Dispatches from the Corporate State
When the government controls industry, industry will vie for control over government.
The NY Times has a fairly ugly story, though hardly unique, of a project to restore water flow to the Everglades turning into a corporate welfare project for United States Sugar. The short story is that in a time when United States Sugar was in desperate financial straights and when real estate prices in Florida were tumbling, the Florida government treated USS like it had all the power, rolling over to paying above-market prices and letting USS pick and choose the land parcels to be purchased. The story did not mention much about it, but there is a second large sugar producer in the area who it strikes me could have been played off against USS to get the best deal.
Remember that the US Sugar operation likely exists only because of sugar tariffs and import quotas that raise the price of sugar in the US well above the world norm. So consumers are paying extra, and drinking soft drinks with crappy HFCS, so that US Sugar can screw up the Everglades and get bailed out by taxpayers. Readers will understand it is the purest coincidence that US Sugar’s attorney is chief of staff to the state’s governor.
via Coyote Blog » Blog Archive » Dispatches from the Corporate State.
Government Accounting Tricks
Happy inauguration day! Today we begin with this little known factoid: For the first 143 years of the American Republic, presidents were inaugurated on March 4, the only day of the year that is also a command.
The date was moved up to Jan. 20 in 1932 when the activist president Franklin Delano Roosevelt couldn’t wait to wring his hands around the neck of the U.S. economy. Roosevelt set in motion 78 years of what the economist Friedrich von Hayek called the “fatal conceit” -- the arrogant belief that anyone could know enough at any one time to plan an economy.
Today, we’re paying the price. A little-noticed Treasury report that’s supposed to provide an honest accounting of the government’s finances is now being manipulated just like everything else.
The Financial Report of the United States Government applies generally accepted accounting principles to arrive at a realistic appraisal of the annual deficit. In a typical year, that’s up to twice the official number. But in fiscal 2009, the “real” number is actually lower than the official record-shattering $1.4 trillion.
Statistical watchdog John Williams laments this year’s report reflects “accounting that might be considered questionable if it were used in the private sector. The relatively ‘positive’ 2009 results reflected capitalization of much of the government’s bailout efforts, a late ‘profit’ from TARP, questionable handling of some post-fiscal year liabilities and changes in actuarial assumptions.
So hinky are the numbers, the Government Accountability Office refuses to sign off on the report. In a statement, the acting comptroller general invokes “material” questions of how Treasury is valuing bailout-related liabilities and assets. In other words, Treasury under Tim Geithner is employing mark-to-make-believe just like the banks he used to oversee when he ran the New York Fed.
via Government Accounting Tricks, Buy Miners, "Fixing" Recession Cities and More! | 5 Min. Forecast.
It's a sad thing when private watchdogs have to audit government auditors when the government begins trampling the regulations they've forced on the private sector.
Broken Campaign Promises
CNN's Jack Cafferty blasted the president and top Democrats on their now-secret backroom dealings, arrangements, and negotiations on healthcare:
CAFFERTY: How dare they- President Obama, Democratic leaders have decided to bypass a formal House and Senate conference committee, in order to reconcile those two health care bills. Instead, White House and Democratic leaders will hold informal- that’s another word for secret - negotiations, meant to shut Republicans and the public out of the process. What a far cry from the election, when then-candidate Obama pledged to- quote, ‘broadcast health care negotiations on C-SPAN, so that the American people can see what the choices are,’ unquote. President Obama hasn’t even made a token effort to keep his campaign promises of more openness and transparency in government. It was all just another lie that was told in order to get elected.