HealthScare Bill- Big Wet Kiss to Trial Lawyers

The health care bill recently unveiled by Speaker Nancy Pelosi is over 1,900 pages for a reason. It is much easier to dispense goodies to favored interest groups if they are surrounded by a lot of legislative legalese. For example, check out this juicy morsel to the trial lawyers (page 1431-1433 of the bill):

Section 2531, entitled “Medical Liability Alternatives,” establishes an incentive program for states to adopt and implement alternatives to medical liability litigation. [But]…… a state is not eligible for the incentive payments if that state puts a law on the books that limits attorneys’ fees or imposes caps on damages.

So, you can’t try to seek alternatives to lawsuits if you’ve actually done something to implement alternatives to lawsuits. Brilliant! The trial lawyers must be very happy today!
http://biggovernment.com/2009/10/30/pelosi-health-care-bill-blows-a-kiss-to-trial-lawyers/#more-23042

740 Pounds of Food for Just $180!

Yeah right. If you count all of the maintenance staff and equipment as free. Missing from this article was the part where the soil was found to be contaminated, and had to be replaced- how much did that cost? I wouldn't mind any of this if they weren't so annoyingly self-righteous about this whole prop, and the press didn't gush on about the righteousness of it.

The First Lady also asked the students how much they thought it cost to plant the garden. They guessed $300, $800, $1000 and $6000 as Michelle acted as auctioneer.

She then revealed the answer: "Over 740 pounds of food have come out of this little piece of land..... It [cost] about $180."


http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2009/10/white-house-garden-typical-bs-with-real.html

Net Neuterality

Once in a great while, some of the Congress Critters actually "get it".

"If the Internet were invented by a politician or worse, managed by bureaucrats, cell phones would still look like bricks and the information superhighway would still be a dirt road. If there is any sector of our economy where competition is so fierce and where the pace of innovation is so rapid that government interference would only get in the way, it is the Internet and telecommunications market.

The Internet has grown because of a virtuous and mutually beneficial circle: network operators provide ever-increasing speed and bandwidth; content providers one-up each other with game-changing innovations; and consumers adapt and adopt at lightning speed.

Ten years ago, we effectively had no broadband marketplace. Dial-up Internet was common, but not ubiquitous. Consumers had a choice of service providers, but they were typically confined to walled gardens of preselected or preferred content. The broadband revolution led us out of that desert. Instead of dog-paddling, we could surf the net, choosing between broadband service offered by traditional phone and cable companies and, now, wireless companies as well.

Compare that to the last decade of success at government dominated companies like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, GM or Chrysler.

Yet despite an overwhelming record of innovation, and customer satisfaction, Washington wants to replace the judgment of consumers with that of politicians and bureaucrats.
 
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703363704574503331828238574.html

HBD Internet!

The Internet turns 40!  Wait, how old was Al Gore in 1969? Amazing!

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.34dd88291e1ac5a96cd13fac3e3de311.41&show_article=1

Clunkers: Taxpayers paid $24,000 per car

Big surprise, and on CNN no less

http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/28/autos/clunkers_analysis/index.htm

Halloween Treat- Severed Hand

Yum!

See how to make it
http://www.notmartha.org/archives/2009/10/27/meat-hand/

3rd GM Bailout!

This will never end. GM is going to be another AMTRAK, but much bigger.

Treasury, GMAC in talks for 3rd round of US aid

NEW YORK (AP) _ GMAC, the former lending arm of General Motors Co., is in talks with the Treasury Department for a third injection of taxpayer aid, a further sign of the U.S. government's entrenchment in the U.S. auto industry. The Treasury Department mandated earlier this year that GMAC Financial Services raise an additional $11.5 billion in capital after undergoing a "stress test" along with 18 other banks. While other banks deemed undercapitalized have been able to raise funds from private investors, GMAC has been forced to go back to the government.

Laboratory Black Hole with 'Metamaterials'

Wow

Artificial Black Hole Created in Chinese Lab

Cloaking technology used to create a region of space that allows microwaves in, but not out again

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24234/

Safety Deposit Box Dragnet in UK

Imagine having your assets confiscated, and having to prove exactly how you accumulated them over a lifetime to get them back.
Don't think even for a second that this could not happen here. We have plenty of laws that would enable such a thing, from RICO, to the Patriot Act, among others.

In all, more than 500 officers had gathered to receive orders to raid smart addresses in well-heeled parts of the capital. The locations included three of Britain's largest and most well-established safety-deposit box depositories in Edgware, Hampstead and Park Lane as well as an office and the homes of the three directors of Safe Deposit Centres Ltd, which owned the vaults - two in Hampstead and one in Barnet. 

Under POCA, the burden of proof lay with the box-holders. Finding evidence for wartime treks across Europe, or charting migration stories from the Partition of India and beyond, would cost many of the box-holders tens of thousands of pounds.
Mark Richardson, a former military intelligence officer and now a forensic accountant, who has been employed by several box-holders to explain their wealth, told us: 'We had to get one family's diamonds carbon-dated at great expense to demonstrate to the police that they had been cut in the Thirties, which tallied with their story of fleeing Germany before World War II.'
Lawyer Sara Teasdale, of City practice Roiter Zucker, whose client had kept more than £900,000 in his box at the vaults in Edgware as cash flow for his business leasing black cabs, said: 'The police are "deep-pocketing" - hauling people through a protracted legal process that they know is so costly that most will roll over.' 
Of the 6,717 boxes targeted by detectives in the biggest raid in the Met's history, just over half were occupied. And of those that were full, 2,838 boxes were now handed back, a figure that represents 80 per cent of the number of boxes seized.
Eight out of ten box owners were provably innocent. Taylor said: 'Of the £53 million in cash that the police took, £20 million has also been given back and £33 million is now being referred to as "under investigation", of which only £2.83 million has been confiscated or forfeited by the courts.'

This figure represents just over five per cent of the total money stored in the vaults, although the Met has 690 ' suspect' boxes that it is still investigating.
That means of the total number of boxes, around ten per cent are being probed for villainy, a long way from the nine out of ten cases the Met surmised they would find while wooing Judge Macrae. 

And look- they had asset seizure quotas:
Warning that the police were lagging behind in meeting targets set to seize criminals' assets, it stated: 'To achieve the target a further £36.6 million of assets need to be seized in the remaining nine months.' This was 'a challenging target'. However, 'with the emerging results from Operation Rize, the seizures are likely to make a major contribution toward the final total.'

 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1222777/The-raid-rocked-Met-Why-gun-drugs-op-6-717-safety-deposit-boxes-cost-taxpayer-fortune.html#ixzz0VGAtdFTT

Quote of the Day

One might have guessed it would take a decade of Obamanomics to produce European welfare state levels of youth unemployment, but at 18.5% we're there.
About the only positive sign is the price surge in normally uncorrelated assets—stocks, bonds, commodities, gold—as fund managers use cheap credit to play the carry-trade opportunity.
All this might be defensible if time were being bought to clean up an accumulation of past excesses. Instead, the president is creating a new one. "It's no exaggeration to say the Senate health-care bill taking shape is the equivalent of climbing aboard a train about to plunge into a canyon and deciding what it really needs is a bomb on board."


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703574604574499430059865524.html

The End of Baseball?

The plaintiff alleges that get this- bats are excessively effective as implements for hitting baseballs! Not only that, can you believe they market their defective product to children! Clearly what we need to be using are those foam bats with foam balls in our lawyer-proof, mattress-covered world.

Suit blames baseball bat maker for death

 According to the plaintiff's attorneys, Patch's death was caused by the defective and unreasonably dangerous product because the bat was designed and manufactured to allow the ball to be hit with such significant force as to endanger the safety of those playing the game. No warnings were given to adequately provide sufficient notice to users such as Patch of the dangerous propensities of these products, the suit alleges.

The lawsuit states the plaintiff is entitled to punitive damages for the sake of example and as punishment from the makers of Louisville Slugger, Hillerich & Bradsby Co., which acted with actual malice due to their knowledge or intentional disregard of facts, creating a high probability of injury to players such as Patch. The makers of Louisville Slugger misrepresented to the end user and to the general public that the bat in question was safe for use in competitive baseball games, the suit argues.

http://www.helenair.com/news/article_1368a56a-be08-11de-a668-001cc4c002e0.html

Democrats Vote To Give ACORN Regulatory Authority Over Financial Institutions

What could possibly go wrong?

By making representatives of ACORN and other consumer activist organizations eligible to serve on the Oversight Board, the amendment creates a potentially enormous government sanctioned conflict of interest. ACORN-type organizations will have an advisory role on regulating the very financial institutions from which they receive millions of dollars annually in direct corporate contributions and benefit from other financial partnerships and arrangements. These are the same organizations that pressured banks to make subprime mortgage loans and thus bear a major responsibility for the collapse of the housing market.

http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/2599000/

Got Perfect Credit? You Could Be Charged For It!

I once had a credit card company close my account because I never carried a balance. They are gunning for me again:

Loraine Mullen-Kress carries a Bank of America credit card and religiously pays off her balance.

"Flawless credit," she boasted.

Yet now, her good credit habits could cost her. Earlier this month Bank of America started notifying customers like Mullen-Kress that they will be charged a new annual fee of $29 to $99.

"There is a big segment of their population that they will have never made money on, which is people who pay their bills on time every month," said Ben Woolsey, Director of Consumer Research at CreditCards.com.

Bank of America said in a statement: "At this point we're testing the fee on a very small number of accounts and haven't made any final decisions." Citigroup is also trying out an annual fee with some card holders, and analysts expect more banks to follow their lead.

 http://wcbstv.com/consumer/credit.card.fees.2.1272124.html

Stimulus Contracts Go to Companies Under Criminal Investigation

Stimulating waste, fraud, and abuse- big surprise.

To spend the stimulus money quickly, many of the projects to improve military facilities were added to existing contracts. Although those contracts had been competitively bid in the past, none of the new stimulus work the companies received was open to competition.

The Department of Defense awarded nearly $30 million in stimulus contracts to six companies while they were under federal criminal investigation on suspicion of defrauding the government.
According to Air Force documents, the companies claimed to be small, minority-owned businesses, which allowed them to gain special preference in bidding for government contracts. But investigators found that they were all part of a larger minority-owned enterprise in Southern California, making them ineligible for the contracts.


Call me an originalist. or whatever, but shouldn't awarding Federal contracts based upon race parameters be unconstitutional on the face of it?

http://www.propublica.org/ion/stimulus/item/stimulus-contracts-go-to-companies-under-criminal-investigation-1023

Carnivore?

I didn't claw my way to the top of the food chain to need a "support" group.

Naked emperors make the news

I thought this was a funny argument over who is an Emperor, and who is not:

Further, it diminishes the president for him to act as media critic. As Obama himself suggested in trying to dodge Savannah Guthrie's question, why isn't he concentrating on the economy, Afghanistan and other matters that are actually part of his job? Eric Burns of MediaMutters.org makes the point, hilariously if unwittingly, in a Puffington Host post:

The issue is not whether it was a good idea politically for the White House to say that the emperor has no clothes. The issue is that the emperor actually has no clothes. In other words, the administration's comments about Fox News aren't the story. Fox News is the story.

In Burns's rendition of "The Emperor's New Clothes," the president of the United States is cast in the role of the innocent child who isn't afraid to observe that the emperor is naked. That seems to get the fable exactly backward. Of course, for a professional ankle-biter like Burns, Fox News is the emperor--i.e., a vastly more powerful and important institution than MediaMutters. But it doesn't seem to occur to Burns that he diminishes the president by bringing him down to his own level--perhaps because the president has been so busy diminishing himself of late.

Which brings us back to Alinsky, and this quote from the "Rules for Radicals" prologue:

What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.

For an example of how the Have-Nots are capitalizing on Alinsky's insights, read our Weekend Interview with Andrew Breitbart, the Internet entrepreneur who masterminded the publicity campaign that made the Acorn scandal into a story the media couldn't ignore.

But Alinskyite tactics are of no use to Obama. As president of the United States, he is the ultimate Have. Maybe he is wearing an exquisite suit of clothes, but Obama doesn't seem to have a clue that he is the emperor.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703573604574491290971140508.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

Scholarship Fund, pay to play?

This is how "soft corruption" works.

Rep. Steve Buyer’s (R-IN) “scholarship fund” is five years old, has raised nearly a million dollars,  has paid for fun fundraising trips and golf outings at exotic locations for Buyer and his contributors, who also happen to be corporations with business before his committee. Oh, also, the fund hasn’t yet handed out a single scholarship.

http://www.indystar.com/article/20091018/NEWS05/910180398/Rep.+Buyer+raising+a+lot++giving+a+little

Setting Up The Next Financial Crisis

Meltzer exposing the 800 pound naked emperor in the room

Don't be fooled by the bond market. Banks are holding prices down because they can buy Treasurys with free money from the Fed.

Many market participants reassure themselves that inflation won't come by noting the decline in yields on longer-term Treasury bonds and the spread between nominal Treasury yields and index-linked TIPS that protect against inflation. They measure expectations of higher inflation by the difference between these two rates, and imply long-term investors aren't demanding higher interest rates to protect themselves against it. But those traditional inflation-warning indicators are distorted because the Fed lends money at about a zero rate and the banks buy Treasury securities, reducing their yield and thus the size of the inflation premium.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704224004574489251193581802.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

Prescription Sudafed?

First they hide it behind the counter, then they get busy arresting grandmothers who buy it too often, now it's going prescription so it will cost like $100 just to get some decongestants. Talk about health care inflation. I have to see a doctor to diagnose a stuffy nose? Come on now...

"They plan to do what prohibitionists always do in the face of failure: double down—in this case by requiring prescriptions for a cheap, safe, effective decongestant that not long ago was readily available in convenience stores across the land. That requirement will force doctors to police Americans' pseudoephedrine consumption, encouraging them to treat every patient with a stuffy nose as a potential crank kingpin."


http://reason.com/blog/2009/10/21/a-prescription-should-be-requi#comments

Man Arrested for Being Naked- In his Own Home!

Apparently, the woman who called the police was trespassing on the naked guy's property at the time.
(Decidely not an emperor)

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local-beat/Man-Charged-After-Being-Seen-Naked-in-His-Home-65316082.html

Can't Take the Heat? Change the Locks!

More farce. I just gotta say that if you were to reverse the political parties in this 'friends of Angelo' drama, it would be incessant front page news everywhere. These guys pull these silly stunts because they believe they can get away with it, and so far, they have.

Democratic staff for the House oversight committee informed their GOP counterparts today that the majority has changed the locks on the committee's hearing room. While Republicans previously enjoyed their own key to the room, they will now have to request access from Democrats. This followed a bitter partisan argument in which Republicans refused to take down a video from their website that contradicted Dem explanations about a closed-door meeting on the Countrywide VIP loan scandal.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704597704574485783622311444.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

Extremely Overbought?

Or why I just can't seem to find anything I want to invest in right now...

The Stock Market Has Never Been This (Intermediate-Term) Overbought 
In reviewing the status of the market late last week, the condition of the data was something of an anomaly in that regard. On the valuation front, stocks are presently overvalued, but to levels that we've observed at least several times in history. The anomaly relates to market action, where we can no longer find a single historical instance where stocks were more overbought on the combination of short- and intermediate-term measures we respond to most strongly. Indeed, only one instance comes close, which is November 28, 1980.

Now, if that date doesn't ring a bell, I have to admit that it didn't resonate with me either at first. On that date, the stock market was just a few months into a fresh economic recovery following the 1980 recession, employment conditions were just beginning to improve, capacity utilization was picking up, the Purchasing Managers Index had just moved back over 50, and stocks were certainly not overvalued on the basis of normalized earnings or cash flows. Indeed, the P/E multiple of the S&P 500 was just over 9, on the basis of both trailing and normalized earnings. Advisory sentiment was not strenuously bullish either, so there was little to identify it as a date to remember.

As it happened, however, November 28, 1980 was the peak of the furious advance in S&P 500 driven by enthusiasm over "less bad" economic news, though with little proven economic strength. It was the last day of the 1980 bull market. The economy later proved to have been in a short lull within a double-dip recession, taking stocks to their final lows in 1982.

One of the notable features of extreme overbought conditions is that investors rarely have much opportunity to get out, just like the fast and furious advances that clear oversold conditions tend to occur too quickly to capture unless one has already established a position. As for the present, we have rarely seen 90% of stocks suspended above their 50- and 200-day moving averages for as sustained a period as we have now observed.

http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc091019.htm

Britain- National Health System Pays Millions to Buy Private Care for Employees

Even NHS staff cannot bear to eat their own dog food.
THE National Health Service has spent £1.5m paying for hundreds of its staff to have private health treatment so they can leapfrog their own waiting lists.

More than 3,000 staff, including doctors and nurses, have gone private at the taxpayers’ expense in the past three years because the queues at the clinics and hospitals where they work are too long.
Figures released under the Freedom of Information act show that NHS administrative staff, paramedics and ambulance drivers have also been given free private healthcare. This has covered physiotherapy, osteopathy, psychiatric care and counselling — all widely available on the NHS.
“It simply isn’t fair to have one service for staff and another for everyone else,” said Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, who obtained the figures.





http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article6879553.ece

Automotive Independence for Massachusetts!

I think we in Massachusetts should stop importing automobiles from the Midwest. We send billions of our hard-earned dollars to rust belt states when we need those jobs here at home. What we need is automotive independence! Coyote makes the case;

I wrote about Michigan governor Granholm’s taxpayer-funded initiative to make Michigan energy independent of, uh, Kentucky

Governor Granholm and Gov. James Doyle of Wisconsin seem to be tormented by the fact that the Midwest industrial engine imports much of its energy needs from coal states in the east and west. “Doyle has estimated that $226 billion leaves the region each year in energy costs that could be saved with alternative-energy installations and support jobs here,” reported the Detroit Free Press.

I pointed out the absurdity of drawing every smaller circles on maps and claiming that wealth depended on that circle being self-sufficient.

But the pithy comeback would have been to ask how Ms. Granholm would react if, say, the the governors of California or Texas announced that were upset that billions of dollars leave their state every year to buy cars and that they were suggesting taxpayer-funded initiatives to free themselves of dependence on Rust Belt states for their transportation.


http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2009/10/i-hate-it-when-i-think-of-that-withering-comeback-a-few-hours-later.html

Schiff On the Coming Austerity

 Like Schiff, I think that the bailouts, even easier credit, and even more printed money have prevented markets from reaching a natural equilibrium. The longer we try to fight the market with destructive policies, the worse the pain of the eminent correction in the end. The canary in the coal mine is the value of the dollar. Note that while the stock market is up 50%, the dollar is down 30%. Which will win?  This is just inflation we have not fully experienced yet.

This soon-to-be-called depression will not end until the pendulum of consumer spending habits swings violently in the other direction. This will be a jarring change, but it is the splash of cold water that we need to return our economy to viability. I believe that consumer spending as a share of GDP will need to temporarily contract to roughly 50% of GDP, before eventually moving toward its historic mean of 65%. Such a move would indicate a restoration of our personal savings, a decline in borrowing and trade deficits, and an increased industrial output. That would be a real recovery.
In the meantime, the higher the spending percentage climbs, the more painful the ultimate decline becomes.
Consumers and governments must spend less so their savings can be made available to businesses for capital investments. Businesses, in turn, will produce more products and employ more people – increasing domestic prosperity. However, rather than allowing a painful cure to return our economy to health, the government prefers to numb the voting public with a toxic saline-drip of deficit spending and cheap money.
The primary factor that enables our government to peddle economic snake oil is the dollar's unique role as the world's reserve currency, and our creditors' willingness to preserve its status. By buying up dollars and loaning them back to us through Treasury debt, productive countries give American politicians carte blanche to play Santa Claus.


http://seekingalpha.com/article/167101-american-austerity-is-about-to-begin?source=email

Angelo's Friends Get Protection

This is just unbelievable. With all the silly crap Congress wastes time "investigating", this case of actual influence peddling cannot manage to see the light of day.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704322004574477411300771366.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

Cop Gets 1 Day Suspension for Killing 10 Year Old

What do you think a non-cop would have gotten?

On October 17, Vaughn was racing from one call to another when his squad car fatally struck 10-year-old Cole Berardi, who was riding his bicycle on a darkened portion of Belt Line Road in southeast Dallas.
Cpl. Vaughn's lights and siren were not activated as required.
The police accident report released lists speed as a contributing factor in the accident. It states that the speed of Cpl. Vaughn's vehicle ranged from 69 mph to 72 mph at the time of impact. The speed limit on that stretch of road is 40 mph.
Vaughn was later cleared by a grand jury of any criminal culpability. But internal investigators have since concluded that he failed to the follow the department's established procedures.

http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2009/07/dallas-police-one-day-suspensi.html

Golf Cart Stimulus

Look- free money! How bad does it have to get before they stop this insanity?
This is akin to money laundering.

Golf Cart Man is referring to his offer in which you can buy the cart for $8,000, get a $5,300 tax credit off your 2009 income tax, lease it back for $100 a month for 27 months, at which point Golf Cart Man will buy back the cart for $2,000. "This means you own a free Golf Cart or made $2,000 cash doing absolutely nothing!!!" You can't blame a guy for exploiting loopholes that Congress offers.
The IRS has also ruled that there's no limit to how many electric cars an individual can buy, so some enterprising profiteers are stocking up on multiple carts while the federal credit lasts, in order to resell them at a profit later.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107204574473724099542430.html

New CA Auto Glass Regulations WIll Block Radio Waves

This is brilliant. From the rocket scientists who brought you MBTE:

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) just passed a new regulation that requires glazed glass in automobiles that is supposed to reduce the need to use air conditioning.  The catch is that the same properties that block electromagnetic sunlight radiation also blocks lower frequency electromagnetic radio waves.  That means radios, satellite radios, GPS, garage door openers, and cell phones will be severely degraded.  Even more surprising is that it requires this glass even for jeeps that have soft covers, plastic windows, and no air conditioning.  Furthermore, the rules are so stringent that they effectively make sunroofs black, even though many consumers use the covers.
Here’s some background on CARB.  This is the same group of regulators who passed a controversial regulation that would require completely new diesel engines which will cause the state tremendous economic loss, and the same group who mandated the costly use of carcinogenic MTBE in California’s reformulated gasoline.

http://www.digitalsociety.org/2009/10/california-vehicle-standard-blocks-cell-radio-and-gps/

Crony Capitalism Accelerates

...or why I can't make any money shorting treasuries... 

First the Fed has been buying treasuries directly (i.e. printing money for the government), but now the banks are into this perpetual money machine at our expense (printing money for the banks profits first and government use second). Note their sweet quarterly profits. This is why we should not rejoice when the Fed stops direct purchases- their cronies are just filling the void. This scheme does not actually produce anything of value. Banks get profits, everyone else gets debt and inflation. Doubling down on the disastrous policies of the past.

"Borrow from the Federal Reserve at zero and lend to Treasury for a profit. That's some racket."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107204574475090112251868.html

Hayek and the wisdom of "Experts"

Sometimes I think that everything we really need to know about the economic, society, and honoring humanity was written by Hayek 50 plus years ago.

The Use of Knowledge in Society-1945

It may be admitted that, as far as scientific knowledge is concerned, a body of suitably chosen experts may be in the best position to command all the best knowledge available—though this is of course merely shifting the difficulty to the problem of selecting the experts. What I wish to point out is that, even assuming that this problem can be readily solved, it is only a small part of the wider problem.
Today it is almost heresy to suggest that scientific knowledge is not the sum of all knowledge. But a little reflection will show that there is beyond question a body of very important but unorganized knowledge which cannot possibly be called scientific in the sense of knowledge of general rules: the knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place. It is with respect to this that practically every individual has some advantage over all others because he possesses unique information of which beneficial use might be made, but of which use can be made only if the decisions depending on it are left to him or are made with his active cooperation.

http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/hykKnw1.html

Repeating the Mistakes of the Mortgage Crisis

I just find it astounding that the government seems intent on doubling down on the exact policies that caused the global financial meltdown.

Watching Washington policymakers in action, I sometimes think they make mistakes because of unrealistic goals, flawed thinking, blind obedience to party, or dubious information. And sometimes I think they make mistakes because they are—how to put this?—clinically insane.
There is no other way to explain what is going on at the Federal Housing Administration, which provides federal guarantees for home mortgages. Given the collapse in real estate prices, the weak economy, and the epidemic of foreclosures, banks are acting with more caution than before. They now commonly require home buyers to make down payments of 20 percent to qualify for a loan. But the FHA often requires only 3.5 percent.
That’s the equivalent of playing pool with a guy named Snake, and it’s had two predictable effects. The first is that the agency is insuring about four times as many home loans as it did just three years ago. The other is that the number of FHA-approved borrowers who are not repaying their loans is climbing. Since last year, the default rate has jumped by 76 percent.
Another likely consequence looms: you and I eating the losses. A former executive of mortgage giant Fannie Mae told a congressional subcommittee that the FHA “appears destined for a taxpayer bailout in the next 24 to 36 months.” Commissioner David Stevens had to assure the subcommittee that it would not need help—well, unless there is a “catastrophic home price decline.” But who says there won’t be? It’s not as though anyone at the FHA foresaw the housing bubble or the housing bust. Yet now it feels confident betting its $30 billion cash reserve that prices won’t fall.

http://volokh.com/2009/10/15/repeating-the-mistakes-of-the-mortgage-crisis/

Bunnies as Biofuel

Crazy Swedes- don't they know that's a waste of a perfectly good hassenpfeffer.

http://www.thelocal.se/22610/20091012/

Infantilizing Adults

Come on now. At what point is an adult an adult? Our society keeps raising the age of responsibility (and privilege) for just about everything (except for criminal responsibility & punishment, which is ironically going the other way).
What might one suppose this will do to the price of health insurance policies?

A new provision being rolled into the unified House health care bill would allow young adults to stay on their parents' health care plans until they turn 27, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Tuesday.

Young adults are the most uninsured group in the country. They often lose coverage at age 19 when they graduate from high school or a few years later when they graduate from college. Once they enter the workforce, they face new obstacles to getting insurance," Pelosi said. "Now with this legislation that takes them to their 27th birthday, we take them a long way down the path of some independence, some liberation to follow their aspirations right out of school.

This is "independence" and "liberation"? Seriously now...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/13/pelosi-backs-extension-of_n_319554.html

Chavez Seizes Hilton Resort

I'm so glad WE live in a country where the government does not seize private industries...
BTW, are you boycotting CITGO? Yes, he will still sell his oil, but his margins are better through his own retail chain.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.2fc299db2cd4e935945936820f1d8be0.a1&show_article=1

Update:
Nationalization was "payback" for not bowing low enough to his highness.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.aefb6f18f9ad6b45624c805cfe3bfad8.251&show_article=1

Federal Text While Driving Ban

Yes, they really are talking about this, and it's a really stupid idea.

Here's Balko on the case:
TOBAL is short for "There Oughtta Be a Law." Here's the progression of symptoms: Wrenching anecdotes about the effects of some alleged new trend make national news. A panic takes root in the media. Earnest editorialists scrawl urgent pleas for action. Politicians grandstand. Soon enough, we have our new law or regulation. It doesn't matter if the law is enforceable or may have unintended consequences. Nor does it matter if the law will have any actual effect on the problem it was passed to address. In fact, it doesn't even matter if the problem actually exists. The mere feeling that it exists is sufficient.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2009/10/13/theres-no-way-to-enforce-a-texting-while-driving-ban.html

Even More Zero Tolerance Insanity

Not just Delaware- NY too.
And this kid did not even bring the "weapon" out of his car.

But the dream could be in jeopardy, thanks to a two-inch pocket knife that officials at Lansingburgh Senior High School found in Matthew's locked car last month.  The pocket knife was a gift from his grandfather, Robert Whalen, who's the Hoosick Falls Police Chief.  Matthew says he kept the knife in a side compartment and never tried showing it off or threatening anyone with it.  Instead it was a part of the survival kit that was his car.
"My car is designed in a way that if I ever broke down, I'd be OK," Whalen explains.  "I have a sleeping bag.  I have bottled water.  I have an MRE.  I believe it's better to be prepared and not need it than need it and not have it."


http://www.wten.com/Global/story.asp?S=11283345

More Zero Tolerance Insanity

6 year old Cub Scout put up on weapons charges.
Sure looks like a dangerous predator to me.

Zachary’s offense? Taking a camping utensil that can serve as a knife, fork and spoon to school. He was so excited about recently joining the Cub Scouts that he wanted to use it at lunch. School officials concluded that he had violated their zero-tolerance policy on weapons, and Zachary was suspended and now faces 45 days in the district’s reform school.
“It just seems unfair,” Zachary said, pausing as he practiced writing lower-case letters with his mother, who is home-schooling him while the family tries to overturn his punishment.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/education/12discipline.html?_r=2

Antarctic Ice Melt at Lowest Levels in Satellite Era

This finding should be in the headlines everywhere.  I mean, there should be dancing in the streets!  Apocalypse canceled! ...which is why we can be sure the MSM will not even mention it...

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2009/10/06/antarctic-ice-melt-at-lowest-levels-in-satellite-era/

Stuck paying the MA Breath Tax

or how Romney screwed us over before he skipped town...


The central plank of the Romney plan was a mandate that required everyone to buy health insurance or pay a fine for posing a risk to society by walking around without coverage. There would be subsidies for those who couldn't afford insurance, and residents would be required to buy a minimum amount of health insurance, on the grounds that they might buy a policy that doesn't cover the cost of their care and end up skipping out on their medical bills. "We insist that everybody who drives a car has insurance, and cars are a lot less expensive than people," Mr. Romney told the Boston Globe in 2006.
Mr. Romney and Sen. Ted Kennedy publicly promised that the middle class—that is, people like us—would not be taxed and that our health-care costs would actually decrease if the plan became law.
My husband and I weren't convinced. It all seemed inane, but we are neither politically or socially conservative and figured the plan wouldn't affect us much. Besides, who could be against a plan that covers more people for less money?
For the first two years of the mandate, our IBM health insurance was seen as acceptable in the eyes of the state. This year the rules changed. The state requires that health plans cap out-of-pocket expenses for individuals (not including monthly premiums) at $2,000 a year. Our plan's cap is $2,500.


I think given the option, most people would choose a "catastrophic" health insurance plan- if they were actually exposed to the costs. The last time I was unemployed, what I really wanted was a cap on my health care liabilities, not coverage starting at dollar zero, access to acupuncture, fertility treatments, and health club discounts. I wanted something that would protect me from financial ruin if someone got really sick.  Let's say it would pay nothing until I hit $10k in costs, then it would kick in 100%.  I was instead forced to buy a policy for $9500 per year, and the only thing I could opt out of was drug coverage. That was the MINIMUM policy. This same policy would be more like $14000 in MA today, where we enjoy the most expensive health care in the nation, and it is bankrupting the State. This is very much the model they are trying to impose on us at a national level.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703298004574459101022338232.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

What happened to global warming?

When the BBC prints a relatively balanced article admitting that the AGW crowd's catastrophic predictions did not materialize, this is something of a turning point. That the warmists are now forced to push their cataclysm time line so far out into the future should be knocking the CO2 right out of their theories, but we will surely see them hang on because there is too much power and money at stake. Can we revoke Al Gore's Nobel yet? His charts showed no such temperature reversal-  the hockey stick is clearly broken!

This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.
But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.
And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm

Wow- Nobel Lauriate??

Nobels all around!
Just cements the fact that the prize has become a complete joke. Talk about grade inflation!

• Linus Pauling
• Albert Schweitzer
• MLK JR
• Henry Kissinger
• Mother Theresa
• Lech Walesa
• Elie Wiesel
• Mikhail Gorbachev
• Nelson Mendela

Then we get to the 2000s, and the prize goes off the rails!
Kofi Annan? (massively corrupt)
Jimmy Carter?
The IPCC?
Obama???

Wait, did I mention Paul Krugman and Al Gore...

Ultimate Naked Emperor Fail

The Weak-Dollar Threat to Prosperity

Malpass nails it in the WSJ today;  This is why several contrarian types (like Jim Rogers, for example) are no longer shorting any US equities. They worry that even if real stock values fall, their price in [devalued] dollars will still rise, sabotaging the bet.

If stocks double but the dollar loses half its value, who beyond Wall Street are the winners and losers? There's been a clear demonstration this decade. The S&P nearly doubled from 2003 through 2007. Those who borrowed to buy won big-time. Rich people got richer, seeing their equity bottom line double. At the same time, the dollar's value was cut nearly in half versus the euro and other stable measures. Capital fled, undercutting job growth. Rent, gasoline and food prices rose more than wages. 

Equity gains provide cold comfort when currencies crash. From the euro perspective, the S&P peaked at 1700 in 2000, finally reattained 1100 in the 2007 bubble, fell below 600 in March and now stands at 700 (see nearby chart). With most of the market capitalization of U.S. stocks held by Americans, the dollar devaluation has caused a massive decline in the U.S. share of global wealth. 

Measured in euros (a more stable ruler than the ever-weakening dollar), U.S. real per capita GDP is down 25% since 2000, while Germany's is up 4% and tops ours.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703298004574458923186941870.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

How it feels to be a Libertarian

Chronically frustrated is the short answer.
Not new, but a real classic that pretty much says it all, and in circulation on the boards again today.
from John Hasnas;

Libertarians spend their lives accurately predicting the future effects of government policy. Their predictions are accurate because they are derived from Hayek’s insights into the limitations of human knowledge, from the recognition that the people who comprise the government respond to incentives just like anyone else and are not magically transformed to selfless agents of the good merely by accepting government employment, from the awareness that for government to provide a benefit to some, it must first take it from others, and from the knowledge that politicians cannot repeal the laws of economics. For the same reason, their predictions are usually negative and utterly inconsistent with the utopian wishful-thinking that lies at the heart of virtually all contemporary political advocacy. And because no one likes to hear that he cannot have his cake and eat it too or be told that his good intentions cannot be translated into reality either by waving a magic wand or by passing legislation, these predictions are greeted not merely with disbelief, but with derision.

It is human nature to want to shoot the messenger bearing unwelcome tidings. And so, for the sin of continually pointing out that the emperor has no clothes, libertarians are attacked as heartless bastards devoid of compassion for the less fortunate, despicable flacks for the rich or for business interests, unthinking dogmatists who place blind faith in the free market, or, at best, members of the lunatic fringe.

http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/FeelsLike.htm

CRA- Significant meltdown factor

 I honestly thought the Community Reinvestment Act was an important, though still relatively small contributor to the meltdown, but it turns out the numbers here are very large. Barney Frank et al are more culpable than the bankers. Worse, in the face of this, the powers that be seem intent on doubling down on the CRA!  Seriously?!?

"As we try to shake off the financial crisis, here's a bright idea. Take a law that has led to the writing of an enormous amount of bad mortgages and expand it. Then take enforcement away from bank examiners and give it to housing activists."
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2009/10/poisonous-dangerous-cocktail-expanding.html

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service SWAT Team

Yes, they have them. Good thing too- I feel much safer knowing that I will not be attacked by foreign orchids, or senior citizens who fail to fill out the right forms.

http://reason.com/blog/2009/10/05/federal-swat-raid-over-orchids

NYC Bans Bake Sales in Schools

The Nanny State knows no bounds:
"In an effort to limit how much sugar and fat students put in their bellies at school, the Education Department has effectively banned most bake sales, the lucrative if not quite healthy fund-raising tool for generations of teams and clubs."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/03/nyregion/03bakesale.html?_r=1

Playground equipment from the 70s!

Flashback to a golden age before the lawyers carted away all of the fun for scrap...
Sadly, we are now at the point of being forced to install slides that do not actually allow a kid to slide, into a mattress covered world.  Giant robots! Space age (over concrete)!

 

See the rest at:
http://www.divinecaroline.com/22111/84399-playgrounds-70-s

Ahmadinejad Has Jewish Heritage

As a native Georgian, Stalin was exceptionally brutal toward Georgia, perhaps to overcompensate for any doubts about his loyalty.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/6256173/Mahmoud-Ahmadinejad-revealed-to-have-Jewish-past.html

Opting out of Medicare?

This is huge- if seniors can opt out of Medicare, isn't that essentially precedent for anyone to opt out of Obamacare? Of course we have a Constitution that should mean we never even have to ask such an absurd question, but here we are...
I'm not holding my breath, but following this to it's logical conclusion, if seniors can opt out of receiving Medicare BENEFITS, why can't I opt out of paying Medicare CONTRIBUTIONS?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574446831381142174.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

Nanny State Imperial Ale

 Scottish brewer produces special low alcohol brew as protest.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/north_east/8278312.stm

Mackey Followup Interview

Mackey set off a firestorm and boycotts by expressing his [common sense] opinions on health care in an op-ed.
I guess his target demographic cannot tolerate dissent.
Now what?
"I honestly don't know why the article became such a lightning rod," says John Mackey, CEO and founder of Whole Foods Market Inc., as he tries to explain the firestorm caused by his August op-ed on these pages opposing government-run health care. "I think a lot of people who got angry haven't read what I actually wrote. There was a lot of emotional reaction—fear and anger. I just wanted to get people to think about whether there was a better way to reform the system."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574447114058870676.html

DA Uses Extortion Fund to Fight Extortion Charges

This is just perfect.

The little town of Tenaha, Texas has been all over the news in the last year after several defense attorneys revealed the town’s police had been pulling over motorists along a main highway, seizing their property (cars, cash, jewelry, etc.), then presenting them with an unsavory bargain: Sign a waiver forfeiting all of their property over to the police, or be arrested for drug crimes where, even if innocent, they’d face a night or more in jail and attorney and court fees that would usually amount to more than what the property was worth.


Tenaha’s police department and Shelby County District Attorney Lynda K. Russell—who used forfeiture funds to pay for a Christmas party and to buy tickets to a motorcycle rally—are now subject to a federal civil rights investigation and a federal civil rights lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Texas.
Here’s the crazy part: Russell is attempting to use proceeds from the county’s forfeiture fund to pay for her legal defense. That is, she wants to raid the fund she’s accused of stealing from motorists to fund in order to defend herself from accusations that she stole from motorists to fund it. The ultimate irony here is that when law enforcement officials freeze a suspect’s assets in anticipation of a drug prosecution, the suspect isn’t allowed to use any of those assets to pay for his own legal defense.


http://www.theagitator.com/2009/10/02/texas-da-accused-of-stealing-from-motorists-wants-to-defend-herself-with-money-shes-accused-of-stealing-from-motorists/

Exile for AGW Infidels

Anthropogenic (human-caused) Global Warming is the ultimate Naked Emperor situation.
The actual science and data underpinning the theory keeps crumbling away, which just causes the true-believers to dig in their heels and double-down on their lunacy. The climate-industrial complex has too much at stake to let any facts stand in their way.

The price for speaking out against global warming is exile from your peers, even if you are at the top of your field. What follows is an example of a scientific group that not only stopped a leading researcher from attending a meeting, but then-without discussing the evidence-applauds the IPCC and recommends urgent policies to reduce greenhouse gases. What has science been reduced to if bear biologists feel they can effectively issue ad hoc recommendations on worldwide energy use? How low have standards sunk if informed opinion is censored, while uninformed opinion is elevated to official policy?


http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/exile_for_non-believers.html

Ken Lewis's fatal mistake

This is right on the mark- remember that the BOA shareholders did not vote on any of this bailout crap that was force Fed (pun intended) down BOA's throat. Lewis made a deal with the devil.  The SEC and the shamelessly opportunistic Cuomo should be going after Godfathers Paulson and Bernanke for making an offer Lewis could not refuse. This case speaks volumes about what has gone rotten in our once great republic.

Thus the same government that told Mr. Lewis to keep his mouth shut and close the Merrill transaction now says he should have been more candid with shareholders. The same government that also threatened his job if Mr. Lewis didn't accept Merrill's mounting losses along with new federal money—while refusing to provide an agreement in writing because it didn't want to inform taxpayers—now questions the disclosures he made to investors. Too bad the same investigative resources will never be used to find out how financial "systemic risk" was supposed to be reduced by forcing Mr. Lewis to merge the country's largest deposit-taking bank with a failing Wall Street trading firm.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574447171063275730.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

Ten Reasons for an Imminent Stock Market Crash

I'm wicked bearish. The only fundamental improvement in economic conditions that I can see is the recent signs of gridlock in Congress.
If the Cap & Tax and Healthcare disaster bills can go down in flames, that will help stem the bleeding, but the seeds of so much damage have already been sown.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/163213-ten-reasons-for-an-imminent-stock-market-crash?source=article_sb_popular