Governor Sanford’s Stance Aganist Nationalization

As chairman of the Republican Governor’s Association, Mark Sanford (SC) wrote a letter to the white House with his concerns regarding the bailouts of the auto industry.  Among other concerns, Sanford relayed the following (Via Hot Air):

“I believe we are at a tipping point in moving from a market-based economy to a politically-based economy, wherein one’s success can be determined not by good decisions and good work, but by the size of one’s voice and connection to Washington,” Sanford wrote. “The real economic stimulus of this country lies in the daily work and effort of millions you have seen across this land.  These bailouts not only represent an enormous cost they are left to carry, but a shattering of the rights and responsibilities that have historically been linked to achieving the American Dream.”

“It would open the floodgates of federal monies for every distressed industry across this country–and there will be many in this economic slowdown.”

It makes me smile that there is someone in politics who gets it.  One who understands the fundamentals of what makes our country great.  FREE MARKETS.  Our country has always adapted to changes in econmic industries.  It wasn’t always pretty, but we managed to get through it.  The bailout of defunct companies is like Washington trying to hammer a sqaure peg into a round hole.  The auto industry needs to evolve with the changing conditions in our world economy.  It cannot continue to have to hold on to the past, but it does need to learn from it.  The industry needs a change from the top down; i.e. streamline executive positions, cut wasteful spending and renegotiate damaging labor contracts; for example GOLF COURSES?!? (via MM)  Many jobs will  be lost if the bailout is not offered.  However, with Chapter 11 Bankruptcy or tough love from Washington will solidify a foundation of long term growth and prosperity.  The auto industry will once again be in a better position to compete in the world market.

P.S.  This post could have been titled “Governor Sanford Announces his Candidacy for 2012”

-reagan21

The Big Three Burning Through Cash While on Capitol Hill

Could I borrow $25 Billion, once again I forgot my diamond studded wallet on my private jet?  It seems that while the Big Three Auto makers were pleading for cash, their private jets were waiting for them down on the Tarmac.

Hotair via ABCNews reports:

The CEOs of the big three automakers flew to the nation’s capital yesterday in private luxurious jets to make their case to Washington that the auto industry is running out of cash and needs $25 billion in taxpayer money to avoid bankruptcy.

The CEOs of GM, Ford and Chrysler may have told Congress that they will likely go out of business without a bailout yet that has not stopped them from traveling in style, not even First Class is good enough.

All three CEOs – Rick Wagoner of GM, Alan Mulally of Ford, and Robert Nardelli of Chrysler – exercised their perks Tuesday by flying in corporate jets to DC. Wagoner flew in GM’s $36 million luxury aircraft to tell members of Congress that the company is burning through cash, asking for $10-12 billion for GM alone.

The jets cost $20,000 just to fly to and from Washington…and you want more of my money?  (Actually according to republican Congressman Knollenberg, It’s not my money…it belongs to Congress).  Moreover, Ford CEO, Alan Mulally, flies to and from Detroit from Seattle every week because he did not want to relocate to Detroit upon taking his job.  That is millions of dollars per year, because your CEO doesn’t want to move?  Really?!? 

I have an idea.  First cut off all of your fat and reckless spending, then come to me begging for cash.  Does no one else see how a Chapter 11 Bankruptcy filing could help this situation.  I guarantee the US Trustee would not allow the use of these jets, and any other negligent spending.  I bet he would force the Big Three to put the jets up for auction on ebay.  Chapter 11 would actually promote the possibility of long term growth.  An influx of cash would not discourage horrible fiscal policy, and in some ways validate said fiscal irresponsibility.  Romney  and AP are with me, why isn’t Congress?

-reagan21

The Crap Sandwich Has a New Flavor

It seems that the Troubled Asset Relief Program or TARP has now turned into a TRAP for our tax dollars.  Treasury Secretary Paulson recently acknowledged that the Bailout is no longer going to purchase Troubled Assets with the money in the Troubled Asset Relief Program.  What???!!!???  If we were forced to mortgage our future to bailout lending institutions from variable loans, on homes with inflated prices, and with owners who should not have been able to purchase the house in the first place then why aren’t you doing what you promised?  Where is this money going to go?  Did we even need $700 Billion?  Can I get some of that money?  We should be outraged.  Who will be our voice? Just as MM suggests Paulson has become the Naked Emperor, and no the sky was not falling.

Today, three senators wrote to Secretary Paulson with their concerns.  At least there are 3 out of the 535 who are willing to ask questions.  Here are excerpts from the letter:

November 13, 2008

Dear Secretary Paulson:

We are writing to express our deep concern over your announcement this morning that the Department of the Treasury will halt all plans to purchase trouble mortgage assets through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). We are concerned that the program has been fundamentally changed from its original intent and worry that continued changes may erode the structures of accountability put in to protect taxpayers.

…

The primary reason for this course of action, we were told, was to assist the market in discovering the price of these assets and to return liquidity to the financial markets.

…

This troubled asset relief program has to be properly designed for immediate implementation and be sufficiently large to have maximum impact and restore market confidence. It must also protect the taxpayer to the maximum extent possible, and include provisions that ensure transparency and oversight while also ensuring the program can be implemented quickly and run effectively.

…

Although the legislation was passed on October 3, the program was never implemented and now has been officially abandoned in favor of alternative plans after little more than a month. Such a rapid reversal raises questions about the TARP’s original design as well as the propriety of future plans.

…

Sincerely,

U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D., U.S. Senator Richard Burr, U.S. Senator David Vitter

We should all write to these senators and let them know how much we appreciate their intelligence.  We do not need Government spending the money where they see fit.  It is our money they are borrowing, and there needs to be some oversight and transparency in order for the taxpayers to know where are money is going.  Let us hope that Congress can get this together before it is too late, or I want a refund.  Like a huge check in the mail.

-reagan21

Another Article on How GBL Did Not Cause the Meltdown

WSJ’s Peter Wallison:

The GLBA’s [Gramm-Leach-Bliley] “repeal” of a portion of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 is said to have somehow contributed to the current financial meltdown. Nonsense.

Adopted early in the New Deal, the Glass-Steagall Act separated investment and commercial banking. It prohibited commercial banks from underwriting or dealing in securities, and from affiliating with firms that engaged principally in that business. The GLBA repealed only the second of these provisions, allowing banks and securities firms to be affiliated under the same holding company. Thus J.P. Morgan Chase was able to acquire Bear Stearns, and Bank of America could acquire Merrill Lynch. Nevertheless, banks themselves were and still are prohibited from underwriting or dealing in securities.

Allowing banks and securities firms to affiliate under the same holding company has had no effect on the current financial crisis. None of the investment banks that have gotten into trouble — Bear, Lehman, Merrill, Goldman or Morgan Stanley — were affiliated with commercial banks. And none of the banks that have major securities affiliates — Citibank, Bank of America, and J.P. Morgan Chase, to name a few — are among the banks that have thus far encountered serious financial problems. Indeed, the ability of these banks to diversify into nonbanking activities has been a source of their strength.

Most important, the banks that have succumbed to financial problems — Wachovia, Washington Mutual and IndyMac, among others — got into trouble by investing in bad mortgages or mortgage-backed securities, not because of the securities activities of an affiliated securities firm. Federal Reserve regulations significantly restrict transactions between banks and their affiliates.

Defending J-Mac’s Socialism (350 billion dollar mortgage buyout)

Last night, I was in a blogger chat with other folks and when I heard that J-Mac proposed 350 billion in additional funds for a bailout, I,  like many of our brethern lost my head and called him a socialist.  Anyway, as Hannity says, “let not your heart be troubled”:

Marc Ambinder in the Atlantic notes how the 300 billion or so is already incorporated into the bill that was passed last week. J-Mac is not asking for additional funds:

On a conference call with reporters, McCain policy chief Douglas Holtz-Eakin spelled out how McCain would pay for his plan for the government to buy troubled mortgages and replace when with more favorable fixed-rate mortgages at minimal direct cost to the homeowners. The government could use some of the $700 billion authorized for the bailout and tap other accounts, although the campaign estimates that, owing to negative equity — the government can’t magically turn bad mortgages into good ones without taking a hit — would be $300 billion.  The McCain team hopes that by buying mortgages directly, the government wouldn’t have to buy as many distressed assets from big banks, thus reducing the net cost. McCain claims this idea as his own, although the bailout/rescue bill already gives the government the authority to deal directly with homeowners, and Obama has suggested that the government do the same — although McCain’s certainly being more aggressive here.

Second, let’s look at the Hope for Homegrowers plan in crap sandwich 2.0:

HOPE for Homeowners (H4H) is a program designed to assist borrowers at risk of default or foreclosure in refinancing to an affordable 30-year fixed rate FHA loan. The program is effective October 1, 2008 and will conclude on September 30, 2011. …

The loan amount may not exceed a nationwide maximum of $550,440.

The new mortgage will be no more than 90% of the new appraised value including any financed UFMIP with the lender essentially writing down the current mortgage to that amount.

Upfront MIP is 3% and the monthly MIP is 1.5%

The holders of existing mortgage liens must waive all prepayment penalties and late payment fees.

The existing first mortgage must accept the proceeds of the H4H loan as full settlement of all outstanding indebtedness.

Existing subordinate lenders must release their outstanding mortgage liens.

So, the mechanism for what John McCain said last night exists. It is still wrong that we are buying out bad mortgages, but at least he isn’t adding to it

Not up to Whose Standards?

MM has reported on NBC’s reasoning for pulling a skit from its website.  NBC has reported that the skit will be edited and reposted as soon as the editing is complete.  In my eyes the only thing that deserves to hit the editor’s room floor is the line “People who deserve to be shot”.  I do believe the Sander’s have some ‘splainin to do, but they are real people.  The last thing we need is some psychopath finding these slime and shooting them.  If anything else is edited out, NBC has cemented themselves as a Corporation who has pledged their allegiance to the the Left Wing financiers, and will even censor themselves to retain their loyalty. 

MM reports

Peter Viles at L.A. Land reports that Saturday Night Live is rewriting its forbidden Soros/Sandler-bashing
bailout skit because it “didn’t meet their standards.”

Translation: It didn’t meet George Soros’s standards!

The scoop:

A “Saturday Night Live” skit that skewered President Bush, Democrats, homebuyers and subprime lenders for their roles in the mortgage meltdown was removed from the program’s website because it “didn’t meet out standards,” a spokesman for the show said Tuesday. An edited version of the skit will be re-posted online soon, the spokesman said.

The skit, a parody of a C-SPAN news conference, ridiculed subprime borrowers, housing speculators and Herbert and Marion Sandler, the real-life couple who built Golden West Financial into a subprime lending powerhouse and sold it to Wachovia before the subprime collapse. At one point in the skit, the Herb Sandler character says he made $24 billion off the subprime boom. Graphics then appear labeling the Sandlers as “People who should be shot.”

“Upon review, we caught certain elements in the sketch that didn’t meet our standards,” a spokesman for the program said in an E-mail message Tuesday. “We took it down and made some minor changes and it will be back online soon.”

SNL BANNED Skit

Won’t last so enjoy it while you can

Jack Donaghy’s Alter Ego on the Financial Crisis

Linked from the National Review:

Alec Baldwin on Bill Maher

The, the thing we have to remember, a friend of mine who is very close to the financial community in New York pointed out that Democrats have a lot of the responsibility for this as well. I mean, it was Clinton who killed the Glass-Steagall, and it happened under a Democratic president. Barney Frank and his committee, they, they kept propping up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac saying everything’s fine, everything’s fine, everything’s good. And it was his job to know everything wasn’t fine. And Barney Frank let you down and let us down as well. And so, but I want to say there’s blame to go both ways. But I will say, I want to, I maybe keep beating this to death, but I still think anyone in this Congress who voted to add $140 billion to that bill, they should be ashamed of themselves. That is a disgrace. It’s a disgrace. This Congress is a disgrace, Democrat and Republican.

As we all know, he is completely wrong on Glass-Steagall as subprime had already started. It is interesting to see Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin’s Republican character on 30 Rock) inform the usually super-liberal Alec Baldwin’s opinion

What happened to the SNL Bailout skit on the NBC website?

It magically disappeared? The only negative thing about Democrats which was actually inaccurately balanced has been removed. In the bag for Obama they are, just as Michelle notes here.

Gloves. Off

McCain about to get awesome:

Our current economic crisis is a good case in point. What was his actual record in the years before the great economic crisis of our lifetimes?

This crisis started in our housing market in the form of subprime loans that were pushed on people who could not afford them. Bad mortgages were being backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and it was only a matter of time before a contagion of unsustainable debt began to spread. This corruption was encouraged by Democrats in Congress, and abetted by Senator Obama.

Senator Obama has accused me of opposing regulation to avert this crisis. I guess he believes if a lie is big enough and repeated often enough it will be believed. But the truth is I was the one who called at the time for tighter restrictions on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that could have helped prevent this crisis from happening in the first place.

Senator Obama was silent on the regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and his Democratic allies in Congress opposed every effort to rein them in. As recently as September of last year he said that subprime loans had been, quote, “a good idea.” Well, Senator Obama, that “good idea” has now plunged this country into the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

To hear him talk now, you’d think he’d always opposed the dangerous practices at these institutions. But there is absolutely nothing in his record to suggest he did. He was surely familiar with the people who were creating this problem. The executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have advised him, and he has taken their money for his campaign. He has received more money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than any other senator in history, with the exception of the chairman of the committee overseeing them.

Did he ever talk to the executives at Fannie and Freddie about these reckless loans? Did he ever discuss with them the stronger oversight I proposed? If Senator Obama is such a champion of financial regulation, why didn’t he support these regulations that could have prevented this crisis in the first place? He won’t tell you, but you deserve an answer.

We’ll know this worked if, by the time 8:00 rolls around, flapping heads are picking this apart for supposed innacuracies.  Stand up and kick some tail!