Tuna Czar

clipped from townhall.com Imagine you are trying to understand a system consisting of six elements. That means there would be 30, or n(n-1), possible relationships between these elements. Now suppose each element can be characterized by being either on or off. That means the number of possible relationships among those elements grows to the number 2 raised to the 30th power; that's well over a billion possible relationships among those six elements. Our economic system consists of billions of different elements that include members of our population, businesses, schools, parcels of land and homes. A list of possible relationships defies imagination and even more so if we include international relationships. Miraculously, there is a tendency for all of these relationships to operate smoothly without congressional meddling. Let's think about it. The average well-stocked supermarket carries over 60,000 different items. Take just one of those items -- canned tuna.

COTD #2: On Saviour-Based Economics

clipped from patterico.com Tomorrow’s headlines…today! “OBAMA: I HAD TO DESTROY THE ECONOMY IN ORDER TO SAVE IT.”

COTD #1

clipped from patterico.com When they asked President Obama whether there would be any economists in his administration, he thought they said “Communists” and answered certainly not! Don’t put all the blame on President Obama, he is just following in the revered footsteps of President Roosevelt. FDR ran to the right of President Hoover in the general election. However, on taking office, he moved to the left of Hoover. The economic plans he put forth in his first 100 days were a mishmash of Hoover’s and Musolini’s ideas.

McCain Was An Idiot, OBambi Defies Descriptors

clipped from patterico.com No, I’m not kidding: President Obama is putting the finishing touches on an ambitious first budget that seeks to cut the federal deficit in half over the next four years, primarily by raising taxes on business and the wealthy and by slashing spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, administration officials said. I’m pretty sure raising taxes is generally accepted as a great way to jump-start an ailing economy. Just ask our legislators here in California. And I’m pleased to see Obama’s big commitment to turning Afghanistan around includes slashing spending on that war.

Act Worthy

clipped from thenewpamphleteers.blogspot.com What is the target of our protest? Are we protesting the President and Congress for an act already passed, or are we petitioning our state and local governments to refuse to accept the stimulus money? Our country is in danger, but not to be despaired of. Our enemies are numerous and powerful; but we have many friends, determining to be free, and heaven and earth will aid the resolution. On you depend the fortunes of America. You are to decide the important question, on which rest the happiness and liberty of millions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves. The faltering tongue of hoary age calls on you to support your country. The lisping infant raises its suppliant hands, imploring defence against the monster slavery. Your fathers look from their celestial seats with smiling approbation on their sons, who boldly stand forth in the cause of virtue; but sternly frown upon the inhuman miscreant, who, to secure the loaves and fishes to himself, would breed a serpent to destroy his children.

This one is a mandatory RTWT. Especially so if you're weak on your revolutionary war history...

Golden

clipped from mises.org Reviewing this period in gold's history makes evident the extreme difficulties experienced by the monetary authorities in controlling the price of gold. The typical flat $35 line on charts gives the illusion that the dollar was a stable store of value. In actuality, market prices diverged from $35 — and dramatically so in 1960. The attempt to fix the dollar at 0.888671 grams and gold at $35 — this while the dollar's purchasing power had declined versus all other goods — was a losing battle carried out at great expense. The United States and its allies would sell huge quantities of gold at prices below what a free market would have borne. In 2009, amidst some of the largest central-bank rescues and bailouts in history, let the 1960 gold rush and the eventual collapse of the London gold pool in 1968 stand as a reminder to us that central planning of monetary matters is doomed to fail.

Bilge Part 2: Worse Than Nothing

clipped from mises.org Second, the actual activities promoted by new government spending would have to be of positive value, especially in the aggregate. This problem will be exacerbated by the political reality that areas in which misallocations are already greatest will experience the greatest pain, thus attracting compensatory spending. Third, the debt created to finance this spending will require either higher taxes in the future or it will generate inflation. In either case, future wealth will be lost as productive activities will be penalized. Will the wealth created today, if any, be worth the cost of future losses in wealth? 4. What should be done? The first thing to keep in mind is that activities that prevent or inhibit the re-allocation of resources out of their bubble-induced misdirected uses will only prolong the current recession. This kind of stimulus is not better than nothing. It is worse than nothing.

Pumping Bilge

clipped from mises.org This past Sunday's Washington Post proclaims that almost all economists agree that even a flawed package is better than none and time is of the essence![1] Unfortunately, much of the policy advice offered recently by commentators, including many economists, is shockingly superficial. It is reminiscent of the simple prime-the-pump ideas of the early Keynes and does not acknowledge Keynes's own cautions and qualifications after the General Theory was published, especially in his advisory work for the UK Treasury in the 1940s. As a microeconomist, however, I wish to emphasize the resource-allocation issues that characterize both the current situation and its underlying causes. I do this because the macroeconomic way of thinking typically ignores all this. In doing so, it ignores the complexity of our system and generates policies that will not bring lasting recovery.

Of Jaguars And The Credulous

clipped from mises.org It may sound crazy, but suppose the government were to decide that the health of the nation depends upon producing Jaguar automobiles and providing them to as many people as possible. To facilitate that goal, it begins operating Jaguar plants all over the country, subsidizing production with tax money. To everyone's delight, it offers these luxury cars for sale at 50% off the old price. People flock to the showrooms and buy. Later, sales slow down, so the government cuts the price in half again. More people rush in and buy. Sales again slow, so it lowers the price to $900 each. People return to the stores to buy two or three, or half a dozen. Why not? Look how cheap they are! Buyers give Jaguars to their kids and park an extra one on the lawn. Finally, the country is awash in Jaguars. Alas, sales slow again, and the government panics. It must move more Jaguars, or, according to its theory — ironically now made fact — the economy will recede.

The Drill-less Dr. Doofus

clipped from www.qando.net At a forum with reporters on Thursday, the head of the department that has traditionally taken the lead on global oil-market policy, was asked what message the Obama administration had for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries at its meeting next month. � “I’m not the administration,” the Cabinet secretary replied. “I will be speaking and learning more about this in order to figure out what the U.S. position should be and what the president’s position is.” � Chu, who is still without a deputy, said he feels “like I’ve been dumped into the deep end of the pool” on oil policy. He may be a Nobel laureate, but it is obvious that he isn’t at all prepared for the job of Energy Secretary. How, given his obvious lack of knowledge about oil, can he put a comprehensive energy plan together for the US? Well, he wasn’t brought in to consider oil - he’s going to be the “green guy”. Oil, coal and other Neanderthal energy sources aren’t really something he’s concerned himself with.

AmeriJunk

clipped from www.qando.net What if we wanted to borrow a bunch of money and no one would lend it to us? How would that affect the “stimulus” or bailout? The government would have to either raise taxes or print money, wouldn’t it? One leads to an extended recession and the other leads to the same thing plus inflation. Guess what? Asian investors won’t buy debt and mortgage-backed securities from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac until they carry explicit U.S. guarantees, similar to those given on bonds issued by Bank of America Corp. or Citigroup Inc.

Professionals Think Logistics (Part 83,038)

clipped from www.davidwarrenonline.com The western world has a new captain who must deal with such problems as the one presented to NATO forces in Afghanistan, by the Kyrgyzstan government's decision to evict the U.S. from a major forward air base, at a time when supply routes through Pakistan are increasingly endangered. We have some idea how such a problem would have been dealt with by previous administrations, behind the scenes. We have no idea how the Obama administration will deal with such things. And we will see. Meanwhile, my most sanguine impression, in a sweeping view of the economic, social, and foreign prospects of the new American executive -- which embraces also the chaos we have seen in cabinet appointments and the like -- is that we have already returned to the Carter era. I hope it won't be worse than that.

The Beginning Of The End

clipped from www.smartmoney.com With the Dow Jones Industrial Average making new lows, President Obama may have it exactly right. When he signed the so-called “stimulus” legislation on Tuesday, he said, “today does mark the beginning of the end.” OK, he meant “the end of our economic problems.” But it was a peculiar choice of words for a man who is supposed to be so eloquent. It’s easily misunderstood — especially since every single effort he, his administration, and Congress have put forth to stabilize the economy has done nothing but drive the stock market lower and lower. I wrote here several weeks ago that the “stimulus” bill would be an expensive dud — nothing but a big-government power-grab. And I wrote last week about what a disaster the unveiling of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's half-baked bank rescue plan was. It's now gotten even worse, now that we can see a deadly surprises hidden in the "stimulus" bill, and now that we've heard the administration's plans for mortgage foreclosure relief.

Comments On Kicked "Kurds" And Chinese Hate

clipped from pajamasmedia.com Famously Dean Acheson at the National Press Club did neither on January 12, 1950. He speculated on what the US defense perimeter was, did not support South Korea, and 6 months and two weeks later North Korea attacked. A few threads back I did predict that we would sell out the Tibetans to buy Chinese backing in Afghanistan. By kicking them to the curb we are giving Tibetans the Kurd. We are in debt to China for more than a TRILLION dollars, so without China continuing to buy our debt President Obama’s entire “stimulus” plan, to the extent that it relies upon deficit spending, is at the mercy of the Chinese. “Luo Ping, a director general at the China Bank Regulatory Commission, told an American audience, “We hate you guys. Once you start issuing $1 trillion-$2 trillion … we know the dollar is going to depreciate, so we hate you guys but there is nothing much we can do.” (Financial Times, December 12, 2008.)”

The Surprise

clipped from pajamasmedia.com So why are the Chinese dissidents worth less than the Gazans? We guess the answer and it saddens us. Left to themselves politicians have the tendency to take up causes which can produce money flows. Reparations for slavery, oil money, Chinese investments — these are good leads. What have they to do with human rights in principle? Everything and nothing. To the extent that “human rights” are a claim on political attention and clout, they follow the sad and predictable pattern of human history. The people with the most rights are those whose plight can create the most lucrative political play. What distinguishes Middle Passage slavery from all other forms is there’s money in it. That Tibet is beautiful, ancient and exalted don’t matter none. What matters is mazooma; cash on the barrel — and it ain’t got none of that. Human society is not going to change any time soon. In a world where ideals are only roughly approximated, it is the occasional triumph of justice that provides the surprise

Enslaving, Beating, And Killing Update

clipped from hotair.com After all of the wailing and gnashing of teeth over both human-rights violations and trade-pact cheating in China from the Left during the last eight years, one would expect a Democratic administration to take a much tougher line on both.  With Hope and Change coming to the White House, Obama voters had every right to think that their new hero (bigger than Jesus Christ!) would lead the way to Truth and Justice.  For Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, though, the answer to WWJD and WWBOD is — what Bush did: Amnesty International and a pro-Tibet group voiced shock Friday after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vowed not to let human rights concerns hinder cooperation with China. Hillary wanted to stress that human rights are important, but that the Obama administration has its priorities.  They appear to be ranked in this order: Business (trade). Business (energy policy). Security (North Korea and Taiwan). Reminding China not to enslave, beat, and kill people.

The Clowns Of Anger

clipped from corner.nationalreview.com The present decision making system of the European Union is different from a classic parliamentary democracy, tested and proven by history. In a normal parliamentary system, part of the MPs support the government and part support the opposition. In the European parliament, this arrangement has been missing. Here, only one single alternative is being promoted and those who dare thinking about a different option are labelled as enemies of the European integration. Not so long ago, in our part of Europe we lived in a political system that permitted no alternatives and therefore also no parliamentary opposition. It was through this experience that we learned the bitter lesson that with no opposition, there is no freedom. That is why political alternatives must exist.  No wonder those clowns were angry.

Of Vultures And The Clueless

clipped from dailypundit.com NEW YORK (Reuters) - Renowned investor George Soros said on Friday the world financial system has effectively disintegrated, adding that there is yet no prospect of a near-term resolution to the crisis. Soros said the turbulence is actually more severe than during the Great Depression, comparing the current situation to the demise of the Soviet Union. I wonder what this predatory vulture of a wrecker is shorting now? clipped from dailypundit.com The US 30-year bond is now trading about 40 basis points above the 30-year swap market (i.e the eurodollar market). I’ve never seen this before, and it has to change. I saw no stronger evidence that Geithner was a nitwit than when he claimed that the money market dollar was rated too highly against the US Treasury. Sorry, but it’s the other way round (unless, like other nitwits, you are only interested in the short term). If you were to build a financial model on the single premise that the US government was clueless, you’d make a fortune.

OBambi Hearts OChavez

clipped from gatewaypundit.blogspot.com What's more, besides the phenomenal flood of money, Chavez created a pervasive atmosphere of menace as tiny dissident groups were firebombed, beset by red-shirted mobs, and threatened with tanks if their votes didn't go the way Chavez wanted. With Chavez amassing such power, does anyone believe he'll let himself be voted out of office when his term expires in 2013? In reality, unless he's physically thrown out, he'll be in power for a long, long time. It won't matter if inflation hits 60% in 2009, or the economy collapses, or the country defaults on its debts. That's nothing to congratulate. My, how things have changed in the past past few weeks. --Bush praised political dissidents. --Obama praises brutal regimes. Is this the change we've been looking for?

The "Constitutional Law Professor" Is Pleased ... With Unconstitutionality

clipped from gatewaypundit.blogspot.com Dear Leader is pleased. The Politico reported: Concluding his press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Ottawa, President Obama concluded with a line that should keep talk radio back home busy for a week to come. "I want to also, by the way, thank some of the Canadians who came over the border to campaign for me during the election," Obama said. "It was much appreciated."

Alarmingly Uncalibrated

clipped from wattsupwiththat.com You may recall that I posted about how the National Snow and Ice Data Center has an issue with the DMSP satellite sensor channel used to detect sea ice. Cryosphere Today is a few days behind in update compared to NSIDC, and here is what their imagery now looks like before and after:

We're Here To Help

clipped from online.wsj.com In 1995 HUD raised the primary quota for low- and moderate-income housing loans from the 30% set by Congress in 1992 to 40% in 1996 and to 42% in 1997. By the time the housing market collapsed, Fannie and Freddie faced three quotas. The first was for mortgages to individuals with below-average income, set at 56% of their overall mortgage holdings. The second targeted families with incomes at or below 60% of area median income, set at 27% of their holdings. The third targeted geographic areas deemed to be underserved, set at 35%. The results? In 1994, 4.5% of the mortgage market was subprime and 31% of those subprime loans were securitized. By 2006, 20.1% of the entire mortgage market was subprime and 81% of those loans were securitized. The Congressional Budget Office now estimates that GSE losses will cost $240 billion in fiscal year 2009. If this crisis proves nothing else, it proves you cannot help people by lending them more money than they can pay back.

The Lost Competition

clipped from www.forbes.com Nope. Something like 30% to 50% of excess wages was due to rents. Meaning that financial workers enjoyed pay packages that went well beyond what was necessary to keep them in front of their computer screens till dawn's early light. People in the financial sector were, in a word, overpaid. Professors P. and R. end this deeply satisfying paper by pointing out that the gap between the excess wages paid to financial peeps, and the wages paid by regulatory agencies to their minions made it impossible for the agencies to attract people competent enough to understand what was going on. It's a lovely twist; by losing the wage competition, regulators lost a lot of the power that regulation might have had in restraining the wage run-up. Perhaps the best and brightest can find jobs in the government, correcting the mistakes they made in private industry--and at government salaries.

Hazardous

clipped from www.realclearpolitics.com President Obama's massive mortgage-bailout plan is nothing more than a thinly disguised entitlement program that redistributes income from the responsible 92 percent of home-owning mortgage-holders who pay their bills on time to the irresponsible defaulters who bought more than they could ever afford. This is Obama's spread-the-wealth program in action. Team Obama is rewarding bad behavior. It is enlarging moral hazard. It is expanding its welfarist approach to economic policy. And with a huge expansion of government-owned zombie lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Team Obama is taking a giant step toward nationalizing the mortgage market. Meanwhile, Wall Street is awakening to the disappointment that the securitized mortgages behind the toxic assets that have done so much damage to banks and the credit system are not being treated in the Obama program. The oversight is incredible.

Kick The Can (Part 15,997,386,836,836)

clipped from www.qando.net After five years however, those government sponsored adjustable-rate mortgages will reset. The Obama adminstration promises they will reset at a moderate phased in level. But the loss of both the subsidy and the $1000 payment will automatically make the monthly payments much more expensive. What’s more, many market watchers expect interest rates will be much higher five years from now, putting additional pressure on mortgage rates. We could, in short, simply be prolonging the housing crisis. Nothing like kicking the can down the road 5 years is there? The hope, obviously, is that Obama is safely in his second term when this new crisis hits, and, of course, by then he can safely denounce those who default on their mortgages again as people who were given a chance but didn’t take advantage of it.

Now that I think about it, that number in the title seems inadequate...

Crickets Update

clipped from www.qando.net Noam Weisbrod of Ben Gurion University of the Negev and a team of researchers monitored a crack about 2 meters long (6.5 feet) and 1 meter (3.3 feet) deep for two years in the Negev Desert is Israel. Each night, they watched as warm air in the crack drew water vapor out of the surrounding rock, and lifted it into the cold evening air. If air in the crack is just 7 degrees warmer than the ambient temperature, it is buoyant enough to rise out of any crack in the ground bigger than 1 centimeter (0.4 inch) across, bringing with it any gases that leak out of the surrounding soil or rock. But the team was surprised to find that the crack they studied gave off water vapor up to 200 times faster than areas without fractures. The next time one of the AGW crowd tries the “settled science” canard, remind them of this little beauty and ask them how it affects the theory. I hope you enjoy the sound of crickets chirping.

Mayor Daley With Lipstick And A Che T-Shirt (Part 4,836,387)

clipped from pajamasmedia.com UPDATE: C.J. Burch isn’t buying the White House strategy: “It was a stupid attack all the same, and will look more stupid next week as their plans for the bank bail out become more obvious. Not even a press as supine as this one can allow itself to become the president’s red headed step child.” I dunno, I’m expecting heavy orders for henna . . . . ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Frank Hosford notes Obama’s thin skin: “The Obama White House started with Hannity, then Rush, & now CNBC?? I’m confused: I thought we had freedom of the press?” “Although I might be concerned about any private info on file with the government were I Santelli. I think we’re seeing a WH that looks like it’s being run more like a Chicago Ward, than the house that most presidents lived in. This is about attacking everyone and everything that opposes you. In the end, it demeans the office and raises serious concerns as to whether these people can be trusted with the power they now have.”

Feeling Chipperer Today?

clipped from ace.mu.nu It's 2 years old, and the image isn't available anymore, but when you've got a fat-lipped US Senator confirming it, and photos like this, it's going to be a helluva lot harder for Zardari to keep pretending to look the other way. It's almost like fighting an enemy with one hand tied behind your back. And the other one in a wood chipper.

The Real Saviour Turns Out To Be Rick

clipped from www.youtube.com

No less implausible than most other things you now see around you, hmm?

Nevermind

clipped from www.qando.net The latest to be caught up in it is Rahm Emanuel: News broke last week that Rahm Emanuel, now White House chief of staff, lived rent- free for years in the home of Rep. Rosa De Lauro (D-Conn.) - and failed to disclose the gift, as congressional ethics rules mandate. But this is only the tip of Emanuel’s previously undislosed ethics problems. One issue is the work Emanuel tossed the way of De Lauro’s husband. But the bigger one goes back to Emanuel’s days on the board of now-bankrupt mortgage giant Freddie Mac. So, lived free for 5 years and didn’t pay taxes on the gift (which, frankly doesn’t particularly bother me, but since Democrats would crucify a Republican official who did the same thing, I think hoisting a Dems on the same petard is perfectly acceptable), allegedly threw business into the lap of the person who was providing the gift, and fiddled while Freddie Mac burned. I’d say a tax audit is called for, but then since Timothy Geithner would have to call for it, so nevermind.

Saviour Based Economics Update

clipped from hotair.com But it is certainly debatable whether we should even be trying a savior-based plan to prevent foreclosures. Do we need Uncle Sam to  “save” homeowners who have sinned against the gods of financial prudence? James is perhaps a little too polite in this passage, but it was savior-based thinking that got us into this mess in the first place.  Congress took a well-functioning lending market and destroyed it by insisting on forcing loans to people who were at high risk of defaulting.  When government couldn’t get enough distortion through threats of penalties, it instead starting buying paper from subprime lenders through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and converted them into securities sold on Wall Street, which then infected the entire economy with bad debt.  That created unrealistic demand for dubious loans, which created a housing bubble — and its collapse has created all of the mischief we now see.

John Galt Update

clipped from www.humanevents.com A hidden effect of the November 4 elections and the national events that preceded them during this past year is perhaps best called the “John Galt Effect” in honor of Ayn Rand's famous character in Atlas Shrugged.  It is occurring to a very significant extent. Without this small group of people, the technological attainments of their generations would not have taken place. I own a small business ($30M) and can relate to this article. I am now spending about half of my time reallocating assets. I'm in a defensive mode, preparing for the upcoming increases in regulations and taxes. By their actions, our governments prove they hate producers, which makes sense (in a perverted way) when you think about it: most politicians wouldn't be (or weren't) successful as business owners. They think that producers must have cheated or lied in order to gain their wealth, hence the special regulations that politicians only apply to them.

Trojan Pig

clipped from gatewaypundit.blogspot.com

You Know The Dems Are Off The Rails...

clipped from gatewaypundit.blogspot.com You know things are out of control when Communist China is lecturing democrats on protectionism and now the former head of the KGB is lecturing US democrats against socialism. The Right Perspective and Pat Dollard reported: Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin has said the US should take a lesson from the pages of Russian history and not exercise “excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state’s omnipotence”. “In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute,” Putin said during a speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.” The Chinese communist government issued another warning to Democrats today-- "Increased borrowing by the United States to fund its massive stimulus package could cause the depreciation of U.S. dollar-denominated assets."

... when you find yourself in agreement with Vladamir Putin and the Chinese...

No Take-Down, No L.A.

clipped from shadow.foreignpolicy.com The logical next step, after high-level discussions in the U.S. government and consultation with our allies, is to issue North Korea a warning to stand down (conveyed either directly, indirectly, or through a leak of planning to strike and destroy the missile). Pyongyang would either then stand down silently or they would not. We lose little from the warning if I'm right in estimating that the North Koreans cannot protect the test missile from a U.S. strike once they stand it up on the gantry. Our warning would be that, if you stand up the missile (itself a plain violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1718), the United States will take it down. The North Korean perfection of a long-range nuclear missile capability against the United States, Japan, or the Republic of Korea would pose an imminent threat to the vital interests of our country.

Marvelous New Concern

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com Beyond that, one can only marvel at the Democrats' new concern for civility in political discourse. After all, while this cartoon had nothing to do with Obama, we do have a lot of experience with people referring to a President of the United States as a "chimp." That was President Bush, of course, for whom "chimp" was one of the liberals' favorite epithets. The insult was commemorated in the name of this web site. Graphic depictions of President Bush as a chimpanzee were legion; a Google Images search turns up page after page of examples. This one appeared at Democratic Underground and elsewhere:

Like People, Like Congress

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com

Make Us Your Slaves

clipped from neoneocon.com Oh, never, never can [people] feed themselves without us [the Inquisitors and controllers]! No science will give them bread so long as they remain free. In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet, and say to us, “Make us your slaves, but feed us.” They will understand themselves, at last, that freedom and bread enough for all are inconceivable together, for never, never will they be able to share between them! They will be convinced, too, that they can never be free, for they are weak, vicious, worthless, and rebellious. Thou didst promise them the bread of Heaven, but, I repeat again, can it compare with earthly bread in the eyes of the weak, ever sinful and ignoble race of man?

Gratitude

clipped from www.forbes.com This set off a frenzy of subprime and Alt-A mortgage origination, in which--as incredible as it seems--Fannie and Freddie were competing with Wall Street and one another for low-quality loans. From 2005 through 2007, the GSEs purchased over $1 trillion in subprime and Alt-A loans, driving up the housing bubble and driving down mortgage quality. During these years, HUD's regulations required that 55% of all GSE purchases be affordable, including 25% made to low- and very low-income borrowers. Housing bubbles are nothing new. We and other countries have had them before. The reason that the most recent bubble created a worldwide financial crisis is that it was inflated with low-quality loans required by government mandate. The fact that the same government must now come to the rescue is no reason for gratitude.

Friends

clipped from moelane.com [snip] Consider: Emanuel served on the Freddie Mac board of directors during the time that the government-backed lender lied about its earnings, a leading contributor to the current economic meltdown. The Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight Agency later singled out the Freddie Mac board as contributing to the fraud in 2000 and 2001 for “failing in its duty to follow up on matters brought to its attention.” In other words, board members ignored the red flags waving in their faces. The SEC later fined Freddie $50 million for its deliberate fraud in 2000, 2001 and 2002. Meanwhile, Emanuel was paid more than $260,000 for his Freddie “service.” Plus, after he resigned from the board to run for Congress in 2002, the troubled agency’s PAC gave his campaign $25,000 - its largest single gift to a House candidate. That’s what friends are for, isn’t it?