SEC de-guts "mark to market"

This move will free up some credit, and partially de-fuse the "credit crunch" while restoring some confidence. This changes the "bailout" scenario.

Note to House Republicans: Make sure you get what you want before you vote on Pelosi's Folly tomorrow.

And tell the Usual Suspect clowns to buzz off.

Pelosi the Hack

Karl Rove discusses the pure political slime from Pelosi and pals over their "bailout bill" failure.

Democrats are guilty of putting THEIR partisan political interests ahead of the nation's financial stability.

Is there NO depth to which these cretins will not descend?

Incredible!

"If Obama wins, it means hiring an arsonist to fight a fire."

Mona Charen details the truth about the failed bailout bill, and the Obama/ACORN connection:

"ACORN attracted Barack Obama in his youthful community organizing days. Madeline Talbott hired him to train her staff -- the very people who would later descend on Chicago's banks as CRA shakedown artists. The Democratic nominee later funneled money to the group through the Woods Fund, on whose board he sat, and through the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, ditto. Obama was not just sympathetic -- he was an ACORN fellow traveler.

Now you could make the case that before 2008, well-intentioned people were simply unaware of what their agitation on behalf of non-credit-worthy borrowers could lead to. But now? With the whole financial world and possibly the world economy trembling and cracking like a cement building in an earthquake, Democrats continue to try to fund their friends at ACORN? And, unashamed, they then trot out to the TV cameras to declare 'the party is over' for Wall Street (Nancy Pelosi)? The party should be over for the Democrats who brought us to this pass. If Obama wins, it means hiring an arsonist to fight a fire."

And yet no one in the Tank Media/Obama Cheerleading Squad seems to want to talk about this, and all the other scandals and associations tied to Obama.

Imagine that!

Eric Cantor" "We are going to make this thing work"

.....regardless of Nancy Pelosi's absolute failure in her role as Speaker of the House.

Details:

"It seems that when the Democrats decided to bring the vote to the floor, they just didn't have their votes together. Hopefully we’ll be able to re-boot, and bring a plan back that meets the needs of the American people, and that will hopefully help us avoid falling into further economic decline...I think what you saw today was the will of the American people having a real impact, as it should, on the legislative body. People couldn’t quite understand why it was that we were asking them to fund a $700 billion bailout...What we need is to put more taxpayer protections and more market reforms in the bill. Hopefully we’ll be able to come together and work in a bipartisan way and pass a plan that will have lasting impact."

The Democrats own this disaster, and their screw-ups in an attempt to fix it are abominable. But you would never know that from reading and listening to the Tank Media and the Nutroots, who are bound and determined the public won't know the truth. Why, something like the truth might derail the carefully orchestrated effort to assure Barry O'Bama wins the White House!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: This "crisis" is one of confidence, mainly caused by the "doom and gloom" drumbeaters, fueled by the now widespread panic. Despite the basic strengths of the American economy, the whole structure could be undermined if we don't take significant measures to isolate the damage these people have inflicted, and the long term damage caused by the agenda fulfillment of our Dem/Lefty/"Progressive" whiners.

And you need to know......it didn't have to end up out of control like this. Unfortunately, we NOW have to clean up the mess these people have created, or face the very unpleasant results of inaction.

Meanwhile, take a read of the shameless pandering by Obama.

Unbelievable!

The George Soros/Wachovia/Obama connection

Here are the sordid details.

Excerpts:

"The top four donors to these 527 groups in the last Presidential election cycle (2004) were Soros, Peter Lewis of Progressive Insurance, Steven Bing, and Herbert and Marion Sandler . Collectively they gave 78 million dollars to left-leaning 527 groups. That was just in 2004. They have become much more ambitious over the last few years.

Soros, Lewis, and the Sandlers form a core group of billionaire activists and Democrat partisans who have formed a group called The Democracy Alliance. They realized that they could magnify their power by working in unison and tapping other wealthy donors to further their agenda (the superb Boston Globe article "Follow the money" is a good primer on how money and 527 groups have come together to have a huge impact on politics in America).

The Democracy Alliance is a major avenue to help them achieve their goals. The roster of its growing membership consists of a list of billionaires and mere multi-millionaires who collectively hope to give upwards of 500 million dollars each year to further promote a left-wing agenda. A partial roster of the Democracy Alliance membership can be found here.

Half a billion dollars a year can purchase a great deal of influence.

The Sandlers certainly know quite a bit about leverage from their savings and loan days.

Among the beneficiaries of their largesse: Air America, ACORN (a group that has very close and long lasting ties to Barack Obama and has a long history of engaging in voter fraud. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (basically a private detective group focused on the private faults and foibles of Republicans), Media Matters, a media watchdog group that engages in harsh partisan attacks against media figures and articles it considers supportive of Republicans). The list goes on and on.

They are not merely out to elect Democrats, but to also permanently realign U.S. politics and shift our society and culture in a far-left wing direction."

God help us if we are dumb enough to elect a puppet like Barack Obama.

Let's talk about the" Cost of Living High", not the "High Cost of Living"

Mark Perry:

"When people today talk about the 'high cost of living,' they’re usually talking about the 'cost of living high' (see Dallas Fed), because they're certainly not spending very much on the basics: food, clothing and shelter - that spending is at an all-time low as a percent of disposable personal income. "

Meanwhile, the drumbeat for the Risk Free Society continues

A "planned economy" means a planned society.

"Right now, at this moment of hysteria, the political class suffers from availability bias. Like Bernstein, they see only the downside of risk and conclude the necessity of the planned economy. A more complex and nuanced view would see both sides of risk and the enduring value of liberty."

It all leads back to Obama

Will we allow the Cloward-Piven Strategy to be culminated, to completely subvert the good governance of our society?

Will we allow the possible election of Barack Obama as President to be the step that allows the "progressive"/radical agenda to be completely entwined through the fabric of our society?

Is this current financial "crisis" a logical step in the plan to implement the agenda?

The importance of putting an end to this on November 4 can not be overstated.

Noteworthy:

"Barack Obama, the Cloward-Piven candidate, no matter how he describes himself, has been a radical activist for most of his political career. That activism has been in support of organizations and initiatives that at their heart seek to tear the pillars of this nation asunder in order to replace them with their demented socialist vision. Their influence has spread so far and so wide that despite their blatant culpability in the current financial crisis, they are able to manipulate Capital Hill politicians to cut them into $140 billion of the bailout pie!

God grant those few responsible yet remaining in Washington, DC the strength to prevent this massive fraud from occurring. God grant them the courage to stand up in the face of this Marxist tidal wave"

Reflections on the Presidential debate

(hat tip: Hugh Hewitt)

Obama's Revisionist History

Barry O needs a little history lesson to make sure that he does not repeat his absurd "de-regulation" talking point, as he did in last night's debate.

Greg Mankiw conducts the lesson.

Noteworthy:

"If Senator Obama really wants to transcend partisan politics, as he would sometimes have us believe, he might want to give a slightly more balanced view of the history of how this all started. He also might want to take note that the Bush administration warned about some of these problems five years ago and had its reform efforts stymied by prominent members of Senator Obama's own party."

Remembering Paul Newman

Instead of recapping Paul Newman's biography as many have done today, I'm going to share some personal memories of the man.

As is well known, Newman was involved in motorsports for many years, initially as a national champion club racing series driver in Sports Car Club of America (SCCA), and was a several time winner in the professional Trans Am series. He was also a team owner in the Can Am series, and with partner Carl Haas, fielded Indy cars for such luminaries as Mario Andretti and Nigel Mansell.

Although Newman and I shared a common bond of SCCA participation back in the 70s, our paths didn’t cross until 1981, when I was doing a stint as the PR guy at Summit Point Raceway, in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. We hosted two SCCA National events at our track each year, and Newman was a key player in that series’ C Production class battle, driving a factory backed Datsun Z car for Bob Sharp, who is pictured above with Newman on the pre-race grid at Summit Point, circa 1982.

Before the first such event in 1981, I got a call from Sharp’s PR guy asking my help to co-ordinate logistics for the team’s appearance at our venue. I happily agreed, because whenever Paul Newman competed in an SCCA event, the paid gate for the event always swelled by better than 50 percent. I made the arrangements and met the team plane when it arrived, complete with several Audis for team member transportation, and after introductions were made ( a handshake, and “Paul Newman” to me, as if he was some guy I’d never heard about), we headed to the track, some 14 miles away via winding country road.

I led the pack, driving the Porsche 911 that was to serve as the race weekend’s pace car, and Newman followed behind the wheel of one of the Audis. As is usually the case when race folks make a trip like this, we exceeded the speed limit within the first 15-20 seconds of travel, and at times exceeded the 55 mph limit by a factor greater than two.

Sharp, a many time national champion driver in his own right, was riding shotgun with me, and was a little white knuckled by the time we arrived, which I took as an unspoken compliment. Newman, however, was a bit chagrined, not being able to keep up with the quicker and more nimble Porsche, and his first words to me upon arrival were “I’m buying dinner tonight, but I drive the Porsche.”

Various versions of this story played out twice a year for the next couple of years, until I left the racing business, and got a haircut and got a real job. I ran into Paul a number of times over the years at race events I covered as a free lance motorsports writer, and he always had a kind word to share with me.

Here’s what I remember about his character.

Paul Newman was a man’s man, and he possessed no artifice in dealing with the people around him. His talents were multifold, and he lived to no standards other than those which he set for himself. He found the “playing the movie star” role in public life distasteful, but he was mindful of his responsibilities in public life. He set a standard for many who knew him.

And, for a race car driver, he was a pretty good actor.

Here's more....

Burning Down Our House

Here's the best 10 minutes you could possibly invest this election season.

Friends don't let friends vote Democrat......ever!

(hat tip: Ticker)

"Save the Whales"? No, it's really "Fund the Democrats"

Imagine that!

Excerpt:

"Today’s so-called environmental movement can be described in much the same way. Campaigns to 'save the cuddly animals' or 'protect the ancient forests' are really disguised efforts to raise money for Democratic political campaigns.

Take this ad for example, displayed on the League of Conservation Voters, or LCV, website. This is LCV’s standard text used to raise money for the nonprofit organization. In turn, LCV takes these donations, given to “save the environment” and uses them to fund ads for Democratic Candidates such as Ben Lujan from New Mexico.

LCV, similar to other groups I’ll highlight later, disguises itself as an environmental group dedicated to saving the environment, yet, as shown by this political ad, it is simply an extension of the Democratic political party.

In the fall of 2004, I came to the Senate floor to discuss this very topic. This report and my remarks today are an update on the 2004 report.

Over the last several months my staff has put considerable effort into examining this deception perpetrated by these wolves disguised in sheep’s clothing. This examination has uncovered the tangled web of charitable and environmental organizations, political campaigns, and large foundations."

Tsk, tsk......

Don't the Dems/Lefties/"Progressives" know it's not nice to fool Mother Nature by false fundraising in her name?

So the Dems want to"help out" THIS type of "victim"?

Thomas Lifson details the absolute entitlement mentality of those who whine about the unfairness of life.

Look at the drivel she uses as an excuse for her irresponsible behavior:

"The conservatives will try to tell you this crisis is only impacting irresponsible homeowners, who got into mortgages they could not handle. Wrong! If you own a house in any of the areas hit hardest by this thing, you are wasting money if you continue to pay for a worthless property. Many of us realize this, and we are walking away, mailing in the keys, saying 'thanks but no thanks for this bridge to nowhere.'

It was not easy to come to terms with this, to realize I would never recover that money. But once I did come to terms with it, I felt free, in charge of my own destiny and wallet. I was ready to walk away from the house, to propose a deed in lieu, or to foreclose if needed. [....]

After all, the bank loaned me $450,000 - and will end up making $600,000 on the deal, from my down payment, a year-plus of on-time mortgage payments, and the home sale for $405,000. But I will still be penalized. Make sense to you? Me neither. But oh f****ng well. The system is broken, and no one but Barney Frank seems to give a s**t about people like me.

So, think about this. I played by the rules. The banks did not. And, here I am, not only losing a massive amount of money, but being punished on my credit report for a housing transaction that, in the end, makes money for the lender. Twice. Because the lender will not only get my money, and the new owner's money, but also a bailout from the Federal government."

She "played by the rules"?

Uneffingreal!

Let's take another look at the "credit crisis"

Why is bank lending UP?

"As Robert Higgs points out consumer loans are up, commercial and industrial loans are up, even real estate loans are up. Overall, total bank credit is up with just a slight sign of leveling off in recent weeks. So where is the credit crunch?"

"First, one reason that bank lending is up may be that firms with good projects have already turned to the substitute bridge of ordinary bank loans. Second, I wonder how much real lending was actually being generated by asset backed securities. Could it not be that most of the funds generated were used to buy more asset backed securities? (The growth in these securities is certainly suggestive of that possibility). If that is the case then it explains why the real economy has been remarkably resilient to the 'credit crunch.'"

I wonder if one of our local financial rocket scientists can figure this out.

Now we know what a "community organizer" actually does

He gets together with one of his terrorist pals and pushes a radical agenda in the schools of a major US city.

Key point:

"The Obama campaign has cried foul when Bill Ayers comes up, claiming 'guilt by association'" Yet the issue here isn't guilt by association; it's guilt by participation. As CAC chairman, Mr. Obama was lending moral and financial support to Mr. Ayers and his radical circle. That is a story even if Mr. Ayers had never planted a single bomb 40 years ago."

All of which is blissfully ignored by the Dems/Lefties/"Progressives"' cheerfully willing and able tag team partner, The Lame Stream Media.

Dem/Lefty/"Progressive" Lie of the Day

"There’s no one left to pick up the tab. The private sector got us into this mess. The government has to get us out of it."

--Barney Frank, Dem chairman of the House Finance Committee.

Really, Barney?

Let's look at the the record, from this 2000 article.

Talking about the CRA:

"Under its provisions, U.S. banks have committed nearly $1 trillion for inner-city and low-income mortgages and real estate development projects, most of it funneled through a nationwide network of left-wing community groups, intent, in some cases, on teaching their low-income clients that the financial system is their enemy and, implicitly, that government, rather than their own striving, is the key to their well-being.

The CRA's premise sounds unassailable: helping the poor buy and keep homes will stabilize and rebuild city neighborhoods. As enforced today, though, the law portends just the opposite, threatening to undermine the efforts of the upwardly mobile poor by saddling them with neighbors more than usually likely to depress property values by not maintaining their homes adequately or by losing them to foreclosure. The CRA's logic also helps to ensure that inner-city neighborhoods stay poor by discouraging the kinds of investment that might make them better off.

The Act, which Jimmy Carter signed in 1977, grew out of the complaint that urban banks were "redlining" inner-city neighborhoods, refusing to lend to their residents while using their deposits to finance suburban expansion. CRA decreed that banks have "an affirmative obligation" to meet the credit needs of the communities in which they are chartered, and that federal banking regulators should assess how well they do that when considering their requests to merge or to open branches. Implicit in the bill's rationale was a belief that CRA was needed to counter racial discrimination in lending, an assumption that later seemed to gain support from a widely publicized 1990 Federal Reserve Bank of Boston finding that blacks and Hispanics suffered higher mortgage-denial rates than whites, even at similar income levels.

In addition, the Act's backers claimed, CRA would be profitable for banks. They just needed a push from the law to learn how to identify profitable inner-city lending opportunities. Going one step further, the Treasury Department recently asserted that banks that do figure out ways to reach inner-city borrowers might not be able to stop competitors from using similar methods—and therefore would not undertake such marketing in the first place without a push from Washington."

...and:

"The National Community Reinvestment Coalition—a foundation-funded umbrella group for community activist groups that profit from the CRA—issued a clarion call to its members in a leaflet entitled 'The New CRA Regulations: How Community Groups Can Get Involved.' 'Timely comments,' the NCRC observed with a certain understatement, 'can have a strong influence on a bank's CRA rating.'

The Clinton administration's get-tough regulatory regime mattered so crucially because bank deregulation had set off a wave of mega-mergers, including the acquisition of the Bank of America by NationsBank, BankBoston by Fleet Financial, and Bankers Trust by Deutsche Bank. Regulatory approval of such mergers depended, in part, on positive CRA ratings.

'To avoid the possibility of a denied or delayed application,' advises the NCRC in its deadpan tone, 'lending institutions have an incentive to make formal agreements with community organizations.' By intervening—even just threatening to intervene—in the CRA review process, left-wing nonprofit groups have been able to gain control over eye-popping pools of bank capital, which they in turn parcel out to individual low-income mortgage seekers.

A radical group called ACORN Housing has a $760 million commitment from the Bank of New York; the Boston-based Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America has a $3-billion agreement with the Bank of America; a coalition of groups headed by New Jersey Citizen Action has a five-year, $13-billion agreement with First Union Corporation. Similar deals operate in almost every major U.S. city. Observes Tom Callahan, executive director of the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance, which has $220 million in bank mortgage money to parcel out, 'CRA is the backbone of everything we do.'

In addition to providing the nonprofits with mortgage money to disburse, CRA allows those organizations to collect a fee from the banks for their services in marketing the loans. The Senate Banking Committee has estimated that, as a result of CRA, $9.5 billion so far has gone to pay for services and salaries of the nonprofit groups involved."

So let's sum things up here.

In addition to creating this current problem, the Dems/Lefties/"Progressives" used it to fund their agenda items through these Dem/Lefty/"Progressive" groups, like those "organized" by Barry O'Bama.

And now they want "accountibility"?

Where were they on "accountability" all these years?

No, Barnie.

You, Chuckie, Dodd, and all your other partners in crime and slime need to be HELD ACCOUNTABLE for your criminal behavior.

We will be talking at length about the implications of your past actions for the next six weeks so that you will NOT be able to fool the voting public into thinking someone else is responsible for what you did.

The Cone Project: Diverting attention away from who bears the blame for the Freddie and Fannie fiasco

News for our Blogger Boy Extraordinaire and his Nutroot buddies: It's not Rick Davis.

Try the Obama advisor Franklin Raines, and assorted Dem Klowns in Congress.

Noteworthy:

"That such a reckless political stand could have been taken by the Democrats was obscene even then. Wallison wrote at the time: ``It is a classic case of socializing the risk while privatizing the profit. The Democrats and the few Republicans who oppose portfolio limitations could not possibly do so if their constituents understood what they were doing.''

Now that the collapse has occurred, the roadblock built by Senate Democrats in 2005 is unforgivable. Many who opposed the bill doubtlessly did so for honorable reasons. Fannie and Freddie provided mounds of materials defending their practices. Perhaps some found their propaganda convincing.

But we now know that many of the senators who protected Fannie and Freddie, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Christopher Dodd, have received mind-boggling levels of financial support from them over the years.

Throughout his political career, Obama has gotten more than $125,000 in campaign contributions from employees and political action committees of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, second only to Dodd, the Senate Banking Committee chairman, who received more than $165,000.

Clinton, the 12th-ranked recipient of Fannie and Freddie PAC and employee contributions, has received more than $75,000 from the two enterprises and their employees. The private profit found its way back to the senators who killed the fix.

There has been a lot of talk about who is to blame for this crisis. A look back at the story of 2005 makes the answer pretty clear.

Oh, and there is one little footnote to the story that's worth keeping in mind while Democrats point fingers between now and Nov. 4: Senator John McCain was one of the three cosponsors of S.190, the bill that would have averted this mess."

More bad news for True Believers: The "new and improved Hockey Stick" data was manipulated

It's getting harder for the True Believer "scientists" to cover up their academic and intellectual fraud in support of their "scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming" scam, isn't it?

Key point:

"Mann used a select few data sets to paste an up slope on the end of 90% of the data in his latest paper. The series used to make the pink line above could have been used in the process but were conveniently eliminated from the paper without mention. Mann accidentally posted these series on a national server and cannot eliminate them easily."

No, there's no double standard in the media's open support for Obama, is there?

Stephen Hayes:

"Then there are the absurd lengths to which some reporters are willing to go to protect Obama and attack McCain. Last week, the McCain campaign released an ad accusing Obama of being too close to Fannie Mae executives. In particular, it claims Obama took advice on housing and finance issues from former Fannie Mae chairman Franklin Raines. The Obama campaign protested, saying that Raines was not an adviser and had not given Obama counsel in any capacity. The McCain campaign defended the claim by citing an article that ran in the Washington Post on July 16, 2008. That article noted that Raines had "taken calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters."

Last Friday, the Washington Post 'factchecked' the McCain ad and concluded that the campaign had been "clearly exaggerating wildly" in order to link Obama to Raines and that the "latest McCain attack is particularly dubious."

Factchecker Michael Dobbs wrote that McCain's evidence that Raines had advised Obama was "pretty flimsy"--not a description that probably endeared him to Anita Huslin, the reporter who wrote the story this summer. But Dobbs did talk to Huslin. Here is his account of their conversation:

'Since this has now become a campaign issue, I asked Huslin to provide the exact circumstances of the quote. She explained that she was chatting with Raines during the photo shoot, and asked if he was engaged at all with the Democrats' quest for the White House. He said that he had gotten a couple of calls from the Obama campaign. I asked him about what, and he said "oh, general housing, economy issues." ("Not mortgage/foreclosure meltdown or Fannie-specific," I asked, and he said "no.")'

By Raines's own account, he took a couple of calls from someone on the Obama campaign, and they had some general discussions about economic issues.

Got that? Huslin stands by her reporting--that Raines had given advice to the Obama campaign about mortgage and housing policy matters--and yet the McCain campaign is faulted by the Washington Post for relying on information that comes from the Washington Post.

More amusing, though, is that in the rush to accuse the McCain campaign of lying, Dobbs glosses over a major discrepancy between the story that appeared in his paper and that of the Obama campaign. Obama spokesman Bill Burton claims that the campaign 'neither sought nor received' advice from Raines 'on any matter.' It is possible, of course, that Raines simply made up the conversations he described to the Post reporter. But it seems more likely, given the toxicity of Raines, that the Obama campaign would simply prefer that those conversations had never taken place.

Dobbs concludes: 'I have asked both Raines and the Obama people for more details on these calls and will let you know if I receive a reply.'

That's reassuring, since Dobbs has already decided that the McCain campaign has been dishonest. Two things are clear with six weeks left in the presidential race. Barack Obama will practice the old-style politics that he lamented throughout the Democratic primary. And the media will give him a pass."

The New York Times: No pretense about being in the tank for Obama

Steve Schmidt:

"This is an organization that is completely, totally 150 percent in the tank for the Democratic candidate. It is an organization that has made a decision to cast aside it's journalistic integrity to advocate for the defeat of John McCain."

It's just standard operating procedure for the Media Manipulators, Steve. The only difference is that they've cast aside the cloak of non-partisanship completely in order to fulfill several agenda items.

Why rising numbers of foreclosures have little or nothing to do with home values

Don't let the Doom and Gloomers tell you otherwise.

Noteworthy:

"Rising foreclosures will not cause U.S. home values to plunge, despite widespread concerns to the contrary. That's the conclusion of a new study by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). The effects of foreclosure shocks seem to be smaller than many have feared.

In fact, even under their most extreme scenario, in which foreclosure rates would substantially exceed current forecasts, the resulting average drop in home prices between the national peak in the second quarter of 2007 and the fourth quarter of 2009 would be less than 6 percent, predict the authors...."

Obama's use of The Politcs of Fear

The One and Team are becoming quite good at it, are they not?

Noteworthy:

"Barack Obama knows all of this, of course; he just doesn't want America's workers to have the same opportunity to accumulate wealth that he himself enjoys. We're used to the Democrats demagoging Social Security, but Obama goes beyond demagoguery when he engages in outright lies."

The Dems' internal polls must not look too rosy; hence, the use of the fear tactics.

Filling the world with fools

Walter Williams: The financial "crisis" is NOT a failure of markets, but is rather a failure of government:

"Many politicians and pundits claim that the credit crunch and high mortgage foreclosure rate is an example of market failure and want government to step in to bail out creditors and borrowers at the expense of taxpayers who prudently managed their affairs. These financial problems are not market failures but government failure. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 is a federal law that intimidated lenders into offering credit throughout their entire market and discouraged them from restricting their credit services to low-risk markets, a practice sometimes called redlining. The Federal Reserve Bank, keeping interest rates artificially low, gave buyers and builders incentive to buy and build, thereby producing the housing bubble. Lenders were willing to make creative interest-only loans, often high-risk 'no doc' and 'liar loans,' in order to allow people to buy more housing than they could afford. Of course, with the expectation that housing prices will continue to rise, it was no problem for lenders and borrowers but housing prices began to fall, leaving some people with negative home equity and banks in trouble.

The credit crunch and foreclosure problems are failures of government policy. In fact, what we see now is a market correction to foolhardy government policy. Congress' move to bailout lenders and borrowers who made poor decisions will simply create incentives for people to make unwise decisions in the future. English philosopher Herbert Spencer said, 'The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools'"

Hat tip: Mark Perry, who adds:

"Or if you make the world safe for idiots (and reckless borrowers, investors and executives), you’ll create a world full of idiots (reckless borrowers, investors and executives)."

As a side effect, you'll also create a world of pseudo journalist/blogger "experts" who fail to understand the basics, and see no harm in posting doom and gloom economic information which fuels the problem by creating needless hysteria.

A Time of Remembrance

"But we...shall be remembered;
We few...we band of brothers;
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother."

-- William Shakespeare, Henry V


Held today in our nation's capital, on the Washington Monument grounds at the Mall. I was privileged to be there among several thousand other veterans, visitors, dignitaries, and the families of our fallen heroes.

Notable attendees included Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, various members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, new NBC correspondent Luke Russert (Tim's son), and Ross Perot, who gave the keynote address.

The highlight of the ceremony was the presentation of the Gold Medals of Remembrance to children who have lost a parent during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Other items of note included recognition of the sacrifices from other American wars, recognition of descendants of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, the administration of the Oath of Citizenship to newly naturalized citizens serving in the Armed Forces, the stellar performance by the US Air Force Band and the Singing Sergeants, and the ringing of the Spirit of the Liberty Bell by wounded US armed forces veterans.

Of special note was the of the US Colors present today, and their own journey of rembrance.

These colors were first raised at the US Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 2007. The flag has traveled throught America, to US CENTCOM ops in Afghanistan, Iraq,and several other areas, including American Embassies in Kabul and Baghdad, and on numerous combat missions.

The flag has provided inspiration and comfort in all the places it visited, and in the words of a young Army Specialist, "An awareness that remembering those who have fallen is more than just the right thing to do, it is everyone's responsibility."

Indeed, even for those who place little or no value in honoring those who gave all, as well as those who continue in military service to our nation and our people.

Obama as presidential candidate: A luxury item

John Hinderaker:

"Newspapers routinely report that troubled financial markets and other economic turmoil are good for Barack Obama, since, for the last eight years, the Republicans have been "in charge." Put aside the absurdity of that last assumption: most voters make a very different calculation from the one assumed by reporters. If times are tough and the future uncertain, voters want a steady, sober hand at the tiller.

As a Presidential candidate, Barack Obama is essentially a luxury item. He seems like a reasonably nice guy. His big appeal is that he's African-American. Obama is a feel-good candidate; who wouldn't like to see an African-American as President? But no one pretends that he is particularly well qualified for the Presidency or that he has demonstrated the sort of steadiness in a crisis that people want when times are tough."

Obama is clearly a "luxury item" that this nation cannot afford.

Dems on Freddie, Fanny responsibility: "Who, us?"

There's no way the Dems can make this information go down the memory hole in their attempt to place the blame for the financial chaos on anyone but themselves.

I love these excerpts:

"Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.

'These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. 'The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.'

Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.

'I don't see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,' Mr. Watt said."

....and then there's this:

"The Men Who Built the Bomb:

... are all working as advisers to Obama now.

Penny Pritzker, "the Michael Milken of subprime mortgages," is Obama's Finance Chair.

Jim Johnson, disgraced former CEO of Fannie, was Obama's vice presidential search chairman, at least until he resigned under fire due to his role in providing subsidized sweetheart loans to Democratic Senators during his stint at Countrywide.

Franklin Raines, who participated in the accounting scandals to fix Fannie's books and deliver unwarranted bonuses to its top executives, is a top Obama adviser.

Corrupt 'Community Organizer' organization ACORN, an institutional ally of Barack Obama, lobbied Freddie and Fannie to extend even more risky loans to credit-poor borrowers in the interest of ending 'racial redlining.' But they didn't end 'racial redlining.' What they ended was any credit-checking at all, as subprime mortgage providers simply stopped verifying self-reported claims of income and in fact ended even the most basic prudential element of a mortgage -- the down payment."

Ugly.

Fat pharking ugly.

Yet the Usual Suspects/Nutroots/Willing Media Cronies will all blow this off, as if it never existed.

Here's how Obama can steal the election this November

Repeal the 19th Amendment.

Noteworthy:

"Yes, it's rather moonlight and self-pity in Democratic circles now that the prospect of an Obama administration may not be the certainty it seemed only weeks ago. 'There is a growing sense of doom among Democrats I have spoken to,"'the Financial Times quotes a party fundraiser who formerly supported Hillary Clinton. 'People are going crazy, telling the campaign "you've got to do something".' Evidently, even congressional candidates from Obama's party have taken to distancing themselves from him and declined also to attack John McCain."

....and:

"As to the foreign policy issue that got him(Obama) nominated, where'd that go? I can't remember the last time we heard those dire and willfully misconstrued words about '100 years' in Iraq. (Instead, there's been lots of fact-checking on a Bridge to Nowhere.) Come to that, we hardly even hear him speak the word 'Iraq' these days unless it's to concede to that the troop surge, which he opposed and which was championed most loudly by his opponent, has succeeded beyond 'our wildest dreams.' Next up: Admitting that it wasn't such a bad idea to remove Saddam Hussein, after all..."

(hat tip: Confederate Yankee)

So how will the Dems/Lefties/"Progressives" react to an Obama loss?

The Audacity of Defeat will not be pretty., and our Usual Suspects will not handle it well.

Noteworthy preview:

"New York magazine columnist Kurt Andersen, one of the few Beltway-Boston pundits who bashed Hillary Clinton a year ago, when her nomination appeared inevitable, was unstinting in his speculation of the fallout should Obama lose. He emailed me: 'Even without post-November 4th rumors of rigged voting machines and the like, an Obama loss will be a deeply, traumatically depressing event for Democrats and other Obama enthusiasts. (Whereas if McCain loses, who will be seriously bummed outside of the McCain household?)

There will be so many facets of potential unhappiness. That an eloquent, inspiring, intelligent, subtle black candidate lost—and if it’s close, it’ll be true that racism beat him… That the rest of the world will be reaffirmed in their belief that America is the land of nincompoops (or worse). That a war with Iran looks a lot likelier… That Sarah Palin won it for the Republicans, and gives a bad name to feminism and (terrifyingly) has a one-in-six (Russian roulette!) chance of becoming president before 2013.”

About those non-existent Obama "cell phone voters"

......that our Usual Suspects/Nutrooters/media accomplices love to talk about as a great resource to pump up Obama's falling poll numbers. Unfortunately for our pals, it's not going to happen.

Noteworthy:

"Between now and Election Day, you'll hear a lot about 'cell phone voters' that traditional pollsters allegedly miss, and that will provide a hidden bump for Obama that the current polls don't show. It will, we're told, even cover for the fact that Obama is running behind Kerry among seniors. "

This is nothing more than yet another Dem/Lefty/"Progressive" wet dream in which Obama wins the election.

Obama's biggest nightmare

....is that the voting public will see this woman's story and read these words:

"Can you imagine not giving babies their basic human rights, no matter how they entered our world? My name is Gianna Jessen, born 31 years ago after a failed abortion. I’m a survivor, as are many others…but if Barack Obama had his way, I wouldn’t be here.

Unfortunately, Barack Obama voted four times against affording these babies their most basic human right. I have serious concerns about Senator Obama’s record and views on this issue, given he voted against these protections four times as a state Senator. Just as abuse victims share their stories to educate the public, fight for the common good and hope that as a result politicians do what’s right, I felt it was important to come forward and give these new born babies a voice.

I am living proof these babies have a right to live, and I invite you to learn more about Senator Obama’s record on this important issue."

There are NO WORDS and NO RATIONALIZATIONS that excuse Obama's support for infanticide.

None whatsoever.

Sorting out the realities of the "banking crisis"

Seems like every day the "banking crisis" is thrown in our face by the in-the-tank media and bloggers as some sort of indictment of the Republican/Bush years.

Like so many of the other overblown themes our Usual Suspects love to whine about, you need to look beyond the politicized "progressive" hot air and see the facts as they actually are.

Mark Perry's bottom line:

"Despite the troubles in the banking industry, we're still a long way from anything close a real banking crisis like the S&L crisis."

Sssssshhhhhh!!!

That will spoil the carefully crafted illusion if you keep talking like that, Professor Perry!

Obama, not wanting to be upstaged by Biden in the "Stupid Comment" area

.....proceeds to question McCain's patriotism.

Key point:

"And, of course, it makes questioning Obama's patriotism fair game, and that's a battle he's likely to lose (it is also a diversion from the battle of 'issues' which favor Democrats slightly to the battle of 'values' which always favors Republicans)."

I guess being a "community organizer" doesn't necessarily teach you not to run your mouth mindlessly, as has been O'Bama's tendency throughout the campaign.

Keep it up, Barry.

I love it when a plan comes together......

Joe Biden: The Dems' gift that keeps on giving.

Thanks, guys. This is working out perfectly for the McCain/Palin campaign.

Give him as much face time with the public as you can.

Julie Ponzi, on Slow Joe Biden

"Even the New York Times cannot help but be bemused by the amazing mouth of Joe Biden. I cannot resist adding that it seems that old Joe imagines some of Obama's supernatural powers may have rubbed off onto him by virtue of his proximity to Obama's sacred robes. Obama has the power to command the waters of the sea and Biden (note his urging that a paraplegic state senator stand to be recognized) apparently now believes that he has the power to command the lame to walk!

At least Biden comes off more as an awkward oaf than as a presumptuous and arrogant elitist with a messiah complex. Maybe the Democrats can work that lovable dork image to their advantage. But if it were me, I wouldn't much like having to play that hand."

What a great description of the Dem ticket!

Misrepresentations, distortions, and outright lies about the economy

Donald Luskin, in tomorrow's WaPo, does an excellent job in setting the record straight regarding the whining, moaning, falsehoods, and general stupidity of which our Usual Suspects have been guilty.

Noteworthy:

"In the past two months, this newspaper alone has written no fewer than nine times, in news stories, columns and op-eds, that key elements of the economy are the worst they've been 'since the Great Depression.' That diagnosis has been applied twice to the housing 'slump' and once to the housing 'crisis,' to the 'severe' decline in home prices, to the 'spike' in mortgage foreclosures, to the "change" in the mortgage market and the 'turmoil' in debt markets, and to the 'crisis' or 'meltdown' in financial markets.

It's a virus -- and it's spreading. Do a Google News search for 'since the Great Depression,' and you come up with more than 4,500 examples of the phrase's use in just the past month.

But that doesn't make any of it true. Things today just aren't that bad."

This over-the-top negativity is just an extension of the political and social nonsense that our Dem/Lefty/"Progressive" blowhards and their willing media accomplices have been jabbering about for the last eight years.

In other words, it's just our Usual Suspects' usual babble, this time with the focus on the economy, with the volume turned up because this is a presidential year.

Tom Friedman and Green Scaremongering

Friedman is at it again.

This time, he's conflating "global warming" with globalism, his next "Big Idea".

Noteworthy:

"Friedman is what Isaiah Berlin called a hedgehog – he knows one big thing (or at least one big thing per book) and he devotes 412 pages to cramming pretty much all of the world, ranging from his younger daughter’s school projects to the Chinese Communist party, into that over-arching paradigm."

Here's the best comment I've seen on Tommy Terrific yet:

"Thomas Friedman is back again, all facile posturing and sham profundity as he hops onto the latest bandwagon in search of royalties. But the merit of Hot, Flat, and Crowded, reviewed here, is that it neatly demonstrates that Green scaremongering appeals intensely to the inner authoritarian as well as to the wistful Military-Keynesian."

This book shows what happens when, (as is the case with Cone) you combine an over hyped and undeserved ego with just enough superficial knowledge to be semi-dangerous and demonstrably wrong.

Global Profiteering from Warming Update

The Antarctic ice increase is caused by "global warming".

EVERYTHING is caused by global warming. Didn't we know that already?

My favorite point, from the comments, is this Karl Popper quote:

"I found that those of my friends who were admirers of Marx, Freud, and Adler, were impressed by a number of points common to these theories, and especially by their apparent explanatory power. These theories appear to be able to explain practically everything that happened within the fields to which they referred.

The study of any of them seemed to have the effect of an intellectual conversion or revelation, open your eyes to a new truth hidden from those not yet initiated. Once your eyes were thus opened you saw confirmed instances everywhere: the world was full of verifications of the theory. Whatever happened always confirmed it.

Thus its truth appeared manifest; and unbelievers were clearly people who did not want to see the manifest truth; who refuse to see it, either because it was against their class interest, or because of their repressions which were still 'un-analyzed' and crying aloud for treatment."

That describes the True Believers and the Enviro Whackjobs to a tee, doesn't it?

Kay Hagan's distortions CONTINUE

As discussed here, Hagan has distorted Max Cleland's service in Viet Nam to portray him as something he is not.

She continues to do so in this press release, which STILL remains on her web site, uncorrected.

If Kay Hagan wants to paint herself as some sort of big supporter and friend of veterans, she would do well to stop the various mis-representations.

If she can't get some basic facts right, how can she be trusted to get the major facts right as a senator?

A better explanation is probably this: She knows the truth about Cleland's injuries, and just wants to mislead the voting public into thinking she's a "huge supporter" of veterans.

The same is true of her accusations against Liddy Dole which belie Hagan's interests in "Big Oil".

Hagan remains the quintessential yappy little ankle-biting mutt of North Carolina politics.

Calling her a "fibber" is WAY too generous a description.

The Cone Project: Proping up the thoroughly discredited "hockey stick" global warming charade

Cone writes:

"For the past 10 years, climate-change skeptics have been calling the hockey stick bogus. Now the scientists who studied the climate record and produced the original hockey-stick graph have done a new study using more data from more sources — and they got the same pattern."

With the same phony ginned up computer modeling that was exposed as fraudulent years ago?

Yeah, sure.

This piece forever puts Mann, et al, and the bogus "hockey stick" fabrication to rest forever, whether the True Believers like it or not.

Summation:


"The environmental extremists, who have already killed 50 million children through malaria by their now-canceled ban on the use of DDT, the only effective agent against the anopheles mosquito that spreads the infective parasite, are already eagerly killing millions more through their latest scientifically-baseless scare – the 'global warming' panic pandemic. Food riots are occurring throughout the world among the poorest of the poor in many countries: but the desperation, starvation, disease, and death that accompany the sudden famines that the biofuel-driven doubling of world food prices has engendered are scarcely reported by our news media.

In Haiti, they are eating mud pies made of earth, water, a tiny knob of butter, and a pinch of salt; or they sell the mud pies to less fortunate neighbours at 3 US cents each. Has any Western news medium reported this, or the hundreds of other agonizing stories of famine and starvation all round the world? No. Instead, every icicle that falls in Greenland is paraded as an omen of imminent doom: and, as for the crooked pseudo-scientists who invented the hockey stick, supported it, and continue to parade it in the mendacious documents of the
IPCC, no journalist would dare to ask any of them the questions that would expose their self-seeking corruption for what it is.

These evil pseudo-scientists, through the falsity of their statistical manipulations, have already killed far more people through starvation than 'global warming' will ever kill. They should now be indicted and should stand trial alongside Radovan Karadzic for nothing less than high crimes against humanity: for, in their callous disregard for the fatal consequences of their corrupt falsification of science, they are no less guilty of genocide than he."


Cone's post is yet another excellent example of pretentious blogging in support of an ugly and dangerous political, social, and economic agenda without actually taking the time to understand the implications of the disastrous portent .

But does he care?

No, he does not. It simply does not suit his warped sensibilities.

In other words, it's just business as usual for our famed empty suit blogger boy extraordnaire.

It's time for NASA to kick "Global Warming" extremist James Hansen out

Hansen' defense the work of eco-whacko vandals, in support of his bogus "global warming" nonsense is inexcusable. NASA needs to shove him out the door, and lock it behind him.

Excerpt from Watt:

"But it is time for Dr. Jim Hansen to go. Thanks to him, GISS as a dataset is no longer impartial. We have potential bias from the gatekeeper of the data that can’t be separated from the data. If he can come to the defense of lawbreakers in the name of his global warming cause, then it is an even easier jump to allow that same bias to creep into scientific data he is responsible for and his conclusions drawn from that data."

There is no way we can allow such a canard as "the treat of 'global warming' justifies breaking the law.

And yet there are many goofballs who will agree with that execrable premise in mindless obedience to the largest scam ever perpetrated on the human race.

Palin says Obama regrets not choosing Hillary for VP slot

And, of course, she's absolutely right.

Noteworthy:

"Some of McCain's biggest gains in the most recent ABC News/Washington Post poll are among white women, a group to which Palin has notable appeal: Sixty-seven percent view her favorably, and 58 percent say her selection makes them more confident in McCain's decision-making.

Among those with children, Palin does better yet. And enthusiasm for McCain among his female supporters has soared.

White women have moved from 50-42 percent in Obama's favor before the conventions to 53-41 percent for McCain now, a 20-point shift that's one of the single biggest post-convention changes in voter preferences."

Governor Palin's remarks are pure brilliance. They undercut the Obama campaign once again, and pre-empt any idea Obama may have of getting rid of his albatross of a choice for VP, and convincing Hillary to join the ticket. The McCain/Palin campaign has once again demonstrated their superior battle plan.

Good work, folks.

The morbidity of the Obama campaign is a joy to watch, is it not?

Gas Price gouge alert

It's happening all over town as I write this.

There is NO way that this can be rationally justified. None whatsoever.

Details later.

UPDATE:

Here are the promised details, as relayed to me in a telephone conversation:

This morning, a friend and former colleage of mine finished his first appointment of the day early, and decided to catch up on paperwork before he made his next call. He stops at a gas station/convenience store here in Greensboro (names not provided, to protect the guilty).

He sits in the car, cranks up the laptop, and starts to work. After some 30 minutes, my friend finishes the work, and looks up to see the price of gas is now mysteriously 20 plus cents higher than it had been when he first parked on the lot, but no delivery tanker had been noticed .

He enters the store to get some coffee, and strikes up a conversation with an employee, which goes along these lines:

FRIEND: I noticed your prices went up just a while ago. Did you get more fuel delivered?

EMPLOYEE: No.

FRIEND: When was your last delivery?

EMPLOYEE: Not since last weekend, I think.

FRIEND: Why did the price go up?

EMPLOYEE: I just work here. I do what I'm told.

FRIEND: Very interesting.


Anyone want to come up with a scenario that explains why the "magic price increase" might not be price gouging?

Do you think some new and more expensive refined oil product inventory miraculously appeared at this station by osmosis?

Who fact checks Kay Hagan's campaign?

Apparently no one

This statement

"...Cleland was severely wounded fighting in Vietnam."

....is patently dishonest, and just flat out WRONG.

Excerpt:

"Cleland’s horrible injuries did not happen in combat, as Kerry tries to suggest with his deceitfully-crafted phrase about Cleland leaving his limbs 'on the battlefield.'

This terrible accident happened not on a battlefield but on a helicopter pad 15 miles away from combat. Cleland stepped out of a helicopter to go have a beer with buddies, saw a hand grenade on the ground, assumed that he had dropped it and picked the explosive device up. It had been dropped by another, inexperienced soldier who had left the weapon on a hair trigger setting. It detonated, devastating Cleland’s 25-year-old body and in an instant changing his life.

In the 1986 edition of his autobiography Strong at the Broken Places, Cleland wrote of his receiving the Soldier’s Medal 'for allegedly shielding my men from the grenade blast and the Silver Star for allegedly coming to the aid of wounded troops….

'There were no heroics on which to base the Soldier’s Medal,' wrote Cleland on page 87. 'And it had been my men who took care of the wounded during the rocket attack, not me. Some compassionate military men had obviously recommended me for the Silver Star, but I didn’t deserve it.' (Emphasis added.) Two pages later he added: 'I was not entitled to the Purple Heart either, since I was not wounded by enemy action.' (Emphasis added.) "

Watch for the spin to be fast and furious from our Usual Suspects.

I wonder if it will be necessary to explain about "hot areas", "fragging', and the old adage "if you didn't drop it, don't pick it up".

We won't even talk about drinking beer in a situation like Cleland was in.

Nor will we talk about the "Kay, who is leading in recent polls" distortion, either.

Promoting Racial Discrimination in Law Schools

The American Bar Association continues to pressure law schools into adopting policies of racial discrimination in their admissions policies.

Professor Walter Williams:

"The bullying practices of the ABA are truly a wicked, disgusting perversion. George Mason University Law School, which does not practice racially discriminatory admissions policy, is brought on the carpet by the ABA whilst University of Virginia and William & Mary, which have racially discriminatory admissions policies, have little problem. The sad fact of the matter is the ABA holds enormous life and death power over law schools and they must cave in to ABA demands or else."

Of course, there are plenty of people who will read this article and see absolutely no problem whatsoever with what the ABA is doing.

The Difference Between Conservatives and Liberals "Progressives"

From Dave Smithee, at the American Thinker:

"When conservatives see liberals, they see the proponents of bad, inefficient, and eminently corruptible state and social systems that with eye-watering predictability, corrupt those who administer them and harm their alleged beneficiaries. Often for generations.

But we also know that when liberals look at conservatives, no such courtesy or openness of mind is extended. They don't see considered issues, critical thought, or the faintest possibility of reason. They see white trash men waving bibles at teen brides, while a gaggle of kids groom each other for lice on a cracked linoleum floor. 'Bitter clingers' who mindlessly adhere to second-amendment rights so they can shoot baby possum off a tin fence on slow Friday nights. The other sort of conservative invariably invokes 19^th century robber barons, plutocrat industrialists swollen with loot plundered from the proletariat, abating their whipping of Dickensian child labor just long enough to polish a monocle."

How to get the media and the Nutroots to stop talking about Bristol Palin's pregnancy

Tell them that the baby's father is John Edwards.

Slow Joe Biden does his part for the McCain/Palin campaign

WaPo quotes Biden, regarding Hillary:

"She's easily qualified to be vice president of the United States of America and, quite frankly, it might have been a better pick than me, but she is first-rate."

Good job, Joe. That's just the thing needed to put more Hillary supporters over to the Republican side

Does this guy EVER stop putting his foot in his mouth?

"Spare me the phony outrage"?

With the slime you and your surrogates are slinging?


No, Barry......

Spare us your all too real hypocrisy.

To quote The One:

“So spare me the phony outrage,” Obama said. “We have real problems in this country right now. And the American people are looking to us for answers, not distractions, not diversions, not manipulations. They want real answers to the real problems that we are facing."

Which is why YOU and your brainless blowhard running mate are falling fast in the polls.

Neither of you can keep from running your mouths, can you?

We won't even begin to talk about your Nutroot Little Buddies.

Meanwhile, here's a pretty good analysis of the stupidity of Obama's remark:

"My Outrage is More Legitimate than Yours!":

"I'd call for an outrageous litmus test, but that would be outrageous. And phony.

Hmmm...

Maybe I should issue a real call for phony change."

Fact checking the Left's pandering regarding health care

Robert Samuelson says that most of the nonsense about health care that all sorts of Dems/Lefties/"Progressives" have used for shameless pandering is just flat out WRONG.

Noteworthy:

"Unless you've been living in the Himalayas, you know that huge numbers of Americans -- 46 million last year -- lack health insurance. By impressive majorities, Americans regard this as a moral stain. At the Democratic National Convention, Sen. Ted Kennedy echoed the view of many that health care is a "right" that demands universal insurance. This completely understandable view is, I think, utterly wrong."

"Economist Gary Burtless of the Brookings Institution recently discovered this astonishing data: on average, annual health spending per person -- from all private and government sources -- is equal for the poorest and the richest Americans. In 2003, it was $4,477 for the poorest fifth and $4,451 for the richest.

Probably in no other area, notes Burtless, is spending so equal -- not in housing, clothes, transportation or anything. Why? One reason: government already insures more than a quarter of the population, including many poor. Medicare covers the elderly; Medicaid, many of the poor and their children; SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program), more children. Another reason stems from the skewing of health spending toward the very sick; 10 percent of patients account for two-thirds of spending. Regardless of income, people get thrust onto a conveyor belt of costly care: long hospital stays, many tests, therapies and surgeries."

"There is a basic dilemma that most Americans refuse to acknowledge. What we all want for ourselves and our families -- access to unlimited care paid for by someone else -- may be ruinous for us as a society."