John Edwards wants to tax the rich (well, except anyone named Edwards) into oblivion. Hillary Clinton already threatened wealthy donors that she was going to take things from them and give those things to the poor. Obama just keeps chanting “tax the wealthy” over and over like a parrot.
Well, according to the Wall Street Journal editorial board, President Bush has set the “tax the rich” bar pretty high; (more…)
Reuters couldn’t wait to call Al Gore “Nobel Laureate Al Gore” is their story about his most recent manbearpig warning speech in Bali;
Nobel laureate Al Gore accused the United States on Thursday of blocking progress at the U.N. climate conference, and European nations threatened to boycott U.S.-led climate talks next month unless Washington compromises on emissions reductions.
Jesse Jackson, race pimp extraordinaire, has set his sights on “predatory lenders” in the lastest crisis de jour of subprime lenders. (Reuters)
Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson will hold a rally on Wall Street next week to persuade the financial community to help people who are foreclosing on their homes amid a deepening mortgage crisis.
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Jackson wants financial leaders to restructure mortgage plans for people who risk losing their homes because they are falling behind in their payments, he said in a statement.“Two million homes nationwide will be at risk of foreclosure by 2008,” Jackson said in a statement. “Most foreclosures result from shady products that have been offered by subprime lenders ultimately financed by Wall Street.”
I watched Jackson on the local Fox 5 news last night as he called the mortgage problems a “financial tsunami” in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Apparently, the word “crisis” has lost it’s cache and Leftist hyperbole demands a more urgently discriptive term.
But, it’s significant that Jackson was in Prince George’s County – the county borders on Washington DC’s poorer Black neighborhoods. PG County largely reflects it’s neighbors’ economic and demographic condition. Most of the businesses that ply trade in both areas are black-owned and black-operated franchises. The predators that Jesse Jackson are blaming are largely Black, but Jackson and others are trying to cover up that inconvenient fact (Bloomberg);
As many as 2 million homes are at risk of foreclosure, Jackson said in a statement. The rallies will be held Dec. 10, and also sponsored by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and National Urban League. Other rallies will be held in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Detroit, New Orleans, Washington and Chicago.
Jackson’s plans show how the increase in delinquencies on subprime mortgages, some of which were the product of what Federal Reserve officials said were “lax” lending practices, is capturing political attention. Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton, a candidate for her party’s presidential nomination, this week called for a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures.
There is definitely greed involved in the subprime lending market – the mortgage companies, their representatives and ultimately, the borrowers themselves share in the blame. The borrowers were willing to accept the temporary lower rate in the short term, fully knowing the payment would bloom into a much larger payment – and they now claim ignorance, with Jesse Jackson showing the way. Jackson and the media have compounded the problem by telling delinquent mortgagees that they aren’t culpable if they default on their loans.Â
But, either way, Jackson knew he’d get to hold mortgage companies responsible; can you imagine the hue and cry from the race pimp if mortgage companies hadn’t been so “lax” in their lending practices and had excluded Blacks from the housing growth of the last half-decade?
Jackson complained in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal entitled A Marshall Plan for Mortgages that President Bush’s plan doesn’t go far enough;
The Bush administration’s proposed five-year freeze on home-loan rates, while a step in the right direction, doesn’t go far enough. The plan, unveiled yesterday, simply doesn’t help most of the families facing a foreclosure threat. Of the 6.5 million subprime borrowers in total, only about 750,000, or 12%, would be helped, according to some estimates. They are the homeowners who are up-to-date now with their loan payments but would fall behind and risk foreclosure when the loan resets in the coming year.
Jackson’s main problem is that there’s no government money for him to skim off with his Rainbow Coaliton – that’s why he’s driving his pity train to Wall Street.
It’s time for another U.S. government-sponsored Marshall Plan. But instead of reconstructing Europe after World War II, today’s Marshall Plan for mortgages would restore homeowners’ and investors’ confidence and dreams.
In other words, Jackson’s first solution is always government (taxpayer)Â money instead of a last resort. Mortgage companies don’t want people to stop paying their mortgages – that makes no sense, where would they make money if people lost their homes. But in the world of Jesse Jackson where all money is government money, apparently it makes perfect sense.
There’s risk in everything we do. The cost of that risk is priced into everything we buy. The less risk we assume for ourselves, the more we pay for things – because we’re paying someone else to assume our risk. The more risk we’re willing to withstand the less we pay for stuff.
A good example is a mutual fund company – some mutual fund companies have high sales charges because their funds are only sold through advisers who help us manage our risk. Other mutual funds have small or no sales charges – but those funds are not sold along with an advisor to help you manage your risk. If you chose the no-fee mutual funds, you’re willing to accept the risk that you might choose a fund that’s wrong for you. If you choose a fund with an advisor, you’re admitting that you want someone to help you invest your money.
Well, now the President wants to manage our risk for us (Wall Street Journal). Two years ago, people bought houses at historically low interest rates. Since the interest rates were historically low, a rational person with even a cursory knowledge of how interest rates function would have to figure that interest rates are bound to go up. And now that rates have gone up – unsurprisingly – homeowners are all standing around with their mouths wide open and asking “how could this happen?”
The President wants to freeze interest rates for five years – taking the risk out of variable rate loan. The thing is, those mortagage companies gave those loans out, assuming the risk that rates would rise, accepting lower profits and anticipating increased revenue in the future. I didn’t hear anyone calling to bail out mortgage companies, nor was there a call to freeze interest rates before they sank even lower.
So now the President is going to freeze rates. And freeze means rates won’t go up or down.  I included “or down” for a reason – when interest rates fall (and they will fall at sometime in the next five years), who wants to bet that Democrats will be screaming that whoever is President at the time should unfreeze interest rates so homeowners can take advantage of that lowered rate?
Well, Hillary Clinton said President Bush was “asleep at the switch” during this next new “crisis” the Democrats need for an issue and John Edwards said we should freeze rates for seven years. High interest rates won’t last for five years, let alone seven years – the prettiest women in the campaign are just trying to squeeze out more publicity before the President drains it today when he announces his plan.
But, to my main point; if government is going to take risk out variable rate mortgages, someone is going to pay for that risk. It won’t be the mortgage companies because they’ll pass their costs on the consumers, it probably won’t be the people who benefit most, the idiots who get their investment and homebuying advice from CNBC. More than likely it’ll be the taxpayers – and the responsible people who buy homes knowing full well what a variable rate mortgage does. There’ll be higher fees for mortgages and of course government guarentees to entice mortgage companies to go along with the President’s plan which will only end up costing taxpayers.
The President’s solution is a short term fix to a bigger problem; the perception that government can solve all of our problems and that government should always be ready to bail out the morons.
Venezuelan half-pint strongman, Hugo Chavez, is slowly losing support for the referendum to rewrite Venezuela’s constitution. Caracas Chronicles has the details;
[Referencing the chart] As you can see, there are two clearly different sets of answers here. When you ask voters in general if they favor or oppose the constitutional reform, you get a clear, consistent majority against it:
But, at the start of the campaign, most people who opposed the reforms were saying they wouldn’t vote. So, until the last few weeks, the “SÔ camp had a majority among likely voters.
From Venezuela Politics;
Luis Ignacio León from the Datanálisis market study group said last Saturday that if the elections were today (actually the day before yesterday), the people would oppose the constitutional reform would obtain 55.4% of the votes against 44.6% of those who favor it. And that only includes the people who said they were going to vote (i.e. absenteeism).Â
So Chavez does what pint-sized tyrants do when they start losing. From Venezuela News and Views;
Repression is now a given. Today we were treated to the students of the Simon Bolivar campus in Caracas pushed inside their campus by the Metropolitana police. Since the police cannot enter the campus, they kept throwing canisters of tear gas above the fences and shooting rubber bullets by passing their guns through the chicken wire that circles the campus. I can hardly think of any thing more cowardly risible than what the Caracas police did today, shooting defenseless students from afar while perhaps this very same week end the police failed to stop as many as two dozen murders in Caracas alone. But when did fascism worry about current crime?
Unfortunately today student repression was not an isolated incident. It has been going on steadily for a couple of weeks now, even including torture for some Barquisimeto students. Not to mention the Monte Avila students dragged on the streets of Caracas…
And to rally his troops around him, he decides to alienate his neighbors, too. From A Columbo-Americana’s Perspective;
The Venezuelan president, speaking on television, described Mr. Uribe’s attitude as the equivalent of a “brutal spitting in the face,†and called him a “liar.†Mr. Uribe, the Bush administration’s top ally in South America, responded by accusing Mr. Chávez of legitimizing terrorists and advancing ambitions of “assembling an empire.â€
I watched the tape last night on Telemundo of Chavez’ speech and it was much more inciendiery than it reads. You can see the video on YouTube (it’s all in Spanish but Chavez’Â arrogance transcends language) as well as Uribe’s response. Chavez’ demeanor and the thuggish way he spoke didn’t translate well into the print media.
Fausta quotes an Investor Business Daily editorial;
In theory, a mediator should persuade two sides to each give up something to achieve a common end. The only one who gave up anything, however, was Uribe, who watched Chavez cavort with terrorists before TV cameras, giving them a legitimacy in Caracas they never had known.
Even worse, Chavez proved to be acting as an agent of the terrorists. Uribe’s sudden cutoff of the mediation effort at a hastily organized press conference last Wednesday suggested disturbing new information.
On Sunday, Chavez confirmed it: “I think Colombia deserves another president, it deserves a better president,” he said.
Hot Air predicts a war between Columbia and Venezuela, but I don’t think so – for two reasons. There is a fairly large US military and law enforcement presence in Columbia. Chavez wouldn’t want to risk making the first move entangling US military in a shooting war and destroying his victim facade.
Attacking Columbia would give Uribe an excuse to start eradicating FARC – FARC killed Uribe’s father twenty years ago and he has no compunction to prevent him from turning the Army lose on them – and Chavez will need FARCÂ for their money and connections for his imperialist plans in the region.
Western Hemisphere Policy Watch recommend we add Venezuela to our State Sponsors of Terrorism list;
WHPW Editors believe that there is ample evidence to, at least, warrant further consideration of the inclusion of Venezuela on the list. It will be a tough call. Are we prepared to stop purchasing Venezuelan oil for a time being?
If we could drill in Alaska and off our coasts we are prepared.
Photo from Washington Post
Yeah, I know what you’re thinking as you look at the photo above of Marty O’Malley celebrating his victory over Maryland taxpayers yesterday. I’ll bet you all can caption it real well, especially after you read this adoring piece from the Washington Post entitled “O’Malley Increases Influence With Wins on Taxes and Slots“;
Gov. Martin O’Malley emerged from a grueling special session of the Maryland General Assembly with big wins on tax and slot machine legislation, praise from lawmakers for his willingness to tackle the state’s most vexing issues — and greatly increased clout in Annapolis.
Less clear, as O’Malley (D) and bleary-eyed legislators celebrated at a bill-signing ceremony yesterday, were the wider political ramifications of pushing through $1.4 billion a year in tax increases during a frantic three-week session called to solve the state’s chronic budget problems.
“How it plays politically is still up in the air,” said Sen. Brian E. Frosh (D-Montgomery). “Will people recognize it as hard choices that had to be made or as government run amok? But by any measure, the governor did an incredible job pulling it together. He was buttonholing people. He was schmoozing people. I don’t know if he was threatening people. At points, it was ugly, but it was certainly an impressive effort overall.”
A grueling session. How grueling is it to tell people bound by law to pay more of their own income? And guess what? The tax increase is to fund NEW spending – not a budget shortfall. the only shortfall is in the Democrats’ agenda to tie votes of non-working Marylanders to their little red wagon.
O’Malley was bound and determined to get a tax hike – he threatened to cut off essential services to communities (fire, police, rescue…) if the legislature wouldn’t fund his unneccessary spending increases. O’Malley has just become Maryland’s Mario Cuomo – the governor that drove Upstate New York into the dumper from which it hasn’t emerged.
UPDATE: I was finally able to get into the Washington Times this morning and Tony Lobianco has even more insane Democrat quotes about the process that took place behind the backs of Maryland taxpayers;
“This is the boldest move, the boldest action of any governor I have served with,” said Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr., Southern Maryland Democrat.
Bold? It’s bold to threaten to shut down essential services to raise taxes? Bold would be cutting waste and cutting programs, not jacking up taxes to further ensconce Democrats in power in Maryland.
“I’d like to thank all of you who were here for three weeks, which felt like three months, sometimes even three years,” said Mr. O’Malley, who called the session for lawmakers to consider his package of tax increases and his slots proposal to resolve a budget shortfall of between $1.5 billion and 1.7 billion, and for additional state spending.
I’m waiting for them to all recommend each other for a damn Medal of Honor for sneaking up behind taxpayers in the middle of the night and stabbing us in the back like the greedy criminals they’ve become.
So what was in the tax bill?
Mr. O’Malley increased the sales tax from 5 percent to 6 percent, the corporate income tax from 7 percent to 8.25 percent and the tobacco tax by $1. He also reworked Maryland’s personal income-tax structure to increase exemptions for low- and middle-income earners and increase taxes for upper-income earners.
A pack of cigarettes in Maryland is already nearly $5/pack. Jack it up to $6, you fools – most Marylanders only need to drive a few miles in almost any direction and buy them cheaper. Raising the price $10/carton more makes it much more attractive to buy them out of State. How much revenue ya got then, chump? The same with sales tax.
Well, ya’all voted for them. I’ve already started looking for a place in Virginia – maybe West Virginia.
Crossposted at Red Maryland
Now that Spanish King Juan Carlos famously has told Hugo Chavez to shut up, and Saudi King Abdullah has reiterated that same sentiment in more diplomatic terms, Chavez is seeking to inflate his macho image. It’s hard to do when Juan Carlos’ phrase has been reproduced as a popular ringtone, and Venezuelans have taken to erecting the phrase as a symbol of solditarity against Chavez. It sparked such anti-Chavez feelings, that at least two blogs have been shut down in Venezuela, as Kate reported last week.
He’s also run afowl of the UN’s International Labor Organization;
The International Labor Organization (ILO) denounced the Venezuelan government on Thursday, accusing it of abusing the rights of business owners to freely organize. At the same time, Colombia was praised for its progress in the protection of labor leaders. Venezuelan authorities rejected the statements, accusing the ILO of manipulating the truth for political reasons.
In a report released on Wednesday, the U.N. labor agency called on the government of President Hugo Chavez to ensure that business groups can operate “free from violence, pressure, or threats of any kind against leaders and members.” The Venezuelan government was also urged to stop legal proceedings against senior officials of Fedecamaras, Venezuela’s major business chamber.
So, Chavez easiest and safest target to build his macho image again is, of course, the United States – just like every other thug who knows we don’t strike them for their words and wild gestures. Safely tucked away from dissenters in Iran, Chavez and his little straightman buddy Ahmadinijad traded shots at the US (Reuters link);
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Monday the “empire of the dollar is crashing,” a day after his country and anti-U.S. ally Iran advocated action over the weakening U.S. currency during an OPEC summit in Riyadh.
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Chavez, who on Saturday said oil prices could double to $200 per barrel if the United States attacks Iran over its disputed atomic ambitions, spoke to reporters after talks with his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.“Soon we will not talk about dollars because the dollar is falling in value and the empire of the dollar is crashing,” Chavez said in comments translated into Farsi from Spanish.
“Naturally, by the crash of the dollar, America’s empire will crash,” Chavez said at a joint news conference with Ahmadinejad. The two presidents share the same viewpoint in denouncing U.S. influence in the world.
Always the gentleman, Chavez charmed reporters at an impromptu news conference(Reuters link);
Surrounded by a throng of reporters at an OPEC summit in Saudi Arabia, the president, who enjoys the media spotlight and often answers questions at length, excused himself.
“Look I have to go,” Chavez said in comments aired on Venezuelan state television. “For a while now, I have needed to go to the bathroom and I am going to pee … Do you want me to pee on you?”Â
Real men always talk abut peeing on people, you know.Â
Back in Venezuela, things aren’t looking so good for for the Bolivarian Buffoon (Reuters link);
Used to trouncing the opposition at the ballot box, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez suddenly faces a new foe for a December referendum on scrapping term limits — high-profile disaffected supporters.
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An allied political party, a respected ex-defense minister, governors and a top legislator have all abandoned Chavez’s socialist coalition helping amplify the opposition’s criticism that his plan to revamp the constitution is authoritarian.The defections reflect misgivings among Chavez’s majority poor supporters, who still back his oil-financed social development crusade but worry the Cuba ally wants too much power as he brooks little dissent in the OPEC nation.
“We’ve seen so-called ‘group-think’ develop. In other words, if you do not think like me, you are a traitor, you are with the CIA, you are a coup plotter,” said Ismael Garcia of the Podemos party, which split from Chavez’s self-styled “revolution” over the reform package.
Polls show the anti-U.S. leader should win the December 2 vote but that it will be due to low opposition turnout, his personal approval ratings and sweeteners in the package such as reducing the workday and expanding social security benefits.Â
So, every time things get dicey at home, Chavez tours the world on his people’s dime. But Lucia writes at Caracas Chronicles that the media shouldn’t count the opposition out yet;
This December is not last December. Standing in line for milk makes voters cranky. And Chávez is not on the ballot. This is important, because some moderate Chavistas may be willing to vote against the reforms even though they’re not entirely ready to give up on him yet. Chávez’s support outside his hard-core base is due to the misiones. But moderate Chavistas are very wary of extreme Chavismo: they don’t like the divisive rhetoric, the Fidel and Mahmoud love affairs, the spending abroad, the RCTV license cancellation, the violence against the students, the insults to the church. And they don’t like many of the reform proposals, either. The very vocal defections of Baduel and Podemos may underline what they themselves are feeling – this revolution is getting out of control.
We may have reached a tipping point for this key segment of voters.
At Venezuelan Politics, Tomas Sancio explains that Chavez’ prediction that the dollar indicates the fall of the United States is pointless blather;
OK, for those of you who are unaware of the official Venezuelan exchange rate, it is a value pegged to the US Dollar (specifically Bs. 2150), not to the Euro.
But then world is laughing at Chavez, and for the first time, he’s starting to hear it.
I’m fighting off a cold or something and I’m not thinking straight so I’m going to let other people do my thinking for me today;
Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs illustrates that 60s hippies never die in “You went there to kill children, you’re a baby killer”
Robin at Chickenhawk Express tracks the money that links Murtha and the Haditha investigation here and here.
Beth of Blue Star Chronicles’ son is still in Baghdad and Sergeant Grumpy just got there recently and is already dealing deadly blows to our enemie’s efforts.
Michele Malkin has the admission (with audio) from Democrats that S-CHIP is the backdoor way t get universal healthcare past America while we blink.
Gateway Pundit has a threatening and demeaning letter from Amahdinajad to M. Sarkozy.
Wild Thing at PC Free Zone has the story on OPEC’s fear of a devalued dollar – they thought the camera was off. Speaking of oil, Junkyard Blog’s SeeDubya writes that Citgo is now funneling oil money to Chavez’ social programs.
Crotchety Old Bastard answers his email for ANSWER.
Babalu Blog’s Alberto de la Cruz reports on Chavez’ toe-dipping into extra-Venezuelan military operations.
I’ll be back later if I can shake this thing.