Category: Oversight & Regulation

The TAX/SPEND or Cut Conundrum?

The Chicken or the Egg Conundrum

As Washington plays CHICKEN WITH AMERICA’S ECONOMY …there’s something missing in the national conversations these days …something more than common sense. Sad to say; that’s a given.

Sadly, that’s also a given which has been politically fostered, channeled and has also been allowed to grow and fester to become a spirit whose source of angst and arguer has created so much frustration and uncertainty …more so than jobs and that which has translated to housing sales.

So, I’d like to add something here which adds more to and along the lines of a question …one which is become hung-up …merely contemplating; “…Which came first, the chicken or the egg?”.

In this regard, I would venture to say that the truth is that Washington is pretty much preoccupied with a truth which …by itself, has revolved around the President’s pre-electioneering speech this last Wednesday …as much …if not more so …the influential conversations in Washington which have been so centered around taxes, revenue, the deficit, and spending and spending cuts.

The adage applies; those who are so wrapped up with themselves make for a small package.

Go figure! It is a multidimensional complex world; isn’t it?

Irrespective of just how much of a part of the needed conversation as these still-unresolved issues are; in the midst of these issues’ conversations’ arguments …there are core-central priorities whose issues are more complex than those like the irreconcilable chicken/egg conundrum.

All anyone with half a brain knows that this conundrum has yet to be resolved.

That’s what it was …what it is …and what it will be.

What I am saying is; it should be abundantly clear that jobs, employment and housing are America’s core golden geese which lay the golden eggs that develop tax revenue as well as GDP.

So, why is Washington so preoccupied in making meager forays into these do-nothing conundrums …Photo Opps and pre-electioneering not withstanding.

Heavy lifting is where it’s at baby; as much as is …arguing over how many angels can dance upon the head of a needle.

Action Jackson. Leave the rhetoric for the nuns …and the nannies.

Thread the eye of a needle …and you can enter into a simpler …more productive opportunity …immediately …as in right now!

Until then …the truth of the Pre-election mantra of “Yes we can.” …will remain; “No, you can’t …haven’t …and won’t …until you demonstrate than you do.”

All else is meaningless lip-service.

God Forbid; Take a Lesson from a Review of the AIG of Yesterday and Today?

God Forbid; the Lesson from a Review of the AIG of Yesterday and Today?

Prefacing Comment to the Letter Below:

Taking a look back, two years ago …I sent out a short letter which commented on compensation in the wake of an AIG compensation party held at a resort hotel. This party went down shortly after TARP was passed by Congress …and all hell broke out in the wake of such an untimely opportunity to celabrate AIG recipients for their successes.

On March 18th, 2009, in response to this by measure of no lack of egregous, media-driven, political grandstanding, I sent out an e-mail which is a form of the letter that I have pasted herein below.

Two years later, I think these subjects are worth revisiting to remember the topics which surrounded every media story at the time.

And for one reason or another these issues preoccupied and permiated the American mindset …if, but for only a matter of weeks or so.

So, now …with th passage of two years’ time; I have to wonder how much honest esteem for such calls’ greater discretion remains?

And so, now again; I have to wonder what of any significance …has changed in the last two short years which have passed to cover over this subject’s matters and concerns?

Are the seeds of such concerns still growing? Have such produced any fruit multiplied 30, 60 or a hundred fold? Or is this a mute case of an old story gone passe in the wake of the Gulf …and now Japan? (They shoot horses; don’t they? How about Boy Scouts?)

Or did the seeds of blame and shame fall upon more than fertile ground …upon more futile stages or self-serving interests …merely failing to produce the needed wisdom in any significant abundance which would …could …and shouold serve the greater interests of all?

What work is to gain profit so few by taking a lazy and mindless course? Wouldn’t it follow that these more imediate pursuits will easily and soon forgotten?

Then, why not remember these shortcommings and …compare their woes’ measures’ lessons taken from a measure of a greater appreciation for a work whose wisdom and ethics’ mindful pursuits produce meaningful fruit?

So, then …in that which is intentioned to grow from long-lasting, applicable understandings within efforts …less lazy; why not embrace a look back in a meaningful comparison …if not merely to remember what preocupied our minds …if but for such a short time?

Therefore, in such a comparitively relative short period of time, I have to ask what has Congress to show for the passage of its time …in service to raise due diligence to a level …which is worthy of serving to provide greater oversight and higher …more nobler …more honorable levels of responsibility …and adherance to corporate governance in performance systems which demonstrates consideration for the priority of far more nobler assurances …those which strive to achieve to promote quality leadership by reason of adherance to high standards, transparency and the clarity of honest, open-door accountability?

In other words, other than our collective votes; what other enhanced ways and means of oversight has America acrued that serves to speak of improved achievable measures of oversight, safeguards …in openly improved levels of transparency?

To Teachers Tenured-Non-Performing; “You’re Fired!”

This is shorter than it is sweet, yet it should be just as easy to serve to connect the dots …as it is easy to see how higher priced commodities (…namely escalating oil and gasoline prices) represent a significant quasi tax-like burden. So, in the same light, what I am about to discuss should be equally easy to see how such (like rising oil and gas prices) also poses a significant threat to drag down a healthy economic recovery …all the more …along with the detrimental affects which are associated with a rise in commodity prices.

So, in like fashion, what I am discussing today, will only serve to highlight the exasperating affects of the above commodity-driven affects’ drag on the economy and …moreover …do so in an additive fashion …rather much like explaining and warning of a more real, clear and present danger’s approach.

Taken together these two real threats pose a significant real punitive tax which is now …as it has been …currently working to threaten recovery …pretty much undetected and unchecked …right under our very noses.

And whether or not these threats are taken separately or aggregately …both, when taken together …will combine to form and work together …as a single matter’s impact …forming a double taxation whose hikes, which …when combined will essentially threaten to erode and reduce expendable discretionary personal income …hampering a badly needed healthy economic recovery.

I do not mean to be pessimistic, but the cards have already been stacked against those who have pretty much have chosen to ignore the facts at the …city, county and state-wide levels of government …that is of course …until recently …as can be evidenced by the forces aligning themselves for the real clash in 2012.

Yet, in spite of what appears to be two eight hundred pound gorillas in the room, Americans have been unwilling to take up the conversation at, in and upon the stages of more locally oriented state-wide levels …and; as such, sadly …a less prudent reason has more than all but avoided a more sobering conversation whose time is long over due.

The Demise of QE-2

The Demise of QE-2

Oh, Really?

Speculation and QE-2 Go together like a horse and buggy.

Or was that …like a 1.64 Trillion Dollar deficit and a rather conflicted Federal Reserve?

Or was that like a 3.7 Trillion Dollar Budget and a rather conflicted Congress?

In view of the administration’s disdain for the express will of the people such as became manifest and more than abundantly clear last November…the question remains as to whether or not QE-2 is to go …or stay and become supplanted by what may become QE-3 is anybody’s question …or is it?

Unlike what would otherwise be like a deep black secret …the demise of QE-2 is anything but …beyond top-secret.

Instead, whether QE-2 is to stay or go …is something which Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is not surprisingly …now, more than less …obligated to disclose openly to the likes of Congress …namely, to satisfy the likes of a more than entitled curiosity …the itchy ears …of the likes of those of Senator Ron Pall not withstanding.

Ben Bernanke; “…unsustainable debt …”

The following are two crisis words.

And …if there ever were two words today which have crisis written all over them …they are those uttered in Congress today!

The following two words which were those spoken loud, strong and clear.

The words were part of an address which characterized U.S. Public Debt as “…unsustainable debt …”

These two words came from The chairman of The Federal Reserve …Ben Bernanke today as the chairman spoke before members of The Senate Banking Committee.

Curiously, what I personally find as being less than sad is Congress’ lack of regard and esteem for tens of millions of voters who …last November, went to the pools to voice their collective, unified singleness of purpose.

By this Ben Bernanke was merely reaffirming the validity of the American voters who sent this massage earlier this last November.

Why should either the President and or Congress need one more man’s word to make the spirit of America’s will any more exact and any more unmistakably clearer?

As such, these two word’s stark reason and reality stand as a slap in my face …all in light of the light-weight approach to this administration’s budget proposal and the Republican-sponsored meager spending cut’s initial proposals.

Such as November’s voice was, such a will can not be allowed to be summarily swept under the rug …dismissed and otherwise marginalizing the will of the American people.

Re.: Monetary and Fiscal Responsibility;

And while bad habits are easily learned and obtained; they are not so easily worked free from …in reversing their affects’ impacts.

These take prayer and fasting.

Take a rather strange lesson from an otherwise foreign focus and vision …one generated in mixing an atmosphere of strong necessity with one of equally strong discipline and regimented resolve.

That’s why the Germans have been rather more successful in adopting …with their engrained mind-set of discipline …a more prudent and reasonable rationale in their approach to borrowing limits …capping their annual budget deficits and public debt to correspond to certain guidelines which pertain to strict percentage-based guidelines of their economy’s actual performance …foregoing the urge to bet on the come …as it were …as hope seems to have become warped here in America.

This more responsible sort of balanced approach to fiscal due diligence and disciplined oversight of the budget processes returns a service to the people of Germany which kind of reminds me of the purpose which the President’s Pay Czar was intended to serve …

…Namely that of accountability …in light of an emphasis which was supposed to be centered about openness and clarity.

Ulterior Motives …Alternative Health Care Solutions

Preventive health medicine should reduce the need to treat and cure the patient, but today, there seems to be great focus and emphasis in treating the symptom rather than the patient and or their illness.

Now, is the time to earnestly make serious and long lasting improvements which will impact the quality of care, service and cost of how health care is provided here in America.

But more importantly, it will emphasize the strength of recognizing the importance of the individual and the freedom to choose wisely in view of the certain consequences when one fails to both have the opportunity and also fails to take what opportunities are available.

The profit motive seems to have caused a conflict as well as a distinct disconnect such that the medicine practiced today promises as much side affects as it does promise to the patient …especially when patients become overmedicated.

Skin for Skin

No disrespect intended, but if we choose to treat, take and make healthcare as much of a shipwreck as we did our housing, banking and financial systems as of late …then we are most assuredly on a fast track to certain failure …one which our forefathers sought to avoid by taking every one of the means, ways, and responsibilities which were available and also necessary at the time.

After all, PIGS We Are Not!

Today, I am taking a look back at a letter I wrote Friday, November 21, 2008 dealing with a principal commonly used in bankrupcy proceedings called Cram-Down.

It seems fitting to revisit it to achieve some degree of perspective in view of communities whose municipal bonds’ bond ratings are at risk in the face of of dwindling tax revenue.

And taken in perspective of TARP and various stimulus programs which have been walked through Congress under the pretext that their purpose is aimed at saving community jobs and services, I have to ask; as what point will America become like Germany …less than willing to support the pigs of Europe …those like Portugal Ireland/Italy Greece and Spain?

After all, are the PIGS …all that much different than any number of the hardest hit states here in America?

Without a doubt, The Germans have had to pay an exacting price to pay for reunification …not to mention what the PIGS’ bail-out may wind up costing the quality of their return on social investments.

So, tonight is an opportunity to visit the letter below while asking what are state and local governments doing to maintain tight budgets and exercise fiscal withstraint?

It seems to me that in the face of lowered property values …rising property taxes are a sad social commentary …one in which state and local community governance has thrown away prudence and reason in favor of the opportunity to ignor reality and the consequences of neglect …hoping that no one would take notice.

In that respect, I will introduce my letter by saying; “…pay no attention to the man behind the curtain …” You better pay your taxes, or they might just cram them higher property taxes down your throats.

Cram Down? vs. Higher Property Appraisals & Property Taxes?
Go Figure!
How does that translate to …Spending Cuts?
It doesn’t, does it!?