Pat Sullivan Blog

Brain Trauma - My brain works better - Update 2

The pre-frontal cortex is the executive center of the brain.  It is where problem solving, emotion and complex thought takes place.  Damage, or under functioning in the PFC is what most often causes  inattention, distractibility and impulsiveness.  It is the source of most ADD/ADHD.

The more I read the report from Amen the more it was obvious to me everyone simply had either missed or ignored this finding for some reason.  I have my suspicions but I won’t get into that.  But from the SPECT scan, it was very clear there was very little blood flow in my PFC.

So I went back to my doc and asked why nothing had ever been done about the main finding from Amen Clinic?  He said, “what do you mean?”  I showed him the report and he sort of just looked at it and said well that is interesting.  I had told him many months before that since my accident, many years ago,  I struggled with inattention, being easily distracted and very impulsive.  I also experienced times of explosive anger where I could go off in a near rage but then 30 seconds be totally fine.  Everyone else around me though would be a mess however! 

He said these were all classic symptoms of ADD/ADHD and damage to the PFC.  I asked why we had not done anything about this before?  He replied, “well you seemed to be responding well to the things we were doing and it did not occur to me to do anything more.”  I was not happy with him but what are you going to do?  I had been helped but now I realized I could probably be helped a whole lot more.

He said that we could find out really quickly if I could be helped by an ADD stimulant.  He said I would likely know in a few days if I could feel better.  So he wrote a Rx for Vyvanse.  Vyvanse is the son of Adderall.  A new med that cannot be abused like other amphetamines.  This is due to the fact that the Amphetamine is bound to Lysine and has to be metabolized to release the stimulant.  And the stimulant is only released gradually based on how fast you metabolize it.  The goal is to find a dose that lasts about 12 hours.

So the next morning I took the smallest dose, 30mg and went to work.  About 45 minutes later I went “WOW”.  An amazing quietness came over my brain.  My thoughts slowed in a way that I could not remember ever feeling.  My thoughts were not altered, they just came at me in a slower, more controled way.  My head was quiet!!  I had grown so accustomed to thoughts racing through my head that I thought it was normal!!  35 years of having a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) how did I know what normal was? I knew I had developed many compensatory skills to deal with the pace of my thoughts but now I did not need to work hard to pay attention or to stay calm.

Well, if this new brain speed was normal I wanted more of it!  I almost cried.  I felt so amazingly good.  It was not a euphoric feeling.  It was just a feeling of calm, quiet and control over what was going on in my head.  I knew I had hit on a new answer for my health.  More in the next post.

The AIG Truth!!

Here is a great summation of many of the things I have been saying here for the past week or so.  What happened to AIG employees is an outrage.  The whole AIG outrage aside, America and the rest of the world, depend upon our "rule of law" and "sanctity of contracts"!  When Congress and a President comes to believe they can overrule law and contracts in order to punish who they wish, or who the "majority of people" want to punish then tyranny has arrived.

The Real AIG Disgrace - Wall Street Journal -subscribe online!!

    *
      By HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.

The stock market was intoxicated with the Obama administration's toxic asset plan. Whatever its contempt for the upper middle class that acquires wealth through salaried work and bonuses, Team Obama still has eyes for the hedge fund class, which will be ladled out taxpayer dollars to make one-way bets on problematic bank assets.
[Business World] AP

Andrew Cuomo and Tim Geithner.

Yet the AIG bonus episode, the administration's one true disgrace so far, will not soon be forgotten.

Tim Geithner is rightly on the hot seat for saying he didn't know about the bonuses until just weeks ago -- because he should have quelled this furor before it ever got started. Instead he played dumb and climbed aboard the outrage bandwagon -- and let Mr. Obama do the same.

There is not a shred of justice in the hysteria that followed. As AIG chief Ed Liddy explained on the Hill last week, the people receiving retention bonuses were not the same people who launched AIG's unhedged housing bets that brought the company down. Those people were gone. Their pay is already being clawed back.

Those who remained had been asked a year ago to stay and work themselves out of a job. In accepting the terms offered to them, they committed no offense (say, failing to pay taxes). Their only crime was possessing marketable knowledge -- all the more marketable because of the opportunity for hedge funds and other counterparties to profit from AIG's distress. Had the company submitted to Chapter 11 rather than a government takeover, a bankruptcy judge might well have authorized identical incentives to minimize losses and maximize recovery for legitimate stakeholders.

The Washington Post, which has consistently distinguished itself with its reporting about the real antecedents of this "scandal," yesterday followed up by detailing "months of assurances to Financial Products employees that the insurance giant would honor those contracts, according to numerous internal AIG e-mails and memos . . . ."

Whether Mr. Geithner knew the specifics is unimportant. The retention plan was known to his staff. The details had been disclosed over and over in public filings. As far back as October, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo had summoned the Treasury-appointed Mr. Liddy to hammer out a deal on AIG's pay practices. Said Mr. Cuomo in a statement afterward: "These actions are not intended to jeopardize the hard-earned compensation of the vast majority of AIG's employees, including retention and severance arrangements, who are essential to rebuilding AIG and the economy of New York."

The voluble Rep. Elijah Cummings had been railing about AIG retention bonuses almost continually, on air, in the print media, and in publicly released letters to Mr. Liddy, since Dec. 1.

On March 3, Mr. Geithner himself was quizzed during a congressional hearing in detail about the AIGFP retention plan by Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley -- a week before Mr. Geithner now says he heard of the plan.

It may be that the full picture was kicked up to him only when a political decision was needed, but by then his one decent choice was to insist on the bonuses' legality. However politically inopportune the bonuses may be, the president only dirtied himself by authorizing a feel-good, bipartisan hate storm aimed at innocent AIG employees. And it's hard to believe Mr. Obama would have done so, or the subsequent spectacle would have unfolded as it did, without Mr. Geithner's seminal prevarications (and we say this fully acknowledging that he's had a rough ride in an inhumanly difficult job).

Barney Frank, who doesn't have the excuse of being stupid, was last seen bullying Mr. Liddy to do what on any other day Mr. Frank would flay Mr. Liddy for doing -- violating the privacy rights of his employees. Charles Grassley? His early bloviating about the duty of AIG executives to kill themselves almost begins to look like a grace note, since it alerted the public to the hyperbolic playacting about to come.

Paul Kanjorski, before running off to host a hearing, proclaimed on CNBC that AIG's Mr. Liddy would be responsible if Congress now failed to summon the political courage to take necessary steps to address the financial crisis.

Pause to let it sink in. Mr. Liddy, who is doing his job with grit and personal sacrifice, is blamed in advance if Congress proves too cowardly to do its own job.

But the biggest lesson here is the old one that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance -- beginning with insistence on the rule of law. Americans clearly cannot trust their elected officials to defend their rights and interests, or care whether justice is served, when the slightest political risk might attach to doing so.

Which brings us back to Mr. Cuomo, whose office has been implicitly threatening to publish names of AIG employees who don't relinquish pay they were contractually entitled to.

Mr. Cuomo is a thug, but at least he reminds us: It can happen here.

Why capitalism works and what happens if it gets broken

My daughter sent me this cause she knew I would love it. I did. I hope you like it as well. This story could be told a million times over. Congress and the President are messing with the only engine driving our economy. It is called capitalism. If the mess enough with it, they will break it. Then we are all totally screwed!!  Enjoy!

Click Here

Holy Budget Deficits Batman!

Yikes, is about all I can say about this WSJ opinion piece.  If you don't get the online subscription to the WSJ, you should.

I will point out Obama's assumptions, and the Congressional Budget Office are both wildly bullish on growth beginning in 2010 and beyond.  Higher than we have ever seen.  AND this budget does NOT include Nationalized Health Care yet.  AND it does not include the fact Dems are now talking about making much of the Stimulus Package permanent, which they intended all along.  Where does all this money come from?  Not from the RICH.  Even the rich don't have this kind of money.   Not even close.  They must print/create it.  Inflation here we come in about 9-18 months.

Obama Sticker Shock - Wall Street Journal

President Obama's 2010 budget looks more astounding by the day, especially when someone other than the White House budget office is analyzing it. The latest case of epic sticker shock came Friday when the Congressional Budget Office published its assessment, which found that the proposals would increase the federal deficit by $2.3 trillion more over 10 years than the White House had claimed.

Hey, what's a little rounding error among friends?

Mr. Obama keeps saying he has "inherited a trillion dollar deficit," which is true. But he's hardly an innocent bystander. CBO shows that the President is seeing that $1 trillion and raising it again and again, as far as the eye can see. In only two months, since the last CBO budget review in January, Democrats have passed laws that increase spending by $134 billion in the last six months of this fiscal year alone, and $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years. And that's all before his 2010 budget proposals.

The White House responded that CBO, which is also now run by Democrats, has a more pessimistic economic forecast than do White House economists. But not by much. CBO expects growth this year to decline by 3%, while the White House's rosy scenario has it falling by only 1.2%. Both predict roughly the same growth rates in 2010 (2.9% for CBO vs. 3.2% for the White House) and 2011 (both 4%).

The big difference between the two guesstimates is in spending, with CBO calculating that Mr. Obama's proposals will increase federal outlays by $1.7 trillion more than the White House projects. Entitlement spending -- Medicare, Medicaid, and so on -- will increase by $1.1 trillion. In 2009 and 2010 alone, CBO estimates that Mr. Obama's budget will increase spending by $347 billion more than the White House claims.

As a share of GDP, CBO says this means spending will hit an astounding 28.5% in fiscal 2009, which ends this September, and still be at 25.5% next year, staying at close to 23% to 24% of the economy for the next decade. As CBO dryly notes, this is "above the average of 20.7 percent over the past 40 years." Even CBO's estimate is conservative because it assumes that most of the spending in the stimulus bill will be temporary, though Democrats are already planning to make much of it a permanent part of the budget baseline.

Where does this take the Obama budget deficit? Up into the great beyond. This year's deficit will hit 13.1% of GDP and next year's will still be at 9.6%, assuming a healthy recovery, and then never get below 4.1% for the entire decade. These deficits assume the passage of Mr. Obama's enormous tax increases in 2011 and $629 billion in new cap-and-tax carbon revenues. The share of debt held by the public will double -- to 82.4% in 2019 from 40.8% in 2008 (see nearby chart).

And by the way, all of this is without including the costs of Mr. Obama's plan to offer "free" health care for the middle class. The White House budget includes only a "down payment" on health care, with every serious person figuring it will cost at least $1.2 trillion, and probably more. Incredibly, Democrats on Capitol Hill are, with White House encouragement, talking about jamming health care through Congress with a special procedure that requires only 50 Senate votes.

At least after World War II, spending could, and did, decline rapidly when the country demobilized. In this case, with the bulk of federal spending geared toward income maintenance and transfer payments that have political constituencies, that won't happen. And that is part of Mr. Obama's plan. One unstated but clearly implicit goal of his budget is to put in place spending programs that make ever-more Americans dependent on government and that will require a permanently higher level of taxation to finance. All of this is being done in the name of addressing income inequality.

Republicans have an obligation to slow down this express train to a European welfare state, and to educate Americans so that they put pressure on Democrats who claim to be deficit hawks. If this budget passes in anything close to Mr. Obama's form, Republicans will spend the next two or three generations doing little more than collecting higher taxes from the middle class to finance the Obama revolution.

Brain Trauma - It's always something - Update 1

This post begins a series that covers a significant update to my Brain Trauma Chapter, available only here on the web.  I did not cover it in my book because I learned about it after it was published.  There will be several coming posts to this and will eventually be formatted in the correct order that they were written.  I have been waiting for sometime to finish writing these just to see how things settled out.  It has been a pretty amazing last 8 months.  There will be lots of new information that I hope you will find useful.  -  Pat

For almost 2 years I have been on cruise control feeling really good.  I still had some issues come up every now and then, but for the most part I had been getting along good.  Then in August of 08, I got severe stomach flu.  I had severe diarrhea, and high fever.  Doctor said it would likely end in less than 7 days.  And I did feel better around the 7th day.  But every other day I continued to feel very fatigued and I would have fever and night sweats.  I went back to the doc and asked “why does this virus keep hanging on”.  He questioned me and simply said it is not a virus, you just have not replenished your electrolytes.  You are severely dehydrated.  What you are experiencing right now is nothing more than the symptoms of dehydration and loss of salts.

So out I went to the store and bought a ton of Pediolyte and V8.  Within a day I was physically feeling much better.  I kept drinking a lot for the next few days and my strength grew.  But something was wrong.  I felt "off", mentally and emotionally.  I felt like I was on the edge of the cliff of another “pit” experience.

Those of you have read my book, know that I refer to episodes that occurred to me off and on for 35 years as “the pit”.  About 6 weeks after having a serious car accident in my sophomore year in college (1972), I experienced my first pit.  I suddenly found I could not sleep, I was very anxious for no reason at all, I felt confused and depressed.  I had severe GI problems.  My fight or flight response kicked into high gear and I had little control over it.  Over the next 2 years I dragged myself through college and learned techniques and things that would help me.  By the time I graduated I felt about 80% recovered.  I stayed that way for a few years before falling into the pit again.  This pattern continued for the next 35 years.  But gradually I learned how to get out of the pit faster because of the many things I learned.  I write about most of those things in my book and in two additional chapters here on this blog.

Well this infection, with its fever and debilitating diarrhea, and big disruption to my sleep patterns put me at the edge of the pit.  I could feel myself right there.   But I never really fell all the way in.  I attribute that to the fact that the meds I had been put on by the Amen Clinic kept my damaged brain much more stable.

I saw my psych doc and he said that this was exactly the kind of thing that caused many of his patients to relapse.  He said dehydration, lack of sleep was very disruptive to the brain.  He temporarily increased my meds and that helped.  But I still felt off.  Perhaps it would just take more time to recover I thought.

A few weeks later I sort of crashed physically.  I was simply tired and worn out.  I wrote about that experience here.  I realized I needed to go back on small doses of hydrocortisone as I had used for many years.  The infection etc seemed to have worn out my adrenals again.  I had weaned off for some months but the new physical challenge simply wore me out.  Almost immediately I felt very much better, at least physically.  My energy returned.  But I still felt off.

I began to do what I always do when I don’t feel right.  I research.  I considered many things.  I went back and re-read the long report I got from Amen Clinic.  I re-read Dr. Amen’s books and website.  Gradually I came to a huge conclusion.  I was not being treated for the number one thing that Amen clinic said in their report.   The main finding by Amen clinic said my pre-frontal cortex was basically turned off.

The more I studied this I realized that basically I was being under treated.  I was being treated to remain stable but the main area of my brain that had been hurt in the accident was being left untreated.  And the way to treat it was very obvious.  I was upset both at Amen, my psych doc and myself.  “How could they ignore this major issue when there was a straightforward way to treat it?”  Why did I miss it?  More in the next post.

Obama's big chance

This is a great WSJ article.  It summarizes everything I have been saying about what Congess did last week in seeking to punish employees at AIG. Even Jay Leno said to President Obama last week that this legislation "scared him".  Scare us all it should!! 

In my opinion, an incredibly stupid and unconstitutional act.  It will make the financial rescue that much harder to do for all the reasons listed in this article.  Already, employees are leaving AIG and other banks.  Employees that are needed to run these companies successfully.  These are not the top brass who have already been fired.  These are the people who actually know how to unwind the crazy deriviative contracts.  They need to be there for there to be much hope that our invested Trillion $$dollars is going to be worth anything.

I am glad that the WSJ is denouncing this.  Anyone who reads this should understand that what Congress did last week, and what Obama will do if he signs the bill, will most likely be a major turning point in the history of the US.  This issue will not go away.  I think it is so big that Obama's presidency rises or falls on whether he vetos this terrible act of Congress!  Unfortunately I think he signs the bill and it will be another reason he will be a one term president.

Read the article carefully.

A Smoot-Hawley Moment?

Congress on AIG and banks: 'Oppressive, unjust and tyrannical.'

When does a single policy blunder herald much larger economic damage? Sometimes it's hard to know ahead of time. Few in Congress thought the Smoot-Hawley tariff was a disaster in 1930, but it led to retaliation and a collapse of world trade. The question amid Washington's AIG bonus panic is whether Congress's war on private contracts and the financial system is a similarly destructive moment.

It is certainly one of the more amazing and senseless acts of political retribution in American history. In its bipartisan rage, the House saw fit last week not merely to punish the employees of AIG's Financial Products unit that the company still needs to safely unwind credit default swaps. The Members voted, 328-93, to slap a 90% tax on the bonuses of anyone at every bank receiving $5 billion in TARP money who earns more than $250,000 a year. A draft Senate version is even broader. Never mind if the bonus was earned last year or earlier, or under a legally binding employment contract. The confiscatory tax will apply ex post facto.

Never mind, too, that such punitive laws were expressly deplored by America's Founders. In Federalist 44, James Madison warned that "Bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, and laws impairing the obligation of contracts, are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation."

In 1827 in Ogden v. Saunders, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a similar warning about legislative limits under Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution: "The states are forbidden to pass any bill of attainder or ex post facto law, by which a man shall be punished criminally or penally by loss of life of his liberty, property, or reputation for an act which, at the time of its commission, violated no existing law of the land," wrote Justice Bushrod Washington.

"Why did the authors of the Constitution turn their attention to this subject, which, at the first blush, would appear to be peculiarly fit to be left to the discretion of those who have the police and good government of the state under their management and control? The only answer to be given is because laws of this character are oppressive, unjust, and tyrannical, and as such are condemned by the universal sentence of civilized man."

Yes, Article I, Section 10 applies to the states, and this is a federal law. Congress may also figure it avoids the "bill of attainder" objection by applying the law to individuals at several companies receiving TARP money. But Congress's willingness to wreak such vengeance against a specific class of Americans is still as offensive as a matter of principle as Justice Washington and the Federalist Papers noted. The Founders feared the punitive whim of the legislative mob as much as they did the tyranny of a King.

The House legislation may also be unconstitutional on equal protection grounds given that it treats a homogeneous group of individuals differently depending on which companies they work for. It is one thing to treat the companies that receive federal funds differently from those that don't. But the individuals receiving bonuses may have nothing to do with the decision to receive TARP money. The House's 90% tax on some bankers but not others is only a step away from deciding to impose a higher tax rate on employees of any company out of political favor -- say, tobacco companies, or in the next Republican Congress, the New York Times Co.

Which brings us to the Smoot-Hawley analogy. With such a sweeping assault on contracts and punitive taxation, Congress is introducing an element of political risk to economic decisions that is typical of Argentina or Russia. The sanctity of U.S. contracts has long been one of America's competitive advantages in luring capital, a counterpoint to our lottery tort system and costly regulation. Meanwhile, the 90% tax rate marks a return to the pre-Reagan era when Congress and the political class behaved as if taxes didn't matter to growth or incentives. It is a revival of the philosophy of redistributionist "justice" of the 1930s, when capital went on strike for an entire decade.

The financial system will suffer in particular, just when the Obama Administration is desperately seeking more private capital to ride out future losses. Facing such limits on the ability to reward talent, every bank CEO will try to pay off the TARP as soon as possible, whether or not this leaves the bank with a weaker capital base. Hedge funds and other investors that Treasury needs for its new Public-Private Investment Program, or for the Federal Reserve's TALF, will also be warier, if they'll play at all. Treasury may promise nothing punitive for these programs, but that's also what it said about the TARP.

The other Smoot-Hawley comparison relates to our new President. Herbert Hoover sent mixed signals about the tariff until he finally bent to a panicked GOP Congress. President Obama has behaved in the past week as if he can appease and "channel" Congressional anger without being run over himself. So not only did he incite the Members last Monday, he welcomed the House bill on Thursday. By the weekend, cooler White House heads were whispering that the mob had gone too far, but it will take more than words to kill this terrible legislation. Mr. Obama will have to fire a gun in the air -- which means threatening a veto.

On Inauguration Day, we wrote that our young President has a first-class intellect and temperament. Our question was whether he is tough enough. So far the answer is no. He has failed to stand up to a Congress of his own party on anything difficult -- from stimulus priorities, to earmarks, to protectionism against Mexican trucks. Mr. Obama needs to face down the AIG mob, or his Presidency may be its next victim.

AIG execs should "kill themselves", Sen Grassley.

By Deal Journal

There is only one thing more outrageous than the outrageous $450 million AIG bonus payout.

And that would be the hysterical, bloodthirsty ravings of our politicians over the matter.

It’s too bad Robespierre is dead. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley’s suggestion that the AIG execs kill themselves would have made him proud.

For those of you that enjoy this kind of populist hurly-burly–and it appears, that is most Americans, there is good news. The revolution will live on! As long as Washington can’t help itself from tinkering with our economic destiny, the outrages will keep coming.

Of course, the AIG bonus saga promises to get even better. Soon we’ll have a constitutional amendment to clawback all Wall Street bonuses. And in our fine nativist tradition, there are bound to be hearings on why all those bad European banks ended up with AIG’s good American money.

The highly anticipated Washington and New York State investigations of John Thain’s farewell bonus payments at Merrill Lynch are now underway. And you can count on an almost never-ending political brouhaha and mediafest over “appropriate” behavior by the TARP banks.

The John Kerry bill to kill golf sponsorships and Christmas parties and the Chris Dodd amendment to curb bonuses were just the start. Wait until Washington really clamps down on Wall Street pay.

It will go on and on.

But soon Wall Street’s outrages will have competition as Washington turns its attention to the doomed U.S. auto industry. The Presidential auto task force may be making noises about delaying the tough decisions on GM and Chrysler. But rest assured, there eventually will be outrage here, too.

Like AIG, we are talking big numbers. Mark Zandi at Moody’s estimates the total taxpayer price tag on a Big Three bailout to run to $75 billion to $125 billion. And certainly there is negligence and incompetence. After all, the U.S. car industry has been dying for decades.

But expect a more nuanced drama in Detroit than on Wall Street. For one, it’s harder to pick out the villains. Will it be the evil CEOs? The intransigent, greedy bondholders? The naysaying Republicans? Or perhaps, even the lazy, overpaid workers?

In a Senate hearing room, the outrage could take almost any direction. Look at Chrysler. The company is owned by a bunch of rich folks. It is run by a rich CEO. A rich guy who once was Treasury Secretary now lobbies for its bailout money.

And now the rich folks, with the UAW’s blessing, have joined hands with a second rate, cash-starved foreign car company. And together, they want to bilk the U.S. taxpayer of another $10 billion or $15 billion to churn out cars nobody wants.

Now, that’s an outrage.

But the Washington populists ought to tread carefully. It’s one thing to stir up the mob, it’s another to control it. Eventually, the public will tire of the old outrages and look for new ones. And suddenly some of the things down in Washington will start to look pretty outrageous, too.

Like Senator Ted Stevens, a convicted felon, receiving $122,000 a year from a government pension. Like Congressman Charlie Rangel, the man most responsible for the U.S. tax code, failing to pay taxes on his Dominican vacation home. Like Rep. Maxine Waters doing favors for a bank in which her husband was a stockholder and former board member.

And like President Obama vowing to rid Washington of earmarks before signing a bill that had almost 9,000 of them.

La revolution devore ses enfants, said French revolutionary leader Georges Danton, before he was guillotined by Robespierre. Three months later, Robespierre himself was executed.

Senator Grassley, please take note.

One term Obama

That is my prediction.

No talented person will work in a company where the President of the US can retroactively and arbitrarily rescind a contract (bonus/commission) because he thinks it excessive.  Any company who has received bailouts will see a mass exodus of all the talent needed for that company to ever turn around.  All the companies bailed out will fail unless they find a way to return the money to govt fast.  Taxpayers will give them trillions more not to fail but they will fail anyway because all the talented people will have left.  This is inevitable. 

Obama et al are either showing a total ignorance as to how companies actually work, or they don’t care because they know they can take advantage of the chaos they have created to ram down the throats of all Americans policies they know Americans would never stomach in rational times.  Chaos has been used many times in history by leaders for the overturn of long standing laws, policies, governments and ways of life.  “Don’t let a good crisis go to waste” said Rahm Emmanuel, Obama’s chief of staff.  These are very smart people taking advantage of the ignorance of the majority of Americans as to how our financial system actually works. 

 

This about a direct attack on “rich people” who this administration has targeted.  They don’t want any more rich people.  They want everyone to basically earn the same.  Earn what government thinks they should earn.  This is a total affront to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Once called “inalienable rights”. 

I predict Obama is a one term President.  Hillary or some other smart Dem or Rep will take advantage of the destruction this man (along with Pelosi, Reid, Frank etc) will cause over the next 2- 3.5 years.  The recession will last his entire administration and he will run out of the ability to blame Bush in the fall of this year.  The chaos will get worse.  Threats to our liberties will grow everyday for the next 3.5 years, hopefully less.  The dems have 1.5 years to have a super majority because many of them will get thrown out in the interim election.  The Republicans then elected stand a very good chance of making things worse unless there is someone with insight and wisdom into how the world really works leading them. 

 

“Government is not the solution to our problems, it is the problem.”  Reagan.  Some govt is needed!  Massive government always becomes tyrannical. 

 

Obama Seeks Legal Authority to Stop Future Bonuses

By JONATHAN WEISMAN

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama said he will seek legal authority over the financial system that will give the federal government power to step into contract issues, such as the one that has allowed American International Group Inc. to pay out $165 million in retention bonuses to employees of the tottering insurance giant's financial products group.

The president said he spoke with House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank this morning about granting him "resolution authority" similar to the power the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has over the thrifts it regulates. That would allow his administration to potentially abrogate contracts that it can show does not serve the good of newly regulated entities like AIG.

Reuters

President Obama (right) makes remarks about AIG outside the White House Wednesday as Council of Economic Advisors Director Christina Romer (left) and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner look on.

Mr. Obama said he needs the regulatory power "to allow us proactively to get out in front, to separate bad assets from good in dealing with contracts that may be inappropriate."

Mr. Obama spoke with reporters outside the White House as he headed toward his helicopter en route to Andrews Air Force Base for a trip to California. He acknowledged that the furor around the AIG bonuses had consumed Washington, "and rightfully so because they represent what we all of consider an inappropriate use of taxpayer funds."

But the president urged Americans to look beyond the bonuses, which appear nearly impossible to retrieve, and to consider broader issues of re-regulating the financial system to prevent the kinds of institutional collapses that have dragged the entire economy down with firms like AIG, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (These companies did not fail for lack of regulation!!!  They failed because the value of homes fell upon which the entire house of cards depended.  You cannot regulate the price of homes!!  I am certain they will eventually end up trying to though.- Pat Sullivan)

"We've got to have tools that under our legal authority we can do something about this," he said.

He also expressed his full faith and confidence in his embattled Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, (I predict Geithner will get fired and blamed for much of the chaos.  Right or wrong!  They need more scapegoats to blame to take the focus off the real culprits and real problems!! - Pat) who he said is dealing with more crises from the outset of his tenure than any of his predecessors, perhaps with the exception of the first Treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton.

"He is making all the right moves in terms of playing a bad hand," the president said.

Write to Jonathan Weisman at [email protected]

 

Bonus Rage

See the below WSJ article after reading my opinion.

The whole outrage about bonuses is a rouse to take America’s attention away from things that really do matter!  Like why did we bail these people out to begin with?  Why are we pouring 100’s of Billions more in?  Like why is $20BB given to AIG going to foreign banks?  Why is $15BB going to Goldman Sachs through AIG?  

The fact is, these people receiving bonuses are the people who do the real work that HAS to be done if we have any hope of getting through this crisis the way we have chosen to try to get through it.  You have to have these talented and experienced people, who are used to being paid large $$$.  They could leave and then who would do what they know how to do?  A congressman?  A bureaucrat?  Someone who has no idea what a Credit Default swap actually is??  How it works?  What it is worth?  How to unwind it?  Negotiate it?

 It is a farce and outrage to castigate the very people you need to fix the problem.  These people did not create the problem, their CEO’s and upper mgt did (most often at the urging of laws passed by congress and congressman themselves.)  These people executed the plans laid out by the Execs, most of whom have quit or have been fired!!  It is somewhat like firing a Professional Coach, and then refusing to pay the contracts of the players because they have been losing!  You can’t.  You have to pay their contracts!  It is that simple.  Otherwise contracts and contract law mean nothing. 

If congress and this administration manages to destroy contract law and property rights law in America, then America as we know and love it will cease to exist.

Bonuses Expected at Fannie, Freddie

By JAMES R. HAGERTY and AARON LUCCHETTI

More financial companies that are being propped up with federal money are facing political heat over bonus payments to executives.

Fannie Mae is due to pay retention bonuses of as much $470,000 to $611,000 this year to some executives despite enormous losses at the government-backed mortgage company. Fannie's main rival, Freddie Mac, also plans to pay such bonuses but hasn't yet provided details.

Fannie's bonuses are smaller than ones paid by American International Group Inc. that have caused a political firestorm for that company. Seventy-three AIG executives got retention payments of $1 million or more recently, according to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

But the Fannie bonuses are still considerable and come at a time when Fannie and Freddie are receiving increasing amounts of funding from the Treasury. For 2008, Fannie and Freddie reported combined losses of about $108 billion, largely stemming from a surge in home-mortgage defaults. The U.S. Treasury has agreed to provide as much as $200 billion of capital apiece to Fannie and Freddie in exchange for preferred stock. The two companies have said they will need a combined $60 billion of that money to cover their losses so far.

Bonuses for executives at companies that have received federal backing are "definitely wrong," said U.S. Rep. Edolphus Towns, a New York Democrat. "They are rewarding folks who have not done a good job." Rep. Towns also questioned whether executives would bolt if they didn't get retention bonuses. "Where are these people going?" he asked. "Everybody's laying off."  (Stupid politician!!  There are ALWAYS places for talented people to go and earn what they are worth! He is clueless!!)

On Tuesday, Sen. Robert Menendez (D., N.J) wrote to Treasury Secretary Geithner, asking him to "use every legal means available" to stop $3 billion in previously disclosed retention payments to brokers at the new joint venture being formed by Morgan Stanley and Citigroup's Smith Barney unit.

"These payouts constitute misuse of taxpayer money and are an insult to hardworking families who are saving every penny," wrote Sen. Menendez.

Morgan responded in a statement that the payments aren't bonuses, but loans that won't start paying until 2010 and cannot be kept in full unless the broker stays at the firm for nine years. "The program is necessary because our financial advisers are being poached by competitors," the statement added.

Morgan and Smith Barney's venture will be jointly owned by Morgan and Citigroup, both of which have taken an investment from the U.S. government after they ran into trouble during the credit crisis. But unlike some of the people who have received bonuses at AIG, the brokers getting extra money at the new Morgan Stanley Smith Barney haven't been directly involved with billions of dollars in write-downs at their parent companies.

James Lockhart, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, of FHFA, which regulates Fannie and Freddie, said the bonuses they are paying are "critical" to retain people needed to support the mortgage      market and work on foreclosure-prevention efforts. After the companies' chief executives were ousted in September, "it would have been catastrophic to lose the next layers down and other highly experienced employees," he said. Mr. Lockhart added that compensation has declined for many employees because other types of bonuses weren't paid last year and "past stock grants are virtually worthless."

A recent Fannie securities filing says that Michael Williams, the company's chief operating officer, is due to receive cash retention awards of $611,000 this year, atop a similar award of $260,000 in 2008. His base salary is $676,000 a year.

The company also disclosed plans to pay retention awards this year of $517,000 to David Hisey and $470,000 each to Thomas Lund and Kenneth Bacon. All three of them are executive vice presidents.

The bonuses this year are to be paid in two installments, one in April and the second in November. Those installments are to be paid only if the executives remain in their posts at the payment dates.

Hundreds of other Fannie employees also are eligible for retention awards, but the company disclosed only the largest of the bonuses. It said there are no plans for a retention bonus for the chief executive officer, Herbert Allison, who elected to serve without any salary or bonus in 2008.

Freddie has a similar retention-bonus plan but hasn't yet disclosed the amounts due to be paid to its top executives. That disclosure is due by the end of April.

The regulator seized management control of Fannie and Freddie in September under a legal process called conservatorship. That resulted in a crash of the companies' stock prices to less than $1 as investors concluded that the companies will be unable to pay dividends to common shareholders again for years, if ever, as they struggle to support preferred-stock dividend payments to the Treasury. Until last year, Fannie and Freddie executives were compensated largely in the form of common stock, no longer an appealing option.

Bogus testing of Vitamins

Someone recently sent this story to me entitled: "Vitamin studies show some heart attack prevention".


While it is mildly positive I sent the following email reply.  It expresses my opinion on a few things controversial so keep in mind it is my opinion.  If you want to read a great book on it buy it here .

Dear ______,

This, and other articles like it are pure bull ----.  They deliberately test things like Vit C, Vit E etc in ways they know are destined to fail. 

A hint is in this story itself.

HEART ATTACK BENEFIT

The research team, led by Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center scientists in Seattle, did find a benefit: 3,741 women who took stress multivitamins - formulas with higher doses of several B vitamins along with extra vitamin C - were 25 percent less likely to have a heart attack.

If they were to use a full range, non-synthetic Vit E, instead of the weakest form of E (alpha tocopherol) they would see results in the studies.  If they were to use high dose Vit C in multiple doses throughout the day they would find they could virtually eliminate heart disease.

In the simplest sense, Heart disease is a form of scurvy.  Atherosclerosis is the bodies only way of keeping people alive as long as it can.  the body repairs itself by placing large band aides on arteries and vessels that are breaking down from a lack of ascorbate.  Vitamin C prevents collagen from breaking down.  That is what the body has to repair with cholesterol, calcium and other materials it has at hand.

Testing of Vit C by mainstream pharma/medicine is like testing birth control pills in a way to make them fail.  Give a woman 1 birth control pill per month and then report that birth control pills don't prevent pregnancy!  High dose Vit C, at least 5gr and preferably up to 10gr per day will not only prevent CVD but in many cases reverse it, esp when combined with Lysine, R-ALA and a full spectrum E with Tocotrenals. 

I believe we need high dose Vit C because the body is supposed to make its own but lost the ability in a mutation.  (so much for evolution being beneficial).  We already have 3 of the 4 enzymes needed to make it.  The 4th is in our genetic code but no longer works.  If we made as much as goats, based on weight, we would make between 8 and 20 grams depending on how stressed we were.  It is possible we also would not suffer from obesity or diabetes as much because the 4 enzymes turn excess glucose into Vitamin C in our body.  Since we don't make it, we need to supplement it.  A lot of it!  I prefer a buffered C with nothing added like bioflavanoids etc. That is my recommendation to you.   No extra charge!!  :-)

 Pat