The House is voting today on a bill to improve transparency in the TARP bailout program. TARP is, shall we say, rather opaque. 25 different agencies administer TARP funds. Each one uses different accounting standards. Keeping track of everything is almost impossible.
I wrote an article not too long ago saying that transparency is welcome symptomatic relief. But TARP itself is a disease. The only way to cure the disease of bailout programs is to abolish them. Russ Roberts said much the same…
Bank of America recently announced that it will impose annual fees on some of its cardholders. This is in response to the CARD Act (Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009), which effectively shifts costs to responsible people from irresponsible people, forcing banks to increase charges to responsible credit card holders.
The CARD Act has also wiped out many cash-back and rewards programs and rebates on credit cards, something earlier chronicled here. Despite that fact, its passage was trumpeted by President Obama…
While Obama ally ACORN attempts to gag whistleblowers who exposed its role in a recent scandal, the Obama administration is trying to gag critics of its health-care plan, which the Congressional Budget Office says could wipe out many Medicare Advantage programs relied on by the elderly. (”The Obama Administration wants to seriously curtail or end Medicare Advantage.”)
It has issued a gag order to Humana, a health insurer that provides Medicare Advantage services, ordering it not to tell customers about how Obamacare could reduce the availability of…
Your host Richard Morrison welcomes back returning guest co-hosts Michelle Minton and Jeremy Lott for Episode 54 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We start with ominous hints of new taxes, California state employees making strike threats and the possible antitrust implications of the Microhoo partnership. We continue with a double-dipping pay scandal, the suppression of dissent in Venezuela and some fully transparent Olympic News.
Your faithful host Richard Morrison welcomes back special guest co-hosts William Yeatman and Michelle Minton for Episode 46 (listen HERE!). We start with the investors that are getting worked over by the politically-distorted bankruptcy of Chrysler, the ascension of the Swedish Pirate Party to the European Parliament and the Great Porn Wall of China. We then move on to proof that beer is better for you than water, a sign that airline travel may get more expensive, and an example of how voters deal…
Earlier, I wrote about the Indiana pension funds’ challenge to the Obama Administration’s plan to effectively give Chrysler to the UAW Union, while cheating the pension funds that loaned it money (and ripping off taxpayers), and how that violates federal bankruptcy laws.
The government is now arguing that the pension funds don’t have legal standing to challenge the plan, since they can’t prove they will be worse off than if the Administration had just sat back and let Chrysler go bankrupt naturally. The government…
A federal appeals court has refused to block the Administration’s illegal auto bailout, which rips off taxpayers and pension funds to enrich the UAW union. The pension funds that challenged the bailout will now appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The bailout violates the federal TARP statute by diverting financial-system bailout funds to a takeover of the auto industry. And the government’s reorganization plan for Chrysler violates federal bankruptcy laws by ripping off lenders to give the company to the UAW union.
As I noted earlier, the Indiana…
Your hosts Richard Morrison and Cord Blomquist are joined by special guest co-host Jeremy Lott for a very swashbuckling Episode 38 of LibertyWeek. We start with the rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips from Somali pirates by the U.S. Navy and Special Forces, look into the murky finances of AIG CEO Edward Liddy in Scandal Watch, and figure out what ISPs are up to in Technology News. We also get an update on how West Virginia is about to become even more Wild and Wonderful, and finally we…
We’re beginning to see the talent exodus from TARP-funded financial institutions. Yesterday in an op-ed Jake DeSantis of AIG-Financial Products wrote his “resignation letter” saying why he was leaving AIG. One major reason was the raging mob calling for the heads of those who received retention payments, now called bonuses, and the tepid defense that AIG’s $1-per-year chairman gave before Rep. Barney Frank’s rabid committee.
Today we learned from the Wall Street Journal that several top managers at Banque AIG in France…
Your hosts Richard Morrison and Cord Blomquist welcome back special guest co-host Michelle Minton for Episode 35 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We begin with a celebration of human achievement and a peek into the realm of secret government documents. We then investigate how the White House is going to waste another $1 trillion of your money and how the British beer tax has managed to kill off 20,000 jobs. Finally we focus on the history of the scandal-addled Sen. Dodd of…
That’s how analysts describe the trillion-dollar toxic-asset buy-up program proposed this weekend by the Obama Administration: “the president is putting forth his idea to have the Treasury become the new AIG. In order to get hedge funds to buy up toxic debt, Obama is proposing that the Treasury provide loans up front and insurance against potential losses on the back end. It’s what Paul Krugman called ‘heads I win, tails the taxpayers lose.’ By the way, it may cost another $1…
That’s how analysts describe the trillion-dollar toxic-asset buy-up program proposed this weekend by the Obama Administration: “the president is putting forth his idea to have the Treasury become the new AIG. In order to get hedge funds to buy up toxic debt, Obama is proposing that the Treasury provide loans up front and insurance against potential losses on the back end. It’s what Paul Krugman called ‘heads I win, tails the taxpayers lose.’ By the way, it may cost another $1…
In 2008, Obama promised a “net spending cut” (although he never did come up with cuts to offset his proposed spending increases). Obama broke this campaign promise in a big way with his proposed budget, which could bankrupt the United States, according to senior Senators.
Obama’s budget would increase spending levels so much that budget deficits would rise by $4.8 trillion to $9.3 trillion while taxes would increase by $1.9 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Yet Obama’s campaign workers have apparently learned nothing from this. Across…
A different take on possible effects of lawmakers’ rabble-rousing on TARP bonuses. Jeffrey Goldfarb at breakingviews.com says that driving out talented financial executives in the U.S. may be a boon for foreign-owned banks in the U.S. in getting new talent, but most especially for London and its global financial powerhouse, the City. Sarbanes-Oxley already caused financial institutions to flee New York for London. The 90 percent tax rate on TARP bonuses might provide a new impetus for savvy executives to relocate.
Still, with London house…
Already there’s confusion over what the 90 percent bonus tax bill passed by the House really means. Targeted at the AIG bonuses, which sparked bi-partisan demagogism, the bill would really apply to all firms that received more than $5 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Here’s what the text of the bill states:
· (1) IN GENERAL- The term `TARP bonus’ means, with respect to any individual for any taxable year, the lesser of–
(A) the aggregate disqualified bonus payments received from covered…
Yesterday, liberal lawmakers, after publicly blasting the multi-million dollar AIG bonuses as undeserved and excessive, privately voted down GOP proposals to limit them. (AIG is a major donor to liberal politicians, such as Obama, who received more than $100,000, and Chris Dodd (D-CT), who received $280,000. AIG’s contributions over the last 6 years have gone mostly to Democrats).
Today, however, they are pushing legislation to impose a 90 percent tax on bonuses, not just at AIG, but also at other, healthy banks that received federal…
Welcome to Episode 33 of the LibertyWeek podcast, with your hosts Richard Morrison and Cord Blomquist and technical producer (and this week’s special guest) Ryan Young. After bidding our friend Thor Halvorssen a very happy birthday, we get a fresh recap from Ryan Young on the events of the Free State Project’s recent Liberty Forum in Nashua, New Hampshire (photos). Google’s CEO spurns Twitter (transcript via TechCrunch) in Technology News, John McCain and Richard Shelby say that the government should end the bailouts and…
The new $75 billion foreclosure avoidance plan to be unveiled today by President Obama, from initial reports, continues the misguided efforts of the Bush administration and Congress to “keep people in their homes” at all costs. Such policies only end up disserving taxpayers, the economy, and frequently troubled borrowers themselves.
There are many reasons for foreclosures, from borrowers getting into a house than they couldn’t afford to a job loss or other factors that cause loss of a family’s income. Whatever…
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