Iz R Korprations Lerning?
by matt at 3:30 pm on October 22nd, 2008 in Economy, Hank PaulsonMich. lawmakers want gov’t to help auto financing AP (10/22/08):
Michigan lawmakers plan to ask Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to use their regulatory powers to loosen up credit to help finance car loans.
[...]
The letter is expected to be sent to the Bush administration Thursday. It asks Bernanke and Paulson to use their “broad regulatory authority” and the powers they received in the $700 billion bailout of the financial sector to restore liquidity in the U.S. auto industry.
Right, because loose credit had nothing to do with getting us into the current mess. They want Bernanke and Paulson to use their bailout buckets to get loans to more people who can’t afford to pay them back which would create the necessity of another bailout sometime soon. It’s like Socialistic Zen.
kiel wrote:
Next thing you know, the luxury yacht builders will be looking for some o’ that $700 billion, because all their orders got cancelled when everyone’s stocks went in the crapper. “C’mon,” they’ll say, “ease up credit so we can sell Joe Sixpack the yacht he deserves! Or are ya socialist?”
Posted 22 Oct 2008 at 7:40 pm ¶
kiel wrote:
This is a bit off topic, but you folks seem pretty sharp, and I’m puzzled by something I just found on OpenSecrets.org: It reports that the US Army is john mccain’s 10th biggest campaign contributor ($150,470), the US Government (maybe this one is federal matching funds or something) is 12th ($149,818), and the US Dept. of Defense is 16th ($127,325).
My question is: How can the military or departments within the federal government–at least two of which are under executive control–donate money to an election that is deciding who their boss will be? This seems inherently unconstitutional (if, e.g., Al Gore can’t make donation solicitation calls from federal phones). But I must be missing something.
So, like I say, sharp folks: Can you enlighten me?
Posted 22 Oct 2008 at 8:08 pm ¶
matt wrote:
the army didn’t contribute, its employees did. when you make a contribution, you must list certain information, and employer is one piece. the campaign finance databases code this and you can search by employer to find patterns just like this. earlier this year when poor people were maxing out to mccain, they were found by this method.
Posted 22 Oct 2008 at 8:22 pm ¶
kiel wrote:
Ahh…OK. That makes more sense. Thanks.
Posted 23 Oct 2008 at 4:41 am ¶