The Sark Economic Bailout Plan

I've been away for a while as some have suspected :) But I felt compelled to get this up at the request of some folks in a land far far away.

The administration is proposing $700,000,000,000 (thats what billiions looks like, or $2500 per every man, woman, and child in the U.S.) bailout of the Wall Street companies that hold the significant portion of CDS (credit default swaps) the little pieces of paper of sub-prime mortgages that the Investment banks have been trading with each other at ever decreasing value until they are nearly worthless, thus the inability to use them as collateral for future business operation or other loans.

What does this actually do? It provides a place (a Resolution Trust type entity) for these Wall Street banks to essentially dump suspect mortgage paper and get them written off the books (which will actually have to be written off causing significant losses) and free up generally acceptable mortgage backed securities (the non sub-prime) paper to be used as normal collateral for inter bank loans. The dumped "bad" mortgage paper is still "bad" and suseptable to mortgage defaults and foreclosures, but the big Investment banks are relatively unscathed, and we the working tax payers get stuck with the bill eventually. I say eventually, because the governement right now is not even concerned about any of the massively growing national debt, and this just adds to it.

Ok, the Investment banks get clear balance sheets, they can use normal mortgage loan paper as collateral, the government and us get stuck with $700,000,000,000 in suspect loans that people can still fall into foreclosure on, and the tax payers get the bill.

Now let's think about this from a what went wrong perspective. Banks gave out loans to people who probably couldn't afford them in the long run, but kept pushing for average and below average earning americans to keep buying houses and the more the banks pushed the requirements lower, the more risky financially capable americans bought into the hype and tried to buy their piece of the american dream. The banks and all their accountants, auditors, and executives should have known better. The Americans who over extended themselves should have known better, but let's face it, the average american doesn't have a CPA degree, or nearly the financial acuem that the banks should have had watching over things. If the people with the financial acuem and fancy banking related degrees thought it was ok, why wouldn't the average Jane and Joe out there trying to finally be able to buy a house of their own?

Now what to do. And this is where the Sark bailout plan comes into play.

Take the $700,000,000,000 and PAYOFF those risky mortgages to some degree at the home owner level, say mortgages of $250,00 or less. 50cents on the dollar, or some scaling so that the amount owed by the individuals put their overall financial state more in line with the 33% of gross income rule. Bring the amount of the loan principle down to the proper level, so that the mortgage becomes no longer "sub-prime". Do that with the money and we do more than just save the bacon of the Wall Street big shots, but we actually strengthen the underlying American Economy, by freeing up available consumer spending to nearly the same amount of money. The Wall Street investment banks now have the majority of their CDS converted to "normal" mortgage paper, easily used as normal loan collateral, there isn't nearly as much "bad" paper that needs to be dumped to some "Resolution Trust", and laid on the heads of the ever increasingly burdened tax payer. And the very sluggish underlying economy gets an immediate inflow of non home equity disposible income from consumers which drives 2/3rds of the economy.

ADDENDUM:
Available for PRIMARY home mortgages only

All renegotiated mortgages would be required to have PMI insurance.

At time of resale or refinancing of a "renegotiated" mortgage, the reduction in principle amount must be repaid to the Government

NO Home Equity loans could be made to homeowners of a "renegotiated" mortgage property.

The Sark plan is called "Trickle Up" Economics. And personally, I think it does a better job of solving more than just the one problem of some serious Wall Street Gambling that Tax Payers Anonymous have to end up footing the bill for.

Dogs at play #1

Dealing with government care issues.

Working with government social services programs for the elderly will absolutely drive you nuts. I’m in the process of trying to get my 71 year old mother who has lung cancer approved for Medicaid the last couple of weeks, and I can tell you from personal experience that it can be a nightmare. There is no “single point” of contact that you can get to work with you to navigate the myriad of paperwork trails, working with LTC facilities, insurance companies, and other myriad of government and private groups to get something accomplished.

Somehow, everyone automatically thinks that the “family” can deal with all this paperwork, interviews, and endless meetings to get things done, when in fact the “family” is typically in a situation that they are barely able to deal with the mental and physical aspects of taking care of a elderly family member in need.

So if any of you out there are currently in this position as well, or perhaps you will need to be in the future, my heart felt sympathies go out to you. My only words of encouragement is “keep plugging away at the walls”, and “good luck”. It is a mentally stressful and physically draining experience to have to go through, and anyone forced into the position of dealing with a serious illness of a family member needs comfort and support as well as the family member that is ill. Often, I have found, that the agencies, both private and government, that you have to deal with, forget what the supporting family members are going through, and act as if they are intentionally forcing them to perform 3 ring circus acts to get anything meaningful accomplished.

Obama puts web site to work for flood relief

I've been a little busy the last few days, and haven't been able to post as frequently as I would like, but I wanted to pass on this information about what Obama is trying to do for the flood victims in the midwest.

Obama has dedicated the main page of his presidential campaign website and is sending emails out to his supporters asking for direct support for the flood victims.

Obama site

Let the economy positions begin

Seems Obama and McCain are both out expounding on their economic plans. Looks like they are going to be doing the rounds over the next couple weeks positioning their stands on the economy. While neither has the "official" title of nominee of their party, the general campaign seems to be gearing up pretty quickly and looks to be substantially different than previous elections.

Time gives a broad brush look at Obama's economic proposals, and CNN does a little comparison shopping between the two.

I can't remember the last time there were two candidates that differed so significantly on such a broad range of issues. Looking forward to watching the debating both in debates and in the point counter point press releases.

Where is that gas tax holiday Sen McCain?

I've looked all over the congressional record and I can't find your proposed gas tax holiday bill anywhere to be found? Please tell us this wasn't a campaign stunt. Of course a week after Memorial day that $30 savings we were going to get is getting smaller and smaller each day.

The Dem race is over, but Clinton still swinging?

I listened to the speeches given tonight by Clinton and Obama. I was listening to McCain's speech and dozed off... sorry.

But I have been thinking about the situation in the Democratic party and the impression that Clinton left with her speech, and what it could mean as far as VP positioning, and party unity. And one of the things that struck me was the tone and temperment of the Clinton speech which I thought was still confrontational to a large degree, and still beating the "I'm the more electable candidate" drum, on a night when Obama had actually passed the required number of delegates to claim the nomination in no uncertain terms.

There has been a lot of talk about Clinton floating the idea that she would be open to being VP, and doing her utmost to help unify the party. My sense is that she probably flushed any possibility of her being on the ticket away with her speech tonight. She is continuing to drive her electablity as the primary candidate. She through the primaries has tried to paint Obama as weak and inexperienced, and basically checked off all the chips she has on the table as leverage to be taken as the VP.

However, by continually painting Obama as weak, and effectively listing the reasons he HAS to pick her as VP she is putting him in a box where he has no choice but to select someone else. After her speech tonight, to select her as his running mate, will provide credence to her assertion that he is a weaker candidate by giving into the pressure of the nomination losing candidate. To take her on the ticket now as an apparent appeasment to political pressure, he would automatically lose any credibility of being able to stand up to foreign leaders. Some one on CNN said as much in their assessment, that if he can't stand up to the Clinton pressure, how can he stand up to foreign leaders.

Unfortunately, I think Clinton passed on a unique opportunity to gracefully exit the race with dignity, and recognize the historic significance of an African-American winning the nomination of a major political party for the first time, and strongly start building party unity, but focused still on why she is the better candidate.

My view is that Obama has no choice now, but to go elsewhere for a VP candidate.

Blitzer preaching the "dream ticket" again

Wolf Blitzer of CNN is once again dreaming of the “dream ticket”. Mr Blitzer has been beating this drum ever since the last Democratic debate that he moderated between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I’ve never quite understood his almost insatiable campaigning for this particular scenario, but I’m pretty sure that it is purely wishful thinking on his part.

The original hoopla over the “dream ticket” of Clinton and Obama being on the same Democratic party ticket started with his last question of that debate, and he hasn’t let it die for more than a couple of days in the intervening time. More and more of the DNC members, specifically Pelosi have stated quite frankly that the possibility of a Clinton/Obama or Obama/Clinton ticket is probably not even a remote possibility. And quite frankly, from a objective political view, it benefits neither Obama, Clinton, or the Democrats in a November general election.

While I give Blitzer leave to voice his opinions and possible wishes, I think the media needs to reflect on exactly what it’s role is in our national debates and elections. I firmly think that Blitzer should stick to the proper role of reporting and analyzing election news, instead of trying to beat a drum to try and direct an outcome, that most political observers see as a non-starter.

Stick to reporting Wolf, that is what you are paid for.

Bush Slam Dance

There is no crying in Baseball... ok maybe

There may be no crying in baseball, but the Rockies are trying to make it almost impossible not to anymore. On a nice day at Wrigley Field, the Rockies managed to surrender an 8 run lead to end up losing 10-9. Jeff Baker's 4 doubles couldn't even stave off another total implosion by the pitching staff on a day when the bats finally started to warm up.

Considering the expectations after their near miraculous 21 of 22 run at the end of last season to get to the World Series, and the signing of nearly all of the core players to multi-year contracts, this year's Rockies are looking more like a AAA team than defending NL champions.

Someone hand me a hankie.. I feel like crying a bit.

Let's talk FL and MI come the 31st

The DNC rules committee will meet on the 31st to figure out what the heck to do with the Michigan and Florida delegation seating.

While we wait.. let's look at this from the two candidate's perspective.

Obama: There is absolutely no reason for him to want to compromise to get either delegation seated. There is no advantage in it for him in terms of the nomination. If the roles were reversed, and Clinton was ahead, and Obama had won MI and FL, does anyone think for a moment that she would be howling at the moon to count those votes and get the delegates seated, if they in anyway had a possibility of providing Obama with a reason to take it to the convention? I think not.

Clinton: Getting MI and FL seates as voted (with Obama off the MI ballot, and no campaigning in FL), is the only sliver of hope left for Clinton to even get close enough (getting both seated still won't let her overtake Obama), to make the "popular vote" argument to the super delegates. But if she can get them seated relatively close to how the original voting allocated, it opens the door for her slightly to take this thing to the convention for a floor fight which is something the DNC definately doesn't want to see happen. It would practically cripple the Democrats afterwards. If Obama was behind and had won MI and FL, I'm sure we would be seeing the very same arguments from him to get them seated, and Clinton would be fighting tooth and nail to scale back their impact.

So basically what we have here, is the person in front, having no logical reason to compromise, will probably have to. The person behind, absolutely needing them seated in their entirety, probably not willing to compromise, but will probably have to.

In the end we will probably see the GOP theory at work, seating half of them or some such percentage. Clinton will draw a little closer, but not close enough to catch up in the delegates count, the super delegates will weigh in after June 3rd at about a 50 50 split, and Obama still ends up the nominee, but Clinton will have fought the great fight, and be positioned to go at it again in 4 years should Obama not win in November.

The results of the 31st meeting should at least provide some additonal entertainment Because the Obama supporters won't like the outcome, and the Clinton supporters won't like the outcome, and we will be able to see both sides ridicule and spit at each other from afar until the convention in August

Eight walks, 3 base running outs... OMG!

The Rockies season has turned into the season from hell. With half the starting lineup on the DL, and a rookie pitcher that walked eight.... that is right he walked eight batters, and three base running outs, the Rockies lost 6-1 to Philly last night.

During their historic 21 of 22 run at the end of last season, they couldn't do anything wrong. Now they can't seem to do anything right. They can't hit, they can't pitch, and who would have thought it, they can't run.

In probably the biggest understatement of the year, "We're not even worried about where we are now," manager Clint Hurdle said. "We need to play better. We need to focus in our own backyard. We've got improvement to be made in every area. Unfortunately, we've earned the position we're in."

All I can say is DUH?

We drive less, but gas keeps going up? I smell a Rat

According a CNN article, the Department of Transportation, figures for MARCH.. that is MARCH, not April or May... but MARCH, we saw the steepest decline in driving in the US ever recorded. We drove nearly 11 Billion (thats a B) miles less in March of this year than last year, a 4.3 percent decrease, yet gas prices continued to rise over that period, and fuel stockpiles decreased.

Can someone explain what the heck is going on here? Last time I took an economics class, decreasing demand was supposed to mean increasing supply, not the inverse. And decreasing demand, should be leading to decreasing prices, not the inverse.

I'm begining to smell a rat in the barnyard here folks.

Time to become a novelist?

I’ve been mulling the idea of becoming a novelist. After all I’m retired, and hate gardening, and the political campaigns will only be able to keep me interested until November. I’ve always been a voracious reader, and I liked to write short stories as a teenager, and well into my twenties. I’ve always been a J.R.R. Tolkien fan and there have been some miserable attempts to put out novels that attempted the same broad narrative approach to myth-fantasy.

Since this blog is more an exercise in spouting my intermittent thoughts into the internet void, putting down my love of fantasy and myth into a novel form has always intrigued me. Besides I’ll never make any money with this blog since there are way too many political oriented blogs out there, and no one really clicks on those somewhat annoying Google ads. :)

While I would never convince anyone that I was the next Tolkien, I do feel like I have a well rounded imagination that lends itself to the broad scope myth-fantasy creation that Tolkien made so engrossing. And as I said I don’t really have anything else to keep me busy, I might as well jump into the water, so to speak, and see if I can swim. After all if J.K. Rowlings can start out as an unknown author with a unique idea, and a willingness to stick to the proposition, I think I can.

We will see what happens.

Attacks on Clinton's RFK comments asinine

Well we have finally reached a point in the Democratic nomination race where any statement by either of the candidates is ripped apart and spun in such a way to make it the most disgusting thing ever imaginable. Most of you who have read my blog know that I am an Obama supporter, and am not at all enthralled with the idea of Hillary Clinton getting the nomination, both on personal faults, and her stands on some of the issues.

With that said, I have to say the uproar over her recent comments about the RFK assassination is about as bogus as anything I’ve seen yet in these campaigns. The pundits and the bloggers would have you believe that she is somehow implying that she is staying in with the hope that Obama might befall the same fate as RFK, and making it out to be some heinous implication that it is one of the reasons she is staying in the race.

After reading her comments to the particular editorial board, how anyone can come to the conclusion that she is somehow awaiting Obama’s assassination is totally asinine. Her merely pointing out that previous Democratic nomination races have not been resolved before the middle of June, and turning it into some menacing meaning, shows the vitriol course that the media, the bloggers, and the political forum morons will go to try and twist any comment from a candidate into a blustering support for their candidate at the expense of any responsible judgment.

With the general election season gearing up to start, the viciousness of the media, and the campaign surrogates, can only be expected to increase to a more idiotic fever pitch. Anyone who needs to twist every comment made by a candidate into some sinister plan, is once again feeding on the propaganda of fear that has been the hallmark of the current administration, and should be viewed with proper scrutiny and cynicism.

When an election is decided by the pure unadulterated misdirection, and fear mongering of the media, the pundits, and the campaign surrogates, we all lose the view of facts. Be wary of falling for the despicable reporting of ALL of today’s media, both televised, and through the internet. Be cynical of their purpose and their agenda in reporting anything stated by any of the candidates.

The best defense for America is an intelligently cynical and informed electorate, who is unwilling to take the spoon fed pulp being fed up by today’s so called news sources. Research stands for yourself, make your own decisions. Only with those premises as our guide can we the true electorate make our impact on the direction of the country, and take back our government, and make it once again responsive to our needs.

More primaries and more damage to the Democrats

I’m watching the results from the Oregon primary come in, and it looks like Obama will win Oregon, while Clinton won another lopsided win in Kentucky tonight. I’m thinking about one of the most talked about, but less really focused on aspects of the exit polling from both West Virginia and Kentucky, and a somewhat disturbing bit of statistics keep coming back to what we have been hearing Clinton pound on for the last few weeks since Pennsylvania. She has sharpened her rhetoric that “working class whites” are voting for her, as a mantra to the super delegates that she is a more viable candidate against McCain in a general election. Her continual beating of the racial drum may have started to resonate with some of her constituency, and in doing so may be irreparably damaging the Democratic party in the process.

In Pennsylvania, 12% of the white voters that said that race was important to them, Clinton got 76% of the vote from that segment. In West Virginia, after campaigning for weeks that “white blue collar workers” were voting for her instead of Obama, 21% of white voters who said that race was important to them, Clinton got an overwhelming 84% of their vote. Now again in Kentucky, after another week of the same “white blue collar workers” are voting for her instead of Obama stumping, 18% of the white voters that said that race was important to them, Clinton got an even larger 88% of their vote. Not only has race shown to be a major factor in the campaign now, but it seems that Clinton has started to increase the wedge effect of race within her own voting constituency.

In the mean time to shore up her other core support base, Clinton has come out blasting the media for not showing the same concern over the sexist aspects of the campaign as they have been the race aspect. However, in the exit polling, on average, gender has no where near the direct block of voter impact that the growing percentage of whites who consider race to be an important part of their decision making is.

The Democratic party was always a loose coalition of factions, purporting to be the champions of the minorities, Blacks, Hispanics, Women, and the less affluent components of the American electorate. But what has happened during the Democratic nomination campaign, is that the party has fairly split itself along what can now be primarily viewed as racial lines, with Blacks voting for Obama, and blue collar whites voting for Clinton, and to a degree each voting block uses race as one of their major decision points.

Whether Clinton drops out of the race before the convention or not, is probably a moot point now. The damage to the Democrats may be irreparable, and to a large degree the fault for that has to lay firmly on Hillary Clinton’s side of the playing field. Her husband’s ill conceived words after the South Carolina primary, pretty much wrenched the traditional Black vote that she had counted on and drove it to Obama. Her recent, and continual beating of the “white blue collar workers vote for me” mantra over the last three or four weeks, has effectively driven an inescapable wedge between that Democratic group and Obama, that may not be able to be repaired.

Any way you slice it, and the Democratic pundits keep proclaiming that the Democrats will rally around the nominee, there may have been terrible damage done to the Democratic party base, that will probably not heal by November. And should the Democrats lose in November, the damage may be terminal to the party going forward.

Supporting Mark Udall for US Senate from CO

I've pretty much decided to support Mark Udall in his run for the US Senate seat from Colorado this November. While his congressional voting record of voting across party lines at a little under 5% is not what I would consider bipartisan, getting another Democrat into congress to break the GOP log jam is more important. Since I'm supporting Obama for president, trying to give him the majority in the congress that will be needed to get some things changed is a top priority for me. Plus I am so tired of the GOP political machine and it's campaigns of fear and division, that a clear message needs to be sent.

I haven't looked at the house seat yet, but will be doing that over the next week or so.

As for the State level houses, and the local elections, there is still a lot of investigation to do, but I doubt it will be quite as straight forward as the first two.

All I ask of anyone, is if you are going to vote.... get yourself informed, and make a decision based on verifiable information, instead of the innuendo, and garbage that the current political machines consider valid campaigning these days.

Bush manages to unify Democrats

In one masterful stroke, President Bush found probably the only way to unite the possibly fractured Democratic Party. Attack both the party and the possible Presidential nominee of the party from half way across the globe, and rationalize them being similar to those who appeased Adolf Hitler prior to WWII.

The violent and colorful retorts of Senator Biden, Clinton, and Obama blasting Bush for his comments before the Israeli Knesset proved once again what a unifying force Bush has become for the Democratic Party. And if Bush hadn’t done enough to give the Democrats something to unite around, Senator McCain helped himself to some of the Bush legacy by jumping on board for much of the same type of attack.

In one single afternoon, Bush managed to get Hillary Clinton to defend Barack Obama, something that hasn’t happened in over three months. And Senator McCain managed to once again link himself to the most unpopular president in modern history by jumping on the “appeasement” bandwagon started by Bush. You just couldn’t make up a scenario that would present a more unified target for the Democrats at a time when McCain has tried to significantly distance himself from Bush.

An election that exposes our nations racial divides

If you happen to be a person that believes that racial hatred is dead in America, this presidential election will be a shocking revelation to you. As a baby boomer who grew up in the south west and then later living in Colorado, the kind of blatant racial hatred that you read about in other places in the country was always a far off thing to me, and something I tended to see as isolated problems. For some reason I had made myself believe that ingrained racial hatreds were somehow a thing of the past, and that we as Americans had progressed beyond using the color of one’s skin as a measure of their ability to contribute to the country.

I was mistaken. If one thing has been highlighted for me in this presidential election, it is that there is still a serious, and deep, racial divide within the country. I have spent a lot of time over the last few months participating in political forums of different kinds, and one thing that seems to be a constant, is that there are still some blacks and some whites that can not or will not move past the color of other people when making decisions about who they will associate with, who they will support, and who they will talk to, and who they won’t.

Simply view the postings on many of the political forums going on these days, and you will be swamped by the racial rants both for and against Obama. Most of the posters in these forums who are decidedly against his candidacy for president, can not give issue related reasons, without eventually, falling into the same old diatribes of him being a Muslim, his association with his former pastor, his writing that he feels more comfortable with his black heritage than his white. Eventually, any discussion about Obama in these forums degenerates into insults, and racial slurs.

The underlying racial tone of this election is not just seen in the popular forums either. The Washington post did an article depicting what some of the Obama volunteers have had to endure on the ground soliciting support for their candidate, and it was wholly disgusting that at this time in our history, that we as a nation are still consumed with racial hatred.

If there is one thing that I hope comes of this election, whether Obama is the nominee, or even eventually our president, is that his campaign will have made America finally look at it’s self in the mirror and force it to recognize that we are not the paragons of virtue that we announce ourselves to be to the rest of the world. We have a very long ways to go, but perhaps we are in the process of taking another great step in moving past the long standing racial divides within our society.

I for one hope it is the case.

GOP to HQ... We have a problem

On March 9th a little-known Democrat named Bill Foster won a special election for the seat formerly held by former GOP house speaker Dennis Hastert over Republican Jim Oberweis. Hastert had held the GOP seat in the house for 20 years. McCain had personally endorsed Oberweis, while Obama endorsed and cut a TV ad for Foster.

On May 3rd a Democrat won a special congressional election in Baton Rouge Louisiana taking a seat the GOP had held since 1974. Democrat Don Cazayoux defeated Republican Woody Jenkins for the seat opened up when Republican Richard Baker a 20 year incumbent resigned. Cazayoux was attacked in ads that painted him as a supporter of Barack Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. This was second special election for a long time GOP seat where negative campaigning from the RNC tried to force negative association with the Democratic candidate with Obama and the Rev Wright. In both cases the negative attack ads failed to secure a GOP win in a historically GOP congressional district.

While the rest of the nation was focused on the West Virginia Democratic presidential primary on May 13th, another special election was unfolding in Mississippi. And at this time CNN has projected that Democrat Travis Childers will defeat Republican Greg Davis in a GOP seat held since 1994. For the third time in as many special elections the RNC threw the book and a ton of money into this election. There were major negative ads run against Childers again linking him to aspects of Reverend Wright through the national picture of association with Barack Obama. Both the National Republican Congressional Committee and the conservative group Freedom Watch spent heavily on television commercials that linked Childers to Obama. While Obama had not endorsed Childers, it was obvious that the RNC thought such a linkage was going to be an effective campaign strategy leading up to the November elections. If that was their thoughts, they may be rethinking it now after three straight special election defeats.

If the GOP does not seem concerned about a national thrashing in November, they might want to start worrying a little bit more, as seats traditionally considered safe for the Republicans in the general election, may not be as safe as they once thought. A second repercussion of these three special elections, could be that the current conventional wisdom of the historic Red and Blue states may be a whole lot more Purple than the GOP, and even Hillary Clinton and the Democrats may be thinking.