No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for December 12th, 2008

Who got $2 trillion in “emergency” Fed Reserve loans?

by @ 20:35. Filed under Business, Economy.

(H/T – Dad29)

Bloomberg L.P. is trying to find out, but the Federal Reserve has refused a FOIA request asking for the recipients of more than $2,000,000,000,000 in emergency loans from 11 Fed lending programs, as well as the assets the Fed accepted as collateral. A majority of that, $1.23 trillion, was sent out after the Fed started accepting collateral that was rated worse than AAA on September 12.

The Fed, in its denial, said that there were 231 pages of records stemming from a partial search. Also from the denial, written by Jennifer J. Johnson, secretary for the Fed’s Board of Governors: “Notwithstanding calls for enhanced transparency, the Board must protect against the substantial, multiple harms that might result from disclosure…. In its considered judgment and in view of current circumstances, it would be a dangerous step to release this otherwise confidential information.”

Jim Rodgers, a prominent international investor, speculates that most of the banks are bankrupt. Dad29 runs with that and says that “…the Fed doesn’t want another short-selling frenzy.”

Carlos Mendez, a senior managing director at New York-based ICP Capital LLC, has the $64,000 $2 trillion statement – “If they told us what they held, we would know the potential losses that the government may take and that’s what they don’t want us to know.”

Handy new plugin – Delete-Revision

by @ 16:56. Filed under The Blog.

I haven’t been a big fan of the revision system that has been in WordPress since 2.6. Yes, it has saved me a couple times, but it takes up a lot of database space, and there is no way to eliminate all the revisions.

Fortunately, a guy named goshy came up with Delete-Revision. It will go through your wp-posts database and let you easily and quickly take out all the revisions except the actual post. While it is not officially tested with WP 2.7, it does work seamlessly. The only operationally-bad part; it’s an all-or-nothing operation.

8 Maids a Milking

by @ 10:45. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Late last night the Senate defeated the Big 3 bailout on a procedural vote of 52-35.  In order to pass, the bill needed 8 more votes.  After the final tally, the Senators had an opportunity to voice their opinions in closing remarks.  As one would surmise, the Democrats took the partisan position and cast blame to the other side of the aisle for the defeat of the $14 billion bailout.  The exchange between Senator Durbin and Senator Specter below is enlightening, especially given the fact that Senator Specter supported the bailout.

Excerpt  from Senator Dick Durbin (IL-D) comments:

I don’t know if this rescue package would have worked. I am not sure. I don’t know if it would have been enough, or whether it would have failed, but I thought we owed our best efforts to try to save an industry that means so much to America in so many States, whether it is Michigan or Indiana or Ohio or Illinois, thousands of workers, in Missouri, 55,000 workers; so many workers depend on this industry. We had a chance to do something for them tonight and we failed. We failed because we couldn’t bring over enough votes from the other side of the aisle to come to the magic number of 60.

Excerpt from Senator Arlen Specter (PA-R) rebuttal:

Madam President, I have sought recognition to comment on the cloture vote and to give my reasons for voting in support of cloture. Before I do, however, I wish to comment about where the responsibility lies for failure to invoke cloture to move this bill forward, and my hope that we would avoid fingerpointing and trying to assess blame, each on the other side, as has become the pattern in this body during the course of the last 2 years of the 110th Congress and beyond.

The Senator from Illinois said there were not sufficient votes on the Republican side of the aisle. Well, there were sufficient votes on the Republican side of the aisle, had they been joined with sufficient votes on the Democratic side of the aisle. There were 10 Republican Senators who voted to invoke cloture: Senator Bond, Senator Brownback, Senator Collins, Senator Lugar, Senator Voinovich, Senator Warner, Senator Dole, Senator Domenici, Senator Snowe, and myself.

There are 51 Senators on the other side of the aisle. Had those 51 Senators–or 50 of them joined with the 10 Republican Senators, cloture would have been invoked. But it would be my hope that we would leave this evening without partisan blame and still seek some way to get the kind of economic assistance that would enable the Big Three to continue to operate.

Sad commentary on the Democrats inability to hold ranks and then have the audacity to point the finger at the Republicans for bringing this bill to its knees………..and a “partisan” in a pear tree!

Santa goes color bli…er, “green”

by @ 10:00. Filed under Global "Warming".

(H/T – Josh Schroeder)

The Portage Daily Register reports on the use of Santa Claus and his friends to indoctrinate the young skulls full of mush at Lewiston Elementary School in Portage, Wisconsin. From thin snowmen to Coppertone-spreading elves to Rudolph’s new LED nose, the “Santa Goes Green” holiday program was dripping with every cliche from the Religion of Gorebal “Warming”. At least the color-blind who don’t have green can still wear red.

WFLD-TV (Chicago Fox affiliate) – Rahm Emanuel spoke with Blagojevich, Harris about filling Obama’s seat

by @ 9:30. Filed under Law and order, Politics - National.

(H/T – Ed Morrissey)

I’ll start with the standard disclaimers that this comes from an unnamed source, that Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, has not been named in the criminal complaint against Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich (D) and Blagojevich’s chief of staff, John Harris, and that the report referenced below does not actually state that Emanuel was actively selling the seat to Blagojevich and Harris.

WFLD-TV, the Fox affiliate in Chicago, aired a report last night asserting that a “reliable source familiar with the investigation” stated that Emanuel had conversations with both Blagojevich and Harris about candidates for the seat that has now been vacated by Obama. According to that source, the conversations, which took place on “multiple occassions” after Emanuel was named as Obama’s chief of staff November 6 (and after the wiretaps began), included a list of names “acceptable to President-elect Obama” given to the governor’s office. The source went on to say that the conversations were likely recorded by the FBI. The report notes that the source did not say one way or the other whether those conversations invovled any quid pro quo.

My gut feeling on this is that Obama cannot have January 20 come fast enough so he can oust US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and shut this down before any indictment against Blagojevich and Harris can be handed down, and before the taint can officially spread to his closest advisor. If a grand jury comes down with an indictment before then, and especially if things are as they appear (or worse), Obama is screwed.

Good news and bad news on the Big Thr…er, UAW bailout (update – not good news)

by @ 7:50. Tags:
Filed under Business, Economy, Politics - National.

The good news – cloture on the bill failed in the Senate 52-35.

The bad news – President Bush and the Congressional Democrats are still bound and determined to explicitly bail out the UAW this year.

The ugly news – Once the 111th Congress comes into session on January 6, 2009, the filibuster roadblock will be no more. Let’s review how the bipartisan Party-In-Government will pick up the necessary 8 votes (I will assume that the seat vacated by Barack Obama remains vacated, that Norm Coleman, who voted against this, is seated, and that Hillary Clinton, who voted for cloture, and Joe Biden, who was absent, either remain in the Senate for the first couple days of the 111th Congress or their appointed replacements are seated):

– Harry Reid (D-NV; “No”) – Voted “No” only to keep the possibility of bringing this back in this Congress. When he will be able to get to 60, that will become a “Yes” vote.
– Wayne Allard (R-CO; “No”) – He’s retiring, and the seat will be filled by Democrat Mark Udall
– Joe Biden (D-DE; “Not voting”) – This is a special case; I don’t know whether this seat will be officially vacant come January 6, but if it isn’t, it’s another vote for cloture.
– Ted Stevens (R-AK; “Not voting”) – He was defeated for re-election by Democrat Mark Begich.
– John Sununu (R-RI; “Not voting”) – He was defeated for re-election by Democrat Jeanne Shaheen.
– Gordon Smith (R-OR; “Not voting”) – He was defeated for re-election by Democrat Jeff Merkley.
– Ted Kennedy (D-MA; “Not voting”) – They’ll wheel him in if needed to become vote #60.
– John Kerry (D-MA; “Not voting”) – He’ll definitely show up to vote for the UAW and welfare.
– Ron Wyden (D-OR; “Not voting”) – He’ll be around for the UAW.

Revisions/extensions (8:16 am 12/12/2008) – And the truly-ugly news courtesy CommentGuy over on the linked Michelle Malkin thread: That vote was on the annual AMT “fix”, not the UAW bailout bill. I didn’t see anything that suggested that the UAW bailout bill got appended to the annual AMT fix.

We’re not done yet.

I Hate To Say I Told You So But…

by @ 5:09. Filed under Economy, Politics - National.

I warned you yesterday that the Auto Industry Financing and Restructuring Act (the auto bail out) had nothing to do with wanting to create a financially viable automotive industry.

In an interview with 60 Minutes to be aired this weekend, Barney Frank provided another unusual moment of candor.   He admits to Lesley Stahl that the bailout is not intended to support the economic viability of the auto companies:

“No. We’re not propping up companies. That’s your mistake,” he tells Stahl, who had asked him about taxpayer money going to prop up companies that had made bad decisions. “We’re propping up individuals. The world doesn’t consist of companies. The world is people. The country is people.”

After Stahl points out that Frank is advocating welfare on a national scale, Frank channels Joe Biden when he told us that we were greedy if we weren’t willing to pay higher taxes:

“Yeah, I’m for welfare. You’re not? Are you for letting people starve?”

Finally, Frank tells Stahl why he doesn’t like the idea of the auto makers going into bankruptcy:

“There’s only one thing you can do in bankruptcy: break your word, break your deals,” says Frank. “It allows you to say to the small businesses who have been catering lunches for you"¦the workers, ‘Sorry, we’re not paying you.'”

The Country just elected a President who, for over a year, campaigned on an unashamed platform of national welfare and socialism.   Barney Frank represents the left who clearly believe that Obama was elected to enact the policies he campaigned on.  

Obama’s election has allowed people like Frank to drop their guards and talk openly about their desire to  trap as much of the country as they can to the mastery of financial enslavement.   Sure, they frame it in phrases like “keeping your word” and “I won’t let people starve.”   However,  if we’ve learned nothing else from over forty years of attempts at social engineering, we’ve surely learned that removing people from the consequences of their actions and  telling  them that their effort and merit should not be the basis of their success, is as sure fire way to ensure that they never become successful.    

I’m still unsure whether  Obama was elected for  the policies  he espoused during his campaign  or whether it was a vote that combined historical implications with anti incumbency fervor and a largely undifferentiated alternative candidate.     If it is the later, the American people will not support the continued “bail out o’rama” and will provide some backbone stabilization for the Republican caucus in the Senate.   If the prior, Frank and his ilk will become more brazen about “to each, according to his need.”   If the prior, the answer to “when will the bail outs end” will become “never” because as Frank has pointed out “We’re propping up individuals” and it’s going to take a long time to prop up over 300 million.

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