When did we join the European Union?

Look, I feel as bad the next guy for our European brothers.  I mean those poor Greeks are being forced to raise their retirement age to a whopping sixty-three years old.  But Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal, et al, spent their way in to their current financial mess and I can't see where we in the United States are in any position to bail them out.  Unfortunately it looks that we may do just that:

USA to bail out EU?

Looks like it,

US Ready to Back Bigger EU Stability Fund: Official

The United States would be ready to support the extension of the European Financial Stability Facility via an extra commitment of money from the International Monetary Fund, a U.S. official told Reuters on Wednesday.

There are contradictory reports regarding the extent of the proposed bailout, but

U.S. Treasurys’ prices fell and the euro strengthened against the dollar on Wednesday after the news that the United States would be prepared to support an enlarged EFSF.

Wonderful to know that we're so flush we can afford to spread our wealth around.

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Pay up, Sucker!

“Obama often chides others for being irresponsible. When he does, the effect is a bit like Richard Nixon calling others ruthless.”

Thus writes Kyle Smith in The end of responsibility

The latest in a string of doozies since Obama took office involves the rumor that Freddie and Fannie will be directed to reduce the balances of mortgages that are deemed to be “underwater”. Smith:

That’s right. If you bet badly in the housing-market casino of the Aughties, the government is thinking of refunding some of your chips so you can play again. You may have heard something about a sub-prime real-estate bubble that popped and nearly took down the financial system with it? President Obama wants to double down.

Unlike most rumors, this one became more, not less, plausible when you examine the details. The White House has made it clear in recent months that it is frustrated by what the Framers called “the legislative branch,” what President Obama calls “politics” and what I call “the wishes of the American people.”

Obama craves a short-term sugar rush for the economy. If he feels cornered, betrayed and alone, he could use his new ownership of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as a free federal candy store and tell America to line up and pig out.

Rewarding subprime borrowers would be characteristic. In more ways than one, Barack Obama seems to want to be known as the Sub-Prime President.

So, if you are among the millions who didn’t buy more home than you could afford, didn’t fall for creative financing gimmicks aimed at setting monthly payments artificially low, and despite these hard times has kept up with your mortgage payments, the administration has a name for you, “Sucker”.

When the principal on a mortgage is crammed down that money doesn’t just disappear-it still has to be paid for. Obama is simply shifting the payment from the homeowner to the taxpayer. Once the plan goes through you will be paying your own mortgage and a portion of your neighbor’s.

Smith likens this to the auto bailout:

When they build the irresponsibility Hall of Fame, there will be a special exhibit on the autoworkers who drove GM and Chrysler into insolvency. The UAW knew it was driving up wages and benefits to unsustainable levels, but it also knew that the Democratic Party had its back. Ordinary bankruptcy would have voided its contracts. Instead, GM endured an Obama-customized restructuring that punished its lenders and left the UAW almost untouched. The UAW did suffer the gross insult of its workers being forced to report to duty on the Monday after Easter — in 2011. In 2012, they go back to getting Easter Monday as a paid holiday. Post-restructuring, their pay and benefits are still around $50 an hour.

Like a lung-cancer survivor waking up from surgery and whispering, “Bring me Marlboros,” the UAW is already hinting that it expects to be rewarded with a nice bump after its contract expires next year, and Obama has told the workers he is excited by the prospect.

Unlike the bank bailouts, the Detroit aid (which is costing 30 times the value of the 1979 lifeline to Chrysler) has no chance of breaking even, Gregg Easterbrook wrote on Reuters. To do that, stock in the new GM would have to rise to the old company’s all-time peak valuation. You’ll see George Clooney driving a Yugo before that happens. Moreover, included in the GM bailout was a gift to GM’s finance arm — a subprime lender.

Yep, Obama is faithful adherent to the “There’s a sucker born every minute” school of thought. We, the ever responsible taxpayers were put on this earth to finance whims of our better, Mr. Obama. And should we dare to complain about the burden we are being asked to bear and pass on to our children, we are quickly reminded that we are racists. Discussion over.

So, pay up Sucker, and remember, in Obamaland you can never give enough.

Money Grab

Every paycheck for years I have contributed to my pension plan.  It wasn't always easy.  In fact, when my kids were young it was hard.  Now, Uncle Obama via legislation introduced by Senator Bob Casey, (D-Pa.), wants me to chip in for Big Labor's pensions as well.  Doug Ross:

It appears that bankrupting the United States Treasury was only the first step in the Democrat plan to destroy the American economy. Layering in a new entitlement program -- socialized medicine -- when the country can't afford its existing programs was thought to be the icing on the cake. It wasn't.

The final nail in the coffin may come in the form of stealing $165 billion additional dollars from taxpayers to fund union pensions that were mismanaged and misappropriated by the bosses who support Democrats in good times and bad.
 

A Democratic senator is introducing legislation for a bailout of troubled union pension funds. If passed, the bill could put another $165 billion in liabilities on the shoulders of American taxpayers.

The bill, which would put the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation behind struggling pensions for union workers, is being introduced by Senator Bob Casey, (D-Pa.), who says it will save jobs and help people.

As FOX Business Network’s Gerri Willis reported Monday, these pensions are in bad shape; as of 2006, well before the market dropped and recession began, only 6% of these funds were doing well.

Although right now taxpayers could possibly be on the hook for $165 billion, the liability could essentially be unlimited because these pensions have to be paid out until the workers die. (emphasis added)

 I think this can be summed up pretty easily:
 
1.  You and I go to work
2.  Uncle Obama confiscates a portion of our paychecks
3.  Uncle Obama uses the money we earned to bailout the unions
4.  The unions contribute and vote for Uncle Obama
5.  Repeat as necessary
 
But it gets even better!  Nine Republicans have signed on as co-sponsors of the House version of this travesty and Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-Ohio) is pissed at Fox News for pointing out these weasels:

In a floor speech, the Republican ripped the conservative-leaning network for calling a "bailout" legislation that deals with union pension plans that he supports.

"Mr. Speaker, I am going to veer off-message," he began. "I think as a Republican, I’m supposed to love Fox News and hate [liberal-leaning] MSNBC. Now, I’m going to tell you, I do hate MSNBC, but something just happened on Fox News that compelled me to come to the floor."

He continued, saying, "Well, that’s nonsense and I don’t know who the pinhead and weenie is at Fox News that decided to put that story together." LaTourette concluded by saying "I don’t know what they’re doing at Fox News, but they should stop smoking it and get back to reporting the facts."

Critics say the bill wrongly gives taxpayer dollars to companies that have troubled union pension plans. Supporters say it will keep the funds solvent over the long term, thus avoiding a massive emergency bailout. (emphasis added)

Emergency bailout?  Why should there be any bailout, emergency or otherwise?  It is not the taxpayer's responsibility to bailout every failed institution.  Margaret Thatcher said, "The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money." Right now I'm feeling mighty tapped out.

Cross posted at Potluck

GM Pays Back Its Loans-Sort Of

Yahoo News:

WASHINGTON – Fallen giant General Motors Co. accelerated toward recovery Wednesday, announcing the repayment of $8.1 billion in U.S. and Canadian government loans five years ahead of schedule.

The Obama administration crowed about the "turnaround" at GM and fellow bailout recipient Chrysler LLC, saying the government's unpopular rescue of Detroit's automakers is paying off.

Oh, wait. Never mind.

The “big” news that GM would be paying off its bailout early left out some really big details. Like, oh, GM is paying back the taxpayers with money from the taxpayers. Sen. Grassley is not amused. In a letter to Treasury Secretary Geithner he wrote:

…On Tuesday of this week, Mr. Neil Barofsky, the Special Inspector General for TARP, testified before the Senate Finance Committee. During his testimony Mr. Barofsky addressed GM’s recent debt repayment activity, and stated that the funds GM is using to repay its TARP debt are not coming from GM earnings. Instead, GM seems to be using TARP funds from an escrow account at Treasury to make the debt repayments. The most recent quarterly report from the Office of the Special Inspector General for TARP says “The source of funds for these quarterly [debt] payments will be other TARP funds currently held in an escrow account.” See, Office of the Special Inspector General for TARP, Quarterly Report to Congress dated April 20, 2010, page 115.

Furthermore, Exhibit 99.1 of the Form 8K filed by GM with the SEC on November 16, 2009, seems to confirm that the source of funds for GM’s debt repayments was a multi-billion dollar escrow account at Treasury—not from earnings. In the 8K filing GM acknowledged:

 Of the $42.6 billion in cash and marketable securities available to GM as of September, 30, 2009, $17.4 billion came from an escrow account with Treasury,

 $6.7 billion of the escrow account available to GM was allocable to the repayment of loans to Treasury,

 $5.6 billion in cash would remain in the Treasury escrow account following the repayment by GM of their loans, and

 Upon repaying Treasury, any balance of escrow funds would be released to GM.

Therefore, it is unclear how GM and the Administration could have accurately announced yesterday that GM repaid its TARP loans in any meaningful way. In reality, it looks like GM merely used one source of TARP funds to repay another. The taxpayers are still on the hook, and whether TARP funds are ultimately recovered depends entirely on the government’s ability to sell GM stock in the future. Treasury has merely exchanged a legal right to repayment for an uncertain hope of sharing in the future growth of GM. A debt-for-equity swap is not a repayment.

So I guess we won’t be uncorking the champagne just yet. The problem is that this was a stupid lie. The Administration “crowed” and GM put the news in its commercials. Yet the immediate reaction from the public was, “What’s that smell?” The smell was the fertilizer being spread by the government. What was the point? Does the Obama Administration really think that the public is so slow witted that it wouldn't recognize a snow job?

Hopefully the next administration will treat us like adults.

Read the rest.

Cruising on the Taxpayer's Dime

I said in my previous post that most people are not deadbeats and generally speaking that is true but this post from The Corner certainly gives pause for thought:

Honk If I'm Paying for Your Cruise to Mexico [Michael Graham]

Another update from Bailout Nation:

Schoolteacher Shana Richey misses the playroom she decorated with Glamour Girl decals for her daughters. Fireman Jay Fernandez misses the custom putting green he installed in his backyard.

But ever since they quit paying their mortgages and walked away from their homes, they've discovered that giving up on the American dream has its benefits.

. . ."It's just a better life. It really is," says Ms. Richey. Before defaulting on her mortgage, she owed about $230,000 more than the home was worth.

. . .Ms. Richey's family of five used some of the money to buy season tickets to Disneyland, and plans to take a Carnival cruise to Mexico in March. Mr. Fernandez takes his girlfriend out to dinner more frequently. "We're saving lots of money," Ms. Richey says.

Nice to see they’ve taken the advice of liberals like “banking terrorist” Bruce Marks and “gotten over their sense of responsibility” and can enjoy the benefits of walking away from their bills. I wonder if the taxpayers stuck with hundreds of billions in bailouts will ever be able to do the same?