My wife said that when she was driving home today, some people were out in front of the State House with a sign that said something like, “Impeach Sanford — We Need the Money Now.”
I didn’t get to see it. Did any of y’all? And do you know who it was? And did anybody get pictures?
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See the pic on http://www.fitsnews.com. On facebook, James Smith has published the phone number of the Governor’s Mansion and has asked everyone to call him at home tonight.
Hard cases make bad law.
Impeaching the Governor under these circumstances would make horrendous law.
As the presiding officer of the case if it is heard by the Senate, would Jean Toal have the authority to toss the whole matter as having insufficient grounds.
James Smith is a mouth breathing idiot. I realize he’s a hero to Brad, but to publish someone’s home phone number and to request the public to call them is juvenile at best. Maybe Sanford can have Smith charged with harassment. Maybe someone should publish James Smith’s home phone number and we can call this prick every 5 minutes.
Ha!!! Five people showed up for the “rally”. The rest of you whiners were probably too busy with Wheel of Fortune to bother showing up.
Not knowing who those folks are, I can’t ask them, but they didn’t look like revolutionaries. My guess is that the “Impeach Sanford” sign is less a proposal to start a process than an expression of frustration. But as I said, I don’t know.
My sense is that folks would be happy if the governor just cut it out and went back to being irrelevant. We used to think that was a bad thing at the time — South Carolina needs an engaged (and constructive) chief executive — but now we kinda miss it.
Every time a governor, CEO or banker working for $1.00 a year plus bonus stands up to tyrants like Obama and Barney Frank, it encourages others to do likewise. Very quickly, Americans are realizing that the Democrats are not ramming through TARP, the Pelosi Pork, and massive new welfare programs to revive the economy, but to destroy it, so they can use the chaos and fear to rob individual liberty.
As Governor Sanford said today, “Spending this money based on debt is an attempt to rob our children. It is a form of financial child abuse.”
Brad, THE rally is tonight, 5:30 to 6:30 at the State House. I don’t expect many “Impeach” Sanford signs but who knows.
http://www.scpronet.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/stimulus_rally_flyer2.pdf
And I love how the media can’t seem to get it’s story straight. I’ve seen some reports calling this a “Pink Slip” rally and others saying it begins at 5 at the Dept. of Education.
Apparently after SC ProNet got the ball rolling several other groups have jump started their own efforts. It would be a safe bet there will be a larger crowd tonight than Tuesday’s effort.
Speaking of CEOs being forced out and impeachment…
it’s looking more and more likely that Ken Lewis, head of the Bank of America (our biggest bank) is going to have to step down due to the multiple lawsuits filed.
Speaking of CEOs being forced out and impeachment…
it’s looking more and more likely that Ken Lewis, head of the Bank of America (our biggest bank) is going to have to step down due to lawsuits.
I am no fan of Ken Lewis, and if he is removed, he should be removed by the board, not dictates from Obama or Geithner. A shareholder lawsuit is a legitimate means of changing management policies.
But remember that Ken Lewis was forced to take TARP money by Henry Paulson and the rest of the federal government.
He was forced to buy Merrill Lynch by the same feds. The feds told him they would absord the losses, up to $15 billion. The feds did not tell Bank of America how bad the books were at Merrill, and did not give BofA time to perform normal due diligence.
Whoops, double-posted there.
Mr. Muller, don’t you realize that a number of our banks – including behemoths like Citibank – would be insolvent had the government not loaned them TARP money? The FDIC would have had to pay out a fortune if Citi evaporated. And that’s just for the deposits. God only knows how many people would have lost their homes and businesses as well.
Some Bank CEOs are making a show of bravery to boost their stock – claiming they’re going to pay back their TARP loan by the end of the year -but you don’t see any of them offering to send it back today.
Why? They can’t afford to: they need the money to stay solvent.
That’s why the CEOs aren’t standing up to “tyrants”.
All those banks would not have become insolvent without the federal government forcing them to make high-risk loans to millions of blacks and illegal aliens, and without FNMA and FMAC underwriting the loans.
The board members of FNMA and FMAC, mostly Democrats on Obama’s staff and board of advisors, collected over $400,000,000 in bonuses by falsifying the quarterly reports to show profits when the were actually losing over $1.5 billion a month.
Hundreds of banks which qualify for TARP funds have refused to take any.
Bank of America and Citibank have announced they are going to repay all the loans early in 2009. Barney Frank declared that would not be good enough, that the federal government was still going to manage their business.
I have a suggestion. Since Govenor Sanford is so sure that the state doesn’t need extra money, he should be willing to do without as well. I think that the first place to cut back is the govenor’s salary. In addition I suggest that we stop funding any goods or services that he receives, such as electricity, water, etc. As a matter of fact, I don’t see any reason for providing these services to him, especially since water and sewerage are maintained by the city, and therefore subject to hard times and budget cuts as well. And lets not forget police and fire protection. Since he is so determined to cut the budget, he can surely do without these amenities.
I’m looking at the official B of A and Merrill Lynch websites as we speak, and they say no such thing – by early in 2009, perhaps you mean early in 2010? Further, your theories are not shared by any investment bankers I know.
What “theories”, Mr. Fields. I stated facts.
Mr. Lewis of BofA has been interviewed several times where he has said exactly what I stated above. So have the other bankers from Citi and Wells Fargo. I watched them myself in the hearings. I heard Barney Frank say that early repayment “is not good enough” to them in the last hearings.
If the investment bankers you claim to know are not familiar with their industry, have them contact me and I will be glad to fill in the missing information.
The game you are trying to play, Mr. Fields, appears to be bluffing, and saying something isn’t so, when it is, and is public information you could easily have found. What is your interest in this subject, and why would you not know, or pretend to not know, the basic facts?
I will provide some links to the facts you deny. After you review them, we can resume the conversation.
Karen,
I’m sure Governor Sanford would be willing to give up on attending the Okra Strut and visiting the Hundley Museum also. Those are just two of the many items that the legislature thinks is more valuable than teachers, firemen, police, etc. There’s a $40+ million dollar slush fund that the legislators use to kickback money to friends, donors, and their own personal pet projects.
FYI, according to the salary database on The State, Sanford makes
MARSHALL C SANFORD GOVERNOR’S OFFICE $106,078
that puts him below $60K less than the head of the Budget and Control Board, Frank Fusco. There are about 2000 state employees who make more than him. There are several hundred who make $200K or more. Think they should kick something into all the rest of those in need?
Plus, if you add up all the salaries of the legislators and their expense accounts, I bet you get a sum far greater than the governor’s amount. Why don’t they all kick something into the pot too? Nearly all of them have significant outside income also. Bobby Harrell’s drug company makes a lot of money from — hmmm… taxpayers. Nice work if you can get it. And how about the Minnesota company that processed the PACT tests — guess how much they contributed to Harrell’s PAC in 2007? $2500. And, surprise, surprise, they ended up with an $825,000 contract to revise the test. $825,000 would pay for about 20 teachers wouldn’t it?
Keep shooting at Sanford. Meanwhile the real crooks are sneaking out the backdoor.
“I will provide some links to the facts you deny. After you review them, we can resume the conversation.” Lee Muller
Mr. Fields,
Are you going to answer the challenge? I look forward to reading what you have to say and Lee’s rebuttal.
Any report on the demonstration at the State House grounds?
Sure, I’ll respond, but facts are useless in the face of religious belief.
I’ll simply say that I believe Mr. Muller’s theory that the banking system melt-down was entirely caused by HUD, blacks, aliens and Barney Frank is just that – a theory. And I personally believe it to be false.
And it’s a theory that can’t be proven to be true. Because we have no “control group” Alternate Earth to test out the theory. The actions of HUD, minorities, aliens, and Barney Frank didn’t occur in some sort of magical vacuum where no other government or private actions were affecting the market. All sorts of factors affected the market. The real estate market got wildly inflated primarily in California (where I reside) where HUD can’t be blamed for much. Speaking of vacuums…Real Estate also got wildly inflated in Australia, Ireland, and many other countries where HUD, Fannie Mae, Freddie mac, and Barney Frank has no power whatsoever.
Now, I dn’t believe that his theory is as an absurd of a theory as, say, the belief that Libertarianism is the only sane choice for governing the 300 million post-industrial citizens of United States of America. Since Libertarianism has never truly been tried here, we have no way of knowing whether or not it would work. Personally, I believe it would be Libertarianism would be a colossal failure. But I could be wrong – again: there’s no way to know for sure without trying, without testing. Until then, it’s just an opinion, or a theory.
Now, do I personally believe HUD, Fannie and Freddie pushed some questionable loans and contributed to the crisis? Sure I do.
But that’s not the only reason we’re in this state of crisis. Far from it.
Spend six months trolling realclearpolitics.com, The Economist, The Financial Times, The Guardian, cnn, us news, newsweek, etc etc and you’ll find no end of articles pointing out culprits for this mess we’re in. So I don’t see the point in pointing you to just one or two of them.
I won’t give out the name until I leave the company (probably in a month) but I’m working for one of our Big Five Investment Banks as we speak.
Ie, my coworkers are Investment Bankers. They put together 8, 9, and 10 figure deals. Most (Hell, maybe all) of them are Republicans. At least one (young one) is a Libertarian. But I’ve never heard any of them express a belief that the blame for the financial crisis can be laid entirely upon minorities, HUD, illegal aliens, and Barney Frank. I could ask them if they do, but quite frankly, I think they’d find the question to be screwy.
Mr. Fields, we do not need a “control group”, because this is not an experiment. We already have a report last fall from HUD stating that 5,000,000 illegal aliens bought houses under the affirmative action programs.
Here are some more facts:
* The government forced the banks to meet quotas, which required them to lower the down payments from 20%, to 15, 10, then zero.
* Speculators learned how the game the system, using their ethnicity.
Industry reporting services reported last summer that by 2006, some 30% of all loans under these programs were made to speculators.
* At the time Lehmann Brothers went broke, 7 of 8 foreclosures were on speculative loans – by developers, builders, and 1/3 of them by flippers.
* FNMA and FMAC, run by Democrats, cooked their books, to have the taxpayers underwrite new loans while their portfolio was going under water due to foreclosures and reappraisals on their junk affirmative action loans.
Let me say, there are very few investment bankers in South Carolina.
Of the investment bankers in the financial centers, not that many are in real estate.
I follow these statistics because I am an economist and developed commercial mortgage origination software, and an expert system for bond packaging ( derivatives), and an expert system to manage hedge funds for managing mortgage commitment risk.
TARP will not solve the financial problems. Only a restructuring of the bad loans to a lower, realistic market value will do that. But that requires some real work, instead of throwing money at the banks in panic. Geithner and the rest of them are primarily working to save the financial institutions from which they came.
Bank of America CEO says could repay TARP in ’09: report …
Mar 18, 2009 … …
newsfeedresearcher.com/data/articles_b12/bank-lewis-year.html
Goldman Sachs to repay TARP funds early
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/reuters/MTFH76035_2009-03-24_21-56-17_N24375299.htm
Ho hum, same-old, same-old. Lee has moved over here and insists on dominating the discussion with his version of “the facts”.
Today, on CNBC, Ken Lewis said Bank of America had already repaid $400,000,000 of TARP money, and expected to pay it all back in 2009.
I also drove by around 5:30/6 and saw the 4-5 people in front of the State house with a large B&W “Impeach Sanford” banner. I believe one of them was Frank Heflin, a nurse and fellow DNP student in the College of Nursing at USC. Those of us in higher ed are anxiously waiting to see how the standoff resolves, since the university is in line for some of the possible money.