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 February 9th, 2009

Hey, Mr. Transparency………

by @ 8:55. Filed under Economy, Politics - National.

Bloomberg chronicles how the US government has put itself on the hook now for $9.7 trillion!   That’s enough to pay off 90% of all mortgages in the US!

$9.7 trillion spent or guaranteed, most of it controlled by the Federal reserve.   Besides being an unelected body, there’s one other little bitty issue with all of this…the Fed doesn’t want to tell us where they’ve used all the money.

In December, Bloomberg sued under the Fed under the Freedom of Information Act.   At the time, the Fed had lent $2 trillion that they were unwilling to tell anyone who it was lent to.

Well, that was under BUUUUUUUUUUUUSSSSSHH, who we know was responsible for bringing down the twin towers, lying about intelligence to get a war going and spying on Americans.   We wouldn’t expect any better from that administration!

Now we have President Obama, the man who campaigned on and signed with his very own hand, a requirement that government would be fully transparent, all above board, nothing hidden!

Not so much.

Bloomberg is still in the courts, waiting for the information.   In the meantime we continue to shovel money out the door.

Hey, Mr. Transparency, how about putting all the documents out BEFORE you  put another $1 trillion  on the “to be paid later” pile!

Multi-What?

by @ 5:37. Filed under Economy, Politics - National.

Let me take you back in time……

Imagine clouds, swirling optics.   You know, the kind that TV uses to indicate a dream sequence…..

It’s September, 2008.   The Barack Obama and John McCain are going toe to toe attempting to be the next President of the United States.   The US stock market has just seen a drop to approximately DOW 11,100 and the markets are nervous.   Report after report is out from banks and investment institutions that are writing down assets due to the loss in the value of highly leveraged debt instruments.   Bear Stearns was the first institution that got coined “too big to fail,” and other followed suit.   However, Lehman Brothers had somehow fallen below the threshold and was the first highly visible investment firm allowed to fail as a result of its poor choices.   What no one knew is that the markets were more than just a little nervous and within the next few weeks the DOW would drop from the 11.100 level to approximately 7,000.

In the middle of the above scenario, Hank Paulson, with President Bush’s blessing, went to Congress with  the detail of a  whole  three page outline and demanded that  Congress provide him $700 billion without which, the banking  system would collapse.   In spite of the dire predictions of the collapse of the banking system, the Paulson bail out plan received mixed reviews in Congress.    

In the House, the debate went back and forth on whether the plan should be passed.   It looked like the plan would pass the House up until the last minute.   Immediately before the vote, Nancy Pelosi decided to deride Republicans over their lack of bipartisanship.   It’s hard to say whether Pelosi had the votes to pass the bill initially.   However, after her insults, any Republican who was on the fence had been given fair license to vote against her, and they did.   The bill failed in the House.

Over the next few days, there were a number of accusations back and forth on why the House vote failed.   Amongst Conservatives there was a desire to at the very least to  strip the pork that Pelosi had put into the bill.   They complained that Pelosi had shut them out of the process entirely.   In any event, the bill was going no where in the House, the Senate didn’t appear to be fairing any better.

Because he was “The Maverick” and had the reputation of “reaching across the aisle,” John McCain determined this was an opportunity that he could use to his advantage.   He announced that he would suspend his campaign and immediately head back to Washington.   His stated purpose was to focus on the bail out bill and provide leadership on the issue.   He added that he was considering not participating in a debate with Obama that was scheduled to occur within a few days.

When Barack Obama heard that McCain had suspended his campaign and considering opting out of the debate, he took the opportunity to ridicule McCain.   He made a note of how he, Obama,  was able to multi-task, not stopping one thing to focus on another:

"Part of the president’s job is to deal with more than one thing at once. In my mind it’s more important than ever."

Of course, the MSM and the left blog picked up on the multi-task meme.

This event stuck in many voters minds and while the polls had McCain within strking distance up until now, Obama regained momentum that would carry him through the election.

Mist and swirling optics again, we’re coming out of the dream, back to the present.

Yet today, the left blogs continue to extol the legend of Obama’s ability  to multi-task.

Sunday it was announced that for at least the  second time, the Treasury department would delay the promised release of plan to handle the toxic debt still in the banking system:

“We’re focused on working with Congress to pass an economic recovery bill so we can create the jobs and make the investments necessary to get our economy moving again,” Treasury Department spokesman Isaac Baker said.

What?

During the campaign, it was cool, young and even “Presidential” to be able to multi-task especially on issues that were of extreme importance to the US’ future and economy.   Now, we need to “focus!”

Since the inauguration, Obama’s administration seems unable to vet cabinet members, has emboldened potential enemies and failed to effect leadership in the largest single piece of non budget legislation ever.

Multi-tasking generally means the ability to do accomplish more than one thing at a time.   The only multi-tasking ability I’ve seen from the President Obama, is his ability to talk out of both sides of his mouth.

Well, Which Is It?

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

First, it was 2.5 million jobs:

Obama outlines job-creation plan

Followed by,  3.0 million jobs:

Obama ups jobs goal to 3 million on bad economic news

Next, 3.5 million jobs:

Obama: Stimulus will create 3.5 million jobs

Followed by:

Obama: Plan would create 4.1 million jobs

Earlier last week, President Obama claimed that without his plan 5 million jobs would dissapear:

“each day we wait to begin the work of turning our economy around, more people lose their jobs, their savings and their homes. And if nothing is done, this recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse.”

By Saturday, he had reversed that claim.   In fact, he had reversed out of nearly all the claims he had made and was back to merely:

save or create 3 million jobs over the next two years.

One of the first things that detectives look for when interviewing a witness is consistency in their answers.   When a witness provides inconsistent answers to the same, repeated question, it typically indicates one of two things.   Either,  the witness never saw the event and thus, doesn’t know what they are talking about or, they are lying.

I’ll let you decide why President Obama can’t find the same answer twice.

[No Runny Eggs is proudly powered by WordPress.]