Tag: Film

Is It Time to Just Say No to Bailouts?

Trish

Originally, the Treasury-written bailout package was going to include “troubled assets” from the mortgage meltdown, presumably to keep people in their homes. Now they’re tossing in SUVs and credit card debt that people would just as soon not pay too.

I like Chris Dodd but it’s hard to ignore the fact that as chair of the Senate Banking Committee, he received $516,000 this year from the banking industry

That’s right, Republican-Americans and all you other idiots who bought a McMansion with no money down and a five-year balloon, then parked your Lincoln Navigator and Nissan Armada outside while Best Buy delivered the home theater system you charged…you can walk away from all those bad decisions and the idiots who sold you that crap can too. No one’s out anything, unless you count the next few generations of Americans including my 10-year-old niece.

And best of all, we’ll be giving the Treasury, another wing of the executive branch, complete freedom to blow our future wealth with no oversight whatsoever. That will come as a relief to all those CEOs who worried that unlike McCain advisor Carly Fiorina —who was fired from Hewlett-Packard but took her $21 million golden parachute with her anyway — they might actually be held accountable for their poor performance.

Here’s the exact wording of the proposed legislation:

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

Kind of has the ring of Dick Cheney, doesn’t it?

Treasury Secretary Henry “Hank” Paulson, Senate Banking Committee Chair Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) and House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) appeared on ABC’s This Week to tell us that we must act and act now to avert devastation and calamity. The only problem was no one could exactly explain what the impending doom we might avert looks like.

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Quote(s) du Jour

Trish

“Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.”

“Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it’s just the opposite.”

“If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.”

— John Kenneth Galbraith (1908 — 2006), Canadian-born economist

McCain’s Problem: He IS the Problem

Trish

Today’s humorous in a wry, mocking way web site is Lobbyists for McCain. The group made a splash in suits and alleged Ferragamos during protests at the Republican National Convention but continues to sock it to McCain on a range of issues. Of course, as the Washington Post pointed out in light of McCain’s statement that “the fundamentals of the economy are strong,” this is not hard to do.

Were McCain known as a student of the economy, this instance of a badly delivered statement would matter little. Because he is known as someone who is not, it matters plenty. McCain has responded by ratcheting up his rhetoric about cracking down on Wall Street and its regulators in Washington.

Plus they have this great yard sign

And yet the problem for McCain is that he IS the problem. The Keating Five scandal, in which McCain was No. Four, involved McCain and four other senators trying to prevent regulators from doing their jobs in overseeing risky real estate loans by Lincoln Savings and Loan, chaired by Charles Keating. The later collapse of the savings and loans industry, of which the Lincoln mess was an integral part, cost us taxpayers $125 billion.

Cindy Hensley’s son and McCain’s adopted son, Andrew McCain, resigned from the board of Silver State Bank in July. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) shut down the bank and its parent company six weeks later. Guess who’s on the hook for all those assets now?

Which is precisely the kind of thing Lobbyists for McCain would like us to remember. Barbara Walters asked the 40-year Washington insider on The View, “Who are you going to change in Washington? You?” To which we can only add, “Who are you going to change on Wall St.? You?”

Find Lobbyists for McCain on our blog roll under “Campaign Sites.”

The Maverick Flip-Flops on AIG Bailout. Looks to Bush and Says, “Whatever He Said”

Trish

What will John McCain do without the Bush administration? After all, to any question on current events, McCain casts his gaze in the direction of Bush and answers, “Whatever he said.”

The AIG bail-out is a perfect example. McCain, on the Today Show Monday:

McCain might have an actual opinion. And just as soon as Bush tells him what it is, we’ll let you know.

McCain: “…No, I do not believe that the American taxpayer should be on the hook for AIG and I’m glad that the Secretary Paulson has apparently taken the same line.”

Q: “So, if we get to the point, in the middle of the week when AIG might have to file for bankruptcy, they’re on their own.”

McCain: “Well, they’re on their own. We cannot have the taxpayers bail out AIG or anybody else, this is something that we’re going to have to work through.”

But then the Bush administration acted, which meant McCain flip-flopped, uh, changed his mind, or um, rather, clarified his position. McCain, on Good Morning America today:

“Now on the bailout itself, I didn’t want to do that. And I don’t think anybody I know wanted to do that. But there are literally millions of people whose retirement, whose investment, whose insurance were at risk here. They were going to have their lives destroyed because of the greed and excess and corruption.”

Somewhere between “They’re on their own” and, “My God, we’ve got to do something!” McCain might have an actual opinion. And just as soon as Bush tells him what it is, we’ll let you know.

McCain Son Follows Dad Into Financial Scandals

Trish

In timing that Martha Stewart could totally get behind, one of John McCain’s sons bailed off the board of Silver State Bank just before the FDIC shut it down. The $2 billion asset financial institution got in trouble because of risky real estate loans.

Andrew K. McCain sat on the board of Silver State Bank starting in February but resigned in July citing “personal reasons”

Silver State Bank ran into difficulty because of a substantial amount of “poor-quality loans primarily related to real estate development” in southern Nevada and other distressed markets, FDIC spokesman David Barr said…

Silver State Bank has operated 13 branches in the greater Las Vegas area and four in the greater Phoenix-Scottsdale area of Arizona as well as loan offices in Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, California and Florida.

Let’s see, the quality of your loans seems like something the members of your board’s audit committee should keep an eye on.

Andrew K. McCain, a son of Republican presidential nominee John McCain, sat on the boards of Silver State Bank and of its parent, Silver State Bancorp, starting in February but resigned in July citing “personal reasons,” corporate filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission show. Andrew McCain also was a member of the bank’s audit committee, responsible for oversight of the company’s accounting.

Andy jumped off the sinking ship just before it went under. A good auditor would have seen this coming and recommend a more prudent approach by the bank. Then again, why not just let the little people pay for rich people’s gambles? That’s what Andy’s dad did, after all.

John McCain was one of the “Keating Five,” five senators who were in the pocket of Charles Keating, chair of the board of Lincoln Savings and Loan. Keating exchanged campaign contributions for help in keeping regulators from doing their job and stopping similar risky gambits. The unhappy ending, of course, cost the taxpayers nearly $125 billion when the savings and loan industry shut down.

I doubt Andy’s worried about a job though.

The younger McCain, who is the chief financial officer of Hensley & Co., the beer distributorship of which Cindy McCain is chairwoman, is the Arizona senator’s adopted son from his first marriage.

It’s nice to have a rich mom. Or in John McCain’s case, a rich wife.

McCain’s Economic Non-Plan (Just Do What Bush Did) Is a Disaster

Trish

If you think the economy is bad now, just wait, according to the Daytona News-Journal. And if you want to make it unimaginably bad, vote for McCain.

On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office will release its summer update to the budget and economic outlook. The report will include grim numbers that aren’t being talked about much on the campaign trail, including a budget deficit near or beyond the record $412.7 billion deficit recorded in 2004…

How does McCain intend change that helps 15 million unemployed and underemployed Americans when his economic plan not only adopts Bush’s policies, but digs the hole deeper?

Unemployment gets the headlines. But deficits matter just as much in the long run. When they’re small, the government has more room to borrow and smaller payments to finance the debt. Interest rates can go down…allowing businesses to invest more and consumers to buy more on credit.

..When deficits balloon, everything eventually goes in reverse. Interest rates rise to finance the deficit, and auto loans, mortgages, credit cards, college loans and business investments all become more expensive to finance.

The problem with the job losses of the past eight months is that they happened before the effects of much larger deficits take their toll. That doesn’t speak hopefully of the future when, by the White House’s estimate, the next president will inherit a $500 billion deficit.

…John McCain’s plan is sheer folly: Make the Bush tax cuts permanent, and cut taxes and reduce federal revenue even more by abolishing the Alternative Minimum Tax, reducing the corporate tax and doubling the child tax credit. That’s a recipe for trillion-dollar deficits on top of a national debt approaching $10 trillion.

One thing is clear. President Bush’s economic policies failed. The tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 did not produce the promised economic growth. Growth in Bush’s eight years did not produce the promised jobs. It did not lift wages. After inflation, household income has fallen below 2000 levels despite the few years of economic growth between the 2001 and 2008 recessions. Artificially lowering interest rates boosted the housing market artificially, leading to a very real crash. Changing Washington would be nice. But how does McCain intend change that helps 15 million unemployed and underemployed Americans when his economic plan not only adopts Bush’s policies, but digs the hole deeper?

Putnam Lies About His Greenness While Sending Junk Mail on the Public’s Dime

Buck Banks

adamputnam.jpgThe St. Petersburg Times reports that U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam (R-FL), recently sent out a mailer listing his efforts to lower gas prices and use environmentally friendly, domestic sources of energy.

Since he didn’t mention that he’s up for re-election this November, he was, according to House ethics rules, able to use taxpayer dollars to send his piece of junk mail to more than 600,000 constituents.

University of South Florida political science professor Susan MacManus noted, though, that in economic down times, voters tend to cast a jaundiced eye at such uses of public funds: “When people get stressed in their own pocketbooks, they expect government to do so too, and they watch government spending more,” MacManus said.

One problem with Putnam’s piece of junk mail is it’s junk, the second is that it touts his environmental leadership and the third problem is that he”leads” by padding his resume, not by example:

The mailer lists 13 points under headings that declare he’s working to “promote renewable energy” and “encourage energy efficiency.” It states that he supports researching clean energy sources, using environmentally safe energy to reduce carbon-based emissions, and building nuclear power plants.

In reality, however, Putnam’ playing fast and loose with the facts:

The League of Conservation Voters gave him Putnam five out of 100 points on its 2007 environmental scorecard. The low score came from his votes on 20 issues. He got negative marks for everything except his vote against offshore drilling.

Another group, the Republicans for Environmental Protection, analyzed 15 votes and gave Putnam 13 out of 100 on the 2007 congressional scorecard.

In three recent House votes on energy- or environment-related bills, Putnam voted against the environmentalists’ positions 66 percent of the time:

  • On the Udall Amendment that would require 15 percent of retail electricity sales to be generated from specific renewable resources, Putnam voted no.
  • On an amendment would have removed a nonbinding expression of Congress’ opinion in the bill that supported mandatory policies for reducing greenhouse gases, Putnam voted no.
  • The only one he got right was a no against drilling for oil off Florida’s coast at 25 miles or farther, but his reasons were that the bill gave Florida no control or participation in the decision.

Let’s review: Putnam prints and mails a chunk of tree to more than a half-million people that lies about his environmental track record. Sounds like he’s right on track for re-election.

Trish Is Just One of FPL’s 39,000 Suckers

Buck Banks

My co-editor Trish is a nice person with good intentions who wants to save the environment. Which is why she signed up a couple of years ago for Florida Power & Light’s Sunshine Energy program that was intended to support development of alternative energy sources. About 39,000 other Floridians joined Trish in adding an additional $9.75 per month to their electric bill to support wind farms in Montana, among other things FPL was supposedly doing to develop “green” power sources.

Sorry, Trish, but according to the Miami Herald, the state’s Public Service Commission has put the kibosh on the program because, well — and I hope you’re sitting down when you read this — FPL didn’t do what it said it was going to do with the money. Ahem, your money.

See Trish, of your $9.75 a month, only about 20 percent — less than $2 — was actually being spent on developing alternative electrical resources. The rest was going … somewhere. It wasn’t really clear where that 80 percent was going. There was vague talk about administrative expenses and marketing, but the PSC was just bumfuzzled about where the money went because — get this — the accounting by the subcontractor that was supposed to buy the green energy was so poor.

But to hear FPL tell it, the company did nothing legally or morally wrong:

The utility had acknowledged in regulatory filings that the program could be improved and it volunteered to do so, but it said Sunshine Energy met the requirements laid down by the commission in a formal document called a tariff, which did not specify what percentage of contributions should go directly to renewable energy.

But don’t expect to see any of the money you contributed returned to you, Trish. Since FPL complied with the tariff as written by the PSC (no matter how poorly), it is under no legal obligation to refund the funds. Some FPL customers who contributed to the fund are demanding a public apology from the company, but I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for that.

In the interest of full disclosure, I almost joined the fund a year ago after attending the Governor’s Climate Change Summit in Miami. I spoke with a guy there who said we should all support programs like Sunshine Energy because it’s the right thing to do. I just was never convinced that FPL would do the right thing with the money, so I didn’t join up. That doesn’t make me wiser than Trish and her 39,000 cohorts. It just means that after years of abuse by FPL (I was out of electricity a total of three weeks during the hurricanes of 2005 due mainly to faulty utility poles installed by FPL that had to be replaced before power could be restored), I simply didn’t and don’t trust the company.

Remember — Florida Power & Light tried to build a coal-burning power plant on the edge of the Everglades that would have spewed mercury-laced emissions all over the River of Grass. The Public Service Commission performed a true public service in April by denying the permit for that project.

FPL — you just can’t trust ’em.

Update from Trish: Checked the FPL bill I paid last week, and there was the $9.75 Sunshine energy charge. I called the 800# and after 3 minutes, 25 seconds of listening to menu options that didn’t apply (no, I don’t want to know my last payment amount or change my billing address), I got in the queue to speak to a representative. A recording cut in to say that due to the volume of calls, my wait time might be excessive and I should leave my phone number to be called back. I did so, waiting while the simulated operator confirmed in painstakingly slow, perfect elocution each digit of my area code and phone number, followed by each letter of my last name. Finally, just as my lunch heated up and I was ready to eat, Whitney called me back. I explained that I wanted the Sunshine energy charge removed from future bills, and he said I’d have to be transferred to the department handling that. Next, Bertha came on the line and I was immediately disconnected. This time, I jammed the “0” key sooner and more often, cutting in half the time it took to get a person. This person transferred me to the department that handles these requests, and I was assured the charge would not appear on my next bill. But if I have any questions in the future, I can call the correct department direct at 1-888-FPL-GREEN. I snorted derisively and hung up.