主题：03/24/2009 Market View -- 宁子

Another hearing, another proposed power grab.

Back in the U.S, back in the U.S., back in the USSR. Every hearing, every press conference, every new bit of news deals with some new attack on our system and rights. The crisis is certainly being used as an attempt to change our country in ways it could never be changed in less breathless times.

The litany of abuse grows longer every day.

An attorney general cannot release your name to the press because you took a bonus because that would open him up to suit for violation of privacy rights. So he threatens you, saying if you don't return the bonus, a bonus you legally contracted for, that is not against public policy, and was an inducement to get you to stay and help fix a problem you did not cause, you will be sued and then your name will be out in the public as well. I cannot blackmail you, you cannot blackmail me without violating the law, but our elected officials can do it.

Congress tries to pass legislation that would tax a discrete group of individuals 90% of that very same bonus, a bonus that Congress KNEW about, as a way to show indignation and throw voters off the scent of Congress' failure for several years to adequately mind the store, instead taking kickbacks to force lenders to loan to non-creditworthy individuals.

A massive spending bill is forced through Congress without anyone reading the bill and without providing it in the usual computer format where legislators can search for key terms in order to find provisions being slipped in without the light of day. Trickery, chicanery, and a general lack of character. We try to teach our kids character, what is right, what is wrong, and how to stand up and speak out when there are wrongs being committed, yet our legislators show sharp, unscrupulous, and indeed dishonest character in how they 'negotiate' legislation.

Tax money is used by publicly supported groups to hire the poor, put them on buses rented by the group (with your money) and then head out to AIG employee homes to conduct 'spontaneous' protests and the media reports it as if it was indeed spontaneous, knowing full well the genesis of the theatrical performance.

A Congressman wants to tax every intraday trade in the financial markets, believing that these trades add no value to society. In his buffoonery he does not realize that pension funds, insurance funds, public retirement funds, etc. ALL rely on intraday trades to hedge their positions so the little old ladies, retired workers, and all those others the Congressman so wants to protect don't lose the value of their retirements as the market gyrates up and down on a daily basis.

Our national debt, in less than three months, has more added to it than the prior 43 presidents combined added to the debt with such federal necessities as bee research, maritime museums, schools and new buildings for school districts that already have over a dozen vacant buildings because of population declines.

The Treasury's new power grab.

It is no wonder that with this kind of background we see the Treasury Secretary go before Congress and demand creation of a new federal oversight authority that would basically monitor private businesses, and if the authority determines that they become a risk to the public it would seize and run the business.

They are styling it as 'financial related entities' but what is that? It is a very murky line as you look at the automakers, GM, insurance companies, holding companies, Wal-Mart. What about companies running large credit unions? When times are bad, precisely the time when the law would be enforced, the 'crisis' and the hysteria surrounding it would lead to the government stepping in and seizing any business it wanted to seize. The government has take over several banks by virtue of security interests and despite its rhetoric may never let them go. Government changes contract law about every other week right now so it would not take much addition to the crisis, something that could happen as the Administration bankrupts our country with printed money, for it to pass another rule change.

You have to wonder where the point is that US citizens will finally stand up and quit worrying over $165M in bonuses that Congress approved and start looking at what Congress and the Administration are doing to our country. Maybe then they will issue a 'cease and desist order' in the form of a boycott on funding this out of control action, i.e. taking control of their tax dollars.