Pelousy: "there's nothing left to cut!"

[BullKurtz]

So there ya have it, this bloated monstrosity of a federal government is now down to skin and bones according to ol SanFran Nan....and who would know better about getting cut than a survivor of at least half a dozen face-lifts? In fact, Nan has taken to getting Botox injections in her blue-veined hands to the extent they're now frozen into CLAWS she threatens other House members with.

Keep in mind this is a federal government that has doubled in size since 2007...amazingly the same year Pelousy's pack of hyenas took back CONgress. Several agencies employing tens of thousands of 3 hours a day tenured slackers, doing the same make-believe work as other agencies, then racing to the trendy gin mills and yoga classes (massage parlors) in and around Georgetown.

A federal government which spends a trillion dollars more a year than it rakes in from us suckers. A federal government that's now got it's teeth into the neck of our healthcare system. A federal government depending on the "full fatith and credit" of becoming able to confiscate everything of value we have left to pay off our debtors.

She's become a multi-multi-millionaire since she came to Congress. And she's decided she wants no part of the Barry-Care she shepherded through the Big Casino for us rubes to figure out. And now she tells us this is it.....Gutting the military and the end of the White House tours for schoolkids is all they can afford to give up. Ol bare-bones Pelousy says so, so it must be true, right? right?

 

[thereisnospoon]

CordeValle Golf Club and Resort
Nancy Pelosi has one of her largest investments in a private golf development partnership called Lions Gate Limited. The Santa Clara County Planning Committee approved a plan for them to build a 275-acre golf course 30 minutes south of San Jose, but only under strict conditions. They agreed to allow 60% public usage of the course and to abide by strict environmental rules, since a number of endangered species were present in the area. The club opened in 2000 and did very well, making $250,000 for each member and $400,000 for corporations.[48]
But then the Planning Commission took at look to see if the guidelines had been followed. First of all, only about a dozen non-members had been actually able to play on the course, a far cry from 60%. CordeValle had also set up obvious anti-public rules, such as requiring people to call seventy-two hours in advance and pay close to $300 for 18 holes. Upon investigation, the Commission learned that nonmembers would be told that the club was "full" and turned away even when the club was relatively empty. There were a series of public hearings on the matter and it was concluded that Lion's Gate was in clear violation of the agreement they had made[49].
During the hearings, it was learned that Lion's Gate had also ignored many of the environmental regulations they were responsible for. The ponds that they needed to make in order to preserve two species of lizard and turtle were not built. And only one mandatory annual environmental report had been submitted in seven years[50]. In 2004, a county report complained that improperly abandoned wells and urban pollutants from the resort were causing water quality degradation in the area. [51]
In 2003, the Pelosis and the development partnership finally hired some lobbyists and put a few government employees on the pay role. This caused the commission to cave and give up their fraud investigation as long as the course agreed to host a charity golf tournament for children.[52]

 

[BullKurtz]

Monday, November 14, 2011

Congressional Insider Trading: The Pelosi Loophole


(From the CBS website.)

Big Government’s Wynton Hall gives us the best overview:

Should it be legal for lawmakers to buy stocks in companies directly affected by their legislative efforts?

In early 2008, Nancy Pelosi and her real estate developer husband, Paul, were given an opportunity to buy into a Visa IPO. It was a nearly impossible feat—one that average citizens almost certainly could never achieve. The vast majority of purchase opportunities went to institutional investors, large mutual funds, or pension funds.

Despite Pelosi’s consistent railing against credit card companies, on March 18, 2008, the Pelosis bought between $1 million and $5 million (politicians do not have to report the exact amounts, only ranges) worth of Visa stock at the IPO price of $44 per share. Two days later, the stock price rocketed to $65 per share, yielding a 50% profit. The Pelosis then bought Visa twice more. By their third purchase on June 4, 2008, Visa was worth $85 per share.

How did Nancy Pelosi snag one of the most coveted initial public offerings in history? The facts are still emerging. Yet according to Schweizer, corporations that wish to build congressional allies will sometimes hand-pick members of Congress to receive IPOs. Pelosi received her Visa IPO almost two weeks after a potentially damaging piece of legislation for Visa, the Credit Card Fair Fee Act, had been introduced in the House. If passed, the bill would have cut into Visa’s profits substantially by lowering so-called “interchange fees,” the 1% to 3% charge retailers pay Visa when customers use Visa cards for purchases. Interchange fees are a critical source of revenue for the four credit card companies–$48 billion in 2008, to be exact.

If the Credit Card Fair Fee Act had been passed into effect, it would have amended antitrust laws to require credit card companies to enter negotiations with merchants over interchange fees, and it would have given the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission the power to arbitrate if the two sides failed to come to an agreement. For that reason, Visa and the other credit card companies strongly opposed the bill.

The Credit Card Fair Fee Act was exactly the kind of bill one would think then-Speaker Pelosi would have backed. “She had been outspoken about antitrust problems posed by insurance, oil, and pharmaceutical companies,” Schweizer notes, “and she was vocal about the need for controlling interest rates individual banks charged to use their credit cards.”

Initially, the Credit Card Fair Fee Act cleared the Judiciary Committee on a 19-16 vote, and the National Association of Convenience Stores began lobbying for a vote on the floor of the House. “It is imperative to tell your Representatives to request a vote on the House Floor from Nancy Pelosi,” the association urged its members. Still, with at least ten percent of the Pelosi family’s entire stock portfolio invested in a single stock, Nancy Pelosi clearly had a vested interest in ensuring that Visa’s profits were protected. And that is exactly what she accomplished. Despite broad public support for the bill—77% in one study—Pelosi saw to it that the bill never made it to the House floor.

Shortly thereafter, a second bill limiting collusion by the credit card companies on interchange fees was proposed. The Credit Card Interchange Fee Act of 2008, while not as strong as the first bill, would have required greater transparency from credit card companies in informing customers how much they were paying in interchange fees. Yet again, reports Schweizer, “this second bill suffered the same fate as the first, never making it to the House floor.”

By 2009, both bills had garnered even broader bipartisan support and were reintroduced. Under
Speaker Pelosi, however, neither bill lived to see a vote on the House floor.

Pelosi eventually supported something called the Credit Card Reform Act. Curiously, the all-important interchange fees went untouched by that legislation. Instead, the bill stated that the interchange fee issue should simply be “studied.” The bill’s other measures would not affect Visa but rather its client banks. In short, the Credit Card Reform Act ensured that Visa and the other credit card companies dodged a potentially costly bullet.

None of that, however, prevented Pelosi from grandstanding. She publicly declared that the Credit Card Reform Act sent a “strong and clear message to credit card companies” that they would be held to account for their “anti-consumer practices.”

 

[007]

Monday, November 14, 2011

Congressional Insider Trading: The Pelosi Loophole


(From the CBS website.)

Just a little FYI there brother, you are REQUIRED to post a LINK. The mods will be along shortly to remind you I'm sure.

 

[BullKurtz]

Monday, November 14, 2011

Congressional Insider Trading: The Pelosi Loophole


(From the CBS website.)

Just a little FYI there brother, you are REQUIRED to post a LINK. The mods will be along shortly to remind you I'm sure.

Yep, the leftists can post opinions as fact but not us....so here's the link (which is also a matter of opinion):

Congressional Insider Trading: The Pelosi Loophole - Atlas Shrugs

 

[blastoff]

Whadaya expect? Pelosi's not stupid and knows there's billions of wasted spending every year, but she also knows the Dims low information voter base will believe anything, regardless of how preposterous. It's sort of an advantage for them having so many millions of dopes to be led around like little kids.

 

[peach174]

Nothing left to cut? She's crazy.

The left didn't even agree to one pea's worth of cuts (the sequester, 1.5 trillion in 10 years) in a big hill of beans worth of cuts that is needed. Because they did not do it, we had a triple A rating downgrade.
We needed to cut 4.5 Trillion over 10 years.
The Left have to get to work and agree to 3 more trillion dollars worth of cuts.
That also means leave the Military alone, there has been enough cuts to them and start on the big social entitlements that are draining us dry.
The Left will never do it.
They would rather see our Nation fall, rather than do it.

 

[BullKurtz]

What should always be kept in mind about "progressives" is that they are old-fashioned THIEVES. Not being able to play the game, they put themselves in postion to make the rules and then referee the outcome. While Cons tell the public you are on your own, the progs tell the public we'll stand up for you and then disappear when they can profit from an outcome contrary to everything they claim they stand for. They are only "anti-business" when they can't extort money from business. Remember when Clinturd went after Microsoft for unfair trade practices? That was at the request of Steve Jobs who had a big facility in Little Rock. The fines Microsoft paid were punishment for not having a DC lobbyist and not giving to Rat candidates. Gates now has an army of lobbyists and donates to every "green" program you can imagine. Pelousy's scams are legendary and can be easily located through Google....the Visa caper was so blatant even CBS asked her about it but of course never followed up.

The federal budget is easy to cut by a third. Defund the Depts of Education, Commerce, Homeland Security, EPA, and sell off the millions of acres they hold out here in the west and southwest. Russia would pay us $12T in crude oil for Alaska and the mehicans could pay us $5T in crude oil for SoCal. That's the debt PAID IN FULL right there. Then we go after our own massive oil reserves, crash the futures market bankrupting both countries, and buy Alaska and SoCal back on the cheap and on time payments......