Obama will have a Bud Lite

In a bid to paper over his (Cambridge cops) "acted stupidly" comment, Obama has invited Professor Gates and Officer Crowley to the White House to make a great show of letting bygones be bygones by having all parties sit down over a beer to hash out their differences, like real men do.

Problem is, what kind of real man drinks Bud Lite?

Make His a Bud Light: Obama Picks Best-Selling Beer

July 29 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama will have Bud Light tomorrow when he hosts an old friend and the police officer who arrested him.

Obama, 47, has picked the top-selling beer in the U.S. for his get-together at the White House with Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cambridge, Massachusetts, police Sergeant James Crowley, according to an administration official who asked to remain anonymous. The official wouldn’t say what the guests would be drinking.

Political strategists and marketing experts called the pick an easy, non-controversial choice for a meeting designed to defuse the tension sparked by the July 16 arrest of Gates by Crowley.

“He’s trying to send a message that he’s an average American and these are two other average Americans,” said Matt Mackiowack, a Republican strategist. “If you complicate that by making an exotic choice, or an import, or too expensive, you can be too cute by half.”

Obama invited Crowley and Gates to the White House after the president drew criticism in a July 22 news conference for saying the Cambridge police “acted stupidly” in arresting Gates at his home on a disorderly conduct charge, which was later dropped. Obama spoke hours after police union officials in Cambridge called on him to apologize.

Two days later, Obama called Crowley and Gates, an old friend, to invite them to the White House for a beer.

Mr. President, I know you are trying to seem like an authentic American--a real regular Joe--but if you think you are convincing us real regular Joes that you are just one of the guys by drinking a Bud Lite, I am sorry to inform you and your political handlers that you missed this one by a mile. Toss caution into the political wind and have a drink you actually enjoy--even if it is a white wine spritzer with an extra lemon twist. Try authentic authenticity for once. You're going to be judged no matter what you drink, you may as well enjoy it. For crissakes, at least have a regular strength Budweiser.

I think they should all drink Black and Tans. Aside from being politically correct and appropriate for such a kumbaya occasion, they're delicious!

Though if I were Officer Crowley, I would have respectfully declined the invitation in the first place. I can't think of a more pointless, contrived, uncomfortable situation--with no upside--to voluntarily place myself in.

Having beers and yucking it up is something you do with friends, not with a privileged, ivory tower race baiter and the Leader of the Free World, who says he doesn't have all the details of the situation then in the next breath says you "acted stupidly."

Seems to me Professor Gates is the only one who acted stupidly. Common sense dictates that you never talk back to a cop, even if you feel you are being mistreated. If you truly have been mistreated, file a complaint and sort it out in a lawsuit after wards. Here's another piece of common sense. When a cop comes to investigate a reported break in at your house, maybe you should consider thanking the officer for putting his life on the line to protect your property.

(Full disclosure: I have been known to drink a Bud Lite from time to time, but that is only when the choice is either brackish water or nothing at all.)

Keeping track of the TARP

TARP COP: Get tough on banks

The top cop tracking the $700 billion bailout program said Monday that he's concerned federal officials are ignoring his proposals for preventing tax dollars from being wasted or pilfered.

Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general overseeing the Troubled Asset Relief Program, released a 260-page report detailing a long list of concerns about government efforts to prop up hundreds of banks, Wall Street firms and auto companies.

The report criticizes the Treasury Department the most for its unwillingness to adopt some of his recommendations.

Barofsky cites two examples: He wants Treasury to force bailout recipients to keep track of how exactly they are spending TARP funds. He also wants officials to erect a "firewall" to prevent private investment managers -- the kind hired to manage and invest taxpayer dollars -- from taking advantage of insider knowledge.

I guess it is too much to ask Treasury to:

a) ask TARP recipients to keep track of where the money is going
b) discourage insider trading

"This administration promised an 'unprecedented level' of accountability and oversight, but as this report reveals, they are falling far short of that promise," Issa said. "In fact, the Treasury Department is actively obstructing transparency. The American people deserve to know how their tax dollars are being spent -- especially considering they are the ones who are footing the bill."

The brazen, unapologetic manner in which the self-anointed aristocrats of our nation are selling the rest of us down the river is literally breathtaking. We are quickly becoming a Banana Republic, and few seem to care.

It's like deja vu all over again

It's great to see that Wall St. has gotten over the Great Hiccup of 2008 and it's back to business as usual:

Morgan Stanley Plans to Turn Downgraded Loan CDO Into AAA Bonds

July 8 (Bloomberg) -- Morgan Stanley plans to repackage a downgraded collateralized debt obligation backed by leveraged loans into new securities with AAA ratings in the first transaction of its kind, said two people familiar with the sale.

Morgan Stanley is selling $87.1 million of securities that it expects to receive top AAA ratings and $42.9 million of notes graded Baa2, the second-lowest investment grade by Moody’s Investors Service, according to marketing documents obtained by Bloomberg News. The bonds were created from Greywolf CLO I Ltd., a CDO arranged in January 2007 by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and managed by Greywolf Capital Management LP, an investment firm based in Purchase, New York.

Two years after the credit markets began to seize up, costing the world’s biggest financial institutions $1.47 trillion in writedowns and losses, banks are again taking so- called structured finance securities and turning them into new debt investments with top credit ratings. While the Morgan Stanley deal is the first to involve CDOs of loans, banks have been doing the same with commercial mortgage-backed securities in recent weeks.

A lot of banks and insurers “cannot buy anything but AAA,” said Sylvain Raynes, a principal at R&R Consulting in New York and co-author of “Elements of Structured Finance,” which is due to be published in November by Oxford University Press. “You’re manufacturing AAA out of not AAA, therefore allowing those people who have AAA written on their forehead to buy.”

It seems as though dogs are not the only ones that lack a short term memory.

It also reminds me of an old saying, "no matter how good the recipe is, you'll never make chicken salad out of chicken shit."

"California: come for the sun, stay for the tire fire"

If there's ever a contest for a new state slogan, that'll be the one I will submit.


Joel Kotkin: Who Killed California's Economy?

It took some amazing incompetence to toss this best-endowed of places down into the dustbin of history. Yet conventional wisdom views the crisis largely as a legacy of Proposition 13, which in effect capped only taxes.

This lets too many malefactors off the hook. I covered the Proposition 13 campaign for the Washington Post and examined its aftermath up close. It passed because California was running huge surpluses at the time, even as soaring property taxes were driving people from their homes.

Admittedly it was a crude instrument, but by limiting those property taxes Proposition 13 managed to save people’s houses. To the surprise of many prognosticators, the state government did not go out of business. It has continued to expand faster than either its income or population. . . . The media and political pundits refuse to see this gap between the state’s budget and its ability to pay as an essential issue. It is. (This is not to say structural reform is not needed. I would support, for example, reforming some of the unintended ill-effects of Proposition 13 that weakened local government and left control of the budget to Sacramento.)

But the fundamental problem remains. California’s economy–once wondrously diverse with aerospace, high-tech, agriculture and international trade–has run aground. Burdened by taxes and ever-growing regulation, the state is routinely rated by executives as having among the worst business climates in the nation. No surprise, then, that California’s jobs engine has sputtered, and it may be heading toward 15% unemployment.