Zee Links and Minifeatures: May 2009 Archives


Carnival of Personal Finance # 206

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Democrats Discover Gitmo's Virtues

If so, Guantanamo will join the growing list of security tools that President Obama once criticized as out of keeping with American values but has since discovered are very in keeping with protecting the nation. Wiretapping, renditions, military tribunals, Gitmo -- it turns out the Bush people weren't a bunch of yahoos but often thoughtful defenders against terrorism. This is all progress, though America might wonder if it could have been spared the intervening drama.
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Michael Barone: Obama Changes Course on Antiterrorism

But that didn't end political debate, as Obama apparently hoped, but heated it up. Dick Cheney demanded the release of memoranda showing whether the interrogations had produced intelligence that saved American lives. Left Democrats protested Obama's decision to rule out prosecution of CIA interrogators, while conservatives decried his refusal to rule out prosecutions of Bush administration lawyers (a matter for Attorney General Eric Holder, he said, as if he couldn't issue a direct order). Word was given out that Holder would decide against prosecutions. Then, last week, Obama reversed himself and said the government would appeal the court order and not release the photographs.

I'd say Dick Cheney is decisively winning the debate on what the Bush Administration did and whether they were justified in their actions. By his actions, Obama has conceded every point to date, deciding to stay basically in lock-step with Bush era policies.

Victor Davis Hanson: Ministers of Truth

Perhaps the media doesn't get it that the American people can more easily take the bias of an attack-dog, go-for-the jugular media that claims it is the watchdog of the public trust and therefore must skin the president, far more than such carnivores suddenly becoming sheepish and obsequious, as ministers of truth, rephrasing and repackaging the party line. How odd that just six months ago we had screaming reporters and columnists talking about the near-end-of-days with Bush -- and now doing contortions to assure us that things suddenly aren't that bad after all, or that we must give Obama flexibility and time to sort out the prior mess. Quite scary, all this chest-thumping about tough journalistic integrity of 2001-8 suddenly devolving into, "Hey everyone, we can reassure you that the Emperor really does have clothes on."

Our president isn't quite as advertised.

In both cases, though, we have learned something about Mr. Obama. What animated him during the campaign is what historian Forrest McDonald once called "the projection of appealing images." All politicians want to project an appealing image. What Mr. McDonald warned against is focusing on this so much that an appealing image "becomes a self-sustaining end unto itself." Such an approach can work in a campaign, as Mr. Obama discovered. But it can also complicate life once elected, as he is finding out.
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Obama's dangerous debt

The wonder is that these issues have been so ignored. Imagine hypothetically that a President McCain had submitted a budget plan identical to Obama's. There would almost certainly have been a loud outcry: "McCain's Mortgaging Our Future." Obama should be held to no less exacting a standard.

The question actually is a fair one. If McCain had done what Obama did, the reaction would have been swift, cacophonous, and entirely negative. The difference is that McCain wouldn't have done this. Look at the man's long record of public service - he's devoted a lot more energy to eliminating waste than funding it. But Obama (predictably) did otherwise.

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Wow! Republican Chairman Michael Steele channels Martin Luther King

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Peace isn't Arab goal

International consensus or no, the two-state solution is a chimera. Peace will not be achieved by granting sovereignty to the Palestinians, because Palestinian sovereignty has never been the Arabs' goal. Time and time again, a two-state solution has been proposed. Time and time again, the Arabs have turned it down.

When one side wants war, the alternatives for the other are war or baring their throat for the knife. It takes both sides to achieve peace. The central truth is that the Arabs want the Jews eradicated more than they want peace.

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I may not agree with everything Greg Swann says here, but he's certainly more right than wrong. NAR exists for the purpose of pulling the wool over the eyes of legislators and consumers so the big chain brokerages which control it can continue pocketing absurd amounts of money.

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Don Surber: There are two Americas. People who work for a living, and public employees.

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Turns out when you win elections, you'd better not free the terrorists you promised to free while demonizing your predecessor unjustly, lest the voters hold you responsible for the results: Senate votes 90-6 not to close Guantanamo prison

By their votes, congressional Democrats unveil the hypocrisy of pretending the unlawful combatants at Guantanamo Bay are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

So, now we get the truth.

The big ugly snarling truth.

The facts that we knew all along: The terrorists at Gitmo belong at Gitmo.

All these nations that protested? Not a one of them will take these critters off our hands.

Congressmen who railed against Gitmo are showing their true colors.

The Gitmo Myth and the Torture Canard

What this account and others like it fail to take into consideration are the aggressive and unending efforts of a cadre of lawyers, activists, left-leaning Democrats in Congress, and civil libertarians against the facility, its purpose, its goal, and its existence. These efforts began even before it was opened, in November 2001, and continue to this day. The anti-Gitmo forces worked tirelessly to shape the public perception that Gitmo was the red-hot center of an aggressive policy approach that led the leftist financier George Soros to declare: "The biggest terrorist in the world is George W. Bush."

The enemies of Bush and Gitmo have succeeded brilliantly. But in so doing, they have done grave violence to the truth about the Guantánamo Bay facility, have aided in the release of prisoners who have since committed acts of terrorism outside the United States, and may yet succeed in having Barack Obama's government release young men with terrifying ambitions for murder and mass destruction onto the soil of the United States.

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Federal government: we've run the 46% of the health care segment we have into $38 trillion of unfunded debt. The way to fix that is to give us the rest

If this seems like a "What the...?" moment to you, you're not alone. I doubt comedians could get laughs with this material. It's too far out there; the audience would be unable to follow them. But it's the line Obama and company are trying to sell.

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Far and away my most searched article the last couple weeks has been When The Appraisal Is Below The Purchase Price for Real Estate

Everything I predicted in The Home Valuation Code of Conduct (New Appraisal Standards) is coming true. I've had appraisers choose trashed lender owned properties as appropriate comps for well cared for family properties. I'm doing a refinance for a client right now where the appraisal somehow came in forty thousand dollars below any close comparable sale - and it isn't the condition of the property. It's HVCC and the incentives it gives the appraisers to come in too low. Luckily in my client's case, I can still get it done (at least the guidelines say I can), but it's just sheer luck of circumstance that he didn't just waste his appraisal money, and there is nothing I can do to prevent situations where that happens. Nor can I so much as discuss the situation with the appraiser (for instance by furnishing the appraiser alternate, better comparables) when it does happen due to . People are paying these prices for these properties. If the appraisals we're getting don't reflect that, that is a problem at least as big as the inflated appraisals they're claiming were the reason they mandated HVCC.

Furthermore, given the state of my local market, we're seeing bidding wars on just about anything that's close to correctly priced and reasonably attractive. I strongly suspect the appraisal contingency is going to be on its way out, especially given the number of offers being thrown around where the buyer is putting way more than the minimum down.

Who does this hurt? Not the big investors. They've got the cash. It's the little guy trying to scrape together the money for his first property, for his family to live in.

I'll bet you the working people of this country are going to be so grateful to Andrew Cuomo that they do something appropriate to express their gratitude to him (and those behind him). I'd be saving up for bodyguards were I in their position. They're going to need them when people figure it out. Of course, they've got the money. Guess where it came from?

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Identity Politics And Sotomayor

Indeed, unless Sotomayor believes that Latina women also make better judges than Latino men, and also better than African-American men and women, her basic proposition seems to be that white males (with some exceptions, she noted) are inferior to all other groups in the qualities that make for a good jurist.

Any prominent white male would be instantly and properly banished from polite society as a racist and a sexist for making an analogous claim of ethnic and gender superiority or inferiority.

So why isn't Sotomayor a racist? Quite simply, because minorities are still in Denial over what the mirror shows them.

In other words, she is a racist; it's just that our identity politics industry refuses to see in a Latina female what it would demand everyone see in a white male guilty of a fraction of the same offense.

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How Joe Biden Wrecked the Judicial Confirmation Process

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This isn't just a three day holiday. Take a moment to remember what it's about. Memorial Day specifically arose as a tribute to those who fought in the Civil War, but it now honors everyone who made the sacrifice from the Revolutionary War until today. Nor is it just for the troops who died - there's plenty of them who survive with life altering injuries. There are also families missing a dad or mom or brother or sister or son or daughter.

For all of those this day was meant to honor: Thank you isn't enough. We have a collective debt to you. I will always do what I can to see that we honor it as much as mortal humans can.


Carnival of Personal Finance #205

Carnival of Real Estate

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Tomorrow (likely today by the time I get this published), California has a special election. Six propositions, five of which have to do with bond issues that will allow the legislature to continue spending too much money a little bit longer. I strongly recommend a "No" vote on 1A through 1E. Allowing them to put off the need to stop spending so much money won't do the state any favors - in fact, it will make things worse in at least three different ways.

For the final proposition, 1F (no pay increases for legislators in deficit years), I'm leaning "Yes" but am prepared to entertain arguments the other way.

The economic future of our state will be determined by how many of Propositions 1A through 1E go down in flaming, ignominious defeat.

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Tax The Rich? Watch The Inevitable Happen

Notice that the exodus from the high-tax states to low-tax states with more opportunity has been significant since 1998. But now with the plan to increase taxes again on the "richer", high-tax states are providing even more of a financial incentive for those in higher income brackets to leave them and move to low or no-income tax states. While such a relocation might have had marginally positive financial results for those leaving in the past, high-tax states are about to make relocation for financial reasons a no-brainer. And states like California and New York can hardly afford to run off the class of tax payer that presently pays the largest percentage of state taxes. But, with alternatives available, that's precisely what they're getting ready to do.

The rich needn't stop at moving from a high tax state to a low tax one. They can also move to places like Hong Kong and Kolkata. After all, they've got the money to protect their interests.

ARTHUR LAFFER and STEPHEN MOORE lay it all out.Soak the Rich, Lose the Rich

Did the greater prosperity in low-tax states happen by chance? Is it coincidence that the two highest tax-rate states in the nation, California and New York, have the biggest fiscal holes to repair? No. Dozens of academic studies -- old and new -- have found clear and irrefutable statistical evidence that high state and local taxes repel jobs and businesses.

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We believe there are three unintended consequences from states raising tax rates on the rich. First, some rich residents sell their homes and leave the state; second, those who stay in the state report less taxable income on their tax returns; and third, some rich people choose not to locate in a high-tax state. Since many rich people also tend to be successful business owners, jobs leave with them or they never arrive in the first place. This is why high income-tax states have such a tough time creating net new jobs for low-income residents and college graduates.
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If you think that the national media weren't doing everything they could to elect Obama, read this: How the NYT buried an Obama/ACORN expose just before the election

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Hilarious! President Palin's First 100 Days

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How the Mighty Fall: A Primer on the Warning Signs

Our comparative and historical analysis yielded a descriptive model of how the mighty fall that consists of five stages that proceed in sequence. And here's the really scary part: You do not visibly fall until Stage 4! Companies can be well into Stage 3 decline and still look and feel great, yet be right on the cusp of a huge fall. Decline can sneak up on you, and--seemingly all of a sudden--you're in big trouble.


Something is rotten in Obama's America

But what happened to the non-TARP bondholders was even worse. When they squawked, the administration tried to muscle them. Lawyers for the bondholders contend that senior representatives of the Obama administration threatened them. Michael Barone, the ultra-knowledgeable (and normally unflappable) editor of the Almanac of American Politics called it "gangster government."

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The state of California faces a desperate fiscal situation. California now has the worst credit rating of any American state. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Democratic majority legislature have struggled to balance the books, as they are constitutionally obliged to do. They have raised taxes dramatically, but they have also cut some programs. Among the cuts: a $2-an-hour cut in the wages of home health-care workers.

Those workers were unionized, and their union -- the Service Employees International Union - carries clout in Obama's Washington. On Thursday, California state officials told the Los Angeles Times that they had received a warning: The federal government would deny California $6.8-billion in stimulus funds unless the wage cut was rescinded. Since the wage cut will save only about $74-million, the state will have little choice but to surrender.

If this doesn't disturb you, it's time to cut your soma intake.

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The weakness and strength of Wikipedia. The weakness of the world media: Irish student hoaxes world's media with fake quote

He said it took him less than 15 minutes to fabricate and place a quote calculated to appeal to obituary writers without distorting Jarre's actual life experiences.

If anything, Fitzgerald said, he expected newspapers to avoid his quote because it had no link to a source - and even might trigger alarms as "too good to be true." But many blogs and several newspapers used the quotes at the start or finish of their obituaries.

Wikipedia did catch the error fairly quickly. But the major media did not, because it appealed to their prejudices.

Never trust Wikipedia without independent confirmation. It's not intended as a primary source. It's not trustworthy as a primary source - and to its credit, admits it. But that doesn't stop lazy idiots from using it as one.

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Remember how the Obama administration frightened the public into spending at least $1.2 Trillion (looking more like $3 trillion) on Democratic interest groups while using scare language of what would happen if it wasn't passed?

Well compared to what actually happened after we did pass it, the scary unemployment scenario for if we hadn't is starting to look downright good.

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The Worsening Social Security Outlook: A Guide to the 2009 Trustees' Report

The public has been ill-served by those who have groundlessly minimized the Social Security shortfall. The current wake-up call is coming too late to allow for a Social Security fix as benign as the one that could have been enacted years ago. It is still the case, however, that we will get a better solution and a more effective Social Security program if we act sooner rather than later.

Hot Air reemphasizes:

There is no trust fund. Social Security surpluses have always been used by the federal government for general-fund allotments, replaced essentially by IOUs. This became an issue in the 2000 presidential election, when Al Gore talked about a "lockbox" to keep Congress out of the surpluses. The "trust fund" consists of bonds, not cash, and they have to be redeemed by the US government, which already runs massive deficits.
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Video: Are the elderly cost-effective?

What happens when the state controls all the resources? New resources do not develop, and the government winds up rationing care based on its own priorities, and not the priorities of the patients or caregivers. Professor Altman's suggestion that the elderly get hospice treatment to save scarce care resources is exactly the kind of decisions the state will make for its citizens, and it won't be limited to the elderly, either. Anyone whose value does not show a positive "cost-benefit" ratio to the state will also likely wind up without the kind of care necessary to stay alive and healthy.
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The coming tax regime that will kill American productivity

This is a recurring theme with Obama and tax policy. He and his advisors use static analysis to predict results from tax increase, ignoring the effect that tax changes have on revenue. He assumes that a 7% increase in the capital-gains tax, to use one example, will result in a 7% increase in revenue from the previous year, but that's simply not the case. The tax hike will cause people to change behaviors to avoid paying higher taxes, either by cashing out this year (resulting in a loss of capital to the marketplace) or not selling off stakes in companies and investing the profit elsewhere. The effect of the change will itself limit revenues, probably more than the increased percentage will capture, making the policy a net loss to the government.

They know better, but using intentionally wrong figures makes it easier to sell to the public.

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Very interesting. Unprecedented even FHA Ok with Up Front Tax Credit or, in other words, using the tax credit money at closing.

We all want to enable FHA consumers to access the tax credit funds when they close on their home loans so that the cash can be used as a downpayment. So FHA will permit trusted FHA-approved lenders and HUD-approved nonprofits, as well as state and local governmental entities to "monetize" the tax credit through short-term bridge loans. We think the policy is a real win for everyone, ensuring that borrowers can tap into the numerous organizations that are already part of the FHA network to receive this additional benefit. FHA will be publishing the details shortly.

This isn't necessarily to say the lenders themselves will permit it - but it's fine with the FHA. I suspect the lenders are going to run with it, myself. The stumbling block in the past has always been that people with a tax credit coming don't necessarily get the money. Sometimes they have other debts, sometimes they have an unexpected tax liability. When that happens, there's a short that has to be repaid, creating a debt and usually payments, impacting debt to income ratio among other things. But if the financial guarantor of FHA loans is saying they'll write the loan guarantee with such a bridge loan in place, who are the lenders (whose profit making loans are being guaranteed) to argue? The real question will be "on what terms will these short term bridge loans be written?"

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Chrysler and the Rule of Law

Fleecing lenders to pay off politically powerful interests, or governmental threats to reputation and business from a failure to toe a political line? We might expect this behavior from a Hugo Chávez. But it would never happen here, right?

Until Chrysler.

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The Obama administration's behavior in the Chrysler bankruptcy is a profound challenge to the rule of law. Secured creditors -- entitled to first priority payment under the "absolute priority rule" -- have been browbeaten by an American president into accepting only 30 cents on the dollar of their claims. Meanwhile, the United Auto Workers union, holding junior creditor claims, will get about 50 cents on the dollar.

Lots of people don't understand what a big deal this is. As Prof. Zywicki makes clear, it's an actual constitutional violation Actually, it's at least two different constitutional violations, as well as an entire phalanx of lesser laws.

It the laws don't protect everyone, they don't protect anyone. For all of the accusations of highhandedness leveled at Obama's predecessor, that predecessor was diligent in following the rule of law. Complaints about his predecessor were essentially "he didn't give us everything we wanted! Waah!" Obama himself, however, has sponsored several actual legal violations, where those he treated roughly have been shorted upon what they were entitled to under the law.

Why is there not a fraction of the hue and cry his predecessor faced over much lesser accusations?

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A budget with no shortage of lies

It's nothing new for presidents to give us bloated budgets with phony promises of belt-tightening at the end of the day. But never, ever, in the history of the republic has there been so irresponsibly gargantuan a budget defended by rhetoric so duplicitous as we are now seeing from President Barack Obama. "We cannot settle for a future of rising deficits and debts that our children cannot pay," he said last month, and he has talked as well about fiscal discipline, eliminating waste, increased efficiency, more focused policies and how dishonest President Bush was in leaving the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan "off the books." Well, yes, Bush did that thing and he shouldn't have, but everyone knew that money was being spent and the dishonesty, such as it was, is nothing - zero, zip, nada - next to Obama dressing up as a miser as he promotes a $3.59 trillion budget with a $1.2 trillion deficit on its back.

Read the whole thing.

Obama pretends to be frugal as we sink deeper in debt.

Actually, he doesn't even pretend to be frugal. He just says he's frugal

Remember President Obama's New Era of Responsibility? It got off to an inauspicious start, with a $787 billion economic stimulus package, a $410 billion appropriations bill, and a record $1.8 trillion budget deficit.

But now Obama wants to signal that he's getting serious about cutting the federal budget. Unfortunately, his plan hinges on the assumption that Americans do not know how to calculate percentages.

Last week the Obama administration, after going through the budget "line by line," unveiled $17 billion in budget cuts. That amounts to less than 0.5 percent of the president's proposed $3.6 trillion budget for the next fiscal year and less than 2 percent of the projected $1.3 trillion deficit.

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'Thought Crimes' Bill Advances

Why is the press remaining mostly silent about the so-called "hate crimes law" that passed in the House on April 29? The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act passed in a 249-175 vote (17 Republicans joined with 231 Democrats). These Democrats should have been tested on their knowledge of the First Amendment, equal protection of the laws (14th Amendment), and the prohibition of double jeopardy (no American can be prosecuted twice for the same crime or offense). If they had been, they would have known that this proposal, now headed for a Senate vote, violates all these constitutional provisions.

Why is it suddenly acceptable for some people to be more equal than others?

The extra punishment applies only to these "protected classes." As Denver criminal defense lawyer Robert J Corry Jr. asked (Denver Post April 28): "Isn't every criminal act that harms another person a 'hate crime'?" Then, regarding a Colorado "hate crime" law, one of 45 such state laws, Corry wrote: "When a Colorado gang engaged in an initiation ritual of specifically seeking out a "white woman" to rape, the Boulder prosecutor declined to pursue 'hate crime' charges." She was not enough of one of its protected classes.

If this was a group of white men looking for a minority woman to rape, I doubt the same logic would have prevailed.

Rape is rape. Murder is murder. The racial, sexual, or religious identity of the victim being grounds for additional punishment contends that some people are more value than others, that it is somehow worse to commit these crimes with a certain specially protected class as the victim.

It also violates equal protection under the law.

This is a huge problem, and a guaranteed cause of additional violence in the future. Civil wars have been fought over this. Nations have shattered.

Not to mention that it's a constitutional violation.

It doesn't matter the angle, practical or theoretical, that you want to pursue. This creates special protected classes, and is no different in its roots than the century old (and now discontinued) practices of the Old South where a black person who killed a White Person got the death penalty while a White person who killed a Black person got a short jail sentence, if anything. Only the identities of who is protected and valued has changed.

Same old racist nonsense for a different era. Just because the identities of who is valued and who is not have been switched doesn't mean it's not still racism.

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Obama Offers Security at the Expense of Liberty

Our would-be soft despots are offering Americans money and the promise of security against economic distress. The vastly increased cost of government will nonetheless nearly leave half of households free from the burden of paying federal income tax and eligible for occasional rebates. As CNN reporter Susan Roesgen said to a tea party protester, "Don't you realize that you're eligible for a $400 tax cut?"

In other words, take the money and shut up. Which brings to mind Tocqueville's warning: "Every measure which establishes legal charity on a permanent basis and gives to it an administrative form creates thereby a class unproductive and idle, living at the expense of the class which is industrious and given to work."

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Not to mention that they won't have the safety for long - and the next time the bill comes do, will have nothing to trade for more security. And that they've already given up the means of getting more.

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Unions vs. Taxpayers

But then there is the U.S. public sector, where the mood seems very European these days. In New Jersey, which faces a $3.3 billion budget deficit, angry state workers have demonstrated in Trenton and taken Gov. Jon Corzine to court over his plan to require unpaid furloughs for public employees. In New York, public-sector unions have hit the airwaves with caustic ads denouncing Gov. David Paterson's promise to lay off state workers if they continue refusing to forgo wage hikes as part of an effort to close a $17.7 billion deficit. In Los Angeles County, where the schools face a budget deficit of nearly $600 million, school employees have balked at a salary freeze and vowed to oppose any layoffs that the board of education says it will have to pursue if workers don't agree to concessions.


I'm hosting this week's Carnival of Real Estate over at my "professional voice" website. My third time hosting; first time at the other site. Read it here: Carnival of Real Estate #141

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HOW CHURCHILL DEALT WITH THUGS

But Churchill also understood that, if barbarism was one enemy of civilization, another was a moral cowardice disguised as moral qualms -- an instinctive flinching in the face of danger, dressed up as "upholding our values."

Churchill had seen this flinching in such 1930s appeasers as Neville Chamberlain, and he feared that he'd see it again among Britons and their leaders after the war.

"There is no place for compromise in war," Churchill wrote. In choosing between civilized restraint and the British people's survival, he never hesitated. He contemplated using mustard gas if the Nazis invaded England. He authorized the fire bombing of German cities, the so-called terror bombings, in order to cripple the German war effort and morale. He was prepared to let Mahatma Gandhi die during his hunger strike in 1943 rather than be blackmailed into abandoning India, the last bastion against Japanese domination of Asia.

It isn't easy, or something to make you proud when you make a decision to do something you see as uncivilized. If the consequences of not doing so are worse, however, you are becoming even more uncivilized when you fail to do them.

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Thomas Sowell: 'Empathy' Versus Law

Justice David Souter's retirement from the Supreme Court presents President Barack Obama with his first opportunity to appoint someone to the High Court. People who are speculating about whether the next nominee will be a woman, a Hispanic or whatever, are missing the point.

That we are discussing the next Supreme Court justice in terms of group "representation" is a sign of how far we have already strayed from the purpose of law and the weighty responsibility of appointing someone to sit for life on the highest court in the land.

That President Obama has made "empathy" with certain groups one of his criteria for choosing a Supreme Court nominee is a dangerous sign of how much further the Supreme Court may be pushed away from the rule of law and toward even more arbitrary judicial edicts to advance the agenda of the left and set it in legal concrete, immune from the democratic process.

Would you want to go into court to appear before a judge with "empathy" for groups A, B and C, if you were a member of groups X, Y or Z? Nothing could be further from the rule of law. That would be bad news, even in a traffic court, much less in a court that has the last word on your rights under the Constitution of the United States.

Read the whole thing.

A Litmus Test That Counts

As the time approaches for President Obama to choose a successor to Justice David Souter, the term "litmus test" will be heard throughout the land. The White House will deny applying any such thing, but the nominee will undoubtedly be chosen according to where she stands on abortion, unions and other issues beloved by liberals. This is fine with me, but what I want to know is where she stands on Frank Ricci. He's a fireman.

He is also the lead plaintiff in a case recently argued before the Supreme Court. It was Ricci's misfortune to take -- and pass -- the New Haven, Conn., fire department's promotion exam for lieutenant, and then have the job denied him because he is white. Others will argue -- fatuously and, when they are before St. Peter, with head bowed in shame -- that race had nothing to do with what happened to Ricci, but the fact remains that had he been black, his uniform would already sport a lieutenant's bar.

Jeff Jacoby, definitely left of center, has no sympathy for an empathy standard either.

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Michael Barone: White House Puts UAW Ahead of Property Rights

But my sadness turned to anger later when I heard what bankruptcy lawyer Tom Lauria said on a WJR talk show that morning. "One of my clients," Lauria told host Frank Beckmann, "was directly threatened by the White House and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under threat that the full force of the White House press corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight."

This is vile, for two reasons. One, that the President would resort to such tactics at all, threatening private citizens with the power of the press. Two, the expectation that the White House Press Corps would actively cooperate with that agenda. This is not the way it's supposed to happen, not the reason why the press enjoys a privileged position (no other profession has a shield law). Would the press have cooperated thus with any previous administration? Would there have been any expectation they would do so?

a violation of one of the basic principles of bankruptcy law, which is that secured creditors -- those who loaned money only on the contractual promise that if the debt was unpaid they'd get specific property back -- get paid off in full before unsecured creditors get anything.

The reason is plain and simple: UAW's political support for the Democrats.

A hedge fund manager lays it all out: Unafraid In Greenwich Connecticut

He speaks truth to power, taking more risk in standing up to Obama than anyone did during the eight years of the Bush Administration. We've already seen how Obama deals with dissenters - going after them personally, abusing the power of the government - something George W. Bush (for all accusations to the contrary) never did. But somehow I don't think that those who lauded the idiot conspiracy theories accusing the Bush Administration of everything from silencing opponents to faking 9/11 will laud this man who has objectively taken more risk than all of those nitwits together in order to publicize the simple truth.

Q and O reports more government threats and intimidation

Confronting the head of a non-TARP fund holding Chrysler debt and unwilling to release it for any sum less than that to which it was legally entitled without compelling cause, this country's "Car Czar" berated the manager of said fund with an outburst of prose substantially resembling this:

Who the f*** do you think you're dealing with? We'll have the IRS audit your fund. Every one of your employees. Your investors. Then we will have the Securities and Exchange Commission rip through your books looking for anything and everything and nothing we find to destroy you with.

Faced with these sorts of threats, in this environment, with valued employees in the crosshairs and AIG a fresh, open wound upon the market, the fund folded.

I knew this clown Obama and his administration would be bad. But I didn't think it'd get this bad this fast. This is clear impeachment material - of the person uttering it, and all the way up the chain of command if they were complicit or instructed to say it by their superiors. Extortion is a felony, the more so because there were billions of dollars at stake.

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Our Have-It-Both-Ways Generation

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The Obama Lexicon

Washington always has been a thermonuclear cliché generator. But the Obama administration, with all its super-smarts, has taken the exploitation of the euphemism to spectacular new heights.

This week, we learned a bit more about what the terms "sacrifice" (do what we want, you filthy, unpatriotic swine), "era of responsibility" (double the "sacrifice," half the prosperity) and "investments" (we squander money so you don't have to) really mean.

I have never heard such a double-speaking tale-spinning opportunist as our current President and his administration. David Harsanyi lays it all out.

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The Obama Girls Aren't Like You and Me

If you know me on this issue, you know that I am very, very upset. And that I think that there is probably a special place in hell reserved for politicians who betray our nation's most helpless children for the benefit of a sullen and recalcitrant teacher's union. There they spend all eternity explaining to their victims why they couldn't possibly have risked their precious babies' future in the public school system, yet felt perfectly free to fling other peoples' children into it by the thousands.

Megan is definitely left of certer, politically. But she's willing to examine the facts and where they lead honestly, and she is not buying the difference between Obama's speech and his actions.

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If we're going to prosecute the Bush Administration for illegal torture, it looks like we're going to need to prosecute the Obama Administration right beside them

As the Holder Justice Department puts it on pp. 20-21 of the elusive DOJ brief:

[T]orture is defined as "an extreme form of cruel and inhuman treatment and does not include lesser forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. . . . " 8 C.F.R. § 1208.18(a)(2). Moreover, as has been explained by the Third Circuit, CAT requires "a showing of specific intent before the Court can make a finding that a petitioner will be tortured." Pierre v. Attorney General, 528 F.3d 180, 189 (3d Cir. 2008) (en banc); see 8 C.F.R. § 1208.18(a)(5) (requiring that the act "be specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering"); Auguste v. Ridge, 395 F.3d 123, 139 (3d Cir. 2005) ("This is a 'specific intent' requirement and not a 'general intent' requirement" [citations omitted.] An applicant for CAT protection therefore must establish that "his prospective torturer will have the motive or purpose" to torture him. Pierre, 528 F.3d at 189; Auguste, 395 F.3d at 153-54 ("The mere fact that the Haitian authorities have knowledge that severe pain and suffering may result by placing detainees in these conditions does not support a finding that the Haitian authorities intend to inflict severe pain and suffering. The difference goes to the heart of the distinction between general and specific intent.")

I can see where the left would get upset that a Republican president would claim that something is not legally torture because there is no specific intent. I disagree with them, but I understand the merits of the position and the fact that they're using an available means to oppose someone of the opposing political viewpoint. Now it turns out that the Obama administration is making the exact same argument after condemning it (and still condemning it in speeches) in Bush's.

Once upon a time, I thought Obama might be an interesting guy to hang with. I take it back. I may have respect for the office of the President and the fact that he won the election, but it is hard to express my personal contempt for the deliberate bifurcation between words and deeds that has become the hallmark of the Obama administration.

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President of Yemen Personally Issues Death Threat to Former President of Yemen

Vienna - London, "Aden press," Special: 9-5 - 2009

Yemeni authorities have today carried out a telephone conversation with President Ali Salem Albied in the country, who lives in Austria and threatened him by physical liquidation by an official way , and accused President Ali Salem Albied in a telephone conversation with the "Aden press," Immediately after receiving the call, that the people spoke, by SANAA formal way and by the President regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh spoke to him this morning and told him explicitly that we know where you will be, where do you get rid if it did not stop what he described as "a farce and the storm," which raised Albied since announced his departure from Muscat and his call for the people of the South to unite behind their cause, just published in the In an earlier statement, "Aden press ."

Saleh Urges Real Dialog (after muzzling opponents)

Perhaps you buffoon, if there had been electoral reform as promised in 2006 and under the guidance of the EU, then the growing tensions would have been short circuited by authentically contested Parliamentary elections. Duh!

Are we all getting the causal relationship between the delayed elections and the uptick in tensions? The elections were delayed because...Saleh lied again.

Why would anyone, anywhere believe Saleh? Everything is smoke and mirrors, lies, propaganda and threats. Closing the newspapers while calling for dialog is the supreme example of hypocrisy.

Corruption Undermines Yemeni Unity

These three data points all tell you the way Yemen is heading - to a civil war.

It could happen here. I can make a very good case that our current administration is moving us in that direction. There is only a difference of degree between Saleh and Obama, and I have no reason to expect that said difference of degree will persist.

The left accused George W. Bush of wanting to create a theocracy and hang onto power after it's term was up. Here we are, four months after George W. Bush gave up power precisely when he was supposed to. However, Obama's quick moves to concentrate all power in his own hands - economic power, financial power, census power, together with his encouragement of voter fraud, his unwillingness to negotiate meaningfully with the minority party (something George W. Bush was often accused of, but in actuality negotiated far more than either his successor or predecessor), Obama's threats and actions against private citizens, his administration's attempts to define opposition as terrorists and threats and worthy of law enforcement intimidation - all of this paints a very coherent picture, and I don't like what it shows.

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Before Congress considers any form of government-run health care, they should hear the voices of patients denied care because the government deemed it too costly or delayed care because of long waiting lists for surgery or diagnostic tests.

Look at our own VA system. Most vets I know prefer private health insurance and health care, going to the VA only when they have no other alternative.

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This needs the widest circulation it can get. Video, 17 minutes

The True Story of the Atomic Bomb

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TARP: The Tragedy Deepens

Not only is the TARP program pernicious to the banking and financial sector, but it's implications go much deeper than that, and corrupt the rest of the economy as well. And most importantly, this is only the beginning.

The corruption expresses itself in a number of ways. Take a look at the GM/Chrysler situation. In both cases, the UAW emerge as the clear winners in the bankruptcy proceedings. In the case of GM, bondholders with $27 billion in bonds are supposed to accept 10% of the company's equity, while the UAW's retirement fund, which holds $10 billion in bonds, is supposed to receive 40%, with the Government taking the remainder of the equity. In what possible way is this supportable?

TARP as Shakespearean Tragedy

By inducing banks to take TARP money, whether through tactics or intimidation, the government has neatly cornered the capital flow of the country. Much like Hamlet surreptitiously forced his uncle to publicly face scorn for his act of regicide (by having performed the "Murder of Gonzago," aka the "Mouse-Trap"), the government has successfully lured failing banks into the public square for ridicule. Whereas Hamlet sought to elicit a sign of guilt in order to justify his vengeance, however, the government seems intent on effusing guilt throughout the banking industry so as to justify its controlling moves. By tainting the public view of the financial sector, the government seeks to undermine public confidence and build a chorus calling for its heavy-handed involvement. As mentioned above, protestations by the beggars for such action protest too much, methinks, but those who truly have no need of the interference have much cause to cry foul.
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California heading towards collapse, auditor warns

On the eve of a series of referendums proposed to increase taxes on Californians, the Golden State's legislative budget analyst warns that both the legislature and the governor have seriously underestimated the budget shortfall. The state has a $23 billion gap even after the legislative compromise earlier this year supposedly eliminated the red ink and could default by July:

We spend too damned much money. I'm not going to say that all of the causes are unworthy, because that is not the case. I am saying that there is no way the government (at any level) can create money without taking it from someone. Every single method the government (at any level) has of getting the money it spends hurts people at least dollar for dollar, and if you don't understand this, you are not a competent adult. We have got to limit government spending, and prioritize what we do spend. Because the whole system is near economic collapse, and if we don't do what is necessary to avert that collapse, the people we are trying to show "compassion" for will be hurt much worse by that economic collapse.

The oft-quoted Cruel versus stupid is a false dichotomy, because stupid ends up being far more cruel than "cruel" might ever consider.

Don't believe me? Read this" Hemorraging - especially Uncle Sam

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What have we learned?

The point was not that Obama likes Dijon mustard -- I do, too, as does the man who named it "DijonGate" -- but rather that MSNBC and other major media are no longer in the news business. They're doing public relations for the Obama administration and the Democratic Party.
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I have written the following to each of my Senators urging them to work against HR 1728:

Senator*,

I write you today as a constituent and mortgage professional urging you to act and vote against HR 1728 (Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act).

Everything this act accomplishes is found elsewhere in Federal Law, with one exception: The prohibition of paying yield spread to brokers.

I'm a correspondent, not a broker. I don't get yield spread. This bill, however, will prohibit brokers from sharing in EXACTLY THE SAME PROFITS EARNED BY LENDERS UNDER EXACTLY THE SAME CIRCUMSTANCES. I can't see that it is any more evil for a broker to receive yield spread, paid voluntarily by lenders under no compulsion to offer it, while those lenders receive much larger premiums from the secondary loan market for precisely that same loan.

Whereas I personally stand to actually benefit from this bill, it adversely impacts consumer choice and ability to shop their mortgage around in search of the best possible loan. It removes the ability of legal adults to *choose* to pay a higher rate in return for removal of certain costs - but it only so restricts their choice if they choose to do business with brokers. I do not believe it is in anybody's best interest to do this - except possibly the major lenders themselves.

I have written a somewhat lengthy analysis of this bill at

http://www.searchlightcrusade.net/2009/05/hr_1728_proof_that_this_congre.html

if you are interested in more background.

Please do everything in your power to prevent this monstrosity from passing. If you don't succeed, at least you will be able to say that you tried when research indicates that lender profit margin per loan on the secondary market has doubled or more, at the expense of consumers.

I am very sorry I haven't had much time to write new articles of late. All of the easy articles are written. New articles are generally taking me two hours plus to write - and I just haven't had two hours to write them. I am working on it. I have something over 90 article ideas saved and many actually have some significant development. It's for good reasons - clients and family - but I have been working 90 plus hours every week and there just hasn't been any energy left over in the evenings. I haven't even looked at my newsfeeds in over a week, and I'm a little scared as to what they probably look like. The one linked article below was headlined on my home page.

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Carnival of Personal Finance

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Worst Cities For Jobs

So what about California? The economic well-being of many metropolitan areas in the Golden State has been sinking precipitously since 2006. This year, three California regions--Oakland, Sacramento and San Bernardino-Riverside--have sunk down into the bottom 10 on the large cities list. That's a phenomenon we've never seen before--and never expected to see.

and

Much of the problem lies with the state's notoriously inept government. The enormous budget deficit will almost certainly lead to tax increases, which will fall mostly on the state's vaunted high-income entrepreneurial residents. Stimulus funds won't do much good either, Adibi notes, since "the state is grabbing all of the federal stimulus money" to keep itself afloat.

A draconian regulatory environment also could dim California's prospects for growth. Despite double-digit unemployment, the state seems determined not only to raise taxes but also to tighten its regulatory stranglehold.

and

It's sad because California has the capacity to recover more quickly than the rest of the country if the state moderates its spending and stops regulating itself into oblivion. This current round of legislation is so dangerous precisely because it could eviscerate the heart of the economy by slowing down entrepreneurial growth, the state's greatest asset.

It's obvious to him and to practically everyone else I talk to. Why are elected officials unable to see it? Because they stay in office by handing out state funds to people who want them in exchange for their votes.

Read the whole thing.

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This page is a archive of entries in the Zee Links and Minifeatures category from May 2009.

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