The links below will take you to streaming videos.
Part 1 (7 minutes) The economics of the housing boom.
Part 2 (6 minutes) The politics of the housing boom.
Part 3 (6 minutes) The origins and unique features of the housing bust.
Part 4 (6 minutes) The pitfalls of New Deal thinking.
Part 5 (9 minutes) The economic proposals of the Obama administration.
Thanks to ECM for notifying me about these videos!
About Thomas Sowell
Thomas Sowell has studied and taught economics, intellectual history, and social policy at institutions that include Cornell, UCLA, and Amherst. Now a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Sowell has published more than a dozen books. His latest book is The Housing Boom and Bust.
Billions of dollars in federal aid delivered directly to the local level to help revive the economy have gone overwhelmingly to places that supported President Obama in last year’s presidential election.
That aid — about $17 billion — is the first piece of the administration’s massive stimulus package that can be tracked locally. Much of it has followed a well-worn path to places that regularly collect a bigger share of federal grants and contracts, guided by formulas that have been in place for decades and leave little room for manipulation.
“There’s no politics at work when it comes to spending for the recovery,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs says.
Counties that supported Obama last year have reaped twice as much money per person from the administration’s $787 billion economic stimulus package as those that voted for his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, a USA TODAY analysis of government disclosure and accounting records shows. That money includes aid to repair military bases, improve public housing and help students pay for college.
The reports show the 872 counties that supported Obama received about $69 per person, on average. The 2,234 that supported McCain received about $34.
This reminds of Obama’s doings in Chicago.
$18 Million Dollar Contract goes to Democrat-supporting IT firm
David Freddoso broke a story today about an $18 million dollar IT contract awarded to a firm that donates exclusively to Democrat House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. (H/T Hot Air)
Here is an excerpt from the Washington Examiner story:
ABC reports this morning that the Maryland firm Smartronix has won what seems like an enormous $18 million contract to re-design the Recovery.gov website. Approximately $9.5 million would be spent by January in order to make “Recovery 2.0” out of the site that is supposed to track the spending of federal stimulus funds in detail.
Smartronix, a medium-sized Maryland-based firm (over 500 employees) founded in 1995, boasts a large number of government clients, mostly military. The company appears to have just one important political connection: according to FEC records, Smartronix president, Mohammed Javaid, vice president Alan Parris, and partner John Parris have together given $19,000 to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D) since 1999. There is no record of a Smartronix employee contributing to any other federal politician.
UPDATE: Smartronix got $260 million in other federal contracts
Smartronix has received more than $260 million in federal contracts since the year 2000, with the top awarding agencies being the U.S. Navy, Federal Technology Service, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Minerals Management Service, and the Office of Policy, Management and Budget (not clear which department or agency issued this contract), according to USASpending.gov.
Nearly $180 million of the contracts awarded to Smartronix during the period 2000-2009 were awarded on less-than-competitive basis, including $21 million for non-competitive awards. Another $33 million was awarded in competitive processes in which Smartronix was the sole bidder.
And one of my co-workers noticed that this even got posted on SlashDot with 341 comments so far!
The Republican response
House Republicans released this new ad about the staggering 9.5% unemployment rate.
These top fundraisers are known as “bundlers”. Since campaign finance laws restrict any one individual from donating more than $2400 to a single candidate, these bundlers achieve prominence within a campaign by soliciting for and then – you guessed it – bundling up individual donations received via their extended network of friends, family, business contacts, etc. While exact figures are not available, the top bundlers within the Obama campaign each delivered in excess of $1 million in campaign contributions, and there were nearly 50 bundlers who were responsible for at least $500K in donations.
As the Times notes, it’s somewhat of a Washington tradition for an incoming President to appoint choice ambassadorships to key political donors and allies. While this may be the case, for a President who declared a “new era” of accountability, and who championed ethics reform while in the Senate, a look at the appointments made to date reveals what I think is a surprising level of cronyism on the part of this Administration. And notably, many of these appointments extend outside the relatively ceremonial realm of diplomatic posts.
What sort of positions are they talking about? Just harmless ambassadorships?
Special Counsel to the President
Chairman, FCC
General Counsel, Dept. of Energy
Deputy Asst. Attorney General
Associate Attorney General
Under-Secy. for International Trade
Chairman, Corp. for Nat’l & Community Service
Asst. Attorney General, Civil Div.
By my calculation, nearly half of the top level of Obama campaign bundlers have been rewarded with some sort of role within the government.
And it gets worse:
Robert Wolf is the Chairman/CEO of investment bank UBS and given his influence on Wall Street may in fact be the largest bundler of them all. Significantly, Wolf’s firm seems to be mired in several tax-related scandals; and they were also a key counter-party recipient of funds from AIG, courtesy of the U.S. tax payer. However, apparently all this was not enough to deter the President from naming Wolf to his Economic Advisory Council.
Verum Serum has the full list of donors, the total funds raised by each one, and the appointments.
What do you expect from the affirmative action President, whose private-school education was paid for by his rich grandmother?
WINTERY KNIGHT 