Things I’d Like to Post About Today ….. (122408, Morning)
….. But I Don’t Have Any Time For:
- Must-Read of the Day — “The Op-Ed the New York Times Wouldn’t Run: An FBI informant’s response to Bill Ayers’ rewriting of history (in the NY Times) got the cold shoulder — but you can read it here.” Ayers’s respectability in media and educational circles is unforgivable.
- Rich Karlgaard observes that “Capital is on strike now. ….. (on the second page of the link) It goes on strike when it is attacked or when the rules are unclear.” Attacks? Evil oil companies; “selfish” people (who have the nerve to resist tax hikes); coal and oil “are making us sick.” Check. Rules unclear? Bailing out companies that have failed, in effect handicapping their competitors; Supporting an unlawful sit-in at a shut-down company, and shaking down banks to “solve” it; “putting a gun to the heads” of bankers who would rather not have government “preferred equity” investments. Double-check. There could have been many more items noted. Solutions? Lower taxes, especially on capital gains, and predictable rules.
- Related to the previous item, from Bloomberg — “Saving Capitalism No Sure Thing as Statism Undermines Economy.” You don’t say?
- Related to the previous two items — “Mortgage activity surges at US banks.” But look at how “the rules are unclear” problem, in this case halting the ability to foreclose on properties in default, is throwing sand into the wheels of the comeback — “The number of new loan modifications grew 16 per cent in the third quarter to more than 133,000 ….. The rate of loan modification is likely to be even higher in fourth-quarter data, say analysts, as a result of recent initiatives by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two large mortgage financiers.” Finite resources wasted on extra-contractual “modifications” are diverting resources from origination.
- Related to the previous three items — Banks turn into secretive rent-seekers who won’t tell us what they’re doing with our money from the giant SUCKUP (Seemingly Unlimited Cash Kitty Under Paulson).
- Layers of editors asleep at the switch at the NY Times — “Times falls for fake Paris mayor letter.”
