The tab for missing, improperly applied customer funds at MF Global has now risen to $1.2B, twice what was reported during the first week after the firm declared bankruptcy.
Yet, as Fox News' Charles Krauthammer observed, the liberal media continues to turn a blind eye to the potentially-criminal actions of former Goldman Sachs co-head, US Senator and New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine.
Even CFTC chairman Gary Gensler, who recused himself on the case, has stated publicly that it looks very likely that Corzine committed criminal acts.
Yet the liberal Democrat, former Senator and Governor, is largely ignored by the New York Times, CNN and MSNBC.
Had Corzine been a Republican, you can bet he'd have been roasted, pilloried and tried in the media constantly as a criminal 1%-er.
There's your media double standard. Only, because the liberals are silent on this one, it's harder to see it for what it is.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
"No Off Ramps" for Congress, eh??!!
You have to laugh.
After spending the year impeding any sort of adult activity in Congress to cut spending, Wonderboy was rejoicing over the failure of the so-called SuperCommittee to deliver $1.5T+ spending cut deal.
The other day, he solemnly intoned, like some harsh school teacher, that he would veto any attempt by Congress to set aside the sequesters on spending in the wake of the failure of the special 12-member panel.
'There will be no off ramp' the First Rookie exclaimed.
Really? Sounds kind of like a dictator, doesn't he?
In reality, all Congress needs to do is decide, by veto-proof majorities, to simply repeal those provisions of the debt limit increase bill which created the SuperCommittee.
And, by the way, even if Congress doesn't, it's unclear that Wonderboy will even have the job would allow him to block any changes. It's quite likely that by January of 2013, the year in which the sequesters occur, Republicans will hold the House, the Oval Office, and perhaps the Senate. Or have enough clout to co-opt sufficient Democratic Senators to simply tear up the debt-ceiling increase bill and start over with a much tougher-minded GOP President at the helm.
Wonderboy's blowing smoke up everyone's ass on this one. He doesn't have a leg to stand on, and he knows it. He's just trying to energize every liberal, youth and minority he thinks will vote for him next year.
After spending the year impeding any sort of adult activity in Congress to cut spending, Wonderboy was rejoicing over the failure of the so-called SuperCommittee to deliver $1.5T+ spending cut deal.
The other day, he solemnly intoned, like some harsh school teacher, that he would veto any attempt by Congress to set aside the sequesters on spending in the wake of the failure of the special 12-member panel.
'There will be no off ramp' the First Rookie exclaimed.
Really? Sounds kind of like a dictator, doesn't he?
In reality, all Congress needs to do is decide, by veto-proof majorities, to simply repeal those provisions of the debt limit increase bill which created the SuperCommittee.
And, by the way, even if Congress doesn't, it's unclear that Wonderboy will even have the job would allow him to block any changes. It's quite likely that by January of 2013, the year in which the sequesters occur, Republicans will hold the House, the Oval Office, and perhaps the Senate. Or have enough clout to co-opt sufficient Democratic Senators to simply tear up the debt-ceiling increase bill and start over with a much tougher-minded GOP President at the helm.
Wonderboy's blowing smoke up everyone's ass on this one. He doesn't have a leg to stand on, and he knows it. He's just trying to energize every liberal, youth and minority he thinks will vote for him next year.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Rick Perry's Part-Time Congress Concept
I find Rick Perry's 'part-time Congress' idea to be a little too goofy to take seriously.
Texas isn't the United States, doesn't have a standing army, navy or air force, or embassies abroad. Back in the early 1800s, before the US was a world power, and communications were poor, a part-time legislature, both at the state and federal levels, was basically just reality.
But once America came into the 1900s, and the government, post-Civil War, had, for good or bad, Constitutionally or not, swollen in size and responsibility, it became unrealistic for Congress to only serve part of every year or term.
But one idea Perry has echoes my own- cut Congressional staffs. I don't know what details he proposed- probably none, knowing Perry.
If I'm not mistaken, I think it was even one of my 10 things I'd do to reform government.
But I believe I advocated only two aides per Representative or Senator. And no compensating budget to hire temps or consultants.
I want members of Congress themselves writing bills- not their hired, degree-heavy, detail-crazy, bribable staffs.
That's what I want...a lean Congress without staffs and coddlers, full of members who actually do all the work themselves.
Then, as the subheading of this blog suggests, we'll be a bit safer because those 435 elected members simply won't have the time and ability to write so much intrusive legislation that affects the rest of us and gives them such ongoing power.
Texas isn't the United States, doesn't have a standing army, navy or air force, or embassies abroad. Back in the early 1800s, before the US was a world power, and communications were poor, a part-time legislature, both at the state and federal levels, was basically just reality.
But once America came into the 1900s, and the government, post-Civil War, had, for good or bad, Constitutionally or not, swollen in size and responsibility, it became unrealistic for Congress to only serve part of every year or term.
But one idea Perry has echoes my own- cut Congressional staffs. I don't know what details he proposed- probably none, knowing Perry.
If I'm not mistaken, I think it was even one of my 10 things I'd do to reform government.
But I believe I advocated only two aides per Representative or Senator. And no compensating budget to hire temps or consultants.
I want members of Congress themselves writing bills- not their hired, degree-heavy, detail-crazy, bribable staffs.
That's what I want...a lean Congress without staffs and coddlers, full of members who actually do all the work themselves.
Then, as the subheading of this blog suggests, we'll be a bit safer because those 435 elected members simply won't have the time and ability to write so much intrusive legislation that affects the rest of us and gives them such ongoing power.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Predicting From An Aberration
The Lexington column in the November 12th issue of The Economist opined on a political analyst's theory that the 2008 US presidential election is a harbinger of an unstoppable Democratic-friendly demographic.
The crux of the piece is a contention by Ruy Teixiera that minorities including blacks and Latinos will comprise 54% of the American electorate by 2050 so, QED, they'll just elect Democrats as president til the cows come home.
Teixiera evidently provided many two-way analyses of the 2008 vote, cited in the Lexington column, to cement his conclusions. For good measure, a Pew Research Center report is cited supporting the prior contentions of Democratic sweeps of the newly-emerging majority of voters.
To provide a cautionary view, though, the piece cites Brookings Institute's Bill Galston, a former Clinton aide, believes that Obama's campaign team is making a serious mistake in relying on newly-Democratic states like Colorado, while running away from Ohio, Indiana and Michigan.
What I find almost laughable is that nowhere in the column does the editor's voice observe that the 2008 presidential election was singular for having an electable black candidate. And a voluble debater, at that. There's a half-hearted comment that 'Obamanania is over.'
But it's much, much worse than that.
Perhaps only an external-to-the-US editorial board or reporter could fail to understand how many whites voted for Wonderboy out of misplaced guilt over prior racial discrimination which occurred prior to their even being born. It's amazing that the popular vote spread was only about 6 percentage points.
Add to that one-off victory Obama's choice of failed New Deal-style liberal spending and business-bashing tactics and programs, and you have a sure-fire loss of votes in 2012.
The bottom line is that you'd have to be a complete idiot to base any long term voting pattern changes on the 2008 presidential election which featured the first viable black candidate from either party.
The crux of the piece is a contention by Ruy Teixiera that minorities including blacks and Latinos will comprise 54% of the American electorate by 2050 so, QED, they'll just elect Democrats as president til the cows come home.
Teixiera evidently provided many two-way analyses of the 2008 vote, cited in the Lexington column, to cement his conclusions. For good measure, a Pew Research Center report is cited supporting the prior contentions of Democratic sweeps of the newly-emerging majority of voters.
To provide a cautionary view, though, the piece cites Brookings Institute's Bill Galston, a former Clinton aide, believes that Obama's campaign team is making a serious mistake in relying on newly-Democratic states like Colorado, while running away from Ohio, Indiana and Michigan.
What I find almost laughable is that nowhere in the column does the editor's voice observe that the 2008 presidential election was singular for having an electable black candidate. And a voluble debater, at that. There's a half-hearted comment that 'Obamanania is over.'
But it's much, much worse than that.
Perhaps only an external-to-the-US editorial board or reporter could fail to understand how many whites voted for Wonderboy out of misplaced guilt over prior racial discrimination which occurred prior to their even being born. It's amazing that the popular vote spread was only about 6 percentage points.
Add to that one-off victory Obama's choice of failed New Deal-style liberal spending and business-bashing tactics and programs, and you have a sure-fire loss of votes in 2012.
The bottom line is that you'd have to be a complete idiot to base any long term voting pattern changes on the 2008 presidential election which featured the first viable black candidate from either party.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Regarding Newt Gingrich's Freddie Mac Consulting
I caught Newt on Greta Van Sustern's Fox News program last night defending his consulting firm's $1.6MM from Freddie Mac. According to Gingrich, he didn't lobby members of Congress. Rather, he and his firm allegedly 'provided ideas and solutions' to problems posed by Freddie's management. Elsewhere, I believe in the Wall Street Journal, it was reported that one of those 'problems' was how to posture Fannie to conservatives in order to curry favor with them and avoid constraints, if not wholesale destruction.
My problem with Newt's consulting in this matter was that it's inconceivable that he would have needed all the billable hours required to amount to $1.6MM to tell Freddie's management they were pissing up a rope, and that there was no way of doing what they envisioned.
That conservatives would never see a benefit from a poorly-regulated, vote- and protection-buying bonus machine which crowded out saner, more explicitly risk-priced alternatives for securitizing US residential mortgages.
Sadly, in response to Greta, Newt began to place great emphasis on the pricing levels of his consultancy work, insisting they were below-average to average among other competitors.
But that's hardly the point. The point is a conservative of Gingrich's stripe should never have had that much to offer Freddie. And Newt should have had the good sense, as a former Speaker of the House, to understand how it would look, in retrospect, when someone discovered how much his firm earned from essentially consorting with the enemy.
This is more about a serious lapse in political judgement, which seems to be Newt's salient liability as a candidate.
My problem with Newt's consulting in this matter was that it's inconceivable that he would have needed all the billable hours required to amount to $1.6MM to tell Freddie's management they were pissing up a rope, and that there was no way of doing what they envisioned.
That conservatives would never see a benefit from a poorly-regulated, vote- and protection-buying bonus machine which crowded out saner, more explicitly risk-priced alternatives for securitizing US residential mortgages.
Sadly, in response to Greta, Newt began to place great emphasis on the pricing levels of his consultancy work, insisting they were below-average to average among other competitors.
But that's hardly the point. The point is a conservative of Gingrich's stripe should never have had that much to offer Freddie. And Newt should have had the good sense, as a former Speaker of the House, to understand how it would look, in retrospect, when someone discovered how much his firm earned from essentially consorting with the enemy.
This is more about a serious lapse in political judgement, which seems to be Newt's salient liability as a candidate.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Destroying Jobs One Energy Sector At A Time
You have to wonder if the First Rookie really is schizophrenic. Or perhaps his campaign manager and staff simply have such a low opinion of the American electorate that they don't believe anyone has noticed how anti-growth, anti-jobs Wonderboy truly is.
The Keystone XL pipeline is the latest example. Using the excuse that the State Department thinks there are irregularities in some of the permit applications already accepted, and that the Nebraska sandhills and aquifer are at risk, although existing pipelines seem fine, is completely transparent.
The result? About 20,000 lost high-value, truly skilled construction jobs. Alienating Canada's PM Harper and handing the Chinese a nice new energy supply for nothing.
How can a president speak out of one side of his mouth about needing to reduce reliance on overseas oil supplies, then shut down our own offshore oil production and stop a heaven-sent pipeline from Canada?
Isn't that the sort of extreme liberal shift that created the Reagan Democrats of 1980, in the wake of the Democrats' shift leftward with McGovern's campaign and Carter's governance?
No matter what David Plouffle may believe, these moves, in addition to the 'lazy companies' remark, are going to be featured video clips in the GOP presidential campaign come late next year.
The Keystone XL pipeline is the latest example. Using the excuse that the State Department thinks there are irregularities in some of the permit applications already accepted, and that the Nebraska sandhills and aquifer are at risk, although existing pipelines seem fine, is completely transparent.
The result? About 20,000 lost high-value, truly skilled construction jobs. Alienating Canada's PM Harper and handing the Chinese a nice new energy supply for nothing.
How can a president speak out of one side of his mouth about needing to reduce reliance on overseas oil supplies, then shut down our own offshore oil production and stop a heaven-sent pipeline from Canada?
Isn't that the sort of extreme liberal shift that created the Reagan Democrats of 1980, in the wake of the Democrats' shift leftward with McGovern's campaign and Carter's governance?
No matter what David Plouffle may believe, these moves, in addition to the 'lazy companies' remark, are going to be featured video clips in the GOP presidential campaign come late next year.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Lazy, Soft US Companies
You can't make this stuff up.
Wonderboy has recently castigated US companies for being 'soft' and 'lazy' in competing for global trade. See the first few minutes of this video for the footage.
This from a guy with absolutely no business experience whatsoever.
Does he even realize how the EPA is purposely working to raise the price of electricity by forcing the shuttering of coal-fired power plants? That his administration has said 'no' to our own offshore drilling, while welcoming Brazil and other countries to do it, instead?
That his nearly trillion dollar stimulus crowded out private investment, while his crony capitalism of rescuing GM and giving a large chunk of it to his UAW backers prevented capital from flowing to new businesses?
His constant demonizing of banks, bankers and large corporations hardly seems of a piece with the remarks in the first minutes of that video, does it?
I don't think Wonderboy actually understands how schizophrenic and scatterbrained he appears with these various messages.
One thing is sure. He had no sense whatsoever that over-regulation and government intrusion into business retards investment, which leads to slower job growth.
Wonderboy has recently castigated US companies for being 'soft' and 'lazy' in competing for global trade. See the first few minutes of this video for the footage.
Does he even realize how the EPA is purposely working to raise the price of electricity by forcing the shuttering of coal-fired power plants? That his administration has said 'no' to our own offshore drilling, while welcoming Brazil and other countries to do it, instead?
That his nearly trillion dollar stimulus crowded out private investment, while his crony capitalism of rescuing GM and giving a large chunk of it to his UAW backers prevented capital from flowing to new businesses?
His constant demonizing of banks, bankers and large corporations hardly seems of a piece with the remarks in the first minutes of that video, does it?
I don't think Wonderboy actually understands how schizophrenic and scatterbrained he appears with these various messages.
One thing is sure. He had no sense whatsoever that over-regulation and government intrusion into business retards investment, which leads to slower job growth.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
