I saw this article this morning on the Tribune Review. Just think about the amount of money that is going to go into these two government entities, and what the people actually get out of it.

WASHINGTON — The cost of fixing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage companies that last year bought or guaranteed three-quarters of all U.S. home loans, will be at least $160 billion and could grow to as much as $1 trillion after the biggest bailout in American history.

Fannie and Freddie, now 80 percent owned by taxpayers, have drawn $145 billion from an unlimited line of government credit granted to ensure that home buyers can get loans while the private housing-finance industry is moribund. That surpasses the amount spent on rescues of American International Group Inc., General Motors Co. or Citigroup Inc., which have begun repaying their debts.

“It is the mother of all bailouts,” said Edward Pinto, a former chief credit officer at Fannie Mae, who is now a consultant to the mortgage-finance industry.

Fannie, based in Washington, and Freddie in McLean, Va., own or guarantee 53 percent of the nation’s $10.7 trillion in residential mortgages, according to a Federal Reserve report. Millions of bad loans issued during the housing bubble remain on their books, and delinquencies continue to rise. How deep in the hole Fannie and Freddie go depends on unemployment, interest rates and other drivers of home prices, according to the companies and economists who study them.

Fannie and Freddie account for 53% of the $10.7 trillion dollar residential mortgage market, which comes out to $5.35 trillion. If it costs $1 trillion to bail them out, that is 20% of the mortgages that they hold. Shouldn’t 1 and 10 home owners nation wide or 1 in 5 home owners that have a loan held by these two entities have a home free and clear? How about every home owner have their mortgages reduced by 10%? While I don’t really think that is a good idea, because the money will be either borrowed or printed, I don’t think it make sense for the American people to have to eat $1 trillion dollars in mortgages to keep these entities propped up. Let them go bankrupt. Other banks will pick up the pieces.

The Congressional Budget Office calculated in August 2009 that the companies would need $389 billion in federal subsidies through 2019, based on assumptions about delinquency rates of loans in their securities pools. The White House’s Office of Management and Budget estimated in February that aid could total as little as $160 billion if the economy strengthens.

If housing prices drop further, the companies may need more. Barclays Capital Inc. analysts put the price tag as high as $500 billion in a December report on mortgage-backed securities, assuming home prices decline another 20 percent and default rates triple.

Sean Egan, president of Egan-Jones Ratings Co. in Haverford, Pa., said that a 20 percent loss on the companies’ loans and guarantees, along the lines of other large market players such as Countrywide Financial Corp., now owned by Bank of America Corp., could cause even more damage.

“One trillion dollars is a reasonable worst-case scenario for the companies,” said Egan, whose firm warned customers away from municipal bond insurers in 2002 and downgraded Enron Corp. a month before its 2001 collapse.

Fannie and Freddie are deeply wired into the American and global financial systems. Figuring out how to stanch the losses and turn them into sustainable businesses is the biggest piece of unfinished business as Congress negotiates a Wall Street overhaul that could reach President Obama’s desk by July.

Deeply wired means there are very wealthy and powerful people who stand to lose a lot of money if they go under. They want the American people to subsidize their losses, and our government is all too willing to give them what they want.

Neither political party wants to risk damaging the mortgage market, said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and White House economic adviser under President George W. Bush.

“Republicans and Democrats love putting Americans in houses, and there’s no getting around that,” Holtz-Eakin said.

With no solution in sight, the companies may need billions of dollars from the Treasury Department each quarter. The alternative — cutting the federal lifeline and letting the companies default on their debts — would produce global economic tremors akin to the federal decision to go off the gold standard in the 1930s, said Robert J. Shiller, a professor of economics at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., who helped create the S&P/Case-Shiller indexes of property values.

“People all over the world think, ‘Where is the safest place I could possibly put my money?’ and that’s the U.S.,” Shiller said. “We can’t let Fannie and Freddie go. We have to stand up for them.”

The companies’ liabilities stem in large part from loans and mortgage-backed securities issued between 2005 and 2007. Directed by Congress to encourage lending to minorities and low- income borrowers at the same time private companies were gaining market share by pushing into subprime loans, Fannie and Freddie lowered their standards to take on high-risk mortgages.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has vowed to keep Fannie and Freddie operating.

“It’s very hard to judge what the scale of losses is,” Geithner told Congress in March.

One idea being weighed by the Obama administration involves reconstituting Fannie and Freddie into a “good bank” with performing loans and a “bad bank” to absorb the rest. That could cost taxpayers as much as $290 billion because of all the bad loans, according to a May estimate by Credit Suisse analysts.

Keeping Fannie, Freddie afloat might cost up to $1 trillion – Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Great idea Obama. One bank where his cronies can maintain their profits without risk and another bank where the tax payer can eat the losses. Awesome!

Switzerland has been the home of off shore banking for a very long time. People who want to keep their money off shore, are doing it to protect their money from the modern day mafia, the US gov’t. Well, not for long. The Obama administration has vowed to go after those who believe their money is theirs, whether it is at home or over seas.

The Swiss were not giving in until just yesterday when their parliament approved a treaty with the US that would hand over files on their clients.

ZURICH—The Swiss Parliament Tuesday approved a treaty with the U.S. that will hand thousands of files on suspected tax cheats to U.S. authorities.

A majority of 81 to 61 lawmakers in Switzerland’s lower house have voted in favor of the government-backed deal. Fifty-three lawmakers abstained on the issue that has been portrayed as a nail in the coffin for Swiss banking secrecy.

Tuesday’s vote passed after the powerful Swiss People’s Party dropped its opposition. A first attempt last week to have parliament approve the treaty was blocked when the nationalist party and the left-wing Social Democrats voted “no.”

Technical details remain to be ironed out and the proposal may still be put to the Swiss public in a referendum before it finally becomes law.

Subjecting the bill to a referendum would likely mean that Switzerland would fail to meet the August deadline set in the pact with the U.S. because of the months it takes to hold a signature drive to launch a referendum in Switzerland.

The August 2009 settlement reached between Swiss and U.S. officials aims to resolve a conflict between Switzerland and the U.S. over data on wealthy Americans suspected of using hidden offshore accounts at UBS to avoid paying taxes.

OK, now two things are going on here. Number one is that the American government is so tyrannical that they will go after your money anywhere on the face of the earth. There is no such thing as personal property. There is no such thing as doing what is best for your money. They will chase you down literally to the edge of the earth. If that isn’t tyranny, I don’t know what is.

Second, the Swiss Parliament is completely screwing their people. If they turn over the files of wealthy Americans, what reason do wealthy Americans have in the future to put their savings into Swiss banks. They don’t. What will happen is savings will dry up in Switzerland. This means less capital for Swiss lending.

When savings are built up in banks, banks, in order to make profits, lend out that money. They lend it out to businesses, who then will look to grow the economy. In this short sighted attempt to appease the US regime, the Swiss will be giving up those savings, and they will be giving up the economic growth that that savings would have stimulated. In short, they are screwing their citizens, because the US regime wants to screw it’s citizens.

There is no doubt BP has bungled the handling of this oil spill. What is even more bungled is the government’s back and forth trying to act like they are or even can do something about this that will actually help. Most recently, Obama is now calling for a fund to be setup to pay claims.

From the Wall Street Journal:

The Obama administration, facing growing public anger over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, plans to ask BP PLC to establish an independently administered fund for reimbursing victims—in effect, taking some of the compensation decisions out of the company’s hands.

White House officials on Sunday said they wanted BP to put “substantial” funds into an escrow account to cover claims by Gulf Coast businesses and residents affected by the spill.

President Barack Obama plans to bring up the idea at a White House meeting Wednesday with top BP executives, including Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg.

The call was echoed by congressional leaders and state officials. In a June 10 letter to BP released on Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) and other Democrats asked BP to establish a $20 billion account, administered by an independent trustee, that would be used to pay the damages and clean-up costs associated with the spill. Florida Governor Charlie Crist and other officials in the Gulf Coast region joined the chorus.

It remained unclear how any such funds would be supervised, in particular who would oversee the compensation decisions. Administration officials on Sunday didn’t comment on the size of the escrow account they will seek, or on where money might come from. Nor did officials detail the legal status of the proposal.

Such a fund would provide a measure of security, proponents argue, for people concerned BP might file for bankruptcy protection or otherwise stop paying claims at some point in the future. It also has the potential to give the government or its designees control of distributing a significant pool of relief money.

OK, so the fund does not sound like a bad idea other than the “It remained unclear how any such funds would be supervised…”. That sure sounds like a nice slush fund for someone.

While not opposed to the idea of the fund, BP objects to the implication that if it isn’t required to set money aside, it might try to avoid paying it in full, according to a person familiar with the company’s position. BP insists it has the financial muscle to settle the final bill for the clean-up, as well as pay its dividend.

From BP’s side, maybe they do have the means to pay the bill. If there is no fund setup all at once, BP will be able to handle claims as they come, which will help cash flow. If the government tells them to setup a fund, and it’s required to be funded all at once, that could really harm BP’s chances of recovering from this. Cash is king, and if cash flow runs out, BP may be too tarred and feathered to raise capital.

Legal experts struggled to come up with a precedent for such a move. Examples of government-run funds exist, but they differ from the proposal facing BP.

Are we trying to act like our government cares about the law now?

In the early 1980s the government passed Superfund legislation that would create a fund to pay for the cleanup of hazardous-waste dump sites.

Through the law, the Environmental Protection Agency can compel the polluter to clean up the site or pay for it through the Superfund and sue for reimbursement.

Around the same time, the first of about 40 trust funds were set up with court approval by Johns Manville Corp. and later other companies with asbestos liability to alleviate some of the problems of lengthy asbestos-related litigation. But their creation stemmed from bankruptcy proceedings for Johns Manville. The trusts now oversee about $20 billion in assets, a sum that has nearly tripled since 2005, consultants say.

What they don’t say is this huge fund created an industry of lawyers looking to make millions off these claims. Instead of settling suites for those effected by asbestos, it was really a pay off to the trial lawyers.

Typically, corporations fund such victims accounts to settle class action lawsuits, although there have been a few examples of legislatively mandated funds such as the 9/11 victims fund, according to Howard Erichson, a law professor at Fordham University. “If the idea is to get BP to do this voluntarily, the question is what’s in it for them? Is there some liability protection in it for them?” Mr. Erichson said.

See, here’s the pay off to BP. While the government is trying to make it seem like it’s coming down hard, they will really setup an escape route for BP. They will put in liability protection for BP.

What I would like to know is why are we pushing to have a fund setup now? Did we not know there are risks involved in what they were doing, and shouldn’t we have planned accordingly? Of course, they didn’t because instead of focusing on liability they focused on buying off the government regulators. In a free market with private property protection, companies would buy insurance for liability protection. Insurance is the fund that would pay claims. Why is there not drilling rig insurance that pays out when something like this happens? My guess is there is no need for an insurance company to provide insurance like this, because government is used as the insurance.

Let’s just think about how this should work. If I’m BP, and I’m proposing to drill one mile below the ocean. One of the first things I should be thinking about is how will I pay claims if this goes bad? I better get insurance. Then the project should be submitted to an insurance company. The insurance company would have the expertise to evaluate the riskiness of the project. Then based on that, they would say, “BP, we are willing to issue a policy on this project for X number of dollars. Here are the things that we would require to issue this policy. 1.) You must use this latest technology. 2.) You must have this expertise on site at all times. 3.) We will inspect the rig weekly…..”. You get the picture.

Now, the insurance company is basically saying we are taking the risk off BP, and to do this BP will pay them so much money and meet certain criteria. The insurance company now must limit it’s chances of having to pay out claims. That is how they make money, and YES, this is a good thing. Insurance provide a valuable service to society, so quit letting the government smear insurance companies.

Anyway, so the insurance company will take actions to limit their chances of being liable. How will they do that? They will first take actions, such as inspections, to make sure that the rig is up to the highest standards. Also, they will develop clean up plans ahead of time, so they can quickly take action and limit their losses before the problem gets out of control. If they don’t, they run the risk of losing money on this policy.

So as you can see, this is how a true market works, when there is real private property protections in place. Instead, we have a government regulated market, where there were laws on the books capping the oil companies’ liability at $75 million. Why buy insurance or why provide insurance, when the government already said what your cap is? Oh sure, Obama is grandstanding and trying to make it seem like he’s coming down hard on BP. The truth is they will setup a way for BP to limit it’s liability. They will protect big oil. Even if BP doesn’t make it through this, the billionaires at the top have already put into place a way to limit their losses. Entities, government created of course, will be moved around, gobbled up, etc, but make no mistake about it. The government is and will protect their rich masters, instead of doing the one simple thing a just government is supposed to do, protect property rights.

This morning I was reading a piece by Thomas Frank, the token idiotic liberal over at the Wall Street Journal. His piece is an argument against people calling for laissez-faire capitalism, and he uses the oil spill as his proof that we need government.

Just last week, for example, the Washington Post featured a 2,500-word essay by Arthur C. Brooks, head of the American Enterprise Institute, calling for a “New Culture War” for laissez-faire capitalism—a grand moral debate over the right relationship of business and government that Mr. Brooks felt his side was sure to win.

Well, the Gulf spill has given Mr. Brooks and his movement the perfect opportunity to stage that debate. On one side, we’ve got the liberty-minded oil companies, the gentle giants that, just two months ago, the right was so keen to liberate from federal interference and to unleash on the nation’s coastline.

And on the side of government, we’ve got the Obama administration, which has backtracked on its new offshore-drilling policy and even announced plans to beef up drilling regulations. True, for most Americans that’s not a lot of statism to deplore, but the tea party movement is accustomed to regard even the most insignificant regulatory initiative as a front in the eternal war between freedom and socialism.

“Liberty-minded oil companies”? Is he serious? What oil company isn’t buying politicians? What oil company is begging for less federal involvement? Oh sure, they may not want the government involved in their operations, but they sure love government to be involved in steering leases their way, sending troops off to secure oil over seas, etc. Oil companies are in bed with government.

Also, laissez-faire doesn’t mean unaccountable. Those harmed by the spill would have recourse through the courts. BP and the other companies involved would have to compensate property owners for the damage they caused.

Most importantly, who will find an inventive way to blame government for the disaster? Not blame it for reacting too slowly after the spill—that is merely a statist reflex in disguise—but for somehow causing the spill with its meddlesome concerns for safety and the environment?

The answer, as far as I have been able to determine, is almost nobody. True, newspaper columnist Charles Krauthammer attempted last week to divert a little blame toward “environmental chic,” arguing that one reason the oil companies were even drilling in the Gulf is that environmentalism has blocked their access to other spots, such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

But for the most part, what we hear from the right these days is essentially the same as what we hear from the liberals: complaints about corporate misbehavior, the need for more federal action, and demands for a shakeup of the regulatory agencies involved so that they might regulate better in the future.

Has Mr. Frank ever heard of moral hazard? I’d blame the government for making the oil companies focus on bribing them instead of focusing doing what’s necessary to protect themselves from liability. Maybe if BP wasn’t wining and dining MMS bureaucrats in order to get awards and win approval for their projects, they would instead hire the best minds to focus on safety instead of hiring the best lobbyists to mingle with politicians and bureaucrats.

In fact, one of the people leading the criticism of the Minerals Management Service—the regulator in question—has been conservative paladin Darrell Issa (R. Calif.), who correctly accuses MMS of having “too cozy of a relationship” with industry. Former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, for her part, has actually used the spill to outflank Mr. Obama on the left, suggesting that someone should find out whether his administration’s vacillating response can be attributed to the sizable campaign contributions he has received from BP employees over the years.

These are refreshing arguments to hear from the right. After hurricane Katrina wrecked New Orleans, you will recall, conservative pundit Amity Shlaes famously described the Bush administration’s vacillating response as the traditional observance of the “Federalist Pause.”

And Galt only knows how many times “coziness” of the MMS variety has been celebrated as part of the struggle for free markets and free people. For a reminder, just pull out that famous 2003 photograph of James Gilleran, then director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, a bank regulator, “cutting red tape” along with a smiling group of bank-industry lobbyists.

So Frank does see that the regulators are useless, but he call is for more regulation. Are we to believe every time there is a failure that that just means there wasn’t enough regulation, when it turns out the regulators were all corrupt?

But things are different today. The catastrophe is too great to brush it off with the usual laissez-faire scholasticism. So the great debate must wait. We are all liberals for the duration.

via Thomas Frank: Laissez-Faire Meets the Oil Spill – WSJ.com.

I’m still not a liberal Mr. Frank, well in the modern day context anyway. Laissez-fair is the correct approach. It is the only way for companies like BP to pay the piper instead of the governors. Mr. Frank comes to these debates with too many assumptions. He assume laissez-fair would mean no accountability, which is wrong. It would be increased accountability. Remember the corporate veil is a state created entity to protect the big wigs from liability. Remove that veil, and see how many idiotic risks are taken by our economic titans.

The media has been all a buzz with the Sestak scandal. Republican hacks have been jumping ugly that they might have something on Obama. Maybe they do. I don’t really know the law, but in Obama’s explanation there is something more revealing. Something that should tell all of us what government is all about. Here’s a snippet from the Wall Street Journal.

The memo said Mr. Clinton, acting at the request of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, raised with Mr. Sestak the possibility of an “uncompensated advisory board” position. That would have given Mr. Sestak a new opportunity for public service, allowed him to keep his House seat and “avoid a divisive Senate primary,” the memo said.

Mr. Clinton made the approach during a phone call in June or July 2009, according to an official familiar with the matter, who provided additional details in a briefing. Mr. Sestak declined the offer, the memo said.

via White House Used Clinton to Nudge Sestak From Senate Bid – WSJ.com.

Bolded letters were obviously mine. So, what would make Sestak want to drop his Senate run if the position was just an uncompensated board position? If you are truly wanting to change government, you of course would want run for the Senate, but what made Obama think that simply offering this uncompensated position would make Sestak drop out of the race?

Could it be that people in these unelected positions are able to hand out favors more easily? Is this more like, “Take this position. You’ll be able to enrich yourself by handing out contracts.”? I’m guessing this is the case. What this whole thing should tell you is your government does nothing but steal money from  you and then use that money in order to bribe and coerce others into behaving the way they want. They use the money to enrich and empower themselves. They are not working in your interest. They will do anything legal, illegal, moral, immoral, ethical or unethical to keep and gain more power.

Now as far as the uproar. What is it all about? Obama tried bribing Sestak, and this is news? Isn’t that like being shocked and appalled that a prostitute had sex with someone outside marriage? Yeah, of course. That’s what they do. Why are we so surprised?

In order to make it seem like the government and the banking sector aren’t one in the same, President Obama is rolling out his teleprompter to deliver a speech blasting Wall Street for acting like a bunch of ignorant drunks. Who cares that the Fed was supplying the booze.

From the Wall Street Journal

President Barack Obama will return to Manhattan’s Cooper Union on Thursday, two years after a campaign speech that laid out his vision for Wall Street, to castigate a financial industry that he will say has too often forgotten the ordinary Americans who have suffered from its reckless irresponsibility.

OK, I know what you’re thinking. Here is the leader of our government blasting Wall Street for forgetting “ordinary Americans  who have suffered from its reckless irresponsibility”. This is the same government who forgot about the ordinary Americans almost a century ago. This is the same government who tried manipulated the real estate market by promoting “everyone should own a home”, which led to millions of American losing their homes and millions of others left to pick up the pieces. This is the same government who’s robbed the middle class by devaluing the currency over 30% just in the past decade. This is the same government who’s created an unsustainable empire that’s led to wars, terrorism and the hatred of America. Oh, and this is the same government who is enslaving us and our children to foreign debt holders who will have us working as slaves to pay them back. Oh please, President Obama, tell me how the evil Wall Street banks forgot about ordinary Americans.

The speech comes at a pivotal moment in Senate negotiations over a sweeping measure to re-regulate the financial industry. After trading barbed accusations, senators from both parties now say they are near a deal that would preserve the framework of Mr. Obama’s plan. By appearing just two miles from Wall Street, Mr. Obama hopes to raise the political pressure and seal the deal.

“A free market was never meant to be a free license to take whatever you can get, however you can get it,” Mr. Obama will say, according to speech excerpts released Wednesday night. “That is what happened too often in the years leading up to the crisis. Some on Wall Street forgot that behind every dollar traded or leveraged, there is family looking to buy a house, pay for an education, open a business, or save for retirement. What happens here has real consequences across our country.”

What an ignorant a-hole. Behind every dollar is nothing. That is the problem. Our government has become our modern day money changers. Unfortunately, while the people can be fooled, the free market can’t. It will blow your house of cards down eventually, which is what happen. Wall Street and the mortgage industry is not a free market. Obama is either ignorant or flat out lying. These are two of the most regulated industries we have. In a free market, you wouldn’t use monopoly money backed up by nothing. In a free market, you wouldn’t have government pushing people to buy homes with taxes credits and incentives. In a free market, you wouldn’t have bailouts and the FDIC basically telling the banks to do what they want because they’ll print more money if needed.

As he has done several times in the year-long debate, the president will implore industry executives to call back the lobbyists engaged in “furious efforts” to thwart or water down his legislation.

“I am sure that many of those lobbyists work for some of you,” he will say, according to the excerpts. “But I am here today because I want to urge you to join us, instead of fighting us in this effort. I am here because I believe that these reforms are, in the end, not only in the best interest of our country, but in the best interest of our financial sector.”

Sure sounds like something a mafia thug would say. Lobbyist are sent to argue the side of their client. When you have people with guns that say they are going to start shooting, of course you are going to have people sending representatives to argue why their clients shouldn’t be shot. Maybe if we had a free market, where the government wasn’t pointing guns, we wouldn’t need lobbyists.

The legislation would grant the federal government the power to seize teetering financial giants and dismantle them the same way the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation now can seize failing banks. It would create a new financial consumer regulator, would boost the strength and budget of the securities and exchange commission and would impose new transparency rules on the trading of derivatives, the complex financial instruments that helped bankrupt Lehman Brothers and nearly wipe out American International Group and Merrill Lynch.

More moral hazard. Just what we need. How about we let them fail, and let everyone know that we will let them fail. When everyone knows the government is going to step in no matter what happens, they will rightly assume that they can take idiotic risks that they otherwise wouldn’t. People bet on CDOs and housing because they knew the government would not let housing collapse, in particular Fannie and Freddie.

Mr. Obama will treat his return to Cooper Union as something of a triumphal homecoming, with a touch of “I told you so” in the speech. Two years ago, he called on Congress to give the Federal Reserve more supervisory power over the biggest financial institutions and to demand tougher new capital and liquidity requirements. Pending legislation largely follows that demand. Congress appears ready to meet his request, now two years old, for a new financial consumer regulator. His calls for stronger, international accounting standards and financial stability requirements have been taken up by the Group of 20 nations, although talks are proceeding haltingly.

This is just hilarious. “he called on Congress to give the Federal Reserve more supervisory power” is Obama’s “I told you so”? The Federal Reserve is the reason we had this mess. This is like saying we should give Madoff more power to regulate the purse snatchers of the world.

His 2008 suggestion of streamlining the hodgepodge of “overlapping and competing regulatory agencies” has been abandoned. But he will dwell more on the warnings he issued in that first Cooper Union address.

“I take no satisfaction in noting that my comments have largely been borne out by the events that followed,” he plans to say. “But I repeat what I said then because it is essential that we learn the lessons of this crisis, so we don’t doom ourselves to repeat it. And make no mistake, that is exactly what will happen if we allow this moment to pass – an outcome that is unacceptable to me and to the American people.”

“One of the most significant contributors to this recession was a financial crisis as dire as any we’ve known in generations,” Mr. Obama will say in a highly-anticipated speech at the Coopers Union, a college in New York.

He will tell the expected crowd of 700 that America must learn from the mistakes of the economic crises and enact legislation to help prevent it from happening again.

Yes, we live with a broken record government. We always need more legislation to help prevent something from happening again. Over and over we are told they must act to protect us. Only they aren’t protecting us. They are stacking the deck more in their favor. If you want real reform, ask them to quit protecting us.

Obama’s push for financial reform has intensified in recent weeks and he has lashed out at Republicans for meeting with Wall Street lobbyists. In his speech he is expected to say that legislative proposals in Congress would help restructure the rules that allowed Wall Street to take risky bets that Americans ended up paying for.

Republicans have to be completely tone def. What morons would meet with Wall Street lobbyists after everything that just happened? Oh well, I’m hoping for a third party anyway.

He will state that he won’t accept compromises that would weaken the bill, particularly in the area of derivatives, complex financial instruments that played a role in the economic crisis.

He will also say that financial reforms must set limits on the size of risks that banks can take, and include provisions that would make it easier for a failing institution to unwind before taxpayers would be affected. He will also say he believes in a free market. “But a free market was never meant to be a free license to take whatever you can get, however you can get it,” he said. He will add, “That is what happened too often in the years leading up to the crisis.”

-By Jared A. Favole

via Obama to Castigate Wall Street – WSJ.com.

Hahahaahahah, Obama will also say he believes in the free market? This sounds like the plantation owner telling his slaves how much he believes in freedom. What a damn joke. I can see it now. “I believe in the free market. Now let me tell you all the regulations, loop holes, incentives, kick backs, and advantages I’m going to hand out. Also, we’re going to print more fake money that we will filter through these same evil banks. This free market stuff rules!”

Today, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals actually stood up for the free market and property rights. Let’s hope this is a sign of things to come.

The DC circuit Court of Appeals gave the Obama administration a big dash of cold water on the limits of its authority to impose rules on communications networks today. In essence, the court recognized Comcast’s property rights to determine its own terms of service for Internet use, and the implications could affect Barack Obama’s plans to mandate broadband expansion as well:

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the Federal Communications Commission lacks the authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks.

The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is a big victory for Comcast Corp., the nation’s largest cable company. It had challenged the FCC’s authority to impose so-called “net neutrality” obligations on broadband providers. …

The decision also has serious implications for the massive national broadband plan released by the FCC last month. The FCC needs clear authority to regulate broadband in order to push ahead with some its key recommendations, including a proposal to expand broadband by tapping the federal fund that subsidizes telephone service in poor and rural communities.

via Hot Air » Blog Archive » Breaking: Appeals court rejects FCC authority for Net Neutrality.

Net neutrality is a governmental trojan horse to take control of the internet. This is a win for the good guys. For those of you who may have missed my blog on why net neutrality is a bad idea, you can read it here.

Robert Ringer has a blog up about a coming US dictatorship.

In my article ”Saying Yes to the Party of No,” I commented on how pleased I’ve been to see Glenn Beck talking about a subject I’ve been writing about since the late seventies: a government-declared state of emergency leading to a ”temporary” dictatorship.

I have long believed that the mathematics of an insatiable entitlement society in the U.S. guarantees a runaway inflation, which likely would be followed by anarchy and chaos – a perfect excuse for government to resort to strong-armed totalitarian measures to ”restore order.” My model has always been Germany’s Weimar Republic in the 1920s, where runaway inflation brought Adolf Hitler to power.

I originally believed that the runaway-inflation scenario in the U.S. would play out in the early 1980s, but a combination of Ronald Reagan and an explosion in computers and electronic technology made possible by the remnants of our capitalist system headed it off.

And here’s my odds based on what I know and see today:

• The chances of a declared state of emergency and ensuing dictatorship prior to the 2010 elections: 25%
• The chances of a declared state of emergency and ensuing dictatorship prior to the 2012 elections: 50%
• The chances of the U.S. dollar becoming worthless within three years: 25%
• The chances of the U.S. dollar becoming worthless within ten years: 90%
• The chances of the Republicans cutting back on major entitlements if they regain power in the 2010 elections: Zero
• The chances of the Republicans cutting back on major entitlements if they win the presidency and an overwhelming majority in Congress in 2012: 5%
• The chances of the so-called tea-party people (i.e., everyday Americans who believe in liberty) winning out over the long haul: Hmm … let me procrastinate on that one a bit before I lay odds.

via Robert Ringer’s Voice of Sanity Blog.

So, what do you think the chances are? Unfortunately, I think too many Americans think this could never happen, which means more than likely it will. Americans have become lazy about freedom and assume its something that has always been there and always will be. History on the other hand is a long list of dictatorships, tyrannies. and empires.

Personally, I think the article is interesting, but irrelevant. Who cares if we are a dictatorship or not, if our government is already oppressive and tyrannical. A government that moves from securing your individual rights to engineering society, stealing from producers, and spreading empire is no longer a government of free people. To pursue those goals it becomes oppressive and tyrannical.

Because everything the government says is backed up by force, because it has a monopoly on force, government is oppressive by its very nature. Our Constitution was constructed to prevent oppression and tyranny, and it meant to direct the power of government towards individual liberty. That is what made America so great. Unfortunately, it has failed. After just a little over 200 years, the Constitution has been bent to justify tyranny. With the latest health care bill, the government has literally stuck a gun to every citizens head and said you will buy what I say or face the consequences.

Dictatorship or not, we already live under a government of despots.

A friend of mine sent me this article yesterday that purports to be objective and fact checking on the health care bill. Since the author is supposedly only using facts, although selective facts, I figured I’d throw my opinions up. After all, facts are pretty useless without some context.

The tumultuous health care debate that brought you death panels and socialism has spun off a catalog of popular myths that will keep growing as President Barack Obama and all sides battle toward the midterm elections this fall.

OK, the cats out of the bag as to where the author stands already. I would call panels who decide what gets what care, which can ultimately be who lives and dies, death panels. While the name may not be the one that matches Obama’s PR push, it pretty much nails it. Also, the bills that were being pushed by the house, which would have obviously been part of the debate included the public option. What is the public option other than socialism. Granted, the bill that passed didn’t have it, so it’s technically not socialism. It’s more like fascism. I guess the President and the author think that is better.

At a White House signing ceremony Tuesday, Obama ventured the hope that Americans on all sides will judge the legislation for what it actually says and does. “When I sign this bill,” he declared, “all of the overheated rhetoric over reform will finally confront the reality of reform.”

Of course, Obama is only talking about the oppositions’ rhetoric. I hope he realizes his rhetoric will be confronted with the reality as well. Oh, but don’t forget. Most of the bill doesn’t take place until after the next election. Obama won’t have to worry about being elected again after the bill finally takes effect. If he was really sure of the results, it would have went into effect right away, so his re-election would have hinged on the results.

Wishful thinking, Mr. President.

Facts are stubborn, the saying goes. But myths about the legislation are likely to persist as well. And a lot of people don’t agree on which is which.

“People have taken away from the debate a number of beliefs about the bill that are very difficult to shake based on objective reports,” said Robert Blendon, a Harvard public health professor who follows opinion trends. “There is enough skepticism out there that questions about how it’s going to help the country are likely to continue.”

If you wanted to find the best way to deal with ..ah. let’s say Iran, and you asked a military specialist, what type of answers do you think you’d get? If you asked a peace studies professor, what kind of answer do you think you’d get? The point I’m making is if the author of this article wants to tilt it in favor of ObamaCare, he would pose as objective and bring in a “specialist”, but the specialist would be someone who is inherently for the bill. Someone who studies “public health” for a living is going to see everything through pro-government lenses. Also, being a professor of public health or a so-called objective journalist does not mean you can even comment on the real economic results of the bill. For that you would need an economist, and even then it would depend if the economist is a state suckup or not.

Here’s a look at some of the myths and realities, from both sides of the issue:

• Obama has put the nation on a slippery slope toward socialism.

Hello? Government’s role in health care has been steadily growing since Medicare and Medicaid were established 45 years ago. Even if Republicans were to take control of Washington and repeal this bill, government would still be on track to pick up more than half the nation’s health care tab by 2012, according to a report last month from Medicare.

“The Republican myth is that the government is for the first time going to take over the health care sector,” said economist Joe Antos of the business-oriented American Enterprise Institute. “The takeover was probably largely accomplished in 1965 with the creation of Medicare and Medicaid. Since the early days, Medicare has called the shots on a lot of policy issues that private insurance fell in line with.”

Still, the new law will undoubtedly expand the government’s influence. Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., warned Tuesday it will lead to the “quasi-nationalization of the health industry.”

Underline “quasi.” Democrats dropped their idea of a government insurance plan to compete with private carriers. So any “socialization” will be channeled through Wellpoint, UnitedHealthcare and other private insurance giants.

Ok, not too bad so far. I agree that the government has been heavily involved in health care, and actually it accounts for 50% of health spending already. The author is correct. Unfortunately, his objectivism leaves out what the economic result of that involvement has been. Since the government involvement in health care has steadily increased since 1965, so has prices. Is that a shocker? Not to anyone who knows the economic effects of throwing billions of dollars of government money at the same amount of resources. Of course, the result is going to be huge price inflation.

Also, the argument by government is and always has been that health insurance equals health care. They even use the terms interchangeably. The end result of that is everyone thinks they have to have total care insurance instead of catastrophic insurance. The introduction of third party payer in health care all the way down to checkups has also heavily inflated prices. Read my post on root causes of the health care crisis to see why health care costs are so high.

I love how the author tries painting Judd Gregg as if he’s being dramatic. Would you call a government take over that says what type of insurance you must have and regulates every aspect of how care will be given “quasi-nationalization”? I’d say Gregg isn’t being dramatic enough. Also, the last part of that sentence really highlights what this is. “So any ’socialization’ will be channeled through Wellpoint, UnitedHealthcare and other private insurance giants.” Hmmm, if it looks like fascism, smells like fascism, and quacks like fascism, could it be?

• Health care overhaul is going to lower your health insurance premiums.

Obama says that once new competitive insurance markets open for business, in 2014, individuals buying coverage comparable to what they have today will pay 14-20 percent less. Family coverage costs about $13,400 a year, so that could be real money.

But the president’s assurance is based on a selective reading of a Congressional Budget Office report that found most individuals would probably buy better, more expensive coverage than what’s available today.

And Obama skips over an important caveat: The budget office didn’t say premiums would be lower than currently. It said premiums for some people would be lower than they would have been without the bill. Premiums for others would be higher.

With the U.S. population getting older, and medical science pushing the technological envelope, there’s very little reason to think premiums will go down. The best Obama can hope for is to slow the pace of increases.

Well, the author gave it a try. I must say this was pretty close to objective. The fact is you will not see premiums going down. The only way you will see premiums going down is if the government subsidizes premiums, which wouldnt’ mean they went down. It would just mean someone else is paying. Also, this bill does absolutely zero to address health care costs, so if health care costs keep rising, so will insurance. Until we address the root causes of health care inflation, we will never see insurance premiums decrease. As I’ve stated in previous posts, the only way to drive costs down is to increase supply or decrease demand in relation to each other. Does this bill increase supply? I doubt it. Considering how many doctors aren’t taking mediacare patients anymore, if everyone basically becomes a medicare patient, doctors will flee the field. Drug companies and medical device companies are going to pay over $100 billion in new taxes. Does that increase supply? On the demand side, we are supposedly adding 30 million new people to the insurance system. Is that decreasing demand?

• You will be forced to pay for other people’s abortions.

Only if you join a health insurance plan that covers abortion. In that case, the costs of paying for abortions would be spread over all the enrollees in the plan — no differently from how other medical procedures are handled, except a policyholder would have to write a separate check for it.

Timothy Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University, said people who don’t want to pay for abortion could simply pick a plan that doesn’t offer it.

There would definitely be a demand for such plans, and not just from people with moral objections. Single men and older women would have no reason to pay an extra premium for abortion coverage.

The debate on abortion was on the federal dollars being spent on this bill. The author talks about it in the terms of the private insurance market, so I really question his objectivity on this. In his last statement, he actually sounds like he’s starting to understand how the free market works. It allows people to choose their coverage. The problem that he seems to ignore is government mandates. Government mandates tons of coverage that many people don’t want or need, but they are forced to pay for it because government says so. Do you think abortion will be any different, especially if the pro-abortion groups have their way?

• The Democratic bill will lead to government health care rationing.

The legislation sets up a research center to compare the effectiveness of medical treatments, and critics fear that bureaucrats will start issuing justifications for denying patients access to the latest medical technology.

Republicans as well as Democrats had previously called for a major investment in such research to help make sense of which kinds of treatments, medications and technologies are worth the cost.

The legislation specifies that the research findings cannot be used to impose mandates, guidelines or recommendations for payment, coverage, or treatment — or used to deny coverage.

Acceptance of the research is likely to be slow in coming, and the medical community — not government and insurance companies — will probably take the lead in vetting it.

The government has no role or need in deciding what health care technologies are worth their cost. That should be handled by the free market and consumers. We don’t need government telling IT companies how to invest their money. Can you imagine how much the innovation of the internet would have been stifled if a government panel decided what technologies were worth the cost.

Also, never ever, ever, ever, ever believe there is such a thing as a government panel that does not have power to decide what happens. The government is the gun in the room. They provide a ton of funding for research. Do you think for a second this panel will not dictate where that money goes? Seriously though. You must always think of the government as the gun in the room. That is what it is. Imagine you are sitting around debating on where to go to dinner with a few people. There is one strange guy, Mr. State, in the group who always seems to get his way. There are stories about this guy that scare the crap out of you. Supposedly, he’s killed people before and got away with it. Everyone is putting out their opinions, and then the strange guy speaks up. He says, “I’m just going to throw my opinion out there. You guys can choose where we go, so don’t let me be the one to decide.” Then as he’s telling you where he thinks everyone should go, he pulls his jacket back a little to show his gun. Everyone immediately, nervously says, “Well, that’s a brilliant idea Mr. State. Why didn’t we think of that. Let’s go there.” Mr. State smiles grimly and says, “Ok, if that’s what you guys want to do. Fine by me.”

The government is Mr. State. Do not ever believe that those who decide the rules and ultimately back up their opinion of how each of us should act with deadly force is going to be just a measly side show. They will be THE SHOW.

• The American people have already rejected Obamacare.

Although some polls show a majority oppose the bill, most surveys find the public about evenly divided. Blendon, the public opinion expert, believes it’s premature to say that the public has rejected it. Curiously, many individual components — doing away with insurance denials for pre-existing conditions, tax credits to help pay premiums, insurance purchasing pools — are widely popular.

Obama reads those findings to mean that Democrats have a chance to turn around public opinion, and he’s embarking on a campaign to sell the bill.

Don’t you feel better now about this whole thing? The country is evenly divided according to our objective journalist. What he should have said is half the country is having a gun stuck to their head by the other half. This is why democracy is a horrible system. One part of the population holds the other captive, against their will.

It shouldn’t matter if it’s 75% of the population in favor of the bill. This country was not setup as a democracy for a reason. It was setup to be limited in what the federal government can do in order to make sure that individual rights are protected. That means protected from the majority. In democracy, the majority can enslave the minority, which is basically what you see happening now.

Also, who gives a rat ass if “insurance denials for pre-existing conditions, tax credits to help pay premiums, insurance purchasing pools — are widely popular”. So is free booze. Anything that purports to be a free lunch is going to be popular.

Do you think it would be widely popular if I asked people if they were in favor of being robbed to pay for someone else’s health problems, who chooses to eat at McDonald’s every day?

How about, do you have a problem with me stealing your money to help someone else pay for their insurance premiums, because they’d rather spend their money on something else like their $100 cable bill, several hundred a month eating out, etc?

How about, you go to the gym and ask the person who works out religiously, makes the hard eating decisions, etc if they mind paying higher premiums, even though he or she still has impeccable health, because the obese guy down the street doesn’t want to make the same hard decisions and also doesn’t want to pay for health insurance, because the cost of his health care insurance is way too high because of his weight? What do you think the popular opinion would be?

Now, ask everyone if they want a free car. I’m sure that would be widely popular too. Does that make it great policy? Does that mean we should force someone else to pay for the cars against their will, which basically makes them slaves?

• The legislation will save Medicare from bankruptcy.

Democrats say the bill — even as it cuts Medicare to pay for expanded coverage for working families — will add at least nine years of solvency to the program’s giant hospital insurance trust fund, now projected to be exhausted in 2017.

Technically that’s true — but only on paper.

Savings from the Medicare cuts will be invested in government IOUs, like any other trust fund surplus. The special Treasury securities count as an asset on Medicare’s books — making the program’s precarious financial situation seem more reassuring. But the government will spend the actual money. And when time comes for Medicare to redeem the IOUs, lawmakers will have to scramble to come up with the cash.

The key point is that the Medicare savings will be received by the government only once, the Congressional Budget Office said, “so they cannot be set aside to pay for future Medicare spending and, at the same time, pay for current spending … on other programs.”

via Health care fact check: Some myths about legislation likely to persist | NewsChannel 36 | Charlotte Health & Medical News, Nutrition and Fitness | WCNC.com | News for Charlotte, North Carolina.

This last one isn’t even worth a comment. If what the lying Democrats say is true, that medicare is saved from bankruptcy, it’s at the expense of bankrupting the entire country. What a joke. We are going to save ourselves from bankruptcy by spending and borrowing more. Eff it. Let the whole system implode, and let’s hope we have more intelligent people rebuilding. Maybe the liberals can pass a law to change reality again, and we can all be rich and have a unicorn when this all falls apart.

Are the neocons now starting to see the error of their ways? Do they realize that you cannot give up liberty for security, for as Franklin told us, you’ll have neither? Here is a post from Hot Air, where it seems like they are actually catching on.

This should prove an interesting conundrum for those who supported the NSA’s warrantless terrorist-surveillance program. The FBI and local law enforcement agencies have been accessing cell-phone tracking data, possible with the newer generations of GPS-embedded smart phones, in order to solve regular crimes as well as in the national-security arena, using a low bar for cause on warrants. Does this constitute an intelligent leverage of new technology, or a danger to civil liberties?

Of course it’s a threat to civil liberties. If the government turns tyrannical, well more tyrannical than it is, and if we condone this or pass laws like say the Patriot Act to give the government the power they claim to need, then they can use those powers to squash any group of citizens who do not like what the government has become. While you may be able to accept handing some powers to the government when you think it’s your side running the government, “your side” is not always going to be in power. This is the fundamental reason for Franklin’s famous quote. The Hot Air post goes on to quote an article from Newsweek.

Amid all the furor over the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program a few years ago, a mini-revolt was brewing over another type of federal snooping that was getting no public attention at all. Federal prosecutors were seeking what seemed to be unusually sensitive records: internal data from telecommunications companies that showed the locations of their customers’ cell phones—sometimes in real time, sometimes after the fact. The prosecutors said they needed the records to trace the movements of suspected drug traffickers, human smugglers, even corrupt public officials. But many federal magistrates—whose job is to sign off on search warrants and handle other routine court duties—were spooked by the requests. Some in New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas balked. Prosecutors “were using the cell phone as a surreptitious tracking device,” said Stephen W. Smith, a federal magistrate in Houston. “And I started asking the U.S. Attorney’s Office, ‘What is the legal authority for this? What is the legal standard for getting this information?’ ”

The Justice Department doesn’t keep statistics on requests for cell-phone data, according to the spokeswoman. So it’s hard to gauge just how often these records are retrieved. But Al Gidari, a telecommunications lawyer who represents several wireless providers, tells NEWSWEEK that the companies are now getting “thousands of these requests per month,” and the amount has grown “exponentially” over the past few years. Sprint Nextel has even set up a dedicated Web site so that law-enforcement agents can access the records from their desks—a fact divulged by the company’s “manager of electronic surveillance” at a private Washington security conference last October. “The tool has just really caught on fire with law enforcement,” said the Sprint executive, according to a tape made by a privacy activist who sneaked into the event. (A Sprint spokesman acknowledged the company has created the Web “portal” but says that law-enforcement agents must be “authenticated” before they are given passwords to log on, and even then still must provide valid court orders for all nonemergency requests.)

Again, Franklin’s warning comes to mind. Neocons, including myself at the time, thought the warrantless wiretapping was needed. How could Bush track those evil terrorists without it? Well, what happens once you give that power to the government for terrorists? Shouldn’t they use it on child molestors? I mean is there any bigger group of terrorists than child molestors? Heck, what about murderers? How about drug dealers, bank robbers, oh and what about that rich ponzi scheme guy? No, not the government. I’m talking about Bernie Madoff. Shouldn’t we be able to track him? How many lives did he ruin? As you can see, this never ends. Before you know it, to government is tracking you down for your outstanding speeding tickets.

Most of us would understand that law-enforcement agencies have a need occasionally to track a suspect in a criminal matter and certainly for the FBI in counterterrorist operations (give up those liberties for the boogiemen).  However, according to this Newsweek report, the Obama administration and other agencies are using a particularly weak type of claim in order to make thousands of requests a month, most of which have nothing to do with national security:

The grounds for such requests, says Smith, were often flimsy: almost all were being submitted as “2703(d)” orders—a reference to an obscure provision of a 1986 law called the Stored Communications Act, in which prosecutors only need to assert that records are “relevant” to an ongoing criminal investigation. That’s the lowest possible standard in federal criminal law, and one that, as a practical matter, magistrates can’t really verify. …

A potentially more sinister request came from some Michigan cops who, purportedly concerned about a possible “riot,” pressed another telecom for information on all the cell phones that were congregating in an area where a labor-union protest was expected. “We haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of abuse on this,” says Gidari.

I’m no fan of labor-union activism, but Americans have a right to peaceably assemble for political purposes without the government conducting covert surveillance.  Just as with the NSA’s program, this is a very powerful tool that law enforcement can and should use — but for legitimate and very limited purposes.   This requires a much higher standard for warrants on law enforcement investigations than what is described in this article.

via Hot Air » Blog Archive » Hmmm: Feds, local law enforcement accessing cell phone tracking “thousands of times a month”.

What a minute. Are you telling me the government was using these laws to track American citizens, who did nothing illegal? No way! Not our government. Not the American government. This is the home of the free and the land of the brave, right? Are you getting the point yet? Governments do not obey rules, and they don’t sit back and say, “Well, the people really meant to give us this power to protect them from overseas boogiemen. We can’t really use it on Americans themselves.” No, they will use every means necessary against their own people to maintain and grow their power. Do not be fooled by their stated intentions of protecting us. All tyrants claim to be looking out for and protecting their people. Do you think for one second Chavez doesn’t claim to be looking out for the Venezuelan people? Of course he does. All governments are the same. They all want to grow and control every aspect of the economy, society, etc. Under Bush it was warrantless wiretaps, and now under Obama it’s ObamaCare, Net Neutrality and Financial reform.

Ok, gotta go. I should have yanked the battery out of my cell phone before starting this blog.