Ingenious Interpretations of "You Didn't Build That"

If you didn't build that then they can take it.

You didn't build that, my cronyism did.

Oh yeah. Yankee ingenuity.

Irwin Stelzer Wonders Why Romney Isn't Attacking Democrat Crony Capitalism

Maybe because Romney isn't the right candidate?

It's a pretty good piece on American-style fascism by Irwin Stelzer for The Weekly Standard here, but I couldn't help but notice once again how even very smart people pour their ideas into and project their hopes onto candidates even though there isn't the slightest bit of evidence to justify it. Consider all these phrases from the article, which on every issue Stelzer recommends as conservative reveal that Romney is already NOT on board:

... doesn’t mean that Romney should refuse ...

And where is Mitt Romney ...

Alas, that statement came not from Romney ...

Romney must know better than anyone ...

Why does Romney not agree with ...

Romney can propose a simple rule ...

Romney can propose eliminating ...

Finally, where is Romney every time . . ..

If Gov. Romney isn't already showing a firm grasp of free-market conservatism as defined by the neoconservative Weekly Standard, what is he on board with?

Don't we already know that Romney thinks ObamaCare is nothing to get angry about?

Or how about out-of-control government spending (is there any other kind?), the cri de coeur of the Tea Party movement? Romney has explicitly stated that he will not slash spending as president, even though it's the very ground cronyism walks on. His answer for that? Because cutting government spending in a slow-growth environment would throw America into a depression.

This tells you that Romney is no different than Obama in one very important respect: he's cool, in the deceitful sense that he allows supporters to think he shares their passions when he doesn't. Just as Obama has deeply disappointed the American far left, a president Romney will do the same to the right on every issue dear to them.

The caution and calculation of such cool cats often gives the first impression of ulterior motives. Alternatively, however, the coolness may simply be a mask for an underlying mediocrity, or even stupidity.

For example, the single stupidest thing that Obama and the Democrats have done to date was to insist that they prevented a depression and bailed-out everybody to do it. Arguably what they should have done is embraced the depression which did in fact occur in 2008-2009 and blamed it on Bush. They also should have let the depression happen big-time, cleansing the debt-overhang for the good of the country and punishing their enemies in the process. Republicans would have been finished for decades to come, just like in 1932.

And you thought Obama was the smartest president ever.

Can Romney be far behind him? At this juncture in the campaign you would think a smarter candidate would be consistently avoiding everything which depresses the mood of the base of his party. If the neocons aren't happy with Romney, who is?

Not that it really matters much what Romney says or doesn't say about this, that or the other thing when it comes to actual governing. After all, the president proposes, but it is the Congress which disposes. (Unless, of course, you're Obama, who disposes of the Congress fairly routinely, whether on war powers in Libya, recess appointments or immigration.) America's problem with crony capitalism can indeed be made much worse by a president like Obama for whom it becomes his motto, no doubt about it. An awful lot of money has been wasted on failed green energy schemes.

But cronyism in America is really the specialty of our ever more remote representatives to the US House and Senate. Our nearly intractable problems of waste, corruption, and deceit which they are responsible for have taken over ninety years to develop, and they won't go away in an instant. What we most certainly need is to destroy the concentration of spending power in the hands of a few powerful men and women in the House and Senate.

One way to do that is to restore representation numbers to the constitutional ratio of 1 to 30,000, the number one answer to the constitution's number one perceived deficiency during the ratification process over two centuries ago. The immediate effect of installing thousands of new Congressmen today would be to dilute the power of the existing cabal of skilled cronies. It is true that as happened in the 1920s there seems to be nothing that would again prevent Congress from flouting that provision of the constitution even if we restore representation to the status quo ante. The last thing we need is 10,267 corrupt representatives instead of the 435 we've already got. Still, short of revolution in the streets, it's probably the best and most constructive alternative we have presently available, and probably a more certain guarantee of keeping things like ObamaCare from happening in future than mere reliance on one political party controlling the levers of a government distant from the people.

Another way which would help is to repeal the 17th Amendment, and return election of senators to the States and take it away from the globalized monied interests. That is no guarantee against cronyism, to be sure, but at least States would have actual representation in Washington again as the Founders intended. As it is, the only representation they have is before the bar of justice, if it agrees to hear the case at all. Ask the 26 States who lost in front of John Roberts how good they're feeling about that today. ObamaCare, after all, originated in the Senate. All things being equal, senators from those 26 States would not have voted for it and we wouldn't be having this enormous controversy.

These sorts of returns to originalism might actually make a difference going forward, but all the evidence we have right now is that Romney has as little interest in them as he does in the issues animating the base of his party.

A Romney in the White House will most likely mean just another dutiful tax collector for the crony welfare state, like the rest of them.

Luigi Zingales: Democrat Crony Capitalism Fosters Liberal Agenda

Luigi Zingales, quoted here:

“Democrats have promoted crony capitalism to foster their liberal agenda. They are pro-business -- at least certain businesses -- but fundamentally anti-market. This is exactly the opposite of what most Americans want. .  .  . A pro-market, but not pro-big-business, platform would be a winner for Republicans.”

The more efficient locution is "Democrats promote liberal fascism".

Basel Capital Rules Reinforce Fascist Financialization Of The Global Economy

Robert Barone for Minyanville summarizes better than anyone else I have read the process whereby banking in partnership with government has grown out of all proportion to the real economy and throttled it, here:

Under all of the Basel regimes, "sovereign" debt is considered riskless.  Everything else has a varying degree of risk to it which requires a capital reserve.  Loans to the private sector have the highest capital requirements. ... The bias imparted with this sort of capital regime makes loans to the private sector unattractive, especially in times of economic stress where bank capital is under pressure.  But, it is in times of such stress that loans to the private sector are needed to create investment, capital spending, and jobs. ... Simply put, the banking model in the west now promotes moral hazard (banks making bets that are implicitly backed by taxpayers) and Too Big To Fail (TBTF) policies while it stifles private sector lending. ... Isn't it clear that the relationship between the US federal government and the banking system is unhealthy, perhaps even incestuous, to the detriment of the private sector?  That very same banking model is emerging in Europe with the emergency funding by the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF) to recapitalize the Spanish banks and talk of a pan-European regulatory authority and deposit insurance.

What's missing from this otherwise penetrating analysis, however, is an appreciation of the extent to which banking has been redefined, particularly in the US as a result of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, which finally overturned the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933.

Now companies as diverse as automobile manufacturers, investment banks, insurance companies and highly diversified multinationals like GE are deemed banking institutions which qualify for government TARP bailouts, FDIC protection, or preferred treatment at the Federal Reserve's discount window. Almost any big business that gets in trouble can now get "help" from the taxpayer by becoming a "banking" concern under the new definition of the rules, to the detriment of those trying to compete in our so-called free market.

Moral hazard doesn't extend now just throughout the traditional banking system, stiffing the disciplined, prudent smaller banks with high FDIC premiums to bailout the failures, it now effectively short-circuits the process by which an innovative small firm might grow one day to challenge GE's gargantuan share of the household appliance market, or in aircraft engines, nuclear reactors and the like.

As financialization of the economy deepens and grows, companies as they are with their relative advantages have those advantages locked into place, while those without market heft are frozen-out. Some people call this crony capitalism, others state capitalism. Almost any euphemism will do, it seems, the latest being venture socialism, which gets us closer to the truth.

In the end it's just good old-fashioned fascism from the 1920s. Obama absolutely loves it. George Bush practiced it. Bill Clinton signed it into law, with the help of Newt Gingrich.

But please don't call this stagnating, ossified, economy failed, free-market capitalism. Just like Christianity before it, you can't say something is a failure which isn't at all being practiced.

We Are All National Socialists Now

One Nathan Lewis, a Forbes columnist, describes the peculiar character of American fascism here:

[P]articularly in the last few years, the character of U.S. policy has become distinctly corporatist, favoring large-scale theft (“bailouts”) particularly by the financial sector, although also by the defense, education, and healthcare sectors in my opinion. Many corporations have also used their political influence to allow themselves to engage in behavior that is destructive to the middle class, such as predatory or just plain excessive lending, for homes, autos and education, which might otherwise have been curtailed. The U.S. healthcare system has also become effectively predatory upon the middle class, claiming 17% of GDP to provide what costs 5-8% of GDP in other developed countries.

In short, certain businesses are using their influence of the political system to take the government’s money. And, since it is mostly the “99%” who provide this money, via their tax payments, this constitutes theft from the middle class by the oligarchical class. So far, this theft has been financed essentially by debt, so the effect on the middle class has not been felt directly. But, debt will need to be paid, and it is the taxpaying “99%” that will do the paying. ...

[F]our elements – devaluation of wages by currency mismanagement; mediocre tax policy including a gradual increase in tax rates on lower incomes; the deteriorating capital:labor ratio; and crony capitalist theft and predatory activities – constitute the basis for the deterioration of the U.S. middle class today.

AP Obama and CNBC.com Team Up To Poo-Poo All That "Obama Is A Socialist" Stuff

What else would you expect from the ideological nexus of media and academia?

Honesty?

These people can't even acknowledge we've experienced a minor economic depression let alone the utter failure of the predictions of their analysts and economists. Instead of failed 5 year plans as in the former Soviet Union we are treated to weekly, monthly and quarterly misses of an astounding variety so routine no one bothers to remark them any more except the gluttons for punishment in the blogosphere.

Remember the green shoots of recovery gibberish that went on and on for months after the so-called recession ended? Or the jobs created or saved nonsense? Or the bottom in housing? Before all that it was how bad was Bush's economy, an economy which Obama now only wishes he had so he could boast about it, which is why he must continue to denigrate it four years removed.

The regulation of American business by government is so massive it is a joke to call this a capitalist economy. Designed to pick the winners and the losers, the revolving door between the two carries a veritable freeway of crony traffic a 1930s fascist would envy.

It's almost pathetic the article spends most of its time quibbling about definitions from the left when Obama's is a socialism of the right.

The whole point is to obscure this fact.

Socialism is a wonderland, Alice, where words mean whatever they say they mean.     

Adam Smith: Crony Capitalism is a Powerful Force Against Freedom

From Sheldon Richman, here, quoting Adam Smith:

"The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order [that is, 'those who live by profit'], ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."

Smith grew up under mercantilism and knew well of what he wrote. America grew up largely under mercantilism and its cousin, Hamiltonian-Lincolnian corporatism. In this respect advocates of the freed market should embrace Smith’s understanding of political economy: that a powerful force against freedom emanates from where they might least expect to find it.

What A Shock: The New Republic Defends Crony Capitalism

Michael Kazin for The New Republic here argues that crony capitalism isn't really that big a deal because it is pretty much as old as the old Republic itself, except he skips the founders and begins in the nineteenth century.

It doesn't occur to him that perhaps crony capitalism suggested itself to so many Americans because they drank from the well of monarchy for so long. No thoughtful person who respects the founders imagines they were inoculated from the failings attendant upon all natures mixed with good and evil. The left delights in pointing this out, whereas the true right mentions it as a cautionary tale.

We are monarchy's lesser children because of people like John Locke, who was at pains to remind us that "is" does not always mean "ought", else we should, for example, beget and raise children to sell them into slavery because it was done, sometime, somewhere, in the past. Reason is necessary. Respecting ancient practice is not the essential meaning of conservatism, try as the left does to reduce it always to such a formulation. They are the terrible simplifiers still.

The greater children of monarchy are the strong men of Europe who drank deeply from the well of Marx after centuries of experience with kings and queens. Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini were thus hyperbolic, aberrant, monarchists, and insofar as leftists like Wilson and FDR reinfected America with their example was to no good purpose, no matter how much The New Republicans say so to the contrary.

Romney Likens Bain to Obama Bail Out of Auto Cos.: Rush Livid Romney Makes Newt's Point!

So Rush is left today simply trying to change the subject to what Romney SHOULD have said, because Newt not only can't be right, he MUSTN'T be right, now that he's guilty of "anti-capitalism" according to Rush.

The story and video of Romney on CBS this morning are here:

“In the general election I’ll be pointing out that the president took the reins at General Motors and Chrysler – closed factories, closed dealerships laid off thousands and thousands of workers – he did it to try to save the business." ...

“We also had the occasion to do things that are tough to try and save a business." ...

Where is Sarah Palin and that crony capitalism talk from Sept. 3, 2011 when you need it? Is she going to leave Newt to hang out to dry and defend Ron Paul who now defends Romney, or ante up and call Romney (and Obama) nuts and Newt right?




"In a dull stream, which moving slow,
You hardly see the current flow;
When a small breeze obstructs the course,
It whirls about for want of force,
And in its narrow circle gathers
Nothing but chaff, and straws, and feathers:
The current of a female mind stops thus,
and turns with ev'ry wind;
Thus whirling round, together draws
Fools, fops, and rakes, for chaff and straws."

-- Swift

Sarah Palin Quit a Governorship, and Bails Out of a Race for President

Americans don't like quitters. Just like they don't like bailouts, unless they get one. All the Wall Street occupiers would go home tomorrow if you just gave them what they want: cancellation of their student loans. Political protest? I call it extortion.

I'm guessing the polling in the aftermath of Palin's Sept. 3 "crony capitalism" speech didn't look very good, either, otherwise Sarah would be getting ready to run right now, not announcing that she's quitting before she's begun.

I don't think anyone really believed her on Sept. 3, seeing how she defended the bailouts after McCain's defeat. She got the religion against bailouts long after the fact, then didn't press it home consistently as the number one issue and got sidetracked by all kinds of other stuff, only to find at this late juncture that the issue has, unhappily, lost its intelligibility among the electorate.

Government intervention in the financial sector has been too bewilderingly thorough-going and complex even for the experts to explain, even when they've been against it. Which is why people end up accepting facile explanations, which boobs like Rush Limbaugh excel at explaining and which elites are happy for people to believe as the surest way forward to business as usual.

One day after declining to run, here, Rush Limbaugh is telling his listeners that the bank bailouts were a big success, that TARP has been repaid, and that the banks are on the side of free-market capitalism, so don't be deceived and fall for occupywallst.org.

Too bad we haven't really had any free market capitalism since FDR, just big shots who stand to gain the most because they are the first in line for the money, which other big shots need at preferred rates to do business.

Try to remember that every time Rush takes an obscene profit center time out.

The rest is just entertainment.

Rush Limbaugh's Mission Accomplished: Tea Party Absorbed by Republican Party

Otherwise, Rush would not have tried so hard today to disagree with a caller who suggested the Tea Party was born of outrage over the bailouts. He even repeated the MSM mantra that TARP has been repaid in full by the banks, even though the program will end up costing taxpayers $37 billion.

It is apparent Rush now discounts Santelli's galvanizing rant against HAMP on CNBC in February 2009, which first floated the idea nationally of a Tea Party at Lake Michigan in August.

The nascent Tea Party didn't wait for summer.

The reason, of course, is that it is now safe for Rush to spin all that, with Palin and her cronyism message safely out of the way, since she announced yesterday she is not going to run.

Rush doesn't want the troops confused by an anti-bank message now that the left and the unions in league with Democrats and George Soros are in the process of co-opting the original message of the Tea Party. Rush is clearly aware that the Tea Party doesn't have the edge anymore, is politically leaderless, is inured to the problem, and just plain old too tired to mount a new charge against government bailouts. Most of us are graying baby-boomers, after all, taking naps in the afternoon, or wanting to. And some of us are broke.

Besides, Republicans have their mits all over the banking crisis, with New Gingrich and Phil Gramm leading the charge to overturn Glass-Steagall in 1999. Better now to emphasize the private, capitalist character of the banking industry as a target of the socialist left, rather than its dependence on and compromised relationship with the public, government institution called the Federal Reserve Bank, with its phony money and monetarist mission.

Rush Limbaugh the chameleon turns on a dime once again. 

Solyndra: A One Half Billion Dollar Microcosm of Obama's Crony Capitalism

Which rewards the takers, not the makers.

Read about it here, from James Pethokoukis:

"politicians enriching favored businesses, who then return the favor." 

FORD Owner 'Chris' Slams Auto Companies Receiving Government Bailouts

As reported here:

"I wasn't going to buy another car that was bailed out by our government. I was going to buy from a manufacturer that's standing on their own: win, lose, or draw. That's what America is about is taking the chance to succeed and understanding when you fail that you gotta' pick yourself up and go back to work. Ford is that company for me."

Chris is obviously referring to the fact that Chrysler got bailed out once before long ago in addition to its most recent bailout, which was also taken by GM.

Memo to Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann: The auto bailouts are crony capitalism at its worst. Why aren't you talking about that instead of Gov. Perry and Gardasil?

Because you're phonies, that's why!

Sarah Palin's Neurons Are So Cross-Connected She Cannot Produce a Complete Sentence

You may verify the following completely incoherent excerpt for yourself, here:

Michelle Bachmann pointed out that Governor Perry's former chief of staff who then went to work for a drug company who made the drug that would be required of the Texan government to mandate that our young daughters would have to be inoculated against a potential disease from this company that his former chief of staff was lobbying for. That is crony capitalism. 

Here's the translation, in English:

Michele Bachmann pointed out that Governor Perry's former chief of staff went to work for a drug company which made the drug that the Texas government under Rick Perry required our young daughters to receive in order to be inoculated against a potential disease [.]  That is crony capitalism.

Ya got that?


Yes, it might indeed be crony capitalism, if only we understood what the hell you are trying to say, except that even if we did it pales in comparison to the way the Federal Reserve, and the Executive and Legislative branches of our government have conspired to bail out the bankers and big business at the expense of trillions to the electorate. Thanks Newt. Thanks Phil Gramm. Thanks Bill Clinton.


If only any of you had the brains to talk about that, or its twin problem ObamaCare. But no, you decide to criticize someone who's on your side just to score a few miserable points.


While I fully understand how a person of such limited intellectual ability can be awarded a college degree in our culture of decrepitude, what I cannot understand is the enthusiasm which a certain part of the electorate has for this woman. Being able to supply (!) and string together correctly a subject, verb and object should be the last thing on our list of presidential qualifications, but alas, it appears to be first.

The electorate which backs Sarah Palin should know better, and that a substantial part of it does not is the real cause for alarm.

The New York Times Notices Sarah Palin Now Speaks Their Language

Here, where hope springs eternal:

Ms. Palin’s third point was more striking still: in contrast to the sweeping paeans to capitalism and the free market delivered by the Republican presidential candidates whose ranks she has yet to join, she sought to make a distinction between good capitalists and bad ones. The good ones, in her telling, are those small businesses that take risks and sink and swim in the churning market; the bad ones are well-connected megacorporations that live off bailouts, dodge taxes and profit terrifically while creating no jobs.

Strangely, she was saying things that liberals might like, if not for Ms. Palin’s having said them.

“This is not the capitalism of free men and free markets, of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and of risk,” she said of the crony variety. She added: “It’s the collusion of big government and big business and big finance to the detriment of all the rest — to the little guys. It’s a slap in the face to our small business owners — the true entrepreneurs, the job creators accounting for 70 percent of the jobs in America.”

Is there a hint of a political breakthrough hiding in there?

Up Until February 2010, Sarah Palin Was A TARP Republican

Many have pointed out Gov. Sarah Palin's hypocrisy on the bailouts, especially after her book Going Rogue appeared in late 2009, which codified her support of the extraordinary measures of 2008. I documented her statements supporting the bailouts, here and here.

With a speech in February 2010, however, she made news not just because she chose to give the speech in a Tea Party venue instead of at CPAC, but because she basically flip-flopped on the issue of the bailouts just months after her book had appeared.

Someone had straightened her out in the interim.

I'm actually not surprised by this shape shifting behavior, but it disqualifies her in my mind as much as the same sort of flip-flopping disqualifies a Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty, or even a Rick Perry. Turning currents seem to sweep people one way and then another regardless of gender these days.

The trouble, however, is that Bush was for TARP, Paul Ryan was for TARP, Nancy Pelosi was for TARP, John Boehner was for TARP, Sen. Reid was for TARP, Sen. McConnell was for TARP, Sen. Obama was for TARP, Sen. McCain was for TARP, and so was Sarah.

They're all responsible for interfering deeply and dangerously with the free exercise of the markets at a critical time when we most needed our leaders to trust in the ability of capitalism to prove its superiority to socialism, to fascism and to communism. And they all blinked.

It was a horrible failure of nerve. Many acted out of fear. And many acted out of fear of the money they would lose.

The latest speech in Iowa yesterday is a diatribe against the bailouts, against crony capitalism, and against the entrenched interests in Washington, DC. You can read the full transcript here and make of it what you will.

It doesn't mention the banks or TARP per se, just "big finance" and Wall Street. That the public/private nexus of banking is at the heart of the mortgage debacle is nowhere in evidence, which inspires zero confidence that Sarah Palin knows anything about the correct way forward. 

As a solution to our many problems the speech expresses a naivete about human nature which would be breathtaking if it came from an actual statesman, say, a Margaret Thatcher. In point of fact, Sarah Palin is as sanguine about the prospects of cleaning house as Barack Obama is about perfecting our union. Just get a new team in there and make them accountable, that'll fix it.

As if there are human beings in our world who are not corruptible. 

If we really wanted a resurrection of the spirit of the founding era, it would begin with a deep suspicion of human nature and a construction of policies and institutions meant to check it as a matter of first importance. Republican enthusiasm to overturn Glass Steagall was an expression of the opposite. As a Christian Sarah Palin should know better.

As it is, the notion that good and evil dwell mixed up together in each of us might as well be an item of organic chemistry, Latin grammar or Greek philosophy. It is incomprehensible to the current generation who seem to retain boundless faith in the essential goodness of human nature, or at least of the human nature of their particular tribe.

Whether Republican or Democrat, however, this makes them all creatures of the left, including Sarah Palin.

To which I say, No, thanks.

The response from the right would be that human nature is essentially evil (David Mamet), and thus requires either theocracy or monarchy, or from the center that human nature is mixed and requires a mixed polity such as the founders bequeathed to us in the form of the constitution. The latter is classical liberalism, a kind of half-way house, and true moderation! Think gray-heads marching in the streets, but without the litter.

This is the Tea Party, a form of reactionary conservatism trying to recover a classical liberalism which looks ever smaller in the rear view mirror with every passing day. The brave new world lies dead ahead if they do not succeed.

And I do mean dead.

Obama Plays 'You Choose' at The Washington Post: How Obama Can Default on Treasuries to Hurt His Enemies and Help His Friends, and Get Re-elected

I'm drinking gin on a hot Saturday afternoon, putting on my 'Evil Obama' hat and playing 'You Choose' here at The Washington Post.

Imagine you are Obama.

You want to transform America into a European socialist welfare state. The Republicans are standing in your way. They want to freeze the debt ceiling where it is to deprive you of the opportunity to follow through with your dramatic spending increases, which have tripled the annual budget deficits.

The monthly revenue stream will leave you short by something around $125 billion on average without the freedom to sell new debt.

The people who will vote for you need to get their money in a government shutdown.

The people who will not vote for you anyway must not get theirs.

You'll make your choices, and when your enemies complain they're not getting their dough, you can plausibly blame the Republicans for tying your hands.

In the process you can destroy the full faith and credit of the United States and cut her down to size, and finish the (crony) capitalists once and for all.

You can end the wars and bring home the troops (saving tons of money and improving your popularity at the same time).

You can tank the economy and get sweeping powers to spend the trillions of dollars Paul Krugman wanted you to spend in the first place (on people who will vote for you).

Does he have the guts? Or does he just want to play golf for the rest of his life?

Palin Proves Again That the Climb Down Into the Gutter Comes Natural to Her

Here it is again on her Facebook page, playing cutesy with the acronym for Obama's "Winning the Future."

Every time she resorts to one of these easy low one-offs she destroys her credibility as a Christian and as a serious political player.

The descent into barbarism continues apace.

If We Want More Home Sales, Subsidize Home Ownership, Don't Tax It

It's an old principle too often forgotten in discussions of economic policy:

"If you want less of something, tax it; if you want more of something, subsidize it."

We've learned in America that when you don't limit welfare in some way, you'll get lots more people on it. And tax people too much like we did in the 1970s, and you'll proliferate money in tax shelters.

What we need more of right now in America is home sales. 18.4 million dwellings sit vacant in the US, and homeowners all across the country who want to sell and scale down or sell and move up can't, because of the housing slump. Properties go unsold season after season, and people are stuck.

Jonathan Swift put it this way a long time ago:

"Money, the lifeblood of the nation,

Corrupts and stagnates in the veins,

Unless a proper circulation

Its motion and its heat maintains."

Logic tells us that we should subsidize housing through tax policy even more than it already is, but the Obama regime, and a bunch of misguided libertarians, want to do the opposite: recover the "tax loss expenditure" created by the mortgage interest deduction.

In other words, they want to tax home ownership, in the name of tax neutrality, handing the advantage to landlords who can still deduct their mortgage interest, along with the maintenance and depreciation which homeowners cannot deduct. It almost sounds like planned crony capitalism.

If Obama and company succeed, we'll have even less home ownership than we have now, and even lower values, but lots of new politically favored slumlords.

The following is an excerpt from John C. Weicher's "Repealing the Mortgage Interest Deduction? Hold the Applause!,"  found here, which touches on some of these issues:

The President’s budget for 2012 proposes to take a small but significant step in the same direction.  The value of the deduction would be reduced for families with incomes above $250,000.  These are the same taxpayers for whom Mr. Obama wanted to raise taxes back in December - “the rich.”   

But the deduction isn’t a particular benefit for rich people. ... they only account for about 20% of all mortgage interest reported on tax returns, according to the IRS.

Most of the benefit of the mortgage interest deduction goes to households who are not “rich,” households with incomes between $75,000 and $200,000.  These are middle-class families, reasonably well off, but working, and working hard. ...

Repealing the mortgage interest deduction will make it harder for young families to become homeowners.  Repealing the capital gains exclusion, another Commission recommendation, will make it harder for older families, when they want to move to a retirement home or move to be near their children and grandchildren. 

Jeff Immelt: Obama's Crony Nuclear Capitalist

Rachel Layne for Bloomberg has a lengthy article about GE's nuclear business, which its chairman Jeff Immelt, was hoping to expand dramatically in India:

General Electric Co. (GE)’s goal of broadening its $1 billion nuclear service-and-parts business with sales of new reactors risks stalling as world leaders reconsider the future of atomic energy.

Governments from Germany, which halted 25 percent of its nuclear-generated electricity, to India, with $175 billion in planned spending by 2030, are reassessing the technology after Japan’s March 11 earthquake and tsunami crippled a power plant and raised the threat of a meltdown.

Immelt is the new head of Obama's team of economic advisers, on which he also sat before he replaced Paul Volcker.

He was among numerous American corporate figures who accompanied Obama on his lavish trip to India after the November elections in 2010.

Watch for GE to make a huge contribution after Obama is out of office to his presidential library.