House passes Puerto Rico bill.

The Hill, usually a pretty good source, is fairly clueless on this one.  They give a good discussion of the back and forth tugging to pass it.  Nothing about what's in it.  They give one brief quote from Paul Ryan to the effect that there is no taxpayer money going to Puerto Rico, but that's it.  I hope that's true.   There was talk a few weeks ago, about setting up a special board/commission/bureau in Washington to supervise Puerto Rico's government and it's spending habits.  The Hill didn't say anything about that.
   Such a bill ought to offer Puerto Rico protection for law suits while a bankruptcy court sorts out the island's finances.  Without the customary protection from lawsuits, Puerto Rico and the courts would be swamped as every lender and every supplier, and every union, and every body else sues Puerto Rico for the money they think they are due.  You gotta shut all that off to get any where.
   Was I the bankruptcy judge, with full powers, I would tell the lenders to suck it up.  It's been obvious to anyone for the past 20 years that Puerto Rico had no way, and never would have a way. to repay the loans.  For making dumb loans, the lenders deserve to loose.  I'd  review all the island pensions, and chop them back to barely enough to live on.  I'd  review the government payroll, I understand that a third of the island's residents are on it, and lay off a lot of 'em.  I'd shake up the island's tax collection department and drive them to collect all the taxes owed, by everyone. 

Does it matter if Republican apparatchniks dislike Trump?

TV news this morning is full of serious Republicans saying that they cannot support The Donald.  Well, it's understandable.  The Republican party establishment, elected officials, party workers, pundits, activists, people whose day job is politics, never liked Trump.  They did their best to stop Trump.  But the voters do like Trump, they voted for him, and there are a lot more voters than establishment types. 
   So, does it really matter if the establishment types still don't like Trump and refuse to support him?  Trump communicates with the voters thru TV and Twitter, not endorsements from prominent politicians.  In fact, Trump's voters are mad at the political establishment for the miserable state of the country, and they tune in to Trump's TV appearances.  They don't have any respect for the opinions of politicians, most of whom they call RINO's.

Election Results. Nada

Polls closed in California about 11 hours ago.  So I'm listening to NPR talking about the results on the clock radio this morning.  In an hour, they never mentioned the election results. They had a lot of happy interviews with Hillary people saying how wonderful Hillary's victory was, but never in an hour of NPR talk did I hear any real results, like how many votes cast, how much the winner won by, size of Republican and Democratic turnout.  Just an hour of happy talk.  So I got up, turned on the TV to Fox, and not much better.  I did learn that Hillary beat The Bern by 11% in California, which is solid,  but that's it.
  So I got in the net.  To bad, Fire fox was unable to connect to anything.  So, I trudged down to the basement, found my cable modem and my router.  Unplugged both for the count of ten.  Plugged back in, and voila, internet connectivity was back.  So I decided to post on my blog. Next I'll see if we have any election results on the net. 

Day After D-Day

I know I am a day late.  Success of the D-day landings was crucial to the defeat of Hitler.  It was a humungus enterprise,  thousands of landing craft, all built just in time, a million soldiers, tanks, floating harbors, fuel pipelines laid across the channel, and a zillion other things cranked out by British and American industry.
   It was extremely dangerous.  It might have failed.  It was so chancy that Eisenhower, the supreme commander, and the man with the best information, penned a press release announcing defeat of the invasion.  Fortunately he never had to use it.  With a little more luck, and a better German command structure, Rommel might have been able to throw German armor into the battle on the day of the landings instead of a day later.
   Defeat would have been a disaster.  It took all of 1942  and 1943, and half of 1944 to build up for D-day.  After a defeat on the landing beaches, it would have taken at least another year to build up to a second try.  Hitler would have been able to move all the troops guarding France against invasion to the Russian front and that surely would have slowed the Red army down, perhaps even defeated it.  It would have given Hitler time to bring secret weapons, V1, V2, jet fighters, guppy submarines, even nuclear weapons into action. 

Payday loans.

The Diane Reams show was whining about pay day lenders this morning.  Lender's are accused of making very high cost short term loans to borrowers who cannot actually pay off the loan off, they just keep rolling it over, at horrible rates of interest, and get skinned. 
  Elizabeth Warren's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau wants to increase paperwork, and make the lender learn the borrowers income , expenses, and calculate his chances of repaying the loan.  Does not sound very effective to me, although it will furnish work for bureaucrats. 
  They used to have laws against usury,  usually defined as loans at 35% per year or worse.  The payday lenders are charging more like 350% per year, which is really really bad.  Usury laws used to be a business of state law.  I understand that the payday lenders have managed to get usury laws repealed, or watered down in many states to allow them to operate.  The payday lenders claim that they cannot do business at 35% and allowing the really poverty stricken access to loans is a social good. 
   I'm thinking that an old fashioned usury law, criminalizing doing loans at more than 35% would clean up the payday lender situation.  It would deny credit to people on the bottom, no income, no assets, no job.  These people are not good credit risks, and mostly don't have the money to pay off a payday loan.  I think it's better for such people to do with out, rather than lend them money that they will be unable to repay. 

Fair Point phone book fail.

So I need to renew my drivers license.  I know there is or was (haven't checked lately) a DMV office on US 302 in Twin Mountain.  Decide to give them  a call, just to see if they are still there, and if there is any paperwork I might need to bring. 
  Open the Fairpoint phone book.  Check the Government Offices, State section.  No phone number there.  Call the Littleton State Police office thinking they might have the number.  They didn't, although the officer was very polite on the phone.  Check the town of Franconia website, looking for a phone number for Franconia police.  No phone numbers on the website.  Finally dial 911.  Convince the 911 person that it is not an emergeny, I just need a phone number.  She finally comes up with a number.  I call it. They give me another number, which finally works.
  Save your old Verizon phone books, the Fairpoint one is mostly useless.
  Or is it the death of phone numbers?

Agencies shall make no law...

Right now federal agencies, IRS, FDA, EPA, FHA, FAA, FCC, FEC, NRC, BATFE, NSA, BLM. et cetera, ad nausium, issue regulations, lots of regulations, all of which have the force of law, and are binding upon us poor citizens.  Regulations that can favor one company over another, regulations that tear a man's house down, regulations that can shut a business down arbitrarily, and regulations that make every thing more expensive.
  I think we ought to take the power of regulations away from all agencies.  The only laws a citizen should have to respect are real laws, passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the president.  
  Should an agency want to bind the public to something, they can try and get Congress to pass a real law.  If perchance, Congress fails to pass the agency's little brain child, then it means it's a bad idea.
  And while we are at it, no agency should have it's own private police force, with badges, guns, and the power of arrest.  Should an agency want some law enforced, they can jolly well call the regular police, just like us citizens have to do.
  In a real democracy, laws are passed by the legislature, not written by bureaucrats in secret.