TimmyG Changes His Mind, Sort Of

We tax all the others and pass the revenue on to you

Fox Business today tells us that TimmyG has re-thought the whole bail-out thing. Bailouts should only be offered to solvent firms and only as a last resort, he says now. Yep. He told Congress today that it turns out that loaning money to people who can't pay it back isn't a good idea. He says in part:

"Any firm that puts itself in a position where it cannot survive without special assistance from the government must face the consequences of failure"

He also testified that

"We cannot put taxpayers in the position of paying for the losses of large private financial institutions" and "the government did not want to provide a false impression that such firms would be protected from failure by the government in times of stress."

Didn't we already know that? Sure we did, but there must be an exception when the borrowers are Timmy's friends and the lender is his old employer and it's lending under his direction. Try searching for TIMMYG in this blog and see what we have written so many times.

TimmyG is the man who directed the $350 bil Wall St. bailout to firms that were under his direction when he was the director of the NY Federal Reserve. He okayed or ignored the massive AIG bailout and its compensation and bonus plans, supervised bank bailouts, auto industry nationalization and so much more. Remember, he has never had a private sector job that didn't involve consulting the government on financial issues. Based on that was been given authority over America's private business sector, even including the power to control wages of non-bail-out companies.

Now he tells us that his earlier ideas were, well, bad. That train has left the station, Tim.

* * * * *

Remember Cash-for-Clunkers? Sure you do. Cost us $3 bil and ran out in a few days instead of the planned three months. That one.

Edmonds.com, the car people, reports today that CfC accounted for 125,000 new car sales. Simple math, each new car sold cost American taxpayers $24,000. Average cost of the new cars, net of rebates? $25,248. Do you remember that the ONLY goal of CfC was to reduce carbon emissions? Finally, do you remember that I suggested we would be better off if the administration just gave $4k to anyone who turned in a clunker and let them buy a new car only if that fit into their plans? Simple math again, that would have cost us $500 mil instead of $3 bil and resulted in the same carbon reductions.

Some fraction of the attributable new car sales would have been lost, sure, but how much do you really care? $2.5 bil worth? Only if you owned a couple of car companies. Which you do, of course.

* * * * *

Sort-of-unrelated note: Consumer Reports reports yet again that Chrysler products have the lowest reliability rating of any brand tested. 42% of GM models exceeded the reliability norm, 58% didn't. Didn't we know in our hearts that Ford, if the government would just stay out of their way, would exceed quality expectations? We did and Ford did.

Do you remember that Chrysler's merger with Fiat was supposed to result in world-class quality? Fiat got 35% of Chrysler... for free. Fiat is still so unreliable that they can't be sold in America. Good luck with that merger, Chrysler. Good luck with your 401(k)s, America.

* * * * *

Say, did I mention that our car czar doesn't have any auto industry experience? No finance industry experience either. Nevertheless, US News and World Report tells us that we're about to slip GMAC another $5.6 bil. No, really. A minor disclaimer: GM only owns 49% of GMAC these days, but I digress. Here's some of the text:

The Detroit News reports, "The Treasury Department plans to inject up to $5.6 billion in new capital in GMAC -- the latest effort to help the auto finance giant, a government official confirmed late Tuesday." The government will accept preferred shares of stock in return. "The new government infusion would be on top of $12.5 billion in government support extended since December."

So why is this important? Allow me to repeat my first couple of paragraphs regarding TimmyG's testimony to congress TODAY:

"Any firm that puts itself in a position where it cannot survive without special assistance from the government must face the consequences of failure"

He also testified that "We cannot put taxpayers in the position of paying for the losses of large private financial institutions" and "the government did not want to provide a false impression that such firms would be protected from failure by the government in times of stress."

It is impossible for me to reconcile the two reports. Maybe you can.

That flushing sound is your money.

* * * * *

Obama, Limbaugh and Us

We tax all the others and pass the revenue on to you

The prez won the Nobel Peace Prize. That's fine with me. A lot of talking heads are getting air and print love for their remonstrations. Sounds phony. The protests, not the award. Well, the award no more than the ones they gave to Arafat and Gore. Arafat and Gore? I don't much care for Jimmy Carter, never have, but at least he did something they could point to. But I digress. It's the Nobel committee's business and none of my own. Never has been.


The Nobel is a distraction for the prez and for us. Let's keep our eyes on the ball, not the prize. I don't care much about Nobel Prizes or awards of any kind. Grammys, Oscars, Tonys, Best In Show, Outstanding Camper... all of them have agendas and none of them concern me. Way to go, prez, and congratulations on donating the $1.4 mil to charity. How many of your predecessors have done that? Now will you make some decisions about the war and the economy? Please?


Rush and his pals want to buy the St. Louis Rams NFL team. Again, not something that concerns me much. He's got the bucks and the interest, so why not? Lots more talking heads are getting even more air time than usual to present their case against Rush. "He's Rush!" is pretty much their position. Politically inflammatory, a contrarian and obstructionist in their world view. Their question seems to be "Why should a rich self-made man with strong opinions be allowed to buy a football team?" My question is, who cares? If Mark Cuban can own an NBA team then the character test for pro sports owners has been set low enough that Roman Polanski, much less Rush, could fit right in.


What links these two events? Fair question. It's this. We had no involvement in either of these decisions and no stake in the outcomes and we still insist on making statements as though we were involved. We're not. More than that, beyond voting we are likely never to be involved in decisions outside of the world we have created for ourselves. Even there we'll find a lot of room for attention and improvement if we honestly admit our shortcomings.


Freedom of speech? Sure, you've got all you'll ever need, but so what? Do we really think we should weigh in on Nobels or NFL ownership or any other distraction of the moment? Tend your own gardens, feed and protect those who depend on you and improve your own life, for them, for yourself and for your nation. If you are drawn to action, great, do something meaningful rather than carping at the meaningless.

* * * * *

I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.

George Bernard Shaw

Cash for Clunkers - The Morning After

We tax all the others and pass the revenue on to you

Fox Business reports that September auto sales... suck big-time. GM is down 45%, Chrysler is down 41%. Wow, who could have seen that coming? Here's part of what I wrote in my August 9 column:

As a consequence, post c-f-c sales will be dismal and jobs will be lost.


And that's with the gummint forcing its new fleet purchases to its captive car companies, regardless of what the fleet managers say they need. Total car sales were down 4.8 million units. Ford, the remaining private American car company, was down only 5%. Go figure. Maybe there is something to be said for the private sector. If the two bailed-out car companies can't sell cars without taxpayer-paid incentives then they don't belong in the market. Oh yeah, and then we lose the $63 bil in bailouts. Do you care?


* * * * *


The Wall Street Journal ran a story about an investigation into possibly improper payments to the NY Fed (hello, TimmyG) from Lehman's bankruptcy. Who could have seen that coming? Here's a comment in passing from my April 30 column:


Chrysler will either fail in bankruptcy or succeed by renegotiating or voiding its debt and contracts, including salaries, pensions and health insurance. A judge will decide and s/he won't prefer one group of same-class creditors over another.


But lo and behold, the judge did allow payments to junior creditors. TimmyG rigged the results of Lehman's bankruptcy so that the gummint would get money that it wasn't entitled to. That really irritated a bunch of those senior creditors and they want their money back. They are relying on the same creditor laws that apply to all of us, laws that TimmyG ignored when he made the loans and when he got some of the gummint's money back.


TimmyG's NY Fed lent Lehman $46 bil without any security. $46 bil is a LOT of money, at least here in Cottage Grove, Oregon. TimmyG's Fed's loans were behind all sorts of secured (and under-secured) creditors but he wanted to be paid ahead of them, in total disregard of the bankruptcy laws. In bankruptcy you get paid according to your creditor status. TimmyG's Fed's status was, well, think Confederate bonds.


I also wrote in the same blog, after TimmyG told us that the auto bailouts were really just loans and they were going to be repaid:


Now Chrysler is bankrupt and we have whatever creditor status we (the US gummint) are allowed, probably not "secured creditor" status because there was nothing left to secure our loans or otherwise give us a priority over other lenders. Since we were likely the last major lender, our money is just gone. Gullible junior creditors lose big time in most bankruptcies.


* * * * *


Getcher new cars, hot new cars here, buy 'em now!!!


In my March 31 column I wrote:


Next up: Bailout loans get paid out as purchase incentives for suckers who buy cool new cars they can't afford. You heard it here first.


Really, I didn't want to be right, to be able to see that the bailouts are and always have been a government Ponzi scheme in reverse. But it wasn't that hard. In my April 30 column I also wrote:


The new spin is that the NEXT Chrysler loans must be repaid before Fiat completely takes over. Fiat? See my March 29 column. "New" taxpayer money will be repaid in that case, but not ALL taxpayer money. Fiat will get to keep the "old" money. It's a Ponzi scheme in reverse, paying off new investors with old investors' money. BernieM is smiling. We've been reverse-Madoffed. Hide the kids.


* * * * *


We've had Cash-for-Clunkers and we're living through the predictable (and predicted) aftermath. Same for the bailouts. Now we're rolling out of bed, naked and ashamed, and TimmyG and his posse are still passed out all around us with big grins on their faces. We've been used and we know it. We could have said "No, don't do that, I'm afraid of the consequences", but we didn't. We went along because it seemed like a good idea at the time and besides, all the cool kids were doing it.


The Chicago Mafia always relied on its customers to like and want what it was doing to them.


Still does.


* * * * *


Vote early and vote often.
Al Capone

Federalizing

We tax all the others and pass the revenue on to you

Is federalizing a word? We federalize the National Guard in times of need. Should be a word, the taking of local authority by the federal gummint. As opposed to, say, socializing: The gummint taking rights and property formerly believed to be inherently private.


No end of examples of the latter. Whoever believed that the gummint would own GM or AIG? BTW, don't start believing that AIG and the other bigs are going to repay their bailout debt. Some of it, yes, but only enough to make you get off their backs. They'll keep overpaying themselves, sure, but somehow there will never be quite enough money for you.


But federalizing is different. We have a Dept. of Education, y'know. $46.7 bil budget authorization for 2010. $46.7 bil is a LOT of Ameribux. But look at what we get for it. Just look. Uh, look. There's got to be something, doesn't there?


Not really. Since the earliest days of American history, education has been a quintessentially local issue. An important local issue because we think that we, not disinterested far-off strangers, should be in charge of what our kids are learning.


The DoEd does, essentially, nothing. For that nothing you pay the $46.7 bil. Part of that goes to the cost of tax admin, part to funding the DoEd bureaucracy - salaries, rent, equipment - itself, part just adds to the deficit and part goes to funding whatever it is that the DoEd decides to fund. ALL of it comes out of your pocket. One thing they're NOT funding is your kids' schools. Nope, that's still mostly up to you.


The DoEd funded a bunch of bailouts of the Detroit school system. Detroit really needs help - education in Detroit is a cruel failure - and a lot more. Complete bailout failure though, much of the money unaccounted for. Now the prez wants to do it again without even looking at why the previous attempts failed. Hear that flushing sound? Oh, and they're taking over the entire national student loan system. They did so well investing in Chrysler, GM, AIG and the like that they want to put major Ameribux into the loan market.


Is the gummint federalizing the loan market? So far they have student loans, home loans and car loans. They're telling the credit card companies how they can do business. What other kind of loan did you want?


The point is, American gummint is supposed to be limited, not an unlimited provider of all things to all people. But that's not the way things are heading. The core conservative principle of limited government, abandoned by Bush 43 and Clinton before him and now the prez, still exists. Its voices, Ron Paul the clearest but sadly the goofiest, still speak. Not likely to be heard again without a major national crisis, though. Really, free health care sounds a lot better than health care (just as an example) you have to pay for.


The gummint is federalizing autos, major investment firms, health care, loans and education. The various state national guards are already pretty much federalized and have been for years. What else can you think of? The airwaves, maybe, by way of a "Fairness Doctrine"? Energy? Who else would or could sacrifice people and energy for political expediency in the name of greening America? Hello, San Joaquin Valley. While they're at it, California has a $27 bil deficit and wants its own bailout. Will we federalize California? If so, why not all the other states?


Yes, of course there is a role for the feds. No doubt about it. There is also a role for local control over local issues. Where the locals have acted irresponsibly - Little Rock comes to mind - then federalizing may be called for. But federalizing is a last resort, not the first one.


The question to ponder is whether there is room for local control over anything at all or will we surrender it intact to the federal gummint? Popular sentiment, as expressed through the last election, is for the latter. Do we really need proof that local control over most functions is preferable to an engorged federal bureaucracy that never stops feeding on your - and your great-grand-kids' - wallet?


No individual should be forced to accept the tyranny of their own people -- Barack Obama

Afghanistan -- Where's Our Leadership?

We tax all the others and pass the revenue on to you

The administration can't decide what to do in Afghanistan. No surprise, I can't think of a single invader/occupier/major influence in history that has successfully handled that problem. Certainly Bush wasn't up to the task, nor Clinton.


The NYTimes tells us today that the prez and his top advisers met and couldn't come up with a consensus on what to do. So, naturally, they're going to hold more meetings. That's what politicians do when they won't make a decision that they may be held to account for.


VP Biden -- who never served in the military because he was "pre-occupied" (thank you Wikipedia) -- wants us to reduce our forces, generally ignore the Taliban and concentrate on surgical strikes on al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan using Special Forces and air. Call it the Arthur Tedder approach to modern warfare. And btw, no war has ever been won by air power alone. Or did you forget?


The problem is, the Taliban is not planning a corresponding pull-back. Biden wants to involve fewer troops and concentrate on one enemy and generally ignore the other. Trouble is, they're intermingled. Biden's plan would be like (and here I show my age) ignoring the Viet Cong, withdrawing troops and concentrating our remaining forces on the NVA.


Hey, wait a minute. That IS what we did in Vietnam. Do you remember the outcome? I do. How much more proof do we need that this is an idiotic strategy?


There's not a single "thing" in Afghanistan worth the life of one American soldier. Nothing, because there isn't anything of value IN Afghanistan. It is a hiding place for our enemies and that's why we're there, to kill our enemies. Therefore, our strategy should be to kill or capture as many of our enemies as we can and destroy their means to resist. If we destroy the opium crop or stabilize a faltering government in the process, fine, but that's NOT why we should be there. Whatever it takes, that should be our strategy. If it's NOT our strategy then our soldiers are dying in vain.


Are our soldiers dying in vain? That is a forbidden statement in DC, the idea that we may, yet again, be sacrificing our best and brightest without cause. Any politician who utters it is afraid of it being used against him in the next campaign. As in, "Why did you vote to send our troops into harm's way when you couldn't even define why you're doing it?"


Alexander the Great failed in Afghanistan. So did the British Empire and the Soviet Empire. The Soviets had armor and complete control of the air, just we do today, and they still couldn't do it, even with more than twice as many troops as we have there today.


Nuclear weapons, even tactical nukes, are permanently out of the question. At least we hope they are, along with chemical and biological weapons. So then what? It seems that we're stuck with the same two choices we had in 1971: We either make a truly massive commitment of our armed forces or we get the heck out of Dodge.


Either choice involves heavy risk and cost. Either choice may, likely will, end political careers. Either choice will certainly have major unintended consequences. But either choice is better than no choice. Either choice plans an end game and charts a course toward it. Either choices staunches the blood.


So choose, Mr. President. You've had enough meetings. You've listened to your most trusted advisors. You know that Gen. McChrystal wants more troops and VP Biden wants fewer and you know how to weigh the value of all those recommendations. You'll be surprised how many of us will rally around you if you chart a well-reasoned course for us in Afghanistan.


Please, Mr. President, just make a decision.


* * * * *


In modern war... you will die like a dog for no good reason.
Ernest Hemingway

How Cash-for-Clunkers Should Have Worked

We tax all the others and pass the revenue on to you

The Cash-for-Clunkers program, scheduled to run until Nov. 1, will end for the second time on August 24. The administration spins it as wildly successful, more objective observers, not so much. It was a simple concept. If your trade-in qualified, you got a government subsidy of $3,500-$4,500 on the purchase of a qualifying new car.


Why did this program exist? You can download the bill, 13 USC 1301 et seq, HERE. It's all about getting you out of a low-mpg car into a higher-mpg car, thereby taking a major step in freeing us from dependence on foreign oil. That's it, that's what C-f-C was for. That's all it was for.


What about less pollution, safer cars and stimulating the auto industry or the economy in general? Nope, not a thing. At best those are intended ancillary benefits. Guesstimated reductions in greenhouse gases are supposed to be included in a wind-up report. Good luck with that SWAG. It's a sop to the greens, nothing more.


Most people would agree that better mpg is a desirable goal. So is less pollution and we're told the economy badly needs stimulation. The logical fallacy lies in tying those goals to the mandatory purchase of a new car. For instance, wouldn't we be less reliant on foreign oil if, after you handed over your clunker, you didn't replace it at all? The same for reducing pollution. As for the economy, stay with me. There was a better way.


What if, all requirements remaining the same, you brought your clunker in to your local dealer and he paid you a reimbursable $4,000 that you could keep and do with as you please? The gummint pays the dealer $500 more for doing the paperwork, disabling the clunker and towing it to the scrap yard. The scrap metal guy gets the clunker for free or maybe he gets $100 but he has to destroy it and not vulture the parts.


What would change? First, you get $4k to spend any way you want. The car dealer gets first crack at you, though, because you have to deal with him to get the payment. If he can sell you a car then more power to him and I hope you enjoy your future clunker. The gummint achieves its stated goal of better mileage from the car you drive.


What if you don't buy a new car at all? From the standpoint of achieving the gummint's goals, that's even better. Using zero gallons of gas is better than 12 mpg, right? The gummint over-achieves its stated goals and you start taking alternate transportation. Win-win. Sure, a few people might buy down, picking up an older-than-25-years vehicle, but not many. Really, how badly do you want to put your family in a $500 '74 Pinto or Caddy or Datsun, even if you get to pocket a cool $3,500? And if you do, why would we object to that? The car was too old to qualify and it changed hands. So what? There might be a little leakage here, but not much.


If you don't buy a replacement vehicle then the entire economy is yours to choose from to spend your $4k. Pay your debts, stimulate the credit and retail industries and improve your cash flow. Put it into a down payment on a house, stimulate the housing industry. Buy some securities for your retirement, stimulate the investment industry. Save it for the next rainy day, stimulate the banking and S&L industry. The list is endless.


What about the auto industry? Remember, they get first crack at you. Marketing geniuses that they are, if they can't convince you to buy a new car with a leg up like that, then maybe you really don't need that new car. At the very worst they have a new high-margin revenue stream of processing clunkers. If the auto industry isn't stimulated by your $4k then other industries surely will be. Christmas sales, right around the corner now, might pick up far beyond the current dismal expectations, resulting in more jobs and the retail multiplier effect.


How can we be sure this will work the way I say it will? Because we have an example to guide us. Remember the stimulus plan from earlier this year, the one that gave you $400 for nothing? We were told it was a magnificent success at stimulating the entire economy. Let's believe that.


If $400 for nothing was good then how can $4,000 for something very real and beneficial not be better? Consider the removal of low-mpg, high-pollution vehicles from our roads and all of a suddenly there's no downside. There's the cost, of course, but that money was already allocated. The question then was how best to spend it. What did you get from C-f-C? Nothing, I bet, unless you bought a qualifying new car. That was just one of the drawbacks of C-f-C. There wasn't something for everyone.


There's only one scenario in which this idea doesn't make sense and it is this: The purpose of C-f-C was never the purpose that was written into law. It was only to funnel $3 bil more into the auto industry in the guise of an energy bill. It was never meant to substantially reduce mpg -- and our aging auto fleet will do that for us anyway, without any incentives -- and its ancillary benefits are merely fortuitous. In this hypothetical scenario C-f-C was a sham, borrowing near-term future car sales and shifting a portion of the economic crisis from the industries that created it to non-critical-thinking buyers who will be burdened by greatly increased consumer debt with little of lasting value to show for it.


I leave it to you. Was there a better way to run C-f-C and still achieve its stated and ancillary goals and more? I think there was. I even think that Congress might have stumbled on it if the "emergency" measures which are being forced on us had been calmly debated in Congressional hearings. After all, that's their job, not just to vote according to orders from their leadership.


You remember Congressional hearings, don't you? Where individual congress members had to debate and defend proposed legislation? In those days, town hall meetings actually mattered. Our reps could hear our voices and vote accordingly. Congressional hearings have been replaced by repeated cries of "Fire! Fire!" and we're told to grab any bucket or new law and throw it on the flames, and do it now.


No, now is the time for reflection and debate. Take the time to find better ways.


Suppose you were an idiot; and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain

Speak softly, listen loudly

We tax all the others and pass the revenue on to you

In my July 7 half-year retrospective column, in the "jury's still out" section, I recalled my May 19 prediction, to wit: Just as we're going to get mileage taxes plus gas taxes to make up for better fuel economies, we'll surely hear a push to tax pot, and is it such a leap to then tax all forms of now-illegal products? (May 19).


Sure enough, CNN reported on July 22 "Oakland, California, passes landmark marijuana tax". Jury isn't out any more.


* * * * *


Busing, 2009. Some of our elected reps are busing loads of supporters to their town hall meetings (and who's paying for that?) and waiving the first-come, first-served rules they apply to people who just show up according to the announcements. That creates the image of support where little real support exists. The prez is doing it and having little girls shill as random attendees as well. Others among our reps are doing it, too. Few reliable reports from the loyal opposition, but that doesn't mean it ain't happening. C'mon prez and any other bozos doing this, isn't that beneath you?


This just in: Busing is supposed to correct inequalities between equally qualified groups who have suffered discrimination, not create inequalities between equally qualified groups with different opinions who have not.


This is the political equivalent of busing in out-of-town police to put down Dr. King's march across Selma Bridge on Bloody Sunday in 1965. It is the complete abandonment of dialog in favor of the politics of brute strength in upholding an entrenched establishment. No police dogs... yet. "Ax Handle" Maddox would feel right at home. Feels more than a little bit like ballot box stuffing, too.


Note to pols: Speak softly, listen loudly, give your constituents as much of your time as they need. There is no need to restrict your meetings to an hour. If your ideas have merit you will prevail. If they don't, you have to go. That's essentially the premise they all initially ran on anyway, isn't it? Time to apply it.


* * * * *


Did you see Hilary bristle when someone asked her what her husband would do? Something about not being able to channel Bill. But Bill went to North Korea and saved two of Al Gore's employees from certain death in a forced labor camp. Gotta give it up for that. Nice job. But why Bill? More gravitas than our SecState? Obama was too busy? Hilary was, what, doing something more important? No one is minding the American foreign policy store and the neighborhood kids are vandalizing it.


* * * * *


You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot lift the wage-earner by tearing down the wage-payer. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich. You cannot keep people out of trouble by spending more than your income. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot establish security on borrowed money. You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves. -- William Boetcker