Rabid Liberal Rants

So if the USPS goes out of business this year, I guess I’ll have to change my Netflix subscription to streaming only and make ALL of my bill payments online.

The most urgent $5.5 billion that’s needed is to finance retirees’ future health care. So we’re not talking about the post office needing the dough to gas up the trucks or even pay current employees. Taxpayers are needed to pay the cost for mail that was delivered years ago.

I don’t think you can blame the internet entirely for the USPS woes. Poor money management is the major cause of this problem. Can they not foresee the cost of pensions and workers healthcare?

Read on at  US Postal Service cut: Do we really want another bailout? – CSMonitor.com.

Of course I’m not surprised:

The House Agriculture Committee endorsed a letter this week to Budget Chairman Paul Ryan arguing that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which helps low-income Americans purchase food, would make a better target for cuts than automatic subsidies to farms.

I have a better idea. Let’s quit the ethanol nonsense, and revert back to using corn for food and feed. Then perhaps the price of corn will go down, resulting in lower food costs. You still want to cut SNAP? Then stick to growing corn for food and feed and work towards reducing the cost of food overall.

Farm subsides have been given out since the Great Depression. Due to our current economic situation, it’s time to reevaluate the program.

NationalJournal.com – Ag Committee Supports Cuts to Food Assistance, Not Farm Subsidies – Monday, March 21, 2011.

Why am I not surprised by this:

The family of the top lawyer at the Securities and Exchange Commission invested with Bernie Madoff and earned more than $1.5 million in ill-gained profits, according to trustee Irving Picard, who has named the lawyer, David M. Becker, as a defendant in a clawback lawsuit, a Daily News investigation has found.

Read More…Irving Picard hits Securities and Exchange Commission’s top lawyer with Bernie Madoff lawsuit.

Sounds like we’re in for another downturn:

The U.S. economy has a “significant likelihood” of entering a double-dip recession if the government doesn’t step in to help the unemployed, economist Robert Shiller told MarketWatch News Break on Wednesday. Read more…

More than a few economists are suggesting a return to a recession due to bleak jobs outlook. From Huff Post:

the noted bear Nouriel Roubini, the president of RGE Monitor and a professor at New York University, delivered a grim prognostication via Twitter: “Risk of a double dip recession in advanced economies (US, Japan, Eurozone) has now risen to 40%.”

Roubini is not alone in his concern. Last week, David Rosenberg, the Gluskin Sheff economist (formerly of Merrill Lynch), whose words have become must-read barometers of bear-ishness, said that the chances of a double-dip recession in the U.S. are now “higher than 50-50.” Read more…

We’re in a Catch-22 situation. The outlook is bleak, because there are no jobs. Companies are holding their money and are not hiring because the outlook is bleak. The quickest way to break this cycle is to provide businesses with incentives to hire. The best thing the government can do at this point to spur job growth is to cut business taxes across the board, even if it’s for the short term. Provide tax reduction for companies that hire a minimum number of workers and keep them on for at least a 8 months. At the same time, the federal budget needs to be reduced. How about a 5% pay cut for federal workers, 10% for everyone in Congress?

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – It’s always about the money.

BP has released a statement denying that the company had any specific role in his release, but acknowledging that they lobbied the British government to enter into a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya. Read more…

As much as I don’t like the health insurance companies increasing rates, the one thing that the WellPoint CEO said, during the congressional hearings, that I agree with 100% is:

Unfortunately, the leading proposals being discussed in Washington don’t do enough to control costs” and that other industries “need to be called upon to reduce these costs.

There are no measures in any of the bills proposed that would control the rising costs of health care. Especially in the form of tort reform. Why is there no mention of tort reform? Because trial lawyers, those that benefit from frivolous lawsuits, are HUGE contributors to the Democratic party, giving close to 73% of the time to Dems (almost $179 Million, in 2008 alone).

Have provisions to control costs, then I’ll come on board. Until then, you’re all a bunch of posers.

WellPoint CEO defends rate hikes as pressure grows | Reuters.

4 Big Mortgage Backers Swim in Ocean of Debt – NYTimes.com.

Even as the biggest banks repay their government debt in what is being heralded as a successful rescue program, four troubled giants of the financial world remain on government life support.

These companies, the American International Group, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and GMAC, are not only unable to repay the government, they are in need of continuing infusions that make them look increasingly like long-term wards of the state.

Things will not be getting better anytime soon.

Just read an article in The Week which describes the universal healthcare program in Massachusetts which sounds strongly similar to the program the Feds want to pass now. One of the main points of the article is that Massachusetts, when originally drafting and passing the plan, never took into account the rising costs of healthcare. Thus, when the recession hit, more people were out of work, more people applied for the state subsidies for insurance, and tapped out the insurance fund. The rising healthcare costs fueled a $9 Billion gap, which took away money from education, public safety, and other services.

Similarly, the government plan fails to address the rising costs of healthcare. No way are they going to discuss putting caps or limits on payouts if they want the healthcare industry on board with the plan.

A nice article in OregonLive.com, which echoes the sentiment of many, regarding the Mortgage Bailout. Basically asking the simple question “what about all the people who bought houses, have been budgeting, cutting their expenses, and paying their mortgage ON TIME??? What about the people who know how to live within their means?

But back to Mr. Obama and his plan to bail people out of mortgages that many had no business taking on in the first place: He’s making a lot of us who bought homes we could afford — rather than homes that put us on the financial edge — look like complete chumps, has-beens and idiots.

His plan would take billions of taxpayer dollars and give them to banks and investors so they could lower borrowers’ interest rates and make other changes to the terms of their home loans. This is exactly the sort of thing that I worried about when Obama talked to us about being our “brother’s keeper” in his convention acceptance speech. His plan will teach people to be even more irresponsible with money; to acquire more and more and more because the threat of failure is getting lower and lower.

Complete CHUMPS!

According to the WSJ, Russian academic Igor Panarin predicts that the good ‘ol USA will dissolve due to “mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation” which will then cause a civil war, as early as next fall.

The U.S. will then split along ethnic lines, and foreign powers will move in. California will form the nucleus of what he calls “The Californian Republic,” and will be part of China or under Chinese influence. Texas will be the heart of “The Texas Republic,” a cluster of states that will go to Mexico or fall under Mexican influence. Washington, D.C., and New York will be part of an “Atlantic America” that may join the European Union. Canada will grab a group of Northern states Prof. Panarin calls “The Central North American Republic.” Hawaii, he suggests, will be a protectorate of Japan or China, and Alaska will be subsumed into Russia.

Read more in the Wall Street Journal.

Considering the Soviet Union collapsed, it’s always a possibility, albeit  a remote one.  I kinda think we’re better than that.