Roger Peet puppet designer

Bedlamtheater.org


Comment: I don't think this is Roger Peet my Son or Brother!

healthcare reform plan--as currently written--would result in the largest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade

Tipping Point?

Socialist America sinking

Excerpts:

Taxes drove the American Revolution, for we were a taxaphobic, liberty-loving people. That government is best that governs least is an Americanism. When "Silent Cal" Coolidge went home in 1929, the U.S. government was spending 3 percent of gross domestic product.

And today? Obama's first budget will consume 28 percent of the entire GDP; state and local governments another 15 percent. While there is some overlap, in 2009, government will consume 40 percent of GDP, approaching the peak of World War II.

...

While the hardest-working and most productive are bled, a third of all wage-earners pay no U.S. income tax, and Obama plans to free almost half of all wage-earners of all income taxes. Yet, tens of millions get Medicaid, rent supplements, free education, food stamps, welfare and an annual check from Uncle Sam called an Earned Income Tax Credit, though they never paid a nickel in income taxes.

...

China saves, invests and grows at 8 percent. America, awash in debt, has a shrinking economy, a huge trade deficit, a gutted industrial base, an unemployment rate surging toward 10 percent and a money supply that's swollen to double its size in a year. The 20th century may have been the American Century. The 21st shows another pattern.

"The United States is declining as a nation and a world power with mostly sighs and shrugs to mark this seismic event," writes Les Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, in CFR's Foreign Affairs magazine.

Comment: Our country is dying!

Cagney reincarnated as a cat?

Comment: My Brother sent me this photo of a cat swimming - has that James Cagney look!

Obama "lowers expectations retroactively"

The President Moves the Economic Goalposts

Excerpt:

So what's a president to do when the promises he made about his economic stimulus program fail to materialize? If you're Barack Obama, you redefine your goals and act as if America won't remember what you said originally. That's a neat trick if you can get away with it, but Mr. Obama won't. His words are a matter of public record and he will be held to them.

When it came to the stimulus package, the president and his administration promised, in the words of National Economic Director Larry Summers, "You'll see the effects begin almost immediately." Now it's clear that those promised jobs and growth haven't materialized.

So Mr. Obama is attempting to lower expectations retroactively, saying in an op-ed in Sunday's Washington Post that his stimulus "was, from the start, a two-year program." That is misleading. Mr. Obama never said if his stimulus were passed things might still get significantly worse in the following year.

In February, Mr. Obama said this about the goals of his stimulus package: "I think my initial measure of success is creating or saving four million jobs." He later explained the stimulus's $787 billion would "go directly to . . . generating three to four million new jobs." And his Council of Economic Advisors issued an official analysis showing that the unemployment rate would top out in the third quarter of this year at just over 8%.

That quarter began on July 1, and unemployment is now 9.5%, up from 7.6% when Mr. Obama took office. There are 2.6 million fewer Americans working than there were on the day Mr. Obama was sworn in. The president says now that unemployment will exceed 10% this year, and his advisers say it will remain high through much of next year.

Earlier this year, Mr. Obama assured us that most of the stimulus money "will go out the door immediately." But it hasn't. Only about 7.7% of the stimulus has been spent in the six months since its passage, and more of it will be spent in the program's last eight years than in its first year. So now the president claims he said something different. "We also knew that it would take some time for the money to get out the door," Mr. Obama said in his weekly radio address on Saturday.

Comment: No surprises. Meanwhile the debt clock keeps ticking!

Citigroup claim denied

Judge rejects Citigroup claim

Excerpt:

A federal judge in New York City rejected the claim by Citigroup Inc. that its unsuccessful attempt to purchase Wachovia Corp. last fall was protected by an exclusivity arrangement.

Wachovia was bought by Wells Fargo & Co., which offered a higher price.

Judge Shira Scheindlin on Wednesday ruled the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act made the Citigroup exclusivity contract unenforceable

Comment: Didn't think it would go far. Earlier post: "While I'm not a lawyer, I think that the Citicorp legal challenge will soon evaporate. "

Updated (thanks to Jeremy Cobb): Federal Judge Finds Bailout Act Voids Citigroup's Bid for Wachovia

Excerpt:

The emergency bailout package passed by Congress in October voided an exclusivity agreement that Citigroup had for buying embattled Wachovia Corp. in a deal that was ultimately trumped by Wells Fargo, a federal judge has ruled.

Rejecting Citigroup's bid for as much as $60 billion in damages against Wells Fargo, Judge Shira A. Scheindlin ruled Wednesday that §126(c) of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA), passed on Oct. 3, 2008, renders the exclusivity agreement unenforceable.

The judge's resolution of the issue gets rid of most, but not all, of Citigroup's case for damages pending before Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Charles Ramos. The action before Ramos had been stayed pending Scheindlin's decision.

The ruling does not affect a constitutional challenge to the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act that Citigroup may pursue in federal court, where a conference before Scheindlin is scheduled for July 22.

Citigroup had what it thought were exclusive rights through Oct. 7, 2008, to close a deal for $2.1 billion, or $1 per Wachovia share. The transaction would have been made with some assistance by the FDIC, which was invoking its authority under §13 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act to take action where there is the possibility of "systemic risk" to the economy. The FDIC insisted that, unless the deal was closed by Oct. 6, Wachovia would be forced into receivership.

On Oct. 2, Wells Fargo jumped in with a $15 billion offer for Wachovia, approximately $7 per share. Significantly, the deal required no assistance from the FDIC. The merger was announced on Oct. 3, the same day the act was passed.

On Oct. 4, Citigroup sued in state court, charging Wachovia with breach of contract and Wells Fargo with tortious interference with contract. The case was first removed to federal court but later was remanded back to state court and Justice Ramos.

The same day, Wells Fargo and Wachovia filed their own actions in federal court seeking a declaratory judgment that their transaction was valid. Within a week, Citigroup dropped its attempt to block the sale but insisted it would continue its damages claim.

Scheindlin's decision in Wachovia Corp. v. Citigroup, Inc., 08 Civ. 8503, was the first by a federal judge interpreting §126(c), which renders unenforceable an agreement restricting the ability to acquire any insured depository institution where the FDIC exercises its authority under Federal Deposit Insurance Act §§11 or 13.

Federal budget: "an unsustainable path"

Congressional Budget Office: The Long-Term Budget Outlook

Excerpt:

Under current law, the federal budget is on an unsustainable path, because federal debt will continue to grow much faster than the economy over the long run. Although great uncertainty surrounds long-term fiscal projections, rising costs for health care and the aging of the population will cause federal spending to increase rapidly under any plausible scenario for current law. Unless revenues increase just as rapidly, the rise in spending will produce growing budget deficits. Large budget deficits would reduce national saving, leading to more borrowing from abroad and less domestic investment, which in turn would depress economic growth in the United States. Over time, accumulating debt would cause substantial harm to the economy.

Comment: Meanwhile Biden: ‘We Have to Go Spend Money to Keep From Going Bankrupt’

Long term home value apppreciation

Home Ownership Was Never a Road to Riches

Excerpt:

Home appreciation nationally has run about 1% above inflation over time.

The big price run-ups from the late 1990s through 2006 or 2007 were an aberration. The biggest value you derive from home ownership isn’t appreciation. “It’s being able to live in it,” Prof. Mayer says, and avoiding the rent you would otherwise have to pay.

Once you add in imputed rent and subtract property taxes, Prof. Mayer estimates, my 2% annual home-ownership return looks more like 6%.

That’s why you should buy as much home as you need—but no more. A bigger home than you need isn’t an investment—it’s an extravagance, the equivalent of renting a bigger apartment than you need. You may choose to do so, but that doesn’t make it a smart move financially.

Another reason home ownership isn’t the road to riches: Most houses—especially the old ones my wife and I favor—are money pits.

Comment: My economic sense tells me that homes should appreciate at approximately the inflation rate.

VAT: a liberal politician's delight

Higher taxes, anyone?

Excerpt:

... liberals are clamoring for … higher taxes. Partly because of changes endorsed by presidents from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama, approximately 60 percent of taxpayers now pay either no income tax (43 percent) or less than 5 percent of their income. Because one cannot raise significant money by that tax without nicking the middle class, or without bringing millions of people back onto the income tax rolls, attention is turning to a value-added tax.


A VAT is levied at every stage of production. Like the cap-and-trade carbon regime now being constructed, a VAT is a liberal politician's delight: It taxes everything, but opaquely. Before he became an economic adviser in the Obama White House, where wit can be dangerous, Larry Summers said: Liberals oppose a VAT because it is regressive and conservatives oppose it because it is a money machine, but a VAT might come when liberals realize it is a money machine and conservatives realize it is regressive.

Comment: More on VAT here.

George Will on government efficiency:

... before embarking on Stimulus III, note that only about 10 percent of Stimulus II has yet been injected into the economy. This is not the administration's fault, the administration's defenders say, because government is cumbersome, sluggish and inefficient. But this sunburst of insight comes as the administration toils to enlarge governmental control of health care, energy, finance, education, etc. The administration guesses that these government projects will do better than the Postal Service (its second-quarter loss, $1.9 billion, was 68 percent of its losses for all of 2008) and the government's railroad (Amtrak has had 38 money-losing years, and this year's losses are on pace to set a record).

"the sum total of wealth accumulated in human history"

Do You Owe $23 Quadrillion?

Excerpt:

An unidentified computer glitch has led Visa to overcharge several of its cardholders for routine purchases at drug stores, gas stations, and restaurants, to the tune of $23,148,855,308,184,500.00 each. These charges, as far as we can tell, exceed the sum total of wealth accumulated in human history. Affected cardholders were assessed a $15 overdraft fee. Count this as a cautionary tale for advocates of all-digital currency. The charges have reportedly been reversed, but we’d love to hear from anyone who, through this snafu, accumulated a black hole of debt.

Comment: I was discussing this with my wife, who is a technology manager at a major bank. She hypothesizes that a negative number somehow got into the database. By the way - our bank not hit by this glitch.

"Honey you over spent on the Visa card!"

Visa card surprise: $23,148,855,308,184,500

Excerpt:

A "small number" of Visa cardholders were surprised to find that recent purchases cost them a little more than expected — $23 quadrillion, plus change.

In New Hampshire, Josh Muszynski said he swiped his debit card at a gas station to buy a pack of cigarettes and when he later checked his account online found that he had been charged the 17-digit number — a stunning $23,148,855,308,184,500.

Comment: You could pay for it with these. 10 of these is 1 quadrillion. The Visa charge is 23 quadrillion. More on large numbers.

More from CNN:

Glitch hits Visa users with more than $23 quadrillion charge

Excerpt:

A technical snafu left some Visa prepaid cardholders stunned and horrified Monday to see a $23,148,855,308,184,500 charge on their statements.

That's about 2,007 times the size of the national debt.

Josh Muszynski, 22, of Manchester, New Hampshire, was one Visa customer aghast to find the 17-digit charge on his bill. Adding insult to injury, he had also been hit with a $15 overdraft fee.

He noticed that his debt exceeded the world GDP while making a routine balance inquiry on his online Bank of America account. According to his statement, he had spent the profound sum in one pop at a nearby Mobil gas station -- his regular stop for Camel cigarettes.

"Very, very panicked," he jumped in his car and sped to the station.

Had they perhaps noticed any "outrageous" charges come across their books recently, he inquired of the cashier there. She checked the records. They had not. Video Watch the story of an astounded customer in Memphis, Tennessee »

Muszynski wondered aloud what he might possibly have asked to purchase for such an astronomical price. "Can I buy Europe on pump 4?"

He next called Bank of America, the issuer of his Visa prepaid debit card. The bank kept him on hold for two hours, during which time he contemplated the impossibly bleak financial future that might await him. He also felt a stab of fear that he had saddled all his unborn grandchildren -- and their grandchildren -- with a lifetime of debt. "Down the generational line, nobody would have any money."

Finally, a bank representative told him that the $23 quadrillion charge -- and the $15 overdraft fee -- would be stricken from his account.

Muszynski compared the giant debt reprieve to receiving "an amazing Monopoly card that says, 'Bank error in your favor.' "

In a statement, Visa said the rogue charges affected "fewer than 13,000 prepaid transactions" and resulted from a "temporary programming error at Visa Debit Processing Services ... [which] caused some transactions to be inaccurately posted to a small number of Visa prepaid accounts."

We don't have enough rich people

Excerpt:

There may be reasons to tax the rich more, as a lot of people in Washington are talking about doing.

But to raise taxes on them, and only them, to pay for the country's most ambitious proposals like health care reform, is a problem, experts say.

If nothing else, it makes for some bad math.

"We don't have enough rich people. We could tax the wealthy to extraordinary levels. But we cannot afford everything we want," said Ken Kies, a former director of the Joint Committee on Taxation and currently a tax lobbyist for businesses including insurers.

Yet, rich households are the focus of several revenue generating proposals to help pay for health care reform and other endeavors.

Comment: Not enough "rich" people to pay for all the programs. I don't consider myself as one of these "rich". Most of the Obama tax plans are for millionaires, couples with a gross income over $ 250,000, etc. But the reality is that their is giant disincentive for those who create to wealth, to continue fueling that engine.

A return of "the projects"?

Obama mulls rental option for some homeowners

Excerpt:

U.S. government officials are weighing a plan that would let borrowers who have fallen behind on their mortgage payments avoid eviction by renting their homes instead, sources familiar with the administration's thinking said on Tuesday.

Under one idea being discussed, delinquent homeowners would surrender ownership of their homes but would continue to live in the property for several years, the sources told Reuters.

Officials are also considering whether the government should make mortgage payments on behalf of borrowers who cannot keep up with their home loans, tapping an unused portion of a $50 billion housing aid kitty.

As part of this plan, jobless borrowers might receive a housing stipend along with regular unemployment benefits, the sources said.

Comment: A history of "the projects"

Health Care Reform?

House Democrats Health Plan (PDF)


Comment: This will simplify our lives?

Updated: The GOP and "the flowchart"

Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) whose office, he said, read the entire 1,100-page Democratic bill last night and created the chart said, "This chart identifies the 31 new federal programs, agencies and commissions by mandate that will be in between patients and their health-care providers."

Brady then pointed at a graphic on the chart that said “HCA Commissioner” and equated the position to a health czar. "This is the new czar, the health-care commissioner,” he said. “He'll make the decisions on what medicines you deserve to have, what treatments you can get and what doctors you can see."

Remember that in 1994, on the Senate floor, Republicans unveiled a flow chart they created, which derided the White House's health-care plan. The chart played a role, certainly, in derailing health reform then.

Adrian Rogers: "You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it"

Adrian Pierce Rogers

You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person received without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is the beginning of the end of the nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.

From my Brother: "Probably the biggest spectacle of our lifetime will be the financial failure of "our" Republic"

Peer to Peer Lending - 2 year checkpoint

Prosper is Back! (We mean it this time)

Excerpt:

Finally… the moment we and so many supportive and loyal Prosper community members have been waiting for… after nine long months of navigating the rapidly changing regulatory landscape, we are thrilled to announce that Prosper’s registration statement with the SEC has been declared effective. Prosper lenders can once again invest directly in fellow Americans and small businesses!

Although this has been an excruciatingly long and frustrating process, especially considering that it has played out during the worst credit crisis in 70 years, this is a watershed moment. Prosper is the first Internet auction-based P2P loans marketplace and trading platform to have its SEC registration declared effective, which means the SEC is permitting Prosper to facilitate auctions in a way that has never been done before.

Comment: My experience (now 2 years into this):

• I've made money but not as much as I had hoped. But thus far it has beaten the returns of a 3 year CD.
  
• The stats:
  
  
  
  • 84 loans total (most for $ 50)
    
  • 17 have been paid in full
    
  • 3 defaulted (Grading: A, C, D). I was stupid to make the C and the D level loans!
    
  • 2 are in collections. One B and one AA.
    
  • 61 are current
    
  • Detailed stats available here.
    
  
  
• Contrasting my other investments (401K), I've done much better with Prosper.
  
• I'm still not ready to jump in deep with any real commitment of significant funds.
  
• My go forward policy is to reinvest returns in $ 25 chunks only in AA loans with an expected return of 5.5%.
  
• I don't expect to add new funds to the mix until the economy improves and I have great confidence in Peer to Peer Lending
  

Economic pessimism

The Economy Is Even Worse Than You Think

Excerpt:

How could this happen when Washington has thrown trillions of dollars into the pot, including the famous $787 billion in stimulus spending that was supposed to yield $1.50 in growth for every dollar spent? For a start, too much of the money went to transfer payments such as Medicaid, jobless benefits and the like that do nothing for jobs and growth. The spending that creates new jobs is new spending, particularly on infrastructure. It amounts to less than 10% of the stimulus package today.

About 40% of U.S. workers believe the recession will continue for another full year, and their pessimism is justified. As paychecks shrink and disappear, consumers are more hesitant to spend and won't lead the economy out of the doldrums quickly enough.

It may have made him unpopular in parts of the Obama administration, but Vice President Joe Biden was right when he said a week ago that the administration misread how bad the economy was and how effective the stimulus would be. It was supposed to be about jobs but it wasn't. The Recovery Act was a single piece of legislation but it included thousands of funding schemes for tens of thousands of projects, and those programs are stuck in the bureaucracy as the government releases the funds with typical inefficiency.

Comment: Read the full WSJ article for the reasons. A tax cut would have been a better solution

Essential Air Service: Example of government waste

Rural air travel subsidies gain big budget boost

Excerpt:

A much-criticized subsidy for rural air travel would get a budget increase of more than 40 percent under a spending bill unveiled in the House on Monday.

The legislation approved by a House Appropriations subcommittee would give $173 million in the upcoming budget year to the Essential Air Service, which provides subsidies to small airlines to fly unprofitable routes. That's a $53 million increase.

In many cases the flights are nearly empty. In other instances, such as flights between Buffalo Niagara International Airport and Jamestown, N.Y., just 76 miles away, it's quicker to drive than fly.

The Bush administration sought unsuccessfully to cut the subsidies, which keeps flights going to 107 communities spread across 31 states in the continental U.S. and 45 tiny towns in Alaska. But the Essential Air Services program enjoys strong support among lawmakers; in April, 22 senators wrote White House budget director Peter Orszag to demand more money for it.

"Simply put, the Essential Air Service program was a promise made to rural America, and a promise that must be kept," the senators wrote.

Among the reasons for big increase is the upheaval in the airline industry, including higher fuel prices, and the larger subsidies required to attract new carriers into the program after other airlines drop out.

Indeed, the subsidies also have a new benefactor in President Barack Obama, who requested the big increase in his February budget submission despite acknowledging that the program is inefficient.

Comment: Kathee sometimes travels to Des Moines. She figures that driving to Des Moines is a better deal (even with the travel time) than flying. My last business trip to Des Moines, 3 of us rented a car and drove!

Pay up or we kill them (the zoo animals)

Patrick accuses zoo officials of scare tactics

Excerpt:

On Friday zoo officials released a statement saying the funding reduction might require them to shutter both zoos. Then on Saturday, they issued a statement that said state bureaucrats - and not animal-care professionals - would be responsible for deciding whether some animals would have to be killed if the zoos closed.

Another stupid idea: They could have a "big game hunt" as a fundraiser.

Stupid sayings from the Michael Jackson memorial

I may not have the exact quotes but these two statements really nauseated me:

Stevie Wonder: God needs Michael Jackson in heaven!

Unknown speaker: The King of Pops will meet the King of Kings!

I really don't know Michael Jackson's relationship to Christ and I hesitate to speculate. This report suggests he was a Christian: 'King of Pop' Accepts 'King of Kings' Weeks Before His Death

This much I do know, much of Jackson's lifestyle certainly was not consistent with a genuine profession of faith.