According to this, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) has time and money for yet more foolishness. They will require mandatory tire inflation tests with jail sentences for non compliance.
If California ever wants to get serious about cutting state spending, I know just where they can start. Close down CARB, fire all the employees, and burn the files.
Good thing NH is too intelligent to fall for something this dumb. We are, aren't we?
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Excessive Wall St Skimming
Wall Street exists to route society's capital into economic development. They haven't done a very good job lately, and in fact, stupid Wall St moves are largely responsible for Great Depression 2.0.
Right now, while the wounds are still fresh, we ought to outlaw, or at least tax the bejeezus out of, risky Wall St speculation scams that do not yield economic growth, or create vast surpluses. The "credit default swaps" don't invest money in the real economy, they are just a cover your ass maneuver. Underlings can make risky investments and tell their bosses "It's safe, I bought a credit default swap to insure it". When all the investments went bad at the same time, AIG couldn't pay off, we taxpayers had to cover AIG's bad bets.
Resale of mortgages and the "mortgage backed security" are scams that allow unscrupulous operators to sell mortgages that should never have been written and dump them on more gullible investors before the junk mortgage goes into repossession.
Credit rating agencies were paid to put AAA ratings on junk, and gullible investors bought the junk. We don't need that kind of credit rating agency. Actually, any broker worth his salt should do his own rating. We would do our selves a favor by taxing the credit rating agencies like Moody's right out of business.
We need to create some corporate governance. Right now the management runs the banks pretty much the way they like. The pay them selves and their buds outrageous salaries with money that by rights belongs to the stockholders. We need to give the stockholders and the boards of directors more say over company operations. For instance top management salaries ought to require a majority vote from the stockholders. Big moves ought to require board of directors say-so.
Then we need to clean up the accounting business. American "Generally Accepted Principles of Accounting" allow companies to carry purely imaginary assets on the books, allow ordinary running expenses to be "capitalized", and allow "sales" to be credited as income before the money comes in. Plus a bunch of other unsavory stuff.
We ought to demand Wall St reform from our Congress critters.
Right now, while the wounds are still fresh, we ought to outlaw, or at least tax the bejeezus out of, risky Wall St speculation scams that do not yield economic growth, or create vast surpluses. The "credit default swaps" don't invest money in the real economy, they are just a cover your ass maneuver. Underlings can make risky investments and tell their bosses "It's safe, I bought a credit default swap to insure it". When all the investments went bad at the same time, AIG couldn't pay off, we taxpayers had to cover AIG's bad bets.
Resale of mortgages and the "mortgage backed security" are scams that allow unscrupulous operators to sell mortgages that should never have been written and dump them on more gullible investors before the junk mortgage goes into repossession.
Credit rating agencies were paid to put AAA ratings on junk, and gullible investors bought the junk. We don't need that kind of credit rating agency. Actually, any broker worth his salt should do his own rating. We would do our selves a favor by taxing the credit rating agencies like Moody's right out of business.
We need to create some corporate governance. Right now the management runs the banks pretty much the way they like. The pay them selves and their buds outrageous salaries with money that by rights belongs to the stockholders. We need to give the stockholders and the boards of directors more say over company operations. For instance top management salaries ought to require a majority vote from the stockholders. Big moves ought to require board of directors say-so.
Then we need to clean up the accounting business. American "Generally Accepted Principles of Accounting" allow companies to carry purely imaginary assets on the books, allow ordinary running expenses to be "capitalized", and allow "sales" to be credited as income before the money comes in. Plus a bunch of other unsavory stuff.
We ought to demand Wall St reform from our Congress critters.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Meeting the NH State Republicans
The NH State Republican Committee had a meeting in Concord last night. I caught a ride down with Bruce Perlo. It was pitch dark when we left and it got no lighter. The meeting was chaired by JOhn Sununu, former governor and current Republican state chairman. John spoke of the Scott Brown campaign in Massachusetts and said Brown was very close in the polls, give or take 5% he said, and getting better day by day. He urged us all to give Scott a hand over the next week to the special election. Sununu feels the NH democrats are on the defensive over the LLC tax (a 5% income tax on small business owners) the state budget problem, brought on by a 24% increase in state spending over the last two years, and the $? trillion Obamacare. Sununu feels that this year will be the best year ever for Republicans. If Republicans cannot win this November, they will never win.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Scott Brown rising.
Scott Brown, the Republican candidate for Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat, is a comer. A few weeks ago he was rated a long shot. Today one poll has him in the lead. That's a lotta of coming up in the polls. The election is the 19th of this month, only nine days away. If Scott Brown keeps on rising like he has been, he's gonna win.
Brown has promised to vote against Obamacare if elected. Obamacare will still be before the Congress on the 19th, and likely for some days after. A Brown victory will scare the daylights out of all democrats from swing districts. Some of them will be scared enough to vote their districts, and the districts are against Obamacare.
Brown has promised to vote against Obamacare if elected. Obamacare will still be before the Congress on the 19th, and likely for some days after. A Brown victory will scare the daylights out of all democrats from swing districts. Some of them will be scared enough to vote their districts, and the districts are against Obamacare.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Where's that waterboard when you need it?
They are turning the crotch bomber over to the ordinary criminal courts. He gets a lawyer, who will advise his client not to talk to anyone (except him). Critics maintain that the crotch bomber should have been called an enemy combatant and turned over to CIA or the armed forces for interrogation.
There a bunch of things we'd like to know that the crotch bomber knows. Like who gave him the bomb, and where that individual lives. Along with phone number, email address, work address, work phone and the rest of the contact information that would let the Yemeni authorities arrest him, or let a Predator strike snuff him.
Would CIA be able to extract this information? With several CIA interogators facing criminal prosecution for excessive roughness while interogating Al Qaeda suspects? CIA is not a very courageous agency in the best of times, and I doubt they have the stones to waterboard the crotch bomber in these days.
In these not so good times perhaps a tough DA will be able to squeeze the crotch bomber harder than waterboarding would. The DA could offer to reduce the sentence in return for co operation. "Talk and we let you off with five years in a nice low security 'detention facility'. Clam up and we give you life in an awful place."
There a bunch of things we'd like to know that the crotch bomber knows. Like who gave him the bomb, and where that individual lives. Along with phone number, email address, work address, work phone and the rest of the contact information that would let the Yemeni authorities arrest him, or let a Predator strike snuff him.
Would CIA be able to extract this information? With several CIA interogators facing criminal prosecution for excessive roughness while interogating Al Qaeda suspects? CIA is not a very courageous agency in the best of times, and I doubt they have the stones to waterboard the crotch bomber in these days.
In these not so good times perhaps a tough DA will be able to squeeze the crotch bomber harder than waterboarding would. The DA could offer to reduce the sentence in return for co operation. "Talk and we let you off with five years in a nice low security 'detention facility'. Clam up and we give you life in an awful place."
Electronic With-it-ness
Which TV channels/networks are with it? Good question. The new digital TV sets can accept labels off the air (channel name, name of program currently broadcast) and display them to us couch potatoes as we surf up and down. Some channels (Fox News, TNT, Animal Planet, The Learning Channel) broadcast the labels, and they show up on the TV set. Other not so with it channels don't bother (WMUR, WPME, CSpan, SyFy, FX and more). Was I investing money in a TV station or channel, I'd invest in the with it ones, the ones that bother to broadcast their name and the program name. When channel surfing, most of us surf right by channels showing a commercial. Should instead a label show us that a nice program will appear after the commercials, we might stop surfing, and put up with the commercial waiting for the program to reappear.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
The Tea Party
Lot's of talk about the Tea Party rising up and smiting Democrats and Republicans. Might happen, but not just yet. Around here we have a lot of Tea Party folks, but it's a protest movement. The Tea Party doesn't have candidates for office, and until that happens, it isn't a political party.
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