Of "Large Loans Between Vulnerable States" in Europe

A credit expert from Frankfurt is quoted painting a very grave picture of Euroland:

"Economically, we are in a very risky situation. Greece is close to default. We face systemic risk like the Lehman collapse and unless there is a bail-out for Greece, there will have to be a bail-out for the whole European banking system within two or three months," he said.

Yet they are damned if they don't, and damned if they do. "A Greek bail-out increases the risk of EMU break-up, because monetary union can only work if everybody sticks to the rules," Mr Felsenheimer said.

French banks have $76bn of exposure to Greece, the Swiss $64bn, and the Germans $43bn. But this understates cross-border links. There are large loans between vulnerable states. The exposure of Portuguese banks to Spain and Ireland equals 19pc of Portugal's GDP. Interlocking claims within the eurozone zone are complex. Contagion can spread fast.

To read more of this story by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, go here.

And then consider this, from March 2009:

Contrary to public perception, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 was not the major catastrophe of the Great Depression; it was merely the precipitating event. In fact it was the bankruptcy of Credit-Anstalt in 1931 that made the Depression truly global, and crippled banks throughout Europe and North America. The resulting run on banks throughout the world, with numerous banking failures, was the catalyst that accelerated the rise in global unemployment.

The rest of that is available here.

The crisis which came to the fore in September of 2008 is not over, not by a long shot.

The Biggest Lie in Obama's State of the Union Address

The Lie: "And if there's one thing that has unified Democrats and Republicans, it's that we all hated the bank bailout."

The Truth: In the House and the Senate they loved it so much that 63% of them voted for it (212 Democrats and 125 Republicans). But only 72 Democrats in the House and the Senate voted against the bailout. Which means 75% of Democrats were for the bailouts! The Republicans were nearly split: 123 against, and 125 for, the bailout.

As of tonight, I count 10 Democrats in the House and the Senate who were present at the bailout vote who will not stand for re-election, 9 of whom voted FOR the bailout: Baird of Washington, Berry of Arkansas, Gordon of Tennessee, Moore of Kansas, Snyder of Arkansas, Tanner of Tennessee, Watson of California, Dodd of Connecticut, and Abercrombie of Hawaii.

Just a coincidence?

I also count 9 Republicans in the House and the Senate who were present at the bailout vote who will not stand for re-election, 7 of whom voted FOR the bailout: Brown of South Carolina, Ehlers of Michigan, Radanovich of California, Shadegg of Arizona, Bond of Missouri, Gregg of New Hampshire, and Voinovich of Ohio.

If there's one thing that's unifying the country right now, it's the desire to throw the bailout bums out, and it's President Obama's biggest problem, according to progressive.org:

But Obama voted for the bailout when he was a Senator, and then expanded it when he was President.

It is a cement block tied around his ankles.

Time for a swim.

More republicanism, Less democracy

David Harsanyi defends the filibuster, but falls short of calling for a return to the election of U.S. Senators by the state legislatures, which is what we really need if we want more checks on power (the article appeared here):

February 10, 2010

Say No to Democracy

By David Harsanyi

If you've been paying attention to the left-wing punditry these days, you may be under the impression that the nation's institutions are on the verge of collapse. Or that the rule of law is unraveling. Or maybe that this once-great nation is crippled and nearly beyond repair.

You know why? Because the 40 percent (or so) political minority has far too much influence in Washington. Don't you know? This minority, egged on by a howling mob of nitwits, is holding progress hostage using its revolting politics and parliamentary trickery.

Leading the charge to fix this dire problem is New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, who advocates abolishing the Senate filibuster to make way for direct democracy's magic.

It had better be quick. The populace is fickle. Jacob Weisberg of Slate believes that Americans are crybabies who don't know what's good for 'em, causing "political paralysis." Even President Barack Obama, after his agenda had come to a halt, claimed democracy is a "messy" process -- as if that were a bad thing.

Actually, "democracy" is not only messy but also immoral and unworkable. The Founding Fathers saw that coming, as well. So we don't live under a system of simple majority rule for a reason, as most readers already know.

The minority political party, luckily, has the ability to obstruct, nag and filibuster the majority's agenda. Otherwise, those in absolute power would run wild -- or, in other words, you all would be living that Super Bowl Audi commercial by now.

And if democracy is the mob -- the "worship of jackals by jackasses," as H.L. Mencken once cantankerously put it -- whom does it comprise in our scenario? Depends on how you look at it, I suppose.

Not long ago, even before the Tea Party existed, Obama whipped up crowds angry at Republicans with his rosy brand of left-wing populism. He was able to hypnotize adoring masses with his grand and nebulous promises, though he had few new ideas and little experience to back it up.

Obama's ensuing coronation -- more than 2 million people reportedly showed up for his inauguration -- must have reinforced the perception in Washington that nearly everyone was on board. And in its first year, this administration acted accordingly, attempting to transform energy and health care policy, among other things.

Turns out, if we believe polls, that Americans changed their minds quickly and in large numbers. And history shows us that generally, unhampered one-party rule doesn't work out for anyone.

Then again, today's argument that the ruling party doesn't have enough power is a reflection of a nearly spiritual belief in the wonders of government, not democracy.

Though many Democrats advocate for direct democracy -- whether it be fighting states' rights or supporting the removal of the Electoral College -- it is a curiously selective endeavor.

Take the Tea Partiers, who also have attached themselves to "democracy" rhetoric. What, one wonders, will Democrats have to say about the filibuster when Sarah Palin is jamming through her first-year agenda as president?

We must be more judicious. We must have more debate before moving forward. The Founding Fathers never envisioned radical policy being jammed through by the majority. Oh, my God, it's actually happening.

Those who contend that the ruling party isn't instilled with enough control are worried about politics, not process. And actually, regardless of which ephemeral majority happens to win the day, we should be looking for more checks on power, not less.

Reach columnist David Harsanyi at dharsanyi@denverpost.com.

Ja, Sure, We Miss Ya

Suddenly Sarah Palin Gets Bailout Religion

In September of 2008 Sarah Palin was completely on-board with the idea of the bailout which subsequently came to be known as TARP. She and John McCain were wrong on the one issue which might have swept them into office.

A little more than a year later in her book Going Rogue she still defended the bailout of the banks.

But now, just a few months down the road from the book's release, she's suddenly outraged that the banks have suffered no consequences and that the bailout dam has inexplicably burst forth like a flood, as if she had nothing to do with its inception.

From her Tea Party speech in Nashville:

We can be conquered by bombs, but we can also be conquered by neglect, by ignoring our Constitution and disregarding the principles of limited government. . . .Washington has now replaced private irresponsibility with public irresponsibility. The list of companies and industries that the government is crowding out and bailing out and taking over, it continues to grow.

First, it was the banks, mortgage companies, financial institutions, then automakers. Soon, if they had their way, health care, student loans. Today, in the words of Congressman Paul Ryan, the $700 billion TARP has morphed into crony capitalism at its wors[t]. It is becoming a slush fund for the Treasury Department's favorite big players, just as we had been warned about.

While people on main street look for jobs, people on Wall Street, they're collecting billions and billions in your bailout bonuses. Among the top 17 companies that received your bailout money, 92 percent of the senior officers and directors, they still have their good jobs. And everyday Americans are wondering, where are the consequences for them helping to get us into this worst economic situation since the great depression? Where are the consequences?

Sarah Palin represents nothing so much now as a follower of the Tea Party movement. That's one down. And if a third of the voters are already sympathetic as well, that's only 23 million or so to go to a popular majority.

Good luck with that.

Sarah Palin Believes The Military Gave Us Our Freedom

She opened her Tea Party speech in Nashville with this:

Do you love your freedom? If you love your freedom, think of it. Any of you here serving in uniform, past or present, raise your hand? We are going to thank you for our freedom. God bless you guys. We salute you. We honor you. Thank you.

The Declaration of Independence, however, asserts that liberty is an unalienable right with which we are endowed by the Creator, not by flesh and blood, human effort or will.

This sort of ignorance of our Founding is perennial, but inexcusable in politicians, especially in those who claim to be conservatives.

Time to Pasture-ize John McCain

Good stuff from Michelle Malkin on McCain Regression Syndrome:

With all due respect to McCain’s past noble war service, it’s time to head to the pasture. As the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday, he was wrong on the constitutionality of the free-speech-stifling McCain-Feingold campaign finance regulations. He was wrong to side with the junk-science global warming activists in pushing onerous carbon caps on America. He was on the wrong side of every Chicken Little-driven bailout. He was wrong in opposing enhanced CIA interrogation methods that have saved countless American lives and averted jihadi plots. And he was spectacularly wrong in teaming with the open-borders lobby to push a dangerous illegal alien amnesty.

Tea Party activists are rightly outraged by Sarah Palin’s decision to campaign for McCain, whose entrenched incumbency and progressive views are anathema to the movement. At least she has an excuse: She’s caught between a loyalty rock and a partisan hard place. The conservative base has no such obligations – and it is imperative that they get in the game (as they did in Massachusetts) before it’s too late. The movement to restore limited government in Washington has come too far, against all odds, to succumb to McCain Regression Syndrome now.

Go here to read the rest.

Remembering Some Who Endorsed Obama in 2008

Just making my list, and checking it often.

Ken Adelman

Wick Allison, former publisher of National Review

Ann Althouse

Andrew J. Bacevich, Boston University

The Daily Bail

David Brooks, The New York Times

Christopher Buckley, National Review

Jimmy Buffett

Governor Arne Carlson

Senator Lincoln Chafee

Ken Duberstein

Julie Nixon Eisenhower

Susan Eisenhower

Charles Fried

Representative Wayne Gilchrist

C.C. Goldwater

Representative Ryan Grim

Merle Haggard

Governor Linwood Holton

Jeffrey Hart, National Review

Representative Joel Haugen

Rita Hauser

Larry Hunter

Douglas Kmiec

Representative Jim Leach

Scott McClellan

Scott McConnell, The American Conservative

Tim McGraw

John Mellencamp

Governor William Milliken

Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal

Kathleen Parker

General Colin Powell

Senator Larry Pressler

Ron Reagan

J.K. Rowling

Bill Ruckelshaus

Andrew Tobias

Governor William Weld

"As They Say In The Glacier Business, Ice Work If You Can Get It"

It's only the morning after talking, but Mark Steyn makes us think Elmer Fudd pronounces "WTF" "WWF":

[T]he IPCC['s] Himalayan claims rest on a 2005 World Wildlife Fund report called “An Overview of Glaciers.”

WWF? Aren’t they something to do with pandas and the Duke of Edinburgh? True. But they wouldn’t be saying this stuff if they hadn’t got the science nailed down, would they? The WWF report relies on an article published in the New Scientist in 1999 by Fred Pearce.

That’s it? One article from 12 years ago in a pop-science mag? Oh, but don’t worry, back in 1999 Fred did a quickie telephone interview with a chap called Syed Hasnain of Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. And this Syed Hasnain cove presumably knows a thing or two about glaciers.

Well, yes. But he now says he was just idly “speculating”; he didn’t do any research or anything like that.

But so what? His musings were wafted upwards through the New Scientist to the World Wildlife Fund to the IPCC to a global fait accompli: the glaciers are disappearing. Everyone knows that. You’re not a denier, are you? India’s environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, says there was not “an iota of scientific evidence” to support the 2035 claim. Yet that proved no obstacle to its progress through the alarmist establishment. Dr. Murari Lal, the “scientist” who included the 2035 glacier apocalypse in the IPCC report, told Britain’s Mail on Sunday that he knew it wasn’t based on “peer-reviewed science” but “we thought we should put it in”—for political reasons.

Go here for more.

It All Depends On What The Meaning of "Organized" Is

Hillary Clinton still thinks exactly like Bill Clinton.

At the national prayer breakfast:

"So she went to her church and she prayed for an end to the civil war. And she organized other women at her church, and then at other churches, then at the mosques. Soon thousands of women became a mass movement, rising up and praying for a peace, and working to bring it about that finally, finally ended the conflict."

And then just five paragraphs later, this:

"Yet across the world, we see organized religion standing in the way of faith, perverting love, undermining that message."

I smell a Wonderland called Feminism, Alice.

Nice Going, Governor Granholm: Michigan is Second Worst in the Western World!

(from econompicdata.blogspot.com)

Obama Twice Pronounces the "PS" in "Corpsman"

So far no one has dared to ax the smartest president ever about the mistake.

The Pyramids of John Maynard Keynes

Caroline Baum notices that President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget contains money for everything, it seems, except pyramid building:

No longer will President Barack Obama be content to cite specious numbers about “jobs saved or created” as a result of last year’s $787 billion fiscal stimulus. Now he’s proposing $100 billion of new spending to “jumpstart job creation,” according to White House Budget Director Peter Orszag. It’s part of a $3.8 trillion budget for fiscal 2011, unveiled Monday, that projects a $1.3 trillion deficit next year, following a $1.6 trillion deficit this year.

Spend money to save money. Spending dressed up as a jump- starter is still spending by another name.

The only thing missing from the energy-cleansing, rural- community-assisting, climate-change-mitigating, health-food- promoting blueprint is money for pyramid building. In Chapter 10, Section VI of “The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money,” John Maynard Keynes advocated building pyramids as a cure for unemployment.

In fact, “Two pyramids, two masses for the dead, are twice as good as one,” he wrote in his 1936 treatise.

The reason Obama avoids mentioning pyramid building, however, has to do with the fact that Obama has political power, whereas Keynes did not have political power and did not therefore feel constrained.

"What's that?" you say. "What does that have to do with it?"

Because of what Aristotle said:

It is also advantageous for a tyranny that all those who are under it should be oppressed with poverty, that they may not be able to compose a guard; and that, being employed in procuring their daily bread, they may have no leisure to conspire against their tyrants. The Pyramids of Egypt are a proof of this, and the votive edifices of the Cyposelidse, and the temple of Jupiter Olympus, built by the Pisistratidae, and the works of Polycrates at Samos; for all these produced one end, the keeping the people poor.

Obama wouldn't want to put any strange ideas in anyone's mind, now, would he?

The Kind of Regulation We Most Need

". . . Just as the men and women of finance are fallible, so are the men and women who populate Washington. Given the basic truth that private and public error will never be abolished, arguably the best regulation of all is the simplest one: Let them fail."

For more, go here.

Anti-Elitist Joke of the Day

What's the difference between a BMW and a porcupine?

On the porcupine the prick's on the outside.

"THE SINGLE MOST INEPT PRESIDENT...IN ALL OF AMERICAN HISTORY"

Ron Smith of The Baltimore Sun rips the president a new one in "We Do Get It, Mr. President; We Just Don't Like It":

Barack Obama seems to believe he has magical powers of persuasion. If true, how come fewer and fewer are persuaded? Is it that, as much of a smoothie as he is with words, he lacks passion? Perhaps, but the idea that his drooping poll figures and the Republican electoral wins in Massachusetts, Virginia and New Jersey are the result of an epidemic of misunderstanding is ludicrous on its face. We understand what he and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid want, and we're opposed to it. We know the present health care system is heading for a financial crack-up, but we also know that the proposed cure that was cobbled together in an untidy, indecipherable monstrous piece of pork-ridden, bribe-filled legislation would make things worse, not better. We get it. We just don't like it. ...

Earlier in the week, I talked with David Michael Green, a devout "progressive" who teaches political science at Hofstra University in New York. He has written a powerful polemic, "How to Squander the Presidency in One Year," in which he says, "There's only one political party in the entire world that is so inept, cowardly and bungling that it could manage to simultaneously lick the boots of Wall Street bankers and then get blamed by the voters for being flaming revolutionary socialists.

"Barack Obama has now, in just a year's time, become the single most inept president perhaps in all of American history, and certainly in my lifetime," Mr. Green said, adding that "Never has so much political advantage been [squandered] so rapidly, and what's more in the context of so much national urgency and crisis. It's astonishing, really, to contemplate how much has been lost in a single year."

The parts I left out are pretty good too, at the link.

Our Rights are Presumed, not Granted

If they are the sort of things which can be granted, permitted, dispensed, or won, then they can also be rescinded, forbidden, withheld and lost. But they are, on the contrary, natural and pre-existing, and therefore inalienable, as in "From my cold dead fingers!"

I say popular confusion about this in our time is all Lee Greenwood's fault, at least since 1984:

And I’m proud to be an American,

where at least I know I’m free.

And I wont forget the men who died,

who gave that right to me.

Nobody "gave that right" to freedom, or to anything else, to anyone. Everyone already has "that right." It is granted by God, or Nature's God if you prefer, by virtue of His will that one exists.

On this subject Thomas Mitchell offers "A Few Reminders for the Constitutionally Challenged," which appeared here and which was the original occasion of this post, which is now kind of an irony because Mitchell's post opens with the words of James Madison: "The right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of every other right."

Why irony? Because as I edit this post today, July 24, 2010, The Las Vegas Review Journal is in the news at wired.com for hiring a lawyer to go after bloggers like me for copyright infringement for reproducing their articles on their blogs.

While we really like Mitchell's idea that The Bill of Rights should be renamed The Bill of Prohibitions, here's a reminder of a little something that predates the current copyright law, Mr. James Madison and the Bill of Rights:

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead [men's] bones, and of all uncleanness.

Try copyrighting that.

CPUSA Openly Aligns Itself With President Obama

President Obama, speaking to the House Republicans, on Friday, January 29, 2010, about the healthcare legislation debate:

"Now, you may not agree with Bob Dole and Howard Baker, and, certainly you don't agree with Tom Daschle on much, but that's not a radical bunch. But if you were to listen to the debate and, frankly, how some of you went after this bill, you'd think that this thing was some Bolshevik plot. No, I mean, that's how you guys -- (applause) -- that's how you guys presented it."

But the Bolsheviks aren't "plotting." They're openly applauding.

From The American Thinker:

July 20, 2009

Obama and the CPUSA

Randall Hoven

I encourage you to read the latest words from Sam Webb, National Chair of the Communist Party USA. As is the wont of communists, Mr. Webb is rather long-winded; I provide only a few interesting excerpts:

Six months into the Obama presidency, I would say without hesitation that the landscape, atmosphere, conversation, and agenda have strikingly changed compared to the previous eight years.

In this legislative session, we can envision winning a Medicare-like public option and then going further in the years ahead.

We can visualize passing tough regulatory reforms on the financial industry, which brought the economy to ruin.

In the current political climate, the expansion of union rights becomes a real possibility.

Much the same can be said about winning a second stimulus bill, and we sure need one, given the still-rising rate, and likely long term persistence, of unemployment.

Isn't it possible in the Obama era to create millions of green jobs in manufacturing and other sectors of the economy in tandem with an attack on global warming?

The new conditions of struggle are possible only - and I want to emphasize only - because we elected President Obama and a Congress with pronounced progressive and center currents.

Yes, socialism is our objective and, according to recent public opinion polls, it is increasingly attractive to the American people. But clearly it is not on the immediate political agenda.

As for our radicalism, we should be as radical as reality itself. And reality strongly suggests that our main task is to bring the weight of the working class and other democratic forces to bear on the reform process with the aim of deepening its anti-corporate content and direction.

Let's be aware that he [Obama] has to keep a coalition together for his long-term as well as immediate legislative agenda. Let's give President Obama some space to change and to respond to pressures from below.

The Right Wing, the American Medical Association, the pharmaceutical and insurance companies have drawn a line in the sand on health care.

The core of this struggle, whether we like it or not, turns on the inclusion of a public option in a health care bill.

Months ago it was said that the downturn could be "L-shaped" rather than "V-shaped." In other words, the crisis begins with a steep decline in economic activity followed by long period of economic stagnation.

I suspect that this is what will happen, thus making sustained government and people's intervention an imperative. In my view this should take at least three forms:

First, more economic stimulus: the economy is underperforming and nearly 30 million workers are unemployed or underemployed and that number hasn't peaked yet.

Second, restructuring is imperative. The old economic model that rested on bubble economics, cheap labor, financial manipulation and speculation, deregulation, capital outsourcing, environmental degradation, and so forth, has to be replaced by a new model that expands and restructures the productive base and is "people and nature" friendly.

Finally, the economy has to be democratized. The wizards of Wall Street and inside the Beltway failed miserably, in fact, so miserably those economic decisions that affect the welfare of millions shouldn't rest in their hands.

In the meantime, the struggle for immediate public sector jobs and relief should command our attention.

President Obama ... has expressed a readiness to engage with countries that during the Bush years were considered mortal enemies - Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, and others.

In Iraq, the U.S. withdrawal plan is proceeding, with the first stage being withdrawal from Iraqi cities by July. President Obama has reiterated his intention to stick with the pullout deadlines. Even with the caveats about what U.S. forces might remain, this is a major victory for the peace movement.

If not already painfully obvious to you, let me point out a few things:

(1) Obama's policy agenda and that of the CPUSA are in perfect alignment: more stimuli; green jobs; global warming; public sector jobs; more regulation and, in fact, restructuring of the entire economy; eventual single-payer health care, with the public option being critical to any immediate plan; union-friendly legislation; cutting defense spending; engaging and normalizing relations with the US's mortal enemies like Hugo Chavez, the Castro brothers and the reigning mullahs of Iran; claiming victory in Iraq as their own.

(2) Obama's political approach is also in perfect harmony with that of the CPUSA's. The method is gradualism. Overall, Obama is doing pretty well at achieving CPUSA's goals under the current political circumstances. The Left should not expect immediate and radical changes. And of all things, the Left should not "define the current struggle as one that arrays the people against President Obama. That's not Marxism; it's plain stupid."

(3) Mr. Webb expects a lousy economy to continue. Specifically, he expects the "L-shaped" recovery. But this "long period of economic stagnation" will be an excuse for continued government intervention. As Lenin supposedly said, "the worse the better."

(4) Socialism is the objective.

In my view, this duck has a bill, webbed feet and feathers; quacks, walks, flies and swims; and has DNA that matches that of a duck. I'm willing to call it a duck.

The really striking thing about all this, though, is that the CPUSA can openly align itself with the President of the US, right under our noses, and it will have zero effect on public sentiment because the lapdog media studiously averts its gaze.

The Corpse is Sitting Up

After applying the paddles of $trillions of bailouts, stimulus spending, and backstops, the preliminary report of Q4 GDP comes in at 5.7%, but is already more like 2.3% after deducting 3.39 points for falling inventories. Who knows what the final number will look like after the customary revisions. But one thing is already clear: 2009 overall marked the worst year of economic contraction since 1946. And the doctors, the taxpayers, aren't likely to stay in the ER indefinitely.

The story is from Reuters:

The U.S. economy grew at a faster-than-expected 5.7 percent pace in the fourth quarter, the quickest in more than six years, as businesses made less-aggressive cuts to inventories and stepped up spending.

The Commerce Department said on Friday its first estimate put fourth-quarter gross domestic product growth at its fastest pace since the third quarter of 2003. The economy expanded at a 2.2 percent annual rate in the third quarter. . . .

Business inventories fell only $33.5 billion in fourth quarter after dropping $139.2 billion in the July-September period. The change in inventories alone added 3.39 percentage points to GDP in the last quarter. This was the biggest percentage contribution since the fourth quarter of 1987.

For the whole of 2009, the economy contracted 2.4 percent, the biggest decline since 1946, the first year after the end of World War II.

Go here for the whole thing.

Of Politicians and Potato Chips

George Will spanks some babies while discussing the recent Supreme Court activism in defense of The Bill of Rights:

Even if it were Congress' business to decide that there is "too much" money in politics, that decision would be odd: In the 2007-08 election cycle, spending in all campaigns, for city council members up to the presidency, was $8.6 billion, about what Americans spend annually on potato chips.

Read more here.