Who owns banks now?

On CNN this morning, some asshat was talking about how it will be good to partially nationalize banks by forcing them to sell preferred convertible shares to the Government to the tune of about 40% in the big banks. He goes on say something like "by investing in these bank and making taxpayers their owners..."

At that point I lost conscious thought about what he had to say after that due to the rage implosion going on in my brain.

Who does this clown think owns the banks right now? Shareholders. Even though a huge number of Americans have zero or negative tax liability, I would guess that by and large that owners of bank shares are among the 50% American that actually pay taxes.

Read the stimulus bill

Our good friend sent us this link (Read the Stimulus).

At least two promises are being broken. Congress passed a resolution last week that they would not vote on the bill until the full final text had been available for 48 hours--they voted less than 24 hours after the bill cleared committee. Coming up one vote short in the Senate, President Obama sent a plane to retrieve an Ohio senator who had rushed home because his mother died. If they had waited the 48 hours they set for themselves, this would not have been necessary (and how much did that cost?).

Also being broken (again): BO promised that he would not sign any legislation without providing it on the White House web site for 5 days. He already broke that promise with the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, signing it hours after it passed Congress. He will be signing the stimulus bill only 3.5 days after it squeeked through Congress late Friday night.

What really pisses me off, though, on top of everything, is that every single MOC who voted for this bill has not read it. They could not possibly have read the final bill before they voted on it. It should be a basic responsibility of every MOC to at least read a bill before they vote on it.

Declining home prices not the end of the world

The AJC had an AP article headlined with

Foreclosures sank home prices in most cities

Home prices fell in nearly nine out of every 10 U.S. cities in the fourth quarter of last year as low-cost foreclosures flooded the market and the housing market’s decline spread nationwide.

But is this necessarily a bad thing? Sure, it hurts when you have to sell you house in such a market--your gains on the house now are not what they could have been 2 years ago, or you might even be loosing money. And it hurts if you cannot make your ARM payment and cannot refinance because you're underwater.

Home prices in Ft. Meyers Florida are down 50%. Down 12% nationally. But lower house prices are *good* for lots of people--people who are trying to buy homes! Many people in the worst hit areas can now afford housing that they were priced out of a short time ago because of artificially inflated prices (housing bubble).

The states in which sales rose —- Nevada, California, Arizona, Florida, Minnesota and Virginia —- are places where buyers have been able to snap up foreclosed homes at a bargain. Sales more than doubled in Nevada, rose 85 percent in California, and nearly 43 percent in Arizona.

“We see a pattern of strong sales gains, particularly in lower-price homes, in areas with price declines resulting from foreclosures,” Lawrence Yun, the trade group’s chief economist, said in a prepared statement.

In California and Florida, sales of distressed properties accounted for about two-thirds of all sales, compared with about 45 percent nationally.

Gregg is out

According to the WSJ today Sen. Gregg withdrew his name from consideration. He stated that his views on the stimulus package and the Census were irreconcilable with the President's. I guess that at least keeps a Republican in the Senate.

Racial profiling

I'm late to this story, but I found it very interesting. I had to piece together quotes from other sources, because the original article has been moved into the paper's pay-per-view archive. Here's the original lead though "Some in Danville cry foul over high school basketball cuts" and the teaser "Some black community members have accused the Danville High School boys basketball head coach of racial profiling for cutting at least eight black players from [the] team. Now they're planning to organize a protest in an attempt to get Coach Gary Tidwell, who is white, removed."

Here's some other quotes:

"We have racial profiling going on," said Frank McCullough, pastor of Mount Olive Christian Church, adding that's the only explanation in his mind. "He took a look at the way the young men wore their hair, and made comments about that and whether he thought they should be hanging out with certain people."

Senior Omar Kelly said he felt coach Gary Tidwell discriminated against him and senior Ayron Worthington because they wore braids.

Debra Gouard, a local minister and Bryant's mother, was incensed when Tidwell told her and other mothers that he chose the best players for the team, but that he didn't have his selection criteria in writing. She said the mothers are starting a petition to get the students reinstated and Tidwell removed.

Here's the kickers though:

1. All the remaining players are also black. The original sentence above ended "cutting at least eight black players from an all-black team." Also "The entire team is African-American."
2. Two of the remaining players have the same hairstyle as the whiners: "But he acknowledged that two other players who were not cut also wear them."
3. What mommy dearest (Gouard) was so mad about was that she was basically told that her son was not one of the 8 best players to base his team on based on his criteria: Tidwell "said there were five factors he looked at – whether they were coachable, academics, commitment level, behavior and athletic skill"
4. At least the principle is standing behind him: "The coach chose the student athletes that he thought were the very best players and would help the team be successful this year," Principal Mark Neil said. "That was the basis of the choice.

This sounds to me much like one of a brouhaha over nothing more than a coach making normal coaching decisions. It also seems to me that when you are hypersensitive to the point that you are imagining racial slights, then perhaps it it you who is the racist.

Oh, I found a full link.

Math problems in Congress?

Boortz says this about an amendment in the Recovery and Reinvestment Act (argh, so-called stimulus bill) [may or may not be present in final bill]:

The amendment included in the bill would penalize companies that paid bonuses of more than $100,000 to executives after the company received bailout funds last year. The companies would be required to repay any portion of that bonus over $100,000 within four months or be hit with an excise tax of 35% on the portion above $100,000.

Now, if I was running a company that was in this situation, do I just wonder who these idiots are in Congress that can't do math? Say my company gave a guy $500k bonus. That's $400k over the limit. This amendment says "pay back the $400k or pay 35% tax penalty on the $400k". Guess what I'm gonna do? Pay back $400k or pay a "fine" of $140k? Seems simple enough to me.

Working families

"Working" is not a synonym for "low-income". This terminology is repeated and repeated, seemingly in a conspiratorial effort to make it seem that anyone who is not low-income doesn't work. I earn a good salary, but I certainly am working for it!

Tragedy?

A 93-year-old WWi veteran was found frozen to death in his Michigan home in January. His electricity had been reduced, and then shut off by a device called a limiter, because he owed more than $1000 on his electric bill.

A neighbor who lives down the street called Schur's death "unforgivable."

"This can't be allowed to happen in this country," said Jerome Anderson.

Walworth said he believes his uncle's death was "preventable."

Certainly we all would have sympathy for a poor old man who was preyed upon by the evil electric company. But lost in the outrage would be questions:

• Why, when the power went out, did he not bother to call the electric company? The limiter device can be reset by the occupant in the event a shut-off is triggered.
• Why didn't he call 911 or anyone else, for that matter, once he started to get cold?
• Why was this 93-year-old man living alone? Where was the nephew and neighbors? If he couldn't figure out to call the power company or 911, then he should never have been left alone by his family, friends, and neighbors. Shame should fall on those people, too.
  

and most importantly

• Why didn't he just pay his power bill? After all, he apparently had $600,000 in savings--money that was left to a local hospital.

Seen in this light, the situation changes somewhat. It's still sad that he died, but it was indeed entirely preventable. By him.

In a similar vein, we have the case of a Georgia woman whose house burned down. As was covered by the national press and, she claimed it was racially motivated and was specifically because she was an Obama supporter--her house was targeted because she had an Obama sign in her yeard and a sticker on her car. Her case became cause celebre in the Democrat digital realm.

A single Mother of three, who supported Obama's election bid and had traveled to Washington for the inaugeration, returned home to Georgia to find her home burned to the ground and graffiti indicating a threat to the President left behind.

Turns out now that the arson investigators have done their job, that she herself is the primary suspect, and is hardly a portrait of virtue, currently in jail on unrelated drug charges.

A Forsyth County woman who claimed her house was burned down because she supported President Barack Obama is now suspected of setting the fire herself, authorities said Wednesday.

The homeowner, Pamela Graf, 47, had not been charged late Wednesday in connection with the fire, which occurred the weekend before the presidential inauguration.

But she was in jail on unrelated drug charges, said Capt. Jason Shivers, spokesman for the Forsyth County Fire Department.

Shivers confirmed Wednesday that Graf and her boyfriend, Steve Strobel, 46, of Winder are “both officially labeled as a suspect” in the Jan. 18 fire at Graf’s five-bedroom, 2,900-square-foot house north of Cumming.

Fire officials said Graf told them she was in Washington to attend the inaugural when the fire broke out, but rushed home when she heard what happened.

Racially charged graffiti was spray-painted on a fence near the property, and investigators said Graf told them she had received a threatening note after she put an Obama campaign sign in her yard.

Graf and Strobel were arrested late Tuesday night when Forsyth County fire investigators executed search warrants at a motel in Cumming where Graf has been staying and at a place in Barrow County where Strobel has been residing, Shivers said.

“We were in search of fruits of the crime of arson,” said Steve Anderson, the Fire Department’s chief of investigations.

Graf was charged with three felonies and one misdemeanor for possession of cocaine and marijuana, Shivers said. Strobel was charged with obstruction of justice and with making false statements to investigators about the fire, the spokesman said.

Shivers and Anderson said investigators are continuing to run down leads in the case and could be filing additional charges in the next few days.

Now, she must still be presumed innocent of these charges, but again, the picture presented by the press changes once additional facts become known.

The emperor's missing clothes?

Charles Krauthammer says Obama's honeymoon is over already--he blew it.

“A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe.”

—- President Obama, Feb. 4

Washington —- Catastrophe, mind you. So much for the president who in his inaugural address two weeks earlier declared “we have chosen hope over fear.” Until, that is, you need fear to pass a bill.

JK Harris and tax cheats for Cobinet positions

Every time I see those ads on TV for JK Harris, where they promise to help you get out of trouble with the IRS, I cringe. Certainly our tax code is complicated enough that an honest person trying to do the right thing can make a mistake, but it seems to me that if the IRS is after you the way they depict in the ads, then you've probably done more than made a simple mistake. Math errors, number transpositions, and the like are usually handled by a notice from the IRS and a Form 9465 (Installment Agreement Request). Also, according to the IRS "If you are experiencing a financial hardship and are unable to pay anything, we may temporarily suspend collection action."

All of which leads me to think that the many people seeking JK Harris's services are nothing more than tax cheats or people who didn't even bother to file & pay their taxes (lesser evil than actively cheating, it feels like to me). So I have little sympathy.

On the other hand, it seems that JK Harris itself is a shady operation (google "jk harris scam").

Meanwhile, tax cheats continue to pile up in the Obama administration. Along with Geithner (confirmed) and Daschle (withdrawn), and chief performance officer nominee Nancy Killefer (withdrawn), we now have USA Today saying "The confirmation of another Cabinet member stalled Thursday because of unpaid taxes after USA TODAY disclosed that the husband of Labor secretary nominee Hilda Solis paid about $6,400 this week to settle numerous tax liens against his business dating to 1993."

"Stimulus" package by analogy

Heard several analogies, but this one may be the best: "It's like taking buckets of water from the deep end of the pool and pouring them into the shallow end and hoping to make the pool bigger."

Tax relief?

Since those charged with creating the mess that is our tax code should be expected to abide by it (ahem, Mssrs. Geithner & Daschle), here's some ideas on ideas for fixing the tax code. Not, mind you, really fixing it a la FairTax, but just to get it cleaned up a little.

For all members of Congress and the White House (cabinet members and President) and including high-level congressional staffers (chiefs-of-staff, deputies, etc.) who regularly rub elbows with lobbyists.

• Require all of the above to do their own taxes. I could be cruel and say "by hand" but I'll allow TurboTax or other software, but I will require an affidavit (threat of perjury!) swearing the return was self-prepared.
  
• Require an annual IRS audit for all of the above.
  

With all due respect

Just passing along this word:

http://www.cato.org/special/stimulus09/

McD's figures it out

For some time now, McD's had a dollar menu, which for breakfast included an egg-and-cheese biscuit and a sausage biscuit. Since I occasionally do manage to go to work early enough to think breakfast is necessary, I had been getting one of each. Having spent my $2, I would remove the sausage patty into to egg&cheese biscuit, produce a sausage&egg&cheese biscuit, plus a plain biscuit (albeit with a little sausage flavoring) that I could slop some strawberry jelly on. See, the normal price of a sausage&egg&cheese was $2.69, so I was coming out ahead.

This morning, I stopped in for the first time in several weeks, and only after my order was rung up did I notice that the egg&cheese biscuit was not on the $1 menu anymore. Actually, I couldn't see since the menu board at McD's is generally the most stupid layout and hadn't been changed for breakfast yet. Anyway my order was now $2.69. Dammit.

This is the 2nd time this has happened. Double-cheesburgers used to be on the $1 menu, but got dropped. Expecting a $2+tax and getting $5 bill was a shock. McD's had enticed me into their store with $1 menu and by being the only thing open on my way home at 10PM. Wendy's 99-cent menu is stripped bare, and Taco Bell's is similarly down-graded.

Maybe I'll just go home and make myself a chicken-salad sandwich.

[Edit: McDouble has replaced double-cheeseburger. Same sandwich but with 1 slice of cheese instead of two. Apparently dairy (cheese) costs are skyrocketing. Hmm, maybe egg-biscuit is still $1? And Taco Bell's new double-cheesy beef burrito for 89-cents is a great deal as far as I'm concerned.]

Forgive my cynicism

I heartily doubt that President Obama's purported nominee for Commerce, Senator Judd Gregg (Republican of New Hampshire) is being named out of respect for his abilities. I suspect that he is being listed as a cover, since New Hampshire has a Democrat governor. If Gregg is named and accepts (and is confirmed), then the Democrats will likely have a filibuster-proof Senate, since a Democrat will be named to replace the Senator as he vacates his office.

[Edit: Sen. Gregg has stated that he would not consider the nomination if it might tip the balance of power in the Senate.]

More "do as I say, not as I do" from the Dems

With the anticipated tax increases just around the corner now that Democrats control Congress and the White House, it should baffle me that two Cabinet-nominee Democrats have not bothered to pay nearly $150k in taxes between them. And Caroline Kennedy, Hillary's one-time replacement in the Senate, had to withdraw her name, reportedly due to tax issues. I *should* be baffled, but I'm not. The rules don't apply to the Democratic privileged class in a classic double-standard. Can you imagine the outrage if W. had nominated a Republican who owed $100k in back taxes because he didn't claim the lobbyist-provided limo and driver on his taxes?

More irony

The pundits on the Hill and at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue would not be able to cry foul over the bonuses of Wall Street executives had their companies been allowed to fail. Instead, they were propped up with taxpayer's money, against the express desires of many citizens. Propping up a failed business, then expecting different behavior? I've heard a similar definition for insanity.

There were alternatives, but in the rush to *do something* billions and billions of dollars have gone into this black hole, with no accountability, and certianly no idea as to whether the expenditure has provided *any* positive results.