Author: VD

Obama’s First 100 Days

Obama’s first 100 days have been more important than has historically been the case with most presidents, because unlike past presidents, Obama’s lack of a track record renders him somewhat of an enigma. While legislative voting records provide a picture of an individual’s ideology, they tell very little about his character, his executive capabilities or his willingness to set aside ideology in the interest of achieving practical objectives. So, the first three months of Obama’s administration have been the first opportunity to really see if there is any substance beneath the marketing hype….

The Battle of the Sexes, where the women’s field of elite runners competed against the men, didn’t pan out the way race officials had hoped. Even after giving the women an 18 and a half-minute head start, five of the Elite men finished before the top woman.

The interesting thing isn’t that the men won even when the women were given an unfair advantage. What’s interesting is the fact that the officials were hoping that a woman would win. But if stacking the deck so that a woman will win is the point, then why not go all the way and make it a five-hour head start?

Exhibit One. Donald Luskin on TARP, December 22, 2008:

I supported TARP when it was being debated in September, and I still do — all the more so, since it has been transformed primarily into a mechanism for recapitalizing banks (temporarily) rather than buying illiquid assets (permanently). As a conservative and a libertarian, I am repelled by government intervention like this. But we don’t have the luxury to stand on principle.

Exhibit Two: Donald Luskin on TARP, April 24, 2009:

Is TARP a criminal enterprise? When a CNBC producer called me on Wednesday to see if I’d debate that question on the Kudlow Report that evening, I thought the allegation was ridiculous. How could the U.S. Treasury’s Troubled Assets Relief Program to rescue the banking system possibly be compared to the Sopranos? But now I’m not so sure…. there’s not one single solitary word in the act that authorizes the Treasury to do anything at all for auto companies like General Motors and Chrysler. The act only authorizes helping “financial institutions.” Yet billions of TARP dollars have gone to the two automakers.

I’m sure every real libertarian who did not divest himself of his libertarian principles the moment that Henry Paulson cried wolf is shocked that a significant chunk of the $700 billion in emergency cash should have found its way into unintended pockets. In related news, rumors have recently begun circulating throughout the adult film industry that not all of its actresses are 100-percent silicone-free as had been previously believed.

It should be most amusing to hear these geniuses defend their support for TARP after GM and Chrysler go bankrupt and all those bailout billions vanish with them.

Well, it’s hardly a surprise that the Lions managed to screw things up somehow. Although I suppose that if the rest of your roster is terrible, it doesn’t matter if you devote a ridiculous percentage of your salary cap to an unproven rookie quarterback.

This would be the place to discuss the draft. Given the Vikings’ problems in the passing game and the very low rate of rookie WR success, I’d like to see them take an offensive lineman in the first round.

I really dislike cats. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I hate them, but I dislike them. I consider them to be nasty little beasts, although I suppose I can understand how people who want to be able to ignore their pets for days at a time might find them to make reasonable companions. That being said, I don’t take any particular joy in seeing them dead.

So, it was a bit disturbing to see an idiot cat run out right in front of the truck that was preceding me. The next thing I saw was the cat lying directly in my path, which presented me with a limited range of options:

1. Slam on my brakes and hope the [presumed] female driver in the Smart car behind me was paying close enough attention to stop as well.

2. Veer right and hit the van that was next to me.

3. Veer left onto the sidewalk.

4. Swerve slightly right so that the tire didn’t hit the cat without hitting the van.

5. Run right over it.

I had only a split second to decide, so acting on the assumption that the cat was either dead or dying after getting hit by the truck, I went with option five. I decided that finishing the poor thing off fast would be the most merciful thing to do. Since my initial pre-cognitive reaction had been to begin swerving right in preparation for option four – which I think was doable as the van wasn’t so close that there was any significant risk – I turned the wheel back to the left and winced a little as I added insult to injury.

Did I do the right thing? I really don’t know. The driver of the van didn’t seem to think so, as our windows were both open and he said something about it having been far enough ahead to avoid. It’s not like I’m wracked with guilt over it or anything, but I do wonder if it was the right decision. What do you think? What would you have done?

Mike Shedlock calls for the indictment of Ben Bernanke, Henry Paulson, and Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis:

Coercion To Commit Securities Fraud

It’s crystal clear from the letter that a strong case can be made that Paulson and Bernanke coerced Lewis to carry out a merger agreement that was not in Bank of America’s shareholders best interest…. As far as I am concerned, Paulson just pleaded guilty. I do not care what Paulson’s reasons were, no one is above the law.

Let the criminal indictments begin: Paulson, Bernanke, and Lewis.

I wholeheartedly concur. And I have little doubt that this is just the merest fragmentary tip of the massive iceberg that is the ongoing criminal government racketeering. Karl Denninger further explains the criminal action involved:

“Your first obligation isn’t to your regulator, it is your fiduciary responsibility to your share and bondholders. If your regulator decides to remove you from office as a consequence, they do. That doesn’t change a thing; your personal interests cannot override your responsibilities. As the CEO of a public firm you don’t work for the govermment, whether you think you’re some “left arm adjunct” or not. You work for the holders of your stock and debt – period. On this matter the law is clear, and the government, even post-TARP, had a minority stake. As such they lack standing to tell you to shut up when your obligation to disclose is a matter of black-letter law.”

Most people don’t deserve freedom, because they don’t actually want it:

Police officers will be back on the street today in Elko New Market. The City Council voted unanimously Thursday night to reinstate the city’s police force. The vote, which came with some conditions, brought cheers from more than 150 residents who had crowded into Eagle View Elementary School, where the meeting had been moved because it offered a larger venue than City Hall.

Police officers in the community south of the Twin Cities had been on administrative duty since the City Council voted to remove them from patrol, effective at midnight April 9, with the intent of disbanding the department entirely on May 13.

It’s good to know the people of Elko New Market are once more free to enjoy no-knock raids, arbitrary traffic stops and indiscriminate fines. Those lawless two weeks of murder and mayhem must have taken a terrible emotional toll on them. And I can’t help but notice that the Star & Sickle report never bothers to explain why the City Council originally voted to get rid of the police, or why two members of the department require personnel reviews.

That sure is a nice bank you’ve got there. Shame if anything bad should happen to it….

Mr. Lewis: There was a point after that that the board brought up the fact that we’re relying on the words that obviously has some very prominent people and honorable people, but, boy, what if they don’t come through? So I called Bernanke — I don’t know why I called him versus Hank — and said, “Would you be willing to put something in writing?” And he said, “Let me think about it.” As I recall, he didn’t call me back, but Hank called me back. And Hank said two things: He said, “First, it would be so watered down, it wouldn’t be as strong as what we were going to say to you verbally, and secondly this would be a disclosable event and we do not want a disclosable event.”

Mr. Lewis testifies about why he did not disclose Merrill’s losses to BofA shareholders:

Q: Wasn’t Mr. Paulson, by his instruction, really asking Bank of America shareholders to take a good part of the hit of the Merrill losses?

Mr. Lewis: What he was doing was trying to stem financial disaster in the financial markets from his perspective.

Q: From your perspective, wasn’t that one of the effects of what he was doing?

Mr. Lewis: Over the short term, yes, but we still thought we had an entity that filled two big strategic holes for us and over long term would still be an interest to the shareholders.

Q: So isn’t that something that any shareholder at Bank of America who had less than a three-year time horizon would want to know?

Mr. Lewis: The situation was that everyone felt like the deal needed to be completed and to be able to say that, or that they would impose a big risk to the financial system if it would not.

Q: When you say “everyone,” what do you mean?

Mr. Lewis: The people that I was talking to, Bernanke and Paulson.

Q: Had it been up to you would you made the disclosure?

Mr. Lewis: It wasn’t up to me.

Q: Had it been up to you.

Mr. Lewis: It wasn’t.

Q: Why do you say it wasn’t up to you? Were you instructed not to tell your shareholders what the transaction was going to be?

Mr. Lewis: I was instructed that “We do not want a public disclosure.”

Q: Who said that to you?

Mr. Lewis: Paulson.

For those who think the problem is free market capitalism, on what planet can this sort of thing be reasonably described as anything even remotely approaching a free market. And, of course, it’s no surprise that the CEO and board of directors are perfectly willing to destroy the corporation they run if the alternative is threatens their jobs.

His correct observation that territorial conflicts are more rooted in geography than religion notwithstanding, I have tended to consider Guns, Germs, and Steel to be little more than an ahistorical concoction that combines pop history and science with illogical speculation and political correctness. So, his apparent carelessness with easily verifiable facts doesn’t surprise me at all:

In an April 21, 2008, article on blood feuds by Pulitzer Prize-winning scientist Jared Diamond, tribesman Daniel Wemp recounts how he spent three years hellbent on getting revenge for his uncle Soll’s death. The feud led to six battles and the deaths of 300 pigs, the story went. Finally, a hired thug shot Isum Mandingo, the man Wemp held responsible for Soll’s murder, in the back with an arrow, leaving him paralyzed and in a wheelchair, according to Diamond….

When media watchdog group stinkyjournalism.org sent a team of fact-checkers to New Guinea to check the article’s veracity, they found Mandingo, who disputed reports of his paralysis by walking on his own two feet.

“No matter what The New Yorker says and what Diamond says, the fact is that he is not paralyzed and is not confined to a wheelchair,” said Rhonda Shearer, the site’s founder…

There were no shouts and murders, but the story remains the talk of the tribes, she said. Mandingo told the researchers he had no involvement in any blood feuds.

Journalists always get something basic wrong. Always. I’ve seen factual errors in pieces only one paragraph long! The facts only exist insofar as they support the preconceived narrative, and if the two happen to come into conflict, most of the time it’s the facts that will be jettisoned.