The taxpayers of the United States now owe more to Japan than to China after demand for US Bonds fell sharply in January. (read more here)
Note to self: Isn't the timing of the US governments scrutinizing eye on Toyota coming at a very bad time? The ghost of GM yet again...
February 16, 2010
Update: Haiti
By KIRSTEN JOHNSON and CAROLINA CORREA, Associated Press Writers Kirsten Johnson And Carolina Correa, Associated Press Writers Tue Feb 16, 9:58 am ET
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – It will take three long years to clear the rubble left by Haiti's devastating earthquake, said President Rene Preval who admitted even he's still afraid to sleep under concrete in case another quake strikes.
In a rare exclusive sit-down interview, Preval told Associated Press Television News on Monday that Haiti faces a long reconstruction process that will result in fewer people living in the capital, Port-au-Prince.
"It will take 1,000 trucks moving rubble for 1,000 days, so that's three years. And until we move out rubble, we cannot really build," Preval said.
Sitting in the airport police station that serves as the country's temporary government headquarters, Preval calmly laid out the difficulties of rebuilding an impoverished country amid aftershocks and the threat of more earthquakes.
He said the government has destroyed some hastily rebuilt structures in the capital, but he said that until alternative housing plans can be completed, the government's ability to regulate reconstruction will be limited.
Asked about residents' assertions that local corruption has interfered with the international aid effort, he replied: "It is possible that there have been irregularities."
"However," he said, "I should point out that the government isn't the direct manager of most of this humanitarian assistance."
He referred further questions to relief organizations and local and international governments engaged in food distribution.
International aid groups have taken pains to at least make Haiti's government the titular head of the relief. But district mayor's offices in Port-au-Prince have been put in control of some food coupon distribution, and some irregularities have been reported.
The president, whose five year term is scheduled to end next year, has rarely spoken publicly with his own people in the weeks since a magnitude-7 earthquake pummeled Haiti's capital city on Jan. 12.
More than 200,000 people were killed. The presidential palace and his own private residence were destroyed, as were most government buildings and the headquarters of a 9,000-member U.N. peacekeeping force that guarantees his security.
Since then, Preval said Monday, he has been staying with friends until a "light, earthquake-proof" structure can be built to replace his home.
"Like you, I am nervous to be under cement," he said.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Monday said his country will spend up to $12 million to build Haiti's government a temporary base to replace official buildings damaged in the quake.
Despite Haitians' desperate need for shelter, many abandoned houses that survived the quake still stand empty because nobody is quite sure they can withstand another quake.
At least 54 aftershocks have shuddered through Haiti's shattered capital since Jan. 12. They have toppled weakened buildings faster than demolition crews can get to them, sending up new clouds of choking dust. On Monday, three children were killed when a school collapsed in the northern city of Cap-Haitien. It wasn't clear what caused the collapse, which occurred after a late-night tremor and heavy rains.
"I tried sleeping in the house for a night, but an aftershock came and I ran outside," said Louise Lafonte, 36, who beds down with her family of five in a tent beside her seemingly intact concrete house. "I'm not going inside until the ground calms down."
That may be awhile. Seismologists say more, damaging aftershocks are likely and there's even a chance of another large quake following quickly after the initial catastrophe in the capital of 3 million people.
In 1751, a large quake hit the island that Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic. About a month later, another one destroyed Port-au-Prince.
A magnitude-7.4 quake that killed more than 18,000 people in northwestern Turkey in 1999 was followed three months later by another of magnitude-7.2 only 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the initial epicenter.
"There are many other examples like that of two significant earthquakes following each other," said Eric Calais, a geophysicist at Purdue University who said he warned the Haitian government two years ago that the country was vulnerable to a major quake.
The prospect of another quake is on the minds of planners trying to rebuild the country and on those trying to prevent more deaths.
U.N. inspectors have advised people to stay away from dozens of structures.
The U.S. Geological Survey estimated at the end of January that there was a 90-percent likelihood of at least one more magnitude-5 quake in the coming month, a 15 percent likelihood of one of magnitude-6 or greater, and a 2 percent possibility of a shock as great, or bigger, than the Jan. 12 quake.
____
Associated Press writers Paisley Dodds and Jonathan M. Katz contributed to this report
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – It will take three long years to clear the rubble left by Haiti's devastating earthquake, said President Rene Preval who admitted even he's still afraid to sleep under concrete in case another quake strikes.
In a rare exclusive sit-down interview, Preval told Associated Press Television News on Monday that Haiti faces a long reconstruction process that will result in fewer people living in the capital, Port-au-Prince.
"It will take 1,000 trucks moving rubble for 1,000 days, so that's three years. And until we move out rubble, we cannot really build," Preval said.
Sitting in the airport police station that serves as the country's temporary government headquarters, Preval calmly laid out the difficulties of rebuilding an impoverished country amid aftershocks and the threat of more earthquakes.
He said the government has destroyed some hastily rebuilt structures in the capital, but he said that until alternative housing plans can be completed, the government's ability to regulate reconstruction will be limited.
Asked about residents' assertions that local corruption has interfered with the international aid effort, he replied: "It is possible that there have been irregularities."
"However," he said, "I should point out that the government isn't the direct manager of most of this humanitarian assistance."
He referred further questions to relief organizations and local and international governments engaged in food distribution.
International aid groups have taken pains to at least make Haiti's government the titular head of the relief. But district mayor's offices in Port-au-Prince have been put in control of some food coupon distribution, and some irregularities have been reported.
The president, whose five year term is scheduled to end next year, has rarely spoken publicly with his own people in the weeks since a magnitude-7 earthquake pummeled Haiti's capital city on Jan. 12.
More than 200,000 people were killed. The presidential palace and his own private residence were destroyed, as were most government buildings and the headquarters of a 9,000-member U.N. peacekeeping force that guarantees his security.
Since then, Preval said Monday, he has been staying with friends until a "light, earthquake-proof" structure can be built to replace his home.
"Like you, I am nervous to be under cement," he said.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Monday said his country will spend up to $12 million to build Haiti's government a temporary base to replace official buildings damaged in the quake.
Despite Haitians' desperate need for shelter, many abandoned houses that survived the quake still stand empty because nobody is quite sure they can withstand another quake.
At least 54 aftershocks have shuddered through Haiti's shattered capital since Jan. 12. They have toppled weakened buildings faster than demolition crews can get to them, sending up new clouds of choking dust. On Monday, three children were killed when a school collapsed in the northern city of Cap-Haitien. It wasn't clear what caused the collapse, which occurred after a late-night tremor and heavy rains.
"I tried sleeping in the house for a night, but an aftershock came and I ran outside," said Louise Lafonte, 36, who beds down with her family of five in a tent beside her seemingly intact concrete house. "I'm not going inside until the ground calms down."
That may be awhile. Seismologists say more, damaging aftershocks are likely and there's even a chance of another large quake following quickly after the initial catastrophe in the capital of 3 million people.
In 1751, a large quake hit the island that Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic. About a month later, another one destroyed Port-au-Prince.
A magnitude-7.4 quake that killed more than 18,000 people in northwestern Turkey in 1999 was followed three months later by another of magnitude-7.2 only 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the initial epicenter.
"There are many other examples like that of two significant earthquakes following each other," said Eric Calais, a geophysicist at Purdue University who said he warned the Haitian government two years ago that the country was vulnerable to a major quake.
The prospect of another quake is on the minds of planners trying to rebuild the country and on those trying to prevent more deaths.
U.N. inspectors have advised people to stay away from dozens of structures.
The U.S. Geological Survey estimated at the end of January that there was a 90-percent likelihood of at least one more magnitude-5 quake in the coming month, a 15 percent likelihood of one of magnitude-6 or greater, and a 2 percent possibility of a shock as great, or bigger, than the Jan. 12 quake.
____
Associated Press writers Paisley Dodds and Jonathan M. Katz contributed to this report
Obama and the Banks
The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal are bristling with the news that Republicans have decided now is the time to suck up to Wall Street. As the saying goes, there is no truer friend than a Wall Street arbitrageur -- they are the salt-of-the-earth, the most loyal men who ever drew a breath!
What are Republicans thinking? While not every money-manipulator on Wall Street deserves to be treated like a heroin dealer, lots do. Could the Republicans be a little more discriminating in picking up the Democrats' old friends?
The Democrats are acting as if they want to punish everyone in the financial services industry, including the innocent, while the Republicans seem to want to protect everyone on Wall Street, including the guilty.
How about just punishing the guilty? The Democrats can't do that because the list of Wall Street's biggest offenders may turn out to be eerily similar to the list of Obama's biggest campaign contributors.
Employees from Goldman Sachs gave more to the Obama campaign than any other organization except the University of California -- with Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase quickly following in sixth and seventh place.
Whatever Obama has in mind for punishing the financial industry, I promise you, he won't punish his friends. After JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon took a $17 million bonus this week, and Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein got a $9 million bonus, Obama said he didn't begrudge them their bonuses, saying, "I know both those guys."
Obama seems to be hoping that his vague bluster about "obscene profits" will lure Republicans into embracing Wall Street welfare recipients -- thereby losing Americans forever.
Never bet against Republicans being outwitted.
Risk-taking and speculation are good. But the Democrats' crony capitalism is the worst of both worlds: risk-taking without any real risk for the risk-takers. It's like gambling with your rich daddy's money, except we're the rich daddy.
Obama, like the rest of his party, is an ideologue who doesn't understand or particularly like the free market. He fundamentally believes in the efficacy of the welfare state, whether the beneficiary is a layabout single mother or a rich Wall Street banker.
As Peter Schweizer describes in his magnificent book "Architects of Ruin," the Democrats have been bailing out investment houses from their bad bets since the Clinton administration. The bankers got all the profits when their risky bonds were paying -- and then gave massive donations to their Democratic benefactors. But once the bets went bad, it was the taxpayers' problem.
Heavily leveraged securities packages put together by Goldman Sachs and others were the HIV virus that killed the American economy. And the reason investment firms piled leverage on leverage on leverage was that they knew the government would bail them out if their house of cards collapsed.
On one hand, Goldman put together toxic securities packages for their clients, but on the other hand, Goldman knew the mortgage securities being sold on the market were crap, so they also took out lots of insurance with AIG on crappy products being traded on the market.
It would be as if, anticipating a major earthquake, Goldman bought massive insurance policies on every house on the San Andreas fault line.
There's nothing wrong with taking risks and making bets, provided that if you bet wrong or if you bankrupt your betting partner with wild gambles: You lose.
The problem was that Goldman and AIG, among many others, knew they wouldn't lose. Twenty years of Democratic bailouts have led them to understand that when their bets go bad, the taxpayer will save them.
Which is exactly what happened.
When the earthquake hit toxic securities, the insurer, AIG, couldn't pay up. Normally, that would result in the insurer going bankrupt, an orderly proceeding in bankruptcy court to distribute AIG's assets, and Goldman recovering only a portion of the insurance payout on the crappy products.
But instead of AIG going bankrupt and Goldman taking a hit, the U.S. taxpayer made good on AIG's securities insurance. In a deal arranged by former Goldman CEO and current Obama BFF, Hank Paulson, Goldman ended up being paid -- by you -- an astonishing 100 cents on the dollar.
So Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein's boast that his firm didn't want TARP money and has paid it all back is completely irrelevant. Goldman took billions of dollars -- that's millions with a "b" -- of the AIG bailout money. How about paying that back?
It took The New York Times a year and a half to figure out Goldman's jackpot winnings from the AIG bailout -- $12.9 billion, according to the Times -- so the first thing Republicans ought to do is hold hearings to determine who benefited from the Democrats' crony capitalism, and not take their bluster as fact.
The next step should be to get all the bailout money back.
When the government steps in to save the very financial institutions that poisoned the nation's financial system with contaminated securities and derivatives -- all while the bankers get to keep the fees and bonuses on their bad bets -- we are not talking about a free market.
We're talking about regular Americans being forced to foot the bill for the gambling habits of left-wing multimillionaires by buying the malefactors more chips every time they lose.
Republicans should defend any investment houses that never benefited from a government bailout. But anyone who took huge gambles, lost and got bailed out with taxpayer money should be tortured and then shot, miraculously brought back to life, tortured some more, then shot a few more times.
COPYRIGHT 2010 ANN COULTER
DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL UCLICK
1130 Walnut, Kansas City, MO 64106
What are Republicans thinking? While not every money-manipulator on Wall Street deserves to be treated like a heroin dealer, lots do. Could the Republicans be a little more discriminating in picking up the Democrats' old friends?
The Democrats are acting as if they want to punish everyone in the financial services industry, including the innocent, while the Republicans seem to want to protect everyone on Wall Street, including the guilty.
How about just punishing the guilty? The Democrats can't do that because the list of Wall Street's biggest offenders may turn out to be eerily similar to the list of Obama's biggest campaign contributors.
Employees from Goldman Sachs gave more to the Obama campaign than any other organization except the University of California -- with Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase quickly following in sixth and seventh place.
Whatever Obama has in mind for punishing the financial industry, I promise you, he won't punish his friends. After JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon took a $17 million bonus this week, and Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein got a $9 million bonus, Obama said he didn't begrudge them their bonuses, saying, "I know both those guys."
Obama seems to be hoping that his vague bluster about "obscene profits" will lure Republicans into embracing Wall Street welfare recipients -- thereby losing Americans forever.
Never bet against Republicans being outwitted.
Risk-taking and speculation are good. But the Democrats' crony capitalism is the worst of both worlds: risk-taking without any real risk for the risk-takers. It's like gambling with your rich daddy's money, except we're the rich daddy.
Obama, like the rest of his party, is an ideologue who doesn't understand or particularly like the free market. He fundamentally believes in the efficacy of the welfare state, whether the beneficiary is a layabout single mother or a rich Wall Street banker.
As Peter Schweizer describes in his magnificent book "Architects of Ruin," the Democrats have been bailing out investment houses from their bad bets since the Clinton administration. The bankers got all the profits when their risky bonds were paying -- and then gave massive donations to their Democratic benefactors. But once the bets went bad, it was the taxpayers' problem.
Heavily leveraged securities packages put together by Goldman Sachs and others were the HIV virus that killed the American economy. And the reason investment firms piled leverage on leverage on leverage was that they knew the government would bail them out if their house of cards collapsed.
On one hand, Goldman put together toxic securities packages for their clients, but on the other hand, Goldman knew the mortgage securities being sold on the market were crap, so they also took out lots of insurance with AIG on crappy products being traded on the market.
It would be as if, anticipating a major earthquake, Goldman bought massive insurance policies on every house on the San Andreas fault line.
There's nothing wrong with taking risks and making bets, provided that if you bet wrong or if you bankrupt your betting partner with wild gambles: You lose.
The problem was that Goldman and AIG, among many others, knew they wouldn't lose. Twenty years of Democratic bailouts have led them to understand that when their bets go bad, the taxpayer will save them.
Which is exactly what happened.
When the earthquake hit toxic securities, the insurer, AIG, couldn't pay up. Normally, that would result in the insurer going bankrupt, an orderly proceeding in bankruptcy court to distribute AIG's assets, and Goldman recovering only a portion of the insurance payout on the crappy products.
But instead of AIG going bankrupt and Goldman taking a hit, the U.S. taxpayer made good on AIG's securities insurance. In a deal arranged by former Goldman CEO and current Obama BFF, Hank Paulson, Goldman ended up being paid -- by you -- an astonishing 100 cents on the dollar.
So Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein's boast that his firm didn't want TARP money and has paid it all back is completely irrelevant. Goldman took billions of dollars -- that's millions with a "b" -- of the AIG bailout money. How about paying that back?
It took The New York Times a year and a half to figure out Goldman's jackpot winnings from the AIG bailout -- $12.9 billion, according to the Times -- so the first thing Republicans ought to do is hold hearings to determine who benefited from the Democrats' crony capitalism, and not take their bluster as fact.
The next step should be to get all the bailout money back.
When the government steps in to save the very financial institutions that poisoned the nation's financial system with contaminated securities and derivatives -- all while the bankers get to keep the fees and bonuses on their bad bets -- we are not talking about a free market.
We're talking about regular Americans being forced to foot the bill for the gambling habits of left-wing multimillionaires by buying the malefactors more chips every time they lose.
Republicans should defend any investment houses that never benefited from a government bailout. But anyone who took huge gambles, lost and got bailed out with taxpayer money should be tortured and then shot, miraculously brought back to life, tortured some more, then shot a few more times.
COPYRIGHT 2010 ANN COULTER
DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL UCLICK
1130 Walnut, Kansas City, MO 64106
February 12, 2010
The Big Dig
Snow in all 50 states? click here
Record Snow in Dallas, TX. click here
Snowiest Winter in Rome. click here
These are some of the headlines this morning in the Washington area in addition to the record snow stories related to what we have seen here in the region. It has been a tough week for DC and politics have nothing to do with it. Streets are ice packed, roofs have collapsed, and congress has had nothing to do all week... the idle mind of a democrat is a scary scary thing.
As president Obama continues to try to campaign his way through his first term as president and former president Clinton's heart returns to a normal rhythm, one cant help but wonder what the dark horse republicans in Nevada, and Illinois are planning for this next election cycle on the heels of Scott Browns victory last month. (Especially on the senate side.)
Illinois in particular will be interesting considering the seat vacated by Barack Obama went to Ron Burris who was of course mixed up in Blago-gate and the corruption surrounding Chicago politics. The democratic nominee for the emtpy seat is Alexi Giannoulias who has well known mob ties and a background which includes banking fraud and mafia financing... classy.
Dig out, make a cup of coffee, and catch up on politics... welcome back DC.
Record Snow in Dallas, TX. click here
Snowiest Winter in Rome. click here
These are some of the headlines this morning in the Washington area in addition to the record snow stories related to what we have seen here in the region. It has been a tough week for DC and politics have nothing to do with it. Streets are ice packed, roofs have collapsed, and congress has had nothing to do all week... the idle mind of a democrat is a scary scary thing.
Dig out, make a cup of coffee, and catch up on politics... welcome back DC.
February 2, 2010
A Touchy Subject
A Potentially Touchy Subject...
“The ACLU's Campaign Against Racial Profiling fights law enforcement and private security practices that disproportionately target people of color for investigation and enforcement. We represent individuals who have been victims of racial profiling by airlines, police, and government agencies. Our work also encompasses major initiatives in public education and advocacy, including the creation of essential resources, lobbying for the passage of data collection and anti-profiling legislation, and litigation of airline and highway profiling cases.”
“The ACLU's Campaign Against Racial Profiling fights law enforcement and private security practices that disproportionately target people of color for investigation and enforcement. We represent individuals who have been victims of racial profiling by airlines, police, and government agencies. Our work also encompasses major initiatives in public education and advocacy, including the creation of essential resources, lobbying for the passage of data collection and anti-profiling legislation, and litigation of airline and highway profiling cases.”
Look, if you haven’t noticed, I’m not an ACLU fan. If you really think about it, what we need to do is not to racially profile, but rather religiously profile. Luckily, the ACLU hasn’t covered that area.
There seems to be some sort of trend with the people who are attacking us, coming in from the outside and even so with “home-grown” terrorism. I really hope that the American public has made this connection in that it is mainly Muslims (yes I know that Timothy Mcveigh was a white agnostic and that Bill Ayers was “protesting”) that are attacking us, and several other innocent communities abroad, please note: Islam transcends specific races and is all over the world.
Now before you self-loathing left wingers call me a hate monger, there is something you should know, that I am NOT generalizing Muslims, I am simply stating a fact. Now I think that if you are still lost as to why they would attack us I would suggest taking a nice long look at their holy text called, The Koran. In several places it clearly, not only condones violence, but provides instruction on exactly how to and why they commit these acts of violence.
For those of us who have a copy of the constitution handy, as I do, the first amendment clearly states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;...” in this sense, the government can still racially profile. I know you unicorn riders might even bring up our right to privacy, well I would pose this question to you: Is someone’s privacy worth protecting if their privacy threatens peoples lives?, the answer is a clear: NO.
The catch-22 here: On one hand people are perfectly comfortable with their religions to openly express what faith they profess, but on the other hand to single members of a religious group out for the actions of members of their community which were influenced and guided by the teachings of their religion in the name of safety (and true tolerance), is looked upon as an “invasion of their privacy”.
The real kicker here: I think that most of us who get our news from several sources are able to see that the left preys on “minority races” and clearly identifies them in the name of their convoluted oppressive agenda, but when a conservative mentions race to keep us safe, suddenly we’re hate mongers.
The question: is being pulled aside at the airport for an extra 10-15 minute search when you showed up 2 hours early, as an extra precaution for our safety, if you have nothing to hide, really inconvenient? I personally, believe that it's not.
PS-* I hope someone caught the pun in the title
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
ShareThis
Posts
