Airline with no heart

Our flight between Athens and JFK was on Olympic. I don't do a lot of flying, but it wasn't as nice as Lufthansa. Grumpy staff. Choice between a movie, cartoons and Frazier TV show. With tourism struggling, I think they could do more to be accomodating, pleasant (like smile), and we'll never know what made many of us sick--the water, the food or just a stomach bug we passed around, but some people have been extremely ill. Me? The works. There's a bathroom 5 ft. from my desk.

One woman in our group (but not on our flight) fell in the Cairo hotel and fractured bones in both legs. In other words, was totally disabled for a 31 hour trip and in horrible pain. Unfortunately, they apparently didn't get the medical flight insurance that one of our members had recommended (it's quite cheap). Anyway, although (I heard this 3rd hand) there were 6 empty seats in first class, they wouldn't let her and her husband sit there to have more room for her legs. So one in our group, who did have first class (and her husband was ill), moved to coach and let the injured woman have her seat. But the injured woman's husband and another man had to come from the coach section and carry her to the rest room. This happened on Delta.

Bad. Bad for business. We had a number of Greek Americans on our flight, but I don't think there were any on hers. On the other hand, other than complaining in Greek, I don't know what help they would have been. I don't know if there are any other airlines to take you to Athens.

P.S. The barf bags on Olympic are much more durable than Delta's. If you get sick, be sure to take a number with you as you exit the plane. We had about 10 between us and used them all.

The cost for hope and change--women and minorities hit hardest

“President Bush ran budget deficits averaging $300 billion annually. After harshly criticizing Bush's budget deficits, President Obama pro­posed a budget that would run deficits averaging $600 billion even after the economy recovers and the troops return home from Iraq. [Where, oh where, are all the weepers and moaners who decried the cost of the war for 6 years? nb]

The President's tax policy is the only sharp break in economic policy. President Bush reduced taxes by approximately $2 trillion; President Obama has proposed raising taxes by $1.4 trillion. In doing so, President Obama has rejected the most successful Bush fiscal policy. In the 18 months following the 2003 tax rate cuts, economic growth rates doubled, the stock market surged 32 percent, and the economy created 1.8 million jobs, followed by 5.2 million more jobs in the next 27 months. Not until the housing bubble burst several years later did the economy finally lose steam. Pro-growth lawmakers should embrace tax relief policies that have proven successful, while rejecting the runaway spending that has been business as usual in Washington. . . President Obama's pledge to halve the budget deficit by 2013 is hardly ambitious. The budget deficit will quadruple in 2009 to $1.75 trillion, and cutting that level in half would still leave deficits twice as high as under President Bush.” The Obama Budget

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.

What has happened to your nest egg?

Millions in bonuses for Fannie Mae Execs

"Say it ain’t so. But looks like it is. Here we are, clutching our devastated 401Ks, howling for scalps at AIG, dizzy with the zeroes of the $3.55 trillion budget and the $797 billion “stimulus” and the $700 billion TARP, and the election of a President whose answer to all ills is to frag bomb the capitalist system, spend us into hock unto the umpteenth generation, blow out our currency in the process, and usher us into an era in which ACORN helps with the census and government doles out the ensuing rations.

And, over at the outfit that primed the sub-prime fuse for this chain reaction, Fannie Mae, the top executives are now going to rake in six or seven-figure bonuses over the next year — in some cases double what they got last year. Here’s the AP reporting on Fannie Mae plans bonuses of $1M for execs." Rosett Report.

Obama's triumph?

"Last week, President Obama removed virtually all restrictions on fetal stem cell research, claiming a triumph of science over “ideology.” The hope, of course, is that science may find new ways to prolong and improve our lives, now that the shackles of moral restraint, humility, and ethics have been removed. It seemed fitting, therefore, to repost this older essay, pondering whether the “victories” which science now has in store for us will be indeed Pyrrhic." Continue here with Dr. Bob on what does it mean to be human.

Health Disparities in the U.S.

This is certainly puzzling. The March 18 issue of JAMA has an article on health care in the U.S. that reports the U.S. has the 3rd highest poverty rate in OECD countries, below Turkey and Mexico, and that the U.S. poor have such poor health care that some are in poverty because of health expenses. Hmmm. That's odd. "Our poor" have government sponsored and paid for health care--it's called Medicaid, and SCHIP, plus all manner of other benefits under other programs of HHS and USDA. Isn't that what Obama wants for all of us? Obamacare doesn't work you say?

Also, when I read these articles comparing the U.S. health care to other countries, I notice our illegals are not separated out in the census count, even though other countries are much, much tougher (Mexico, for instance) on illegals invading their countries and asking for social services. I wonder how much medical care an illegal Guatemalan receives from the Mexican government? Or how does an illegal Pakistani worker get medical care in Turkey?

As much as I enjoy reading JAMA, it definitely runs like tarbaby through the brairpatch chasing social issues instead of medical cures and disease findings. They haven't a clue how to control obesity, smoking, alcohol/drug abuse or sexual promiscuity, the big four of personal behaviors causing health problems, so they just move on to the economy, job losses, stress, and housing crises. More grant money from the government for the folks with MPH, PHD, and MSW behind their names, so at least their jobs won't be at risk. Just churn out more studies.

Maybe we should have the UK healthcare as reported by users recently in the Daily Mail, per Belmont Club.

Some readers of the Daily Mail sent accounts of their own experience.

“My wife had treatment at this hospital and it was beyond belief. Staff tried to get my wife to believe she had already been given her tablets when they hadn’t; later admitting they ran out and did not want to call out the Pharmacy! People were screaming for the toilet as their requests for assistance went unheeded.”
Mick, Stafford

“My mother in law died at a hospital where her ‘care’ was almost non-existant. She died screaming in pain because nobody could be found to replace her morphine pump.” Claire, Norfolk

“When my father was in hospital for months, he lay in a bed with dirty, torn blankets and grubby sheets. I asked to see the Hospital Manager and was walked through the most plush of offices. I was sickened and told her so.” Sammy, UK

“My sister recently qualified as a nurse. During her training a fellow student commented to a manager that a doctor hadn’t bothered to change his scrubs after undertaking a minor operation on a patient and wore the same ones for his next operation. She was warned any whistle blowing of that sort would result in her being kicked out.” Jo, Middlesex

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.

The face of greed in the suburbs

"With billions of stimulus dollars making their way down through federal, state and local levels, Upper Arlington officials hope to use some of the finds to make improvements here." (Upper Arlington News, March 18, 2009) Our city officials are applying for 10 projects totalling more than $7.8 million. I sure hope the rest of you enjoy helping out one of the wealthiest communities in Ohio.

If you're interested in a Holy Land Cruise

Here's one sponsored by Catholic Heritage Tours that sounds exactly like ours, although it doesn't mention the name of the ship (ours was MV Cristal), and ours was a little less expensive (although this is still quite reasonable). This one starts in Cairo, where we ended; but it describes our original plans to begin there. There were several Catholic groups on our tour, but none by this name.

Unintended consequences of having too much

Not money, but information.

". . .we have found that no matter where students are enrolled, no matter what information resources they may have at their disposal, and no matter how much time they have, the abundance of information technology and the proliferation of digital information resources make conducting research uniquely paradoxical: Research seems to be far more difficult to conduct in the digital age than it did in previous times." Project Information Literacy Progress Report, Feb. 2009

I used to teach research skills and methods--whether it was called BI (bibliographic instruction), User Education, or graduate research seminar. Here was my method. Begin with a wide survey using tertiary sources (textbooks, essays, encyclopedias), narrow and redefine your topic, move on to secondary sources (bibliographies, databases), further refine, then tackle the primary sources (original research). What I didn't usually include in my lectures and handouts is that I myself never used that method. Oh, I suppose if you assigned me a topic on how to hit a golf ball, I might read up on it first, but for my own self-selected topics, I started with my own conclusion then worked backwards to justify it. If it had to be changed along the way, so be it; if not, I was happy. Then I relied as a fallback on serendipity--those items I might have on my office shelves, or which spoke to me ("here I am, take a look") as I wandered through the stacks in a particular call number range. One of my most successful projects, from which I got a number of published articles and which lead to further research, was a box of my grandmother's scrapbook clippings and a box of handwritten index cards for my grandparents' library. That pushed me into all kinds of areas about 19th century publishing, church history, serials and farm magazines, and reading patterns of rural people.

The only time I really relied heavily on information technology to write and publish an article was in writing about how to do it, and I tracked what I did to prepare for a speech at a conference (even where I was and how long it took to receive off campus material) and then wrote about it. It helped me in my teaching, however, I've since forgotten what it was I wrote about.

Research--it's tough to explain to people who don't do it or like it.

Lobbying activity increases under Obama

Wow. Now that's change you can count. And mighty fast, too. It's only been 2 months!

"Early numbers suggest that the first quarter of 2009 has seen lobbying in the nation’s capital spike by nearly 22 percent over last year, which would be the largest ever increase in lobbying activity — and a strong indication that President Barack Obama has helped usher in a Golden Era for K Street." DC Examiner

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.

If you’re headed for a cliff

you’ve got to change direction says our President.

"Our public policy definitely needs a change in direction. But the Obama Administration’s budget is not a change in direction. Instead, it is a foot on the accelerator taking us off that cliff . . . The only sharp break President Obama takes away from President Bush is the amount of money he takes from the American people. President Bush reduced taxes by approximately $2 trillion; President Obama has proposed raising taxes by $1.4 trillion. Yet even after taking $1.4 trillion more out of the private sector, Obama’s budget still would double the public debt level to $15.4 trillion. Between 2008 and 2013, the budget will add $5.7 trillion ($48,000 per U.S. household) in new government debt. The annual interest on this debt would nearly equal the entire U.S. defense budget by 2019.

Read the entire entry here.

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.

Is it time to kill off Fannie and Fred?

Here’s a list, in reverse order, of WSJ articles on the poorly run Fannie Mae--back to February 2002, early in the Bush administration, the earliest one in Feb. 2002 comparing the risk to Enron. Was anyone listening?

"As for interest-rate risk, Fan and Fred hedge with a giant and complex program using all manner of derivatives. At the end of 2000, their combined derivative position was valued at $780 billion. Even scarier, these hedges are only as good as the counterparties' ability to pay up. But Fan and Fred don't disclose the identity of their parties, so investors have no idea how much risk comes from possible counterparty failure. (By the way, last year Fan's derivative strategy went, um, somewhat amiss and she had to write down shareholder equity by $7.4 billion.)

Fan and Fred also pool mortgages and then sell those securities -- that is, they retain the credit risk since they guarantee the soundness of the mortgages and buyers assume the interest-rate risk. But Fan and Fred have recently been buying back their own securities; each now holds 30% of all mortgage-backed securities outstanding. Simply put, they are re-assuming interest-rate risk. Not necessarily a terminal practice when interest rates are stable, but dangerous if rates turn volatile."

We know Fan and Fred and their federal co-conspirators in Congress (called committee "oversite", or fox guarding the hen house) are in part to blame for the current meltdown and housing crisis. The like to blame a corporate "greed", but it's bad loans chasing even worse risks. Then there is today’s alarming editorial in WSJ that points out that in addition to our $6.6 trillion debt held by the public (up from $5.3 trillion a year ago), you and I are guaranteeing $5.3 trillion in Fannie and Fred liabilities!

So I ask you, what if there had never been a Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac?

“In 1938, the Federal government established Fannie Mae to expand the flow of mortgage money by creating a secondary market. Fannie Mae was authorized to buy Federal Housing Administration-insured mortgages, thereby replenishing the supply of money to lend to future homeowners.

Freddie Mac is a stockholder-owned corporation chartered by Congress in 1970 to keep money flowing to mortgage lenders to ensure that there was funding available for future homeowners. Freddie Mac purchases single-family and multifamily residential mortgages. They help homeowners and renter get lower housing costs and better access to home financing.” from Singing Blog

So Fannie is a holdover from the Depression era and Fred from the 70s. Maybe they should have been killed off when WWII and not FDR's socialist programs restored the economy? In theory, the interest rate is supposed to be 1/4 percent lower, but considering how mortgage loans have fluctuated from 4.5% (about 5 years ago) to 10.5% (about 22 years ago) during my own mortgage commitment years (we've owned 5 homes since 1961), how really has that 1/4 percent made a difference to home owners, who seem to find the means no matter what the rate, other than to encourage bad behavior and poor credit? Plus, it's one more playground of regulation for the likes of the Barney Franks of Congress. In truth, I can't blame all this on the old Barn--he hasn't been in charge long enough to have created all the mess, but I'd like to see every chair of that committee still alive and not in a nursing home testify before the American people about why we the people need Fannie and Fred and to hear a few mea culpas.

President Teleprompter

"After only a few short weeks, the use of the Obama teleprompter is beginning to expose Obama's incapacity to function properly without one." Craig Meister on the St. Patrick’s Day gaffe. I guess we can retire all the complaints about Bush's gaffes and malapropisms. I think Obama's already outdone Bush's 8 years with his two months. And Bush could laugh at himself--something I don't see Obama doing.

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?