Arkady's Thoughts

We have a housing crisis in this country, but the crisis is not rising foreclosure rates and rundown neighborhoods. After all, those elements have existed before and they are a natural part of the real estate market's ebb and flow. There is another crisis unfolding, a crisis that the media will not report and the politicians will not acknowledge. War has been declared on every single American who in the past several years did all the right things and made all the correct decisions. Somehow it has been established that those suffering the impending housing doom are victims of greedy bankers and exploitative free marketeers unleashed upon America due to 'deregulation'. It has been estimated that those suffering foreclosures number somewhere between 4 and 6 million people. For perspective, there are as many Facebook fans of Barack Obama. The remainder 295 million Americans due to sheer cunning shrewdness and genius escaped the prying clutches of money grubbing bankers and for...

People interested in the details of this package, the final number of 787 of which appears to be the final and set number can examine the following.  Since there is hardly any point in raving or ranting about the inevitable package I am instead providing resources for people that are interested in learning more information about the biggest spending bill in America's history. My work: I read the bill in parts and summed up important details here.   However some items and number of billions allocated may have changed. Official website:   Recovery.gov according to the bill is the official website that will provide transparency and clarity to us all.  Other websites: National Review has a brief list in no particular order that they find objectionable/interesting. ProPublica :  This is probably the most comprehensive list, but it lacks any details/wording of allocation or reasoning, I find this to be of limited use, but gives you a sense of who the big recipients are.  Actual Bill: F...

UPDATE:  Senate passes the bill 60-38 and it will be signed next week.  After all the work and the passionate speeches, websites, facebook groups, awareness and general broo - haha this boondoggle finally clears the finish line.  Not much more we can do here, but prepare for the next spending project that is expected to come down the pipe shortly, the Omnibus. Yet another impressive showing, albeit not as powerful as last time by the House republicans standing united against the "revised" stimulus. I say " revised" in jest, as there is not much difference in this bill from a fundamental standpoint. A bill that is entirely tailored to the spending interests of liberal groups, laughable tax incentives and senseless research projects cannot be supported by fiscally minded individuals. Even if the number is down from 819 to 787 B-b-b-billion. There is just one difference this time, fewer Democrats stood with the GOP this time. Where as last time 11 brave souls bro...

Judd Gregg's announcement today that was not accepting the Commerce position was perplexing and strange. Citing a fluff reason - philosophical differences - weeks after the pick makes no sense. In order to understand how this affects people, it's best to put ourselves in their shoes. This is the official statement "Senator Gregg reached out to the President and offered his name for Secretary of Commerce. He was very clear throughout the interviewing process that despite past disagreements about policies, he would support, embrace, and move forward with the President’s agenda. Once it became clear after his nomination that Senator Gregg was not going to be supporting some of President Obama’s key economic priorities, it became necessary for Senator Gregg and the Obama administration to part ways. We regret that he has had a change of heart". Conservatives: This is bad news for us as we were happy to see this RINO go and self-destruct as one of the three Republicans in...

Congressional committee talks have resulted in what appears to be a deal reached between the two legislative bodies. The price tags keeps fluctuating between 780B and 834B and as of now it seems like it's on the lower end of the spectrum. Differences that amount to 5% of the total package are not serious enough to sway one's opinion, however what the actual bill contains seems to be different than the original House passed bill. Because the actual provisions are still being ironed out and the possibilities of additional amendments being added still exists I will refrain from going over the recently added items. Fundamentally the original problem with the bill still remains, there is a significant lack of anything really stimulative. Even if we account for the expanded shovel ready money from 30 to 45+ billion, the impact is negligible. Tax cuts are still not existent and and as previously highlighted , tax rebates and an AMT patch are nothing new. In fact the rebate checks wil...

Yesterday Obama hosted a Q&A in Florida, it was amazing to see the kind of questions being directed toward our president. One in particular I found striking is that of Julio whom according to some "stole the show", as if there is some show to steal at a town hall meeting. Below is the video and to give you context Julio's question came at the tail end of a very similar line of questioning from the crowd. One individual asked the president why his unemployment benefits were not as large as his paycheck while he was employed and why there are no automatic mechanisms to automatically generate the same amount in dollars. Another woman complained that she has been waiting for subsidized housing for two years and just wants a new kitchen, bathroom and living room. Finally Julio is featured below and I do not need to paraphrase, watch. Let us move past the utterly senseless cult of personality worship. Julio in not so many words complained that his benefits at McDonalds wer...

I am not an expert on Israeli elections, but suffice it to say that the process is far more complicated than it is here. Israel has numerous parties many of whom have seats in the Knesset. Israelis go to the voting booths and select a party, not any particular individual politician like we do here. Because no party can ever win a majority, they form coalitions and then pick their PM. As you may have heard Benjamin 'Bibi' Netanyahu was a very likely PM choice just a short two weeks ago. As it is with politics things have changed dramatically and now it seems like the centrist party had edged Bibi out. I won't lie to you, I am all for Bibi and I think Israel needs him. He is a strong conservative, he will not negotiate with terrorists and will respect and use the IDF correctly. More importantly however he is a fiscal conservative. As finance minister he has reportedly done wonders in the banking sector and dramatically improved the GDP of Israel. I cannot stress the paramo...