Good Old American Ingenuity!

Last week, I wrote about Don Davis, the president of Centrue Bank in St. Louis who picked up his ball and went home after legislation passed the US House of Representatives limiting the salaries of bank executives whose banks were recipients of TARP monies (either willingly or under duress as the FDIC was encouraging banks, even those like Centrue with strong balance sheets to take TARP money to increase their capital). This afternoon Fox News reports that Rick Wagoner, CEO of GM will be stepping down immediately at the request of the Administration.

A White House official told FOX Business that Wagoner was asked by the Administration to step down as a precondition for the company to continue to get help with its restructuring.

The idea that our government can cherry pick the businesses that survive, the salaries that executives can make, and the conditions under which people can continue in their positions is, frankly, frightening! While the two aforementioned individuals also had something to do with government bailouts, it is not a far stretch to imagine that this kind of meddlesome behavior could extend to companies and people who have not been bailed out. They may simply have rubbed someone the wrong way or said the wrong thing to the wrong person. They may have espoused the wrong philosophy. They may have unknowingly made an enemy who is now exacting a twisted revenge. In the case of Wagoner, it may be that he is on the wrong side of the UAW to whom Obama owes a great debt of gratitude for his election and perhaps Wagoner has seen fit to call BS on the UAW and its monstrous pension, legacy healthcare and wasteful pay for no work clauses in the union contracts.

"This does not surprise me... Rick has seen good and bad times and it seems that a fresh face is needed,” said Mike Green, president of United Auto Workers Local 652 in Lansing, Mich. "There are a lot of smart, capable people inside GM and this will not muck up anything moving forward."

Or could it be that Obama is playing good cop, bad cop with the UAW so that by removing Wagoner they can also justify strong arming the UAW into concessions under the same threats.

A source told FOX Business that the Obama Administration is likely to set a hard deadline for GM and Chrysler to meet their restructuring goals, which include getting bondholders and the United Auto Workers union to agree to major concessions. If they don’t meet those goals by the deadline, the source said, the auto makers would likely be allowed to enter into bankruptcy protection.

So it is with some degree of pride that I read in the St. Louis Business Journal on Friday March 27, 2009, that Don Davis is giving the middle finger salute to the Administration and TARP and has already lined up a couple of partners, $10million dollars in capital, and is looking to buy a bank! He and his partners have joined forces and pooled their own money and are looking for a small bank in which they can take an ownership interest and......BEGIN LENDING!!!

"The time is perfect to buy or merge with a small bank," Davis said. "So many good people can't get capital right now. I have capital. We can raise another $5 million easily, and once you get $15 million, you can get $20 million." He said the money he and his partners have raised can be an alternative to government bailout money for a bank in need of capital.

"The advantage to buying a bank, instead of starting one....is that you can get into the business immediately. The regulators are not in the mood to hand out new bank charters. Davis' plan to buy a small bank is smart because small banks are more likely to have fewer problem loans. Dan Hogan, a banking consultant, said Davis and his partners are doing what good capitalists do----they adapt! "If you change the rules of the game, a capitalist will learn the new rules and win the game--unless you keep changing the rules."

Perhaps Rick Wagoner can do the same and like the Phoenix rising from the ashes, rally entrepreneurial individuals to take Saturn back as its own quality brand in the USA while GM goes bankrupt under its own weight and the weight of the UAW. Capitalism and American ingenuity is still alive in spite of the fact that TARP monies have put Chris Dodd and Barney Frank in charge of your bank and a tax cheat in charge of the IRS.

It's Happening---We Told You So

Sometimes it is so much fun to say "I told you so!" Like when you are on an auto trip and your husband gets lost and you tell him to go one way and he wants to go the other way and after an hour of driving in circles, you end up where YOU said to go in the first place! There is much glee derived from the phrase!!

Sometimes, however, "I told you so" comes with sadness, regret, tragedy and even ruin. And then there are those times where "I told you so" lies somewhere in the middle.

During the run-up to the election, candidate Obama's ties to William Ayers and Reverend Wright, were poo poo'ed as being inconsequential and yet in the prism of now President Obama's sweeping plans for our government, free enterprise, charities, immigration, taxes and even basic Constitutional freedoms, we can see the fingerprints of these individuals all over them. Sadly, Obama is doing exactly as he promised and we told you so!

When candidate Obama told Joe the Plumber that his plan was to "Spread the Wealth Around", Joe was excoriated for having the unmitigated gall to question "THE ONE". We were told, that this was the way to a healthy economy during an "unprecedented" downturn. The threat of spreading the wealth and setting a boundary of $250,000 for the line dividing the rich from the rest of the unwashed masses was taken very seriously by many small businessmen and the contraction of the economy was well on the way before candidate Obama ever set foot in the Oval Office. Well before the election, small businesses started pulling back on expansion plans, unnecessary spending, and started laying off people. Smart small businesses hunkered down and went into survival mode and vowed to stay small to avoid being penalized for their success....we told you so!

Conservatives railed against wealth redistribution and warned that demonizing the earners who create the jobs, buy the goods and give to charities would take away any incentive for them to be productive. Now in a mere two months we have thrown trillions of dollars down the rat hole of unsupervised bailouts in the name of Stimulus only to see the recipients give us the middle finger salute on so many fronts that our legislators have initiated legislation to tax away the bonuses of bankers and other companies that take bailout funds. Well, yesterday in the St. Louis Business Journal, this story was featured.

Don Davis, president of Centrue Bank in St. Louis, has resigned because his income will be severely restricted by new federal limitations on bank executives. In January, Centrue accepted $32.7 million under the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program, commonly called TARP. Later the federal government imposed restrictions on the bonuses of top executives at banks and other financial institutions that took TARP money. "My salary and bonus isn't going to work — TARP isn't going to allow it," Davis said in an interview Monday. Davis, for example, is paid $350,000 in base salary, but also receives 10 percent of the profits of the St. Louis branch of Centrue. In 2008, that amounted to about $750,000 for Davis. "TARP doesn't like me getting that," Davis said. Don Davis, president of Centrue Bank in St. Louis, has resigned because his income will be severely restricted by new federal limitations on bank executives.

So now we are seeing that this prophecy is coming true. Businessmen are taking their ball and bat and going home--game over. If government can determine who will be punitively taxed, what is standing between you, the ordinary guy, and them???? The answer is..."nothing". And it does NOT give me pleasure to say "I told you so."

How To Wrap Your Head Around Our Government's Spending

Since I have had the Federal Debt widget running at the top of my blog (less than one month!), MY portion of the debt has grown to $198,000! As the Porkulus funds are "Spread Around" these numbers will escalate dramatically. The numbers being bandied about with Porkulus, TARP,TARP II, Automotive Bailout, Banking CRISIS Bailout, and the threat that this is "just the beginning" are numbers that are incomprehensible to most common folk. Of course, this may be the goal...make things so "out there" that people just cave because they can't wrap their heads around the concept.

With that in mind it is no wonder that there is a growing resentment bubbling under the surface and beginning to rise to the top, where common people are saying ENOUGH! Rick Santelli's rant at the Chicago Board of Trade was one salvo in the call for some kind of revolution against the nationalization of OUR tax dollars to give to people and causes that have no right to them. This little video is an attempt at pointing you to the enormity of the financial problem the Obama administraton has just put on the backs of generations of taxpayers.

Now that you have that accomplished, get active, put your mouth in action and spread the word. Go to www.Americanissuesproject.org and see how you can join the groundswell of voices letting our government that ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

On February 27, 2009, there are going to be "Chicago" Tea Parties in cities all over the country sponsored by a coordinated Netroots consortium of conservative activist groups. If you want to add your voice to this effort, visit this site and RSVP to the Party! It is unfortunate that it takes the British press to actually pick up this idea and publicize it...

Thought for the Day

"It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men." ---Samuel Adams

Keep this thought in front of your eyes as we, as the minority opposition, work our way through the next two years. While many people are rightfully irate as the Porkulus package has been stuffed down our throats, to be followed by a soup course of Auto Bail Out Deux, and a dessert of TARP II and III, followed by what will likely be a second helping of Porkulus to follow, we have to be tireless in our opposition to programs that are irresponsible and reprehensible. So keep it up and keep the pressure on whenever and wherever the chance arises.