How about Bailout Ballpark?

This may be one of the best frivolous ideas to come out of New York Silly Council in a long time. The last of the Mohicans Republicans, Vincent Ignizio and James Oddo, are proposing that the Mets’ new stadium be renamed Citi/Taxpayer Field, in honor of “the taxpayers of the country who will foot the bill for not only part of stadium, but for the company itself.”

Constitution Bars Hillary from Secretary of State

It looks like New York may be stuck with Senator Clinton after all. Some eagle-eyed constitutional scholars have pointed out the obstacle presented by Article I, Section 6 of the U.S. Constitution:

No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.

“Emoluments” is 18th-century talk for salary. And the salary for all cabinet positions did go up in 2008, i.e., “during the Time for which [s]he was elected.” The real question, of course, is whether “constitutional law professor” Barack Obama (who should presumably be familiar with the fine print of the Constitution) will have the integrity to back down from nominating her. Assuming the answer is no, will any of Hillary’s fellow Senators — even the Republicans — have the balls to raise the issue during the confirmation process? Call me a cynic, but I’m guessing the answer is another no.

What, you expect our elected officials to uphold and defend the Constitution or something?

Scenes from the NYC End the Fed Protest

Despite the bitter, bitter cold, Saturday’s End the Fed protest at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was very well attended and high-energy. I’d guess there were about 200 activists when I was there. (I only stayed for about an hour, because I had my 6-year-old and 4-year-old daughters with me, and they couldn’t take the cold. Too bad, because they really enjoyed themselves while they were there.)

Anyway, here is some footage from the protest, taken by David Chen of the NYC Campaign for Liberty.

Shitigroup

I was among the first wave of 17,000 Citigroup employees to get downsized back in 2007, when the firm’s problems first began to surface. Perhaps surprisingly to some, getting rid of me didn’t get rid of their problems. It’s never fun to get the ax (although I have to admit, I did enjoy the extra quality time with my kids), so I have a bit of sangfroid about Citi’s imminent demise. That is offset, however, by seeing the hundreds of ESOP shares I bought when the stock was trading north of $50, now worth less than $4.

Even more irritating is the certain knowledge that the bailout is proving to be the big fat waste of taxpayer money many of predicted it would be. Citigroup received a $25 billion injection from the Treasury just last month. Its total market capitalization is now $20.19 billion. Do the math. And that market cap figure is based on last night’s closing price of $4.71. With 90 minutes to go in today’s trading, it’s down another buck at $3.70. Odds are this weekend will see its collapse, acquisition or — worst of all so probably most likely — government takeover.

Rally to End the Fed This Saturday

New York sound money activists, comprised of members of the Manhattan Libertarian Party, Campaign for Liberty NYC, and We Are Change, will gather at 33 Liberty Street this Saturday, November 22, 2008, from noon until 5 p.m. as part of a nationally coordinated action organized by members of Restore the Republic, the grassroots freedom movement founded in 2007 by filmmaker Aaron Russo.

Ninety-eight years after the meeting that established the current Federal Reserve System, protesters will gather at Federal Reserve Banks in 39 states to denounce the current banking system and support Rep. Ron Paul’s (R-TX) legislation to repeal the Federal Reserve Act.

End the Fed participants, who promote a return to a commodity backed monetary policy based on the Austrian School of Economics, believe the Federal Reserve Bank is responsible for the current economic crisis, primarily through inflation of the U.S. money supply and continued market interference. Supporters hope the rally will highlight the unconstitutional system and its detrimental effects on U.S. economic stability.

“Our main objective is to inform the public about the insidious nature of the Federal Reserve, how it is the source of our unsustainable inflationary bubbles and is responsible for the erosion of our wealth. In this current economic environment, we feel our message is more important than ever,” said David Chen, a member of Campaign for Liberty NYC.

Mukasey Smacks Down Kelly

It’s almost inconceivable that a government agency could have even less regard for civil liberties and the rule of law than the Bush Justice Department, but the NYPD is no ordinary government agency. It seems Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey are in a spat over the NYPD’s overly broad — and again, that’s overly broad even by Bush administration standards — pursuit of wiretapping and eavesdropping authority.

According to Mukasey, the NYPD sought sweeping authority to eavesdrop on numerous “communications facilities,” including phones in public places, rather than phones used by actual specific suspects. You know, the trivial due process details required by FISA and the Fourth Amendment.

Ironically, Mukasey points out that the NYPD’s frivolous requests for eavesdropping warrants may actually make it harder to go after real suspects:

“The less the FISA court comes to trust the validity of the applications, the more inclined the judges will be to impose on all applications the kind of scrutiny that doubtful applications merit, which of course takes more time and causes more delay because the court’s resources are limited,” he said. “The greater the delay, the fewer the applications can be processed and granted within a given time. The fewer successful FISA applications, the less intelligence can be gathered. The less intelligence gathered, the greater the danger to all Americans, including New Yorkers. That is not a complex formula.”

Oh, snap!

Gutless Wonders

Albany Watch has a good roundup of editorial reaction to the three stooges’ farcical “emergency” budget meeting yesterday:

The Albany Times-Union said it was a “showcase of New York dysfunction” and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos showed “New Yorkers exactly why he no longer deserves to be Senate majority leader.”

But the New York Post’s Fred Dicker “why are these men smiling?”

The New York Times said that Senate Republicans walked out the winner because they got what they wanted: no cuts and no decisions until January, when Democrats in the Senate would have to deal with it. “The Republicans’ strategy was deft. It was brilliant,” the paper wrote.

The Daily News called the leaders “our gutless wonders” and says “to call them childish is to insult children. To call them clownish is to demean the members of an honorable profession. To call them cowards is to capture the essence of New York State’s legislative leaders.”

The Journal News said the events in Albany was ”as predictable as bare trees in November.”

The Buffalo News said “Legislators appear content to treat the state’s financial crisis as just another problem to ignore as upstate continues its slide into pauperhood.”

As Cindy Adams would say, only in New York, kids.

Great cartoon from FEE blog on the Fed. Reserve System

http://www.feeblog.org/federal-reserve/duck-tales-inflation-lesson/

Clueless Hank Paulson Does It Again

Just a few weeks ago, when the bailout was being rammed through Congress, I pointed out that Hank Paulson has proven himself clueless. He was wrong when he denied that were facing an economic crisis, and he was wrong again when he predicted a complete meltdown of our financial system if Congress didn’t give him a blank check immediately. Since Hank is always wrong, I asked, why should we “just trust him” that buying up bad investments from Wall Street was the solution to the crisis?

So it should come as no surprise that now Hank has decided the taxpayers don’t need to buy up the toxic assets of Wall Street after all. Whoops. Instead, he’s just going to continue to give our money directly to the financial firms that made the bad investments.

And how do we know that this time Paulson finally has it right? His statement today is less than reassuring:

“And to adequately reform our system, we must make sure we fully understand the nature of the problem which will not be possible until we are confident it is behind us.”

Atta boy, Hank. Who cares if you fully understand the nature of the problem? That’s no reason not to keep throwing hundreds of billions of dollars at it.

Keynesianism or Changeenism?

Keynesian economics is an obsolete system for anyone who cares to know, or anyone who doesn’t care to live through the inevitable inflation created by it’s truly failed policies of spurring economic activity through massive government spending, especially when it involves impossible deficits. If someone could please inform this to our president elect Mr. Obama, let alone Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and particularly Barney Frank who possibly referred to this ideology by coining the term “changeenism”, unless he meant to say Keynesianism, a few weeks back when informing a reporter that deficits are nothing to worry about.

Really? Considering we’re footing the bill, is anyone doing the math? First, there was the $150 billion stimulus package earlier this year, where millions of checks were sent to the wrong address. Oops. Guess they’ll have to spend millions more, again, in administrative costs returning money that was ours to begin with, since cutting our taxes would be much too easy. Then there was the $700 billion stimulus package, which they didn’t anticipate banks to hoard the money, and the $85 billion paid out to AIG. And lest we forget bailing out the auto industry.  Check please.

And now there’s talk of another stimulus packages once Obama takes office. Not to mention the promise of millions of new “green jobs” which can’t be outsourced, and will no doubt be unionized, replete with lifelong pensions most likely footed by taxpayers in the private sector who don’t have that same luxury. These should come in handy once Obama follows through on taxing the coal industry out of existence. Heck, it only supplies over 50% of our energy. But that’s OK. Just make sure to really, really inflate your tires and wear a sweater come winter like Jimmy Carter prognosticated when he too promised taking us off foreign oil.

There’s nothing new about the “change” we’re going to experience, other than naming it the New New Deal. Maybe this time around it will defy the laws of supply, demand , labor and scarcity unlike the previous New Deal which most people aren’t aware how it’s policies turned a recession that would have corrected itself  into the Great Depression and prolonged it by seven years. All the signs are there. High taxes, protectionism, the subtle socialization of our banking and energy industries. The only missing puzzle pieces are John Maynard Keynes and Franklin D Roosevelt. At least we have Barney Frank and Barack Obama. They’ll do just the same.