A couple of weeks ago I went to a briefing on the Hill given by some of the good folks at the Cato Institute and the R Street Institute regarding the Farm Bill and it was depressing. On all levels the farm bill has been worked and twisted and manipulated and massaged by the lobbyists.
B of A allegedly abused the HAMP program which was created to help homeowners approaching foreclosure. The bank allegedly threw out the paperwork of applicants who had fulfilled their end of the loan modification bargain, making the homeowner restart the modification process. Many people it is alleged fell into foreclosure who didn’t need to be there simply because the bank couldn’t get it’s act together. In many cases, as the attached article reports, it was worse than just incompetence.
A great essay on why central banking creates the boom and bust cycle by Tom Woods, a favorite around here, and a friend of Against Crony Capitalism.
Shocked! Shocked I tells ya!
Companies like FlightCar are popping up all over the place and they are deeply challenging long established business models. The companies (and other interests such as the San Francisco Airport) which have long benefited from sweetheart deals, don’t want things to change. One can’t blame them but running to the courts to protect one from a better idea, which serves customers at a lower cost is just classic crony capitalism. The old companies try to use the government to freeze out the leaner, meaner, better models. Hollywood is trying to do it through copyright. The taxi companies are doing everything they can to kill Uber ( smartphone app for taxis) in the crib. And there are dozens of other examples.
The current NSA scandal has deep roots. They go back even further than the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001, but it was then that we entered a new era. That is when fear descended .We took leave of our senses. America changed.
James O’Keefe strikes again. He’s the fellow who brought down ACORN with his “pimp” video a few years back. This time he stings a couple of wireless carriers who supply phones for the “Lifeline” program, often referred to as “Obama phone” program.
The City of Hackensack tried to take a valuable piece of property from its owner. The residents rose up against the local government however and made sure that didn’t happen.
Dick Cheney needs to be happy that he has gotten away with his time in the Bush II presidency relatively unscathed. Aside from being called a “war criminal” at CPAC 2011, the man has never been publicly confronted for his actions as vice president.
One would think that the reality of the mess he and his friends created in Iraq and on the home front would humble the man. But I guess not. The neocon dream was worth the lives lost, the freedoms curtailed, the debt incurred, the Constitution trampled. Mr. Cheney sleeps easy.
China, as we have written for quite a while (along with many others) is in serious trouble. Underpinning the “Chinese Dream” is piles and piles and piles of (likely bad) debt.
