It looks like the housing market is going to head into it’s second slump. What will the government try to do next? Hopefully nothing, but we know the idiots in Washington will feel they need and can do something.

Sales of previously owned U.S. homes fell at the fastest pace on record in December, though prices rose for the first time since the credit crisis began in August 2007, an industry trade group said on Monday.

The National Association of Realtors said existing home sales fell 16.7 percent to an annual rate of 5.45 million units in December, a sharper decline than the 5.90 million unit pace expected.

via Hot Air » Blog Archive » Gov’t pulling out of mortgage support as home resales plunge.

The problem is there is a good chance we are going to have major inflation, so trying to prop up housing again with low interest rates is only going to make inflation worse. Then again, if you have enough inflation, housing might eventually be valued at their earlier inflated prices at least in nominal dollars. Of course, everything else will be more expensive as well, and the economy will have to be clamped down on to bring inflation down, so we’ll be back at it again. Isn’t government intervention great? They are just so good at stabilizing the economy.

By way of The Business Insider, the New York Times has an article about how Tim Geithner’s Fed wanted to keep the details of the AIG bailout from the people.

The New York Times unearths more documents showing the lengths to which Tim Geithner’s New York Fed went to try to keep the AIG bailout and counterparty details secret.

The Treasury’s response will no doubt be that Tim Geithner had no knowledge of any of these discussions.

And he may not have have been involved in the discussions. But it’s ludicrous to think that his folks weren’t trying to do what he wanted done.

via Tim Geithner’s NY Fed Begged SEC To Keep AIG Bailout Details Secret.

It is amazing the amount of people that still look to government to take care of them and protect them. Our government is supposed to be “of the people, by the people, and for the people”. Yeah right. The only thing our government is is “from the people”. They take from the people to protect their friends. They take from the people to empower themselves. They take from the people to buy votes. The take liberties from the people to prevent a challenge to their power.

If this was truly the people’s government, then the people would have a right to know what their representatives are saying on their behalves. There would be no closed door sessions of congress, back room dealings or secret bailouts.

This is just more proof that the elites of this country view the government not as the protector of the people, but as their personal tool to do as they wish. The government is the nations largest bank ready to write checks to the power brokers as they demand.

It seems like the mountain of lies that is Global Warming, Climate Change or whatever they are calling it now is coming undone every day. Here is yet more evidence of lies, or as government folks call them, “mistakes”.

YouTube – New report feeds climate change skeptics.

OK, I’m not saying every free market idea is a great idea, but what the hell. If there is demand, then so be it.

Three British Holiday Inns have introduced a new service for ensuring guests get the perfect night’s sleep: human bed-warmers.

On request, staff members will get under the covers wearing a fleece body covering and stay there until the bed reaches the optimal temperature of 20-24 degrees Celcius, Reuters reports.

“The new Holiday Inn bed warmers service is a bit like having a giant hot water bottle in your bed,” a Holiday Inn spokeswoman said.

via Holiday Inn Introduces The Grossest Idea Ever: Human Bed-Warmers.

People much smarter than I have been warning about the market in 2010. Is this the beginning?

Don’t we wish? That’s not quite what he said. He wants to close them down and create a new housing system from scratch. Can you imagine if every time you completely screwed up at work, you just went to your boss and said “We should just abolish the disaster I created and start from scratch. I know exactly how to do it. Oh, don’t worry that I completely destroyed the company with my last attempt and kept telling you to pour more money into that disaster all the while telling you it was going great.” Here an article from the Wall Street Journal about Frank’s comments.

A top House Democrat on Friday said his committee was preparing to recommend “abolishing” mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and rebuilding the U.S. housing-finance system from scratch.

“The remedy here is…as I believe this committee will be recommending, abolishing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in their current form and coming up with a whole new system of housing finance,” said Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.), the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

His comments initially rippled through bond markets on concerns that the government might pull away from the mortgage market. Many believe that’s unlikely and that any revamp would include continued government involvement. The government took over the companies in September 2008 as loan losses mounted.

Please. The government would never pull away from the mortgage market. It’s just another way for them to buy votes and redistribute wealth. There is only one reason that the government needs to be involved in the house financing system. That is to force the cost of buying homes for a select group of people onto the population as a whole. When I go to a local bank and get a mortgage, the bank will charge a high enough interest rate to make it worth it for them to lend me the money. If the rate is too high, I’ll pass. If I think it is just right, I’ll borrow and buy a home. We both win. No one else is forced to pay for my home.

Now, how does the government change this? Well, they artificially lower interest rates and standards to allow otherwise unqualified buyers to buy homes. The cost of money has not changed just because the government wants it to. Someone has to pay the difference between what it normally would cost to borrow at the buyers interest rate and the artificial rate the government sets. That someone is the tax payer. As with all government handouts, they spread the cost of a select few over the entire populace.

Some Republicans have argued that the companies should ultimately be reduced in size and privatized, while at other end of the spectrum, some analysts have recommended turning the companies into government agencies. But several industry groups and academics have suggested that the government is likely to continue playing at least some role in the future of the companies.

One such report came from analysts at Standard & Poor’s this past week. “It’s hard for us to imagine” how enough capital could be attracted to replace Fannie and Freddie with stand-alone private companies that would be able to offer low-cost funding for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, the analysts wrote.

Thanks Standard & Poor’s! It’s hard to imagine because you are trapped in our currently reality. Capital will be attracted if it is rewarded properly by the market. If interest rates are allowed to be set by the market instead of being set by our economic emperors, capital will come. Of course they stipulate “low-cost funding”, which goes right back to forcing the cost on all tax payers.

Some analysts have argued that starting from scratch could create more problems than they would solve, in part because Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee around half of the nation’s $11 trillion in home mortgages. “Blue sky ideas are great, but they take a long time to happen,” said Mahesh Swaminathan, senior mortgage strategist at Credit Suisse, at a conference last month. “When you have $5 trillion of agency mortgages, you can't really orphan them.”

Here’s an idea. Don’t start from scratch. We are in a hole, so stop digging. Discontinue all future operations, and either let the current mortgages pan out (foreclose, payoff, etc) or sell off the mortgages to the highest bidder. We’ve already been screwed by the government here, so get it over with and quit dragging it out. At least then we’d be on a path to the free market. By the way, did anyone find the clause in the Constitution that says the Federal government can even be involved in housing finance. Yes Mrs. Pelosi, I’m serious.

Mr. Frank, who didn’t elaborate on forthcoming recommendations, said last month that one possible revamp could merge some functions of Fannie and Freddie that overlap with the Federal Housing Administration into the government mortgage-insurance agency.

The Obama administration said it will weigh in on how to revamp the companies—and the entire housing-finance system—when it releases its budget next month. Republicans have increasingly criticized the administration for moving to overhaul the financial sector without spelling out plans for Fannie and Freddie.

In a PBS interview on Thursday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the legislative process to overhaul Fannie, Freddie and the housing-finance system was unlikely to begin this year. “It’s just a complicated thing to get right,” he said. “But we are completely supportive and agree completely with the need to make sure that we take a cold, hard look at what the future of those institutions should be in our country.”

via Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Should Be Eliminated, Barney Frank Says – WSJ.com.

Thank God Geithner and Obama will weigh in on this soon. They have just been so great up to this point on economic matters.  I am sure our socialist President will come up with a great market based system, right? Be ready for a new welfare program, created from scratch by the most socialist government we’ve had in my life time.

I’ve tried staying away from foreign policy, because I’m a recovering neo-con. I must ask though, what are we trying to accomplish by agitating Russia? Didn’t the cold war end 20 years ago? Then why are we still fighting it? Who is benefiting from it continuing? (I have some ideas, but I’ll save that for a conspiracy blog)

Russia will strengthen its Baltic fleet in response to U.S. plans to deploy Patriot missiles in Poland, Russian state news agency RIA reported on Thursday, citing an unnamed senior navy official.

“The surface, underwater and aviation elements of the Baltic Fleet will be strengthened,” RIA quoted the unidentified Russian navy official as saying.

The United States is dispatching the missiles to Poland after dropping an earlier plan to deploy interceptor missiles in the NATO nation as part of an anti-missile system in Europe.

“In connection with the plans to install the Patriots on Polish territory in the next 5 to 7 years, there may be significant changes in the approach to define the tasks and the military potential of the Baltic Fleet,” RIA quoted the same source as saying.

Moscow has expressed concern about what it calls U.S. military encroachment and threatened to respond to any change in the current military balance on its western borders with NATO nations.

President Dmitry Medvedev had previously warned Moscow would station Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad if Washington went ahead with its original anti-missile plan. U.S. President Barack Obama‘s decision to revise it pleased the Kremlin.

But the plan to install Patriot missiles has resurrected longstanding Russian suspicions about the motive for the strengthened NATO presence near its borders, said Alexei Fenenko of the Institute of International Security Studies in Moscow.

“Russia was very concerned about the anti-missile system being installed in Poland and the Czech Republic and didn’t understand the need for it in these locations, if it was intended against Iran,” he said.

“If it’s not against Iran, then who is it against? The new missiles will be now be close to the territory of both Kaliningrad and Belarus” (a Russian military ally that borders Poland), he said.

via Russia responds to U.S. missile plans for Poland – Yahoo! News.

How long do we think we can keep this up? Reagan’s strategy was to bankrupt the Soviet Union, and he was successful. Instead of being humble and trying to build a long lasting relationship with Russia, we have constantly slapped them in the face. This is the latest example. Unfortunately, because we decided after the Cold War was over that we needed to be an empire, we are now moving towards bankruptcy ourselves.

We can no longer be the protectorate of all the world. Most of the world does not even have to spend their own money to protect themselves, because they let us be the useful tools to do it. We are not only doing this in Eastern Europe with Russia. We do it to China with the Koreas, Taiwan and Japan. We do it in South America with Columbia. Look at this map of our military footprint. How long can a country that is aging, becoming less free and less capitalistic sustain such an empire?

While I would love to believe that our intentions are good and we only want to promote freedom around the world, I cannot see how building up militarily in every corner of the earth does that. It isn’t the threat of military force that drives people to want freedom. It is in the human spirit to want freedom, and it was the American example of liberty that inspired much of the world.

I am not arguing that we should weaken ourselves as a nation. We should have a ferocious homeland defense. Our second amendment rights should be reaffirmed as unquestionable by any legislation whether domestic or foreign. A heavily armed citizenry would dissuade any tyranical government from becoming our oppressors, including our own.

History is full of dead empires who thought they could control the world beyond their borders. George Washington warned us not to fall for it. In his fairwell address he said:

“If we remain one people under an efficient government. the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?

as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.

Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable establishments on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.

Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing (with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the government to support them) conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that, by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion, which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.

In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish; that they will control the usual current of the passions, or prevent our nation from running the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But, if I may even flatter myself that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism; this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare, by which they have been dictated.

George Washington was right too when he said “I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish..“. We long ago forgot his warnings. Maybe it’s about time we take up these “counsels of an old and affectionate friend”.

In yet another example of what the free market does, Amazon will be adding apps to their Kindle. Do you think this has anything to do with all the e-readers and tablets coming on the market? See Washington! Free markets deliver. In order to compete with Apple, Sony, Lenovo and others, Amazon is adding features and functionality to their products. Eventually you will see prices come down as well opening up the opportunity to own one to more consumers.

Amazon.com Inc. is showing signs of app envy.

The e-commerce giant says it plans to open its Kindle e-reader to “active content”–application programs that would allow the device to take on a wider range of uses.

Amazon's move appears to borrow a page from Apple Inc. and its popular app store for the iPhone. It comes just days before Apple is expected to unveil a tablet computer that is likely to compete directly with the Kindle as a platform for the distribution of electronic books while offering a range of other uses, including music, video and games.

The Seattle-based company said it will invite software developers to build and upload programs that would be sold in the Kindle store later in the year. To aid in that process, Amazon plans to offer programmers access to technology and tools to help them build active content.

via Amazon Plans Kindle Apps – WSJ.com.

Everytime Democrats lose elections, they default to the same line. “We didn’t get our message out.” Lanny Davis didn’t take long at all. He had an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this morning, just hours after the loss in Massachusetts. (bold letters for emphasis)

Liberal Democrats might attempt to spin the shocking victory of Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts by claiming that the loss was a result of a poor campaign by Martha Coakley. Would that it were so. This was a defeat not of the messenger, but of the message—and the sooner progressive Democrats face up to that fact, the better.

It’s the substance, stupid!

According to polls, fears about the Democrats’ health-care proposal played a prominent role in Mr. Brown’s victory yesterday. In the last several months, the minority congressional Republicans have dominated the message on health care—and stamped on the Democratic Party the perception that we stand for big government, higher taxes, and health insecurity when it comes to Medicare.

How is that possible? The Democrats have a simple message on health care that has still not really gotten through: If our bill passes, you never have to worry about getting, or losing, health insurance for the rest of your life. How is it that so few people have heard that message?

Then there were the two “deals” that put congressional Democrats in a worse light than the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere”—as impossible as that might have seemed—as an emblem of the special interest politics Barack Obama ran against. We Democrats had to explain to Massachusetts voters and other Americans why non-Nebraskans and nonunion members have to pay more taxes, while Nebraskans and union members get to pay less. Those two deals seem to have alienated most people across the political spectrum. That’s not easy.

via Lanny J. Davis: Blame the Left for Massachusetts – WSJ.com.

There you have it. The Democrats have a simple message, but Americans are just too stupid to get it. NO LANNY! They did hear it. People are finally waking up to realize there is no free lunch from either party. They get that in order to get your health care handouts from your master, you must be subservient to your master. You must re-elect your master and continue to empower him. You must give him your liberty.  It is no different with the war on terror and the Republicans (Confession: I’m a registered Republican). They think they can keep the threat of terrorism over our heads, so that we have to keep empowering them.

WE GOT THE MESSAGE! DID YOU GET OUR MESSAGE BACK? Let’s hope Scott Brown got it too.

I know this is going to come as a complete shock, but a government panel said that the private companies cannot ferry astronauts into space as safely as government. Geewiz! I cannot believe a government panel would say that government is best.

A key federal aerospace panel warned that NASA could run into serious safety challenges if it relies on private companies to ferry astronauts into space in the near future.

The Obama administration has been devising a plan to outsource a chunk of its manned space program to private companies in order to speed up rocket development, save money and focus federal dollars on longer-term expeditions. But a report released last week by the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, an outside safety watchdog for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, cautioned that the private space companies rely on “unsubstantiated claims” and need to overcome major technical hurdles before they can safely carry astronauts into orbit. It urged NASA to stick with its current government-run manned space ventures, and said that switching to private alternatives now would be “unwise and probably not cost-effective.”

Did I just read that right? Obama, Mr. Socialism himself, planned on outsourcing a chunk of the space program to private companies? Surely, there has to be a payoff in here somewhere?

So the advisory panel said the private sector would rely on “unsubstantiated claims”. Are they telling me government doesn’t do this? You mean like the claim we are going to pay for health care reform by cutting waste out of medicare? How about health care reform will only cost $800 billion? Or maybe we have to bail out our friends on Wall Street to save Main Street?

You have to love the gull this panel has saying that private companies would be “unwise and probably not cost-effective”. Seriously? How many government programs come in under budget? The only thing I don’t like about this is it creates a partnership between government and the private sector. You know what that means. It will be used for political payoffs. No doubt, Jack Murtha already has some favors to return.

But the findings released last week are likely to provide a boost to NASA officials who support keeping nearly all manned space programs in house. In addition, NASA’s largest and longstanding contractors, such as Boeing Corp. and Lockheed Martin Corp., are stepping up efforts to generate White House support against outsourcing more programs. As part of that campaign, they have challenged the safety of the start-up ventures, which are proposing to use rockets that haven’t been fully tested and in some cases, haven’t yet flown.

via NASA Urged Not To Outsource – WSJ.com.

Shocking that NASA officials would want to keep it all in house, and then the real culprits come out. Boeing and Lockheed Martin are pushing to keep it in house. Go figure. Who wants to have to compete? It’s so much easier to rip off the government. It’s definitely easier to grease the palms of a slimeball politician than it is to grease an executive’s palms who’s accountable to the bottom line. Behind almost every government regulation, you find some big business trying to stifle competition.

Did you read that last sentence? It’s a bad thing to propose rockets that haven’t been fully tested and in some cases, haven’t yet flown? Isn’t this how innovation is done? If you only propose things that already exist, you would never move forward. Can you image this panel talking about phone service? Apple is proposing this so-called iPhone that hasn’t been fully tested and hasn’t even made phone calls yet! What a waste. Let me stick with my rotary phone. It’s made tons of phone calls. This is exactly why private businesses should be involved in space. They will innovate!