Do we really want a socialist for President?

Sarah Palin says Obama's proposed tax cuts for 95 percent of Americans sounds like socialism to her. She should know. She's governor of a State in which 99 percent of the land is owned by governments, and the Alaska State Permanent Fund sends exactly the same size welfare payment to every Alaskan every year ($3,269 in 2008) whether they are productive or idle. Or is that communism?

Comments

[christine]

Roger did you see that the contracts that Paulson made those 9 bank presidents sign left holders of common shares to collect full dividends? At least that's what I read....so this means that the taxpayers are after the shareholders of the failed banks?

[Skeptic]

That's right. "We" have preferred shares that have a liquidation preference over the common shares and probably no other meaningful rights. I do not think there are any presently-effective covenants that would restrict dividends or constrain management in any other meaningful way. What happens if there is a default in payment of the preferred dividend? I don't know. Warren Buffet charged more than twice as much for the preferred he put into Goldman. So we've done what I said we shouldn't do--make government capital so cheap it keeps private capital on the sidelines. http://www.realitybase.org/journal/2008/9/25/if-the-taxpayers-give-better-terms-to-troubled-financial-ins.html