Author: Retired Spook

The Greek Bailout

Retired Spook117 Comments

It looks like Europe has finally united and bailed out Greece — or have they?  Darrell Delamaide’s column at MarketWatch yesterday puts the whole Greek bailout process into perspective.

To start with, the bailout is not for Greece, but for German, French and other foreign banks who willfully abandoned due diligence to buy more Greek debt than any financial analyst would have thought the country could sustain.

After months of nail-biting negotiations, Greece finally reaches agreement on a bailout to prevent a debt default next month.

The 130 billion euros ($171.9 billion) in aid agreed to by Europe’s finance ministers in their marathon session will go into a managed account to make sure it goes directly to Greece’s creditors when their bonds fall due. Read MarketWatch’s full coverage of the Greek deal.

The agreement was made possible when the Greek Parliament a week earlier approved a package of draconian austerity measures, which they, as well as the European finance ministers who insisted on it, know they will never be able to deliver.

Antonis Samaras, the leader of the center-right New Democracy party, said as much during the debate when he urged members of his party to go along with the austerity measures in order to get the bailout done — and then they could be renegotiated after Greek elections in April.

In the shambles that is Greek politics, Samaras’s party is leading in the polls, though it is not expected to win an outright majority.

Even as German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble was leading the charge on Monday to wring more austerity out of the Greeks, one of Germany’s top economists branded the bailout “illusory” and said the type of deflation being exacted of Greece is unrealistic.

Asked in an interview on Monday with Spiegel Online whether this new bailout could save Greece, economist Hans-Werner Sinn answered, “No, and the politicians know it can’t.”

From the MarketWatch’s full coverage story linked above:

The euro initially popped higher after euro-zone finance ministers and international officials announced an agreement to provide Greece with 130 billion euros ($172 billion) through 2014. Greece will also launch a debt swap that will see private bondholders accept a 53% write-down on the value of their holdings of roughly €200 billion worth of Greek government debt.Z

Gee, that sounds familiar.  Where have we seen a government screw private bondholders as part of a bailout package?   Looks like Europe has taken a page from the Obama playbook.

The comments following Darrell Delamaide’s column are as interesting as the column itself.

Throwing Gasoline on the Fire

Retired Spook39 Comments

Gasoline has jumped to an all-time high in the U.S. for this time of year and on track to hit an all-time record later this spring of $4.25/gallon. That begs the question, will the people who are still employed and spending most, if not all of their payroll tax cut on gas vote to reward Obama with 4 more years?  Will the 14 million unemployed who can’t afford to drive much of anywhere, regardless of the price of gas, vote to give the guy another shot?  How about senior citizens who see the $150 million raid on the social security trust fund and a half trillion dollar cut in Medicare as hastening the day when their benefits will be cut?  Will they take a chance that things will improve during a second Obama term?

There are a lot of interesting dynamics at work right now.  How they play out will likely determine the outcome of November’s election, not just for President, but for House and Senate races as well.  If you’ve made up your mind to vote for Obama, what, if anything, could happen between now and November to make you change your mind?  If you’re undecided, what factors will weigh on your final decision?

Obama’s Re-election Strategy

Retired Spook246 Comments

Is Obama trying to lose the election?  The current disconnect with reality and desire to pander to every far left cause has me wondering if Obama is trying to lose, is he just this clueless, or, as Rush noted recently, is he simply confident that he has bought enough votes to assure his re-election?

The keystone pipeline was a no brainer, and could have boosted consumer confidence to a new level resulting in higher approval numbers for Obama, not to mention bringing unemployment down, creating good paying jobs, and stimulating the local economy of many towns along the way, but Obama chooses to pander instead to environmental extremists.

The recent constitutional over reach with respect to religious liberties was another bone-headed move and not very well thought out, although it appears the move may be the first broadside in an effort to shift the political conversation away from abortion to “the GOP wants to ban contraception”.  I guess we’ll find out in a few months if that’s a viable strategy.

The fact that Obama is talking out of both sides of his mouth with respect to the individual mandate in Obamacare, on one hand calling it a tax, and on the other calling it a fine, depending on the audience, was largely overlooked by the MSM. But then his budget director got caught on camera saying this.  So either the OMB Director committed perjury before Congress or the Solicitor General will be perjuring himself before the Supreme Court.  Either way, it should be interesting.

Obama’s allegiance to AG Holder and turning a blind eye to Fast and Furious, would be a huge controversy were it not for complicity of the MSM. To date, no one has been fired, much less prosecuted.

The recent call for significant nuclear disarmament at a time when the threat level is at a post-Cold War high, and the continued indifference to the action in Egypt, Syria, etc., may pander to the far Left, but the majority of Americans have to see these actions as detrimental to America’s future.

Obama proves once again that he is not a serious president by submitting a budget with a deficit that adds another 1.3 trillion of debt, when it was just 4 years ago while campaigning he called Bush unpatriotic for much smaller deficits. When the GOP finally lands on a nominee, the conversation will be about Obama, and not only can he not defend his record, his own words will be used against him to a point that everyone will finally realize that he is not a serious president.

America is slipping into a malaise of mediocrity under his guidance and if he is reelected, we may have federal school officials checking our kids’ lunch boxes for the proper nutrition ……… Oh wait.

This president has abdicated leadership and is the most partisan president this country has ever had. The only things Obama has improved in the last three years are his bank account and golf game.

Thanks to Cluster for most of the content for this post.//RS

More on tax fairness

Retired Spook120 Comments

Tiredoflibs beat me to this topic in the previous post, but I’d like to expand on the issue of tax fairness.  Anyone who has been listening to the radio or watching any news show on TV is aware of the Left’s latest class warfare tactic.  In the last couple days we’ve heard Lefties from Al Sharpton to network news anchors ask the question, “is it fair for millionaires to pay less than Warren Buffet’s secretary who, like most average Americans pays 30% in income taxes?”  When Reverend Al asked Congressman Tim Huelskamp that question on Sharpton’s MSNBC show, the Rev simply wouldn’t accept the Congressman’s answer that his premise wasn’t true.  Talk about comedy gold.  And what’s even more pathetic is that Sharpton is delinquent on almost as much in federal taxes as Romney paid.  How is that FAIR, Al?

A little research completely refutes this new Leftist assertion that the average American pays an effective federal tax rate of 30%.  In fact, according to the IRS’ own data, 97% of Americans pay an effective federal rate of less than 13%.  And, what’s even more interesting about the IRS charts that NewsBusters links to are the demographics of “the wealthy”.  The charts show that there were (as of 2009) 235,413 Americans who had adjusted gross incomes of $1 million or more who paid $177.5 billion in income taxes on taxable income of $623.538 billion.  So if we increase the tax rate on those “rich” back to the 39.6% Clinton era top marginal rate that so many of our resident Progressives have called for, it would raise an additional $23.3 billion (and that’s assuming 100% compliance) a year in federal revenue — enough to run the federal government for about 2 days.  That’s barely a rounding error, but I guess it would be fair — right?  No?  OK, how about if we DOUBLE the top marginal rate on those making over $1 million.  That would raise an amount equal to about 17.6% of the current deficit or enough to run the government for about 18 days.  I think what’s FAIR is to say that we have a SPENDING problem, not a TAXING problem.

Folks, it’s time to take the gloves off — call a spade a spade and a liar a liar.

Debate Open Thread

Retired Spook68 Comments

I missed the Saturday night debate and slept in and missed the one this morning also.  Hopefully there are some of you who watched one or the other (or both) and have some comments.

Also, how do you see the next couple weeks playing out?  I heard an interesting fact the other day that no Republican has ever won both the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire Primary and failed to be the Party’s nominee.  If Romney wins New Hampshire convincingly enough that his momentum carries him to a win in South Carolina, is it all over?

Restarting the engine of capitalism

Retired Spook170 Comments

As we head into what is clearly the most important election in most of our lifetimes, possibly as some have said, the most important election since 1860, the biggest question in my mind is, how do we restart the engine of capitalism?  I believe the presidential candidate that best articulates the answer to that question will win hands down.

My personal feeling is that three of the most critical things that have to happen are (1) a national energy plan that promotes both energy independence and abundant, economical energy; (2) revamping our tax structure to make it simpler, broader based, more equitable and, most important, predictable over a reasonably lengthy period of time; and (3) revamp government regulations from top to bottom.  In a sentence, we need to get away from a system that penalizes success and rewards failure to one that does the exactly the opposite.

All comments are welcome, but please folks, try to engage in at least a modicum of critical thinking.  This is an opportunity for our resident Liberals to tell us what you would do to get our economy moving in the right direction again.  Any posts that simply advocate making the wealthy pay more will be deleted.  Surely at least some of our more intellectual Progressives can come up with Liberal ideas that have worked in the past or maybe even some new ideas that have never been tried before.  Everything is on the table except wealth redistribution — oh, heck, even that’s on the table if you can make a convincing case for where it has worked in the past.

 

 

The Bill of Rights

Retired Spook90 Comments

Back on December 8th a post about Obama bumper stickers generated 133 comments over the course of 4 days.  Late in the thread a discussion of the meaning and ramifications of the Second Amendment developed, and commenter Cory veered off into the weeds with some bizarre assertions.  Lest I be accused of misrepresenting what he said, let me just quote directly.

In response to Amazona’s casual comment that “BTW, gun control is a Constitutional issue.”

Cory responded with:

“That’s such crap. There is exactly one Constitutional decision to be made about gun control: either I have the right to bear the arms that the Framers had available (or their rough equivalents), or I have the right to bear anything and everything, including a suitcase full of weaponized Anthrax or a nuclear weapon. The one sentence in the Constitution doesn’t leave any room for any interpretations in between, so which is it? You can’t make the Constitution give you the right to a concealed handgun without giving criminals the Constitutional right to weapons of mass destruction, and I have this funny feeling that if you survey the American public, almost zero of them would want that.”

As the error of his logic was pointed out to him by several individuals, Cory just kept digging his hole deeper and deeper, including statements like this gem:

“I only brought up gun control in passing. Amazona was the one that latched onto it like a rabid dog. I actually don’t have a strong opinion on gun control, I just get sick and tired of hearing people debate about the interpretation of a now useless Constitutional amendment instead of having a discussion about what weapon restrictions make the most sense.”

Finally, after what really had been a pretty civil discussion, he blurted out:

“This will be the last time I post on (or read) blogs4victory. I’m sure some of you are already jumping for joy, because you are thinking you have “won”. I’m not really sure what you’ll think you’ve won, as you surely have not drastically changed my mind on anything, but congratulations to you, anyway.”

That was toward the end of the thread, but it gave me the idea for a post about the Bill of Rights in general, and the Second Amendment in particular.  I find it to be one of the ultimate ironies of our political system that Madison’s promise of a subsequent Bill of Rights was what it took to secure ratification of the Constitution in 1789, as many feared the power of a central government without codified restrictions on the power of that government.  For at least the last century, Progressives have been trying to figure out ways to expand their power by either ignoring, distorting or outright assaulting those individual rights.  If that doesn’t have the makings for a spirited discussion, I don’t know what does.

Climate Change Update

Retired Spook59 Comments

It’s been a while since we’ve had a good, old-fashioned, knock-down, drag-out discussion about the whole topic of climate change.  My own feeling, as many regulars on this blog know, is that the issue of global warming/climate change is one of, if not THE greatest scientific frauds ever foisted on mankind, and now information is becoming public at an increasing rate that backs up that assertion.

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher’s (R-CA) speech on the House floor on December 8th, re-printed at Watts Up With That yesterday, addresses  just about every aspect of the debate covering the last couple decades, including numerous new revelations that cast serious, if not discussion-ending doubt on the whole issue.

I realize this is not a problem that ordinary bloggers are going to solve, but it doesn’t mean we can’t discuss it.