Obama's Cabinet of Crooks

This is like the gift that keeps on giving. Every day, another crook shows up in Obama's administration. Let's see just what the past couple of days gave us:

Vivek Kundra, White House Chief Information Officer. On leave after FBI raided his office and arrested two people.

Charles Freeman, National Intelligence Council Chairman. Withdrew after his anti-semitic, pro-arab views were revealed.

David Ogden, Deputy Attorney General. To be confirmed, despite his vast experience as a porn industry attorney.

Setting the Record Straight on Wanting the President to Fail

Enough with all this outrage at Rush Limbaugh wanting Obama to fail! In 2006, Democrats wanted Bush to fail by a majority of 51-40%. Also 34% of the independents wanted Bush to fail.

So I don't have to apologize to anyone if I also want Obama to fail miserably. I'm going by this mantra: "I'll treat your president the same way you treated mine".

Coming Soon to a City Near You: The Bike Tax

Yeah, we're getting there. Oregon is debating introducing a tax on bikes. I guess it's following the liberal mantra: "If it moves, tax it!". Watch also this CNN clip.

The Global Warming Religion

Jeff Jacoby writes a good article in today's Boston Globe, titled Where's global warming?

He starts by stating some facts:

The United States has shivered through an unusually severe winter, with snow falling in such unlikely destinations as New Orleans, Las Vegas, Alabama, Georgia. On Dec. 25, every Canadian province woke up to a white Christmas, something that hadn't happened in 37 years. Last week, satellite data showed three of the Great Lakes - Erie, Superior, and Huron - almost completely frozen over. In Washington, D.C., what was supposed to be a massive rally against global warming was upstaged by the heaviest snowfall of the season, which paralyzed the capital. The National Snow and Ice Data Center has acknowledged that due to a satellite sensor malfunction, it had been underestimating the extent of Arctic sea ice by 193,000 square miles - an area the size of Spain.

As a consequence, 2008 was the coolest year of the past decade - global temperatures have not exceeded the record high measured in 1998, notwithstanding the carbon-dioxide that human beings continue to pump into the atmosphere.

Mr. Jacoby wonders why there's no media reaction to any of this. You all know how ballistic the media would go if there was any sign of a warmer than usual weather. We've been warned that we're doomed even when we'd get a heat wave in August. So this is how we get to the religious conclusion:

But for many people, the science of climate change is not nearly as important as the religion of climate change. When Al Gore insisted yet again at a conference last Thursday that there can be no debate about global warming, he was speaking not with the authority of a man of science, but with the closed-minded dogmatism of a religious zealot.

More Illiterate Gems from Obama on the Stock Market

On Tuesday, Obama spoke about the stock market and his long-term plans. I know he admitted he doesn't know anything about the stock market, and I think he should rather shut up in that case, since every time he opens his mouth we have another crash. Look what he said on Tuesday:

"The stock market is sort of like a tracking poll in politics. It bobs up and down day-to-day, and if you spend all your time worrying about that, then you're probably going to get the long-term strategy wrong."

I have no idea what he means by "bobs up and down". Since he took office, it's been bobbing up and down kind of like the Titanic bobbed up and down after hitting the iceberg. There's no more up-and-downs, it's plain DOWN to around 6,700 from 9,600 on Election Day.

And another plain stupid gem from The Anointed One:

"Profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal"

Really? I have no economic studies, and never had too much money to invest, but... what the heck are "profit and earning ratios"?? Any chimp who ever put his money in stocks knows it's actually "price and earnings ratios".

Who Needs a Foreclosure Bailout?

We hear quite often from Obama how vital it is to save people affected by foreclosures, and how we must chip in to pay their mortgages. According to him, the drama is caused by the falling house prices, and his plans are trying to accommodate that. But let's see who really needs this bailout, and how it should be done.

First of all, most homeowners who live in their houses are not affected in any way by falling house prices. Variability in the market price has no impact on a family's ability to pay, since the monthly payment stays the same. Of course, they might feel bad because the "investment" is worth less now, but the falling prices don't matter until the family decides to sell. And of course, there's little reason to sell now. These homeowners aren't more entitled to a bailout than people who lost money on their 401k's due to market losses.

Falling prices only matter when someone wants to sell the house. The main reason someone would want to do that is if they bought an over-priced house that they knew they can't afford to pay, only thinking it would be a good investment because the prices are going up and if something happens they can sell and get the cash. Also those who bought to flip the house and re-sell at a profit. These are investors who just bought the bad investment. Do you really need to rescue them? I see no reason. Again, no more reason than we need to rescue people who bought stocks whose prices have fallen. Risk is inherent in any investment, and reducing risks would only result in inflated prices and higher costs to be paid by responsible people who made good investments.

There is one more category of homeowners in trouble, and that's people who can't afford to pay because they lost their job. But in this case, again, the decline in home prices doesn't affect the ability to pay. It's the loss of income from the job that creates the crisis. And for those people, modifying loans and reducing monthly payments doesn't help at all. When you earn $0 income, paying $1,200/month or $1,500/month is pretty much the same. The only thing you can do to really help those homeowners is to help create jobs. And Government can do this only by creating a better business environment, through less costly regulations and especially lower corporate taxes.

So I'm still curious about how is Obama's plan going to help and, more importantly, whom?

Is It Really the "Worst Crisis since the Great Depression"?

Not according to factual data.
Click image below to see the graph of GDP percent change from a year ago. It looks slightly better than most other recent recessions.