Some days you just have to feel sorry for
our invertebrate President. Some folks just don't live right, they
dig a gold mine and it falls in on their head. Mr. What's his name
ran a flawless Presidential campaign and from day one he's become
the leader of the gang that couldn't shoot straight. You just can't
get good corporate help in this country anymore.
That would
appear to be the problem, policies chosen at the whims and desires of
corporate America. Cash for Clunkers could have more accurately been
called, Easy Money for Executives or perhaps Wheels for Wealthy or
even Clobber the Consumer. Flash back to the days when GM and
Chrysler were on their backs and gas was pushing $4.00 per gallon. GM
and Chrysler had cash problems and counted on returning leased
vehicles to aid their bottom line. Only, the tens of thousands of
returning vehicles were Denali's and Escalade's, big SUV's and
Mini Vans lease-purchased during the halcyon days of easy credit and
cheap gas.
Vehicles with zero appeal in the face of rising
fuel cost. Their retail value plummeted; GM and Chrysler car lots
were filled with vehicles too low on fuel economy, too low on
consumer appeal and with too high of a sticker price. What's a hard
working corporate toady to do? The cash for clunkers program deducted
tens of thousands of used cars from the resale market. It offered tax
rebates for the wealthy to purchase new vehicles, two thirds of which
were Asian made and artificially manipulated the price of used
cars.
For GM and Chrysler it was a great deal. For the wealthy
it was a great deal! For Asian car makers it was Christmas but for
the bulk of the economically depressed population it was a disaster.
My son who bought and sold these used cars at auction saw price
increases of fifty percent in a down retail market. His business
suffered, consumers suffered and two billion tax dollars were shipped
to Asia.
Then Mr. Tall, Dark and Corporate decides to repeal
the forty one year old ban on deep water oil drilling put in place by
Dick Nixon. Nixon had put the ban in place after a massive Santa
Barbara California oil spill prompted Nixon to tell the nation that
this type of accident must never be allowed to happen again. The
Democratically controlled Congress which had fought every attempt to
repeal this ban by every Republican President since Reagan said, "You
know what? That's a great idea Barack! Yeah, let's do
that!"
There were plenty of warning signs when the
invertebrate's "green initiative" included $17 million to
develop more efficient oil drilling bits. These are the type of
things which happen when you lay out a corporate feast they all have
a boardinghouse reach. Take the invertebrate's Housing and Economic
Recovery act of 2008. Its stated purpose was to stimulate the Real
Estate market and to stabilize homes prices and for a few months it
worked.
Only, it failed to address the root causes of the
depression in the Real Estate market. That those falling home prices
were created by the home foreclosure crisis, without addressing that
problem it was pointless to offer $8,000 in tax credits for first
time buyers. It did however give those affluent enough to purchase a
new home with a place to park their new car. $12.8 billion spent to
prop up the Real Estate market for a few months but ironically since
the tax credit has ended home prices have continued to slide leaving
those first time home buyers living in property worth well less than
$8,000 or more than what they paid for it and so the net result was
of the program was zero.
The invertebrate was stuck between a
rock and a banking place. Under the Bush TARP bailout plan, the banks
were able to present their bad mortgage loans to the Federal Reserve
and the Fed would give the mortgage holder credit for the full amount
of their loss. If they show an $80,000 loss on a mortgage loan they
are credited with $80,000 if they show a $100,000 loss on the
property they are credited with a $100,000 in new money. Hence the
expression, your loss is our gain! Each bad mortgage loan increases
the paper loss that the bank shows and exacerbates the mortgage
crisis but to the banks its win, win! The more home prices fall the
more the banks are reimbursed.
Two more banks failures this
week bringing the total to twenty five bank failures this year
coupled with over five hundred bank failures last year. The economy
is on the mend they swear! Each failed banks losses are covered by
the FDIC which then sells the carcass to a big bank at a loss. Big
banks win, small banks disappear, end of story. No reason to explain
to the American public why the small banks are still failing is
there? Never mind, go back to sleep, did you see American Idol last
night?
Under the invertebrate's leadership large banks
bordering on monopolies will completely take over the home mortgage
industry. The Democrats in Congress (Dodd-Frank) oversaw the
dismantling of government assistance in the home mortgage market
eliminating corporate banking's only competitor. They effectively
threw in with Mr. Potter to crush the Bailey Brothers.
But
then the roof falls in, the oil platform explodes and the
invertebrate goes into the public relations mode. BP hires out of
work fisherman to do radio spots to be played on corporate radio
stations telling the public how wonderful the handling of the problem
has been by the oil company. The invertebrate parrots along,
government scientist's claim everything is OK in the Gulf. Eat up
America! The sooner the Federal government says the seafood is safe,
the sooner BP is off the hook! Bad pun, sorry. It does show however
the contortions to which the invertebrate's administration will go
to assist its oily benefactors. The Gulf? The Environment? The
Economy? The people that live along the Gulf and earn their living
from it? The what?
As the crisis in Libya began to deepen the
administration of the invertebrate sent an aircraft carrier and
talked up a no fly zone. Then when Gaddifi's forces struck back and
began to push the rebels back the administration began to change its
tune. No longer in a hurry to provide air cover for the rebels,
waffling perhaps? If only that were the reason it would be excusable
but this has even a darker purpose.
During the Second World
War as Soviet forces advanced on Warsaw patriotic resistance
movements were encouraged to rise up and strike the Nazis. Then
suddenly as the Democratic Freedom fighters fought for their country
in the streets of Warsaw the Soviet offensive stopped. The Western
allies were denied the right to use Soviet airfields that would have
been necessary to refuel aircraft carrying weapons for the freedom
fighters.
The freedom fighters were slaughtered and then and
only then did the Soviet offensive begin again. The Soviet's
preferred that there not be a strong patriotic Polish leadership as
it made matters easier for the Soviets in a post war era. So in this
case the US would rather see thousands more die for the same purpose.
It makes it so much easier to strike a good deal when the rebels are
pushed back to the brink of annihilation. As the great Sachmo sings,
"And I think to myself, what a wonderful world!"
But the
invertebrate just don't live right, he opens the Gulf to deep water
oil drilling and almost immediately an oil platform blows up. He
proposes eight billion dollars in government support for two new
nuclear power plants in Georgia and events at the Fukushima Nuclear
complex turn ugly in Japan. In the American press it's called a
possible meltdown and the evacuation is called precautionary. In the
foreign press it is called a partial meltdown admitting that iodine
tablets are being passed out to the population. The American press
calls flooding the reactors with seawater and boric acid as prudent
and the foreign press calls it last ditch. At the Chernobyl reactor
they didn't have seawater and used concrete and boric acid to
encase the crippled reactor.
Ah, but we must go easy, those
were GE reactors and so the invertebrate at first says nothing. Then
the invertebrate tells the Wall Street Journal that it is full speed
ahead on America's nuclear program. In Germany, Angela Merkel's
decision to not decommission reactors is questioned. In India Prime
Minister Singh's administration has been weakened over his
commitment to nuclear power and even in China there is a new and
questioning attitude. Yet, this is the Corporate States of America,
where oil companies are left in charge of the clean up. Where Exxon
is still being sued in Alaska and the injured have yet to be made
whole. Where an invertebrate corporate President stands behind the
nuclear industry in the face of yet another catastrophic
accident.
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