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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 posts by steveegg.

May 8, 2009

Welcome to UAW Motors

by @ 14:27. Tags:
Filed under Business, Politics - National.

Bloomberg is reporting that the dissident senior creditors of Chrysler have caved and will not be fighting for anything more than the 29% that the Obama administration initially offered them. The quote of the day is from Tom Lauria, which was representing the group, “After a great deal of soul-searching and, quite frankly, agony, they concluded they just don’t have critical mass to withstand the enormous pressure and machinery of the U.S. government.”

In fact, since the purchase price from Fiat is $2 billion, and the various bankruptcy fees will come out of that, they’re taking an even bigger haircut.

The Chicago Way has come to Wall Street.

8.9% unemployment – bad and worse news

by @ 10:54. Filed under Economy, Politics - National.

(H/Ts – JammieWearingFool, who has the train-wreck pic of the day, and Ed Morrissey)

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that non-farm employment continued to decline in April, this time by 539,000, and that the unemployment rate went up to 8.9%. Both JWF and Ed noted that actually masked couple of troubling items:

– Take out the 72,000-job increase in government payrolls and the drop is actually 611,000.
– Most of that 72,000-job government increase was due to temporary Census jobs.

JWF caught a very telling paragraph in the New York Times’ article:

A year ago, the loss of more than half a million jobs in a single month would have seemed like a disaster for the economy. On Friday, experts were calling it an improvement.

JWF points out that the change in outlook is due to the change of parties in the Oval Office. The only surprising thing is the Times is arrogant enough to all-but-admit that.

But wait, it gets worse. Jim Geraghty notes that the rise in the unemployment rate to 8.9%, at least this early into 2009, wasn’t exactly envisioned by the Treasury Department when they ran their “stress tests” of the top 19 financial institutions. Quoting a CNN story noting this little problem – “To take one example, the adverse scenario envisions the U.S. jobless rate gradually rising from 6.9% at the end of 2008 to 8.9% at the end of 2009.”

I hope you weren’t planning on buying Bank of America stock. Of course, you’ll probably be owning it shortly whether you wanted to or not.

Revisions/extensions (11:05 am 5/8/2009) – For even more depressing news, we go back to Jim from yesterday:

Number of people collecting unemployment benefits the week the stimulus was signed into law: 5.11 million.

Number of people collecting unemployment benefits as of May 2: 6.35 million.

I hear $6.5 billion (or is it a fresh $600 million?)

by @ 8:15. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

Everybody is aghast at the latest claims from the Doyle administration that Wisconsin is facing a $5 billion $5.4 billion $5.7 billion $5.9 billion $6.5 billion deficit in the upcoming budget. Honestly, that is the last time you will hear that huge number from me, because it is based on the original agency spending requests, requests that were supposedly addressed in the introduced budget, and thus is a bogus number.

Instead, let’s focus on the change in the last two numbers, because that hasn’t been addressed. That’s $600 million, and it’s there because tax revenues continue to nose-dive off the cliff even as both spending and tax rates skyrocket. In response, Doyle has called for some high-profile “belt-tightening”.

However, do not confuse “belt-tightening” for “actual, honest-to-goodness cuts”. Spending in the next budget will still increase by $2.8 billion over the previous budget. Not so coincidentally, that is the same amount as the increase in spending that Doyle originally wanted way back in November.

Here comes the annual Algore/Whitman Memorial RFG Price Hike

by @ 7:28. Filed under Energy, Envirowhackos.

In case you haven’t noticed gas prices in the Milwaukee area lately, they’ve begun their annual winter-blend-to-summer-blend price spike. According to our friends at GasBuddy.com (which runs both MilwaukeeGasPrices.com and MadisonGasPrices.com), Milwaukee-area gas prices went up from an average of $2.088/gallon this time last month to $2.367/gallon as of this morning. Meanwhile, Madison-area gas prices from an average of $2.088/gallon this time last month to $2.196/gallon as of this morning.

One can’t even blame corn-a-hole this time, as to meet the federal mandates for minimum corn-a-hole content, most stations have chosen to put 10% ethanol in regular unleaded outstate. That leaves the RFG as the sole remaining difference, and I could’ve swore that, back when it was crammed down our fuel injectors, it wasn’t supposed to be more than a couple cents per gallon more expensive.

May 7, 2009

How much down the UAW Motors black hole?

by @ 18:51. Tags:
Filed under Business, Politics - National.

(H/T – Brian)

I know I’m playing catch-up because I still have essentially no energy (no, it’s not the swine flu, or any other flu; it’s the start of Allergy Season), but CNN reported yesterday that the $4 billion bridge loan from TARP, the $300 million fee on that loan, and the $3.2 billion in bankruptcy financing provided to Chrysler UAW Motors will not be paid back, though the Treasury might be getting a portion of the liquidation of Chrysler Financial. Let’s see – that’s $7.5 billion for 8% of UAW Motors/”New Chrysler”. Brilliant!

The CNN story does note that the $4.7 billion in taxpayer funds that will go to “New Chrysler” upon it emerging from bankruptcy, as well as an additional $1.5 billion likely to be loaned to it in mid-2010, will be of the secured credit variety, and will be expected to be paid back.

One more item to consider – the 55% stake the UAW would hold in “New Chrysler” is expected to be turned into cash sooner rather than later. That is supposedly valued at $4.2 billion, with apparently no shareholder voting rights beyond a single seat on the board of directors. One of the many bankruptcy documents states that Fiat will be able to get 40% of that. Somehow, I doubt they’ll pay $1.68 billion (40% of $4.2 billion) for that non-voting share, or any entity other than your federal government will come up with the $2.52 billion for the other 60% (or that plus the shortfall between Fiat’s offer and the $1.68 billion) to make the UAW whole.

As a side note; none of the bankruptcy filings appear to address who initially holds the 15% interest in “New Chrysler” that Fiat can “earn” by meeting three metrics (in 5-percent chunks): introducing a 40-mpg Chrysler made in the US, creating a “fuel-efficient” engine family made in the US, and opening up Fiat’s worldwide distribution network to the Chrysler brand. They do note, however, that separate of the Fiat-UAW VEBA buyout agreement mentioned above, Fiat can increase its total stake in “New Chrysler” to 51%, apparently by an issuance of addtional shares.

Revisons/extensions (8:04 pm 5/7/2009) – (H/T – Jim Geraghty) ProPublica reminds us that $1.5 billion went down the black hole known as Chrysler Finance, which will not be part of “New Chrysler”. That puts the grand total between $9 billion and $9.2 billion (depending on whose numbers for what got sent down the black hole so far one believes).

One bit of a positive – I do expect a rather high dividend to be paid on the government/UAW shares, even higher than what is normally paid on non-voting shares. Still, I expect a very poor rate of return on that $9 billion wasted on Chrysler, even if they don’t ultimately go Tango Uniform.

Obama’s idea of significant spending cuts

by @ 12:24. Filed under Politics - National.

(H/T – Michelle Malkin)

Phillip Klein at The American Spectator found what is at first blush an actual, meaningful cut in the 2010 budget that is “slashed” from $3,400,000,000,000 to $3,383,000,000,000 (or from a roughly-10% increase from 2009’s non-bailout spending to a roughly-10% increase from 2009’s non-bailout spending) – a cut of $4,000,000 (9%) in the Labor Department’s Office of Labor-Management Standards from $45,000,000 to $41,000,000.

I’m shocked, SHOCKED that the unions would suddenly find it a lot easier to skim money now that they have their people running things. Skimming union dues is something that former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao took very seriously to the tune of 929 convictions of corrupt union bosses and $93 million returned to union members.

Do fret; that $4 million won’t be going back to the taxpayers, or even those that buy US Treasury bonds and bills. Current Labor Secretary Hilda Solis has a “better” use of that $4 million – the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division, Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Phillip helpfully notes that all of those entities go after “big business” and not “big labor”.

As Charlie Sykes is fond of saying, elections do have consequences.

May 6, 2009

Open Thread Thur….er, Wednesday

by @ 16:43. Filed under Open Thread Thursday.

I just haven’t had energy the last couple days, so those few readers I still have, it’s time to feed the beast.

May 4, 2009

GOP convention wrap

by @ 11:02. Filed under RPW Convention.

First, I have to thank the RPW, and especially Kirsten Kukowski, for inviting me to cover the convention for a second time. I’m slowly learning how to actually be a journalist (or at least a semi-reasonable facsimilie) rather than just a pundit. I did manage to grab quick interviews with both of the major candidates for governor, Scott Walker and Mark Neumann, as well as interviews with Rep. Robin Vos and Rep. Paul Ryan.

Judging by the various floor speeches, the elected officials that were in town are learning that trying to be Dem-Lite is not a winning strategy, and that shrinking the size of government needs to be a priority. Of course, that needs to be more than “just words”.

Looking at the legislative focus, it is almost exclusively on the Legislature. In fact, there was next to no talk about the upcoming Senate race against Russ Feingold next year, or of anybody attempting to unseat Steve Kagen. The message of Saturday was that it’s the members that are sitting there this time in 2011 that will redraw all the boundaries.

That brings me to the governor’s race. I admit that I like both Walker and Neumann, and I also admit that, this go-around, I support Walker. Still, I was shocked that nearly 94% of the participants in the WisPolitics straw poll backed Walker, with Neumann getting 25 of the other 28 votes and write-ins Dave Ross, John Schiess and J.B. Van Hollen each receiving one vote.

Of note, neither the other official candidate, Appleton businessman Mark Todd (the third name on the ballot), nor Tommy Thompson (not on the ballot), received a single vote. WisPolitics interviewed several delegates in the wake of a WISN-TV report from Wednesday on Thompson’s interest of retaking his office, and found at best lukewarm support.

Somewhat related, Citizens for Responsible Government said that they were roughly at a third of their goal of 10,000 volunteer petition circulators for a recall of Gov. Jim Doyle, and that they’re currently looking at beginning circulation on June 1. With that start date, that would put the election (either a partisan recall primary if there are multiple candidates in a “recognized party”, or the recall election itself) in mid-September, with any necessary recall election in mid-October. Unlike non-partisan recalls, there is no majority requirement; the highest vote total wins.

Specter VERY offficially a ‘Rat

by @ 9:39. Filed under Health, Politics - National.

Arlen “Scottish Law” Specter (RINO D-PA) completed his initiation into the party of the ass by blaming his mid-life party for the death of Jack Kemp.

News flash for Scottish Law – your old/new party wants to drive the entities responsible for the vast majority of medical advances the last 50 years, the privately-owned drug companies, out of business.

Revisions/extensions (11:29 am 5/4/2009) – Ed Morrissey did some research, and found that, after inflation, government spending on what the Heritage Foundation and the Office of Management and Budget terms health research and regulation increased 46% between 2001 and 2006. That is far larger than the total 23% post-inflation increase in either total government spending or the 36% post-inflation increase in “discretionary” government spending.

Server issues

by @ 8:53. Filed under The Blog.

Over the weekend, Bluehost decided to move me to a newer server (I wish I would’ve been told this). The good news is that the processor is faster. The bad is the php server isn’t quite perfect.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I occassionally get “500” errors now when doing something php-related. Sorry about that.

The other issue was a backroom one, and one I wish I could have prepared for before the trip to La Crosse. With the move, they assigned me a default max filesize upload of 2 MB. My big black camera takes 7 MP pictures which vary between 3 MB and 5 MB, and some of the audio I cut was also larger than 2 MB. Needless to say, I had to burn some time to track down what happened and fix it.

Quote of the day

by @ 8:35. Filed under Politics - National.

From Robert Stacy McCain – “Lie down with Bushes, wake up with Democrats.”

Do read the whole thing, including what he says about Jeb’s comments about abandoning the Reagan principles. News flash to Jeb – I believe the GOP tried that the last 2 election cycles, with predictable results.

May 3, 2009

The NRE Hospitality Suite awards

by @ 11:38. Filed under RPW Convention.

Since WisPolitics bailed early, I guess it’s up to me to do the day-after Hospitality Suite awards.

Best food: Paul Ryan’s suite. In addition to the de rigeur cold-meats-and-cheese cracker spread, there were chicken wings, Swedish meatballs, potstickers, quesadillas, and spring rolls.

Best beverage: Jack Voight’s leaded slushees. It was the alcohol that made me actually like tea.

Best motif: J.B. Van Hollen’s hunting decorations took the cake. He even had an arcade hunting game there. Honorable mention goes to Voight’s suite with a heap of Tea Party signs and some post-bailout logos (I HOPE that TwitPic turned out).

THE WINNER!: Call me a sucker for intimate gatherings, but I have to give it to Voight’s suite. He was on the small end of the suite run, and nobody wanted to disturb the big lemon “Thank you” cake he had, but effort like that cannot be forgotten.

Interview with Paul Ryan

by @ 10:33. Filed under RPW Convention.

I just caught up with Rep. Paul Ryan, my Congressman, to briefly discuss the state of Congress and the TARP bailout…

Click here for the interview

Interview with Mark Neumann

by @ 8:44. Filed under RPW Convention.

Earlier this morning, I caught up with former Rep. Mark Neumann. Technical note; the grandfather clock tolling out the hour late threw me off of whatever game I had.

Click here for the interview.

May 2, 2009

Convention floor speeches

by @ 17:29. Filed under RPW Convention.

I didn’t quite get everybody, partly because I stepped out in the middle to interview Robin Vos, but I got most of the speeches to the floor made this morning. The quality may not be great because I didn’t hook into the multibox, so be advised. Click each of the links to download:

– RPW Chair Reince Priebus
– College Republican chair Lora Rae Anderson
– Congressman Tom Petri
– Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner
– Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker

Interview with Scott Walker

by @ 16:26. Filed under RPW Convention.

I caught up with Milwuakee County Executive and candidate for the GOP gubernatorial nomination Scott Walker this afternoon…

Click to listen to the interview

Interview with Rep. Robin Vos

by @ 13:30. Filed under RPW Convention.

Even though the floor session is over, the music is too loud to cut audio of the floor speeches. I did, however, get to talk to Rep. Robin Vos from Racine regarding the various Regional Transit Authority/KRM board votes that took place in the Joint Finance Committee early yesterday morning.

Click here for the interview

Early-morning pics

by @ 9:18. Filed under RPW Convention.

Pics from the entry to the hall…

May 1, 2009

Out the door

by @ 14:04. Filed under RPW Convention.

I’m headed out the door to the Wisconsin GOP Convention in La Crosse. Over the weekend, I should be able to get some good interviews, and I’ll definitely be looking for Scott Walker, Mark Neumann and Tommy Thompson to discuss the 2010 gubernatorial race. National GOP chair Michael Steele will be in tonight and available to those of us working as media. I also should be able to find Rep. Robin Vos to discuss, among other things, the RTA/KRM votes last night and early this morning.

Between the blog and my Twitter account, I should be able to give you a halfway-decent view of the convention. On Twitter, those of us who are using Twitter, including the RPW itself and Scott Walker, will likely be using the #WISGOPconv hashtag, so you can follow along by searching for that on Twitter.

I’ll check back here when I get into La Crosse, so if there’s something you want asked, let me know.

Last vestige of the Big Three manufacturers to depart Wisconsin

by @ 12:21. Filed under Business.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that the Kenosha Engine plant, owned by Chrysler, will shut down by October 2010 as part of Chrysler’s bankruptcy reorganization. Of note, it is the only engine plant of four (5 including the plant dedicated to the Dodge Viper and its V-10 that is not shared by any other model) being shut down, with plants in Michigan and Mexico remaining open.

With GM shuttering the Janesville plant last year, Delphi (formerly part of GM) finishing the shuttering of its Oak Creek plant, and Ford not having any plants in Wisconsin, this marks an end to a chapter in Wisconsin’s history.

Humor post of the day

by @ 11:43. Filed under Politics - National.

Harvey over at IMAO runs through the Chapter 7 liquidation of the United States. A quick sample to entice you to go there:

“Although the other 52% of the country DID send in their 1040’s,” noted Obama, “it was all ‘tax-credit’ this, and ‘exemption’ that, and ‘I’m old! Gimme money!’. Cost us billions in refunds, which only made the situation worse.”

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a speed run to La Crosse to make, and some rumblings about Tommy Thompson coming back to take his office to run down.

Here come the trains and taxes

by @ 10:11. Filed under Choo-choos, Politics - Milwaukee, Politics - Milwaukee County, Politics - Wisconsin, Taxes.

(H/T – Charlie Sykes, who properly invokes the BOHICA acronym)

Greg Bump at WisPolitics stayed up late so I wouldn’t have to, and he documented the extent of the screwing of the taxpayers regarding transit by the Democrats of the Joint Finance Committe last night and early this morning:

  • The requirement to get Milwaukee County Board and residential approval to build a light rail system in Milwaukee got stripped out on a party-line 12-4 vote. A related resolution to require a countywide referendum for any entity wanting a light rail system fell on a party-line 4-12 vote.
  • An unelected Milwaukee County Regional Transit Tax Authority, with 2 members selected by the county board chair, 2 by the Milwaukee mayor, and a member selected by the governor (and notably, no members appointed by the Milwaukee County Executive, a theme that selectively repeats itself), will get the authority to create a brand-new 1% sales tax, with 15% going to the city of Milwaukee, and the money going to transit, parks, cultural, and emergecy medical service programs. That went through on an 11-5 vote, with Sen. John Lehman (D-Racine) joining the Republicans.

    Do note the 15% that goes to the city. The current Milwaukee County Transit System has expressed its desire to not operate any light-rail system, and specifically the “Downtown Collector” that got rammed into the federal budget. The city is likely to use that 15% to fund the starter light-rail system.

    Also note the entites that get to appoint the unelected taxing authority. Not only is there no guarantee that a suburban resident will get a seat as no suburban municpality has appointment power, but the executive of Milwaukee County, unlike the executives of the city of Milwaukee and the state, gets no voice.

  • A separate unelected KRM board to run the bigger choo-choo, funded by an indexed-for-inflation $16-per-transaction car rental fee (an 800% increase in the current $2 fee going to the existing Regional Transit Authority) applied to Milwaukee, Racine, and Kenosha Counties, with 2 members selected by the Milwaukee County board chair (and 0 by the Milwaukee County Executive), 1 member selected by the Racine County board chair (and 0 by the Racine County Executive), 1 member selected by the Kenosha County Executive (and 0 by the Kenosha County board chair), 2 members selected by Milwaukee’s mayor, and 1 member each selected by Racine’s mayor, Kenosha’s mayor and the governor. That passed on a party-line 12-4 vote.

    An attempt to exempt the portion of Racine County west of I-94 (a minimum of 7 miles west of the KRM line, with no transit service between the area west of I-94 and any of the KRM stations) fell on a party-line 4-12 vote. (Revisions/extensions, 11:45 am 5/1/2009) This area, along with the part of Kenosha County west of I-94, was exempted from governor Jim Doyle’s RTA reorganization proposal.

    I wonder why Kenosha County’s executive gets appointment authority, while Racine County’s executive and Milwaukee County’s executive doesn’t. Indeed, that was reinforced on a party-line 4-12 rejection of an amendment to make the Racine and Milwaukee County executives equal to Kenosha County’s. I wonder if there’s a court case to be made here.

    Again, note that there is no guarantee that there will be anybody from a municipality other than Milwaukee, Racine or Kenosha on this unelected taxing authority.

  • Dane County also gets its own unelected Regional Transit Authority. While that also passed on a party-line vote, there are a couple of key differences between it and the Milwaukee County version that really makes my blood boil over the fisting I’m taking in the ‘burbs:
    • The funding sales tax, which would be 0.5%, would require a non-binding referendum.
    • The appointment authorities are vastly different:
      • Two Madison metro residents appointed by the county executive and approved by the county board
      • Two members appointed by Madison’s mayor and approved by Madison’s Common Council
      • One member each from Fitchburg, Middleton and Sun Prairie, appointed by the respective mayors and approved by the respective Common Councils
      • One member appointed by the governor
      • One village member appointed by the Dane County Cities and Villages Association

    You notice anything different between the makeup of the Dane County RTA and the Milwaukee County RTA and the KRM board, like the guaranteed presence of suburban members, or the requirement of approval of the legislative branches, or a role for the county executive?

I’m not exactly hopeful my state Senator, Jeff Plale (D-South Milwaukee) will either remember that he once wanted to get rid of sales taxes entirely or kill the RTAs. He is far more afraid of the East Side/UWM liberals than he is of outraged taxpayers. After all, someone who had to drop out because he committed vote fraud got 26% of the vote in the 2006 Democrat primary.

Obama tax plan – get a little now, pay more in April

by @ 8:00. Filed under Politics - National, Taxes.

(H/T – Hot Air Headlines)

The News Organization That Cannot Be Quoted™ found that millions of taxpayers, from married couples where both spouses work, to those with multiple jobs, to many retirees, will be getting a nasty surprise when they do their 2009 taxes. The IRS massively screwed up the tax withholding tables in their attempt to implement the $13/week “Making Work Pay” tax credit, which will cause many taxpayers to owe taxes come April. The really-bad news didn’t quite make the story – the IRS charges penalties for underwithholding, so those who try to manage their withholding situation so the Treasury doesn’t get to use a lot of their money interest-free will want to consult their tax professional ASAP.

April 30, 2009

Open Thread Thursday – last one of April

by @ 11:00. Filed under Open Thread Thursday.

It’s raining, but the Brewers are finally above .500. What’s on your mind?

Chrysler headed into Chapter 11

by @ 8:26. Tags:
Filed under Business.

Reuters is reporting that Chrysler, LLC. is headed to bankruptcy after several holders of secured debt refused the Treasury/TARP banks/Chrysler last offer of $2.25 billion in cash in exchange for retiring the $6.9 billion in secured debt. As I noted last night, it’s a risky proposition for both the hedge funds thinking they’ll do better than the 32.6 cents on the dollar they would have received in the cramdown (sources say that in a liquidation they’d get closer to 50 cents on the dollar) and the Obama administration/UAW/Fiat plan to turn Chrysler into UAW Motors presented by the United States Government as it goes to the whims of a judge.

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