Big Government

Bailouts don’t provide ROI

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News reports are rolling in regarding the TARP paybacks and stock sales  on GM.  Some are saying that these bailouts  are “turning a profit” for taxpayers.  Here is one example.

G.M. Prices Its Shares at $33 in Return to Stock Market

American taxpayers’ ownership of General Motors was halved on Wednesday, and billions of dollars in bailout money was returned to the federal government, as a result of the nation’s largest initial stock offering ever.

The offering, which raised $23.1 billion, is bigger and more ambitious than had once seemed possible. But the recently bankrupt automaker will have to build on its revival for the government to recoup its entire $50 billion investment and validate the Obama administration’s decision to keep G.M. from collapsing.

The idea that these policies were beneficial, simply based upon some of the money being returned through IPOs, needs to be placed into context.

Let’s start with this. Since 2007,  revenues to the Fed. government have collapsed.  This collapse was precipitated by a dramatic slowdown, which, in turn, was based upon a variety of factors.  The key is that many of these factors could have been addressed prior to the collapse.

Instead, American governance is a freak show where we have an above the surface gridlock on any good policy, with a below the surface greasing of every stupid policy under the sun.  This culminated in bursting asset bubbles, bailouts of rent-seekers, and a slew of morally hazardous policies that replace self-governance with “Czarism.”

Into this tragi-comedy of political idiocy, unemployment, and huge deficits, defenders of the bailouts point to a paltry few pennies returned to the treasury as a sign of “success” while ignoring the billions (or trillions, even) in lost revenues based upon bad government policies.

This is ridiculous. GM’s $33/share price is based upon a czarist edict waiving away taxes on bailed out entities.  What some tout as a “return on investment” reads more like a scene out of Atlas Shrugged, where some people get bailed out based upon the “aristocracy of pull.”

There are far too many Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians who operate under the false theory that the well of our moral, social, financial and intellectual capital will never run dry. I think they are wrong.

The GM situation is evidence of deep decline, not of a “bailout” having worked.

This is the FRAME that wins 2012

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“Can you govern yourself, or do you need a Federal Czar to govern your life for you?”

That question should be asked of every interested person who might vote in the next few elections. Everyone.

“Can you find a doctor, a light-bulb, or control the flow of your toilet, or should one of our Federal Czars take that decision out of your hands?”

When framed in this fashion, the answers to these questions probably have a 75-25 pro-freedom response rate, even in today’s electorate.

This “frame” (see Lakoff and Overton Window)  articulates the central message that all Republicans, conservative Democrats, the Tea Parties/Patriots, as well as the think tank types should be shouting from the hilltops.

Once brought to consciousness in this philosophical context, virtually every “self-government” policy initiative can be promoted on the foundation of “self-government”. Most Americans are hard-wired to agree with the conservative view on this.

Read more

CIA Leviathan Wakes Up and Hunts Ishmael

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Word came early last week from the Washington Times and Washington Post, while I was away on vacation, that Ishmael Jones, pseudonymous author of The Human Factor: Inside the CIA’s Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture would be sued for breaking his secrecy oath.

I reviewed Jones’ 2008 book here on chicagoboyz in April, and followed it up more recently with a late September review of a similar book by Canadian “Michael Ross” on his time with Mossad.

I found both books surprisingly revelatory about the organizational culture of these two intelligence organizations, but found little that would interest the James Bond crowd, or be of much value operationally to foreign governments.

Jones’ book was by far the most damning, however, because he illustrated (with incidents from his own deep-cover career) the extent to which the CIA now operates for its own bureaucratic benefit with minimal attention to its central mandate – gathering actionable intelligence. All the most virulent criticisms of the Tea Party against big government are understatements when it comes to how national security has been subordinated to the HR nostrums of the day at CIA. Jones effectively outlined how “the emperor has no clothes.” Not so much inept as indifferent. As someone operating under “deep cover” in the clandestine branch, away from the support and comforts of consular life, he was certainly qualified to note the career paths and day-to-day obsessions of the “home office” and his colleagues. While he didn’t name names, he described enough duplicity and lassitude in the CIA’s management and staffing to earn the undying enmity of “tap dancers” and “clock watchers” alike.

Most notably, Jones outlined in some detail how the vast number of clandestine officers that were supposedly hired and deployed by the CIA post 9/11 (at huge expense) were posted to the continental US. Numbers were further bulked up by counting support staff as “officers.” Meanwhile, CIA clandestine officers already in the field overseas at the time were being methodically hindered and removed to avoid bureaucratic risk. Jones contrasted this institutional predilection with his time in Iraq as part of a team of intelligence agents (largely Army).

Apparently the Panetta CIA will now conduct lawfare against one of its own, after having done so much to limit his success when he was overseas secretly working on WMD proliferation. No good deed goes unpunished. Execute the messenger when the news is bad.

It’s still early days in the legal matter. I’ve not seen any indication that Jones’ legal team has formed a strategy for protecting or saving their client. Goodness knows Jones’ pocketbook will necessarily take a massive hit, which may well be the intent of the suit in the first place. Having delayed Jones’ out-of-pocket reimbursements during his active clandestine career (to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars), it’s only appropriate that the CIA’s parting shot would be to take away what they did pay him. Pour encourager les autres.

After risking his life overseas, there’s some irony that his own employers will hold him accountable for leaking their institutional dysfunction, rather than any actual secrets.

Will a change in control of the House mean that the CIA finds itself under Congressional scrutiny for misleading elected representatives about how they were spending billions of dollars? One would imagine that Jones’ defense lawyers will be dropping hints about the potential perjury committed by his CIA managers testifying on the Hill over the last decade. Be a shame if something should happen to all those shiny careers. Horse-trading ahead, I assume.

The intelligence agency that works safest, works not at all. And a CIA entirely based in the US or ensconced behind the walls of embassies can look busy without actually being busy. The current CIA bureaucracy, for entirely understandable reasons, has preferred Potemkin villages and iron rice bowls to aggressive intelligence-gathering. Jones’ misfortune is to have been a witness to it all. I hope this all turns out OK for him.

My mini-book review offers additional details for those with an interest in intelligence organizations.

The Insurgency

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Once many years ago my father was sailing in a 30 foot sailboat on Nantucket Sound. The water was clear, and deep down in the water he saw a shape, that was unclear at first, but it got bigger and bigger, and soon its top fin broke the water. It was the largest shark he had ever seen. It was longer than the boat. It swam alongside for a few seconds, and probably not smelling anything good to eat, dipped back down and disappeared into the depths. If he had not been looking, he would not have seen it. He knows what he saw. Take it or leave it.

Something very big may come out of the dark, deep water, and if you are looking in the right place, you will see it coming.

I recently had a two part post on Right Network about the mass political movement which is developing in the USA, which I have called The Insurgency. Maybe I am all wrong about the size and importance of this movement. Maybe the shadows will not form and harden and rise into clarity and solid form. Maybe the mass movement will fizzle. Maybe politics will remain muddle and kludges. Or maybe I am looking in the right place at the right time. Take it or leave it.

The first post is here. Excerpt:

The Insurgency is a movement of citizens directed against unsustainable government taxation and regulation, and spending, both of which benefit insiders rather than ordinary people. The target of the Insurgency is a leviathan in Washington, D.C. that will ruin us all if it is not dismantled.
 
The Insurgency is part of a long tradition of mass political movements in our history. It has the potential to make a fundamental change in American life—for the better.

The second post is here. Excerpt:

When the American political and economic system suffers a serious failure, we can no longer avoid taking a hard look at ourselves. We have to make fundamental decisions about what kind of country we want America to be. At such moments, people perceive that their basic values are being contested, and those who have a stake in the current system are, reasonably enough, afraid of change. People who see the urgent need for change resent the obstruction. Political rhetoric becomes heated, because a lot is at stake. This is also normal, as history shows.

Stand by for an interesting historical period.

[I am more than usually interested in our readers’ thoughts on this.]

Bubbles

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Government employee salaries + benefits + pensions = bubble.

Government schools K-12 = bubble.

Higher education = bubble.

MSM monopoly = bubble.

The foundations of the opposition are crumbling before our eyes.

We are on the verge of a table-clearing, systemic regime collapse.

Once in a century change is coming.

Be happy.