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Showing posts from September, 2009

Federal Government takeover of our schools

First it was the federal take over of private industries, now it will be the federal takeover of our schools. President Bush started it - working with Congress to have Federal intervention into banks, financial institutions, AIG, and auto manufacturers. President Obama has taken those programs to a new level and wants to usurp state authority over health insurance. Now President Obama is targeting our schools. Has no one read the United States Constitution? Isn't there some point at which President Obama feels the Federal Government does not have authority over us? President Bush and Congress adopted laws and regulations, and provided funding, to begin a massive federal intervention into a variety of private industries - banks and financial institutions, automakers, and AIG - to name a few. Some banks were told they could not refuse to accept TARP funds. Other organizations were told they'd get no help, like Lehman, and they went bankrupt, leaving Goldman Sachs, who had

How I would have saved the economy

I've been good at criticizing what is wrong with the economy, let me take a moment and say what I would have done differently to try to prevent us from getting to where we are right now. The answer starts in the approach - I would have attacked the problem from the bottom up, not the top down. There are a number of steps that could have been taken back when all this started to isolate the economic harm and create a gradual downturn instead of what did happen, which resulted in the economy falling off a cliff. This would not have been without pain, but a lot of the pain would have been absorbed by the lender, borrowers, and investors who took agreed to the risk of pain in the hope of financial reward. However, I think the result would have been fewer foreclosures and less people out of work. Ironically, both the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration have talked about trying to reduce foreclosures, but neither has any significant accomplishments. That's because th

"Jobless recovery" - are you kidding me?

If it was not so tragic, I'd have to laugh at the people who are talking about a "jobless recovery" like it is a good thing. I've only seen one mainstream commentator - a former Clinton Administration official - come close to calling out the Obama Administration on the current economy. Instead you've got papers like the New York Times running articles saying that because there were not as many new people unemployed in the last reporting it is a sign of an improving economy. Why can't we call it like it is - all of the money the Government has spent over the last two years, under both President Bush and President Obama is only making the rich richer and it is not helping the little guys. Merrill Lynch, AIG, and Goldman Sachs pay out big bonuses to employees. Warren Buffet makes a mint off of investments he made into companies that got government support. People who can afford to invest a lot of money in the stock market are doing very well again. Chrysler