Tag: Economy

Dec 01 2010

A Big Day in Economics News

Two of the major Washington based stories are extension of the Bush Tax Cuts for the wealthiest 2% on which the best policy from an economic standpoint is to let them all expire and replace them with Obama Tax Cuts for those consumers hardest hit by the Financial Depression and most likely to spend them so that as poor a tool as Tax Cuts are there is at least some increase in Aggregate Demand.

Simply extending any of the Bush Tax Cuts has ABSOLUTELY NO STIMULATIVE EFFECT WHATSOEVER, this is money people already have and have had for 10 years now.  Continuing it will NOT make consumers more likely to spend it- they already are.

The fact that this is also the best political policy makes it unlikely that the Obama Administration and the Institutional Democratic Party will adopt it.  Indeed the best “bi-partisan” compromise we can seem to hope for is tying it to extension of unemployment benefits (which are one of the most stimulative transfer payments, but not at all as economically productive as investment in infrastructure).

Another story out of Washington is the Catfood Commission meltdown.  Clearly there aren’t 14 votes for the Chairmen’s Mark, and no progress has been made on compromise.  Bowes-Simpson is essentially unchanged and all the initial objections still apply, the most fundamental of which is that it subsidizes Tax Cuts for Corporations and the Wealthy at the expense of neccessary Government Services (and one of those is Social Security which is not even part of the deficit).

Unfortunately Simpson is probably correct that Republicans will simply pull out the most pernicious, greedy, and hurtful ideas and push them.

Another Big Fail by Barack Hussein Obama and his confederacy of dunces and conservatives.

Anyway the best reporting I’ve seen so far (though I did sleep in) is at Firedog Lake and as a service I’ve collected some of their Front Page stories on the subject.  The one I think gives the best overview is Scarecrow’s.

dday has some pieces on the FDL News Desk that have not yet been Front Paged (though I’m sure they will be).  One on the Catfood Commission-

And others on the Tax Cuts-

Nov 30 2010

So, how’s that bailout thing working?

Ireland Gets $113 Billion Aid as Bondholders Win Bailout-Payment Reprieve

By James G. Neuger and Simon Kennedy, Bloomberg News

Nov 29, 2010 11:42 AM ET

“The notion that a rescue package for Ireland would create a firewall and stop the fear of contagion is clearly discredited,” said Preston Keat, director of research at Eurasia Group, a political consultancy, in London. “Portugal and Spain are already facing pressures in the markets.”

…

Germany, which built the euro on the principle of budgetary rigor, unleashed the latest phase of the crisis by demanding a “permanent” system as of 2013 that would enable fiscally troubled countries to restructure their debts and cut the value of bond holdings.

The German push ran into criticism from policy makers elsewhere, who called it mistimed, and from European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet, who warned it would unsettle bondholders. Merkel, who has faced domestic criticism for aiding EU neighbors, yesterday backed away from the pitch for an automatic penalty, agreeing to give the International Monetary Fund a role in determining losses on a case-by-case basis.

Bank bondholders escape again as a protected species of capitalism

JOHN McMANUS, The Irish Times

Monday, November 29, 2010

FOR A brief moment on Friday, it looked as though for the first time in Europe’s handling of the financial crisis the holders of senior bank bonds were going to join the rest of us in the world of moral hazard.

But it now seems that the issue of the senior bond holders in the Irish banks being asked to participate in the fourth bailout of these institutions was effectively shelved on Saturday.

…

The speed with which even the mere suggestion of burden sharing with Irish bank senior bond holders sent the market into paroxysms indicates that they know the day of reckoning is coming.

…

The authorities may have blinked first, but a process may have been set in train that will see the abandonment of the position that senior bond holders in European banks are a protected species.

Markets Remain Focused on Debt Crisis

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: November 30, 2010

“Ireland’s bailout package has clearly failed to stop the rot in euro zone markets and if anything it has focused attention on other countries in the periphery especially Portugal but also to Spain, Belgian and Italian government debt,” an analyst at Crédit Agricole, Mitul Kotecha, said.

…

At the heart of the problem is that the austerity measures these countries need to take to reduce their deficits threaten to backfire by weakening economic growth and hurting state revenues. That is what’s happening in Greece, which has been able to drastically cut its spending but is struggling to raise tax income as economic and corporate activity wilts.

Just as badly as predicted.

Nov 29 2010

Nothing Left To Steal

Monday Business Edition

The World is running out of money to insure the fictional assets of ‘senior creditors’ and banksters.

The problem is fundamentally leverage, the intellectual market laziness that makes financial institutions think they are entitled to make unlimited bets on 36:1 payouts every time.

When things get even a little difficult they whine and whine about how badly they are mistreated, but the fact of the matter is that there’s going to be a haircut taken and the obvious target is the biggest one.  Spain is the next to go and Italy after that.  Euros were such a good bet.

And if you were smart and doubled down every chance you could get, you’d build up quite a pile of chips.

Not the kind you can eat.

So what are they worth?  Whatever Rick will pay for them in some medium of exchange that’s good outside the casino.  Unless you want to barter, I have two passes out of Casablanca.

We’ve talked about Ireland and Iceland, but I wonder how many people are familiar with Dubai?

Today, Dubai has emerged as a global city and a business hub. Although Dubai’s economy was built on the oil industry, currently the emirate’s model of business, similar to that of Western countries, drives its economy, with the effect that its main revenues are now from tourism, real estate, and financial services.

I like this one because it has lots of numbers-

Dubai mulls sale of corporate champions

By Simeon Kerr in Dubai, Financial Times

Published: November 28 2010 18:42

Dubai is mulling the privatisation of home-grown corporate champions as a means to start paying down its estimated $110bn in debts, senior officials said.

Let’s just stop right there and recognize that we’re talking about an Ireland.  The proposal is to sell minority stakes in State Owned and Sovereign Wealth Fund Owned industries like their National Airline.

Mr Shaibani was speaking at an open forum held on Sunday, a rare moment of media engagement in an emirate that has faced a deluge of negative press since shocking markets with its standstill request a year ago, which ended with the restructuring of $25bn in debts at troubled conglomerate Dubai World.

Yup, that Dubai World, the one we were going to sell our ports to.  Now Dubai has already had a bailout from the UAE to the tune of $10 Billion in February of 2009 and assures us with the utmost gravity and reliability, just like Spain and Portugal, that they don’t need any bailouts thank you very much.

We are rapidly reaching the point where negative outcomes for the bankster class are inevitable due to the sheer volume of their theft.

Business News below.

Nov 26 2010

Go Vikings!

Iceland Is No Ireland as State Free of Bank Debt, Grimsson Says

By Jonas Bergman and Omar R. Valdimarsson, Bloomberg News

Nov 26, 2010 9:21 AM ET

Iceland’s President Olafur R. Grimsson said his country is better off than Ireland thanks to the government’s decision to allow the banks to fail two years ago and because the krona could be devalued.

“The difference is that in Iceland we allowed the banks to fail,” Grimsson said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Mark Barton today. “These were private banks and we didn’t pump money into them in order to keep them going; the state did not shoulder the responsibility of the failed private banks.”

…

“Iceland is faring much better than anybody expected,” Grimsson said. The Icelandic state’s liability on foreign depositor claims stemming from Icesave accounts at failed Landsbanki Islands hf should be put to a national referendum, he said.

“How far can we ask ordinary people — farmers and fishermen and teachers and doctors and nurses — to shoulder the responsibility of failed private banks,” said Grimsson. “That question, which has been at the core of the Icesave issue, will now be the burning issue in many European countries.”

(h/t Atrios)

Nov 26 2010

The Failure of the Elites

I don’t have a Nobel Prize in Economics, but unlike Paul Krugman I don’t think this was inevitable.  I blame people and institutions.

I blame Vacuity and prestige schools that will accept and pass any legacy moron (like George W. Bush).

I blame Vanity and an academic atmosphere that prizes novelty and publication above scholarship, teaching, and facts.

I blame Venality and the greed of our upper class elites who can starve to death on mere millions because they can’t conspicuously consume as much as their billionaire brethren and are disappointed because they think it’s a birthright.

The Instability of Moderation

by Paul Krugman, The New York Times

November 26, 2010, 9:40 am

The brand of economics I use in my daily work – the brand that I still consider by far the most reasonable approach out there – was largely established by Paul Samuelson back in 1948, when he published the first edition of his classic textbook. It’s an approach that combines the grand tradition of microeconomics, with its emphasis on how the invisible hand leads to generally desirable outcomes, with Keynesian macroeconomics, which emphasizes the way the economy can develop magneto trouble, requiring policy intervention. In the Samuelsonian synthesis, one must count on the government to ensure more or less full employment; only once that can be taken as given do the usual virtues of free markets come to the fore.

…

I’ve always considered monetarism to be, in effect, an attempt to assuage conservative political prejudices without denying macroeconomic realities. What Friedman was saying was, in effect, yes, we need policy to stabilize the economy – but we can make that policy technical and largely mechanical, we can cordon it off from everything else. Just tell the central bank to stabilize M2, and aside from that, let freedom ring!

When monetarism failed – fighting words, but you know, it really did – it was replaced by the cult of the independent central bank. Put a bunch of bankerly men in charge of the monetary base, insulate them from political pressure, and let them deal with the business cycle; meanwhile, everything else can be conducted on free-market principles.

…

Last but not least, the very success of central-bank-led stabilization, combined with financial deregulation – itself a by-product of the revival of free-market fundamentalism – set the stage for a crisis too big for the central bankers to handle. This is Minskyism: the long period of relative stability led to greater risk-taking, greater leverage, and, finally, a huge deleveraging shock. And Milton Friedman was wrong: in the face of a really big shock, which pushes the economy into a liquidity trap, the central bank can’t prevent a depression.

(h/t Atrios)

Nov 26 2010

Move your Money

Today is a half day trading day in the U.S. and unlike some shills for Wall Street I can’t imagine why you’d want to be long in stocks after Wednesday’s ‘irrational exuberance’.  Sell high, buy low is after all- basic.

Retail investors (it’s hard to call people who own stocks ‘normal’ because they’re a tiny minority) may still hold a majority of corporate equity but they have been leaving the market in droves because after the great financial meltdown of 2008, the Flash Crash, and the recent revelations of systemic Title Fraud and Insider Trading.

As I mentioned, most people don’t own stocks, they invest in mutual funds (Republicans and Blue Dogs like to call them ‘stocks’ to inflate the numbers of the ‘investor class’, but they’re really not), bonds, certificates of deposit, annuities, and other ‘safe’ investments.  Many people just keep their money in a bank because they live paycheck to paycheck and don’t have any surplus to spare.  What savings they have is in the equity of the house they’re living in and in today’s depressed market it’s not what it used to be.

But most people have bank accounts and a lot of them are really, really angry at the banksters.

It’s the same in Europe where ex-soccer star Eric Cantona is urging people to do something about it-

Join a World-Wide Bank Run in December — Move Your Money

Robert E. Prasch, The Huffington Post

November 24, 2010 04:03 PM

(O)rganizers are calling for the use of a new weapon, one available to any of us with a bank account. It is the simple act of removing all of our money from the banks, and doing so en masse on the same day — December 7th.

…

Of late, the famously mercurial temper that Cantona exhibited on and off the soccer pitch has been redirected from rivals and unruly fans. A prominent target is French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s proposal to create a ministry, museum, and mass public debate on “national identity,” all of which Cantona publically ridiculed as “idiotic.” His sights are now trained on the banking and financial system that he — correctly — holds responsible for France’s current economic problems. This is important because Sarkozy and the EU leadership is using this crisis to erode welfare state protections even as ostensibly scarce public monies are deployed to shore up the banks most responsible for the problem.

Which brings us to the economics of a mass withdrawal of deposits from the banks. Will it bring about an actual bank run or financial crash? Certainly not. For one thing, an organized and deliberate action such as Cantona proposes lacks the element of panic so characteristic of bank runs. Additionally, the banks and the central banks overseeing them will have time to prepare for the event, and should be able to reallocate their holdings of cash, reserves, and other assets in advance. If necessary, banks can always borrow short-term funds on the inter-bank market or even directly from the central bank. A mass withdrawal should, however, shrink the profitability of banks, as retail deposits are normally considered cheap and stable sources of funds with which to finance loans. Large European banks, relative to their American peers, are more dependent on retail deposits, so they will especially miss these funds when the time comes to calculate profits and bonuses.

But what of the politics? Here in the United States it is now overwhelmingly clear that a dozen or so of the largest financial institutions responsible for the crash and ensuing recession have gained, not lost, by their irresponsible decisions. They repeatedly tell us that they have “learned lessons.” This is true, they have: Learned that their past decisions have enriched senior management beyond belief. Learned that their market share is now substantially larger than before the crash. And learned that the government has deemed them Too Big To Fail (this latter designation lowers their cost of funds and enhances their profitability). Showing admirable “bi-partisanship,” Republican and Democratic administrations have worked hard and seamlessly to bring about these “lessons.” This summer, the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform and Consumer Protection Act enshrined the perspective of financial elites that reform should be primarily symbolic. In a sentence, over $12,000,000,000 of stock market, real estate, and other asset values disappeared, while rates of home foreclosures and unemployment soared, with virtually NO political or legal consequences. I might be a cynic, but I hope to never be as cynical as those who engineered these outcomes.

Now Prasch may not be aware of it, but this is an idea I’ve heard circulated among the blogs since at least early this year.  There’s nothing new about it.

But I would like to encourage my readers to consider it if they haven’t already.  There’s really no reason to keep your money in a major bank unless it’s more than the $250,000 the FDIC will insure, and at that you may be exposed to more risk than you realize.  If your money is in a Credit Union or a Savings and Loan or a Local or Regional Bank your checks still get cashed and your credit and debit cards still work and most of them will change your pennies to folding money without charging you 10% for the privilege.

Nov 23 2010

Ireland hasn’t gone away either

Though Brian Cowen and his Fianna Fail (great name dude) Party soon will.

Irish Debt Crisis Forces Collapse of Government

By LANDON THOMAS Jr., The New York Times

Published: November 22, 2010

DUBLIN – The Irish government faced imminent collapse on Monday, only a day after it signed off on a $100 billion bailout, setting the stage for a new election early next year and injecting the threat of political instability into a European financial crisis that already has markets on edge.

Confronted with high-level defections from his governing coalition, Prime Minister Brian Cowen said he would dissolve the government after passage of the country’s crucial 2011 budget early in December.

His announcement capped a grim day for Ireland, as protesters tried to storm the Parliament building in Dublin, and Moody’s Investors Service, the ratings agency, lowered the rating on Irish debt by several notches.

In summary form, Fianna Fail controls the Irish Parliament by a very thin majority.  The Green Party, currently in coalition to provide that majority with 6 seats of its own has officially announced that they’ll vote No Confidence after the signature of the bailout agreement and passage of the new austerity budget.

However up to 5 Fianna Fail members have announced that they won’t wait that long and don’t plan on voting for either the bailout or the budget.

Voter sentiment in Ireland is similar to that in Iceland which was forced to repudiate many offers made by the banksters to safeguard their balance sheets and opposition party leaders are strongly calling for snap elections as a referendum on the government, its policies, the bailout agreement, and austerity.

If elections are held they’ll likely win in a landslide.  It’s not certain Fianna Fail can even continue to survive as a party.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.  You sleep with dogs, you wake up with fleas.

Of course the banksters are making threats-

EU warns Ireland over snap election

By Bruno Waterfield in Dublin, The Telegraph

10:00AM GMT 23 Nov 2010

The European Union has warned the Irish government that snap elections would be “very irresponsible” as post-bail-out turmoil continues to rock Ireland’s political establishment.

Vital to his staying on in power, were EU warnings that Ireland’s £77 billion bail-out would be jeopardised if the government fell Ireland, a situation that would spark a euro zone debt crisis and lead to the value Irish bonds being wiped out by global markets.

…

“From our perspective, it is important that the government is able to represent Ireland in the talks,” said another EU source. “It would be very unpleasant if there was no one to talk to. That would be very irresponsible.”

…

The turmoil means there are question marks over whether the government can pass a four year austerity later this week and a 2011 budget next month, both are preconditions of the EU and IMF rescue programme.

…

Declan Ganley, the leader of the successful 2008 Irish No campaign against the Lisbon Treaty, before the vote was overturned last year, accused the EU of destroying Ireland’s political class by pressuring it into an unpopular bail-out to preserve the euro.

“The Irish political class has been sacrificed on the altar of expediency by those they thought were their friends in Brussels, Berlin and Paris,” he said.

Yes, more like that please.  I hope you starve just like the workers you betrayed you arrogant idiots.

Nov 22 2010

Blood Lust

Krugman and paradox say it precisely and I heartily agree.

Paul Krugman: There Will Be Blood

Former Senator Alan Simpson is a Very Serious Person. He must be – after all, President Obama appointed him as co-chairman of a special commission on deficit reduction.

So here’s what the very serious Mr. Simpson said on Friday: “I can’t wait for the blood bath in April. … When debt limit time comes, they’re going to look around and say, ‘What in the hell do we do now? We’ve got guys who will not approve the debt limit extension unless we give ’em a piece of meat, real meat,’ ” meaning spending cuts. “And boy, the blood bath will be extraordinary,” he continued. Think of Mr. Simpson’s blood lust as one more piece of evidence that our nation is in much worse shape, much closer to a political breakdown, than most people realize. . . .

How does this end? Mr. Obama is still talking about bipartisan outreach, and maybe if he caves in sufficiently he can avoid a federal shutdown this spring. But any respite would be only temporary; again, the G.O.P. is just not interested in helping a Democrat govern.

My sense is that most Americans still don’t understand this reality. They still imagine that when push comes to shove, our politicians will come together to do what’s necessary. But that was another country.

It’s hard to see how this situation is resolved without a major crisis of some kind. Mr. Simpson may or may not get the blood bath he craves this April, but there will be blood sooner or later. And we can only hope that the nation that emerges from that blood bath is still one we recognize.

paradox: Still Afraid of the Underwear Bomber

Ahhhh, an excellent political knifing on a Monday morning sure does a soul good, so richly deserved, so pithily done. Paul Krugman performs the necessary task on President Obama for this absolutely horrifying and offensive Catfood Commission, led by bloodthirsty Alan Simpson.

In 2009 we desperately needed another stimulus twice as large as the failure brokered in 2008, but instead we got an administration completely cowed and bullied by media chumps and political losers that the deficit was now the greatest threat ever. How convenient such claims of vast hypocrisy stopped any more spending for the little people, how noble and brave to pass off responsibility for stopping this offensive political insanity to a commission. . . .

I hear the White House is worried about Independent voters. At this point I seriously wonder if this insanity, belittling and constant losing to chump Republicans could possibly be worth it to the Party, I’m not voting for Alan Simpson enablers, I just can’t.

Perhaps it’s time to let history write what happens when one so ludicrously abandons base, Party and enshrined principles and programs. Perhaps it’s time for a President to know my vote is nowhere near automatic, one cannot insult and abuse me forever, I won’t put up with it.

Is that an ego-based immaturity? I didn’t get my way or what I see to be true, so I stomp off?

We shall see, so far liberals have received nothing from Obama, and we never demanded perfection. Perhaps it’s better to lose in one term and get it over with so we can try again in 2016. After enough mornings of Alan Simpson Obama politics I seriously do not see why losing is so bad given the benefits, I really don’t.

Nov 22 2010

Your Fraud Update

You may be reading news about the FBI investigating insider trading and think that this is somehow an indication of action against the banksters.

Don’t delude yourself.

Madoff is not Wall Street (though it’s all a Ponzi scheme looking for new suckers at this point) and the people being targeted are by all indications low level employees.

My uncle was a Vice President on the Bond Trading desk and you know what that got him?  A Corner Carrel with a view of the window.  He still had to smoke on the street 20 floors below.

dday’s piece about TITLE FRAUD! is much more significant.

Deposition: Countrywide Never Sent Mortgage Notes to Trust; Mortgage-Backed Securities in Question

By: David Dayen Sunday November 21, 2010 12:01 pm

Now we have documented evidence, beyond anecdote, that Countrywide, one of the largest subprime lenders, which securitized almost all of the loans they made, never sent the notes to the trust. In a deposition provided to a US Bankruptcy Court in the District of New Jersey, Linda DeMartini, a supervisor for Bank of America Home Loans (BofA bought Countrywide in 2008), admitted that the original notes never transferred from Countrywide into the trusts.

Well, this is a multi-Trillion problem for your balance sheets because you just broke your contract with PIMCO, Blackrock, and The Federal Reserve Bank of New York (among other minor players).

The entire court document is below.

CASE FILE New Jersey Admissions in Testimony Notes Never Sent to Trusts Kemp v Country Wide

This is an enormous deal. If Countrywide never gave up possession of the note, then the trust has no standing to foreclose whatsoever. It also means that investors in the MBS don’t actually have securities backed by mortgages. The “allonge” appears to be an effort to clear up this situation, and it was signed years after the fact, well past the deadline of the pooling and servicing agreement, and not even affixed to the note as required by law.

This is a deposition from one supervisor, but it could mean that all mortgage pools that Countrywide sold are suspect. That would amount to perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars in MBS. And the law appears to be air-tight on this, and not governed by the Constitution but New York trust law and the specifics of the pooling and servicing agreement.

Now, tell me again how the banks are planning to get out of this.

ditto.

Nov 22 2010

Conflicting Interests

Monday Business Edition

This is not an easy story to tell in other’s words, so you’ll have to rely on mine.  I’m not an economist.

You’ll read today that Ireland has accepted a bailout.  They’ll get from 30 to 100 Billion Euros from the European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund (which includes the U.S), Sweden, and Britain (with minor chunks from others).  In return for that they’re accepting an austerity plan that includes things like-

Middle class Irish families face the loss of tax credits and low paid workers, totalling 50 per cent of the labour force, will start to pay taxes for the first time.

Ireland’s minimum wage is to be cut 13 per cent and all Irish households face a new £257 property tax from 2012. Welfare payments, including jobseekers allowance and child benefit, will be cut five per cent.

As well as the steep tax increases, the EU has demanded extra public sector job cuts with a demand to cut the Irish civil service by 28,000 between 2011 and 2014.

The job cuts are double the level the Irish has agreed with trade unions and are expected to fuel protests and strikes. A trade union demonstration, predicted to be the biggest in decades, will take place in Dublin on Saturday.

As you might imagine, this is not very popular with the voters on whom politicians depend for their phony baloney jobs-

Irish ministers are so concerned over protests that austerity plans to cut chauffeur driven cars and police outriders have been shelved to protect the government amid heightened post-EU bail-out security.

Support for Fianna Fail, Ireland’s ruling party, has collapsed to 17 per cent the lowest level in 88-year history of the Irish Republic as pressure to hold a general election builds, threatening to plunge the country into more chaos.

What’s not changing, yet?  Corporate Tax Rates.

Corporate tax in Ireland is 12.5 per cent, compared to 34 per cent in France, 30 per cent in Germany and 28 per cent in Britain and the policy is credited with attracting over 1,000 multinational companies such as Google and Pfizer to Ireland.

Now, why is a bailout of Ireland ‘necessary’ at all?  Well, to prevent senior ‘secured’ creditors from having to take a haircut in the form of simply defaulting on the debt or alternatively converting it to equity and then having its market value drop to zero.  In this case senior ‘secured’ creditors means the ECB (European Central Bank) and the Central Banks of France and Germany (British banks also have major exposure).

In fact the total exposure of France, Germany, and the other members of the ‘Eurozone’ to the failed and insolvent banks of Portugal, Spain, and Italy (the next dominoes in the inevitable demise of the Euro) makes them insolvent should they have to mark their assets to market instead of the delusional values they’re now claiming on their books.  This has major political ramifications for the Very Serious People who have guided State Policy in the direction of a European Common Currency and a European Political Union for over 50 years now.

It exposes them as idiots.

What are the lessons to be taken away?  For one thing I invite comparison to the recommendations of the Catfood Commission, especially their insistence on imposing additional burdens on the middle class and the poor while cutting taxes on Corporations and the rich.

Trickle Down Supply Side Economics is a failure.  There is absolutely no evidence at all that it works.  Deregulation is equally a failure, Ireland was the Texas of Europe- a wild wild west.  As it turns out Texas was the biggest failure of Ronald Wilson Reagan’s Savings and Loan bubble, followed closely by other ‘Red’ states like Oklahoma that are smaller but experienced higher per capita losses.

Politicians, particularly Democrats, who support these policies are going to lose their phony baloney jobs.  This includes Barack Hussein Obama.  Street protests like you’ve seen in Europe are not our style, but as we saw in 2010 we voted for change and we’ll keep voting until we get it.

Republicans realize this which is why their goal is to block economic progress and hope that the disaffected vote either goes their way or stays home.  There is no reason to vote for a Democrat to enact Republican policies.

If Bloomberg runs in 2012 he’ll be much more successful than Ross Perot.

Business News below.

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