(CNSNews.com) – If Americans under the age of 18 were required as a group to pay off the entirety of the federal government’s debt in equal shares, each would now need to pay about $218,676.
Category Archives: economy
The Economics of Disaster – Ron Paul
Hurricane Sandy was one of the worst natural disasters the east coast has ever seen. Clean-up and recovery will take months, if not years and estimates run in the tens of billions of dollars. Parts of New York and New Jersey will never be the same. Entire seashore communities have been wiped out, but the determination to rebuild has been lauded as courageous and admirable. Yet as with all natural disasters, Sandy raises uncomfortable questions about the extent to which taxpayers should fund the cleanup and the extent to which government programs create moral hazards.
For example, FEMA and the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) are expected to pick up the tab for much of the flood damage caused by the hurricane. Of course this will mean more federal debt and inflation for the rest of us, since the program only has about $4 billion to work with and is already $18 billion in debt from hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Many think there is a need for the government to provide flood insurance of this kind. After all, the market would never provide insurance in flood prone areas at an affordable price. But shouldn’t that tell us something?
Shouldn’t that tell us that it is a losing proposition to insure homes in coastal areas and flood plains often threatened by severe and destructive weather patterns? And if it’s a losing proposition, should taxpayers subsidize the inevitable losses arising from federal flood insurance?
The NFIP disguises the real cost of flood insurance in flood prone areas, which influences homebuilding and sales in such areas. Recklessly taking unwise risks when risk is underpriced is known as moral hazard. When politicians decide that private insurance premiums are too high, as with houses built in flood plains, the solution is to under price the risk through federal subsidies. The obvious and expected outcome is more danger to life and limb when disaster strikes.
Even NFIP has been forced to raise rates significantly in coastal areas, and is now dropping second homes from coverage altogether,
Many assume it is compassionate to entrust government central planners with disaster recovery. However, the greatest compassion brings results, not just good intentions. And we’ve seen how bureaucratic organizations like FEMA mismanaged recovery and relief in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Ike. Organizations such as the Red Cross and private companies like Home Depot and Duracell have already stepped in admirably to help those in need, and we can only hope FEMA has learned this time not to impede and frustrate private efforts as they have in the past.
Above all, my thoughts and prayers are with the victims of Hurricane Sandy in this tremendously difficult time and hope they can get their lives put back together as quickly and seamlessly as possible.
An exasperating interview with Senate leaders – 60 Minutes Overtime – CBS News
Steve Kroft conducted a very tense interview this week on 60 Minutes. He brought together the two leaders of the U.S. Senate, Democrat Harry Reid and Republican Mitch McConnell, for their first joint interview.
“It was very chilly,” Kroft told Overtime’s Ann Silvio in the above video. “They did not look at each other once during the course of the interview.”
“They kept saying ‘my good friend, Harry’ or ‘my good friend, Mitch,’ but it didn’t seem very genuine.”
The Senate has become a dysfunctional place, filled with politicians on the extreme Left and Right who can’t or won’t reach a compromise for the public good, Kroft says. “It’s clearly not a fun place, and there are a lot of people that are very unhappy, particularly the new group of congressmen. A number of people have told us that they’ve come in and said, ‘What am I doing here?'”
COMMENT
Listen to Kroft’s analysis of his joint interview with Senate leaders, and tell us what you think of the situation in the comment section. Is the solution, as Kroft told us, to simply vote these guys out and elect better Senators? Or is the U.S. Senate and its system of rules and procedures broken?
via An exasperating interview with Senate leaders – 60 Minutes Overtime – CBS News.
Sunday Talk: David Axelrod, Eric Cantor, Peggy Noonan & More (Video) – The Daily Beast
David Axelrod says the GOP’s ‘in deep trouble,’ Eric Cantor attacks Obama for his ‘negativity,’ Peggy Noonan wishes America was more like England, plus more in our Sunday Talk roundup.
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via Sunday Talk: David Axelrod, Eric Cantor, Peggy Noonan & More (Video) – The Daily Beast.
What a banker occupied country looks like – Max Keiser
Today we get a clear picture of who is on the side of the ordinary people of Ireland. How these ordinary people are being drowned in debt like unwanted mongrel puppies.
President Higgins wants to see a change in the law, whereby once legislation is sent by the president for Supreme Court analysis a citizen cannot challenge it, so that a person can in future have that option.
We see clearly who profits from a financial coup like this and how the tight lipped CEO of Bank of Ireland feels he has no need to answer coherently to the citizens of Ireland.
We owe four times more than we did in 2008
Noonan: ‘I’m powerless to tackle bankers’ pay & perks
Q & A with Richie Boucher. CEO Bank of Ireland Very Little Answers.
Higgins wants to extend boundaries of presidency
The average consumer now owes four times more than they did in 2008, stark new figures reveal.
Irish people have become buried in credit union debt and unpaid telephone, fuel and tax bills since the recession kicked in.
The figures, from the company behind the debt defaulters magazine, Stubbs Gazette, show the average consumer now owes almost €10,000 — compared to €2,442 in 2008. Those living in commuter towns and remote rural counties have been particularly badly hit.
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FINANCE Minister Michael Noonan has said he is powerless to rein in the pay and pensions of some of Ireland’s most senior bankers after it emerged that the State’s biggest bank, AIB, used some of a €1.1bn taxpayer bailout to fund former chief executive Eugene Sheehy’s estimated annual pension of €529,000.
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He felt the convention on the Constitution might consider those sections governing the President’s referral of legislation to the Supreme Court. Most difficult for him in the context was the provision whereby a matter “having been referred by the President . . . cannot then be challenged by a citizen”.
Property rights vs. human rights – YouTube
In this edition of the show Max interviews Danny Schechter from newsdissector.net. He talks about the governments’ failure to protect their citizens against financial criminals. Danny Schechter is a television producer, independent filmmaker, blogger, and media critic who writes and lectures frequently about the media in the United States and worldwide.
While Nobody Was Paying Attention, The Bank Of Japan Took A Surprise Step That Could Change The Future Of Central Banks
Jobs: Bush’s First Term vs. Obama’s First Term – Business Insider
Robert Chalmers ~ Max Keiser: ‘Barack Obama Is Clueless. Mitt Romney Will Bankrupt The Country’ | Shift Frequency
Obama Defends His Finance Reform Record to Rolling Stone: A Response | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone
The new issue of Rolling Stone features an in-depth interview with President Obama. An interview with a sitting president is always an intense experience for any news outlet, but in this case the Obama interview offered us an additional surprise. When asked a question about financial regulation, the president turned the tables on us and critiqued Rolling Stone’s reporting on issues like the Dodd-Frank reform bill. We – well, I, specifically – criticized the Obama administration for not going far enough in reforming Wall Street, and he used the interview as an opportunity to respond on that score.
Earlier this week, I spoke to a number of people in and around Washington who were my sources during the time when I was writing the stories about Dodd-Frank that the president referred to in the interview. I forwarded the president’s response to them and solicited comments on his take on Dodd-Frank, then used them to put together a sort of respectful answer to the president’s critique; you can find that answer further down this page.
First, here’s the question and answer that appeared in the Rolling Stone interview with President Obama:
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via Obama Defends His Finance Reform Record to Rolling Stone: A Response | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone.
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