« April 6, 2008 - April 12, 2008 | Main | April 20, 2008 - April 26, 2008 »
5 posts: (1) Fannie, Freddie & Us--"It's the Earth Stupid!"; (2) 2008 Culture War Milestone--The Home Front; (3) 2008's Racial Wild Card--The Home Front; (4) Great Quotes, and Great Lessons--Cyber-Serendip; (5) Mass Transit: Wheels Come Off in Barack's City--The Home Front.
The Wall Street Journal fingers the real financial peril to taxpayers from potential bailout guarantees. No, not Bear Stearns and the measly $29B at risk, a sum equal to about 2/10 of one percent of our $14 TR GDP. Nor capitalist buccaneer Wall Street, which, in toto, could cost taxpayers 3 percent of GDP--$400B. Rather, try Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, plus other government-guarantee agencies, whose collective collapse would stick taxpayers with a bill equal to 10 percent of GDP--yes, about $1.4 TRILLION! And how did Congress deal with these risks? By reducing the capital requirements for the two FMs, and increasing their jumbo lending limit to $729,750.
Dan Henninger spots a turning point this past week, in the Culture War, famously declared by speakers at the 1992 Republican Convention. Despite being reviled by the Democrats and their media allies, and endlessly caricatured, values voters persevered, giving George Bush his win over John Kerry in 2004. Obama's backtracking from his San Francisco riff and Hillary's tossing a shot in a Pennsylvania bar do not mean they have deserted Bicoastal America for Flyover America. But they both recognize that Flyover Culture--its religiosity, its affinity for firearms, constitutes a political talisman before which they must genuflect, in the form of public respect, if not of policy. And that, as DH notes, is a major shift in American politics.
Journalist & author Harry Stein flags a hidden factor in the 2008 election: anti-race preferences measures that may be on as many as four state ballots this fall. Colorado is near-certain to have one, with Arizona, Missouri and Nebraska also quite possibly voting on their versions. These will turn out whites less likely to support Barack Obama. Needless to say, opponents are trying every underhanded tactic in the toolbox, including misrepresenting the measures, screaming racism, etc. and litigating to keep signatures below the threshold level by challenging everyone's John (or Jane) Hancock. Pro-preference forces already have succeeded in Oklahoma, which requires a high signature count in a short time (90 days); proponents met the total by a few thousand votes, but with 72 percent of signatures typically valid on petitions of this kind, and opponents prepared to challenge very signer, capitulation was inevitable. This occurred in a state where polls show 90 percent of residents opposing preferences.
Colorado & Missouri are potential swing states come the fall.
Check out these Great Quotes (3 min. video) sent me by an LFTC reader. My favorites: (1) "Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend." - Dr. Martin Luther King; (2) "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." - Eleanor Roosevelt; (3) "Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character." - Albert Einstein; (4) "Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again intelligently." - Henry Ford; (5) "If a man does his best, what else is there?" - George S. Patton; (6) "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." - Teddy Roosevelt.
At the risk of appearing politically incorrect, the first three quotes should be absorbed by Barack Obama's race-obsessed, America-hating congregation (forget the present and former pastors there, as both are lost causes); racial grievances, victimization and presumed entitlement to eternal compensation (the perfect equality that allegedly will terminate compensation for racial discrimination will never come about in any imperfect society, which all human society is), all these are a prescription for perpetual failure. Henry Ford's contribution exemplifies the "can-do" spirit that makes American entrepreneurs the world's finest. The last pair strike a common theme, i.e., that the limits of human beings are no excuse for not trying to excel.
Oh, the Ronald Reagan quote is incomplete. His full quote, from the 1980 campaign, was: "A recession is when your neighbor loses his job; a depression is when you lose your job; and a recovery is when President Carter loses his job."
Check out this article (despite poor color, this link word "article" is live) for how passengers self-evacuated a stuck subway train yesterday, at some risk to themselves. Details in the article will explain why they did so. There are 12 slides near the top, of which the last few hit home. Near the end of the article is a 40-second cellphone video underground, which is harrowing.
3 posts: (1) Maconomics 2008: "What, Me Worry?"--"It's the Economy Stupid!"; (2) Ecology Versus Energy--"It's the Earth Stupid!"; (3) Iraq: Grave Risk, Still--Us v. Them.
The Wall Street Journal calls on John McCain to present voters with a coherent economics package. Economist Irwqin Stelzer's 6-pager calls upon Mac to "Embrace your inner Teddy Roosevelt."
Big Mac needs to convince voters that he is not Alfred E. Neumann, taking a "What, me worry?" attitude. The good news is that Mac is not Alfie. The bad news is, that, to date, Mac has not provided voters with a serious, coherent package to digest for the fall campaign. Needless to say, he needs to do so.
Economist Richard Rahn excoriates Congress & the administration for passing the absurdly misnamed Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. EISA prohibits switching to shale oil and tar sand deposits in the US & Canada, because they increase carbon emission pollution. That we would thus reduce our dependence upon Mideast oil mattered not. Better than Saudis be pleased, than Al Gore be displeased.
Martin Sieff writes that Iraq still is a very dicey proposition. He adds a Churchillian lesson about starting wars with too much confidence. Both are fair points. But in attributing the war to hyper-idealism by a few "neos" he goes too far. The Iraq mess was a bipartisan decision. The Iraq Liberation Act, designating Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, was passed in 1998. Most senior Clinton administration officials, including the former president himself, backed the Bush administration's decision to go to war if Saddam continued to flout (as he did) relevant UN resolutions. Only 6 senators, according to Jay Rockefeller, who, as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, should know, bothered to review even the 90-page summary prepared by the intelligence community, which contained its reservations. Put another way, the Iraq war was not a "neo" sales job. Oh, BTW, Congress could have, but chose not to, stopped President Bush from bypassing the French permanent veto at the UN. Congress stayed silent.
Learn more in my new book: The Long War Ahead And
The Short War Upon Us
