorry Sue. Hate to break the bad news, but Americans have already done that. Boomers were bailed by their parents, and the boom-lets and boom-lights even more so by their boomer parents. No one in America is allowed to have a living standard less wonderful than their parents' it seems. That was a constant riff in the "this economy" theme we've heard the past seven years, and probably before that, because Democrats didn't invent that, I think Republicans did.

My husband's parents (who were younger than mine) didn't help us much--all their disposable income that wasn't needed for the basics like housing, food, clothing went for alcohol, cigarettes and nice vacations. My husband during one stint in college lived with the parents of his best friend, not his own parents. This dear woman even fed him and bought him a winter coat. But my parents certainly chipped in. A lot. It was sort of a family tradition. My great-grandfather had helped my maternal grandmother, and on the other side, my great-grandmother had helped Dad buy his first home. Dad provided for my college education, of course, at least until I was married, then it became a loan to be paid back (and I did). He gave us $1,000 for our first home (a duplex) which didn't have to be paid back, and then took a second mortgage for us on his own savings account (that was paid back). He also sold us my mother's car, which we made payments on. But still, for the 1960s when we had no credit of our own, that was a big help. The irony is we actually inherited more from my in-laws, who'd never given us a dime, than my own parents who had so carefully managed their own resources. That really doesn't matter, since we're grateful to both families not only for their love, but their limited resources the government didn't tax away, so that I could retire at 60 instead of 65.

For our daughter, things were fairly straight forward--we had purchased stock for her (Wendy's) that had recovered from the bust in the 80s and reinvested the dividends (and hid it from her in her late teen years). We'd also taken out a life insurance policy after she left home and it had some value when she cashed it in. The money we had "sheltered" for her when she was very young designated for college was long gone by the time she wanted to buy a house, because we'd made the mistake of using her SS# which meant at 18 she had control, not us. That money went to buy a car to replace the one wrecked by a drunk driver who hit her while she was waiting at a stop light.

For our son we had to be a bit more creative to be "fair," and we won't know for years if we helped or hurt him. His stock tanked and was worthless, and we couldn't get insurance for him. His childhood college account also went for other things that young adulthood required and he had access by then. So after his divorce we purchased a home for him, a wonderful place where he could garden and run his big dog. We used our assets to qualify for a low interest ARM, and he made all the payments. He now owns it (with the bank) and we gave him the equity that he had built up by faithfully paying the mortgage and paying all the expenses for four years.

Of course, we hadn't counted on the government so badly managing the mortgage market with the same good intentions we had that it would bring down the economy. We knew some of the places we looked at with him in 2004 had bizarre financing options (NINJA), but although tempted, we took the "conservative" route, and took on the debt ourselves after years of having no debt at all except for a few months of a "bridge loan" when we bought our condo. We did far more than our parents had done for us, but still within the family tradition of the 19th and 20th centuries being the financial safety net for adult children. However, we live in a two-income household society, and try as I might to interfere, he hasn't found a wife to help with the cost of living and a mortgage. So being a brand new home owner in a neighborhood where many foreclosure signs are popping up may be tough if the credit market tumbles even further and affects his job.

But just like the social engineers in Washington, we believed home ownership was right and "a right" for all Americans, especially our children. It may take years to straighten all this out, and there could be more bailing in our immediate future.

Who is more dangerous?

Over at Democratic Underground dotcom which seems to be a discussion board (I haven't found actual articles) there are 30,200 posts about Sarah Palin and 5,270 about Bill Ayers and his relationship to Obama. Most of those Ayers posts are how to refute, stomp on, deny and disclaim that he has any link to Obama other than just a harmless fuzz ball from the neighborhood. I didn't even bother to check on what they're saying about Sarah, but obviously as a woman not defined by leftist feminism, she's a terrible threat to the Democratic Underground.

Definitions of leaks

Some bloggers do have ears for the leaks, but mainly those go straight from the government's lips to AP, NYT or WSJ "sources" then the bloggers go to work. I wrote about this maybe 2.5 years ago, and found these definitions really interesting. Leaks about the current financial crisis weren't too important. It was all out there loud and clear. Even the talking heads could hear Maxine and Barney defending Fannie, and no one cared because their own portfolios were doing fine. We all wanted to believe the house of cards built in the suburbs was the "American dream" for people who couldn't afford it.

Source: Stephen Hess. The Government/Press Connection: Press Officers and their Offices. Washington, DC : Brookings Institution, 1984. 77-79;

Ego Leak: Giving information primarily to satisfy a sense of self.

Goodwill Leak: Information offered to “accumulate credit” as a play for a future favor.

Policy Leak: A straightforward pitch for or against a proposal using some document or insider information as the lure to get more attention than might be otherwise justified. The leak of the Pentagon Papers falls into this category.

Animus Leak: Used to settle grudges; information is released in order to cause embarrassment to another person.

Trial-Balloon Leak: Revealing a proposal that is under consideration in order to assess its assets and liabilities. Usually proponents have too much invested in a proposal to want to leave it to the vagaries of the press and public opinion. More likely, those who send up a trial balloon want to see it shot down, and because it is easier to generate opposition to almost anything than to build support, this is the most likely effect.

Whistleblower Leak: Usually used by career personnel; going to the press may be the last resort of frustrated civil servants who feel they cannot resolve their dispute through administrative channels. Hess is careful to point out that Whistleblowing is not synonymous with leaking.

Bolstered by Congress?

"Open access pioneer BioMed Central has been acquired by Springer, ScientificAmerican.com has learned.

Open access is the movement, recently bolstered by Congress, to make studies available for free online, instead of charging taxpayers who funded the research (and others) to read them. Many prominent scientists have backed it, signing on with BioMed Central and a non-profit open access publisher, the Public Library of Science". Full article and links at Scientific American.com

The idea that the federal government isn't already involved up to its eyeballs in all scientific research is bogus in itself. The only thing different about "open access" is that at one step--early publication--you should not have to pay to see what you've already paid for. You pay many times over--you fund the researchers (you've probably already paid for their education) at their various institutions through the grants they get from various government agencies, then those institutions skim a huge amount to keep the university running, including the library, which in turn keep those programs going that don't have a cash cow. This in turn eats up a huge amount of time of the faculty, which is why you are paying for your kid to be taught by a grad student from India or China, rather than a full professor, who has to be off in the lab researching and publishing so he can keep his job, which is to hire more foreign nationals to teach your kids. Then you are charged again for that research when it appears in peer-reviewed scientific journals which the library has to buy so the researchers can keep applying for more government grants. A decade ago librarians were all caught up in the idea that the internet was going to be our savior, but sadly have learned otherwise, because business and Congress were just much more clever than we were. This symbiotic relationship, this coziness between research and politics is best illustrated by the shut down of scientific debate on the hoax of human caused climate change--just one example of why science isn't impartial when you let international left wing organizations, Hollywood and Congress control it.

Justice and Redistribution

The Christian evangelical Left parallels the rise of the radical far Left in American politics. That's why I don't see a conflict with calling Obama a Christian and a marxist. I am not one who was surprised that Obama stayed with Wright's church. Like many churches, it runs programs for the poor, such as housing, food, clothing, but it also receives funding from the government to do so. That money comes from you and me in the form of taxes. Sometimes it is a summer lunch program, sometimes it is rehabilitating older housing, or it may be career or job training (or subsidies for barely working). Christians see this as "distributive justice" (or more accurately, redistributing our wealth). There is also a far left wing among mainline protestants and Roman Catholics. Together these three groups are the Religious Left. They all have their own organizations, many of which receive money from the government as well as their denominations to fund their programs and achieve their goals, which are often in line with those of the government.

Justice in the Bible is synonymous with righteousness, which is an attribute of God. Man, made in God's image, was also righteous before the Fall, but now is a sinner and receives Jesus' righteousness by faith. The "good news" includes concern for the whole person, but leftist Christians have distorted the Biblical view with the idea that government needs to redistribute goods and services through taxation to achieve justice. Thus the state can be God's representative on earth.

The following is from Stewardship Journal, Winter 1991, "The Christian Debate over Justice and Rights" by Ronald H. Nash, 29-40.

The most elementary analysis of the Religious Left's writings about justice makes it clear that they are interested almost exclusively in questions of distributive justice. When one's announced intention is to help the poor, it is probably inevitable that one's emphasis will be upon distributing (or rather redistributing) society's wealth. . . Political liberals concerned with distributive justice on the level of an entire society usually try to disguise the fact that the redistribution of a society's holdings they wish to institute must be enacted through coercion, that is, through the state or government forcing people in some way or other.

On several occasions, I have heard my friend Ron Sider give eloquent appeals to rich Christians in America to spread their wealth around to help the poor. I am often mystified as to why Sider fails to tell his audiences that what he desires is for the state or government to effect his desired redistribution of wealth through force, that is, through taxation (the IRS, after all, does not suggest that one make a donation). Some of Sider's followers obviously sense that he is an apologist for higher taxes that will supposedly support greatly expanded liberal social programs. Others seem to miss this obvious point and simply get caught up in the idealism of a noble crusade to help the poor.

Please note the big difference between Christians voluntarily giving their own money to fund programs to help the poor and the quite different situations in which agents of the state take other people's money, keep a large chunk of it to pay their inflated salaries, and use some of what's left to fund counter-productive and self-defeating programs that end up making life even more miserable for the poor. . .

Social or distributive justice as liberals view it is possible only in a society that is controlled from the top down. There must be a central agency with the power to force people to accept the liberals' preferred pattern of distribution. . . What liberals call justice is a setting in which representatives of the state, the most powerful and coercive institution on earth, are empowered continually to take from some in order to give to others, taking care in the process that they keep enough to pay their own salaries. . .

Devotees of liberal "social justice" often fail to see how their position leads to an aggrandizement of state power, how it enslaves people to the state. They too easily overlook the massive threat the institution of the state poses to human liberty. . .

Christian political liberals want the state to use its vast powers of coercion to force everyone in society to help attain the Christian's ends. . . [They] often use the doctrine of Christian stewardship in an attempt to justify their commitment to statism. . . Christian stewardship is perverted into a doctrine that obliges Christians to surrender their judgment, will, and resources to the liberal state which, in the view of the Religious Left, becomes God's surrogate on earth. (p. 31)

Never believe a promise that they'll only tax the other guy

That's class warfare. Class envy. Obama can't reduce taxes for 95% of Americans, since about 1/3 don't pay taxes anyway. Here's what to remember the last time a charismatic candidate promised to tax the rich and give you a break.

“Back when Mr. Clinton was campaigning for president in 1992, he made a pretty direct pitch: Raise taxes on people making more than $200,000, and use those revenues to fund tax relief for the "forgotten middle class."

In an October presidential debate, then-Gov. Clinton laid out the marginal-rate increase he wanted and some of his plans for the revenue that would be brought in. He followed with a pledge:

"Now, I'll tell you this," he said. "I will not raise taxes on the middle class to pay for these programs. If the money does not come in there to pay for these programs, we will cut other government spending, or we will slow down the phase-in of the programs."

Mr. Clinton, of course, won that election. And as the inauguration approached, he began backtracking from his promise. At a Jan. 14, 1993, press conference in New Hampshire, he claimed that it was the media that had played up a middle-class tax cut, not him. A month later, he announced his actual plan before a joint session of Congress.

p. 1 NYT . . . "Families earning as little as $20,000 a year will also be asked to send more dollars to Washington under the President's plan." About That Middle-Class Tax Cut . . .

Why health care insurance is so expensive

"As a state senator in Illinois, [Obama] voted to require that dental anesthesia be covered by every health plan for difficult medical cases. Today, the requirement is one of 43 mandates imposed by Illinois on health insurance, according to the Illinois Division of Insurance. Other mandates require coverage of infertility treatments, drug rehab, "personal injuries" incurred while intoxicated, and other forms of care.

By my count, during Mr. Obama's tenure in the state Senate, 18 different laws came up for a vote and passed that imposed new mandates on private health insurance. Mr. Obama voted for all of them.

As a presidential candidate, Mr. Obama says people lack health insurance because "they can't afford it." He's right. But he is also partly responsible for why health insurance is too expensive. A long list of studies show that mandates like the ones Mr. Obama has championed drive up the cost of insurance for the very people priced out of coverage." Insider scoop, By Scott Gottlieb - WSJ 05-06-08

Who's left?

I used to stare at the list of 50 or so organizations on the campus willing to help me, a poor lil'ol weak, helpless female, and wonder why with all the local, county, state and federal laws and local and national organizations in place and living in the best country in the world, I needed so much help. That was about 10 years ago. Slicing and dicing the university community into small manageable groups (academe is very liberal, in case you hadn't noticed) continues. I wondered who was not eligible in this announcement. I really think I might be eligible for something (age? marital status?) even though my Wenger ancestors left Switzerland in the 1740s. I just need to find someone who thinks blogging is important and can nominate me. If you cast your net broadly enough, I suppose you ensure your continued existance.

“The Distinguished Diversity Enhancement Awards recognize individuals or groups who have demonstrated a significant commitment to enhancing diversity at Ohio State and to exceeding expectations in implementing the Diversity Action Plan. The program, now in its 21st year, rewards efforts to enhance diversity on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, sex, age, disability, veteran or military service status, gender identity, economic status, political belief, marital status or social background.” Recognizing excellence, OSU Resources

OSU Increases Adoption Assistance Benefit for 2009

The Adoption Assistance Program reimburses eligible employees for adoption-related expenses upon placement of a minor child in the employee's home. In 2009, the university will increase its reimbursement amount from $4,000 to $5,000 per adopted child.

Adoptions eligible for the benefit should meet the following criteria:

• Adopted children must be under 18 years of age.

• Adopted children may or may not be biologically related to either parent.

• Adoptions are made through public, private, domestic, international, and independent means.

Looks like if you adopt your own step-child, you can get $5,000.

How McCain handed the election to Obama

"McCain unaccountably failed to make his strongest argument [about the economy]. The roots of the crisis lie in both parties' encouragement of greater home ownership. But at critical points, notably in 2005, some Republicans, including McCain, called for tighter regulation of the mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This was resisted by Democrats, with no demur from obama." Michael Barone, column in Columbus Dispatch, 10-7-08.

Obama has promised so much based on taxing the rich, promoting class warfare, and now they'll all show losses. That's a lot of angry, expectant, greedy people. So, you know who's next in line for more taxes. You and me.

The Taxman Rap
by Norma Bruce
June 10, 2008

More new taxes
to buy axes
for our backses
and our neckses

for our gases
and our classes
(just the riches'
and the niches.)

Yo! Obama
Go! Oh mama
You our Papa
You Messiah.

Obama can
He is the man
He do the plan
He be the taxman.

Global Economic Challenge

C-SPAN covered an interesting conference yesterday called Global Economic Challenge. The first guy said that when he accepted the invitation to speak a year ago, he had no idea we'd be in the middle of this mess. I thought that was quite telling because I wrote a poem about the mess at Fannie and Fred in September 2007. If I noticed it, I wonder why the economists on the panel didn't. Or maybe they did and Congress stonewalled them as they did Bush.

Paul Krugman was on the panel. He and Thomas Sowell are about the only economists I've read. His comments were interesting to say the least, in that he really had no answers. He was extremely hesitant--almost as many "ahs" and "uhs" as Barack Obama as he thought his way through his responses. There were lots of "could be" and "it's not compelling" type phrases. However, in discussing how our problem has spread world wide he reminded me of something I'd completely forgotten; the Asian economic contagion of 1997-1999. The only reason I remember it at all is that it started in tiny Thailand and spread through out Asia. A Thai PhD student came to me looking for a job. Not only had her government scholarship money dried up, but her very wealthy family had been wiped out. She had even sold her jewelry. Usually I didn't hire this type of student because they often don't do well in repetitive library routines, but I felt sorry for her and for the few months she worked for me, she was able to perform some complex jobs. Her IQ probably qualified her for Mensa. As soon as the college offered her an assistantship, she quit.

Krugman did make some memorable points, however. It isn't just the trade linkages--where we're buying less from other countries and hurting their economies. Diversity, which is recommended for the private investor, actually hurts us in the global economy. Many of our assets are foreign owned, so that affects the world economy. Krugman didn't like the Paulson Plan--he joked that it should be called "Bailey Mae" or "Hanky Panky." Capital has been destroyed he said, and Paulson has "grabbed the wrong end of the stick." (Note the complex economic jargon.) He should have injected capital, but time was wasted as well as political capital.

In conclusion, with one tiny jab at the Bush Administration (the lack of blame here I think indicates that the Bush admin is not to blame) he said, "This is amazing stuff," which I'm sure the audience found helpful, and that "We need clear thinking."

Guess I'll keep checking the blogs for links to CRA and ACORN. Good intentions run amuck, or Fox watching the hen house sounds about as useful an explanation as "stuff out of whack" and "burst housing bubble."


Freddie and Fannie
Sept. 29, 2007
by Norma Bruce

Freddie and Fannie
went up to Capitol Hill
to fawn for a bigger profit
Sticking you and me with the bill.

With help from our taxes
They'll package and resell,
a windfall for the banks and rich,
for the rest of us, economic hell.

Years ago the original aim
was to help the struggling poor.
Now they seek those jumbo loans--
Congress and Bush! Show them the door!

ACORN, Obama, Ayers, Fannie, and the subprime mess

My, what a tangled web this is. Check here for the chart and explanations. They're not just sticky fingered crooks registering dead people, they're actually big time players. Also check this blog.

Start tracking the housing money in your state. You'll probably find some of the same connections.