Michael Collins's blog

Deadbeats Bush and Gingrich Say "States Better Off Bankrupt"

Michael Collins

 

Not if a state owes you money!

Jeb Bush and Newt Gingrich just published an OpEd in the Los Angeles Times arguing that states would be wise to consider filing bankruptcy to relieve their financial troubles.  They cite three states, California, Illinois and New York, while failing to mention the angry elephant in the living room with similar problems, Texas.

Texas faces a $25 billion shortfall for a $95 billion two-year budget.  That equals California's 18-month deficit inherited by the recently inaugurated Governor Jerry Brown.

"So why haven't we heard more about Texas, one of the most important economy's in America? Well, it's because it doesn't fit the script. It's a pro-business, lean-spending, no-union state. You can't fit it into a nice storyline, so it's ignored," said Business Insider

Texas is a major inconvenience to Bush and Gingrich. They lay the financial problems at the door of unions and state employee pensions:

"The lucrative pay and benefits packages [read pensions] that government employee unions have received from obliging politicians over the years are perhaps the most significant hurdles for many states trying to restore fiscal health."  Jeb Bush, Newt Gingrich, January 27

Healthcare Reform - Abandoning the Self Employed

Michael Collins

The most creative sector of the business community has a dagger at its heart in the form of the relentless, unyielding, and over burdening cost of health insurance. The self-employed and very small businesses have seen their insurance premiums climb 20% to 75% since 2009. To purchase an adequate family plan, a self-employed person will pays an amount 50% to 70% of the nation's median personal income, $32,000 a year, for family health plan. This includes premiums, deductibles, and out of pocket expenses. That is twice the cost for relatively generous plans at medium to large size companies. Very small businesses, two to twenty employees, pay about the same (Image: Paul Henman)

Wasn't health reform supposed to take care of just this sort of inequity? Didn't the title of the bill say it all? The Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act There is no protection for the self-employed when they have these stark choices facing them due to unaffordable insurance rates. They can give up working for themselves; buy adequate insurance and take a huge hit to income; buy a substandard plan and hope that whatever comes up is covered; or, abandon insurance at real risk to their health and, in some cases, their lives.

Apocalypse When? Decline and Fall (Maybe) January 17, 2011

Michael Collins

For at least ten years the large US banks have been selling a product – the residential home mortgage – with a fatal legal flaw that renders it uncollateralized. Numerian

boston may benot
Apocalypse When? Round Up of Massachusetts Supreme Court Decision on ForeclosureGate, US Bank N.A. v Ibanez - Around 1995, the big bank lenders established their own rules for handling the various steps of issuing a mortgage. They knew well the contract laws of the states in which they operated. But they had bigger plans. They wanted to bundle up thousands of mortgages and sell them as Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS). To do that, they needed an electronic system (MERS) that could bundle mortgages and sell them repeatedly to investors here and overseas. Never mind that state law required specific documentation at every step, including documentation to prove a specific owner of the property. When banks resold the MBS product, as it were, they were interested in churn and more money, not tagging a specific mortgage with the latest MBS owner.

Oops! The big banks screwed up big time. Bankruptcy courts at the state and federal level are used to adherence to contract law and court rulings. Most people in foreclosure struggle to pay for representation if they go to court. Many settle out of court. But the Show Me the Note movement, in and out of court, has a powerful ally - the Ibanez decision.

Decline and Fall (Maybe) New Years Edition

Nothing has been done to address the rapid increase of citizens in poverty. That would require jobs. The only jobs those in power produce are for themselves and their cronies.
The Happy New Year Edition (with some good news about 2011)

Michael Collins
/></p> <p>The best thing about 2010 is that it's over. It was a year filled with utter stupidity, mendacity, and greed beyond all bounds on the part of our rulers, also known as <a href=The Money Party. Lots of fiddling while Rome and the rest of the world burned. Knowledge is power and among the ruling elite in the United States, the power was off. Somebody forgot to pay the bill or paid with a bad check, no doubt.

A Decade of Job Stagnation In 2000, 135 million citizens were employed. In 2010 there were 139 million Americans employed. Given the 9.7% increase in population since 2000, we would expect to see at least 148 million citizens with jobs. Nobody much wants to talk about this or the true unemployment figures produced by the US Census called "U6". That measure accounts for, "Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force." Bureau of Labor Statistics

You're on Your Own

These public figures and many more promised to correct the chaos and depravity of the Bush era. It’s all a scam. A new war, more bailouts for Wall Street, the continued assault on the Constitution, and lower taxes for the super rich are what we got.

Michael Collins


Some of us have known this for a long time. Some of us just found out and some will find out very soon. There are few, if any, elected officials who really care about our interests unless we're one of the few thousand ultra rich who control Congress and the White House. (Image)

The Obama-Republican tax plan was just approved in the United States Senate. It will become law soon. What did we lose?

The Senate put the Social Security system at risk with a 33% cut to employee payroll taxes, from 6.2% to 4.2% of wages. Social Security is doing well with a $2.5 trillion surplus. But this major change begins the starvation of the system. Those who voted in favor will turn around sometime soon and say that Social Security is faltering. Of course, their cynical actions will be at fault. They'll conveniently avoid mentioning that.

The Obama-Republican plan keeps the tax rate on investment income (capital gains) well below the rates for income taxes and below the capital gains rates in 2000. Wall Street ruins the economy with their shady deals then gets more tax breaks on their shady stock deals.

Killing Social Security

On Monday, December 13, the US Senate will vote on a bill that represents the destruction of Social Security. The measure reduces the employee payroll tax by 33% (from 6.2 to 4.2%). Social Security is in good shape right now but this reduction will starve the Trust Fund and give the excuse to say - "Look, it's broke. We have to privatize it."

Save Social Security - call or write your US Senators and tell them to vote no on reducing funding for Social Security - period. No compromises at all.

United States Senate Email/Web and Phone contact.

UPDATE: The Senate passed a cloture resolution limiting debate on the presidents proposal (aka sell out) to give millionaires huge tax breaks and hammer the people by putting Social Security at risk. That assures passage of the legislation in the Senate. Sen. Bernie Sanders has a Show Filibuster last Friday but it wasn't for real. Today - before the "cloture vote" - would have been the time. Bernie benched himself and his gal pal, Sen. Mary Landrieu, who helped last Friday, said that filibuster was only for the tax cuts for millionaires, not the entire package." We are nothing to them.

Michael Collins

We are at a unique moment in our history. The decadence of those in charge has reached menacing proportions.

(Washington, Dec 10) Bill Clinton showed up at the White House for an "impromptu" press conference to discuss the president's tax compromise with the Republicans. Clinton disclosed that "I make a lot of money now" and, as a result, he would benefit from the program. Then he endorsed the compromise calling it the best deal Obama could make. Clinton was particularly high on the Social Security payroll tax reduction. "According to all economic analysis, [this is] the single most effective tax cut you can do to support economic activity. This will actually create a fair number of jobs. I expect it to lower the unemployment rate and keep us going." (Image)

Across town, United States Senator Bernie Sanders was telling the simple truth that Obama and Clinton avoided.

Obama's Grand Betrayal

Michael Collins

Previously, Economic Populist brought the internet the startling news - Obama to Change Party. That was satire, at least on November 14. Just three weeks later, satire becomes reality. In the past few days, President Obama has traded away $620 billion in tax revenues in order to get a $56 billion, 13 month extension of unemployment benefits. Of course, the lost $620 billion will make any further unemployment benefits, or for that matter, any other productive social programs pipe dreams as the deficit explodes over the next two years. (Image: Banksy)

The Obama deal is a long way from the original position of ending Bush tax cuts for the highest earners and simply extending unemployment benefits, as called for by economic and social circumstances.

It started when President Obama sent his vice president to negotiate with Republican leaders on Capitol Hill. Since the president still has a majority in both chambers of Congress, you might wonder why he's negotiating. The House Democrats are ready to rock to show that they're not to blame for the past two years of inaction. There are enough Democratic Senators with either the inclination or the compromised background to strong arm a majority.

No Room at the Inn - No Mortgage Relief in TARP


Michael Collins

What do you get when you cross Tim Geithner and Peter Peterson?

Barack Obama; who would rather help the big banks and "balance" the budget than offer a helping hand for struggling homeowners. (Image)

The president demonstrated new heights of indifference toward the people in his handling of the mortgage relief program made a part of the Trouble Asset Relief Program (TARP). Citizens paid the full share for TARP and were to get a modest proportion. That's not the case. The November 2010 Congressional Budget Office Report on TARP was just issued. It showed that the funds for home mortgage assistance programs would be reduced from $50 billion to $12 billion, as reported in the Huffington Post.

Reading the details of the report, we find that the take back from homeowner relief through TARP funds is even more outrageous. The actual funds spent so far for homeowner relief is only $710 million.

Decline and fall (maybe) … Nov 27, 2010

A purely subjective look at our chances to survive those who rule us

Michael Collins

It will be months if ever before trials to start for the targets of the FBI raids. In the meantime, Congress failed to extend unemployment benefits for four million workers set to go off the rolls in January.

Will we survive those who rule us and those who aspire to rule in their place, that bipartisan coalition known as The Money Party?

The parade of indictments on Wall Street is just beginning. On Tuesday the FBI raided three major hedge funds (very large private, highly exclusive, unregulated investment funds that generate huge returns for the lucky few). There are more raids on the way, twelve according to one source. Business Insider's excellent article made clear what has the Feds upset: "What's happened, it seems, is that the government has discovered a huge ring of friends or acquaintances who all know each other." Its called insider trading, taking advantage of information to make those huge profits the hedge funds offer. Ten years after the Wall Street Casino opened, they're finally regulating. It may be time for a scapegoat. The hedge funds will do, it appears. The defendants may wish to put in an early bid for a conveniently located federal penitentiary.

Buffett Thanks "Uncle Sam" for Big Bailout Payday

Michael Collins

"Mr. Buffett. You are no different than Goldman Sachs and the other exploiters funded by the hard work of everyone other than those who reap the benefits of that work."

The people's oligarch Warren Buffett just wrote a thank you letter to "Uncle Sam" published in the New York Times. It is the height of cynicism. (Image)

Buffett has a carefully crafted public image as a brilliant but people-friendly master of investments. We hear about his regular table at an Omaha diner where he conducts business (just plain Warren) and we see his occasional public stands for reasonable policies like the inheritance tax.

He claims that "Uncle Sam", the government, saved us from a financial catastrophe that would have swallowed up his company. He then endorses the notion that the housing bubble was based on "mass delusion" - meaning it was our fault. But he forgets to mention that he took advantage of the 2008 crisis to purchase a $5 billion interest in Goldman Sachs. And he forgets whose money "Uncle Sam" stole from the Treasury to save him and the rest of his cronies. What a hypocrite.

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