Links and Minifeatures 2009 03 23 Monday

Carnival of Personal Finance

Carnival of Real Estate

Iran's response to US shows mind-set of leadership

"It's the first stage of the bargaining in classic Iranian style: Be tough and play up your toughness," said Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a professor of regional politics at United Arab Emirates University. "The Iranian leaders are not about concessions at this stage. It's still all about ideology from the Iranian side."

Well, duh. These clerics are locked into a mindset that makes the Inquisition look flexible and compromising. They're looking for a bigger stick to hold on the rest of the world, because they have seen the respect that the west gives North Korea, a tiny little disaster of a state that has managed to procure a nuclear arsenal and some long range missiles to launch them on They want that kind of respect. They want that kind of power.

"Have you released Iranian assets? Have you lifted oppressive sanctions? Have you given up mudslinging and making accusations against the great Iranian nation and its officials?" Khamenei said in a speech in the northeastern city of Mashhad. The crowd chanted "Death to America."

The US plays a political function to the Iranians much like the Jews did to the NSDAP: The enemy to keep the masses united against. The Iranian clerics are not interested in being friends. They're just interested in keeping the US from ever making up its mind to actually invade. Right now especially, when they're on the verge of a nuclear arsenal. They see a threat, and it's not unreasonable from their point of view: Where are Iraq and Afghanistan with respect to Iran? Once they get a nuclear arsenal, they quite correctly expect that we'll leave them alone to basically do what they want. Democracies (real ones anyway) do not elect the kinds of leaders that are willing to take the kind of losses necessary to a nuclear battlefield. I don't think we've even got the will for a containment policy any longer - witness the incredible ease with which a resurgent Russia has gotten its way on everything of substance (help us in exchange for dropping the missile defense system? Why would they do that? Obama campaigned on dropping it anyway! Don't think they don't listen to our politics. Putin would want another concession, one that even Obama doesn't want to give).

The difference between Putin and the Iranian clerics is that while Putin might be what we call avaricious for power, he's rational about the possibility of losing it and won't go over a line which would cause the necessary coalition to band together for the purposes of ousting his regime. The Iranians are insane enough to turn everything they can into a glowing wasteland to earn their places in heaven, rather than accept defeat

Belmont Club has context, and more.

Villainous Company contrasts the treatment military families have received from our current and former presidents.

Mark Steyn

But don't forget, folks: Somewhere in Texas a village has been reunited with its idiot, and we now have the whip-smartest administration of David Brooks's lifetime.

Read it and weep - for ourselves.

Commandante Obama

The American tried to shrug off the Latin Americans' warning. To his consternation, he found that he couldn't. Peron, Fidel, now Chavez, they insisted. The emergence of misrule, corruption and economic stagnation in Latin American nations follows a particular sequence or progression. Now the sequence was unfolding in the United States.

and

"The last step?" asked the Cuban. "Censorship. It won't be obvious at first--they're always too smart for that. But it will come."

"Never," replied the American. "We have the First Amendment."

"And soon enough," the Cuban said, smiling sadly, "you will also have the Fairness Doctrine."

Read the whole thing.

Our Partisan President

I am worried. Not because I am enamored of bipartisanship. I like Ike - but I like "Give 'em Hell" Harry, too. I have no problem with the sharp elbows approach, even coming from the White House. I am worried because I thought partisan reconciliation was an animating force of Obama's candidacy, a big reason why he thought he - rather than one of the 306 million other Americans - should be President. I am worried that, amidst a credit crisis, two wars, and a lack of confidence in our nation's institutions, we have installed as President a man apparently willing to abandon a foundational premise of his candidacy not three months into his tenure.

I, on the other hand, never drank the Obama Kool-Aid. I observed his prior electoral behavior before he even had the Democratic nomination (disqualifying opponents from the ballot, disqualifying a critical number of their sponsorship signatures, vilifying opponents via opposition research and proxy attacks) and thought it likely we would see more of the same from a President Obama. I watched his tactics, and those of his proxies in the primaries, and found them despicable. My assessment has been borne out, and more rapidly and more definitely than even I thought. He's about as post partisan or bipartisan as Josef Stalin. Remember "A leopard does not change his spots without clear and convincing reason" His spots were succeeding wildly for Barack Obama - there was no reason for him to change.

What do we do now? The only thing we can do is help Obama opponents get ready for 2010. They're not all Republicans. A considerable number of Democrats oppose his policies and are worthy of sponsorship in the primaries. The alternative - catching Obama in an impeachable offense - is not under our control and his supporters in the Senate will prevent removing him from office anyway. (Facts? You silly person, these are Democratic party hacks we're talking about. They haven't considered facts since they came to Washington - they will vote against removal. Bill Clinton's impeachment proved that. He was guilty, everyone knew he was guilty of perjury, the House managers proved it beyond a any possible doubt - and how many Democrats voted to remove him? The answer is zero. I guess nullification is a good thing where Democratic political interests are involved)

Bonfire of the Trivialities

That's $165 million in bonus money handed out to AIG debt manipulators who may be the only ones who know how to defuse the bomb they themselves built. Now, in the scheme of things, $165 million is a rounding error. It amounts to less than 1/18,500 of the $3.1 trillion federal budget. It's less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the bailout money given to AIG alone. If Bill Gates were to pay these AIG bonuses every year for the next 100 years, he'd still be left with more than half his personal fortune.

This would be funnier if it were less true: Obama to Limit Pay for Wall Street, NFL, NBA, MLB

"In America you can dream as big as you want, but everyone agrees we need strict controls on those whose dreams have come true," Mr. Gibbs said. "The people deserve a system in which there are no limits to your potential, only to your achievements."

If the supremely productive few are taxed as heavily as Mr. Obama would like, what incentive is there to put in the kind of hours and effort and risk to create the kind of companies that produce the well paying jobs for employees?

Via Volokh Conspiracy, the past, present and future of Obama's Public-Private partnerships

Grim proving ground for Obama's housing policy

The squat brick buildings of Grove Parc Plaza, in a dense neighborhood that Barack Obama represented for eight years as a state senator, hold 504 apartments subsidized by the federal government for people who can't afford to live anywhere else.

But it's not safe to live here.

About 99 of the units are vacant, many rendered uninhabitable by unfixed problems, such as collapsed roofs and fire damage. Mice scamper through the halls. Battered mailboxes hang open. Sewage backs up into kitchen sinks. In 2006, federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex an 11 on a 100-point scale - a score so bad the buildings now face demolition.

They never do connect the dots to what you would ask of any other Chicago dirty deal: "Who got paid, and who did they pay off to get it?" despite (because of?) the fact that several of these folks are members of Obama's team. PS The Boston Globe is a Democratic party mouthpiece.

Give Investors A Place To Rest Their Fulcrum

The FDIC will lend 85% on a non-recourse basis, which means that they can only look to the underlying assets of the investment vehicle for repayment and can not attempt to collect any shortfall from the private investors. (This creates the "heads I win, tails they lose" problem to which people refer).

Sounds like a sweet deal to me - 15% of the money for all of the possible upside. Where do I sign up? I don't? "Qualified Investors only"? I wonder exactly how much in campaign contributions means you "qualify"? (Look up how much investment bankers contributed to Barack Obama over John McCain. In what way can you demonstrate that this is not a probable political payoff of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, an amount to beggar the combined fortunes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett?)

Marginal Revolution thought the numbers were a typo

The remaining 15 percent will come from the government and the private investors. The Treasury would put up as much as 80 percent of that, while private investors would put up as little as 20 percent of the money, according to industry officials. Private investors, then, would be contributing as little as 3 percent of the equity, and the government as much as 97 percent.

How do I get a piece of that action? Oh, that's right - I can't. Neither can you, unless you're a member of that privileged club of investment bankers, who just happen to have made about eighty percent of their quite substantial campaign contributions to Barack Obama and the Democratic Party.

They say to the victor go the spoils, but the electoral spoils have never been this valuable, or this blatant, before.

While we're at Volokh Conspiracy, a guest author on what Obama could easily change if he were even a little bit serious about changing the way Washington does business. We'll see how far these recommendations go.

So solar power isn't so environmentally friendly? Who knew? Feinstein seeks block solar power from desert land

"It would destroy the entire Mojave Desert ecosystem," said David Myers, executive director of The Wildlands Conservancy.

and

"This is unacceptable," Feinstein said in a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. "I urge you to direct the BLM to suspend any further consideration of leases to develop former railroad lands for renewable energy or for any other purpose."

Okay, she's got a valid point. The land was donated for wildlife conservancy, but the point is that solar and wind are being sold to the public as the environmentally friendly alternatives - but then they are unacceptable because they damage the environment too?

We've got to get our power from somewhere. Megawatt-hours do not magically appear in the power transmission lines.

This one's so easy Arnold can get it unambiguously right

Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger complained about environmental concerns slowing down the approval of solar plants in California.

"If we cannot put solar power plants in the Mojave desert, I don't know where the hell we can put it," Schwarzenegger said

So let me sum up: We're not being permitted to develop new petroleum sources because of environmental issues, forcing us to develop wind and solar instead. But they won't let us develop wind or solar power either because of environmental issues.

Question: What happens when we start running out of power? Who goes without? More correctly, who goes without first? What are the economic, societal, and cultural effects of this result?

Question: What could be the possible reasons behind such an agenda? If you can't come up with at least ten, you're not trying. Which are not contradicted by other deeds?

Question: How many "environmentalists" need to be actively malicious (as opposed to stupid ignorant dupes) in order to direct the goals of the organization towards a given result for a given reason?

Question: based upon the premise "never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity", what would you estimate the most likely reason behind the agenda is?

The clock is ticking. Help us figure this one out. We start not having enough power, and that's a real problem