hero

Don't Bail Out My State
South Carolina's governor says more debt isn't the answer.
By MARK SANFORD


I find myself in a lonely position. While many states and local governments are lining up for a bailout from Congress, I went to Washington recently to oppose such bailouts. I may be the only governor to do so.

But I suspect I'm not entirely alone, as there are a lot of taxpayers who aren't pleased with Christmas coming early for politicians. And I hope these taxpayers make their voices heard before Democrats load up the next bailout train for states with budget deficits.

Several questions led me to oppose bailing out the states. They are worth asking, even if you supported bailing out Wall Street.

Who bails out the "bail-outor"?
Washington is short on cash these days and will borrow every dime of the $150 billion to $300 billion for the "stimulus" bill now being worked on. Federal appetites may know no bounds. But the federal government's ability to borrow is not limitless. Already, our nation's unfunded liabilities total $52 trillion -- about $450,000 per household. There's something very strange about issuing debt to solve a problem caused by too much debt.

Do you now have to be a financial "bad boy" to win?
Community bankers tell me that they are now at a competitive disadvantage for being careful about who to lend to, because others that were less disciplined will get a federal bailout. This is also true for states. Those that have been fiscally responsible will pay for or lose out to the big spenders. California increased spending 95% over the past 10 years (federal spending went up 71% over the same period). To bail out California now seems unfair to fiscally prudent states.

Was the economist Herb Stein wrong when he said that if something cannot go on forever, it won't?
Medicaid grew 9.5% annually over the past 10 years. That's unsustainable. But if Congress opens the checkbook now, there will be no reform.

Isn't government intervention supposed to be the last resort and come only when it can make a difference?
In 2008 bailouts became the first resort. Over the past year the federal government has committed itself to $2.3 trillion (including the tax rebate "stimulus" checks of last February) to "improve" the economy. I don't see how another $150 billion now will make a difference in a global slowdown. We've already unloaded truckloads of sugar in a vain attempt to sweeten a lake. Tossing in a Twinkie will not make the difference.

However, there is something Congress can do: free states from federal mandates. South Carolina will spend about $425 million next year meeting federal unfunded mandates. The increase in the minimum wage alone will cost the state $2.6 million and meeting Homeland Security's REAL ID requirements will cost $8.9 million.

Based on what I saw in Washington, the bailout train is being loaded up. Taxpayers will have to speak up now to change its freight, tab or departure.

Mr. Sanford, a Republican, is the governor of South Carolina.
Mail me!

fixing a hole?

ublished on Wednesday, November 12, 2008 by CommonDreams.org
'Too Big To Fail' Has an Easy Answer: Anti-Trust or Public Control
by Dave Lindorff
The one thing we are not hearing from Congress or from incoming president Barack Obama in the current economic crisis facing the country are the words "anti-trust" and "public ownership."

From the moment the crisis first struck, with the near collapse of AIG, the mantra has been that companies like AIG, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Citibank, etc.--and more recently General Motors Corp. and Ford--are "too big to fail." That is, it is argued that these companies are so huge that if they were to collapse into the rubble they deserve to be, it would damage the nation irreparably.

The question is, if that is genuinely the case, why were they allowed to be that big in the first place, and why aren't we rethinking that policy?

It's not as though they got that way through organic growth by being successful at what they did. Hardly. GM was the quintessential result of a merger of smaller automakers. Ford grew too, by acquiring the competition, most recently Volvo. Most, if not all of those acquisitions were first vetted and approved by the Federal Trade Commission and found to be acceptable as a matter of economics and public policy.

In the banking industry, which is regulated, the picture is even worse, with the government first opening the door to the creation of national banking companies, and then routinely approving the gobbling up of one after another regional or even national bank by another. At some point we reached the point where the giants in the industry--Citibank, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, etc.--were able to say, when they ran into trouble, that allowing them to fail would have dire consequences for the national economy. This kind of extortion should never have been allowed to happen.

First of all, the argument for national banks never made sense for ordinary people, and wasn't necessary for large customers either. Large corporate fundings have always been done by bank consortia, and this could have been accomplished with the nation's banking industry fragmented into small state-chartered institutions. Meanwhile, small businesses and individuals always lose when a bank is national in scale. It is much more costly to handle the banking business of small enterprises and individual families than it is to handle the business of huge corporate clients, with the result that the major banks have made it costlier and costlier for small customers to do business with them.

The answer is clear. Bigness is fundamentally bad when it comes to capitalism. There is a point where any company in any industry becomes too big for it to be socially acceptable. Big companies not only attempt to behave in a monopolistic fashion by destroying or buying up the competition, both nationally or, as in the case of a retailer like WalMart or a bank like Citibank, locally, using their huge financial power to locally underprice the competition and drive them out of business (after which they are free to gouge the local customer base). They also ride roughshod over local political interests, demanding tax breaks, zoning waivers, etc. This being the case, the government should simply not be allowing corporations to achieve such scale and market dominance.

Companies, whether banks, car makers, or media companies, should never be allowed to grow to a point that they become "too big to fail." If that can be said about any company, whether because of the assets it holds, or because of the number of people it employs, it is time to break it up.

Think of GM. If GM were ripped up into six or seven competing companies, it is certain that at least one of those smaller entities would be producing electric cars by next year. The Saturn plant already made one, the Impact, that was wildly popular (see the excellent documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car"), and if left to its own devices to sink or swim, could probably be cranking those out in volume for the 2010 model year.

Some companies would certainly fail. But that's what is supposed to happen in a capitalist system.
This piece is not meant to be a paen to capitalism. But having said that, if you're going to have capitalism, which is the ruling ideology here in the US of A, you have to let it function as intended. As soon as the government comes in and starts encouraging the establishment of monopolies or quasi-monopolies, and preventing the failure of poorly managed enterprises or dying industries, as it is doing in the case of the banking and automotive sectors, it is no longer true capitalism.

That could work, too. Many democratic countries, including Japan, Sweden, France and Germany, have the concept of shared governance of corporations, in which large corporate entities are partially owned and run by government, and of planned economies, in which certain sectors are deliberately protected and promoted by government policy. The US has moved in that direction with the investment by the government in nine of the country's largest banks, and in discussions to provide $25-50 billion in financial assistance to the major US auto companies. But in the US case, the government is studiously avoiding demanding a role in running those companies. It is by design only a "passive" investor.

This is the triumph of ideology over rationality and the public interest. I recently interviewed a number of investment strategists in the course of working on an article for an investment magazine. They all had the same advice for worried investors: invest in shares of the "magic nine" banks that are recipients of tens of billions of dollars in bail-out money from the federal government. As they all point out, the government's stake in these banks means that they will not be allowed to fail, and moreover, they are in a unique position to use their flush capital reserves to acquire, at fire sale prices, the assets of smaller banks that are being left to sink or swim in the current credit crisis and recession. That is not a free market. It's a government program to reduce the competition in the banking sector and hand all the business over to a favored few giant banks.

Now that would be okay if the government, in return for its investment, were taking a management role in those favored banks. But it is not. Congress, the Bush administration, and, so far at least, the incoming administration of Barack Obama, have not been demanding a management stake in any of the companies that are getting bail-out funding. If the government takes ownership positions at all, it is taking non-voting shares in those companies, solely in the hope of someday getting some of the invested money back by selling those shares.

This is not just a rip-off of the taxpayer. It is a craven program to enrich big investors in the bailed-out enterprises, while putting control of the nation's economic destiny increasingly into a smaller number of hands of people whose interests are not even aligned with the national intereest (these are, after all, all transnational corporations only nominally headquartered in the US).

There is, of course, another reason that companies should never be allowed to become "too big to fail." That is political clout. The US political system is already largely an owned-and-operated subisidiary of corporate America. When companies become as large as AIG or GM or Bank of America, they also gain a disproportionate influence over the political apparatus that is an order of magnitude larger than their share of the national GDP. It's not just that they have limitless money to donate to political campaigns. They also, by their size, are able to dispense political favors in virtually every congressional district, much as the Pentagon has been doing for the past half century, and also to threaten national havoc if they don't get their way.

Don't expect much in the way of scrutiny of this bailout process from the corporate media, by the way, which has been engaged in the same process of national consolidation for the past few decades. But clearly, the public needs to wake up and start demanding that if our money is going to be used to bail out these corrupt and horrifically managed enterprises, we the people need to have a controlling interest in running them, so that they are run in our interest. Better yet, we should be demanding that these bumbling colossuses be broken up into little pieces, and then left to sink or swim on their own like the rest of us.

Dave Lindorff is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Mail me!

epic fucking fail

so i get home tonight, go about my normal making dinner, looking through backpacks, reading the paper, etc... and dale gets home etc.... then i walk back to my bedroom and water drops on my head from the ceiling. WTF? the ceiling under the air intake vent is dripping water down on my new hardwood floor...not good since-long time readers will remember-the ceiling caved in due to the FUCKING AIR CONDITIONER this summer. so I make dale go up in the attic and poke around while I call the guys that put it in basically demanding Jay call me to figure this out or come over and FIGURE OUT WHY I ONCE AGAIN HAVE WATER IN MY CEILING COMING DOWN ON MY HEAD! dale talks to the guy for 15 minutes, (no small feat as dale hates the phone) and closes all the vents in the walls and runs our dehumidifier...i guess our house is just extra humid or something, i dunno. this whole thing makes me so irritated and annoyed. At least it didnt cost me anything and nothing has collapsed, this time. work was sad again today...I am on dead client number 18 for the year and the 2nd in less than a week. sucks when the clients die and you have to talk their family members through the MOUNTAIN of paperwork being dead and having money entails. It's endless...and the more money you have, the more paperwork it takes to get your $$ to the people who you said should get it...and god forbid you leave it to like 76 different charities...one of our clients left her entire fortune to her church, her entire 5.6 million dollars. this little tiny church whose largest gift prior to that was less than 100k...I say that the church just got paid...eek. thankfully they are leaving the money at the firm. the cold is not getting better...if chaba reads this, it is much like the awful cold I had freshman year. Dale said I was sitting straight up in bed last night coughing in my sleep...i dont remember that one. i dont feel bad, i just cough a lot...and have used up like 900 boxes of kleenex blowing my nose. this week is shaping up to be slow and steady and uneventful. that is awesome..

Mail me!

Ugg snow

weird + random=whatever so today i had lunch with an old friend (and together we decided to be pals again and in public....no secret friends here) and we caught up with "people we used to know." found out a group of people who are firmly in the "used to know" camp are no longer friends with my husband because he married me.

nice. stay classy guys.
after my lunch (which was excellent by the way...I recommend stir crazy in brookfield) i called dale and apologized..."hey im sorry we havent spoken to these people in 4 years....and its all my fault."

my husband "that's ok...they all kind of suck anyways...i havent missed anything."

yea dale.

so upon reflecting on those people we used to know...we know way cooler people now..besides my ryan (mr bear to the kids), we have awesome neighbors (chris and dave and their 2 kids), i have a lot of women in my twins club who i like...shannon, my owen clothes hook up (and who needs to call me pronto!)
i work with awesome people...like my lunch date jena (who always pays and won't let me...one of these days I am buying her lunch!!!) and my coworker Mike (who kicks ass)...why should i be sad that I don't speak to people stuck in the same rut they have been in for the past 15 years? as damon said "its not that they arent grown up, its just that they are not growing" (or something profound like that...i dunno, we both had wine at lunch) what would i do with them today? get drunk at some bar and play video games? i think not...i would rather hang out with people who don't suck.

people who don't suck...that's who I like.

I like talking to the people i talk to from high school, some more now than i ever did in the 90s...i miss a few people i met in college...some more than others...i like to believe i miss a certain person more than i think i actually do...(especially after hearing what he's up to now...)

meh....anyways, i am full on s'mores (thanks chris and dave) and i have 800 lbs of candy upstairs (mini butterfinger and ind. skittles packages call to me, and i will resist the call)

night all friends, happy Samhain and Halloween folks.
Mail me!

winter

is now snowing out. I have not yet trick or treated. I am also sick. If things do not get better, I am not going to work tomorrow.
I have a busy arse week, running around to like 487 places doing 56327 things. I am finishing listening to Eclipse on ipod, reading "Lost" still listening to tons of Ben Harper and Joshua Radin and we finally watched Zohan last night: Dale's assessment, "that chick is really hot."
Happy Halloween
Mail me!

catch ya up

i have a cold. it is a horrible cold and i feel like death...so i havent written much lately. I am at dunn brothers now and fortified with a large skim white choc. mocha i will try to catch you all up...

this week has been the slowest week for "stuff" in the last month (stuff being defined as outside work and school stuff that i have to schedule, do, run around for etc...) Thankfully I can breathe at the end of the day instead of wondering what/where i have to go.

this weekend is busy. i have two birthday parties, one playdate, and i really should clean up the house and finish painting my hallway. we shall see how this cold takes me down.

work has been a bit busy, nothing special, nothing interesting. at least i have wonderful bosses who rock. it could be worse. I just celebrated my 1 yr anniversary with the company last month.

whatcha reading/watching/listening to?:

reading: Lost by gregory mcguire and the fellowship of the ring by JRR Tolkien.
watching: pushing daisies (last night), ugly betty and the office (tonight), xfiles season 3 disc 3 & dont mess with the zohan (friday nite i think)
listening to: a lot of ben harper/ben harper and the innocent criminals, billy joel, and I am listening to eclipse on my ipod (3rd book in the twilight series)
Mail me!

ive had a long day off. somehow my vacation day turned into running errands, painting, painting the wrong color which will necessitate more painting, fixing a costume that malinda tore 5 min after she put it on and then going to bed.
im really tired.
Mail me!

New haircut

we wont get fooled again!

the brewers slugged one out and we are on to game 4...way to go guys. i couldnt watch the game, i watched "forgetting sarah marshall." i cant remember seeing that much male full frontal nudity since the last time i had to watch caligula....it wasnt a bad movie, russel brand is pretty awesome...the outtakes with russell brand and with paul rudd were money.

dale has some sort of mysterious cold/virus/thing which means he is as useless to me as tits on a bull...thankfully MIL took the kids today and i was able to clean the house, dust the ceiling fans (joy and fun and sneezing) and head to ben franklin in oconomowoc...i needed some linen and dmc floss and mill hill beads/ yes this means i finished a cross stitch and am starting another one. had to place special order for more linnen and hand dyed threads lucky me.

tomorrow is the pumpkin farm, depending on dale feeling up to it...its in ixonia and is a great farm.

thats about it...good luck to the west band as they head up north for the weekend...

my cat is having sex with a cardboard box and im going to go pour water on her....

night all

Mail me!

the wonder of myspace you reconnect with people who you were sure that:
1. you would never speak to again
2. would never speak to you again
3. you would never see again
4. you thought they died

reconnected with an old friend tonight, very strange in a 2 sort of way. Time and distance I suppose are enough to cover up old tracks.

hey to you old friend, hope we talk again.

it's wierd. there are people who I miss from my life not so much for the hanging out and assorted other crap, but because I had wonderful back and forth letters/emails/talks with them for so long that once they stopped I had a Shel Silverstein sized missing piece taken out of my life.

You can try to reshape new people into those pieces and it kind of works, but at the end of the day, no matter how awesome those new pieces are, can't help but miss the old ones.....For me personally I have had 3 missing pieces who loss I always felt beyond shit about.

1 person I have talked to, and apologized to (even though I didnt think it was really my fault, but after 5 years of thinking about it, I didnt see the harm in doing so) and will most likely not speak to again

1 person expects to see me someday in an airport

1 person i just emailed back 10 min ago


and after rereading that I must have gone back in time to my old journals because it all sounds so very emo and 11th grade ish....im going to post this and go check my back for a flannel shirt and backpack and see if i have a lot of black eyeliner on....

fucking packers. and fucking romo for not throwing that TD to T.O. Baby needs some more points this week since she sat TJ Houshmanzada on the bench.
Mail me!

first day of school!

Mail me!

happy birthday girls

Happy Birthday Girls!
Current mood: awake

so today at 9:23 and 9:30 am (respectively) the girls turned 5 years old. We celebrated by letting me sleep in and going to the Milwaukee Public Museum. A place which has not changed in the past 32 years. really I swear. Same shit, different day. The kids had fun and we held butterflys and watched the "Butterfly Guide Volunteer" chastise the guests to NOT step on any butterflies.....and then watched him step on a Postman Butterfly. (nice job-asshole)

we ate lunchables at the patio for lunch (cheap and easy for me) and stopped at Toys R Us for Birthday present pick out (2 stuffed golden retrievers and a stuffed collie)...now we are at home and dale is stipping walpaper as we prepare to paint the library. I would like to get my 6 bookshelves out of our temporary library (before its current incarnation it was formally known as, my bathroom) and into here. We are painting one wall the same tannish orange as the big room and 3 walls a nice cream color.

Brewers are winning, cubs losing. suck it cubs, cardinals are losing...suck it cardinals.

tonight its birthday dinner at dennys (free) with the twins and painting.

I may even get a breather to play some diablo tonight (although not likely)



tomorrow: borrowing truck to get couches from inlaws and for the love of Mike, relaxing,
Mail me!

Purple

Round 2