Obama Tells Businessman To Hire More People

Hilarious.

Visualizing President Obama's Budget Cuts

An oldie but a goodie. Lord, I hate our government.

Obama: "I Do Think At A Certain Point You've Made Enough Money"

When Mr. President leaves the teleprompter, his alter ego The Redistributor often comes out. Here he tells people he doesn't begrudge making an honest buck, but that at a certain point you've made enough money.

We look forward to discovering what our overlords believes that limit is. His campaign promise was $250,000 and below would be safe. So we're guessing "enough" is somewhere in the neighborhood of just north of twofity.

We eagerly await learning about our next social engineering experiment, oh Great Obamanation, ruler of The Borg.

To those of us without Obamanation's all seeing, all knowing vision, prepare to be assimilated.



HT: RG

Ron Paul Ties Obama In National Rasumessen Poll

Okay, technically it is 42% Obama and 41% Ron Paul, but that's a statistical dead heat and at this point most people are still learning who the great Congressman from Texas is.

Prediction: nobody reports on this and somewhere Bill Kristol makes an excuse for this.

We hold out some modest hope for actual change...

Link to the poll.



[HT: LB]

Ron Paul On The "Health Care" Frankenstein Passage

We lost a chunk of freedom tonight as we continue the process of putting enough weight on our own shoulders that we collapse under its mass.

I can't bring myself to talk about this health care travesty. It's just so sad, immoral and unsustainable. To quote Congressman Ron Paul when asked what it will take to repeal the health care bill, "the bankruptcy of this country will repeal it... It will end, it will end badly and it will hurt the people that many [other] people are very seriously trying to help with medical care... Every country in the world today is on the verge of bankruptcy..."

Anyway, I'll let Congressman Ron Paul tell you about this debacle:

I Heart(ed) Obama

I miss Mad Magazine - was great to be a kid.

This is perfect. People loved him when he said he wasn't a socialist. His popularity has waned as that's turned out to be untrue.



{HT: Max Headroom]

The Borg, I Mean Obama Administration, Proposes Federal Price Controls On Health Insurers

Good lord, our president has no shortage of self-assuredness in his ability to control all aspects of society. Thomas Sowell preciently warned us of this prior to the 2008 election.

The Administration is apparently going to take another crack at health insurance reform (rather than healthcare reform) by imposing federal price controls on the insurance industry. The modicum of respect that I retain for the man declines everyday as his populist exploitations accumulate.

I mean, federally imposed price controls have worked so well in other areas of the economy. Fortunately, this effort is unconstitutional and clearly impedes states' rights and oversteps constitutionally limited federal authority. Unfortunately, we all know that Obama views the constitution as a simple set of best practices recommendations rather than the fundamental underpinning of the relationship between man and his servant government.

If it is not yet screamingly obvious that price controls reduce competition, reduce service quality, and impair productivity, then it never will be. There is not one sector of the economy that the government has ever successfully improved through price controls.

Here is the New York Times article on the topic of The Administration's efforts to set prices.

What's ironic is that every industry the government is heavily involved subsequently earns a terrible reputation: public schools, health care, banking, insurance, defense, etc. These are businesses that have costs that rise in excess of inflation and productivity gains that lag it. However, industries that are relatively more free such as high tech, retail, and consumer goods reflect the opposite: improving productivity, declining costs, and increasingly customer friendly prices and products.

The obvious answer is to free the health care and insurance sector of governmental interference and watch them blossom. Sadly, this will not happen under the rule of a man that believes he can impose better outcomes than individuals would receive through freedom (or, in the case of insurance, local judgement).

State Of The Union - Summary: "It's A Shitshow Out There"

Watching Obama's debacle of a State of the Union address reminds us of Thomas Sowell's prescient analysis from almost a year and a half ago.

Sowell link.

As an aside, did anyone else find Obama referencing the Constitution at the beginning of his speech ironic?

The Investment Linebacker Just Saved Or Created 491 Jobs

We stand by that 491 number until we are otherwise proven wrong.

Oops, it turns out someone is actually going around trying to verify these bogus jobs "saved or created" numbers and discovering that the numbers are exactly what we all inherently already knew: they are a fantasy.

"I am shocked, shocked that gambling is going on here."

Specifically, The Sacramento Bee has been busy researching the 26,156 that the Cal State University system claims to have created or saved with their share of Federal stimulus money. Only one problem: it seems only a fraction of those were actually ever at risk - so how can they be saved or created if they never would have been lost?

So what?

TILB guaran-damn-tees you that nobody cares that The Administration has no ability to prove the accuracy of its claims. Yet that does not seem to matter.

So what if the whole number is a fraud? So what if those jobs that actually are "saved or created" are really stolen or destroyed in other areas of the global economy*? Who even cares? Our president gives great speeches, after all. What else could you realistically hope for in a leader? Hint: see video below for an answer - then visit www.schiffforsenate.com.

Anyway, here's a link to the Sac Bee's article on the Cal State reporting debacle.

* Just think about it, the capital used for the stimulus program comes from three primary sources: 1) explicit tax dollars; 2) borrowed money via Treasuries (e.g., China lending us money); or 3) freshly printed money (which is simply the theft of some value from all pre-existing money). The implication of this three source limit means that in order to "stimulate" the economy, we are actually taking money or wealth from other parts of the economy.

Who is more likely to productively deploy wealth into job creation: private citizens or 500 odd horse trading politicians inside the beltway? The answer is obvious on its face. Thus we know that stimulus is actually the opposite: it is the suction of capital/wealth out of generally productive hands and redeployed by generally non-productive hands.

It is nearly universal that stimulus programs cost jobs always and everywhere.


We can do better than the status quo.

Obama Offers Senior Citizens Some Backdoor Stimulus

...no, not that kind of backdoor stimulus, you sick bastards.

I guess $13 billion doesn't mean anything these days. Unfortunately, the more that money doesn't mean anything means the more that money won't mean anything. Beware.

Anyway, despite the White House saying they aren't even contemplating contemplating a new stimulus package, this clearly is a backdoor stimulus.

Nobody cares though, so, whatever. What's $13 billion of wealth transfer among friends anyway? What's mine is your's and what's your's is...well, no, somehow we at TILB always seem to be on the "giving" rather than the "receiving" end. Now, if somehow we can loop that last sentence back into the double entendre from this post's title...

Here's the link to some more excellent reporting by the Wall Street Journal. Highlights from the article follow, but I highly recommend reading the whole thing and supporting the online -WSJ. [emphasis added]

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama said he will press Congress to provide $250 payments to 57 million seniors, veterans and people with disabilities next year, a $13 billion effort to offset an expected announcement this week that there will be no cost-of-living increase in Social Security payments.

The proposed $250 payment is equivalent to a 2% increase for the average retiree receiving Social Security benefits, the White House said. Notably, it would act as additional economic stimulus at a time when the government is concerned about rising joblessness.

A decline in the rate of inflation precluded any cost-of-living increase next year.

"These payments will provide aid to more than 50 million people in the coming year, relief that will not only make a difference for them, but for our economy as a whole," Mr. Obama said.

Administration officials said in a briefing that they had no plan to offset the $13 billion cost [TILB - of course not, why would they, just ask The Helicopter to turn those machines back on]

...

The new proposal comes as the Senate prepares to introduce legislation that would extend existing unemployment insurance benefits by 14 weeks for unemployed people in all 50 states, and by an additional six weeks in the 27 states with three-month unemployment rates running higher than 8.5%. [TILB - hell, that sounds awesome. If I you can clear $21k per year after taxes without working vs. maybe $30k before taxes with working, why work?]

People who receive the $250 payments proposed by Mr. Obama would be prohibited from receiving money from other stimulus-related programs next year. [HA! Fucking laugh line, that one. Drew Carey, is that you?]The White House said the cost of the proposal wouldn't damage the solvency of Social Security or other social insurance programs.[TILB - you can't damage what doesn't exist...]

...

[Hat Tip: LB]

Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac: Examples Of The "Public Option"

As President Obama prepares to pound the table for the so called "Public Option" using his bully pulpit later this week and the debate rages on about what said "option" would do to the private healthcare insurance market, TILB believes we need look no farther than the public "option" that already exists in the conforming mortgage market.

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the FHA (collectively the GSEs) were created in spite of what had been - over time - a competitive, functioning home mortgage lending market called "banks". You may have heard of these companies. At one time, these so called "banks" made things called "loans" and kept the risk of these "assets" on their balance sheet in an attempt to earn an acceptable risk-adjusted "spread" between their cost of funds and their earning assets. The federal government (aka FD Roosevelt) did not appreciate the slow evolution of these private market lenders (which already are subsidized in many ways) and thus felt they needed public "competition" to spur them on.

As such, the GSEs are, in substance, the public option for conforming residential mortgages. If you are interested in borrowing to acquire a house and both you and your desired loan qualify for GSE standards ("conforming"), there is a 100% chance you will be rolled into a GSE product.

100% marketshare? Now that is a display of some awesome competitive power! These must be really well run businesses to drive their "competitors" completely out of the market. Hell, not only that, the GSE standards serve as a vortex that sucks all other "non-conforming" products toward GSE them. Amazingly good work, dear Fred and Fan!

As this Washington Post article highlights, not only do the GSEs have 100% market share of the conforming mortgage market, they have 90% market share of the entire mortgage market.

Luckily for us citizens, these wholly apolitical entities have managed to be purveyors of good and stability for our society...

....I mean, other than when they create the occasional systemic economic collapse leading to periodic multi-trillion dollar public bailouts.

The GSEs have been manipulated for political gains again and again creating a lollapalooza of unintended consequences that ultimately led to one of the greatest borrowing orgies of all time. Not surprisingly, this led to a period of horrific malinvestment and indescribably bad human behavior that subsequently was followed by the greatest financial collapse our nation has seen since the Great Depression. Luckily, the public option for healthcare will be magnificently better.

We at TILB are convinced that as politicized as housing (and thus the GSE system) has been, healthcare and the human behaviors associated with it will be totally outside the political spectrum and that the results of this socialist experiment will be grand indeed. There will be no political meddling. The natural short termism of man will not be made worse by election cycles and desires to buy votes with handouts. The seemingly good intentions of the public option's creators will never be replaced with the less good intentions of their future political replacements. The public option will endeavor to earn an acceptable commercial return on capital that puts it on even footing with private options. It will not lead to malinvestment and unusually horrible human behavior. It will not crowd out private capital and, most importantly, it will lead to improved healthcare outcomes.

How could the Public Rainbow Special Happy Happy Friendly Love Your Neighbor Option not accomplish all these wonderful things when Dear Leader says it will?

Just because every other socialist experiment in history led to less freedom, less productivity and a slew of negative unintended consequences does not mean that this will be the same.

In fact, we have been assured that "this time is different."

Back in the world of sanity, logic and reason, we suppose the "good" news is that because the proposed socialist health care system is clearly untenable in the long-term, we can trust that it will ultimately fail leading to a subsequent increase in freedom. Sadly, the long-term can take a long time indeed and our liberty can be taken from us for the duration before that welcome collapse and rebirth into an actual commercial and thus tenable solution takes hold.

In any case, we look forward to hearing The Administration's attempt at mass assimilation. Don't worry, dear reader, I'm sure it will sound wonderful. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy the tales of pixie dust and Tooth Fairy economics.

"Resistance, is futile. Your life, as it has been, is over. From this time forward, you will service...us."

Obama Compares Public Health Care Option To The Success Of The US Postal Service

In the below clip, answering a Town Hall questioner who worries about the public health care "option" suffocating out private insurance, President Obama replies with an analogy to the package and letter shipping industry, "UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. Right? It's the post office that's always having problems."

We saw this live and quickly thought to ourselves three things:

1) Shock Phase: "wha, wha, what?! Did you just make the argument that government insurance would be akin to and inherently flawed like the US Postal Service? I'm sure someone in your office vetted this analogy ahead of time; how did you let this happen?"

2) Practical Phase: "I don't often wait in lines at FedEx (actually, they create all sorts of convenient innovative alternatives to waiting in lines) but I sure do at the post office. Extrapolating that to health care..."

3) Realization Phase: "In fact, UPS and FedEx are not able to compete with the USPS in the USPS's core business of regular mail because the USPS operates in a manner that creates value destructive returns on capital; so is your point that public health care will similarly crowd out private health care in core functions?"

Eek.

This whole debate frightens us on a number of levels, not least of which is that the proponents of public health care seem to want the debate not to be about public health care itself, but to be about their perception of fake anger at the Town Hall meetings. As if to convince the majority of America, which is legitimately worried about the creeping death of socialism, that their worries are illegitimate because the Town Hall protests are too angry and too organized.

Who cares about Town Hall meetings? These distraction arguments have nothing to do with the actual merits of health care reform or socialized health care. TILB will address the actual merits tomorrow (though the Whole Foods founder and CEO did a great job elucidating the dangers of public health care already).

For now, we leave you with the source clip for President Obama's frightening analogy of public health care to the US Postal Service:




Hat Tip: Ernie.

WSJ Acknowledges California IOUs As A Currency; Schwarzies Take A Place On The Podium Next To Clamshells

As California announces a budget that gets them out of crisis...for nine months...it is likely that Schwarzie issuance will soon take a temporary respite (TILB already predicted that this budget will not hold for a variety of reasons).

It is at this juncture in history that the WSJ has decided to reflect on the implications of Schwarzies. The article even goes so far as to employ an uncited use of our phrase "Schwarzenegger Scrip" (we challenge you to find a similar reference older than ours to said currency). The Journal talks about where Schwarzies stand amongst the various scrips that were issued by state and local municipalities during the Great Depression, including certain places that issued clam shells with hand written denominations (if only TILB could have been there reporting...).

Ironically, clam shell currencies held their real value much better than our shitty fiat dollars (lovingly referred to by TILB as "Bernankes"). Per the WSJ:

Two towns in California -- Crescent City and Pismo beach -- circulated scrip printed on clamshells. [The] 10-cent note was issued by the Crescent City Chamber of Commerce. It's worth about $500 today.

And do you know why it held its value (obviously a 5000 bagger is better than "holding its value", even adjusted for dollar debasement/inflation)? Two related reasons explain the return: 1) novelty, which we do not hope for modern currencies to replicate; and 2) scarcity. Sadly, Comrades Obama, Bernanke and Geithner do not seem to fully appreciate the latter reason (or, perhaps more accurate and frightening, they do understand). Rather than talking about holding the volume of dollars somewhat stable, they speak of dropping freshly minted dollars on the populous from the cargo bed of helicopters.

Gold, a currency that has been accepted throughout time fairly universally, allows natural supply/demand forces to function as its central bank. In essence, gold has a built in scarcity function - finding, mining, refining, certifying, and establishing a reputable "brand" are expensive. As such, these functions (which increase gold supply) occur in modest, fairly stable amounts over time, leading to a dependably scarce, value protecting, and widely accepted currency.

The article goes on to inform us that California State Controller Chiang may continue to issue a few more Schwarzies as the implications of the budget are digested:

Since California ran out of cash early this month, it has issued more than 194,000 IOUs, with a total value of $1.03 billion. They are redeemable in U.S. dollars on Oct. 2, or sooner if the state comes up with the money. The legislature on Friday approved a plan to close a $24 billion budget gap, but officials say it could still take a few weeks to analyze the state's cash situation and resume giving creditors checks instead of promises.

Prediction: the state will not come up with the money sooner than Oct. 2nd. Paying them off early would be a negative arbitrage and thus they'd never do it.

If they had half a brain and a good sense of humor, they'd finance old Schwarzies with new Schwarzies and really establish them in circulation.

Liberty Quote Of The Day: Cliff Asness

Cliff Asness is known for his role as the founder and intellectual leader of investment firm, AQR Capital. His below quote is directed at The Obama Administration's efforts to nationalize healthcare and establish the provision of health care services as a right.

From TILB's mouth to Asness's fingers:

"Listing rights generally involves enumerating things you may do without interference (the right to free speech) or may not be done to you without your permission (illegal search and seizure, loud boy-band music in public places). They are protections, not gifts of material goods. Material goods and services must be taken from others, or provided by their labor, so if you believe you have an absolute right to them, and others don't choose to provide it to you, you then have a 'right' to steal from them. But what about their far more fundamental right not to be robbed?"

- Cliff Asness

Amen.

We add below this video clip which neatly summarizes our view of The Administration's efforts on so many fronts:



Don't fight it. Simply hand your (formerly) free will over to The Administration and their collection of czars. Why think for yourself when silver tongued aggressors are willing to think for you?

Ah, sweet sweet mindless freedom...

[HT: LB]

Liberty Quote Of The Day: C.S. Lewis

While most famous for his The Chronicles of Narnia series, C.S. Lewis was a brilliant Oxford professor, writer and philosopher as well as a prominent Christian. The following quote which presages the concept of the Nanny State and the Obama Doctrine comes from Lewis's work God in the Dock.

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. Their very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals."

- C.S. Lewis

Liberty Quote Of The Day: Benjamin Franklin

As we approach Independence Day, we find today's Liberty Quote of the Day particularly pertinent. It comes from revolutionary patriot and statesman, Ben Franklin. We think it is particularly timely following the Bush Administration's overt actions of liberty reduction and the current Administration's subversive liberty sucking vacuum of spending and social policies. The quote speaks for itself:

“Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”

- Benjamin Franklin

Bank Of America Decides To Accept California IOUs

The Bank of America decides to make a firm commitment to accept Schwarzies! or, at least for one week...

In a pound the table "we support you California" moment, B of A had this to say about Schwarzie acceptance:

“To support our customers, while giving the government additional time to pass a budget, we will accept California state-registered warrants - or IOUs -from existing customers and clients,” the bank said. “Based on state disbursement estimates, we will accept the registered warrants through July 10.”

Richmond-based Mechanics Bank said late Wednesday that it, too, will accept California IOUs from the bank's "established customers."

Wells Fargo and Chase had not made a decision as of Wednesday evening on whether to take the IOUs. [emphasis added]

We will keep everyone up to date on when and how Schwarzies hit. Today is D-Day in California. We are so excited about this new fiat currency. If this "works", just wait for other states to do the same. It will be all the fun of the 19th century all over again.

I smell a Federal vs. State power battle brewing if this catches on. We will see how far and long The Administration lets this go on.

Fannie And Freddie Will Allow 125% LTV Refinancings

Sickening. Just sickening. From the Washington Post article:

The effort is an acknowledgment by the administration that falling home prices limited the impact of its housing program, Making Home Affordable. Under the program, homeowners could refinance if their mortgage did not exceed the value of their home by more than 105 percent. Now, the administration is expanding the program to homeowners who are up to 125 percent underwater on their loan.

The refinancing program is central to the Making Home Affordable program, which also includes measures to help distressed borrowers stay in their home. But the refinancing program is focused on borrowers who are current on their mortgage but who can not take advantage of historically low mortgage rates because their home values have fallen. The refinancing program is still limited to borrowers with loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-backed mortgage financing companies.

Who the deuce up in Washington thinks making terribly underwritten loans to borrowers that showed a fundamental lack of good judgement the first time around is a good idea? I think it was Ben Franklin that said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting it to come out different. If Franklin's right, then this is insanity.

We first reported on the ramifications of bumping LTV limits to 125% a few weeks ago. Apparently enslaving an entire swath of the population as indentured servants trapped under an untenable mortgage is part of The Administration's plan to ease the crisis. Good luck with that.

As friend of TILB Tom Woods will let anyone that's curious know, recognizing losses on bad debts and moving them through the system is inherent to creating a platform of stability that an economy can begin growing from. Allowing the system to self-cleanse lets people figure out who has capital, how much capital they have, and what is available to be invested in. Fairly useful questions. These are fundamental to capital owners choosing to deploy their capital.

Until then, capital will rest and wait. Any outcome that is not an outgrowth of natural cleansing is built off of a platform stabilized by twigs, string and hope.

The Tooth Fairy Economics of spending more money that we do not have as part of a solution continues unabated.

As an aside, can we please end the farce of these being publicly traded companies? The amount of loss that these two are going to eat and thus We The People are going to fund is going to make AIG look like child's play. Fan and Fred will generate hundreds of billions of losses before all is said and done.

Given that we are home renters, TILB is particularly offended by this sort of ugliness. It quite clearly brings to mind today's Liberty Quote of the Day by James Madison.

Sometimes we here at TILB feel like turning around, opening up our window, and verbally pillaging passerbyers with George Carlin's seven words.


[HT: KTB]

T Minus 2 Days Until California Issues IOUs - Wells Fargo And Bank Of America Will Not Commit To Accepting Schwarzies

Get ready, Schwarzies are coming!

We are only two days from California issuing its own currency in the form of IOUs (dubbed Schwarzies by TILB) and we could hardly be more excited!

Schwarzenegger Scrip: we can almost taste it.

Yet, shockingly, until California gets the ratings agency granted credibility to pay off old Schwarzies with new Schwarzies (something akin to the crime Bernie Madoff received 150 years for... and the famous helicopter drop Dr. Ben Bernanke is regularly lauded for), some folks actually seem a bit timid about accepting Schwarzies.

"Who are these Schwarzie hating traitors," you might reasonably ask.

Well, your friendly neighborhood bankers at Wells Fargo and B of A - California's two largest banks - seem a tad bit hesitant to embrace the idea. As if California's mortgage default rate needed another reason to tick up...

B of A had this to say on the matter:

“Any action pursued by the state, such as issuing registered warrants, will require much greater specificity about rates, timelines, terms and many other variables for banks to determine ability to support such actions,” said BofA spokeswoman Colleen Haggerty in Los Angeles. “Speculating on a plan before the Legislature and governor have completed budget negotiations is premature.”

Ha! Is B of A pretending like it actually does credit work on borrowers and underwrites loans? Where was that discipline when it counted?

In any case, I think if we learned anything from the Hartmarx and Chrysler debacles, it is that if our president deems you strategically important (for instance, you either employ 40,000 unionized democrats or you make his suits), resistance is futile; it is not up to the lending bank to make decisions about who gets loans or how defaulting borrowers are treated.

What's that you say? The Obama Administration has refused California's requests for the federal government to help it with loan guarantees or otherwise bailout the state's finances? Now, that just seems mean. Unless, of course, you believe in conspiracies...

You may have noted that so far we have only quoted one of our two friendly neighborhood bankers on the matter of Schwarzies. Have no fear, Wells Fargo issued an equally banal statement on the matter.

However, a little more digging will show Wells Fargo's true opinion on the matter. In a recent speech at Stanford, Wells CEO John Stumpf said the following:

"The state of California is in financial ruin,” Stumpf told those attending a statewide microfinance lenders’ conference at Stanford University. “The budget deficit in California is staggering.”

Not exactly the words you want to hear from one of the largest potential cogs in the Schwarzie circulation system...

Stumpf went on to talk about the economic situation for California's citizens and corporations.

Stumpf said the recession is taking a toll on some of the loans made to creditworthy borrowers who lost their jobs and fell behind on payments.

“Today we’re charging off loans to people we should have made loans to,” said Stumpf, reiterating that the bank avoided many of the exotic mortgages offered by rivals.

...

On the national economy, Stumpf said this is his “third rodeo” or downturn. He pointed to the deep recession of the early 1980s when the prime rate hit 21 percent and the struggling economy of the late 1980s that counted most the nation’s largest thrifts and major banks in Texas among its casualties. He says the economic fallout from the dot-com bust and Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was significant but not as harsh as the earlier recessions.

“This one feels different,” Stumpf said. “It feels different in the respect that the whole world is in recession.”

Welcome to a world where economic realities, put off for decades by politicians and citizens that believed in Tooth Fairy Economics*, come forth in a burst of killjoy that makes everyone play the hand they were actually dealt.


[Hat Tip: JC-FL]



*Okay, TILB is officially copywriting the term Tooth Fairy Economics

...or, perhaps not. We had never heard the term before writing it just a moment ago and were so pleased with its goodness that we were fully prepared to laud self congratulatory genius heapings upon ourselves. However, we subsequently Bing'd it and found out some dude named Tom Woods at Campaign For Liberty used the phrase last February. Two comments: 1) as much as we want to assume he's some lucky deuchebag and keep the phrase for ourself, we love the ideals of Campaign For Liberty; and 2) we still are claiming it for our own. This is like when two scientists make an advancement at the same time and both claim credit for it...oh, dammit.

Nix our cliam. It is his even if it should be ours. He bettered us by four months.

Damn you Tom Woods and your enviable creativity and pursuit of liberty (this guy atually wrote a book that has a forward by Ron Paul; TILB considers that a major portion of a complete life).

Credit where credit is due. We bow to you, Tom Woods.

Dammit.

Do Not Mess With Obama's Threads - Hartmarx Prevented From Liquidating

President Obama's suits are made by unionized Illinois-based Hartmarx. Not surprisingly, as a high cost producer of an expensive and easily deferable purchase, Hartmarx went bankrupt a month or two ago.

Hartmarx senior lender, Wells Fargo's Wachovia subsidiary, has been pushing for liquidation as the highest recovery approach. Despite this being a small, anything but strategic business (other than to the President's outward appearance), the political pressure surrounding it has been unusually pitched. Wells finally capitulated after the new buyers begrudging through a few more million dollars Wells Fargo's way, though Wells is still losing 28 cents on the dollar.

Here's some pertinent coverage from Dow Jones:

Judge Bruce W. Black of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Chicago signed off on the transaction at a hearing Thursday, solidifying the results of a Wednesday auction at which Emerisque and SKNL had emerged victorious. The pair had served as the lead bidder, offering $128.4 million in exchange for the assets of Hartmarx.

"Consummation of the sale of the acquired assets at this time is in the best interests of the debtors, their creditors, their estates and other parties in interest," Black said in court papers filed Thursday. [emphasis added]

...

In the days leading up to the company's bid-procedure hearing, where it sought approval for the rules governing its auction, Wachovia Capital Finance Corp. filed a formal objection to Hartmarx's stalking-horse pick. The bank said Emerisque's bid, then valued at $119 million, was unacceptable, as it would leave the lenders $50 million short of full repayment.

Last-minute weekend negotiations before the hearing yielded a higher bid - $128.4 million - and support from the lenders. Details released at the time indicated that the majority of the new bid - an $83.964 million payment representing 72% of the balance on Hartmarx's bankruptcy loan as of May 8, and a $5.5 million junior subordinated secured note - would go directly to Wachovia. Emerisque and SKNL also were set to assume liabilities estimated to be worth more than $33.5 million.

Hartmarx's workers [i.e., the "other parties in interest" referred to by Judge Black] had vigorously thrown their support behind Emerisque and SKNL's bid and denounced creditor Wells Fargo's push for liquidation as hypocritical, considering the bank had received taxpayer funds under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Some national and local politicians also threw their voices into the mix, with lawmakers like U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer leading rallies alongside workers at various Hartmarx plants.

[HT: Pitchbook PE and CM]