On Meredith Whitney, Munis and Leaks
Bruce Krasting: I worked on Wall Street for twenty five years. This blog is my take on the financial issues of the day. I was an FX trader during the early days of the ‘snake’ and the EMS. Derivatives on currencies were new then. I was part of that. That was with Citi. Later I worked for Drexel and got to understand a bit about balance sheet structure and corporate bonds from Mike Milken. I was involved with a Macro hedge fund later. That worked out all right, but it is not an easy road. There was one tough week and I thought, “Maybe I should do something else for a year or two.” That was fifteen years ago. I love the markets. How they weave together. For twenty five years I woke up thinking, “What am I going to do today to make some money in the market”. I don’t do that any longer. But I miss it.
~~~
Warning: Wonkish
When you stick your neck out and make prognostications about the future, sometimes you’re going to be wrong. I’m certainly no exception. But when it comes to really big misses, I think Meredith Whitney’s call for a monster blow-out of the Municipal Bond market is on top of the list.
Meredith is a smart lady. That being the case, it’s worth looking into why she was so wrong. A report this weekend from the Bond Buyer provides a partial answer:
A 32% ($138B) YoY decline is a very big relative change. The drop in long-term financing was not offset by increases in short-term debt; that category fell by 7.4% ($5B).
The drop in total borrowings is almost exclusively a result of the 46% ($129B) in the “New Money” category. The drop in New Money debt issuance is a consequence of hundreds of cities and states collectively saying:
We’re in a pinch on revenues. Let’s not spend any money we don’t have to for the time being. We’re going to have put off the construction of the new (Sewer plant, overpass, water treatment facility, school, whatever). The last thing we want to do is go to the Muni market and borrow any more.
As a result of many individual decisions to defer infrastructure projects, the Munis have kicked the can down road. They have eliminated the current and future expenses related to these projects. With that, they have stabilized the trajectory of their debt growth and improved short-term cash liquidity (by having less ST debt). In the process, they have created a shortage of muni bonds (relative to expectations) in the market.
Thus, all may appear well in muni land. A successful re-balancing has taken place, for the time being. If the munis can continue to push off infrastructure projects, they will not suffer the fate that Ms. Whitney feared they might.
I said that the munis had “kicked the can down the road”. In this case, it’s quite a different form of can kicking. When the Federal government raises the debt ceiling, we all say, “They kicked the can”. But the munis are doing (pretty much) the exact opposite, so Can Kicking would appear to be an improper/unfair description of what is happening with Munis. I think it’s still valid, deferring infrastructure investments is another form of kicking.
Like most Kicking efforts, it will end badly sooner or later. I’m looking at a potential example as I write. One of NYC’s reservoirs is about a half mile away. A $60mm NYC/NYS funded construction plan was shelved a month ago. Could this become one of those examples where Kicking goes badly? Consider this daisy-chain.
The Croton Reservoir is part of a chain of reservoirs that provide water for NYC. It’s large (22 miles), but it’s small in comparisons to the big man-made lakes further upstate. Croton is important because it connects directly to those upstate reservoirs via an underground tunnel. That tunnel goes north, and then west. It is 1,000 feet deep where it meets the Hudson River.
A bit of physics. The upstate reservoirs are 1,000 feet above the sea and the tunnel is 1,000 below. The tunnel is (was) large enough to drive a truck through so the water pressure at the lowest part of the tunnel is enormous. What might you expect from a 75 year old tunnel under that much pressure? A leak? Sure.
This is one hell of a leak. As much as 35 million gallons a day was the estimate seven years ago. There is evidence that rate has since accelerated. That comes to 13 billion gallons a year, which is sufficient for 250,000 average Americans. Think Orlando, Madison, Winston-Salem or Reno. Each of these cities uses about as much water as NYC is leaking. In China, this much water would meet the needs of 1.7mm people, In Bangladesh it would be sufficient for 3mm. It’s enough to fill 650,000 in-ground swimming pools. That’s a leak.
It gets worse. The leak was first detected in 1988. Therefore something like 15 million swimming pools worth of drinkable water have been pissed into the ocean. It’s so bad that areas on either side of the tunnel have sinkholes. People have been forced to move. Properties have been condemned. And the sinkholes keep getting bigger.
There are already dozens of lawsuits on this. They are after the State and the City who own and maintain the reservoirs. The judges have all sided against the City and State, and there have been promises to fix the damn leak for years. A few years ago, a formal plan was put together.
This is no small engineering matter. A new tunnel will be built that connects the old tunnel before and after the break. Once completed, the old tunnel will be cemented closed. The diversion tunnel will be ½ mile long. Recall that this is 1,000 below sea level, any construction/mining this deep is both difficult and dangerous (the bends). Those normal risks are, however, trumped by risks that the nearby existing tunnel breaches during construction of the diversion tunnel. The water pressure in the tunnel is sufficient to crush a submarine.
The only option is to stop the flow of water in the tunnel from the source, and then pump out what is left. The supply of water would be cut for about a year while the diversion tunnel is completed. This takes us back to the Croton Reservoir and the cancelled construction at this location. The plan was to raise the spillway by four feet. This change would have added a permanent storage to the NYC system of 11B gallons (11 days of consumption). It was intended that this expansion of storage would be completed before the leaking water tunnel is closed. It would have provided an additional level of comfort on available water for the City. Not any longer.
NYC’s has numerous sources of water. The Croton reservoir system could be eliminated for a period of time without a real shortage. However, that would not be true if the tunnel was closed for an extended period, particularly if there was a drought in the northeast.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the cut off in supply were much longer than the one-year projection. The North East has been blessed/cursed with above average rainfall for years due to the long running La Nina, but rainfall is impossible to predict. Could we be in a full-blown El Nino (dry in the NE) when the construction starts? Maybe. If so, NYC will regret not having upgraded the storage capacity at the Croton system.
I don’t want to leave the impression that NYC is headed for trouble. The possibility of a hard landing is small. But there are risks, and those risks are increased as a result of the cancellation of the Croton project. Caswell Hollowy, the NYC commissioner on the tunnel repair project said in 2010:
“You want to know how long the water is going to be off so you know where the supplemental water is going to come from. It’s absolutely critical to get it right.”
When Hollowy said this, the plan to upgrade the Croton system was still on. Now it is has been shelved (Budget concerns were the reasons cited). It’s now more “critical” to get that timing right. I’m laying 4 to 1 they don’t.
The Bond Buyer reported a drop of $129B in New Money bonds. If you consider the $60mm Croton project as being representative, about 2,200 projects got cancelled last year. With that big a number, it is just a matter of time before something falls through the cracks (literally) and economic consequences follow.
Will NYC or some other city have water supply problems?
Will some municipality have a breakdown in its water treatment capacity that results in huge sewage leaks?
Will a bridge collapse that restricts important commerce?
Will there be a blow-out of the electrical grid due to underinvestment?
The answers to these questions (and more) is that infrastructure breakdowns will occur. If we don’t invest, the resulting “leaks” will come back and bite us in the ass.
So far, the munis have reacted to their changed financial circumstances and have avoided the fate that Whitney saw coming. If they (collectively) continue doing what they did in 2011, they will probably avoid a financial crisis. But that doesn’t preclude problems sometime soon. Some big “things” are going to break. When they do, large communities will be affected. In the end, Whitney might be right that some munis will run into trouble. If that trouble is the consequence of a significant infrastructure failure, Meredith Whitney will be right, for the wrong reasons.
Notes:
*I’m sorry this went on and on. I just love big construction projects.
*Why did the tunnel under the Hudson fail? It went through a section of limestone. The water from the reservoir is filled with acid rain. The acidic water dissolves limestone. The original tunnel designers had no clue what acid rain was, so the limestone section was not sealed during construction.
*The 138B drop in New Money is equal to 0.9% of total GDP. This lack of borrowing was a drag on total output. Another good example of Debt = Growth.
.
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February 25th, 2012 at 9:47 am
So, NYC has suspended its long-standing plans to fix a long-term and well-known problem with its fresh water supply system over $60M? Bloomberg has sweet-heart tax cut deals with the Masters of the Universe which rebate more than $60M annually to the bankers. That was the choice which was made by our “leadership.” The money exists to do this project and the quantity is chump-change in the context of NYC and its budget. It’s a perfect example of privatizing profits and socializing losses.
February 25th, 2012 at 10:02 am
Fascinating stuff. Like a tiny slice of Jared Diamond or Homer-Dixon on what our future has in store.
February 25th, 2012 at 10:30 am
Very interesting. Couldn’t be that wonkish – I get it. You seem to have a knack for clear explanations.
February 25th, 2012 at 10:30 am
I was recently at a technical talk on this tunnel. A few things that may indicate why shelving this project at this time may not be the end of the world.
They are currently experimenting with CaCO3 precipitation on the inside of the tunnel to see if it can seal the cracks and dramatically reduce the leakage. Early tests appear promising. The big problem was that NYC was not balancing the pH of the water even after it had become common practice in other jurisdictions.
Apparently, the water is not particularly acidic and acid rain does not appear to have been a major player. Water is normally slightly acidic and will dissolve limestone over time. That is why there are so many karstic limestone formations around the world.
One of the movements that is afoot in the municipal world is that tight budgets are forcing them to do creative engineering instead of the knee-jerk reaction from the past decades to simply build a new big thing when capacity is needed. The county that I live in has focused on rethinking managing stormwater at the source with things like porous pavements and green roofs. As a result, they have already been able to shelve some combined sewer overflow capital projects.
February 25th, 2012 at 10:50 am
Another prediction, dashed.
These people who make predictions, it seems, either:
1) Actually believe they can make predictions.
2) Think it’s worth the gamble to get it right, then cash in.
I choose 2.
They are no different than witch doctors, shaking their bead-filled mallets at the eclipse. And the people that give them even a moments thought… well, let’s say there’s one born every minute.
February 25th, 2012 at 11:04 am
on the tangent..
“porous pavements”
“…Pervious concrete allows 3 to 8 gallons of water per minute to pass through each square foot of the material. By allowing rainwater to seep into the ground, pervious concrete can be instrumental in recharging groundwater and reducing stormwater runoff. This capability can reduce the need for retention ponds, swales, and other stormwater management devices. Pervious pavement integrates hardscape surfaces with stormwater management…”
http://www.concretethinker.com/Papers.aspx?DocId=10
http://search.yippy.com/search?query=porous+concrete&tb=sitesearch-all&v%3Aproject=clusty
http://search.yippy.com/search?input-form=clusty-simple&v%3Asources=webplus-ns-aaf&v%3Aproject=clusty&query=pervious+pavements
it is *funny to see the ‘General Public’ ‘s reaction to a ‘demonstration’ of porous/pervious concrete..
‘They’ *think it’s some kind of fraud/gag/Magician’s ‘parlor trick’..
~~
also, with..”…One of the movements that is afoot in the municipal world is that tight budgets are forcing them to do creative engineering…”
not only is it ‘about time’, but there are many “creative engineering ‘Tricks’”, still, ‘left in the Bag’..~
February 25th, 2012 at 11:07 am
Thesis:
- We like fraud and engage in it all the time.
Evidence:
- Under reserving is a fractal problem, and it repeats on the federal, state and local level. What is happening with the NY Water tunnel is similar to my local homeowners association: we do not engage in reserve studies because we do not want to know the actuarial cost of our day to day existence. We are delusional in believing we are entitled to x because we want it and if this act makes our infrastructure and communities more fragile, we do not care.
- For example, my local homeowners association has $10,000 in reserves against potential postponed maintenance costs of $1 million dollars. When I requested a reserve study to distinguish the deferred maintenance costs, I was met with entitlement excuses: that’s a lot of money, I have a fixed income, and it looks alright to me.
- On our federal balance sheet, some argue the entitlement programs that cannot be paid will result in lower liabilities. However, our assets will be equally fictional when former “assets” like this NYC water tunnel pipe are no longer assets because we did not reserve for use.
February 25th, 2012 at 11:29 am
Mark Hoffer:
I think there are potentially huge cost savings out there for governments by re-imagining rather than just re-financing needs. Private industry has been forced to do this over several decades but government is just beginning to wake up to the fact that the cookie jar is not bottomless.
The first step to this will be to align repsonsibilities for executing and taxing at the same level that the mandates are passed. The US right now has a uge problem with higher levels of government pushing mandates down without providing financing. Many of the successful “socialist” countries don’t do this, so their services provided are often a better value for the tax dollar. I don’t agree with Ron Paul on a lot of things, but I agree with him that we have way too many Federal departments and agencies that are actually preventing creative thinking at the state and local levels.
February 25th, 2012 at 11:36 am
Meredith Whitney conducted a thorough analysis and only made one mistake as far as I can tell and its the same mistake virtually all private-sector analysts make including the main rating agencies:
Whitney assessed municipalities/governments as if they were businesses.
They aren’t.
February 25th, 2012 at 11:41 am
Thesis:
The fraud/corruption exposed in the NYC water tunnel mirrors human cyclicality. This cyclical nature shows up in various relationships: parent/child, mentor/mentee; WWII generation/post WWII generation.
Evidence:
- President Eisenhower Farewell address compared to President Richard Nixon’s Farwell address.
Eisenhower: http://www.h-net.org/~hst306/documents/indust.html
Nixon: http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/nixon-farewell.htm
Eisenhower viewed restraint as a virtue and Nixon viewed it as a problem restricting his freedom. This dichotomy, reflects the perversion of the word conservative. Eisenhower conservation was grounded in restraint and personal restriction while Nixon’s conservation was reflected unworthyness.
February 25th, 2012 at 12:12 pm
Fantastic post. I hope it receives many links and page views.
Meanwhile, the national political conversation — rather than focusing on a relevant topic like this one — is consumed with contraception.
Real leadership will focus on big projects, how to fund them, and how to build them sustainably.
Re: earlier comments about impervious surfaces and stormwater budgets, here’s something a bit different (and about a new hospital and lifecycle of green building materials that also affect construction costs):
http://www.swedish.org/About/Swedish-News/Phase-I-of-Swedish-Issaquah-to-Open-July-14-After-#axzz1nPkpOF9W
February 25th, 2012 at 2:52 pm
The situation wouldn’t be so dire if all of our infrastructure weren’t circa 1912-1942, and weren’t in serious and growing need of maintenance and repair for the past 30 years. In this example you note that the leak has been known since 1988 – that’s 24 years.
In an anecdotal example of which I’m aware, this was intimately related to “creative financing/accounting” that spread like a malignancy into public projects and services. Not only were a lot of things “privatized,” things that would astound you were put on sale and leaseback financing. Needless to say, that doesn’t encourage appropriate maintenance.
While we don’t think that times have been tight and the public sphere has been starving continually since the late 80s, it seems that things have been put off and put off for that entire time. Water systems are particularly bad – but the power grid is also in serious need of an overhaul, as you point out. Traveling to a real developed country would astound most Americans right now – truly astound them.
February 25th, 2012 at 2:54 pm
rd,
yes, it is, quite, like that..
esp. “…we have way too many Federal departments and agencies that are actually preventing creative thinking at the state and local levels…”
‘Many’ of us *think that “the Frontier” closed, c. 1890, with the aid of ‘barbed Wire’..
http://search.yippy.com/search?query=Barbed+Wire+and+the+Closing+of+the+Frontier&tb=sitesearch-all&v%3Aproject=clusty
personally, We’d be better off understanding that ‘the Frontier’ was, truly, closed by rampant Federalism..
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/federalism
~~
“…elevated the presidency, already revitalized by theodore roosevelt and woodrow wilson in the Progressive era, to the pinnacle of leadership within the American political system…”
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G2-3425000598.html?key=01-42160D527E1B106B160A021F03670F333554354F3E34710F720F0B60651B617F1371197357
v.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/anncon/html/amdt10_user.html
February 25th, 2012 at 6:14 pm
Whilst Team Obama was looking for shovel ready projects to goose the recovery the locals were cancelling/postponing projects that were decades overdue and we’ve gotten approximately nowhere.
I remember reading horror stories about the trans Hudson rail tunnel. If that ever goes it will be more than a blip on US GDP. And Christie pushed it back another decade or whatever
February 25th, 2012 at 8:14 pm
Given the state of the infrastructure one has to ask is the US poorer now then we were in the past when all these things were built.? Personally I don’t thinks so but I do think Governement since Ronnie has taken the wrong turn and the public good has been converted to private good with a public be dammed attitude by all the theives. Unless that can be changed we will end up as one of Jared Diamond’s failed States (by choice) or another Somalia.
February 25th, 2012 at 8:16 pm
rktbrkr, no sh-t.
While the house majority blindly prioritized the goal of “one term president” and ALEC was excercising it’s influence at state levels to aid that agenda, regular Americans lost out in HUGE fashion.
Cherry-picking a “bridge to nowhere” to rationalize fear mongering over “big government spending” for necessary infrastructure, which in turn circumvents job creation & economic activity.
We could have taken the true conservative path by focusing on cost inefficiencies caused by cronyism and “no-bid” special interest contracts, Instead, everything was just blindly tossed into the “big government spending” category and we were thrown out with the bathwater in the name of “one term president”.
The O Henry twist, it has backfired, I suspect due to the advent of internet communication as a means to ingest news versus traditional sources, FOX is influential, but apparently not that influential….InTrade has Obama at 60% odds.
The bottom line, this country should be focused on it’s people and their welfare per the Constitution, not on saving Rupert Murdoch, Dave or Charles Koch’s tax bill or promoting their welfare over the rest of us.
This is why Federalism was ostracized in the 1790′s, that’s why it’s again being ostracized over 200 years later.
February 25th, 2012 at 8:38 pm
BTW, only two of the items in this list in the posting are usually a municipal function:
“Will NYC or some other city have water supply problems?
Will some municipality have a breakdown in its water treatment capacity that results in huge sewage leaks?
Will a bridge collapse that restricts important commerce?
Will there be a blow-out of the electrical grid due to underinvestment?”
Water supply and sewage are the two items that are generally the domain of the municipality and have muni bonds associated with them. Bridges important to commerce are usually part of either the Federal Interstate System and the funding generally occurs at the state and federal level. The electrical grid is generally a private utility function and rarely has government funding, although they are frequently heavily regulated at the state and federal levels.
In NYS, the state government has shoved much of Medicare and other management and funding functions down to the county level. As a result, municipalities are having an increasing allocation of the property and sales taxes to those functions (that I believe should be entirely a state issue) instead of keeping their infrastructure going.
February 25th, 2012 at 9:32 pm
Is this the tunnel with the deep dive team working in it? There was an article on this in the NY Times. It’s like one of those old National Geographic specials with the divers living in a helium oxygen mix underwater habitat for weekly work shifts mapping the tunnel and doing minor repair work. They commute to work by diving bell and literally decompress for their weekends. It sounds like tough, dark, scary work. I suppose you have to love scuba, and, I presume, the premium pay.
February 25th, 2012 at 10:05 pm
Interesting article but I resent the author for trying to use it for an excuse to why Meredith Whitney was so wrong. Defaults won’t come from new muni investments. They will come from the $3.7 trillion muni bonds already outstanding. When times got tough municipalities cut back to balance their budgets by laying off teachers and cutting other expenditures. They didn’t default on their bonds as Meredith expected. She just doesn’t understand the market and how it operates. The last thing they want to do is default on their bonds because they will lose market access for projects like this.
~~~
BR: Remember, Whitney’s call was for a$100 billion in Muni defaults in 2011
February 25th, 2012 at 10:45 pm
PERVIOUS PAVEMENT:
These are being stupidly specified to reduce stormwater runoff. Why “stupid”? They are much more initially expensive than old style pavement. They slow the surge of stormwater for the first 2-3 years of their life, then they need to be vacuumed regularly to keep silt from blocking up the pervious part of the system. Maintenance isn’t a strong suit of local gov’ts, it won’t happen.
GREEN ROOFS:
Build something to hold dirt and water above occupied space. Really? Again, maintenance in the future and high initial cost.
LOW INTENSITY DEVELOPMENT:
Build roads without curb and gutter, have stormwater go to swales by side of road, perhaps with under-drains. Cheaper initial cost, avoids expansion of stormwater system.
February 26th, 2012 at 2:35 am
Opening line buy Krasting:
“The drop in total borrowings is almost exclusively a result of the 46% ($129B) in the “New Money” category. The drop in New Money debt issuance is a consequence of hundreds of cities and states collectively saying:
We’re in a pinch on revenues. Let’s not spend any money we don’t have to for the time being. We’re going to have put off the construction of the new (Sewer plant, overpass, water treatment facility, school, whatever). The last thing we want to do is go to the Muni market and borrow any more.”
Another primary reason muni issuance fell off a cliff in 2011 was because the Build America Bonds program expired on December 31,2010.
You think that is relevant information?
This is mentioned if you actually read the link you provide. Taxable issuance drops 130 billion.
Stop making shit up to suit your fantastical doomsday scenario’s.
February 26th, 2012 at 6:52 am
Granted, the cutting back of the required and essential maintenance of civilization will have lessened the impact on muni bond funding requirements, but I think that Meredith Whitney was also looking at servicing the existing muni bond debt load, given a step-change downward in the size of the economy, and prolonged/permanent decreases in the tax base.
That is the other shoe which is going to drop, sooner or later. Perhaps they have been robbing the future of projected revenue that will never arrive, in order to pay the present …
But soon enough, the Future will arrive, and the bill will be truly humongous …
February 26th, 2012 at 6:57 am
The trans Hudson rail tunnels are a century old and Christie has pushed them back into the next century. Freight by rail to the 8 million people who live on Long Island is practically non-existent requiring an expensive, time consuming 280 mile dog-leg up to Albany (rickety trans Hudson rail bridges closer to NYC are unusable) raising consumer costs for everything for Barry and his neighbors and increasing truck generated air pollution. If this isn’t a third world situation I don’t know what is. If we can’t get things like this built during a time of economic crisis when the federal government was looking for infrastructure projects I don’t think we ever will until there is catastrophic failure.
February 26th, 2012 at 6:58 am
Meanwhile, the beat goes on …
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-07/municipal-defaults-may-surpass-record-in-2011-lehmann-says.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-23/stockton-said-to-plan-default-vote-as-california-city-may-face-bankruptcy.html
February 26th, 2012 at 8:54 am
«Thesis:
- We like fraud and engage in it all the time.
Evidence:
- Under reserving is a fractal problem, and it repeats on the federal, state and local level.»
Good, good. I have often argued that every financial fraud is based on under-reserving, that is under-depreciation, that is distributing profits out of capital.
February 26th, 2012 at 9:15 am
«In NYS, the state government has shoved much of Medicare and other management and funding functions down to the county level. As a result, municipalities are having an increasing allocation of the property and sales taxes to those functions (that I believe should be entirely a state issue) instead of keeping their infrastructure going.»
But that’s part of the overall plan: to push down collective benefits and costs to the smallest levels of government, because these are effectively segregated by income.
In this way local governments with mostly poor residents have high taxes and low services, and those with mostly rich ones have low taxes and high services.
Except for services that benefit the rich, like federal law and war services, to be funded by flat consumptions taxes on poor and rich alike.
All this has been enabled by the disgust that the middle classes feel for their inferiors, fueled by the resentment for feeling exploited by parasitical strapping young bucks and welfare queens.
February 26th, 2012 at 9:19 am
Frilton,
here..”…The bottom line, this country should be focused on it’s people and their welfare per the Constitution, not on saving Rupert Murdoch, Dave or Charles Koch’s tax bill or promoting their welfare over the rest of us.
This is why Federalism was ostracized in the 1790′s, that’s why it’s again being ostracized over 200 years later…”
esp. with..”…This is why Federalism was ostracized in the 1790′s, that’s why it’s again being ostracized over 200 years later…”
what do you mean?
“Federalism” is a difficult term to define, how are you using it?
February 26th, 2012 at 2:08 pm
Mark, do some reading on the original two parties, the Federalist party and the Republican-Democrats. (the former later split apart into the current two parties after the Federalists were abolished, as the name hints)
The original two party system was the Republican-Democrats (Jefferson) and the Federalists (Hamilton).
Americans ultimately did not like the semblance Federalism had to monarchy, Federalism put a majority of power into the hands of the wealthy and business owners under the guise the wealthy were smartest and therefore knew what was best for all.
Federalists gave us the Central bank (precursor to the Fed), Jefferson was concerned that a national bank would concentrate far too much power into the hands of a few, in some ways he was right. (Jefferson-Hamilton debate)
Ultimately the Federalist party was erased by 1820, their principles would be seen today as similar to Fascism, Corporatism, were Personal Liberty is largely gauged by Social Darwinism instead of granted as a right to all citizens.
Social Darwinism is the fundamental ideal for Fascism, in a Democratic free market Capitalist system Darwinism is present, but does not give one man the right to endanger the welfare, restrict liberty or freedom or kill another man.
I.E. – A Fascist (Federalist) would feel the banking scandal in CDO’s, mortgage origination fraud and “fraudclosure” was legal because the buyers were “stupid” enough to fall for it, in a Democracy it’s illegal to take another mans property vie deception.
Interesting to note,
Dave & Charles Koch have spent decades trying to revive Federalism by throwing money into colleges to influence what they teach in economics & politics, using ALEC to covertly bribe & influence politicians at state levels (Wisconsin for example), they have managed to maneuver several Supreme Court Justices & countless elected Federal officials onto the Federalist Society membership, The Federalist Society had a big hand in the Citizens United decision.
February 26th, 2012 at 2:37 pm
Frilton,
I hear that..
to me, more people should bother to Read some of.. http://www.wepin.com/articles/afp/
similar.. http://www.barefootsworld.net/antifederalist.html http://www.constitution.org/afp/afp.htm
~~
and, with.. http://search.yippy.com/search?input-form=clusty-simple&v%3Asources=webplus-ns-aaf&v%3Aproject=clusty&query=Fraud+Tort+of+Deceit
too bad, that the ‘Common Law’ “ain’t so Common”, yes?
February 26th, 2012 at 3:32 pm
Mark, I think you and I have taken snips at eachother before, I guess that’s a given with BR’s sensitive topics, but after seeing this -”the Antifederalist Papers”, I thank you for the chuckle, that’s just awesome.
Politically, my opinion, the Federalist movement is wrecking both Republicans and Libertarians (I’m a Libertarian btw).
I see a lot of political divide and conquer going on, pitting Dems and Repubs against eachother by using fear tactics by a well funded & powerful political movement that neither Dems, Repubs nor Libertarians share in ideology.
Maybe it’s time for the Republican-Democrats to reunite against the Federalists again, heck, I’ll join in…as long as they both stay the hell out of my personal life!
February 26th, 2012 at 9:46 pm
Lets not borrow to do crucial infrastructure projects when rates are low and workers available, lets wait until shit absolutely breaks, rates are high and the job market firm. It is the Tea Party way.
We like to make the booms and busts bigger!