Financial regulation, need there fore

Great Depression 2.0 was caused in part by Wall St bank high stakes gambling. We ought to cool the market down by regulating the things that banks are allowed to invest/speculate in. Real banks take deposits and have taxpayer backed FDIC insurance. If the government guarantees the bank's deposits, then the government had the right to limit the kind of risks the bank can run. In my view banks should not invest/speculate in common stocks, secondary mortgages, mortgage backed securities, credit default swaps, and commodities, including gold. These things are very risky, and do nothing to finance real economic growth or jobs. The purpose of banks is to finance real estate and loan to business and individuals. We ought to write a bank regulation law to forbid bank speculation in risky and unproductive things.
There are a lot of other things out there that look like banks, talk like banks, but don't have deposits and FDIC insurance. They are fake banks. They can speculate to their heart's content, but the government should make absolutely clear that it will never bail them out.
In fact, we should require display of a fake bank sign on the offices of fake banks. Something like "Deposits are NOT insured"

Miracle Health Food, Chicken Soup

At least all Jewish mothers proclaim the value of chicken soup to cure nearly anything. Homemade is easy.
Take a soup pot with lid. Add about a pound of uncooked chicken. Fill pot with water, and bring to a boil. Back off the heat and add some Bell's Poultry Seasoning. Simmer just at the boiling point for a couple of hours. Add veggies. Celery, onion, and carrots are mandatory. Then anything else you like. Peas, mushrooms, parsnip, green beans, rice, just about anything. Cook another hour or so until the veggies and rice are tender. It's good.
Occasionally Mac's has a sale on chicken trimmings for $0.50 a pound, which makes a pot of chicken soup ridiculously cheap.

Don't weep for me, Toyota

Poor Toyota. Getting slammed by recalls, Transportation secretaries, lawsuits, and endless terrible publicity, shutting down production.
One big question.
What's wrong with turning off the ignition and taking the car out of gear if the engine runs away?
Is this "Sudden Acceleration" thing really all that bad?

AIG bonuses

The Federal salary master was on TV yesterday explaining that he couldn't do anything about AIG paying $100 million in bonuses. There was a contract to pay the AIG turkeys who ran the company into the ground he claimed and contracts are unbreakable.
Got news for him.
1. Contracts have to be enforced in court. AIG should refuse to pay and let the fat cats sue for their ill gotten gains.
2. Publish the names and contact information of all bonus recipients.
3. Find and prosecute the people who wrote such foolish contracts. Bonuses should never be paid if the company is losing money, and AIG has lost more money than God. Paying bonuses when the company is broke, and worse, paying them to the folk who caused the disaster, should NEVER be part of any employment contract, ever.
4. Tell AIG no more bailout money if they pay any bonus to anyone until ALL $150 billion taxpayer bailout is repaid.

Another $2 trillion in the hole

The US House just raised the federal debt limit by another $2 trillion. And it's all Bush's fault. We are heading for a crash. Pretty soon, the Treasury won't be able to borrow the extra money, plus borrow enough to roll over the T-bills that are expiring.

Obama Comes to NH

A friend called up the other day and talked me into going down to Nashua to see the show. So, yesterday morning we loaded Tea Party signs, American flags, heavy sweaters, gloves, hats, a picnic lunch, thermos of hot coffee, another one of hot tea, and a point&shoot camera into the Caddy and roared off down I93 for Nashua. Following email directions we found an easy parking spot, even though Nashua had plastered Broad St with temporary no parking signs.
It was below freezing, but SmartWool socks inside good lace up boots, good gloves and ski parka's kept us warm enough. The affair was held at the Nashua North High School even though school was in session. Long line of people with tickets formed up to wait for the doors to open. Five heavy duty TV trucks with satellite dishes raised. We got interviewed and photographed by the Boston Globe, the New York Times, the Lawrence Eagle, The Boston Herald, CNN, and a couple of very nice young students.
About 1 PM the Nashua cops chivvied us back from the front door of the school and back out the the rotary on Broad St. By this time we had a modest crowd of a few hundred demonstrators with signs and such. The cops then amused themselves by herding the demonstrators around and around the rotary. By 2:15 the cops had all the streets blocked off and the Obama caravan swept thru. Long line of cop cars, vans, the White House black stretch SUV, and an ambulance swept thru the rotary and off the the school auditorium. Must have been 75 people or more in the whole shebang. Seems like a lotta pencil pushers for just another "support your local rep" campaign stop. We heard that the White House had overbooked the event and the ticker holders at the end of the line didn't get in, and got sore about that.
Then we went to a Republican town hall in the nearby by CourtYard Marriot. They threw three ball rooms together into one vast hall, which was packed. I saw Kelly Ayotte, Jack Kimball, Jennifer Horne, Karen Testerman, and Ovide Lamontaigne. After a number of warm up speakers we got down to the main event Stephan Moore of the Wall St Journal. Steve was good, he had the audience on their feet and cheering. Lotta good Republican spirit was raised.
We got home too late to catch anything on TV.

Lets save some money

There are multi billions of dollars left in the $750 billion TARP bailout fund. We ought to apply all that money to deficit reduction. There is maybe $500 billion unspent in the $787 billion Porkulus appropriation. Since a. Porkulus didn't work, or b. Porkulus spending got GNP growth up to boom time 5.7%, (take your pick), lets cancel the rest of the Porkulus spending to reduce the deficit. If we did these two things, we could cut this year's budget deficit down from $1.8 trillion to a "mere" $1 trillion. Put $500 billion of unspent Porkulus together with $300 billion left in TARP and that's a significant bite out of this year's horrifying deficit.