Despite Cerberus having billions in cash, Chrysler recently received $4 Billion from the US Treasury.

They’re grateful and they want you to know it.

So they embarked on a national “Thank You” ad campaign including full-page ads in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, reportedly at a cost of around a quarter million dollars each.

From the Chrysler Blog:

• Mr. Nardelli,It takes a man with a whole lotta chutzpah to thank a person for investing in a company when they had zero voice in the matter. My elected representatives decided ‘no’.  The executive branch decided ‘yes’ through means that might be legal but frankly smell like rotten fish.You may certainly get my money this way, but you will never see a dime of my money voluntarily spent on any of your products.
  Brian Dunbar
  Neenah, Wisconsin
• Mr Nardelli, Fire your PR and advertising teams and execs immediately.  We the People did not want to see any more ads and money wasted on ads, be it from Chrysler, et al, or from your own pocket.  You should have put up a website thanking the people and just submitted it to various online news aggregators for free.  Once again, I am pained to see you are demonstrating a lack of common sense and fiscal responsibility.  We supported the bailout of the car companies, even in the face of the horrendously mismanaged and secretive bailout of banks, and you stlil throw money away in the name of your company.  Time to wake up. Sincerely, Matt and the rest of the Internet.
• Dear Mr. Nardelli and the “over one million people who depend on Chrysler” – You’ve got some nerve to thank us for our forced “investment” when we didn’t want it to happen in the first place.  Isn’t forced or coerced investment akin to robbery?  Taking one’s money against one’s will? Hmmm . . . . The very thought that MY money is going to go to some union lackey’s pockets just makes me queasy.  You should’ve filed for bankruptcy just like any other business in your position would have to.  And that would’ve given you the opportunity to unshackle yourselves from the ridiculous union contracts that you signed on to.  You’ve got two major issues to fix:  Unions and quality products.  If you’d listen to your customers and NOT the media and marketing types, you’d fix your product issues.  And the unions . . . sheesh, get out of that racket!  Notice the plants in the South where unions aren’t that prominent don’t have the same issues as the ones up North? Let’s see what happens when MY business tanks.  Will YOU throw cash at me?  I don’t think so. So, in conclusion – to hell with you and your company.  Any business that would go begging to the government for a handout has no shame, and deserves to fail. File for Bankruptcy, or crumble!
• I’m speechless.  And I’m saddened that a corporate management team is so inept at understanding public opinion.  Some advice:  issue a press release stating that you regret that you made a mistake using taxpayers’ money in this manner.

back-fire

[bak-fahy^uhr]

…to bring a result opposite to that which was planned or expected: The plot backfired.  

The United States of America is coming to an end in 2010 which presents an enormous opportunity.

MOSCOW — For a decade, Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. For most of that time, he admits, few took his argument — that an economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war and the eventual breakup of the U.S.

A polite and cheerful man with a buzz cut, Mr. Panarin insists he does not dislike Americans. But he warns that the outlook for them is dire.

Bummer for sure, but 2010 is when I am going to make all of my electronics and furniture purchases and put them all on “Two Years Interest Free” financing. Just as they come due:

Thousands Worldwide Prepare for the Apocalypse, Expected in 2012

You have to understand, there will be nothing, nothing left,” Geryl told ABC News from his home in Antwerp, Belgium. “We will have to start an entire civilization from scratch.”

Just when my stuff comes due.

Perfect.

I have faith that the average reader of this blog is discerning enough to know where not to gather thine financial advice.

The ilk that is The Motley, Suze, and Jim Cramer is categorized by many financial advisers as “Financial Pornography.”

In a not-so-shocking analysis of one of the most-watched TV investment advisers, author Eric Tyson argues that Jim Cramer’s actual stock-picking performance doesn’t match the strength of his bellowing.

Besides his show Mad Money, Cramer is all over CNBC dispensing investment advice left and right. He’s got to be out-performing other investment advisers and especially the market, right? Not really.

Cramer’s picks, after being held accountable for trading fees, have performed worse than the broad market averages. His overall average with simply picking stocks that go up is pretty dismal. The most recent tally shows that out of more than 1500 stock recommendations, more than half have gone down!

Cramer’s stock market predictions (monitored from 2000 onward) were worse than average and even worse than simply flipping a coin. Cramer’s prognostications fared better than the market averages only 47 percent of the time. Regarding Cramer’s predictions, CXO comments that, “His predictions sometimes swing dramatically from optimistic to pessimistic, and back again, over short periods. It is difficult to infer his guiding valuation theory, if he has one.

…but he stayed at a Holiday Inn Express.

If only double-digit ratings translated to double-digit returns for viewers.

In times like this, in times not like this, and all the times in between, the strategies that work for investors are not sexy, not even exciting, rarely worth raising one’s voice over, and are so very, very rarely dispensed by entertainers.

Modern journalism has become more about the sizzle and less about the steak. It has fallen victim to sensationalism and a hijacking by the liberal elite. Long lost among most journalists is a sense of unadulterated mission, ethics, balance, and professionalism.

The Media was never supposed to be The Message.

The confluence of ubiquitous bandwidth and an unquenchable fervor to exercise our First Amendment privileges that has become the blogosphere has like hot lava flowed into the vacuum created by the demise of the flabby, flatulent print media conglomerate, and has taken what’s left of it.

Oh that, and Craig’s List.

The common thread here, whether the subject is foreign, national or local, is that the writer in question is performing a valuable task for the reader — one that no sane man would perform for free. He is assembling what in the business world is termed the “executive summary.” Anyone can duplicate a long and tedious report. And anyone can highlight one passage from that report and either praise or denounce it. But it takes both talent and willpower to analyze the report in its entirety and put it in a context comprehensible to the casual reader.

Assuming anyone reads that stuff…with interest…and we all know bloggers that have already seperated themselves from the legions that run their keyboards “for free”.

This highlights the real flaw in the thinking of those who herald the era of citizen journalism. They assume newspapers are going out of business because we aren’t doing what we in fact do amazingly well, which is to quickly analyze and report on complex public issues. The real reason they’re under pressure is much more mundane. The Internet can carry ads more cheaply, particularly help-wanted and automotive ads.

In his 1920 essay “The National Letters,” Mencken traced this sentiment back to the early days of our democracy. He noted how first Ralph Waldo Emerson and then Walt Whitman prophesized the rise of what Whitman termed “a class of native authors, literatuses, far different, far higher in grade than any yet known.” Mencken was pessimistic about this prospect thanks to what he termed “the democratic distrust of whatever strikes beneath the prevailing platitudes.”

I share that pessimism. Every time a new medium arises, a new group of avatars arises with it, assuring us of the wondrous effects it will produce for our democracy.

Maybe so, but when the news isn’t news anymore meets declining ad revenue via competition and declining credibility via overarching liberal ideologies, discarding the Kersten’s and the Coleman’s is too little too late. The Dailies aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.

Relevance is like innocence; once lost, tough to repossess.

Bloggers rarely adhere to standards superior to those long since discarded by traditional outlets, but they seek not to delude the reader otherwise.

When my colleague at the Newark Star-Ledger John Farmer started off in journalism more than five decades ago, things were very different. After covering a political event, he’d hop on the campaign bus, pull out a typewriter, and start banging out copy. As the bus would pull into a town, he’d ball up a finished page and toss it out the window. There a runner would scoop it up and rush it off to a telegraph station where it would be blasted back to the home office.

At the time, reporters thought this method was high-tech. Now, thanks to the Internet, a writer can file a story instantly from anywhere. It’s incredibly convenient, but that same technology is killing old-fashioned newspapers. Some tell us that that’s a good thing. I disagree and believe that the public will miss us once we’re gone.

We’ll know if that’s true soon enough.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve watched a parade of top-notch reporters leave the Star-Ledger for the last time. The old model for compensating journalists is as obsolete as the telegraph. If anyone out there in the blogosphere can tell me what the new model is, I will pronounce him the first genius I’ve ever encountered on the Internet.

That, my friend, is yet to be determined but it will surely be a product of a recipe that will include equal measures of free expression, innovation, and free enterprise.

Barack Obama’s trillion-dollar economic and job creation stimulus is a Trojan Horse for his Grand Vision of Mass Transit and The Battle for the Planet.

Obama wants a large portion of the money spent on mass transit but exactly how does the expansion of infrastructure that requires permanent public subsidy to serve a small segment of society qualify as a stimulus? You could argue that highways are of the same ilk, but highways are used by everyone in the food chain whereas mass transit requires the majority to subsidize the minority that are it’s patrons.

The states that would be in receipt of these ill-borrowed billions have it right.

Dec. 24 (Bloomberg) — Missouri’s plan to spend $750 million in federal money on highways and nothing on mass transit in St. Louis doesn’t square with President-elect Barack Obama’s vision for a revolutionary re-engineering of the nation’s infrastructure.

Utah would pour 87 percent of the funds it may receive in a new economic stimulus bill into new road capacity. Arizona would spend $869 million of its $1.2 billion wish list on highways.

The argument is a labyrinth of cautionary tales.

Speaking of digging holes, Obama also wants to spend $60 billion to “provide financing to transportation infrastructure projects across the nation.” He says “these projects will create up to two million new direct and indirect jobs and stimulate approximately $35 billion per year in new economic activity.”

Fixing a bridge, widening a highway or building a light rail system may or may not make economic sense. But the fact that it involves paying people to operate jackhammers and pour concrete does not make it any more worthwhile. If creating jobs can justify transportation projects, why not fill the country with bridges to nowhere?

Consider:

• Government stimulus packages in and of themselves are dubious in their value when you consider the increase to the national debt, their evanescent nature and the precipitate inflation. If only they worked.
• Congress can’t and won’t spend this money without an agenda; without earmarks; without wasteful pork. “Why did you sting me?” said the turtle to the scorpion.
• Mass transit isn’t any better for the environment than cars are as our compatriot Bike Bubba has made serially and mathematically clear.

We all know what a Liberal means when they use the word “innovative.” It condescends whatever their over-educated “elite” brains deem shall be the object of increased government spending. It’s how socialism became “progressive.”

In proposing a stimulus plan that could total as much as $1 trillion, Obama has promised a new federal infrastructure program that would dwarf President Dwight Eisenhower’s interstate highway system that began in 1956. Obama told reporters at a Dec. 7 news conference that his effort would go beyond “roads and bridges” and fund more innovative projects.

I wonder if anyone has considered that the value of our national interstate system was not the temporary and transient jobs it created but rather the stimulus it created for the economy via efficiencies and freedoms it afforded capitalism and the consumer?

We are fast realizing that Obama isn’t any more innovative than any of his liberal predecessors in the White House. His ideas are warmed-over versions of Eisenhower’s and FDR’s and differ only in scale. What glory after all could be gathered to the bosom of the motherland by a project “half as big” as Eisenhower’s?

If, as widely expected, Barack Obama faces a recession when he takes office in January, many Americans will expect him to deliver on his promise to “create jobs.” They probably will be disappointed, because Obama seems to view job creation not only as something the government does with taxpayers’ money but as an end in itself. That’s a recipe for wasteful spending that will divert resources from more productive uses, and ultimately for higher unemployment than would otherwise occur.

Obama says he will “transform the challenge of global climate change into an opportunity to create 5 million new green jobs,” which he likens to the economic activity triggered by the personal computer. This rosy way of looking at global warming is a variation on the “broken window” fallacy dissected by the classical liberal economist Frederic Bastiat, according to which the loss caused by smashing a window is offset by the employment it gives the glazier.
Leaving aside the desirability of “energy independence” and the merits of Obama’s approach to reducing carbon dioxide emissions (which has the government, rather than the market, picking the most efficient methods), the fact that he lists “jobs that can’t be outsourced” as a distinct goal is troubling. Paying people to dig holes and fill them in again also creates “jobs that can’t be outsourced,” but that doesn’t mean it’s a smart investment or an appropriate use of taxpayers’ money.

Obama’s job fetish is apparent even when he talks about spontaneous economic activity. “Businesses should live up to their responsibilities to create American jobs,” he declared in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. In a free market, businesses exist because they provide goods or services that people value. A business that makes job creation its overriding goal will not be employing anyone for long.

The preclusion is that stimulus packages in the whole (pun intended), and especially those spent on social engineering projects or contrived global crises aren’t worth it.

All Hope^® for Change^® is lost.

Newsweek lists the most powerful people on earth.

0. Obammy (of course)

…

42. Osama Bin Laden

…

Hee Hee

…

47. Oprah Winfrey

Not even Top 20? Five peeps lower than a guy who may not be alive and is living in a cave.

…and she gave away 276 Pontiac G6’s.

Bummer.

…

6,700,000,000 Last Guy on Earth
6,700,000,001 AngryClown 

But that’s okay. I didn’t see “Johnny Roosh” on the list at all.

The case for optimism…

if things came to a halt more quickly than ever before, they could also restart more quickly than ever before. This is not to say they will, only that the possibility is more than marginal. And there are signs things are not everywhere as bad as conventional wisdom suggests.

…consumers in many parts of the world are in relatively good shape.

People have also reacted swiftly to the current problems, paying down debt and paring back purchases out of prudence or necessity. That’s a short-term drag on economic activity, but it will leave consumer balance sheets in good shape going forward. Low energy prices and zero inflation will boost spending power.

As the credit system eases, historically low interest rates also augur debt refinancing and constructive access to credit for those with good histories and for small business creation in the year ahead. Entrepreneurs often thrive when the system is cracking.

In addition, corporations generally have very clean balance sheets with little debt and lots of cash, unlike the downturns in 2002 and in the 1980s.

…starts in Ashland, Ohio. Could it be? Could this be the mouth of the river? The first quark of the Big Bang?

ASHLAND, Ohio (CNN) — An Ohio bakery shut down in October is bustling again, with 60 eager employees who had expected a Christmas on the unemployment rolls.

But then Lance Inc., a Charlotte, North Carolina-based snack food company, purchased Archway at a bankruptcy auction. And last week 60 workers were asked to return immediately, with perhaps more coming back in the months ahead.

When it promised to reopen the bakery, Lance gave all 300 former Archway workers a $1,500 prepaid debit card.

When was the last time you heard anyone hiring? It has to start somewhere.

Merry Christmas, Ashland. Happy New Year America.

Here at the Hopey Changey Roosh household, we are concerned for the environment too.

We’re all wearing Green to celebrate the coming rescue by Brrr Ack! Obanana of our besieged Mother Earth.

After reading Mitch’s alarming post, I convened an ad hoc family symposium! Starting today, we only turn on our L.E.D. Christmas (er – sorry to offend) X-Mas lights during off-peak hours (2:20-2:40 AM) so please stop by then to enjoy their glorious splendor.

We have our thermostat set for a cozy 52 degrees, but we’re a Snuggly-Wuggly clan! Plus, we have discovered coats and snow pants aren’t just for the outdoors any more! Yay!

Our Turkey was interviewed before we chose it to make sure that it wasn’t mistreated, and we made sure to buy one that died of old age.

Yum.

In order to thwart Global Warming Cooling Change, we are walking to Church as a family this year! It’s 4.9 miles by car but we should be able to shave some of that by cutting through yards and crossing streets diagonally, like The Crosstown Highway 62. It’ll be a swell time to try out our new Vegan-Tanned Ethical Leather shoes!

Gift-giving is another way to express your rage for the Bush Administration, Corporations, Employers, Wall Street, Exxon, SUV Owners, Methane-Leaking Cows, Taxpayers, Jon Voight, God-Fearing Bible Bangers, Plumbers and Hockey Moms.

First of all, we’re really into recycling, so all of our gifts are recycled this year too!

I can’t wait to see the look on Great Grandpa’s face when he unwraps my son’s Playstation 2! We didn’t want to contribute to the slaughter of our forests so we wrapped it in Saran Wrap.

A guy in the cube next to me says he read an email from an old girlfriend whose Mom’s boyfriend knows a lab assistant that said manufacturing new gifts releases more carbon trioxide into the environment which has created a massive tidal wave of Arctic runoff that is heading towards Florida and is going to come ashore next Wednesday.

So we did our part.

Not to worry, the kids won’t be disappointed! They’re all getting their own Starter Kits for Change! Wait ’till all their little friends see this!

…a super-cool, eco-friendly, gift that keeps on giving! Packed full of green goodies that include a recycled, reusable tote bag, and arbor day tree seedling or “tree in a box”, fair trade hot chocolate, a treeless journal, soduku booklet, compact fluorescent light bulb, gratitude cards, and an envelope to end hunger.

Fun! Yay!

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a Happy and Safe New Year to All of Our Readers!

I was viewing a news video on CNN.com and the obligatory pre-commercial was for openings at the CIA.

What does it mean for our Men In Black if they need to advertise? There’s no waiting list, what with all the cool toys and mysterious women you meet?

Are you qualified?

The CIA has very high standards for hiring. Some suggestions they offer on their public website for people who may be interested in CIA jobs are:

• Be a U.S. citizen
• Strengthen verbal and written communication skills
• Keep a clean record-that means absolutely no involvement with illegal drugs and no criminal activity at all, because no one can work for the CIA without a security clearance
• Hone foreign language skills

Hey, wait a minute. The President of the United States doesn’t even need all that! U.S. Citizen? Pfffft!

Successful applicants must go through a rigorous background investigation (emphasis mine-JR) and physical and psychological testing.

Like the President? Ah, never mind.

Then I learned this piece of information that I am sure the Government doesn’t want you to know.

I was visiting the site www.c[CLICK]

Vice-President Elect Joe-Blow Biden is such a buzzkill.

Dec. 22 (Bloomberg) — Vice President-elect Joe Biden said he is worried about the “exceedingly high expectations” that world leaders have placed on President-elect Barack Obama.

“Their expectation for Barack’s presidency is overwhelming,” Biden said, according to excerpts from an interview with CNN’s Larry King Live, scheduled to air at 9 p.m. tonight, New York time. “They are so hungry to have an American leader who they think has a policy that reflects our stated values, as well as one they can talk to.”

Obama’s three-million-jobs-created goal pulled from thin air this week notwithstanding, it turns out Barack Obama may have somehow, unbeknownst, inadvertently, created expectations for his administration that he may or may not be able to manifest.

Shocker.

Newsflash: Some of us never believed anything he said then or now.

I think I know what Joe is saying, at least here at home. People will have to pay their own mortgages, work for a living and go back to worshiping the incumbent savior, Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

Oh – I almost forgot – and do their own Christmas shopping (despite the sentiment expressed in our recent poll).

Obama can still walk on water, as long as it’s frozen. Less hopey, less changey. More samey, more lamey.

Bummer.

The Bad News is…we lost the election…many times over.

Amid all the pressures on the radio industry, news-talk stations see an opportunity — and his name is Barack Obama.

After eight years of playing defense for President Bush, the conservatives who dominate talk radio are back on offense.

Hours after Mr. Obama’s election, the country’s most popular radio host, Rush Limbaugh, was talking about the “rebirth of principled opposition.”

Sean Hannity, the second highest-rated host, quickly cast his afternoon show as the home of “conservatism in exile.”

Premiere Radio, a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications, is projecting a consistent audience from 2008 to 2009 as it signs on advertisers. “There’s more to talk about than there has been in a hundred years,”

The good news is we may be on the verge of a Golden Age of Talk Radio and Political Blogs.

Limbaugh Is Right on the Fairness Doctrine

Conservative talk radio has worked itself into a tizzy lately over the rumored revival of the Fairness Doctrine — the FCC policy that sought to enforce balanced discussion on the nation’s airwaves.

As the founding president of Air America Radio, I believe that for the last eight years Rush Limbaugh and his ilk have been cheerleaders for everything wrong with our economic, foreign and domestic policies. But when it comes to the Fairness Doctrine, I couldn’t agree with them more. The Fairness Doctrine is an anachronistic policy that, with the abundance of choices on radio today, is entirely unnecessary.

The conventional wisdom is that Rush’s success depended on the 1987 repeal of the Fairness Doctrine. Some say that if he had to make time for opposing opinions, Rush would have flopped. Personally, I think he is most entertaining when he is dismantling opposing arguments. He’s successful because he is a superior entertainer.

…I also think he’s successful because despite his personal foibles, he’s right more often than he’s wrong.

As Governor Pawlenty prudently cuts aid to local government, these cities will in turn need to prioritize their expenditures.

I’ve got an idea. Cut lobbying expenditures.

Plymouth taking an exit from I-494 lobbying group

Unhappy that Interstate 494 has not been widened through Plymouth as it has through Minnetonka and Eden Prairie, Plymouth plans to pull out of the 494 Corridor Commission and pocket the $16,000 it would have contributed to the lobbying group next year.

Over the past 10 years, the city has paid more than $100,000 to be part of the multi-city group but without obvious benefit, Mayor Kelli Slavik said. “They don’t seem to be lobbying anything for Plymouth,” Slavik said. “If we are truly interested in getting a third lane on 494, then we need to refocus our efforts and spend that money more wisely.”

I can’t imagine $16,000 per year is a large line item for a city the size of Plymouth; that’s probably the annual fuel cost for one of their snow plows.

Some perspective:

Local governments spent a total of $7,817,620 on lobbying activities in 2007.

Sixty-five local governments (two more than in 2006) directly employed or hired contract

lobbyists in 2007Local governments paid dues of $10,024,137 in 2007 to local government associations that also represented their interests before the legislature.

Statewide, $18,000,000 per year and growing. Seems like a lot of money to hire someone else to spam the legislature with phone calls and emails.

Dopey me, I guess. I am sure there is so much more to the art of being a lobbyist.

Somehow the idea of taxpayer money being spent to lobby for taxpayer money smacks of government waste at best; corruption at worst.

From “Blues”

I am lazy, the laziest girl in the world.
I sleep during the day when I want to,
’til my face is creased and swollen,
’til my lips are dry and hot.
I eat as I please: cookies and milk after lunch,
butter and sour cream on my baked potato,
foods that slothful people eat,
that turn yellow and opaque beneath the skin.
Sometimes come dinnertime Sunday
I am still in my nightgown,
the one with the lace trim listing
because I have not mended it.
Many days I do not exercise, only consider it,
then rub my curdy belly and lie down.
Even my poems are lazy.
I use syllabics instead of iambs,
prefer slant to the gong of full rhyme,
write briefly while others go for pages.
And yesterday, for example, I did not work at all!
I got in my car and I drove to factory outlet stores,
purchased stockings and panties and socks
with my father’s money.

…and then she reads at Barack Obama’s Inauguration.

Ugh.

I used to hate these bumper stickers.

Now I want one.

Visiting with business-owner and otherwise conservative clients these past few days, I have found a consistent level of puzzlement at best – ire more often – with President Bush’s move to override Congress, a GOP filibuster, and public opinion with his move this week to issue a bailout for GM and Chrysler in the waning days of his Presidency.

Why, Mr. President, Why?

To divide the GOP even further?

…exit the White House on a positive note (one that resonates only with other liberals)?

Use it or lose it? Did George Bush feel the need to spend his last dollar of political capital?

Conservatives are more pissed off with Bush than ever before.

Ford says “No Thanks.” Henry would be proud.

Cerberus, Chrysler’s privately-held owner says “You first”, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer.

Cerberus Capital Management…said Friday that it would put $2 billion from Chrysler Financial into the automaker’s operations after being granted a $4 billion government loan.

Cerberus…previously resisted making further investments in Chrysler, citing its obligations to its investors (who must not be taxpayers?-JR). But Friday, after the government announced emergency loans for Chrysler and General Motors, Cerberus relented.

“In connection with the loan to be provided by Treasury, Cerberus has agreed to utilize the first $2 billion of proceeds from Chrysler Financial to backstop the loan allocated to Chrysler automotive,” the firm said in statement.

As for General Motors, Chapter 11 is the best and inevitable option – the only way to force true restructuring of the nation’s largest automaker.

As for you George, Don’t let the door hitcha’.

I’m ready.

I have a thirty-year-old snow blower that starts with one pull.

…a half bag of Starbucks.

…two four-wheel-drive cars.

…a shack full of firewood.

…a battery-powered AM radio to listen to Mitch & Ed.

…a scanner to listen to the mayhem.

…a drawer full of Ramen Noodles

….a lovely wife who happens to love shoveling snow (seriously).

…a forty-degree hill; three kids; three sleds.

…and my Christmas shopping is done.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

…as long as it’s gonna be cold it might as well be white.

Enjoy.

Rick Wagoner, CEO and G.W. share the same fate as their careers wind down.

They are both on the wrong side of public opinion. Bush is also on the wrong side of the aisle.

Good for GM, Good for America?

The Washington Post reports that its poll finds 55% of Americans oppose the Detroit handout, while only 42% support it. Democrats have become the party of corporate welfare, with 52% supporting the bailout; majorities of Republicans (69%) and independents (57%) are opposed.

Most surprising finding: “Union households are no more apt than those without a union member to favor the plan, 44 percent compared with 42 percent.” The United Auto Workers wants government money so as to protect the work rules and artificially high emoluments that have helped make Detroit uncompetitive.

Wagoner argues that without a bailout, GM will have to go Chapter “Belly Up” and won’t survive it. At the same time Bush is circumventing a Republican filibuster and overwhelming public opinion to open up the TARP checkbook for the Big Three; two of which don’t need the money; one of which has resorted to begging.

We keep hearing the argument, originally put forward last month by Rick Wagoner, GM’s delightfully named CEO, that people won’t buy cars from companies that have filed bankruptcy, for fear that parts and service will become unavailable. Are consumers really so stupid that they would have more confidence in a company that goes on welfare to support an unsustainable business model than in one that is being restructured through bankruptcy court?

It turns out the Unions aren’t as pro-bailout and foreign competitors may be more pro-bailout than one would imagine.

One major problem is that Japanese carmakers in the United States share many of the same parts suppliers. If a Detroit automaker were to collapse, suppliers would likely follow, setting off a chain reaction that could wreak havoc for Japanese production in a vital market.

More broadly, the U.S. crisis could lead to huge job losses and further weaken consumer spending, especially for big-ticket items such as automobiles. Together, the three big American automakers employ 239,000 workers in the United States.

I have teetered back and forth on this issue. Not unlike the unfolding of the financial system crisis, the more time that elapses, urgency fades in favor of clarity, and the more prized clear-headed thinkers become.

Let GM file bankruptcy. Let Cerberus feed their child so we don’t have to. Let Ford Navigate the waters unfettered by bailout dollars and the restrictions they would entail.

Let capitalism do what capitalism does: make stronger companies.

Tell me.

Why do we live here again?

Professional Sports Teams

Doomed Stadiums

Low Taxes

Political Climate

Strong Job Market

I got nothin’

I watched Leslie Stahl’s 60 Minutes interview of Barney Frank online and made a couple observations.

First of all, the media’s pronounced bias (or Leslie’s for that matter) manifested itself conspicuously, and it was even before the interview began.

Leslie Stahl’s lead in, emphasis mine:

“Barney Frank has been called the smartest guy in congress, which is lucky for us since he works on some of the thorniest issues around. The fourteen-term, sixty-eight year-old Harvard educated Democratic (she dips her head in approval) Congressman from Massachusetts is chairman of the house financial services committee, which means his portfolio includes banks, housing, and now the auto industry.”

Let’s be clear on one thing. Fourteen terms of Frank ‘n Beans has not been “lucky” for any of us.

Frank has purportedly spent his career becoming Congress’ de facto expert on America’s banking system and Wall Street only to oversee – nay, become complicit in – the biggest failure of both in modern times?

Lucky us!

Leslie Stahl asks Barney Frank about the unfairness of some people getting bailed out of their mortgages while others work two and three jobs to pay theirs. He justifies the program by asking is it unfair that one neighbor loses his job and gets unemployment while the one that doesn’t lose his job doesn’t? He justifies one policy with another as if they are the same thing. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

He’s been at the center of both the 700 billion dollar rescue for financial institutions, and the bailout attempt for the car companies that failed in the Senate.

As they say, the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime.

I learned from the interview that it’s not the only time he’s been at the center, or on the scene of a crime for that matter.

The lowest point of his life he says…when he found himself in a sex scandal. A male hooker that Frank had hired told reporters that he had run a prostitution ring out of the congressman’s apartment. An investigation concluded that Frank didn’t know anything about it but he was reprimanded and went to the floor of the house to apologize.

Never mind the fact that Barney Frank hired a hooker. He has a prostitution ring run right under his nose and escapes culpability on the basis of ignorance. Never mind the fact that he gets to keep his job. He is charged with overseeing our nation’s financial systems.

Only in a Liberal America.

Okay, so maybe we’re not going into another Great Depression. Maybe That 70’s Show offers us a better glimpse.

Actually, the year that offers the closest historical parallels to the present might be neither 1932 nor 1980 but 1976, and that analogy helps us understand the directions in which the country will be moving. Both in government and opposition, people might want to hold off on planning for the next New Deal, still less for a coming generation of liberal hegemony. In three or four years, the main political fact in this country could well be a ruinous crisis of Democratic liberalism.

The parallels are amusing if not cause for concern.

So disaffected was bicentennial America that it sought leaders unconnected to the establishment. In Jimmy Carter, voters found a candidate whose main qualifications were his lack of experience and connections within the Beltway or corporate worlds. Like Barack Obama, Carter claimed to rise above failed partisanship, while his New South background allowed him to symbolize racial healing. Carter, like Obama, sold himself mainly on the virtues of his character. He presented himself as a man of simple honesty, faith, and decency, and his lack of a track record allowed voters to see in him what they wanted, however far-fetched those hopes might be. If they hadn’t believed it, they wouldn’t have seen it with their own eyes. Above all, Carter promised change, a message that carried weight as long as its details remained nonspecific. The problem with messiahs from nowhere is that when they do exercise power, people discover to their horror what their leader’s actual views and talents are. The disillusion can be dreadful.

Gulp.

And as they did in 1976, Democrats now show every sign of repeating the blunders that led to a generation-long discrediting of liberalism.

Hee hee hee.

But if liberals seem so determined to repeat the mistakes of that era, then we have at least a plausible sketch of the coming Obama administration—of its rise and ruin.

Obama may have been right. They are the people we’ve been waiting for…

…to illustrate to those that weren’t paying attention: what happens when Liberals have the helm.

As long as health insurance is predominantly accessed through a third-party payer – employers – most Americans will have to rely on their them to shop for them. This has been a great deal for those who suffer from preexisting conditions as the insurance provider takes on the employer group in toto.

It’s also been a great deal for those whose conditions are of their own volition, or lack thereof as it were, as they are able to average in their morbidity and get a break.

Politicians talk of a health care crisis and how a country as prosperous as ours should not allow anyone to be without health care. It’s a right, not a privilege; a matter of dignity.

Fact is, our national health care “crisis” is not being caused solely by the insurance companies, nor the current delivery system but rather by the insureds themselves. In a way, our prosperity is our downfall. Everyone can afford Twinkies and smokes.

Experts say that upwards of 40 percent of U.S. medical costs are linked to obesity, smoking and other lifestyle factors — a statistic not lost on the nation’s employers. As a result, more than half of large corporations now use incentives to get employees to shape up, a 2008 survey found.

America is fat, and still surprisingly smoky too. Health insurers have been prodding consumers to get off their duffs, join clubs and live healthier lifestyles to no avail. Have you seen the insipid television commercials?

Now employers want a crack at it.

Sheila Kromer doesn’t want any help.

She enjoys smoking and she doesn’t want to quit.

Nor does she want advice on how to eat right. Or how to exercise. “I’m smart enough to take care of myself,” she says.

As a chemist at 3M, she’s had plenty of chances to join health and fitness programs on the job. But like many Minnesotans, she’s simply chosen not to.

Smart is as smart does. As it stands Sheila, you’re a jackass, and you’re gonna pay for it. Now and later.

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