“…I’m not willing to have taxpayer money chase after bad money.”

Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, that was Barack H. Obama on Thursday, March 26th, 2009.

We’ll see about that, won’t we. Stay tuned.

I have been wearing Gold Toe^® hosiery for as long as I can remember. I prefer the Metropolitan over-the-calf in Black and Brown. The stretch nylon holds up to months and months of wear and they never lose their elastic so, they never come back down your calf.

During the early part of last century, two German immigrants founded a small mill in Bally, Pennsylvania to manufacture men’s hosiery and as a tribute to the country that adopted them, they named their company Great American Knitting Mills. From the start, Great American set out to look for “golden opportunities” in the marketplace. Ironically, the most fruitful and long lasting reward was to come from Great American’s humble efforts to answer the needs of Americans hard hit by the Great Depression of 1929. Consumers wanted hosiery that would wear better and last longer than ever before, so Great American introduced a sock with a gold reinforcing yarn sewn in the toe. Before long, Americans everywhere were asking for the durable “sock with the gold toe.” Gold Toe^® hosiery had emerged as one of the leading brands in America, and The Standard of Quality in the Industry. During 2002 the Company changed its name to Gold Toe Brands, Inc.

Hosiery. Damn good hosiery.

Not so good with shorts though. Word to the wise.

Next time: Boxers or Briefs, Pros and Cons.

Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the fine.

Michael Harold Lynch was ticketed for doing 54 mph in a 35 mph area that was also a construction zone. The fine was $206.

And when you pay it, don’t spray it.

Lynch decided to let his anger flow by placing $206 in a plastic bag, peeing in the bag and sending it in. Upon receiving Lynch’s little care package, the courthouse staff gave it to a police officer and declined to accept the pungent payment to clear the ticket.

Turns out Lynch didn’t break any laws – it’s not necessarily illegal to mail bodily fluids.

Oh? Good to know.

The pee-and-pennies were sent back to Lynch – COD, in fact – with a note that said they couldn’t be taken because “the pile of coins emitted a strong, pungent odor of stale urine.”

Fresh urine: is that an oxymoron?

Lynch responded by sending a check made out to another agency, which was returned, then he sent a check for the wrong amount. Now he’s on the hook for $271 because his payment is late.

Nope, just a moron.

As in a party and a cabinet that is corrupt, through and through. Senator Dodd’s wife: ties to AIG. Barney Frank’s lover: ties to Fannie Mae.

Now this:

One of those allegedly asleep-at-the-switch board members was Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel—now chief of staff to President Barack Obama—who made at least $320,000 for a 14-month stint at Freddie Mac that required little effort.

As gatekeeper to Obama, Emanuel now plays a critical role in addressing the nation’s mortgage woes and fulfilling the administration’s pledge to impose responsibility on the financial world.

Emanuel’s Freddie Mac involvement has been a prominent point on his political résumé, and his healthy payday from the firm has been no secret either. What is less known, however, is how little he apparently did for his money and how he benefited from the kind of cozy ties between Washington and Wall Street that have fueled the nation’s current economic mess.

Where’s the Change^®, Jimmy II? Where’s the Change^®?

This crisis will not be wasted – especially since he created it.

I can’t even pretend to be surprised by these scumbags’ designs to socialize America any more:

In comments before testimony from both Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Fed chief Ben Bernanke Tuesday, Frank said he wants to regulate pay on Wall Street — even for companies that aren’t getting bailouts.

Frank, one of the chief architects of the housing mess that’s brought us so low, isn’t satisfied merely with pretending he and his Democratic pals aren’t to blame for all this. No, exploiting voter anger over the now-infamous AIG bonuses, he also wants to dictate to American capitalism what it can earn and what it can’t.

This is the kind of thing that normally happens in Third World countries ruled by tinhorn dictators, or in fascist states, where the democratic rule of law has collapsed. Not the U.S.

Yet, that’s where we find ourselves today, isn’t it? Democrats in Congress, who steadfastly rejected virtually all efforts to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as they went on the wildest, most irresponsible lending binge in the history of finance, now pose themselves as the saviors of fallen capitalism.

The hypocrisy is nothing short of stunning.

Click through and read the whole thing. Liberals are doing everything they can to destroy our country from within.

Americans are pissed – and rightfully so – that taxpayers got shafted in the AIG debacle, 90% tax rates and givesies backsies notwithstanding. Wait’ll ya see what happens when there’s a burglar outside or a fire burning inside their home…

…and no one shows up.

…we are just starting to see the unraveling of public pension systems that could well shake some of society’s basic foundations. Policemen, policewomen, firefighters, teachers and other public employees form the backbone of society. Many of these people happily take jobs offering lower wages in return for the psychic income of public service and, of equal importance, the financial income of a generous pension when they retire.

…expect a wave of [municipal] bankruptcies over the next decade as municipal pension plans get washed away by a tsunami of demographics and breakthroughs in longevity. In New York City, the average policeman retires at full pension at 48 years old and can expect to be paid over $2.1 million during the remainder of his life. In Houston, city workers can retire at full pension at 45 years old.

A generation of politicians agreed to absurd promises to public workers because they knew it would be some other politician’s problem.

And to whose feet shall we lay the blame for this?

Conservatives?

Not so much. Try again.

…without a teleprompter.

That is all.

O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name

A month ago I wrote that Obama was having trouble filling his commerce post: I Will Not Go Down With This Ship

It turns out Treasury is having the same issue – there aren’t enough democrats desperate enough to have That Won on their resume.

The fact that Treasury is having trouble staffing its upper 14 appointments below Geithner means that people in the know about Obama’s economic policies are running scared. They don’t want to get involved, even if they have hungered after those plum jobs their whole lives. That tells you what the savviest Democrats are thinking.

Why? Policy.

Even the Europeans are resisting hyper-deficits, because Europe always has that memory of the 1920s and 30s: hyperinflation, unemployment, crushing poverty and despair, followed by Hitler and Stalin. They are refusing to follow Obama down that road. If the dollar crashes, they don’t want the euro to go down with it.

When the socialistic economies of Europe think Obama’s policies are too far left…

Washington Democrats are having panic attacks. They know you can’t turn the country on a dime; either you end up shafting the economy and lose the House in 2010, or you get slapped in the face by Putin or Ahmadinejad and also lose the House in 2010.

The American people still haven’t quite figured this guy out, probably because they can’t believe their eyes and ears.

What – we didn’t warn you about his far-left associations? You didn’t get the Che Guevara memo? You didn’t take an inventory of the few times he voted as Senator?

The saner Left is beginning to worry out loud. Yes, Nancy the Eternally Youthful really believes she is “saving the Planet,” but her House members are seeing their numbers tanking, and they have to start running this year to get re-elected next year.  Harry Reid is one of the nastiest characters in DC, but he is a survivor. Somebody is going to hit the brakes, and then an almighty struggle will break out on the Left.

The nations largest economy and sole superpower is now a lady in waiting for her savior – the saner left.

Harry Reid?

This might be a good time to panic.

…or at least sweep out a corner in the basement and start looking for sales on canned goods.

The Worst President Ever visits the White House to brief the National Security Adviser of the future Worst President Ever.

Tomorrow, a Mr. Madoff with be visiting the White House to advise the Treasury Secretary.

Stay tuned!

…but wouldn’t want to be compared to one, and certainly not by a woman (it sort of refers to one’s manhood, and not favorably, if you know what I mean).

Barack Obama even needs a teleprompter to get mad.

…but he always looks good doing it.

As he watches the fury of ordinary Americans bubble up at those who continue to plunder our economy, he should keep in mind one of my dad’s favorite Gaelic sayings: “Never bolt the door with a boiled carrot.”

At the White House on Monday, the president read reporters some tough talk from the teleprompter about the chuckleheads at A.I.G., accusing them of “recklessness and greed.”

But it was his own boiled carrots who acted shocked at bonuses that they should have known were coming, and should have dismantled before handing A.I.G. another $30 billion two weeks ago.

I don’t have a ton of time today to put my usual snark on this…but it’s a pretty good take on the veneer that is our President and his Cabinet, who have apparently been caught by this whole AIG debacle with their pants down (pun intended).

For the first time since last fall’s election, Democrats and the Obama administration are backpedaling furiously on an issue easily understood by financially strapped taxpayers: $165 million in bonuses paid out at bailed-out AIG.

Gone are the days when they could merely bludgeon the Bush administration and promise to seek bipartisan solutions to the nation’s economic problems.

Now, in control of the White House and Congress, they are struggling to come up with an explanation for what no one in either party seems moved to defend.

But is it all Obama’s fault? Of course not.

While the Senate was constructing the $787 billion stimulus last month, [Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.)] added an executive-compensation restriction to the bill. The provision, now called “the Dodd Amendment” by the Obama Administration provides an “exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009” — which exempts the very AIG bonuses Dodd and others are now seeking to tax.

And of course no one knew AIG was going to pay out millions in bonuses until they paid out millions in bonuses, right?

For months, the Obama administration and members of Congress have known that insurance giant AIG was getting ready to pay huge bonuses while living off government bailouts. It wasn’t until the money was flowing and news was trickling out to the public that official Washington rose up in anger and vowed to yank the money back.

Boiled Carrots. Yum.

…but not to That One That Won, comrade.

The captain of the USS Jimmy Carter II is painting opponents to his plans to Socialize America with a broad brush as if Republicans are the villains in pointing out the flaws in his plans for the bankrupting of America Federal budget.

President Barack Obama said he won’t scale back his plans to revamp the health-care and education systems in his proposed $3.6 trillion budget and challenged Republican critics to do more than “just say no.”

They should say “Thank You.”

Thank you Mr. Obama for demonstrating to America so quickly and efficiently why we don’t usually have Democrats in power during an economic crisis and thereby restoring America’s short memory.

Thank you Mr. Obama for making George W. Bush look like a fiscal conservative by comparison.

Thank you for making me forget about my athlete’s foot fungus by starting my hair on fire.

Obama, gearing up for a fight in Congress over his fiscal 2010 spending blueprint, met privately with the chairmen of the House and Senate budget committees before issuing a public rebuttal to Republicans who have criticized his plan as including too much spending at a time when deficits are ballooning.

Silly Republicans. You picked a fine time to grow some cojones. Quit worrying so much about fiscal responsibility and living within our means and focusing on the crisis at hand rather than thirty years of pent-up liberalism.

“‘Just say no’ is the right advice to give your teenagers about drugs. It is not an acceptable response” to economic policies “proposed by the other party,”

…unless their timing is monumentally assenine and most Americans are against them.

“The American people sent us here to get things done and at this moment of enormous challenge, they are watching and waiting for us to lead,” he said.

…and they will be waiting a long time it appears. Picking up where the last liberal majority left off is not leadership – especially given the current environment.

I think our junior President might be surprised to find that those “things to get done” didn’t include a much larger government, policies that amount to kicking the can further down the path and a crippling national debt.

So stay out of the way Republicans. It’s Barack and his posse’s turn to screw our kids.

Leave it to an economist to emit understatement so monumental as to be particularly humorous.

Several economists have said the stimulus package will not meet the administration’s goal of saving or creating 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year because the final package was smaller than expected and contained several provisions that they say are unlikely to be particularly effective.

…which is to say our misguided federal government is going to keep borrowing and spending; not because it will prove to be “particularly effective,” rather because that’s what liberals do.

Sort of reminds of the old saying “the beatings will continue until morale improves.”

Jeepers, Paul – grow a couple will ‘ya?

I have a theory; a hunch is a better moniker, that our economic recovery will germinate from a small and isolated seed of confidence. To paraphrase, extrapolate and else wise apply the teachings of a favorite advisor and author of mine, Nick Murray, our economic recovery’s timing is unknowable, it’s manifestation inevitable.

We can undeniably trace the origins of our current crisis to a seed delivered to the fertile soil of our economy via a turd laid by liberal Democrats of the Carter era, and germinated by the blue thumbs of the Clinton era. My hunch is that our nation’s, and in turn the world’s economies will be restored in much the same way.

That seed however, will be seemingly small and insignificant in its time but will retrospectively be shown to be the beginning of the end of the worst crisis since the Great Depression.

I could be; probably am wrong – but this morning I read this…

Stocks Post Best Rally of 2009 on Improving Citigroup Outlook

Citigroup Inc. said it was having its best quarter since 2007, spurring speculation the worst of the banking crisis is over. Treasuries fell, while oil and copper gained.

and this…

US Consumer Confidence Edges Up in March

…it occurred to me that this is a very large, visible bank exhibiting a rare and precious commodity of late: profits and optimism and at the same time consumer confidence exhibits a slight, if temporary uptick.

Now don’t be fooled for a moment into thinking that our nation’s financial crisis is going to vanish overnight. Rather, be prepared for multiple fits and starts – to reuse the President’s recent and widely panned phraseology – but I believe, even if this is not that seed, a future forensic analysis of our inevitable recovery will reveal an initial catalyst such as we have seen today.

An ever-so-slight restoration of confidence will lead to a loosening of lending and spending which at the same time will allow real estate and the financial markets to establish their lows in earnest.

An excruciatingly slow, uneven but evident march to recovery will ensue.

And the World will breathe a collective sigh of relief.

Or…

…none of the above is coming and we’re all screwed.

I suffer from Optimism, despite all it’s flaws and blind spots, so I’m going with the former.

…for now.

Speaking of “The Surge” Mitch, Erik Sorenson, Emmy-Winning TV Executive and former President of MSNBC has some advice for executive-level job-seekers:

The word “surge” got a bad rap during Hurricane Katrina when related to Gulf waters breaching the levees and flooding into New Orleans.

In some circles, it was further tarnished when used to describe troop buildups in Iraq (though that Surge is now widely believed to have been effective).

Wow, Erik. Can I quote you on that?

Now, the word surge is being used to describe hiring mandates for government agencies and programs funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 – informally known as “President Obama’s economic stimulus package.”

Dude. No one I know is calling the Stimuless Package “The Surge.” What you heard was “The Scourge.”

…or was it “The Gouge?”

…or the “Re-Gurge.”

The legislation from Congress requires certain agencies to hire high volumes for mission critical programs. And the challenges facing those agencies (overhaul the health-care system, police new banking regulations, dismantle our dependence on oil) also require a higher quality of executives, managers and team leaders. And the technical nature of the challenges requires federal employees with more specialized skill-sets.

All the more reason these programs should be left with the private sector – save regulating the banking industry – let’s leave that to Barney Frank.

There is no shortage of wonderful, qualified people currently unemployed and looking for quality work, so what’s the problem? “The federal government is a terrible recruiter,” according to Max Stier – President of the Partnership for Public Service – a nonprofit group which promotes federal employment. Stier notes that private companies out-recruit the public sector in the trenches and that it often takes six to nine months to get a hiring decision.

How ironic is it that a bloated and inefficient federal government can’t become more bloated and inefficient, even under mandate from Congress and the President…because it’s so bloated and inefficient.

If you are a capable executive or manager who is part of the 8.1% jobless, you might be interested in government work.

If you are an executive or manager, we can probably assume you are college educated, and among college graduates, unemployment is only 4.2% according to the latest data, unless you consider the “seasonally adjusted number” which is 4.1%; either way, only 2% more than a year ago.

So, probably not.

…a properly executed recovery effort will lift the economy.

We’ll be sure to alert you if a properly executed recovery effort is in the offing.

Finally, our economy’s ability to sustain America for the next generation (your kids) and the one after that (your grandkids) [thanks for explaining what generation means Erik-JR] will be very dependent on government decision-makers and their success in engineering an improved health-care system, innovation in the energy industry, an upgrade in our schools and the impending overhaul of the financial and auto industries.

Nice try, Erik. I think you meant our economy’s ability to sustain America for the next generation (my kids) and the one after that (my kids’ kids) will be in spite of government decision-makers.

You keep drinking that Kool-Aid, Erik. Tell us when your leg stops tingling too.

…when they really are out to get you.

…keeping tabs on every Web site they visit, every keystroke they tap, every instant message they send–even the contents of the messages on their personal Hotmail or Gmail accounts.

Besides financial fraud, companies find less insidious but still costly forms of abuse such as employees spending long, production-sapping stretches on Facebook or YouTube.

To help avoid cases of worker fraud, companies are increasingly using monitoring and tracking software. “Employee fraud definitely increases in economic hard times,” says Frank McKenna, co-founder and chief fraud strategist of BasePoint Analytics, a firm that offers fraud consulting and software for banks, mortgage lenders, and credit-card companies.

Consider yourself warned.

…You’re only a Year Awaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

Barack Obama is tough on earmarks! Just like he campaigned.

White House budget director Peter Orszag says the Obama administration isn’t happy with the billions of dollars aimed at lawmakers’ pet projects – also known as earmarks. Obama had campaigned on changing the way such money is appropriated by Congress.

Gosh darn it. The President’s not happy. So he’s going to use his Veto power, right?

Nope.

Yet Orszag says Obama doesn’t want to revisit the spending bill Congress put together before he was elected and wants to move on. Next year, according to Orszag, when Obama is fully involved in the next budget from the start, earmarks will be handled differently.

Sure they will. It takes more than a year to grow a spine does it?

That’s Change^® you’ll just have to wait for.

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Obama Bear Market, named for it’s cause.

“It’s the Obama bear market,” said Dan Veru, who helps oversee $2.8 billion at Palisade Capital Management in Fort Lee, New Jersey. “We don’t know what the rules are in so many different areas the government is touching.”

In all fairness, the market had been sinking long before Obama won the election, but looked to be turning a corner, maybe even establishing a bear market low, after November 20th. The market gained double digits after that day, then Obama started making his plans known, and Jimmy Carter II took it down another notch.

Traders continue to cite the Obama Administration’s plans as the primary driver of stocks — and while miracles cannot be achieved overnight, investors have been left wanting by what they’re interpreting as inaction or an effort, through additional funds provided to zombie institutions, to kick problems a ways down the road.

The stock market is a collective of our wealth and a predictor of the health of our economy. Barack Obama is making all the wrong moves and we are all paying for it.

Had we seen tax cuts and a simple shoring up of “safety net” programs, like unemployment insurance, social security and medicaid, already in place for times like these, we’d already be on our way to a recovery and the market would be reflecting that.

As it stands, the American people are getting all the things from Barack Obama that so-called extreme conservatives warned us about, and to which the media turned a blind eye and a tingling leg.

A massive and poorly-timed stimulus package that will have absolutely no immediate benefit to the economy, and a tax increase for Americans best positioned to pull us out of this recession.

So is the very real question of whether the $787 billion stimulus plan is sufficiently robust or properly focused. The new spending pathetically “repeats the mistakes that got us here,” says Robert Albertson, a principal at Sandler O’Neill and a former Goldman Sachs banker.

“After 18 years of record spending, much of it on credit, consumers must and will de-lever and save the next $1 trillion to $2 trillion of income. Only private businesses create job multiplication and true future spending power,” says Albertson. “That requires a savings and investment program, not a doomed spending program. The latter tact ate up the resource base for six years during the 1930s Depression, with little or no effect on unemployment.”

But Obama sees our would-be saviors, business owners, investors and risk-takers as the enemy. The market disagrees.

Earlier in the week, Bespoke Investment Group analysts observed that the Dow has never had this poor a beginning of the year in its history.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 20 percent since Inauguration Day, the fastest drop under a new president in at least 90 years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

…and that is no coincidence.

“President Obama said Tuesday that he is not intently focused on the ‘day-to-day gyrations of the stock market,’ comparing the downward roller-coaster on Wall Street to the fickle nature of political polls,” the NYT reports.

” ‘You know, it bobs up and down day to day,’ Mr. Obama said. ‘And if you spend all your time worrying about that, then you’re probably going to get the long-term strategy wrong.’ “

You’ve already taken care to accomplish that Mr. President. The next falling index, sir, shall be your approval numbers. We don’t need Jim Cramer to tell us that.

…but I wish I could short them right now.

…but Kansas looks pretty good about now.

…click the pic for more detail.

…or is it me warming to Jim Cramer, just a little bit.

When I come to work each day, whether as a commentator for TheStreet.com or a host of Mad Money With Jim Cramer, I have only one thought in mind: helping people with their money.

Okay, that part is not entirely accurate if ye be judged by your results. You’re an entertainer whose stock-picking advice at least has been shown to be dead on if one’s goal is to generate losses.

I fight to help viewers and readers make and preserve capital. I fight for their 401(k)s, for their 529s and their IRAs. I fight for their annuities and for their life insurance policies. I fight for their profits, trading and investing. And in this horrible market, I fight to keep their losses to a minimum by having some good dividend-yielding stocks from different sectors, some bonds, some gold and some cash.

Sorry Jim, I’m not a fan. Jim Cramer: A Stream of Uncalibrated Opinion

I work with real clients and real money, and people like you and Suze only confuse my clients more and make my job harder.

…but despite all that, I’m warming up to you of late:

Limbaugh’s dead right. I am a fight-not-flight guy, so I was on my hackles when I heard White Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ answer to a question about my pointed criticism of the president on multiple venues, including the Today Show.

Well, in case you didn’t know this Jim, Gibbs is a pompous ass and likely knows less about the market and economics than his boss.

“I’m not entirely sure what he’s pointing to to make some of the statements,” Gibbs said about my point that President Obama’s budget may be one of the great wealth destroyers of all time. “And you can go back and look at any number of statements he’s made in the past about the economy and wonder where some of the backup for those are, too.”

Huh? Backup? Look at the incredible decline in the stock market, in all indices, since the inauguration of the president, with the drop accelerating when the budget plan came to light because of the massive fear and indecision the document sowed: Raising taxes on the eve of what could be a second Great Depression, destroying the profits in healthcare companies (one of the few areas still robust in the economy), tinkering with the mortgage deduction at a time when U.S. house price depreciation is behind much of the world’s morass and certainly the devastation affecting our banks, and pushing an aggressive cap and trade program that could raise the price of energy for millions of people.

The market’s the effect; much of what the president is fighting for is the cause. The market’s signal can’t be ignored. It’s too palpable, too predictive to be ignored, despite the prattle that the market’s predicted far more recessions than we have.

Obama has undeniably made things worse by creating an atmosphere of fear and panic rather than an atmosphere of calm and hope. He’s done it by pushing a huge amount of change at a very perilous moment, by seeking to demonize the entire banking system and by raising taxes for those making more than $250,000 at the exact time when we need them to spend and build new businesses, and by revoking deductions for funds to charity that help eliminate the excess supply of homes.

Jim, your stock picks may be right less than half the time, but you are 100% correct today.

Just don’t throw a chair at the President. That’d be bad.

That hope that may now become a reality as the American people come to realize what the WSJ observed today…

The dismaying message here is that President Obama’s policies have become part of the economy’s problem.

Americans have welcomed the Obama era in the same spirit of hope the President campaigned on. But after five weeks in office, it’s become clear that Mr. Obama’s policies are slowing, if not stopping, what would otherwise be the normal process of economic recovery. From punishing business to squandering scarce national public resources, Team Obama is creating more uncertainty and less confidence — and thus a longer period of recession or subpar growth.

I don’t have time today to elaborate but this picture is worth a thousand syllables…

…and why?

[Jimmy Carter II] has chosen to spend his scarce resources on income transfers rather than growth promotion. Most of his “stimulus” spending was devoted to social programs, rather than public works, and nearly all of the tax cuts were devoted to income maintenance rather than to improving incentives to work or invest.

The powers in Congress — unrebuked by Mr. Obama — are ridiculing and punishing the very capitalists who are essential to a sustainable recovery.

That’s Change^® you’re going to lose your job over. Hopefully not you – the President.

US Bank essentially avoided the mortgage crisis and as such had no need for government bailout dollars. What does their CEO think of the government’s efforts to assist less discerning banking organizations?

While government leaders were well-intentioned in setting up the Troubled Asset Relief Program, it’s a “lousy program,” U.S. Bancorp CEO Richard Davis said at a business leaders forum Tuesday.

U.S. Bank was told, not asked, to participate in the program, which is a Darwinian attempt to “synthesize” weaker banks into stronger banks through consolidation, Davis said at the forum.

The problems with the U.S. Treasury Department’s program are that its goals and rules have changed since its inception last fall, it’s poorly defined and it’s caused collateral damage to healthy banks.

Davis said he would be “darned” if Minneapolis-based U.S. Bank would suffer collateral damage from the government’s “sloppy attempt at nationalizing the [banking] industry.”

No, that doesn’t sound like Socialism at all.

Source Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal

Now that the US has officially joined the ranks of Socialist nations, France wants to make sure that we play by the rules.

The European Union made noises last year about having the WTO verify that the U.S. auto industry assistance package doesn’t violate any international trade rules. Now French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said he will ask the World Trade Organization to stick their hands into the matter.

Critics suggest that this could be a diversionary tactic – Sarkozy himself was accused of violating trade rules with his proposed assistance to Renault and PSA Peugeot/Citroen. Or it could be a way to see if both the proposed French and U.S. proposals will pass the WTO test. Either way, Sarkozy and other European heads of state will meet to plan a Europe-wide response to the auto industry situation, as the E.U. continues to mull whether to bring a formal appeal to the WTO regarding the United States’ bailout package.

If another socialist nation thinks the Big Three Bailout was without merit, you know it was a bad idea. Gee, I hope they don’t call on the UN to come over here and enforce the rules.