Jan 08 2009
Democrats And Media On Senator Burris: “Never Mind”
 
Talk about your major screw ups. It is only now just dawning on the Democrats, and their liberal media puppets, that they are not all powerful and beyond the law and can decide the guilt or innocence of someone. We have laws and courts for those matters. We The People are beginning to see with much more clarity (and ever less ties to anyone one party) that political leaders play games for personal benefit. They all do. Some go to extremes and others just dabble in their egos. The thinking behind the Democrats’ reactions to Illinois Governor Blagojevich’s selection of Burris to be the replacement Senator for the seat being vacated by President-Elect Obama is one of those painfully clarifying moments.
AP does an extraordinary job of emphasizing how dumb this whole sequence of events has been, in a lame attempt to make it seem like a simple mistake instead of the Clouseau level blunder it has been:
Eight days ago, Obama and Senate Democratic leaders saw Blagojevich as so politically damaged that they announced they would reject anyone he appointed to finish Obama’s term. Every Democratic senator signed a letter to the same effect.
Privately, key Democrats now admit they miscalculated from the start. They spent this week trying to backtrack and save face.
They had overstated their legal powers to block Burris’s appointment, they said, and failed to foresee the ability of Burris—a little-known Democrat with no apparent ties to Blagojevich’s misdeeds—to make himself a sympathetic figure in the national media.
…
Knowing an incumbent senator can be hard to beat in a party primary, Senate Democrats had hoped to postpone acting on Blagojevich’s choice until if and when the governor was replaced, making it possible to put a more potent campaigner in the Senate seat.
…
Meanwhile, the legal basis for opposing Burris came under greater scrutiny. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., had signed the letter opposing Burris’s appointment, but on Tuesday, the day Burris got turned away from the Capitol into a cold rain, she had a new view.
“Does the governor have the power, under law, to make the appointment?” she asked rhetorically. Yes, she answered, no matter how many accusations are lodged against him.
What we have here, as I noted yesterday, are Democrat Senators trying to circumvent the laws of the land. The laws clearly state Blagojevich has the legal authority to name Obama’s replacement. The Constitution protects Blagojevich’s civil rights until proven guilty in court of law of a crime – something that has not happened.Â
So these supposedly completely plausible efforts to override Illinois state laws and our Constitution and our federal laws in order for the Senate to hand pick their preferred candidate exposed a very nasty side of DC. When did the Senate become a club that determines who can join? Is it clear to everyone that the selection process for club membership begins in the primaries when party big whigs determine who can run?
Are other Governors and states being ramrodded into making choices acceptable to Club Ego (i.e., the Senate) first, leaving what is best for the state or its people as simply a facade? I still think there should be legal investigation into what was clearly an organized effort to circumvent our laws and undermine the will of the people. It’s not as if I am making this up – these jerks are admitting to the media they wanted to control the selection process. This is how the AP tries to circumvent the obvious:
Obama, Reid and Durbin are lawyers and among the nation’s highest-achieving politicians. Now, however, their initial comments seem unusually tone-deaf.
They were more than tone-deaf. They are all lawyers and know the law, which they openly attempted to skirt. When politicians claim another politician is dirty why are they still surprised the country won’t buy that at face value? I mean, we all know how pure and good politicians are, right?
Guy
We were in a mild recession when we were attacked on 911 and trillions of dollars were lost in the weeks following. We brought the economy back by cutting every body’s taxes and keeping spending modest. Now that is a fact that can be googled. Not an opinion.
You don’t decide on a plan of action when you don’t have the resources to carry it out, therefore no third war. Come on Guy!
kathie:
Oh. So, okay, hypothetical — let’s say that Syria is found to be behind a terrorist attack on U.S. soil in mid-2006. Our plan of action then is to…. what? Ignore it?
Again – where do we get the troops or the money to mount a response?
I do love the fact that you all claim that Bush “saved our economy”. Let’s run some numbers:
UNEMPLOYMENT RATE
Then: 4.2% (Bureau of Labor Statistics, January 2001)
Now: 6.7% (Bureau of Labor Statistics, November 2008)
DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE
Then: 10,587 (close of Friday, Jan. 19, 2001)
Now: 9,015 (close of Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009)
CONSUMER CONFIDENCE (1985=100)
Then: 115.7 (Conference Board, January 2001)
Now: 38.0, which is an all-time low (Conference Board, December 2008)
FAMILIES LIVING IN POVERTY
Then: 6.4 million (Census numbers for 2000)
Now: 7.6 million (Census numbers for 2007 — most recent numbers available)
AMERICANS WITHOUT HEALTH INSURANCE
Then: 39.8 million (Census numbers for 2000)
Now: 45.7 million (Census numbers for 2007 — most recent available)
In what measureable way is the economy better now than it was when Bush took office?
Guy having a conversation with you is useless.
Of course I was not talking about the last 4 months. Using the banking system as a social welfare system was a bad idea. If Bush could have changed it he would have in 2001, but congress needed to do it and they chose not to. Do you remember Fannie and Freddie?
If we had needed to attack Syria and didn’t have the man power to do it we might have had to blow them to smithereens from the air.
PS if you didn’t think medical insurance should be free, many more people would buy it. But thinking it is a right given by the government, why bother?
Found this on “Freerepublic” AJ,
Top Al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan killed: US official
01/08/2009 8:15:06 PM PST · by NormsRevenge · 2 replies · 13+ views
AFP on Yahoo ^ | 1/8/09 | AFP
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The head of Al-Qaeda in Pakistan and his lieutenant were killed in the past days, a US counterterrorism official told AFP on Thursday, reportedly struck by a missile fired from an unmanned drone. The men are believed to be Kenyan national Usama al-Kini, described as Al-Qaeda’s chief of operations in Pakistan, and his lieutenant Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan, said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There is every reason to believe that these two top terrorist figures are dead,” said the source, adding that the pair was killed “within the last week.”
kathie:
Reading comprehension is apparently not your strength.
You asked: “What will we do if we are attacked in the next year, while we are running up a $1 trillion deficit?”
In response, I asked: “What would we have done if we had been attacked in the past 4 years?”
Can you please explain to me what the banking system, or medical insurance, had to do with any of that? Who even *mentioned* medical insurance? I feel forced to ask this again: have you been drinking heavily tonight?
Kathy
There is no sense talking to a liberal. All they do is take up space with their rants. This guy has been on this site for years with different names. All he does is insult other posters. He is not worth the time or the effort. Logic and facts are not his friends.
Guy:
When the Democrats took control of the Congress in November 2006, the unemployment rate was at 4.5%. And Bush had been president for years. Now it is edging up to 7.0%. In a recent poll I saw over Rasmussen only 15% say the President is responsible for the economy, but 46% claim the Congress is.
It is not fair or rational to ignore all those years of growth after Bush took office and just concentrate on the last year. And what about the Democrats? Are they never going to be held responsible for anything? My guess is that if things do not improve a lot in the next two years, the Democrats will enter the midterms with 4 years in control of the Congress and they will be blaming their record on….you guessed it. George Bush.
I saw this at just one minute and I thought it was worth passing along:
Karl Rove explains that Bush tried to rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; Matt Ygelsias explains that, since Bush never used the phrase “housing bubble”, it never happened. Not compelling! This Times story from Sept 1999 tells us that the Clinton Administration was pressing Fannie and Freddie to offer more affordable loans – oops!
In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.
The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets — including the New York metropolitan region — will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.
Fannie Mae, the nation’s biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.
Here is just a piece of that Rove oped. It is worth reading the whole thing:
Fannie and Freddie are “government-sponsored enterprises” (GSEs), chartered by Congress. As such, they had an implicit promise of taxpayer backing and could borrow money at rates well below competitors.
The Opinion Journal Widget
Because of this, the Bush administration warned in the budget it issued in April 2001 that Fannie and Freddie were too large and overleveraged. Their failure “could cause strong repercussions in financial markets, affecting federally insured entities and economic activity” well beyond housing.
Mr. Bush wanted to limit systemic risk by raising the GSEs’ capital requirements, compelling preapproval of new activities, and limiting the size of their portfolios. Why should government regulate banks, credit unions and savings and loans, but not GSEs? Mr. Bush wanted the GSEs to be treated just like their private-sector competitors.
But the GSEs fought back. They didn’t want to see the Bush reforms enacted, because that would level the playing field for their competitors. Congress finally did pass the Bush reforms, but in 2008, after Fannie and Freddie collapsed.
The largely unreported story is that to fend off regulation, the GSEs engaged in a lobbying frenzy. They hired high-profile Democrats and Republicans and spent $170 million on lobbying over the past decade. They also constructed an elaborate network of state and local lobbyists to pressure members of Congress.
g,Take your DNC talking points about the economy somewhere else. Smart money people know the truth and those things you listed are absolutely useless…especially when it was democrats in congress that make the laws and strangled us with BAD LIBERAL POLICES like CRA and the debacle at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
And in fact, those statistics can be laid right at the feet of democrats. Ask the Nuns who helped people get OUT of the Projects in New Orleans because they were hell holes and place where people became STUCK IN POVERTY.
I was a leader in an Ind. Areas Foundation group (do you know what that means?)and I know for a fact that LIBERAL POLICIES DO NOT WORK for almost all those they purport to “help” (read: keep down by being dependent on government). LIEberals have been deceiving for YEARS those who cannot/will not know any better. It is an absolute crime, imho.
To paraphrase Nelson Mandella who quoted Marianne Williamson:
“…IT IS NOT ENLIGHTENED TO SHRINK SO THAT OTHERS MAY FEEL MORE SECURE”. Success allows for more success. Mediocrity/poverty does not….and I’m talking about REAL POVERTY…not poverty that allows for cell phones, Blockbuster and cable TV…in multiple rooms.
And here is some interesting data from Gatewaypundit.blogspot.com:
“America’s North Shore Journal has more on today’s unemployment rate including this:
It is also clear that education matters. The December overall unemployment rate for people without a high school diploma is 10.9%. The diploma reduces the rate to 7.7%. Having some college brings it down to 5.6% and having that 4 year degree lowers it to 3.7%.”
The minimum wage of many states went up effective January 1st resulting in cutbacks by small business.
Oh, and we have another Democrat indicted today (12 counts), caught in their culture of corruption.
Mayor of Baltimore caught stealing gift cards donated to the poor, among other filching and weaseling.
The Record from Congressional Testimony will forever be there for anyone who wants to know the truth about the Dems and their role in the Fannie and Freddie meltdown!!
HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES HOLDS A HEARING ON TREASURY DEPARTMENT’S VIEWS ON THE REGULATION OF GOVERNMENT SPONSORED ENTERPRISES
SEPTEMBER 10, 2003
And I now will recognize the ranking member, the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Frank.
FRANK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I appreciate hearing from the two Cabinet secretaries, but I just say at the outset that before we move on any legislation, I would hope we would have some additional hearings. And in particular, I think it’s important that the variety of groups in our country who care about housing be invited, because that’s my major focus here, as it’s been during my service on this committee.
I want to begin by saying that I am glad to consider the legislation, but I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis. That is, in my view, the two government-sponsored enterprises that we’re talking about here, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not in a crisis. We recently had an accounting problem with Freddie Mac that led to people being dismissed, as appears to be appropriate.
I do not think at this point there is a problem with a threat to the treasury. I’m going to say, we have an interesting example of self-fulfilling prophecy.
Some of the critics of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac say that the problem is is the federal government is obligated to bail-out people who might lose money in connection with them.
I do not believe that we have any such obligation. And as we said that it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy based on people. So let me make it clear: I’m a strong supporter of the role that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac play in housing.
But nobody who invested in them should come looking to me for a nickel, nor anybody else in the federal government.
And if investors take some comfort and want to lend them a little money at less interest rates, because they like this center (ph) affiliation, good, because housing will benefit. But there is no guarantee, there’s no explicit guarantee,there’s no implicit guarantee, there’s no wink-and-nod guarantee. Invest and you’re on your own.
I believe that we, as the federal government, have probably done to little, rather than too much, to push them to meet the goals of affordable housing, and they set reasonable goals.
I worry, frankly, that there’s a tension here. The more people, in my judgment, exaggerate a threat of safety and soundness, the more people conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the treasury, which I do not see. I think we see entities that are fundamentally sound financially and withstand some of the disaster scenarios.
I think that’s a (OFF-MIKE) problem, the federal government doesn’t bail them out. But the more pressure there is there, then the less I think we see, in terms of affordable housing. I want Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to continue with its government-sponsored enterprises, with some beneficial arrangements with the federal government, in return for which we get both the general lowering of housing costs and some specific attention to low-income housing.
HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES HOLDS A HEARING ON H.R. 2575, THE SECONDARY MORTGAGE MARKET ENTERPRISES REGULATORY IMPROVEMENT ACT AND THE ADMINISTRATION’S PROPOSALS ON GSE REGULATION
SEPTEMBER 25, 2003
FRANK: I think this is a very important hearing. And I appreciate the Chairman’s willingness to have it under the auspices of the full committee.
I joined this committee in 1981 because I am interested in housing. And I guess I wouldn’t want to boast about my accomplishments, because the situation regarding housing, particularly people who are of moderate and low income, has gotten worse during my tenure. I won’t accept the blame, but I clearly haven’t done a great deal of good.
And it makes it all the more important that we use every tool that we do have to try improve the housing stock.
And Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are two of the very important tools that we have.
And there are people I know who are critical of the arrangements that we have. I, frankly, welcome the fact that we have in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac a means of bringing down housing costs that doesn’t put a hit on the federal budget.
Essentially, there are people in the country who are prepared to lend money to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at less interest rates than they might get elsewhere. I thank those people for doing that. I must tell them that I hope they are not doing that on the assumption that if things go bad, I or my colleagues will bail them out. We will not.
FRANK: Let me ask Mr. Gould and Mr. Raines on behalf of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, do you feel that over the past years you have been substantially under-regulated?
Mr. Raines? RAINES: No, sir.
FRANK: Mr. Gould? GOULD: No, sir.
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE RICHARD H. BAKER (R-LA) HOLDS HEARING ON ACCOUNTING AND MANAGEMENT ISSUES AT FANNIE MAE
October 6, 2004 Wednesday
Ranking Member Frank?
FRANK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First, I want to address a little history here. The committee here was well on the way to adopting legislation that would have enhanced the regulatory structure for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In the Senate, in fact, the committee actually voted out a bill. There was some disagreement between the parties over I think a relatively minor section over receivership. I think that could have been worked out.
I believe we were well on the way, the chairman and I and the staffs, to putting together a bill that would have enhanced the regulator and could have passed. What stopped progress on a new bill was the Bush administration’s determination to go beyond safety and soundness and into provisions that would have restricted the housing function.
What is powerful here are not Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but the interests of a majority of the members of this committee in housing at two levels. First of all, in housing in the conventional market, is very important, and the continuance of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are important to that. We also have a subset of issues involving affordable housing, and those are very important to many of us.
What derailed the legislation was an insistence by the Bush administration on going beyond safety and soundness and giving the regulators, for example, particular power to say, “Well, they’re going beyond their charter in housing; they should not do these new products.” There were specific issues here that transcended safety and soundness or went under it, but the administration was seeking powers that were not related to safety and soundness.
If they were to have dropped that, we would have a law already signed and in place, because on the question of safety and soundness regulation, there has not been a significant dispute.
Mr. Bachus?
BACHUS: I thank the chairman.
First of all, chairman, there have been several remarks made that we would have addressed these issues had it not been for the Bush administration. It is my recollection that the Bush administration actually urged this committee and this Congress to take strong action and that at that time that was in the sort of post-Freddie Mac. At that time, many of the Democratic members accused the Bush administration of going on a witch hunt against Fannie Mae of saying that things were right at Fannie Mae, and that OFHEO was doing a wonderful job, and that there was sufficient regulation, that this was simply to accuse the Bush administration of wrong motives.
It was actually a combination of those in the Senate that did not want to take action, and members of this committee that disagreed with the Bush administration. One thing the Bush administration was concerned about is the new products that Fannie was offering, and they wanted Treasury to approve those new products. It is my recollection that the minority members almost to a person resisted those reforms.
I do think, and I commend Mr. Frank. Mr. Frank actually had it right and more accurately when he said the Bush administration wanted to go further than this committee. I think that is absolutely true. And now all of a sudden, some of the things that the Bush administration wanted to do it seemed like they would have been very prudent things to have done.
So to try to, a month before an election, to try to somehow create a smokescreen that the Bush administration had done something wrong would be inaccurate and would not be factual. Of course, it probably is not surprising either.
HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES HOLDS A HEARING ON GOVERNMENT-SPONSORED ENTERPRISES REFORM
APRIL 13, 2005
Now I recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts, the ranking member, Mr. Frank?
FRANK: There are three sets of concerns that have been brought out with regard to the government-sponsored enterprises, and I will talk particularly Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
But there are two other agendas at stake here. One is the notion that it is inappropriate for the federal government to interfere with the allocate of functions of the capital market. I believe this partly motivates Mr. Greenspan.
There is obviously a very respectable, intellectual tradition that says: The market knows all, the market is smart and government is dumb — to quote a former majority leader from Texas, a former majority leader from Texas, a current former majority leader from Texas — and he said the markets are smart and the government is dumb.
And the view is that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, with a particular set of legislative and executive arrangements, biases capital allocation towards housing. And there are people who want to stop that. I very much disagree with that.
There are also competitors. There are organizations of people who compete or resent the fact that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can borrow money more cheaply than others, because of a perception in the market that we’re going to bail them out. I am not going to bail them out, and if they want to lend money to Fannie and Freddie cheaper, that’s their judgment. Don’t come to me if it doesn’t work out.
MARKETPLACE MORNING REPORT SHOW: Marketplace Morning Report 6:50 AM EST SYND
May 26, 2005 Thursday
HEADLINE: House committee gives green light to legislation that would tighten regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
ANCHORS: KAI RYSSDAL
KAI RYSSDAL, anchor:
A new framework for Fannie and Fred.
Announcer: The MARKETPLACE MORNING REPORT is produced in association with the University of Southern California.
RYSSDAL: From American Public Media in Los Angeles, I’m Kai Ryssdal.
A House committee has given the green light to legislation that would tighten regulation of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Conspicuously absent from the bill, though, was something both the White House and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan have been calling for: sharply limiting how large those companies’ holdings can be. Fannie Mae, you might have heard, is an underwriter of this program.
FEDERAL HOUSING ENTERPRISE REGULATORY REFORM ACT OF 2005
(Senate – May 25, 2006)
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, this week Fannie Mae’s regulator reported that the company’s quarterly reports of profit growth over the past few years were “illusions deliberately and systematically created” by the company’s senior management, which resulted in a $10.6 billion accounting scandal.
The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight’s report goes on to say that Fannie Mae employees deliberately and intentionally manipulated financial reports to hit earnings targets in order to trigger bonuses for senior executives. In the case of Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae’s former chief executive officer, OFHEO’s report shows that over half of Mr. Raines’ compensation for the 6 years through 2003 was directly tied to meeting earnings targets. The report of financial misconduct at Fannie Mae echoes the deeply troubling $5 billion profit restatement at Freddie Mac.
The OFHEO report also states that Fannie Mae used its political power to lobby Congress in an effort to interfere with the regulator’s examination of the company’s accounting problems. This report comes some weeks after Freddie Mac paid a record $3.8 million fine in a settlement with the Federal Election Commission and restated lobbying disclosure reports from 2004 to 2005. These are entities that have demonstrated over and over again that they are deeply in need of reform.
For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs–and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO’s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay.
I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.
I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation.
U.S. SENATE COMMITTEE ON BANKING, HOUSING AND URBAN AFFAIRS HOLDS A HEARING ON GOVERNMENT-SPONSORED ENTERPRISES REFORM (PART II)
APRIL 7, 2005
SHELBY: Senator Schumer?
SCHUMER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I join our ranking member, Senator Sarbanes, in thanking you for holding these extensive and timely hearings.
First, I’d like to say that what I smell in the air is a campaign to virtually eliminate Fannie and Freddie. It’s been chosen at an opportune time because they both have regulatory and accounting problems. But many of those who are on this campaign have been out to disable Fannie and Freddie long before the regulatory problems appeared. They are in a sense behaving like opportunistic predators.
And I think there are a whole lot of questions out there that the normally convincing Alan Greenspan really didn’t answer yesterday — or didn’t answer at least I think to the satisfaction of many of us — and there are a lot.
SNOW: OK. Well, let me take the one that — number four on your list that seemed to be the heart of your concerns.
It isn’t anybody’s preference that GSEs, quote, “make less money.” The preference is that they reflect less systemic risk to the housing market and to the larger financial system.
From my point of view, Senator, that’s the heart of the reason why we’re meeting here today, it’s the heart of this legislation that’s being proposed. And this is…
SCHUMER: Sir, are you talking about interest-rate risk?
SNOW: No, I’m talking about the — well, take a minute and talk about this.
The GSEs have, as reflected in the marketplace, paper that sells for the best spreads except U.S. treasuries, the best spreads, which reflects the market’s premium for that paper, saying it’s the very best paper except the best paper in the world, which is the U.S. treasuries.
Now, that creates…
SARBANES: I thought the president went somewhere yesterday and looked at these IOUs…
SNOW: West Virginia.
SARBANES: … and U.S. treasuries and cast doubt about their validity.
SNOW: He cast not one iota of doubt. What he said was, they will be paid, but the question is, how will they be paid, from what financing source and at what burden to the fisc (ph) of the United States?
But the GSEs have this lower borrowing ability. And they have used that over the course of the last decade and a half to accumulate a very, very large portfolio of assets unrelated to making the secondary market. Those are assets that have interest-rate risks to them. And in order to protect against those interest-rate risks, they have wisely engaged in massive hedging activities, derivative trading and hedging activities.
SCHUMER: Is that any different than private sector banks and their hedging activities.
SNOW: Senator, it’s different in this regard: They are playing off a sizable advantage which allows them to borrow at rates that are lower than those other institutions.
JACKSON: I think, Mr. Chairman, if I can add…
SHELBY: Go ahead.
JACKSON: … to what Secretary Snow says — if we use just common sense terms, major banks can leverage 11 to 1 probably at the most. Fannie and Freddie, in some cases, are leveraging 50 to 1, 60 to 1. That’s clearly out of whack.
SCHUMER: Would risk-based capital solve that?
JACKSON: Absolutely. I think it surely would.
SBD
SBD, excellent post. I have saved it! Where can I link to it?
Guy:
There are more people in the US than there were a decade ago. Comparing numbers is bogus. That is why percentages are better.
Thanks SBD