Minding the Minders

Microsoft has announced that a flaw exists in Explorer, easily the largest browser platform by several magnitudes, that allows passwords to be stolen by hackers, no small thing as many people conduct all their financial transactions on a computer using Explorer. Bernard Madoff made off with an astounding sum yet according to one report, had his corrupt practices exposed to regulators by a whistle blower nine(9) years ago. Madoff's niece even married a regulator. Talk about conflict of interest! How can this be permitted? And how can anyone have confidence in the value of any stock if the SEC is this lax and compromised? Are your local officials rushing to remedy your artificially high property tax based on pre-recession home values that have diminished nationally over twenty percent(20%)? The tax assessors were always glad to raise the value of your home for tax purposes and spin it as a good thing-"yes, you may be paying a little more in property tax but look at how much more your home is worth", was their claim. Now, basic fairness and easing the burden of recession-strapped families would dictate that the assessors lower our taxes now. This will never happen as city governments want our money now more than ever as they are receiving less Federal and state funds and expect a slew of Obama unfunded mandates to be coming soon. Don't look for a helpful writ of mandamus to compel municipalities to lower property tax. It's not going to happen. The collapse of the domestic car companies would be bad but survivable. The country did not go out of business when covered wagon makers closed. The failure of financial institutions, banks and the major insurers, would have left the nation unsustainable. They underpin every other industry and really are too big to fail for America's sake, but who can have any confidence left in those minding the store?

Job One Bankruptcy

President Bush is evidently directing Secretary of Treasury Paulson to forestall the collapse of the US automotive manufacturers and allow Obama to ultimately solve the problems of the Big Three with a socialistic rescue of the UAW. Our Republican President has embraced the socialist tactics of French or Swedish leadership. At least there are enough capitalist Republicans left in the Senate to have prevented a bailout that would not have solved the structural deficiencies of the companies with their overwhelming legacy costs. There is a widespread misconception that all the jobs would cease to exist if GM or Chrysler took bankruptcy. Under Chapter 11, many of the positions would have been preserved and the corporations could have negotiated new labor contracts that would make their operations more sustainable. Chrysler may have been absorbed by another vehicle manufacturer. The court(s), judge(s), and receiver would not simply have padlocked plants and denied hundreds of thousands their income. As it is now, Obama will, probably in conjunction with a car czar, act by fiat and direct these companies to produce enviro-friendly compacts that few people will want and large families will find impractical. Tariffs and trade barriers will be imposed to prevent the importation of more desirable foreign models. Older vehicles will be legislated off the roads by strict emission/pollution controls that will force drivers to buy the new gas-savers or into mass transit. Fossil fuels will be saved, but freedom will be sacrificed.