Sunday, August 10, 2014

What happened is the government changed hands to the Democrats, which the Congress lowered the lending standards in 2005 and got Frannie Mae and Freddie Mac into the sub-prime housing market which during the bubble was incredibly risky and it later backfired. One the companies that started sub-prime lending (before Freddie and Fannie got into it) was CountryWide ran by the famous Angelo Mozilo, who had contacts with high ranking members of the Democratic Party, in Congress and at Freddie and Fannie, “Friends of Angelo” they were called as they got even sweeter loans than anyone else.

Freddie and Fannie later blew up, it took TRILLIONS of dollars to bail it out, more that the small billions for GM or any bank that failed. The Federal Reserve even had to devalue the US currency 3 times with QE 1 2, and 3, why gold went from $500 a ounce to $1500 and gas shot up to near $5 a gallon. Bank of America purchased CountryWide before the bubble blew, so they were not directly responsible, rather inherited the transgressions of Angelo.

By far the biggest offenders were the Congressmen Christopher Dodd and Barney Franks, who used the taxpayers money to play in the risky sub-prime mortgage market and allowed anyone who could make the monthly rent payment to get a loan. A bartender I know who only worked one job for the last year with little savings and no credit was allowed to buy a $250,000 condo on a interest only loan backed by the government/taxpayers. This would work provided the housing prices continued to climb, but it was a bubble and prices came down. This was insane Socialism and Democratic greed, they didn’t want anyone else but the government giving home loans. She lost her job, her condo was repossessed, lost all her money invested and ruined her credit. Congressmen are immune from prosecution, so the two just didn’t run for re-election as not to draw negative attention for their misdeeds to the Democratic Party. Instead they all blamed Bush to throw public opinion off of them.

With all the trillions the government lost, they naturally had to go after whomever they can, right or wrong, to try to get money back. Using their leverage of endless court battles and their control over the money supply/banking system to do so. The banks have to play ball with the government or the government will dissolve them or force them out of the banking system. So the court battle was long and drawn because of the dollar amount the government wanted back to re-balance it’s checkbook, with BoA naturally not wanting to pay anything as it wasn’t their fault.

The real cause of the last 7 or so years of economic despair was caused primarily by all those who were allowed to take a loan and couldn’t afford it. Either they defaulted or was underwater, paying a huge monthly payment and thus had less disposable income to spend elsewhere in the economy. This of course caused others to lose their jobs and so forth. We almost went over the brink there and although after every real estate bubble there is a post real estate bubble recession, this one lasted as long as it did because of the Democrats in Congress at the time allowing too many people to get loans they couldn’t afford or were qualified. If this didn’t occur, the post real estate bubble recession would have lasted about a year. The rich would have taken a haircut but still support the economy for their basic needs and wants. It’s those who couldn’t fill their basic needs and wants that slowed the economy and in turned slowed others and so forth.

If the Republicans would have acted first and enacted tariffs on the flood of cheap Chinese goods to cushion the deflationary blow to the US economy, then this cycle wouldn’t have happened and no real estate bubble would have occurred. They likely didn’t want to anger the Chinese because they are loaning the U.S. money. We buy Chinese goods, they loan us money and this interlocking of the two economies occurs. America is one of the world’s largest market for goods, the Chinese needed to keep their people busy and provide some upward mobility/advancement. To do this thing requires the Chinese to loan us money. It’s a strange relationship. See Death By China on Netflix, this global economics game is a lot larger than just Bank of America.

Absentee voting is the best thing since old pork rinds. There are three elections offices local to your area. Monroe County Supervisor of Elections Joyce Griffin is located at the Marathon location. Early voting for the Primary and General are “County Early Voting sites will be open 8:30 am to 5:00 pm. Early voting will begin Monday the 15th day before an election and end Saturday the 3rd day before an election.”

Regular elections are about getting ready to pick your choices on the ballot, absentee ballot, or early voting. You can get absentee ballots by mail, visiting the nearest elections office, and by email, to name a few. The elections are over and the best candidates won. It is hard to campaign needing money for a myriad of items like advertising, campaign cards and signs, and mail outs to your targeted groups.

Election season. The candidate list keeps growing. You can find the list at your nearest election’s office. Marathon’s elections office is on 100th Street in the county building on the left. Park in the parking lot and go in to meet some dedicated people running the place. You can pick up your absentee ballot too. Don’t forget about early voting as well. Or go to www.keyselections.org for complete information.

I suggest that those who think that Obamacare is the best thing since sliced bread read a posting in the Politics section dated July 27, 2014.

Yesterday I had a conversation with a dear old friend who is nearly my age. She is on Medicare. She has a medical condition that requires that she use certain medical appliances. She has just been notified that Medicare will no longer pay for these appliances. She has no idea how she will pay for the devises that permit her to protect her heath and provide some degree of relief from pain. Please recall that Obama robbed Medicare of $750 billion strictly to subsidize Obamacare. As a result, many Medicare recipients are experiencing huge increases in the cost of their medical care

The point is that even if your personal premiums are going down, the insurance companies are losing money and they are going to be reimbursed with your tax dollars.

Obamacare has not done a single thing to reduce the cost to deliver health care. Vaccines are not a penny cheaper, hospital rooms cost the same or more, medical appliances cost more, doctors are being forced to see more patients thereby seeing each one for a shorter time, the quality of medical care is declining, drugs have not decreased a cent in price, the cost of the hospital to operate an emergency room has not decreased by even a cent. All in all Obamacare will go down as the biggest failure of the many failures of the Obama administration.

Then of course you have to ask yourself, if Obamacare is working so well, why has Obama, without legal authority, delayed implementation of part of the employer mandate for the second straight year? And don’t forget that by executive order, the penalty for not enrolling has effectively been waived. Very nearly everyone is now exempt from joining. Grab your wallets, the cost in premiums, deductibles, and taxes is headed for the moon.

Part 2) I find it hard to believe that I actually (or nearly so) agree with Obama on his aid mission to the beleaguered people on a mountain top in Iraq. They face certain death if they stay on the mountain, and they face certain death at the cruel hands of ISIS if they come down. Obama has done the right thing by sending humanitarian aid. It remains to be seen if he will follow up and set in motion a method to actually rescue those people from the mountain top.

Air strikes are helpful, but not nearly enough. A safe corridor must be established and a safe destination identified. It’s growing more and more obvious that Iraq is nearly certainly doomed to ISIS. The cruelty and horror that ISIS has wreaked on anyone who is not a Muslim of their own sect, matches or surpasses that of the Nazis, the Japanese when they invaded China, and another of the Muslim fanatics sects, the Boko Haram in Africa. While the Japanese threw babies into the air and impaled them on bayonets, ISIS is beheading children and showing off buckets full of children’s heads. Link

Obama is being more than disingenuous when he claims that we will and do not have “boots on the ground” in Iraq. In fact there are hundreds of American military personnel in country, and in harms way. In June there were at least 500, and you can be certain that that number has grown exponentially in recent weeks.

The tragic thing is that none of this need to have happened. Obama gleefully and falsely took full credit for “ending” the war in Iraq. Of course, he did not, our troops were withdrawn from Iraq strictly because of a treaty signed by GWB. When that treaty was signed, it was fully expected and intended that the incoming President would negotiate an agreement that would permit leaving reasonable numbers of our military to assist and advise the Iraq military. Obama failed to do so. He did not negotiate the agreement purely for domestic political gain. It was a sop to his far left base. Further, Obama has failed to recognize the threat of the ISIS movement that is gobbling up the mid-east. ISIS and its allies are fully and totally committed to establishing a world wide caliphate. Each country that they consume greatly increases their power and their wealth. We will be paying a huge price for Obama’s vainglorious failures for years to come. Much American treasure will be spent and much American blood will be spilled. You should give careful thought to the fact that Obama has now indicated that we will be in Iraq for a long time to come. I actually agree with that. I commend the following link and suggest that you read it. Link

Obama, loath to accept responsibility for his own failures, has blamed his own intelligence community for failing to recognize the threat of ISIS.

Isn’t it comforting to know that our Commander In Chief has decided to again flit off on vacation while North Africa, Iraq, Syria, and Gaza/Israel are being consumed by ISIS. And of course we can’t forget the resurgence of the Russian bear and its assaults on our ally, Ukraine. Nor can we forget that Iran is still building its nukes, as is N. Korea. Most certainly we can’t forget the tsunami of illegals flooding across our southern border. Enjoy your vacation Mr. President. Fiddle while the world burns