On this fine Sunday morning George Bush, Henry M. Paulson, Ben Bernanke and others are meeting to put their finishing touches on their plan to “socialize” the financial system of the United States of America. With the exception of December 7, 1941, when Japanese aircraft attacked Pearl Harbor, I can’t think of a bleaker Sunday for our nation.

Folks, you’ve got to call your senators and congressman on Monday morning to voice your absolute objection to this Wall Street “bail out” legislation. Tell them that you will never vote for them again if they support it. Period. The economy won’t collapse without this rush bailout legislation; quite the opposite. If we let these fancy Wall Street Investment bankers fail, they are unlikely to participate in poor business practices in the future. If we bail them out, it will be just a few short years until they’ve invented another bogus financial product, with full assurance that they can reap their profits early and count on the taxpayers to bail them out when the house of cards collapses.

George Bush describes himself as “free market”, while this morning he colludes with Paulson (Secretary of the US Treasury), Bernanke (Chairman of the Federal Reserve System), and Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi to socialize our financial system with “rush” legislation. This must be done quickly, of course, to avoid what would otherwise be the collapse of the US economy. BALONEY! It’s being done quickly to avoid proper review and scrutiny!

This whole mess was started by Government in the first place with the Community Investment Act (CRA) of 1977. This bill encouraged financial institutions to make home loans available to buyers who would otherwise have been bad credit risks, and it was passed over the objection of the banking community. The Community Investment Act gave Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac the authority to buy mortgages from banks on the secondary market and sell them as mortgage-backed securities on the open market! While the CRA did not initially result in bad loans, the door was open for the eventual “Subprime” Mortgage mess.

In 1995 during the Clinton administration, the CRA was revised to put even more pressures on financial institutions to make sure they were making enough loans to poor people. Banks had quotas to meet the “housing needs” of the poor in their communities. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were allowed by the 1995 revisions to hold just 2.5% of capital to back their investments! Imagine that, just 2.5%! By 2007 nearly half of US mortgages were guaranteed or owned by Freddie and Fannie.

However, in 2003, responding to the flood of sub-prime loans, the Bush Administration proposed that Freddie and Fannie be regulated by a new agency within the Department of Treasury. The Democrats killed this idea. Barney Frank, Chair of the House Financial Services Committee, said at the time: “These two entities—Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—are not facing any kind of financial crisis, the more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.” Frank, of course, is the jerk who is now leading the charge for the Wall Street Bailout.

Plain and simple, the Congress created this crisis by passing and strengthening the CRA over many years. It forced commercial banks to make loans to those who could not afford the payments. It set up the legal framework to allow sub-prime mortgages to exist. It allowed Freddie and Fannie to engage in extreme financial leverage in buying these stinky loans. Wall Street Investment bankers made huge commissions packaging these toxic loans. Now they want you to bail them out. Tell your Senator and Congressmen NO! Call them tomorrow and tell them that you will never vote for them again if they support this bailout scheme. Then, on November 4, 2008, do something that they can’t ever seem to do; live up to your word!

Since my column a week ago, Bank of America bought troubled Merrill Lynch in a government forced takeover. Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy. A few weeks ago, Bear Stearns was gobbled up in a government-contrived takeover by JP Morgan Chase. Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac are now effectively owned by the federal government, and the Federal Reserve just approved a “loan” to bail out AIG, a large American insurance giant. Even as I write this blog on Sunday, September 28 Fed and Treasury officials are hammering out additional bailouts of financial markets. Taxpayers will be asked to bail out both financial institutions and their fellow citizens who have acted foolishly. In my opinion these bailouts have been harmful and irresponsible.

Politicians and many analysts have attributed these financial system troubles as a “failure of free markets”, which can only be cured by…..you guessed it; more government regulation! In fact, government is a main cause for these financial woes. Economist Walter Williams who writes a blog called “Minority View” http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economic … icles.html has a September 17 Article titled “Stubborn Ignorance”.

Williams states: “Many politicians and pundits claim that the credit crunch and high mortgage foreclosure rate is an example of market failure and want government to step in to bail out creditors and borrowers at the expense of taxpayers who prudently managed their affairs. These financial problems are not market failures but government failure. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 is a federal law that intimidated lenders into offering credit throughout their entire market and discouraged them from restricting their credit services to low-risk markets, a practice sometimes called redlining. The Federal Reserve Bank, keeping interest rates artificially low, gave buyers and builders incentive to buy and build, thereby producing the housing bubble. Lenders were willing to make creative interest-only loans, often high-risk “no doc” and “liar loans,” in order to allow people to buy more housing than they could afford. Of course, with the expectation that housing prices will continue to rise, it was no problem for lenders and borrowers but housing prices began to fall, leaving some people with negative home equity and banks in trouble.”

Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and others yet to be named, have also been a cause of this financial dilemma for two reasons. First, these institutions chose to “buy” bad real estate loans, many of which had been made to people who couldn’t afford the houses they were purchasing and didn’t have the income to make the monthly payments. Second, portfolio managers (especially those dealing in hedge funds) made “bad bets” investing the monies entrusted to them. When assets prices rise higher and higher, seemingly without an end to their advances, a “bubble” will result. When bubbles burst, someone always gets hurt.

Williams explains our current credit crisis in the United States accurately when he concludes: “The credit crunch and foreclosure problems are failures of government policy. In fact, what we see now is a market correction to foolhardy government policy. Congress’ move to bailout lenders and borrowers who made poor decisions will simply create incentives for people to make unwise decisions in the future. English philosopher Herbert Spencer said, “The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.”

I like old stuff, especially Victorian architecture. If I won $400 million in the lottery (which is impossible because I don’t buy lottery tickets) I would blow it all on brownstones and greystones. I hate to see solid, useful old buildings knocked down in the name of progress, especially baseball stadiums. At the end of this week’s home stand the once historic Yankee stadium, built in 1923 will succumb to the wrecking ball. Like all structures that meet the wrecking ball, they cease to exist forever. Forever is a long time.

I’ve only been to the Big Apple once, at the tender age of 22. My buddies and I had just a few hours in the city before flying to Europe on a soon-to-be bankrupt charter airline, but that’s another story. With just a few hours to spend in NYC before our flight, we got to the top of the Empire State Building and that was about all. No statue of liberty, no Ellis Island, no Brooklyn Bridge, no ballgames.

During this 2008 baseball season I’ve been haunted regularly by the thought that next year Yankee Stadium will be no more. In other words, unless I get myself out to New York and take in a game, I’ll regret that I never saw Yankee Stadium, just like I regret that I never saw Comisky Park or Tiger Stadium. It isn’t the end of the world if I don’t see Yankee Stadium and I could care less about those overpaid bums that play in the Bronx, but no matter how badly the Yankees ruined it during its remodeling in 1976, isn’t this still the house that Ruth built?

So damn the torpedoes and the family budget, I decided that my daughter and I would make the pilgrimage to New York to see the Yankees play the Rays on the first game of their last home stand of the season, Friday night, September 12, 2008. Our sole, overriding purpose for the trip was to see a game at Yankee Stadium. I flew out of Minneapolis, my daughter flew out of Chicago and we met in New York on Wednesday, September 10th. We went to Times Square, and to a Broadway play. Thursday, September 11, 2008 was the seventh anniversary of the 911 tragedy. We went to ground zero in the morning to pay our respects to the people that perished there. Thursday afternoon we went to the top of the Empire State building. Both days the weather cooperated in marvelous fashion. It wasn’t too cold, it wasn’t too hot, there was low humidity and we could walk around day and night in short sleeve shirts!

Finally it was Friday, September 12. Game Day! The weather started out in gorgeous fashion, but by 3 p.m. it started raining…and raining, and raining! I checked Accuweather on the computer and saw the biggest line of thunderstorms that I have seen all summer! A band of heavy rain showers 200 miles wide stretched all the way from Nebraska to New York! Always the optimists we bought two cheap umbrellas, went up Sixth Avenue on the V train, switched to the D train at 34th avenue, and continued up to the Yankee Stadium stop at 161st street in the Bronx. We spent approximately 2 hours in the stadium watching it rain and rain. The 7:05 p.m. game was finally postponed around 9 p.m. The Yankees will replay the game at 7:05 p.m. as part of a Saturday double header. Our tickets will be good for the 7:05 game. The problem is that we leave JFK airport at 11:30 a.m. and will both be back home before the game starts. Drat those non-cancellable airline tickets!

We never saw a ball game, but we did see Yankee Stadium. We even split one of those big pretzels with mustard along with a large diet Pepsi! In talking with others, we found that we weren’t the only ones who had made the trip from far and wide to see Yankee Stadium. Fortunately for most of them, they were staying another night and could catch the make-up game on Saturday. Tara and I still had a good trip. Sometimes things just don’t work out the way you hoped. Let the record show that we took one of the most expensive tours ever of Yankee Stadium! Ah, well, over the years we’ll reminisce and it will make a good story. Now you’ve heard it!

Politics disgusts me, especially at the federal level. The hypocrisy of the current Presidential campaigns, both for the Obama and McCain camps is particularly painful. Now we’re heading into the home stretch, less than 60 days before one of these marginal candidates becomes President of the United States.

I didn’t watch much of the Democratic convention from Denver. There was no need to listen to Obama’s keynote speech, because despite his incredible oratory, he never gets specific about anything. There’s a reason for this. Mr. Obama has no administrative or foreign policy experience. Other than proposing that government should “solve” more and more of our problems, the man still doesn’t have a plan. I watched only about 10 minutes of the Democratic convention, seven of which was a short film directed by Steven Spielberg. The film was apolitical and could have just as easily been shown at the Republican Convention. It was real nice, with short vignettes honoring various men and women who have served in Iraq. It was non-judgmental about the Iraq war. The Democrats and Spielberg did a great job on the film; too bad they have undermined our troops for over four years. Sorry, Democrats, you and your spineless leader Harry Ried have already surrendered in Iraq and have done everything possible to destroy the morale of the same young men and women you “honored” in your convention film. The fact that you’re tasteless hypocrites would have been bad enough, but it’s worse than that; men and women have died because your pathetic rhetoric of capitulation has emboldened our enemies in Iraq.

I didn’t watch any of the Republican convention except for the speech of Sarah Palin. I made a conscious effort to be watching television during that time, because her resume intrigued me. She didn’t disappoint and it looks like the Republicans have made a wise, albeit surprising, choice of a Vice Presidential candidate. According to most media reports McCain’s speech in St. Paul the following night was overshadowed by the hockey Mom from Alaska. As the Clintons didn’t quite know what to do with Barak Obama, Mr. Obama has the same dilemma with Sarah Palin. He would be wise to tread carefully around her. Like an Alaskan rattler sunning itself on the trail, you don’t want to step on her! I’m gleefully looking forward to the debate between Palin and Biden. I hope Joe Biden has his anti-venom shots with him. Despite the fact that the Republicans picked an incredibly interesting VP nominee, they haven’t done much for America lately. On their (and McCain’s) watch, our federal government has gotten more and more oppressive over the past 20 years and the wheels have come completely off as far as Federal spending is concerned. God save America from the Republicans.

In a past blog I stated that I couldn’t vote for either Obama or McCain. I was leaning on not voting for either Presidential candidate, deeming both of them to be unacceptable. With Palin in the picture, I’m now leaning toward a vote for McCain-Palin, but only because of Palin. Palin seems to genuinely believe in the merits of a smaller and less repressive Federal Government (with the exception of reproductive decisions). Crying, victim-oriented liberal feminists are put to shame by a woman like Palin. Sarah Palin is a real woman who defies labels. Like it or not, Mr. Obama, despite Palin’s gun-toting, anti-abortion image, a lot of liberal women who supported Hillary are going to jump on Palin’s bandwagon before this one’s over.

The polls show this Presidential race to be extremely close. It will be fun to see who slips up in the final stretch with a stupid statement or action that will doom their candidacy. The only thing that could have made this year’s election more fun and interesting would have been a decision of Jesse Ventura to run against (and kick the asses of) “sleazy” Norm Coleman and Al “Freakin” Frankin. Say it isn’t so, Jesse! I’m writing your name in on November 4th whether you like it or not!