good news

while the administration continues to set up the country for a financial implosion, i do want to give some credit for for some of their other moves.

specifically, the relaxation of the trade restrictions with cuba is a great idea.  i'm not exactly sure what the thinking was when the embargo was put in place, but clearly it has not worked on any level.  people in cuba suffer because of a mostly insane government, but they suffer more so because of our misguided embargo that keeps their economy in shambles and keeps things as basic as simple medicine out of reach.  hopefully this is a pre cursor to something more sweeping with cuba.

additionally, while i understand that his hand was forced and the military deserves most of the credit, it still happened on his watch.  and the rescue of the ship's captain, at least at this point, seems like it was a perfectly executed operation.  hopefully, as i mentioned earlier, this will cause the US to take a larger role in policing that region of the world.

finally, i want to give props to obama for hosting a seder.  not only does this show a general open-mindedness and kinship with another faith, but i believe the lessons of the story of passover are important ones for the current administration.  now, which kind of son do you think obama was?

AIG driving GM into bankruptcy

sorry for the bad pun.

continuing to prove that government intervention will only make problems worse, here's an article that explains how the 100% payment of AIG counterparties will lead directly to GM going bankrupt.

GM: Bankrupt, UNLESS....

basically, since a lot of the bond holders of GM (who have control over whether to ok a haircut or force GM into bankruptcy) also own a lot of CDS on GM (issued by AIG), it's in the bond holders' best interest for GM to go chapter 11. now, i know a get a lot of complaints (well, just one from Ivan but that's 12.5% of my regular readers) when i blame the leftist, interventionists like Geithner and Obama for making matters worse than they already were, but here seems to be a clear case example showing how the rescue of AIG resulted in the failure of GM. of course, GM would have failed earlier without government intervention. but now, the taxpayers are out of trillions AND GM is still going bankrupt AND AIG counterparties (like foreign banks) are made whole. certainly, this will result in fewer (if any) benefits to GM pensioners and a massive loss of jobs - which means a further burden on taxpaying americans. for those that disagree, please explain how the "best and brightest" that obama has supposedly brought in are actually making things better.

foreign policy reagan style

with the government and the country transfixed by the economic meltdown, the world is taking advantage of the very real weakness of our country to do things that would have been unheard of us during our more robust times. i am far from a reagan-phile, but you have to give the guy credit for taking down the soviets. here's how i think the gipper would have reacted to the following issues facing our country.

1. north korea is about to launch a missile - reagan decision: attempt to shoot down missile with SDI. if that didn't work, don't tell anyone.

2. russia about to plant its bombers in venezuela and cuba - reagan decision: blockade those countries. get the UN and NATO behind us on this. there is no way russia should have bombers in this hemisphere. even the lefty kennedy knew enough to do this.

3. mexico losing drug war - reagan decision: nancy reagan would have helped ronnie on this one. if we weren't stuck in iraq, it would have already been done. he would have put troops on the mexican border to stop the flow of drugs from mexico. i realize the drugs will come in from elsewhere but it will at least stop the border violence and may be even settle down mexico as a whole.

4. somali pirates running rampant - reagan decision: keeping the oceans safe off somalia is something the navy could easily do and give us pretext to keep more warships near the middle east. and it's something the whole world would appreciate(even russia would be happy with us).

5. darfur ravaged as president al-Bashir thugs around - reagan decision: send in lots of humanitarian aid. we say we are the last superpower but we do nothing for these people. it is really disgusting how little our country has done. we did more for the starving ethiopians under reagan. what's happening in darfur is even worse than the famines.

6. china is expanding its military capabilities - reagan decision: unfortunately, i think reagan would have turned this into another cold war. he would have done a show of force (see #1) and expanded our military budget. our economic dependency on china makes this thornier, but reagan showed us how to defeat the communists - bankrupt them into spending too much on their military.

there are many other foreign policy issues facing our country but these are some of the top. unfortunately, i think this is what our current administration will do on all them obama decision: rhetoric.

is it me or does the press want obama to look like a saint?

this is from reuters

things that should happen eventually happen

this may seem obvious and perhaps it's simply a corollary to Occam's Razor, but things that logically should happen, almost always do happen.

when Obama said, "I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it," he was obviously wrong.  as has been pointed out numerous times, it was Karl Benz of Germany who invented the internal combustion engine and built the first automobile.  but more importantly, even if the US did invent the automobile, is there any reason to keep an auto industry alive in this country?

first of all, it's clear that cars as we've known them for the last 100 years will change dramatically in the next 10.  the internal combustion engine will be fazed out entirely except perhaps in super large trucks.  

the nation that also invented the typewriter (Christopher Sholes in 1865 in Wisconsin) walked away from it (typewriters are no longer manufactured in any quantity in the US).  and we will certainly walk away from the auto industry as we know it too.

the US also invented sneakers (or at least the waffle outsole that is standard on all athletic shoes) and yet almost all of nike's factories are overseas, in particular in asia.  the factories are there because it is economical to for them to be there.

if it is not economical for there to be a car factory in the US, then there will not be a car factory in the US.  the US government can delay the inevitable, but things that should happen eventually do happen.

so, GM will go bankrupt.  likely the company will continue to exist in some form but relatively quickly, if wages remain high the US (and i hope they do), all car manufacturing will be moved offshore.

and while we're at it, another thing that makes logical sense and so eventually will happen is GE will file chapter 11 and/or they will split the company up isolating the disastrous finance division.