Random Thoughts on Other Notable Headlines of the Day – Issue II

March 18, 2009

• This afternoon the federal government just added another $1.2 trillion to the taxpayer’s bill. I was watching the stock market when this was announced, and the Dow went from a triple digit loosing streak to a triple digit gain in just minutes. And Wall Street thought there wasn’t a limitless pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. ‘Ain’t free money great!?’ But you’ve got to love the wording by the Washington Post staff writer in announcing this. The feds “deployed” the money – not gave the money, or some other term, but deployed the money; you know, like deploying a large military force. How appropriate – the taxpayer Calvary has ridden in again. The Washington Post also says in another article that the US plans to “deploy” hundreds more civilians to Afghanistan. No, really – they actually used the word “deploy”. I’m not kidding – it’s for real! Take a look!
• It certainly appears that Tim Geithner, President Obama’s Treasury Secretary, is not the man for the job. I didn’t like him as treasury secretary from the beginning (see my past post on this). Geithner was too well tied to Wall Street for my liking. According to this article, and I quote, “Geithner’s indulgence of bankers’ indulgences is fast becoming the Obama administration’s Achilles’ heel. The AIG debacle is the latest in a series of bewildering Geithner decisions that threaten to undermine the administration’s efforts to restart the economy. So long as it’s Be Kind to Bankers Week at Treasury — and we’ve had eight straight such weeks since the president was inaugurated — American banking, and the economy it is supposed to serve, will remain paralyzed“. And just today, we find out that Geithner lied when said he learned of the AIG bonuses after they were paid out. Same ol’, same ol’!
• It was reported today that 17 of the 20 countries who signed the free trade agreement are resorting to some sort of protectionism. Here’s my take on that – policies that only work well during boom times & destroy during bad times probably should be scuttled. Or at least some sort of provision in the agreement that takes times like these into account.
• Video of Senator Grassley on CNBC saying “these companies need to understand they owe society something”. Guess who he’s talking about. My vote is for him to take over AIG. He probably won’t save the company, but he’d save us taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.
• Tell me this isn’t true – “senior members of the Obama administration are pressing lawmakers to use a shortcut to drive the president’s signature initiatives on health care and energy through Congress without Republican votes” [bold added]. Quoted from this article.

If those dumb, ignorant Democrats in Congress go along with this then they, along with those “senior members” in the administration, should be —— well, you be the judge. I understand that is exactly what happened in the first 6 years of the Bush presidency when the Republicans controlled Congress, but this crap has got to stop.

• Representative Paul Kanjorski told CNBC this morning that this latest business with AIG may be “the straw that breaks the camels back”. Let’s see now, where did I hear that before – oh, I know – I used that old reliable phrase here just two days ago. Boy, Kanjorski is genuinely pissed!! He said he’s sick and tired of the administration and treasury secretary saying “I just found out about it”. He goes on to say “that’s not true”! Hey, Kanjorski is a Democrat, and he’s talking about his own White House administration. Go gettem Kanjorski! You the man!
• John Bogle, founder of The Vanguard Group, told CNBC this morning that it was time to get rid of compensations package and talk about intrinsically growth rewards instead of rewarding for growing the price of stock.

Over a year ago, before this financial mess started, I wrote two separate postings on this “grow the stock price” thing. It started back in the late 1980′s – early 1990′s, with producers and manufacturers becoming more interested in their stock prices and PE Ratios than they were in their product. However, that goes to the point made in this article by Harold Meyerson – “The Reagan-Thatcher model, which favored finance [bold/underline added] over domestic manufacturing, has collapsed. The decline of American manufacturing has saddled us not only with a seemingly permanent negative balance of trade but with a business community less and less concerned with America’s productive capacities“. You can watch and listen to John Bogle’s comments if you like.

• As a result of the government coming down so hard on AIG about the latest round of bonuses, many other financial firm executives are saying “federal involvement in business decisions is making it difficult for struggling firms to return to profitability”. Yea, yea, we know! ‘Just keep sending us those train loads of taxpayer dollars, keep your mouth shut, and don’t ask any questions’! You can read the entire article here.