Ethan Nadelmann Speaks at the NAACP Conference
Great fire and brimstone drug policy speech!
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Matt
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Matt
Is it the Socialist Pot Calling the Kettle Black?
It’s pretty funny when you hear McCain tell us that Obama is a Socialist, considering McCain’s voting record.
- McCain voted for the largest social program since the New Deal, Medicare Part D (Prescription Drug Program).
- He also supported the horribly ineffective federal socialization of our educational system (No Child Left Behind).
- He’s been crying since the campaigning started about the fact that he chose to take political welfare, and Obama backed out. Let me get this straight, McCain, a Republican, is mad a Obama, a Democrat, because McCain took a government handout and Obama didn’t. (And people wonder what’s wrong with the Republican Party.)
- When everyone finally started seeing that what Ron Paul was saying about the economy was true, McCain suspended his campaign and returned to Washington. He didn’t return to protect the American people from a socialist bailout. He, instead, locked arms with Liberal Democrats, including Obama himself, to redistribute the wealth from the American People to private industry.
All we keep hearing about is Obama raising the tax rate on those people who make over $250,000 to 39% while McCain wants to keep it at 36%.
So, the biggest difference these two guys can find with each other is three percentage points of a tax rate that will affect very few American’s directly.
If they are down to debating this tiny bit of minutia, doesn’t that tell you something?
There’s not much difference between these two Socialists.
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Matt
The Government is Not the Answer!
From 20/20, first aired Friday October 17, 2008.
John Stossel explains that government is not the answer to all of our problems:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
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Matt
Why are People Voting for Obama?
Sal from the Howard Stern Show interviews people in Harlem about why they are voting for Obama in the upcoming presidential election, only he substitutes McCain’s positions for Obama’s. Even the one guy who said he was voting for McCain thought that McCain wanted to get out of Iraq and that Biden was a good VP choice for the GOP. It kind of makes you wonder what is going through the average voter’s mind when they enter the election booth.
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Matt
Dow Has Lost Over 300 Points Since Bailout Passed House
The Dow Jones Industrial Average peaked today at 10782.16 just after the bailout vote began. It has since dropped 315.64 to 10466.52, with the slide beginning just as it became clear that the bill would pass.
Matt
Paulson Invites Goldman CEO to AIG Bailout Talks
Newt Gingrich appeared on Greta Van Susteren last night, and he and Greta were both hopping mad about Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein being the only Wall Street executive allowed to attend the Federal Reserves AIG bailout talks. Two things make this very improper. First, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is the former CEO of Goldman Sachs. Second, Goldman was one of AIG’s biggest trading partners, and stood to lose $20 billion if the firm was not rescued. Greta and Newt referenced an article, and this is what I found:
As the group, led by Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., pondered the collapse of one of America’s oldest investment banks, Lehman Brothers, a more dangerous threat emerged: American International Group, the world’s largest insurer, was teetering. A.I.G. needed billions of dollars to right itself and had suddenly begged for help.
One of the Wall Street chief executives participating in the meeting was Lloyd C. Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, Mr. Paulson’s former firm. Mr. Blankfein had particular reason for concern.
Although it was not widely known, Goldman, a Wall Street stalwart that had seemed immune to its rivals’ woes, was A.I.G.’s largest trading partner, according to six people close to the insurer who requested anonymity because of confidentiality agreements. A collapse of the insurer threatened to leave a hole of as much as $20 billion in Goldman’s side, several of these people said.
Later in the article, a Goldman Sachs spokesperson tries to defend Blankfein’s presence at the meeting:
A Goldman spokesman said in an interview that the firm was never imperiled by A.I.G.’s troubles and that Mr. Blankfein participated in the Fed discussions to safeguard the entire financial system, not his firm’s own interests.
You can read the whole article here.
Matt
Market Rebounds to Pre-Bailout Vote Levels
Just a quick note to remind everyone the market dropped over 330 points yesterday prior to the bailout vote. The 485 point gain posted today puts the market at pre-bailout vote levels. No one said this wouldn’t be painful, but government interference will only make things worse.
Our President, both presidential nominees, Congressional liberals, Secretary Paulson, Chairman Bernanke and the talking heads on TV are just fear mongers who are trying to protect their own investments. This is a power grab by the executive branch, plain and simple. Why else would Secretary Paulson threaten Congress with economic disaster if they did not pass the bill by Monday, not allowing any time for meetings with outside economists, and would not agree to a compromise unless virtually all of the discretionary power is held by the Secretary of the Treasury (part of the executive branch).
Well, here we are on Tuesday and the market is rebounding.
The credit will be there. The money business is like the drug business. Every time you get rid of one ‘dealer’ there’s instantly another one to take their place. If you are willing to pay interest, someone will be willing to loan you money. Think about it, even people with a negligent credit history can get a loan if they are willing to pay high enough interest. By the way, Duke Energy drew $1 billion in credit today.
It’s common knowledge that in management, a decision made out of fear is almost always a bad decision. Why are our leaders trying to scare us into agreeing to this decision?
In the end, the best measure of a man is his integrity.
Matt
My Bailout Deal. Matching Funds.
I have a bailout proposal. Of course, I am opposed to any taxpayer funded bailout. I only propose this because I know there is no way it could ever happen.
Dollar for dollar matching funds.
The American taxpayer will match dollar for dollar any money contributed directly from the pockets of the executives and board members of the failing institutions.
The executives and board members have two choices in regards to their futures.
- They can either stay in their current position, open their books as well as the minutes of all board and executive meetings, and expose themselves to criminal charges and civil claims from shareholders.
- Or, they can serve out a 5 year penalty, during which they may not serve as an executive, consultant or on the board of any publicly held corporation, or financial institution, public or private. If they choose this option they will be given immunity for any acts to which they allocute and they believe may be in violation of local, state or federal laws. If any illegalities come to light that they were aware of and did not allocute to, they may be prosecuted for this crime. They are still subject to civil courts. If they are found to have violated this part of the plan by offering advice to a publicly held corporation, or financial institution they will be subject to property seizures much like drug dealers, and a mandatory minimum of 10 years in a federal SuperMax prison.
The funds from the executives will be used to form a corporation which will purchase only the illiquid assets.
An independently appointed board will run this corporation until the 5 year penalty expires. At which time the suspended executives may actively vote as shareholders, and sell their shares as they see fit.
The funds from the taxpayers will be used to form a corporation which will purchase only the liquid assets.
The goal of the taxpayer owned corporation will be to sell the aquired assets at a profit as soon as possible and dissolve in 5 years. 100% of the proceeds from this corporation shall be paid to the taxpayers as a dividend.
Matt
The 1921 Recession
Did you know that in 1921 we had a one day market drop that was larger than the market drop in 1929?
You know why you probably aren’t aware of this? The government did nothing. By 1923 the markets started on one of the biggest periods of economic growth in the history of the US.
In 1929 when the markets dropped, it actually made a rebound by 1930 when it returned to April, 1929 levels. Keep in mind that the market had risen 30% from April to September of 1929. In a panic to try to drive the market back to September 1929 levels congress stepped in and passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. This, along with other tariffs and price controls only exacerbated the situation by stifling global trade. US exports decreased by half by 1933. From late 1930 the market declined steadily until it hit bottom in 1933.
If the Federal Government had let the markets perform as they should, we could have been out of the depression much earlier.
This is not me being a libertarian, these are commonly accepted facts. Even Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke conceded that government interference prolonged the depression when he and Secretary Paulson were pitching the bailout to the House Financial Services Committee.
Why do we refuse to learn from the past?
Matt
RBS: One of the biggest Beneficiaries of Bailout!
Is it better to be a Republican Socialist, or a Democratic Socialist? Neither. When you vote for the lesser of two evils, that’s exactly what you get.
RBS will get ‘billions’ in US bail-out of economy
Scottish bank benefits if plan gets green light
By Ian Fraser
THE ROYAL Bank of Scotland is to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the planned $700 billion bail-out that comes courtesy of the American tax-payer if the US Congress gives the financial rescue package the go-ahead this weekend.
The bank’s share of the bail-out will enable RBS to offload billions of dollars of questionable assets.
The bank’s shares closed last Friday at 205p, a 71% fall from their pre-credit-crunch peak. However, analysts and investors predict that the shares will rebound sharply when markets open on Monday morning if the bail-out is approved over the weekend.
The Edinburgh-based bank will be able to write off a significant portion of its dodgy assets thanks to the bail-out, also known as into Tarp, the Troubled Asset Relief Program as a result of the bank’s significant presence in the US.
Tarp was the brainchild of US treasury secretary Hank Paulson, who earlier this week got down on his knees and begged Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House speaker, to rescue his plan to save Wall Street.
The Royal Bank, led by chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin, has had operations in the United States since 1988, when it bought the Rhode Island-based Citizens Bank. It has since bulked up its presence there with a string of acquisitions including those of Connecticut based Greenwich NatWest and Ohio-based Charter One.
This entitles the Scottish bank to entrust billions of dollars of non-performing loans and sub-prime tainted assets to US taxpayers, according to Colin McLean, chief executive of Edinburgh-based SVM Asset Management.