This is Really Stupid

I really don’t like stupid at all. From Fox News

The independent filmmaker who brought ACORN to its knees last year with an undercover expose was arrested this week along with three others, including the son of a federal prosecutor, and accused of trying to interfere with the phones at Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office.

I’m sure the left will have some fun with this but, when you think about it, it’s no different than the stupidity of the left…which is to say, really stupid.

This is Just Moronic

Imagine you get say, a car loan from a bank (I know, damn near impossible but bear with me) and you pay it back as agreed. In fact, you even pay it off ahead of time. Now imagine that same bank sending you a bill for a fee because you have to subsidize the people who couldn’t pay their car loans on time. Sound moronic and abjectly stupid? Well that’s what the criminals (aka Democrats) want to do to the banks that repaid their TARP obligations.

The Wall Street Journal covers it here.

“WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is aiming to hit banks with a fee to recoup losses associated with the government’s bailout of financial firms and the auto industry, administration officials say.

The White House hopes the fee will soothe the public’s anger at financial firms. Most big banks that received public funds have repaid the government, but the industry is seen by many as having survived thanks to taxpayer support, and is now enjoying a profit rebound as the economy struggles. This month, many large banks will resume paying big bonuses to employees.” [...]

[...]“The fee, which would require congressional approval, could hit big banks that have already repaid their TARP funds with interest. The money would be used to compensate for losses in other areas, such as loans to Detroit’s auto makers and funds used to prop up the housing sector and giant insurer AIG.”[...]

What this is all about is the familiar mantra of 0bama and his sycophants in Congress punishing achievement, a central theme of their agenda. Of course, it’s also about saving their pals in the auto industry, even though the auto industry has virtually no chance of ever paying back the money we gave lent to them.

What is equally moronic, is that the criminals are thinking about putting a tax on total bank liabilities.

[...]“One option under consideration involves placing a fee on a bank’s liabilities, a number that theoretically represents the amount of risk a bank takes on, according to officials familiar with the matter. That approach would also have the effect of tamping down banks’ risky behavior, another administration goal. Another option would be to target bank profits, these people said.”[...]

Now, in case you didn’t know it, the money you have on deposit in a bank is carried as a liability of the bank…in other words, it’s money they owe to you. It doesn’t matter if it’s in a savings account, checking account or part of a retirement plan. It’s a liability. So while the government is encouraging more saving by the public, they will TAX the very account they have encouraged you to open. (And don’t forget, the criminals under the control of Reid and Pelosi, will also tax the interest income you receive.)

If the banks have their liabilities taxed, guess what? Your interest rate will drop and bank fees will go up. They aren’t going to eat those costs. It won’t matter if you make $5,000/year or $500,000 per year. You’re going to get hit if you put your money in a bank that has recovered. Of course, you could always put your money in a bank that’s about to fail since it doesn’t appear they will be taxed….but you never know. That makes perfect sense to 0bama.

The 0bama administration’s assault on America continues.

Harder Than it Looks

Some have said this was my first solo flight. It takes a lot of work to do this. Enjoy.

Courtesy of Neptunus Lex

Merry Christmas….Now Hand Over Your Wallet

Over the weekend, The Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed piece detailing what they call the “taxpayer massacre” at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. You can read the entire piece here. Oddly enough, I haven’t seen any coverage of this in 0bama Youth Media. /sarcasm

Here are some of the highlights for your wallet-lightening pleasure. (Any emphasis mine.)

“Happy New Year, readers, but before we get on with the debates of 2010, there’s still some ugly 2009 business to report: To wit, the Treasury’s Christmas Eve taxpayer massacre lifting the $400 billion cap on potential losses for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as the limits on what the failed companies can borrow.

The Treasury is hoping no one notices, and no wonder. Taxpayers are continuing to buy senior preferred stock in the two firms to cover their growing losses—a combined $111 billion so far. When Treasury first bailed them out in September 2008, Congress put a $200 billion limit ($100 billion each) on federal assistance. Last year, the Treasury raised the potential commitment to $400 billion. Now the limit on taxpayer exposure is, well, who knows?

The firms have made clear that they may only be able to pay the preferred dividends they owe taxpayers by borrowing still more money . . . from taxpayers. Said Fannie Mae in its most recent quarterly report: “We expect that, for the foreseeable future, the earnings of the company, if any, will not be sufficient to pay the dividends on the senior preferred stock. As a result, future dividend payments will be effectively funded from equity drawn from the Treasury.

The loss cap is being lifted because the government has directed both companies to pursue money-losing strategies by modifying mortgages to prevent foreclosures. Most of their losses are still coming from subprime and Alt-A mortgage bets made during the boom, but Fannie reported last quarter that loan modifications resulted in $7.7 billion in losses, up from $2.2 billion the previous quarter.” [...]

Well, that’s certainly convenient; in the real world of finance, this is known as “throwing good money (or in this case OUR money) after bad. Simple translation? Kiss it (our money) goodbye.

But wait!!! There’s more! Unless you’ve been living in a cave, the you know there has been an uproar over executive compensation, especially to the executives of firms that have taken bailout money. Little Barry even appointed a “Pay Czar”. Now for a reality check; the standard rules don’t apply here.

[...] “All of which would seem to make the CEOs of Fannie and Freddie the world’s most overpaid bureaucrats. A release from the Federal Housing Finance Agency that also fell in the Christmas Eve forest reports that, after presiding over a combined $24 billion in losses last quarter, Fannie CEO Michael Williams and Freddie boss Ed Haldeman are getting substantial raises. Each is now eligible for up to $6 million annually.

Freddie also has one of the world’s highest-paid human resources executives. Paul George’s total compensation can run up to $2.7 million. It must require a rare set of skills to spot executives capable of losing billions of dollars.

Where is Treasury’s pay czar when we actually need him? You guessed it, Fannie and Freddie are exempt from the rules applied to the TARP banks. The government gave away the game that these firms are no longer in the business of making profits when it announced that the CEOs will be paid entirely in cash, though it is discouraging that practice at other big banks. Who would want stock in the Department of Housing and Urban Development?” [...]

I should point out that in the real world, the giant bonuses that most employees get is in restricted stock…i.e. they can’t sell it immediately and, in many cases, the shares don’t vest or become eligible for sale for a certain period of time. This gives the employee/executive “skin in the game” and forces them to try and improve shareholder value of their firms.

The final paragraph of the editorial sums it all up rather nicely.

In today’s Washington, we suppose, it only makes sense that the companies that did the most to cause the meltdown are being kept alive to lose even more money. The politicians have used the panic as an excuse to reform everything but themselves.”

To Dodd, Frank, Shelby and every asshat in D.C. who supports this crap…thank you very little.

2010 Will Be Better

0bama Yells “Fore”

Yes, it’s now old news that a Nigerian muzztard tried to blow up an airplane. But here’s what is also old news; little Barry and merry band of sycophants don’t understand that we are at war with said muzztard terrorists.

The Wall Street Journal addressed this point in their editorial yesteday as did the Heritage Foundation today.

It’s pretty clear that the current administration doesn’t get it. From the WSJ article.

“A U.S. government that has barred the phrase “war on terror” has nonetheless acknowledged that a failed Christmas day bomb attack on an airliner was a terrorist attempt. Can we all now drop the pretense that we stopped fighting a war once Dick Cheney and George W. Bush left the White House?

The attempt by 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab follows the alleged murders in Ft. Hood, Texas by Islamist-inspired Major Nidal Hasan in November. Brian Jenkins, who studies terrorism for the Rand Corporation, says there were more terror incidents (12), including thwarted plots, on U.S. soil in 2009 than in any year since 2001. The jihadists don’t seem to like Americans any better because we’re closing down Guantanamo.

This increasing terror tempo makes the Obama Administration’s reflexive impulse to treat terrorists like routine criminal suspects all the more worrisome. It immediately indicted Mr. Abdulmutallab on criminal charges of trying to destroy an aircraft, despite reports that he told officials he had ties to al Qaeda and had picked up his PETN explosive in Yemen. The charges mean the Nigerian can only be interrogated like any other defendant in a criminal case, subject to having a lawyer present and his Miranda rights read.”[...]

Personally, I’d like to take a picture of Abdulmutallab with this camera, but that would probably hurt his feelings even more.

Heritage chimes in with the following common sense advice.

[...]“The Obama administration must stop thinking of al Qaeda and Abdulmutallab as mere criminals. Obama’s blindness to Abdulmutallab’s al Qaeda connections and his insistence on calling him a “suspect” in the “alleged” bombing is the same mindset dictating Obama’s decision to send Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other terrorists to New York for a civilian trial in federal court. Hopefully this incident will prod Obama into revisiting that historically bad decision.”

None of the above will happen, of course. 0bama would rather try and squeeze in 36 holes a day rather than step up and fight.

The Most Fun You Can Have With Your Clothes On

From UPI

U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles, from the 335th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron, drops 2,000 pound Joint Direct Attack Munitions on a cave in eastern Afghanistan on November 26, 2009. The 335th is deployed to Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina UPI/Michael B. Keller/U.S. Air Force

Merry Christmas

Dear Captain AB

Got a Christmas card today from the Gutsy Little Broad. She included a picture and she is growing up to be a very beautiful woman. I was glad to be a part of it. In fact, when I read the card, I started blubbering like a prom queen that got stood up.

Life is good.

Can’t figure out how to embed it but the little girl here reminds me of the GLB when I flew her. Sorry, gotta put my shades on.

This is Not Good

From Bloomberg

By Catarina Saraiva

Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) — Coffee futures rose to a 15-month high on speculation that output declines in Brazil and Vietnam, the world’s largest growers, will support higher prices.

Global coffee production may fall to 123 million bags in the current season, from 128 million bags a year earlier, the International Coffee Organization said last week. Output in Brazil, the biggest supplier, will drop 15 percent to 39 million bags, the group said. The South American nation plans to buy beans from local farmers to support prices and boost incomes.

“The fundamentals for coffee are pretty strong,” said Jimmy Tintle, a Transworld Futures analyst in Tampa, Florida. “The Brazilian government buying back coffee,” as well as falling output in Vietnam, are supporting gains, he said.

Arabica-coffee futures for March delivery rose 1.35 cents, or 0.9 percent, to $1.4725 a pound on ICE Futures U.S. in New York and are up 31 percent this year. Earlier, the most-active contract reached $1.494, the highest price since Aug. 29, 2008.

This season’s harvest in Vietnam may yield 20 percent fewer beans than a year earlier after storms damaged crops, the Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association said last week. Luong Van Tu, the group’s chairman, said the country’s output may fall to 17.5 million bags. Each bag weighs 60 kilograms, or 132 pounds.

In Brazil, the Agriculture Ministry said on Dec. 4 that it plans to purchase 10 million bags of coffee before July to support prices and help farmers. Last July, the government agreed to buy 1 million bags through an auction.

World consumption may increase to about 132 million bags in 2009, the international producer group said, up from an estimated 130 million bags in 2008.

Coffee prices have also been supported by colder weather, which may spur demand, Transworld’s Tintle said. The five days through Dec. 11 were 26 percent colder than average in much of the U.S., said Matt Rogers, the president of the Commodity Weather Group in Bethesda, Maryland.

“If we start having a deep freeze, roasters will have to roast more beans,” Tintle said.

This really increases my food costs.