There have been other things going on in Washington this week, but nothing is as important or urgent as the financial crisis. The situation has deteriorated significantly in the last few weeks. Basically, the markets for virtually all forms of cash or debt are frozen and non-functional worldwide. There is simply a lack of confidence or, more accurately, fear about who can meet their commitments and who can’t. That has locked up normal trading. This is not just a Wall Street problem. If this situation continues, every single American and probably every single citizen of any industrialized nation will be affected…..and not in a good way. The value of your savings account, your pension plan, your stocks or your mutual funds, depends on a functioning, transparent and liquid market. The market, right now, is arguably none of these things.

Yesterday, John McCain blamed SEC Chairman Christopher Cox. Nancy Pelosi blamed President Bush. A group of Republicans held a press conference to blame President Clinton and Democratic leadership. Barack Obama seemed to blame every Republican office holder in the last 14 years.

They are all wrong. And they are all right.… Read More

So the the federal government, already $9 trillion in debt with $53 trillion of unfunded Social Security and Medicare liabilities is going to, in one fell swoop, move in and take $500 billion to $1 trillionof bad debt off of Wall Street balance sheets? How, by selling more debt to China? Dubai? I’m sick to my stomach.

Free markets move on mistakes and successes. They are shaped by good decisions and bad decisions. Markets move on consequences. Markets learn from consequences. What the federal government did today is say this to all of us:

1. Greed and corrupt behavior is going to be rewarded;

2. Congressionally mandated loose lending practices are going to be rewarded;

3. CEO’s that made hundreds of millions of dollars and drove venerable institutions into the ground are going to be rewarded;

4. Taxpayers are going to pay for it all in order to "save" the system. We should be furious.

What are we saving?Greed, corruption, stupidity, government malfeasance and ineptitude? Absence of oversight?Is that worth saving?

Today is one of the darkest days in… Read More

OC Register columnist Frank Mickadeit’s wrote a column today was way off base. There is a link to it on the main FR page.

My brother Brian is running for Moulton Niguel Water District – Division 5 and he is well qualified. Brian is an involved and passionate member of the Laguna Niguel community. He is running to address specific water policy areas. His background and community involvement make him just as or more qualified to run for office than many current OC elected officials at the local and state level.

Brian serves on the Laguna Niguel Parks and Recreation Commission and he is an OC Parks Commissioner. He serves on the board of the Saddleback College Foundation and as president of his 600+ homeowner association.

Brian is president of a company he founded that distributes metal fasteners- the company has some ten employees and does business domestically and internationally. Prior to starting his current business, Brian spent more than a decade in the finance and technology worlds where he started, built and sold several companies.

Brian has received the endorsement of the CRA, OCYRs and the Republican Party of… Read More

My longtime friend (going back to college days), Assemblyman Joel Anderson, pulled off an event that San Diego hasn’t witnessed in over a decade. Last, Saturday night he packed a ballroom at the Town and Country (the site of CRP conventions of olde) with an eclectic collection of San Diego ‘s most influential business leaders and grassroots activists — and raised a boatload of political donations. I’ve been wanting to tell FR readers about it all week, but trying to cover the state budget gyrations has been time-consuming…

The event attracted a capacity crowd of 350 for dinner and another 110 to the "Host reception" beforehand.

Scattered about the room were the event’s sponsors, representatives from Northrop Grumman, RA Capital Advisers, Barona Band of Mission Indians, Intuit, CH2MHill, Sycuan, Geico, Hamann Companies, Associated Builders & Contractors, and many others. The event also drew a star-studded cast of East County ‘s most influential grassroots activists, a revealing glimpse of Anderson ‘s deep connections inside his district.… Read More

My longtime friend (going back to college days), Assemblyman Joel Anderson, pulled off an event that San Diego hasn’t witnessed in over a decade. Last, Saturday night he packed a ballroom at the Town and Country (the site of CRP conventions of olde) with an eclectic collection of San Diego ‘s most influential business leaders and grassroots activists — and raised a boatload of political donations. I’ve been wanting to tell FR readers about it all week, but trying to cover the state budget gyrations has been time-consuming…

The event attracted a capacity crowd of 350 for dinner and another 110 to the "Host reception" beforehand.

Scattered about the room were the event’s sponsors, representatives from Northrop Grumman, RA Capital Advisers, Barona Band of Mission Indians, Intuit, CH2MHill, Sycuan, Geico, Hamann Companies, Associated Builders & Contractors, and many others. The event also drew a star-studded cast of East County ‘s most influential grassroots activists, a revealing glimpse of Anderson ‘s deep connections inside his district.… Read More

Legislative Republicans, not having had a majority in the legislature since 1958, and only twice had a majority in one house of the Legislature since then (1968-70 and 1994-96) won a big one. Despite the Governor’s bluff and bluster, he ultimately agreed to a couple of small changes in the deal cut by the Legislative leaders, and it appears that the budget will now be signed.

Without new taxes.

Let’s face it. That is what this fight was all about, and the Republican Legislators won that fight hands down, no questions asked. They did a Pacquiao on the Democrats and the Governor, and got a budget without new taxes. Not a good budget, but, quite frankly, no budget has been good in the last 10 years. Ever since Gray Davis began the spending splurge that this current Governor continued, the budget roller coaster has sailed up and down with the economy, from spendthrift to crisis to spendthrift to crisis. If the Democrats and the Governor don’t end the spendthrift times, we will move from the current crisis to the next very soon.

As I said before, the one good thing about a budget that uses gimmicks to balance a budget is that the… Read More

The Senate will go into session at4 PM Friday and the Assembly will thenmeet at 5 PM to vote on the fixes that were hammered out this afternoon with the Governor and the other Big 4 leaders, avoiding the veto and the veto override threats.… Read More

The fine crew at Capitol Weekly (www.capitolweekly.net) have the details I could not give. Ah, the constraints of being fair but totally biased…… Read More