At long last, it is going to be official this week. Fred Thompson is declaring his entry into the Presidential race.
I heard a wide variety of views concerning Thompson's campaign on Larry Kudlow's CNBC program this afternoon. For the most part, Kudlow led his guests to dismiss Thompson's candidacy.
Maybe it's just me, but I think this is an example of how pundits can miss the essence of a candidate's appeal.
Among Thompson's sins were: a too-late entry; all the 'good positions' are already taken on key issues; Giuliani and Romney's numbers are already too high, and stable; he looks fickle.
How about this for an opinion? Thompson's entry brings a more natural, experienced, friendly, genuine face to some classically appealing conservative positions. In the new internet/YouTube age, along with compressed primary schedules, nobody really knows what will and won't work in a Presidential campaign.
It doesn't entirely surprise me that these commentators, with Kudlow at their head, dissed Thompson as a minor figure. They seem to discount the essence of the candidate's character and experience, preferring to reduce everything to poll numbers and position papers.
If you go to YouTube and search on "Fred Thompson," you'll see a fair collection of recent interviews featuring the new Presidential candidate.
As much as I like Romney, and would vote for either him or Giuliani, at this point, I'd still prefer Thompson to both of them. His genuineness, rich and varied career, and obvious passion and honesty for his positions seems, in my mind, to distinguish him from his competition.
I've written my own ideas for Thompson's campaign here, this past May. His strengths are clearly his Senate experience, honesty, and basic genuineness when he expresses his views. You don't get that whiff of a focus-group- or poll-based response.
My guess is that Thompson's greatest weakness is whether he has sufficient time to get fieldworkers going to get him into enough primaries, and represented in the field, to have a decent chance. Then again, his acting work gives him near-instant name and face recognition, unlike, say, Ron Paul.
I'm excited about Thompson's entry, and expect to write more about it in weeks to come.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Monday, September 3, 2007
Kudlow's Interview with Mitt Romney
I happened to catch Larry Kudlow's interview with Mitt Romney on CNBC last week. Romney was very impressive.
He identifies Hillary Clinton as the economic numb skull that she is. His actual words were something to this effect,
'Based upon her comments and statements, she doesn't have any idea how our economy works. I do.'
Romney then continued to cite his impressive business experience, plus rescuing the Salt Lake City Olympics, and governing Massachusetts.
Overall, I was extremely impressed with his easy, quick manner and explanation of economic and business concepts. Not that I am unimpressed or disappointed with President Bush. I'm not.
However, knowing Romney's history of co-founding Bain Capital, it's evident this guy really knows the business environment. And how macroeconomic policies on matters such as taxation will affect our nation's economic performance and overall well-being.
Further, I've read about his modified 'universal' healthcare prescription for the nation. It's quite different from what he compromised to install in Massachusetts.
Initially, the state plan had me very worried about Romney's commitment to conservative, free market principles on healthcare. Since his national plan takes into account his ability, as President, to effect changes he could not as a state governor, I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one.
While I have doubts about his inevitable electability, I believe I would prefer Romney to Giuliani, were that the choice I had.
He identifies Hillary Clinton as the economic numb skull that she is. His actual words were something to this effect,
'Based upon her comments and statements, she doesn't have any idea how our economy works. I do.'
Romney then continued to cite his impressive business experience, plus rescuing the Salt Lake City Olympics, and governing Massachusetts.
Overall, I was extremely impressed with his easy, quick manner and explanation of economic and business concepts. Not that I am unimpressed or disappointed with President Bush. I'm not.
However, knowing Romney's history of co-founding Bain Capital, it's evident this guy really knows the business environment. And how macroeconomic policies on matters such as taxation will affect our nation's economic performance and overall well-being.
Further, I've read about his modified 'universal' healthcare prescription for the nation. It's quite different from what he compromised to install in Massachusetts.
Initially, the state plan had me very worried about Romney's commitment to conservative, free market principles on healthcare. Since his national plan takes into account his ability, as President, to effect changes he could not as a state governor, I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one.
While I have doubts about his inevitable electability, I believe I would prefer Romney to Giuliani, were that the choice I had.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
On Larry Craig
I like to believe that I am a non-partisan when it comes to scandal.
Thus, we have Senator Larry Craig, Republican of Idaho. What an idiot!
I saw his televised explanation of his public restroom arrest the other day. I have to say, if this is what constitutes the decision-making process for this guy, Idaho voters need to get him out of the Senate at the next election.
Resign? Don't know yet. What he allegedly did was tasteless and disgusting, but Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy and Barney Frank, to name just a few, have done much worse, and kept their jobs.
Should the voters of Idaho turn him out next election? Probably so. I suspect that I would. Including voting for a Democrat if Craig entered and won his primary.
My business partner and I were discussing this case earlier in the week, and he believes that Craig, contrary to his own public statement, had consulted his attorney before pleading guilty to the lesser charge. In my partner's view, this is a standard police/prosecutorial tactic- threatening a smear by reporting an arrest for soliciting sex (in this case, gay sex), but "allowing" an on-the-spot plea to a lesser charge, like 'lewd or indecent conduct.'
If Craig found himself between 'a rock and a hard place,' no puns intended, it's his responsibility and he has handled the entire matter ineptly. By seeking no 'counsel,' including that of an attorney, I believe he displays the sort of inept decision-making process that we cannot tolerate in the US Senate.
Nevermind that Craig apparently has a history of dabbling in matters gay. One search on YouTube turns up a video of then-Representative Larry Craig dealing with the matter some years ago. Craig defensively and pre-emptively publicly disavowed any involvement in the 1979-82 Congressional page sex scandal.
My point is that now, Craig is one of only 100 Senators, and his nearly-incoherent babbling about what he should have done, and what he did, and didn't do, what he is, and isn't, reflects poorly on our so-called 'deliberative' chamber. Surely there must be someone else in Idaho with conservative values who is more capable of effective decision-making than this buffoon.
Thus, we have Senator Larry Craig, Republican of Idaho. What an idiot!
I saw his televised explanation of his public restroom arrest the other day. I have to say, if this is what constitutes the decision-making process for this guy, Idaho voters need to get him out of the Senate at the next election.
Resign? Don't know yet. What he allegedly did was tasteless and disgusting, but Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy and Barney Frank, to name just a few, have done much worse, and kept their jobs.
Should the voters of Idaho turn him out next election? Probably so. I suspect that I would. Including voting for a Democrat if Craig entered and won his primary.
My business partner and I were discussing this case earlier in the week, and he believes that Craig, contrary to his own public statement, had consulted his attorney before pleading guilty to the lesser charge. In my partner's view, this is a standard police/prosecutorial tactic- threatening a smear by reporting an arrest for soliciting sex (in this case, gay sex), but "allowing" an on-the-spot plea to a lesser charge, like 'lewd or indecent conduct.'
If Craig found himself between 'a rock and a hard place,' no puns intended, it's his responsibility and he has handled the entire matter ineptly. By seeking no 'counsel,' including that of an attorney, I believe he displays the sort of inept decision-making process that we cannot tolerate in the US Senate.
Nevermind that Craig apparently has a history of dabbling in matters gay. One search on YouTube turns up a video of then-Representative Larry Craig dealing with the matter some years ago. Craig defensively and pre-emptively publicly disavowed any involvement in the 1979-82 Congressional page sex scandal.
My point is that now, Craig is one of only 100 Senators, and his nearly-incoherent babbling about what he should have done, and what he did, and didn't do, what he is, and isn't, reflects poorly on our so-called 'deliberative' chamber. Surely there must be someone else in Idaho with conservative values who is more capable of effective decision-making than this buffoon.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Congressional Democrats Retreat On Earmarks
Not yet a year into their domination of Congress, House Speaker Frisco Nan and her Senate counterpart, Harry Reid, have already broken their promises to reform earmarks.
Reid has contrived the Senate processes to now require his, and only his, personal, unpublicized opinion as to whether a bill complies with the chamber's earmark rules. So much for sunshine as a disinfectant.
Meanwhile, over in the House, they passed a bill containing the word 'ethics,' but have left the earmarking process largely intact.
In fact, Fox News recently reported a story wherein Pennsylvania's pompous and arrogant member, John Murtha, Frisco Nan's failed candidate for House Majority Leader, inquired, in a debate concerning a spending bill, whether a Republican member had a preferred special interest who needed to be 'taken care of,' in relation to the bill at hand.
The subject was a military need for a special paint, which Murtha had arranged to have provided, sans competitive bids, by Sherwin Williams. Further, while the government paid for the experimental process, the vendor would hold title to any patents or assets resulting from the contract.
What was truly horrific was the Republican member's recounting of Murtha's presumption that the member must be opposing the bill because he had another special interest in whose pocket he was.
With shenanigans like this occurring, I continue to dispute those pundits who think that the House and Senate remain Democratic locks for 2008.
Reid has contrived the Senate processes to now require his, and only his, personal, unpublicized opinion as to whether a bill complies with the chamber's earmark rules. So much for sunshine as a disinfectant.
Meanwhile, over in the House, they passed a bill containing the word 'ethics,' but have left the earmarking process largely intact.
In fact, Fox News recently reported a story wherein Pennsylvania's pompous and arrogant member, John Murtha, Frisco Nan's failed candidate for House Majority Leader, inquired, in a debate concerning a spending bill, whether a Republican member had a preferred special interest who needed to be 'taken care of,' in relation to the bill at hand.
The subject was a military need for a special paint, which Murtha had arranged to have provided, sans competitive bids, by Sherwin Williams. Further, while the government paid for the experimental process, the vendor would hold title to any patents or assets resulting from the contract.
What was truly horrific was the Republican member's recounting of Murtha's presumption that the member must be opposing the bill because he had another special interest in whose pocket he was.
With shenanigans like this occurring, I continue to dispute those pundits who think that the House and Senate remain Democratic locks for 2008.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Congressional Highway Spending
Over the past few months, the Wall Street Journal has published a collection of seemingly unrelated articles concerning Federal highway spending and Congressional earmarks.
However, the two have a common theme- Congressional pork barrel spending and profligacy.
Through a technique known as 'public-private partnership,' highways such as the Chicago Skyway and the Indiana Toll Road are being spun to private companies, thus relieving the governments of the debt and operation of such roads. As the Journal article points out, PPPs are also being used to construct entirely new roads, rather than have various governmental entities, and their residents, wait for years for Federal grants and aid.
Ironically, given the recent collapse of the Interstate highway bridge in Minneapolis, James Oberstar, the chairman of the House Transportation Committee, warned, in a letter to every state, that the states should not enter into PPPs, and that he may even "undo" some existing ones.
Rather than, as Oberstar, ironically, contends, PPPs may not "adequately protect the public interest," the Journal piece points out that what the new funding solutions really do is threaten Oberstar's, and every other House member's ability to use earmarks on the Transportation Committee to curry favor back home. There are 75 (of 435) House members on this committee. That, in itself, tells you how valuable it is for House members to avail themselves of this spending authority.
The Journal article notes that in the last highway bill, which carried a tab of $295B, projects included snowmobile trails, parking lots, bike trails and museums. Not, apparently, sufficient maintenance of Interstate bridges. Nor, as the article points out, solutions to today's really pressing transportation problems- local highways for commuters. Not the construction of more city-to-city connections.
The reality of the situation is that PPPs allow local communities and states to contract for the provision of transportation solutions by going around the Federal government. By allowing a private authority to build, operate and maintain a highway, in exchange for tolls, local authorities assure that the right transportation solutions are provided.
In time, as the Journal points out, these methods of solving transportation problems will lessen the importance of Oberstar's House committee. Either way, drivers will pay for roads, but with PPPs, their local governments make sure that they get what they need.
However, the two have a common theme- Congressional pork barrel spending and profligacy.
Through a technique known as 'public-private partnership,' highways such as the Chicago Skyway and the Indiana Toll Road are being spun to private companies, thus relieving the governments of the debt and operation of such roads. As the Journal article points out, PPPs are also being used to construct entirely new roads, rather than have various governmental entities, and their residents, wait for years for Federal grants and aid.
Ironically, given the recent collapse of the Interstate highway bridge in Minneapolis, James Oberstar, the chairman of the House Transportation Committee, warned, in a letter to every state, that the states should not enter into PPPs, and that he may even "undo" some existing ones.
Rather than, as Oberstar, ironically, contends, PPPs may not "adequately protect the public interest," the Journal piece points out that what the new funding solutions really do is threaten Oberstar's, and every other House member's ability to use earmarks on the Transportation Committee to curry favor back home. There are 75 (of 435) House members on this committee. That, in itself, tells you how valuable it is for House members to avail themselves of this spending authority.
The Journal article notes that in the last highway bill, which carried a tab of $295B, projects included snowmobile trails, parking lots, bike trails and museums. Not, apparently, sufficient maintenance of Interstate bridges. Nor, as the article points out, solutions to today's really pressing transportation problems- local highways for commuters. Not the construction of more city-to-city connections.
The reality of the situation is that PPPs allow local communities and states to contract for the provision of transportation solutions by going around the Federal government. By allowing a private authority to build, operate and maintain a highway, in exchange for tolls, local authorities assure that the right transportation solutions are provided.
In time, as the Journal points out, these methods of solving transportation problems will lessen the importance of Oberstar's House committee. Either way, drivers will pay for roads, but with PPPs, their local governments make sure that they get what they need.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Doddering Chris Dodd On The Electronic Stump Today
As I write this, I am listening to CNBC's coverage of doddering Senator (D-CT), and Presidential candidate Chris Dodd, demagogue the current mortgage finance situation as only a liberal can.
Dodd had taken a meeting this morning with Treasury Secretary Paulson and Fed Chair Ben Bernanke, due to his role as Senate Banking Committee chair.
While inserting the odd, but incorrect, statement that the current Bush administration has 'run up more debt than all the previous 42 administrations combined,' Dodd is trying his best to look like a populist.
He's for forgiving some of the borrowers who, being adults, freely borrowed money for housing using rather dangerous sub-prime loans. Dodd is on the warpath against the ratings agencies, as if they are the only sources of information on the creditworthiness of borrowers or debt instruments. He's also clearly pushing for easy money, via a Fed rate cut.
On his way by the Fed, he also lashed out at what he implied has been lax regulatory oversight of banks, by the Fed, in the area of home loans. Too bad Chris doesn't realize that many of the institutions now lending in the mortgage market are not supervised by the Fed.
Time to go back to school, Chris, and learn something about the sector which is the focus of the Senate Banking Committee which you so ineptly chair.
Lastly, he's putting heavy pressure on Bush's administration to allow the inept and poorly-run Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac organizations into the jumbo loan business. This is, of course, in answer to those institutions blithely offering to buy jumbo loans in the marketplace, thus setting a precedent for them to begin crowding out private lenders, and moving into the jumbo origination business.
It's unfortunate that Dodd, as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, is being so totally political in his reactions to the current fixed income markets turbulence.
If you need any evidence of Dodd's unfitness for the Presidency, this act of playing politics, and inciting more worry and panic among homeowners and investors over current the housing finance situation, ought to be sufficient.
Dodd had taken a meeting this morning with Treasury Secretary Paulson and Fed Chair Ben Bernanke, due to his role as Senate Banking Committee chair.
While inserting the odd, but incorrect, statement that the current Bush administration has 'run up more debt than all the previous 42 administrations combined,' Dodd is trying his best to look like a populist.
He's for forgiving some of the borrowers who, being adults, freely borrowed money for housing using rather dangerous sub-prime loans. Dodd is on the warpath against the ratings agencies, as if they are the only sources of information on the creditworthiness of borrowers or debt instruments. He's also clearly pushing for easy money, via a Fed rate cut.
On his way by the Fed, he also lashed out at what he implied has been lax regulatory oversight of banks, by the Fed, in the area of home loans. Too bad Chris doesn't realize that many of the institutions now lending in the mortgage market are not supervised by the Fed.
Time to go back to school, Chris, and learn something about the sector which is the focus of the Senate Banking Committee which you so ineptly chair.
Lastly, he's putting heavy pressure on Bush's administration to allow the inept and poorly-run Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac organizations into the jumbo loan business. This is, of course, in answer to those institutions blithely offering to buy jumbo loans in the marketplace, thus setting a precedent for them to begin crowding out private lenders, and moving into the jumbo origination business.
It's unfortunate that Dodd, as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, is being so totally political in his reactions to the current fixed income markets turbulence.
If you need any evidence of Dodd's unfitness for the Presidency, this act of playing politics, and inciting more worry and panic among homeowners and investors over current the housing finance situation, ought to be sufficient.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Healthcare Rationing
Wednesday's other Wall Street Journal editorial about healthcare, in addition to this one about California's fiscal dilemma with its plan, was one concerning the general nature of universal healthcare plans in other nations.
Essentially, wrote Merrill Matthews, director of the Council for Affordable Health Insurance, and a resident scholar at the Institute for Policy Innovation, the typical experience in other countries is for federal-level governmental management of healthcare to shrink allocations to medical spending, thus 'saving' money, while reducing the availability and quality of healthcare.
Among the evidence cited, Matthews notes that countries such as Canada and France spend 8-10% of GNP, rather than the nearly 16% in the US on healthcare, because such spending becomes a function of political, not consumer demand.
He notes that Federal payments for Medicare have gone down, not up, over time. Currently, Congress is dangling an increase in front of the medical sector, but only if they will back the SCHIP program, which is a back door way of getting Hillary-care operational, beginning with children.
With the government becoming the only payer, rather than one comprising merely a portion of the healthcare market, supply of healthcare will become a function of Congressional budgetary action.
To those of you who don't have an economics background, this means, by definition, healthcare rationing. Because budgetary supply for healthcare will have no obvious relationship to real consumer demand.
Welcome to the world in which your actual health needs will have no impact on the availability of supply of the proper medical services to heal you.
Essentially, wrote Merrill Matthews, director of the Council for Affordable Health Insurance, and a resident scholar at the Institute for Policy Innovation, the typical experience in other countries is for federal-level governmental management of healthcare to shrink allocations to medical spending, thus 'saving' money, while reducing the availability and quality of healthcare.
Among the evidence cited, Matthews notes that countries such as Canada and France spend 8-10% of GNP, rather than the nearly 16% in the US on healthcare, because such spending becomes a function of political, not consumer demand.
He notes that Federal payments for Medicare have gone down, not up, over time. Currently, Congress is dangling an increase in front of the medical sector, but only if they will back the SCHIP program, which is a back door way of getting Hillary-care operational, beginning with children.
With the government becoming the only payer, rather than one comprising merely a portion of the healthcare market, supply of healthcare will become a function of Congressional budgetary action.
To those of you who don't have an economics background, this means, by definition, healthcare rationing. Because budgetary supply for healthcare will have no obvious relationship to real consumer demand.
Welcome to the world in which your actual health needs will have no impact on the availability of supply of the proper medical services to heal you.
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