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Christopher Dodd

Killing the Economy with Regulations

by Bill O'Connell on September 21, 2011

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Photo by Mike Licht, nationscapital.com

Often overlooked in the class warfare that President Obama is unleashing on America so that he can continue spending, is how business is being strangled by regulations. Every time the government fails to protect our rights and freedoms because it is too busy trying to micromanage our lives, and as a result some calamity descends upon us, the answer is always more regulations. Nowadays, that will typically mean thousands of pages of new laws that turn into tens of thousands of pages of new regulations and those who never met a payroll wonder why we are stuck at 9% unemployment.

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Goldman Skirts Volker Rule – Well That Didn’t Take Long

by Bill O'Connell on July 28, 2010

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It never ceases to amaze me how the political class thinks they are so much smarter than the rest of us.  They think they can write a 2,000 page law that will really “fix” things and don’t believe that all the intellectual horsepower in America can’t disassemble their work in a matter of days.  Today’s political class is too dumb to realize Thomas Paine was right and still is, “that government is best that governs least.”

This is from Fox Business News.  Goldman Sachs has figured out a way to get around the Volker Rule’s restrictions on trading that was just enacted in the Dodd-Frank Act. It is doing this by changing its “risk taking- traders into asset managers.”

The move is designed to exploit a loophole in the Volker Rule, part of the recently signed financial-reform legislation named after presidential economic adviser and former Federal Reserve chief Paul Volcker. The Volcker Rule is supposed to scale back on Wall Street risk taking by ending what’s known as proprietary trading, where firms use their own ideas and capital to make market bets.

But by having the traders work in asset management, where they will take market positions while dealing with clients, Goldman believes it can meet the rule’s mandates, avoid large-scale layoffs and preserve some of the same risk taking that has earned it enormous profits, people close to the firm say.

This is really about the arrogance of those who have been breathing the heady air of Washington, DC for too long.  From way up in those ivory towers they can’t see that among those on the ground are the most brilliant minds in the world and before one of their lofty laws tossed from the tower hits the ground, the huddled masses will turn it into mince meat.  Why does Medicare/Medicaid lose $60 – $100 billion a year to fraud?  Because for every beltway pinhead writing a regulatory rule, there are 100,000 people reading that same rule and finding all the ways to get around it and how to use the same rule to tie the government in knots so it can’t stop them.

Are they really that arrogant?  When asked that question John Kerry sniffed and said, “Let them pay taxes.”  He then cackled, stepped on to his 74 foot yacht Isabel and sailed off into the sunset, quaffing champagne as he went.

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Fire, Ready, Aim

by Bill O'Connell on July 22, 2010

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The Sherrod incident is the latest in a long line of shoot from the lip misfires from the Obama administration, from the president on down.  Here is a review of some of the more egregious of them:

  • President Obama, without waiting for the facts says the Cambridge, Massachusetts police department “acted stupidly,” in an incident involving African American  professor Henry Louis Gates.  A picture from the “beer summit” shows the president confidently striding toward the cameras while in the background Sergeant Crowley takes Professor Gates arm to help him negotiate the stairs, as Professor Gates walks with a cane.  Racist?
  • With 13 dead Americans at the hands of terrorist Nidal Hasan, Janet Napolitano comes out and claims, “The system has worked really very, very smoothly over the course of the past several days.”  A few days later she would eat those ridiculous words.
  • Not to be outdone by herself, after another terrorist attempt on our soil in Times Square, Secretary Napolitano quickly came out to label the attempt a “one-off” and the suspect a lone wolf.  As the investigation picked up steam there were all sorts links to terror groups in the Middle East.
  • When the president of Honduras tried to override term limits and become the next Hugo Chavez, the Honduran government enforced its laws against the changes that its president was trying to illegally implement.  The Obama administration immediately labeled the legitimate actions of the democratically elected Honduran government a coup.  Hillary Clinton’s State department cancelled the visas of all members of the Honduran Supreme Court.  Not to be intimidated by Chavez, Castro, or Obama, Honduras stood its ground.  The Congressional Research Service looked at the Honduran Constitution and the actions of its government and found that the government acted properly and within the law.
  • When Arizona reached the end of its rope and could not get the Obama administration to enforce the law on the border, they passed a law to give their police greater flexibility to determine the legal status of people stopped for another police matter.  The Obama administration immediately called the law unconstitutional.  When asked if they read the massive 10 page law, that’s right 10 pages, both Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary Janet Napolitano (yes, her again) both said they hadn’t read it before declaring it unconstitutional.  This administration pushes through legislation running thousands of pages each and they can’t find time to read a ten page law before condemning it.
  • Department of Agriculture employee Shirley Sherrod gave a speech to the NAACP where she spoke about her transformation from having a racial bias in a decision she made 24 years ago, to today where she tries to treat all individuals regardless of race.  Only the first part of the story was headed toward the airwaves, the part about her past discrimination, and before the news hit the air she was fired by the Obama administration.  Had they watched the whole tape before acting, they wouldn’t be swimming in apologies right now.

 

Is this just the lack of experience or does the Obama administration need adult supervision?  They jump to these wild conclusions and then end up backtracking days later.  After eighteen months in office you would think they would have learned by now how to govern.

Another case without as quick a trigger is the passage of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill.  After taking office President Obama appointed a commission, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to investigate the root causes of the crisis.  A prudent person might say, let’s hear what the commission finds out and then write legislation to address those root causes.  With months more to go before that commission’s work will be done, we have another 2,000+ page bill coming out of Congress and signed by the president to put new regulations in place on the financial services industry.  Why the rush?  Wouldn’t it be better to fix the real problems rather than what Chris Dodd and Barney Frank think are the problems and let them paper over their own culpability in the creating the crisis?  Why were Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac excluded?  In one of the hearings before the commission an argument was made that AIG did not have to be bailed out, that there were measures in place to ride out the crisis and that in the long run their policies would be fine.  Whether that is true or not, will have to wait for the final report, but the “just don’t stand there, do something,” mentality is disconcerting.  I certainly hope we are never faced with another Cuban Missile Crisis with this team in place.

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The Regulators are Dead, Long Live the Regulators

by Bill O'Connell on June 28, 2010

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As written about extensively here, government regulators have failed us in so many ways that to continue the practice of putting more control in the hands of government is lunacy.  To wit:

  • The financial crisis, although typically blamed on Wall Street greed, was due in large part to government agencies and programs (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, HUD, Community Reinvestment Act, National Homeownership Strategy) that opened the door through which Wall Street followed.
  • The oil spill in the Gulf happened after regulators either signed off on waiver applications from BP or just didn’t enforce the regulations on the books
  • Anywhere from $60 billion to $100 billion is stolen from Medicare/Medicaid every year and our government can’t seem to stop it
  • First time homebuyer tax credit was claimed, to the tune of $9 million, by incarcerated felons.

But the current administration insists that government must get bigger to tackle our nation’s problems and must tax us more to do so.

Senator Chris Dodd and Representative Barney Frank were at the heart of the financial debacle, claiming that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in sound financial shape.  Meanwhile Senator Dodd was getting a sweetheart mortgage from Countrywide as a “Friend of Angelo” Mozillo, the CEO of Countrywide.  Now we are to believe that Senator Dodd and Representative Frank have ridden to the rescue and have crafted the solution we have all been waiting for, just don’t ask about Fannie and Freddie, they aren’t included in this master work.

The Federal Reserve will now have more power to regulate banks, after failing to monitor what was going on at Citibank and having the government step in because they were “too big to fail.”  The Treasury stepped into to bail out some banks and let other financial firms like Lehman Brothers to go under, will now have more power to determine which financial institutions are sound and which ones are not and step in to take control without allowing the bankruptcy courts to get involved.  The SEC which was asleep at the switch, or too busy watching porn on taxpayer purchased computers,  when the Bernie Madoff scam was delivered to them wrapped in a bow, will now have more power to decide how easy it will be to allow union pension funds to place their candidates on boards of directors.

The new legislation, which does nothing really new, runs to 2,000 pages (did you expect something less?) and leaves much of the details to the regulatory agencies themselves to fill in the blanks.  And never to miss an opportunity to slip a new tax into the mix there are $19 billion in new taxes to pay for this new regulatory oversight.

So when regulators fail, the government’s response is not to look at government’s role in creating the original problem, but to blame any private interests and add more regulations that will increase the scope and power of the government, take away your liberties, and do nothing to fix the original problem.  When the next crash comes, and it will, these same folks will say, “oh, dear, how did this happen?”  They will blame any private interests that are anywhere near the problem, absolve government agencies of all blame, and layer on more regulations.

The only way to fix this problem is to make sure these same folks are not around in the future and to cut the government down to size.

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Congressional Clunkers

by Bill O'Connell on August 1, 2009

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Can anyone offer us a deal to give us cash if replace our Congressional Clunkers?  How about the health insurance companies?  They’d probably kick in, since they are Congress’ new whipping boy.  Oil companies, coal companies?  They get bashed every time Congress screws up and bans nuclear power, offshore drilling, ANWR, and coal as the price of oil climbs.  Banks who didn’t take TARP money?  Well Congress wants to set their salaries now.

Congressional Mileage

How much liberty per dollar are we getting for the money guzzling Congressmen and Senators who pull down $169,300 per year (more for committee chairs, and Speaker Pelosi who weighs in at $217,400)?  And this doesn’t begin to count their expense budgets, gold plated health care, etc.  I’m sure we could get much better mileage from a smaller government and a Congress that only meets half a year.  I’m willing to bet that the longer Congress stays in session the more trouble they get us into, while consolidating their power and feathering their own nests.

Here’s the Plan

Let’s set up a fund.  We’ll let Goldman Sachs run it, as they seem to know how to turn a buck. Anyone can contribute to the fund, no limits. For every Congressman who voted for the Stimulus, Cap and Trade, and the Health Care disaster and is run out of office, the fund will pay out a percentage of the fund to everyone who registered and voted.  The percentage will be calculated as the percentage of these clunkers who are retired out of Congress.

Think about it.  If you are a voter who really, really believes that the Stimulus, Cap and Trade, and the government takeover of our health care system is a good thing, you will vote to re-elect the members of Congress who voted the same way.  However if you don’t, then perhaps you need a little personal stimulus to cross party lines, or set aside ideology, and vote the bums out.  It might even help improve voter turnout.  And why not?  If ACORN can get illegal aliens and dead people to vote for their candidates, we need a way to fight back.

What do you think?

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End the Blame Game, Take Responsiblity

by Bill O'Connell on May 1, 2009

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On President Obama’s 100th day in office, as part of his never ending election campaign he said, “Number one, we inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit…. That wasn’t me.”  The “blame it all on Bush” mantra is getting old, but this one is becoming particularly grating.  I would like to direct President Obama’s attention to the United States Constitution, Article I, Section 9:

“No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law;”

Congress has the power of the purse, not the President.  That means that President Bush couldn’t spend a thin dime without the approval of Congress.  For the last two years of the Bush presidency, who controlled the United States Congress?  The Democrats.  And lest we forget, before he became President Obama, he was Senator Obama, a member in good standing of that same United States Congress.  Does anyone think for a minute that the Democratic Congress run by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi was a rubber stamp for Bush?  Anything they disagreed with Bush on they would have fought tooth and nail.

Remember during the campaign when the Democrats were putting together their rescue package how the Republicans were locked out of the room and John McCain “suspended” his campaign to return to Washington to make something happen?  Remember as well that Obama was too busy campaigning to similarly get involved even though he was still a sitting Senator.

Now with the shoe on the other foot, and President Obama pushing to triple the deficit, the only people fighting him in Congress are the Republicans.  So this impending debt disaster is a joint effort by Obama and the Congressional Democrats.

President Obama can’t claim, like Bill Clinton, “don’t blame me, I came from Arkansas.”  President Obama can’t claim, like Jimmy Carter, “don’t blame me, I came from Georgia.”  President Obama came to the presidency from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.  He was an insider, not an outsider.  He owns just as much of this mess as Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid.

So, Mr. President, stop playing the blame game, take responsibility and do your job.


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Rescue Me

by Bill O'Connell on April 1, 2009

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Can liberty be saved?  Is there a chance that we can rescue our country from the federal juggernaut that wants to reach down into the deepest recesses of your life and take control?  They spend your money with reckless abandon and say, “What Me Worry?”  Those in power would have indulged in the trappings of office, sated on money and power, and be long gone with their spoils while the crumpled bill lies on the floor for you and your children and your children’s children to pick up and pay.

They have invited many to the party, to eat, drink, and be merry with promises of “middle class” tax cuts that are the greatest April Fools joke of all time.  Don’t worry we’ll get the rich to pay for it all.  You know, those evil fat cats on Wall Street.  But the Republicans on Wall Street have long be replaced by Democrats.  That’s right, Gordon Gecko is a Democrat.  60% of Wall Street contributions went to Democrats vs. Republicans.  How long will the top 2% of earners keep shouldering the burden before they slow down, stop, or emigrate.  Who will pick up the pieces then?  Who will support the drunken revelers that Obama piled on the public dole?

AIG Outrage

All of the outrage by Congressional and Administration leadership over the AIG bonuses is the epitome of hubris.  AIG contributed $104,000 to each Barack Obama and Christopher Dodd, during the recent election cycle.  Do you remember the brouhaha over language in the stimulus bill that had a loophole that allowed the AIG bonuses to be paid?  Dodd said he didn’t include the loophole.  Later he said he did include it but at the insistence of the Obama administration.  Now is it just me or does anyone else see a quid pro quo here?  Then they come out red-faced professing that the bonuses are an outrage.  Senator Schumer, who is threatening to unconstitutionally tax the bonuses into oblivion, took $112,000 in contributions from AIG.

Lessons from Hugo Chavez?

More recently President Obama effectively fired the CEO of General Motors and now speaks of bankruptcy.  I, among many others, said they should have filed for bankruptcy long before taxpayers bailed them out.  So now after we have sunk taxpayer money into GM and Chrysler, Obama steps in and effectively runs the company on “our behalf” as owners of 80% of the company and now says bankruptcy is a good idea!  When will the amateur hour come to an end?  But watch carefully, because Obama will assiduously avoid offending the auto workers union, despite the fact that the union contracts put US auto makers at a $2000 per car disadvantage against the competition.  GM (Government Motors) will now be forced to make cars that satisfy Obama’s left wing supporters but that Americans don’t want to buy.  It will be interesting to see how the government forces us to buy them.

What Do the Europeans Think?

For years we have been told by the left that we must listen to what the Europeans are saying.  They say we have to consider foreign laws in weighing Supreme Court cases.  They decried Bush’s policies as alienating our European friends.  So what do the Europeans think of Obama now?

The president of the European Union on Wednesday ripped the Obama administration’s economic policies, calling its deficit spending and bank bailouts “a road to hell.” — Washington Post, March 25

A Very Dangerous Path

In March of 1933 Adolf Hitler, proclaiming a national emergency of a potential communist revolution asked the German legislature, the Reichstag, to grant him emergency powers to deal with the situation.  Such a proposal required two-thirds approval by that body.  The final vote was 441 in favor, 84 opposed.  From that point on, Hitler was dictator. 

 Rahm Emmanuel likes to say, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”  President Obama is taking the current financial crisis to ram through a massive power grab.  The legislation is being rammed through with such force and urgency that no one has a chance to read it.  What ticking time bomb could be tucked in those pages that get voted on and passed without scrutiny?  Just look at the AIG fiasco for the answer.  No one seemed to know or admit it was in there.  If we allow this to continue, we may find some other provision included in the dead of night that will destroy our country forever.

Be on your guard.

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Fair is Fair

by Bill O'Connell on March 23, 2009

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President Barack Obama is now proposing that shareholders should be allowed to vote to limit executive pay. After all they own the company, right? If that is such a good idea shouldn’t all of us vote on the pay of President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd, Charlie Rangle? And I don’t just mean within their districts, the whole country should vote on each of their salaries. After all they work for us, no? It would be interesting to see how much the American people would cut their $175,000 salaries since their approval ratings are abysmal.

If we did this, then many of these incompetent bloodsuckers would leave Congress and do something else. Then maybe we could replace them with real talent, who would be well paid because they do a good job: close the budget gap, shrink the size of government, cut taxes and let the economy grow.

I think Nancy Pelosi should work for $1 per year and see how fair that is. What do you think?

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Obama’s 800 Pound Gorilla

by Bill O'Connell on February 24, 2009

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Honest Barack?

Unless and until President Obama is willing to recognize that government has played a significant role in the economic mess we are in, the solution to the problem will be beyond his grasp.  In mentioning the causes of the current economic problem he lists greedy banks, predatory lenders and he even is willing to admit there are irresponsible people who bought houses that they could never afford.  But President Obama refuses to admit or mention the creation of Fannie Mae under Roosevelt (D); moving Fannie Mae off the books of the federal government under Johnson (D); the creation of the Community Reinvestment Act under Carter (D) to push more lending in poor neighborhoods; the further push for more low income lending with threats from the government under Attorney General Janet Reno in the Clinton (D) administration; the refusal to put in place more regulation of Fannie Mae by Barney Frank (D), Christopher Dodd (D), and a threatened filibuster of Fannie Mae reform by, yes, Senator Barack Obama (D).

He repeatedly talks about the deficit he inherited, but doesn’t admit how he doubled down and maybe tripled down on that deficit and based on his speech to Congress tonight, he isn’t even close to starting to spend.  It’s time for him to accept responsibility for his actions.

Until he is willing to honestly put all the cards on the table, and all the players who are responsible both Republicans and Democrats, the problem cannot be adequately addressed nor solved.  He cannot hide the source of a major part of the problem and expect to fix the problem once and for all.  By giving those bad actors a pass, they will be able to repeat their mistakes again and again and put us in this mess in the future.

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A Salary Cap You Can Believe In

by Bill O'Connell on February 5, 2009

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We heard President Obama say pretty starkly that the enormous Wall Street bonuses were outrageous.  While I stop short of government dictating compensation to private businesses, I do put the Wall Street clowns in the same category of the Big Three auto CEOs flying to Washington in their private jets looking for handouts.  Very bad form.

The more I pondered the idea of salary caps, whether they were fair or not, whether it was government taking away another liberty, it finally hit me, that this just might work.  So I now propose a salary cap, on the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. And why not?

Who Got Us Into This Mess?

It was the housing bubble that triggered the financial debacle.  What drove the housing bubble?  Let’s start with Fannie and Freddie.  They were created by Congress.  Next came the Community Reinvestment Act that forced banks to make riskier housing loans.  Next the Clinton Administration under the direction of Janet Reno, drove the banks harder to make more housing loans to people who couldn’t afford them.  Then was the Federal Reserve that kept interest rates too low for too long.  And right up until the end we had Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd saying all was well with Fannie and Freddie.

We have Charlie Rangel, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, the committee responsible for writing the tax laws, cheats on his income taxes.

Bernie Madoff runs a Ponzi scheme that bilks people out of $50 billion while a guy named Markopolis figured the whole thing out in five minutes and spent the last nine years trying to get someone in government to care.

The government imposes CAFE standards on the auto industry and drives them to the brink of bankruptcy and then says we have to bail them out.

Now they are proposing a “stimulus” package that is just a bunch of pork.

Solution

So I propose that we, their employers, cap their salaries at $100,000 (from their current $162,500) until such time as they fix this mess.  I further propose that if a congressman/woman can prove that they didn’t vote for any of the crap that got us into this mess, that they be exempt from the cap.

What say you?

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