"You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves."
--William J.H. Boetcker
According to Wikipedia (thanks to comment by R on this blog) the above quote is often mistakenly attributed to Abraham Lincoln, although it is still good.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Obama's Contributors Benefit From Sub-prime Crisis
Contrairimairi forwarded this story from M. Simon's Power and Control blog. Simon writes of the Superior Bank of Chicago's bankruptcy:
"The uninsured depositors were dealt another blow recently when the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a lower court decision to put any recovered money toward the debt that the bank owners owe the federal government before the depositors get anything.
"But this seven-year-old bank failure has relevance in another way today, since the chair of Superior’s board for five years was Penny Pritzker, a member of one of America’s richest families and the current Finance Chair for the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, the same candidate who has lashed out against predatory lending.."
Moreover:
“The [sub-prime] financial engineering that created the Wall Street meltdown was developed by the Pritzkers and Ernst and Young, working with Merrill Lynch to sell bonds securitized by sub-prime mortgages,” Timothy J. Anderson, a whistleblower on financial and bank fraud, told me in an interview."
Simon adds:
"Well, isn't that special. Kind of reminds you of O's special friend Tony Rezko who worked the low income housing scam in Chicago. Small potatoes that Tony. He only destroyed millions in housing value. Pritzker was involved with trillions. But you know the Democrats really have a heart for the poor. As long as they can rob them blind."
Simon discusses another "thief for Obama", Jim Johnson. As well, he discusses ACORN's many links to Fannie Mae. He asks:
"Which politicians did Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae's Political Action Committees support? How about a look at the top five.
1. Dodd, Christopher J D-CT $133,900
2. Kerry, John D-MA
$111,000
3. Obama, Barack D-IL
$105,849
4. Clinton, Hillary D-NY
$75,550
5. Kanjorski, Paul E D-PA
$65,500"
Well what do you know. They're all Democrats. Change we can believe in. Read it all here.
"The uninsured depositors were dealt another blow recently when the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a lower court decision to put any recovered money toward the debt that the bank owners owe the federal government before the depositors get anything.
"But this seven-year-old bank failure has relevance in another way today, since the chair of Superior’s board for five years was Penny Pritzker, a member of one of America’s richest families and the current Finance Chair for the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, the same candidate who has lashed out against predatory lending.."
Moreover:
“The [sub-prime] financial engineering that created the Wall Street meltdown was developed by the Pritzkers and Ernst and Young, working with Merrill Lynch to sell bonds securitized by sub-prime mortgages,” Timothy J. Anderson, a whistleblower on financial and bank fraud, told me in an interview."
Simon adds:
"Well, isn't that special. Kind of reminds you of O's special friend Tony Rezko who worked the low income housing scam in Chicago. Small potatoes that Tony. He only destroyed millions in housing value. Pritzker was involved with trillions. But you know the Democrats really have a heart for the poor. As long as they can rob them blind."
Simon discusses another "thief for Obama", Jim Johnson. As well, he discusses ACORN's many links to Fannie Mae. He asks:
"Which politicians did Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae's Political Action Committees support? How about a look at the top five.
1. Dodd, Christopher J D-CT $133,900
2. Kerry, John D-MA
$111,000
3. Obama, Barack D-IL
$105,849
4. Clinton, Hillary D-NY
$75,550
5. Kanjorski, Paul E D-PA
$65,500"
Well what do you know. They're all Democrats. Change we can believe in. Read it all here.
Barack Obama's Leeches
Mayor Bloomberg was on television yesterday. I wasn't paying careful attention but he seemed to be suggesting that American International Group will survive despite financial losses and that markets need to be regulated. The Sun reports today that Governor Paterson is changing New York insurance law to allow the firm to borrow from its subsidiaries. The rule of law is is becoming an alien concept to our increasingly socialistic, government-by-whim society. What especially troubles me is that I doubt that Governor Paterson or Mayor Bloomberg have ever learned about or thought about why the rule of law was associated with the solitary (in world history) rise of technology and wealth under free market capitalism, and how violating it will destroy the incentives and flexibility that enable it. Americans have allowed themselves to be led by fools.
Another potential milestone on America's government-built expressway to serfdom is that, as the Sun's Russell Berman reports, our inept automakers may get a bailout from the American people. The automakers don't think enough of American workers to locate their plants in Flint or Detroit, but they are happy to accept alms from those same workers.
The Sun notes:
"The nation's top car manufacturers are pushing Congress to act by the end of this month to guarantee $25 billion in loans to help them invest in the production of fuel-efficient vehicles. The idea is being greeted warmly by both the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, who see it as a way to win votes in the swing state of Michigan while also moving America away from dependence on foreign oil."
The pattern of government support for incompetently managed businesses, from Fannie Mae in Washington to General Motors in Detroit to Bear Stearns in Manhattan, is a function of a failed, mercantilist economic model associated with Harvard University and the New Deal. The vicious harm that this ideology is doing to America's future is evident. When firms are badly managed, they should be closed and replaced by more nimble firms with more capable managements, not supported at taxpayer expense through the printing of money. Readjustments are painful, but the alternative is economic decline as resources are diverted to incompetent and slothful cronies at the expense of innovative entrepreneurs.
In response to massive over-regulation, government subsidized-firm incompetence and failed, New Deal economic theories, Senator Barack Obama, like Mayor Bloomberg a product of Harvard's graduate program, calls for more regulation. This call is echoed by John McCain, Harry Reid and our other illiterate leaders, who tell the American public that they will illegalize greed, all the while snickering as the laws that they pass reflect their own greed.
Senator Obama reminds me of Benjamin Rush, the physician who signed the Declaration of Independence. As a political activist we can respect Rush, but as a physician he advocated the aggressive use of leeches to cure disease. The idea that leeches can cure cancer is much like Senator Obama's and Mayor Bloomberg's idea that more regulation can cure economic decline.
The Sun notes that Senator McCain's diagnosis is as off base as Senator Obama's, and they are right. The state of education about economics is this. The establishment advocates economic ideas that harm innovation and the average American's long term prospects, and they do it in the name of helping the average American. Regulation is a leech-cure that weakens the patient instead of curing him. What is worse, though, is that regulation does protect one group: the physicians' friends, the wealthy recipients of corporate welfare.
Benjamin Rush aimed to cure his patients. Barack Obama and Mayor Michael Bloomberg are much worse. They are willing to harm the American public in order to benefit themselves, their contributors and their fellow Harvard alumni. They may really believe their silly ideas. But alternative knowledge is available, and they are unwilling to be educated.
Another potential milestone on America's government-built expressway to serfdom is that, as the Sun's Russell Berman reports, our inept automakers may get a bailout from the American people. The automakers don't think enough of American workers to locate their plants in Flint or Detroit, but they are happy to accept alms from those same workers.
The Sun notes:
"The nation's top car manufacturers are pushing Congress to act by the end of this month to guarantee $25 billion in loans to help them invest in the production of fuel-efficient vehicles. The idea is being greeted warmly by both the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, who see it as a way to win votes in the swing state of Michigan while also moving America away from dependence on foreign oil."
The pattern of government support for incompetently managed businesses, from Fannie Mae in Washington to General Motors in Detroit to Bear Stearns in Manhattan, is a function of a failed, mercantilist economic model associated with Harvard University and the New Deal. The vicious harm that this ideology is doing to America's future is evident. When firms are badly managed, they should be closed and replaced by more nimble firms with more capable managements, not supported at taxpayer expense through the printing of money. Readjustments are painful, but the alternative is economic decline as resources are diverted to incompetent and slothful cronies at the expense of innovative entrepreneurs.
In response to massive over-regulation, government subsidized-firm incompetence and failed, New Deal economic theories, Senator Barack Obama, like Mayor Bloomberg a product of Harvard's graduate program, calls for more regulation. This call is echoed by John McCain, Harry Reid and our other illiterate leaders, who tell the American public that they will illegalize greed, all the while snickering as the laws that they pass reflect their own greed.
Senator Obama reminds me of Benjamin Rush, the physician who signed the Declaration of Independence. As a political activist we can respect Rush, but as a physician he advocated the aggressive use of leeches to cure disease. The idea that leeches can cure cancer is much like Senator Obama's and Mayor Bloomberg's idea that more regulation can cure economic decline.
The Sun notes that Senator McCain's diagnosis is as off base as Senator Obama's, and they are right. The state of education about economics is this. The establishment advocates economic ideas that harm innovation and the average American's long term prospects, and they do it in the name of helping the average American. Regulation is a leech-cure that weakens the patient instead of curing him. What is worse, though, is that regulation does protect one group: the physicians' friends, the wealthy recipients of corporate welfare.
Benjamin Rush aimed to cure his patients. Barack Obama and Mayor Michael Bloomberg are much worse. They are willing to harm the American public in order to benefit themselves, their contributors and their fellow Harvard alumni. They may really believe their silly ideas. But alternative knowledge is available, and they are unwilling to be educated.
Monday, September 15, 2008
New York Huckabee Supporters Helping Obama Slide
Pinni is my former student who also happens to be the head of the Federalist Society at Cardozo Law School in New York. Pinni was one of my very few best students in 17 years of teaching, and I pleased to say that he is doing well in law school. He just forwarded a fascinating e-mail from Myers Mermel, former New York State chair of New Yorkers for Huckabee. Mermel points out that McCain/Palin are within 4.2% of Obama. Wow, what a difference a few weeks can make! Mermel is now head of the McCain campaign's grassroots efforts. Mermel is encouraging New Yorkers to go to www.nymccain.com and sign up for county MEETUPS. Yay!
>Former Huckabee Supporters:
I am sure you have been as encouraged by Gov. Sarah Palin as I have. Her agenda and values are very much like Gov Huckabee's.
The Republican Presidential team of McCain/Palin is now addressing the concerns that we raised during the primaries.
I am writing to ask your help. I have become a part of the McCain campaign and am in charge of our grassroots efforts across New York State. Basically I am in charge of getting out the vote
I have remarkable news. Today Siena released a poll showing Obama was only 4.2% points ahead of McCain in New York State. This lead has been narrowed since June when Obama led by 18 points.
The McCain/Palin ticket is gaining in the polls by gathering the vast support of many Republicans and Democrats across New York State. But we are not there yet. However, we are in the home stretch.
I want to ask you to go back into the fields of politics one more time. We all need your help in order to turn New York into the biggest surprise victory in decades.
Please go to www.nymccain.com and sign up within your county. I would like you to go to your county and join the local MEETUP group. If there is not a MEETUP group in your county, please form one.
We are trying to get all MEETUP groups to gather around the first debate which is September 26th. From there we will start with targeted get-out-the-vote efforts.
Please consider helping; a lot is at stake. Please let me see you at MEETUP.
For such a time as this,
Myers Mermel
Former Huckabee NY State Chair
McCain/Palin Chair Grassroots NY State
myers.mermel@nymccain.com
>Former Huckabee Supporters:
I am sure you have been as encouraged by Gov. Sarah Palin as I have. Her agenda and values are very much like Gov Huckabee's.
The Republican Presidential team of McCain/Palin is now addressing the concerns that we raised during the primaries.
I am writing to ask your help. I have become a part of the McCain campaign and am in charge of our grassroots efforts across New York State. Basically I am in charge of getting out the vote
I have remarkable news. Today Siena released a poll showing Obama was only 4.2% points ahead of McCain in New York State. This lead has been narrowed since June when Obama led by 18 points.
The McCain/Palin ticket is gaining in the polls by gathering the vast support of many Republicans and Democrats across New York State. But we are not there yet. However, we are in the home stretch.
I want to ask you to go back into the fields of politics one more time. We all need your help in order to turn New York into the biggest surprise victory in decades.
Please go to www.nymccain.com and sign up within your county. I would like you to go to your county and join the local MEETUP group. If there is not a MEETUP group in your county, please form one.
We are trying to get all MEETUP groups to gather around the first debate which is September 26th. From there we will start with targeted get-out-the-vote efforts.
Please consider helping; a lot is at stake. Please let me see you at MEETUP.
For such a time as this,
Myers Mermel
Former Huckabee NY State Chair
McCain/Palin Chair Grassroots NY State
myers.mermel@nymccain.com
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