Politics, Government & Public Policy: July 2008 Archives
Not only were our political masters getting favorable interest rates from Countrywide, but the mortgage giant they were supposed to be regulating also made it a practice to waive the "junk" fees they stick to the rest of us.
According to Feinberg and company documents, V.I.P.’s nearly always received better deals than those available to most borrowers. Countrywide often waived up to two points and eliminated fees amounting to hundreds of dollars for underwriting, processing, and document preparation. Internal company emails often referred to these fees as “junk” or “garbage.” If interest rates fell while a V.I.P. loan was pending, Countrywide provided a free float-down to the lower rate, eschewing its usual charge of half a point. Some V.I.P.’s who bought or refinanced investment properties were given the lower interest rate reserved for primary residences. Because Mozilo informally preapproved his F.O.A.’s, many of them barely bothered to document their assets and enjoyed exceptions to normal procedures or shortcuts around them.
If you're a homeowner and that doesn't make your blood boil, you may already be in a cool homicidal rage. There's no way that this special treatment isn't bribery of the most pernicious kind, and every, every "friend of Angelo" of either party who participated should be thrown in prison. Pleading ignorance doesn't keep us peasants out of jail, and the people who make the laws should be held to at least as high a standard.
(HT: Instapundit.)
It's hard to find concrete information, but it appears that Barack Obama will be in Iraq for less than 24 hours. Maybe even less than 12 hours! Is that really enough time to "fact-find"?
Senator Barack Obama arrived in Baghdad on Monday, meeting with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and other senior Iraqi politicians, on the latest leg of a weeklong overseas tour, his first as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.A United States Embassy official said Mr. Obama, who was traveling as part of an American delegation, had arrived in the Iraqi capital in the early afternoon after first stopping in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. ...
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American military commander in Iraq, met briefly with Mr. Obama when the senator arrived at the Baghdad airport and they flew by helicopter to the Green Zone, where the American embassy and many Iraqi government offices are located, according to an American military official.
Mr. Obama was scheduled to meet again with General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker later Monday, the official said. ...
Mr. Obama is expected to spend the rest of the day in Baghdad. His movements remained shrouded in secrecy, and Americans here strictly warned Iraqi officials not to give details about Mr. Obama’s visit. But as well as his meetings with senior politicians, he was also scheduled to meet with American soldiers, according to American and Iraqi officials.
So he's probably going to fly out of Baghdad this evening to spend the rest of the week pressing flesh with Europes' socialist masters. I get the feeling he wouldn't have even made this token visit if it wasn't necessary to cover for his utter lack of experience and interest in the matter.
Based on this profile by Kim Strassel and some first-hand accounts by friends who have met her, Master of None is endorsing state treasurer Sarah Steelman for Governor of Missouri.
For an insight as to why the GOP is down and out in Washington, take a look at Jefferson City. That's where Sarah Steelman, the state treasurer, is running in an Aug. 5 primary for the Missouri governorship. And it's where her reform campaign against earmarks and self-dealing is threatening the entrenched status quo, causing her own party to rise against her.So bitter are House Minority Whip Roy Blunt and Sen. Kit Bond at Ms. Steelman's attack on their cherished spending beliefs that last month they rallied the entire Missouri congressional delegation to put out a public statement openly criticizing her campaign against six-term U.S. Rep. Kenny Hulshof. Joining them in their support of Mr. Hulshof has been the vast majority of the state Republican machine. Ms. Steelman is clearly doing something right.
Her sin is in fact to belong to that new mold of Republican – Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Sens. Tom Coburn and Jim DeMint – who know it's no longer enough to simply hawk lower taxes. In 10 years as a state legislator and treasurer, her target has been the slothful political favor factory that's led Republicans away from small-government principles and outraged conservative voters.
And, oh, the howls of misery. Ms. Steelman's Republican colleagues were livid with her attempt to strip them of comfy pensions, annoyed with her "sunshine law" requiring them to be more open in their dealings, furious at her attacks on their ethanol boondoggles, appalled that she criticized GOP state Speaker Rod Jetton for moonlighting as a paid political consultant. The final straw was her temerity to make her primary race about her opponent's Washington earmarking record.
Democrat Jay Nixon is currently leading in the polls, but if Steelman can win the Republican primary I bet disenchanted voters will be willing to give her a shot.
This story about the idiotic bailout our Senate is planning for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is a perfect example of why we need a flat tax law that prohibits this sort of case-by-case meddling by Congress.
Like the bailout that has already passed the House, the Senate bill features a special new tax on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. We have long urged reform of the two mortgage giants, which operate with an implicit government guarantee and therefore a license to endanger the taxpayer if they take on too much risk. The shares of both plunged yesterday to new lows based on their credit risks. But as a price for allowing more oversight of the two companies, Mr. Dodd and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank want to cut their allies in on even more of the action. Mr. Dodd creates an annual tax of 4.2 basis points on the mortgages that Fan and Fred purchase each year. Initially this money will go to finance losses resulting from the bill's bailout of refinanced mortgages. But by 2012 most of the cash from this tax will be directed to the new "affordable housing" funds. Mr. Frank applies a 1.2 basis-point tax on the value of all the loans Fan and Fred hold or have guaranteed, to collect roughly the same amount of money. The annual windfall here could amount to more than $600 million at the start, growing to perhaps $1 billion or more, depending on how fast the companies grow. Even better for the pols, this money won't end up in the Treasury's general fund. Instead, they've written the bill to steer the cash toward some of their favorite political allies. In the Senate bill, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development gets the largest pot to distribute, a full 65% of the "affordable housing" funds. Within guidelines established by the bill, the HUD chief has discretion to favor particular states while punishing others in creating a formula for doling out block grants. Much of the political clout will be enjoyed by state politicians once they receive the checks from HUD. The state pols will be free to share the wealth with favored organizations, which will include both nonprofit and for-profit groups with an agenda.
Our government is basically run like a giant pyramid scheme, and those of us who produce wealth by our labor and investments are the suckers.
Moldbug explains the Supreme Court concisely. We like to think we're ruled by the law, but:
All governments are governments of men. If final decisions are taken by a council of nine, these nine are the nine who rule. Whether you call them a court, a junta or a politburo is irrelevant.
(HT: Arnold Kling.)
Chicago's Cook County has just hiked its sales tax rate to 10.25%, and residents are predictably upset. What isn't mentioned in the article is the role that high gas prices play in enabling this sort of tax hike.
It will definitely be cheaper to shop in the suburbs. Buy a $500 TV in DuPage County where the taxes are 6.75 percent and you'll pay $534, in Chicago where the taxes are 9 percent, you'll pay $545 for that same television, and when taxes increase to 10.25 percent, you'll pay $551.For that reason, businesses are concerned that consumers will leave Cook County to make purchases.
Maybe, but the higher gas prices are they more expensive it becomes to leave the county to shop. In essence, Cook County is taking advantage of high gas prices to gouge its residents and further empower the county government.
