Here we go again

I guess we're all done with the financial crisis. And the recession must be over. Right?

Two U.S. Democratic lawmakers want Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to relax recently tightened standards for mortgages on new condominiums, saying they could threaten the viability of some developments and slow the housing-market recovery, the Wall Street Journal said.

Lack of adequate government oversight and a loosening of mortgage lending rules and principles contributed heavily to the financial and economic crisis we are in. As a result the crisis spawned the need opportunity for the government to "bailout" the banks who made these bad lending decisions. And now the banks are being urged by Congress to loosen the rules again.

What the fuck??? These guys are all about blaming the Bush Administration for the economic problems our country now faces. But now that there's a new sheriff in town, and they are in the midst of raiding our country's treasury with the "Stimulus", it must be OK to relax the mortgage lending standards again. The same mortgage lending standards that got us into the mess in the first place. I guess this will just ensure we are in a constant need of government bailouts.

Stop the planet. I want to get off.

Holy Smokes!

On April 1, the new federal tax on tobacco products went into effect. The tax is part of the expanded SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program) funding signed into law in February 2009 by our president. While I'm not sure taxing tobacco and alcohol to fund health coverage for children is the right way to go, the cause is noble nonetheless. The expanded tax funds healthcare coverage for an additional 4 million children, pregnant women, and legal immigrants.

To provide the funding, in part, the bill raised the maximum federal excise tax on cigarettes and cigars from a nickel to maximum of 40 cents. Do the math, folks. That's an 800% increase. All at once, with the stroke of a pen. Holy smokes!

To survive, manufacturers simply pass the tax burden on to the consumer. Simple supply and demand economics illustrate that if prices increases high enough, demand for said product will decrease. And if demand decreases enough, people lose their jobs. Don't believe me? Just ask the employees of Hav-a-Tampa.

Tampa will lose part of its cigar heritage in August when Hav-A-Tampa shuts its factory near Seffner and lays off about 495 employees, closing a factory that has been operating since 1902.

So why is Hav-a-Tampa closing its plant in Tampa?

...the company attributed much of its trouble to the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, a federal program that provides health insurance to low-income children. It is funded, in part, by a new federal tax on cigars and cigarettes. McKenzie couldn't say how much sales of Hav-A-Tampa cigars had fallen off, but the numbers have dropped significantly, he said.

Previously, federal excise taxes on cigars were limited to no more than a nickel, said Norman Sharp, president of the Cigar Association of America trade group. The tax increase, which took effect April 1, raises the maximum tax on cigars to about 40 cents, Sharp said.

OK. Adding a possible 35 cents to the price of a cigar may not be enough to make people instantly stop smoking cigars. Cigar smoking is more of a leisure-time activity, rather than an addiction. Thusly, there's still a demand for the product. So, what happens next?

Work that had been done in Tampa will now be performed in an Altadis plant in Puerto Rico, where it has extra manufacturing capacity, McKenzie said.

Yeah, that's it. the jobs will be moved off-shore.

"We can't afford to make these cigars in the U.S. anymore."

Ahh. If the cigars are made in the US, Hav-a-Tampa will have to absorb an 800% increase in the excise tax, payable to Uncle Sam. But if the cigars are made off-shore, no such tax burden applies. So, off-shore they go. And almost 500 American jobs disappear with it.

Want to raise the tax to generate some additional revenue for the noble SCHIP program? Fine. But was it really necessary to do it by a factor of 800%? Do you know of ANY tax on ANYTHING that increased 800% overnight?

President Pantywaste strikes again

What is happening in this world? The atrocious events going on in Iran has elicited shock and condemnation from the world over. I don't profess to be an expert on Iranian election protocols, but when a government bans all media coverage, and then starts beating, jailing, and even murdering it's own people in the streets, it obviously has something to hide. And how does our President respond? He says,

"The Iranian people are trying to have a debate about their future."

He calls is a debate. A fucking debate. Innocent people shot dead in the streets by the government. Very good, Mr. President. You sure don't want to upset the mullahs. After all, they might not show up for your hotdogs and fireworks this weekend.

From James Lewis over at American Thinker:

The White House is now occupied by a little president who just isn't there when he is called upon to take a clear, moral stand. For such sheer gutless flabbiness and evasion, you have to look back to the dismal Jimmy Carter years. If Tehran seems quieter today, it's because the civilian demonstrators have been identified and are being beaten and tortured and maybe killed in Evin Prison. Don't believe for a moment that the sadistic regime has changed, just because you don't see people bleeding on the streets. They are bleeding all right. It's just out of public view.

{SNIP}

The Europeans are being Reaganesque. Angela Merkel is morally serious. She stated officially that "Germany stands on the side of the people in Iran who want to exercise their right to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly."
Nicolas Sarkozy upheld our real values. He called the pictures of women and teenagers being beated by Basij thugs on motorcycles "brutal" and "totally disproportionate." "The ruling power claims to have won the elections ... if that were true, we must ask why they find it necessary to imprison their opponents and repress them with such violence."

When a French president shows more balls than an American president, it's freaking pathetic.

It's not like anybody expects Obama to launch a bombing campaign to punish the mullhas. This isn't about any form of military intervention. What happens in Iran stays in Iran. This is an Iranian problem and needs to be handled by Iranians. But how about voicing some form of support for the innocent people who are fighting to get their voices heard in their own government? Hope and Change, right?

Ah, what should we really expect from a noob.

It is truly embarrassing to be an American right now.

Enough is enough already

Yet another pseudo-comedian still suffering lingering effects of BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) has decided that the Palin family is still fair game too. Not just the Palin family, but the Palin teen daughters. The ever-classy Bill Maher, deciding to jump on the Letterman vs. Palin bandwagon, fired a few shots of his own. As per Jimmy Arone from Big Hollywood:

In defending his friend, Maher thought Republicans had over reacted and this was just a case of ‘fake’ outrage. Much ado about nothing. He then went on talking about how Letterman had invited Sarah Palin and her young daughter, Willow, to appear as guests on his show but the Governor declined because she thought it would be wise to keep her daughter away from him. Said Maher, “…that’s right, he’s 62 years old, he’s gonna fuck her right there on stage…it would be very wise to keep her, very wise, yes. You know, I’d worry a little more about the 18-year old hockey players who knock up your daughters.” To which his audience of trained seals laughed and clapped and had a good old time.

One has to assume Billy doesn't have any daughters of his own, because I can't imagine him being so amazingly crude otherwise. Not wanting to be outdone by his colleague's joke implying that one of the Palin daughters got raped, Billy gives us a wonderful visual of a 62-year old man actually doing it on stage. Real classy, Bill. Real classy.

You have to wonder why the left-leaning media and so-called comedians feel they have to keep bashing Sarah Palin, almost six months after the election. And not just Sarah Palin, but her teen daughters. So what if Bristol, the 18-year-old, is an unwed mother? News Flash - teen girls do get pregnant...even ones that come from wholesome, conservative, Christian families. I suppose the "left" would have preferred Bristol abort the pregnancy, rather than keep and raise the child. During the election cycle Billy even likened the teen pregnancy to a prison sentence.

Why is the left so obsessed with beating on Sarah Palin and her family? Is it possible they secretly view her as a threat to them in 2012? The left has shown everybody that charm, charisma, and personality is all it takes to make it to Oval Office, and that while experience is sometimes helpful, it is not necessarily required. As long as you can read a teleprompter, smile and wink, having no experience running anything at an executive level doesn't really matter.

So in the mind of the left, Sarah Palin is most certainly a threat. I don't think there's any doubt she has just as much (if not more) charisma than Obama. You may not agree with everything she stands for or says, but that smile and wink can charm the pants off you. In my opinion, this is why hey continue to bash her...bash her family...bash her daughters. However, the more they bash, the more they make her look like a victim, and the more sympathy for her they generate.

Flight 93 memorial

These guys might be reading too much into this, but I can certainly see their point. It was Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania on September 11, and the planned memorial to be built on the site does suspiciously look like the traditional Muslim crescent and star.

And it even points towards Mecca. Granted, Flight 93 was headed east towards Washington when it "crashed", and Mecca is east of the US. However, you'd think the designers would have a little more compassion for the TRUE victims of Flight 93 and their families. Unless their true intention is to make this a memorial for the fucking murdering terrorist camel-jockey assholes Religion of Peace.

Story of my life

Now I understand everything.

Everyday normal Republicans

Government Motors, Part Two

Is it OK to boycott the new Government Motors?

Gary Jason over at American Thinker presents a good case as to why we should boycott the new Chrysler and GM. From the article:

To start with the obvious, even though Obama denies that he will manage the companies, we have all learned by now that he has no problem doing the very thing he is denying. (In ordinary life this political artfulness is called lying). He fired one CEO, forced Chrysler to accept Fiat (WSJ.com 6/5/09), told GM that it cannot move its headquarters out of Detroit (WSJ.com 6/3/09), and may have ordered that whoever buys GM's European auto maker Opel must agree not to export cars to the U.S.. (WSJ.com 6/1/09) These decisions were made in secret with no Congressional oversight, by a man with no training or experience of any kind in business, never mind the auto business.

Yeah, a little scary.

But the negative consequences will spread well beyond the auto industry. By so conspicuously stiffing the bondholders in favor of his political supporters, Obama has made raising capital vastly more difficult. Every investor now knows that past bankruptcy law means nothing; if the President is paid enough by some special interest group, he will rip off the secured debt holders to satisfy his supporters. This will surely lower the demand for corporate bonds, leading to less capital for business expansion, hence fewer jobs.

So far, Ford seems to be the only American car manufacturer surviving. But for how long? How long before the UAW and the Obama administration makes a play for Ford? Or forces successful American-based foreign manufacturers like Honda and Toyota into the UAW fold.

Picture from here.

Picture from here.

Picture by Ronny Gordon.

Please say it ain't so

Difficult as it may be, it is wrong to automatically jump to conclusions when an airplane crashes. Remember the one that crashed over New York a short time after 9/11? We ALL thought it was another terrorist act initially, until it was determined that it was a structural problem with the tail piece. The Air France crash on Sunday is a horrible, horrible tragedy, and my thoughts and condolences go out to the victims and their families.

Airplanes are built by humans, and as such are not completely immune to mechanical failures. However, it is extremely rare that an airplane just falls out of the sky. But I guess it is not out of the realm of possibility. Again, not wanting to jump to conclusions, this could still be the result of a mechanical failure of some sort. We may never know, as the black box devices may be thousands of feet under the water. However, for an airplane to just disappear from radar and end up at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean without even a peep from the pilots, something major had to happen, and happen very quickly.

And then we see something like this report. Reported on a Buenes Aires news site on May 27, 2009:

Bomb threat on Air France flight.
Posted on 27 May 2009 at 16:27
The airport safety delayed an Air France flight this evening before departring for Paris immediately after the company received a bomb threat over the phone at the airport of Ezeiza.

The Federal Police, along the Firemen’s direction and the Airport’s Safety proceeded to inspect the plane, that arrived this morning from the French city and, after a brief stop, it was preparing to return.

The routine procedure lasted approximately one hour and a half and, as sources of the airport reported all the passengers are ok and they were not evacuated.

So, on May 27, an Air France flight had a bomb scare phoned in to the airport in Argentina. The Paris-bound flight was delayed as the aircraft was searched and the passengers re-screened. And three days later, a Paris-bound Air France flight from Brazil ends up at the bottom of the ocean, with no warning or distress call from the pilots.

Coincidence? I certainly hope so.

Government Motors

I don't know about you, but I find it very disheartening to see what is going on here. For years, GM and Chrysler have built products that are inferior to the products built by Toyota, Honda, and Nissan. And their balance sheet shows it. Cars that are more durable, reliable, and fun to drive are the cars people will buy. If these cars happen to be from Toyota, Honda, and Nissan, then so be it. Companies that continue to produce inferior products will, and should be allowed to, fail. GM has been around for almost 100 years - plenty of time to get their act together, learn to adapt to an ever-changing marketplace, and build cars that people want to buy. They deserve to fail, file for bankruptcy protection, and let the American bankruptcy laws and courts do their thing. If an amicable deal between the creditors, bondholders, and management cannot be brokered, the company liquidates assets. The secured creditors are contractually-bound to be paid 100% either in cash or in troubled assets - this is why they are classified as "secured bondholders."General creditors fight over what is left.

However, our government has deemed the American auto-industry "too big to fail". If GM and Chrysler fail, the ripple effect would devistate an already devistaed economy. Hundred of thousands of jobs will be lost. Think of all the tax revenue that represents. So in steps Mr. Hopey McChangy, forces Chyrsler into a goverment-brokered bankruptcy, creates a "New Chrysler", forces the secured bondholders of Old Chrysler to accept pennies on the dollar, while the New Chrysler stock is owned by Fiat, the UAW, and the United States Goverment. From David A. Skeel Jr., as posted on The American.

As the administration has pointed out in defense of its plan to commandeer the bankruptcy process, asset sales (known as 363 sales, based on the relevant provision) have become a common feature of Chapter 11 cases in the last 20 years. What makes the Chrysler plan unique, and makes it similar to the receiverships of the New Dealers’ era, is that it is not really a sale at all. It is a pretend sale and its main purpose is to eliminate the pesky creditors who might otherwise interfere with the government’s plans. It also seems to flout bankruptcy’s priority rules by giving Chrysler’s employees (who are general creditors) a big stake in New Chrysler while forcing senior lenders to take a major haircut. The usual rule is that senior creditors must be paid in full before lower priority creditors are entitled to anything.

A similar deal will most likely be implemented with GM, but since GM is much larger than Chrysler, the final outcome will probably differ. From the Associated Press, as posted on Yahoo News.

The company appeared closer than ever to filing for bankruptcy protection on Wednesday after its bondholders turned their backs on a federally ordered offer to swap their debt for GM stock. If GM does file, the governments of the United States and Canada could end up with as much as 70 percent of a reconstituted GM when the court dust settles_ with the biggest share by far held by the U.S. Treasury.

Did you catch that? 70%?? !! ?? Holy crap! Folks, it's no longer General Motors...it's Government Motors. With that much ownership of the new company, the US and Canadian governments will be able to make all corporate, board-level deciscions.

According to the Byron York, as posted on the Washington Examiner:

Obama knows the public doesn't want the government to run GM and Chrysler, which is why he has said hundreds of times that the government has "no interest" in running the automakers. But on Monday, at a White House event to hail the GM bankruptcy, he gave away the game when he said the feds will stay out of running GM "in all but the most fundamental corporate decisions."

It didn't take any parsing to realize that in Obama's vision, the government will let GM management handle the small stuff, but when something really, really matters, the new owner -- the United States government -- will do the deciding.

Combine the government's 70% ownership of New GM, and their 8% ownership of New Chrysler, and this should be recognized as nothing short of the nationalization of the American auto industry. Do we really want our government, using our yet-to-be-earned money, building our cars for us? Seizing publically-held corporations and nationalizing industries goes on in banana-republic, 3rd-world, communist/socialist states like Venezuela - not in America.

Question: When did "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" change to just "government of the people"?

Answer: January 20, 2009.

The Big Stick

***** UPDATE *****
The blog post mentioned below has since been removed from the Telegraph.co.uk website. Not all too surprising. I just wish I had cross-posted the whole thing.
***** UPDATE *****

Wow. Imagine seeing a OpEd piece in the country like this from the Daily Telegraph in the UK.

School's out! Suddenly it is playtime for all the naughtier elements in the more "reclusive" parts of the world who enjoy kicking Uncle Sam's butt but didn't much relish tangling with Dick Cheney and (what was that other guy's name?). This time Comrade Kim is really throwing his toys out of the playpen. He has even unilaterally revoked the 1953 armistice between the Korean War belligerents, which means, in case anybody is interested, that North and South Korea are once more at war.

So, what is the response of the Messiah in the Oval Office? Really severe rhetoric, is the answer. The soundbite manufacturers have been burning the midnight oil and the auto-cue is going into meltdown. So is the confidence of Asian leaders. The word is out: the most powerful nation on earth has got itself a pussycat for a president and all the bad guys are queuing up to give him the finger.

The article even calls him President Pantywaste. This would be even more funnier if it weren't so sadly true. Do you think it's just a coincidence that North Korea has upped the ante with six long range missile tests and a nuclear detonation test, all within the past week or so? Do you think they would have dared try this while Bush/Cheney were running the show?

"Walk softly, but carry a big stick." This was a phrase coined by Teddy Roosevelt back in 1901. He attributed it then to an old West African proverb. What it means is to tread carefully, negotiate peacefully and diplomatically, but be ready to use force if necessary. True back in 1901, and even more true today. If there is no Big Stick, there is no negotiating, diplomacy, respect, or peace.

It was the American Big Stick that saved Europe, twice. It was fear of the American Big Stick that eventually ended the Cold War. All through the 1990's, Saddam Hussein felt the American Big Stick, along with a host of other Sticks. Right or wrong, intended or unintended, fear of the American Big Stick is what makes us the "world's policeman" by default.

On the flip side, we cannot bring out the Big Stick whenever we want, as the "walk softly" part is just as important. Diplomacy and negotiation must be given a chance to work. The Big Stick should be used only as a last resort, after all efforts to walk softly have failed. However, refusal to use the Big Stick has grave consequences, and should never be put away.

What happens when the American Big Stick is put away? The refusal to confront the Iranian hostage situation with a Big Stick led to US embassy employees and citizens being held hostage for 444 days. How a rag-tag group of college students could overwhelm US Marines guarding the embassy is puzzling. How President Carter could allow the situation to last past lunch hour the first day is mind-boggling. The Iranian captors, and the Iranian government, had absolutely no fear of Jimmy Carter's Big Stick. What they did fear, however, was Ronald Reagan's Big Stick. And they wanted no part of it.

President Obama's recent World Apology Tour and his constant criticism of American foreign policy has put the world on notice. The American Big Stick has been put away.

And, sadly, both friend and foe alike have taken notice.