Another Possible Reason For Enthusiasm Gap?

A lot has been made of the “enthusiasm gap” that might or might not exist between Republican Teabaggers eager to take our country back to the 1750′s and the Democrats who would prefer to keep moving forward into the 2000′s.  To some extent, I think the enthusiasm gap does exist.  I have provided brief examples in the past few weeks that could help in deciding whether the gap exists and whether it should exist.

Here is the latest:

Mortgage companies enrolled in the Obama administration’s signature foreclosure-prevention initiative may be receiving taxpayer funds despite not having a legal right to the home or to the mortgage, a top Treasury Department official revealed Wednesday.

But despite faulty or missing paperwork, the Obama administration allows mortgage companies to boot homeowners from the program, sticking the borrowers with massive bills that often leave them worse off.

Call me a wild-eyed liberal, but when a Democratic President who campaigned on fixing the economic disaster we were hurtling towards does more to help out those who set us on the course for disaster instead of the rest of us who, for the most part, were simply trying to lead our lives, well, I think you might be able to guess what the result is.  How enthusiastic should those homeowners be toward the President or his administration?  Obama has been riding the campaign trail for fellow Democrats pretty hard since Labor Day, telling crowds that his administration stopped the U.S. from going into another Great Depression; telling crowds that his administration fights for the little person; telling crowds that the bankers should be held accountable for their actions.

Stump speeches are all well and good, President Obama.  But when the banks who first offered loans to people who they didn’t check to ensure could afford them then bundled them up (without the requisite paperwork) and sold them to make a profit, then bought insurance policies on the loans, bundled those up and sold them to make more of a profit, then bet short on the packages because they knew they were worthless to make even more of a profit, then got taxpayer money to bail them out from the mess they created now get more taxpayer money to illegally kick people out of their homes, how much support can you really expect from those homeowners and taxpayers?

Especially when your administration hasn’t forced the banks to actually unravel those packages and see how worthless they really are?  Those bad mortgage default swaps should be fully accounted for on the banks’ ledgers.  Yet your administration has allowed the banks to play accounting games so the losses don’t show up.  Are we really to believe that the only entities who didn’t suffer as a result of the mortgage crisis were the banks?  They didn’t turn unprofitable in the past 3 years; they’ve continued to set record profits.  How glad are American voters supposed to be about that?  By the way, those bad packages will have to come due sometime.  And if your administration continues to kick that can down the road, like you have to so many other cans in the past two years, the result when they do come due will be many times more painful and devastating to the American economy than if they had been handled in the past 2 years.

But by all means, keep campaigning and telling Americans that everything will be alright with you and your buddies in charge.  You didn’t create this mess, but by not taking responsibility for it during your term (much like Afghanistan), the mess will become defined as yours in the annals of history.  Perhaps taking care of the multiple crises you face can take a higher priority in the next two years than you chasing down non-existent Republican Teabaggers who will compromise with you.  They’ve told you there will be absolutely no compromise.  Believe them at their word and start moving this country forward again, Mr. President.

Weekend News Roundup: 2/20-21/09

I was disappointed to read that President Obama has taken NAFTA renegotiation of the table.  American workers are suffering because of failed “free-trade” policies.  If he wants high employment and a strong economy, protecting our workers is a primary way to get there.  This is a result of the people Obama has put into power.

Congratulations go to formor President Bush for allowing Iran to become another nuclear state.  It joins North Korea as a country that can threaten our allies for years to come, just as the War industry wanted.

Hexcel Corporation broke ground on a 100,000-sq-ft facility in north-eastern Colorado that will manufacture epoxy-resin components for wind blades.  They moved here because Vestas manufactures those wind blades at an adjacent location.  While the gas and oil industry cuts jobs in Colorado due to lack of demand for their products, the wind and solar industry enjoys new businesses and new jobs.

Another 627,000 jobs were lost in the Economy Bush Built.  Net job losses could total 700,000 for February.  Good thing corporate profits were setting records as late as last year.  I’d hate to think the economy was bad or something.

About one in four people with a mortgage owe more than their homes are worth.  One of Obama’s solutions is to force lenders to re-negotiate mortgage terms.  The lending industry, who got us into this mess in the first place, is objecting to the plan.  As usual, they’re also not proposing any kind of solution.  Doing nothing will all but destroy our economy.

David Harsanyi continues his crusade against America with his op-ed this week.  He claims taxes, extreme government spending and wealth redistribution are patriotic in an attempt to slam President Obama’s recovery plans.  In Con Fantasy Land, it seems tax reductions are now called tax increases.  Similarly, the past 8 years of keeping occupations off the budget and creating the largest government program in 30 years (that doesn’t work with its peers) went by uncommented since it was a Con “president” who proposed the “extreme government spending”.  Last but not least, Harsanyi’s characterization of wealth redistribution comes across as pathetic after we’ve seen the effects of Bush’s “tax cuts”.  Americans were sure glad to get one two grand back (the first year only) they were passed weren’t they?  Oh, except for the richest 1%.  They’re keeping hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars per year thanks to Bush’s tax cuts.  Wealth redistribution indeed.  And what’s up with this:

Yes, the same Freddie and Fannie — once implicitly guaranteed by government and now explicitly run by government — that helped, through social engineering, to push us into recession.

I wish the rest of us had figured out what the great sage Harsanyi did – Fannie and Freddie (with Cons leading them right up through the beginning of this horrible recession) were so unbelievably powerful.  Cons love their conspiracy theories.  I learned an important lesson during the Bush years.  When a Con says something, the reality is exactly opposite.

Breckenridge ski resort may not be allowed to expand onto Peak 6.  At issue is a lynx recovery plan.  It’s nice to see more honest consideration of all factors with something like this.

A Colorado constitutional rewrite is being seriously considered by more and more people.  State spending is affected by numerous, conflicting amendments.  Colorado can either lose out on education, health care and prisons or a group of adults (hopefully) can come together and implement realistic solutions.  If a Constitutional Convention is called, one potential flaw is they can rewrite any part of the Constitution they want.  It would be nice if people who were convinced government can’t operate weren’t put in charge of that government.  It simply makes no sense.

The Colorado House Agriculture Committee killed a proposal to limit the involvement of the Division of Wildlife in issuing oil and gas drilling permits.  The CDoW became involved in the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission only after a Democratic Governor was elected.  Not surprisingly, this pro-business article ony quoted a proponent of the bill.  Unlike climate change articles, where the denyers’ point-of-view in nearly sacrosant, opponents of HB-1255 didn’t get their comments published.

On a positive note for science, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory is scheduled to launch Tuesday.  The polar-orbiting satellite will measure oxygen-to-carbon ratios to indicate where carbon sources and sinks are at.  My fear is that carbon sources will be found to be larger and more prevalent than carbon sinks.  There are already indications that the warming oceans are soaking up less carbon every year, allowing the atmosphere and oceans to warm up even further.

News & Discussion Items 10/8/08

Paul Rosenberg nails the past 8 years in a very short post.

The second Presidential debate was last night.  Sen. Obama said the words “middle class” four times.  Sen. McCain didn’t say them at all.  That’s why McCain is losing.  He doesn’t care that the middle class is struggling.

Britain has put together a rescue package for its banks.  Which is quite different than the Bailout Bush prushed.  See, Britain is buying shares in the banks until such time that their financial affairs are back in order.  British banks are not just getting money handed out to them, as they are in America.  Spain is following in America’s footsteps.  The framing of each case is critical moving forward.

A number of swing states have seen voter rolls purged – likely illegally.  A New York Times look into the matter hasn’t picked up any patterns of responsibility by either major party.  Regardless, a lot of people could be turned away come Election Day or told to vote on provisional ballots, which are rarely counted.  My own state of Colorado is on the list.  Despite an increase in population all decade and very successful voter registration drives, there are currently 100,000 fewer voters left on the rolls than in 2004.  That’s going to be a big problem come November 5th.  This situation provides strong evidence of the need for same-day registration.  Americans should be able to wait longer than 4-5 hours for an official count for something as important as President.

NASA’s Phoenix lander is currently expected to keep operating until about the middle of November 2008.  At its high latitude, the amount of sunlight it can receive is currently decreasing as Mars moves into its fall and winter.  Soil sampling will continue until no power is left on the craft.

Some 76 million Americans own their homes.  Housing values have fallen about 30% since their peak two years ago.  Which means approximately 12 million Americans owe more on their homes than they’re worth – about 16%!  That percentage is up from only 4% in 2006 and 6% in 2007.  9% of homeowners are between one month overdue or in foreclosure.  Here is why that’s really bad news.  More upside-down houses results in more foreclosures which drags other home values down, which puts more owners upside-down and so forth.  That’s what initiated the mortgage crisis and then the financial crisis.  With the credit markets frozen, fewer mortgages will be approved, keeping housing values and sales down for some time to come.

Random News 6/24/08

Gov. Ritter announced a new statewide energy efficiency and conservation campaign yesterday. Entitled, “The New Energy Economy: Bringing It Home”, the campaign will consists of TV and radio spots that inform folks about simple, low-cost methods of saving money on energy. The methods include:

• “Turn it Down!” Install and use a programmable thermostat or adjust the temperature down when you aren’t at home. Programmable thermostats can save up to $150 a year in utility bills.
• “Unplug it!” Unplug electronics, such as cell phone chargers, when not in use, or install a power strip for controlling devices such as computers, TVs and entertainment systems. Seventy-five percent of electricity used by electronic devices is while the products are turned off.
• “Turn it Off” Turn off the lights when leaving a room and install energy efficient compact fluorescent lights (CFLs). CFLs use about 75 percent less energy than standard lights and last 10 times longer.
• “Take a Ride” Gov. Ritter and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper ask you to “Take a ride, share a ride, or ride.” Besides getting exercise, you can save money on gas and vehicle maintenance by riding a bike. Relax on the bus or catch up with friends when you carpool.

The first ad can be seen on Gov. Ritter’s Energy Office website.

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The League of Conservation Voters has a new ad about Bob “Big Oil” Schaffer’s connections to the oil and gas industry, including supporting multi-billion dollar corporate welfare.

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Republicans think Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth “is replete with fantastic prophesies of doom for the planet unless America immediately regresses to third-world squalor.” If delayers get their way, the costs of mitigating and adapting to climate change will be much, much greater than if we take decisive action right now. The same is true for all the problems we face. And yet all Republicans want to do about them is give away our money to the largest corporations. That isn’t ethical and it doesn’t solve our very real issues of the day. Just the opposite: it makes them worse.

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10 million homeowners now have mortgages that are worth more than their houses. Republican economic policies do not work.

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People across the country are getting their power shut off by energy companies because they’re falling behind on their bills.  They must all be dead-beats living off the government, right?  Actually, more and more are middle class: four-member households earning between $33,500 and $55,500 are increasingly affected.  See, when you have to choose between gas bills, food, and health care costs while your wages have stagnated, something has to give.  But rest easy because CEO compensation was up 25% again last year.

Responsibility

I love reading things from Republicans. It’s so … intriguing to learn what a different world view has to offer. Like former state Senate President John Andrews. Now Andrews has said and written many things over the years that are worthy of discussion and easy rebuttal. A piece that came out earlier today ranks right up there.

The article dealt with Andrews calling out Rep. Ron Paul’s use of the phrase “tent cities”. I’m not going to get into that particular aspect of the article. Here is where I come in. Andrews wrote the following:

“Like Ron Paul, I sympathize with the hardship of those who have lost their homes through unwise borrowing. But also like him (presuming the sincerity of his free-market professions) I can’t blame that unwisdom on anyone but the borrowers themselves. For Rep. Paul to blame policymakers and regulators, as these ads imply, would be unworthy of him as a small-government constitutionalist and apostle of personal responsibility.”

I don’t doubt that Andrews is chiding Paul for small-government unworthiness. Republicans have weird topics they enjoy being competitive over; I’m not necessarily going to get in their way. No, it’s the sentence before that that caught my eye.

“But also like him [...] I can’t blame that unwisdom on anyone but the borrowers themselves.”

Like I said, fascinating world-view. You see, to be a good Republican these days, it appears you should favor corporate personhood: extend constitutional protections to corporations (but fight against holding corporations responsible for anything), while at the same time favor flesh-and-blood personal responsibility (but work to reduce constitutional freedoms for actual people).

In Andrews’ world, it was entirely the fault of every single person who signed up for mortgages that they are now losing their homes. Never mind the fact that lenders weren’t checking income or credit scores like they were supposed to have done. No, no: the blame lies entirely on those messy unwashed masses that behaved like little children clamoring for treats.

Now what do you think will happen when banks continue to bleed billions of dollars in write-offs because people continue to be unable to pay for the loan that never should have been offered to them? Well, the banks will scream for help. And those same small-governmentalists will call for a massive tax-payer funded bail out of said banks. Because while banks need constitutional rights extended to them, they can’t be held responsible for their actions, now can they?

Except banks performed similarly in the 1980′s during the Savings & Loan problems. Taxpayers footed the bill then. What lesson of responsibility did they learn? Apparently none, because we’re about to find ourselves in the same mess all over again. And since that time, those small-governmentalists have been busy extending more freedoms to corporations (and reducing regulatory oversight of them) and increasing the responsibility for which you and I are responsible. It makes perfect sense, right?

One of the scarier aspects of this is Andrews has numerous pathways to spread his illogical rants, both on radio and in the printed media.