Main Street Businesses: What Credit Crunch?

While the fat cats squeal, free market business men and women are going about their own business of creating jobs, making profit and improving choice and the standard of living.  William Dunkelberg, chief economist for the National Federation of Independant Business, the largest small business lobbying group, says the bailout will do “probably nothing” to help small business.

This article in the Washington Business Journalsaid,

William Dunkelberg, chief economist for the National Federation of Independent Business, has a different view.

“Probably nothing” is his assessment of what the massive bailout would do for small businesses.

Dunkelberg, who also chairs Liberty Bell Bank in Cherry Hill, N.J., said the rescue plan wouldn’t affect his bank or most other community banks.

“I don’t have any toxic mortgages to sell,” he said. “We have money to lend.”

There is not even agreement on whether small businesses face a credit crunch.

A net 10 percent of NFIB members said loans were harder to get in August than three months earlier, but only 2 percent cited the cost and availability of credit as their No. 1 business problem — far below the 37 percent who cited credit as their biggest issue in 1982.

When the economy slows, businesses may have a harder time qualifying for loans because their sales and profits decline, Dunkelberg said. But uncertainty about the economy is decreasing small businesses’ demand for credit.

There is “no sign of the seizing up of credit markets,” Dunkelberg said.

Hello!!!!!  Maybe since we are in the middle of a bad debt induced financial crisis – perhaps IT SHOULD BE a little harder to get loans.  The point is ONLY THE FREE MARKET can produce the “correct” allocation of resources.   Can you possibly trust politicians to do it?  

Regarding the alleged seizing up of the credit markets (the government is the only thing doing any seizing) the article goes on to presents some difference of opinion, so it’s worth reading the whole thing, but here’s evidence of exactly why libertarian economists say we should keep government’s stcky fingers out of it.

George Mokrzan, chief economist for Huntington Bancshares Inc., said the small business sector is “quite healthy overall.”

“It would be foolish for banks not to lend to them,” he said.

Banks are concerned, however, that regulators will “start second-guessing” every loan decision, said Jim Chessen, chief economist for the American Bankers Association.

That is already happening in some cases, even at well-capitalized banks lending to “good prospects,” he said. “That is having a chilling effect on the willingness of banks to lend to even the best borrowers.”

The government guarantee on SBA loans is designed to encourage banks to lend to small businesses, but that program has shrunk dramatically.

In the wake of the USA-PATRIOT Act, the Iraq war, and countless other government swindles let’s remember the words of some true heroes – The Who – when they sang ” We won’t be fooled again”. 

So call your Congressmember and tell them to “just say no” to the bailout.  BTW I’ve heard rumor the bill will be called the USA PayFor It Act – “U Sucker Americans Pay For It”. 

 

Toxic Bull Shit

The more I listened to the congressional appearances of Paulson & Bernanki the more convinced I become that this is Bush’s last attempt to scare us into another jump to the National Socialist , military fascist state .

The market is frozen by the creation of foolish financial derivatives too complex to be marked to market every night as SarbanesOxley regulations demand .

There is no way a subset of market minds can solve the mess caused by such regulation quicker that the entire set can . Left to the market , this spike would work itself out like the oil spike has .

I wish I had time to flesh this out but don’t right now . Everyone who has not yet followed up on DownsizeDC’s email message to tell their WDC “reps” that they will vote and work against them if they vote for this historic fraud .

Downsize DC gets it right on the bailout – tell your representatives to just say no!

With his characteristic depth of insight, Jim Babka at Downsize DC points our that credits markets are far from frozen and that this is just another example of big government creating a crisis so they can pick your pocket.  Read it here.

You can use the Downsize DC site to quickly and easily email your Senators and Congress Member and tell them to get their sticky fingers OUT of your pocket.

Let the people that made the bad loans pay for the bad loans with their equity.

Who Will Lead The Freedom Movement?

Those of us in the Freedom Movement have been watching our own little soap opera the last few weeks as some of our heroes and leaders blink and make some embarrassing mistakes. I’ve heard a lot of griping and done a little myself. It’s been suggested that Ron Paul botched his primary campaign and then fragmented support across four parties.  It’s even been suggested that the Bob Barr campaign has failed and that we should temper or withdraw our support.  Now Ron Paul has endorsed Chuck Baldwin.

 

As someone who’s given significant time and money to Paul, Ruwart and Barr and who voted for Ruwart on all 6 ballots at the convention, I started thinking about the appropriate response.  I’ll confess I needed a little pep talk from an old friend at Libertarian HQ but I have emerged re-energized an unapologetic.

 

We are Libertarians – not statists who need fancy leaders to tell us how to live our lives.  We value thinking for ourselves and decentralized decision making.  Looking to Ron Paul, or Bob Barr for all the answers sounds more like a lap dog than a Libertarian.

 

Nobody’s perfect and politicians are less perfect than others.  Even “our” politicians are not going to fix things for us.  We have to do it for ourselves.

 

Ron Paul’s endorsement of Chuck Baldwin decentralizes power among the third party movement which delays effectiveness but it doesn’t reduce it.  It increases competition which may not be good for the Libertarian Party but it’s good for the movement.  The most important thing is to break the monopoly strangle hold of the existing system and get people listening to the third parties.  Our message – the freedom message – will win. 

 

Ron Paul’s endorsement of Chuck Baldwin increases competition and we libertarians think competition is good.   I’ll be voting for Bob Barr and I wish Paul had endorsed him but while Ron Paul is a hero of the Freedom Movement, probably its biggest living hero, he doesn’t own it and he’s not perfect.  Nor does/is Bob Barr or Chuck Baldwin.

 

If our leaders are all fallible then who can we look to for leadership?  Duh – the Mirror!  That’s right YOU lead the Freedom Movement and you have to take responsibility to strengthen it and move it forward.  For the next 40 days we have no time for griping or second guessing.  We have no time for arm chair strategizing.   The only thing we have time for is winning hearts and minds and maybe even a few votes.  Of course that doesn’t mean any blind devotion to cults of personality or abandonment of principle to increase media visibility.  It means picking a candidate or an issue or initiative, making your own decision and then making something happen.  If you want to work with other, like minded people there is no shortage.  You can connect with a lot of us here. www.libertarian.meetup.com/324

 

Ron Paul focused a Freedom Movement that has been developing since the dawn of man.  Bob Barr has gotten a lot of media attention and is polling about 12 times better than our usual Presidential vote.  The statists are is in disarray.  We are bigger and better organized than ever.  The people are crying out for a change.  This is the time. This is our opportunity.  It’s up to you to make freedom happen. Now!

Life in the War Zone

So there’s a cornucopia of cops, a plethora of police, a bevy of badges, a fuckload of fuzz these days in my neighborhood.

You get the idea: It’s like being in an occupied country. 

Thank goodness all the dictators currently in residence in Turtle Bay are not being inconvenienced by taxpaying, working people trying to get down Second Avenue.

Pray for Us, Sarah Palin!

Apparently the church where Sarah Palin worships recently sponsored a “Pray Away the Gay” retreat to try to cure those who suffer from same-sex attraction. The good folks at Marriage Equality NY put together the following video in response. Watch for cameos from Manhattan Libertarian members and candidates, including Isaiah Matos, Bill Buran and Dodge Landesman:

Savage neo-liberal capitalism

Funny how government always comes to the rescue last minute to correct the problems it helped create in the first place. Fortunately, Wall Street is only a stone’s throw away to take the blame instead.

But how many of the same people who enjoy parroting the trendy, way left of center cliché that greedy CEO’s and corporate America should hang will take the time to read about the government mandates that helped promote subprime mortgages to begin with? How many in the media will be reporting about the unintended, but predictable consequences behind the noble pursuit of the Community Reinvestment Act of 1992, which stems from Jimmy Carter’s administration?

For anyone wondering why banks took on such risky loans from borrowers, how many will remember Franklin Delano Raines, the Clinton-appointed head of Fannie Mae who took an early retirement in 2004 after having made it his top priority for people with poor credit to get mortgages for minimal money down thanks to programs such as the CRA? Was it really about ensuring more people, particularly low-income families and minority groups could finally become homeowners? Or was it the million dollar bonuses Raines and others received for overstating Fannie Mae’s earnings and bundling an inordinate amount of bad loans with good ones and convincing investment banks all over the world they were a safe risk since they were “government insured”? Will anyone other than the financial papers bother reporting about Raine’s and Fannie Mae’s shoddy accounting practices that involved overstating profits by $6.3 billion, making the infamous Ken Lay and Enron’s $567 million overstatement look like a conceivable mistake? Where is the outrage in the mainstream media now?

As usual, it will be misplaced by journalists who find it much easier to report unfounded drivel. Such as the current chorus of “intellectuals” who don’t understand actual, inevitable economic realities such as price elasticity and budget constraints but are quick to coin misleading, albeit catchy phrases such as “savage neoliberal capitalism”. Terms sure to become a hit among the Che Guevara T-shirt crowd who keep a watchful eye on “the system” between sipping Chai Lattes and pondering the profundity of Noam Chomsky. Their flawed interpretation of events in turn will “trickle down” and churn the next conspiracy theory involving the rich spend every waking hour trying to keep the poor from achieving the American dream. God forbid the average taxpayer should ever hear another side to the argument such as the facts.

“Decisions by the Secretary May Not Be Reviewed by Any Court of Law”

Holy checks and balances, Batman! Just so we’re all clear how much unbridled authority we’d be granting clueless Hank Paulson (see my previous post), Christopher Manion at LewRockwell.com calls attention to this little provision tucked inside the “emergency” bailout legislation:

“Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”

Whoa. Just f-ing whoa. This is looking more and more like the fiscal version of the PATRIOT Act, both in terms of unchecked governmental power and the speed with which it is being bullrushed through Congress.

If we’ve learned nothing else over the last seven years, please let us remember that “just trust us” is not an option when it comes to the Bush administration.

Paulson and Bloomberg Don’t Have a Clue

On Meet the Press yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg expressed his full confidence in Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to steer us out of the current economic crisis:

“Well, I think number one, Hank’s the right guy for now.  He knows what goes on on Wall Street, he understands these complex financial instruments in a ways most people do not and most Treasury secretaries do not. So if I had to have one person at the helm today, I would pick Hank Paulson.”

I’m sure Hank Paulson is a bright guy, but if his public statements over the past week are any indication, he simply doesn’t have any idea what he’s talking about. Here is a quote from Paulson just last Monday, September 15:

“I’ve got to say our banking system is a safe and a sound one,” Paulson told a packed briefing room. “The American people can remain very, very confident about their accounts and our banking system.”

Now here’s what Paulson told a group of Congressmen just three days later, on Thursday, September 18:

“We’re literally maybe days away from a complete meltdown of our financial system, with all the implications, here at home and globally.”

I’ll concede that last week was one for the history books with some amazing twists and turns. But still, just how far does Paulson have his head up his ass if on Monday he thought everything was essentially hunky-dory, and by Thursday he thought we were on the brink of armageddon? And if he’s that clueless, why in the world should we “just trust him” that his massive $700 billion bailout scheme is the only possible solution to the crisis?

And of course now they’re talking about making Bloomberg — who has such blind faith in Paulson — the “economic czar” in charge of administering Paulson’s boondoggle. The blind leading the blind. Perfect.

I’ve got a better idea. How about making Ron Paul the economic czar. Unlike Bloomberg, Paulson, Bernanke or any of the other usual suspects, Paul has been warning us for years that this was coming. He also has real solutions, well thought out, not a half-baked scheme that needs to be rushed through Congress with no debate.

Liars at LIRR

The New York Times is reporting that virtually every retired employee of the Long Island Railroad applies for and receives a disability pension. The disability pensions are issued by an obscure federal agency called the U.S. Railroad Retirement Board.

The scandal is compounded by obscene labor agreements that allow LIRR employees to retire with a pension at age 50, so they’ll be collecting those disability payments for a loooong time. There is also some crazy rule, according to the Times, that allows LIRR workers to collect 4 days of pay for 1 day of work, which resulted in 8 senior train engineers earning between $215,000 and $277,000 in 2006.

The Times article also includes this tidbit for its many readers who apparently haven’t heard that there is no free lunch: “While the federal government pays disability claims, a significant burden falls to taxpayers.”

So you mean when the government acts like Santa Claus, it’s really us taxpayers who are footing the bill? Do our Congressmen know about this?