
 |
|
May 13, 2013
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on
April 22, 2013
US man departing country arrested on terror charges
Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer
April 19, 2013
Caroline B. Glick: Why Obama's visit to Israel had no impact on public opinion or government policy
Morgan Housel: Gold collapse: The start of something big?
Pete Spotts: Livable super-Earths? Two candidates among Kepler's latest finds
April 17, 2013
Shira Rubin: Too much of a good thing? 'Palestinians' realize downside of foreign aid boom
Morgan Housel: BAD NEWS: EVERYONE IS RIGHT!
April 15, 2013
Kristen Chick: Egyptian Christians respond with harsh words to attack -- rocks, Molotov cocktails, and gunfire -- against main cathedral
Marcy Darnovsky and Karuna Jaggar: High Court to decide if you should own your DNA
Howard LaFranchi: US bracing for more Russian blowback after taking action against 18 more human rights violators
April 12, 2013
Mark Clayton: New cybersecurity bill: Privacy threat or crucial band-aid?
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jackie Robinson's Friend, Hank Greenberg; CNN's Jake Tapper; Texas County in the News is named for 19thC. Jewish soldier and Congressman
The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: FRUITY QUINOA STUFFED PEPPERS: A flavorful, colorful and edible vessel of delicately fluffy, mildly nutty filling combined with chewy apricots, tangy cherries, and crunchy pistachios
April 10, 2013
Peter Grier: North Korean missiles: Could US shoot them down?
Morgan Housel: Warning: Don't waste your capital being fooled by profit prophets
Donald Hensrud, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: Take vitamin supplements with caution --- even approved, they may actually do damage
Eryn Brown: 74 DNA discoveries move cure closer for three cancers
April 8, 2013
Jonathan Tobin: What Part of No Preconditions Do American Jews Not Get?
Fred Weir: Is Putin finally trading his own party for a new power base?
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Dec. 9, 2008
/ 12 Kislev 5769
Incompetents who are fancied as experts are ruining this country
By
Ed Koch
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
I have no doubt that Congress will bail out the automobile
industry. The same fears of economic collapse that caused Congress to
pass the $700 billion bailout bill now known as TARP (Troubled Asset
Relief Program), after the House of Representatives first rejected it by
a vote of 228 to 205, will now produce rescue legislation for Detroit.
As we now know, six weeks after the President signed the
TARP bill into law, Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson told the
nation that he had essentially sold the Congress and the nation a bill
of goods when he said that the U.S. Treasury would be spending the
bailout money to buy the toxic assets of lending institutions in order
to get them to lend money once again. Instead, the Treasury would take
equity positions in the largest of the U.S. lending institutions which
under the Treasury's definition included the largest insurance company
in the world, AIG, which ultimately received $306 billion dollars from
the bailout fund.
Congress only authorized Paulson to spend half of the $700
billion bailout fund and to come back to Congress for permission to
spend the balance. However, with all of the publicly announced Treasury
actions, including the recent bailout deals made with Citibank, it seems
to me the Treasury Secretary may have invaded the second pot of bailout
funds. Secretary Paulson is apparently not subject to FOIL requests, so
attempts by the media to ascertain the amounts and conditions of loans
made have been rejected. According to a recent press statement, the
Secretary still has $15 billion uncommitted, and he said he wanted to
leave the balance of $350 billion for the incoming Obama administration
to disperse.
I have lost total faith in the Secretary of the Treasury,
his boss, President Bush, and the Congress, on their capacity to handle
the economic crisis we are in. Interestingly, Congress that is the
House of Representatives and the public opposed and then supported
bailout legislation, because we were warned by Paulson and the country's
foremost economic experts that if the Congress did not pass it, the
country would be headed for a crisis not seen since the Great
Depression. And here we are having passed the bailout still staring the
Great Depression in the face.
It was madness to pass the bailout: proving the point that
decisions made out of panic rarely, if ever, result in responsible
outcomes. It has also been established, at least to my satisfaction,
that the so-called experts don't know what they are doing and they are
the same experts who were in charge when we got into this mess.
Interestingly, according to the New York Times of November 26th, "In the
last year, the government has assumed about $7.8 trillion in direct and
indirect financial obligations. That is equal to about half the size of
the nation's entire economy and far eclipses the $700 billion that
Congress authorized for the Treasury's financial rescue plan."
We are apparently going to repeat the same error we
committed when we authorized the first bailout of financial
institutions. This time, we will be bailing out the three automobile
companies -- GM, Ford and Chrysler. The people to whom we are requested
to give the additional billions -- they first asked for $25 billion and
are now asking for $34 billion are the same people who ran these
companies into the ground. I have absolutely no confidence in their
ability to turn things around. All should remember Chrysler is a
private company, whose owners thought they bought the company cheap from
Daimler, and now want the taxpayers to bail them out. Instead of
bailing the automobile companies out, let them go into bankruptcy and
either work their way out in Chapter 11 or be sold off in bankruptcy.
There is no shortage of solutions proposed for our financial
troubles. One is to let the judges in bankruptcy redesign the terms of
the mortgages before them -- which currently they are not permitted to do
allowing for lesser interest and longer total terms, and in the
meanwhile, enact whatever laws are constitutional that would bar
foreclosures from proceeding for at least a year so as to give the
government the time needed to work out whatever other remedies are
needed.
With respect to the car industry, someone has suggested we
give any taxpayer who buys a totally American-made car -- allegedly the
Big 3 make cars that are deemed to be more American than those
manufactured by Toyota in the U.S. which imports more parts a $5,000
or more tax credit on their tax return in the upcoming year, 2009. If
this proposal sounds whacky -- I wish I had thought of it it is less
improvident than the proposals of the so-called experts.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Edward I. Koch, the former mayor of New York, can be heard on Bloomberg Radio (WBBR 1130 AM) every Sunday from 9-10 am . Comment by clicking here.
Archives
© 2008, Ed Koch
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|