Life After Politics

Former Connecticut U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman has shown that there is life after politics.

The usual route for departing Beltway politicians is to associate themselves with a large law firm in some lobbying or quasi-lobbying capacity, thereby softening for the clients of the firm the burdensome laws and regulations they had so assiduously created as congressman.

Former U.S. Senator Chis Dodd managed to escape the mold somewhat when, after having left the Congress, he hitched his star to Hollywood. The author of the imponderable Dodd-Frank bill, so compendious that we still don’t know “what’s in it,” to borrow a phrase from Mr. Dodd’s compatriot in Congress, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Dodd is now busily engaged in attempting to convince his former associates to do something – anything! – about Chinese violations of U.S. copyright laws. Since former President Richard Nixon first touched glasses with mass murderer Chairman Mao Zedong in Beijing in 1972, the Chinese have busied themselves by stealing American technology and hacking into pretty much any business in the United States that may survive the Dodd-Frank boa constrictor.

Mr. Lieberman’s route is the more traditional one. After bidding goodbye to a Senate that has over the years become much less civil than it was when Mr. Lieberman first entered it from his position as Attorney General of Connecticut, a pathway also followed by U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal, Mr. Lieberman has added his senatorial luster to Kasowitz Benson Torres & Friedman, a firm that has in it 365 attorneys nationwide and is ranked 120 on the The National Law Journal's annual headcount survey.

Mr. Lieberman who, according to The Legal Times blog,  joined the firm as special council focusing on internal investigations and regulatory policy, has carried along with him Clarine Nardi Riddle,  who has joined the same firm as counsel and will lead its government affairs practice. Ms. Riddle served as a Judge of the Connecticut Superior Court, Connecticut’s trial court of general jurisdiction, where she presided over cases involving criminal, foreclosure, zoning, juvenile, and residential and commercial housing matters. Ms. Riddle was also an Attorney General in Connecticut from 1989 to 1991 and has been for many years Chief of Staff for former Senator Lieberman. She co-founded No Labels, an organization of Democrats, Republicans and Independents devoted to breaking partisan gridlock in Washington DC. Mr. Lieberman, denied the Democratic nomination of his state party for the U.S. Senate in 2006, handily defeated his challenger Ned Lamont in the general election and rejoined the Senate as an Independent. Mr. Lieberman announced his resignation at the end of his term. He was succeeded by Chris Murphy, who has shown himself to be much more progressive and far more partisan than Mr. Lieberman.

Not that progressive Democrats in Connecticut have much to worry about; the Republican Party in the state has been effectively marginalized and the state’s left of center media tends to make a fuss only when one of its own prized concerns is roughed up in the back ally of Democratic partisan politics.

Freedom of information appears to have taken a hit recently; in the absence of effective Republican oversight in the General Assembly, some few legislative rats infested last-minute General Assembly bills; in a frantic effort to balance a chronically out of balanced budget fashioned in the partisan smithy of the Governor Dannel Malloy SEBAC combine, the General Assembly has legalized Keno, causing one left of center commentator to comment caustically: “We're all used to what they laughably call a process: Any time they want to do something repugnant, they blow off their rule book, slam the door on anyone who might fuss and pass some abomination before it can get press coverage. The Republican minority, most of the time, is an agreeable Vichy regime.”

But these are easily ignored inconvenient and temporary eruptions. No one within the one party state is much interested in backward looking grumblers who may impede the forward inevitable march of history. Bill Buckley’s war whoop that it is the business of lovers of liberty to stand athwart history shouting “Stop” is but a distant  memory. Without a permanent and vigorous opposition, the present regime will continue to map Connecticut’s future. Onward to Utopia!   

Why Taxes Will Be Raised

A business reporter for a Hartford newspaper writes in an above the fold, front page story,“In An Era of Fiscal Crisis, Malloy Has Few Places To Run,” that “Malloy's budget chief issued a firm statement in writing: ‘The Governor will NOT propose tax increases as a solution to these challenges.’"

The “challenges” are a budget deficit in Governor Dannel Malloy’s first budget of $362 million, a figure that will escalate in coming weeks, and a future projected deficit of $960 million per year in each of the next three years. Connecticut’s total state debt – including pension fund debt of $60 billion and $20 billion in bonded debt –is the third highest debt per capita in the United States and represents about 40 percent of the state’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The business reporter – and, indeed, most reporters in the state – was much impressed that Mr. Malloy’s budget hawk, Office of Policy Management chief Ben Barnes, had put the governor’s pledge in writing. And of course that imposing“NOT” in such visible caps strongly suggests Mr. Malloy’s strenuous aversion to tax increases. And yet, though reporters in the state now have in hand a WRITTEN pledge that the governor will NOT propose tax increases, many political watchers are riven with doubts.

If taxes are not increased, they reason, how will Mr. Malloy discharge such a large and imposing deficit?

None of the conditions to which Mr. Malloy has attributed the state’s metastasizing deficit – larger Medicaid payments, the continuing evisceration of the nation’s economy, the near certainty that all of Europe, with the possible exception of Germany, has entered a double dip recession – will change substantially within the next fiscal year. It took Connecticut a full ten years to recover the jobs lost in the preceding soft recession beginning in the early 1990’s; and the current recession – marked by increased government spending, higher taxes levied on entrepreneurial investment and the Dodd-Frank regulatory Octopussy – is certain to last longer.

In addition, Mr. Malloy seriously hobbled himself when he made in his first budget an offer to state union workers they could not refuse. In return for dubious saving, Mr. Malloy offered SEBAC, a union coalition authorized to negotiate contracts with the governor, salary raises of three percent each year nine years out, a dealcharacterized by retiring State Senator Edith Prague as one that unions would be nuts to reject. When the unions accepted the deal, they removed an important tool from the governor’s tool box. At this point, Mr. Malloy can only realize significant cost savings from state workers by abrogating contracts – not likely.

Such a move would require co-operation from a General Assembly dominated by progressive Democrats.

Indeed, discharging the bulk of the state’s continuing budget deficits, not to mention Connecticut’s alarming pension liability deficit, requires an internal assent from majority Democrats -- ideological prisoners of a progressive ideology that has failed most conspicuously in Europe --that likely will remain stillborn.

Would the “firm statement” issued by Mr. Barnes on Mr. Malloy’s behalf have presented a less firm commitment to spending reductions had Mr. Barnes chosen to emphasize a different word in Mr. Malloy’s categorical imperative: “The Governor will not PROPOSE tax increases as a solution to these challenges."

This rendering leaves open the possibility that progressive Democrats in the General Assembly, having rejected Mr. Malloy’s no-tax-increase intention for the upcoming special session called to liquidate the last fiscal year’s budget deficit, will then PROPOSE at some point tax increases designed to discharge an accumulative deficit of some $3 billion, give or take a few hundred millions, in the new fiscal year.

It has been said that Mr. Malloy will need Republican cooperation in the special session to enact savings that accomplish his intention –to discharge last fiscal year’s deficit without raising taxes. The governor’s intention with respect to the new fiscal year’s budget, which carries a much larger deficit, is usefully ambiguous.

Republicans in the General Assembly no doubt will recall they were unceremoniously stiffed in the earlier session that now has given birth to a $362 million deficit. Mr. Malloy did not need Republican good will to arrange his deficit producing first budget, which included the largest tax increase in Connecticut history, and Democrats were on the whole delighted to see Republicans playing the fool. Nor will the governor need Republican support in the creation of his second fiscal year budget, which may entail similar Potemkin Village savings and yet another massive tax increase. Republican leaders in the General Assembly should prepare now for the possible stiffing – before they negotiate with the governor to liquidate in special session the Democrat’s first imbalanced deficit ridden budget.

To do otherwise would be to play the fool most progressives in the dominant Democratic Party believe Republicans to be: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. There are some happy signs that voters, already stung by massive tax increases, will not during the next elections be inclined to suffer fools gladly.

McMahon Slouching Towards Bethlehem

In its first survey of “likely voters,” a Quinnipiac poll shows Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate making inroads upon Chris Murphy, the Democratic U.S. Representative who this year is hoping to fill U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman’s Independent shoes:
 

“In today's survey, McMahon's 54 - 42 percent lead among men swamps Murphy's small 50 - 46 percent lead among women. McMahon leads 88 - 10 percent among Republicans and 55 - 40 percent among independent voters, while Murphy takes Democrats 82 - 16 percent.”

Mrs. McMahon has always drawn a strong male vote. Having learned important lessons from her loss to now Senator Richard Blumenthal, Mrs. McMahon this time at bat made a vigorous effort to capture women’s votes, and her 15 point lead over Mr. Murphy among Independents must be encouraging to her campaign.

Shays’ Signature Bill

The Shays-Meehan House bill, the equivalent of McCain-Feingold in the Senate, is that single piece of legislation for which former U.S. Congressman Chris Shays is likely to be remembered, just as former Senator Chris Dodd’s congressional legacy will be forever bound up with his massive regulatory scheme, the Dodd-Frank bill. Mr. Shays at the tail end of January announced his candidacy for U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman’s soon to be vacant seat. The consequences of the Dodd-Frank legislation – more importantly, the unintended consequences of the bill – are still in the pipeline. But some of the less anticipated consequences of Shays-Meehan have already been amply displayed.

Initially, Shays-Meehan was designed to ban national parties from raising and spending “soft money.” The soft-money ban, upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court more than a year ago, limits individual contributions to political parties even if the money is to be spent on activities unrelated to federal elections. The bill also prohibited “federal officeholders and candidates from soliciting or raising soft money for political parties at federal, state, and local levels, and from soliciting or raising soft money in connection with Federal elections,” according to a summary of the bill prepared at the time by the offices of Mr. Shays and Mr. Meehan.

The bill additionally prohibited state parties from using soft money to pay for TV ads that “mention federal candidates and get-out-the-vote activities that mention Federal candidates.” Not wishing to hobble political parties altogether, Shays-Meehan permitted state parties and local party committees “to use contributions, up to $10,000 per donor per year, for generic GOTV activities and for GOTV activities for state and local candidates. Each state party or local committee must raise its own contributions and a portion of each expenditure must include hard money.”

Unintended consequences were not long in coming. The soft money ban and other provisions of the bill were to take effect November 6, 2002. Earlier in April of the same year, the Progressive Donor Network gathered in Washington to exploit a loophole in the law. A lengthy article on the convention was published in the Washington Times under the title "Democrats to exploit finance-law loophole".

Exploit they did. The loophole in the law was large enough to accommodate many of the usual suspects who, before the advent of the law, were presumably corrupting political parties with large donations. After the convention, they would similarly corrupt individual politicians, rather than political parties, by raising and spending unlimited sums of money to advocate for or against political candidates.The game was on. The amount of time that normally elapses between the creation of a bill to solve problem A and the subversion of the solution has diminished considerably in the modern age. Money in the political stream dammed up here always seeks a way there.

Later in the fifth inning, the Supreme Court knocked a part of McCain-Feingold-Shays-Meehan into a cocked hat when it ruled in 2007 that a portion of the bill violated First Amendment rights of free speech and assembly, still widely observed in the United States.

The Shays-Meehan bill, which initially sought to remove the deadly hand of corruption from national and state parties by decoupling large corporate and union donations from federal, state and local party organizations, following the Supreme Court decision left much of the financing in the hands of outliers that could raise and spend unlimited amounts of money advocating for individual candidates, nearly all of whom have set themselves up as petite political parties. This arrangement generously benefits incumbent politicians, lobbyists and ideologues but is hostile to party building. And indeed, incumbent politicians who are able to generate campaign funds from other questionable sources in return for favors done do not even see the defects of Shays-Meehan, because the unintended consequences of the bill help them and hobble their political competitors.

Most incumbent politicians begin their campaigns with vast sums of money their opponents cannot hope to match – the spoils of incumbency. And the Shays-Meehan bill does nothing to “even the playing field,” an expression favored by, just to pick one incumbent’s name out of a hat, current U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal. It is generally supposed that Mr. Blumenthal will be moved from his seat only when he resigns, as had his predecessor, U.S. Senator Chris Dodd, before Mr. Dodd got his feet caught in a series of mini scandals that up-ended him in Hollywood where, pulling in a $2.5 million a year salary as a lobbyist, he will soon be a multi-millionaire, if not quite as wealthy as Mr. Blumenthal, Connecticut’s new senator for life.

And Shays-Meehan, which some critics have called “a congressional incumbent protection act,” will do nothing to hasten Mr. Blumenthal’s departure.

Frank Throws InThe Towel

U.S. Rep. Barney Frank’s announcement that he will not be seeking reelection follows the signing by Governor Deval Patrick of a law creating new state congressional districts in Massachusetts, according to the Boston Globe.

In past elections, Frank has depended upon votes in his hometown of Newton and also the Democratic strongholds of Fall River and New Bedford. Redistricting deprived him of New Bedford, while the conservative towns added to the reconfigured district west and south of Boston and in Bristol and Norfolk counties would have proved difficult for him.

Additionally, Frank lost status when Republicans regained control of the U.S. House.

Frank is best known for the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act that heavily regulates business at a time when the nation is shedding jobs. Co-author of the bill, former U.S Senator Chris Dodd recently packed it in and, having pledged never to become a lobbyist, took a position as a lobbyist for the motion picture industry.

The Dodd-Frank Banking Fee

According to a story in Investment.com, the $5 monthly fee bank of America intends to impose to recover losses incurred by the Dodd-Frank bill probably should be named the Dodd-Frank fee.

The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act put a limit on fees banks could collect from sellers when their customers make debit card purchases — cutting 44 cent fees to 21 cents.

“Throwing their weight around at the height of the banking crisis, House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut vowed to stick it to banks. They blamed them for the mess to cover up the fact that they forced banks to lend to favored constituencies who could not repay.

“The two Democrats pushed through the much-vaunted Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which President Obama signed and touted as one of the signature accomplishments of his presidency.

“That act, which included a micromanaging amendment on fees, carried a $2.9 billion implementation cost for that alone over five years, according to the Government Accountability Office...

“The ‘economics of offering a debit card have changed with recent regulations,’ a bank spokeswoman told ABC News Friday.

“BofA says it stands to lose $2 billion from the arbitrary Durbin price-fixing amendment and now has no choice but to make up for the lost revenue some other way.”

House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Sen. Chris Dodd, once associated with the senate’s banking committee and now a gold plated Hollywood lobbyist, felt compelled to hammer banks after the mortgage industry in the United States went belly-up, largely in response to impositions imposed on them by Dodd and Frank in a successful attempt to encourage banks to lower their lending standards so that people who could not afford mortgages would be able to buy houses. Canada, which maintained standards widely observed here in the United States before Dodd and Frank began to micromanage the banking industry, has few mortage and housing problems.

Dodd also was principally responsible for undoing the last remnants of the Glass Steagall Act, a measure adopted during the enlightened administration of Franklin Roosevelt that prevented rapacious financial institutions from meddling with the bankbooks of Dodd’s constituents.

And here we are – in lowdive.

A Governor Of Unions?

Governor Dannel Malloy banged the knuckles of some state unions when SEBAC, a coalition of union leaders, failed to pass what he called “Plan A,” a budget that some legislators friendly to unions thought was inordinately friendly to unions. Sen. Edith Prague, long a supporter of union interests, said at the time she thought union members who had voted down Plan A were mad to have spurned a plan so favorable to their interests.

The governor had concocted at the same time a default Plan B that simply was not a serious contractual proposal; Plan B was designed to bludgeon recalcitrant union members into voting for Plan A. Union leaders, at the behest of the governor, then unilaterally redrafted union rules so as to facilitate a favorable vote on a slightly readjusted Plan A. The intimidation, along with the compliance of union leaders, worked, and Plan A2 finally was adopted by unions months after the General Assembly, dominated by Democrats, had voted to pass Plan A.

There was some grumbling at the time among a few legislators conversant with the separation of power doctrine: They wondered whether, having voted to accept a budget that would in the near future be subject to alterations imposed on it by unions and the governor, they had in essence surrendered their constitutional obligations to an undemocratic plenipotentiary process. But their scruples were not inhibiting, and in due course a budget, thought by some to be out of balance even now, finally was set in concrete. Apparently, constitutional scruples in the constitution state are more easily disposed of now that the state has become a one party operation.

In mid-September, addressing the AFL-CIO annual convention at Foxwoods Casino Mr. Malloy sought to quell fears that the governor’s lifelong affection for unions hadf suffered a rupture. Previously, Mr. Malloy had been making cooing sounds in the direction of Connecticut’s larger business and awarding carefully selected firms millions of dollars as a part of his First Five Plan.

At the event, Mr. Malloy was praised by executive director of AFSCME Council 4 Sal Luciano for being one of the few governors in the nation that had decided to raise taxes to balance his budget. Mr. Luciano thought much of the anger over the concession agreement between unions and the governor could be traced to poor communications and pronounced himself pleased that the pro-union governor had not declared war on labor: “It’s the first time in a long time we’ve had a governor that hasn’t actively declared war on the labor movement.”

The governor was bathed in warm applause when, contrasting himself with other more brutal governors, he said the final agreement between unions and the executive office was a necessary linchpin “to making sure we did not have to take apart our higher educational system. That was a lynchpin to making sure we didn’t have to cut aid to every municipality in the state.”

Mr. Malloy “delivered” to unions recently by issuing an executive order that will pave the way for the unionization of day care workers and personal care attendants. The order, some queasy legislators say, violates an explicit separation of legislative and executive powers and may be Mr. Malloy’s way of further soothing union restiveness.

Following his soothing address before AFSCME, Mr. Malloy hopped down to Greenwich to assure hedge fund managers he was not, as they might have supposed wrongly from his address to AFSCME, antagonistic towards the captains of industry and Wall Street. The hedgies fear excessive regulation, and the governor showed up to soften their angst.

“There is too much regulation and decisions are made far too slowly,” the governor told the group in his keynote address at the Connecticut Hedge Fund Association’s Global Alpha Forum. “Let me very clear I’m not interested in more regulation. I’m trying to streamline regulation. We know the old adage that time is money… we need to move more rapidly and responsively.”

One newspaper noted that “In a further assurance to an industry that an audience member termed the state’s ‘crown jewel,’ Malloy said that he is not in favor of moving to regulate beyond federal policy.”

The governor gave no indication that he would be willing to work with Connecticut’s wall-to-wall Democratic congressional delegation to lop off the Dodd-Frank bill some regulatory hydra heads. Nor has he been asked by the legacy media whether he intends to lobby other Democrats in the U.S. Congress to pare back onerous federal regulations on behalf of his new hedgie friends. The locution – “Let me very clear I’m not interested in more…” – was last used by the governor in multiple pre-campaign speeches with reference to tax increases. As it turned out, Mr. Malloy was not unfriendly to new taxes.

The No Way Busway

Governor Dannel Malloy’s notoriously expensive busway proposition – on completion, the rapid transit project from New Britain to Hartford spanning 9.4 miles will cost more than $573 million, about $952 per inch – has engaged the interest of a few penny pinching legislators, among them state Senator Joe Markley and Rep. Whit Bette, both of whom have co-signed a letter written to House Speaker John Boehner urging Mr. Boehner to reject $460 million in federal funding for Malloy’s folly.

The busway is a prime example of politicians leveraging federal dollars: The federal government announces the availability of funds for a state project, say $460 million to build a ziggurat in New Britain. The governor is asked to pony up a modest $113 million, at a time when the state has accumulated crippling deficits and is bleeding jobs. Turning the proposition over in his mind, the governor, always alert to charges that he has fiddled while his state burns, decides to swallow the proposition, as they say, hook, line and sinker.

A good deal, right? We get $460 million from the feds on an expenditure of $113 million.  Who could be so impertinent to object? So what, really, if the busway is a waste of money. It is a waste of other people’s money -- federal money. What has that got to do with us? If the Feds want to throw money out their windows in the direction of Connecticut, should we not grab it?

Now, along come critics of the deal. And in this case, the critics are not merely members of the chattering class whose business it is to blow hot and cold in columns that may concern the state. They are two state legislators. How to handle this delicate situation?

Best to ignore them until the embers burst into flame.

The Hartford New Britain busway is a political streetcar named desire. It is visible proof of an arcane proposition that in times of recession and national humiliation salvation must trickle down from beneficent congressmen in Washington, to be gratefully received by local politicians who in the past have not escaped the notice of influential writers:

Will Rogers:  "This country has come to feel the same when congress is in session as when a baby gets hold of a hammer…It is awful hard to get people interested in corruption unless they can get some of it."

H. L. Mencken:  "If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner."

Mark Twain: "There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress… We have the best congress money can buy."

William F. Buckley, Jr.: "No one since the Garden of Eden -- which the serpent forsook in order to run for higher office -- has imputed to politicians great purity of motive." 

Thomas Sowell: "Congressman Frank and Senator Dodd wanted the government to push financial institutions to lend to people they would not lend to otherwise, because of the risk of default. ... The idea that politicians can assess risks better than people who have spent their whole careers assessing risks should have been so obviously absurd that no one would take it seriously."

G. K. Chesterton: "It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged."

Judge Gideon J. Tucker, 1866: "No man's life, liberty or property is safe while the Legislature is in session."

Joe Markley: ““I am not concerned about leaving federal funds on the table. Federal or state, it’s all our money, and we shouldn’t waste it. Projects like this shouldn’t even be entertained until we get our fiscal house in order. I find it ironic that we are in the midst of a $6.2 billion deficit and the Governor is asking the legislature to spend more money we don’t have.”

All of the writers cited above were or are Americans, with the exception of Mr. Chesterton, here quoted simply because the sentiment he expresses, humorously but forcefully, is as American as apple pie. The point in choosing the remarks cited above, almost at random, is to show that that caustic commentary on the foibles of politicians is itself as American as apple pie.

So then, why have we seen so little rip roaring commentary in connection with Mr. Malloy’s redundant busway, an outrageously expensive people carrier that would be prohibitively expensive had we not swallowed the tempting fable that the cost of the project will be assumed by altruistic strangers?

Mr. Betts noted in the letter he signed jointly with Mr. Markley, “This is a boondoggle and a waste of taxpayer dollars. In the end the annual cost to the state is expected to be $11 million, ticket sales estimates are $4 million leaving a $7 million hole. I am against spending state money for a transportation project that is expected to incur losses. ”

And Mr. Betts is not here tickling a funny bone. One wonders how many legislators in the Democratic dominated General Assembly are more than willing to finance a project “that is expected to incur losses?”

The answer is: Nearly all of them. That answer would not surprise any of the political commentators cited above. On September 12, Mr. Markley will be the guest speaker addressing attendees at a Talk of Connecticut Dinner With Dan (Lovallo) at the Stonewell Restaurant in Farmington. The subject of Mr. Markley’s remarks will be the busway to and from nowhere, and Mr. Markley is known to have a charming sense of humor. The cost of the dinner, at $25, will be considerably less than the cost of the busway boondoggle.

Those who wish to attend the event may do so by calling for reservations at (860) 677-8855

Too Big To Fail Banks Are Bigger

The 2,319 page Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, commonly called the Dodd-Frank bill -- named after its architects, former U.S. Senator Chris Dodd, now a Hollywood millionaire mogul, and U.S. Rep. Barney Frank – was supposed to insure that big banks could fail, obviating the need for expensive taxpayer bailouts.

A ban on bailouts is written into the legislation. Among the tools in the bill’s toolbox is a provision that provides for an orderly winding down of bankrupt firms. The bill includes a proposal that the Federal Reserve (the "Fed") receive authorization from the Treasury for extensions of credit in "unusual or exigent circumstances";

The ban on bailouts, which removes the principal protection that spurred those inept business practices that gave rise to the effective bankruptcy of major banks in the United States considered “too big to fail,” has not persuaded rating agencies to downgrade the banks.

Why not?

If the federal umbrella has been removed that in the past prevented “too big to fail” banks such as such as Bank of America, Citigroup or JP Morgan from getting wet in the same rainstorms that affect non-protected industries, why hasn’t Standard & Poor’s downgraded the Big Banks?

S&P has “pointedly disputed the often-stated claim on Capitol Hill that the legislation had put an end to ‘too big to fail’ and the era of federal bailouts,” according to an analytical piece in The Washington Times:

“S&P thinks ‘the government in a handful of situations may be forced to provide some sort of support to an institution,’ especially if the failure of the bank threatens the economy and well-being of ordinary Americans, as occurred in the fall of 2008, said S&P managing director Rodrigo Quantanilla. S&P cited the long history of bank bailouts in times of economic stress as well as what it sees as ambiguities in the Wall Street reform law.”

The big banks have become bigger and more powerful. The county’s six largest banks -- JP Morgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley – controlled assets equal to 17 percent of the U.S. Economy in 2008, the year of the financial crisis. Their combined assets today equals 64 percent of economic output, and they control nearly half of all bank deposits in the U.S, according Joshua Rosner, managing director of Graham Fisher & Co. and author of a book on the financial debacle.

"In fact, the Dodd-Frank law reinforces the market perception that a small and elite group of large firms are different from the rest," Mr. Rosner said, “by designating those banks as ‘systemically important.’”
Breaking up banks that are “too big to fail” is the most certain way to assure that taxpayers will not be on the hook in a future bailout, but congress last year repeatedly rejected such measures. An alternative, Mr. Rosner suggest, might be to require the top executives of such banks to pay dearly when their banks fail.

Though Mr. Dodd has moved from the U.S. Senate to Hollywood -- a step up in salary and, according to the latest public opinion polls, prestige -- the real consequences of Dodd-Frank bill will weigh heavily on a U.S. economy wracked by legislative and presidential nincompoopery.

Dodd-Frank, thought by its architects to provide a check on capitalist greed, will instead promote crony-capitalism, increase the pressure of the already deadening hand of the federal government on businesses, undermine what is left of the free market in the United States, limit true competition and favor capitalists of choice over capitalism.

Dodd-Frank will kick in as a second deeper and perhaps more intractable recession looms on the horizon, spurred on by European financial incompetence and an equally incompetent U.S. government government that has shown it cannot repair its debt or curb its looming entitlement costs. This brew of breathtaking stupidity very well may provide the spark that will set off a double dip recession both in Europe and the United States

Weiner And The Etiquette Of Admission

The first rule is this: If you are going to put yourself through the trouble of admission, no qualifiers will be allowed. You cannot say, “Yes, it is true that I allowed my bachelor’s pad in Washington D.C. to be used by an acquaintance as a bordello servicing both gay and straight clients, but…

A “but” is a backdoor exit to your national humiliation and will not escape the notice of the usually soporific mainstream media, which tends to be more forgiving of so called “sins of the flesh” committed by Democrats such as U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, an out of the closet gay guy who, several years ago, provided one of his friends the opportunity to frolic with his clients in his Washington D.C. bordello. Mr. Frank was exposed by the frothing right wing media. The exposure, however, put no serious dent in the congressman’s bumper; and, after a few months, Mr. Frank was permitted to get along with his congressional business, joining former U.S. Senator Chris Dodd, now a Hollywood mogul, in imposing strangling regulations on American businesses during a recession that Democrats had hoped would elide into a mini-depression, the better to save the country through FDR-like public works programs.

The second rule is this: Don’t weep, don’t cringe, and don’t drag your long suffering wife – or, in Mr. Frank’s case, partner – into your sordid affairs. If your wife, partner, paramour refuses to stand by you in your hour of trial, try to accept the rebuff with a tortured but understanding smile.

The third rule is this: If you plead guilty publicly to untoward behavior – fetchingly kicking a foot in the next stall in a men’s room, little realizing that the gent sitting on the toilet beside you is a vice cop; or producing a child out of wedlock with your mistress while running as Vice President of the United States; or confessing, better late than never, to your faithful wife that you had produced a child ten years earlier with one of the servants; or, as in the case with the much humiliated Anthony Weiner of New York, sending erotic twitters here and there, accompanied with graphic pictures – inflict upon yourself a suitable penance.

And the fourth and final rule is this: So behave in life and with others that your mom and dad, diseased or living, may not be embarrassed by your self indulgent stupidity, in this life or the next.

Mr. Weiner violated all these rules, as well as the overarching rule stressed by Mark Twain, humorist and social philosopher: A man, said Mr. Twain, may commit numerous breaches of the law and yet get away with all these, particularly if he is a politician or person of means who has in hand a good lawyer; but let a man commit one offense against convention – and he is a goner. There is no hope for him.

Proceeding backwards through the rules:

1) Considering Mr. Weiner’s public confession, it is likely that he is incapable of making the proper distinction between illegalities that may be got round and conventions that cannot be hurtled. It is true that modernity has thrown to the dogs many of the conventions that might have inhibited our parents; a certain amount of confusion may therefore be tolerated. On the other hand, Mr. Weiner is not a man easily confused and, at least in respect to conservative conventions, he has been pointedly intolerant.

2) Mr. Weiner, having confessed to his sins, refrained from imposing a suitable penance upon himself. He will not give up his office. And he has challenged such moral adepts as Nancy Pelosi to bring on the Grand Inquisitors. Go ahead, set the dogs of the House Ethics Committee upon me – just go ahead. One prominent Democrat suggested that former President Bill Clinton, who had in the past an unfortunate brush with White House convention, might have a word with Mr. Weiner and encourage his speedy exit.

3) Mr. Weiner wept, cringed and brought his innocent wife into the affair.

4) Mr. Weiner’s apology was decorated with “buts,” some subtly implied. For instance, Mr. Weiner said he had sent to a complete stranger a picture showing a bulge below his pelvis “… as a joke.” One commentator groused that he wondered whether Mr. Weiner’s wife would have considered that twitter funny. Possibly not.

Andrew Brietbart, the Publisher of Big Government who outed Mr. Weiner’s frat house behavior, has now said he possesses a picture sent by Mr. Weiner to yet another female stranger showing Mr. Weiner showing off his wiener. From delicacy and pity, Mr. Brietbart has said, he would not release the picture. But in these days of twitter and facebooks, there are WikiLeakers crouching behind every bush, waiting to waylay unconventional congressmen such as Mr. Weiner with promises of blackmail: “Halt there Weiner – your favors or your life!”

A final reason why Mr. Weiner should leave politics behind, repair his bruised marriage, and get a real job in the real world – like Mr. Dodd.