These are excerpts taken from Congressional hearings about the dealings of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae back in 2004.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs
Raines characterized housing as a riskless investment asset. Wow! That turned out to be dead wrong, but that’s not all this YouTube video reveals.
Why do the Congressional Democrats say that they will only greenlight a $700 billion bailout bill if they’ve got the support of a significant number of Congressional Republicans? The Democrats are in the majority in both houses, and the U.S. President is siding with them, so why the uproar over the Republican holdouts?
The reason why some Republicans are holding back is because the bailout converts our financial sector from capitalism to socialism, and they don’t believe we should be socialists. I agree. I don’t think we should be socialists. I’m sure Congressional Democrats understand where these Republican holdouts are coming from.
Therefore, if the Congressional Democrats are so certain that these Republican holdouts are in error, and they think they have the correct solution, then they should act on their convictions, just as the Congressional Republican holdouts are acting on their convictions.
The ball really is in the Democrats’ court, but I guess they don’t really want the ball to be in their court. Why do the Democrats hesitate? Do they also feel an inner conflict? If so, then perhaps they’ll have enough of an open mind to consider my question: Are Americans capitalists or socialists? What’s your answer? If the former, then go back to the drawing board and figure out something besides bailing out with the taxpayers’ money. If the latter, then ACT!!!
I happened to see this AP article by way of Yahoo that says Connecticut Democrat Party leaders want to exile U. S. Senator Joe Lieberman. It made me laugh.
The G.O.P. is making no such moves against those who endorsed Obama for U.S. President at the Democrat National Convention. The G.O.P. is more tolerant of diverse opinions.
In Ohio, the Democrats made a move to banish Marc Dann, but they did the right thing because of Dann’s ethical lapses. No one in Connecticut is accusing Lieberman of promoting a frat house culture within his Senate office. Apparently, Connecticut Democrats expect their politicians to be mere puppets. If you can dance without strings, then you don’t qualify to be a Democrat in Connecticut.
One of the Democrats, Audrey Blondin, pushing for a censure resolution against Lieberman said:
“If you have someone who says they’re a Democrat, who is registered as a Democrat and is a national figure supporting a candidate who is opposed to all the ideals and beliefs and positions that we hold as Democrats, he’s diluting — in my opinion — the meaning of our party.”
Oh, no! The Democrat Party in Connecticut could be diluted! If left unchecked, the reliably blue state could turn red! (I wish!) And Lieberman would be the cause! (Yeah, I suppose the extreme ideological intolerance by the Democrats as shown by their vilification of Lieberman wouldn’t turn anybody off.)
Go ahead, Connecticut Democrats. Start an inquisition. Purge your party of all infidels. I wouldn’t want you to feel as if your party had become diluted.
I’m talking about the benefits of opening the floodgates of LEGAL immigration.
Let me be very clear at the outset that I support securing our borders, including continuing with construction of the border fence. Also, those who are in the country illegally ought not to be first in line to receive legal status. I favor a beefed up Border Patrol and ICE. Some businesses and the politicians that those businesses own have benefited from an underground labor market that undermines the legitimate labor market. Those guilty of such should be prosecuted for human trafficking crimes. I oppose new guest worker programs because we already have provisions in place for temporary work visas and because we have no effective strategy for dealing with those who overstay their temporary guest visas. Michelle Malkin also makes a connection between illegal immigration and the high-risk-taking on Wall Street that has brought the nation to the brink of a depression, or socialistic taxpayer-financed bailout, or both.
By the way, on the topic of the bailout, I do not favor it. I don’t want to see a socialization of our economy. I don’t have confidence that the bailout will avert severe economic shocks. I think that the House of Representatives passed a bailout measure quickly because all 435 Representatives are up for election at the beginning of November, and they want to delay the day of reckoning until after these incumbents have retained their seats, whereas only about one-third of the Senate is up for election in any given even-numbered year, which is why they are being more deliberative than the House. I know that without the bailout, the nation would endure severe economic shocks, but I think the American people are rooted in their views of justice and facing the music. Our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents have suffered devastating times through two world wars and the Great Depression, and heroically survived to tell the tale, and so the current generation of Americans have within them the mental toughness to see beyond the current calamity, as many other Americans besides myself are opposed to continued bailouts, especially when the collective price tag reaches above a trillion dollars. Many of us instinctively know that if the Federal government tried to swallow up whole segments of the private sector in this socialist tsunami that the Federal treasury, itself, would become insolvent, and our government would default in addition to the other economic woes, thus devaluing our currency and destroying the security of government-issued bonds. Artificial attempts, for purely political purposes, to manage the market corrections that must take place will only prolong the time it will take for recovery to begin, as shown by the Japanese and the financial crisis that enveloped them in the mid 90’s. I do, however, favor transparency, oversight, accountability, and unambiguous regulations to curb such scandalous financial practices in the future.
How do we recover? With credit frozen up, with houses for sale with more being foreclosed upon, with business failures and job losses looming, how do we begin to pick up the pieces? There are many things that the “invisible hand” of Adam Smith economics will put in motion for equilibrium to be restored, but I want to elaborate on expanding legal immigration and how it could help economic recovery.
Think of a river with levees along the riverbanks. Think of a flood. The levees will hold for awhile, but levees can be breached when the rivers are swollen enough. Also, think of the fertility of river bottoms, and the ecosystem within the river. When a natural river is artificially channeled, the ecosystem of the river is altered. Though floods can devastate structures, they can also improve the fertility of the soil along the river bottoms. So do we want to allow flooding from time to time to maintain the fertility of the soil and viability of the stream? Or do we want protection from flooding devastation? Innovations in civil engineering in recent years have allowed us to have the best of both worlds, with mechanisms that can limit the risk of devastation, yet allow for nature to run its course some of the time.
For scores of years from the foundation of our country until the very early part of the 20th century, we permitted immigrants to flood our soil, and our nation flourished. But after a couple of decades into the 20th century, the flood of immigrants was too overwhelming, and we constructed the bulwarks to shut off the flow. For the better part of a century now, we’ve constricted legal immigration, setting artificial ceilings on who can migrate here from where and for what purpose. The demand to migrate here, though, has breached our flood control measures. Therefore, we have standing pools of illegals within our population, and those waters are brackish. Some of the illegals crossed our borders without papers. Others came with temporary papers that have since expired.
The underground economy resulting from the presence of illegals has besieged the above-ground economy, as sweatshop work conditions violate human rights, wage levels are eroded, the tax base is eroded, and government outlays for medical care, crime-fighting, and public education have increased.
Those who want to come to the USA through the front door, especially for permanent resident visas, experience delays that can last for years. A university student from overseas can get a visa in a matter of weeks. Why does the vetting process for a temporary visa, for example, an F-1 visa for a university student, require much less time than does the vetting process for a permanent visa? Many of our current population of illegals have overstayed their temporary visas, so, should we have vetted them more carefully before issuing the temporary visa? Or should we just have better enforcement actions against those who’ve overstayed? Or should we totally rethink the concept of temporary visas and provide conditionally permanent visas, instead? The lengthy delays in granting the permanent visas are swelling the ranks of those who never make an attempt to come through the front door in the first place.
I think immigration reform measures should beef up INS, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, not just the Border Patrol and ICE. A beefed-up INS can help ICE follow up with those who have overstayed their visas. A beefed up INS can have an increased capacity for vetting those who apply for visas. A beefed-up INS can speed up the processing time for immigrants coming through the front door. A beefed-up INS can handle a larger workload that comes with allowing greater numbers of immigrants.
Let’s open the floodgates to legal immigration, with conditional permanent visas (a visa designed for permanent residency that has conditions which allow for revocation within the first five years). The flood will fertilize our soil at a time of economic devastation, and within a couple of seasons, we will have a great harvest, recover from the devastation, and, if we choose, close the floodgates again. The criteria beyond establishing that they are not criminals or terrorists? Those applying for the permanent resident visas must be able to buy a residence with cash, and they must sign a waiver that they must not apply for government assistance (welfare, social security, medicare, medicaid, government student loans–requirement waived for individuals honorably discharged from the U.S. military) within the first five years of residence. How they earn their living is something we can let them work out on their own so long as they aren’t living off of government assistance and so long as they are in the above-ground economy (working in the underground economy would be just cause for visa revocation and deportation). Just the fact that they can buy a residence with cash can help our housing market recover during a credit crunch. The swell of population in the above-ground economy will increase demands for goods and services, further stoking the economy’s recovery, plus our tax base will be expanded.
If some compassionate Hollywood types want to sponsor some immigrants by plunking down cash to get them a house, so be it, so long as the immigrants can make it through the vetting process.
So what do we do about the low demand for homes sitting vacant in Ohio, in Florida, in Michigan, in every state in the country? Let’s turn on the supply-side spigot by allowing good people from beyond our borders to have a chance at the American dream. The bursting of the housing bubble is what brought down the entire financial house of cards, so addressing the housing crisis at the bottom-up level can assist with the recovery. While these new legal immigrants embark upon the American dream, our American nightmare can be speeded toward its conclusion so we can wake up to a new America.
With Obama and Democrats throwing the kitchen sink into the bailout plan, it’s obvious that the bailout is not just for Wall Street or Main Street. It’s really an attempt to bail the Congress out of DISMAL approval ratings, as Congressional incompetence has been put on display during this crisis. The MSM usually hides Congressional fumbles, but there’s no way to avoid shining a spotlight now. The Republicans in Congress that are most ready to jump on the bailout bandwagon are also the Republicans most in need of image makeovers, too. Senators and Representatives are hoping to score points by all their talk of helping Main Street, but I’m not so sure Main Street is convinced this bailout is about them. This is a pathetic attempt by Congress to appear to be heroic when they’ve already been exposed as self-dealing schemers whose actions show they want to continue to live their lives of privilege and to dodge responsibility for their abject failures.
At 5 pm today, the 23rd, I participated on the “Blog Bunker” program on Indie Talk 110, on Sirius, a subscription satellite radio medium. The host for today was Joe Salzone. He dedicated the entire show to the Wall Street meltdown and the bailout proposal before Congress. I wanted to talk a bit about how that issue plays out in Ohio, especially from the perspective of a McCain supporter. Mr. Salzone is one of those rare persons supporting Bob Barr. The host was very gracious. He allowed callers to have their say without interruption. The callers were excellent, and a few had some very poignant information to share.
I had to admit that polls show that voters favor Obama on the economy. I acknowledged that Republicans in Congress are divided about how to proceed. I also conceded that John McCain is still gathering and processing information on the matter, and is still crafting his approach to the matter. I credited Ron Paul with being accurate in his predictions about our economy. I acknowledged that there is plenty of blame to go around between Wall Street, the White House, past Presidential Administrations, and both parties in Congress.
I opined that McCain is still in the hunt because of his reassuring message of reform and his leadership image. I opined that Obama hadn’t closed the deal yet because his economic proposals, as presented at townhall meetings, are often buried deep in a stump speech that is devoted mostly to blaming Bush, Wall Street lobbyists, and Republicans in Congress, notably McCain. While the Obama camp may hope that he is capable of portraying McCain as Herbert Hoover, it hardly seems the stuff of leadership to just rant and rant and rant about McCain without putting his own proposals front and center, first and foremost. By contrast, McCain and Palin have been highlighting their proposals BEFORE delving into their prepared stump speeches. They don’t dwell for dozens of minutes on end on playing the blame game, but they do spread the blame to everyone, including those in their party. They reiterate that they’ve both had to upbraid members of their own party from time to time in order to do the right thing. Their prepared stump speeches then reinforce their reform message, and coupling that message with that image of leadership has kept McCain from falling far behind Obama in Ohio.
I counted myself among those who are opposed to the bailout. I noted how long the Japanese financial crisis has dragged on because they also attempted some artificial market interventions to soften the blow. I said that we do need accountability, enforcement of existing regulations, correction and introduction of other regulations, plus more effective oversight, but I’m not in favor of socializing the financial sector and using $700 billion of taxpayer funds to bail out Wall Street. I expressed skepticism that the bailouts would stave of severe economic shocks. I am of the opinion that whether we proceed with bailouts or not, that other dominoes will fall, and that severe economic shocks will follow, so, why proceed with bailouts? If we don’t proceed with bailouts, but we put good governance structures and regulations in place, I think the market can correct itself faster than if we proceed with bailouts. I also admonished that families need to prepare themselves for future economic shocks, mentioning a prior blog article that encouraged families to stockpile household goods to better weather the bigger economic storm that may be headed our way.
The conversation was quickly-paced. I’m not sure that I was always relevant or on point or had my wits about me all the time, but I had fun.
In my prior post, I stated that Bob Barr is right. John McCain and Barack Obama should not appear on the Texas ballot because, according to Texas law, McCain and Obama did not meet the deadline to have their names appear on the ballot.
So I’ve been trying to figure out if it’s possible for John McCain to win without Texas. I went to the web site for Real Clear Politics, where they have an interactive map so that you can play around with various scenarios. Just click on a state, and the interactive map will allow you to designate it as McCain, Obama, or toss-up.
Since Bob Barr is not an option, I changed Texas to toss-up, and left it that way. I assumed Obama had locked up California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. I also assumed McCain had locked up Alaska, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, Kansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina (that might be a tall order to even assume that McCain has grabbed onto Missouri and North Carolina). So the battleground states that I was experimenting with were New Hampshire, Virginia, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.
If 34 electoral votes from Texas go to Bob Barr, it’s possible that no one would claim a majority of the Electoral College. If that were to happen, it’s almost certain that Barack Obama would be the next president, because the U.S. House of Representatives votes to choose the president when the Electoral College fails to reach a majority decision.
The number of electoral votes needed to capture a majority of the Electoral College is 270. McCain needs at least 270. If McCain ends up with 269 or less, Obama wins.
Playing around with the map, I discovered that it is possible for McCain to win without Texas, but it’s a tall order. How tall? McCain would need some big states in his corner, like Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan, plus at least three, perhaps more, smaller states (McCain would need to cobble together at least 30 more electoral votes from the combination of smaller states with those big four in his pocket). That’s already a tall order to sweep Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan, let alone win the other battlegrounds.
If McCain could pick up Florida plus all the Great Lakes states except for Illinois and New York, he could do it. That means McCain would have to grab Indiana, Wisconsin, and Minnesota in addition to the big four. If he lost either Minnesota or Wisconsin, he could still win if he managed to pick up Colorado. If he lost both Minnesota and Wisconsin, he’d have to get Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico all in his corner. If he lost the smallest of the big ones, Michigan, he’d have to nab Virginia and New Hampshire to replace it. If he lost Indiana, he’d have to pick up Virginia. Many envision Obama winning Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, though. McCain would have to have Virginia, New Hampshire, Nevada, New Mexico, and Colorado in order to counter that. But if Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin are all comfortably in the Obama camp, then New Hampshire, Nevada, New Mexico, and Colorado are probably also in the Obama column. Ouch.
You get the picture. A McCain win without Texas will require some surprises in a few states. It’s not impossible, but it is daunting.
Go ahead. Play with the interactive map at Real clear Politics. You know you want to.
Bob Barr is right. John McCain and Barack Obama should not be on the ballot in Texas.
The state of Texas has already printed absentee ballots with the names of McCain and Obama on them, even though they failed to meet deadlines imposed by Texas law.
The fact that the ballots already have the names of McCain and Obama on them demonstrates how this will likely turn out in the end: Barr’s principled stand will be defied by the powers that be in Texas.
Even though I favor McCain, and even though I don’t know how McCain reaches the minimum threshold of 270 electoral votes to become the next president without the 34 electoral votes of Texas (listed as safely in McCain’s camp anywhere you look from any polling source or news organization), I admit that it would be wrong to include the names of McCain and Obama on the Texas ballot.
If I were a Texas voter, I’d be angry at any state legislator that didn’t attempt to remedy the problem in advance. Texas legislators know (or ought to know) what the election laws are, including the deadlines for getting on the ballot. They also knew well in advance when the conventions were going to be held. They had ample opportunity to act in order to accommodate the schedule of the two major parties. But they did not.
If I were the judge hearing Bob Barr’s case, I’d strike the names of McCain and Obama from the ballot, and not feel sorry for the state legislators that had to put up with the earful that angry voters will be sure to give them.
34 electoral votes for Bob Barr.
But I think we’ll find that judges aren’t immune to politics, and will rule against Barr, which will make me very unhappy with the judges.
But Barr is right.
From the Norwalk Reflector: “Norwalk Furniture is history.”
I’m more concerned about firms like Norwalk Furniture going belly up than I am about Wall Street firms going belly up. Can you guess why?
A lot is not yet known about this, and I just heard the news headline myself, but if it’s true, I don’t want any more to do with the Democrat party and it’s Big Brother vision of America.
Though I am Republican, I have often engaged in split-ticket voting.
If Palin’s personal e-mail has been hacked, that, to me, is akin to Watergate.
What happens when one challenges the status quo? What happens when one upsets the apple cart? What happens when one deals a blow to the good old boys and politics as usual?
The politicians get angry. They have an axe to grind. They scheme of ways to get even, bring down the crusader, and reinstate the status quo.
The public, though, is pleased.
The job approval ratings of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin hover in the vicinity of 80%, and it’s been that way for two years. They respect that she ousted the head of Alaska’s Republican Party who used his time on the job as an oil commissioner to run the state GOP. They respect that she divested herself of some of the perks that the prior good-old-boy governor had accumulated. They respect that a natural gas pipeline project that had sat idle for 30 years is now on the front burner. They respect that the Alaskan government is more transparent, including putting the state checkbook online. Transparency has heightened the need to be more prudent with expenses, so Sarah Palin has vetoed $500 million of wasteful spending, and she has dramatically chopped the number and amount of Federal earmarks that Alaska is seeking.
Those spending cuts anger state legislators. The legislature approves the spending just to have Palin veto it. Every earmark that Palin rejects creates more enemies, and those enemies are powerful special interests, or at least, special interests who used to enjoy power and who would like to reassert their power vis-a-vis the current Alaskan governor.
The Alaskan public remains delighted with the strides that Palin has made, and wishes other politicians had acted in much the same way a long time ago.
Meanwhile, the conniving politicians who want revenge hope that they have found a turning point that will allow them to stop the roll-back of their political power in its tracks in the person of Walter Monegan, a former administrator responsible for Alaska’s safety forces. Walter Monegan was offered a choice of assuming another position within the administration or being terminated. He chose termination, and then made an issue of it, alleging that Palin was misusing her power. When that allegation was made, the heads of the spurned politicians turned. Instead of allowing Palin to continue on the path of shaking up Juneau, they could charge her with misusing power. Perhaps this was the first way to check Palin’s immense popularity, if they could redefine her as a powermonger rather than reformer. The state legislature decided to launch an investigation. Clearly, they have a motive for finding fault with Palin.
Meanwhile, the public, I’m sure, is laughing off the redefinition of Palin as a powermonger instead of reformer. Their former governors were powermongers. Their former governors made no attempts at reform. The public was able to tell the difference between Palin and her predecessors. After the “trooper-gate scandal” first went public, Palin’s approval ratings dropped to . . . 76%!!!! How many governors in America enjoy approval ratings of 76%?
Did Palin abuse her power by dismissing Monegan? Was the termination the result of Palin’s frustration that she couldn’t get Monegan to fire her ex-brother-in-law? I think not, and here’s why: 1) Monegan says that he wasn’t asked to fire anybody, that he’s just trying to read between the lines. 2) Monegan was offered another position within the administration. 3) Most importantly, Monegan’s replacement has not fired the ex-brother-in-law. If it was all about getting the ex-brother-in-law fired, wouldn’t dismissing Monegan be all about putting someone else in that position to take care of that one little detail? If the ex-brother-in-law was fired after getting Monegan out of the way, then one might conclude that it was indeed personal.
Now that Palin has become the VP nominee, the MSM has piled on, and the “trooper-gate” is becoming larger than life. Politicians with an axe to grind now have the MSM and the Obama campaign in their corner. The McCain camp stated today that the fix is in, and that the state legislature’s investigation has become a political machine determined to make a ruling against Palin. I think the only reason the vengeful state legislature hasn’t already ruled against Palin is that they are timing the announcement according to the needs of the Obama campaign in order to inflict maximum damage on Palin, weakening her as much as they can in order to begin their push to reinstate politics-as-usual.
If American voters, though, follow the lead of the Alaskan public instead of jilted Alaskan politicians, they’ll recognize this episode as the bogus witch-hunt that it is and see that Palin truly does stand on the side of the people, which is why the Alaskan people stand on the side of Palin.
Two VP candidates hit the campaign trail this morning. Sarah Palin was in Golden, Colorado, speaking of the things that she and John McCain would do if elected to the White House. The message of reform was one that provides hope. Joe Biden was in Saint Clair Shores, Michigan, speaking of pocketbook fears, predicting what John McCain would not do. After listening for 15 minutes of attack after attack on John McCain, I realized that Biden had not even mentioned Senator Obama, let alone what Senator Obama plans to do about Wall Street jitters. One campaign has a message of what they’ll do, and one campaign has no message, maybe not even a clue, about what they’ll do. Isn’t this a huge flip-flop for the Obama campaign, to run on the message of fear and not hope? Isn’t this a huge flip-flop for the Obama campaign to run on the old-style politics instead of a new kind of politics?
I hope Sarah Palin makes a campaign appearance in Tiffin, Ohio. Perhaps she could inspire long-time Seneca County Treasurer Marguerite Bernard to raise the bar of government accountability a little higher.
Sarah Palin says she puts government on the side of the people. Really. Among the list of accomplishments that support her assertion is that the checkbook for the state of Alaska is posted on the internet for the people to see how the funds are spent. WOW! It was so easy to navigate to the checking account page from Alaska’s Home Page! Why isn’t the MSM talking about this? We all know how one of the pet issues of the media is the Freedom of Information Act. The state’s checkbook online? The media has to LOVE Sarah Palin for that. The MSM doesn’t even have to file any FOIA requests. Yet, . . . they don’t love Sarah Palin for that. It’s yet another demonstration of how “in-the-tank-for-Obama” the MSM really is. If the MSM is really fair and balanced, they would survey all 50 states in the USA and find out how many of them post their checkbooks online. I haven’t heard that figure reported yet.
And just how monumental an accomplishment is it that a state posts its checkbook on the internet?
Consider this: Seneca County, Ohio, which has about 60,000 residents, hasn’t even been able to balance its checkbooks more than a month after the office of Mary Taylor, Auditor for the State of Ohio, said that the bank statements and the checkbook figures don’t match each other. The Tiffin Advertiser-Tribune reported on August 6th that the discrepancy between the two was $813,456. That’s not pocket change.
Recently retired County Auditor Larry Beidelschies was the first to alert Seneca County, back in March of this year, that the checkbook was out of balance. Beidelschies was in the process of gathering records for Mary Taylor’s audit when he made the discovery.
The audit did not reveal any embezzlement or egregiously inappropriate expenditures. It’s just that when bank statements were issued, no one in Marguerite Bernard’s office compared the dollar amounts on the statements to the figures in the county checkbooks. Apparently, the bank made some errors and shorted Seneca County’s accounts.
Though much of the discrepancy was discovered right away to be an error on the part of National City Bank, there was still a reported $40,000 gap by August 7th (which turned out to be untrue, as we will find out later), which is still not pocket change. The Advertiser-Tribune editorialized that such performance is still sub-standard for a county treasurer who has been in office since the 1980’s. The A-T editorial went a step further by pointing out that Marguerite Bernard, the Democrat incumbent, faces a challenge from Republican Damon Alt, who voters might choose to replace Bernard this November.
By August 13, Marguerite Bernard assured the commissioners that the $40,000 variance had been corrected. County Commissioner Ben Nutter, though had met with both Bernard and National City Bank and reported that the checkbook was still not in balance as of August 19. In an A-T report of August 22, Bernard assured the County Commissioners that the checkbook could be reconciled by September 2nd, and that she was almost certain the books were balanced through June 2007. Auditor Beidelschies, noting that almost certain isn’t good enough, suggested that the books could still be out of balance dating back to 2006. Bernard asserted the June 2007 date, because she says that’s when the State of Ohio began to wire funds to the counties instead of issuing checks, and the new wire transfer method complicated things.
On August 24, the A-T reported a meeting between the County Commissioners and Bernard. Apparently the County Auditor’s office had offered, on several prior occasions, to help reconcile the checkbook, but Bernard had turned away those offers of assistance, so the Commissioners let it be known that they expected Bernard to let the Auditor assist. By August 26, Bernard had met with a representative of the Auditor’s office. As a side note, an interim replacement for Beidelschies was named, as his retirement date was set at August 31.
With the County Auditor finally on the case, by August 29, another discovery was made: A second checkbook was out of balance! All this time, Bernard had acted with resentment that others had been looking over her shoulder, and she’d kept insisting that her office could correct everything without assistance and without prodding, but the evidence of the Treasurer’s incompetence keeps growing! Would Alaska Governor Sarah Palin have had the same attitude as Marguerite Bernard? Quite the contrary. Bernard doesn’t want prying eyes looking at the county’s checkbooks, but Palin put’s Alaska’s checkbook online for all eyes to see! Beidelschies suggested that Seneca County get help from the State of Ohio to balance the checkbooks, which the A-T heartily agreed to in an editorial.
Treasurer Bernard missed her own September 2nd target date as the A-T reported on the 3rd that the checking accounts still weren’t reconciled. On September the 7th, the A-T reported that the County Prosecutor, Ken Egbert, Jr., was to also be part of meetings between Bernard, the Commissioners, and the Auditor’s office. In the A-T of September 9th, it’s reported that the meeting of the previous day got ugly. A seemingly indignant Bernard attempted to walk out of the meeting part way through the proceedings! She didn’t want to continue to answer questions! Bernard said she had the variance down to 28 cents, which finally is pocket change, but the representative from the Auditor’s office said that they had seen no verification of Bernard’s assertion. Bernard handed over a bank statement from July 2008 that had hand-written notes showing her attempt to reconcile the account, but the Auditor’s office said that they hadn’t seen the documents to back up the hand-written scrawls. and hadn’t even seen verification that a $99,000 discrepancy dating back to 2007 had ever been reconciled! The County Auditor’s office wanted to see ALL the documentation, and Bernard still wasn’t being accommodating. County Commissioner David Sauber said that he contacted State Auditor Mary Taylor’s office and State Treasurer Richard Cordray’s office asking them how Seneca County should proceed.
In an A-T report from September 11th, we learn that after the state audit was made public in early August, the remaining discrepancy out of the original $813,466 wasn’t just $40,000, as had previously been asserted. It was actually in the ballpark of $200,000, and the County Auditor still hadn’t verified that a portion of that, in the amount of $99,000, had been reconciled. The next day, the A-T reported that Bernard provided more documentation, but that the County Commissioners still believe that progress on the matter is too slow in coming, so they are considering hiring outside help to solve the matter. Julie Adkins, the incoming County Auditor who is replacing the retired Beidelschies, said that the Auditor’s office didn’t have the manpower to continue work on the checkbooks. Commissioner David Sauber hadn’t heard any reply from Richard Cordray’s office yet, but Mary Taylor’s office proposed that Seneca County could hire the Local Government Services Agency (LGSA), a state agency affiliated with Taylor’s office, to reconcile the checkbooks. The County Commissioners want to obtain an estimate of how much LGSA’s services would cost the county, plus hear from Cordray’s office, before deciding how to proceed.
It is now September 14th, and Seneca County’s checkbooks still aren’t in balance, and an experienced County Treasurer is miffed at all the hubbub over the entire affair. Contrast that with Sarah Palin and the transparency that she has committed the Alaskan government to, and you see that one is a public servant who doesn’t really like the public, and the other is a public servant who empowers her public.
There is yet more evidence of Sarah Palin’s attempts to reform government to put it on the side of the people, but I’m impressed by just the checkbook, alone.
I hope Palin comes to Tiffin soon and urges a vote for not only the McCain-Palin ticket, but a vote for Bernard’s election opponent, Damon Alt, as well.
Finally, I hope the MSM reports back about how many of the 50 states put their checkbooks online like Alaska does.
I have a recommendation for every household this weekend: stockpile food and other household goods–perhaps 3 months worth. The financial house of cards on Wall Street is ready to collapse. It might happen next week, it might happen next month, it might happen next year, but our nation’s financial foundations are not on good footing.
In a prior post, I urged the Federal government to not bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It looks like the fix is in and they will be bailed out. Lehman Brothers is apparently pleading for federal guarantees so that someone will acquire it. A decision is expected by Sunday. Other financial institutions are at risk, as are other industries. Whether the Federal government bails everybody out or not, there is a risk that our currency could take a big hit, and if that happens, expect an inflation spike. If inflation spikes, expect that the stuff on store shelves will be really expensive. If you can manage it, I think it’s good to keep a stockpile on hand to keep your family afloat no matter what happens to the financial markets.
With a short-term inflation spike, some prices won’t be able to move much, such as rent (already stipulated in a lease agreement), mortgage (a contract already agreed to when you purchased your home), and utilities (utility companies would have to get the state of Ohio to agree to a tax hike before they could raise their rates). Prices of anything not already locked in, though, could skyrocket.
Of course, we are already experiencing financial distress in Ohio, but, believe it or not, it really can get worse. Among those who think it could get worse is Governor Ted Strickland, who is trimming the state budget to anticipate impending shortfalls rather than tap the state’s “rainy day” fund. (Hat tip to Lisa Renee at Glass City Jungle.)
On the lighter side, maybe another step one can take to prepare one’s family for a nationwide financial collapse is to obtain fishing licenses and hunting licenses, so if food temporarily becomes too expensive, we can gather it ourselves, just like Sarah Palin’s family fishes and hunts for food. It’s too late to plant a vegetable garden now, but you might want to plan on planting one next year.
Speaking of hunting, the deer population in Ohio is many, many, many times larger today than it ever was at the time the state was first settled. According to early accounts of Ohio at the time of settlement, Ohio was wall-to-wall carpeted in trees with very few clearings. The forest canopy shut out sunlight necessary for thick forest undergrowth, so deer didn’t have a lot to feast on in Ohio. The Native American populations were also small in Ohio, as hunting was not as successful here as elsewhere because of the relative lack of game. Often, the Miami nation, that inhabited SW Ohio, would make major hunting treks into Indiana and Kentucky, where game was much more plentiful. These days, there’s lots for deer to forage upon in Ohio, and the large size of the deer population reflects that fact.
In any event, I encourage families to have a meeting to launch an action plan to be prepared in case of severe economic shocks.
Ketchikan, Alaska is not a large town, with perhaps 8 or 9 thousand within the city itself with another 7 thousand living outside it but on the same island. Though you have to take a boat or plane to reach Ketchikan (as you cannot drive there by car), you can imagine that the airport at Ketchikan is not all that big.
As I mentioned in my prior post, I’ve been to Ketchikan twice. During my visit this June, our tour guide pointed out that the locals get to brag that their airport is an “international” airport. The story of the “international” designation dates back to September 11, 2001, the day 4 commercial passenger jets were hijacked by terrorists and crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in the Virginia suburbs of DC, and a farm field in Pennsylvania.
All planes were ordered to be grounded across the USA and Canada that day. International flights bound for the USA that day were re-routed to Canada. A Canadian commercial passenger jet en-route between two Canadian locations happened to be closer to Ketchikan’s airport, so when the plane was ordered to be grounded, the plane was told to land in Ketchikan. The pilot looked down at the relatively short runway in relation to the size of the aircraft he was flying. Reportedly, his reaction was, “I have to land THIS on THAT????” The plane landed safely. That’s the story of Ketchikan’s first international flight arriving and departing from their humble airport.
Since that time, the runway has been lengthened for purposes of homeland security in case jets have to make emergency landings there in the future.
The Ketchikan airport is not located on the island that the city of Ketchikan is on. Instead, the airport is located on an island populated by 50 persons, but the airport’s island is close to Ketchikan’s island. There is just a narrow channel of water separating the two islands. People going back and forth between the airport and Ketchikan must take a ferry across that channel. There once was some talk of building a bridge to link the two islands, but that idea was shot down, as that proposed bridge was the infamous “bridge to nowhere.”
Perhaps that story might offer a slight idea of why certain politicians might have been for the bridge before they were against the bridge.
Buckeye RINO 