Showing posts with label Goldman Sachs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Goldman Sachs. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 15, 2020

#TXLEGE: Krause Steps Into (Gaping) Leadership Void


"Remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow, considering the outcome of their conduct"
Hebrews 13:7

Interesting:


We're not going to comment either way on Krause's proposal.  Others are more knowledgeable.  Our observation is more fundamental than that.

During this entire fiasco, Matt Krause if the first person who's shown actual, credible. leadership.

Greg Abbott, by contrast, has vacillated between hiding behind (Democrat) local officials, hiding behind Trump, and corporate welfare for Goldman Sachs.  In isolation, any of those might or might not be good policies [Note: 0 for 3, but that's really a separate discussion.]  But it ain't leadership.

Then there's Dan Patrick...yeah, nuff said.

Which brings us back to Matt Krause.

It's not a secret that this website has grown more ambivalent towards Krause in recent years.  We spent most of 2019 ripping on Krause's primary legislative "achievement."  Still....

Likewise, it's also not a secret that this website floated the idea of Krause as speaker last month.  This week's proposal is a good example why.  It doesn't take a genius to see how Krause provides a tangible path between the world as it exists and the world as it should be.

Put differently: Krause has a knack for finding the least bad realistic possibility.

Bottom Line: Somebody had to do it.

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Abbott's Hat to Cattle Ratio remains...underwhelming


"Bread gained by deceit is sweet to a man,
But afterward his mouth will be filled with gravel"
Proverbs 20:17

Remember, less than a week ago, when Greg Abbott teased his vaunted "plan to reopen Texas?!?"

Yeah, about that:
On Monday, Governor Greg Abbott, together with Goldman Sachs Chief Operating Officer John Waldron, announced $50 million in loans that will be provided to small businesses in Texas.

Half of that will come from the LiftFund, a Goldman Sachs program purposed to provide small businesses with capital during difficult times.
Soo...businesses won't actually be allowed to serve their customers. Legitimate revenue = no way (TOO DANGEROUS DAWG...................).  But they can go into debt to Goldman friggin' Sachs.

We know (from experience) we're pretty cynical.  We know Wall Street makes its real money financing debt.  We know, over the past 100 years, government has primarily existed to facilitate that debt.  Even by that standard, however,...

...wow.

Just...wow.

What campaign contributor and/or lobbyist (but we repeat ourselves) came up with that plan?!?

But don't you worry your pretty little head, y'all.  Later this week, Greg Abbott's totally gonna announce his "team" to "oversee how to reopen Texas safely."  We're sure no campaign contributors and/or lobbyists will benefit.  That'd be too cynical.

It probably does make sense to reduce activity ("social distancing") for another few weeks.  Yes, the so-called "Coronavirus" is trending downward.  No, the hospitals aren't overwhelmed.  But we do understand why caution remains prudent (for now).

But...seriously...Goldman Sachs?!?

It's quite something.

Bottom Line: Cynicism *might* be justified here....

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

#TXLEGE: Gonzalez and Springer Collude Against Public


"Dishonest scales are an abomination to the Lord,
But a just weight is His delight."
Proverbs 11:1

Barf:



So-called "water policy" is an ongoing act of larceny the state of Texas commits against its citizens.  You can read our full archive on the topic here.  Gonzalez and Springer continue this ignominious tradition.

[Note:  This one especially.]

As to the specifics of Prop. 2 this year, Texas Scorecard has details:

PROPOSITION 2: Oppose

How it reads: “The constitutional amendment providing for the issuance of additional general obligation bonds by the Texas Water Development Board in an amount not to exceed $200 million to provide financial assistance for the development of certain projects in economically distressed areas.”
What it means: The Texas Water Development Board will be allowed to issue bonds, and therefore go into debt, in order to continue financing water supply, sewer service, and drainage projects in economically distressed areas.
TFR Stance: Oppose Proposition 2
Our Reasoning: State-subsidized debt serves as a disincentive to properly prioritizing spending and distorts market forces.
Aka. Crony Capitalism.

What makes Prop. 2 particularly galling is that the lege got their so-called "water infrastructure development bank" in 2013.  But it's never enough.  Six years later (aka. long enough for voters to forget), they're asking for another slush fund.

[Note: We wonder who's gonna finance the relevant debt.]

Furthermore, there's a dirty little secret to which the lege hopes you never get wise: The state of Texas has plenty of water to meet all of its residential and commercial needs.  The only reason Texas has anything remotely resembling a water "shortage" is because we subsidize growing cotton (a water intensive crop) in the panhandle (an arid climate).  If rural cotton farmers paid market rates for water, it would change the game.

But, of course, a lot of that cotton is grown in Drew Springer's district...so Springer wants the rest of us to pay.

We don't know how Gonzalez et. al. are getting paid, although history would suggest approaching this question with the most cynical lens possible.

Bottom Line: Government (with its attendant friends and cronies) never satisfies its appetite for other people's money.

Friday, January 3, 2014

History Lesson: John Cornyn, Wall St., and the New York Jets


Last September, the Republican establishment types on Wall St. held a cattle call at the home of the New York Jets' owner, which had a very interesting guest list:
Among those at the event were New York state GOP chairman Ed Cox, former Goldman Sachs honchos Ed Forst and John Whitehead, Pat Durkin of Barclays Bank, former Bush Treasury official Emil Henry, NASCAR CEO Brian France, Bain Capital co-founder Ed Conard and Texas Sen. John Cornyn. [Emphasis added]
In other words, John Cornyn was dining with Wall St. establishment types as recently as four months ago.

Financial markets are nearing the peak of the latest bubble.  When this bubble collapses, it will produce a market crisis that will make 2008 look subdued in comparison.  Can we trust someone to refuse further bailouts when he voted for the first bailout and dined with crony corporatist parasites Wall St. bankers four months ago?!?

The NY Post article quoted above also contains this gem:
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas opted to stay in Washington. “Defunding ObamaCare is his priority,” his spokeswoman explained.
The contrast speaks for itself Senator Cornyn.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Big Corporations and Barack Obama's Faux "Centrism"

One of the persistent myths about Barack Obama is that, because he hasn't (yet) destroyed corporate America, and often works with large corporations that that makes him some sort of centrist.  This myth, while absurd, nonetheless has a certain persistent hold on the public and thus needs to be explained.

The most important thing to keep in mind when discussing Barack Obama's Marxism is to understand that Barack Obama is a Marxist from the Saul Alinsky school.  That means Obama's primary goal is to use stealth to corrupt existing institutions and use them to advance his agenda.  As author Richard Poe explains:
Alinsky viewed revolution as a slow, patient process. The trick was to penetrate existing institutions such as churches, unions and political parties.
(Sidenote: This is also what Planned Parenthood is doing through the Girl Scouts)

That is why Obama has worked with large corporations as President.  Saul Alinsky taught, and Barack Obama learned, that it was much more effective for Marxists to infiltrate and corrupt existing institutions from within than to fight them openly.  Big Corporations have money and power (for now) that sophisticated Marxists like Alinsky and Obama would rather channel to their own ends than provoke into opposition.  Corporate Welfare has the same effect on the corporate soul as individual welfare has on the individual soul; both end in the government owning said soul.  If you hook them on government now, they'll be too weak to fight you later.

While Barack Obama's 'centrist' patina doesn't fool anyone not looking to be fooled, it does confuse a lot of people.  This helps the Alinksyite Obama, because confusion creates the atmosphere for deception.  As Stanley Kurtz explains in his book Radical in Chief the entire purpose of a community organizer is to use deception to promote Marxism via stealth.  When nominally 'private' corporations align themselves with the political agenda of the government, it allows the government to disguise the source of that agenda to deceive the public.  As Author Yichao Hao explains better than I can:
The fact that Obama has never openly advocated socialist policies and has recently appointed Clinton-era “centrist” bureaucrats to his staff are no reasons to exculpate him from the accusations of socialism. Any intelligent socialist who doesn’t want to end up like perennially irrelevant and invidious Ralph Nader would blend in with the mainstream crowd to produce actual change...Policy-wise, Obama and the 111th “Do-something” Congress has done the most to move the country toward socialism since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society: universal healthcare, one of the largest expansions of government debt in history, the Ted Kennedy National Service Act and numerous others. Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein called the 111th Congress the “most ‘do-something’ Congress we’ve seen in 40 years.” A centrist would never have passed so many pieces of legislation; a centrist keeps the status quo (or cooperates with the opposition like Clinton).
 Barack Obama is no 'centrist;' he's an Alinskyite Marxist who uses deception and stealth to corrupt existing institutions from within.

Update: The Poe article linked above also contains this gem from Alinsky himself: "I feel confident that I could persuade a millionaire on a Friday to subsidize a revolution for Saturday out of which he would make a huge profit on Sunday even though he was certain to be executed on Monday."