This Says It All

Sully vs. Suley

Peggy Noonan makes a great point about a vulnerable America in 2009, using the juxtaposition between Chesley Sullenberger and Nadya Suleman (not a favorite on these pages):

It's Sully and Suleman, the pilot and "Octomom," the two great stories that are twinned with the era. Sully, the airline captain who saved 155 lives by landing that plane just right—level wings, nose up, tail down, plant that baby, get everyone out, get them counted, and then, at night, wonder what you could have done better. You know the reaction of the people of our country to Chesley B. Sullenberger III: They shake their heads, and tears come to their eyes. He is cool, modest, competent, tough in the good way. He's the only one who doesn't applaud Sully. He was just doing his job.

This is why people are so moved: We're still making Sullys. We're still making those mythic Americans, those steely-eyed rocket men. Like Alan Shepard in the Mercury rocket: "Come on and light this candle."

But Sully, 58, Air Force Academy '73, was shaped and formed by the old America, and educated in an ethos in which a certain style of manhood—of personhood—was held high.

What we fear we're making more of these days is Nadya Suleman. The dizzy, selfish, self-dramatizing 33-year-old mother who had six small children and then a week ago eight more because, well, she always wanted a big family. "Suley" doubletalks with the best of them, she doubletalks with profound ease. She is like Blago without the charm. She had needs and took proactive steps to meet them, and those who don't approve are limited, which must be sad for them. She leaves anchorwomen slack-jawed: How do you rough up a woman who's still lactating? She seems aware of their
predicament.

Any great nation would worry at closed-up shops and a professional governing class that doesn't have a clue what to do. But a great nation that fears, deep down, that it may be becoming more Suley than Sully—that nation will enter a true depression.

Tables Turned

A couple days ago, Congress brought the CEOs of several Wall Street banks for show trials that Congress so loves to put on - on camera, of course. Caroline Baum of Bloomberg.com imagines if the tables were turned and the CEOs were able to question Reps Barney Frank and Maxine Waters, as well as Franklin Raines. Great thought experiment below:

Just imagine if the tables were reversed. Frank and Waters are seated at the witness table instead of perched on the hearing room dais. The questioning would go something like this:

Chairman Frank, on July 14, 2008, you made the following pronouncements about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two huge government-sponsored enterprises that are the key players in mortgage finance:

“Fannie and Freddie are fundamentally sound.”

“They are not in danger of going under.”

“Looking at the financials, they’re solid.”

You followed that analysis with a forecast. Referring to legislation before your committee to allow the Treasury to lend to and buy unlimited shares in the GSEs, you said: “We’re doing three separate things that make it much less likely -- very, very unlikely -- that we’ll have this kind of a housing crisis six months or a year from now.”

Less than two months later, Fannie and Freddie were wards of the state.

Just answer the questions, Mr. Chairman.

GSE Enabler
As the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee -- before you became chairman in 2007 -- you consistently opposed stricter regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I would just note that you received $42,350 from Fannie’s and Freddie’s political action committees and employees from 1989 to 2008.

In 2004, you received a report from the GSE regulator showing that Fannie and Freddie had manipulated their earnings, enriching their senior executives in the process. Yet you and your fellow committee members, primarily Democrats, looked the other way.

Even worse, you shot the messenger, Armando Falcon, director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, who found accounting irregularities at both companies.

‘Innovation’ Lending
This is what you said to Falcon at a committee hearing: “I don’t see anything in your report that raises safeness and soundness problems.”

Your distinguished colleague, Maxine Waters, was right there to back you up.

“We do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and particularly at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Franklin Raines,” she said.

She went on.

“What we need to do today is to focus on the regulator, and this must be done in a manner so as not to impede their affordable housing mission.” That mission, as you noted, has seen “innovation flourish from desk-top underwriting to 100 percent loans.”

We all know how that worked out. Fannie had to restate earnings back to 2001, erasing $6.3 billion in previously reported profits.

Doing Penance
Former CEO Franklin Raines kept the lion’s share of the $91 million bounty he received for his six years of service at the company. (Raines had to cough up $24.7 million last year to settle a claim that he inflated earnings.)

Questioned by former congressman Chris Shays, Republican of Connecticut, about Fannie’s teensy 3 percent capital cushion, Raines said of the multi- and single-family loans the company holds: “These assets are so riskless that capital for holding them should be under 2 percent.”

Finally, Mr. Chairman, you used your influence as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee to secure $12 million for a troubled home-state bank under the TARP program. Treasury had stipulated that the banks be healthy.

It’s disingenuous to be critical of legislation you passed and a program you implemented when you’re the one bending the rules.

Mr. Chairman, we thank you for your candor in appearing before us today.

It Takes A Village

It's not new news that, mother of recent octuplets (and fourteen in total), Nadya Suleman is milking the state as she continues to multiply in litters while on welfare. This is just a pleasant reminder how some people respond to the disincentive to productivity that our current system provides. Rather than get a job, she receives checks in the mail from the government each month, affording her the luxury of implanting herself with eight children and hiring a publicist. For her the calculation is simple: she gets free money, reproduces, and gets interviewed on national television.

The state of California will be paying for her 14 children for years to come. The most shocking part is that it will cost the state an estimated "$1.3 million to $2.7 million, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture." This figure does not include the reimbursement she has already requested from California for post-natal care. This all while California has to miraculously make up a budget shortfall of $42 billion.

One could always donate via check or credit card on her family's new website. Given the internet and radio backlash, however, this seems unlikely. Instead she'll have to be content with the same old government money.

We Beg To Differ

Pork Or No Pork

President Obama has been making some bold pronouncements about the stimulus package - there's no pork, it'll create three to four million jobs, etc. The Associated Press (generally a friend to Democratic administrations) checks the veracity of some of Obama's claims. Suffice it to say, he doesn't pass with flying colors

The People Have Spoken

National Survey of Likely Voters

Conducted February 6-7, 2009

By Rasmussen Reports

1* Generally speaking, do increases in government spending help the economy, hurt the economy, or have no impact on the economy?

35% Help
48% Hurt
7% No impact
10% Not sure

2* Generally speaking, do decreases in government spending help the economy, hurt the economy, or have no impact on the economy?

45% Help
29% Hurt
16% No impact
10% Not sure

3* As Congress debates the economic stimulus plan initially proposed by President Obama, would you like to see the plan include more tax cuts and less government spending, more government spending and less tax cuts, or would you rather see the plan pass pretty much as it is today?

62% More tax cuts and less government spending
14% More government spending and less tax cuts
20% Pass pretty much as it is today
5% Not sure

NOTE: Margin of Sampling Error, +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence