Okay, Obama is Scaring Me

So all the banks have received all sorts of government cash in the form of TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) funds. Even for those banks who didn't really want the money, the administration basically threatened them into taking it. To what end?

Control. If a bank is sitting on millions or billions in government money, the government then has the power to dictate how that money is used.

But what if a bank wishes to give back its TARP allotment? With interest? Good idea, right?

Not to the Obama administration.

From an article in the Wall Street Journal:

Under the Bush team a prominent and profitable bank, under threat of a damaging public audit, was forced to accept less than $1 billion of TARP money. The government insisted on buying a new class of preferred stock which gave it a tiny, minority position. The money flowed to the bank. Arguably, back then, the Bush administration was acting for purely economic reasons. It wanted to recapitalize the banks to halt a financial panic.

Fast forward to today, and that same bank is begging to give the money back. The chairman offers to write a check, now, with interest. He's been sitting on the cash for months and has felt the dead hand of government threatening to run his business and dictate pay scales. He sees the writing on the wall and he wants out. But the Obama team says no. The bank has also been threatened with "adverse" consequences if its chairman persists. That's politics talking, not economics.

So now the government can assume nearly unlimited control over banks forced to hold onto government loans that those banks don't want. It's heavy-handed politics at its scariest...so far.

Mitt Romney Was Right About Detroit

Back in November of last year, Mitt Romney advocated letting distressed automakers fall into a managed bankruptcy rather than be given "bridge loans" to keep them afloat. He was roundly criticized for not having enough faith in the American auto industry, nor enough sympathy for the plight of auto workers receiving free health care and guaranteed retirement perks.

He wrote in his op-ed in the New York Times:

Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.

Today, tens of billions in government-backed loans later, it looks like GM and Chrysler are bankruptcy-bound. If they had listened to Romney six months ago, the painful but necessary restructuring would be well underway, and light may even be shining at the end of the auto makers' tunnel.

Instead, we're in a deeper hole and the auto makers are only now realizing that their ship is too obsolete and outdated to float.

For reasons such as this I still haven't removed my Mitt '08 bumper sticker. I can endure the tackiness for another few weeks, I think.

Haiku: Yardwork

Moldy, matted leaves

and patchy, crunchy dead grass.

This winter was hard.

Haiku: The Physical

I'm violated

from every direction.

But hey--it's covered.

Why Temples

A neat little video on the purpose of Mormon temples.

Obama: The Perfect Manchurian Candidate

Here's a rather cutting article about a hypothetical president whose sole purpose in getting elected was to destroy a country. It then compares this character with our current president. And the resemblance is striking.

It's worth a quick, easy read.

DUH of the Day

Most politicians are masters of speech without substance, and this holds true on an international level. Case in point, from the G10 spokesman.

"We have a number of elements that are suggesting that we are approaching the moment where you would have a pick up," European Central Bank head Jean-Claude Trichet said in his capacity as spokesman for the G10 central bankers meeting at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

Approaching the moment of a pick up? Let's define approaching:

- verb: to come nearer to

So if we EVER get out of this recession, then by definition we are approaching a pick up. Way to really stick your neck out on that prediction there, M. Trichet. You got paid how much to reach that conclusion?