If Barack Obama wants to be taken seriously as a man of hope and change that will steady the economy, he needs to get Charles Rangel to resign his Chairmanship of the House Ways & Means Committee. Even the Washington Post knows Rangel is a political landmine and wants him out of the way so as not to hurt their savior. However, let's say Obama does try this. He's gonna have to use all the pressure he can muster from all his allies to make it happen. Rangel is a stubborn egomaniac who wouldn't go without a lot of shrieking. When you think about it, there might be less blood if he stayed on as Chairman and the MSM just ran interference like they usual do for The One. Either way, we should keep an eye on this story.
Barack Obama goofed in a speech today when he made a Sanford and Son joke saying "I'm coming to join you Weezie!" Of course, "Weezie" was the wife of George Jefferson whereas Fred Sanfords dead wife was named Elizabeth. But a reader of Instapundit raised the better point:
"Didn't Obama realize Fred Sanford & George Jefferson are both Small Business Owners?"
An excellent point! The Sanfords were living hand to mouth. A tax hike would have really been reason to clutch your chest in that household. Meanwhile, George Jefferson ran a small chain of dry cleaners. Under an Obama presidency one shouldn't expect a George to be opening up a new store anytime soon. In fact, a few stores may have to close and some employees sent packing.
Harry Reid that is. He is doing one of two things. He's either purposely trying to make the economy worse in order to help Democrats in November, or he's losing his mind. I'd say it's a toss-up.
Liberals decided years ago that poor people should be able to own homes, free market be damned. So, they passed legislation to force lenders to give money to people that couldn't pay it back. Efforts to try and reform Fannie and Freddie were stalled for years by the Democrats in Congress. These same Democrats are now our supposed saviors who say it's all the fault of capitalism.
Why didn't the "crap sandwich" pass in the House? Did Pelosi blow it?
No, this was her plan, and Obama's. This is about getting him elected. As much as it pains me to say it, the people of this country (for some G-d forsaken reason) still have this notion that the Democrats are better on economic issues, thus the worse the economy, the more apt they are to elect a Democrat to the White House. Obama's poll numbers has climbed since Henry Paulson started his daily freak-outs, have they not?
At least I can still laugh about the downfall of the country. House Republican Leader John Boehner says the bailout bill is a "crap sandwich" but he has no choice but to take a bite and go "mmm, mmm!" when it comes up for a vote. Via the Politico:
In a closed-door session with House Republicans, Minority Leader John A. Boehner just called the financial rescue deal a "crap sandwich" - then said he’ll vote for it when it comes to the floor Monday.
House Republicans are the key to the bill's passage - Speaker Nancy Pelosi said earlier today that it's a "bipartisan" bill and will need "bipartisanship" to pass - and it now appears that a substantial number of them will put cast their votes in favor of it.
According to a source in the room, the plan has so far won endorsements from Minority Whip Roy Blunt, who negotiated it on behalf of the House Republicans; Eric Cantor, the chief deputy whip; and Paul Ryan, a hard-core conservative from Wisconsin who may hold more sway with conservatives on this issue than any other member of the House.
But like Boehner, Ryan wasn't exactly happy about how things have unfolded. Referring to the situation facing the country - and not the bill itself - Ryan said, "This sucks."
We're really in a no win situation with this bailout bill, but the hope for those of us that still value capitalism and liberty was that the House GOP could at least soften the blow. Well, here's what they were able to do (courtesy K-Lo):
1. No ACORN money: All money goes to debt reduction
2. No blank check: Treasury is required to develop an insurance program
3. No union power grab: Dodd-Frank permitted unions to force themselves into the board room. This proposed compromise eliminates that.
4. No "cram down" bankruptcy provision (aka, trial bar giveaway)
5. No tax hikes: The proposed compromise simply requires a proposal to Congress to recoup any potential losses.
Let's hope it's enough. My advice to Boehner and the boys (and girls) is to get this done, go home and campaign hard on the issue. Never make a speech without mentioning the names Barney Frank and Chris Dodd.
Just breaking from Senator Jim DeMint's office. Nevada's biggest embarrassment, Harry Reid, is trying to sneak an oil shale ban into legislation at a time when everyone is preoccupied with the economy. Michelle Malkin has a roundup.
Fox will surely be accused of being in the tank for the Republicans with this report, but I would ask those quick to make that charge, what in this story isn't true? (Hat tip: Ace)
Big, big news today as John McCain has suspended his presidential campaign (including pulling all campaign ads) and gone back to Washington, D.C. to deal with the financial crisis. He has asked Obama to do the same and to postponed the presidential debated scheduled for Friday.
My first gut reaction is that it's a smart move. Whether or not it proves to be a good move politically, I applaud McCain for taking chances. For many months it appeared that McCain was going to go down as the sequel to Bob Dole, then he picked Sarah Palin as his running mate and now he walks the walk with his campaign slogan of putting country first. Obama so far hasn't taken the bait, so it'll be interesting to see how this plays out.
Obama has carried some momentum the past week with the poor financial news. This may be a way for McCain to call a time-out and get a momentum shift. The Bush bill is growing more unpopular by the minute with Congressional Republicans. McCain has a chance to take control of the situation. I just hope he listens to people like Jim DeMint. The Democrats, meanwhile, are scared to death of ending up on the wrong side of the issue with their bete noir President Bush.
In a move I never thought would happen while William Clay Ford Sr. was still walking the earth, the Detroit Lions have fired Matt Millen after 7 incompetent years as General Manger. The Lions are one of the worst run franchises in professional sports and they became all the more laughable as Millen kept getting contract extensions as the team got worse and worse.
So what's next for Millen? My suggestion is a run for Congress. After all, people like Congressman Barney Frank and Senator Chris Dodd helped create this financial crisis we're currently in, but have been assigned little if any blame. They've also been in Congress for longer than many can remember with reelection never in question. Millen thought he had found the perfect setup, a place where incompetence was rewarded, but it turned out that even the Detroit Lions have to draw the line eventually. In Congress, however, there is no punishment for incompetence, only glory. I look forward to the campaign.
Meltdown. We've heard that word a lot in the past week. While our government looks to nationalize our economy after a near financial "meltdown" one has to wonder if the Oakland Raiders shouldn't be the next in line for a bailout. PFT has the scoop.
Despite what you might hear at Daily Kos, the President of the United States only has so much power. There's a quote from President Bush's book about his first day as an MBA student at Harvard and how he was "there to learn," over at Jake Tapper's site. The implication of the post being he didn't learn anything and caused this crisis. If he were a dictator like say, a Fidel Castro, they would have a point, but we have a lot of hands in the economic cookie jar. Still this is a chronic condition with the America electorate. If the economy is good, the president gets good approval ratings, if it's bad, he's blamed. The speciousness of this reasoning makes one question the national IQ, but we see it every presidential election. Ironically, the America Left lays no blame for Cuba's economy at the feet of Castro. That's America's fault.
Political correctness won the day. Washington made it clear to banks and other lending institutions that if they did not do something .. and fast .. to bring more minorities and low-income Americans into the world of home ownership there would be a heavy price to pay. Congress set up processes (Research the Community Redevelopment Act) whereby community activist groups and organizers could effectively stop a bank's efforts to grow if that bank didn't make loans to unqualified borrowers. Enter, stage left, the "subprime" mortgage. These lenders knew that a very high percentage of these loans would turn to garbage - but it was a price that had to be paid if the bank was to expand and grow. We should note that among the community groups browbeating banks into making these bad loans was an outfit called ACORN. There is one certain presidential candidate that did a lot of community organizing for ACORN. I won't mention his name so as to avoid politicizing this column.
Shannon Love looks at how Congress is almost completely absent in this financial crisis which isn't good for democracy, but Congress is mostly to blame for shirking it's duties not just today but for decades.
There's a political root cause to this mess that we ignore at our peril. If we blame the wrong culprits, we'll learn the wrong lessons. And taxpayers will be on the hook for even larger bailouts down the road.
But the government-can-do-no-wrong crowd just doesn't get it. They won't acknowledge the law of unintended consequences from well-meaning, if misguided, acts.
Obama and Democrats on the Hill think even more regulation and more interference in the market will solve the problem their policies helped cause. For now, unarmed by the historic record, conventional wisdom is buying into their blame-business-first rhetoric and bigger-government solutions.
While government arguably has a role in helping low-income folks buy a home, Clinton went overboard by strong-arming lenders with tougher and tougher regulations, which only led to lenders taking on hundreds of billions in subprime bilge.
Market failure? Hardly. Once again, this crisis has government's fingerprints all over it.
This has been a rough week for the country and it's been painful to watch. We faced an unprecedented financial crisis that was created by a combination of greed on Wall Street and incompetence in our government. Add onto this the fact that our country is divided ideologically and our so-called guardians of the First Amendment that call themselves journalists have chosen a side in this ideological divide and will lie and cover up information to meet their ends. "It's Bush's fault, it's capitalism's fault, it's the free market's fault." President Bush proposed an overhaul of Fannie and Freddie in 2003 when everyone I knew was buying a house and wondering why I wasn't. Barney Frank, lifetime Democrat Congressman from Massachusetts said at the time there was nothing to worry about and Bush was crazy. How do I know this? From reading "right-wing" blogs, not from NBC, CBS, ABC, et al.
To quote the X-Files, "The truth is out there," but I fear not enough people will get to hear it before November 4.
The recession that never seems to get quite get here has once again been delayed. The economy grew 1.9% in the second quarter of 2008.
Here's the interesting part: Economists say it has to do with the stimulus checks we received.
Expansion accelerated modestly in the second quarter as government stimulus payments helped consumers add more buying punch to the economy, a Commerce Department report on Thursday showed.
Okay, so what they're telling us is that money taken out of government hands and put in the hands of the people caused the economy to grow. Wouldn't it then be logical to say that the economy would grow even further if even more money was in the hands of the people via tax cuts? Maybe it's time to not only make the Bush tax cuts permanent, but to cut taxes even more.
I never thought I'd live to see the day when an elitist like George Will would be quoting Homer Simpson, but here we are. In this brilliant column titled "Beer: Is There Anything It Can't Do?" Will looks at how alcohol in fact built human civilization and why beer can legitimately be called a health food.
While Obama flips and flops his way to the political center, John McCain (already in the center if not just a touch to the left) is looking to move to the right with an economic plan that calls for balancing the budget in four years and reforming entitlement programs. Could be a good first step toward getting conservatives back into the fold.
Just read this article about how a lot of people are pleased that Starbucks is closing 600 stores in light of the soft economy. Many are pleased to see the corporate giant hurt and think it'll be a good thing for small independent coffee houses. However, it amazes me that in reading this whole article there's not one mention of the fact that Starbucks coffee just isn't that good. Granted if you want a half-half-double-caf-skim milk latte, it's the place to go, but if you just want a cup of joe, all you get is a cup of burnt black liquid. Isn't that what matters?
Iraq is ready to take bids from foreign companies to develop oil fields and return the country to the major leagues in oil sales like their neighbors. However, this line in the Reuters story just got to me:
But any awards to U.S. and British firms could anger opponents of the invasion, who have said the 2003 war was designed to give Western oil companies control over Iraqi oil reserves. U.S. and British officials have denied the charges.
It could anger opponents of the invasion? Screw 'em! Who cares what they think? This is what has gone seriously wrong in our country. We've been trained to believe that it would be bad news for Exxon or some other oil company to get the rights to pump oil in Iraq. That's nothing but good news.
Larry Kudlow says Ben Bernanke has finally realized the weak dollar is a problem and is taking steps to correct it.
In fact, Bernanke has not only acknowledged that the cheap dollar has caused "the unwelcome rise in import prices and consumer price inflation" - as booming oil and commodity prices have leaked into U.S. inflation through the cheap dollar — he may well have set a floor underneath the greenback. This is big news.
Jonah Goldberg in the most recent issue of the Claremont Review of Books looks at a Amity Shlaes's The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression. Amity delves into the myth that the New Deal "worked" and got America out of the Great Depression. Goldberg offers this incite that could easily describe our current times:
FDR's political interests were deeply tied to continuing economic misery. His class-warfare rhetoric became self-fulfilling. The more the government failed, the more the people resented Big Business, and wanted Roosevelt to punish the "economic royalists." The longer the economy remained depressed, the more justifiable seemed the New Deal's permanent welfare state and its abandonment of federalism and other constitutional restraints on the federal establishment.
Bottom line, a President Obama will raise the Capital Gains Tax to almost 30%. Here's an excerpt from a CNBC interview via Politico:
"Here's my belief, that we can't go back to some of the, you know, confiscatory rates that existed in the past that distorted sound economics.
Here Obama does something unusual for him...he flirts with the truth. High tax rates mean tax avoision.
"And I certainly would not go above what existed under Bill Clinton, which was the 28 percent.
In other words, he'll raise them to 28%.
"I would--and my guess would be it would be significantly lower than that.
Guess again.
"I think that we can have a capital gains rate that is higher than 15 percent. If it--and if it, you know--when I talk to people like Warren Buffet or others and I ask them, you know, what's--how much of a difference is it going to be if it's 20 or 25 percent, they say, look, if it's within that range then it's not going to distort, I think, economic decision making."
Okay, let's stop for a moment. Yeah, it may not distort Warren Buffett's decision making. He's only the richest man in the world. Now the small businessman who runs say a chain of clothing stores, he's screwed...as will be his customers. This is simple economics and the man who may be our next president doesn't have a clue.
Hmmm...as we grapple with a "mortgage crisis," home sales rose 2.9% in February after months of decline. As usual, it caught economists by "surprise," which for some reason never leads anyone to think "we need to get some new economists."
Anywho, this may be a sign that things are stabilizing, thus proving President Bush's point that the worst thing he can do is try to do too much. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is calling for Alan Greenspan and Robert Rubin to lead an "emergency working group on foreclosures." Oy!
From our "Oops!" File, the Howard Beale of financial news, Jim Cramer, made what might be one of the worst financial predictions in history last week when he told his viewers on CNBC not to move their money from Bear Sterns as the company was "not in trouble." Whew! That's gotta hurt.
However, he has an decent argument that he was technically correct, but alas perception is reality in the digital age.
The marketplace economy is like the human body, once in a while it catches a cold. You can run to the doctor and load up on pills, or you can just ride it out with plenty of rest and chicken soup. President Bush prefers the latter. Let's hope our next president feels the same.
Okay, we've got the dollar at an all-time low, oil prices at an all-time high, and George McGovern is speaking out against the nanny state. One more horseman and it'll be time to head down to the cellar.
A quick economics lesson on "closing corporate tax loopholes" from The Other Side of Kim. Read it all. Very simple and very true. (Hat tip: Johnny Sac)
It's much ado about nothing and won't make much difference, but hell, it's $300...I'll take it. Any money taken out of government hands is ultimately a good thing.
MORE: Just so no one questions my libertarian bona-fides, I realize this is nothing more than wealth redistribution.
Why? Because that's what they're told every single day by the MSM. Certainly, there are some economic problems right now, but we may be looking at the first media-created economic recession.
The former Soviet block countries in Europe are moving toward the flat tax, just as Russia did some years ago. Ukraine, Slovakia, Georgia, Romania, Serbia, Albania....yet in the land of the free and home of the brave, we can't even think about such a thing. What's wrong with this picture?
The Washington Examiner has a story on how the Bush White House and former thugs from the Clinton Administration are bickering over whose economy was/is stronger. Larry Kudlow rightly points out that they both should chill out...it really Reagan's economy that were enjoying. That man really saved this country.
No matter how much you take care of yourself, no matter how much you exercise, eat right and take your vitamins, eventually you're gonna catch a cold. That's what the market did yesterday. It was time for a correction, now people are looking for some cheap stock.
