Vast Write Wing - July 2010

[lwoolley]

Lynn, the thing I meant to bring out today was the presentation of our newly published DVD, "Choose Freedom, Stop Obamacare". If you've ever attended a speech by John McManus, who's been a guest on your show, you know the potential of the video. We will have a free presentation at the Temple main library on the 22nd of this month and one at the main Waco library on 18th and Austin on the 17th of next month.
Lynn, I've told you many times how great it is to have a show like yours to inform and enlighten the electorate and you know how much I'm devoted to your show for years. I praise a loving God for all you do.
But sadly, their are still many folks who don't hear your show. That's why it's so important that we strongly support these local meetings, which are going on all over Texas. We all have friends and associates which are still not involved. Please get these people out to view these presentations and get them involved. Your own Doctor is a good place to start.
The DVD's will be available for personal use in your churches and clubs etc.
Both of these meetings will begin at 7PM. Everyone please support these showings and people out of the area please do so for the one nearest you. As usual I'd be glad to give more info to anyone who'd like to call me at 254-853-9226.
We don't have a choice here Lynn, we've got to fight these outrages with all our might. Let's let it start here.
Yours for God and country,
Floyd

[lwoolley]

I recently heard Leo Berman on the radio. Wow! What a shot in the arm and a ray of hope. I pray he can get elected Speaker of the House.
I know you have him on your show and hope you will again soon.
Thanks Lynn!

[lwoolley]

Lois Dublin <loisdublin@gmail.com>

Dear Lynn:

I have recently become aware of a strange policy taking place in a number of retail stores in the malls, and as a small business owner (not, however, in the retail area)cannot figure out why any retailer would logically adopt such a practice. My only thinking is that they are receiving some stimulus money or a tax break for what they are doing. My granddaughter and several friends first encountered this policy, and at first I thought it was a way to employ as many teenagers as possible, but it also happened to a sixty year old friend of mine. A store will advertise for help and anywhere from 12 to 20 people usually show up. All are interviewed and nearly all hired, however, each new employee is hired for only 2 or 3 hours a day, and even then not on a regular day to day basis. As a business owner, I know the record keeping necessitated by hiring new employees, and such a practice seemed baffling until I realized that it would be a good way for the government to artific!
ially inflate employment numbers. When multiplied by malls throughout the country, this would amount to a considerable number. Incidentally, the practice I have described happened in two different malls in the Austin area. Do you know anyone who could shed light on this unusual hiring practice?

[lwoolley]

Dear Lynn
Just thought that you'd be interested in knowing that an American of Hispanic descent spent part of his vacation in Arizona. They did ask me for papers with photo IDs of Washington, Lincoln, Jackson, etc. I couldn't get any services unless I showed those papers or my CC. Besides my visit to Brice Canyon in Utah, I would say that say that my visit to Arizona was the highlight of my vacation. I even told some of the people who waited on me that I was there because of the stand taken by its governor.

Amos E. Martinez
In His Service

[lwoolley]

I would sure love to see some specifics on that. Jake and I have been
reading the bill as well as reading the various summaries published by
legal firms. I certainly have not gotten through it all, but so far what
I see is mainly sorely needed regulation of a host of areas, like hedge
funds and banks running back office hedge funds with FDIC insured money.
The start at regulation of the mortgage and derivative arenas alone seem
to be a giant leap forward.

After reading the opinion piece all I got was politics. Yes, there is a
CBS poll and near, but not complete, Republican opposition to the bill,
but how is that more ideology than cure? I am not saying that the bill
is good or bad. I simply have not had enough time to digest it. I am
saying that the article strikes me as someone who has not read either
the bill or a good legal summary.

For example, is the writer against any regulation of hedge funds? Is she
totally opposed to the nacent regulation of the derivatives market? Is
she in favor of allowing unrestricted, speculative, extremely high risk,
propriatory trading by banks in the derivatives markets? Those seem so
far to be the main features of the bill. Is she in favor of the system
where the originating organizations who create the mortgage loans have
absolutely no responsibility for whether or not the information is
factual or whether or not the mortgage fails?

Denise Crawford, the Securities Comissioner for the State of Texas,
applauded the bill. The last I heard she was a staunch conservative
Republican. It certainly inhances states rights, which is what she
wanted.

Give me some help here. Exactly what is it that is in this bill that is
evil?

Jeff

[lwoolley]

Jeff,

As I understand it, the main Republican objection is that it seems to give an advantage to very large banks at the expense of smaller ones, will make it harder to get loans, creates uncertainly since we [even Chris Dodd by his own admission] don't really know what the bill will do, and will force some business overseas.

Of course,it creates a lot of new bureaucracy -- boards and panels, etc. Weirdest thing is the the bill was authored by Chris Dodd -- one of the people who got us into this mess and named for him and "I want to push the envelope" Barney Frank, who, to me, is the face of the recession.

Lynn

[lwoolley]

While I won't address the specific arguments made about the merits or
lack thereof in the bill. I will address the opinion piece that is based
on jibberish. Sorry for being so blunt, but it is true. The bill that
was passed by the house and the senate is H.R.4173 also referred to as
the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The
article that you sent referred to a bill that had 2,300 pages. The
author was either looking at the wrong bill or had three copies of the
right one. Here is a link to the actual bill.

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin ... cong_bills
&docid=f:h4173enr.txt.pdf

It is quite clear that the bill in question has 848 pages. When I read
on into the opinion piece I recognized that the points being made were
not based on reality. The author, Kimberley A Strassel, was as far as I
can tell either delusional or reading a completely different piece of
legislation to the act that was passed by the house and senate.

Jake



Jake:

Not sure what's up here, but all news reports have referred to the bill as being 2300 pages.

Lynn

[lwoolley]

As far as I can tell, smaller banks were largely exempted from many of
the restrictions. Yes, the argument that some of the more risky trading
and hedge-fund like activity may be driven overseas was made and, by the
way, was the cornerstone to the deregulation moves that ultimately led
to the collapse.

I don't know if it was you or one of the other conservative activists
who sent me an opinion piece stating that the Europeans had it right on
the deficit and financial issues. If you look at what is already being
put in place across Europe, our financial regulation proposals are
downright Libertarian! I am not at all sure where banks will move
overseas unless it is to the Cayman Islands. Even there if they want to
do business here, they will have to follow our rules. I suppose they
could move to Mexico and risk getting blown up or kidnapped every day.

As far as bureaucracy is concerned, the federal securities and bank
regulator staff numbers have been shrinking for thirty years. Not only
has the SEC not kept up with the size of the industry they are supposed
to regulate, but they actually saw a shrinking budget and number of
examiners over the past decade. Under Christopher Cox they didn't even
spend their budgeted amount on examinations.

I don't think that anyone had a hard time getting a loan a few years
ago. After all we did have the NINJA loans out there (no income, no job,
no assets). Yes, the bill dictates that if a bank is going to loan out
FDIC insured money or even money that has the implied backing of the
federal government, like many mortgages, then the standards for those
loans is going to be higher. On the other hand, the completely private
side of the market is free to lend to anyone it wants. The problem this
bill addressed is that the freedom to make loans at will was extended to
money with the implied or explicit backing of the Treasury.

I managed to get loans both personally and professionally back when the
loan rules were far more restrictive than they are today. Then, a few
years ago I, and just about everyone else who could draw a breath (and a
few who couldn't) were being bombarded with "pre-approved" loans and
credit cards. Therein was the problem.

I really can't understand what the issue is here. The draft bills to
deal with Fannie and Freddie are already circulating and a grand debate
is in the making for 2011 on that subject, but condemning a regulation
bill because it does not regulate enough while complaining that is
regulates too much seems a bit awkward to me.

As far as the uncertainty resulting from a new bill is concerned, the
alternative is no new laws and regulations. That seems to me to be a
rather irrational solution to a system that ran amok and then required
rescue from the Treasury and the Federal Reserve. I recently heard the
same argument here in Salado as the builders insisted that imposing a
building code on the village and ETJ would crush the building industry
locally. I remembered that argument as I was rewiring sections of my
newly purchased home where lamp cord had been used instead of Romex. In
the process I discovered places where the wire had severely overheated.
I also heard complaints at the time that there was no reason a good
carpenter should not be allowed to put in the electrical wiring for a
house.

In the case of building codes, and more specifically fire codes, there
is a great deal that in history. Particularly in the 1950s the argument
was made, and made quite loudly, that the government has absolutely no
business telling someone how to build a house. Of course when the house
caught on fire, the homeowner wanted the local government to respond,
but not to tell him how to build it in the first place.

The events that recently occurred in the fiancial markets were in many
ways like the fires that used to destroy whole sections of major cities
in the United States and Europe. The only way to stop them was to
literally demolish homes and businesses several blocks in advance of the
fire storm. Of course the complaint was always that the government
"took-over" buildings that were not on fire and destroyed them. The
financial industry is very much like that now. We can either legislate a
fire code and an army of code inspectors, or we can depend on another
fire that will be worse than the one we just experienced.

For whatever it is worth, I and my business will be profoundly impacted
by this bill. We already spend something like half our man-hours on
regulatory related record keeping and activities. I am quite confident
that we will suffer through detailed examinations from government
empolyees who may not know the difference between common stock and
livestock. I am willing to suffer through that since it is part of the
process that has the potential to stop the next conflaguration before it
erupts.

Again, I have yet to find a single voice who can point to a specific
provision of the bill that is likely to unnecessarily restrict growth. I
do know that in order for the derivities markets to get cranked up the
way they did, Congress had to pass a bill exempting derivitives from the
various states anti-gambling laws. I did not hear any howls then from
the right. There were a few who warned us, but they were dismissed as
anti-market liberals.

Jeff

[lwoolley]

Lynn,

The 2300 pages include conference notes on recommended changes to the
bill in progress. Once the bill is passed, it stands alone. Makes it
hard to count the pages before passing, but the final bill is one third
the size.

Jake

[lwoolley]

Lynn et al,

Please note that at the beginning of this article in the WSJ the Bill is
referenced as "800 pages." As I have mentioned before, the advocacy
pundits, be they on the left or the right, seem to be more and more
willing to be extremely loose with their facts.

Jeff

[lwoolley]

From National Review On Line

<http://article.nationalreview.com/438232/coyotes-in-the-state-of-nature/kevin-williamson>

Partial below:

...'Coyotes like to attack the little ones, human or otherwise. That was the case for one unfortunate coyote that attacked a puppy out for a jog with his master in Travis County, Texas, in the suburbs of Austin, where coyotes have it a little rougher than they do in suburban New York. That particular coyote had the bad luck to set his gaze on a puppy owned by Gov. Rick Perry, who produced a laser-sighted .380-caliber automatic pistol, loaded with hollow points, and sent it to the Happy
Hunting Grounds.'

Shelby from Woodway

[lwoolley]

Ronald m George will be stepping down as Chief Justice of Calif supreme Court
He was appointed chief by pete Wilson in 1996,appointed to the Court itself by George Dukmejian ('87) ,and originally appointed Municipal Court Justice by Ronald Reagan. So what's wrong w/ all this? George is a known liberal.He was offerred by Barbara Boxer ,to Bush in 2005 and he was the Justice who wrote the majority opinion recently, that overturned the California law against gay marriage. He wrote the majority opinion.

This re-opens an old sore...the sore that has vexed Republican presidents in US Supreme Court appointments for 50 years, wherein a string of 7 of 9 Supreme appointments were made- by Republicans...&yet w/ the result of a virtually politically -deadlocked court. Obama has shown us w/ his 2 appointments that the Democrats never.... make mistakes.Every appointment they've had in the last 18 yrs has been a hard & fast left-winger. In many of these cases the excuse has been offerred for Republican failures,that "He changed", but this flies in the face of Churchill's famous observation of "liberal at 20 ,but if you're not conservative at 40 you have no head"

Is it possible that judges evolve in reverse of that ? i don't think so. The case of ronald George suggests that,despite repeated scrutiny,Republicans make the same mistakes. They don't take the appointment seriously enuf. i mean,after all, what's a 35 yr appointment?
Al, Lemon Grove

[lwoolley]

Let the games begin. Now that the rules are on paper, although they are yet to be interpreted and reinterpreted, the markets can begin to figure out how to make money with the new game established. You can be assured that the financial markets will make money regardless how strict the government thinks they have been. It will just be a matter of time before we will again see Congress looking at the big bad financial institutions of this country and how they have plotted and schemed to get around the regulations to cheat the poor consumer. The one thing I am very sure of is that this administration and the Congress as a whole have little to no understanding of markets. Long live Adam Smith (or at least his writings).

Bill Jones (Billy Bob III to some)

[lwoolley]

Amen to the comment about Adam Smith.

By the way he considered his book “A Theory of Moral Sentiments” to be his best and most important work. The Wealth of Nations was meant to be an appendix to that first work. In the Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith points out that left to their own means and ends, investors will create excess and destroy both their competition and then collapse the economy. He advocates a governmental role in limiting the excess and enforcing proper and moral behavior in business.

Jeff

[lwoolley]

Lynn, I was surprized to see we have an International Day of Peace awarded to Nelson Mandella....didn't he just star in a really bad unsucessfull soccer movie?

Mike Licavoli
Harker Hts, TX