There is a Tea Party scheduled in West Chester, PA this weekend on Saturday, April 4. I plan on being there with a video camera.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Uncategorized on March 31st, 2009
Share on FacebookI didn’t like the Great Depression economic analogies so prevalent when George Bush was still President. The comparison was used by people who hated George Bush regardless of his policies.
Much to my dismay, we do seem to be repeating history. First…take a look at this chart below. It compares that DOW Jones crash of ’29 with our current bear market. The depression era chart starts on Oct. 1 1929. Today’s chart starts Oct. 1, 2007.
Click to enlarge
The government is now the overseer of GM. The CEO has been replaced at the President’s request and a government panel will now have veto power over strategic business decisions. Some may wonder why this is a bad thing. The argument is that tax dollars saved the company and therefore the government should have a say in how it is run. If only the world was that simple.
The reality of the situation is that politics and business are now intertwined. The government is now invested in GM. If GM fails, government money will be lost. If GM succeeds, politicians will have more money to do what politicians do…spend more money.
The government is already in the business of writing regulations that effect all the automobile companies. The Congress just recently increased the CAFE standards to 31 mpg. That will effect auto companies differently. Companies with smaller more efficient lines may not be effected at all. Companies that derived big profits from large autos may need to spend billions of dollars to redesign and retool. CAFE standards are not the only regulations with such wide sweeping effects. There are safety and air pollution standards as well. California is trying to ban black cars because they require extra energy to cool in the hot sun. (more…)
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Common Sense on March 31st, 2009
Glenn Beck badgers the Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal to explain what laws the AIG employees violated when they accepted bonuses per their contracts and what gives the Attorney General of Connecticut the right to “go after” them. Lawyers are supposed to be trained to argue the position of law. Blumenthal came across as a terrible litigator and ignorant of the law.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Common Sense,video on March 30th, 2009
Barack Obama and the Democrats liked to say Bush was “shredding” the Constitution. They usually pointed to his surveillance of terrorists…not the bailouts late in his 2nd term. Candidate Obama claimed authority on the subject stating that he was a “Constitutional Professor”.
If he was a scholar of the Constitution, then his studies must have led him to disdain it. The Politico is reporting that Rick Wagoner, the CEO of GM, has resigned under pressure from the Obama Administration. Obama is using our tax dollars as a sledgehammer against GM. Where oh where in the Constitution is that power granted to the executive branch?
Elliot Sptizer once forced out the CEO of AIG back in 2004. That one didn’t work out so well.
I am expecting some liberal suck up to be installed at the top of GM. Someone who has an extrordinary skill at saying what the politicians in Washington want to hear. Someone who will impelement liberal policy on a corporate level. Someone who won’t fight too hard against labor demands.
Barack Obama can’t get the Treasury Department running but now wants the power to decide personnel at an industry he knows nothing about. To be fair though, are personnel decisions at GM any different than the Treasury Department? He knows as much about banking and finance as he does about automobiles and manufacturing…or healthcare and pharmaceuticals…or any other industry that he has ZERO experience in.
He should go back to making basketball picks and stay out of micromanaging the economy.
UPDATE (3/29/2009) The president is 18th out of 32 in the White House pool (LINK). That’s how well he does picking winners of a topic he is interested in. How is he going to do picking the next CEO of GE?
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Obama Administration on March 29th, 2009
An inspiring telling of the night that inspired the “Star Spangled Banner”
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Posted by: The Elephant Owner in History on March 29th, 2009
Don’t let the title of this post fool you. It’s not about AIG.
In Philapelphia, the city council has been collecting quite a nice perk. Under the previous mayor, a program called DROP was started.
(DROP) allows workers to pick a retirement date four years in the future, freeze their pension benefit at that point, and begin to accrue payments as if they had already retired. The payments go into an account collecting 4.5 percent annual interest for the retiree, and are paid out in a lump sum upon retirement. (LINK)
How much is this costing the city?
Thirteen elected officials have already collected or will take home $4.6 million through DROP lump-sums by 2012. That includes $2.1 million by six Council members: Verna ($571,679); Tasco ($467,566); Frank DiCicco ($392,194); Jack Kelly ($299,163); Donna Reed Miller ($190,099); and Frank Rizzo ($189,873).
Regardless of the merits of this program for regular city workers, this is just not right.
The most controversial issue surrounding DROP is the ability of elected officials to collect their lump sums, then return to serve, as Councilwoman Joan Krajewski and City Commissioner Marge Tartaglione did last year after winning reelection in 2007.
Greed lives in many forms and in many places outside of Wall Street.
Mayor Nutter is fighting back. I wish him luck. He is getting a lot of resistance from the sitting powers.
I loved this line. Councilwoman Anna Verna, who received over half a million dollars said,
I think I’m entitled to it.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in corruption,PA Politics on March 29th, 2009
Liberals would have you believe that privacy is all important to them, but they only support privacy rights when it comes to abortion, hamstringing police, and matters of national defense.
Card Check: Liberals are actively fighting to take the privacy of voting away from workers.
Joe the Plumber had his records reviewed by a Democrat.
The Clintons had FBI files of political rivals in the White House.
Sarah Palin had her email hacked into.
Regulations…all regulations are intrusions of privacy and Democrats prize regulation as the right to control those evil businesses.
There are many, many more instances of privacy intrusions. Privacy is not a core principal for liberals. It is a convenient arguement when they choose to use it.
UPDATE (3/29/2009): As if I needed proof…Obama’s nominee for Secretary of the Navy has shown his principal belief in privacy. According to the NY Times, Ray Mabus (a Democrat, was a strong supporter of Mr. Obama in the campaign last year) was…
involved in a divorce that drew national attention for his secret taping of a conversation between his wife and his family priest that he used against her in court proceedings. (LINK)
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Common Sense on March 28th, 2009
The corruption in the Democratic party is pervasive. Even with the main stream media (MSM) filter, we have had a constant barrage of corruption cases being revealed. Here in Pennsylvania, we have had a bonus-gate scandal brewing. Democrats have been under investigation for using taxpayer dollars to reward employees who help their campaigns. One of those under investigation is former state Rep. Mike Veon (D-Beaver Falls).
The Pittsburgh Tribune is reporting today that Delta Development, a consulting firm that is controlled by Veon, has received $1 million for doing “little or no work” (LINK) The Democrats have only decided to terminate this contract…after a “stinging report by a statewide grand jury”.
To sum it up, Delta Development received state money and then donated the money to the Democratic campaigns. In other words, they used tax dollars to get elected.
It seems to me that four years ago, the media was hungry for a scandal. They pursued every Republican misdeed with vigor. You would be hard pressed to find someone other than a politcal junkie like me that is even aware of the bonus-gate scandal and the slime associated with our elected officials in Harrisburg.
The MSM has done a good job of keeping Democratic scandals off the front page…which is legal corruption.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in corruption,PA Politics on March 27th, 2009
This guy knows how to handle those pesky telemarketers
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in video on March 25th, 2009
When asked about forcibly taking money from some people and giving it to others, Harry Reid says,
Harry Reid (HR): I don’t think we force people (to pay taxes)
Interviewer (I): Taxation is not forceful?
HR: Well, no.
I: It’s voluntary?
HR: In fact, quite to the contrary. Our system is a voluntary system.
Harry Reid reasons that you have to file a tax return instead of the government just taking your taxes, therefore it is a “voluntary system”. He’s leaving out the part that if you owe taxes and don’t pay them, you will ultimately end up in jail.
What’s up with liberals? Why can’t they understand the meaning of simple words like “voluntary”?
Watch the video:
A couple of days ago, I floated the idea that AIG employees should not return their bonuses. I suggested that they should donate the money to charity. A resignation letter from Jake DeSantis is posted in the New York Times today and that is exactly what he is going to do:
I am proud of everything I have done for the commodity and equity divisions of A.I.G.-F.P. I was in no way involved in — or responsible for — the credit default swap transactions that have hamstrung A.I.G. Nor were more than a handful of the 400 current employees of A.I.G.-F.P. Most of those responsible have left the company and have conspicuously escaped the public outrage.
After 12 months of hard work dismantling the company — during which A.I.G. reassured us many times we would be rewarded in March 2009 — we in the financial products unit have been betrayed by A.I.G. and are being unfairly persecuted by elected officials. In response to this, I will now leave the company and donate my entire post-tax retention payment to those suffering from the global economic downturn. My intent is to keep none of the money myself.
I take this action after 11 years of dedicated, honorable service to A.I.G. I can no longer effectively perform my duties in this dysfunctional environment, nor am I being paid to do so. Like you, I was asked to work for an annual salary of $1, and I agreed out of a sense of duty to the company and to the public officials who have come to its aid. Having now been let down by both, I can no longer justify spending 10, 12, 14 hours a day away from my family for the benefit of those who have let me down.
UPDATE: 2:05 PM
Anthony J. DeSantis (J=Jake?), a President at AIG, is listed as giving $2,300 to the Biden for President campaign (LINK). It could be that they are the same person.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Common Sense on March 25th, 2009
This needs no explanation but begs one snarky comment.
Obama wants us in the red…Communist red.
You must remove all common sense to believe in Barack Obama.
In one breath, he tells you that the economy is weak with structural problems. Big problems that require a big solution. In the next breath he tells you that the recession will be over within a year. He would have us believe that he can get huge, fundamental changes to our economy implemented AND paying dividends within a year….or he is trying to have it both ways.
Obama repeats until my eyelids feel like a thousand pounds, that our future economic growth depends on government controlling health care costs. Don’t look now, but the Europeans have had government controlled health care for many years. They also have sluggish economic growth and high unemployment. Please explain to us mere mortals how it will have such wonderful benefits here while it has lead to economic sloths in Europe.
The president started out tonight’s press conference with a prepared speech…again…void common sense. He spoke to us like unsuspecting children. He proclaimed he would fix our banking system and make it easy for us to borrow money again so we could purchase things now which we cannot afford today….and then told us that we needed to change our lifestyles to one of savings and frugality. He said we need to stop the cycle of boom and bust, after telling us how he was going to rebuild the institutions that created securitized loans that hid the risk of borrowing. He described the era of Obama as “Save and Invest”. (I had to yell at the TV over that line)
He repeatedly used a blame-propose-strawman template to sell his position. What do I mean? First, blame George Bush for all the country’s problems, make a proposal and follow up with some inane alternative. To Barack Obama, it is either his solution or an alternative solution proposed by drunk frat boys. We either move toward socialized medicine or we ignore the problem and buy a pack a smokes. We can either move toward Barack Obama’s vision of green jobs or we do nothing while we wait for certain death caused by deadly CO2 pollution. We can either give the President the ability to take over private industry or we can do nothing and the economy will completely collapse.
How about we get government out of health care and we let people save their own money in health plans? Maybe we should tear down the walls that keep people from buying health insurance from out of state providers. We could do nothing about global warming…since it is a great hoax. We could solve our energy problems by telling the environmentalists we are tired of their childish idealism. We could drill, dig and nuke our way to energy independence. Instead of letting the tax cheat in charge of the Treasury Department take over failing companies, we could do what has worked for years. Let them go bankrupt and have a court divide up the assets. There is a real conservative alternative proposal for every single one of Barack Obama’s socialist solutions, but he claims the alternatives to his plans are to do nothing and invite catastrophe.
Like every other liberal, Barak Obama appears to have no idea what conservatives believe or propose – or even that they have proposed plans at all. He argues against the conservative cartoon he has built up in his mind and then pats himself on the back for being so smart.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Common Sense,Obama Administration on March 24th, 2009
Lt. Gov. Joe Scarnati is seeking a system of state identification cards to assure that welfare benefits are only paid to Pennsylvania residents (LINK).
Mr. Scarnati said a recent audit by state Auditor General Jack Wagner (D) found that at least 2 percent of those receiving property tax or rent rebates, welfare payments, Medicaid and jobless benefits aren’t legally residing in Pennsylvania. Mr. Scarnati claimed that “10s of millions” could be improperly being paid out by the welfare department.
Ed Rendell is rejecting this claim. His spokesman says that “the welfare department reviewed the auditor general’s audit (of the public benefits) and found it to be faulty”.
Who do you believe…the auditor whose job it is to find waste or the welfare department trying to save face?
Who do you believe…the Republicans using numbers from a Democratic Auditor or a tax and spend Democratic governor who is paying a PR professional to get out the news that the government is giving away easy money(LINK)?
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in PA Politics on March 24th, 2009
