Order or Anarchy?

We tax all the others and pass the revenue on to you

Nicholas Confessore wrote a great article in the NYTimes. Ostensibly about the political chaos in NY, it extends to the chaos and seeming political hopelessness in NYC and major states like CA and IL. This article deserves your attention.


When does a gifted orator become just another political blowhard? We feel leaderless and adrift, with no one charting a meaningful political course for us. The Dems don't know how to do anything but spend and orate. The Repubs, well, they don't know how to do much of anything.


Where are we going? NY, CA and IL are symptoms of a national malaise. Who do you see that might pull us oput of it and give us some direction? There's a lot at risk and very little to reward political risk-takers. The Repubs have been no help at all. That leaves the Dems, some new third party, continuing the status quo or anarchy?


We all have to make a choice and back the people who most closely represent our political philophies. We can NOT allow ourselves to simply go along with those who promise to give us more for less or those who will lead us in return for our support of narrow issues.


Who's got a political package that you can support? Choose, then do something about it.


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Dean Zerbe has an excellent article in Forbes about a new proposal for small businesses that make payments in excess of $600. If that's you, read it and think about contacting IRS for everyone you pay more than $600. Essentially, this transfers the burden of TIN verification to the small businessperson, not that IRS was really doing it anyway. It's an accountant's full employment measure at your expense.


There is zero chance that IRS will make any meaningful use of these reports but if it passes you'll probably get fined for not making them.


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NY Atty. Gen. Andrew Cuomo keeps making news and looking good. NYTimes has an article about him cracking down on "pay-to-play" schemes that placed NY pension money in return for large "placement agent" fees. Cuomo recovered $30 mil of public money. Good onya, Andy. Watch his work launch him into presdential consideration.


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TimmyG just finished a meeting of G8 finance ministers. The IMF warned "...there is an urgent need for governments to clarify their exit strategy to ensure that solvency is not at risk." Timmy G said Economic and financial recovery "will be stronger and more sustainable if we make clear today how we get back to fiscal sustainability when the storm has fully passed...". (Thank you, WSJ)


Those two statements are incompatible unless you think TimmyG actually has an economic crisis exit strategy. He doesn't.


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At the Chrysler bankruptcy, creditors who thought they were secured - and that being a secured creditor meant something - aren't, and unsecured creditors are ahead of them. This portends big things for those considering bankruptcy and their creditors. Creditor priority is a fundamental part of secured lending and all of a sudden it doesn't mean what we always thought. Stay tuned.