Archive for November 25th, 2008

2 results.
Nov25

Comprehensive Immigration Reform

by tdaxp on November 25, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Posted In: Immigration

Good news, courtesy of The Weekly Standard, that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) sees comprehensive immigration reform as a priority for the next Congress:

Q: With more Democrats in the Senate and the House and a Democrat in the White House, how do you see congressional efforts playing out on such issues as health care and immigration?

A: On immigration, there’s been an agreement between (President-elect Barack) Obama and (Arizona Republican Sen. John) McCain to move forward on that. … We’ll do that. We have to get this economy stuff figured out first, so I think we’ll have a shot at doing something on health care in the next Congress for sure.

Q: Will there be as much of a fight on immigration as last time?

A: We’ve got McCain and we’ve got a few others. I don’t expect much of a fight at all. Now health care is going to be difficult. That’s a very complicated issue. We debated at great length immigration. People understand the issues very well. We have not debated health care, so that’s going to take a lot more time to do

The most recent entry on whitehouse.gov’s comprehensive immigration reform page is from January 2008. Hopefully, under an Obama Administration, it will be more active.

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Nov25

The Credit Card Bailout

by tdaxp on November 25, 2008 at 5:47 am and modified on November 25, 2008. at 5:49 am
Posted In: Natural Liberty, Oil

The Bush-Pelosi bailout has now officially jumped the shark.

Hank Paul, empowered by George Bush and Nancy Pelosi, now present: The Credit Card Bailout.

What is disturbing about our President, and our even worse Congress, is that we are throwing good money after bad in a way that is not only wasteful, but also foolish.

The purpose of the credit card bailout is obviously to increase spending. The credit card bailout does so by socializing the losses that individuals and banks have taken because people bought things they could not afford, while allowing the individuals to keep those toys and the bansk to keep collecting interest payments.

Without the credit card bailout, less bad offers would be made, and more people would forced into bankruptcy by institutions desperate to get whatver cash back is possible, as soon as possible.

However, instead of rewarding bad behavior, this money can be spent on ways that will help our country and our world.

For instance, while the government maintains a large fleet of flex-fuel vehicle, 92% of them consume pure gasoline because they are too far from E85 stations. We could spend money to subsidize nearbye stations putting in E85 pumps, which would immediately create work and then reduce the flow of capital from us to petro-states.

Instead, we do a credit card bailout.

We subsidize men like Hugo Chavez, who recently threatened to send in the tanks if a friend lost an election, in order to bailout credit cards.

The financial crisis is an opportunity: money will have to be spent to limit the pain, and this money can be invested in mediating the destructive influence of oil and natural gas. However, the same forces make alternative energy sources (ethanol, wind, etc) less attractive in the short term.

The Democrats may be ready to do their part.

Unfortunately, with Bush we get more of the same: a credit card bailout.

Update: While I was writing this, the fed announced a $500 billion plan to bailout bad mortgage-backed securities. The quicker we can get the Bush financial team out of office, the better.

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