Welfare Recipients in the 21st Century

Many of our mega-corporations are, in fact, welfare recipients if you define that term as getting more from the government than you contribute to the government. The Institute for Policy Studies has released this year's report on Executive Excess Compensation.  It's a doozy. Consider the following from the report on the 100 public companies that paid their CEOs the most:

• 25 of these companies last year paid their chief executives more than they paid Uncle Sam in federal income taxes.
• The average CEO received 325 times the pay of the average worker; this is up from 263 times in the previous year.
• CEOs' salaries went up 27.8% for the year, the average Joe's 3.3%.
• In 1945 corporations paid 35% of the fed's revenue, last year it was 9%.
• In 1952 the effective corporate tax rate was 52.8%, now it's 10.5%.

The primary reason for the low tax is offshoring. Essentially, companies establish subsidiaries in a low tax foreign country and make accounting entries so that the subsidiary makes a lot of money by 'selling' things to the U.S. parent at inflated fees. Ergo, the U.S. company has higher costs to deduct on their taxes. Two of the largest banks bailed out by us were Citibank and Bank of America. Citibank has 427 foreign subsidiaries, BofA 115.

The authors of the report remind us that these companies benefit by being U.S.-based. "They utilize our taxpayer-funded infrastructure for transportation. They tap into government-sponsored research and subsidies for technological innovation. They expect the U.S. law enforcement and judicial systems to protect their intellectual and physical property. And they rely on the U.S. military to defend their assets abroad.

U.S. corporations also benefit from the public education of their workforces. In fact, 16 of the 25 CEOs included in this study received at least a portion of their post-secondary education in taxpayer-supported public universities. Yet these same corporations remain content to let others pay the bills.

We have, in short, a corporate tax system today that works for top executives — and no one else."

One Guilty Party Willing To Pay the Price

Lawrence Wilkerson, who was Colin Powell's Chief of Staff, put together Powell's infamous UN speech. He says "I’d be willing to testify, and I’d be willing to take any punishment I’m due." Wilkerson appeared briefly on a discussion of Cheney's book on Democracy Now. Glenn Greenwald also checked in.

There's something about Germany and animals

In the past year I've written about Nelly the elephant, vultures trained to find lost people, Paul the octopus, all of whom became celebrities in Germany. This summer's German papers have been filled with Yvonne the cow. She has even become famous on Facebook; she has more than 27,000 friends.

Germans seem mesmerized by some animals. In past years, they have lionized Bruno, a brown bear, Knut, a polar bear, and Heidi, an opossum.

Yvonne escaped from her cattle farm in May and has been on the loose since.  Initially, she was considered so dangerous to traffic that the police said it was permissible to kill her. However, she has not caused problems in three months, so the permission has been withdrawn and Yvonne is now free to roam.

In the past three months, Yvonne has certainly made people notice. A newspaper offered a reward of $14,500 for her capture; the same paper even paid a veterinarian to examine the cow's feces. A folk song was written in her honor. A male cow was released in Yvonne's bailiwick; she ignored him.

It is hoped that, when winter comes, Yvonne will be pleased to live at an animal sanctuary which has become her owner.

Competition? We don't need no stinking competition.

That's a takeoff on a line from "Treasure of  Sierra Madre", a great movie. The guy who uttered the line was a villain and sometimes I think the Pentagon is a villain when it comes to responsibly managing our money. It has been berated many times for issuing single-source contracts. Now, we learn that recently 45% of its contracts are no-bid.

Sometimes no-bid contracts are necessary. But, I think having to issue no-bid contracts for almost half of the work you have to contract out seems preposterous. Sometimes no-bid contracts are reasonable. But, the costs of many are questionable as to their reasonableness; some have been so bad that the bidder has been convicted of fraud. 

This is another cost of the Pentagon's crappy management.

Obama's doing better than Bush

That's the point Dave Johnson is trying to make with the following charts. The first two charts are from Budget of the United States Government: Historical Tables Fiscal Year 2012. The third one is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics 8/5/2011. They show the deficit and the rate of spending decreasing under Obama, and the jobs picture looking better.

Note that this last chart seems slanted against Bush, as it begins in 2008, whereas the two previous charts begin in 2001. Further, the starting points of the first two charts are a lot different; Bush did not wage war until he had been in office for almost a year.

The real point is not trying to prove Obama has been a better president than Bush. Bush continued driving the car that Clinton had left him - the attack on regulation - and modified it by going to war. Obama has been driving the same car as Bush. The real problem is that the car has been stuck in a quagmire for a good long time and our leaders don't seem to be trying to get it out.

Cash is king

The following charts are from JP Morgan via The Big Picture. It's pretty clear how much cash companies are hoarding. They're not investing it or paying it out to their shareholders. When they start spending their hoards the economy will start improving.

Another Sound Idea from Barry Ritholtz

In his column in today's Washington Post, Barry Ritholtz, who's not exactly a shy guy, outlines his plans for fixing the banking system.

First, he outlines the banking problems that brought us to where we are today:

●Bank holdings: They remain stuffed with declining assets, primarily in housing and derivative holdings. Another leg down in housing could be nearly fatal.
●Transparency: Balance sheets are unnecessarily opaque. Eliminating fair-value accounting via FASB 157 did not fix balance-sheet problems, but instead allowed banks to hide them.
●Capitalization: This remains too thin. Leverage should be mandated back to the pre-2005 rule change of no more than 12 to 1. Management does not keep adequate capital unless forced to do so (“sufficient” capital reserves cuts into profits).
●Misaligned incentives: Compensation and bonus schemes were not significantly changed after the bailouts, except during loan repayments. Thus, management and traders still have the same upside to roll the dice, but they do not have the downside risks, which remains on shareholders and taxpayers.

Now, you can probably see his solutions:

• Fire all of senior management, including the board.
• Nationalize the bank temporarily so that you can get rid of the crap.
• Recapitalize the bank and spin off the good non-banking subsidiaries

Sex and Computer Programmers

For years I have been wondering why women opted out of the computer programming field around the 1970s. When I started in the field in 1961, the best programmers tended to be women. And they were not 'condemned' to being 'only' a programmer. I worked under a couple of women managers and directors in the 1960s. It was a field that desperately needed talent and welcomed it no matter from whence it came. But, then, at some point you did not see many women in the field. I could never understand why they left - the pay was good, the job was interesting, you were working in an area that would likely change the world and there was little physical labor. I still can't understand it.

I was spurred to write this post after reading an article, "When computer programming was ‘women’s work’" in the Washington Post. The author, Anna Lewis, never really answers my question. She speculates that NASA was at fault in that she believes that men dominated that world. Yet, I can recall meeting some women working at quite responsible jobs in the space program work at MIT.

A Gambian Pouched Rat Found in Brooklyn

This baby is about 3-feet long. This type of rat has been banned from the U.S. for about 10 years. It is was very likely someone's pet, which seems to be becoming a minor epidemic.

Is it or isn't it from the BP well?

Reporters in Alabama have found oil plumes in the ocean where the Deep Horizon well disgorged a lot of its contents. Scientists say this oil is a match for that which was spilled last year. BP says the scientists are wrong. The investigation continues.

Is It All About The Election?

'It' is the pressure on Eric Schneidermann, NY Attorney General, to agree to the settlement the attorneys general of the other 49 states have made with the sellers of mortgage-backed securities (MBS). 'The Election' refers to the presidential elections of 2012. Matt Taibbi thinks they are related. His take on the matter is that Obama and the other attorneys general are willing to settle for peanuts while preventing any further prosecutions of the MBS charlatans who bear a considerable amount of the blame for our current financial woes.

Taibbi is particularly incensed at this comment by Kathryn Wilde, a member of the Fed board who is charged with representing us: "It is of concern to the industry that instead of trying to facilitate resolving these issues, you seem to be throwing a wrench into it. Wall Street is our Main Street — love ’em or hate ’em. They are important and we have to make sure we are doing everything we can to support them unless they are doing something indefensible." (emphasis added). In the eyes of most rational observers not affiliated with the financiers, these companies have done indefensible things - stealing and fraud bring some of these things.

Taibbi ends the article as follows:

"My theory is that the Obama administration is trying to secure its 2012 campaign war chest with this settlement deal. If Barry can make this foreclosure thing go away for the banks, you can bet he’ll win the contributions battle against the Republicans next summer.

Which is good for him, I guess. But it seems to me that it might be time to wonder if is this the most disappointing president we’ve ever had." Is Obama the most disappointing president we've ever had? It's certainly looking that way.

The Guilty Shall Go Free

That is, if the guilty have enough power. That's basically a translation of Obama's idea of "look forward, not backward" with regard to the crimes of the Bush administration. Glenn Greenwald does an excellent job illustrating the problems and weaknesses of refusing to "look backward" in this video which I can't seem to get to work. You can try it here if you can't get the one below to work.

Greenwald comes in about 4 minutes into this video, which reviews Cheney's new book.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Nowhere near as exciting

Today, I experienced the second earthquake of my life. That's physical earthquake I'm talking about. The East Coast, including Connecticut, was hit by a 5.9 quake. I did actually feel the building tremble, others did not. This was a very different experience from my first earthquake. 

That was in 1948 in a small town in Italy. Part of the problem was that this first quake, which, I doubt, came very close to 5.9, happened around 2 a.m. Italy, in those days, was considered a backward nation. The small town of  Tufo was typical of most towns in Southern Italy then. I can still hear the women yelling "terramoda" over and over while also praying to the Lord. There was no physical damage then as there is none here today. But people were frightened; perhaps some thought that God was punishing them.

It was another image of my summer as a little kid in Italy that has stuck with me all of these years. Maybe, I'll share some of these images with you another day.

It certainly doesn't look right...

...that the case against DSK is being dropped, supposedly because she is a big liar. The DA's office claims to have a rule that they don't prosecute anyone unless they believe him guilty. Really? I find that hard to accept. Justice is, in the real world, not blind; it does matter who the involved parties are. That's only human nature.

Perhaps, the judge will not see the case the same way.

Another Alligator in Unfamiliar Surroundings

This one was found in Rhode Island. I remain surprised at the number of animals being found in unfamiliar places.

What Planet Is Perry From?

I haven't much to say about the Republican candidates for President as I think it's too early in the game, but I just have to comment on Mr. Perry's disavowal of views espoused in a book that was first published nine - that's right 9 - months ago. In the book, which I have not read, he supposedly blasted Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Today, he doesn't hate these programs as much. What happened to make him see the light? Elderly voters?

One would think him a very junior politician.

Unbelievable

I should qualify the title of this post with a word that begins with F and ends in G.

You thought TARP was a huge program; the Fed lent twice as much - $1.2 trillion - to the financial behemoths who bear a large share of the responsibility for the Great Recession we are still in. Bloomberg has to be congratulated for the huge effort - including litigation and an act of Congress - it went through to tell us how and to whom the Fed loaned our money. They will probably win a Pulitzer for this article. 

$1.2 trillion is not small potatoes. It "was almost three times the size of the U.S. federal budget deficit that year and more than the total earnings of all federally insured banks in the U.S. for the decade through 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg." However, one must keep in mind, that this money was loaned and, by and large, has been paid back. Plus, we have made some money from the deal.

Morgan Stanley, which was supposedly a very sound institution, got $107.3 billion  (almost 9% of the total), while the problem child, Citigroup, got almost as much ($99.5 billion). We also helped foreign banks; RBC got $84.5 billion, UBS $77.2 billion.

These loans were given only when the Fed received 'sufficient' collateral. The problem here was the quality of the collateral. It accepted junk bonds and took a real chance by accepting stock. Furthermore, just about all of the recipients lied about needing the funds and the Fed said nothing then about the size of the loans and revealed the details only when forced to.

We forced GM to declare bankruptcy and get rid of Wagoner. Why didn't the same thing happen here? Were the stockholders of these financial firms better people than the GM stockholders?

Walter Jones, a Republican Congressman no less, summed up one side of the situation, “Why in hell does the Federal Reserve seem to be able to find the way to help these entities that are gigantic? They get help when the average businessperson down in eastern North Carolina, and probably across America, they can’t even go to a bank they’ve been banking with for 15 or 20 years and get a loan.” 

Is this what Bernanke learned from his studies of the Depression? Would this have happened if Geithner were not Treasury Secretary (I know the Fed is supposed to be an independent entity but I would think that Geithner would have spoken up for his friends in the business.) We had an auto industry czar and it looks as though no one is really complaining about the auto industry now. I think we should we have had a financial industry czar.

Huntsman Sounds Rational

unlike most of the other GOP candidates.

Today's Military

William Deresiewicz has written an essay, "Solitude and Leadership", that is taught at West Point. It's possible that he may really know something about the military that is not general knowledge. But all you need to appreciate his essay, "An Empty Regard", in today's NY Times is general knowledge and an awareness of how this nation treats its military in the 21st century, i.e., just about every soldier has become a 'hero' and every general the smartest military man that has come down the pike. Deresiewicz does a good job of explaining how we came to this position and questioning why. His final paragraph is worth repeating:

“America needs heroes,” it is sometimes said, a phrase that’s often uttered in a wistful tone, almost cooingly, as if we were talking about a lonely child. But do we really “need heroes”? We need leaders, who marshal us to the muddle. We need role models, who show us how to deal with it. But what we really need are citizens, who refuse to infantilize themselves with talk of heroes and put their shoulders to the public wheel instead. The political scientist Jonathan Weiler sees the cult of the uniform as a kind of citizenship-by-proxy. Soldiers and cops and firefighters, he argues, embody a notion of public service to which the rest of us are now no more than spectators. What we really need, in other words, is a swift kick in the pants.

If I Were President

Today's NY Times provides space for non-politicians to tell us what they would do in our 'leader's' spot. These 'non-politicians include professors, writers, an astrophysicist, an artist, an inventor and a prioress. I thought only two made much sense to me. An author, Jennifer Egan, had the best advice, given the state of our politics: "I'd decide (privately) from the outset that mine would be a one-term presidency". The one I thought most useful came from Sister Mary David Walgenbach, the Prioress of Holy Wisdom Monastery of Middleton, WI. Here are her comments:

I would invest half of our defense budget in children, young people and in energy conservation.
I would expand the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps and grow both for the next 10 years. A benefit would be two years of free college for two years of service. I’d ask corporations to fund two years of college or a trade school for young women and men from homes stricken with poverty.
I would fund energy-saving improvements — insulation of houses, solar panels and replacement of inefficient furnaces for households making less than $30,000 a year and develop a sliding scale for those earning more than $30,000 a year. I would help small businesses retrofit their buildings.
I would require members of Congress to participate in a week-long workshop on dialogue, negotiation and compromise before the next session. All sessions would begin with 10 minutes of silence.

California May Sign Up

The California legislature has also decided to do something about the protests by the Westboro Baptist Church. It has passed a bill which would make it a misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine, to protest within 1,000 feet of a funeral for one hour before or after a ceremony.

Will Mr. Brown sign it?

Obama Should Read "Back to Work"

This is a "A Public Jobs Proposal For Economic Recovery" by Philip Harvey, who does not appear to be a nutter by any stretch of the imagination. He's an academic focusing on public policy who apparently has studied our response to the Great Depression and is very impressed with the Civil Works Administration, which did an amazing amount of work over just four months. Harvey lists that work:

The possibilities are well-illustrated by the accomplishments of the Civil Works Administration (CWA), an emergency job creation program that operated for about four months over the winter of 1933-34 in the United States. Established by President Roosevelt in early November, 1933, the CWA went from a mere proposal to a fully operational program with over 4 million employees in less than two months.

Despite its hurried implementation, the program’s achievements are truly astounding. In Chicago, over 11 thousand CWA workers laid brick pavements in a major street-improvement project. Approximately 60,000 public buildings were repaired or constructed, two thirds of them schools. Almost 2300 miles of sewer lines were laid or repaired. Swamp-drainage projects to fight malaria employed 30,000 CWA workers, and 17,000 unemployed coal miners were employed sealing abandoned coal mines to protect ground-water supplies. Over 3700 playgrounds and 200 public swimming pools were constructed along with countless comfort stations, park benches and water fountains.

The CWA’s white collar projects included education projects within existing schools that provided jobs for 50,000 laid-off teachers. Another 13,000 kept small rural schools open through the winter when normally they would have closed. Thirty-three thousand teachers were employed in adult education classes and in program-operated pre-schools. The adult classes served 800,000 learners and the pre-schools were attended by 60,700 children.

A nationwide child health study was staffed with 23,000 unemployed nurses, and 10,000 more were employed in a variety of other programs. The U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey sponsored a triangulation and mapping project that employed 15,000 unemployed workers. An aerial mapping project charted hundreds of U.S. cities and employed another 10,000. The National Park Service and the Library of Congress undertook a survey of the nation’s historic buildings that provided work for 1200 architects, draftsmen and photographers. Over 70,000 people were employed in pest-eradication campaigns, and a group of 94 Alaskan Indians were employed restocking the Kodiak Islands with snowshoe rabbits.

The Department of the Treasury sponsored a highly-regarded Public Works of Art Project which provided work for 3000 unemployed visual and performing artists. Actors staged dramatic works in hospitals, schools and libraries. Opera singers toured the Ozark mountain region. Program orchestras gave free concerts in major cities. The program also provided staffing assistance to public libraries and research assistance for scholarly projects.

The Smithsonian Institution employed 1000 program workers at archeological excavations in 5 states. The Department of Commerce employed 11,000 program workers to conduct a census of real property in 60 cities. An Urban Tax Delinquency Survey documented the fiscal condition of 309 cities. And the program’s own Statistical Division employed 35,000 program participants to collect and record data and documentation concerning program operations, labor market conditions, and the nation’s public relief problem.

It is truly an astounding record and, remember it was all done in just four months. The CWA morphed into the WPA.

Harvey argues that creating jobs today is the best way for us to turn the corner. It's simple, he says - "Create jobs for the unemployed directly and immediately in public employment programs that produce useful goods and services for the public’s benefit."  Putting people back to work today actually helps the recovery faster than other stimulants. He calls this a job-led recovery rather than today's jobless recovery attempts.

Harvey lists some things that could be done in construction (e.g., the rehabilitation of abandoned or sub-standard housing, building affordable housing) and conservation  (e.g., caulking windows and doors in private dwellings).  We could improve existing parks and build new ones. Some public spaces need renovation and maintenance.

"The program also could expand and improve the quality of public services in areas such as health care, child care, education, recreation, elder care, and cultural enrichment. Special projects could be undertaken in each of these areas, and existing levels of service delivery could be enhanced. Instead of being forced to cut public services during a recession, government agencies could offer better services than in non-recessionary periods."

Harvey is not alone in pushing a jobs program. TheAlliance of American Manufacturing, a coalition of leading manufacturers and the United Steelworkers, is pushing a program that includes a national infrastructure bank, reshaping the tax code, "buy America" provisions for all federal spending; expediting small business loans; and shifting "some education investment to rebuilding our vocational and technical skills."

What do our leaders say? More importantly, what will they do?

Alaskan Sunset

Courtesy of our Ketchikan correspondent

The First of Many?

Here's an interview with a Congressmen who has been around for a while.

There will be more.

Recovery Act Projects

From Michael Grabell, here are 10 significant projects, most under construction, funded by the Recovery Act:

Name	Description	State	Money
BrightSource Ivanpah Solar Project	With a capacity to generate 400 megawatts, the array in the Mojave Desert will be one of the largest solar power plants in the world. Under construction; targeted for completion 2013.	CA	$1.6 billion loan guarantee
Caithness Shepherds Flat Wind Farm	At 845-megawatt capacity, it will be the largest wind farm in the world.* Under construction; expected to start commercial operation 2012.	OR	$1.3 billion loan guarantee
Savannah River Site Environmental Cleanup	Thousands of workers cleaned up radioactive waste at the Cold War nuclear plant and sealed up two reactor buildings with cement. Mostly completed 2011.	SC	$1.6 billion
Johnson Controls battery plant	The new plant is part of a $2.4 billion program to create a battery industry for hybrid and electric vehicles in the United States. Completed 2011.	MI	$299 million
Caldecott Tunnel Fourth Bore	The new tunnel will ease traffic on the heavily traveled highway between Oakland and the suburbs. Under construction; targeted for completion late 2013/early 2014.	CA	$176 million
Cleveland Innerbelt Bridge	The funding is helping to replace a 50-year-old bridge in downtown Cleveland. Under construction; targeted for completion 2014.	OH	$79 million
Crow Creek Tribal School	A new K-12 school on the Sioux Tribe’s Crow Creek Reservation. Under construction; targeted for completion 2012.	SD	$37 million
Moynihan Station	A new Amtrak train hall at the site of the Beaux Arts monument James A. Farley Post Office building. Under construction; targeted for completion 2016.	NY	$83 million
Coast Guard headquarters	The first phase of the new Homeland Security headquarters, which the White House has called the largest federal building project since the Pentagon. Under construction; targeted for completion 2013.	DC	$650 million (for DHS headquarters project)
Camp Pendleton Naval Hospital	The new military hospital will contain four levels and 500,000 square feet. Under construction; targeted for completion 2014.	CA	$394 milli

That Hopey Changey Thing

David Bromwich has a devastating article at TomDispatch on our presidential 'leader'. The title, "Symptoms of the Bush-Obama Presidency", makes you think that the article is mainly about the similarities between the two, but I think it's more of an indictment of Obama for retaining the wrong people and getting rid of the right people. You really should read the article, as it spells out quite clearly his reasons for naming the names he does.

First, the list of "The Saved", i.e. Advisers whom the president entrusted with power beyond expectation, and sought to keep in his administration for as long as he could prevail on them to stay:

Larry Summers, Bob Gates, Rahm Emanuel, Cass Sunstein, Eric Holder, Dennis Ross, Peter Orszag and Thomas Donilon. Bromwich is especially incensed with Sunstein.

Then, the list of "The Sacked", i.e., Advisers and nominees with views that were in line with Obama's 2008 election campaign or his professed goals in 2009, but who have since been fired, asked to resign or step down, or seen their nominations dropped:

James Jones, Karl Eikenberry, Paul Volcker, Dennis Blair, James Cartwright, Dawn Johnsen, Greg Craig,  and Carol Browner.

Bromwich's concluding words:

the president lives now in a world in which he is certain never to be told he is wrong when he happens to be on the wrong track. It is a world where the unconventionality of an opinion, or the existence of a possible majority against it somewhere, counts as prima facie evidence against its soundness.

Obama’s pragmatism comes down to a series of maxims that can be relied on to ratify the existing order -- any order, however recent its advent and however repulsive its effects. You must stay in power in order to go on “seeking.” Therefore, in “the world as it is,” you must requite evil with lesser evil. You do so to prevent your replacement by fanatics: people, for example, like those who invented the means you began by deploring but ended up adopting. Their difference from you is that they lack the vision of the seeker. Finally, in the world as it is, to retain your hold on power you must keep in place the sort of people who are normally found in places of power.

Revolving Doors Raise Questions of Conflict of Interest

Darryl Issa does not have a good reputation in liberal circles. The head of the House Oversight Committee has been accused more than once of helping financial firms rather than the American people. If that is Issa's bent, you would expect him to hire people with a similar mind set. Two of his staff seem to be of that type.

Peter Haller has certainly bounced back and forth between the federal government and the so-called private sector. Here's what Think Progress reports on his comings and goings.

• After completing his law degree in 2000, Haller was employed by Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as an economist, and later with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the Office of Enforcement.
• In April of 2005, Haller resigned from the SEC to take a job with Goldman Sachs. He soon began lobbying the SEC on behalf of Goldman Sachs.
• On September 2, 2009, Haller left Goldman Sachs to take a job with the law/lobbying firm Brickfield Burchette Ritts & Stone.
• In January of 2011, Haller was hired to work for Issa on the Oversight Committee."

In his new position Mr. Haller, on behalf of Rep. Issa, wrote to top government regulators demanding that they back off and provide more justification for new margin requirements for financial firms dealing in derivatives, such as Goldman Sachs.

Another Peter - Peter Warren - employed by Issa as his policy director,worked for a student loan lobbying group last year. Mr. Warren and other Issa staff members seem dedicated to weakening or disbanding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which, incidentally, oversees student loans.

This questionable action is mirrored by the behavior of Rep. Issa. Although he owned a fair amount of Goldman Sachs bonds, he led the fight to prevent any investigation of Goldman's possible defrauding of its clients.

Was there an unauthorized disposal of federal records?

That's a question that the National Archives, the Senate and the SEC Inspector General are trying to answer with regards to the SEC's destruction of records of preliminary investigations which did not go any further. They are also concerned that the destruction of these records may have made subsequent investigations more difficult, if not impossible.

Since there is a fair chance that SEC staffers may leave to join a financial firm, there is a whiff of chicanery in these actions.

This is also another case of "do as I say, not as I do" in that the SEC demands that the firms they monitor keep very good records for eternity.

Predicting the Future

The Big Picture has some quite interesting and, in many cases, misguided quotes about the financial world over the past few years. Here are a few.

George W. Bush, June 17, 2002
“Now, we’ve got a problem here in America that we have to address. Too many American families, too many minorities do not own a home. [...] Freddie Mac will launch 25 initiatives to eliminate homeownership barriers.”
Ben Bernanke, August 9, 2005
“There’s a lot of good news on housing. 
Alan Greenspan, September 26, 2005
“In summary, it is encouraging to find that, despite the rapid growth of mortgage debt, only a small fraction of households across the country have loan-to-value ratios greater than 90 percent. Thus, the vast majority of homeowners have a sizable equity cushion with which to absorb a potential decline in house prices.”
Ben Bernanke, March 28, 2007
“At this juncture, however, the impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the subprime market seems likely to be contained.”
Tim Geithner, May 15, 2007
“Financial innovation has improved the capacity to measure and manage risk. Risk is spread more broadly across countries and institutions.”
Henry Paulson, July23, 2007
“There has been a very significant housing correction. I think we’re at or near a bottom there,” Paulson said on CNBC television. “I don’t deny there’s a problem with subprime mortgages but…it’s quite containable.”
Paul Krugman, December 3, 2007
“But the [financial] innovations of recent years — the alphabet soup of C.D.O.’s and S.I.V.’s, R.M.B.S. and A.B.C.P. — were sold on false pretenses. They were promoted as ways to spread risk, making investment safer. What they did instead — aside from making their creators a lot of money, which they didn’t have to repay when it all went bust — was to spread confusion, luring investors into taking on more risk than they realized.”
George W. Bush, March 12, 2008
“I think when people take a look back at this moment in our economic history, they’ll recognize tax cuts work.” 
Ben Stein, July 8, 2008
Don’t Panic – Buy Index Funds and Real Estate (“The truth is that while the economy is clearly slowing down we are not yet in a recession.”) [Ed. Note: S&P500 closed that day at 1,273.70, on its way to a 676 close in March 2009.]
Christopher Cox, Chairman, Securities and Exchange Commission, October 2008
“There is no question that, somewhere in this terrible mess, many laws were broken. Right now, the criminal authorities and the civil authorities, not only in the federal government and the state governments, but in other countries, because this is now, as you know, a matter of intense international focus, are working to make sure that lawbreakers are held accountable and people are brought to justice.” [Ed. Note: It's now almost three years later. How are those investigations progressing? Seems the list of folks "brought to justice" could fit on an M&M.]
WSJ Editorial Page, May 29, 2009
The Bond Vigilantes (“They’re back. We refer to the global investors once known as the bond vigilantes, who demanded higher Treasury bond yields from the late 1970s through the 1990s whenever inflation fears popped up, and as a result disciplined U.S. policy makers. [...] It’s not going too far to say we are watching a showdown between Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and bond investors, otherwise known as the financial markets. When in doubt, bet on the markets.”) [Ed. note: What would the WSJ tell us the markets are saying now as that is, after all, what we should "bet on"? The 10-yr was around a 3.70% then vs. about 2.25% now; place your bets.]

Spending Our Money

I know our wars have been very expensive, but I didn't realize how out of whack these costs were until I read an article by Nancy Youssef of McClatchy Newspapers. Here are some highlights:

• In one month we spend more on our wars than the annual budget for the EPA.
• We could launch six NASA flights for what it costs us each month for our wars.
• The Medicare drug benefit is quite generous and expensive, yet in three months of war we spend more than we do on the drug benefit in a year.
• In four months we spend more on wars than the annual budget of the State Department.
• The military spends $4.55 for a gallon of gas (that's more than I spent on the island of Martha's Vineyard). Plus they have to spend money to get it to the vehicles; that could increase costs twenty times.
• Afghanistan is a hot place weather-wise. It costs $20 billion a year to provide air conditioning for the troops. Over the past forty years we've spent $1 billion a year on Amtrak on average.
  
• The per-person cost in Afghanistan in FY2010 was $667,000; it increased in FY2011 and likely will increase next year.
  

Something is truly wrong with this picture.

One More Nail

Illinois has stepped up to the plate. They have joined Ohio, Arizona and Oklahoma in trying to protect families of war casualties from being harassed by members of the Westboro Baptist church.

There Are Strange People On Earth

Today's oddity is the North Carolina guy who had 154 reptiles in his mobile home. Half were dead in his freezer. Some were dangerous. One had previously only been found in China. Some were expensive, $1,000 and up. Here's a photo of one of the collection.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

I haven't taken a summer vacation, but our leaders have. 81 of the members of the House are taking part of their vacation in Israel with all expenses paid by the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF), an affiliate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which wields a lot of clout with our leaders. The House members will not be traveling budget-style; they're flying business class along with their spouses and I'm sure they will travel first class within Israel.

House rules have this to say about travel by its members: “The travel provisions of the gift rule severely limit the ability of Members and staff to accept travel from an entity that employs or retains a registered lobbyist or a registered agent of a foreign principal.” That seems fairly clear; members should not have their travel expenses paid by lobbyists. AIEF is a non-profit (501 c3) organization, so, I guess, it's okay for Congressmen to accept their bounty. The problem is that AIEF (which has no paid employees, so who's making travel arrangements?) is funded and controlled by AIPAC; while AIPAC will not be literally paying expenses for our leaders, it, in reality, will be. Do I hear a Congressman mentioning this violation of the House's rules?

Will it ever stop?

Although our media tends to report on only major incidents, here's what else is happening in Iraq. It is not a pretty picture. 69 dead, 170 injured.

Courtesy of Iraq Today:

Baghdad:
#1: In Baghdad, a parked car bomb exploded near a convoy carrying officials from the Ministry of Higher Education, said police and health officials. Eight people were wounded, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. The minister was not inside the convoy.

#2: Five booby-trapped cars have been dismantled in Iraq’s Diala, Salahal-Din and Najaf Provinces, have been dismantled on Monday, an Interior Ministry spokesman said.

#3: The Chairman of Iraq’s Technical Education Commission, Mahmoud Shaker al-Mulla Khalaf, has escaped an assassination attempt by a booby-trapped car west of Baghdad on Monday, according to a Baghdad security source. “A booby-trapped car blew off on Monday morning against the motorcade of the Chairman of Iraq’s Technical Education Commission, Mahmoud Shaker al-Mulla Khalaf, while on his way for his work in west Baghdad’s al-Mansour district on Monday, causing damage to a number of the motorcade’s cars, but no human casualties,” the Official in-charge of the Commission’s Protection told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.


Diyala Prv:
#1: In Diyala province, seven bombs went off in the capital of Baquba and towns nearby, said Faris al-Azawi, the spokesman for the Diyala health directorate. Five soldiers were killed in Baquba while five people were killed in other attacks around the province.

#2: The official in charge of the Branch of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), led by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, in Saadiya township of northeast Iraq’s Diala Province, has been killed, together with his bodyguard on Sunday, Diala’s Security Committee Chief reported. “An armed group, belonging to al-Qaeda Organization, had blocked the road on PUK’s Saadiya Branch’s official, Abbas Hassan Rashid, in his township, 155 km to the northeast of Baaquba, the center of Diala Province, killing him and one of his bodyguards on the spot,” Dilair Hasan told Aswat al-Iraq news Agency.

#3: The Governor of northeast Iraq’s Baaquba city, the center of Diala Province, has escaped an assassination attempt on Monday, the third of its kind this year, a Diala security source reported. “An explosive charge blew off on Monday morning in the main street passing through Baaquba city, targeted against its Governor, Abdullah al-Hayali, but caused no human casualties,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.


Kut:
#1: The worst violence came in the southern city of Kut, 100 miles (160 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad, where twin explosions went off as construction workers were gathered in a market selling generators and other appliances. Police spokesman Lt. Col. Dhurgam Mohammed Hassan said the first bomb went off in a freezer used to keep drinks cold. Then as rescuers and onlookers gathered, a parked car bomb exploded. The head of the provincial security committee in Wasit province, Shamil Mansour, said 35 people were killed; another official put the number of injured at 64.


Najaf:
#1: Just outside the holy city of Najaf, a suicide car bomber plowed his vehicle into a checkpoint outside a police building, said Luay al-Yassiri, head of the Najaf province security committee. Police opened fire on the vehicle when the driver refused to stop at the checkpoint, and then the vehicle exploded. Al-Yassiri said four people were killed and 32 injured; among the dead were two policemen and two civilians.


Karbala:
#1: Just outside Karbala, a parked car bomb targeting a police station killed three policemen and injured 14 others, according to two police officers. Neither wanted to be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

#2: A booby-trapped car has blown up close to the Hindiya bridge in southwest Iraq’s holy city of Karbala on Monday, according to a security source. “A booby-trapped car blew off this morning (Monday) close to the Hindiya bridge in Karbala city,” the security source said, giving no further details.


Tikrit:
#1: In the northern city of Tikrit, two men wearing explosives belts drove into a heavily guarded government compound wearing military uniforms which helped them avoid notice by the guards, said Mohammed al-Asi, the provincial spokesman. The men parked their vehicle and then walked to a building housing the anti-terrorism police. When the men approached the building, the guards ordered them to stop and then opened fire. One bomber was immediately killed but the other managed to get inside the building before blowing himself up and killed three people, al-Asi said. Ten people were also injured in the attack.

Two suicide bombers attacked an Iraqi counter-terrorism unit in Tikrit city on Monday, killing at least two policemen and wounding six in a failed attempt to free al Qaeda prisoners, a police official said. One attacker detonated his suicide vest hoping to kill a high-ranking counter-terrorism officer and the other was shot dead during the attack, Capt. Jassim al-Jibouri, an officer with the Tikrit counter terrorism unit, said. "They were attempting to reach the prison that holds more than 100 al Qaeda inmates," Jibouri said. A hospital source said three policemen were killed and nine wounded in the attack.

“The first suicide gunman blew himself up at the entrance of the Directorate of Terrorism, killing a police colonel and a policeman,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.


Balad:
#1: Al-Asi said 16 people were also injured in the city of Balad when a roadside bomb went off near a fuel truck.

#2: Six Iraqi civilians have been injured in an explosive charge blast, close to the Municipal Council of Balad township, south of Salahal-Din Province on Monday, according to a security source. “An explosive charge blew up close to the building of the Municipal Council of Balad township in Salahal-Din Province on Monday morning, wounding 6 civilians,” the security source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency, giving no further details.


Kirkuk:
#1: In the northern city of Kirkuk, a car bomb exploded next to a police patrol Monday morning, injuring four police officers.

#2: Then about thirty minutes later one person was killed when a motorcycle with a bomb planted inside it exploded.

#3: Late Sunday, four bombs also blew up near a Syrian Orthodox Church in Kirkuk. No one was injured in the attack but the walls of the church were damaged.


Mosul:
#1: “Two sticky bombs blew up on Monday morning in al-Fisaliya district, east of Mosul, killing a civilian and wounding 3 others,” the security source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency, adding that both charges were laid on an electric pole and blew up at the same time.

#2: In another security incident, the same source stressed that “an explosive charge blew up on Monday, close to the Electric Stores in Mosul’s Taamim district, wounding a protection unit element in the Electricity Stores.”

#3: “An unknown person allegedly left behind a cartoon box close to the stores, loaded with an explosive charge that blew up when a security element tried to check the box. The explosion wounded the person, who was driven to a nearby hospital for treatment,” the security source said.


Al Anbar Prv:
#1: Three Iraqi policemen have been killed and two others were injured in two explosive charges blasts in Ramadi, the center of west Iraq’s Anbar Province, on Sunday, an Anbar Police source reported. “Three policemen have been killed and two others injured in two explosions, targeted against a police patrol, while passing through a main Ramadi street on Sunday,” the police source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

Will They Listen to Buffett?

Warren Buffett has a straightforward argument as to why he and the other super-wealthy should pay more in income taxes; "My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice." His article in today's NY Times in a very simple manner and in straight English destroys whatever 'arguments' our wonderful leaders have advanced about lower taxes. 

Will they listen? I wouldn't bet a dime on it.

A Surprise to Me

The Chrystal Cathedral is bankrupt; it filed in October of last year. I can't say that I've followed it very closely. To me it was another one of those mega-churches that became common in the late 20th century. The few times I saw Rev. Schuller he did not seem as fanatical as most of the other religious barons. But, the story seems to be that the church dud not keep up with the changes taking place over the past fifty years in Orange County and in society at large.

There are two bidders for the church, the Roman Catholic diocese of LA and Chapman University. The starting bids exceed $50,000,000. There will be a fair amount of negotiating as the Cathedral does want to stay in business and eventually buy back its property.

I wonder whether there will be any implications for other mega-churches.

More Smart Programs on a Small Scale

 The NY Times has embarked on series called Fixes, which "looks at solutions to social problems and why they work". Last month they wrote about the Family Independence Initiative (FII), which seeks to get people out of poverty. This month they're looking at another approach to attack poverty: a better car plus counseling.

The article discusses a non-profit based in New Hampshire, where a car is essential as there is little, if any, public transportation. The organization is known as More Than Wheels. The "More Than" is primarily credit counseling and a fairly stern approach to the beneficiaries of this program living up to their commitments. The "Wheels" is usually a newer, more efficient car than they own; most of the times this lowers the beneficiaries monthly costs, as transportation costs are a large part of their monthly budget.

Not every applicant is approved by More Than Wheels. First, the applicant goes through a screening process to determine whether his credit can be repaired. If it appears likely to be repairable, then the applicant pays $60 to 'join' plus they are obligated to take a course in basic household finance. After six months of paying off his debts, the client is eligible for a car loan provided he holds the same job and lives at the same place for the six months.

The client does not simply go and buy the car he chooses. Together with "More Than Wheels" he decides what is the best car for him at this stage in his life. "More Than Wheels" (MTW) does the negotiation with the car dealer and the local bank (the rate is usually lower than the client would get on his own). The client pays MTW $895 and the car is his. But he is still not totally on his own. He has to demonstrate that he is following the scheduled maintenance program for the car, check in periodically with MTW and maintain or improve his credit score.

The program seems to be working well. Only 5% of the 1,450 clients have defaulted on their loans. Most have better health care and a better life style overall. And, the environment is a bit better off as they are driving more efficient cars.

Both organizations - MTW and FII - interact fairly extensively with their clients and hold the clients to relatively rigid standards. Some may see this as too much of a Big Brother approach. It may be, but these clients need help in turning their lives around.

This is not good

These wild daily swings in the Dow don't indicate sensible investing to me.

There is hope

A recent column by Nicholas Kristof tells the story of someone whose life should give us all hope: Rachel Beckwith. In her all-too-brief life she did a lot for the rest of humanity. When she was 5, she began donating her hair to Locks of Love, which makes wigs for children who have lost their hair due to cancer or other disease. When she was 8, she began donating to charity:water, which builds wells in Africa. The donation this time was a request to skip her birthday party and donate the money to charity:water; plus she asked those who would have been invited to donate $9 to the charity. A month-and-a-half after her 9th birthday Rachel died in a car accident. 

Her church and friends began donating to the charity on a page dedicated to her.  Thus far, they have raised almost $1,000,000.

Rachel is not alone in doing something about the problems of this world. My 9-year-old granddaughter has been raising money for hospitalized kids for a while now. I suspect that there are many more 9-year-old girls showing us how we should live.

Is there a problem?

It certainly looks that way. This is a photo of Las Vegas which highlights in red the houses that are currently in foreclosure. In 2010 1 in 9 homes in Las Vegas received foreclosure notices.

Here is a similar photo of the continental U.S. In 2010 1 in 46 homes in the country received foreclosure notices.

Tip of the fedora to a Duncaster resident.

More Outsourcing

I've written a few times about the rise of the private military contractors; they have become a very important component of the U.S. military. Now we are using them in places where our forces are not actively engaged. For example, they are very important in our efforts in Somalia where we are convinced that Al Shabab is a vital threat to our safety here in the States. Of course, we are trying to keep their use confidential, but information is leaking out.

Our contractor here is Bancroft Global Development. Its primary job is to train the Somali forces against Shabab. It appears as though they have done a good job. Now, rest assured that the U.S. has not hired Bancroft; our State Department Africa guy says, “We do not want an American footprint or boot on the ground.” Uganda and Burundi have hired Bancroft. They issue checks to Bancroft every month and every month we find the need to send these countries a check for exactly the same amount as they have paid Bancroft.

And, naturally, our State Department does not know that our CIA is active in Somalia. State is unaware that the CIA is financing Somalia's spies, training Somalia's  CIA and has built a base at the airport and interrogated possible terrorists in Somali jails. Nor is it aware that drones are being used against the Shabab. I'm sure State knows that we will soon be shipping $45,000,000 in weapons to Somalia. 

Is this a smart use of our resources? How big a threat to us does Al Shabab present? Is our activity there making Al Shabab weaker or stronger? What else could we do with the money we are spending there?

A Housing Boom

You know from the title that I'm not writing about the U.S. Today's topic is Israel's plans to build more apartments in Jerusalem. On Tuesday they announced plans to build 930. Today, they added another 1,600. And soon they will approve plans for 2,700 more.

It's going to be a hell of time over the next several months.

No Jobs for 3 out of 4 Job Seekers

That's what this chart from the Economic Policy Institute says:

In June there were 4.5 unemployed workers for every job opening. In the prehistoric days of 2000, there was 1.1 unemployed worker for every job opening. The highest ratio in the 21st century before the Great Recession was 2.8. We are in really deep water. Why can't our leaders see that and start doing something about it?

More About DOD and NASA Management

The latest GAO report on DOD and NASA management concerns the quality of the parts used in the systems of these agencies. Each of the twenty-one programs GAO looked at had problems with the quality of the parts being used. Okay, life is full of problems. But, the major difficulty here is that DOD and NASA did not find the problems until very late in the game; in one case this cost us $250,000,000 and a year delay in launching.

Here's what GAO has to say:

The causes of parts quality problems GAO identified were poor workmanship, undocumented and untested manufacturing processes, poor control of those processes and materials and failure to prevent contamination, poor part design, design complexity, and an inattention to manufacturing risks. Ineffective supplier management also resulted in concerns about whether subcontractors and contractors met program requirements.

Did the bosses flunk Management 101?

How Not to Develop Software

Yes, my software development skills are long since dormant and they are not 21st century style anyway. Nonetheless, I must register my amazement at a software development project being worked on at the Agriculture Department. I'm amazed not that they have been working on this project since 2004. The lack of progress is what gets my goat; after all it's a system whose costs were originally estimated at almost half a billion dollars. The system is known as MIDAS, which stands for Modernize and Innovate the Delivery of Agricultural Systems. It is a catchy name, but when will the system go into production and how effective will it be.

It took Agriculture six years to finish the first phase of the project - program planning.  They have yet to define all of the requirements and don't expect to do so for another four months. MIDAS will integrate thirty-seven existing systems; however, they do not have representatives from all of these systems as part of the planning and requirements group. The GAO also has several comments about the poor quality of the management of this project.

It's only money. The problem is it is our money.

The President's Army

That's what some call SOCOM, the Special Operations Command. The thirty  members killed by the Taliban over the weekend belonged to that group. From news reports, it is now evident that SOCOM has been conducting a heck of a lot of night raids in Afghanistan; one article speaks of "thousands of nighttime operations conducted annually across the nation." Nick Turse has an extended article on the growth of SOCOM over the past twenty-five years. And grow it has.

Its budget has grown from $2.3 billion pre 9/11 to $9.8 billion for FY2012. It has not only grown in size (from around 37,000 in the late '90s to over 60,000 today), in countries in which it has operations (75 today from 60 when GW left office), but also in influence and power (it sets its own budget apart from DOD). It is made up not only of the groups we've heard about (SEALs, Green Berets, etc.) but it also includes "specialized helicopter crews, boat teams, civil affairs personnel, para-rescuemen, and even battlefield air-traffic controllers and special operations weathermen." 

While the leaders of SOCOM assert that most of the work it does is train foreign troops at the request of foreign governments, it has also been known to perform such tasks as "assassinations, counterterrorist raids, long-range reconnaissance, intelligence analysis, and weapons of mass destruction counter-proliferation operations.

One section, the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), reports to the president and acts as his hit men and jailer of those held in secret prisons around the world.

Time to relax ...

and enjoy the music of Villa-Lobos and the voice of Anna Moffo. There have been such a lot of crappy days in the world recently. This is truly a great piece of music.

Syria is not Libya

Do these two countries differ in such a way that we would rush to protect one but not the other? They must because we were very quick to prevent a 'massacre' in Libya but not in Syria. They are both Arab states run by despots. Both have attacked and murdered their citizens, which some would consider a massacre. A possible difference: one has oil, the other doesn't. Could that possibly be the reason we were so concerned with the humanitarian tragedy in one country but not the other? I wonder!

Who Does the Prescribing of Antidepressants?

 A study by Johns Hopkins says that almost three-fourths of the prescriptions for antidepressants are written by non-psychiatrist providers. In fact, more of these prescriptions are written by non-psychiatrists than psychiatrists.  The study also states that antidepressants are "the third most commonly prescribed class of medications in the U. S." Almost 9% of the population receive a prescription for antidepressants each month.

545 vs. 300,000,000 People

According to Snopes.com, there are a few versions of the following column. What is true is that it was written by Charlie Reese, a columnist for the Orlando Sentinel, and it was not written in the past couple of years. The original version was probably written in the 1980s; the following version was published in July 2001. 

Hat tip to our Duncaster correspondent.

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?
Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The President does.
You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.
You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.
You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.
You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? John Boehner. He is the leader of the majority party. He and fellow House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want. If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.
If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.
If the Army & Marines are in Iraq and Afghanistan it's because they want them in Iraq and Afghanistan ...
If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.
They, and they alone, have the power.
They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.

Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees...
We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!