Those Horrible AIG "Bonuses"

Op-Ed Contributor - Dear A.I.G., I Quit! - NYTimes.com

Just read the article -- and weep. This nation has driven off a cliff and is lighting boosters to see if we can accelerate into the ground. We are beyond madness.

Nervous In Boston?

Cool it on the bonus blowback - The Boston Globe

Beantown isn't known as exactly a bastion of conservatism. Could it be that even some of the snobs of Kerry/Kennedy ville realize that there is danger that lurks in "off with their heads populism". Especially when it is "your own team" -- Democrats, that were completely responsible for all sides of the bonus dilemma. Would that Republicans could have seen the danger on turning their backs on their own guys and merely going for "a pox on both your houses"!!!

Ater all, Congress created the AIG bailout plan, with input from the White House economic team. Either lawmakers knew what was in it when they voted for it, or voted for it without knowing important details. If they are angry at anyone, it should be at themselves, for failing to fulfill their responsibility as fiscal watchdogs.

The same holds true for Obama's economic team.

The AIG contracts, which provide for the bonuses regardless of performance, were written in March 2008. A full year later - after the taxpayers became 80 percent owners in AIG with a $165 billion bailout - the bonuses were protected by a special provision inserted into the stimulus law by Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd.

So, the lefty media is telling it's boys to just shut up and move on! When you are in a hole, STOP DIGGING!!!!

Pretty hard for folks with egos the size of Dodd and BO -- we shall see.

The Vision of the Anointed

I'm on a Thomas Sowell binge I guess. The subtitle of this one is "Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy". I like his terminology of "constrained vs unconstrained" used in Conflict of Visions better, but this one is even more readable, and focuses on the real use of the unconstrained vision in social policy with disastrous results that are never allowed to be attributed to "vision problems" because the media is part of the "anointed".

He mostly calls unconstrained "anointed" in this book, the constrained is either called "benighted" or "tragic". I think "tragic" is OK, since it points to the "tragedy" of mans position -- limited, flawed, mortal and all the while tending to think far more of ourselves than an unbiased "higher power" likely would.

I think he does a great job of capturing how the anointed put their ideas over on the sheep:

1. Assertions of a great danger to the whole society, a danger to which the masses of people are oblivious. (remind anyone of Global Warming?)
2. An urgent need for action to avert impending catastrophe. (Stimulus?)
3. A need for government to drastically curtail the dangerous behavior of the many, in response to the prescient conclusions of the few. (Carbon Cap and Trade)
4. A disdainful dismissal of arguments to the contrary as either uninformed, irresponsible, or motivated by unworthy purposes. (The Surge HAS failed -- Harry Reid, before it started)

One of the points Sowell  hammers home very well is how the anointed find the decisions of "others" to always be wrong -- it makes no difference if they are the cumulative decisions of thousands of years of law and culture or the combined decisions of a market of millions or even billions of people, the anointed believe in their vision of "justice" or "equality" or "morality" with such fervor that there will be no consideration for alternate views whose results they blame for all problems. Their vision will fix all that -- TOMORROW! Their perfect ends justify use of any means.

I love this quote from Hayek: "Compared with the totality of knowledge which is continually utilized in the evolution of a dynamic civilization, the difference between the knowledge that the wisest and that which the most ignorant individual can deliberately employ is comparatively insignificant. "

Well said!

This is about as true as it gets: "Systematic processes tend to reward people for making decisions that turn out to be right-creating, producing great resentments among the anointed, who feel themselves entitled to rewards for being articulate, politically active, and morally fervent".

I enjoyed his discussion on the political left and right. "Among the many thoughtless labels which have gained currency, the dichotomy between the political left and right is one of the most striking, not only for its wide acceptance, but also for its utter lack of definition--or even an attempt at definition. Essentially, only the left is defined -- very loosely, and "the right" is just defined as "those that are opposed to the left". As he points out; "Although the free market is the antithesis of state control of the economy, such as fascists advocate, the left-right dichotomy makes it seem as if fascists are a more extreme version of "conservatives"".

I find his "constrained/unconstrained" to be a MUCH better description of the differences that we commonly refer to as "left/right" or "liberal/conservative" in this country.

It is hard to leave this book without having a significantly negative prospects for the long term chances of the US. The anointed are never interested in the actual results of their policies, in fact, when one of their policies like "the war on poverty" INCREASES poverty, that is simply a call to do more of the same!

The same sort of problem is very severe in the case of the courts. While those of the tragic vision feel that a constitution is meant to be followed and only amended by the procedures for amendment that were set down at the founding, the anointed feel that each case ought to be judged on "the best capabilities of the judges on that day". Sadly, since the those of the tragic vision have a strong desire to preserve precedent, the nation continues to legally drift to the vision of the anointed with very little prospect but for the "rate of slide" to be slowed during some periods of history.

I highly recommend the book and at this point suspect that I need to try to find the time to read most everything this guy has written.

Punch Drunk

It is a rather good description -- is it really that funny to have millions unemployed and the government throwing TRILLIONS at every nook and cranny that they can, including million dollar retention bonuses -- that were a "mistake"??

BO Special Olympics

NYTimes' Cooper Somehow Misses Obama 'Special Olympics' Jab | NewsBusters.org

So the great and powerful BO has made a quip about "The Special Olympics" on national TV. Naturally, the RIGHT thing to do about this is for him to "apologize and move on" -- he has, and it appears that to the entire national media, this has happened. Let's think about why this is.

Those on the right believe that ALL humans are flawed and prone to saying AND even "believing" (deep down) things that are "inappropriate". BO saying this is as expected. In fact, the difference in the actual "innate goodness" of Mother Teresa and Hitler isn't all that much -- it is more about "who is driving" -- God, or "other". Even in the case of Mother Teresa, the amount of "God direction" is exceedingly low compared to Jesus (100%) -- BUT, a very little God makes a VERY big difference!

Those on the right believe in CONSISTENCY -- "do unto others". They know they would defend themselves or someone on their side of the political spectrum if they did something "equivalent" -- say misspelled "potato", got drunk and said something about Jews while being arrested (Mel Gibson), etc.

On the left, the NYT and most of the MSM have done about all they can do to completely ignore that it even happened, and when they DO mention it is to assure everyone that it is nothing at all -- doesn't do ANYTHING to diminish him in ANY way. In fact, maybe it makes him better!!

Since they care NOTHING for consistency, and "do unto others" is some sort of "radical religious idea", it bothers them none at all that if Bush, Rush, Newt, or even a midly conservative entertainer (Mel Gibson) did this, they would do all they could do to destroy him in any way possible! It WOULD be  EITHER a very serious character flaw, or very serious stupidity!!! It would be important for the "violator" to answer the question over and over that effectively is "Are you evil, stupid, or both?" ... and in what ratio???

Were Bush to have made this comment, it would be "bigger than Misunderestimated". If Sarah Palin said this, she would be FINISHED politically!!

This is the America we live in. To not realize this is to ignore reality plain and simple.

Constant Campaign

Obama re-enlists volunteers to build support for agenda - CNN.com

One of the horrible things of the Bush administration was that the evil Karl Rove constantly worked with a large national organization to try to "control the message". It was often brought out as somehow immoral, and some how "inappropriate" for the Bush administration to try to "influence people". It also had connotations of "big money" being involved.

One of BAD things about the Bush White House was that it was supposedly "in constant campaign mode".

I'd argue that it WASN'T nearly enough in "campaign mode" and that turned out to be a HUGE problem for both Bush and Republicans in general.

So, what would be different now??? This is bigger? The amount of money that BO has to do this kind of thing is more vast than has ever been seen?

Oh, wait -- BO is good, and Bush was EVIL. Yes, that's it!!!

Iraq Anniversary

Got a chance to hear a little NPR piece on the anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq. In the past, I've been lucky to hear a few of these, and they tended to dig into the "lost cause" aspects with gusto. Today had a certain sad and haunting quality as they sent reporters to Fallujah to talk to people about how much they had lost. I really didn't get a chance to hear the whole thing -- one of the problems of radio and the car, but it struck me how certain NPR is. They were certain Iraq could not be run, now they seem certain that it was too costly. Apparently the costs of living under Saddam Hussein are "free" -- sort of like the costs of Castro dictatorship, USSR Gulags, or Mao killing his millions.

Meanwhile, the BO budget deficit is now projected at $2 TRILLION -- Bush getting close to hitting $500 Billion was a scandal for them. The only issue now is that it is important for people to understand that we need "Education, Green Energy and Federal Healthcare" to get out of this. Apparently, there is no such thing as too big a deficit for NPR when we have a Democrat for President.

The new organic garden at the White House that includes arugula was also an important news item!!

Ah yes, publicly funded radio.

Dodd-ering Bonus?

Amid AIG Furor, Dodd Tries to Undo Bonus Protections He Put In - FOXBusiness.com


Think that the financial crisis has any Democrat fingerprints? Gee, AIG alone gave over $100 grand each to Dodd and BO. Early on in the campaign I wondered why BO was getting a huge amount of his money from the financial houses.

If the MSM would report it, everyone would know why now!

That Dodd actually WROTE THE PROVISIONS in the TARP under which these bonuses were paid and is now talking about taxing them would get a LOT of ink were Dodd a Republican.

Maybe Suicide and Stay?

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time - Blogs from CNN.com

Nice to see our elected officials having a good time beating up on businessmen that actually make and LOSE money. Taking money by force, spending that and trillions more on pork while flapping your jaws randomly must be quite respectable in some circles. The average person in prison is probably only about twice as trustworthy as 90% of our Senators.

Given the size of the Federal Deficit and the general ineptitude of our government, potentially we would be MUCH farther ahead if the Senators all committed suicide and STAYED in their positions!!

Grassley's initial comments came Monday afternoon during an interview with Iowa radio station WMT. During the interview, Grassley endorsed what he viewed as Japan's corporate model, saying it is customary for failed executives to either relinquish their posts or commit suicide in disgrace.

"In the case of the Japanese, they usually commit suicide before they make any apology," he said during that interview.

I wonder if Chuck is aware that Japan has been in a deeper recession than we are currently in since '92 and shows no sign of getting out? Does he endorse their RESULTS as well as their practices?

Seems to me that committing suicide prior to making the apology at least guarantees that the apology won't be wordy. In the case of the Senators, I think doing the suicide prior to the apology would REALLY save a lot of time -- heck, Biden might never get around to the permanent exit if he was doing an apology with words.

Bottom?

How Will We Know When the Economy Hits Bottom? - NYTimes.com

This article contains 3 very well done charts. There is no way of knowing if history is any guide at all to the future, but it is pretty much the only thing we really have to look at. Based on the P/E ratio, we MIGHT be either just at, or close to a bottom in the market.

The consumer spending chart would indicate that we are still at pretty high levels of spending relative to savings and will likely need to do some more catchup before we "return to the mean".

The housing chart is the most depressing of the 3 -- Fannie, Freddie and the Democrats took us a LONG way up a steep bubble and we likely to have to drop another 30-40% before we are close to returning to THAT mean.

History is no Guide

Commentary: Don't let history be your guide to investing - CNN.com

The following information is quite interesting:

Historically, stocks have produced the greatest long-term return of any financial asset, and "stocks for the long term" was the traditional mantra.

The thinking was that investors took on a worthwhile risk by putting money in stocks rather than taking the guaranteed interest on a U.S. Treasury bond. The idea was that the risk would be justified by stocks posting a better return than bonds. But by the end of 2008, for the first time ever, we saw a 25-year period in which long-term U.S. Treasury bonds actually outperformed the Standard & Poor's 500 stocks

So are bonds a good bet now?

A word of warning about long-term Treasury bonds. I think rates are likely to rise, probably quite sharply, over the next few years, which would clobber the prices of existing bonds. My reasoning: As the world financial panic (which has turned Treasury securities into a supposed safe haven) abates and the impact of huge U.S. government budget deficits is felt as the government has to sell vast amounts of bonds to raise money, rates have nowhere to go but up.

Diversify, Diversify, Diversify ...

Cutting The Cable

Dreaming of cutting the subscription TV cord | Digital Media - CNET News

In the BO Economy, doing with less is the expectation. One pretty much has to have the internet in the current world unless we are down to ARs and beans over the fire. A discussion of some ways to get by without cable.

An Exception

TSA to look at Vitter airport incident - CNN.com

CNN managed to do a negative article on a Republican Senator without having "R" in the headline, or even in the article! I must admit to amazement.

I'd guess this would never even make the news at all if it were a Democrat, but never the less, I have to give them accolades for not following their normal pattern.

I did enjoy the inclusion of the 2007 item -- are we going to include that Joe Biden quit a Presidential bid due to plagarism and Teddy Kennedy was involved in the death of a young woman (not his wife)? or maybe they will include "David Geitner -- admitted tax cheat" whenever he does something?

I'm not holding my breath.

Ecclesiastes 7:4

There's No Pill for This Kind of Depression - WSJ.com

KJV says it best: "The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth."

I think Peggy is back from being "lost", but the Bible verse says it as best as is possible. We are still pretty close to a 50/50 nation in reality. Right now BO's numbers are still high because about 10% of the people that know better are still giving him the benefit of the doubt in hope against hope that this won't be as bad as it looks -- so he is at 60% popularity as opposed to 50. The people that produce, invest, once dreamed of having a future, thought their kids could have a bright future, believed in what had always been America -- those kinds of folks are now mired in a depression that goes beyond mere financial ruin. They see that the core values of America have been squandered and we are careening to being "Really Western Europe", or some yet unknown Pagan Socialist Pauper Nation -- "On Nation Under Nothing" -- or maybe just "Under".

Two, the economy isn't the only reason for our unease. There's more to it. People sense something slipping away, a world receding, not only an economic one but a world of old structures, old ways and assumptions. People don't talk about this much because it's too big, but I suspect more than a few see themselves, deep down, as "the designated mourner," from the title of the Wallace Shawn play.

What I see around me is essentially "the loss of the future". For people in their 40's and 50's, they have seen 12 years of their investing lives go up in smoke, and any last vestiges of job security blow away (if not their actual jobs). They look out at the early wreckage of "the change", and they see no hope of a recovery that allows them to postulate a future any better than most likely a cinder block appartment in a government building where they will essentially be "a ward of the state". The future that looks most likely to them from today is a future that scarcely would have crossed their mind 6-12 months ago.


Meanwhile, our media and the 50% of people that always figured that "things were stacked against them" are in a paroxysm of joy. The wise know that will not last -- that is why gun sales are breaking all records. When the fools realize that yet again, they have duped themselves, they will return again to their natural state of anger. Will BO be able to turn their anger away from where it deserves to be (him) and toward the wise? Who knows, that is why the wise are buying guns.

Gun sales continue up. The FBI's criminal background check system showed a 23% increase in February over the previous year, a 29% increase in January, a 24% increase in December and a 42% increase in November, when a record 1.5 million background checks were performed. Yes, people fear Obama will take away the guns he thinks they cling to, but a likely equal contributor to what The Wall Street Journal's MarketWatch called a "gun-buying binge" is captured in the slogan on one firearms maker's Web site: "Smith & Wesson stands for
protection." People are scared.

I think "scared" is the wrong term -- "prepared" is better. The wise are always thinking of preparation -- a year ago it was saving, investing, not buying on credit, doing well at your job. Today it is laying in some cash/gold, supplies and firearms in case BO continues to take the nation in the current direction. We DO want him to fail to destroy America, but he has one hell of a good start if turning us into Kenya or worse is his objective.

"The heart of fools is in the house of mirth".

Democrats Made Off With Madoff

Media Forgets That Wall Street Rip Off Artist is BIG Democrat Donor | NewsBusters.org

One of my airtight rules: If the negative stories about a person don't mention the political party that they are associated with or have contributed to, you can rest assured that they are Democrats.

Ever see which party Madoff associated with? Nope -- Me neither, so it is no surprise that he is documented to have given in the 100s of K to the Democrats.

The MSM keeps a very careful picture of Republicans as "wealthy and corrupt" in front of the eyes of the sheep. Actually, Republicans are pretty much made up of:
 
- Practicing Christians
- working people of modest means that believe in responsibility and independence vs the Nanny State
- middle income folks that are trying to "work / invest their way up"
- nasty iconoclastic independent thinkers that don't believe "what everyone knows to be true"

Most all of the Wall Street Fat Cats, CEOs, "Intelligencia" and "wealthy over $500K" are Democrats, because they can afford to be, and if you are taking everyone's money, it is better if they like you. Basically the top and the bottom are Democrats -- The plutocrats and the teeming masses looking to be gaurenteed happiness by someone else.