Bits and Pieces for the Day

Speaking of Goldman Sachs, Timothy Haight, writing in The Orange County Register, says that the Dodd-Frank legislation did not solve the problem of the Too Big to Fail financial institutions.

Unfortunately, legislation enacted does not solve the fundamental problem. It simply provides cover for those who were asleep at the wheel, while ignoring the underlying cause of the crisis.

Some, of course, knew this. Including most in Congress. But many in the public were fooled. Our ignorance is going to come back and bite us. He recommends that we go back to Glass-Steagall and increase bank capital requirements. He would also cap the FDIC insurance on bank deposits per institution. That is leave the coverage where it is for smaller banks, but cap the exposure in the very big ones.

My thought is that the FDIC should charge premiums to the large banks according to the real risk they have. But that would require that they be honest with their risks, and right now the Federal Reserve and the Treasury are permitting them all to pretend they aren't already broke. I call it The Golden Rule: those with the gold, make the rules. In spite of their anger at Obama, they have had it real good the last few years. And they have pretty much had their way with the Congress and the President.

Uh Oh. Charles Gasparino says in the New York Post that Goldman Sachs is supporting Romney this year after having been Obama's big supporter in 2008.

What makes Goldman’s move to the right so striking is just how far to the left it was in 2008. The Goldman community gave more than a $1 million to the 2008 Obama campaign, bested only by donors tied to the ultraliberal University of California. But the latest contribution records (through the end of September) show that Goldman-linked givers barely crack the top 20 of Obama donors, with a little more than $50,000 toward his 2012 re-election effort.

Now they are the leading source of cash for Romney. They are good at picking winners. That has given them unprecedented power and influence in Congress and the executive for many years. How else could they have gotten the huge bailouts in 2008 and since?

Romney should not celebrate this. It gives many a sound reason to oppose him. Very sound. The crony capitalism we have had the last two decades is a huge part of the financial difficulties we have been experiencing. GS and a lot of the huge institutions have way too much influence.


Tim Tebow.  What more can one say? After all of the denigration and criticism, he put in a great performance to win the playoff game yesterday. Congratulations to him, and a big loud raspberry to those who have been on him for his overt Christianity. I am really getting tired of the people who belittle others for being Christian, particularly when many of them are apologists for Muslims, even the radical ones. You can guess who I am talking about.


The only known photos from the White House’s 2009 “Alice in Wonderland” party.

Why did the Obamas want to keep this secret? Why did the press go along? Goodness, Marie and Louis partied during a recession. Guess the Obamas wanted to avoid the same result. LOL

There are others. Go to the site for more.



Roger L. Simon takes on George Stephanoloupos and his question on contraceptives in Saturday night's debate here. He also is critical of the GOP for letting the leftwing media set the terms of the debates and would prefer having no moderators:

I am interested in the candidates and what they have to say to each other — mano-a-mano — in the style of Lincoln and Douglas.

They should be given a topic for the debate (entitlements, Iran, whatever) and be set free to examine it. Those issues can be discussed at length and in more depth without the interference of media personalities who, besides being biased one way or the other, are often more interested in the promotion of themselves or their companies.

Mark Steyn also has a post on the subject:

 This country is broke, and the unprecedented scale of its brokeness is an existential threat. Yet, with the exception of Newt’s occasional flashes of contempt for the questioners, everyone else plays along with this absurd game. It’s not merely that the GOP is letting the left frame the contest but that a party willing to dignify this pitiful charade is sending a broader message about the likelihood of its mustering the determination to stand up to a Democrat-media establishment once in office and effect meaningful course correction.

I think I have to agree with them both. Does anyone think Obama would do debates like this, particularly without a teleprompter?


Quote of the Day:

In a world inhabited by sincere sane leaders, willing to level with the citizens and disposed to allow financial institutions that took world crushing risks to fail through an orderly bankruptcy process, debt would have been written off and a sharp short contraction would have occurred. The stockholders, bondholders and executives of the Wall Street banks would have taken the losses they deserved. Instead Wall Street used their undue influence, wealth and power to force their politician puppets to funnel $5 trillion to the bankers that created the crisis while dumping the debt on taxpayers and unborn generations. The Wall Street controlled Federal Reserve provided risk free funding and took toxic mortgage assets off their balance sheets. The result is total credit market debt higher today than it was at the peak of the financial crisis in March 2009.

Read 2012 - The Year of Living Dangerously here. This is certainly not an endorsement of everything he says. He gets off the rails a bit, particularly towards the end when he gets partisan.

Lance Roberts at StreettalkLive.com has a good rundown on last week's employment report:

First, let's start by putting things into perspective. If you take a look at the  actual number of those "counted" as employed, that number has risen from the recessionary trough. However, in reality, employment is still far below the long term historical trend. Currently, the deviation from the long term trend is the widest on record and has made very little improvement.

 The unemployment number went down, but it was not all a happy thing.

If, and that is a big "IF", employment was truly improving, we would be seeing these numbers begin to reverse course. They aren't, and the reason is due to population growth. During the last month it is estimated that the number of individuals of working age, 16 years and over, rose by 143,000 with the working age population now residing at 240.6 million. The offset is that, while job gains are modest and primarily located in lower-paying temporary employment for the end-of-year seasonality, the population continues to grow at an unfettered clip. In simple terms, the economy is not creating jobs fast enough to keep up with population growth.

There are some very good charts that show the real situation. If the government were measuring unemployment like they did during the Great Depression, the unemployment rate would be much, much higher. Read the whole thing at the site.

At USA Today, Richard Wolf notes that the US national debt is now at 100% of the economy. This is the point where all analysis shows that we are in seriious trouble. And our politicians are whistling past the graveyard trying to avoid offending anyone by doing what is necessary. All of them are failing us because they are too busy playing politics. Its time for a change. They all need to be thrown out.


Gallup says that 40% of Americans prefer to be independent rather than identify with either of our political parties. 31% are Democrats and 27% are Republicans.

As dysfunctional as both parties are, I cannot really imagine anyone wanting to identify with either of them.