Tony Petroski

Consumer Credit: Precipitous Drop in Credit Card Offers

Most of the shortage are being routed to my mailbox.

Is Curbing Bank Pay Socialist or Capitalist?

Mr. Smith. Let me make the case for not regulating the salaries and bonuses of bankers:

1) Price controls don't work.

2) Price controls require regulators, auditors and controllers thereby adding a layer of bureaucrats to an already bloated bureaucracy.

3) The G-20 likes it. If so many Citizens of the World are in favor, it can't be good for Americans. It will pave the way for international boards of regulators plaguing the planet with their make-work.

4) If we accept your premise that the banks are currently arms of the government, then your capitalist case leads very rapidly to "socialism" or socialism, whichever you are prepared to accept. Government running auto companies, banks, the entire health-care industry, health insurers, mortgage banking, railroads, green industries, 90% of "education, pension funds, whatever else Obama's Tzars can gobble up, leads to socialism or another term yet to be invented to spare the feelings of the socialists.

Why not call for less government involvement in the economy, not the omnipresent Obama crowd running and regulating everything? After all, that's what Americans do, associate with whom they want, bank where they want, and pay employees and partners what they want. It's called freedom.

Credit Card Act of 2009: Thanks for Nothing, Congress

"Senator Dodd of Connecticut, Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, stated that “The new rules of the road established by the Credit Card Act will shield credit cardholders from widespread abusive practices”. Whether or not the Senator (who faced an ethics probe relating to the special low rate mortgage he received from Countrywide) actually succeeded in providing any real benefits to credit card holders remains questionable."

I think the "benefits" outlined in the article make sense, but can't a free people work these things out for themselves without the help of Senator Dodd?

Why GM's Not the Only Company Rush Limbaugh Should Boycott

The author: "Limbaugh and some other conservative pundits have suggested that Americans should refuse to buy cars from “Government Motors,” as a way to express their outrage at President Obama’s interference in our free-market economy."

Uh, I think they already have done that. Otherwise it would still be called General Motors rather than Government Motors.

The author again: "He should also urge true patriots to open their wallets and promptly cut up any credit cards issued by American Express (AXP), Citibank (C), Bank of America (BAC), JP Morgan Chase (JPM), GMAC, Wells Fargo (WFC) or any of the other 550 or so banks that have accepted bailout money from the Treasury Dept."

Good ideas all.

Yeah, we get the idea of the article: Since the government subsidizes virtually everything, American patriots can't possible operate without patronizing the politically-connected business. We shall see. Tactics requires making deals with the devil, we allied with Stalin to defeat Hitler, but we aren't going to roll over and play dead while Obama rolls the country downhill to Eurosocialism. By the way, even though "we all agree" in America and we want the government to run everything, Eurosocialism (at the time) is not playing so well in Europe.