Uppity Wisconsin

As the debate rages over how to fix what's wrong with Milwaukee public schools, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has found a new cause for alarm: Our schools leave our kids so ill-prepared that they can't even make the grade as cannon fodder any more.

It seems an unusually high percentage of Milwaukee's young people are failing to clear the basic hurdles to enter the military because they have dropped out of school, have criminal records, or are too out of shape physically. This has the newspaper so concerned that it devoted both an editorial and an op ed column by one of its editorial board members last week.

First came the editorial, headlined Not fit enough to serve:

A recent report says 75% of young people ages 17 to 24 are unable to join to the military because they are either too unfit, fail to graduate from high school or have a criminal record.

... These statistics argue for a greater emphasis on physical and academic education and illustrate the severity of a health crisis in America.

Military officials say the numbers are a threat to the military, because they are choosing from a smaller pool of qualified candidates.

You may remember - oh a few months back - when there was quite a lot of discussion about how the government was busy bailing out the banks and other lenders, but doing nothing about fixing the inherent problems that got us into this mess in the first place?  How we'd just go through another round of bad mortgages, etc. if we didn't impose new regulation?  And remember how all the banks "learned their lesson" and would suddenly stop being greedy? And how the ratings folks would stop conspiring to make junk investments look gold-plated? Remember that?  Well, in the news this morning ---

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.

So there’s a lot of conversation out there about car dealerships being told they won’t be selling cars for Chrysler and GM any more.

The idea, we are told, is to save the auto manufacturers money by reducing the number of dealerships with whom they do business.

I don’t really know that much about the car business; and I really didn’t understand where these cost savings would come from, but I was able to have a conversation with the one person I do know who actually could offer some useful insight.

Follow along, Gentle Reader, and you’ll get a bit of an education at a time when we all need to know a bit more about these companies we suddenly seem to own…and about the closure of thousands of local businesses that will make the news about our bad job market worse.

We know, at the moment, that Chrysler wants to close more or less 800 of its 3181 dealerships, and that the list of dealerships was disclosed as part of the company’s bankruptcy filing.

In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis -- the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures; that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.

Wisconsin Republicans vote for wars. They vote to deny low income children healthcare benefits. They vote for reducing financial regulations and oversight. They vote against tough restrictions on clean water and air.

These are Wisconsin representatives that voted in favor of giving taxpayer money to Wall Street fat cats, with NO strings attached, but when it comes to Wisconsin citizens, who do they represent?

Rep. James Sensenbrenner cries "same old song." Tom Petri says this stuff won't help the economy.

And every single one of the other Congressional House Republicans (plus 12 Democrats!) voted against the Federal stimulus package proposed by our new president. And they wonder how they lost the election? HA!

Update II: House passes Obama stimulus bill 244-188.

On November 5, 2008, President-Elect Obama needs to turn his full attention to the study of the lessons of Roosevelt’s New Deal.  It was the only other time in U.S history when America was called upon to pull itself out of a major depression. 

The 76 days between Election Day and the inauguration need to be used to call upon Americans from all walks of life to contribute to a pool of ideas to try to solve the nearly insurmountable problems facing the United States.  The whole nation will need to pull together if we are to recover from the ills that have been thrust on the country by the less-than-benign neglect of the Bush administration.

The promotion of failure apparently knows no bounds.

Where else can you receive welfare from the working class, more than $1 trillion worth, give a big assist in bankrupting the global economy, and still get bonuses to the tune of $70 billion in the same year?

By Doris Frankel CHICAGO, Oct 6 (Reuters) - An index regarded as Wall Street's fear gauge surged to a record high on Monday in a sign investors expect more stock market turmoil as they scramble for options to insure their stock portfolios.