Repeal the 17th amendment

Before the 17th amendment was passed Senators were chosen by the state legislatures and as such represented the interests of the individual states who chose them.  The amendment eliminated this procedure and caused the senators to be elected by popular vote.  As the author of this article points out this was a major change and not for the benefit of the interests of the country.  This article discusses why and it is indeed a compelling argumen for repaealing the 17th amendment in the interest of protecting the rights of the states and reducing the concentration of power in the central government.

The LATimes weighs in on financial reform

David Lazarus, LATimes financial writer, writes a column today "Delays in reform hasten next crises" in which he excoriates greedy bankers for our current financial problems. He presents Obama as the righteous leader getting at the bottom of the mess and he ends by encouraging the bankers to get on board with the reforms the administration is proposing. This is pretty thin gruel for what happened.  Here are a few facts and some of the background that led to the meltdown, none of which appeared in Lazarus's column today.

To be fair, bankers shoulder some of the blame for the meltdown, along with the rating agencies who routinely gave investment grade ratings to bundled products which included sub-prime mortgages sold to investors worldwide.  Granted the bankers and the rating agencies share some responsibility for this mess.  However, the biggest share of the blame rests with lawmakers and administrations that paved the way for sub-prime mortgages going back to the enactment of the CRA (Community Redevelopment Act) during the Carter Administration.  The lawmakers complicit in this mess are Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, John Kerry, Barack Obama, and the entire Black Caucus.  Chris Cuomo in his role as Secretary of Housing during the Clinton Administration was a key player in opening the floodgates for sub-prime mortgages.  And let's not forget Rahm Emmanuel who served on the board at Fannie Mae during a time when regulators, in the face of orchestrated push back from Democrat lawmakers, were trying to reign the GSOs in even just a little.  In 2004 Alan Greenspan, head of the Fed, warned that the GSOs represented systemic risk, and in 2005 Republican lawmakers led efforts to apply the brakes to the expansion of these GSOs. These Republican lawmakers were summarily rebuffed in the Senate by the Democrats and the 60 vote cloture rule.  Over a period of many years, these same Democrat lawmakers installed Franklin Raines and other party worthies in top jobs at the GSO's where they ignored and demonized regulators and unsympathetic Republican lawmakers trying to blow the whistle.  A disinterested and objective observer might notice that all the bad players in this sordid affair are Democrats.  And yet, there is no mention of any of these facts and this background in Lazarus's column which singles out the greedy bankers as the bad guys.  One could call this biased reporting or incompetent reporting, or both, and one would be right.

For starters Mr. Lazarus should read "Architects of Ruin", by Peter Schweizer, and "The Housing Boom and Bust" by Thomas Sowell.  These two authors have done their homework.

Obama the socialist

Jonah Goldberg is one of the deeper thinking non academics around today and in this article from Commentary Magazine he deals with the subject of socialism, its history and goals, and Barack Obama's vision for America.  He thinks Obama is not a socialist in the sense of one who believes in the public ownership of the means of production, distribution and equality of outcomes, etc, but more as a Fabian socialist, or incrementalist who sees the vision of a fairer, more just, etc society and wants to get there incrementally.  He also points out that never getting "there" is part of the mindset of the Fabians because to do so would mean there is no more striving for utopia, and then the gig is up.  Or something like that.  This is a complicated story for such a short article but does explain in the context of his actions as president, i.e., nationalizing car companies, nationalizing big banks, nationalizing the healthcare industry.

Added:  Goldberg weighs in with a short piece here that makes a humorous and accurate point or two on the subject of socialism again.

Unions - Necessary Evils or Just Evil

Byron York highlights here the ongoing issue of the role of unions in the runaway costs driving all government budgets deeply into the red.  The US Postal Service now runs a deficit of 7 billion per year and is headed to a tripling of that number over the next ten years.  Once again the influence of unions is paramount in this debacle, as York explains.

ADDED:  The perspective of Mickey Kaus, candidate for US Senate in the current California democrat party primary, on the subject of unions is here.  Agree with Kaus or not on the idea that unions were once useful and helpful, he nevertheless has an interesting perspective on their status now, especially the public unions.  This man, a democrat, makes sense and would probably be a reasonable choice as a replacement for Barbara Boxer, who should be sent the island of Elba where she should be forced to commune with Napoleon's ghost every day until she perishes.

ADDED:  George Will brings to bear his considerable analytic skills here in a piece about the city of Los Angeles and it former SEIU and teacher's union organizer/mayor, Villagrosa.  Villagrosa added 5,000 new employees to the city rolls in his first term and is now facing the issue of bankruptcy, plain and simple.  It will be interesting to see how he, as a former organizer, is able to deal with the unions that now strangle the economy of the city and the state of California.  Greece move over, here comes L.A. and the state of California only things will be much worse since California has nearly ten times the population of Greece.  BTW, attendance is down at Dodge Stadium, which has been sold out in previous years and in fact had growing attendance for the previous decade through winning and losing seasons.  Wonder how many of those 10, 15-million dollar annual contracts they'll be able to afford as time goes on.

ADDED:  It's always encouraging to see liberals "get the picture" as Mortimor Zuckerman, owner of US News and World Report does in this editorialabout the runaway costs resulting from runaway pubic unions.

ADDED: 5/28/10.  Now here's a thought:  How about unions for college professors?  A thought, by the way, that is being promoted at the U of Wisconsin these days.  The thought is taken on here by John F. Witte, a professor at U of Wisconsin who while he is supportive of unions for blue collar and some service workers, thinks the idea of a union for university profs would destroy the competitive environment necessary to weed out those who are not up to the demands required of those who are granted tenure.  Fifty percent of all aspirants are denied tenure.  Since professor Witte is generally supportive of unions for blue collar workers, I wonder how he would address the fact that unionized companies, over the years, appear to have failed much more often than non-unionized companies, witness unionized GM versus non-unionized Japanese and European US transplants.

ADDED: 6/2710.  This post by Powerline is guaranteed to get your blood boiling.

City Journal, maybe the best investigative publication in America today, provides a difinitive look at the budget problems in California here.  It yet another case of runaway unions that have managed to wreck the finances of many cities and states throughout the land, as well as the federal government.  How we get control of these monstrosities is the task of all levels of government and will probably determine who will be the next POTUS.  It cannot be Obama for the country can hardly take four more years of expanding government budgets at the national level.  If we look for those with a record of at least controlling spending, if not rolling it back, Mitch Daniels, governor of Indiana comes to mind.  His record has been highlighted in a previous post.  It appears he has a grip on the bureaucracy in Indiana and has managed the recession very well, thus far.  He does not appear to have the charisma associated with, for example, an Obama, or even Reagan, however by the time we get to 2012 the country may be ready for another Calvin Coolidge.