Monthly Archives: May 2012

Housing Foreclosures and Government Involvement

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Here are some interesting contrasts, courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.  Against a background of 4.4% of mortgages, generally, being in some stage of foreclosure as of March, which is down a tad from a year ago’s 4.5% and so still at historic highs, we have the following.

The foreclosure rate remains high largely because of states that require banks to process foreclosures by going to court. In those so-called judicial states, banks and their lawyers have moved to take back homes very slowly….

Thus,

…the foreclosure rate in judicial states stands near 6.9%, and it has been flat or rising over the past year.

On the other hand,

…nonjudicial states have a significantly lower foreclosure rate, at about 2.8%, which has been falling over the past year.

Another way of looking at the data:

Of the 11 states that have foreclosure rates above the national average, ten of them have judicial foreclosure processes. The top three are all judicial states: Florida had a foreclosure rate of 14.3% at the end of March, followed by New Jersey (8.4%) and Illinois (7.5%).

While

…nonjudicial states that had severe housing problems, such as California and Arizona, have seen their foreclosure rates drop below the national average.

Hmm….

Some Government Health Mandate Fallout

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President Obama  insists, in response to religious organizations’ concerns, that the costs of birth control coverage can simply be shifted to insurance companies for those organizations with religious objections. This, though, simply demonstrates Obama’s cynicism.  The costs are far more than those of mere money.  The costs are moral, and shifting pecuniary costs to others (itself an egregious immorality) has no impact on this.

Some organizations recognize this moral cynicism and are demonstrating the courage of their convictions.  Vice President of Advancement at Franciscan University in Steubensville, OH, Mike Hernon told Fox News

We couldn’t believe the price (increase).  We had [their insurance company] go back and reconfirm it.  They said it was dictated by coverage limits that were released by the Obama administration.

The university had been excluding contraceptive services and related medications from its health insurance programs for its students.  The price increase that so shocked Hernon was a tripling: from $600 per year per student to $1200 for the fall semester and to $1800 the following year.  A large part of this increase was driven by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s mandate that the coverage available be increased to $100,000 for the students—for coverages that students don’t need.

As a result of the cost and of the moral violation the PPACA mandates demand, Franciscan University will be dropping its student health insurance coverage altogether.  This school cannot take part in a plan that

requires us to violate the consistent teachings of the Catholic Church on the sacredness of human life.

Hernon added that

This is putting people in a position where they are having to choose between their faith and their morality, and now an unjust cost.  These sorts of regulations from the government are forcing our hand in a way that’s really wrong. … At the end of the day, it’s the students who are hurt by this[.]

Franciscan University’s complete statement on the matter can be found here.

They’re not alone.  Ava Maria University, a private university in Florida is considering taking the same step for the same reasons.  University President James Towey says

My own sense is, I don’t see…how it makes sense for us to stay in this.

Towey noted that Ava Maria is looking at a cost increase of 65% – 85% from their current insurer.  He tried shopping the coverage, but other major insurers “wouldn’t even give us a quote.”

Do it my way, insists Obama.  Your moral objections don’t matter.  And never mind the cost, just pony up.  But this just demonstrates the failures: Obama not only is terrified of a free market in goods and services—dependency on government isn’t needed in such an economy.  But he’s also terrified of a free market in ideas.

Update: On Monday, Ave Maria University decided to go through with discontinuing its student health insurance plan.  University President James Towey said in a written statement

It is a sad day when Ave Maria’s students are forced to choose between enrolling in a health insurance plan that is both costly and offers morally objectionable benefits, and having no coverage at all.

Arms Reduction

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An “advocacy group” calling its self, not at all pretentiously, Global Zero, has begun arguing that the US only needs 900 nuclear weapons: 450 deployed and another 450 “stored.”

The group also wants the reductions to occur over the next ten years

with Russia in unison through reciprocal presidential directives, negotiated in another round of bilateral arms reduction talks, or implemented unilaterally.

and the reductions should include

a de-alerted operational posture requiring 24-72 hours to generate the capacity for offensive nuclear strikes, thereby relieving the intense pressure on nuclear decision-making that currently exists[.]

Then they argue that the deterrent value of large nuclear arsenals from the Cold War add no strategic value to vis-à-vis current threats.

Finally, they insist  that defense spending tight, a (claimed) savings of $100 billion over those 10 years would result.  And they justify this with

There is no conceivable situation in the contemporary world in which it would be in either country’s national security interest to initiate a nuclear attack against the other side.

Where to begin?

When did the Cold War end?  All that’s happened is that Russia and China have replaced the USSR, and we’ve had a multi-front shooting war thrust on us by terrorist organizations and their supporting nations.  Moreover, whence this magic number of 900?  That’s not many targets against sophisticated, powerful foes with dug-in weapons systems and deep bunkers connected by thousands of miles of tunnels within which to hide additional nuclear weapons.

Next, what “intense pressure on nuclear decision-making” do these folks think a President is facing with ICBMs inbound?  The pressure of fear certainly is real—of personal death, of the destruction of our country, of the surviving population delivered into slavery to a victorious enemy.  However, the choices are simple: to retaliate—and then go onto the offensive to win, and so our nation to survive—or to surrender.  This is no-brainer, not least because, with the missiles en route, it’s already too late to surrender.

GZ supports this position with the argument that a nuclear-armed, and increasingly so, Russia (a nation that already has threatened to attack our defensive installations if we actually emplace them on our allies’ soil) and a nuclear armed, and increasingly so, China (a nation that is increasingly aggressive against our allies) are not threats.

Leaving aside the foolishness of “tight defense spending” in a time of nuclear and conventional capability expansion by our enemies, $100 billion over 10 years is chump change.  That savings could be achieved by eliminating some of the FWA that “everyone knows” is present in—pick a—government department.

They’re also assuming that nuclear weapons development, deployment, and operation have no value in countering terrorist nuclear threats from Iran, northern Korea, and the terrorist organizations to which they will give nuclear bombs.

Moreover, the “either unilaterally or through negotiations” quest is naïve: it simply means unilaterally, since the position carries within it unilateral disarmament as an option.  And this is pre-emptive surrender.

In the end, the report is naïve or deliberately misleading.  It assumes that Russia and Chinaare interested in arms reduction.  They’re only interested in US arms reductions.  They’re already in the process of upgrading and updating their military forces, including their offensive nuclear forces.  They’re already in the process of increasing the numbers of those forces.

The Berlin Wall

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…comes to the United States, courtesy of the Progressives.

Senators Chuck Schumer (NY) and Bob Casey (PA) are proposing an Ex-PATRIOT Act, which would impose a mandatory 30% tax on American investments for those who renounce their citizenship, and it would prohibit their re-entry into the US.  Moreover, this Progressive law would apply to individuals with a net worth of over $2 million or an average income tax liability of at least $148,000.

Thus it would apply to ordinary small business owners—middle class Americans.  This is a barrier intended solely to prevent Americans from leaving.

A fiscal Berlin Wall.

And they intend to make it retroactive to 10 years ago.  Never mind constitutional injunctions against laws that impact people before they were passed.  That also doesn’t matter to Progressives, because, after all, the Constitution is more than 100 years old, hard to understand, and not binding on anything, anyway.

This is the government Progressives want us to live under for the next four years to forever.

Suicide by Spending

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Alexis Tsipras, head of the Coalition of the Radical Left—SYRIZA—has announced that if he becomes the next Greek Prime Minister after the June elections, he will demand that Europe expand funding for Greek spending under a new set of agreements, or he will repudiate all Greek debt, in the expectation that such a repudiation will collapse Europe’s economies.  Europe, demands Tsipras, must move to a more “growth oriented” policy vis-à-vis Greece.  But his idea of growth is simply growth in government and growth in government spending.

Of course, this is naked extortion, and it should make it impossible for any further talks between the EU and Greece to occur—and for any further money to be sent to Greece.

There was a scene (NSFW) in Blazing Saddles that comes to mind from this SYRIZA extortion attempt.  The EU shouldn’t fall for it.