New levels of McCain contradictions

Posted on October 4, 2008 by Paul — No Comments ↓

McCain’s pretty good at contradicting himself, but now he’s reached new heights with the following:

We can go backwards with job-killing tax hikes, the same old broken partisanship, and out of control spending as Senator Obama would have us do or we can bring real reform to Washington.

Yes, he tells you that partisanship is bad while insulting his opponent in the same sentence. I suppose you could make the sentence shorter (can politicians do that?) but I’d say that’s pretty close to a perfect score.

TheHill.com – Soros floats alternative bailout plan with Dems

Posted on October 2, 2008 by Paul — No Comments ↓

Here’s an interesting idea from George Soros. Instead of the current bailout plan, he suggests getting troubled banks to issue enough extra stock to recapitalize them, with the stock being bought by the government. This would restore balance to their accounts (with extra cash on hand they wouldn’t be so extended, and their balance sheets wouldn’t be so dominated by bad loans), punish shareholders who were supposed to be risking something in return for their rewards by diluting the value of their shareholdings, and give the government a concrete investment that is more likely to make it a return in the long run than the current plan.

I’ve no idea if there’s some huge flaw in the argument, beyond the fact that the banks probably won’t like it, but it certainly appears to have merit. Unfortunately it’s from Soros, so the Republicans probably won’t like it either, and right now that’s a bad thing.

Prescient, if perhaps Obvious

Posted on September 27, 2008 by Paul — No Comments ↓

Cringely reposts an excerpt from a post of his that appeared two days after 9/11. Right now it seems obvious, but I don’t know if it seemed that way then:

‘To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail,’ wrote Mark Twain. In the current context this means that the organizations charged with reacting to this catastrophe will do so by doing what they have always done, only more of it. Congress, which controls the budget and passes laws, will want to pass laws and to allocate more money, lots of money, forgetting completely about any campaign promises. The military, which is the nation’s enforcer, will want to use force, if only they can find a foe. The intelligence community, which gathers information, will want to be even more energetic in that gathering, no matter what the cost to the privacy of the millions of us who aren’t thinking of terrorist acts. And agencies like the Federal Aviation Administration, which regulate, will want to create more stringent regulations. Now here is an important point to be remembered: All these parties will want to do these things WHETHER THEY ARE WARRANTED OR USEFUL OR NOT.

A billion here, a billion there

Posted on September 26, 2008 by Paul — No Comments ↓

It worked. That’s a really large number. Kudos for a job well done.

Forbes writes on part of the reason that the American public is so skeptical of the Bush administrationâ€™s bailout proposal:

In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.
â€œItâ€™s not based on any particular data point,â€ a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. â€œWe just wanted to choose a really large number.â€

Deliberation on Bailouts

Posted on September 26, 2008 by Paul — No Comments ↓

Newt Gingrich speaks truth to… well I’m not sure who to, exactly, but the point is Newt Gingrich speaks truth!

Congress was designed by the Founding Fathers to move slowly, precisely to avoid the sudden panic of a one-week solution that becomes a 20-year mess.

And so weâ€™ve now reached the point where Iâ€™m in full agreement with Newt Gingrich on the most pressing political debate of the day.