update: Goodbye Barney Frank comic book

 

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Banks Drop Debit Fee because the Market Works, not due to Occupy.

When the Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank bill passed limiting the amount of money banks collect from merchants each time a customer uses their debit card, it was inevitable that banks would try to figure out a way to make up the lost revenue. The result was the $5 a month debit card fee. Although as a result of Dodd-Frank, I was expecting higher bank fees, like everyone else I was unhappy when I received notice from my bank that they would be charging a monthly debit card fee.

I am so entangled with Union Planters and value the personal relationship with my banker that I was not going to switch banks. However, I did express my displeasure to my banker and I was going to maneuver around the fee. On one of my accounts I almost never use the card anyway. I use a credit card that gives me points toward cash-back, and then monthly I automatically pay the card in full. There is an annual fee for having this card, but I still come out ahead. To avoid the fee on my and Louella’s joint account I was planning to get a second card and do the same thing on that account. In the meantime, on this second account, we were using checks and cash.

A dear friend of ours who we know very well was very upset about this new fee and she closed her Union Planters account and opened an account with the Old Hickory Credit Union. Many people I encountered were upset about this new fee. Despite it being the result of government action that caused banks to impose this fee, the banks would have been wiser to just eat part of the loss and make up part of the lost revenue in a less transparent manner such as reducing the interest rate on cash balances in checking accounts, raising fees for overdrafts and increasing interest rates.


The Occupy movement and their friends in the mainstream media have been spinning this story of consumer discontent with this new bank fees and the banks dropping the fees as if it is the result of political pressure and a victory for Occupy. It is not. My friend who switched banks did not do so out of any left-wing affiliation or political motivation. I was not going to take actions to avoid this fee because I was motivated by Occupy or any other political movement. The result would have been the same without the Occupy movement. Consumers have power. The banks dropping this new bank fee is much like Coke backing off of New Coke and Ford dropping the Edsel. The market works.

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Barney Frank’s ‘Nazi’ questioner was Lyndon LaRouche Loony

By now you have probably seen the video clip of the widely reported exchange between Representative Barney Frank and the women who at a town hall meeting on health care asked the Congressman, “Why are you supporting this Nazi policy?" The clip is below:



Anyone who has read this blog, knows I am an opponent of the current proposals for health care reform. I favor reform, but reform that will correct what is wrong with the current system without destroying it.

I also support those citizens who are showing up at town hall meetings to let their elected representatives know of their opposition to the proposed health care “reform.” If my congressman would have had a town hall meeting, I would attended and let my opposition to ObamaCare be known.

Also, Barney Frank is one of my least favorite politicians. Despite all of the above however, I think Barney Frank was correct to respond to this women in the tone and with the contempt he showed her. He asked her "On what planet do you spend most of your time?" He then says, “trying to have a conversation with you is like trying to argue with a dinning room table.”

He is right! Those who refer to ObamaCare as a “Nazi policy” are over the top. They deserve contempt. They undermine the legitimate arguments against the proposed remaking of the American system of health care. Obama’s friends in the press will publicize such rhetoric and attempt to paint all opponents of Obamacare as nuts.

I don’t know how we defend ourselves against being painted with the same brush as this nut, but we should distance ourselves from those who show up at town hall meetings armed advocating “watering the tree of liberty” and those who compare Obama to Hitler.

This women at the Barney Frank town hall meeting was a Lyndon LaRouche cultist. The lapdog press for the most part did not report that fact. These LaRouche people are few in number but make a point to grab the spotlight.

The LaRouche followers are certainly not conservative and are not even Republicans. LaRouche himself ran for President seven times as a Democrat and he has a long history of left wing associations. Despite the long history of left wing association, sometimes the LaRouche movement is hard to classify because their positions are all over the map. They sometimes take position that coincide with conservative positions but normally they are far left. They also subscribe to some nutty conspiracy theories. I think Barney Frank was right; these people are from a different planet.

We in the conservative movement and opponents of ObamaCare must disassociate ourselves from the LaRouche loonies and other nuts who are trying to steal the spotlight and hijack the movement.

To read the full statement of the LaRoucher who spoke at the Barney Frank town hall and learn more about the LaRouche connections lick here and here.

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Obama IN HIS OWN WORDS admitting his Health Care Plan will ELIMINATE private insurance

How do you tell if Obama is lying? His mouth is moving. He had denied that the public option is a Trojan horse for single payer. Watch this video and see Obama in his own words admitting his Health Care Plan will eliminate private insurance.

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Barney Frank Intervens to Save GM in Massachusetts

If a General Motors auto dealership closed in your city, or if a General Motors plant closed in your state, do not assume it is due to a rational economic business decision. It is not because someone made an objective, rational, and transparent decision, but because your congressman is not as powerful as Barney Frank.

This from the Wall Street Journal:

President Obama may have "no interest" in running General Motors, as he averred Monday. But even if that's true, we are already discovering that he shares Washington with 535 Members of Congress, many of whom have other ideas.

The latest self-appointed car czar is Massachusetts's own Barney Frank, who intervened this week to save a GM distribution center in Norton, Mass. The warehouse, which employs some 90 people, was slated for closure by the end of the year under GM's restructuring plan. But Mr. Frank put in a call to GM CEO Fritz Henderson and secured a new lease on life for the facility. [full article]

This is the future of Government Motors, where politics rather than markets determine who works and who doesn't and who gets a dealerships and who doesn't. That is the nature of a command economy as opposed to a market economy. In a command economy, those with influence pick winners and losers. Welcome to the future of America. I am totally disgusted but hardly surprised. Is this the change Americans wanted? It is what they got.

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Hey Barney Frank, Thanks for the Housing Crisis.

No doubt there were various factors at work that caused the mortgage crisis. Democrats and their friends in the media like to blame the Reagan-era deregulation and many conservative commentators wish to blame the Carter-era Community Reinvestment Act, while others point to other causes.

One undeniable factor, if not the primary factor, was the irresponsible practices of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. Fannie and Freddie do not make loans of course but purchase the paper of the mortgage companies that do make the loans.

In the 1990’s, encouraged by the Clinton administration as a means of advancing homeownership, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac started buying sub prime loans. Previously there was a much smaller market for sub prime mortgages, but with Fannie and Freddie buying the paper the availability of sub prime loans skyrocketed. With time-tested lending practices out the window, these two institutions ended up controlling 90% of the secondary market for mortgages. Those within the organizations who raised objections to the irresponsible lending being encouraged by Fannie and Freddie were overruled and eased out.

Fannie and Freddy began hiring Democratic operatives as CEO’s and upper management.
At the same time, Fannie and Freddie began making huge contributors to Congress, spending millions to influence votes. While some Republicans also received financial contributions from the two institutions, most of the money went to Democrats. Top recipients of those campaign contributions were Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, the Chairmen of the Committees that should have been providing over site of the two financial giants. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were also among the top receipts of Fannie and Freddy campaign contributions.

Wall Street investors liked the new arrangement and the easy money. Democrats liked the votes they could garner by being the party that advanced homeownership and they liked the dependable source of campaign contributions. This was the “crony capitalism” that led to the crisis.

By the early part of this decade it became clear that Fannie and Freddie were advancing a market in risky loans. If these practices continued an economic meltdown was inevitable. In 2004 Fannie Mae was caught in an accounting scandal overstating their earning and their financial stability. Congress conducted dozens of hearing and Democrats defended Fannie Mae and denied that a problem existed. (See above video.)

Principled Republicans, let by John McCain, called for the reform of Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac and President Bush proposed a bill to tighten regulation of the institutions. (For a record of the Bush administrations efforts to rein in Fannie Mae see Just the Facts: The Administration's Unheeded Warnings About the Systemic Risk Posed by the GSEs)

The bill to tighten regulation over the Government Sponsored Enterprises (Fannie and Freddie) was introduced in Congress in January 2005 but Democrats blocked it. If one single person gets credit for blocking reform that could have averted the mortgage crisis it has to be Barney Frank. (See, Fannie Mae’s Patron Saint)

While there are other factors at play that led to the economic meltdown, the bulk of the blame must be laid at the feet of Congressional Democrats who turned a blind eye to what was going on, benefited from it, and blocked reform that could have averted it.

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