Posts

Showing posts from October 26, 2009

Massachusetts Democrat Senate Debate Analysis

As promised, here is my analysis of the one hour debate between four prospective Democrat challengers vying for the late Ted Kennedy's seat.  The four candidates are: Attorney General Martha Coakley U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano City Year co-founder Alan Khazei Boston Celtics co-owner Stephen Pagliuca. Let's quickly get to the point, the four candidates are extremely similar and appear to be creepy clones of each other citing traditional liberal talking points via embedded recording devices.  Their unique qualities can be summarized in the following manner.  Coakley thinks she is guaranteed to win and is extremely cocky despite being asleep at the job here in Massachusetts.  Capuano is extremely proud of his work as a member of the House and constantly makes it a point that only he knows the dirty tricks played in Washington and is capable of, as he puts it, "trading horses".  Khazei has a sense of humor about him and at least makes an effort to deviate from the pa

Harry Reid announced an opt out clause for the public option.

As the debate over health care reform rages on several powerful politicians are crafting a bill that will ultimately be voted on the Senate floor.  Today Harry Reid unveiled  an interesting spin allowing for states to opt out from the public option.  As you remember the version of the bill championed by Max Baucus did not contain a public option, however it is now being combined with a version from the HELP committee and that one did contain the public option.  Because of the relative unpopularity among senators and the public alike, Reid crafted a compromise that would theoretically be appealing.  What is especially odd about this move is the manner in which Olympia Snowe was "suckered" into voting for the version from the Finance committee while issuing a warning that she will not support a public option.  Therefore it certainly appears that promises were made in order to get some version out of the finance committee.  However Reid's proposals raises serious questions

Federal Reserve's role in America's financial crisis

While the complexity of this topic can span pages, ZeroHedge has a fantastic synopsis .  Unfortunately much of the language is geared for people who understand the inner workings of our financial system, but an attempt to at least acclimate oneself is required.  I am currently working through the material myself and suffice it to say the intervention perpetrated by the Federal Reserve will have lasting effects and pain for many years to come.  What should have been a jolt to the system will now turn into a stagnant mess that may end in one violent fashion or another many years down the road. This is not an article about the housing collapse although securities are mentioned, but rather the financial run up to what most Americans know as the housing crisis of 2008.  In reality the housing bubble was nothing more than a subset of the much larger global credit crisis foisted upon the people of the world by benevolent central banks.  Do keep in mind that our free market system, the syste