Solutions to the financial crisis

Don’t expect good ideas to come from the Bush administration or from congress; ordinary citizens have better ideas and offer workable solutions that should be considered. For example Jack McCloskey from Albuquerque, New Mexico, offers a simple four-point plan:
1. The Federal Reserve Banks (FRB) be empowered to loan money to banks at rates that reflect the risk that is being assumed. Use this to rescue the banks that are facing insolvency. Make loans contingent on executive pay restrictions.
2. Rules for participating banks be adopted that require them to publicly disclose the nature and value of all of their assets using a uniform valuation code.
3. The FRBs nominate selected participating banks to act as agents under strict rules to provide short term loans to business using Federal Funds. Use this short term to supplement private banks until they begin fully participating again.
4. Create a short term agency to take applications for private mortgage refinancing under the supervision of bankruptcy judges operating under a uniform plan. Provide a schedule of access to federal funds loans based on FRB supervision to help taxpayers stay in their homes.
This provides liquidity to business, only chanels loans (no unfettered funds) to profligate Wall Street banks, addresses executive pay, helps taxpayers stay in their homes and lets the profligate bankers solve their own problems. Since only loans are provided the taxpayer is repaid for money he puts on the line.
Problem solved. Now why something like this wasn’t even considered?

Good food at Kyoto

We’ve been some very loyal customers at Kyoto Japanese Restaurant in the Sugar House section of Salt Lake City. When we go there, we always eat sushi and over the ten years we’ve known the place, the food has always been outstanding, the service is prompt, the personnel courteous and the price a bargain. We were there again last night and while the economy is supposed to be so-so, the place was packed. Need I say more?

Interactive election campaign

Never before has the web played such a role during an election season. First, there are all are the breaking stories that come in real time on computers, then the contless blogs that bring a more diverse array of interesting slant to the campaigns, including the gossip and the most outrageous stories. Finally, each article becomes the reason for a forum where readers can spill their guts and shoot their response it as they see it. On the New York Times alone, it’s quite common to see five or eight hundred responses to an article, before the section is closed for comments, with most of them often enlightening, witty, partisan, pragmatic and unfortunately sometime a bit too long (most people still don’t know how to condense their thoughts down to the essential.) Reactions like these have forced the financial crisis negotiation to go deeper and away from the one-sided version offered by the Bush government and have opened a can of worms upon Sarah Palin among other salutary results. More so than newspapers, TV and radio, the internet has become the conduit for democracy; keep it up!

The first debate

By the time you’ll read this, you may have watched the debate, read all the commentaries, so what new angle can I bring? Pretty simple; I’ll focus on impressions and forget a bit about substance. To me, McCain came across as a likeable, but tired man. His complexion was pale, his rhetoric sounded tired and his body language somewhat disengaged, looking too often at his lectern and struggling. On the opposite side, Obama stayed composed, expressed himself extremely clearly, stood tall, was more alive and in much better shape; he looked also much more “presidential.” It’s undeniable that more than one year of non-stop campaigning has taken a toll on both men, but especially on McCain who appeared old (he is) and beat up. That item alone is alarming; I don’t see much energy left in him and frankly believe that he will only be able to operate on “old experience” and won’t be able of much pro-action if elected president. In returning to the whole debate, an informal Wall Street Journal readers’ poll shows that Obama clearly won the debate (57% vs. 36% for McCain, based on close to 60,000 votes), which says a lot considering the staunch conservatism of this paper and its audience.

A test of race

This presidential election will definitely be a test for race and racism for America. If Barack Obama had fair skin, he’d be leading the polls at 65% by now on the account of his program, his smarts and the amount of hope he projects. Problem is there are still too many Americans above 50 or so who are still very much “tainted” when it comes to race and this is blurring their vision with regards to the next election. They’d rather vote for an idiot than for an excellent candidate who isn’t quite white. I’m not even mentioning the various conspiracy theories circulated by right-extremist radio talk shows and blog, suggesting that once in office, Obama will bring all of his friends (?) along and many other stupidities. The bottom line is that early November, we’ll discover if America has finally grown up, entered the modern world, or disserve the fate of today’s Zimbabwe, that faltered under the destructive work of Ian Smith and his racist views when he was running Rhodesia…

Chicken McCain

By using patriotic pretense to suspend his campaign and “offering” to cancel the first presidential debate, Senator McCain has just made the successful transition from maverick to chicken. Depending on whether one is creationist or not, it could be argued that this transformation was an act of god or a simple process of evolution. At any rate, that last minute escape shows that the old man wasn’t feeling up to debating Barack Obama. One thing is certain; John McCain can’t multi-task and will barely have the time to study economic 101 before the weekend is over and a decision is to be made. It could also be that these evening debates are past his bedtime and should be rescheduled into mid-afternoon to accommodate the 72 years old candidate. With McCain’s campaign going south, it seems to be the appropriate time to divert people’s attention to the “patriotic” side of this humongous taxpayers’ give-away even if the basic scare tactics used for going into Iraq need to be revisited. With about $700 billion already burned up in prosecuting that illegal and useless war, why should we fork another $700 to bailout Bush and Paulsen’s buddies on Wall Street, especially if no one can precisely tell us what would happen if we did it or not. Never before have I been such a staunch believer in the “free market” theory; at this point, we should let the crisis work its way and just observe what happens, period.

Can we trust Paulson?

Yesterday, Henri Paulson and Ben Bernanke weren’t able to convince congress to free the $700 billion they said they needed to bail out their Wall Street buddies. I’m sure most congressmen received heaps of angry emails telling them to study the proposal, amend it before they even sign off on it. At this point, no progress has been made it now looks to me as if Paulson-Bush cried “fire!” inside the theatre and bullied congress to give them all the money with no strings attached (by now a pattern with Mr. Bush.) Some financial experts even say that the situation should cure itself out without any Federal bail out, either through Federal Government loans or third-party buy outs. It’s now clear to me that Hank Paulson, after is long Goldman-Sachs tenure and contributing to today’s set of problems, is acting like the fox in charge of fixing the chicken coop, showing an obvious conflict of interest only re-enforced by his angry body language and lack of flexibility during these congressional hearings. Further, no one is able to explain if that “rescue package” will even work or if it will suffice. I’d say that if we don’t even know it, we ought to stay put, do nothing and watch. I also believe that the democrats are now holding the key to winning big in November through this latest crisis that stands as evidence that Bush was our very worst president in history. No, I don’t trust Hank Paulson.