A Geek With Guns

If I have any readers in California let me extend my sympathies. Not only do you have to suffer from draconian gun control laws but your state is also a sinking ship economically. Apparently the politicians of that state aren’t content with the people they’ve already driven off by their ever increasing tax rates since they’re looking to jack up the taxes again:

California also hopes for $1.5bn in revenue over the next year after this week’s Facebook stock flotation.

In outlining the proposal, the Democratic governor said on Monday the state could not overcome its deficit by cuts alone.

“It’s taken more than a decade to get into this mess. We’re not going to get out of it in a year,” he told reporters. “But we’re making real progress.”

California residents will vote in November on an increase in the sales tax as well as an income tax rise on those making more than $250,000 yearly. Both measures would be temporary and would also increase education spending.

First of all let me just remind people that temporary tax increases have a habit of becoming permanent. With that said those of you making $250,000 or more and live in California you can rest assured that your potential new tax rate of 10.3% is likely be temporary… because your government officials will try to increase it again and again. California is the poster child for stupid economic policies. It demonstrates what happens when the collectivists get their way. As the state moves to bleed every wealth producer dry those wealth producers leave the state and take their jobs with them. While the collectivists scream “Tax the rich!” they forget that “the rich” are the ones who have enough resources to pack up and go elsewhere.

If you live in that state you should get the heck out of there now before they start preventing people from leaving.

All the major media outlets are talking about the “surprise” $2 billion loss reported by JPMorgan:

JPMorgan Chase, the biggest US bank, has revealed a surprise trading loss of $2bn (£1.2bn) on complex investments made by its traders.

Of course anybody who pays attention to the game recognize this play. JPMorgan is basically positioning itself to receive some government cash. It’s no secret that the state likes to give bankers tons of cash in the form of bailouts and the headlines are making sure to point out that JPMorgan is the biggest bank in the United States. If smaller banks qualified for bailouts you know the biggest bank in America is “too big to fail.”

Here’s how the game usually works. A private entity wants to get a large chunk of money from the state and the politicians want cushy jobs when they exit politics. This situation is mutually beneficial because the banks can offer cushy jobs to the politicians in exchange for huge chunks for state money. Politicians also want to maintain their power so they package up the handout in a manner they believe the public will support. In the case of large banks the package is one of economics, they will tell the public that the United States economy will suffer greatly if the bank fails. What the politicians neglect to mention is the fact capitalism requires bad businesses to fail because bad businesses have misallocated resources and those recourse must now be property allocated.

I’m predict JPMorgan will receive some kind of large handout from the state in the coming months. Perhaps they won’t be the only receivers either.

The Vikings subsidy is on its way to governor Dayton’s office:

After a grinding week of late nights and marathon floor sessions, the state Senate granted final approval to a new Minnesota Vikings stadium on the final day of the legislative session.

“We delivered,” said Republcican Sen. Julie Rosen, R-Farmington, who sponsored the stadium bill. “We are going to have first-class stadium we can all be very, very proud of.”

The Senate approved the $975 million project on a vote of 36-30 amid cheers from Vikings fans in the gallery. The House gave final approval to the bill at 3:30 a.m., after the team agreed to kick in an extra $50 million.

Once signed the kabuki will be concluded and I must say it was fairly well done. As is the tradition of kabuki the stadium deal followed the five acts formula:

Nearly every full-length play occupies five acts. The first corresponds to jo, an auspicious and slow opening which introduces the audience to the characters and the plot. The next three acts correspond to ha, speeding events up, culminating almost always in a great moment of drama or tragedy in the third act and possibly a battle in the second and/or fourth acts. The final act, corresponding to kyu, is almost always short, providing a quick and satisfying conclusion.

The planning phase, where Zygi started making his intentions of building a new stadium public would have been the first act. It really set the stage, let the audience become familiar with the characters, and slowly got the ball rolling. The second act started with Zygi started petitioning for public funding in Minneapolis. From there acts three and four revolves around Minneapolis pretending they were at odds with the deal and moved it up to the state level where the debates started and the possibility of failure was fabricated. The last several days were act five, a fast passed series of late night debates that cumulated into a conclusion that many felt satisfied with.

Overall I believe it was a well done play although it could have been better. If I had written the script I would have had a tragic death inserted somewhere in act three or four then in act five I would have had one of the characters introduce a plea to name the new stadium after the fallen individuals. It would have been a far more emotionally appealing ending and much more drama could have been inserted. Even without the tragedy and drama of death the play was pretty decent and had many people on the edges of their seat. A good playwright knows how to engage his or her audience and you can’t say the audience wasn’t engaged with this play. We had audience members at the capitol dressed up in costume cheering on the characters while other audience members stood by with signs decrying the stadium supporters. Both parties felt as though they had a say in the ongoings of the play just as many people believe hoping a character in a movie won’t die has some kind of outcome on the movie’s ending.

My compliments to the writers. While I find the play less than satisfying because I was easily able to predict the ending I respect how well it was executed.

If you’re in Minnesota you likely know about the “vote” being taken by our “representatives” at the Capitol regarding the Vikings Stadium. I use the word vote in quotation marks because this isn’t a vote, it’s a formality. The bottom line is this stadium was ensured to be built the second Zygi Wilf, the owner of the Vikings, said he wanted the state to fork over a large part of the stadium’s cost. Zygi is a politically well-connected billionaire meaning anything Zygi wants Zygi will get, he merely needs to make the right deal. Apparently he made the right deal since the Minnesota House voted in favor of the stadium:

The Minnesota Vikings won a decisive and long-awaited political victory late Monday when the House passed a public subsidy package for a new stadium, sending the project marching toward final passage at the State Capitol.

When the final vote was announced, two dozen Vikings fans — most clad in team jerseys — cheered loudly outside the House chamber and sang the team’s fight song. Afterward, amid chants of “Build A Stadium, Save Our Team!” Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak made his way through the crowd and was congratulated by smiling fans.

The final vote came after a day of high drama and a weekend of intense lobbying by Gov. Mark Dayton and the team, and produced a relatively easy 73-to-58 approval in the House. Though Republicans hold a majority in the House, DFLers did the heavy political lifting on the final vote, producing 40 of the 73 votes. The victory was also noteworthy because House Speaker Kurt Zellers — the leading Republican in the House — voted against the project.

There is much to be said about this entire fiasco. First let me address the rampant hypocrisy involved in this decision. Many people who are demanding the state pay a chunk of the stadium are also demanding the state tax the wealthy more. In fact the Democratic Farmer Labor Party (DFL) is usually the party working to increase taxes on the wealthy yet were the ones to vote most favorably towards a publicly funded stadium. The hypocrisy is almost palpable, they just voted to give a bunch of money to a billionaire. Perhaps they believe the state should tax the wealthy more but subsidize the super wealthy?

Outside of the hypocrisy a question must be asked: what do the Vikings have to offer the politicians? Deals like these must be mutually beneficially and therefore Zygi must offer something of value to get his subsidy. Unfortunately these deals are always performed behind closed doors and thus we never learn about them until after the fact. Beyond campaign contributions I believe another thing of value was likely offered, jobs. When things were looking bleak for the Vikings stadium deal the National Football League (NFL) entered the game. What does the NFL consistently try to do? Get public funding for stadiums. What do you need to get consistent public funding? Lobbyists. As a general rule politicians are often offered plush lobbying positions by large corporations for favorable legislation so I wouldn’t be surprised to see several prominent Minnesota “representatives” receive jobs with the NFL after they exit politics.

What’s done is done. I am merely a commentator and thus have no power to influence the game, but I do have the ability to make some predictions. It’s no secret that the economy is getting worse, which would make an intelligent person ask why the Vikings want to build a new stadium now. With a crumbling economy won’t people become less willing to buy tickets to see a game? Of course. Does it matter to the Vikings? Absolutely not. Why? Because the same arguments they use to get public funding for a new stadium can be used to get ticket prices subsidized.

Zygi Wilf isn’t an idiot and thus has likely already come up with the same idea I’m about to present. Throughout this entire stadium fiasco the primary argument used by proponents of public funding for the stadium have been based on supposed economic benefits brought by the Vikings. The beauty of such arguments is they can be used to justify almost any subsidy. Let’s step ahead several years where further economic failures have caused ticket sales at Vikings games to falter. Zygi, seeing his profits plument, has decided he needs another subsidy. How can he sell it? Easy. All it has to do is tell the politicians that he will sell off the Vikings if they fail to be profitable. Such a sale would cause them to move elsewhere and thus deprive Minnesota of the economic benefit the team supposedly brings. Since the Minnesota economy is already at a very vulnerable point the loss of the Vikings will cause complete collapse and therefore the economy of Minnesota depends on subsidized ticket prices from the state. Using this argument the politicians will vote to subsidize some arbitrarily chosen percentage of ticket prices so more fans can enjoy the games and the Vikings can remain profitable. It’s all for the greater good after all.

Many people reading that likely scoffed and rolled their eyes but I believe my prediction is pretty sound. We must only wait and see (and if it does happen I’m going to be doing the biggest “I told you so” dance anybody has ever seen).

France, like the rest of the world, is facing economic ruin. The government has been doling out money so long that they’ve racked up a debt they can never hope to pay off and unemployment continues to creep up. To solve this problem the French have elected a socialist.

Think about that.

Due to economic failures the French elected a socialist. That’s like having a convicted repeat child molester babysit your children. Either way the new president of France, Francois Hollande, is calling for a 75 percent tax rate on those who earn more than 1 million euros a year:

“Above 1m euros [£847,000; $1.3m], the tax rate should be 75% because it’s not possible to have that level of income,” he said.

[...]

Mr Hollande himself renewed his call on Tuesday, saying the 75% rate on people earning more than one million euros a year was “a patriotic act”.

“It’s a signal that has been sent, a message of social cohesion, there is an effort to be made,” he explained.

“It is patriotic to agree to pay a supplementary tax to get the country back on its feet.”

Did you get that? It’s patriotic to have 75 percent of your wealth stolen! This idea isn’t going to fly as history has demonstrated. What most people who demand the rich be taxed don’t stop to consider is that the rich are wealthy enough to leave a country at will. The United States doesn’t have anywhere near a 75 percent income tax and many wealthy individuals are still renouncing their citizenships over the high taxation:

This year almost 1,800 people renounced their American citizenship and Green Cards as published in the Federal Register, thanks to a costly and timely tax requirement.

So here are my predictions for France, most of which are torn from the pages of Pictures of a Socialistic Future [PDF] (a great book written in the 1800s that successfully predicted what conditions in socialist countries would be like).

Upon the 75 percent tax rate becoming law many of the wealthiest in France are going to abandon the country and renounce their citizenships. After enough people start fleeing France the government will implement Soviet-esque border controls and prevent those with means from leaving unless they leave something behind as a hostage collateral. From there things will only get more draconian since the massively jacked up tax rate won’t actually improve economic conditions but will do quite the opposite. Not wanting to face the prospects of being successful people in France will cease any attempt at real entrepreneurship or turn entirely to the black market. As a last resort France may turn to issuing their own money again, which will be printed so fast hyperinflation will be guaranteed.

Basically France is fucked if they continue down their current economic road.

Since the turn of the century it has become common practice for the state to use its monopoly on force to expand its monopoly on natural resources. Canada and Norway both maintain a monopoly on minerals through state ownership of extraction companies and required licensing for any extraction by third-parties. Even the State of Minnesota has maintained mineral rights on most property sold after the state of the 20^th century. Unfortunately the state, lacking the market feedback system, is unable to extract resources efficiently and usually squander any monetary gains from resource extraction on nonproductive uses such as expanding bureaucracy, maintaining a powerful military, and giving handouts to cronies. In fact many countries with abundant natural resources end up in worse positions than countries without such resources, a happening so common the term resource curse was coined to describe it.

Peru is a perfect example of this. During the 1840s an island off of Peru was discovered than held a great deal of guano:

In 1839, Peru was a devastated nation. Debt and destruction in the aftermath of both the War of the Confederation (1836–1839) and the War of Independence (1822–1825), a crushing debt default in 1826, and several hundred years as a Spanish colony had left its economy small and craft dominated, without even a banking system.

But in the early 1840s, explorers made an exciting discovery. Due to an uncharacteristic lack of rainfall and the unique variety of birds nesting there, Peru’s Chincha Islands were found to be covered by mountains of bird excrement several hundred feet high in places, which had accumulated over many centuries. They were thought to be the most enormous guano deposits in the world — and of a particularly high quality — at a time when guano was used worldwide for fertilizer. So, out of nowhere, a valuable natural resource was found, one which promised — if managed properly — to produce wealth that could “stagger the dreams of Oriental imagination,” possibly ushering in a new era of development and progress.

At the time guano was almost like gold since it was used by almost everybody as fertilizer. Guano was so valuable that the United States passed the Guano Islands Act:

Whenever any citizen of the United States discovers a deposit of guano on any island, rock, or key, not within the lawful jurisdiction of any other Government, and not occupied by the citizens of any other Government, and takes peaceable possession thereof, and occupies the same, such island, rock, or key may, at the discretion of the President, be considered as appertaining to the United States.

The act was used by the United States to lay claim to some 100 islands, so this wasn’t a law used sparingly to claim one or two islands. Needless to say with guano being such a valuable resource at the time the Peruvian government decided to law monopoly claim to their newly discovered treasure trove. Money made from selling the guano was used as money obtained by a state is usually used, for mostly frivolous projects:

Public works and private prebends remade the city … with stately museums, parks, plazas, academies, boulevards, mansions, and theaters, not to mention the latest in potable water systems and Italian opera. Imports — everything from workaday textiles to lavish accessories and vintage French wines [arrived in the city].

Since the state doesn’t have to concern itself with market feedback it is always apt to dump great deals of money into unwanted projects. How useful is a museum, mansion, or theater in a country where a majority of the population live in poverty? No very useful, which is noted by the fact no entrepreneur invested money in any of those enterprises. Unfortunately the more of those things a country has the longer its political dick is and countries love political dick measure competitions.

As these investments never return any profit they lead to economic ruin. We see this in the United States today with all the spending on Medicare, Medicaid, offense defense, bailouts, etc. have failed to return any profit and are leading to the slow collapse of our sham economy. When you keep dumping money into failed enterprises the only possible outcome is total failure, something Peru experienced when that state’s meddling in the guano market lead to other sources of fertilizer being sought out. At some point all resources become more expensive than people are willing to pay and at those times alternatives are researched by individuals wanting a piece of the pie from currently disgruntled consumers. When you can pay $5.00 for a pound of fertilizer or $50.00 for a pound of fertilize the choice of which one to choose becomes obvious:

The European crisis hammered the Peruvian economy in two ways: first, because the Peruvian government had incrementally (and with disregard for competitive substitutions) increased guano prices so much, stricken farmers turned to other, lower-priced fertilizers; demand for shipments from the Chincha Islands dried up. Second, with London money and commodity markets frozen, lenders had little appetite for extending additional credit to once-again-debt-encumbered Peru.

Peru’s gravy train came to a screeching halt. All of the sudden the worthless investments being made by the state became impossible to continue as money was drying up. What’s a state to do in such a situation? The only thing a state knows how to do, use violence in an attempt to maintain its monopoly:

In response to the economic crisis, in 1875, Pardo — now president of Peru — ordered the military to seize the southern nitrate fields on the border with Chile in an effort to offset the decline of the guano business with another source of fertilizer revenues. Even though the state hastily expropriated land and facilities from private investors, it was too little too late. Work on the railroad projects halted in August of 1875. Over the next few months, a variety of other government projects defaulted amid a widening financial contagion culminating in January 1876, as Peru defaulted on its sovereign debt for the second time in a century: mountains of loans from European banks in stark juxtaposition against diminished avian dung heaps.

This should be a familiar formula for anybody who pays attention to foreign affairs. Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion of Kuwait because their cheap oil flooded the market and challenge Iraq’s primary source of income. The United States has a history of invading or otherwise intervening in countries with vast natural resources including Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan. In fact the British and United States lead overthrow of the Iranian government in 1953 happened shortly after the country nationalized its oil resources (which was previously controlled by Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, a British owned company). Peru demonstrates such tactics are nothing new, the state has a long history of military invasions to seize natural resources.

Meanwhile the free market allows for peaceful distribution of natural resources to productive uses, since entities that invest resources into unproductive uses face insolvency in a hurry. On top of that the threat of insolvency prevents private entities from squandering resources on massive frivolous endeavors. The state, being free of market feedback, has no such worries and thus ends up dumping massive amounts of money into enriching itself:

In hindsight, “guano … proved a great ‘lost opportunity’ for [Peruvian] development … [as] state investments stymied possibilities for national entrepreneurs, diversification, and gains in domestic productivity.” In roughly four decades, under the supervision and at the direction of the government, between 11 and 12 million tons of excrement fertilizer were shipped, earning $500 million in revenues. (Another estimate holds the number at more than 20 million tons shipped and $2 billion in revenue.) But in the end, 53 percent of all of the guano revenue was spent on expanding the bureaucracy and the military, 12 percent on direct transfer payments, and 7 percent on reducing tributary impositions. Twenty percent had been spent on railroads.

Peru’s politicians spent 53 percent of all guano revenues on enriching themselves, creating more dependency on the state, and enhancing the military so they could steal other country’s stuff. None of these things are valuable for anybody besides the state and its cronies. That’s what states do and we should keep it in mind. It doesn’t matter where the money comes from either. Whether the state gets money from a monopoly on resources, taxation, or tariffs it will be spent mostly on worthless things. If we listen to those demanding the rich be taxed heavier where do you think that additional money will go? It won’t be Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security; it’ll go to funding the military, hiring more government employees, and lining the pockets of state cronies.

When the state gets money it’s lose/lose unless you’re tied to the state. This is because any money obtained by the state is stolen. In the case of Peru’s claim of the guano filled island the property was stolen from individuals who could have put the guano to productive uses in the free market.

The owners of the Minnesota Vikings, Zygi Wilf, is trying to sucker the people of Minnesota into handing over $548 million to help pay for a new stadium. Why does a multi-millionaire need pilfer the coffers of the state to pay for a stadium? He doesn’t, but like any smart business man making a risky move he wants to shield his fortune from possible loss as much as possible. Zygi didn’t get rich by being stupid after all. What’s interesting putting the sheer amount of money being demanded by the Vikings into perspective:

The public’s share of the project is slated to be $548 million and the Vikings must come up with $427 million. The team has already been approved by the NFL for a loan to help with the financing and could also sell stadium naming rights and seat licenses to cover their end. It is not clear if the bill will pass since most of the state’s taxpayers are against using their money to make Vikings owner Zygi Wilf, who paid $600 million for a team in 2005 now worth $796 million, even richer. Fully aware of this, advocates of the current bill have used bogus polling to plead their case.

If the bill for the Minnesota Vikings new stadium passes the cost to taxpayers will be $77.30 per ticket, per game, for 30 years, according to an analysis by state senator John Marty, who submitted his findings to his colleagues yesterday (see his full report below). If the taxpayers of Minnesota think $77.30 is too much, Marty has even worse news: the real cost is much greater because his calculation does not include the value of the property tax exemption on the stadium and the parking ramps, nor the value of the sales tax exemption on construction materials.

I have an idea, why don’t the Vikings just increase the cost of their tickets by $77.30 to fund the new stadium? If they’re right and the fans truly want a new stadium I’m sure they will have no problem paying $77.30 more per ticket to help the team out.

Personally I think Minnesota should just tell the Vikings where to stick it. They keep threatening to move to Los Angeles, I say we should make them put up or shut up.

Things are not going well for the Minnesota Republican Party (MNGOP). Some time ago it was revealed that they hadn’t paid the rent on their office building for some time, which lead to an eviction notice being sent their way. Now all sorts of chicanery is being revealed about the dummy corporation setup by MNGOP to contest Dayton’s electoral victor:

This past winter, George Fraley got a certified letter from a Republican attorney demanding payment of more than $219,000 in overdue legal fees from the 2010 gubernatorial recount.

There were two problems: The letter listed Fraley as CEO of a company he’d never heard of — Count Them All Properly Inc. Second, he never agreed to bankroll the recount for Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer.

“This has been, without a doubt, one of the screwiest things that has ever happened in my life,” said Fraley, who is not politically active and who has no ties to the GOP.

Fraley’s fight to get his name removed from the corporate filings for Count Them All Properly is coming to light as state regulators and a watchdog group are probing whether the company was created chiefly to keep debt off the books of the state Republican Party, which owes creditors $2 million, including recount debt.

GOP activists were rocked again last week when they learned that the party is $111,000 behind on rent. On Tuesday a Ramsey County district judge will conduct a hearing on whether the party can be evicted from its longtime St. Paul headquarters.

[...]

In the last two years, Count Them All Properly has listed two CEOs, both of whom say they have never heard of the company. Count Them All Properly has no corporate office, no phone number and no website. It does, however, have roughly $500,000 in debt, mostly to recount lawyers.

The company was incorporated in late 2010 by Daniel Puhl, a former administrator for the Republican National Committee who specializes in helping political parties, businesses and candidates work with the Federal Elections Commission.

About two weeks later, a CEO was listed: Jon Richard Schroeder.

Like Fraley, Schroeder says he had never heard of the company or agreed to be its chief executive.

“I have no idea how my name got on there,” said Schroeder, who runs a heating and air conditioning company in Maple Grove. “I have never been associated with them.”

As recount debt piled up, Schroeder said he started getting calls from people looking for the CEO. He told them the same thing: It’s not me; call someone else.

Months later, Schroeder’s name was replaced in state records with a new CEO: George Fraley.

Not only did they setup a dummy corporation to hide the debt that MNGOP knew would be incurred by recounting the governor vote (they claim that’s not why the corporation was setup but we all know it is) but they listed to random schmucks at the CEOs. Couldn’t they have at least listed somebody involved in the Republican Party?

I’m sure this story is going to get very interesting as it develops. I wonder how deep the corruption goes in this case. Also, why does a Ramsey County judge have to rule on whether or not MNGOP can be evicted? They haven’t paid their damned rent, it is well within the rights of the landlord to give those deadbeats the boot. Oh, right, MNGOP is a powerful political entity and therefore receive special state treatment.

This week on Politics: The Reality Television Show for Suckers we will be looking at HR 4170, the Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012. An innocuous piece of legislation that currently has strong backing by those with student loans this little bill is nothing more than a bank bailout packaged up in a warm and fuzzy sounding name. Any proponents of this bill are likely doing a double-take on that last line but rest assured I will explain. The trick of this bill lies in section 6:

‘(2) CONSOLIDATION OF PRIVATE EDUCATION LOANS AS A FEDERAL DIRECT CONSOLIDATION LOAN FOR CERTAIN BORROWERS-

‘(A) IN GENERAL- Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a borrower who meets the eligibility criteria described in subparagraph (B) shall be eligible to obtain a Federal Direct Consolidation loan under this
paragraph that–

‘(i) shall include an eligible private education loan; and

‘(ii) may include a loan described in section 428C(a)(4).

‘(B) ELIGIBLE BORROWER- A borrower of an eligible private education loan is eligible to obtain a Federal Direct Consolidation Loan under this paragraph if the borrower–

‘(i) was eligible to borrow a loan under section 428H, a Federal Direct Unsubsidized Stafford Loan, a loan under section 428B, or a Federal Direct PLUS loan for a period of enrollment at an institution of higher education, or, with respect to a borrower who was enrolled at an institution of higher education on less than a half-time basis, would have been eligible to borrow such a loan for such period of enrollment if the borrower had been enrolled on at least a half-time basis;

‘(ii) borrowed at least one eligible private education loan for a period of enrollment described in clause (i); and

‘(iii) has an average adjusted gross income (based on the borrower’s adjusted gross income from the 3 most recent calendar years before application for consolidation under this section) that is equal to or less than the borrower’s total education debt (determined by calculating the sum of the borrower’s loans described in section 428C(a)(4) and eligible private education loans) at the time of such application.

‘(D) PAYMENT TO THE HOLDER-

‘(i) SECRETARY- For each eligible private education loan that a borrower is consolidating under this paragraph, the Secretary shall make a payment to the holder of such loan in an amount equal to the amount consolidated under this paragraph with respect to such loan.

‘(ii) HOLDER- Upon receipt of a payment described in clause (i), a holder shall discharge the liability on the loan consolidated under this paragraph in the amount of such payment.

Emphasis mine. Part (D) is the real meat of this legislation. If an eligible borrower decides to take advantage of this legislation and is approved the Secretary of the Treasury will use government funds to pay off the private holder of the loan. Effectively this bill grants private banks the ability to rid themselves of risky loans and thus avoid taking responsibility for any bad loans that have been made. This holds quite a bit of similarity to what was pulled during the housing market crash. Passage of this legislation will merely mean the government will transfer money to private banks.

I haven’t even explained the best part, this legislation has been gaining the support of those who have been opposing bank bailouts and demanding that the banks be held accountable instead of being allowed to socialize their losses. The state has effectively gotten many of those who oppose the banks and bailouts to support a bank bailout. It’s disgusting pure evil that is also beautifully elegant.

Somebody is likely to ask where the funding to pay off the banks is going to come from. That part of this scam is also well played:

SEC. 7. OFFSET.

Funds appropriated or otherwise made available for a fiscal year to carry out this Act and the amendments made by this Act shall be made available from the funds available for Overseas Contingency Operations.

What the hell are the Overseas Contingency Operations? Simple, the renamed War on Terror. So money appropriated for the defense budget, the most inflated and unaccountable budget in the United States, will be used to bailout the banks.

This episode of Politics has everything. You have the drama from students unable to pay back their loans, corruption in the state leading to its bailout of the banks, and irony in getting people opposing bank bailouts to support a bank bailout! My compliments to the writers.

Kudos to Adam Curry on the No Agenda podcast for brining this to light. It’s good to know that somebody is actually analyzing this crap while traditional media outlets continue to play the state’s game and report nothing of substance.

It appears that OccupyGOP has officially begun:

Massachusetts-based Hub Properties Trust filed paperwork in Ramsey County on Wednesday to evict the state GOP for failing to pay more than $96,000 in rent over the last year.

“Tenant remains in default under the lease by failing to pay in full when due, rent from April 2011 through the present,” the court papers read. “As of April 1, 2012, the tenant owes landlord a total of $111,192.14.” (A security deposit on the property and several partial payments since June 2011 have reduced the total outstanding debt to about $96,000.)

The eviction action follows a series of revelations last winter regarding debts accrued by the party during the reign of former RPM Chairman Tony Sutton. In December, an internal review of finances revealed that the party owes $1.23 million to creditors, plus more than $700,000 in legal fees accrued during the 2010 gubernatorial recount, and is facing possible fines from the Federal Elections Commission for undisclosed debts. The party is also currently being investigated by the state campaign finance board.

[...]

“Rather than continue discussions with us, the landlord chose to exercise its rights and filed a notice of eviction in Ramsey County court. We’re not going to be evicted, and at the same time, are continuing to negotiate on the back payments as well as on a lease that better fits both our space needs and our budget. While this is a situation none of us wants, it’s part of the rebuilding process. No one ever said it would be simple or easy or without bumps along the way. But I wanted you to hear about it from me rather than from any other source.”

Damn… $96,000 in unpaid rent? The landlord must be pissed. I also like how they are saying that they’re “not going to be evicted.” I wonder what makes them so sure? Are they actually planning an occupation or are they just hoping the landlord will lover look their minor $96,000 debt?

Either way it couldn’t have happened to nicer people. Instead of focusing on actual issues the Minnesota Republican Party has been working on getting constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage and implement voter ID. Meanwhile this fine state continues to spiral into deeper debt with no hope in sight. If this state is going to burn then the political machinery should go down in flames with it.