Way Way Back in 2003, Freddie and Fannie

New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae - New York Times

Nobody in the MSM needs to look of course, but WAY back in 2003, that bastion of conservative thought, the NYT ran this column pointing out how WRONG Bush was about the need for more Freddie and Fannie regulation, and how RIGHT brilliant Democrats like Barney Frank were in opposition to any more control, because there were NO PROBLEMS!

'These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''

Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.

''I don't see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,'' Mr. Watt said.

See, it is GREAT to be a Democrat. You take a position AGAINST more regulation when the administration and the Republicans propose it, and THEN, when it is clear that you were WRONG, the MSM forgets that and let's you blather about Bush failing to regulate. Note also how it is clear even in 2003 that the Democrats understand that if these agencys are regulated like they should be, it will mean "less bargaining power for poorer families". That is regrettable, but it isn't like taking out high risk loans turns out to be FREE is it!!! If you want to do that, why not try to vote a federal subsidy through in the open rather than sink the credit markets and then blame them for the sinking!!

This is the same kind of brilliance as BO saying "The surge will make things worse"!!! Of course, we have a press that does equal treatment -- the fact that Bush thought there were WMD (along with EVERYONE else) and we never found it is something they ignore just as much as they ignore BO being wrong about the surge.

Killing the Goose?

The government seems to be pretty happy taking $3 Trillion PER YEAR out of a $13 Trillion dollar PER YEAR Economy. Even if getting out of the sub-prime debacle actually cost a Trillion, how many folks would spend 1/13th of their income to make the best effort they could to keep making the other 12/13ths? It doesn't seem to be a hard decision at all when one looks at it that way.

I'm waiting to find an article or politician that explains it as clearly as Paulson did during the Senate Testimony. The GOVERNMENT strongly pushed Freddie and Fannie to take more sub-prime loans in order to keep housing starts moving and lower and lower income people getting homes. Then, after Enron, they passed Sarbannes Oxley that put LEGAL restrictions on the rating of the financial instruments that a business could keep on their balance sheet. Sounded good at the time.

When Bear went down, Moody's and Std and Poors started looking at the "mortgage backed securities" and discovered that sub-prime was everywhere. They downgraded the rating. Once they did that, the Financial Officers and the CEOs HAD to sell the mortgage backed securities--they were ILLEGAL to keep on their balance sheet. Selling them was and is stupid, but they had no choice--the law says sell or GO TO JAIL!! Wham, credit instruments that were 97% secure and had maybe dropped to 95% secure at the worst now had to be DUMPED, and none of the businesses that would normally buy them could make any use of them. Even though on the long term their value is almost certainly secure, they are no longer LIQUID--nobody will buy them TODAY. Meltdown caused by an unintended side-effect of well intentioned government regulation.

BUT, SOX was "Bi-Partisan" BOTH guys like Dodd and McCain voted for it--because they thought it was good. I'm sure there is plenty of blame to go around, Wall Street is certainly not blameless, but Washington is FAR from blameless, and it isn't for the reasons that they seem willing to admit. So they are playing "chicken" with the $13 Trillion US Economy that could take the whole world into a depression. Why?

Well, hey, BOs poll numbers bumped up on the crisis, so crisis must be good! I'm convinced that the MSM and the Democrats could care less if they drive the country to 70% of the population starving and the other 30% killed by terrorists. As long as they can blame Bush and get power it will be more that fine with them!

Unless our elected idiots choose to continue to playing politics rather than fixing an unforseen problem that they had a very large role in creating, there is no way that anything over 10-15% of those mortgages are going to default. The $700-$1Trillion "exposure" is very likely to turn them a PROFIT, just like the Chrysler bailout (that was MUCH less of a good idea) and actually the S&L bailout even eventually turned a profit.

I think the people that make the $13 Trillion a year are perfectly willing to be demonized if that is the price to keep the economy running. Better to have a bunch of prima donas that have never produced anything but hot air in their life going "shame, shame, I told you so" when a big hunk of the problem is actually of their creation than to actually let the credit markets dry up and destroy the business "goose" that keeps turning out that $13 Trillion every year. Do Dodd and BO understand that? I really wonder to sit and listen to them, but I believe they must. They simply don't care about ANYTHING but raw political power, no matter what the level of damage caused!

I Can't Believe BO Would "Miss"

Commentary: McCain's Latino ad hits target, Obama's misses - CNN.com

Patriotic for the Other Guy to Pay More

Biden calls paying higher taxes a patriotic act - Yahoo! News

We just saw Biden's tax returns. Funny how it is ALWAYS "patriotic" for the guy that makes just more than you to pay a lot more in taxes. Gee, if THAT is so "patriotic" wouldn't it be UNpatriotic for the 4 out of 5 to get tax CUTS?

Are taxes "patriotic" or aren't they? Did our founding fathers mention $250K, or was that a random number "patriotism" cutoff that just HAPPENED to be basically at Biden's income?

Maybe he copied the figure from somewhere ... in his case, that is something that I would certainly believe.

Time Explains Financial Markets

How Financial Madness Overtook Wall Street - TIME

In general I think this is a pretty good article. I'll summarize and add my spin:

• Markets, like any somewhat natural phenomenon have cycles
• We all want to "control / regulate / moderate" the markets to some extent. Like natural phenomenon (flooding, disease, storms, etc) this is sometimes possible to SOME extent, but at the absolute, out of our control.
  
• Since markets are human created, the psychology of humans has a lot to do with their movements. Greed and fear are two operative feelings that drive fluctuations.
  
• We layer "technology" until nobody completely understands what we built. Financial technology is the same -- we aggregate, derive, hedge, etc until it SEEMS that we have a way to "control the risk", and even "gain from the risk". For some durations of time, maybe we do--but again, the induction problem. We will never KNOW that. Tomorrow ALWAYS has the potential to be "completely new", in both good and bad ways. We doubt that it WILL be--in either the good or bad ways, but it certainly can surprise any of us.
  
• People overreact--in all directions. Too high, too low, too much, too little, too fast, too slow, etc. It is part of human nature. In government, in business, in families--it goes with the flawed nature of humanity.
  

So, where does that all leave us. Bottom line, we don't know, but PROBABLYThe "crisis" isn't as big as the MSM would like us to believe.  We better HOPE that McCain and Bush are right when they say that the economy is "fundamentally sound". It is hard to see how they would NOT be right given the standard of living, corporate profits, etc, but since a lot of it can come down to psychology, it may be that enough of the public has been scared enough by some of the mis-reporting that we may yet get a huge general crash that will be to nobody's benefit.

My favorite piece of that mis-reporting is the CONSTANT statement (repeated in this article) that the Freddy/Fanny bailout is $6 TRILLION. That would be if ALL the mortgages in the US defaulted. How likely do you think THAT is??? The CBO said it was likely a $25 BILLION exposure. That is a LONG way from $6 TRILLION. Do these folks have a death wish? It IS possible to get large masses of people to do really stupid things -- HG Wells War of World radio broadcast if you aren't a believer.

"News" from AP or BO Campaign Material

Power Line: If You've Opposed One Bridge, You've Opposed Them All


PL does a great job here. AP is trying to get you to think that Palin is doing some "special favor" for her town. PL makes it extremely clear that there isn't any truth in that at all, this is simply an attempt to get the uninformed to dislike Palin.

Republicans Control Congress?

Wall Street turmoil gives Dems opening - CNN.com

I could have swore that in '06 the Republicans went down in the fall elections because of "insufficient oversight", "corruption" and "the poor economy". We have now had nearly 2 years (or all the time we ever get to vote for) of Democrats running both the House and Senate. But ONLY the PRESIDENT is responsible for the economy?

Wait, we had a really good economy in '06 -- does that mean that the MSM thinks that REPUBLICANS did a good job to bring that about?

I'd think that we have a classic case of "a pox on both your houses" here with the R in the WH and the D in Congress, but the MSM seems to think that is not the case. Wonder why?

Change You Can Taste!

Obama Waffles.com: Edible Election 08 Souvenir

The Rev Wright "missing" on the side is pretty cool. These guys have at least as much creativity as the Bush "mis-speak" calendar"!

Income, Giving, Biden, Democrats

Joe Biden and American Charity by Byron York on National Review Online

Joe Biden is one of those really nice Democrats. He makes about $250K a year, yet only finds it in his heart to give $300 or so to charity. He believes that "Charity begins in Washington" I suppose. It is also odd that something in the $200K+ income range is suddenly "poor" when it is associated with a Democrat.

That is VERY odd considering that the TOP income group in the US looks as follows:


Note that nearly 10% of the US population makes from 100-149K! Do you know why that is? Hint, Hint -- at $150K the cutoff for a WHOLE bunch of things like Roth IRA's kick in. I'm SURE that has NOTHING to do with it though, because "people aren't negatively affected by government tax policy"! Just ask BO and the MSM.

Note also though that > $200K puts you in the Top 2% of earners! So "poor Joe"-he is in the top 2% of earners, yet he is "poor", and his chairity contributions don't need to be scrutinized.

Here is a chart of the Bidens’ giving for the years covered by the tax returns copied from the article:

Right Wing Coverage Only

E-mail to Obama: dishonest TV ad, wrong audience - Los Angeles Times

Predictably, the BO Ad with the McCain e-mail deficiency is getting no MSM coverage of the obvious mistakes involved. Here are a couple:

First, the ad is dishonest. McCain has been one of the Senate's leading authorities on telecom and the Internet.

In
2000, Forbes magazine called him the "Senate's savviest technologist."
That same year, Slate's Jacob Weisberg gushed that McCain was the most
"cybersavvy" of all the presidential candidates that year, a crop that
included none other than Al Gore. Being chairman of the Senate Commerce
Committee, Weisberg explained, "forced him to learn about the Internet
early on, and young Web entrepreneurs such as Jerry Yang and Jeff Bezos
fascinate him."

Weisberg, an Obama booster, now disingenuously mocks McCain as "flummoxed by that newfangled doodad, the personal computer."

One
reason McCain is not versed in the mechanical details of sending e-mail
and typing on a keyboard is that the North Vietnamese broke his fingers
and shattered both of his arms. As Forbes, Slate and the Boston Globe
reported in 2000, McCain's injuries make using a keyboard painfully
laborious. He mostly relies on his wife and staff to show him e-mails
and websites, though he says he's getting up to speed.

"It's
extraordinary," Obama spokesman Dan Pfeiffer said, "that someone who
wants to be our president and our commander in chief doesn't know how
to send an e-mail." For the record, President Clinton sent exactly two
e-mails while in office, according to the archives in his presidential
library.

Besides, by this logic, Obama is even less qualified
to be commander in chief because, unlike McCain, Obama has never fired
a gun, flown a plane or led men during wartime.

Ever Hear of Tony Rezko?

Palin aide says Obama backers politicizing Alaska investigation - CNN.com

Does the MSM treat Republicans any different? One would think that Tony Rezko was a classified individual--maybe a REAL deep cover CIA spook. Being the convicted felon that helped BO get his multi-million dollar home.

Meanwhile, working to get a guy that Tazers a kid and drinks beer in his squad car removed from a police force is a "scandal" that is worthy of the absolute top headline on CNN.

BO in the Kerry, Gore, Dukakis, Mondale, McGovern, Humphrey Role

ReviewJournal.com - Opinion - JOHN BRUMMETT: He's Kerry; she's Reagan

Good little sour grapes lefty view of what has happened to "The One". BO certainly wasn't going the Slick Willie route, so either he was going to be coronated without a fight (the MSM plan), make a "completely new way", or be sort of a "Jimmy Carter stealth far lefty win because folks don't like Bush" (I believe the BO plan to the extent he does planning), or he was going to lose like all the other admited lefty candidates have for a long time.

Carter was an aberration -- he barely beat Ford anyway, who was not much of a campaigner. People were mad as hell, and the "outsider" looked good to them. BUT, at least SOME folks may have learned their lesson there.

Slick was really slick, but without Perot and the breaking of the "read my lips" pledge, he would have went down in flames.

Rollin's on Palin Game Change

Commentary: How Palin changed the game - CNN.com

Ed Rollins does a good job here and puts the right analogy out. "Now McCain as a 2 yard lead with 98 yards to go to score". HOPEFULLY McCain is smart enough to not get complacent like BO.

Good, relatively short read, especially liked this section:

Then his world stopped with Sen. John McCain's shocking selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin
for the vice presidential nomination. And over the last two weeks, the
governor of Alaska has deflected the arc of Obama's campaign. She can
match his pretty words. The outdoor game has changed from "horse" to
"moose," and only one candidate in this race has shot "moose."

Obama's campaign diminished itself by challenging her experience. The
candidate who ranked 99th in Senate seniority, with one of the thinnest
resumes ever when he began his presidential quest, looked foolish
challenging a governor who made decisions every day while he was
missing votes in the Senate running for president.

BO Tried to Stall Withdrawl?

OBAMA TRIED TO STALL GIS' IRAQ WITHDRAWAL - New York Post

I'm not going to put a big bet on the veracity of this, but it does sound like something that BO might at least WANT to do. The following sounds like a pretty good analysis of BO from "foreigners":

Iraqi leaders are divided over the US election. Iraqi President
Jalal Talabani (whose party is a member of the Socialist International)
sees Obama as "a man of the Left" - who, once elected, might change his
opposition to Iraq's liberation. Indeed, say Talabani's advisers, a
President Obama might be tempted to appropriate the victory that
America has already won in Iraq by claiming that his intervention transformed failure into success.

Maliki's advisers have persuaded him that Obama will win - but the
prime minister worries about the senator's "political debt to the
anti-war lobby" - which is determined to transform Iraq into a disaster
to prove that toppling Saddam Hussein was "the biggest strategic
blunder in US history."

One has to go outside of the US to get really accurate analysis of how our left wing thinks! I really like the understanding that a good thing for a "man of the left" to do is to pick up someone else's success and declare it his! Great bunch of folks!

Barone Ought Not Have Written This

McCain Flies His Campaign Past Obama by Michael Barone on National Review Online

Barone is a genius, and they often are too willing to share their knowledge. I suspect that BO has never read much in the way of military fighter strategy, but I've read a little, and of course McCain has EXPERIENCED a lot! Is it "fair" to try to get inside your oponents head? I'm sure that Putin, Bin Ladin and a ton of other folks out there spend all day long worrying about that issue! You want to play in the big leagues, you better be able to handle the big leagues. HOPEFULLY that is what a real Presidential campaign will show.

So far, all BO and the MSM are doing since McCain launched the Palin offensive is cry "foul", "sleaze", call names, and try to pick on old war wounds. The #1 on one ticket going after the #2 on the other ticket isn't really good strategy in any case, and the unspoken dynamic is that it is likely even LESS good when the #1 is a man and the #2 is a woman.

BO and the MSM are in high dudgeon, that is for sure. They had this all figured out (and I sure thought they did as well), and now it appears to be unraveling pretty fast. Let us hope it accelerates!!