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Bailouts

• 08.27.09
  Is it still open season on Inspectors General?
  Bailouts (0)

  David H. Stevens of the U.S. Department and Urban Development wrote a letter to the WSJ ("FHA is Fulfilling Its Mission Well") in which he responded to an August 11 editorial ("The Next Fannie Mae : Ginnie Mae and FHA are becoming $1 trillion subprime guarantors."). Stevens says he doesn't like the comparison of the FHA to subprime lenders. He says the FHA operates entirely from its self-generated income. Great! If everything he says is true, it means we don't need an FHA, or at least not one backed by the U.S. Government. The ...
  
  
• 08.08.09
  The solution to pollution is socialization
  Bailouts, Environment (0)

  One of the great thing about government ownership of the means of production is that development doesn't need to be held back by environmental constraints. Take the nationalization of GM and Chrysler, for example. Now that a powerful government monopoly owns large portions of those two companies, they are able to walk away from responsibility for their polluted properties. (Detroit Free Press article here.) It's not quite the same as what happened around the Sea of Azov, but there are significant similarities. Ford, which is in a very different relationship to these same ...
  
  
• 08.01.09
  Trickle-down clunkers
  Bailouts, Stimulus spending (0)

  Some of the descriptions of the the cash-for-clunkers program make it sound like an attempt to show that trickle-down economics works, after all. The money goes from the government to dealers, not from government to customers. Dealers of course use the money (or rather, the hope of getting reimbursed) as a way to lower prices and compete for customers. How much of the discount actually ends up in consumer hands will be hard to say, given that the dealer price from which a discount is taken is a squishy concept at best. ...
  
  
• 07.15.09
  Suppressing dissent: Your tax dollars at work
  Bailouts, Stimulus spending (0)

  If there is any doubt as to what federal bailout money is intended to purchase, the Obama administration's behavior towards Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona is telling us plainly: The money is intended to buy political obedience and to suppress dissent. The same will be true of federal money spent to bail us out of health care difficulties.
  
  
• 04.28.09
  Forcing them to take the money
  Bailouts (2)

  This photo was taken last November 29 from the Marantette Bridge just outside of Mendon, Michigan. I often stop here for photos and a rest break when riding my bicycle through Mendon, but this time I had come by car, so it's not really appropriate for The Spokesrider, where I've already posted several articles about this place. I think of this place every time I read about South Carolina's governor, Mark Sanford. He does not want to accept stimulus money -- there are strings attached -- but the left is threatening to make life very difficult for him if ...
  
  
• 04.27.09
  Ideological shift
  Bailouts, Bash the Messenger (0)

  Here's a cute rhetorical trick. The Reuters headline says, "Obama leading U.S. ideological shift." That's like putting out a headline back in the 400s saying, "Atilla the Hun leading European ideological shift." Or at the 1821 Treaty of Chicago, by which the United States provided a massive bailout to the Potawatomi Indians in exchange for their ceding most of their Michigan Territory: "Gov. Lewis Cass leading ideological shift in the Northwest." A less genteel way for Reuters to put it would be, "Obama leading shift to robber-baron capitalism." Or, "Obama wages aggressive war of conquest."
  
  
• 04.23.09
  In loco parentis
  Bailouts, Health care reform (0)

  I presume it has happened in the movies if not in real life: The parents scrimp and save to send the kid to college. They work extra jobs on weekends and evenings so he can get through the pre-med program. Then, instead of making them proud, he drops out and rejects their ways by becoming a flower child. Or it could happen in both the movies and in real life. Christopher McCandless graduated from college but rejected his parents' materialistic ways. He gave the rest of his educational savings ($25K) to Oxfam ...
  
  
• 04.08.09
  Mr. GoodGovernmentWrench
  Bailouts, Health care reform (0)

  I continue be amazed at people who have so little sense of self-preservation as not to understand the implications of bank bailouts and manufacturing bailouts for health-care bailouts. But it was heartening to see in today's WSJ that at least one person besides myself does understand. It was Bruce Anderson, a letter writer: As a staunch conservative, I say hooray for President Obama and his plan to pick up GM's warranty obligations. When people get a taste of standing in a post office-quality line to argue with a government clerk over whether their dead transmission was caused by wear ...
  
  
• 04.05.09
  Haglund redefines capitalism
  Bailouts, Bash the Messenger, Limits on government power (0)

  Rick Haglund writes a column that appears in the Business/Jobs section of the Sunday Kalamazoo Gazette. But it's almost always a lot more about government than business. His article in today's print section is headlined: "Wagoner exit will force automakers to fix problems fast." The online version is headlined: "Obama lays out capitalistic path for General Motors, Chrysler." Both headlines reflect the content of Haglund's article. (This is not always the case in the Gazette). And both are wrong. Those who believe President Barack Obama is a socialist are now convinced of it after he sacked General Motors ...
  
  
• 04.01.09
  What’s good for Obamamobiles is good for America
  Bailouts (0)

  It has been a couple hundred years since we last had a Renaissance man as president. But now we have someone who not only can run a successful election campaign, but whose uncanny eye for tax evaders to run his administration is not in the least diminished by his ability to simultaneously run a multinational manufacturing conglomerate and fill out his NCAA men's basketball bracket. It's not all roses and sunshine, of course. There is a lot of whining about the way he's taken over an automotive manufacturing company. But the chronic naysayers overlook the fact ...
  
  

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