Washington Times - RAHN: You lose, Soros wins
This article is one of the best reasons to argue against Socialism/Communism.
The biggest advantage of SoCo (why refer to them separately?) is that its marketing is killer: equality for all, using the power of the State.
The biggest disadvantage of SoCo is it is merely a system for getting power and wealth to the biggest players. In the USSR, this was easy to watch and measure. Politburo members were dukes of their fiefdoms. The king, the Party Secretary, had no power without the consent of his Politburo/Privy Council.
As a business attorney, any small business needs to have a business plan. The best and most likely to create wealth for its owner are business plans that are based on "barriers to entry." This is a term of art that means that there is so technological, geographical, or -- most powerfully -- regulatory barrier to allowing competitors to enter the market. One local, highly successful, serial entrepreneur makes no bones about his preferred business plan: one that has high barriers to entry.
He likes radio stations, banks, etc. These two examples have severe requirements to get started. For radio stations, he need a broadcasting license from the FCC. Since these licenses control the number of stations in a market and the range of the signal (as measured by the broadcast signal's power), the FCC licenses are highly sought after.
For banks, to start a new bank, you need to comply with piles of paperwork and raise a lot of capital. In the current banking crisis, these needs become easier to understand the motivations: paperwork to prove investors' honesty, intended business practices, ability to manager crises, experience with money management; the capital to allow the bank to avoid accepting deposits and on the first rumor of bad news, facing a run on the bank.
These businesses have traditionally generated huge profits by limiting competition.
People like George Soros not only like barriers to entry, but strive to create them in more places. If you have a Politburo member in your pocket, you can make money by the truckload by keeping all other competitors out.
By pushing SoCo, Soros is able to prevent other players on his turf and claiming the moral high ground at the same time. He is able to claim the mantel of Robin Hood while truly being the evil Prince John, the usurper to the long crusading King Richard the Lion-Hearted.
Soros may not have created the crisis, but he benefits and thrives in this environment. It is in his best interest for the Bush Treasury to nationalize whatever it can, then get a committed Marxist elected president.
The secret of capitalism is competition and low barriers to entry. This creates both equalities of opportunity and of result. Most of the wealthiest men (and women) are in businesses with high barriers to entry. Consider that.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
Huizenga aim: Sell at '07 capital-gains tax level -- South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com
Huizenga aim: Sell at '07 capital-gains tax level -- South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com
So higher taxes won't change big owner's behavior?
So higher taxes won't change big owner's behavior?
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Buraq - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Buraq - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
So a Buraq (Arabic), Burak (Turkish), or Barak (Swahili, I am guessing, since that is the official language of Kenya) is half human and half donkey? Seriously?
So, what about the later stories that a Barak is half woman, half horse, with the tail of a bird? Wow, the imagery here is enough to make me laugh. Barak with his hand on Bible before the Capitol with full fur and birds feathers.
Now there is a man that can face down Russia and Iran!
And now back to more serious reasons to oppose Obama . . . .
So a Buraq (Arabic), Burak (Turkish), or Barak (Swahili, I am guessing, since that is the official language of Kenya) is half human and half donkey? Seriously?
So, what about the later stories that a Barak is half woman, half horse, with the tail of a bird? Wow, the imagery here is enough to make me laugh. Barak with his hand on Bible before the Capitol with full fur and birds feathers.
Now there is a man that can face down Russia and Iran!
And now back to more serious reasons to oppose Obama . . . .
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Spectator.org
Spectator.org
Is Obama stealing the money with nearly a quarter billion dollars of illegal campaign contributions? No one knows. No one can find out. If Obama wins, no will ever know during his presidency.
The amount of funds he has received tends to leave a standard margin of error causing a larger sum of cash in question. If all candidates have 5% of their money from questionable sources, a million dollar campaign leads to only $50,000 in funny money. A $100 million campaign has $5 million in funny money. A $750 million campaign has nearly $38 million in funny money.
But $200 million in funny money?! That suggests real problems. Since the Federal Election Commission is effectively a dead institution at the moment, it is a prime time to steal an election. We may never know in time.
Is Obama stealing the money with nearly a quarter billion dollars of illegal campaign contributions? No one knows. No one can find out. If Obama wins, no will ever know during his presidency.
The amount of funds he has received tends to leave a standard margin of error causing a larger sum of cash in question. If all candidates have 5% of their money from questionable sources, a million dollar campaign leads to only $50,000 in funny money. A $100 million campaign has $5 million in funny money. A $750 million campaign has nearly $38 million in funny money.
But $200 million in funny money?! That suggests real problems. Since the Federal Election Commission is effectively a dead institution at the moment, it is a prime time to steal an election. We may never know in time.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Nobel literature head: US too insular to compete - Yahoo! News
Nobel literature head: US too insular to compete - Yahoo! News
I have not read extensively on the reaction to this comment, but I would suggest that the Nobel Prize in Literature's overwhelming European focus tends to indicate that the Europeans are too insular.
Without researching, I would hazard a guess that the winners are nearly uniformly Socialist in character and not supportive of the American Dream and related ideals of Enlightenment notions of liberty. They are not likely friendly to notions of struggle and tempering (in the truest sense) of character from the struggles. Too Christian for an atheist Socialist.
If the award gave balance to different political persuasions and religious notions, I would have a greater faith that the European Socialist world-view filter was not being applied.
I have not read extensively on the reaction to this comment, but I would suggest that the Nobel Prize in Literature's overwhelming European focus tends to indicate that the Europeans are too insular.
Without researching, I would hazard a guess that the winners are nearly uniformly Socialist in character and not supportive of the American Dream and related ideals of Enlightenment notions of liberty. They are not likely friendly to notions of struggle and tempering (in the truest sense) of character from the struggles. Too Christian for an atheist Socialist.
If the award gave balance to different political persuasions and religious notions, I would have a greater faith that the European Socialist world-view filter was not being applied.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Mortgage fix: conservatism in a liberal-created world
In the last post, I allude to that mortgage problem was created over 30 years by two Democrat administrations lead to many cases of bank fraud were encouraged and abetted by Democrats in the White House and Congress. For details.
The problem I noted means there is good money and bad money in the system from this problem.
I would assert without much explanation that good money loaned out should not have a significant change. If the loan was properly done, the banks should not receive a windfall and the homeowner who goes bankrupt has other issues that handing out money will not likely solve.
If the problem is bad money loaned out due to bank fraud with the banker's complicity, we need to focus on that. We need to create a method that simply and easily creates a tracking mechanism. The problem was created by Democrats at the cost of the Treasury and we need to be able to see the consequences with the cleansing effect of sunlight. Failure to expose this to sunlight will guarantee that our economy will not recover for a generation or more.
I would suggest that a person who is upside down and the bank wants government assistance, would need to have a report and documentation that shows whether the debtor could not have qualified in the traditional market. If the customer would have qualified, but some new-fangled bell or whistle on the mortgage caused the debtor to go upside down, then Uncle Sam would issue a voucher to allow the issue of mortgage guarantee or a mortgage modification to remove the problem bell or whistle. Through the voucher, Uncle Sam would provide the additional money to provide consideration to underwrite the modification (in non-lawyer terms, Uncle Sam would pay a premium to pay the bank to adjust the terms of the mortgage). The bank would then collect its stack of voucher to Uncle Sam for redemption.
If the banker and the customer could show that the house was appraised at too high a price at the time or that the neighborhood's home values were artificially inflated in this bubble, Uncle Sam could issue a voucher for additional consideration to modify the mortgage.
If the debtor has back payments due that meet these criteria, he could apply for voucher and stay foreclosure proceedings and any collection efforts up to the voucher application up to the applied amount. If the applicant does not receive the amount on the application and the stay reached non-foreclosure matters, the applicant could be charged non-dischargeable interest on the debt of 12% plus $1000 penalty. This would favor likely successful applicants to apply and only seek stays where likely to have intended consequences.
Neighborhoods could be certified as artificially inflated if confirmed by one appraiser and reviewed by an independent appraiser. The neighbors could split the cost. They could receive a voucher for the costs of the appraisal.
This process would cause money to come into banks to pay off the screwed up mortgages and quickly get the mortgages' true values adjusted on their balance sheets. Healthy banks will stand out for struggling banks. Struggling banks will be bought up quickly for their true value. Good practices will have been rewarded.
Persons who were cheated by this Democrat-sponsored fraud will be able to get relief that improves their personal credit ratings. Homeowners have a way to reduce their property taxes where the fair market values are adjusted.
The US government can limit the amount of money spent out of the Treasury.
The remaining problem is what do we do with the bad-money loans that the homeowner committed bank fraud? Those persons need to have some result other than bankruptcy. They need to have a limited, non-dischargeable (for, say, 5-7 years) civl penalty, of $5,000 or 50% of the overage (whichever is higher) per incident. Serial offenders would pay more than single-time offenders. This would prevent the person from easily re-entering the market without paying some money back to the Treasury. It would also force the person into a cheaper property to avoid repeats. Being civil, the fine should be easy to impose, but small to avoid long-term punitive effects for single occurrence.
One of the results of this system, I suspect would be that it would capture many people who are buying and selling houses for investment purposes. I don't know that that serves the purposes for which Fannie Mae was built. Those should be squeezed out of the system. The voucher system would allow accountability for that.
Instead of injecting cash, a system that creates a standardized document and problem assessment will give us feedback on what happened in this situation. This will provide information for future economic historians to account for this problem.
The problem I noted means there is good money and bad money in the system from this problem.
I would assert without much explanation that good money loaned out should not have a significant change. If the loan was properly done, the banks should not receive a windfall and the homeowner who goes bankrupt has other issues that handing out money will not likely solve.
If the problem is bad money loaned out due to bank fraud with the banker's complicity, we need to focus on that. We need to create a method that simply and easily creates a tracking mechanism. The problem was created by Democrats at the cost of the Treasury and we need to be able to see the consequences with the cleansing effect of sunlight. Failure to expose this to sunlight will guarantee that our economy will not recover for a generation or more.
I would suggest that a person who is upside down and the bank wants government assistance, would need to have a report and documentation that shows whether the debtor could not have qualified in the traditional market. If the customer would have qualified, but some new-fangled bell or whistle on the mortgage caused the debtor to go upside down, then Uncle Sam would issue a voucher to allow the issue of mortgage guarantee or a mortgage modification to remove the problem bell or whistle. Through the voucher, Uncle Sam would provide the additional money to provide consideration to underwrite the modification (in non-lawyer terms, Uncle Sam would pay a premium to pay the bank to adjust the terms of the mortgage). The bank would then collect its stack of voucher to Uncle Sam for redemption.
If the banker and the customer could show that the house was appraised at too high a price at the time or that the neighborhood's home values were artificially inflated in this bubble, Uncle Sam could issue a voucher for additional consideration to modify the mortgage.
If the debtor has back payments due that meet these criteria, he could apply for voucher and stay foreclosure proceedings and any collection efforts up to the voucher application up to the applied amount. If the applicant does not receive the amount on the application and the stay reached non-foreclosure matters, the applicant could be charged non-dischargeable interest on the debt of 12% plus $1000 penalty. This would favor likely successful applicants to apply and only seek stays where likely to have intended consequences.
Neighborhoods could be certified as artificially inflated if confirmed by one appraiser and reviewed by an independent appraiser. The neighbors could split the cost. They could receive a voucher for the costs of the appraisal.
This process would cause money to come into banks to pay off the screwed up mortgages and quickly get the mortgages' true values adjusted on their balance sheets. Healthy banks will stand out for struggling banks. Struggling banks will be bought up quickly for their true value. Good practices will have been rewarded.
Persons who were cheated by this Democrat-sponsored fraud will be able to get relief that improves their personal credit ratings. Homeowners have a way to reduce their property taxes where the fair market values are adjusted.
The US government can limit the amount of money spent out of the Treasury.
The remaining problem is what do we do with the bad-money loans that the homeowner committed bank fraud? Those persons need to have some result other than bankruptcy. They need to have a limited, non-dischargeable (for, say, 5-7 years) civl penalty, of $5,000 or 50% of the overage (whichever is higher) per incident. Serial offenders would pay more than single-time offenders. This would prevent the person from easily re-entering the market without paying some money back to the Treasury. It would also force the person into a cheaper property to avoid repeats. Being civil, the fine should be easy to impose, but small to avoid long-term punitive effects for single occurrence.
One of the results of this system, I suspect would be that it would capture many people who are buying and selling houses for investment purposes. I don't know that that serves the purposes for which Fannie Mae was built. Those should be squeezed out of the system. The voucher system would allow accountability for that.
Instead of injecting cash, a system that creates a standardized document and problem assessment will give us feedback on what happened in this situation. This will provide information for future economic historians to account for this problem.
The mortgage problem: how do we solve failed liberal policies with conservatism?
As everyone knows, this current problem with Fannie Mae, etc., blowing up is bad. Not everyone knows that Fannie Mae became a liberal play toy to follow their racist agenda: more money to the Democrat constituency of "the poor" and "black neighborhoods" that "have been discriminated against for years."
Facts have been proven that a poor family is not a good place to place mortgage. There are better means to develop home ownership.
In essence, we need to solve a problem created by failed liberalism. Conservatism is the solution to failed liberalism. The problem is that sudden changes in economic systems create many additional problems. For example, the changes in real estate taxation practices in the 1986 tax reform act decimated the commercial real estate world. The change was rather sudden. It was difficult.
No matter what the solution, it must be over a period of time. The biggest drawback to this is that the persons hurt by the change have chance to constantly encourage changing the rules of the game. For example Sen. Lugar Farm bill. It is as if it never happened. A five-year turnaround meant short-term changes and long-term stagnation in bad ideas.
What we need to do is balance the need for sudden changes with a natural blocker against the riff-raff who caused the problem regaining its facade of credibility and trying to undo the reform.
Imagine that we are dealing with a flooded house. How do you drain it and start cleaning it? Do you try to pump high-pressure air into the house in order to force the water out of the small openings into which the water had originally flowed? No. You open all doors and windows under water and let gravity take its course. Then you set up siphons and wet-dry vacuums to get to work. You pump as little as you can and let nature do as much of the work as possible. Obviously this system is most effective where doorways are at the lowest level of the house -- floor level and not above basement level. The lesson here is find places where finances can help to naturally clean up the situation.
Where the forces of economics cannot clean out the mortgage-version of a basement, we need to force a financial fix into the system.
Nationalizing all mortgages is the equivalent of closing the ground level doors and to turn on the air pump to force the ground-level water out. It takes too much work and is likely to cause windows to be blown out from air pressure than the water caused. Forcing more money into the system does not help us allow the bad money to flow out as efficiently as possible.
We need a method that tracks what is good money and what is bad money. Then we need to set up a system that pushes out bad money without pulling significant amounts of good money out.
If we can do this, more banks will fail. More people will face foreclosure. However, some banks and people deserve it. Imagine you go into your bank and they offer you a mortgage for $50,000 and you don't have to prove how much money you make. Then the banker tells you that you just need to tell the bank you make more than $80,000 per year. No documents. No follow up. Just your word.
What would you do? How much money would you be tempted to tell the banker you make? If you honesty make more than $80,000, it's a no-brainer. You tell the banker the truth. You get the loan. You can likely repay it. No problem.
If you don't make that much, would you be tempted to lie and tell him, "Funny that you should mention $80,000. That's how much I make!"? Now you get your new-found money! That was easy!
Later you find out that you can't make your monthly payments. You end up in a financial mess. It is your fault or the banker's fault that you are in this situation? The rules of psychology say that if you are the debtor, you blame the banker for suckering you into the loan. You ignore that you had to lie to get the loan.
Is your ill-gotten money, good money or bad money?
I would suggest that it is bad money. You had to commit bank fraud to get it.
Is that a situation that we want to give you Uncle Sam's/the taxpayers' money to fix the situation and keep the liar in his house? Do we want Uncle Sam to reward the banker for not assessing whether the loan was likely to repaid? What if Uncle Sam threatened the banker with sanctions if the banker asked you to prove you had the income to repay the loan?
But here lies the problem: the bankers were encouraged by two Democratic administrations over 30 years with Department of Justice investigations if they asked for basic information about the debtor's financial situation. This Republican administration tried repeatedly to require bankers to ask more questions. Congressional Democrats prevented the fixes from coming to the floor of the US Senate.
Now what do we do to solve it?
Facts have been proven that a poor family is not a good place to place mortgage. There are better means to develop home ownership.
In essence, we need to solve a problem created by failed liberalism. Conservatism is the solution to failed liberalism. The problem is that sudden changes in economic systems create many additional problems. For example, the changes in real estate taxation practices in the 1986 tax reform act decimated the commercial real estate world. The change was rather sudden. It was difficult.
No matter what the solution, it must be over a period of time. The biggest drawback to this is that the persons hurt by the change have chance to constantly encourage changing the rules of the game. For example Sen. Lugar Farm bill. It is as if it never happened. A five-year turnaround meant short-term changes and long-term stagnation in bad ideas.
What we need to do is balance the need for sudden changes with a natural blocker against the riff-raff who caused the problem regaining its facade of credibility and trying to undo the reform.
Imagine that we are dealing with a flooded house. How do you drain it and start cleaning it? Do you try to pump high-pressure air into the house in order to force the water out of the small openings into which the water had originally flowed? No. You open all doors and windows under water and let gravity take its course. Then you set up siphons and wet-dry vacuums to get to work. You pump as little as you can and let nature do as much of the work as possible. Obviously this system is most effective where doorways are at the lowest level of the house -- floor level and not above basement level. The lesson here is find places where finances can help to naturally clean up the situation.
Where the forces of economics cannot clean out the mortgage-version of a basement, we need to force a financial fix into the system.
Nationalizing all mortgages is the equivalent of closing the ground level doors and to turn on the air pump to force the ground-level water out. It takes too much work and is likely to cause windows to be blown out from air pressure than the water caused. Forcing more money into the system does not help us allow the bad money to flow out as efficiently as possible.
We need a method that tracks what is good money and what is bad money. Then we need to set up a system that pushes out bad money without pulling significant amounts of good money out.
If we can do this, more banks will fail. More people will face foreclosure. However, some banks and people deserve it. Imagine you go into your bank and they offer you a mortgage for $50,000 and you don't have to prove how much money you make. Then the banker tells you that you just need to tell the bank you make more than $80,000 per year. No documents. No follow up. Just your word.
What would you do? How much money would you be tempted to tell the banker you make? If you honesty make more than $80,000, it's a no-brainer. You tell the banker the truth. You get the loan. You can likely repay it. No problem.
If you don't make that much, would you be tempted to lie and tell him, "Funny that you should mention $80,000. That's how much I make!"? Now you get your new-found money! That was easy!
Later you find out that you can't make your monthly payments. You end up in a financial mess. It is your fault or the banker's fault that you are in this situation? The rules of psychology say that if you are the debtor, you blame the banker for suckering you into the loan. You ignore that you had to lie to get the loan.
Is your ill-gotten money, good money or bad money?
I would suggest that it is bad money. You had to commit bank fraud to get it.
Is that a situation that we want to give you Uncle Sam's/the taxpayers' money to fix the situation and keep the liar in his house? Do we want Uncle Sam to reward the banker for not assessing whether the loan was likely to repaid? What if Uncle Sam threatened the banker with sanctions if the banker asked you to prove you had the income to repay the loan?
But here lies the problem: the bankers were encouraged by two Democratic administrations over 30 years with Department of Justice investigations if they asked for basic information about the debtor's financial situation. This Republican administration tried repeatedly to require bankers to ask more questions. Congressional Democrats prevented the fixes from coming to the floor of the US Senate.
Now what do we do to solve it?
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