Archive for March, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009; A01
The Obama administration is considering asking Congress to give the Treasury secretary unprecedented powers to initiate the seizure of non-bank financial companies, such as large insurers, investment firms and hedge funds, whose collapse would damage the broader economy, according to an administration document.
The government at present has the authority to seize only banks.
Ok, so now the government can use taxation to ‘undo’ legal but unpopular contracts (see AIG bonuses) and now they will have the right to seize companies outright? Where are the armies of hyperventilating liberal idiots who said Bush was trying to make himself an evil fascist overlord now, huh? Where did they go? If you’ve got a company that’s related to finance, watch how you run your company, because if it becomes politically expedient for Barack Obama to nationalize your company, he can and will. This is full-bore socialism.
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner is set to argue for the new powers at a hearing today on Capitol Hill about the furor over bonuses paid to executives at American International Group, which the government has propped up with about $180 billion in federal aid. Administration officials have said that the proposed authority would have allowed them to seize AIG last fall and wind down its operations at less cost to taxpayers.
Only a fool would actually believe that the federal government would do a better job at crashing these companies. The government is partly to blame in the first place! And this is not about saving investors, this is about saving the owners of these businesses. They won’t be protesting this action (at first) because it will be better than having a golden parachute — it will mean that as long as they are profitable the profits will remain privatized, but once the company starts to fail the losses will become socialized, extending onto the backs of taxpayers.
The administration’s proposal contains two pieces. First, it would empower a government agency to take on the new role of systemic risk regulator with broad oversight of any and all financial firms whose failure could disrupt the broader economy. The Federal Reserve is widely considered to be the leading candidate for this assignment. But some critics warn that this could conflict with the Fed’s other responsibilities, particularly its control over monetary policy.
‘Systemic risk regulator’? We already have a system for that in place - it’s called the free market.
If this goes through, people, America is doomed. DOOMED.
The government also would assume the authority to seize such firms if they totter toward failure.
Where would we draw the line on ‘tottering’? Is a public outcry enough? Would a heartfelt speech by a senator do the trick? All this will accomplish in the long-term is expanding the role of government, and in the short term delay the recovery. The Democrats’ prescription for the economy’s case of temporary walking pneumonia is terminal socialistic brain cancer.
Besides seizing a company outright, the document states, the Treasury Secretary could use a range of tools to prevent its collapse, such as guaranteeing losses, buying assets or taking a partial ownership stake. Such authority also would allow the government to break contracts, such as the agreements to pay $165 million in bonuses to employees of AIG’s most troubled unit.
We’re privatizing profits and socializing the risk.
I’ll say it again - under the Democrats this nation is DOOMED.
No, I’m not joking.
Malmo is Sweden ’s 3rd largest city and a major epicenter of the Islamization of Europe. Wide-open immigration policies have changed Sweden and have made Malmo, which is now one-quarter Muslim, one of the most racially divided cities in Europe.Most Muslim immigrants are concentrated in one district, where the male unemployment rate is 82 percent. Crime affects one of three families in the city and rape has tripled in 20 years, according to the Christian Broadcasting Network.
From NewsMax.
Probably just more of what most of us are aware of, but I found it interesting.
Here in the US, politicians are lax with immigration for the purpose of getting votes. Dems cater specifically to illegals while reps are stupidly scared to step in the way for fear of repelling those votes. Not that it should matter, because illegals don’t carry the right to vote. But that doesn’t stop more liberal voting precincts and special interest groups, does it?
Do you all think it’s reasonable to believe that lax immigration policies could cause the doom of Europe? What about here in the states? I seem to come across many different stories here and there about these issues, and more and more I see it as a reasonable grounds for concern in the loss of a nation.
One of my favorite films is ‘The Shadow’ starring Alex Baldwin. It’s a campy, rather dumb film, but the visuals are quite good, and so is the dialogue. Just to be clear, Alec Baldwin is Lamont Cranston who is ‘The Shadow’, the titular vaguely evil superhero:
Margo Lane: “Oh, God I dreamed.”
Lamont Cranston: “So did I. What did you dream?”
Margo Lane: “I was lying naked on a beach in the South Seas. The tide was coming up to my toes. The sun was beating down. My skin hot and cool at the same time. It was wonderful. What was yours?”
Lamont Cranston: “I dreamed I tore all the skin off my face and was somebody else underneath.”
Margo Lane: “You have problems.”
Lamont Cranston: “I’m aware of that.”
I never get tired of that exchange. Baldwin delivers it in such a deadpan manner that it kills me every time. … I’m just sayin’.
there I said it and feel better. I do not own a cell phone and won’t. If you here at Buried Planet have one that is great, but let me explain.
Social status is gone. I went to the park the other day and people were all like robots on their little cell phones. Texting and looking all cool with their gadgets. I’m like what is the point of going to the park, just stay home?
I was at a bar before I went to see the movie Watchmen and my friends were waiting near the theater while I drank a few beers and this couple came up next to me and all their conversation was was about them texting one another. People even talk about what they talked about on the cell phone.
Most people that have them don’t even need them. They talkabout nothing and when someone asks me what my cell phone number is and I say I don’t have one, I get strange looks. OMG…
Almost half the wrecks I am almost involved with are people with cell phones. It never fails that at a stoplight and it turns green the person in the front is knee deep in texting or talking on the phone and people have to honk and those people honking are on…you got it a cell phone themselves.
I only understand people in buisness needing a cell phone. Like for example my oldest brother is a computer programmer and is on call, so when needed they can get in touch with him.
12 to 18 year old teens don’t need it for any reason, sorry. At the mall these little robots are on cell phones texting and talking, but not to each other they just stand out side or sit at the restaraunt tables stuck with one to their fingers or ears. They never pay attention and are even more dangerous behind the wheel of a car.
It isn’t about technology I don’t care how you can play Tetris, or download your favorite Madonna song or you can text until your fingers fall off they don’t impress me. It’s that people just have nothing to talk about unless you have a cell phone. “Call me, text me…” It’s all self-centered and me, me, me. I come first because I have a cell phone with my $150.00 gadgets I pay for every month as if I’m suppose to bow down and worship thy celleth Phoneth.
I like to talk in person and not much of a phone talker. Sit around shooting teh breeze witha beer or two, or whatever is cool by me.
I just find the whole process has made people out of touch and try to look cool. Like I said if it is needed, fine you need it, but not everyone needs one, trust me on this.
Zack Snyder has a problem; he has too much love for his source material. As he proved with 300, he’s the fanboy’s director, someone who will try as faithfully as possible to recreate shot for shot the graphic novels he is filming. This, as it turns out, is the problem with his latest effort Watchmen, based on Alan Moore’s iconic graphic novel. As Snyder has tried to absorb the leviathan into his film, not without some success, and has created a massive geekgasm of a movie, one upon which much hope was placed, but that could not possibly ever succeed in its mission.
It’s an alternate 1985. Nixon has just been elected to a third term in the White House, nuclear war is pretty much a certainty and America triumphed in Vietnam, mainly thanks to the help of the godlike Dr. Manhattan and amoral nutball the Comedian. Crime prevention was the province of a group of masked superheroes, the aforementioned two, Silk Spectre, Nite Owl, super-brain Ozymandias and sociopath Rorschach. They, however, have now been outlawed and the Comedian has been murdered. Thus begins the movie, with Rorschach pursuing the murderers and the others trying to build some kind of life.
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