The Wall Street Journal editors aren’t doing cartwheels over the latest toxic asset plan:
The best news about the new Treasury bad bank asset purchase plan is that Secretary Timothy Geithner has finally settled on a strategy. The uncertainty was getting almost as toxic as those securities. Now all Mr. Geithner has to do is find private investors willing to “partner” with the feds (Congress!) to bid for those rotten assets, coax the banks to sell them at a loss, and hope that the economy doesn’t keep falling lest taxpayers lose big on their new loan guarantees.
Yes, it might be dicey to get financial firms to pony up, even with most of the risk absorbed by the taxpayers:
Geithner says investors won’t be subject to the same compensation limits as TARP recipients, but what happens if their asset purchases pay off in big profits? Will Congress settle for only half the upside — especially as it faces epic deficits in the years ahead? Most likely, cries will go up that the buyers were allowed to underpay for the assets and thus make a killing.
Especially after last week, every investor has to ask whether the potential payoff is worth the risk of appearing in the future before a Congressional committee, saying “I do solemnly swear . . .” Maybe Treasury should also sell investors some Nancy Pelosi-political risk insurance.
And, no, they aren’t going to Congress to ask for money — that would be, well, so 2008. Now the Fed is running the show (with some help from the FDIC), although the taxpayers are on the hook:
In the case of the FDIC, it will lend at a debt-to-equity ratio of 6-to-l to the buyers. This means, according to the Treasury example, that the FDIC would guarantee 72 cents in funding for an asset purchased for 84 cents on the dollar. The feds and private investors would each put up six cents in capital. If the asset rises in value over time, the taxpayer and investors share the upside. If it falls further, then the taxpayers would absorb by far the biggest chunk of the losses.
Nevertheless, it is a plan, finally. And the markets are thrilled with a plan, any plan that is more than “I’ll tell you later.” Will it work? Who knows. But if Congress and the public have had it with bailouts, too bad. They just got another really, really big one — probably a trillion dollars worth when we are done with it. Let’s all hope it works better than all the variations which preceded it.
I wonder why Broder felt obligated to bemoan the loss of Freeman, paranoid delusions not withstanding?
“President Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner received failing grades for their efforts to revive the economy from participants in the latest Wall Street Journal forecasting survey.”
At last, Obomba’s grades are being made public. Harvard and Columbia grades next?
What do union bosses, CEO’s and politicians have in common? Greed.
You missed the predictable collapse of this “They’re doing the right thing” tale. AP:
“WASILLA, Alaska — Levi Johnston and Bristol Palin, the teenage daughter of Gov. Sarah Palin, have broken off their engagement, he said Wednesday, about 2 1/2 months after the couple had a baby. Johnston, 19, told The Associated Press that he and 18-year-old Bristol Palin mutually decided “a while ago” to end their relationship. He declined to elaborate as he stood outside his family’s home in Wasilla, about 40 miles north of Anchorage.”
There are some people who are still feverishly hang up with Palin story. Another distraction plot by Rhambo?
Re the myth of saving $80 Billion a year by converting to electronic medical records. Another fib from Number One that the MSM will never even raise a question about. My doctor and her group, as well as the largest hospital in the city, which which her group is affiliated, have been using electronic records for 2 years. She says that there has only been a cost — the conversion and installation of computers. The convenience is offset by the awkwardness of scrolling to fill in the required data. In her view, a wash. The hospital has never whispered that conversion to electronic records was a savings.
So, Number One, why stop with this myth? Why not just say — the MSN will never check — that for every dollar we spend in pork, we save two dollars. Or that the heavy thinking that you and your henchmen do will save us $100 billion this year, and every year until you stop thinking. And what about the trillions we’ll save when you roll back the tides?
Did you catch this from Rasmussen:
“One third (33%) of American voters now say the United States is heading in the right direction. That’s up six points since President Barack Obama was inaugurated and up twelve points since shortly after he was elected.”
Nice trendline.
In reference to the US taxes “unfair” link, eight years ago I did a statistical analysis of IRS figureson taxes paid by various income quintiles. I should add that I’m definitely in the lower income, 50% group. What I came up with was that for every dollar I paid to the treasury in 2001, the top 1% paid $254. Since then, as the chart shows, their share has risen a bit while my group’s has fallen, but let’s just look at 2001.
Now supposing the tax rate on the highest incomes, as Obama proposes, were to rise by 4%. That means each filthy-rich “parasite” would then be paying about $264, to my buck (my taxes would go down by less than a dime, I estimate, IF the increase on the wealthy were equitably credited to the low-wage end, which it almost certainly would not be).
So there you have it: A 254-to-one ratio means naked oppression of me, whereas a 264-to-one split magically transports me to an egalitarian wonderland.
If Number One manages to defraud his way into a second term 33% will also be his approval rating at some point in such a term.
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Which would still make him more popular than Bush.
Alaska Gov. Ignores Pressing Issues
March 12, 2009, 6:54 EDT
Workmen, vendors and others with access to Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s Wasilla home have described a scene where disorder and neglect are common. One source mentioned that potted plants appeared to be virtually ignored, “I stuck my finger in the geraniums and really, I couldn’t tell you when they’d last been watered. The leaves were starting to curl up. And when the sun shines through the window just right you can see dust on the TV screen, a lot of it.”
While the Palins are often portrayed as a normal American family with many common problems, others point out the omissions that could be attributed to a political career gone high profile. “You just don’t see much to read around the house”, a frequent visitor says. “Sure, there’s the local papers and maybe an ‘Outdoor Life’ or ‘Car Craft’ on the coffee table, but ‘Architectural Digest’ or even ‘Vanity Fair’? I haven’t seen any. And the bookshelves aren’t really that interesting, either. No post-modern feminism.”
A service technician adds, “You’d expect to see more energy efficiency in the home of an up-to-date politician like Palin, but they’ve got mostly all regular old light bulbs and even a barrel stove out in the garage. The trees pay a price when Todd works on his snow machines.”
A nearby neighbor, who admits to not voting for Palin in the last election, isn’t willing to be too critical of the governor, “Give her a break, she went to school some place like in Idaho or somewhere. And the Ecuadoran domestics don’t usually get this far north.”
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
10
Well, you know first the number might well go lower: the reality of the Obama devastation will catch up with most Americans outside the lunatic fevered swamp you seem to feel comfortable in. Then again Churchill, somone you must surely despise as much as you sympahtize with Hitler and his ilk lost after winning WWII.
Not that Bush did that well in the second term. Aside from the surge his foreign policy was impressively Obamian.
BILL M., ————- follow the money.
DAVID, —————- does that make you feel better, relating the relationship probs of a young couple, and pretending their probs somehow offset the nightmare that even LIBERAL newspapers are beginning to deplore. And keep those poll numbers handy a year hence, when over 10% of the American people endure unemployment, a people who haven’t had a national unemployment problem since the early 1980s, you just keep them handy. You’ve got to be one of those too young to recall what it was like.
11
Wow, is that bad journalism. You’d think that even the Onion would mention, in a fake story on Palin’s house, that it was built as a corrupt kickback by the same contractors who got the contract to build Wasilla’s overbudget sports complex.
It’s hardly surprising that someone who supports the shooting of wolves from the air would also neglect her plants. I’d be more surprised if she didn’t.
Joe NS — you have not labored in vain. Those are awesome figures, worthy of much wider dissemination.
JE, I am so very grateful you appreciate the effort. One needs either the scholastic discernment of an Aquinas or the raw “ressentiment” of a Lenin to believe that the line between “unfair” and “fair” has somehow been crossed once and for all by adjusting marginal tax rates upwards by 4%.
But of course, I am being superficial, I suspect, by, say, The Nation’s adjudication of tax equity. Clearly, they would argue, a just division would be north of 300-to-1 or 3000-to-1 or 30,000-to-1, any number, in fact, including 100% confiscation, that really opens up the pores, gets the blood flowing red hot, and sets the envy meter high enough to get out the pitchforks and the tumbrils.
By the way, did I mention that Obama’s a lazy cuss?
Well, that’s really the ratio we’re aiming for. The “pitchforks-and-tumbrils-to-your-one-dollar” ratio.
“By the way, did I mention that Obama’s a lazy cuss?”
Not recently enough.
8 and 15
Actually, even if your numbers were accurate, they’d be meaningless. The wealthy are not wealthy because of their incomes, they are wealthy because of their assets. In 2004, the wealthiest 5% of Americans generated about 20% of the nation’s income but accounted for about 60% the nation’s wealth. That is because income is more heavily taxed than assets. So what you think is unfair is anything but. Wealth continues to accumulate in the hands of the rich, while the lower and middle classes fall behind. Once again, conservatism has precisely the wrong answers, including a desire to eliminate the capital gains taxes and estate taxes, two of the few meaningful taxes the rich still face.
Greenspan:
“Ultimately, we are interested in the question of relative standards of living and economic well-being. We need to examine trends in the distribution of wealth, which, more fundamentally than earnings or income, represents a measure of the ability of households to consume.”
And which of us buys into Broder’s point that The White House wanted nothing to do with him. If that was so, then why was the administration’s hand forced in the matter? Why the need for so much Congressional intervention?
Why was he appointed in the first place?
Why was he “vetted” privately, and not by the government?
That clown was EXACTLY what Jones, Powers, et al wanted.
18: Among the abundance of his other idiocies in this thread, The Wise Heir of Saul now teacheth us that income and wealth have no relation. Good. Sounds like he had the same econ classes as The Master of the Profit/Earnings Ratio.
“The wealthy are not wealthy because of their incomes, they are wealthy because of their assets.”
Just this motning I had Bentely Bumper and milk for brecky. Very tasty!
Oh, David. Bless your heart. I hope the infrastructure of your country is still here when you are finally capable of NOT Blogging While Ignorant.
The reason you think the rich are rich at the expense of the poor is that you don’t know anything at all about either human life in general, or your own nation’s history. This isn’t really your fault. But I’m sure you have no idea that the biggest burdens on the poor in America are government regulation and mandates.
Every time we regulate something it costs us money, and it’s a very regressive impact: the poor always feel it more than the rich. Why? Because we pay for the cost of regulation in the prices we pay for things. Whenever you buy a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk or gas, you are paying for the implementation of thousands of government regulations and mandates.
If Congress imposes the broadscale cap-and-trade mandate on us that is under consideration right now, the cost of everything we do will go up significantly. Some analysts have estimated electric bills would go up by a factor of 160%, and the price of gas would go up $1.50-2.00 a gallon. Since these costs would go up for businesses too, all the things we buy from them would cost substantially more. It’s not the rich who would be put out of their homes by such an explosion in the cost of living; it’s the poor.
Another thing you rarely realize until you get into your late 30s or beyond is that having wealth is not the same thing as having spending money. For the colossally rich, like top entertainment stars and Warren Buffett, it can be. But for the couple in their 40s with $2 million in assets and combined income of $250K, they can’t go spend that $2 million. Anything they pull out of it to spend, they have to take out as current income, and pay taxes on — at their higher marginal rate. If they want to keep the $2 million and make it grow, they have to retain it in asset form, not spendable cash. Their assets, by working for them, are acting as the capital behind business ventures that create jobs and new wealth.
And an awful lot of these folks don’t look any different to your eye from their neighbors whose incomes are $100K or less. Mid-level wealth holders may save and buy their cars with cash, but they go for value, not flash, and they keep their cars longer than you do. They don’t keep trading up houses; they paid their mortgages off in less than 20 years, and today are the people who still have equity in their modest but comfortable homes. They don’t buy new electronics every time something comes on the market. Many of them have yet to buy even a flat-screen TV, much less a 60″ HDTV home theater system. The old rear-projection thing from 1995 still works just fine. They’ve been parsimonious with their water, a/c, lights, and heating since long before it became a political movement — because they keep their bills down that way.
These folks have their kids’ college bills to pay, and their own retirement to take care of. Maybe they’re buying some land in the country to retire to. Maybe they’d like to have the freedom, in retirement, to travel the world with charitable organizations and build houses, dig wells, and provide medical care to the indigent. I know people whose plans include all these things. These are a lot of the people you and Obama think of as “the rich,” who need to have their wealth and income taxed away.
That top 1% is Tiger Woods, Steven Spielberg, George Clooney, Oprah Winfrey, some S&P 500 CEOs, and of course the in-a-class-by-himself Bill Gates. The top 5-10% are very different. But even beyond these realities, perhaps the most important thing you don’t understand is that taking “wealth” away from these people won’t put one dime in the pockets of the poor. It will, instead, just make the poor’s jobs go away.
David the Pollster:
“One third (33%) of American voters now say the United States is heading in the right direction.” Those would be the socialists. The other 2/3 are burying their dough in the backyard.
David, with apologies for perhaops having misunderstod you, the argument is not that the the wealthy are being taxed unfairly but whether their paying $254 or $264 dollars is fair or fairer. I an discern no “neutral principle” at work in deciding between the two. Fairness, it seems to me, absolutely requires a neutral principle to have any claim to the status of being fair. Such a neutral principle might be that EVERYONE pays 10% or 20% of their incomes. We obviously don’t have that.
Furthermore, your distinction between earned income and assets is spurious, since those assets represent what’s left after previous income has already been taxed. What is this hard-on you have over the prospect of confiscating money from people you don’t know, and of whom you have no idea whatsoever how or when they acquired it, yet seem (to you) to be “too much”?
If you look closely, you’ll see Rosa Luxemburg’s lipstick on David’s collar.
A pretty creepy story from the “Power Line” guys:
At the end of January, a hacker broke into Senator Norm Coleman’s web site and gained access to information there about donors to the Coleman campaign. Coleman’s staff had a forensic analysis performed and were assured that the donor information had not been downloaded.
It appears, however, that this conclusion was mistaken, as last night, a left-wing group called Wikileaks.org sent emails to Coleman’s donors that attached an Excel spread sheet with the hacked donor information:
Wikileaks has released detailed lists of the controversial Republican Norm Coleman’s supporters and donors. Some 51,000 individuals are represented. Although politically interesting in their own right, the lists, which are part of an enormous 4.3 Gb database leak from the Coleman campaign, provide proof to the rumors that sensitive information–including thousands of supporter’s [sic] credit card numbers–where [sic] put onto the internet on January 28 as a result of sloppy handling by the campaign.
I would say that they were “put onto the internet” as a result of illegal hacking by a Democrat.
“Wikileaks” explained in an earlier email that it was making public the information on Coleman’s donors, including their credit card numbers, because of the “Coleman campaign’s effort to impugn the election processes in the State of Minnesota.” As a result of Wikileak’s mass email of a spread sheet containing credit card information for thousands of Coleman donors, the Coleman campaign sent an email to its supporters today suggesting that they cancel their credit cards.
It’s impossible to say whether Wikileaks hacked Coleman’s site and is now making the information public out of frustration at lack of publicity, or whether a different Democratic Party group did the hacking and passed the information off to Wikileaks to be illegally disseminated. I replied to Wikileaks’ email asking for a name and telephone number and saying that I would like to interview them; needless to say, I didn’t get a response. Like so many leftists, they prefer to hide behind a cloak of anonymity.
A week or two after the liberal hacking of Coleman’s site took place, I got a notice from my bank that my credit card numbers had been stolen and patently improper charges were being rung up. As a result I had to cancel that credit card and get a new one. I didn’t know it at the time, but it appears that in all probability, I was one of the victims of the Democrats’ hacking of Coleman’s web site.
Just another day in contemporary American politics. Liberals break the law, violate their opponents’ privacy, either commit or facilitate theft, and meanwhile assure the rest of us that they did all of this because of their moral superiority.
27
Hacking is wrong. But it doesn’t sound like this Norm Coleman guy is very competent or security minded. And he sat on the Senate Homeland Security committee! Ouch. In the battle of the comedian vs, the clown, I have to go with the comedian.
Mr. Chairman, I have figures, right here in my hand, which prove that we’ll save 57, yes 57 billion dollars….
Jen
Re your economics chart to waive at the “fairness” folks, as you know “fairness” is a moral or a philosophical concept & no amount of realism will reach those who claim the moral “high ground” bBecause, you see… Well because.
Anyway, as I’m sure you’ve seen, the Dems have another chart, as described in today’s Henninger column
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123681860305802821.html
It shows that the share of total income up to 2006 accruing to the top 1% is growing, or as my economically-illiterate friends put it “the rich are getting richer”, which is true, but they add “and the poor are getting poorer”, which is not true.
I keep telling them that in socialist economies everyone has an equal share of a small, never expanding pie (except for the nomenklatura, of course) whereas in a capitalist society, in the long run, we all have an unequal piece of an ever-expanding pie & I’ll take my chances on that & let the Bill Gates make bigger bucks for actually producing bigger wealth.
Aha, say my ill-educated friends it’s not “fair” or “just” for CEOs to have all this money. What, entertainers have more? The Kennedys have more? Nevermind. They point to their chart as the gold standard, & claim it trumps yours.
And at parties, those present who agree with me one on one are cowed into silence.
Being Liberal means never being out compassioned!
David, you’re right. Obama has bested Bush. He’s had more personnel scandals in 50 days than Bush had in 8 eight years. Not sure if the One will beat Clinton’s mark on convicted staff, though.
One more thing, how popular would you be with the national press beating up on you for 6 or seven years? The media play a huge role in popularity and right now they’re, for the most part, putting Obama on Mt. Olympus or Rushmore, take your pick.