My Beauty Best Teacher

It has been a struggle for me to write about the financial reform bill, and I haven't commented before on it yet. But yesterday I came across an excellent article in the Washington Independent called A Guide to the Tangled Financial Reform Bill which breaks down each important provision of the proposed financial reform bill and attempts to give a balanced analysis of it. I urge you all to read this article before making any further thoughts or opinions on the bill- whether you are Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, it is important to look at the world around you with good information and analysis, which this article provides.

Here are the best pieces (edited and shortened by me) of the article A Guide to the Tangled Financial Reform Bill:

Audit the Fed. The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet is more than double its size before the financial crisis — swollen with $1.1 trillion in mortgage-backed securities purchased from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac plus toxic assets from failed companies like Bear Sterns — and a bipartisan group of senators want to force a thorough independent audit of the Fed’s books. A strong provision did not make it into the final Senate legislation.

End too big to fail by capping bank size. Dodd’s bill as currently written gives the Federal Reserve and other regulators the ability to seize and break up financial firms it deems systemically important and systemically dangerous. But that is meant only as a “last resort,” and members of both parties consider the language too wan. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-Del.) last week introduced the Safe Banking Act, which they plan to offer as an amendment to the Dodd bill. It mandates hard leverage and size caps on banks and other financial firms; limits commercial banks’ assets to 2 percent of GDP and non-banks’ assets to 3 percent; and imposes a 16-to-1 leverage cap, among other provisions.

Reinstitute Glass-Steagall provisions. Another popular way to effectively limit bank size is to return to the Depression-era Glass-Steagall rules. The Glass-Steagall Act, mostly repealed in 1999, prevented banks from having both commercial and investment banking arms — as, for instance, J.P. Morgan Chase does today. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) plan to introduce an amendment reintroducing the rule and thus requiring big, diversified banks to split themselves up. Shelby, Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) and Sen. John Cornyn (Texas) also support the measure.

An effectively similar, if functionally different, way of breaking up banks or limiting their size is by instituting the Volcker Rule — which bars banks from speculating with their own money by “prop trading” or investing in hedge funds. The current Dodd bill promises to institute something like the Volcker Rule, creating a commission to look at how to institute it down the road. But Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) have ready a measure introducing a more-stringent version immediately.

Fix the ratings agencies. The Dodd bill does little to fix the credit ratings agencies, whose profligate stamping of AAA ratings on collapsing subprime mortgage-backed securities helped to stoke the crisis. (The companies have a conflict of interest at the core of their business, in that they are paid by the companies whose securities they rate.) The Dodd bill creates a new office at the Securities and Exchange Commission to look closely at credit ratings agencies — but does little more to further reform them. Numerous Democratic senators have cited the issue as a major weakness in the bill, and Senate staffers say it is unlikely to go unchanged. Sanders has said he will introduce new language to strengthen oversight over and regulation of the agencies.

Guarantee no taxpayer money will go to bank bailouts. Republicans have derided the Dodd bill’s resolution authority fund — wherein the government will tax $50 billion from the banks, creating a pool of cash to be used by the Federal Reserve to shut down failing firms — as creating “permanent bailouts.” GOP politicians including Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have cited it as a major point of contention. But Senate staffers say that rather than killing the resolution-authority fund, Republicans want language explicitly guaranteeing taxpayers will not be on the hook for future bailouts.

Keep the Fed the regulator of little banks. Under the Dodd bill, the Federal Reserve would have oversight only of banks with more than $50 billion in assets. But Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) and Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) oppose this measure and want the Fed to have oversight of small banks as well — ensuring that the Fed does not become overly concerned with the business of big banks and ensuring that it keeps an eye on the small financial companies that can be the bellwether of bad economic times. Hutchison has said she plans to “certainly have an amendment that assures that state banks and community banks will be able to have access to be members of the Federal Reserve.”

Make the Consumer Financial Protection Agency truly independent. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) has promised to introduce amendment moving the Consumer Financial Protection Agency outside of the Fed.

Improve hedge fund reporting. Reed also plans to introduce an amendment closing a loophole in the Dodd bill that might let some private equity firms, venture capital firms, and hedge funds avoid registering with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

As we learn more about the financial meltdown of 2008, it becomes increasingly apparent that one of the main causes for this economic disaster was government policy that forced banks to extend loans to those people who were unable to pay those back. Government agents put pressure on banks and government banking institutions like Freddie/Franny to give loans to people who under normal circumstances would be unable to pay back these loans and who were especially unable to protect themselves from the exposure to risk that these loans entailed. Misguided government policies ambushed innocent people who believed the dream that politicians peddled and banks were coerced into following, and in 2008 the house of cards came crashing down and peoples lives were ruined. It was not the failure of the markets, the lack of government policy on the issue, evil rich people, George W Bush, or the Republicans who were the minority party in Congress at the time- it was government policy that put pressure on banks that led to the collapse in 2008.

And the lesson apparently was not learned by the Democrats.

From Townhall's Bob Beauprez comes this stunning mind-blowing information:

The Department of Justice is executing a "Witch Hunt" against banks. Through the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, Attorney General Eric Holder is forcing banks to "relax their mortgage underwriting standards and approve loans for minorities with poor credit as part of a new crackdown on alleged discrimination," according to a published report by Investor's Business Daily after reviewing court documents.

The DOJ has already extorted $20 million for weak and poor credit loans from banks that "settled out of court rather than battle the federal government and risk being branded racist." The DOJ admits another 60 banks are already under "investigation." Holder's demanding the banks sign "non-disclosure" settlement agreements barring them from talking while allowing the DOJ to operate behind a curtain of secrecy.

The settlements already extracted from banks force them to make "prime-rate mortgages to low income blacks and Hispanics" with credit problems, even if they are living on welfare. According to IBD, the DOJ has ordered banks to advertise that minorities cannot be turned down for a loan "because they receive public aid, such as unemployment benefits, welfare payments or food stamps." No job; no problem!

In other words, the DOJ is forcing banks to make loans to people that they know don't qualify for them and likely won't be able to afford to repay them, which is precisely the kind of failed public policy that precipitated the financial collapse and recession in 2008.

Babajide Komolafe reports that in Nigeria:

Community Banks have commenced moves to raise funds through private placement and initial public offerings (IPOs)...a Chairman of the National Association of Community Banks (NACOBs) David Adenekan, confirmed to the Vanguard that the association in a bid to ensure that its member banks meet the new capital base, has entered into discussions with Fidelity Bank to help community banks in the state raise funds through private placement. He said the arrangement is to package community banks for private placement on individual basis. He disclosed that five banks have already been packaged while five more banks are currently being packaged for private placement.

Although there were a lot of causes for the collapse of the United State's economy in 2008, most analysts would agree that the subprime mortgage crisis was at the root of it. Banks have money, and lend that money to people who want to invest, buy consumer goods, or purchase homes or cars. Banks charge borrowers interest for borrowing the money from them- the interest that the bank earns on the money is used to run the bank (insurance, employees, covering bad investments and loans, making money, lending to other banks, etc). Some people are a greater risk for the bank to lend to, because of their likely inability to repay the loan or past borrowing history, and to be fair to everyone, these people pay higher interest rates. But some people feel that this is unfair or racist or discriminatory, and so put pressure on the banks to give out loans to people at very low interest rates, and the bank made little money off these loans, and many people took out loans that they were unable to repay since they had such low rates, and then many of these borrowers were unable to pay back their loans, and the banks lost more money. This crisis had many causes, but at the root of it was political and legal pressure applied to banks all in the name of making everyone in our nation equally poor someday.

Via theblogprof, I read with frustration that the Obama Administration has stepped up its scrutiny of disadvantaged neighborhoods' credit access- in other words, Obama wants to increase the number of subprime and adjustable rate mortgages that are being given to those borrowers who are at the most risk of not paying back their loans and thereby causing the economy to collapse. Seriously, he is going to build another bubble to win re-election, and then when it predictably collapses, he'll just play the blame game and it won't matter because he and his buddies will have made a lot money off the bubble regardless.

You have to read the post theblogprof put together- it is a tour de force on the subject.

The FT reports

When the military ruled Nigeria, it was the generals who boasted most of the fattest bank accounts. They were careful to keep these far offshore. By contrast, eight years of civilian rule has seen the emergence of a cabal of business tycoons whose net worth amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars and in some cases far more...Big business and some of the banks are heavily invested in the political system, just as politicians and government appointees are invested in the Nigerian banks and businesses making money, he says. There are significant changes, however, in the way Nigeria’s newly mega-rich are deploying their wealth. In the past, the wealth was hoarded in banks abroad. Today, it is mostly being poured into business enterprises within Nigeria...Among those Nigerians already in Africa’s big league, five names regularly crop up, led by the merchant-turned-industrialist Aliko Dangote. When complete, the many cement factories his Dangote group is building – or has bought from the state – will give him overwhelming dominance in domestic and potentially regional markets. Mr Dangote also dominates the distribution of sugar and salt and the manufacture of flour products. He was among the beneficiaries of the sale of the two dilapidated state-owned oil refineries in the days before Mr Obasanjo relinquished power.
Also in that deal was Femi Otedola. A licence to import and distribute diesel has given his company, Zenon, control over a commodity on which businesses depend to run generators in the absence of reliable power from the grid. Two bankers close to Mr Obasanjo, Jim Ovia of Zenith bank and Tony Elumelu of United Bank of Africa, also feature among the super-rich. Their banks have wrestled for the largest slice of government business and for ascendancy in the top industry tier.

Nigerian Banks are steadily transforming themselves into regional powerhouses, the Punch reports:

Quoting Charles Soludo(Nigerian Central Bank Governor)...the expansion of Nigerian banks into the economies of other West African countries "is just a natural way to manage the huge funds at their disposal"...This is largely because, virtually all the banks that accessed the capital market in 2007 recorded an over-subscription of their shares,and consequently a overly cash heavy balance sheet which had to be managed profitably.

Aikins Adusei rails against the complicity and complacency of the Western Media when it comes to the acquired loot deposited in Western Institutions:

Corruption is rife in Africa because there are banking institutions in Europe especially Switzerland, France, Jersey Island, Britain, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Austria, US and many others who accept money from African leaders without questioning the source of the money. According to the UN around $148 billion are stolen from the continent by the political leaders, the business elite and civil servants every year with collusion and connivance of banking industries in Europe and North America.
Even though it is a common knowledge western banks are acting as safe havens for looted funds from Africa, very little attention is received from the western media to expose them. The media tend to focus their energies on the corrupt leaders with little or no mention at all as to where the monies they have stolen are being kept. There has not been any concrete effort to expose the banks that collude and connive with these corrupt leaders who are impoverishing the people. No effort has been made by the political elite in Europe and America to force the banks to return these stolen monies to the poorest of the poor because they are often the shareholders and beneficiaries of profits made by these banks.

Alec Russell reports in FT:

Economists have long argued that formal statistics underestimate activity in the informal sector.Under white rule(in South Africa), townships were ignored by banks partly because they were deemed commercially unviable, partly because of the lawlessness, and partly because it did not occur to most bankers to expand services out of their “comfort zone”, says one executive drily.
Now, however, there is a dual impulse for banks to reassess their old ways: there is growing awareness of the size of the informal economy and the rewards from tapping it; and they also need to fulfil their obligations to the banking charter, which requires banks to make amends for the past, when they catered mainly to whites, by expanding services...[continue reading]

From Foreign Policy Magazine comes this article "The Top 10 Stories You Missed in 2009". It has pictures and in depth analysis, but here is a handy summary of the top five stories for you:

1. The Northeast Passage Opens for Business. Good (lower cost of transporting goods around the world) or bad (an omen of the mystical cult of Global Warming), this does raise the importance of the Arctic Ocean, which is now accessible to exploration and development. This may be the cause of rising tensions between Russia and the US.
2. Iraq's New Flashpoint. Iraq's Arab and Kurdish populations are at odds with one another in the Nineveh region, not because of oil, but because of a large Kurdish population in this area, which is outside of the autonomous Kurdish region. Neither side has turned to violence- yet.
3. A Hotline for China and India. You only put in a hotline between world leaders when you are afraid that miscommunication may result and someone may make an unwise decision to nuke the other. The key to this conflict is the Himalayan region of Tawang, which is in India but China claims was part of Tibet (which is now part of China). The area has been increasingly militarized, and the Indian military documented 270 border violations and almost 2,300 cases of "aggressive border patrolling" by the Chinese in 2008.
4. A New Housing Bubble? More than any other factor, ill-advised speculation on U.S. real estate set off the global financial crisis. But even after millions of foreclosures and secondary effects ripped through economies around the world, a new housing bubble is forming again, for the same reasons the first did- Democratic pressure on banks to give everyone a home loan, Democratic pressure on banks to be nice about credit scores, Democratic 'stimulus' money for home sales, and Democratic pressure on banks to keep interest rates low and print money. Be prepared for Democratic policies such as these destroying the world's economies again sometime soon.
5. The ‘Civilian Surge' Fizzles. A major part of the strategy in dealing with terrorism and failed states was a surge in civilian personal from the State Department and USAID, but it turns out, those agencies have failed to deliver, and now the military is trying to meet that commitment too.

Sometimes when I am making copies, I find lessons and projects from other teacher's on the copy machine. One such essay that I recently found for a US History class was called "Progressive Reforms," and asked students to write a several page essay detailing all the progressive reforms of US Presidents Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson. Students were encouraged to write what the reform was and how it helped society. Suggested reforms for students to learn about and glorify were Roosevelt's trustbusting or founding of the Department of Commerce and Labor or Pure Food and Drug Act, Taft's conservation efforts or the Mann Elkins Act, or Wilson's 'reforms' of the banks and 'reforms' of tariffs.

This lesson is a good example of the kind of prevalent liberal bias that exists in education today. Although these are all proper subjects to learn about and important to US history and there is nothing wrong with learning about these subjects in isolation, this essay does demonstrate liberal bias because of the context that these subjects are studied and the absence of other things being studied.

The context that Progressivism is taught in schools is that society needed to be reformed because things were really bad in America under the conservative administrations of Republican McKinley and Democrat Cleveland, who favored businesses and limited government and traditional values to the determinant of our nation. Progressives on the other hand were the good guys in the story of American history, using the power of government to override the objections of states, localities, and minorities so that they could jam through regulations of business and society to give increased power to groups that they favored. Admittedly some good was done by these changes- national parks are nice- but at the very least some of the reforms that are taught to students as unqualified and unconditional successes are not.

Arguments could made that the glorification of the Progressive era is distorting the reality of the situation- students learn that Roosevelt broke up Standard Oil because it was an evil monopoly run by a bad millionaire, but that is not the real story at all. Students read and memorize The Jungle by Upton Sinclair and are told that this is an example of why we need a federal Food and Drug administration, but they never learn any criticisms of this book or the arguments that it advances or the legacy that it led to. Students learn about 'reforming banks', but what is meant by 'reform' is actually a big government-big business partnership called the Federal Reserve System of Banks, which many (especially the Ron Paul types) think is very bad. And these are just a couple examples.

The point is that students are being asked in this essay to talk about all that was good about the Progressive movement after reading a textbook about how good the Progressive movement was, and later on these students will become voters who might perhaps believe what they read and wrote about. Again, that's not to say that students should not learn about the good aspects of the Progressive movement, but it is to say that it demonstrates liberal bias in education that is deep and thorough when students learn about events and issues from one slant or agenda only and do not spend equal time learning about other issues from other slants or agendas (for example, students spend considerable time on the Progressive Era, but little time on the successful economic time period of the 1920's or the foreign policy successes of Taft or the return to normal economic growth that was achieved under Eisenhower).

The effect of this kind of education in every school in our entire country speaks to the size of the bias and slant that education needs to overcome if it is to no longer be liberally biased.

Nothing surprising here,Western banks and the usual shady deposits:

British high street banks have accepted millions of pounds in deposits from corrupt Nigerian politicians, raising serious questions about their commitment to tackling financial crime, warned Global Witness. By taking money from corrupt Nigerian governors between 1999 and 2005, Barclays, NatWest, RBS, HSBC and UBS helped to fuel corruption and entrench poverty in Nigeria.

So I'm listening to the radio on the way home today, and hear that Pelosi implied that she is going to criminalize some of the political differences she has had with Bush, and after he leaves office, attempt to prosecute some of his advisers and allies for various offenses. I imagine she'll demand that anyone who was nice to Bush show up to testify in front of an angry committee, where they'll be accused of lying under oath for not remembering an offense they didn't commit. Welcome to fascism folks. But this isn't what got me all fired up. I flipped over to the other station.

On the other station, the thug (Ed Schultz) was talking with some intellectual about Obama's new proposal to establish the Bank of Obama, through which he would personally invest taxpayers money in projects that he thinks would benefit his friends. At least that's my read on his proposed "National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank."

For our economy, our safety, and our workers, we have to rebuild America. I’m proposing a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank that will invest $60 billion over ten years. repairs will be determined not by politics, but by what will maximize our safety and homeland security; what will keep our environment clean and our economy strong. And we’ll fund this bank by ending this war in Iraq. It’s time to stop spending billions of dollars a week trying to put Iraq back together and start spending the money on putting America back together instead.

The FT reports:

When Jendayi Frazer, the US assistant secretary of state for Africa, visited earlier this year she predicted that in 10 to 15 years Angola would be one of the three hubs in sub-Saharan Africa, along with the traditional powerhouses of South Africa and Nigeria.
It is a view widely shared by bankers. Outside South Africa “you’ve got to be in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and Angola”, says Craig Bond, CEO of Standard Bank Africa, the African arm of Standard Bank, the continent’s largest bank. Angola has registered five new banks in the past year and is expected to register five more by the end of 2007, according to Paul de Sousa, the representative for KPMG. The “big three” banks in South Africa, Standard Bank, First National Bank and ABSA, and several international banks have been scouting in recent months for potential acquisitions.

Sanou Mbaye writing in Project Syndicate:

He speaks on the need to liberalize the remittance channels:

The effects of banks’ hijacking of national payment systems to service only the modern economy are compounded by the exclusive agreements that banks and money-transfer companies such as Western Union have signed with most African countries. These agreements lock out non-banking entities from the highly lucrative market for migrant remittances from the African diaspora, which remain a key engine of growth

African states must now recognize that modernizing their informal sectors by integrating them into the modern economy can be a major development tool. Yet only a few countries have started moving in that direction. Nigeria has refrained from signing any exclusive agreements with Western Union and others, and its newly consolidated banking industry is making significant inroads across the region...

Giving micro-finance institutions access to national and regional payments systems and electronic retail facilities will go a long way toward meeting the requirements of the retail and business sector in terms of banking facilities. It will also help facilitate access by the poorest to financial services, thus helping to reduce the high proportion of the un-banked population.

All of this will invariably spur development and integration of national financial systems and intra-regional trade. This will be a welcome development, because a large proportion of intra-regional trade is carried out by informal operators and small and medium enterprises that do not have access to the banking system. Moreover, economic integration and increased intra-regional trade are the best entry point into global markets for all countries.

• Will 'National Opt Out Day' Spark a Testing Backlash? - Education - GOOD

  Be aware. here comes national Opt out day where students and their parents choose to opt out of tests. It is shocking that superintendent John Kuhn from Texas says that students spend 45 out of 180 school days administering standardized tests. At my school it is 3 days of 2-3 hours each per class. That is it. Perhaps that is why our test scores are so good - we actually have time to teach.
  
  A new grass roots movement is underfoot.

  tags: news education

• Mozilla seeks designers to supercharge learning in digital badges competition « o p e n m a t t

  Graphic designers, web designers, and educational technologies are invited to design badges for Mozilla's Open badge project. This is going to be an exciting program.

  tags: education oer mozilla openlearning competition news

• Newport Beach, California Students Caught Cheating On Exam, Bought Answers From Amazon

  OK, time to blog Amazon. (not really) Students are buying test banks from them. Honestly, if a student really wants to find a test bank, they will be able to in this day and age. They're able to get alcohol and cigarettes, what makes us think they can't get the test if it is available for purchase online? We have to be better than just giving a test that is in a test bank. Even if I start with a test bank, I always customize it and make sure that the knowledge that students have to share can't be condensed to multiple choice. 
  
  About 10 sophomores at Corona del Mar high school in Newport Beach, Calif. purchased test banks, which provide chapter-by-chapter answers for the exam -- designed to help teachers write tests that properly measure student learning, the Daily Pilot reports. A total of 180 students took the exam.

  tags: education assessment news

• Seth's Blog: I was wrong

  It is so hard to admit you are wrong. There are those who never admit it and I steer clear of them. Then, there are those who do. Others just blame everyone else. Seth says it well:
  
  "Two elements of successful leadership: a willingness to be wrong and an eagerness to admit it."
  
  Eagerness would be hard for most people because it means we screw up and we're afraid others will point it out more often, but it is something we must be willing to do. 

  tags: education inspiration news leadership

• Do school librarians have "enduring values?" - Home - Doug Johnson's Blue Skunk Blog

  Doug Johnson writes about the values of librarians by starting with Michael Gorman's ALA enduring core values that he shared with the association in 2000 but added to by Doug's 10 values of his own. At the heart of what Doug believes beats the pulse of a true democratic society. A great read and discussion post for librarians.

  tags: education news librarian libraries

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

There is a blog out there called "Third Way." It is staffed by Obama supporters and three of its former chairs now serve in the senior ranks of the Obama administration. This is the sort of blog that Obama reads and the sort of blog that Obama takes his marching orders from. This blog is a fascist blog that preaches a fascist ideology.

While listening to the radio today, I was struck by the number of callers to both liberal and conservative radio shows that embraced the so-called third way- a political strand that emphasises its opposition to both communism and capitalism and attempts to embrace a variety of nationalism. The third way attacks big banks and big companies, all while owning larger and larger pieces of those banks and companies. The third way attacks communism by hurting labor unions and workers of the world and rejecting the workers of the world unite slogans, preferring instead to buy into a pseudo-populism. The third way is the way of the fascist regimes of Hitler and Mussolini, who both rejected the politics of the left and right in order to usher in a new era of hope and change.

The Third Way blog that Obama reads for his ideas is a 'progressive blog', and one would be wise to read about all the horrors of the progressive movement, from its support of fascism and eugenics to its oppression of free speech and individual liberty. The blog supports an economic agenda that is focused on 'a culture of shared values' and 'a clean energy revolution'- clearly it does not believe in a culture of freedom and liberty and sensible energy solutions, but instead it buys into the same environmentalism that Hitler and Mussolini were both enamored with and strives to force everyone to buy into their ideology.

Interestingly enough, one of the major positions for The Third Way blog that Obama likes is that prisoners should work a 40 hour work week. I noted last month that the US Government Employs Slave Labor to Compete Against Private Companies, but astute observers would note the date that the US started to employ prisoners to compete against private businesses- Federal Prison Industries Inc. was created in 1934 by FDR at the height of the popularity of the third way, or fascist, movement.

There is a lot of scary movements out there, but one of the most horrifying that caused some of the greatest tragedies is the fascist movement. Be on guard always for 'third way' thinking in our political leaders.

In the summer of 2007, Michigan replaced its Single Business Tax with a new tax- the Michigan Business Tax. Under the leadership of Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm and a Democratic state Congress, this new tax was passed over the objections of many businesses and groups in Michigan.

According to proponents of the new tax plan, 75% of businesses in Michigan would get a tax cut, primarily industrial and telecommunications firms. But the overall amount of money that the state would bring in would grow, so that means that under the new tax plan the remaining 25% would pay more in taxes. These groups would be the financial section and real estate sectors.

One year later, I have a question for you- what two industries are destroying our economy? Banks and real estate! Bingo! The very industries that the state raised taxes on went into recession, driving the rest of the economy for our state down, and ironically, because the auto industries in Michigan ran out of credit, destroying the very firms they were supposed to be helping.

Anyone who wants the state to do more in our economy, to bail out industries, to change taxes around to benefit one group over the other, or who want to give tax breaks to favored industries and punish others, better think about this example- the state doesn't have a freaking clue what it is doing. The law of unintended consequences takes over after the state makes changes- in this case, the state of Michigan may have actually helped to collapse our national economy by attacking banks and real estate with higher taxes right when these industries needed the most help.

Information for this post came from this source.

In a recent interview with ABC, President Barack Obama was talking about the fee that Bank of America believes is now necessary to charge customers because of recent changes to bank card fees imposed by Democrats in the Dodd-Frank bill':

“This is exactly why we need this Consumer Finance Protection Bureau that we set up that is ready to go," he said. "... (petty government bureaucrats) can stop (the fees being charged by private banks) because if (petty government bureaucrats) say to the banks, ‘You don't have some inherent right just to – you know, get a certain amount of profit. If your customers – are being mistreated. That you have to treat them fairly and transparently.”

Here are my notes and thoughts as I watched President Barack Obama's 2012 State of the Union address:

• All of the conversation on the channels prior to the address centered on how this address is going to be used as a way to launch the President's re-election bid and as a taxpayer financed campaign speech. I've been watching these things for years and although past incumbents running for re-election have used this speech to speak about all their accomplishments, President Obama appears to be the most brazenly partisan in using this speech as a campaign speech.
• I found a list of past 'special guests' who have been invited by the President- Lenny Skutnik in 1982 (saved passanger from drowning plane), Sammy Sosa in 1999 (relief efforts in Dominican Republic and home run chase), Hamid Karzai in 2002 (Afghanistan President), Julie Aigner-Clark in 2007 (founder of Baby Einstein)... and now Warren Buffet's secretary in 2012 (prop to use to try to bring up point of taxing the rich more). Whereas once President's (both Republican and Democrats) celebrated people who had done things, President Obama celebrates someone who has called on other people to do more things (pay more money) and yet has no real accomplishments of her own (no offense- I'm sure she is a fine person).
• It was amazing and wonderful to see Congresswomen Giffords there- she has made such a great recovery and I wish her the best on her future.
• President Obama begins with his foreign policy accomplishments, which he can take credit for, although he should share this credit with George W. Bush, who put in place the foundations and background for many of these accomplishments (the pull-out in Iraq, the groundwork for catching Osama, drones and catching terrorists in the War on Terror, etc).
• Obama next suggests that private citizens should be more like the military and act as soldiers for the state. Citizens should stop fighting one another, stop disagreeing about the direction of the nation, stop pushing for their individual rights and liberties, stop trying to keep their property and the fruits of their labor, and instead citizens should serve the state, citizens should put aside their differences and just follow orders, and people should give up their wealth and property to the state so that it can redistribute it to those people who it favors. This all sounds vaguely familiar and has strong echo's of fascism in it, although I could sugar-coat it if you'd like.
• In 2008, the 'house of cards collapsed'- banks made loans they shouldn't have (which he pushed for a community activist), regulators didn't do their jobs (which they were not held accountable for), bonuses were paid to these banks and government agencies (to which they were never held accountable for)... he is on the wrong side of the ledger here- he was pushing for the collapse and after the collapse did not hold those people accountable.
• "State of the Union is getting stronger"- as if the mounting US debt is to be ignored and we're all just to pretend that trillions of dollars in my children's spending is not damaging the foundations of our nation and creating a time-bomb that will destroy America.
• President Obama says that he can't get anything done without control of every single aspect of our political system- he decries the 'obstructionism' of the GOP controlling one single house of Congress. No one- no one- should ever be elected President who says that he can't get anything done unless he has total power- that is bad for America and bad for democracy.
• "What is happening in Detroit can happen in other industries"- what happened in Detroit was that the auto companies were bailed out, costing taxpayers $80 billion in loans, debts forgiven, pensions guaranteed, and other loans. GM made $6 billion last year in profits- taxpayers should get that back, plus the next $74 billion in profits, and then we'll claim success in saving a company at no cost. Imagine if he were to bail every unprofitable business out at massive losses to taxpayers- what would that sort of economy look like?
• Proposes new tax on multi-national companies, to be redistributed to companies that 'hire here in America'- some sort of new loan to be administered by Obama officials based on conditions that he'd set. The increased taxes on MNC's will be sure to be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices on goods and services, causing inflation and hitting the poor especially hard. Why does Obama hate poor people so much?
• "We brought trade cases against China at over twice the rate as the previous administration"- but the Chinese just laughed at us because Obama bowed to the Chinese President and begged to borrow trillions more of their money so that he could blow it on his wasteful spending. It's nice that he's suing China though- I'm sure that's employing lots of lawyers.
• President Obama is mystified on why employers don't hire workers- perhaps if he would have had some sort of a job at some point in business or in the private sector or in some sort of productive economic enterprise he'd know that increasing regulations, fees, requirements, red tape, and the such encourage employers not to hire.
• Obama proposes starting a temp agency company... with taxpayer money. This government financed and supported company will compete with all of these Michigan companies.
• Obama is right- good teachers like me matter, and also he's right that teachers like me are attacked all the time- I'm bashed by liberals and progressives who call me all sorts of names. The President's other education policies are pretty- they are nice words that mean nothing since the federal government isn't supposed to be involved in education in any way other than making sure that there is equality in education for different races and sexes (Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965).
• It is almost as if the right answer to everything that Obama says is the opposite of what he says. He says that it is wrong for taxpayers to be giving illegal immigrants a paid education and then sending them home at the end- he suggests we should make these people here illegally citizens after investing all that money into them, while I kind of think that taxpayers shouldn't be investing money into people here illegally. Get a work or education visa or something to stay here or pay your own way.
• President Obama attacks inequality in pay between mean and women in work- that's right Obama, tear this straw man up! That straw man can't fight back- I suggest he go after those who want children to work in coal mines next!
• I followed this line... "need more bullet proof vests... computers chips... innovations... industries... energy..." what???
• President Obama claims that our nation needs an "all out all of the above strategy"- it's double-speak though, because in his next line he clarifies that this strategy means less oil, less natural gas, less coal, and less drilling. His 'all of the above' strategy is going to include additional fees, regulations, and rules on companies that he doesn't like. So, in summary, he is pitching a "some of the below strategy".
• On to exploding batteries discussion... Bryan (the guy Obama referenced) used to build luxury yachts, but when government policies that Obama supported (he wanted a higher tax on yachts) destroyed Bryan's company and industry, Obama was there to throw taxpayer dollars at him to get him restarted building taxpayer subsidized wind turbines, and now Obama is some sort of 'good guy.' He's the bad guy in the story, kiddies. Holland-based Energetx Composites LLC, you just got mentioned by Obama in his State of the Union address- that's the kiss of death.
• Proposed more small fees and regulations and burdens on businesses... I missed what sort of scheme it was supposed to pay for in order to be 'budget neutral'.
• I'm caught up now... "we need smart regulations"... "we need rules"... these rules and regulations "make the free market more free"- LOL. Did he just say "I've ordered thousands of federal agents to spend thousands of man-hours to search for useless regulations that waste taxpayer money"- I must have heard this wrong. He's moving on though to proposing new rules and regulations- I guess he was done with the part about getting rid of regulations and rules after he threw the joke out there. Listening to him talk, I feel like he's a joke of a President.
• Someone add up how much all these regulations, agencies, bureau's, rules, and investments are going to cost America... I'll have to look at the transcript, but I'm pretty sure all he does is to propose these things without any sense of cost. A man (or woman) could spend a hundred years undoing all the damage that this guy is doing to our Republic.
• "The recovery is still fragile"- but earlier he said the "State of the Union is getting stronger"- let's square this round issue, folks.
• Did you know that President Obama has cut the deficit $2 trillion? And not raised it $5 trillion like what really happened? BIZARRO WORLD!
• Let's not forget this people- President Obama hates people earning millions and wants to go after them and confiscate their income redistribute it to people making less. Those who are already wealthy can keep it, those who are on the bottom might like it, but there will be no more moving between classes in Obama's America. This guy wants to slap class systems on us and turn our nation into the rich- those who already made their wealth and who have connections with government- and the rest of us poor. "You can call this class warfare all you want" he says- it's class warfare. It's class warfare. It's class warfare. It's class warfare. It's class warfare...
• The partisan divide is getting worse every year he says... especially over the past 3 years. It must be George Bush's fault or something, right? Or maybe it's because you President Obama are the most bitterly partisan figure in the history of our nation and is tearing our nation into serfs and masters. President Obama attacks running a 'perpetual campaign'- but yet he is the worst offender in this, running continually for office in a way that no President in history has ever done, running campaign commercials a year in advance of the general election, and even trotting out his wife to make frequent partisan attacks.
• He just said-"With or without this Congress I will keep implementing laws and putting in place policies that I want, but if Congress went along with what I was already doing it would give me cover and get us all involved." This guy is a bully and a dictator. Maybe I heard him wrong though; I'll go back and re-read the transcript, maybe I got it wrong.
• The speech must be coming to an end- after spending a couple minutes in the beginning to address our military and veterans, we're now going to end with a couple minutes at the end about the military and veterans- I though think that the military shouldn't just be props in Obama's game of 'we're all in this together' meme; maybe he should talk about military programs in the body of his speech that he wants to cut or increase, about what he's been doing as commander-in-chief, etc. The military is not simply there to make Obama look good. "No one thought about politics on that day" Obama says- but yet the photo of Obama in the war room was staged. Nice words Obama, but in your mouth, they are just words, merely words.
• President Obama says that as long as we are all commoners, living like peasants on the land, serving our masters like serfs, than our nation will be strong. He said 'common' several times at the end- but private property, liberty, and protection of life wasn't mentioned.

In a recent speech pulitzer prize winner Dele Olojede stated "...Many Nigerians today continue to deny the obvious—that a potentially wide-ranging transformation is under way, needing only their buy-in for the process to gain momentum. It is undeniable that the Obasanjo government is toying with the idea of a radical transformation. Without a doubt this is the best macro-economic environment we’ve ever had, in which the process has begun to disentangle the government from the economy and, perhaps in time, return it to its best role as a regulatory agency. We can all plainly see the value of deregulation in the telecom sector. And now for the first time in a long time banks will return to being banks. An attempt is being made, unevenly and often unpredictably, to fight corruption. The deal to wipe off Nigeria’s debilitating debt, and spare our children from the pain of our profligacy, is perhaps this government’s most important achievement. But even that, in our poisonous environment, is dismissed by some as insignificant. On account of our long disappointment with politics and government, could it be that we no longer have the capacity to recognize the possibility of progress?..."