Rabid Liberal Rants

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?

Under Sen. Ron Wyden’s the proposed Senate Bill, people who refuse to buy health insurance will be fined over $1000/year.

Called “shared responsibility payments,” the fines would be set at least half the cost of basic medical coverage, according to the legislation.

I’m sorry, I didn’t vote Democratic so they can fine me for not choosing health insurance. As I have said before, I shouldn’t be forced to foot the bill for folks who choose to eat fast food three times a day. The cost for these programs will only go up. And they continue to take more money out of my paycheck to pay for these programs. Yet my pay isn’t going up that fast, which means I’m making less.

According to research done by the Kaiser Family Foundation, National Public Radio, and the Harvard School of Health, health insurance costs individuals an average of $4,800 annually. The cost for families to get insurance is even higher, at around $12,000 annually. These kinds of costs would push many people over the edge financially. How does Sen. Wyden propose that we pay for more people who will be unable to afford food, housing and education if they have to pay for health insurance? Effective health-care reform would be better accomplished by other means. Sen. Wyden’s own proposals to switch America from employer-based to individual health-insurance markets, for example, would do a great amount of good by encouraging competition and innovation without making life harder for the people having the most difficult time getting insurance.

Why not have individual health insurance markets? I can choose my car insurance, life insurance, cell phone provider, internet provider, cable tv provider, etc? Competition would create lower prices.

In Europe, where health care is free and state run, many experts say we may be going down a slippery slope.

Europeans have some of the world’s best hospitals and have made great strides in fighting problems like obesity and heart disease. But the system is far from perfect.

“What we can be proud of in Europe is the ground rules, that everyone has the right to health care,” said Jose Martin-Moreno, a health expert at the University of Valencia in Spain. “But the implementation has been difficult and one size does not fit all.”

Critics say the policies are often driven more by politics than science. Last week, Prime Minister Gordon Brown promised that patients unable to see cancer experts within two weeks would get cash to pay for private care. Brown had previously argued against paying for private providers and some say the reversal may be a gimmick to boost his sagging popularity.

A World Health Organization survey in 2000 found that France had the world’s best health system. But that has come at a high price; health budgets have been in the red since 1988.

“I would warn Americans that once the government gets its nose into health care, it’s hard to stop the dangerous effects later,” said Valentin Petkantchin, of the Institut Economique Molinari in France. He said many private providers have been pushed out, forcing a dependence on an overstretched public system.

“The minute you make health insurance mandatory, people start overusing it,” said Dr. Alphonse Crespo, an orthopedic surgeon and research director at Switzerland’s Institut Constant de Rebecque. “If I have a cold, I might go see a doctor because I am already paying a health insurance premium.”

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!

This is getting ridiculous. I ranted about the bailouts before, I’ll do it again. SAY NO TO THE BAILOUTS! Now, Pelosi and Co. want to bailout the auto industry. ARE THEY FREAKIN’ NUTS!?! The most sensible comment on this actually came out of the White House:

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the companies had made business decisions “over the years that have led to this situation, but we have gone as far as we can with the authority Congress has given in order to help industries.”

While companies like Toyota and Honda were spending money on R&D for efficient, hybrid cars, Detroit was spending money on Hummers and gas guzzling trucks.

Now they want help because they made some stupid choices over the years. And to top it off, the freakin Dems are pushing for this bailout. This, on top of the news that the Wallstreet companies that received bailout money continue to spend on huge bonuses. In fact, news came out that AIG, which recently asked for more bailout money, spent $343,000 for a two day “sales meeting” at luxury resort in Arizona:

The company had already been under criticism for spending $440,000 for a weeklong retreat in California for top-performing insurance agents, just days after the U.S. government stepped in to save the company with a $85 billion taxpayer-funded loan.

But on Monday, ABC News reported on an AIG sales meeting at a luxury resort in Phoenix last week that cost $343,000.

“AIG made significant efforts to disguise the conference, making sure there were no AIG logos or signs anywhere on the property.

“An AIG spokesperson said there were no AIG markers in order to minimize signage costs and to lower the company’s profile.

“A hotel employee told (ABC), ‘We can’t even say the word (AIG).’”

Write to your representive in Congress and tell them NO MORE TAXPAYER FUNDED BAILOUTS!

Economy guru and professor at NYU, Nouriel Roubini gave a presentation in London, and basically said the worst is yet to come. Roubini, back in 2006, accurately predicted that the US will fall into a recession. Back in February, he predicted the financial market meltdown. Some quotes from the conference:

We’ve reached a situation of sheer panic

hundreds of hedge funds are going to go bust

We’re seeing the beginning of a run on a big chunk of the hedge funds

don’t be surprised if policy makers need to close down markets for a week or two in coming days

This is the worst financial crisis in the U.S., Europe and now emerging markets that we’ve seen in a long time

Things will get much worse before they get better. I fear the worst is ahead of us.

Read more from the RGE Monitor.

Wow! A 119 year old bank, WaMu has been seized by the government and sold off to JPMorgan. A major consolidation is happening in our financial markets/banking system.

And they just built a WaMu location a block away from me, set to open next month.

A nice, continuosly updated, writeup on Wikipedia on the current Financial Meltdown and Credit Crisis can be found here.

From The Nation:

Under Paulson’s draft plan, Congress and the courts would have been barred from reviewing or challenging his moves to stabilize financial markets — effectively making him the nation’s economic czar. That’s not just a dangerous power grab for economic and politic reasons. It’s unconstitutional.

So basically, this man is looking for $700 Billion in taxpayer money, to do whatever he thinks is right, without anyone having the ability to review or question his plan and whatever else he does with the money. ARE YOU FREAKIN” NUTS?!? This is just as bad as giving the President the blank check for the Iraq War! They’re looking for another blank check. I hope and pray this proposal does not go through and sensible minds prevail in Congress. Don’t get pushed and bullied into approving this plan.

And yet the folks that caused this mess, the CEOs and managers and those that made the loans, all go away scott free with their golden parachutes. Anybody who knowingly made loans to people who they knew wouldn’t be able to afford them, should be going to jail. Period.

Why were all these people able to do what the did? The answer is Deregulation. If you have some time, here’s a good writeup on the history of this mess.

Welcome to the Free Market system, where whatever happens, happens, until it’s the very wealthy that’s affected. I’m tired of these taxpaper bailouts for businesses who knowingly made foolish bets. The fact of the matter is, loans were given to unqualified borrowers. Those loan contracts were then sold off in the form of  securities to investors, who may or may not have known about the riskiness of the loans. When people couldn’t pay their mortgages, they defaulted on the loans. Factor in a bad economy, made worse by the job market going down, gas prices going up, and you got worthless securities. Instead of bailing these lenders out, we should be filing more criminal charges and putting people in jail. This is basically socialism for the wealthy. Even economists and conservatives think taxpayers are getting a “raw deal”. If I forget to pay my credit card bill, do I get a bailout? No, I just get charged more, and my interest rate goes up. Why should people who live within their means be forced to bail out gamblers and cheaters?

Here’s a good retrospective analysis on how we got here.

Stop the housing bailout!!

Here we go again. The corn industry, this time under the guise of the New Fuels Alliance and FoodPriceTruth.org, are saying that higher food prices, in particular, chicken, are NOT a result of more corn going to corn based biofuels instead of chicken feed.

Yeah, right. Same old story.