“Obama Rex”
So lets say I owe you $1000.
I also owe Visa $25,000 for purchases made on their card.
(Note that this is a fictional account because credit cards are a stupid idea)
I go bankrupt. Now whatever I own outright stands good for all my debt.
Bankruptcy law says that Visa gets first swipe at my stuff because they have a secured loan. A legal contract that says that they have a right to reclaim whatever I own in order to collect the money that I owe them.
You have a handshake agreement for $1000.
Enter King Barry.
Because you are a democrat voter, Barack says that you get your $1000 before Visa gets ANYTHING. Sound cool? It might to you - it’s your $1000, but to the credit card company with a secured loan, it’s bass-ackwards… And illegal.
This is exactly what is going on right now with the Chrysler bankruptcy. The Unions have an unsecured claim on Chrysler for their pensions. The people who invested money in Chrysler (Bondholders) have a secured right to claim their money back under US bankruptcy law. Our president has decided that the Unions should get their share first. You got that? Decided. He doesn’t have the right, privelege or power to “decide” anything in this situation. This man must think he’s a king with the ability to override federal law where he doesn’t THINK that it’s fair or “right”. This is called hubris, people. I hope the court of whatever state this comes up in slaps the teeth right out of his mouth for this arrogant attempt at countermanding standing US LAW.
Where does a trillion dollars go?
So how many of you are actually budget oriented in your house? Do you sit down at the beginning of the month and spend every dollar you have “On paper On purpose” as Dave Ramsey says? Ok, so maybe you do. Do you think that you could do that for a trillion dollars? I doubt it. Any budget that contained that much money to be allocated is certain to have a few “leaks”. You know, where people try to allocate some of the money to an organization or company for a “good” reason… Sooner or later (usually later) we find out that the organization in question has ties back to the progenitor of the disbursement.
In today’s episode, we are looking at the little reported ‘coincidence’ that Senator Diane Feinstein’s (D-Cal.) husband and his firm were recently hired by a firm that strangely enough got a $25 Billion, taxpayer-funded chunk of cash… courtesy of legislation introduced by Senator Feinstein herself. Hmmm…
Now, when you’re looking at a budget (this year) of a trillion dollars (that’s a thousand-billion dollars by the way) 25 billion isn’t really that big of a number. I mean, it’s only 2.5% of the budget, so no big deal. Right?
Well, the story from the Washington Times says that the Senator’s husband Richard Blum sits as a Board Charmain for CB Richard Ellis. CBRE won a contract to sell FDIC insured properties from failed banks. The $25 Billion comes in as a hand-out to the FDIC to pay someone to sell off these properties.
Now, there is always the possibility that this is actually all ‘above-board’ and CBRE really is the best company for the job. I mean, look at some of the no-bid contracts that Halliburton won. They were, without a doubt, the best company for some of the jobs that needed to be done. The stink comes in when the fact that the Senator doesn’t sit on the comittee that oversees the banking industry. It wasn’t really ‘her place’ to be offering this type of legislation.
I was always taught to ‘avoid even the appearance of impropriety’. Sound advice for sure. It doesn’t look like it was applied here, however. I’ll let you be the judge.
Mmmm… Barbeque
Well, it’s time to trot on down to the “Omnibus Barbeque Pit” for a healthy dose of government pork. Who’s comin with me? It’s all you can eat, all the time! I mean, seriously folks, how else would they dispose of all the extra pork in that place?
Well, now we know. Attached hereto is a list of the top 20 “Porkers” in the senate, taken from a database compiled by Taxpayers for Common Sense. I have modified the list slightly (added party and state) and deleted empty columns, but have not altered or skewed the raw data in any way.
You will see that the pork is actualy spread around both the left and right side of the table, and has been generously dished out all the way around. Does this surprise us? No, probably not. Should it concern us? Yer damn right it should. What is all this money paying for? Do we as citizens get to look at any of this before we get to pay for it? Well, I suppose we can wait for the media to tell us what all these earmarks are… nevermind. Most of us won’t live that long. I guess we could go look it up, or even call your congressman to see what’s in it. Of course, all of that is fairly reactionary in nature. How about a proactive path?
Here’s a thought: How about a constitutional ammendment that prohibits any expenditure in a Federal Budget or Spending bill that is not vital to the function of the federal government? WHAT??! Slow down the pork? You betcha. Slow down the whole system? Absolutely. Cut the federal budget in half? Amen.
Would it not be much more pallatable to the citizenry of the United States to have every expenditure of Federally collected money (note I said collected, since it is actually YOUR money) individually approved by our representatives so that we have a much more valid expression of OUR will in congress? Remember that ‘Bridge to Nowhere’? How do you think that would have fared as an idividual bill? Probably never would have seen it’s way out of committee… which is how it SHOULD be. If every one of these bills had to be individually approved, most of this garbage would disappear overnight simply because there isn’t enough time to look at all of it. The very fact that irrelevant line items can be added to whatever legislation happens to be running through the congress at the time is an affront to the very idea of tranparency of governance. Don’t put a million dollar line item for a museum in a veterans affairs bill just so that it will HAVE to be passed. That is deceitful at best (I use the above listed scenario merely as an illustration of what usually happens).
Nowhere in the constitution does it describe the far-reaching role that our national government has taken (again, note I said ‘taken’, not ‘been given’). Of course, most of this garbage would be stuffed into the ‘general welfare’ clause. Not that any of it ‘promotes the general welfare’ as the preamble to the Constitution states. Most of it encourages the disbursement of even more ‘welfare’ to the dependent class, or merely affects the ‘welfare’ of a politician’s chances at re-election. Why do you think that the government assistance program is called “Welfare”? Could it have been an underhanded way of justifying it under the constitution? Wouldn’t surprise me in the least.
Our government is nothing more than a game. It has been that way for a long time, and I doubt very much that it will change, so long as our nation stands. Should we the people, though, not continue to show our outrage at this type of irresponsible behavior? It is your duty to be outraged. My Senators are #66 and #79 on the full list, which is still higher than #99 and #100, where they should be.
Until Federal spending is brought under strict control, nothing will change and this nation will continue on its downward path to irrelevance and weakness. Any pork is too much. The government of this country owes us an explanation and a full accounting of every dime that they take from us. Anything less is a failure to uphold the confidence of the citizenry. Successful and responsible leadership depends on men and women of character and integrity. If that were the case, none of this under the table spending would even be an issue. That is why elections matter. Only the best, brightest and most upstanding should be given the mantle of governance. It is, short of joining the Armed Forces, the best way to defend the Constitution of the United States.
Oh and for all you government types out there… If I want pork in my neighborhood, I’ll head to Williamson Bros.
Who’s paying for all this?
Well, it would appear that King Midas and his buddy King Solomon have decided to loan the US government all their riches to pay for the Stimulus bill. Now we’re trying to get in touch with the Sultan of Brunei and the city of El Dorado to cover the budget bill. Good GRIEF! Where do these ignorant clowns think all this money is going to come from? This congress reminds me of a story about a lady who got her first checking account as an adult and couldn’t understand why the bank got mad at her for writing bad checks… turns out she thought that as long as there were checks in the checkbook that she still had money.
I don’t need to ask why, and outrage hardly seems to make any difference, but who in the media is going to grow a set and ask this idiot president of ours how ‘no earmarks’ turned into ’9000 earmarks’? He has now observably and demonstratively completed a task in office that no-one at ABC NBC CBS CNN or MSNBC will ever report. He is now a proven liar. First, the stimulus bill was without earmarks. This has repeatedly been shown in recent days to be a total fallicy. Now the spending bill has no earmarks. (Tattoo removal for former gang members isn’t an earmark since it is a constitutionally described role of the federal government)
Lying to the American public is one thing, but to have the arrogance to tell such an OBVIOUS lie and not care what anyone thinks about it is hubris and arrogance on a scale that this country’s founders would have started a war over… wait, they did start a war…
Obama is acting like a king with a parliament full of dutiful subjects that will cater to his every whim. Not only that, but he deigns to come to the microphone almost daily to call out individual businesses and groups of people for targeting by the American government ‘persecution squad’. Every time I hear one of these senators at a hearing asking about a private jet or a golden parachute, I wonder about the Cadillac health care plan that they have, and the jets that they use to get back and forth between Washington and their district (ahem, Nancy). Why don’t THEY start capping their luxury benefits and lifetime pension packages? Oh yes, the rules don’t apply to them. I mean, it was only the government – i.e. Barney Frank (as directed by Bill Clinton) that caused all these bad mortgages to be created in the first place. Community Reinvestment Act anyone? Why should any of them be held accountable? Remember, these are the same people that are FORCING banks to take money and then telling them how they have to run their businesses because they took federal funding.
Come to think of it, that kinda sounds like the definition of ‘bullying’ to me. How do we deal with bullies? Well, the tried and true method is to punch ‘em in the nose first chance you get and dare ‘em to try it again. I will certainly be entering the voting booth with a ‘ready fist’ in 2012. In the meantime, I will resort to the freedom I have in this country to strike back with free speech. I plan to verbally ‘bloody a few noses’ from now until then. I hope you enjoy the continuing smackdown.
Is anyone surprised?
Well, now that the house and senate have signed away our future (since we HAD to take care of this immediately)PresBo has decided to go on a vacation.
Uh, wait. I thought this had to happen right away…
I wonder how many peope have lost their jobs over the weekend… if this is supposed to immediately help the economy, couldn’t the president have waited one more week to go on vacation? The stink of this is that the bill only needed to get out of congress in a hurry. If it hasn’t been passed, we can still do something about it… Now that the only thing between it and us is one socialist and a pen (probably a bunch of pens actually) it doesn’t matter how long he takes. Sickening. This bill is a lie to the core, and it is being signed into law by a man who KNOWS that it won’t do anything real for the economy. By the way, the bill will almost DOUBLE the current national debt and is larger by itself than the GDP of the WHOLE WORLD. Are you getting this? If every good or service produced by the whole world in one year were sold to pay down this debt we would still fall short. Congratulations, America. We are now nationally bankrupt. Hope all you Obama fans know how to grow your own vegetables, because in five years time they’re gonna be so expensive that only the ‘evil rich’ can afford them. To whom are you going to whine then? Once more, history repeats itself. Down we go into national poverty, global irrelevance and eventually, tyranny. Wish I could be happier about it, but facts are facts. Enjoy the long ride down, and do your family a favor, teach them how to take care of themselves. Their own goverment has shown that it doesn’t care about them anyway.
Now or Never? I’ll take Never, thanks…with a side of ‘stop lying’.
So Barack says that it’s now or never on the bailout? Horsecrap. That’s what they said about the first one. It was “We have to act this week or the economy will collapse!” (Um, it didn’t) Then it was… “We have to act this week or the economy will collapse!” (yeah, two weeks in a row no less). Again, no total collapse, no riots, no nation-wide mass economic system failures. So here we are again: Now, or catastrophe. I beg to differ, it’s “Catastrophe or not”. This ‘stimulus’ bill is a total scam. Tell me how rebuilding libraries is going to do ANYTHING for the economy… The craziest part is that Prez O says that there aren’t any earmarks in the bill. THE WHOLE DANG THING IS AN EARMARK!!!!! Infrastructure? How about a tax cut? I don’t give one sweet rats rear how nice the roads look if I DON’T HAVE A JOB TO DRIVE TO!!!!!! FDR did this before and it FAILED miserably. Let’s try the other option, shall we? By the way, the real reason that this HAS to happen is that the American public (even the ones that don’t pay attention) are starting to hear about what’s actually IN this bill. That’s why public support of the bill has dropped a few points in the last week. Even the liberal mouths are talking about it openly… This bill MUST die in the senate. I don’t want my great grandkids paying off a tab so big that it can’t ever be repaid.
By the way, divide 1 trillion by 31,557,600… that gives you the number of years that it would take to pay off the stimulus at the rate of one dollar per second. Don’t want to do the math? Here’s the answer: 31,688.08 years. Yes, that’s right, 32 THOUSAND years. Now, does this still sound like a good idea? How is it that these idiots that get elected to lead our nation get to make decisions on how much we spend using numbers that are so large that they may as well be theoretical? This goes beyond fiscal policy. This is insanity. I intend to write my senators a very terse letter about this. How about you?
Caught Looking…
Richardson, Daschle and Killefer. Well, that’s call strike three for Prez O. Does he even vet these people before he puts them up for cabinet level positions? Ok, Killefer was only to be “Chief Performance Officer”, but she still can’t seem to pay her taxes… A better question for the prez is this: Why are all the people that you are choosing turning out to be sleezebags and tax cheats? I have to admit that I am licking my chops for interesting morsels on the rest of his… well, can we call it a cabinet? It’s missing three major components due to ‘rotten wood’. I guess it’s his “shelf” at this point. Obama’s been in there for less than a month and already he has signed an executive order that defies a logical supreme court opinion, appointed three tax cheats, allowed three former lobbyists in his administation (which he said wouldn’t happen), and made a former first lady who has been investigated for having FBI files hidden in the private quarters of the White House his Secretary of State. This is like the front end of an ethics seminar… you know, the part where they show a video of a “broken” system to the audience. Off the blocks with a mighty stumble! (It would have been a false start if he hadn’t kept his mouth shut on foreign affairs prior to his inauguration.) Let’s see how he fares down the stretch. Frankly, it looks like a typical Clinton-style administration without the brain at the top. Obama will NEVER be able to ‘feel anyone’s pain’ or ask what the definition of ‘is’ is. He can keep this up if he wants to, but it will result in another crippled democrat administration that barely limps up to the next election. Here’s to hoping.
Um, can Elmo count that high?
Filed under: Finance, Foreign Policy, Politics, Uncategorized, Waste
Many of you will remember the days when you actually waited impatiently for the end of Sesame Street to hear the phrase: “Sesame Street was brought to you today by the letter ‘A’ and the number ’12′ (or whatever the generously inclined alphanumeric benefactors were for that day). Well, I want to know if they are going to have an episode that is brought to you by the number 3,000,000,000,000…
Given that congress stands ready to burden the children of today with a ‘bailout’ tax bill that carries the same number, I would suggest that “The Count” get himself a packet of no-doz and a pot of coffee. It’s gonna take a hell of a long time to count that high…
One! One Woefully Wasted dollar! Ah AH AH… Two! Two Terminally Taxed Toddlers! Ah AH AH!
Who on earth REALLY thinks that this is a good idea? I mean seriously… do these idiots go home and tell their kids that if the piggy bank doesn’t have enough that they can raid the “Monopoly” box for the rest?
AUGGGGGGHHHH!!!! I could spit nails. In fact, I might. Just to see if it helps.
Happy New Year!
The confetti has fallen, the champagne (and those who had too much of it) are being mopped off the sidewalk and Dick Clark can rest up for the next 12 months… Time for a year in review? Nah. Everyone does that. Besides, we haven’t been around long enough to really bother. Perhaps next year…
How about a sneak peek at the year to come? I like that better. No, I am NOT using a crystal ball, and if you want to find out what’s going to happen to Brangelina go get a tabloid rag. We here at H&B couldn’t care less…as long as we can still watch Tomb Raider with no sound.
This year will bring an end to the “white gentleman’s club” that is the presidency of the United States. As a US citizen, I wish P.E.B.O. (President Elect Barack Obama) a healthy and safe presidency. I sincerely hope that his recent exposure to reality in the form of Presidential-Level Security briefings has cleared his mind on how to best address the threats that our country faces. God willing, the inauguration will go off without a hitch and the mantle of power will be passed again from party to party without violence or bloodshed. This country is greater than our enemies for that reason, even if you think there aren’t any others. Even those who must try to make some moral equivalency between the US and our enemies MUST agree on that point.
There is a school of thought that PEBO will take a centrist tack in his Presidency… I don’t necessarily agree with that, although I don’t think he’ll get on The Pelosi Express straight to socialist hell. Barack is (without a doubt) a socialist. He wants to redistribute wealth, he thinks that the rich should pay more (they already pay a HUGE majority of the taxes). I think we can look forward to major steps toward socialized medicine, a thought that makes me shudder. Some of you may not understand this because you are fairly healthy individuals that go to the doctor when you feel like you’re about to die… well, let me clear this up for you with a current example of the government’s ability to manage health-related issues. My daughter presently receives medicaid due to a genetic disability. She also suffers from moderate gastric reflux, and is therefore on a regimen of daily antacids. Unfortunately, the medicine that she takes is a compound that must be mixed in the pharmacy. Not a problem for Dean and the crew at our local Publix, but NOW they have to fill out an extra pile of paperwork to get government approval (every time) for something that my daughter has been taking every day for almost three years. Ah, government. Right now I am at the beach (without the aforementioned medication) because they couldn’t get approval in time for us to leave. We called it in almost a week before we left. Consequently, we are trying something OTC while we wait. That’s right, we had to wing it because the government didn’t come through on a BASIC approval. This is antacid folks. Think heart surgery…
I think we can also look forward to a concerted effort to seize our retirement savings in the form of 401K’s. It will undoubtedly be cloaked in some kind of “Robin Hood – it’s for the poor” rhetoric, and the press will duly report that the evil rich have been depriving the poor of their ‘fair share’ of the savings and the socialist revolution will go on…
I think we can look forward to the longest continuous barrage of racism accusations in the history of politics. Please note that there will not actually be anything said in opposition to the incoming administration by the republican opposition that actually IS based in a belief that black people are somehow genetically or socially inferior. Every politician knows that saying something like that would be political suicide. Because of that, you can actually (and unfortunately) expect a very conciliatory and sheepish opposition in the next four years.
We will NOT be leaving Iraq or Afghanistan anytime soon, no matter what Code Pink says or does. This will be the biggest episode of “not dancing with the one that brung you” that politics has seen in a while. The wackos that bought all the anti war rhetoric will be sorely disappointed. I expect that Barack will hear about it, but he won’t suffer too much for it because people will be too focused on the economy.
The economy will not be back anytime soon, much to my chagrin… and Barack won’t be doing much to help that. Sure, there will be a whole new round of infrastructure projects to make jobs, but making jobs won’t lift the economy. Not only that, but I can imagine that whatever he wants to do in this arena will sail by without the first glance at the budget, lest anyone should suffer the aforementioned racially-tinged lambasting. Anyone want to bet on how many of these jobs go to union workshops?
So the future is not quite as bright as it could have been, but we still live in the United States. If you don’t like the idea of a recession, in the words of a very wise man, “don’t participate”. Make your own way. Take another job, find a new and innovative way to support yourself and your family. Make this year as bright and prosperous as you can. If you and I both do our level best to better ourselves, the economy will be better for it.
All the best for you and yours in 2009!
Public Works Project
It’s late, so I’ll try to be brief in voicing my displeasure.
Obama hasn’t even taken oath yet and he’s already got big plans for your money. He plans to institute a public works project on the scale of the construction of the interstate highway system in the 1950′s. This is his plan for reviving the economy and creating jobs.
You are probably asking yourself, “Where is he going to get the money to pay for all this?”
Well, there are really on 2 viable options. 1) Raise our taxes. 2) Borrow it.
I think I’ve made my views on the government dipping into my wallet to pay for garbage like this very clear. So let’s take a look at option 2 – borrowing to pay for the public works project. Obama could potentially take us even further into debt to pay for his project. It would be refreshing if someone in the government would acknowledge that part of the reason companies and individuals are in the mess that they are in financially right now is because they carried an unhealthy amount of debt. Yet, as a country, we have saddled ourselves with ENORMOUS debt to pay for various pet projects, socialist programs and vote buying schemes. In fact, if you were to calculate our country’s credit score, it would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 0. If America was an individual, the phones at the Capital would be ringing off the hook with calls from collection agencies, Ari Force One would have been repossessed and the White House would be in foreclosure. That is unacceptable. Yet Obama could very well INCREASE the amount of debt we carry. How is this a good idea?
There is an easy solution to avoid rasing taxes and borrowing to pay for Obama’s plan – DON”T DO IT! We don’t need to “create jobs”. If you have to create a job, then the job is not needed. It’s basically the same as a rich uncle giving his idiot nephew a job to make sure that he’s got money to live on, because he’s too stupid to get a job elsewhere. The government is basically creating jobs to make sure that their idiot nephews (those who chose to go to work in dying industries and are too dumb or lazy to try and get a job anywhere else) will have somewhere to go. And I haven’t even looked at the vote buying aspect of this scam…er, plan.
Corporate America understands that when times are tough, you tighten the belt, make some tough choices and cut spending. Our government doesn’t get it. They think that they should borrow more money (this is on top of the $8.5 trillion and counting spent bailing out various companies) to try and improve the economy. It’s absurd.
Would a smart, financially savvy individual borrow more money than they could ever payback in an attempt to improve their financial situation? No. Going into debt weakens your financial strength.
Obama’s public works project will weaken the US even further financially and give all our idiot cousins jobs.
YAY GOVERNEMENT!